This Summer’s Standout Anime Is About A Mysterious Pit Full Of  Monsters

Early on in this summer’s standout fantasy anime Made in Abyss, the troublemaking 12-year-old orphan Riko reveals a compass that always points to the bottom of the netherworld. It’s an artifact she pocketed while cave-diving in the endless pit around which her hometown formed. Boasting to her friends, Riko explains that the compass is what’s…

New Sonic Fan Game Is All About Raising Chao

If you love the tiny critter-raising side game that’s been showing up in Sonic the Hedgehog games on and off since Sonic Adventure on the Dreamcast, you’re in for a treat.Sonic fan game maker Nefault1st just released Chao Resort Island, and it’s all about raising and racing those adorable little scamps. Available as a free…

Battlefield 1 Is Bringing Back Specializations

Battlefield 1 will add a new feature to the game that grants characters perks and special abilities. These specializations are live for testing and look to change the game in a big way. ‘Specializations’ have been a long-standing tradition of the Battlefield games ever since 2006’s Battlefield 2142. In games like Battlefield 4, selecting certain…

Which Ridiculous Historical Figure From Fate/Grand Order Would You Summon?

Since Fate/Grand Order made its way stateside, we’ve been embroiled in unlocking more and more historical figures for our digital Holy Grail War. The Fate series is basically a giant battle royale between famous people, both real and mythological, but their representation has varied from the odd to the utterly ridiculous. So when those command…

Middle-earth: Shadow of War Lets You Pay Real Money For Better Gear

Middle-earth: Shadow of War, the sequel to surprise 2014 hit Shadow of Mordor, will come stuffed with loot boxes and microtransactions, not just for cosmetics but for gear that improves your main character. This news, announced over the weekend, has thrilled fans across the world. (One top Reddit post: “That’s a great way to get…

Months Later, Game Company Apologizes To Square Enix For Ripping Off Final Fantasy XI

On November 15, 2016, free-to-play MMORPG Chaos Saga launched in Japan. A day later, its service suddenly stopped after character design similarities between Chaos Saga and Final Fantasy XI were discovered. The company behind Chaos Saga has publicly apologized. Braeve, the publisher behind Chaos Saga, was able to confirm that the game had 24 copyright…

China Wins This Year’s World Cosplay Summit, Japan Comes In Third 

Team China won its first World Cosplay Summit championship with an impressive Blood: The Last Vampire performance. Cospalyer Tian Tian was Blood’s Saya, while Xue Yan Xue was a chiropteran monster. This was China’s first World Cosplay Summit grand prix win. Congrats! Below you can watch Team China’s performance: Mexico, which took the top slot…

Mission Bay Sunset. Auckland, New Zealand. By Ricardo Castilho. Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

Metal Gear Shirt Is Made Of 200 People Arguing Over Which Characters Are Gay

This is art. Lukas, an artist/student in the Bay Area, decided to make a custom t-shirt whose design consists entirely of screengrabs of “two hundred tender souls arguing over which metal gear character is gay”. “its a russian tuant” is the star here, appearing both front and centre and on the collar. “It’s a Russian…

New GTA V Graphics Mod Looks Like The Future

Visual overhauls to the PC version of Grand Theft Auto V are nothing new, of course, but this complete overhaul of the Naturalvision mod is something else. Now called NaturalVision Remastered, its creator promises that despite how good everything looks the actual performance is “similar to vanilla GTA V”. Here’s a trailer: As PC Gamer…

Mario Kart 8, Running At 4K

In October 2015, the CEMU emulator could barely run Mario Kart 8 on a PC at all. Now it can play the game in 8K. You probably won’t see that here, of course, because only a brave few PCs will play YouTube PCs at 8K, so instead we’ve got a supersampled 4K clip of a game…

Vancouver Put On A Cosplay Show

Anime Revolution, aka Anirevo, was held over the weekend in Vancouver, and photographer The Will Box was kind enough to share some of the shots he took of the cosplayers in action.