Culture

A Murder Mystery Where The Suspects Are Different Video Game Genres

Daniel Mullins, the creator of beloved indie horror mindfuck Pony Island, is back with more genre-bending antics. His new murder mystery game, The Hex, has a central conceit with which I became immediately enamored: all the suspects are stand-ins for different video game genres. The game takes place at a creaky old inn, which TV…

What We Liked (And Didn’t Like) About The Dragon Prince

Netflix released The Dragon Prince this weekend, a new fantasy story by the writers of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Senior Reporter Cecilia D’Anastasio and Staff Writer Heather Alexandra sat down to talk about what they liked and whether or not it can live up to Airbender’s pedigree. Cecilia D’Anastasio: Heather, hello! Today, we’re talking about…

What We Liked (And Loved) About BoJack Horseman‘s Fifth Season

Season 5 of BoJack Horseman premiered this weekend on Netflix. It’s full of the usual dark humor and animals doing drugs we’ve come to expect from the show, as well as new developments, twists, and a lot of really excellent experimental episodes. Riley: Hello Gita! This weekend we watched Season 5 of BoJack Horseman. I…

That Time A Player Tricked Everyone Into Thinking You Could Get The Triforce In Ocarina of Time

On February 4th, 1999, one of the greatest hoaxes in video game history began. The Zelda fandom was shock by a player claiming to have found the Triforce in Ocarina of Time. Ariana Almandoz, a gamer from Colombia, had all the details, but she wasn’t quite ready to share them with the world. Through vague…

Completionist Speedruns Of Final Fantasy VII Are No Joke

In September of last year, Caleb Hart first streamed a completionist run of Final Fantasy VII. The PS1-era JRPG is notoriously involved, filled with hyper-difficult extra bosses and complicated sidequests. When it released in 1997 it shocked people by being too big to fit on one disc, instead requiring three. In recent weeks though, Hart…

The Week In Games: Fishing Tale

This is a week of fishing games, beat ‘em ups, and Undertale on the Switch. If you haven’t played Undertale, and you own a Nintendo Switch, then this is your big chance. You can do it! I believe in you. And maybe, just maybe, I can believe in myself, because I also have not played…

Track: Try A Little Tenderness (Live) | Artist: Otis Redding | Album: Complete & Unbelievable: The Otis Redding Dictionary of Soul Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

The Best Cosplay From DragonCon 2018, One Of The Biggest Nerd Shows Of The Year

DragonCon, which was held between August 30–September 3 in Atlanta, isn’t just one of the biggest cosplay shows in North America, it’s now one of the biggest cosplay galleries we’ve ever run on this site. Over 80,000 people went through the doors of multiple hotels in the area, to sit in on panels, meet friends,…

Up You Go

Kalen Chock is a concept artist from the USA who has worked for companies like Wavedash and Cryptozoic. You can see more of Kalen’s work at his ArtStation page

Destiny Gun Looks Like The Real Deal

Impact Props, the same team responsible for Nathan Fillion’s personal sidearm, have since made a replica Ace of Spades that looks as realistic as a fake Destiny weapon could possibly look. It’s an ornamental thing, so it doesn’t do things like fire pellets, but the cylinder does spin if you like to play space cowboy…

Track: Light Song | Artist: Emma Ruth Rundle | Album: On Dark Horses Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

‘Shop Contest: Princess Peach Forever

We learned something shocking this week: the aristocracy of the Mushroom Kingdom is weirder than we though. A crown can turn Toadette into Princess Peach. This will induce Mushroom Anarchy, and it must be stopped. We must restore Princess Peach’s reputation. There is nothing that threatens the peace of the Mushroom Kingdom more than a…

Spider-Man Makes Us Want To Swing With Style

Swinging around in the new Spider-Man is so much fun, it’ll make you look past the Ubisoft-style collect-a-thon. We discuss that and much more on this week’s Kotaku Splitscreen First, Kirk and I talk some more about Destiny 2‘s Forsaken expansion, addressing the question “how much should creators listen to fan feedback?” and talking about…

Sunday Comics: Backpack Bandit

Hello! It’s time for Kotaku’s Sunday Comics, your weekly roundup of the best webcomics. The images enlarge if you click on the magnifying glass icon. Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich. Published September 10. Read more of Awkward Zombie Corpse Run by Alex Di Stasi. Published September 13. Read more of Corpse Run Double XP by…

Yooka-Laylee World Record Speedrun Requires Clipping Through Walls, Bee Avoidance

There’s a new world record speedrun for Yooka-Laylee. Held by runner Kainalo and coming in at a lightning-fast 13:57, the run is a great example of all the tricks in a runner’s bag. I’ll admit that my interest in Yooka-Laylee is pretty thin, and that Heather Alexandra’s criticisms that “it pads playtime with demanding an…

‘Shop Contest: Make Hope County Weirder, Winners!

Hope County has zombies and apocalyptic cults, but I wanted it to be weirder, and you definitely didn’t disappoint when I asked you to add odder things to Far Cry 5 If the Far Cry universe can extend to any zone, then I think that we should see a wider variety of creatures, places, and…

This Week In The Business: Is Selling 50,000 Copies Enough?

QUOTE | “Our hope is to find a balance between games that sell a shitload of copies and are good, and games that may only sell 50,000 copies, but are also good. We think it’s important to do those type of games. We do all the spectrum. We’re not saying no to games because we…

‘100 Percent Uncensored’ Sex Game Now Out On Steam, But Only In Certain Regions

If you were hoping to spend your weekend not with Spider-Man or Lara Croft, but instead with the outerwear-despising anime girls of the long-awaited “100 percent uncensored” Steam visual novel Negligee: Love Stories, I’m not gonna judge. But I am gonna tell you that even though it’s now out on Steam, you still might not…

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

The weekend is for binge-watching BoJack Horseman, but since I have a Switch, I can play games while I do it! I’ve been playing Bastion on Switch, and I’d forgotten how great that game is. Its colorful world feels even more special on the small screen of my Switch. I’m also excited to check out…

The Internet Reacts To Animal Crossing‘s Isabelle In Smash

Isabelle, the beloved assistant to the mayor from Animal Crossing: New Leaf, is coming to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. The internet, myself included, has lost their collective mind. Let me set the scene: I’m 13 years old. For Christmas, I get the first game console that’s truly mine and not my older brother’s. It’s a…