Culture

‘Shop Contest: Luigi Is Scared

We know that the ghost hunter Luigi is a spineless worm, so for this Halloween season I need you to show me what that big ole scaredy-cat is so afraid of. Look, I have some amount of respect for Luigi. After all, it takes a brave soul to enter a haunted house to fight ghosts.…

Sunday Comics: Recruitment Decision

Hello! It’s time for Kotaku’s Sunday Comics, your weekly roundup of the best webcomics. The images enlarge if you click on the magnifying glass icon. Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich. Published October 15. Read more of Awkward Zombie Corpse Run by Alex Di Stasi. Published October 18. Read more of Corpse Run Double XP by…

There’s a new I Am Bread speedrun world record. Runner YaroKarozuno has completed the game in a flat six minutes, beating last week’s world record run by twelve seconds. The community has also began subtracting load times from final times, meaning that YaroKarozuno has a 4:23 run.

‘Shop Contest: Expanded Ops, Winners!

We’re living in the world of Black Ops 4 now, and last week I asked you to ‘shop up some new kinds of ops to include in the game. The standard set of game modes in a given Call of Duty game are fairly limited. Team deathmatch, free for all, and point capture modes are…

This Week In The Business: Buncha Crunch

QUOTE | “That was shit. This was the hardest.” – Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser says Red Dead Redemption 2 development set a new difficulty bar for the studio, in the same feature where he said “we were working 100-hour weeks” several times this year to finish the game. QUOTE | “No one, senior or junior,…

Track: Electric Fires | Artist: Black Peaks | Album: All That Divides Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

Ask Dr. NerdLove: My Girlfriend’s STI Diagnosis Has Me Questioning Everything

Hello all you death spores on the flesh of the Internet, and welcome to Ask Dr. NerdLove, the dating advice column that helps you respec for the action RPG of love. This week, we’re talking about some tough questions. When your relationship hits a crisis point, do you trust your partner, or do you go…

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

The weekend is for having knocked a window curtain down this morning and, while trying to put it back up, realizing it’s ridiculous you still use the last tenant’s curtains and determining to go buy new curtains. Also, video games. This week I learned there’s a ghost ship that appears only once a day in…

My New, Healthier Mobile Game Obsession Is Fidel: Dungeon Rescue

Some mobile games play psychological tricks with you to get you to keep playing. Others hook you the much better way, simply by being great. So it is with the new iOS port of the stellar Fidel: Dungeon Rescue, which is billed as “the roguelike where you can rewind.” My colleague Heather highlighted the game…

Track: A Fistful of Dynamite | Artist: Ennio Morricone | Album: A Fistful of Dynamite OST Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

Accounting+, a VR collaboration between makers of Rick and Morty and The Stanley Parable, is out. I got to play it last weekend at Indiecade in LA, and it’s the funniest VR game I’ve tried. If you want to get a feel for its sense of humor, watch this trailer, and make sure to stick…

Zelda Really Needed A Frog Village

Ziggy Zhu is a concept artist from China who, as a tribute to Breath of the Wild, decided to design his own village for the game. It’s beautiful. And very froggy. The village hook is simple: it’s built in a swamp, and everyone is a frog, and they all love sumo. And I love Frog…

Gwent‘s New Solo Campaign Includes Some Great Battles

I’ve been playing the same fight in Thronebreaker, Gwent’s standalone story, for a few hours now. I still haven’t beaten it. In most games, that would make me frustrated with myself or furious at the designers. But thanks to Thronebreaker’s unique mechanics, I’m itching to keep trying. Thronebreaker is the single-player standalone accompaniment to CD…

Track: Yah Yah Yah | Artist: Chage and Aska | Album: Red Hill Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

The Hex Mashes Up Game Genres, Then Gets Really Weird

I’m just gonna cut to the chase: The Hex is this year’s Frog Fractions, Undertale, or—perhaps most aptly, given that it’s from the same creator—Pony Island. It’s a game that makes confetti of genre conventions and reassembles the scraps into a surprising story about how we interact with games. To delve too far into the…

Not Here To Win Hearts Or Minds

Rafael Amarante is a freelance concept artist and designer from Brazil who has worked on games like Halo 2: Anniversary You can see more of Rafael’s stuff at his personal site

New Breath Of The Wild Glitch Turns Head Stomp Into High Speed Takeoff

Breath of the Wild players have always taken advantage of the game’s wonky physics, either in speedruns or for fun. It’s one thing to ride on stasis-launched trees, but it’s way more fun to shoot across Hyrule Field with a good head stomp. A new glitch allows just that, letting players gain tremendous speeds and…

Track: She’s Electric | Artist: Oasis | Album: What’s the Story Morning Glory Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

Mojo Jojo Cosplay!

If Netflix ever wanted to branch out from live-action anime adaptations into live-action Powerpuff Girls adaptations, they could do worse than look to cosplayer jedibugs for inspiration. This realistic take on Mojo Jojo is as impressive as hell, looking at once like a terrifying real-life version of the villain, but also like the most fabulous…

Track: Utsurunai | Artist: Never Young Beach | Album: Utsurunai (Single) Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.