Culture

Bring Back Destiny’s Self-Resurrection, You Cowards

Once upon a time, Warlocks in Destiny could channel the fiery energy of distant neutron stars or however that universe’s space magic works to instantly bring themselves back to life. Then they lost all their powers in the switch over to Destiny 2. They gained a bunch of new ones, but self-reviving wasn’t among them.…

‘Jedi Master’ Should Really Be The Easiest Difficulty Setting

You know what video games have gotten all wrong? Difficulty setting names. This week on Kotaku Splitscreen, we discuss. This week we take a deep dive into Jedi Fallen Order, the great new Star Wars single-player action-adventure game from Respawn. We talk about its influences, its difficulty, and whether Uncharted and Metroid can really harmonize.…

Track: Everlasting Nothing | Artist: Beck | Album: Hyperspace 

Late Night Eats. Nishi-Ogikubo, Tokyo, Japan. By Patrick Lehrmann | Flickr JPGs is a photo peek into wherever gamers might find interesting. If you’re a photographer and have images you want to share, drop us a line!

The Internet Reacts To Tesla’s Cybertruck, Which Looks Like A PS1 Car

As our colleagues at Jalopnik report, Tesla revealed the Cybertruck. It looks like something out of Total Recall—or better, yeah, something you’d drive in a PlayStation 1 game. People have opinions! There are the serious car takes, like this one on Reddit: As well as the inevitable video game-related opinions: The video game comparisons certainly didn’t…

The Mandalorian Is Built On Classic Star Wars Art

The show at large is leaning on a lot of cues from 1977, so of course the first round of concept art released for The Mandalorian is doing likewise, with very strong Ralph Maquarrie influences. Below is a wide range of art from the show’s first two episodes, which means yes, there’s some Baby Yoda.…

Civilization VI On PS4 And Xbox One Works, It’s Fine

I’m not here to review Civilization VI again, or its two expansions. I’ve done that already. What I am here today to tell you is that all that stuff is now available on PS4 and Xbox One, and against my best instincts and predictions, it’s absolutely fine. Prior to playing, and as someone who hadn’t…

Let’s Watch Nolan North Play The Last Of Us For The First Time

The Last Of Us has one of the most powerful beginnings of any video game, which makes it hard to stop watching this unusual new Let’s Play of the game. The 77-minute video, uploaded to YouTube yesterday, is hosted by the actors who played the lead roles in that intro scene, while the game is…

Borderlands 3 Update Finally Makes Menus Less Sluggish

Borderlands 3 got a big update today that, among a bunch of other additions, makes the game’s menus system less hellishly slow. When Gearbox’s loot shooter came out in September, it had a lot of performance issues. Split-screen was a mess, the frame-rate frequently dropped, the inventory system would occasionally eat people’s gear, and most…

Half-Life: Alyx Takes Place Between Half-Life 1 And Half-Life 2 [Update]

Half-Life: Alyx, you might be dismayed to learn, is definitely not Half-Life 3. But it is a new “full-length” Half-Life game, Valve said today, and it’ll be out in March. In a press release, Valve said the game—first announced earlier this week to surprise, confusion, and memes from fans—has been “designed from the ground up…

I’m Not A Top-Tier MMO Raider But I Love Watching Them Stream

2019 is the year of the online RPG, at least for me. Whether that’s the countless hours I’ve spent in Final Fantasy XIV or my curious wandering through WoW Classic, digital worlds have offered me grand adventures and dear friends. But a few experiences are still out of my reach: the toughest challenges, meant for…

The Nintendo Switch version of Alien: Isolation will arrive December 5th. The port will come with all 7 DLC add-ons, so get ready to bring your pal the Xenomorph with you on all your holiday travels.

Track: Bachelorette | Artist: Björk | Album: Homogenic

Behold, Low-Budget Death Stranding Cosplay

Earlier this month, Kotaku’s Tim Rogers brought Death Stranding to life in a realistic yet inexpensive way. He is not alone. Others have also been doing their own Death Stranding cosplays on the cheap. Below is a GIF of Tim’s Death Stranding budget-priced cosplay in action. In case you missed it, you can watch his video…

The Entrance. Portland, Oregon, USA. By Benjamin Aus JPGs is a photo peek into wherever gamers might find interesting. If you’re a photographer and have images you want to share, drop us a line!

The Master & The Apprentice

Vyacheslav Gluhov is an artist at Saber Interactive, the studio behind games like Spintires and ports of stuff like The Witcher 3 You can see more of Gluhov’s work at his ArtStation page

Toyota Is Ending Its Weird Holdout From Racing Games

As one of the biggest car companies in the world, it sure was weird when back in 2017 Toyota simply stopped licensing its vehicles to racing video games. It was even weirder that the company, despite its size, never actually explained why that decision was made. Aside from an appearance in Gran Turismo Sport—whose licensing…

The Bug Pokémon Snom Is Actually Incredibly Violent

Snom, a precious Bug/Ice type Pokémon that’s new to the series with Sword and Shield, appears unassuming at first glance. At least until you see the Twitter account dedicated to exposing his inner thoughts. I have a soft spot for bug type Pokémon. They fit naturally into the series’ themes of evolution, and they manage…

Let Me Tell You About A Very Specific Death Stranding Problem That Only I Have

I’m loving Death Stranding so far, but I’m having an unusual problem with it: Heartman sounds exactly like James Kennedy from Vanderpump Rules to me. I can’t unhear it. In case you were not aware, Vanderpump Rules is a show about horrible people being horrible. Lisa Vanderpump is the owner of the restaurant SUR, which…

Some People Who Pre-Ordered Stadia Say They Still Can’t Access It [Update]

In June, Google made an enticing offer for its new streaming service, Stadia—anyone who pre-ordered the Founder’s Edition would be able to lock in the usernames of their choice before anyone else could. Now, however, some people who pre-ordered the service say they haven’t even gotten in. Instead, they still find themselves waiting for an…