A Look At How Zelda Dungeons Are Designed

Zelda dungeons are, as a general rule, extraordinarily well-designed. Everyone knows that. What you might not know is just why they’re so well-designed. For a few months now, critic Mark Brown has been putting out a great YouTube series called Boss Keys. In it, he digs into Zelda dungeons and tries to figure out what…

Sundered Is Hand-Drawn Lovecraftian Horror From the Makers Of Jotun

Following up on the success of Norse mythology action RPG Jotun, Thunder Lotus Games goes back to the drawing board with Sundered, a replayable Metroidvania heavily inspired by the writings of H.P. Lovecraft. The hand-drawn art that drew so many eyes to Jotun returns, only what we’re seeing in the first trailer and screens posted…

The Horrible World Of Video Game Crunch

In February of 2011, fresh off nine months of 80-hour work weeks, Jessica Chavez took a pair of scissors to her hair. She’d been working so hard on a video game—14 hours a day, six days a week—that she hadn’t even had a spare hour to go to the barber. This piece originally appeared 5/15/15.…

The Philadelphia 76ers Buy Two Esports Teams

Hot off one of the worst seasons in NBA history, the Philadelphia 76ers invests in a different sport entirely. The team has purchased controlling stakes in Team Dignitas and Apex, merging them into a single esports team managed and maintained by the professional sports organization. Team Dignitas, an esports powerhouse founded in 2004, and League…

It’s Dash Vs. The Shadowbolts In Chapter One Of The Guardians Of Harmony Comic Book

The somewhat more action-oriented My Little Pony: Guardians of Harmory line launches this fall, and it’s getting a matching comic book series from IDW later this year. We’ve got the first chapter of the first issue, in which Rainbow Dash meets up with some old illusionary enemies. The Guardians of Harmony line,revealed at Toy Fair…

New Japanese Game Labels Enemies As “Immigrants”

As pointed out on NeoGAF, the invading giant ants and spiders in Earth Defense Force 5 are called “immigrants.” With the recent refugee crisis and anti-immigrant attitudes worldwide, this might not be the best word choice. It’s understandable why people outside Japan might wonder about this naming. It’s also understandable that Japanese game developers might…

One-Punch Man Anime Gets A Second Season

Did you like the One-Punch Man anime? Good news, because they’re making another season. Details are scants, but the anime’s official Twitterconfirmed the announcement. One-Punch Man debuted as a web comic, but went on to spawn a manga in 2012, while the Madhouse anime originally debuted in fall 2015. Kotaku East is your slice of…

Amsterdam River View. Amsterdam, the Netherlands. By Aiman Ishak. 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!

Star Wars Space Battle Has No Chill

Darren Tan is a freelance artist from Singapore who has done a lot of work for board game giants Fantasy Flight, and in particular their Star Wars titles. Below you’ll see some of Tan’s work for the company, from Armada (which is great) to X-Wing (also great) to the new card game Destiny You can…

Bastion Wins Cosplay Of The Game

Rather than cosplay as one of Overwatch’s human characters, Mathozwent for something a bit harder: the big blocky robot thing that also transforms into a gun. I’ve seen Bastion cosplay before, but it often suffers from being weirdly out of proportion, since the original design doesn’t exactly suit itself to the human body. Not here:…

The Week In Games: Hit That Man

Can you believe it? Hundreds of ice-cold bodies later, the fifth episode of Hitman is upon us! What better way to greet the cool autumn air and crackling foliage then with the deadly silence of a flawless assassination. Other than that, uh, well, let’s call this a nice pale September reprieve from the glut of…

Smash Bros. Player Shuts Down Heckler, Goes On To Win Tournament 

On an autumn Sunday before a Patriots game, you won’t find Tom Brady coming through the front entrance to get onto the field. You won’t find him in any of Gillette Stadium’s public restrooms taking a leak at half time. In fact, unless you are part of a very small and select cadre of people,…

Remembering The Brutality Of Meridian 59 On Its 20th Anniversary

Before the recent wave of excitement around new virtual reality technology convinced everyone that the future was inside of a headset, people longing to escape the constraints of their everyday lives invested their hopes and dreams in ugly looking worlds housed on distant computer servers. Massively multiplayer online games offered a meaningful substitute to the…

Perfect Rocket League Save Gets Denied By The Plunger

Ever since Psyonix introduced Rumble mode into Rocket League, the nonsense has been taken up a notch. Every few seconds, random power-ups spawn on the field of play giving each car a different special ability for a limited amount of time. For most people, the results are a mess. Regular Rocket League can get sloppy…

Overwatch Pro Rips Through The Other Team As Tracer

Tracer is probably one of Overwatch’s most fun heroes to play. The way she can manipulate time and zip around maps, darting behind enemy lines and catching the other team off-guard, is a perfect example of what makes Blizzard’s game a different kind of competitive shooter. Kevin “AZK” Larivière demonstrated this perfectly in Team Liquid’s…