Culture

Watch The Final Day Of The Weeklong Awesome Games Done Quick Charity Marathon

It’s almost the end of the 2017 Awesome Games Done Quick at the Hilton Washington Dulles Airport Hotel in Herndon, VA. Speedrunners from the far corners of the internet meet in person to raise money for charity by playing their favorite games apace. Along with its summer variant, the Awesome Games Done Quick marathon has…

This Week In The Business: Modest Expectations For Nintendo’s Switch

STAT | 50% – The percentage of developers who believe the Nintendo Switch can outsell the Wii U, according to a GDC survey. QUOTE | “It’s telling developers: ‘You’re on notice here. We’re going to dominate this thing. And your freedom is going to expire at some point.’ It’s a terrible precedent to set.” –…

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

I get a long weekend! That’s three whole days to play video games! Earlier this week I solicited your advice for help finishing The Witcher 3. You all had such great stories of perseverance and how worth it the game is, so this weekend I’m putting a moratorium on Overwatch and Rocket League and Hitman…

Ask Dr. NerdLove: I Wish I Were A Little Bit Taller

Hello, sexy munchkins of the Interwebs. Welcome to Ask Dr. NerdLove, the dating column that helps your Genji find the Mercy of his dreams. It’s one thing to take time to work on issues that make dating more difficult, but what if those issues are out of your control? Can you still date successfully when…

DC Collectibles’ Latest Puts Gotham City PD’s Plight In Perspective

Along with new Batman and Zatana statues and a pair of Teen Titan-ic plushes, DC Collectibles coolest upcoming release is the Batman Animated GCPD Rogues Gallery five-pack, which demonstrates how screwed Gotham’s police force would be without Batman. Ignore the turtle. The figures are outstanding, as is the norm with DC Collectibles Batman: The Animated…

Speedrunners Tear Through The Original Final Fantasy

If you’re a Final Fantasy fan, there are far worse ways to spend a few hours than to watch this wonderful AGDQ speedrun of the first game on NES. In this run, which lasts around four hours, speedrunners Feasel and Gyre (along with puwexil on the couch) power through Final Fantasy using all sorts of…

Prompto Doesn’t Care About Your New Recipe, Ignis

Today on Highlight Reel we have new recipes, Rainbow 6 Montagne strategies, perfectly synchronized titans, rodeos, face glitches 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…

Mighty No. 9 Is Better When You’re Watching Someone Else Play

Mighty No. 9 was less Mega Man revival and more colorful train wreck, but in the skillful hands of speedrunner GreenZSaber, playing the game during theAwesome Games Done Quick charity marathon Wednesday evening, it’s a much more entertaining train wreck. While my attempt to play through Keiji Inafune’s Kickstarted embarrassment took hours on normal difficulty,…

Podcast: Every Video Game* Of 2016

As has become annual tradition, join me and Kirk for a long trip through the video games of 2016 on this week’s Kotaku Splitscreen. UPDATE (1/12): Now with parts one AND two! In part one of the show, we cover January through June. Listen here. (MP3 download here.) In part two of the show, we cover…

Lay’s Wants Your Stupid Potato Chip Flavors Again

The Lay’s Do Us A Flavor contest returns for a fourth year, once more offering budding snackologists who come up with a halfway edible new potato chip flavor a million dollars. Previous winners include the obvious choice, thebad one andI wasn’t paying attention. After skipping a year to perform a Flavor Swap operation, Do Us…

Disco Stew Likes Disco Stew

Jan Weßbecher is an artist from Germany working mostly in the games business. You can see more of Jan’s art at his personal siteand 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,…

Track: Waterloo Sunset | Artist: The Kinks | Album: Something Else by The Kinks Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

Track: 100 Miles And Runnin’ | Artist: NWA | Album: 100 Miles and Runnin’ Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

Overwatch Cosplay As An Action Movie [Update]

Rather than just standing around lookin’ sharp, these Overwatch cosplayers have gone to the trouble of creating their own little action-packed movie, which plays out kinda like Widowmaker’s official short, only with actual humans. UPDATE – For some reason, the video keeps disappearing off the internet, both on YouTube and Facebook. We’ll get a copy…

We’ve Two Weeks To Prepare For Taco Bell’s Fried Chicken Taco Shell

January 26 shall be known as the day the taco shell changed forever, or at least the day Taco Bell started folding up fried chicken patties and calling it a Naked Chicken Chalupa. Realizing that we’re almost two weeks into 2017 and there hasn’t been a Snacktaku video, Taco Bell has lept into action, readying…

A Game Where You Play As The Boss In Classic Boss Fights

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, boss fights are a time-honored video game tradition. Nefarious is a game that turns The Old Ways on their head. You’re the boss taking on a band of annoyingly plucky heroes. You might even recognize some of the boss fights. Here’s what the game looks like: If you’ve played Sonic…

Overwatch Cosplayer Donates Hair For A Good Cause 

After growing out her hair for three years, cosplayer Pion Kim decided to have her head shaved for a Sombra cosplay. However, she put those discarded locks to good use. On her Naver blog (via tipster Sang), Pion gave a behind-the-scenes look at the cosplay.  Even the official BlizzardSombra cosplay didn’t involve clippers!  After she…

Husk is a horror game that deals with themes like domestic abuse and childhood trauma. It’s being billed as a tribute to horror classics like Silent Hill. Also, it takes place in a town called “Shivercliff,” because everyone makes mistakes. The game will be out next month.

None Of 2016’s Most-Played Steam Games Came Out In 2016

The sheer number of games on Steam is overwhelming, and more new ones come out per day than ever before. Despite that, Steam’s upper echelon has calcified, with an Old Guard looking down from the top of the most-played list at all the peasants below. GitHyp, a tool that tracks Steam’s most-played games (among other…

Help Me Finish The Witcher 3

The new year means it’s time for resolutions. This year I’d like to practice my guitar more, be as fit as I was in my 20s, figure out my romantic life—but I probably won’t do any of those things. But I might, with your help, finish The Witcher 3. My colleague Patricia and I were talking…