Culture

Before The Harvest. Osaka, Japan. By Brian Ashcraft | Twitter 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 Tankiest Of Tanks

Bruno Gauthier Leblanc is an art director at Eidos Montreal, the studio behind Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Thief and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided You can see more of Leblanc’s stuff at his personal site and ArtStation page

DOTA 2 Cheats Are Getting Their Asses Banned Until 2038

Valve released a matchmaking update for DOTA 2 yesterday, and as part of it, some players breaking the rules have begun receiving comically long bans. Valve’s notice for the updatesays it’s targeting “bad actors”, aka those with “exceptionally low behavior scores”, anyone buying or selling Steam accounts to get a higher rank, players “using exploits…

Eight Tips For Using The New Steam Library

Yesterday, Steam’s first big library overhaul in eons entered open beta. The fresh coat of paint and (virtual) new shelves make for welcome additions, but it’s going to take some getting used to. Then there’s the new community-centric game page display, which somewhat ironically has the community divided. Here are some tips to help you…

Player Spends $62,000 In Runescape, Reigniting Community Anger Around Microtransactions

“At this point, it’s no longer pay-to-play,” said a commenter on Runescape’s subreddit. “It’s pay-to-pay.” Controversy over microtransactions is rocking the community of 18-year-old fantasy online role-playing game Runescape. Criticism of the game’s allegedly predatory microtransactions bubbled over after a recent UK Parliament report referenced disordered levels of spending in video games, specifically flagging Runescape…

Truck Carrying Gaming Dice Spills Onto Highway, Rolls A Perfect 756,000

On Friday, September 13, a truck bound for the Georgia-based tabletop and video game company Trivium Studios took a turn too sharply, spilling 216,000 gaming dice onto Interstate 75 in Atlanta in what could be the biggest unintentional dice roll ever. According to Trivium Studios’ community manager, speaking to Kotaku about the incident, the truck…

The Internet Reacts To Sirfetch’d, Pokémon Sword‘s New Farfetch’d Evolution

Farfetch’d, the leek-carrying bird pal that’s been around since the original Pokémon games, is finally getting an evolution of his own. His buff new form, appearing exclusively in Pokémon Sword, is called Sirfetch’d, and the internet has some thoughts about this smug bird knight. According to the official Sword and Shield website, Sirfetch’d is incredibly…

I’ve Finally Gotten Tired Of Making My Video Game Characters Look Like Boring Slobs

I recently got my hands on Daemon X Machina, the new mech action game for the Nintendo Switch, and I was immediately dazzled—not by the power and might of my giant robot armor, or the weighty action of sci-fi combat—but by how much fun it was to style my mech and its pilot in some…

Speedrunners Are Demolishing Celeste‘s Difficult New Chapter

Celeste’s recently added epilogue, Farewell, is an extremely difficult but charming send-off to a fantastic game. A normal playthrough takes anywhere from four to five hours and is immensely challenging. Skilled speedrunners are completing it in less than 20 minutes. Farewell adds tons of new mechanics to Celeste and even teaches players some advanced techniques…

Just What Everyone Needs, A Merge Dragons Sequel

Gram Games’ Merge Dragons is a very popular free-to-pay mobile game about combining three things into better things and spending money on dragon gems. Merge Magic, out today on iOS and Android, is a new game about combining three new things into better new things and spending money on magic gems. It has new art,…

Long-Rumored Apex Legends Hero Apparently Spotted In Game

Apex Legends added its first new hero, the speedy Octane, early after launch. The electric-fence-dropping Wattson followed at the start of Season Two in July. Since then, there’s been supposed leaks and speculation about the next hero. Most folks believe it will be a sneaky hacker named Crypto, and he seems to have made an…

Track: When I’m Five | Artist: David Bowie | Album: David Bowie

Ride On. Bater, Croatia. By Eduard Tucaković | Instagram | Official Site 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!

You Can Eat This Game’s Box If You Want

The physical copies of this year’s Football Manager game are made almost entirely from recyclable materials, from the case to the shrink-wrap to the ink that’s printed on it. You could even eat the cardboard, if that was something you ever felt the need to do. As GI.biz reports, this year’s game—and every version going…

Twitch’s Latest Crackdowns On ‘Sexual’ Content Are Leaving Streamers Baffled

Earlier this week, Twitch suspended a streamer named Quqco for wearing a cosplay of Street Fighter heroine Chun-Li on stream, deeming her outfit “sexually suggestive.” This took Quqco—and many others—by surprise, given that the outfit was not overtly risqué. But this was not an isolated incident. In the past few days, Twitch has been cracking…

Borderlands 3 Developers Fix Nasty Bug That Erased People’s Save Files (Although It’s Too Late For Them)

Some Borderlands 3 players have reported issues with crashes leading to corrupt save files and, more concerningly, some wonkiness with cloud saves preventing players from loading up an older, non-corrupted save file. Publisher 2K Games says that they have a fix. Yesterday, Kotaku’s own Paul Tamayo fell victim to the unfortunate combination of issues that…

Rockstar Has Its Own PC Games Launcher Now

Rockstar Games has released a new digital launcher for its games on PC. The new launcher, creatively titled the Rockstar Games Launcher, is a way for players to buy and play Rockstar games. It’s very bare-bones at the moment, but it works. Mostly. The Rockstar Launcher was first spotted by numerous GTA and Red Dead…

Developers Cash In By Selling Their Switch Games For Pennies

Every few days, I tap the eShop icon on my Nintendo Switch. I’ll look at the new games released that week, but honestly, I just want to see what’s on sale. I especially want to see what’s really on sale. One of the few categories by which you can browse Switch games on the eShop…

It’s Kind Of Creepy How Obsessed Professor Byleth Is With Her Students

Fire Emblem: Three Houses protagonist Professor Byleth is very good at spying. Three Houses isn’t a stealth game; Byleth doesn’t use her impressive sneaking skills in combat. Instead, she uses them to listen in on dozens of private conversations that unfold between her students. It’s never actually specified in-game whether Byleth can hear all of…

I’m on two recent podcasts yammering about old video games if that’s the kind of thing you like: Memory Card, talking about the SNES CD-ROM with Kotaku contributor Ben Bertoli, and Axe of the Blood God talking about SNES and Genesis RPGs with the USGamer staff.