Culture

Up Close With The Hylian Shield

Nick Duarte is an artist based in Canada who has worked for companies like Electronic Arts. Nick, like most of us this week, is very excited about a new Zelda game You can see more of Nick’s work at his personal site and ArtStation page To see the images in their native resolution, click on…

Track: Beautiful Ones | Artist: Suede | Album: Coming Up  Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to – and gaming to – at the moment.

Podcast: Day Three Of GDC, With Special Guests

We’re back with our third and final Kotaku Splitscreen special episode from the Game Developers Conference in sunny San Francisco. To close out our Great GDC Trifecta, we’ve got Frank Cifaldi, founder of the new Video Game History Foundation, Kim Swift, design director at EA Motive, and Tim Schafer, some guy who likes drawing pictures…

Tracer Cosplay Is Almost Perfect

Blizzard, if you ever need a live-action Tracer for an Overwatch commercial, here’s your girl. This is Hoteshi, a cosplayer from Russia, and almost everything about this Tracer is 100%, from the hair to the thick jacket to the armour to (a lot of people get this wrong!) a proper Union Jack on her shoulder.…

Some Very Good Digital Sculptures

Marlon Nunez is an artist based in the UK who has worked on games like Project Cars. You can see more of Marlon’s work at his personal site and 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…

Horizon Player Is Blasting Off Again

Today on Highlight Reel we have Horizon Zero Dawn home runs, For Honor shoving matches, warping Battlefield enemies and 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!…

Brooding White Male Video Game Protagonists, Ranked

Video games are amazing, because you can be anyone or anything in the universe: a blue hedgehog! A ghost! A unicorn with rocket launchers! About 80% of the time, though, you get to be a brooding white guy. There are so many of them that it’s hard to keep track. And they all seem to…

Someone Is Speedrunning Breath Of The Wild Before It’s Even Out

An accomplished speedrunner has been working hard all week to get to the end of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild before the game is released. So far, he’s managed to reach the final boss in 50 minutes, but not beat it yet. This isn’t quite a shock. This new Zelda game, which…

The Art Of Horizon: Zero Dawn

Horizon: Zero Dawn isn’t just a very good game, it’s a very pretty game, and that goes all the way back to the game’s genesis with Guerilla’s art team. Below you’ll see a collection of images from throughout Horizon’s development, including work done by both Guerrilla’s in-house artists as well as those at design studio…

Track: White Wizard | Artist: Year of the Cobra | Album: …In The Shadows Below Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

Podcast: People Who Write (And Program) Video Games

We’re back for another Kotaku Splitscreen special from the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. Today we’re joined by storied RPG writer Chris Avellone, Double Fine senior gameplay programmer Anna Kipnis, and 80 Days writer Meg Jayanth. Jason and I talk with each guest about the games they’ve worked on, with conversation focusing on Alpha…

Chinese Mei Cosplay Has Plenty Of Chill

It’s a cruel fate for our eyeballs that Mei, who is the worst, often has some of the best Overwatch cosplay. In this case, it’s home-grown (for Mei), with Chinese cosplayer Husky Surely doing a damn fine job here. Is there too much photoshop going on in the background? You bet. Does it detract from…

Nintendo Switch Cartridges Taste So Bad [Update]

The Switch is almost upon us, and while there’s still a lot to discover about Nintendo’s latest console, one pressing question has been answered. “How do the cartridges taste?” So bad. Oh god, so bad. Update—Nintendo tells us what we’re tasting. The subject of the taste of Nintendo Switch cartridges was first raised by game…

Screenshots That Look Like Photos

Rense de Boer is a former DICE artist who is now doing his own thing in the name of “video game graphics that you’d think were photos if we hadn’t told you they were video game graphics”. We’ve featured some of his stuff previously on Kotaku, but he’s recently shared a collection of his 2016…

Cheering Up Twitter, One Cheap Cosplay At A Time

Thought Thailand had the market cornered on amazingly inexpensive and creatively odd cosplay? Nope! Japan has a contender of its own. Meet Takaya In the past few months, his low cost cosplays have started get traction on Twitter, sometimes getting thousands of retweets. Here are some of Takaya’s best costumes—many of which seem to result…

Podcast: We’re At The Game Developers Conference

This week on Kotaku Splitscreen, we’re doing a series of episodes form the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. Today Jason and I are joined by some familiar voices—frequent guest Matthew Burns comes on to talk about what GDC is all about, former-Kotaku editor Tina Amini drops in to talk about leaving the world of…

 Ghost Recon Player Believes He Can Fly

Today on Highlight Reel we have Titanfall plays, Battlefield 1 streaks, For Honor ladder plays, 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! Overwatch –…

Oh, Drats

Gareth Davies is a concept artist based in the UK. You can see more of Davies’ work at his personal site and 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…

Cherry Blossom McFlurry Coming To McDonalds Japan

Nothing quite says spring in Japan like…a McFlurry. During this season, many products, from yogurt to Starbucks, get limited edition sakura (cherry blossom) versions in Japan, which is probably why McDonald’s is rolling out a special spring McFlurry.  According to Entabe, this frozen treat comes with sakura-colored waffle cone bits accented with pickled cherry blossom…

Track: Reine | Artist: il:lo | Album: Places Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.