How Sega Tries To Stay True To Sonic 

“Besides Nintendo, there really aren’t that many character-type games in Japan,” says Sega’s Shun Nakamura. Sonic is one of the remaining few Japanese characters that isn’t from Nintendo. During the 1980s and 90s, Japanese gaming was dominated by characters. “As graphics got better, I think game companies have moved away from stylized characters to more…

Today the Tokyo Game Show is opening its doors to the general public. Lots and lots of people are showing up, ready to play games.

Survival Game About Genetics Is Cute But Cruel

In most games, the permanent death of a player character is a big deal, a matter of pomp, circumstance, and occasionally people arguing on forums for decades about how to get her back. In Niche, I watched the progenitor of my entire species drop dead after a few minutes of play. One second he was…

Maybe Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds Is The Game Of The Decade?!

One of the 10 million people playing Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds just so happens to be me, and so I am now qualified to assess it in a video. I promise I’m being sincere when I say I consider it “The Game Of The Decade.” As of Fall 2017, anyway. Heck, Fall 2017 is practically 2018, and…

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

The weekend is for making a curry because Kotaku features editor Chris Kohler won’t stop posting pictures of the curries he’s eating in Japan right now. Also, video games. I’m going to try to work up the courage to play more Echo, because that game rules but I can only handle it in small, stressful…

The Four-Year Journey Behind Madden’s Great Story Mode

Longshot, the interactive drama this year’s Madden, tells the story of a man who tries to beat the odds to accomplish an impossible dream. The tale behind the making of Longshot is similar. Mike Young started working as an art director on Madden in 2007, and even then, he was dreaming of adding a story…

Ghost Recon Wildlands’ PvP Beta Is Tactically Interesting, And You Don’t Even Need The Game

The new PvP mode for Ghost Recon Wildlands’ feels well balanced and has the promise of being a tactical shooter worthy of the Tom Clancy branding. That’s my initial take, having sampled the new beta that everyone can play this weekend, even if they don’t own Wildlands The 4v4 tactical team deathmatch is available to…

Pro Overwatch Players Use Wall Of Tanks To Overwhelm Enemy Team

A good Overwatch team composition requires balance, offense and defense, light and shadow, yin and yang. Or you can just smother your problems by throwing a bunch of meat at them. That’s what Chinese Overwatch team Miracle Team 1 decided to do against FTD Club in an Overwatch Premier Series match, and it worked shockingly…

Ask Dr. NerdLove: She’s More Sexually Experienced And It’s Freaking Me Out

Hello all you galloping Sex Weasels, and welcome to Ask Dr. NerdLove, the only dating advice column with the Super FX chip AND blast processing. This week it’s all about sex… more specifically, folks who haven’t had it and folks who haven’t had as much as others have. How does an older virgin make up…

I (Still) Hate My Shitty PSN Name

I hate my PlayStation Network ID so much. I realize I have no one to blame for this but myself. When I got a PS3 back in late 2009, I could’ve chosen any online handle I wanted. I could’ve gone with something easy to pronounce, or clever—I could’ve used some riff on my name, or…

Pokken’s Funky Fighting Controller Finds New Purpose On The Switch

Since the Nintendo Switch launched earlier this year, mine has rarely seen the inside of the TV dock. Now that Pokken Tournament DX is here, that’s changed. I need that USB port for Hori’s Pokken Tournament Pro Pad DX—and not just for Pokémon battles. Released in white for the Wii U version and now in…

Some GameStops Refuse To Sell Switches Without Bundles, But GameStop Says That Shouldn’t Happen

At least four GameStops were refusing to sell the Nintendo Switch on its own without a warranty or game attached, Kotaku has learned. And although GameStop’s corporate office says stores shouldn’t be doing that—and that, after being contacted by Kotaku, they have asked those stores to stop—an employee tells us that stores are incentivized to…

An Indie Game About Accepting Death

Dujanah is a gorgeous and bizarre indie game full of glitch cats, existential spider-men, and death. With key narrative moments and a small arcade of games that focus on death and dying, it imparts an important lesson of acceptance. We take a look in this critical video. Disclosure: I was a Kickstarter backer on this…

Final Fantasy Creator’s Latest Mobile RPG Is Pretty Complex

Available now foriOS andAndroiddevices, Terra Battle 2 is the follow-up to the mobile RPG from Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi’s studio, Mistwalker. It’s a bit dense, but very pretty. The original Terra Battle, released in 2014, introduced players to a unique battle system in which characters positioned on a gridded playfield must flank their enemies…

The Most Amazing Things You Can Buy At Tokyo Game Show

Tokyo Game Show is as much about going shopping as it is playing games. Most of the major game publishers have two booths at TGS: One with game demos, and one selling merch. Some of it’s available elsewhere in Japan, some of it’s only available here. And most of it is really cool. Above: A…

Battlegrounds Developer Attacks Fortnite For ‘Replicating’ Game

Earlier this month, developer Epic Games announced a Battle Royale mode for its game Fortnite, and as it turns out, the makers of that other Battle Royale game aren’t too thrilled. In a press release this morning, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds developer Bluehole took a shot at Epic Games, calling out Fortnite for cloning the 100-man PVP…