UK Politician Visits Gaming Store, Discusses Esports While Customers Play Tekken

Ahead of the UK’s general election today, Welsh politician Kevin Brennan visited local gaming store Talk & Surf for a quick chat about esports and competitive games. Not the kind of last-minute campaigning you’d expect. Brennan, who has been Cardiff West’s member of Parliament since 2001 and is up for reelection today, delivered his talking…

In The War Against Game Piracy, Denuvo Seems To Be Faltering

Anti-piracy protection software Denuvo is getting cracked faster and faster on more games, with certain games made free by hackers in as short as a week. Denuvo says that the protection is meant to protect games during “the initial sales window” but is that even the case anymore? Denuvo is an anti-tampering software meant to…

Competitive Pokémon Player Risks It All With Fragile Ultra Beast, Wins Tournament Anyway

Pheromosa, an Ultra Beast known for its fragility and power, normally seems like a risky pick for competitive Pokémon. But this weekend, Andrew Nowak won the Madison Regional Championships largely thanks to an uncommon Pheromosa moveset. The perennial glass cannon, Pheromosa is often used to get important one-hit-knock-outs before getting KO’d itself. It uses attacks…

Twitch D&D Show ‘Critical Role’ Is Helping Fuel The Game’s Renaissance

Dungeons & Dragons is no longer a basement sport. It took 40 years, but now, in 2017, Dungeons & Dragons has emerged from its cultural cavern as the video platforms Twitch and YouTube help players bring their intimate D&D games to the public realm—including Overwatch voice actor Matt Mercer, whose Twitch show Critical Role has…

Every Game In My Delta Airplane Seat, Reviewed

To kill time on an airplane, I usually play games on my phone. I can usually squeeze a good five or six hours out of the battery. But last month when I flew from New York to Hawaii, the trip ended up taking a full 24 hours, and I was trapped on a plane for…

Fire Emblem Heroes‘ New Event Finally Makes The Game Challenging

Mobile tactics game Fire Emblem: Heroes offers pint-sized battles and dozens of (slightly horny) heroes to collect. One thing it doesn’t have is permadeath—until now. The game’s new Tempest Trials brings a variation of this feature and adds much-needed challenge to the game. The small battles in Fire Emblem: Heroes aren’t terribly difficult.. Even with…

CD Projekt Red: Thieves Stole Cyberpunk 2077 Documents, Asked For Ransom

The makers of The Witcher say thieves have stolen design documents for their next game, Cyberpunk 2077. And those thieves demanded a ransom—that the developers say they won’t pay. In a tweet today, Polish developer CD Projekt Red said that it would not be acquiescing to a ransom demand laid out by “an unidentified individual…

Livestreaming On Twitch Gets Dangerous When Streamers Drive

Twitch’s non-video-game IRL section is a Wild West where people are figuring out what works and what doesn’t. On a platform where people already felt pressured to stream and interact with audiences as much as possible, even mundane activities like driving pose a problem. Driving, even under the best of conditions, can be very dangerous.…

Fortnite Enters Early Access, Six Years After Getting Announced

Fortnite, a building survival game developed by the folks at Epic Games, will enter Early Access on July 25, the publisher said today. It was announced on December 10, 2011, so it only makes sense that it’d enter Early Access now. The game will be out for Xbox One, PS4, PC, and Mac. Here’s a…

Circular Rhythm Game Superbeat: Xonic Is So Good On Xbox One And PS4

Originally released in 2015 for the PlayStation Vita, Superbeat: Xonic is a hardcore rhythm game that’s only real failing was being released during one of the Vita’s rocky patches (i.e., post launch). Now it’s out on Xbox One and PlayStation 4, ready to show a much bigger audience around some great music. Developed by Nurijoy,…

There’s A Little Blizzard In This iOS Game

Brian Huang spent five years as a cinematic concept artist at Blizzard, where he got to work on games like StarCraft 2, World of Warcraft and Titan, the project that would go on to become Overwatch. He’s since left to make his own games, the first of which is called Guardian Kingdoms It’s a 3v3…

Pokémon GO Gets First Real-World Event And More 

To celebrate the one-year anniversary of Pokémon GO, the app is getting both in-game events and a real-world festival in Chicago. The in-game Solstice Event starts June 13, 2017 and will feature XP bonuses for accurate throws, discounted Lucky Eggs, and Fire-type and Ice-type Pokémon. A new collaborative group gameplay-centric update will follow. Then on…

Shenmue III Delayed To Second Half Of 2018

The long-awaited Shenmue III is going to make you wait a little longer. The game won’t make its December 2017 release date and has been moved to the second half of 2018. “By utilizing new technologies, we have been able to discover new possibilities and expressions,” Shenmue creator Yu Suzuki said in an official announcement.…

Game Hacks Are Illegal In South Korea

Starting June 21, creating and distributing video game hacks will be illegal in South Korea. According to GameToc (via tipster Sang), the law was passed last December and goes into effect later this month. It not only specifically mentions “game hacks,” but it also makes creating and distributing private servers illegal. It’s not exactly clear…

The Beds In Yu-Gi-Oh! Are Strange 

I didn’t notice until it was pointed out to me, but the beds in Yu-Gi-Oh! are often odd. Forget the hair! Look at this. It’s either that the bed’s size is weird, it’s put in a strange place, or the way it’s positioned looks off. Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing…

Butcher Jones Trail. Mesa, Arizona, USA. By Jonathan Sutyak| Vault1541 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! 

Nintendo’s Theme Park Teased In Cute New Trailer

The big Nintendo section of Universal Studios Japan is still years away from being finished, but the park is already hyping up the attraction. Here’s a trailer giving hints at what we can expect when it opens in 2020. Explains why that stage was being built yesterday If you look at the big reveal of…