In this special vacation episode of the Favecast, we’re joined by former game journalist/one-time guest Kotaku weekend editor and Dishonored 2 narrative consultant, Cara Ellison, to talk about the subtle things women notice when men write female characters, primarily through the lens of Uncharted: The Lost Legacy. Please note! We recorded this podcast on the…

City of Brass Has Surprises Around Every Corner

When former developers of BioShock and BioShock 2 put their spin on a first-person rogue-lite set in an Arabian Nights themed world, it’s bound to be full of systems that not only work against you, but bail you out of trouble too. Armed with a whip and a scimitar, City of Brass tasks you with…

Big Layoffs Hit Agents of Mayhem Developer Volition

Volition, the studio behind Agents of Mayhem, laid off over 30 people this week including general manager Dan Cermak, three sources tell Kotaku. The studio previously had around 200 employees. These layoffs come one month after the release of Agents of Mayhem, an action game set in the same world as Volition’s longrunning Saints Row…

Metal Gear Solid V Is Free Next Month For PlayStation Plus Members 

You can get Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain with your PlayStation Plus membership in October. There’s also the Amnesia collection, which has both The Dark Descent and A Machine for Pigs, two games I’m too scared to play. As always, these games are only “free” if you have an active PlayStation Plus account.…

Here’s October’s Xbox Live Games With Gold Lineup

If you haven’t played Gone Home yet, or at least haven’t played it on your couch, you can have the teenage feels in October’s Xbox Live Games with Gold. As always, these games are only “free” if you have an active Xbox Live Games with Gold subscription. October’s Games with Gold are: Xbox One Gone…

This Stick Figure In Fancy Pants Fights Monsters With A Pen

You know that feeling you get when you ride a roller coaster? The breathless anticipation, followed by the shrieking joy and terror as you plummet down to the bottom? That’s the feeling I get when I ride the pen in Super Fancy Pants Adventure, an action-packed sidescrolling platformer. Super Fancy Pants Adventure is the fourth…

If The Simpsons Characters Were Otaku

Imagine that all The Simpsons characters were into anime, manga, and Japanese video games. They would probably say stuff like this. That’s the central premise of Twitter userWeebSimpsons, which has been churning out gems like these: Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China…

Osaka Court’s Ruling Helps Destroy Tattoos In Japan 

Today in Osaka, a District Court ruled that tattooer Taiki Masuda broke the law by tattooing without a medical license. Police raided Masuda’s studio in 2015, and he was told to pay a fine. Instead of coughing up the cash, Masuda took the police to courton the grounds that tattooing was an art and not…

Giant Gundam Statue Now In A Japanese Buddhist Temple

Diehard Gundam fans might view the anime with an almost religious fervour. Now, at a Buddhist temple in Nagoya, Japan, they can pray with a large Mobile Suit looking on. According to Asahi.com, the statue is located in Zuienji Temple and was created by 66-year-old Toshio Hattori, who lives nearby. Hattori, a former engineer, decided…

Learn Game Programming With A Japanese Maid

Want to learn Unity? What about make a game in VR? Recently, seminars were held in Japan that taught first-timers programming with the help of Japanese maids. Maids, of course, are iconic figures in Japanese nerd culture. There are maid cafes serving drinks and countless maid characters in manga, anime, and video games. Tokyo-based programming…

Gold and Snow. Kyoto, Japan. By Adam Solino. 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! 

Be Nice If A Star Wars Game Looked Like This

BIGO is an artist from Brazil working in both video games and books. I love this Star Wars stuff. It looks like the best iOS game Disney never bothered to make. An XCOM-y adventure game that looked like this would change the world. You can see more of BIGO’s art at their ArtStationand Behancepages. To…

Half-Life NPCs Can Smell Corpses

Hate to break it to you, but Half-Life really stinks. In an enlightening video, MarphitimusBlackimus digs deep into the original Half-Life’s code and discovers that characters don’t just remark on smells randomly or because of scripted events; there’s actually a whole AI system for it. In short, there are three scent categories: meat, carcass, and…

We’re starting up our playthrough of Deadly Premonition live now on Twitch. You’ll come and join the chat, won’t you Zach?

Striking Voice Actors Didn’t Get Everything They Wanted, But It Was A Start

After a year of striking, countless career sacrifices and some thorny negotiating, the video game voice actors of the Screen Actors Guild‐American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) finally came to a tentative agreementwith the 11 struck game game companies last night. Without some big demands met, it’s easy to consider the tentative agreement…

The Rarest Stuff We Found In Akihabara’s Game Shops

You can blow a lot of money in Akihabara, the Tokyo district that houses the world’s densest cluster of nerd-related storefronts. And if you have far more cash than sense, you can throw it down on some of these very rare and highly desired vintage games and related items. Here’s a look at the highest…

Atlus Files Copyright Strike Against PS3 Emulator That Advertised Persona 5

Atlus has filed a Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown against the creators of the Playstation 3 emulator RPCS3, previously noted for running Persona 5. With the emulator, the game would be playable on PC, which doesn’t officially run the game. RPCS3 is an open source Playstation 3 emulator capable of smoothly emulating numerous games. Atlus…