Culture

My Nice Guy Approach To A Red Dead Redemption 2 Train Robbery Went Very Wrong

I’ve been mostly playing as a good guy in Red Dead Redemption 2, or at least as much as the game will let me. This is more of a cowardly choice than a moral one. Bounties and lawmen stress me out. Nevertheless, I recently decided to rob one of the game’s trains. It did not…

Here’s December 2018’s PlayStation Plus Lineup

There are some interesting indie games in this month’s PlayStation Plus lineup, including Soma, Iconoclastsfor Vita and PS4, and Papers, Please. As always, these games are only “free” if you have an active PlayStation Plus subscription. December’s PlayStation Plus games are: PlayStation 4 Soma Onrush PlayStation3 Steredenn Steinsgate PlayStation Vita Iconoclasts (crossbuy with Ps4) Papers, Please

Genesis Classics On Switch Is The Perfect Way To Play Old Games

In another reality, one where companies like Nintendo and Sony actually cared about preserving their old games and ensuring that their entire libraries were playable now and forever, something like Genesis Classics might not be a rarity. But it is, and hey, it’s pretty damn great. Genesis Classics, which is already out for PC, PS4,…

Track: U Make My Sun Shine | Artist: Prince | Album: Anthology: 1995-2010 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! 

Track: Self Aware (Remix) | Artist: Andrés | Album: Heroes, Villains, And All That Jazz Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

Prodeus is a shooter that tries to replicate the look of FPSes of old, but with modern graphical techniques. I’m not sure how I feel about its purposefully pixelated aesthetic, but it’s certainly different. And by different, I mean “like somebody put Dooms 1-4 in a blender.” It’ll be out next year.

We’re Traversing The Uncanny Valley

Hossein Diba is a character artist from Turkey who is also maybe a magician, able to summon polygons and turn them into terrifying likenesses of celebrities and movie characters. He’s worked on stuff like Shadow of the Tomb Raider’s cinematic trailer as well as creating head sculptures for games, animation and toy companies. You can…

The Criminal Minds Game Gets Right To The Grisly Bits

Based on the long-running television show about a crack team of FBI profilers hunting serial killers, the new Criminal Minds mobile game has no qualms about depicting cartoony atrocity by murdering a family of four in the first minute. I got into Criminal Minds while I was hospitalized earlier this year. Forced to watch commercial…

Here’s December 2018’s Xbox Live Games With Gold Lineup

I’ve been encouraging my sister to play Never Alone with her kids since they got an Xbox, so I’m excited to see it in this month’s Games with Gold lineup. As always, these games are only “free” if you have an active Xbox Live Gold subscription. December’s Games with Gold are: Xbox One Q.U.B.E. 2…

Track: Zombie Bastards | Artist: Weezer | Album: The Black Album 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! 

Sun’s Out, Guns Out

Seonhyeok Jeon is an artist from Korea. You can see more of Jeon’s work attheir ArtStation page

This is Friggin Boom Toys, who we last saw getting his head smacked around in the name of science. Now he’s dressed up as Spider-Man Noir and running around an indoor parkour centre to see if the suit holds up.

Players Of The Hex Discover Its Secret Ending—In Another Game

When I tell friends about video game protagonist murder mystery The Hex—the latest game from the creator of the surprisingly demented Pony Island—I always say two things: 1) that they need to play it as soon as they can, and 2) that it’s about something completely different than it claims to be. The Hex is,…

A Sims 4: Get Famous Story

Three generations ago, my grandmother came to Del Sol Valley, trying to make it big as a movie star. I’m the same as she was when she first started now, and from my new home in the desert, it’s hard not to think about what she went through as I embark on my own journey.…

Track: Asleep | Artist: The Smiths | Album: The Queen Is Dead 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! 

Modern Fighters As Transforming Mechs

Dipo Muh is a concept artist from Indonesia. He’s done this cool series of pieces where modern aircraft are turned into transforming fighters, ala Macross. You can see more of Dipo’s work at his ArtStation page

Track: Barf Day | Artist: Diet Cig | Album: Swear I’m Good At This Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

The new world record in the Any% category for Slay The Spire is 5:03. You can watch runner AntiFlame do some very fast card slinging here. 

‘Shop Contest: Ocarina Appreciation Station

This week we celebrated the 20th anniversary of The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time, so now we’re going to continue that birthday party with ‘shops. I don’t have much love in my heart for The Ocarina of Time. I was a PlayStation person at the time, and I just missed out on many…

This week’s episode of Kotaku Splitscreen tackles two big games: First we bring on Kotaku’s Ethan Gach to talk about the bizarre, buggy Fallout 76 (6:51) and then Kirk and I take a deep dive into Red Dead Redemption 2‘s story (35:32), spoilers and all. (Seriously, we spoil it all.) Listen here or via your…