Culture

Heat Signature Is A Thrilling Game About Spaceship Heists

Heat Signature’s clock is ticking. Ten seconds until I get detected in an enemy spaceship, and I haven’t even assassinated my target. Finally, I find them. It’s over in one cruel slice of my long blade, but the timer is still counting down, and the ship is a labyrinthine hulk. I run. I see a…

Game Of Thrones Has Some Beautiful Paintings In The Background

Game of Thrones is shot in some pretty exotic locations, and also has some great CG work, but not everything you see on the screen is a mix of real life and computer wizardry. There’s still room for good old-fashioned matte painting when it comes to the scenic backdrops. Artist Simone De Salvatore has shared…

Working For Nintendo Used To Be Hell, But At Least We Got Cool Music Out Of It

Super Metroid has one of the most famous themes in video games. If you’ve ever wondered where it came from, you’ve got the nightmarish working conditions of 1990s video game development (and some impromptu one-man karaoke) to thank for it. In an interview on Nintendo’s site, Composer Kenji Yamamoto remembers that during the development of…

XCOM 2: War Of The Chosen, As Told By Steam Reviews

XCOM 2: War of the Chosen is a turn-based Shakespearean tragedy generator, and also there are aliens. Steam users have been sharing their tales of devastation, woe, and, every once in a while, victory. I was expecting to enjoy the expansion, but I had no idea just how much Shadow of Mordor-like personality it would…

Track: Makunouchi Sadistic | Artist: Tokyo Jihen | Album: Muzai Moratorium Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

This is a real giant gyoza. Well, no, sorry, this is a plastic giant gyoza but the shop in question really does sell this impossibly humongous pan-fried dumpling, which serves 20 people and costs 9,600 yen, or just about a hundred bucks. It says if you eat it in an hour, it’s free. I would…

Pac-Man 3D Cookies are the most popular exclusive product in the Shinjuku VR Zone gift shop. The images of Pac-Man and Blinky on the cookies are printed in red-blue 3D, so when you pop on the included goggles, your food jumps out at you. Guaranteed to be better than that curry

Persona 5 Cosplay Won’t Hold Back

Here’s Calssaraas Ann, from Persona 5. Photos by Captured

Virtual Reality Drawing Brings Overwatch Art To Life

Liz Edwards is an artist who, in a previous life, was a 3D character artist at Total War developers Creative Assembly. She is now a 3D artist in a more direct sense. She’s shifted over recently to doing a lot of work in virtual reality, which lets people sketch in 3D, transforming rough linework into…

Play As A Giant Robot Who Wants To Save Humanity, Accidentally Ruin Planets

It’s not easy being a giant robot with a body better suited to destroying planets than saving them, especially not when people react to your noble, monster-vaporizing efforts with bullets and lasers of their own. Jettomero, though, doesn’t really mind. He just wants to make sure everybody’s alright. Jettomero: Hero of the Universe is a…

Heavy Rain Modded Into A Nightmare

Today on Highlight Reel we have modding nightmares, Battlefield assists, FIFA celebrations, 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! Catch up on all the…

Valve’s Solution To Steam Review Bombing Is To Add Charts

For years, Steam has struggled with the issue of review bombing, where large numbers of users leave negative reviews on games’ pages, often because of controversial subject matter or news that doesn’t actually impact the game’s quality. Today, Valve finally addressed the problem. Sorta. In a new blog post, Valve announced that it’s decided to…

Look At This Magic: The Gathering Cosplay

That’s not a specific character. It’s a suit of armour made entirely out of Magic cards. Made by TechnicolorTraveler, it consists not only of a full suit (helmet, gauntlets, boots, etc) but a sword and shield as well. Oh, and also a cape! All of them made out of Magic cards. In case you were…

Luke Skywalker, That Is An Unorthodox Approach

Robin Florie is a concept artist based in the Netherlands. The last game he worked on is Walking Dead: March to War, a mobile strategy game based on the comic/TV series. You can see more of Robin’s work at his personal site To see the images in their native resolution, click on the “expand” button…

I don’t think anyone’s ever looked at Counter-Strike and said, “Man, I really wish that was a fighting game,” but Chris Le’s video might change some minds. It re-imagines CSGO as a hyper over-the-top fighter with juggle combos, supers, and even an announcer. No, it’s not and probably never will be playable, but it’s fun…

Divinity: Original Sin 2 Let Me Turn A Giant Boss Into A Chicken

Divinity: Original Sin 2 pro tip: when all else fails, try turning your enemies into chickens. Seriously. Warning: slight Divinity: Original Sin 2 spoilers ahead. Things were actually going pretty well until a giant worm from The Void popped out of the earth. I wouldn’t say I was fighting a flawless battle against Bishop Alexander,…

Track: WanteD! WanteD! | Artist: Mrs. Green Apple | Album: WanteD! WanteD! (single)  Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

Track: Liquid Swords | Artist: GZA | Album: Liquid Swords Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

Old Soldiers Never Die

Victor Quaresma is an artist who works across both video games and animation at visual development studio Volta. You may have recently seen some of his designsin Mass Effect Andromeda. You can see more of Victor’s work athis ArtStation page To see the images in their native resolution, click on the “expand” button in the…

Why Some Video Game Fonts Are Better Than Others

What makes video game fonts look good? And why does Final Fantasy VI’s Steam and iOS text feel so amateurish? Today on Kotaku Splitscreen, we’ve got an expert typographer to give us the answers. First, Kirk and I talk Mario + Rabbids before jumping into news like L.A. Noire Switch(19:54), Apple announcements (25:38), and Pewdiepie’s…