Culture

The Only Five Valve News Stories That You Ever Read

A wise person once defined insanity as “watching Valve do the same thing over and over, and expecting different results.” Once a quiet enigma, popping out an all-time classic video game once every handful of years, Valve now does a bunch of stuff—largely centered around hardware and updating Steam—announcing these efforts without much in the…

A New World Record For Beating Fallout: New Vegas Fast

Watch in awe as speedrunner Kungkobra destroys Fallout: New Vegas in a mere 13:45. The last time we wrote about New Vegas speedruns, the “any percentage” record was just under 20 minutes. Since then, a handful of minutes have been shaved off, yes, but the central mechanics have also changed a bit, too: Those who…

The 300th episode of our long-running show Highlight Reel airs tomorrow, and we’re still taking clips! If you’ve got a game moment you’d like on the 300th episode, send it to us at [email protected]!

When You Order A Sword Off The Internet And It’s The Wrong Size

Tatyana Latypova is an artist from Russia. You can see more of Tatyana’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 work of video game artists, showcasing the best of both their professional and…

Stay Classy, Anchorman Cosplay

ronburgundy3 nailed pretty much everything for this shot, which was taken at Kansas City’s Planet Comicon last month. Photo by Eugene Photography

Valve Wants To Be More Transparent About How Busy Steam Customer Support Is

For years, Valve has faced heavy criticism over lackluster customer service efforts. On the upside, they’ve confessed that they need to improve, and things are definitely better than they were in Peak Badness Year 2015. But there’s still a long way to go. The next step? Making customer support data public. Valve has launched a…

Tell ‘Em, Sailor Moon

Iris Muddy is a freelance concept artist and illustrator based in France who has worked for companies like Hasbro and Massive Black. You can see more of Iris’ 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…

Video Game Graphics Took A Huge Leap In The Early 2000s

In the late 90s, video games sat on the precipice of a 3D graphics revolution. Everything was about to change, and it was gonna change fast Last week on Kotaku Splitscreen, Jason Schreier and I were joined by veteran video game programmer Brett Douville. Douville started out at LucasArts in 1998, where he worked on…

When Fans Take Their Love For Twitch Streamers Too Far

It was one in the morning when the Twitch streamer Ellohime heard a knock at his front door. He had been grinding away at a PC game that night in December 2015 while his infant daughter and fiancée slept. His 22-year-old brother was crashing in the central Florida home, too, and it wasn’t unheard of…

Battlefield 1 Player Just Trying To Reload

Today on Highlight Reel we have nutsmiths, Battlefield 1 reloads, Titanfall Spiderman, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe 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! Dishonored…

Helping Move Blizzard’s Awesome Cinematics

Casey McDermott is a Senior Animator at Blizzard Animation, where he gets to work on all those incredible shorts and cinematics that the company releases for games like Overwatch. Below you’ll see his latest showreel, highlighting the work he’s done on stuff like Bastion’s short film, Sombra’s reveal and StarCraft II You can see more…

Snacktaku Eats Arby’s Smokehouse Pork Belly Sandwich

There is a place that is both before and beyond bacon, and Arby’s dares take us there, at least for a limited time. Whatever other plans Snacktaku had this week died at the feet of Arby’s Smokehouse Pork Belly sandwich. Originally posted 9/29/16. Re-upped because they brought this glorious bastard back today, just in time…

Overwatch’s Captain Amari, Reporting For Duty

Here’s Lunar Crow as Ana’s Captain Amari skin from Overwatch. Photos by D.I.S/C Photography In keeping with the Overwatch theme, she also does one hell of a Symmetra:

Track: Amateur Sketch | Artist: Municipal Waste | Album: Slime and Punishment Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

The Best Cosplay From The Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo

The Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo, aka C2E2, is one of the biggest nerd shows in the country. It was held earlier this month, and there sure was a lotta good cosplay there. Below is a selection of some of the best of it, with all photos and video taken by Mineralblu. You can see…

The Week In Games: Preying For More 

It feels like only yesterday a giant open-world game was coming out every week. But alas here we are, inching towards the summer drought like a caterpillar in a cabbage patch. The Nintendo Switch is getting a game, which is good. And the NeoGeo compilations continue on a pace. Otherwise beyond Bethesda’s Prey it’s slim…

Kingdom Hearts Speedrun Ruined Eight Hours In Thanks To Saving Glitch

No one likes having their game crash on them, but it’s gotta be especially painful when you’re in the middle of marathon speedrunning session That’s what happened to Bl00dyBizkitz in the middle of a platinum trophy attempt in Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix on PS4 (available as part of the 2.5 Remix compilation). Over eight…

Podcast: Stories From LucasArts And Bethesda

Veteran programmer Brett Douville joins today’s Kotaku Splitscreento talk about LucasArts, Bethesda, and much more. Kirk and I start off the show by talking about the new indie games What Remains Of Edith Finch and The Sexy Brutale before jumping into this week’s news: the announcement of Call of Duty: WWII (13:01), an Overwatch player’s…

Sunday Comics: The Boss’s Bandanna 

Welcome to Kotaku’s Sunday Comics, your weekly roundup of the best webcomics that usually occurs on Sunday except when it doesn’t. The images enlarge if you click on the magnifying glass icon. Nerf NOW!! by Josué Pereira. Published April 27. Read more of Nerf NOW!! Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich. Published April 24. Read more…

Kotaku ‘Shop Contest: The Stare Of Duty, Winners!

And that’s it! All the entries are in and after looking through all of them, I think one thing is clear: the events of WWII have been terribly misunderstood. Congrats to this week’s winner: Ravel. What can I say, I love me some War Horse. He single-hoofedly won the first great war, so why not…