Culture

Nuns With Guns

Lola Zhang in an artist based in Pasadena. You can see more of Lola’s stuff at her ArtStation page

A Tekken Legend’s Visit To Pakistan Is Met With Both Cheers And Drama

Over the last year, Pakistan’s fighting game community has risen from relative obscurity to a place of prominence thanks to a handful of its players winning major Tekken 7 tournaments on the world stage. The country has garnered so much attention, in fact, that South Korean veteran Jae-Min “Knee” Bae traveled there last week to…

Man Accused Of Using His PlayStation 4 To Sell Cocaine

Last month, the FBI got in touch with Sony and requested information on a PlayStation 4 user who it’s alleged has been using the PlayStation Network to sell cocaine at “$34,000 per kilogram.” As Motherboard report, the request came in the form of a search warrant filed on October 22, which was asking Sony for…

Halo: Reach Launches On PC, Becomes Third Most Played Game On Steam

The remaster of Halo: Reach came out on PC today, marking the series’ return to the platform after 12 long years, and Steam users have given it a Spartan’s welcome, with over 100,000 people playing at the same time making it one of the top five games on Valve’s storefront The game’s only been out…

Psychiatrist Brings Streamer To Tears During Confessional Stream

Everyone could benefit from therapy, especially streamers. While popular streamer Byron “Reckful” Bernstein’s on-stream conversation with Dr. Alok Kanojia was not an officially designated counseling session, it resembled one at times. Bernstein is a former top World of Warcraft player and current streamer who’s now working on his own online game, Everland. Over the years,…

In The Valley Of The Gods ‘On Hold’ As Developers Work On Other Valve Games

Campo Santo’s follow-up to Firewatch, In the Valley of the Gods, was supposed to be out at the end of 2019. Since being bought by Valve, however, the game’s situation has changed. In a statement sent to Polygon, Campo Santo co-founder Jake Rodkin explains that since the purchase, the In the Valley of the Gods…

Hey do you like Donkey Kong and do you want to listen to me yell about Donkey Kong for like two hours? Here you go, it’s the latest Retronauts podcast

Let Me Choose My Own Pokémon Uniform You Cowards

At the Gyms in Pokémon Sword and Shield, you can buy cool, alternate uniforms for your little Pokémon Trainer. You’ll win the uniforms of Gym Leaders you defeat as well. You won’t be able to wear them to Gym Battles, though, and that’s bullshit. Look at how cool this Poison Type Gym Uniform is: I…

The SNES Pixel Book Captures The Magic Of Super Nintendo Graphics

There’s something soothing about printed 16-bit art. The way the page captures the color and composition of pixels, capturing a moment of gaming in time. Flipping through UK-based Bitmap Books’ SNES Pixel Book provides that good feeling in page after page of Super Nintendo history. When we play older video games (or watch others play)…

Our Best (And Worst) Memories Of The PlayStation, 25 Years Later

On this day 25 years ago, the Sony PlayStation released in Japan. A lot of us here at Kotaku have pretty fond memories of the PlayStation, from bartering for access with our siblings to sitting in dark, dusty basements, illuminated only by the light of an old TV and some sharp, sharp polygons. Take a…

Mario Kart Is Apple’s Most Downloaded Game Of 2019

Last night in New York City, Apple held its annual celebration of the best and most downloaded games and apps across its platforms. The iPhone game of the year is ThatGameCompany’s gorgeous social adventure Sky: Children of the Light, with the outstanding Hyper Light Drifter winning iPad game of the year. Neither of those critical…

Red Dead Online Will Let You Make And Sell Moonshine Next Week

Get ready to make some moonshine, because the next big Red Dead Online update, releasing December 13, will add moonshine running, underground bars, and new missions, as well as a new Outlaw pass and weapon. Moonshiner is the first new career Rockstar has announced since adding roles in an RDO update in September. This new…

Destiny 2‘s Next Season Is All About Osiris, Saint-14 And… Time?

Rough time for our biggest Destiny 2 expert to be on jury duty, folks, but here we are with some unskippable news. Bungie just posted a trailer to hype the Season of Dawn, which will run in Destiny 2 from December 10 through March 9. Whoa, that’s Saint-14! [Googles “Saint-14”…] Here’s the setup, spinning out…

Valve Finally Ran Out Of Steam Controllers

Valve’s Steam Controller, once useful for allowing players to enjoy their favorite games on televisions around the house, is pretty much dead. Following the Autumn Steam sale that drastically reduced prices, Valve is giving refunds as stock runs out. As reported by PC Gamer, the stock of Steam Controllers is drying up. The controller’s original…

I Love Having My Own Spaceship In Video Games (And In Real Life)

Here’s a good way to win me over in both real life and in video games: Give me a damn spaceship. If you did, you’d find that the majority of my complaints against your considerable flaws (we all have them, except Toad, who is the best) would disappear. Because I now have a spaceship, and…

The Art Of Obsidian’s The Outer Worlds

The Outer Worldsis one of the best games of the year, so it’s a treat tonight to be sharing some of the concept art that went into the game’s production. Below is a sample of work from some of the artists responsible for the game’s look, ranging from character art to weapon design to environments…

Arkham Horror‘s April Fool’s Gag, Barkham Horror, Becomes Real Game

Earlier this year, Fantasy Flight’s April Fool’s joke was to announce an expansion to Arkham Horror’s card game called The Dogwich Legacy, in which the human heroes were replaced by dogs and the Lovecraftian horrors by cats. The joke came and went, but people loved it so much that it’s now an actual game. Barkham…

Civilization VI Bug Crashes Game Unless You Declare War

There’s a bug affecting the Switch version of Civilization VI at the moment that’s causing the game to crash just before the player claims victory, and the current solution is maybe not the most ideal for anyone with a pacifist’s approach to the game. This Reddit thread (via Eurogamer), beginning with one person complaining about…

YouTube Is Relaxing Its Rules Against Video Game Violence

In a “Policy enforcement update” posted earlier today, YouTube announced a series of changes coming to the site’s content moderation, most of them centred around new distinctions between actual real-world violence and the “scripted or simulated violence” you see in video games. Starting today, “scripted or simulated violent content found in video games will be…

Twitch Briefly Bans One Of The Biggest Moderation Bots

If allowed to chatter and meme unchecked, Twitch chat can grow into an unstoppable avalanche of ugly behavior. Many streamers rely on at least a handful of volunteer or paid moderators, as well as chat bots that allow streamers to auto-block specific terms, stop spam before it starts, and quarantine questionable comments. Yesterday, Twitch accidentally…