Podcast: Final Fantasy XII, Final Fantasy XIV, And… Other Games

Today’s Kotaku Splitscreen is made just the way you like it: heavy on the Fahey and the Final Fantasy First, Kirk regales us with stories from his backpacking adventures before settling down with me to talk Destiny 2 soccer (9:58), Mass Effect: Andromeda’s lack of DLC (15:43), and Zelda’s new content (24:44). Then we bring…

Splatoon 2 Looks Noticeably Richer In Head-To-Head Comparison With The First Game

We’ve heard it a bunch. I’ve said it a bunch. “Splatoon 2 looks like more Splatoon.” But side-by-side it’s clear the sequel is a lot more polished looking. In his latest video, YouTuber NomComms took a look at both games based on their lobbies and the results are a bit jarring. While Splatoon 2 doesn’t…

Sunday Comics: Beware The Hat

Welcome to Kotaku’s Sunday Comics, your weekly roundup of the best webcomics that usually occurs on Sunday except when it doesn’t. The images enlarge if you click on the magnifying glass icon. Nerf NOW!! by Josué Pereira. Published July 9. Read more of Nerf NOW!! Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich. Published July 3. Read more…

Summer Games Done Quick 2017 Breaks Last Year’s Record, Raises $1.7 Million For Charity

Seven days later, this year’s Summer Games Done Quick speedrunning marathon has come to an end, but not before raising $1,760,400 for Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders). Last year’s event raised around $1.3 million for the organization, making SGDQ 17 a record breaking year (AGDQ 17 was earlier this year and broke its own…

Seven Neo Geo Games That Need To Get Ported To Modern Consoles 

Every month a smattering of classic Neo Geo games comes to modern consoles thanks to Hamster Corporation’s Arcade Archives program, but some of the system’s most unique and unusual games have yet to make the leap. I pour over the lists of upcoming games every week, and I know full well how easy it is…

Man Carrying Stack Of Beers Is The Unofficial Winner Of This Weekend’s Counter-Strike Tournament 

There have been a number of great matches at the event, and Cloud9’s push to the grand finals has fans hyped, but nothing will top this guy’s bold decision to carry a shitload of beers back to his seat all at once. Taking place in Germany, the ESL One Cologne Counter-Strike tournament has a ton…

The Counter To Doomfist? Take A Seat

As players flood into the public test servers of Overwatch to find uses and counters for the new villain Doomfist, one player has found a rather interesting one: sitting down. In a highlight posted on the Overwatch subreddit, after popping off a four-kill ultimate, McCree player “Quesogard,”decides to walk onto the point and take a seat…

Tetsuya Nomura’s Character Designs For Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Were 20 Years In The Making

Last month, fans following the development of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 spotted something strange. Tetsuya Nomura, Square Enix artist and director of Kingdom Hearts III, was being listed in the game’s credits. It turned out that the creator of some of Final Fantasy’s most iconic characters was designing Xenoblade Chronicles 2‘s Torna organization, a mysterious group…

We’re locked and loaded with frying pan in hand as we try to win a few rounds of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds right now on Twitch

The Weekend In Esports: ESL One Cologne, Dota 2, And ARMS

Evo 2017 hasn’t even started, DreamHack Atlanta is weeks away, and Dota 2‘s TI7 is next month, and yet this post-4th of July weekend is still packed. North America’s Cloud9 have done the unthinkable and won a spot in the ESL One Cologne grand finals, a premier, $250,000 Counter-Strike tournament that’s usually dominated by European…

This 8-Hour Run Of Final Fantasy VII Is A Masterwork Of Planning

Most runs at Games Done Quick events fall in the one to three-hour range. Last night, Final Fantasy speedrunner “Ajneb174,” or Ben, put on an almost eight-hour speedrun of Final Fantasy VII, an endurance run of memorization, routing and insane game knowledge. Joined on the couch by fellow Final Fantasy runners Davesterio and J2_JATWo, the…

Looking Back On A 2013 Tournament Featuring Tekken‘s Bowling Mini-Game

When Tekken Tag Tournament came out in 2000, the game included a bowling mini-game called Tekken Bowl that became a cult favorite among Tekken players. Unlike Tekken, the bowling mini-game isn’t deep or complicated. You just choose a Tekken character and aim your bowling ball down the lane. But it’s still a competitive game… albeit…

This Week In The Business: Tear Down That Rocket League Wall 

QUOTE | “It is inevitable. How long [until] inevitable actually becomes reality, I don’t know. But we think we are getting there. The key is for the community to really get behind the idea.” – Psyonix VP of publishing Jeremy Dunham is confident that Sony will follow Microsoft and Nintendo in allowing cross-platform play for…

The UFC Needs To Figure Out Life After Ronda Rousey

After two nasty losses and more than a year out of the spotlight, Ronda Rousey has likely retired from UFC. Once upon a time, this would have been a death knell for women’s MMA in the UFC, but now the UFC’s got an amazing crop of talent ready to get on with the show. Unfortunately,…

Top Minecraft YouTuber Quits Channel Because He Doesn’t Want To Be A “Fake Piece of Shit”

Over the last six years, Adam ‘SkyDoesMinecraft’ Dahlberg made a name for himself through Minecraft videos, amassing 11 million subscribers on YouTube. He’s now done with it and is retiring from making Minecraft videos. In two notably different videos, one kid-friendly and one not, he said he no longer enjoys the game, has become disaffected…

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

The weekend is for packing to move into a new house! So probably not video games. But probably actually video games, because packing is boring. I spent all my money in The Witcher 3‘s Blood and Wine expansion on Geralt’s house, which is pretty similar to my current real-life situation. So I need to grind…

Final Fantasy XII’s New Fast-Forward Feature Is A Godsend

After several hours playing Square Enix’s new Final Fantasy XII remaster, I can confidently say I like it. I can just as confidently say that I like it a lot more because I can fast-forward through it. The remaster’s full title is Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age. It’s out on PS4 on July 11,…

GTA Online’s New Battlegrounds-Style Mode Is A Lot of Fun

With GTA Online’s July update,Rockstar has added a new mode that seems partially inspired by Battlegrounds, some new (and REALLY expensive) skins, and a super car. In the new game mode, Dawn Raid, players are split into two teams who have to track down a supply crate and deliver it to a capture point. Like…