Culture

Player Beats Mario Odyssey In Under 90 Minutes For An Early World Record

Speedruns have officially started being accepted for Super Mario Odyssey, and fans are now in a mad dash to figure out the best strategies, pathways, and jumps to beat the game quickly. In the last two days alone, the world record for clearing the game at any percentage of completion has been toppled multiple times…

The Week In Games: Back To The Trenches 

Call of Duty gets the week (nearly) all to itself. Like clockwork the month of duty calls again, this time ditching space for the safe, familiar confines of the last Great War. As much as I liked John Snow, it’ll be a relief to see the competitive Call of Duty circuit finally get to swap…

Track: Autumn in New York | Artist: Chet Baker | Album: The Touch of Your Lips  Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

The Women Of The Wild West

Lulu Zhang is a concept artist a Creative Assembly, the developers behind games like Total War: Warhammer and Alien Isolation You can see more of Lulu’s work at her ArtStation page To see the images in their native resolution, click on the “expand” button in the top-left corner. Fine Art is a celebration of the…

Kotaku ‘Shop Contest: Trick Or Treat

Some Halloween costumes are better disguises than others. In the spirit of the holiday and of not forgoing another ‘Shop Contest, this week’s prompt will be to take your favorite video game characters, past or present, and dress them up like different ones. Maybe that’s Cloud Strife bobbing for apples as a Witcher, or Zelda…

Comedian Speedrunner Will Tell you Everything You Wanted To Know About Paper Boy 

Usually speedruns are about breaking the game to reveal hidden secrets that help players finish it as quickly as possible. Speedrunning Paper Boy, on the other hand, means delivering every single bundle of newsprint with precision and grace. If you’ve ever played Paper Boy, one of the first ever management sims to appear on a…

We Talk Assassin’s Creed Origins And NeoGAF On Today’s Splitscreen

On this week’s episode of Kotaku Splitscreen, recorded between marathon writing sessions for both me and Kirk, we’re talking about the new Assassin’s Creed and NeoGAF’s implosion. First we dig into the good and bad of Assassin’s Creed Origins, which Kirk has been playing for five days straight and has many thoughts about. Then (32:06)…

Sunday Comics: Video Game Themed

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 October 27. Read more of Nerf NOW!! Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich. Published October 23. Read more…

Track: The One To Wait| Artist: CCFX | Album: CCFX EP Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

Wolfenstein: The New Colossus Has Already Been Beaten In Under Eighty Minutes 

The newest game in the Nazi-slaying series is pretty short, at least if you’re a speedrunner. Released only a day ago, The New Colossus digs deep into American politics and the country’s legacy of racism and bigotry. The game doesn’t pull many punches, right from the very beginning. Of course, you could also blaze through…

This Week In The Business: Single-Player’s Not Dead Yet

QUOTE | “As a company we love single-player more than anything, and believe in it absolutely – for storytelling and a sense of immersion in a world, multiplayer games don’t rival single-player games.” – Rockstar Games director of design Imran Sarwar insists the success of Grand Theft Auto Online and lack of narrative-driven GTA V…

Nine Terrible Reasons To Hate Super Mario Odyssey, If You’re A Monster

Can you imagine what it would be like to hate Super Mario Odyssey? I’m especially qualified to say “No,” given how many thousands of hours of my life I’ve devoted to the enjoyment of digital jump gauntlets starring Mario. In the name of fresh video content, I thought-experimented my way into the mind of my…

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

The weekend is for trying to remember your GeForce password because you forgot your screenshot keybinding and the Steam overlay doesn’t work for Wolfenstein 2. Basically, the weekend is for locking yourself out of your graphics card. Again. I started Wolfenstein 2 last night, and though I only got about an hour in I’m really liking…

Surgeon Simulator Devs Say They’ll Cancel Next Game If It Doesn’t Get Enough Players During Free Week

Surgeon Simulator developer Bossa describes the upcoming free week for its new game, Decksplash, as a “first of its kind” experiment. If 100,000 people play it during that timespan, the studio says it will release the Splatoon-but-with-skateboards competitive game into Early Access. And if not? It gets the axe. One part high-stakes gamble, one part…

Track: Battery In Your Leg (includes “Me, White Nose”) | Artist: Blur | Album: Think Tank Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

To Be, Or Not To…Well Hello There

Sam Hogg is an artist from the UK who has done work for companies like Fantasy Flight, Cryptozoic and Playground Games. You can see more of Sam’s work at her personal site To see the images in their native resolution, click on the “expand” button in the top-left corner. Fine Art is a celebration of…

The Best World Of Warcraft Cosplay Has Real Owls

Owls are cool. All cosplay needs more owls. But especially Tyrande cosplay, since the character actually has one in the game. This is Narga, a cosplayer from Russia who is straight up one of the absolute best on the planet at this. You might remember her from that Dawn of War shoot we featured last…

The Struggle To Cram Game Of Thrones Inside A Video Game

The AGOT mod for Crusader Kings II is as vast as the source material

As 1.0 Approaches, Battlegrounds Is Having Some Growing Pains

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is, without a doubt, the breakout hit of the year. It’s sold more than 15 million copies and is the most popular game on Steam by a country mile (full of people trying to kill each other). All this, and it’s still in Early Access. You’d think it has a bright future ahead…

Evil Within 2 Monster Is Over It

On today’s Highlight Reel we have distorted For Honor characters, arrow physics, weird Witcher NPCs 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! Catch up…