Culture

Track: Don’t Change For Me | Album: Ladies & Gentlemen… Nigel Hall | Artist: Nigel Hall Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to – and gaming to – at the moment.

A Speedrunner Is Trying To Destroy All Of Mario Kart 64‘s Trees

Beck Abney is a Mario Kart 64 speedrunner with world records on many tracks. He’s also a man on a mission. Trees dot the landscape in Mario Kart 64 and if he has anything to say about it, they’ll soon be gone. When Abney isn’t grinding out speedruns of individual tracks or hunting down new…

Cheer Up Zelda, The Switch Is Out Soon

Raquel Cornejo is an illustrator and concept artist who works at MercurySteam, the Spanish studio responsible for the recent Castlevania reboots. You can see more of Raquel’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 Pokémon Mega Bloks Are Coming

More accurately the Pokémon Mega Construx are coming, as Nintendo’s pocket monsters become the latest license to join Mattel’s recently re-branded line of construction toy sets. Anything is better than Ionix. Pokémon is one of the most desirable toy licenses out there, and now Mattel has the construction toy segment of that license locked up.…

Track: Going Underground | Artist: The Jam | Album: Dig the New Breed Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

Track: Utopia | Artist: King Woman | Album: Created in the Image of Suffering  Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

Come On And Slam, And Welcome To The Middle Ages

Today on Highlight Reel we have missed Pokémon opportunities, subtle knives, viking chaos dunks, vortex shields, hooks, 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!…

Valve Fixes Accuracy Bug That’s Been In Team Fortress 2 For Ten Years

Video game bugs are like a foul odor. The cause might be some tiny thing, but if you can’t isolate it, it’ll stink up the whole dang place. Such was apparently the case with a Team Fortress 2 bug that took Valve ten years to finally eliminate. Here’s how the bug worked: if you joined…

Stop Me If You’ve Heard The One About The Three Vikings And The Bear

Leroy Steinmann is a freelance concept artist based in Switzerland. You can see more of Leroy’s work at his personal site and 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 work of video game artists, showcasing the…

Podcast: An In-Depth Discussion Of Final Fantasy XV 

On today’s episode of Kotaku Splitscreen, we’re taking a spoilery deep dive into Final Fantasy XV Kirk and I have drastically different opinions on the fifteenth Final Fantasy—I liked it a lot; he didn’t—which makes for a fun conversation as we pick at the game’s warts. Final Fantasy XV is a messy, clearly unfinished game,…

Track: I’ll Be There | Artist: Willie Nelson | Album: For The Good Times: A Tribute To Ray Price Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

Rogue One Cosplay Is One With The Force

Chirrut Îmwe, aka Donnie Yen’s blind guy from Rogue One, is a cool character! So it’s weird that this is the first time anyone has sent us any cosplay for it. Good job they did, though, because it’s awesome. This is Doccane Cosplay, with photos by Edwin Fabian

Valve Is Training AI To Detect Counter-Strike Cheaters

There’s nothing worse than going on a tear in Counter-Strike, only to get gunned down by some asshole who’s spinning around, one-tapping everybody. He’s obviously cheating. Why hasn’t he been caught? According to Valve, it’s complicated, but they’re working on a new system to bust fun-killers. First, here’s the reason Valve hasn’t augmented their Overwatch…

The Latest Marvel Legends Set Is A Guardians Of The Galaxy All-Star Team

The 2017 New York Toy Fair starts this weekend, and as we prepare to venture into its halls and check out the toys coming out over the next year, we’re looking at some of the fun stuff you can get right now. Stuff like the latest Marvel Legends build-a-figure series, starring some of the greatest…

‘Sup

Mark Chang is an artist based in Taiwan who has recently done work for The Mill, a VFX studio. You can see more of Mark’s work at his personal site and 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…

Track: Happy Together (cover) | Artist: Danny Chung | Album: Happy Together Soundtrack  Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

Japanese Company Made Consoles For Girls, And Also Cute Toys

Epoch is a Japanese video game company, which in the 80s and 90s made a number of consoles and handhelds. They’re also the guys responsible for the disgustingly cute Sylvanian Families (or Calico Critters) toy line. The company, founded in 1958, is a bit like Nintendo, in that it made its name not just in…

For Twitch Streamers Who Spend Their Lives On Camera, It’s Hard To Know When To Stop

The booming industry of live-streaming yourself gaming is a largely unregulated one. Streamers are weed-whacking their way through the industry’s nascent years, struggling to find a work-life balance for a job that they can technically never stop doing. Launching a streaming career is like launching a cable network—a reliable, sustained source of entertainment—but on Twitch,…

Conan Exiles Player Uses Mods To Make Everything Gigantic (Dicks Included)

Conan Exiles got official mod tools at the tail end of last week, so there’s nothing super elaborate in the wild just yet. There are, however, comically oversized barbarians and regular-sized barbarians with comically oversized dicks and boobs. Warning: this post is extremely NSFW. I wrote it from a Starbucks, which I have to admit…

Borderlands Cosplay Is A Living Cartoon

This Borderlands outfit is so good that it won a prize at last year’s Starcon in St Petersburg, one of the best cosplay shows on Earth. We see a lot of Borderlands cosplay, and a lot of it is very good, but this is something else. The hair in particular, with the cel-shading running all…