Culture

A Game About Building Crazy Cars Is Tearing Up Steam’s Charts Right Now

Prediction time: for the next few months, you will see people make the wildest shit in Scrap Mechanic. Scrap Mechanic has been Steam’s best-selling game all day—pretty much since it came out—and it’s not too difficult to see why. It’s a game that lets you use a simple yet versatile toolset to build vehicles you…

What We Liked (And Didn’t Like) About Assassin’s Creed Syndicate

It’s clear enough that a lot of us here at Kotaku liked Assassin’s Creed Syndicate. The game earned a positive review and a spot on our best of 2015 list. All the same, our three biggest Assassin’s Creed nerds had yet to sit down and talk it out. As we did with Assassin’s Creed III,…

Seven Public Domain Books That Would Make Great Games

Once a work enters the public domain, it is no longer subject to copyright laws. A publisher can print their own edition of the Beatrix Potter books, a filmmaker can make a film of any of Shakespeare’s plays, and a game developer can adapt any of the characters, scenes, or even whole stories from public…

Track: Koi Suru Fortune Cookie | Artist: AKB48 | Album: Tsugi no Ashiato Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to – and gaming to – at the moment.

Japan Won WW2, And Now Rules America With Giant Mechs

United States of Japan is an upcoming novel that the author says is a “spiritual successor” to Philip K Dick’s classic The Man In The High Castle. Only, instead of the Japanese and Germans sharing the US in the 1960s, Japan is the sole oppressor, and they’re lording it over America with an army of…

Shadow of Mordor Orc Starts Retreating Way Too Late

Today on Highlight Reel we have loads of kills, hammer time, sick rocket mopeds, cowardly uruks, and much more! Watch the video above or on our Youtube page, 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. Halo 5…

Steam Achievement Reminds Players That They’ve Failed Completely

I just got annihilated by a boss monster in a time somewhere between “the blink of an eye” and “the memory span of a newborn goldfish.” I should be fuming. Instead, I’m grinning like an idiot. The Aquatic Adventure of the Last Human is a new Steam undersea action-adventure game in which you, the last…

Mad Max-Themed Counter-Strike Map Has Cars, Furious Roads

Counter-Strike plus drivable cars, customizable bases, and lots and lots of sand? This is no ordinary custom map. RealFreemanTV posted a teaser of CTX and Jarro’s CSGO: Truck Wars map, which they describe as an homage to Mad Max. It definitely looks the part. Basically, the goal of each match is to fortify your base…

We Get It, Elf, You Vape

Nuare is an “outsource studio” based in Canada who have quietly helped out on the creative side of games from companies like Bethesda, Microsoft and Capcom. You can see more of Nuare’s work at their company site To see the larger pics in all their glory (or, if they’re big enough, so you can save…

Track: Oh Mii Darling Don’t Shop (Remix)| Artist: Stephen Mlinarcik/Run the Jewels | Album: N/A Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to – and gaming to – at the moment.

Giving A TIE Fighter A Firmware Update

Davison Carvalho is an artist from Brazil who currently works at Epic Games. As a specialist in user interfaces—and fictional ones in particular—Carvalho has some interesting ideas on the subject, whether it be for a TIE Fighter’s HUD (oh, what we wouldn’t give for a new X-Wing game) or the menu for a video game…

Pop Works’ Salted Caramel & Fudge And Cookies & Cream Popcorn: The Snacktaku Review

A cornerstone of snack culture, popcorn is a light and fluffy snack that’s relatively harmless to eat by the handful. At least until a company like Pop Works & Co. starts putting delicious stuff all over it. Popcorn is a wondrous snack. It begins as a small kernel with a watertight outer shell and starchy…

Please, More Cosplay Documentaries Like This

Well, this looks cool: a bunch of friends who cosplay together as Sailor Moon characters worked with a production studio to make a very slick documentary about their outfits, friendships, challenges and adventures. I wish more cosplayers (or people working around cosplay) did this kind of thing! Yes, it’s nice seeing pictures and videos of…

The Week In Games: Now We’re Cooking, 2016

It’s nice to see a nice, beefy list of weekly releases again, even if most of it consists of Sony going crazy with the digital downloads. Sony went a bit overboard this week, making up for time lost over the holiday break with some 17 or so releases between its three active platforms. I’d shake…

Sunday Comics: It’s Not Like Anyone’s Getting Hurt

Welcome to Kotaku’s Sunday Comics, your weekly roundup of the best webcomicsl. The images enlarge if you click on the magnifying glass icon. Nerf NOW!! by Josué Pereira. Guest comic published January 16. Read more of Nerf NOW!! Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich. Published January 11. Read more of Awkward Zombie Penny Arcade by Jerry…

This Week In The Business: Digging Just The Right-Sized Hole

QUOTE | “We don’t want to dig too big a hole.” – Oculus VP of product Nate Mitchell, explaining why the company isn’t selling the Rift hardware below cost, at least for now. Elsewhere in the business of gaming this week… STAT | 38% – GameStop’s year-over-year increase in holiday software sales for Xbox One…

Slime Rancher Is A Very Cute Game About Ranching Slimes

Slime Rancher is a popular new Steam game where you adventure around, vacuum up smiley little slime creatures, plop them in a cage, and harvest their, um, poop. All the while, you try to stop them from growing miserable. It kills me to see them frown. A well-crafted start screen, I think, can provide a…

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

I didn’t do a “what are you playing?” post for January, so instead I’m going to do one for this coming weekend. Weekends are people, too! So: What are you playing these days? I’ll go first: If you’ve been listening to our Kotaku Splitscreen podcast, you already know that I’ve been playing a lot of…

Command & Conquer, Texas Style

Mike Colonnese is art director at the small studio Superweapon. He’s previously worked on games like Bastion and the Command & Conquer series. Superweapon’s latest game is Dawn of Steel. Oh, and Command & Conquer fans, the cel-shaded vehicles below (and the one up top) were concepts for Generals 2 You can see more of…

Someone Is Making A 3D Version Of Undertale

As you’ve heard us say over and over and over, Undertale is brilliant. It certainly didn’t need 3D to achieve that. The prospect of an extra-dimensional Undertale, though? Innnteresting. Russian game developer Edik Zykov doing the deed, applying Undertale’s 2D sprites to a 3D world. The end effect is… surprisingly not-horrible! It’s got a snazzy…