Culture

Watch All Of Valve’s Portal VR Demo

Valve’s been showing a demo of a virtual reality Portal game behind closed doors for a few months. Now, finally, you can see the whole thing. ValveTime filmed their playthrough of the Aperture VR demo at a recent game jam in London. It’s not the best view ever (unfortunately, they weren’t able to get direct…

A Difficult Castle To Crash

Florent Lebrun is a matte painter and 3D artist who is based in Canada. You can see more of Florent’s work athis ArtStation page To see the larger pics in all their glory (or, if they’re big enough, so you can save them as wallpaper), click on the “expand” button in the top-left corner. Fine…

Even Cosplayers Are Sad About Half-Life 3

Fanime 2015 went down in May, and photographer Viktor Vatici has been kind enough to send in the fantastic pics he took at the show. All cosplayers with credits are listed below. If you know any of those not listed, let me know! Chell by Meagan Marie Gordon Freeman by Kyle Taylor, aka The Real…

The Week In Game: Zombie Bikini Madness

Do you like zombies? Bikinis? Fountains of blood? Have you completely no shame? Then have I got the game for you. That’s right, this week sees the release of Onechanbara Z2: Chaos for North American PlayStation 4, finally bringing the game that inspired the most embarrassing gameplay experience of 2014 to the States. If you…

Sunday Comics: It’s Not Easy

Welcome to Kotaku’s Sunday Comics, your weekly roundup of the best webcomics. The images enlarge if you click on the magnifying glass icon. Nerf NOW!! by Josué Pereira. Published July 18. Read more of Nerf NOW!! Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich. Published July 13. Read more of Awkward Zombie Penny Arcade by Jerry Holkins and…

This Week In The Business: That Poor Sandcastle

QUOTE | “There is always the person who’s got to stand on the sand castle, they must crush it. That’s their way of relating to that. It’s typically a less sophisticated mind.” – Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford, talking about the people who have complained about the company’s games. Elsewhere in the business of games this…

A Horror Game Based On A Real Place

Horror games, movies, and books are at their scariest when things get a bit too real. OK, let’s get this out of the way upfront: a lot of horror games do the whole “this asylum was actually twisted and fucked up and at some point everybody became zombies or something” thing. It’s a cliche, one…

Track: Lift Me Up | Artist: Vince Staples | Album: Summertime ‘06 Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to – and gaming to – at the moment.

There’s Still No Plan For The God of Peter Molyneux’s Godus

Peter Molyneux’s Curiosity experiment ended with a whimper. It basically functioned as a giant advertisement for the “God of Gods” feature in then-upcoming god game revival Godus. Years later, there are still no plans for how they’ll actually, you know, do any of it. The God of Gods feature would’ve seen Bryan Henderson, the winner…

Mario, Luigi & Wario Cosplayers Crash The Tour De France

If you need the music for this kind of atheticism, here it is (via Reddit) UPDATE: Here’s a still:

A Metroid TV Series That Looks Like This, Please

Alberto Camara is an artist at Rovio in Finland, where he’s worked on a whole bunch of Angry Birds games. Not that there are any Angry Birds pictures in this gallery. You can see more of Alberto’s work at his personal site and ArtStation page To see the larger pics in all their glory (or,…

Welp, That’s It For Besiege

Here lies Besiege. It was massacred by a giant elephant robot monster. Yes, people are still making stuff in Besiege—stuff more elaborate and terrifying than anything they were making back when everybody was paying attention. This elephant is goddamn absurd. Between layers upon layers of armor and so many methods of attack that I lost…

New Skyrim Mod Is Basically A Skyrim Expansion

Skyrim mods, they’re the gift that keeps on giving. Years after the fantasy RPG kingpin came out, we’re seeing stuff that’s practically professional-quality. The Forgotten City could be mistaken for a full-on Bethesda-made expansion. It’s not quite on Enderal’s level, but there’s still a lot to be cautiously optimistic about. Check it out: The mod…

Ask Dr. Nerdlove: How Do I Save This Relationship?

Hello, Internet! Welcome to Ask Dr. NerdLove, the only dating column that believes in UFOs, astral projections, mental telepathy, ESP, clairvoyance, spirit photography, telekinetic movement, full trance mediums, the Loch Ness monster and the theory of Atlantis. This week, we’re talking about how to handle the end of a relationship, whether you’re watching things fall…

That Is Not How You Build Aircraft

Sean Hayden is an artist from the UK who has been working in the games business for a few years now. You can see more of Sean’s work at his personal site To see the larger pics in all their glory (or, if they’re big enough, so you can save them as wallpaper), click on…

Witcher 3 Injury Is Definitely Not Serious, Nope

On today’s episode of Highlight Reel we have Witcher 3 arm injuries, Rocket League saves, Halo killing sprees and a very special Splatoon memorial. Watch the video above, then link any of your favorite highlights in the comments, and be sure to check out, like and subscribe the original videos via the links below. Witcher…

Game Offers Rewards For Steam Reviews, Players Not Pleased

When you’re a small game on Steam, reviews can be hard to come by. This isn’t a good solution to that problem. For the past few days, debate has been raging over Epic Cards Battle, a Steam port of a mobile trading card game. The issue? In an attempt to garner more Steam reviews, the…

This Year’s Lay’s ‘Do Us A Flavor’ Finalists Sound Damn Tasty

Later this month potato chip fans from around the country will vote the determine which of these flavors is worth a million dollars. This is going to be a tough one. For the third year in a row Lay’s “Do Us A Flavor” competition has solicited new potato chip flavor ideas from across the country,…

So Furious

Janice Chu is a concept artist and illustrator who works at Digital Extremes, the developers of Warframe. We’ve actually featured some of Janice’s art before, when she made those sweet Last of Us images and sent them to Naughty Dog, but this is a more complete look at her impressive portfolio. You can see more…

Steam Game Pits Gamers Against Developers, Nobody Wins

If you’ve followed video games for more than five minutes, you’ve seen players and creators clash. The constant tug-of-war over what devs think is best and what players want, the tremendous aid an active fan community can provide versus the volcanic damage that can come from miscommunication (or something worse), the floss-thin tightrope dangling over…