Kotaku Shop Contest: Kojima’s Body: The Winners

The helmeted skull logo of Kojima Productions may have an official body now, but the unofficial ones created by our readers for last week’s ‘Shop Contest are much, much cooler. The official look revealed by Hideo Kojima earlier this week is nice and all, if you’re into the puffy, Doctor Who Silence in the Library…

7-Year-Old Gaming Vid Briefly Pulled From YouTube Because Of Family Guy 

Last Sunday’s episode of Family Guy used an old YouTube clip of NES classic Double Dribble to simulate two characters playing the game. Shortly after the episode aired the original video was taken down by Fox on copyright grounds, because YouTube is stupid. Basically what happened, as documented by the folks over at TorrentFreak, was…

Melody’s Escape Turns Music Into A Platforming Adventure

This is what Flo Rida’s “Wild Ones” looks like when run through the advanced audio detection algorithms of Loïc Dansart’s Melody’s Escape I’ve been in love with music visualization since the early days of Winamp, and the only thing I enjoy more than watching the beats and melodies of my favorite tunes is playing them.…

Red Faction Started Blowing The Hell Out Of Everything 15 Years Ago Today

On May 21, 2001, developer Volition and publisher THQ took gamers to Mars and let them blow the living hell out of everything that moved and most things that didn’t. Red Faction is a game about a miner revolt on Mars in the year 2075. Earth’s resources have been depleted and a vile corporation has…

Five Nights At Freddy’s Follow-Up Goes Full-On Scary Clown

If you’re looking to give a bunch of kids nightmares, how do you escalate beyond terrifying animatronic animals? Five Nights At Freddy’s creator Scott Cawthon’s first trailer for Sister Location takes us to clown town. No doubt Five Nights fans are busy tearing this latest trailer apart, searching for clues as to what’s going to…

This Week In The Business: Our Human Potential

QUOTE | “We are providing challenge in the games we make, and people are growing inside those economies. In a world of digital content and user-generated content, we are providing self-actualization for a great many of our players.” – Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson, saying his customers are achieving their human potential by playing EA…

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

Ah, Friday. The start of a weekend full of opportunities, such as: napping. Drinking. Oh, and video games. I’m planning on catching up on Kitty Horrorshow, a game creator who—according to YouTube channel Cool Ghosts—makes some excellent horror games: I’ll also try to wrap up my time with Far Harbor, Fallout 4‘s latest DLC. I’ll…

A Look At How Playing Games On YouTube Is Replacing TV

There have been so many good video games in 2016, so it’s not a surprise there’s been a plethora of good writing, too. Worth Reading, our weekly guide to the best pieces around, will point you in the right direction. Hey, You Should Read These “MONSTER FACTORY, New Media, And The Future Of “TV” by…

One Of The Twists In Fallout 4’s Far Harbor DLC Is Too Damn Good

The Fallout fandom is about to have a LOT of arguments over one of the plot points in Far Harbor, Fallout 4’s biggest DLC. Spoilers ahead! Far Harbor starts out simply enough: you need to find Kasumi Nakano, a missing woman who suspects she might be a synth. Searching for answers, Nakano ends up retreating…

Overwatch Fans Are So Desperate, They’re Role-Playing Overwatch In Other Games

You think you’re into Overwatch? Are you dedicated enough to role-play your favorite characters in another game, even if that means pretending to be a turret? While the world holds its breath for Overwatch’s impending launch, eNinja and friends decided to do something productive with the longing in their fingers and maybe also loins. Well,…

A Look At Minecraft‘s Official New Mario World

This Minecraft statue of Mario is different than other Minecraft statues of Mario. Because this one is official. This week, Nintendo launched a brand new Mario world for Minecraft on Wii U, and it’s really intricate, full of big Mario statues, explorable pipes, and a soundtrack that loops through a bunch of iconic tracks from…

Doom’s SnapMap Tool Is Cool, But It’s No Substitute For Real Mods

Doom’s single-player campaign might be getting all the praise, but that’s only half its appeal. The other side of the coin isn’t multiplayer (which is kinda boring), but rather SnapMap, a tool that lets players make their own maps and modes quickly and easily. Naturally, somebody’s already made a farming game. In Doom In the…

A Great Thing Final Fantasy IX Did

It’s Friday, which is still Kotaku JRPG Day in my heart. So here’s an interesting thought on what made old Final Fantasy games special, from two veteran designers who have plenty of insight on what it’s like to make video games. First, some context: designers Brett Douville (LucasArts, Bethesda) and Tim Longo Jr. (LucasArts, 343…

Star Wars vs Imperial Japan

Patrick Rosander is a freelance artist who has previously worked at studios like Paradox. You can see more of Patrick’s work at his personal siteand ArtStation page To see the larger pics in all their glory (or, if they’re big enough, so you can save them as wallpaper), click on the “expand” button in the…

Meet Iron Pineapple, The Biggest Troll In Dark Souls

There’s no Dark Souls player we’ve featured on Kotaku as much as Iron Pineapple. He’s the guy who dressed up as Shrek to protect his swamp, donned spiked armor to run everyone over, and pooped on the ground to strike fear into other players. I decided to ask him the big question: why? “I’m just…

Hitman’s second Elusive Target, The Congressman, will appear on May 27th, Io announced on their blog. The mission will take place in Sapienza and, like the first Elusive Target, will only be available for 48 hours.

One Heck Of A Hitman Kill

Great shot kid, that was one in a million. (Actually, that’s being very unfair, this looks like it took a ton of work to get the positioning right).