StarCraft As We Know It Exists Because Of A Terrible Game’s Demo

StarCraft’s visual style was once very different, and if not for a spectacular demo for a horrible game called Dominion: Storm Over Gift 3, we might still remember it as purple Warcraft In a great piece over at The Ringer, journalist Ben Lindbergh details the making of StarCraft, which came out 20 years ago. The…

Here Are The Biggest Selling Games In Japan In 2017

A few years back, traditional games and game hardware were not doing so hot in Japan. That has started to change. As Kotaku reported earlier this year, the Japanese console game market grew for the first time in 11 years. This came after the Nintendo Switch had an incredible 2017 in Japan. According to Famitsu,…

Politicians Should Always Cosplay As Dragon Ball Characters 

This is Shigeru Ishiba. He was previously Japan’s Minister of Defense. But here he is dressed as Majin Buu from Dragon Ball Ishiba recently appeared at the opening ceremony for the Enkei Gekijou Kurayoshi Figure Museum in Kurayoshi City, Tottori Prefecture. The city’s mayor also dressed up. Politicians should always cosplay as anime characters. If…

Japan’s Best April Fool’s Day Jokes

Today is April 2. But let’s look back to yesterday and round up the best April Fool’s Days gags Japan had to offer. Such as… The Dragon Ball Super vs. Pretty Cure Super Stars mash-up we’ve all been waiting for. Kagawa Prefecture, aka “Udon Prefecture,” is changing its name to Yadon (Slowpoke) Prefecture. Vegetable flavored…

Nocturnal Walk. Osaka, Japan. By Sammy Fatnassi | Tumblr  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! 

Rocket League Match Ends In Game Of Keepie Uppie

Cloud9 has secured a neat 3-0 at the end of its match yesterday against Out of Style in the Rocket League championship series. Mariano “Squishy” Arruda was not content to let the game end at the zero, however, and caught the ball at just the last second for a game of keepie uppie A game…

Breaking Mario Party 8 Reveals The Importance Of Camera Positioning

The art of game creation is always interesting, but looking behind the curtain of Mario Party 8 is a particularly wonderful experience that shows the power of a highly controlled camera. In the newest episode of Boundary Break, a show dedicated to moving cameras around to find the hidden things in games, we get to…

A Japanese Virtua Fighter Tournament Returned From Hiatus, And It Was Rad

Amid all the pro circuits and premiers for games like Street Fighter and Tekken, you might have forgotten about another classic: Virtua Fighter. Last night in Japan, 510 entrants gathered in Tokyo to play some Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown and y’all, it was pretty rad. To boil it down, Virtua Fighter is a very…

Kotaku ‘Shop Contest: Give Me All The Dogs

We’ve talked a lot about dogs a lot this week. We appreciated them in Divinity: Original Sin 2, praised them in Far Cry 5, and got sad when they were hurt. This week, I want you to put dogs in every game. There are plenty of dogs in video games. The problem is that they…

What If A Video Game Knew People Were Streaming It?

Would you play a video game that reacted to being streamed? One that could be influenced by audience reactions? On Kotaku Splitscreen, we explore the possibility. Last week in San Francisco, we spoke to SOS designer Ian Milham about what it’s like to develop a game that’s heavily integrated with Twitch, and what he wants…

The Best (And Worst) April Fools’ Day Jokes For 2018

It is April 1, the cursed day, when every person and brand decides that they are, in fact, the funniest person or distributed agent on the planet. Here’s a roundup of the best and worst April Fool’s gags from the land of games for 2018. (For a recap of last year, here are 2017’s offerings.)…

Sunday Comics: Working Holodeck

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 March 26. Read more of Awkward Zombie Corpse Run by Alex Di Stasi. Published March 29. Read more of Corpse Run Double XP by…

League of Legends Stream Follows One Pro’s Perspective For Entire Match

Fnatic and Team Vitality clashed in the European League Championship Series spring semifinals today, a match that would end in victory for the former. While the game itself was interesting, it was the manner of broadcast that grabbed my attention. In addition to the regular main stream, Riot Games broadcast a second stream that was…

I Love Ni No Kuni II‘s Simple, Elegant Side Quests

I’ve been dipping back into Ni no Kuni II over the past week in short spurts in order to collect all of the possible citizens for my kingdom of Evermore. It’s because the game excels at making me feel like I did a good job at finishing simple quests. I don’t think think that many…

StarCraft Anniversary Stream Is Part LAN Party, Part Reunion

This weekend marks the 20th anniversary of the StarCraft franchise. A lot of folks have a lot of love for this series, and few more than the crew that have gathered in what appears to be a Blizzard backlot studio to host a celebration stream A couch of StarCraft personalities Sean “Day9″ Plott, Nick “Tasteless”…

I Hate Hearing My Dog Buddy Get Hurt In Far Cry 5

Far Cry 5 has given us a wonderful ally named Boomer. He’s a dog, and he’s my friend, but I don’t use him because I hate seeing and hearing him get hurt. I am a big fan of animal companions in games, and Boomer is one of the best that we’ve gotten so far. He’s…