Culture

What Lurks Beneath

Jocelyn Joret is an artist based in Canada who has done work for companies like Ubisoft and Gameloft. You can see more of Jocelyn’s stuff at her ArtStation page

Throwing Paper Mario‘s Confetti Is My Happy Place

Sadly, it feels like I’m reaching the end of my time with Paper Mario: The Origami King. I’ve loved everything about it—well, almost everything—but my favorite part has got to be the simple act of tossing confetti around. The Mushroom Kingdom is in total disarray by the time you get to explore it thanks to…

A Salute To The Lovable Losers Of Pro Evo’s Master League

There’s a lot to make fun of when it comes to Konami’s Pro Evolution Soccer series and its inability to secure properly licensed teams/leagues, but one shining exception to this mockery is the game’s roster of fictional players, known as the “Master League Defaults”. While the specifics of who they are and how you use…

House Votes Down Amendment That Would Have Stopped The Military Recruiting Via Twitch

Following recent controversies surrounding the US military’s efforts to recruit teens via Twitch, Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez this week proposed an amendment that would have banned the armed forces from any further attempts. This evening, the proposal was voted down. When presenting the amendment, Ocasio-Cortez gave a speech where she outlined the way Twitch is…

Gigaleak Suggests Animal Crossing Could Have Been ‘Human Crossing’

Was Animal Crossing almost Human Crossing? Files unearthed in the massive Nintendo “Gigaleak” suggest that homo sapiens were once intended to appear in the first entry of the popular life-sim series, a Japan-only release called Animal Forest Some background: Animal Forest—or Dōbutsu no Mori, in Japanese—released in 2001 on the N64. Later that year, it…

Splinter Cell Is Getting An Anime Adaptation On Netflix

Ubisoft and Netflix have partnered to develop a Splinter Cell anime with John Wick creator Derek Kolstad as writer and executive producer, a representative for Ubisoft has confirmed to Kotaku According to earlier reporting by Variety, the Splinter Cell anime has already received a two-season, 16-episode order from Netflix. In speaking to Kotaku, Ubisoft would…

Streamers Are Misusing Twitch’s ‘Just Chatting’ Section, But It’s A Symptom Of A Larger Problem

Of all of Twitch’s non-gaming categories, “Just Chatting” seems to have the most clearly defined purpose. It’s for chatting. That’s it. And yet, after the platform dissolved its ill-defined “IRL” section into 13 different non-gaming categories in 2018, Just Chatting became its catch-all successor. Now it’s a juggernaut—Twitch’s top category. But it’s also clear evidence…

Animal Crossing Characters Can Hilariously Eat Shit Again

While the latest Animal Crossing: New Horizons update mostly focuses on fun summertime diversions, it’s time we give it up for the greatest addition to the island getaway simulator: tripping. Previous games in the Animal Crossing series included a hidden luck mechanic that would influence things like how much money dropped from trees, the rate…

Offbeat ’90s RPG Moon Finally Heads West August 27

The official English translation for “anti-RPG” Moon: Remix RPG Adventure will come out for Nintendo Switch on August 27, almost 23 years after it launched on the original PlayStation. Moon was the brainchild of the now-defunct Japanese studio Love-de-Lic, which was founded by a team of developers who had previously worked on games like Chrono…

How’s It Going?: Future Edition

It’s Thursday already, woo! Welcome back to our daily open thread. A friend and I were talking over Zoom about the future earlier this week, namely the near future of America’s November elections. Given how grim everything is these days, I tend to panic when I think too hard about what’s going to happen, which…

Animal Crossing: New Horizons Camera Glitch Is Back As An Official Feature

Players can once again show off their islands in clutter-free videos thanks to a new feature that dropped in last night’s Animal Crossing update which makes it possible to turn off the game’s HUD while using the in-game camera. Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ in-game camera makes it easy to automatically gets rid of these annoying…

2K’s New NFL Games Will Feature Real-Life Players

2K Games announced today that it’s struck a deal to be able to include the names, numbers, and likenesses of actual NFL pros in its upcoming football games. “We’re thrilled to be working with the NFLPA and OneTeam to bring the biggest and best stars in football to the games we’re working on,” the company’s…

Sonic & Friends

Moka is a freelance illustrator based in the UK. You can see more of Moka’s stuff at her ArtStationand Instagrampages.

New Nikes Are A “Gamer” Tribute

While modern sneaker collabs tend to be focused on contemporary games and series, this upcoming Blazer ‘77 by Nike is instead going in the opposite direction. Rather than being an exercise in marketing/branding for a particular company, this one is just a simple shout-out to video games, with a heavily pixellated swoosh and a colour…

Eight Years Into Development, Star Citizen Fans Are Increasingly Upset That Star Citizen Is Still Being Star Citizen

While the wider world has accepted that Star Citizen (and its singleplayer spin-off Squadron 42 campaign) are perhaps never coming out, those who paid for the game back in 2012—and have either paid or kept paying since—are growing increasingly unhappy at developer Cloud Imperium Games’ lack of apparent progress and communication. The latest bout of…

Oh God, Fortnite Made Peely Worse

Fortnite’s terrible banana has a new summer look, as part of yesterday’s Summer Legends cosmetic pack. It raises some questions, mainly: Dear God, why? This isn’t the first time Peely’s gotten a new skin. We’ve seen him dressed as 007 and as a half-rotten monster full of—oh my god—bones. He had his peel in those…

Noah Cyrus Made A New Video For ‘July’ In Dreams

Dreams players have been making a lot of creative things in the PlayStation 4 sandbox, including Mario games and a recreation of Adam Jensen’s swanky pad. Now, the biggest musicians in the world are getting in on the action. Yesterday, Noah Cyrus dropped a music video for her smash hit “July,” entirely created in Dreams…

During today’s Avengers War Table stream Square Enix announced the first hero to be joining the team after the game launches, Clint “Hawkguy” Barton. From what I’ve read, Hawkguy uses a bow and arrow and may, but probably doesn’t, transform into a hawk.

Sekiro Getting Boss Rush, New Costumes, and Message System In Free October Update

From Software’s excellent shinobi adventure Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is getting a free update on October 29 to coincide with the game’s arrival on Stadia, publisher Activision announced this morning The update will add an official boss rush mode to Sekiro (modders already did this last July), as well as brand new outfits for the…

Fans Spot Countless Differences In ‘Gigaleak’ Pokémon Diamond Prototype

Early prototypes of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl have emerged from the Nintendo “Gigaleak.” Like much else involved in this Snorlax-sized trove, it’s a lot to comb through, so Kotaku reached out to Pokémon expert Lewtwo to help sort through the many differences between the prototypes and the Diamond and Pearl we all know. Users on…