Culture

How’s It Going?: Drink More Water Edition

You look like you need a nice rest and maybe some conversation. Come on in. Don’t worry about paying, our daily open threads are free to all. Over the last few years of my life, I’ve really tried to increase my daily intake of water. (Especially because I do shit like this to my body.)…

No Regrets

This week we listen to some cool music, learn about the alien invasion happening in EVE Online, find out the who’s the next character being added To DB FighterZ, get verified by Jesus, celebrate co-op coming to Untitled Goose Game and meet a kitten who was hungry and didn’t fear death. Great Kotaku Content From…

Why Do Classic Uno Video Game Intros Go So Hard

While the social dynamics can be interesting, I wouldn’t call Uno the most exciting game in the world, and that naturally extends to its many video games. Someone didn’t get the memo when they were working on the intros for these Japan-exclusive adaptations, which seem like they belong to completely different genres until their titles…

Apple Court Filing Says Epic Asked For Special Deal Before All This Nonsense Started

When we last left the legal battle between Epic Games and Apple, the game maker had requested the court prevent Apple from removing its games and dev tool access from the App Store. Today, Apple fired back in a filing opposing the request, producing an email dated June 30 from Epic CEO Tim Sweeney asking…

2000’s JRPG ‘Summer Of Adventure’ Saw Square At The Height Of Its Powers

Twenty years ago this month Square released Chrono Cross, a big, beautiful mess of a game bursting at the seams with style, atmosphere, and Japanese RPG minutia. But it wasn’t the only major game Square released that summer. The publisher also delivered Threads of Fate and Legend of Mana, two other games that riffed on…

Confessions Of A Fall Guys Grabber

If you’ve played Fall Guys, this has happened to you: You’re about to cross the finish line. Everything’s looking great. Then, out of nowhere, some jerk grabs you. A bunch of other pastel-colored beans sprint by. Just like that, you’re disqualified. The person who disqualified you was me—and I’m not sorry. Fall Guys is a…

Batman Arkham Developer Rocksteady Responds To Harassment Claims

Rocksteady Studios released a statement on Twitter today addressing recent claims that it failed to respond to concerns about sexual harassment at the studio, saying it “dealt with issues raised” in the past, and is committing to work with an independent third-party to address any new complaints that might come up in the future. On…

I’m Sorry To Say Laurence Fishburne Died In The 2005 Matrix MMORPG

One of the MMO's biggest plot points was the assassination of Morpheus

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

The weekend is for doing things in video games you would never do in real life. Like shooting people, crashing cars, or playing golf. I am a video game golfer. I like the idea of using a stick to hit a ball into a hole very far away. It’s all the other stuff involved in…

Crysis Remastered Comes Out In September, For Real This Time, Probably

After lots of leaks, confusion, and backtracking, Crysis Remastered finally has a new release date and it’s coming to PS4, Xbox One, and PC on September 18. The remaster, which is only of the first game in the series and doesn’t include any multiplayer, will have a number of graphical updates like ray-traced reflections and…

Here’s Everything Destiny 2 Is Losing Later This Year

Bungie went into more detail about what precisely will be disappearing from Destiny 2 later this year, when the studio begins vaulting content for the the first time in game’s history and…it’s a lot. The base game’s main campaign will all but disappear and most of its existing free-to-play content along with it. The Destiny…

Strider’s Most Disappointing Console Port Had The Best Soundtrack

Welcome to Morning Music, Kotaku’s new, daily hangout for folks who love video games and the cool-ass sounds they make. Today I’ll disparage Capcom’s arcade classic Strider and then try to win back your trust by praising its music. A bold strategy! Let’s see if it pays off. Sega’s 1990 Genesis conversion of Capcom’s 1989…

Track: Prism | Artist: Bully | Album: SUGAREGG

Microsoft Flight Simulator’s Melbourne Monolith Was Created By A Typo

Typos can do incredible things to video games, like causing Gandhi to nuke people senseless for over two decades. And in the case of Microsoft Flight Simulator, it’s a typo that’s caused Ȁ̛̺̪̳͔͓̀̔̏LL͈̟͒͐ ̦͕̭̅̄̾H̢̧̡̛̝͑͒͘A͎̽I̩̟͚̊̾̿̆͢L̢̉ ͖̤͕̆̀͠T͖̓H̡͠E̠͝ ̞̹͛͡S̤̥̱̮̊̑͐̀͊͢Ṕ̤͍͎̜̇̉̚͢͝I̼̥͂̉R̘̓Ę̜̖̀̈́͠. Microsoft Flight Simulator pulls data from Bing Maps, and so any peculiarities or anomalies with Bing Maps data were…

Art Of Rally, A Minimal Driving Game, Looks Fantastic

I covered Art of Rally back in early 2019when it was supposed to be out in late 2019. That obviously didn’t happen, but a delayed game can always be a better game, and Art of Rally sure is looking nicer than the last time we saw it. It’s now due…sometime later this year on PC

A DSLR Lens On A Game Boy Continues To Rule

I knowI’ve written about this before, but I just love it so much, and this video is so good that I’m going to do it again. Reader Sam was messing around with the same 3D-printed DSLR mod that I wrote about in 2018, but instead of using it to massively zoom in on stuff like…

Fall Guys Was Almost Called Stumble Chums

Game development, like any creative endeavor, is an iterative exercise in brainstorming and fine-tuning. A recent Twitter thread by Mediatonic creative director Jeff Tanton gave everyone a brief glimpse into that process as it pertained to Fall Guys, which apparently had several possible titles before the studio settled on its final name. Fall Guys got…

Flight Simulator Pilots Make 16-Hour Flight From LA To Dubai In Real Time

One of the big draws with Microsoft’s new Flight Simulator is that it recreates the entire planet to scale. What that means is, if you want, you can fly from one airport to another in real-time. And few airports are further away in a single trip than LAX and Dubai International Airport. It takes around…

Streamers Furious After Ad Company Uses Twitch Donations To Advertise Burger King

One of the most enjoyable aspects of Twitch is that you can never entirely predict what sort of alchemical chain reaction a streamer and their audience will create together. Recently, an ad agency representing Burger King decided to cash in on this inherent unpredictability, seemingly without asking anybody. Streamers are, to put it lightly, not…

How Deathloop, Gran Turismo 7, Spider-Man: Miles Morales Will Use PS5 Controller’s Fancy Features

At first glance, the PlayStation 5 DualSense controller doesn’t look like a huge level-up over its predecessor, the DualShock 4. The shape is similar, the layout is near-identical, and the iconic button quadfecta (Square, Triangle, Circle, X) sure hasn’t gone anywhere. But there are a few subtle improvements. One Sony has trumpeted in recent months…