Culture

Ignored By Nintendo, Brazilian Fans Film Their Own Nintendo Direct

If you want something done, you gotta do it yourself. As USGamer reports, a group of Brazilian Nintendo fans, fed up with the way the company has withdrawn from the market (which has left them paying big import prices for games and hardware), decided to team up and record their own Nintendo Direct. Led by…

In Dustnet, You Explore The Ruins Of One Of Video Games’ Most Beloved Maps

Even within the internet’s vast digital memory, nothing is guaranteed to last—especially not games. Maybe a company runs out of money and has to cut the cord. Or maybe disinterest turns servers into ghost towns, with not even a pixelated tumbleweed in sight. Dustnet takes the latter idea to its utmost extreme, positing a world…

Permadeath Doesn’t Matter If You Have Enough Save Files

From XCOM to Fire Emblem, it feels bad to watch your team die in a tactical game. It’s way better to save a million times so that you can re-do part of a battle to keep everyone alive. On this week’s Kotaku Splitscreen, Kirk and I brought on Gita Jackson to talk about Fire Emblem:…

Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan has explained how the new role queue feature will work in-game. Both quick play and competitive modes will, by default, incorporate role queue. You’ll queue up for matches based on whether you want to play tank, damage, or support, and in the case of competitive, you’ll have a separate skill rating…

Please Let Me Buy Individual Joy-Cons To Mix And Match

Earlier this week Nintendo announced two new sets of Joy-Cons that will release in October. Once they’re out, the Switch will have over 100 different color combinations, an impressive number of options even by the standards of the most devoted Nintendo fan. But the Joy-Cons are still only sold in pairs, making true customization an…

The Strange Guilt Of Changing Jobs In An MMO

As I continue to lose myself in the world of Final Fantasy XIV’s latest expansion, writing guides on how new folks can get started and fighting terrifying raid bosses, I’ve also taken the time to experiment with new jobs. I followed my co-worker Mike Fahey’s lead and started the new Dancer job. And oh my…

GTA Online‘s Casino Will Have Horse Racing, Private Arcades, And Penthouses

GTA Online’s casino update launches July 23. The update is about the opening of the Diamond Casino & Resort in Los Santos. Rockstar has revealed more information about the long-teased update via a separate website, a first for GTA Online expansions. The update sounds ambitious and potentially very expensive, with slot machines, horse track betting,…

Role-Locking Is Coming To Overwatch, According To Leaked Video [UPDATE]

Today, a pre-recorded Overwatch League video leaked sharing news that Blizzard is apparently implementing role-locking in Overwatch and the Overwatch League. [Update—4:45 pm ET]: Overwatch’s game director Jeff Kaplan confirmed that players will now queue for specific roles in Overwatch games, too. Starting soon, all team compositions in the Overwatch League will consist of two…

Sea Of Thieves Gets Monthly Updates And The First One Is Pretty…Explosive

Sea of Thieves, Rare’s chill pirate hangout game, has been on the upswing lately. After an expansive (and excellent) Anniversary Update that brought story quests and cooking to its cartoony high seas in May, Sea of Thieves is upping the ante yet again with monthly updates. Log into the game now on Xbox One or…

Track: If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next | Artist: Manic Street Preachers | Album: This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment. 

Our Favorite Photos From YetiCon, Canada’s Mountain Cosplay Party

This major Canadian cosplay show knows how to party

The Tracks Lead Off In This Direction

Katya Gudkina is an artist at Bethesda, the developers of the Fallout and Elder Scrolls series. You can see more of Gudkina’s stuff at her personal site and ArtStation page

Dota Underlords‘ Meta Is In An Awkward Spot

Ideally, Dota Underlords, like its auto-battler kin, plays out as a game of slow-build strategy in which you amass an army of heroes based on synergies between them. Maybe that means a chanting brood of surprisingly survivable warlocks. Maybe that means a beefy team of brawny boys who are even beefier together than they are…

Former Magic: The Gathering Pro Arrested On Sexual Assault Charges

Conley Woods, a former Magic: The Gathering pro and contributor to the game’s official website, has been arrested in Santa Fe on charges of “criminal sexual penetration, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and other crimes.” The Santa Fe New Mexican reports that Woods had spent Saturday with a woman he claims he had been…

Bernie Sanders Finally Appears On His Own Twitch Channel—During Amazon Boycott

Last time we checked in on endearingly grouchy democratic socialist uncle and presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders’ Twitch channel, it was notably lacking in Bernie Sanders himself. It also felt more like a campaign commercial than any sort of broadcast Twitch viewers were used to seeing. Yesterday evening, Sanders and company finally addressed one of those…

Switch Owners Share Horror Stories Of Trying To Fix Joy-Con Drift

“Joy-Con drift,” which results in a thumbstick that reads movement without player input, has been an ongoing problem for Nintendo Switch owners since the console’s launch back in early 2017. Without large-scale fixes from Nintendo, however, players have taken to fixing their $80 controllers themselves, sometimes with disastrous results. The jury is still out on…

A Mysterious Storm Is Brewing On Anthem‘s Horizon After Weeks Of Nothing

BioWare hasn’t announced when Anthem’s upcoming Cataclysm event will begin in earnest, but recent clues have players hopeful the game’s next phase is imminent. It doesn’t take much these days to get Anthem’s remaining players excited. On Monday one player discovered a countdown timer in the game that indicated that it was seven days and…

Bug-Riddled Update Shows Why Fallout 76 Needs A Public Test Server

This week marks eight months since Fallout 76 released as a buggy mess. Since then, Bethesda’s online survival game has improved a lot. But while it has had a lot of good days, the arrival of patch number 11 yesterday was not one of them. Instead, it’s renewed players’ calls for Bethesda to try updates…

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds Just Got A Completely Bananas Backstory

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, the 2017 Early Access hit that kicked off gaming’s battle royale craze, has never really had a backstory. Why bother? The appeal was immediate: You’re thrown from a plane with 99 other people onto an island full of weapons. This being a video game, everyone is going to try and kill one another.…

How Japanese RPGs Inspired A New Generation Of Fantasy Authors

When I think back to my childhood and teenage years, when my literary tastes were being forged in the crucible of youthful emotion and impressionism, particular scenes come to life: Sam carrying Frodo up Mt. Doom. The Reaper chasing Wil Ohmsford through the Westland. Marle hugging Crono on top of Death Peak. Most fantasy readers…