What Are You Playing This Weekend?

The weekend is for it being my birthday! All the more reason to play video games. Readers, last weekend I finished the storyline of The Witcher 3‘s last DLC. While there are more question marks than I know what to do with, I have technically finished the game. What will I do now? Play other…

In GTA Online, The Rich Are Ruining Games With Expensive Nukes

A group of GTA Online players are all gathered together near an auto shop in downtown Los Santos. They’re here for a car meet meant to show off fancy vehicles within the community. Suddenly, and without any warning, a giant explosion goes off. Everyone is killed, and the hot rods are destroyed. Another orbital cannon…

Mankind’s Newest Invention: The Anime Bomb

Today on Highlight Reel we have VRChat anime bombs, headless dudes, doorway defenses and much more! Watch the video then talk about your favorite highlight in the comments below. Be sure to check out, like, and share the original videos via the links below. Subscribe to Kotaku on YouTube for more! Catch up on all…

There’s A Website Dedicated To Stealing Furry Porn From Patreon Artists

A horde of pirates is undermining Patreon’s financial structure, reposting paywalled pornographic images on an illicit website for free. The makers of these images are furious that internet denizens are putting their livelihoods in jeopardy to score free porn. Yiff.Party has been around since July, 2015, but has picked up speed exponentially in recent weeks.…

YouTuber Leaves Smosh Games After Sexual Assault Allegations

Amra “Flitz” Ricketts, a popular YouTube star and member of the massive network Smosh Games, has left the organization after being accused by multiple women of sexual assault. “I wanted to let all of you know that effective immediately, I’m leaving Smosh Games,” Ricketts wrote on Twitter yesterday. “Last week I was accused of some…

Five Reasons I Like Fortnite BR Way Better Than Battlegrounds

Battlegrounds may have sparked the current Battle Royale trend, but these days, I’d much rather log into Fortnite. Over the last few months, developer Epic Games have crafted a game with a unique identity, if not a better one. Here’s why I prefer to play Fortnite over Battlegrounds. It works I’ve been playing Fornite for…

Valve Removes Tournament’s Major Status Because It Will Require Drug Testing

The upcoming Galaxy Battles Dota 2 tournament will no longer be a major because local regulators in the Philippines are requiring drug testing for the players. Developer Valve confirmed to Compete that it was rescinding major status due to government policies requiring drug testing: “Players were going to be subjected to drug testing and screening…

Ten Speedruns That Take Over Nine Hours To Finish

Speedrunners want to complete games or meet special conditions as fast as possible but some games are so massive that it can take days to get through them, even if you’re playing as quickly as possible. After I reported on Undertale’s absurd, 33 hour long “True 100%” speedrun, my coworkers and readers were curious about…

Smash‘s Beloved Feminist Icon Is Not Trolling, Mostly

Kayla “Mew2Queen” Mackay was one of five players who won a fan vote to play Super Smash Bros. Melee in Genesis 5, a major tournament in Oakland, and the first to receive full funding. For Mackay, who plays as Marth, it should have been a huge moment. But in response to her nomination, Melee players…

That Time An Island In GoldenEye Disappointed A Generation

Far off in the distance, beyond the murky arctic waters, the vague silhouette of a tower can be seen through the mist. You raise your sniper rifle for a closer look. A solitary island is nestled away from all the chaos. What secrets does it hold? This piece originally appeared 3/21/17. GoldenEye 007 is one…

Amazon Kills Unpopular Anime Strike Service

After just a year, Amazon has gutted its hard-to-loveanime service Anime Strike, rolling the dozens of anime shows and movies Anime Strike offered into Amazon Prime’s general offerings. Reached for comment, an Amazon representative told Kotaku, “We have decided to move the curated catalogs of Anime Strike and [Bollywood channel] Heera into Prime Video so…

A Look Inside Eiichiro Oda’s House

Eiichiro Oda, the creator of One Piece, has an interesting house. Let’s have a peek! Previously, we saw Oda’s studio, which is also located in his house. After checking out that, other parts of his house, which were recently introduced on Japanese TV, shouldn’t come as a total surprise. For example, he has a crane…

Tsukiji Fish Market. Tokyo, Japan. By Dan Chan | 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! 

A Collection Of Incredible Character Designs

Sangsoo Jeong is an artist working at Chinese gaming giant NetEase, and the pieces you’re about to see are some of the best character design we’ve ever featured on Fine Art They’re for a concept he was working on from 2015-17, and are just…ungh, just look at them. I wish Final Fantasy XV could have…

Watch A Man Spend 350 Hours Drawing All 807 Pokémon 

Here’s a timelapse video of reader Christopher Cayco drawing all 807 current Pokémon. It took him 350 hours over a span of 42 days. Actually, there are more than 807 Pokémon: while he’s got all of them accounted for, he’s drawn some of them more than once, so there’s actually over 1100 pocket monsters in…

How Not To Stop Your Nerdy Child From Becoming A Pro Gamer

Pro gaming has yet to become normalized enough for the parents of America to feel proud of their offspring for pursuing it professionally. At least, not until those children defy all expectations and start making hundreds of thousands of dollars in tournament winnings. Parents of pro gamers told the Wall Street Journal all the tactics…

One Of Steam’s Hottest Games Is A Zombie RTS

They Are Billions pits a steampunk village against a giant zombie horde. While it might look like a reskinned Age of Empires, that surface hides a strategy game that strikes all the right balances. Every time a wave of undead obliterated my encampment, the only thing I wanted to do was restart and try again.…