Culture

The History Of Gaming Balloons In The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade

Since 1927 the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade has been filling the skies of New York with colorful balloon representations of pop culture icons. Video games didn’t enter the picture until 1993, and only three gaming icons have made the cut so far. This piece originally appeared 11/26/14. Some updates have been made for the…

Track: Walkabout | Artist: The Sugarcubes | Album: Stick Around for Joy Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

Track: Talk To Me | Artist: Run The Jewels | Album: RTJ3 Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

It’s High Noon, Overwatch Cosplay

I’ve posted a lot of Overwatch cosplay this year, but not much of it features McCree, so let’s fix that, for the sake of both you and your Huckleberry This is Russian cosplayer shimyrk, with a McCree that gets the character 100% right from the tip of his hat to the top of his spurs.

The Art Of Call Of Duty: Infinite Warfare

I’ve already spoken a little of my love for this game’s art design, but today I’m going to showcase a much wider range of work from a team of artists who worked on Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare A lot of the art lets us get an even closer look at something I spoke with…

Valve Announces The Steam Awards

It’s the end of the year, which means a) oh fuck me blind thank christ, and b) it’s award season! For the first time ever, Steam is giving out its own set of awards. As part of the Steam Autumn Sale, which just kicked off, Valve is asking users to nominate games in a number…

What’s Mine Is Now Yours

Roma Kupriyanov is a freelance artist from Russian. You can see more of Roma’s work here 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 their professional and personal portfolios.…

Track: I Got Rhythm | Artist: George Gershwin | Album: N/A  Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

There’s An Undertale Art Book

Most of the games I featurehere on Fine Art tend to be big, beautiful, AAA extravaganzas. Today, though, will be a reminder that no matter how simple or retro a game’s visuals may be, someone still had to go and design all of its stages and characters. Fangamer are releasing an Undertale book, which has…

Early Anime Fans Were Tough Pioneers

In 2016, Westerners take stuff like anime and cosplay for granted. It’s everywhere. But in the 1970s and early 1980s, fans of these emerging scenes had to work hard for their leisure, braving bewildered hotels for their cons and going to incredible lengths just to get hold of bootleg episodes. The following is an excerpt…

Saints Row IV just added Steam Workshop support. Already, you can download a guitar the shoots fire and some clothes that (sadly) don’t shoot fire. Why now, though? Because Saints Row IV wasn’t originally created with mods in mind, so devs worked in their spare time to make this possible. Very cool of them!

Watch Dogs Selfie Triggers Dog Fiasco

Today on Highlight Reel we have dog watching, powerful vans, strange doors, kill streaks, A+ titan piloting 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!…

Deus Ex Machina

Manuel Dischinger Moura is a concept artist who has worked on series like Batman and Gears of War You can see more of Manuel’s work at his 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…

Steam Greenlight Game Evolution Will Mash Up Spore And No Man’s Sky

No Man’s Sky and Spore have a lot in common. Both were ambitious to a fault. They aimed for the stars, but fell well short of expectations. They also both hadplenty of dick aliens Evolution: The Ultimate Creative Sandbox recently got voted number one on Steam Greenlight, the service’s user-driven selection system for lesser-known games. Here’s…

Track: Moaning Lisa Smile | Artist: Wolf Alice | Album: My Love Is Cool Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

Cosplayers, Before And After

The idea of comparing cosplayers in and out of costume is hardly new—we just ran a web series on it—but Paul Hillier’s collection of images stand out for the way he’s able to not just contrast the person’s appearance, but capture the process of creating an outfit. “A cosplayer will typically only wear a costume…

Vote For The Best Toys Of The Year

DC Super Hero Girls versus Pokémon. Funko Pop! vinyls versus Lego Disney minifigures. Fossil Hunter Lottie versus Fortress Maximus. We’ve got some tough choices to make to determine the winners of the Toy Industry Association’s 2017 Toy of the Year awards. The TIA probably doesn’t have a special group that just sits around playing with…

The Art Of Watch Dogs 2

There sure is a lot of colour in Watch Dogs 2, a creative decision that can be traced all the way back to the game’s concept art. Below you’ll find collections of work from the game by many of the artists working on Watch Dogs 2 In case you missed it, last week I ran…

Track: Royals (Cover) | Artist: The Struts | Album: N/A  Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

It would be remiss of me to showcase Sri Lanka’s cosplay scene and not also post this vid from India’s Bangalore ComicCon.