Culture

The Week In Games: Ivalice Homecoming 

Eleven years later, fans will once again be able to return to Final Fantasy XII’s vast, MMO-inspired fields and dungeons in HD and with a lot less jagged edges. You wouldn’t know it from this list, but the series twelfth outing was actually pretty phenomenal. Final Fantasy has always tried to do two completely incompatible…

Bidding War Over The Player’s Name In Earthbound Speedrun Goes Down To The Wire

This year’s Summer Games Done Quick speedrunning marathon finished with Earthbound. In part a charity event raising funds for Doctors Without Borders, viewers were allowed to bid on naming stuff at the beginning of the game. Ness’s favorite thing, for instance, was almost Bepis, beat out just barely by R.N.G. instead thanks to $25.12. The…

Kotaku ‘Shop Contest: Christie On Vacation, Winners!

Last week I asked you to take Governor Chris Christie on vacation, and man does that guy get around. Pleasance13’s entry didn’t just take Christie to another beach or alternate universe, it took him inside a game that refused to release until it was something entirely different. I’d be about as likely to play something…

Podcast: Final Fantasy XII, Final Fantasy XIV, And… Other Games

Today’s Kotaku Splitscreen is made just the way you like it: heavy on the Fahey and the Final Fantasy First, Kirk regales us with stories from his backpacking adventures before settling down with me to talk Destiny 2 soccer (9:58), Mass Effect: Andromeda’s lack of DLC (15:43), and Zelda’s new content (24:44). Then we bring…

Sunday Comics: Beware The Hat

Welcome to Kotaku’s Sunday Comics, your weekly roundup of the best webcomics that usually occurs on Sunday except when it doesn’t. The images enlarge if you click on the magnifying glass icon. Nerf NOW!! by Josué Pereira. Published July 9. Read more of Nerf NOW!! Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich. Published July 3. Read more…

Summer Games Done Quick 2017 Breaks Last Year’s Record, Raises $1.7 Million For Charity

Seven days later, this year’s Summer Games Done Quick speedrunning marathon has come to an end, but not before raising $1,760,400 for Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders). Last year’s event raised around $1.3 million for the organization, making SGDQ 17 a record breaking year (AGDQ 17 was earlier this year and broke its own…

Track: Sugar | Artist: Beach Fossils | Album: Somersault  Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

This Week In The Business: Tear Down That Rocket League Wall 

QUOTE | “It is inevitable. How long [until] inevitable actually becomes reality, I don’t know. But we think we are getting there. The key is for the community to really get behind the idea.” – Psyonix VP of publishing Jeremy Dunham is confident that Sony will follow Microsoft and Nintendo in allowing cross-platform play for…

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

The weekend is for packing to move into a new house! So probably not video games. But probably actually video games, because packing is boring. I spent all my money in The Witcher 3‘s Blood and Wine expansion on Geralt’s house, which is pretty similar to my current real-life situation. So I need to grind…

Speedrunner Beats All Of Link To The Past‘s Dungeons Without A Sword

The highlight of this week’s Summer Games Done Quick marathon happened very early this morning, as the charismatic speedrunner Andy broke the hell out of Link to the Past, beating the whole game without using a sword. The run lasts around an hour and 20 minutes and is mostly a showcase for glitches, boundary breaks,…

What We Loved (And Didn’t Love) About Baby Driver

Do you like good music and cool car chases? If so, you will probably find something to like in Baby Driver, Edgar Wright’s new spring-loaded rock ‘n roll heist flick. My colleague Gita Jackson and I handbrake-spun into theaters after the movie came out last week, and decided we’d sit down afterward and talk about…

Doubt And Drama Still Haunt An Old, Seemingly Impossible Atari World Record 

The current world record for the Atari 2600 racing game Dragster is 5.51 seconds. Thirty-five years after it was set, nobody has beaten or even tied it on official leaderboards. One speedrunner who has examined the game’s inner workings believes that world record to be impossible, but the game’s creator thinks it’s legitimate. For now,…

An Old City In A New Light

Michał Sawtyruk is an artist from Poland who has worked for companies like Dreamworks and Platige, the studio behind The Witcher’s Netflix series (and some other cool stuff). You can see more of Michał’s workat his ArtStation page To see the images in their native resolution, click on the “expand” button in the top-left corner.…

Track: Praise You | Artist: Fatboy Slim | Album: You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

Nintendo x Diablo Cosplay Was The Star Of Anime Expo

Anime Expo is usually home to some of the year’s best cosplay, and 2017 was no exception. While we’ll be providing a bigger roundup of the whole show next week, I wanted to go early with this incredible shoot featuring a Nintendo x Diablo crossover. In case you can’t make it out, what you’re seeing…

The Internet Reacts To Doomfist, Overwatch‘s New Character

Doomfist has only been out on the PTR for half a day, but Overwatch fans are already debating who to ship him with and wondering why he’s yet another character with his titty out. Doomfist is a new offensive character for Overwatch, and one that has been hinted at since the game’s very first trailer.…

The Best Cover In Mass Effect Is A Frozen Companion

Today on Highlight Reel we have appropriate music, For Honor roars, Battlegrounds fight club and much more! Watch the video then talk about your favorite highlight in the comments below. Be sure to check out, like, and share the original videos via the links below. Subscribe to Kotaku on YouTube for more! Homefront: The Revolution…

Track: Chinatown | Artist: Liam Gallagher | Album: As You Were Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

Last Surviving Battlegrounds Players Agree To Drop Guns, Slug It Out

The final moments of a PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds match can be some of the tensest in video games—a series of dread-soaked seconds that stretch on like hours, where both remaining players are the cat and the mouse. Or you can just say “screw it” and punch each other to death. Ucsbaway shared a clip in which…

Spider-Man Cosplay Is Coming Home

A new Spider-Man movie is out this week, and Spider-Man cosplayers are clearly feeling excited, especially if they happen to live in New York City and can take photos that look this good/appropriate. Spider-Man is TrevRay, while photos were taken by Jason Laboy. There are more shots, including Iron Man and some street thugs, at…