The Creator Of Metroid II Fan Game AM2R Isn’t Mad About Nintendo

DoctorM64 spent over ten years remaking Metroid II: Samus Return in his free time, only to have Nintendo send him a DMCA and have to take the project down. Now that Nintendo has announced their own reimagining of the same game, he’s just as pumped as everyone else is. When DoctorM64 was working on Another…

Ask Dr. NerdLove: Is Porn Killing My Sex Life?

Hello all you spaceporn lungfish of the Twitternet, and welcome to Ask Dr. NerdLove, the only dating advice column whose coming was predicted by the sacred mutterings of the oracle of E3. This week, we’re looking at two sides of the same coin. On the one side: what do you do when your girlfriend thinks…

I Squished A Bug Inside My Monitor’s Screen And Now I Want To Die

It all started when I thought I saw a bug crawling across my computer monitor. Huh, I thought, it’s a bug crawling across my computer monitor. I reached out to flick it off, and found that I could not. I stared at it, unsure of what I was seeing. The bug was there, but I…

The Six Biggest Announcements Of E3 2017

E3 is drawing to a close, and the rain of game announcements has abated. EA, Microsoft, Bethesda, Ubisoft, Sony, and Nintendo all did their thing. It’s up to us to sort through the rubble. Among the dozens of hype reels, hardware breakdowns, marketing buzzwords and game announcements, a few things stood out. If you don’t…

Tips For Playing Arms

On the surface, Arms looks like a cute game about the dangers of slinky arms, but it quickly gets challenging. Out today, Nintendo’s new fighting game has players throwing punches with spring-loaded limbs. Programming good impulses takes time and guidance. And although only ten fighters feature in Arms, with so many detachable arms to choose…

Xenoblade Chronicles X‘s Director On Localization Changes: ‘I Didn’t Mind Much At All’ 

In the heated ongoing conversation over “censorship” in localization, we’ve heard a whole lot from fans and even translators, but we haven’t seen much discussion from Japanese developers. Which is why, when speaking to Tetsuya Takahashi this week in Los Angeles, I asked him for his thoughts on the matter. His answers were a little…

Hasbro’s Marvel Knights Figures Look Like TV Stars

Fans of Netflix’s comic book shows can realize the dream of having a tiny plastic Krysten Ritter, Jon Bernthal or Charlie Cox on their desk this fall, when Hasbro releases its Marvel Knights series of six-inch Legends figures. And who doesn’t want to build a Man-Thing? Just like the Marvel Netflix-verse, the Marvel Knights line…

Curious about Koji Igarashi’s successor to the Castlevania series? Heather Alexandra played 10 minutes of new demo at E3 that you can watch right here.

Snatcher Is Cyberpunk Noir At Its Best

Hideo Kojima's 1988 game is a cult classic for good reason

The Makers Of Final Fantasy XIV Are Still Deciding How To Add Blitzball

Blitzball is coming to Final Fantasy XIV, but director Naoki Yoshida doesn’t know how to make it happen. He’s torn between two options, he says, and both of them sound pretty good. Blitzball, which is sort of like underwater soccer except players can poison one another, is both a minigame and significant plot point in…

God Of War Director, On Kratos’ Beard: ‘It Smells Of Pine And Dead Trolls’

The newest God of War hopes to give Kratos some much-needed depth by focusing on character dynamics and new mechanics. Also new: Kratos’ massive, manly beard. I sat down with game director Cory Barlog to ask some hard-hitting questions about Kratos’ new look. Heather Alexandra, Kotaku: Let’s talk initial design : what made you decide to…

Thirty Minutes Of Splatoon 2 Single Player

We’ve seen Splatoon 2‘s competitive game andco-op Salmon Run mode, but what about those of us who’d rather go it alone? Here’s 30 minutes of Splatoon 2‘s story mode, direct from the Nintendo E3 2017 Treehouse stream. There’s a ton of rail grinding, tentacle shooting and boss fighting in Splatoon 2‘s single-player story mode, which…

IO Interactive Goes Independent And Keeps Hitman Franchise

This past May, Square Enix announced it was parting ways with IO Interactive. Today, that studio says it’s now officially independent and will keep the rights to the Hitman series. Below is a statementfrom IO Interactive CEO Hakan Abrak: In its 19 years of history, Io-Interactive has brought you original and exciting entertainment; from Mini…

Dragon Ball FighterZ Compared To The Manga

Doesn’t Dragon Ball FighterZ look incredible? And the best part might be that so much of that look is taken straight from the Akira Toriyama’s original art. These comparisons are via Twitter user Mizumaki_7:  This is wonderful. Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea,…

Pokémon‘s First Japanese Theme Song Returns

When the original Pokémon TV anime debuted in Japan on September 8, 1998, the theme song was “Mezase Pokémon Masutaa” or “Aim to be a Pokémon Master.” Now in 2017, the theme is back! The current series Pokémon Sun Moon began using the theme this week to mark the 20th anniversary of Pocket Monsters. If…

Keiji Inafune Opens A New Studio With Level-5

Keiji Inafune of Dead Rising fame and Akihiro Hino of Professor Layton fame have established a new company called Level-5 Comcept. This subsidiary is completely owned by Level-5. Comcept is the name of Inafune’s earlier company, which launched the rocky Mighty No. 9 and oversaw a failed Red Ash Kickstarter campaign. The studio, however, did…