Culture

That Time Nintendo Took the Game Boy (and Pokémon) Online

When it comes to online play and digital distribution, Nintendo always seem two steps behind its competitors. But things weren’t always like this, at least in Japan. Back in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s Nintendo actually brought both the Famicom and Super Famicom (known as the NES and SNES elsewhere) online via powerful console…

Sunday Comics: That’s Kinda Dumb

Hello! It’s time for Kotaku’s Sunday Comics, your weekly roundup of the best webcomics. The images enlarge if you click on the magnifying glass icon. Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich. Published Aug 19. Read more of Awkward Zombie Corpse Run by Alex Di Stasi. Published Aug. 22. Read more of Corpse Run Clueless Hero by…

Romance Of The Three Kingdoms XIII Is A Flawed, But Addictive, Entry Into The Series

The very first time I was a guest writer for Kotaku, I wrote about Romance of the Three Kingdoms IV, which was my favorite in the series. I’ve played ROTKIV too many times to count as its strategy gaming at its best. I did play many of the games after IV, but missed IX-XII. With…

Twitch Suspends Popular Leftist Streamer After Controversial 9/11 Comments

During a Twitch stream earlier this week, popular leftist streamer Hasan Piker made a statement that would, by pretty much any measure, be considered incendiary. “America deserved 9/11, dude,” he said. “Fuck it, I’m saying it.” Today, Twitch suspended Piker for one week. Emotions had been running high in the leadup to the statement on…

Majora’s Mask Speedrunners Get World Record Under An Hour By Playing The Ocarina 63 Times

As of six days ago, speedrunners have found a way to complete The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask in under an hour. The moody Ocarina of Time sequel is best known for its lengthy sidequests and countless collectables. A glitch allowing players to access a hidden debug menu has cut out much of the necessary…

Battlefield V Developers Cancel 5v5 Mode, Saying They Need To Fix Other Bugs

Since its launch in November 2018, Battlefield V has been expanded with a battle royale mode and additional limited time modes that reimagine the multiplayer experience. A long planned 5v5 competitive mode has been in the works for some time, but that’s no more. In a note posted today, the game’s senior producer Ryan McArthur…

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

The weekend is for cleaning the house, for real this time, not like all those other weekends I said I would clean and then didn’t. Does that sound convincing? Let’s be honest: I’m probably just going to pause every half hour to play video games instead. Rad came out this week, and while I wasn’t…

The Division 2 Developers Challenge Players To Find Misspelled Police Car

In the vast video game version of Washington, D.C in Ubisoft’s The Division 2, there is a single police car that reads “POLCE.” The misspelling has been in the game for months, but only on Wednesday, after a prompt from the game’s creative director, did people finally start reporting its discovery. A Berlin-based gamer named…

Gears of War Isn’t As Fun Without The Chainsaw Gun

I love the Lancer from Gears of War. That’s the chainsaw gun. So I’m pretty disappointed that Gears of War 4, which I’m playing now to prep for the sequel, keeps taking my Lancer away. I’ve loved the Lancer since the series’ original hero Marcus Fenix used it in the first Gears game. Within the…

Track: Soon | Artist: My Bloody Valentine | Album: Loveless 

Mount Fuji. Lake Fujikawaguchiko, Japan. By Vince Flores | Instagram JPGs is a photo peek into wherever gamers might find interesting. If you’re a photographer and have images you want to share, drop us a line!

Fortnite Nerfed The Mech

After weeks of player outcry, developer Epic made some significant changes to Fortnite’s mechanical Brute today. The Brute now does less damage, spawns less, and no longer collects materials when it stomps buildings and objects. Epic outlined the changes in a post titled “B.R.U.T.E Balance Adjustments.” The Brute now fires a max of six rockets…

Red Dead Redemption 2 Bird Mod Is Magnificently Chill

Red Dead Redemption 2 is a game that can be chill, but eventually, somebody pulls a gun on you, or a coyote attacks, or you wander into a whinnying horse fire hell zone. To achieve true chill, you must rise above it all. Thanks to mods, you can. YouTuber Jedijosh920 (via Polygon) used player model…

Fire Emblem Hacker Makes The Gatekeeper Playable, And His Charm Stat Is Huge

Greetings, professor! Nothing to report! Well, there is one thing. A Fire Emblem: Three Houses hacker has figured out how to recruit the man, the myth, the character whose voice you’re reading this in right now, the Gatekeeper, into his class. This has led to some fascinating discoveries. In the weeks since Three Houses’ release,…

Anthem: Six Months Later

It’s already been six months since the online shooter Anthem came out. A lot has happened during that time, though not as much as players had hoped. The game launched with many bugs and flaws, and both players and the developers have acknowledged that it needs a lot of work. While developer BioWare has addressed…

Pokkén Tournament Players Make Scrapbook To Thank Lead Designer

Today’s top news from Being Nice magazine: a group of competitive Pokken Tournament players gave one of the games’ developers a handwritten book, thanking him for his hard work. Aww! Hoshino, who previously worked on the Soulcalibur series, led the development of Pokkén Tournament, a Pokémon fighting game. During the Pokémon Worlds Championship last week,…

No Man’s Sky‘s Beyond Update Fulfills The Childhood Dream Of Virtual Reality

You look left and see a giant alien behemoth. You look right and see your spaceship. And then you re-adjust your virtual reality helmet to account for all the head turning you just did. That’s the dream, right? At least that’s what Kirk assured me and Jason on this week’s episode of Kotaku Splitscreen when…

Session Is A Hardcore Skateboarding Sim With Cool, Weird Controls

“Pretty much everyone who tries the game eats shit like crazy at first,” Marc-Andre Houde told me when I met him in New York to see crea-ture studios’ forthcoming skateboarding game, Session. Maybe that’s a bad way to sell a video game, but Session is an unusual game—more a skate sim than an arcade stunt…

Ask Dr. NerdLove: Is It Weird I Have A Secret Superhero Persona?

Hello, you burning sexbeasts, and welcome to Ask Dr. NerdLove, the dating advice column that body slams your relationship problems from the top of Hell in the Cell. This week, it’s all about threading the needle of the most perplexing relationship problems. What do you do when you’ve gone from your horny period to a…

The People Behind Teamfight Tactics Talk Player Expectations And ‘Garbage’ Characters

Teamfight Tactics has been out for just over a month, and already Riot games’ entry into the auto-battler genre has become one of the top 10 most popular games on Twitch, with a wide-ranging player base and a vibrant community of creators on its hands. But as a new entrant into the fledgling auto-battler canon…