Culture

A Simpler Major Kusanagi

Rachel Ho is an artist and illustrator based in Malaysia. You can see more of Rachel’s work at her Behanceand ArtStationpages. 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 work of video game artists, showcasing the best of both…

Show Us Your Ugliest Video Game Outfits

You did it. You finally got that sweet armor set you’ve been assembling for days. You look like a million bucks. Time to parade around town being shiny AF and… oh no. You found a new chest plate with slightly better stats. Have fun being a damn circus clown for the next 20 hours. I’ve…

Nine Video Games That Left Us Defenseless And Scared

Video games often employ lots of cruel tricks in which gamers find themselves in precarious pickles—the gigantic and seemingly impossible bosses, timers, that last collectable that requires precision to attain. But the cruelest trick of all? Taking away our weapons. This piece originally appeared 1/2/15. The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask How often have you…

We’re So Happy Parappa The Rapper Is Back To Frustrate Us

Parappa the Rapper was one of the defining titles of the original PlayStation, not to mention one of the games that birthed the whole rhythm genre. With its unforgettable offbeat rap tracks, adorable paper-flat design, and innovative call-and-response gameplay, it’s left quite an impression these 20 years. Today, Sony releases Parappa the Rapper Remastered for…

Track: Easta | Artist: Kyary Pamyu Pamyu | Album: Easta (Single)  Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

Track: So Real | Artist: Phaeleh | Album: A World Without Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

The Bat & The Cat

Here’s Ironmarkprops and Winter Blossom recreating two famous Batman images, one for a video game (Arkham City) and the other from a comic (Hush).

This is @shift_cosplay (Black Cat), @becky_taka (Spider Gwen) and @disquietcosplay (MJ) recreating an Amazing Spider-Man cover. No Spider-Men required. Photo by @herohotties

Custom Women’s Armor Is Practical, But Also Cool

Melissa Ng is the creator of this outfit, which is called “Sovereign Armor”, the result of a quest to “create a practical and versatile Medieval-inspired fantasy armor for a woman.” Ng says it took over 500 hours to build the suit, most of which is 3D-printed and which weighs around eight pounds, with that time…

Sacred Fire is an RPG where combat is dictated by emotions and psychology, rather than weapons, attacks, or damage types. Anger might make you strong, but it’ll leave you open to a punishing riposte. Fear can turn enemies into a shell of their normal selves, but it can leave you quaking too. The game is…

Some Aliens From Mass Effect: Andromeda 

Today’s Fine Art is showcasing the work of an artist who was involved with the design of Mass Effect Andromeda Furio Tedeschi, worked on the game’s new aliens. He has since left BioWare and is working as a freelancer in the film business, most recently on the new Transformers movie. You can see more of…

The Hardest Things About Trying To Speedrun Breath Of The Wild

When you cover speedrunning for a while, you start to ask: “can I do that?” This weekend, I started doing my own runs in Breath of the Wild to see how far I’d get. As you might imagine, the results were messy. I’ve always been interested in the kinds of glitches and tricks that speedrunners…

Valve Says They’re Making Big Changes To Steam To Stomp Out ‘Fake Games’

Recently, Valve had two popular YouTubers, John “TotalBiscuit” Bain and Jim “Jim Sterling” Sterling, visit their offices. Over the course of a day-long series of meetings, the company laid out a roadmap for the future of Steam. Both Bain and Sterling posted lengthy videos about their descent into GabeN’s mystery dungeon. You can watch those…

There Is Nowhere To Hide From Hanzo Cosplay

While Hanzo mains are bad, Hanzo cosplay is just fine. We actually saw this cosplay briefly last year as part of a video, but this is a shoot by Fauxtography Geek that gives Rian Synnth’s costume its own time to shine.

The New Day Enter Wrestlemania With Final Fantasy Tribute

It’s Wrestlemania time, and hosts The New Day are doing their thing, entering the arena with a Final Fantasy homage. There are also Moogles present.

The Week In Games: Back To School

It’s time to leave childish things like tower climbing, cyborg-dino slaying, and planet scanning behind and go hit the books. In case you weren’t feeling buried enough under the weight of all those open world RPGs, here’s another 100+ hour epic to eat away whatever remains of your time an sanity. I can’t wait to…

Speedrunner Gets Sabatoged By His Own Twitch Chat During Super Mario 64 World Record Attempt

This weekend a speedrunner who goes by Cheese broke the existing record for beating Mario 64 with all 120 stars with a time1:40:05. But his goal was to come in under 1:39, something he might have achieved if not for one of his spectators spamming a text-to-speech bot. Despite forgoing the LBLJ exploit, a backyards…

Track: Terminally Chill | Artist: Neon Indian | Album: Psychic Chasms  Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

Sunday Comics: Deathly God Parents

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 March 28. Read more of Nerf NOW!! Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich. Published March 27. Read more…

This Week In The Business: Hearthstone‘s Death Wish?

QUOTE | “Hearthstone is killing itself.” – Research firm Superdata, noting the free-to-play game has seen declining conversion numbers on mobile and PC following unpopular recent gameplay decisions. STAT | $720 million – The upper limit of revenues Blizzard can hope to bring in every year through its Overwatch League, according to a Morgan Stanley…