- Culture
Sunday Comics: A Wild Yungoos Appeared!
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 February 22. Read more of Nerf NOW!! Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich. Published February 20. Read more…
By Ethan Gach Published February 26, 2017 - Uncategorized
This is what it looks like when the Ghost Recon Wildlands open beta launches you across a ravine into a pond. It sounds like the game still has some kinks to work out, but ridiculous rag doll physics are half the fun of any open world game. The beta is available for the rest of…
By Ethan Gach Published February 25, 2017 - Esports
Dota 2 Pro’s Best Just Isn’t Good Enough
Team Secret’s Clement “Puppey” Ivanov made a great play call only to have the enemy team do him one better. Sometimes, despite a team’s best efforts to win, the esports gods have other ideas. It was that kind of day for Team Secret during the StarLadder Season 3 group stage when, even after outplaying opponents…
By Ethan Gach Published February 25, 2017 - Esports
Unknown Kirby Player Upsets Top Smash 4 Pro At Frostbite 2017
This weekend’s Frostbite 2017 is a tournament solely devoted to Super Smash Bros. for Wii U. In the pools, anyone is fair game, as Elliot “Ally” Bastien Carroza-Oyarce learned after getting upset by a relatively unknown Kirby player. Carroza-Oyarce is one of the best in the game, ranked in the top three on community site…
By Eric Van Allen Published February 25, 2017 - Uncategorized
Talking To The Composer Behind Night In The Woods
In development for over three and a half years, Night in the Woods came out last week and has been making waves with its unique art style and intimate take on daily life in a small, stagnant town. The game’s soundtrack, which Riley MacLeod called “intensely beautiful” in Kotaku’s review, is a big part of…
By Ethan Gach Published February 25, 2017 - Esports
Tales Speedrunners Race Through Grand Epics In A Few Hours
For a certain subset of folks, speedrunning—the art of beating a video game as quickly as possible—is their window into competitive gaming. But if speedrunning Super Mario World is a 100-meter sprint, a Tales race is a marathon: superficially similar but wildly different. This weekend, the RPG Limit Break channel on Twitch is streaming a…
By Eric Van Allen Published February 25, 2017 -
UncategorizedThe Newly Discovered TRAPPIST-1 Star System Was Hiding In Elite: Dangerous All Along
NASA had some big news this past week. No, it wasn’t aliens. It was the next best thing: the discovery of seven new “Earth-sized exoplanets,” a few of which could be hospitable to life. Now, it turns out that Elite: Dangerous actually predicted the existence of the TRAPPIST-1 star system where they’re located. Elite: Dangerous,…
By Ethan Gach Published February 25, 2017 -
UncategorizedOdd Tales’ The Last Night gets a new teaser trailer and Raw Fury has signed on to publish it. The work of Tim and Adrien Soret, which originally grew out of the 2014 Cyberpunk Jam, The Last Night is inspired by the brooding sci-fi aesthetics of games like Another World and Oddworld and the pixel…
By Ethan Gach Published February 25, 2017 - Esports
Surprise Marine Flank Secures Win In Global StarCraft II League Quarterfinals
Siege tanks can’t hit flying units, a fact Cho “Maru” Seong Ju was reminded of in last night’s Global StarCraft II League Code S match against Kim “Ryung” Dong Won. The series was at a 2-1 advantage for Kim, but Cho was looking to make a resurgence on the fourth map. Pushing ahead with a…
By Eric Van Allen Published February 25, 2017 - Esports
The Weekend In Esports: Upsets Rock StarLadder While Mexico Hosts Halo 5 Qualifiers
With DreamHack Las Vegas and the Dota 2 Asia Championship qualifiers behind us, all eyes are on the start of 2017’s Intel Extreme Masters in Katowice, Poland and the conclusion of Dota 2‘s StarLadder Season 3. Below you’ll find where and when you can catch all the weekend’s biggest events in competitive gaming. Let us…
By Ethan Gach Published February 25, 2017 - Culture
This Week In The Business: Nintendo Switch Flippers
