Culture

Call Of Duty Trailer Replaced Worldwide Over Tiananmen Square Footage

The debut trailer for Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War has been blocked in China, and subsequently edited everywhere else, after featuring around one second’s worth of footage from the Communist government’s crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in 1989 When the game was first announced last week, a trailer running for 2:02 was released to…

Streamer Drums His Way To Improbable Call Of Duty Headshot

Imagine being the person who got headshotted by a guy controlling Call of Duty with a drum set. What would you do? How would you react? Who would you become? This improbable kill, complete with a perfectly timed cymbal crash that caused several drummers who played for stand-up comedians back when that was a thing…

The Former Boss Of Activision Is Now Making Anti-Trump Dad Rock

That’s it. That’s the post. Let’s Remember Eric Hirshberg:

Workers Leave Skullgirls Developer Over Studio Head’s Behavior

Back in June, two people came forward to share their experiences with Mike “Mike Z” Zaimont, longtime fighting game player and lead developer behind indie darling Skullgirls, saying that he made inappropriate sexual comments to them on multiple occasions. Lab Zero Games, the studio behind Skullgirls, has yet to address the allegations, prompting employees to…

You Love But Also Hate To See Fall Guys Players Banding Together To Stop Hackers

Every once in a while, you come across a phenomenon that refuses to fit neatly into the otherwise universal boxes of “You love to see it” and “You hate to see it.” Case in point: Fall Guys players are teaming up to boot hackers into the ravenous nightmare abyss that consumes Guys when they Fall…

GTA Online Dataminers Find And Play Secret UFO Mission

Earlier this month, Grand Theft Auto Online received the big Summer Special update, which added a bunch of new cars, co-op missions, and other small quality-of-life changes. But buried in this update was a new secret mission involving a massive UFO and the theft of spaceship parts. While nobody yet knows how to actually activate…

Games Leaving Xbox Game Pass Gives Me Anxiety

In the dying hours of my work week I desperately tried to blast my way through Yoku’s Island Express. It is the quintessential Game Pass game; released in 2018 to a sanguine reception, as enthusiasts everywhere marveled at Villa Gorilla’s ability to merge pinball dexterity with Metroid-style puzzle solving, and it’s been sitting patiently in…

Phew, Cyberpunk 2077 Will Let You Embiggen Its Tiny Subtitles

CD Projekt Red recently shared a screenshot of a scene from Cyberpunk 2077 with subtitles turned on, which immediately made the internet’s eyes hurt. Fortunately, the publisher now says players will have some options for that tiny text bigger. Here’s the shot CD Project Red tweeted out on Friday: “Those subtitles are next to impossible…

How’s It Going? Badass Robot Warrior Edition

I don’t know about you folks, but my desk is protected by one of the Autobot’s greatest warriors. Welcome back to our daily open thread. I’ve been a fan of the Autobot’s first major female-identifying robot since she made her debut in Transformers: The Movie back in 1986. Other ladybots had appeared in the cartoon…

Half-Life: Alyx Speedrunner Isn’t Afraid To Get His Knees Dirty

Speedrunners do some crazy things in order to skip levels and invoke glitches. In the first virtual reality speedrun in Games Done Quick history, runner Buffet_Time literally crawls on his hands and knees to shave precious minutes off his time playing Half-Life: Alyx. Summer Games Done Quick is over, having raised more than $2 million…

Yakuza: Like a Dragon brings its freaky Japanese RPG vibes to the West on November 13. Sega says its spin-off launches on Xbox One, PC, PS4, and Xbox Series X (available when the console launches), with PS5 coming at a later date. They also made this new trailer. Good for them. 

The Week In Games: Welcome To Wasteland 3

2020 at times feels like the prologue of a post-apocalyptic game, so it seems like a perfect time for Wasteland 3 to release. Wasteland 2 is one of those games I keep wanting to play and then I just don’t get around to it for various reasons. I did try the Switch version and I…

Elemental Master Is Top-Tier Mega Drive Rock, But Skip These Remixes

Welcome to Morning Music, Kotaku’s new, daily hangout for folks who love video games and the cool-ass sounds they make. Today, a dose of pure, straight-up, 1990 Technosoft. These folks could make the Sega Genesis sing. One of my great childhood gaming surprises was a gently used copy of Thunder Force III. I don’t remember…

Road Trip

Maciej Rebisz is an artist at CD Projekt Red, developers of The Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077 We actually featured some of his work a few years ago, but since that was 2016 I figured we could post some newer stuff You can see more of Maciej’s stuff at his personal site and ArtStation page.

Summer Games Done Quick Raises Over $2 Million For Charity

Summer Games Done Quick has wrapped up after a week of streaming, and we got a week of very cool shit, some fun times, and over $2 million raised for Doctors Without Borders—also known by its better name, Médecins Sans Frontières. Despite this year’s event being an online-only show, and taking place amidst a soul-crushing…

Fall Guys Is Coming To Phones (In China At Least)

Fall Guys, which has only just launched on PC and PS4, is also coming to mobile phones at some point in the future. Chinese publisher Bilibili announced they’ve secured the rights to the game’s release in the region. The news was first announced to Western observers by analyst Daniel Ahmad: This comes despite game’s developers, Mediatonic,…

IKEA Recreates New Catalogue In Animal Crossing

IKEA’s new 2021 catalogue is out, and while it’s fine if IKEA catalogues are your thing, others might be more interested in the smaller, cuter Animal Crossing version instead. The company’s Taiwan division released the homage a few days back (which means these are Taiwanese dollars, before you look at the prices and die), and…

Track: Fancy | Artist: Orville Peck | Album: Show Pony

The Original Doom Used A Lot of Weird Sound Effects, Like Groaning Camels And Hissing Cats

While some of the sound effects in the original Doom were created just for the game, most of them actually came from sound libraries. This means dedicated fans with some time on their hands can actually dig around and find exactly where nearly every sound in the game comes from. Turns out camels are a…

‘Shop Contest: King Shark

Yesterday was a great day for King Shark fans, like myself. We got two different digital King Sharks. One from the recently announced game Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League and one from the upcoming Suicide Squad movie. This is a good thing. Let’s celebrate. Your challenge this week: Have some fun with King Shark!…