Heavy Rain Ended Badly 

This week, we finished streaming David Cage’s crime thriller Heavy Rain on Kotaku’s Twitch channel. It’s a game of astounding highs and disappointing lows, with intense action and awful writing. It’s not as bad as everyone says, but it’s still not very good. Heavy Rain’s core concept of a father trying to save his son…

Bungie Promises Destiny 2 PvE Improvements To Grumbling Beta Players

If there’s a general consensus on the Destiny 2 beta, it’s this: Player vs. Player (PvP) makes you feel great; Player vs. Environment (PvE) makes you feel underpowered. Bungie is hearing all of those complaints. The studio says to expect changes when the game launches for real in September. Over the past three years, one…

Pokémon Go Players Are Preparing For Legendaries By Powering Up Golem

Legendaries are typically the most powerful monsters in the compendium, so getting one this weekend is likely going to be tough. Fortunately, players are already figuring out the most efficient counters to all the possibilities. During the legendaries trailer, we can spot a handful of familiar faces: Zapdos, Moltres, Articuno, Ho-oh, Lugia, and even Mewtwo.…

Poll: Japan’s Favorite Role-Playing Games

Gamers in Japan love RPGs. But which ones are their favorites? Weekly Famitsu set out to answer that question in a recent poll. Between June 22 and June 28, the magazine asked 2,295 readers for the RPGs they liked best. Out of those who replied, 56 percent were men and 43 percent were women (1…

On Splatoon 2 Launch Day, Japan Lines Up For The Switch 

Hellish lines formed today all across Japan. Splatoon 2 launched, and stores got a fresh shipment of Switch consoles, including the Splatoon 2 hardware bundle No doubt there were people waiting to just get Splatoon 2 and its Amiibos, but with theway things are in Japan Switch-wise, many folks were certainly hoping to get the…

One Piece Getting A Live-Action TV Adaptation

Popular Japanese manga and anime One Piece is getting a live-action television version. It will not be a Japanese TV adaptation, but a foreign one. Earlier today in Tokyo, Weekly Shonen Jump editor-in-chief Hiroyuki Nakano announced the news. In the Natalie photo below, the screen next to him states that One Piece is being turned…

Water and Sky. Xichang, China. By Chris Davidson. 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! 

Blizzard’s Official Doomfist Cosplay Is Incredible

Blizzard is at the San Diego Comic Con, and as part of their presence they’ve got some official cosplay of the newest Overwatch character, Doomfist. It is, even by Overwatch standards, absolutely fantastic. The company hired Henchmen Studios to create the costume, which took a team of 14 people six weeks to construct. It involved…

Behind The Scenes On A Game Pitch

Tendril is a studio that was hired three years ago by Ubisoft Toronto to help sell a game idea to Ubisoft’s HQ in Paris. That game is Starlink, and their pitch involved all kinds of work, from “preliminary vision” through to concept development, ship design, environments and even a trailer. You can see both the…

Winning A Tough Civilization VI Game Without Firing A Shot

There are few more difficult ways to win Civilization VI than to score a Culture victory (which is kinda busted) on the game’s hardest difficulty setting. Hats off to Tater596, then, for not only pulling it off, but managing to do so without going to war. Figuring that to win with such strict conditions wasn’t…

Battlegrounds Lag Leads To Massive Fistfight

Josh Wittmann was playing a game of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds the other day when server lag struck, stranding all 100 players on the plane before they were forcibly ejected, landing everyone at the same location. While some folks fled for their lives, the rest did the honourable thing and just started swinging. I would 100% be…

Record Breaking Portal Speedrun Is Even Better With Classical Music

A sub-eleven minute run of the original Portal is a big deal for the game’s speedrunning community, but the accomplishment is even better when viewed listening to Franz Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2. BiiWiX set the game’s new 10:58 world record for inbounds this week with a dramatic escape from the Aperture Science that ultimately…

Witcher 3 NPC Doesn’t Respect Boundaries

Today on highlight Reel we have personal space issues, stun grenades, Destiny 2 slacking, 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! Mafia 3 –…

American Truck Simulator To Close Major Highway For As Long As It Stays Closed In Real Life

Some games focus on escapism while others seek to render the world with some semblance of digital realism. American Truck Simulator falls in the second category, which is why in its next update the game will be closing players’ access to California’s coastal Highway 1 for a portion near Big Sur. That’s because a landslide…

Crash Bandicoot Remaster Trilogy Gets Long Lost Level As DLC

Stormy Ascent was a level in the first Crash game that originally got scrapped because it was ultimately considered too difficult. During a panel at San Diego Comic-Con, Vicarious Visions revealed that the lost level would be available as a free download via the PlayStation Store. Taylor Kurosaki said in a conversation with N. Sane…

Here’s Our First Look At Call Of Duty: WWII‘s Zombie Mode

Activision showed off the trailer for the zombie mode in Call of Duty: WWII at a San Diego Comic-Con panel this afternoon and, surprise, there are a lot of Nazi zombies! The zombie mode will include an original story that features the voice acting talents of Dr. Who’s David Tennant and Daredevil’s Elodie Young, among…

Smash Bros. Fan Game Takes The Characters Back To Their 8-Bit And 16-Bit Roots

Super CLASH Bros is rough and unfinished, but look and sounds alone will win you over. In the game, created by Jeremy Eden, up to four players can choose from a roster that includes Mario, Mega Man, Knuckles and others, and battle one another in a fever dream of retro nostalgia. Unlike other Smash Bros.-inspired…

Valve Closes Annual Dota 2 Merch Shop Amid Community Backlash

WeLoveFine, a nerd-goods merch company, won’t play host to this year’s Dota 2 International Secret Shop, Valve announced last night The Secret Shop, Valve’s seasonal memorabilia shop that opens once a year for The International, has been run through WeLoveFine for the last couple Internationals. For the Dota 2 community, this has been a point…