QUOTE | “The individuals involved have been identified, terminated from their place of employment and are under investigation by local law enforcement authorities on criminal charges.” – Nintendo, making an example of employees at one of its US distributors who stole Switch systems and sold one to a NeoGAF poster who promptly showed it off…
Brendan Sinclair Published February 25, 2017 -
UncategorizedSources: GameStop Changes Controversial Circle of Life Program
GameStop’s controversial Circle of Life program is changing next week, according to several store managers. Though the retail chain will continue to use and monitor Circle of Life scores, GameStop plans to enact several changes that will make the program more accommodating to employees. The “Circle of Life” score, as Kotaku has reported, is a…
By Jason Schreier Published February 24, 2017 - Esports
Overwatch Pro Makes Exquisite Last-Second Recovery With Winston’s Jump Pack
South Korean Overwatch pro Miro is probably the best Winston player in the world. His deft tank work helped South Korea win the first Overwatch World Cup and he took home personal tournament MVP honors as well. If you want a highlight reel of his best moments, well here you go Miro’s Lunatic-Hai squad was…
By Patrick Redford Published February 24, 2017 - Culture
What Are You Playing This Weekend?
This isn’t a picture from The Witcher 3. It’s complicated, OK? Last weekend I finished the main storyline for The Witcher 3 and, well…something happened. I’ll tell you about it next week. It’s still too raw. Instead, I’m going to play more Night in the Woods. I’m also going to check out the new Deus Ex:…
By Riley MacLeod Published February 24, 2017 - Uncategorized
The Sims 4 Celebrity House Update: Introducing, Blac Chyna and Prompto
Last week I moved out Rihanna and Dwayne Johnson after their wedding, to frolic in San Muyshuno and hopefully have some children I can micromanage sometime soon. I asked readers to help me figure out who to add for the two remaining slots in the house. Blac Chyna and Prompto were too tempting to pass…
By Gita Jackson Published February 24, 2017 - Uncategorized
A Game Developer’s Digital Fight Against Fascism
In these turbulent times, it can be hard to focus on making video games. The world is on fire! Tightening up the graphics on level three probably won’t do much to put it out. Ramsey Nasser was feeling that way, so he decided to make games about punching nazis. “It’s something that has come up…
By Nathan Grayson Published February 24, 2017 -
UncategorizedThe Elder Scrolls Online Has A Botting Problem
Players of The Elder Scrolls Online have found a cheap way to level up their characters, and they don’t even have to be at the keyboard to do it. In the image above we see a group of The Elder Scrolls Online characters whose players are away from the keyboard, doing battle with absolutely nothing.…
By Mike Fahey Published February 24, 2017 - Reviews
Night In The Woods: The Kotaku Review
Depending who you are, you’ll either want to hang out with Night in the Woods’ characters all the time or tell them to get off your lawn. The game is small enough to feel intimate and spacious enough to cater to different kinds of curious people. It may feel different for everyone who plays it.…
By Riley MacLeod Published February 24, 2017 - Uncategorized
Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective Is My Favorite Way To Experience A Sherlock Holmes Story
My mom loves mystery stories, but I’ve never really seen the appeal. While we both love reading, she likes to puzzle out the mystery as she reads along. I can’t help myself from flipping to the back of the book. Now that I’ve played Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective, however, I finally understand the thrill of…
By Gita Jackson Published February 24, 2017 -
EsportsMeet The Woman Raising Japan’s Next Generation Of Street Fighter Champions
When I called Street Fighter pro Yuko “Chocoblanka” Momochi at 11 a.m. Japan time, her husband, the legendary Street Fighter champion Yusuke Momochi, was asleep. The husband-wife team, both Street Fighter players, had recently launched a school to train promising Japanese competitors. They’ve rented out a studio to use as a DIY classroom. They’re running…
By Cecilia D'Anastasio Published February 24, 2017