The Perfect Box Art For The Stanley Parable

Nothing evokes a life of cubicle-bound drudgery like a white box with four differently-colored things arranged in a square on front. It’s the oddly wonderful The Stanley Parable in box form. Also inside the box. With a tie. The IndieBox subscription service takes independent PC games there’s a good chance you already own and places…

This Week In The Business: “We Need To Make Money”

QUOTE | “We need to make money. That’s the motivation. Computer games make money.” – Seaman designer Yoot Saito, explaining why his company is returning to game development after several years building apps. Elsewhere in the business of gaming this week… QUOTE | “We don’t know much about monetisation, and quite frankly we aren’t interested…

Overwatch player acutefatcat lost their whole team, so the other team decided to be cool about it. I’ve heard a few stories like this, and it warms my heart each time. Overwatch can be toxic sometimes, but it’s fostered a uniquely rad community in some places. Here’s the full clip: And here’s a pic of…

What Are You Playing This Weekend? 

Whew. What a week, huh? Most of my weekend will be spent playing No Man’s Sky, so that we can get impressions to you on launch day. I’m hoping to maybe squeeze in at least one other smaller game into the mix, maybe Glitched, an RPG which looks heavily inspired by the likes of Earthbound…

Overwatch‘s First Competitive Season Ends In Two Weeks

Overwatch’s competitive mode has been a divisive subject for much of its first season, but Blizzard stated upfront that change is in the cards. Season two is just around the corner. Blizzard announced that season one will end on August 17 at 5 PM PT. Season two is currently scheduled to kick off on September…

Five Must-Watch Anime Of Summer 2016

Summer can mean a few things: Frolicking in unbearable humidity until your skin is a festering wreck, or cuddling up next to the AC and binge-watching anime. No judgment here. Kotaku East’s Brian Ashcraft wrote up our Summer 2016 Anime Guide last month with nearly 50 listings. Below, I’ve narrowed down this summer’s anime bounty…

Destiny’s Rise of Iron Expansion Sounds Promising

On this week’s Kotaku Splitscreen, Jason and I talked about one of our favorite subjects: Late 60s free jazz. No, wait, I mean Destiny! It was definitely Destiny. Specifically, we discussed next month’s Rise of Iron expansion. Game Informer ran a big cover-story blowout on the expansion, so Jason and I talked about some of…

We Named A Planet In No Man’s Sky [Update]

Rest in peace, buddy. The cosmos will never forget you. For what it’s worth, this is the dossier that No Man’s Sky gave us on the planet when we originally arrived: In other news there is also a Kotaku planet out there, which you’ll be able to discover once No Man’s Sky is officially out…

Valve Closes Steam Cheating Loophole

Steam’s VAC (Valve Anti-Cheat) and game ban systems can block people from playing games they’ve cheated in, no questions asked. But where there’s a will to break the rules, there’s almost always a way. One tactic Steam cheaters use is to stockpile giftable versions of games on one account (often during Steam sales) and then…

Look At This $260 Doom Action Figure

Fresh off those Destiny figures that I’m still getting over, 3A said this week they’ll also be releasing a piece based on the new Doom game I’m not feeling this one anywhere near as much, mostly because I found the new marine’s design a bit too “Generic Xbox Shooter Man”—which doesn’t translate as impressively in…

Watch Us Play No Man’s Sky

The No Man’s Sky review copy situation is a mess, and reviewers from various outlets have just gone and bought copies from local retailers instead of waiting for Sony to send codes. On an unrelated note, come watch us play (the pre-day-one-patch version of) No Man’s Sky!

Making Messes In Room Service Simulator Breach and Clean

Breach and Clean is a wonderfully goofy room service simulator made by Rami Ismail and a small team of mischief makers. You can download it for Windows here if you want to test your room service skills. From strapping bombs to locked doors to mopping up floor and changing out the towels, Breach and Clean…

The No Man’s Sky Review Copy Debacle

Early this week, the review aggregator OpenCritic caused widespread panic when they tweeted about publications not receiving early review copies of No Man’s Sky. It was just the beginning of what would become a weeklong debacle involving one of the most hyped games of the year. On Monday, OpenCritic sent out a rather simple tweet:…

Days Later, Overwatch Fans Can’t Figure Out The ‘Sky Code’ Mystery

Overwatch fans’ investigation into the identity of unreleased stealth hero Sombra is moving slowly, even after game director Jeff Kaplan personally gave them a push along. Over 5,000 Overwatch fans have been working to solve the puzzle since Tuesday without much success. In July, Kaplan told Kotaku reporter Nathan Grayson that “Sombra will let people…

Overwatch Has Some Great Skins

Tonight's Fine Art looks at the work of Airborn Studios

Report: Blizzard Releasing StarCraft HD [Update]

According to respected Korean site iNews24, multiple sources say Blizzard will announce an HD version of the original StarCraft this September. It will reportedly play the same, but have a better resolution and UI. iNews24, the country’s first online newspaper, is reporting (via tipster Sang) the following: Today, multiple sources with knowledge of Blizzard internal…

A Whole Bunch of PC Case Mods From China

A slew of Chinese case mods were on display at the recent ChinaJoy gaming exhibition in Shanghai. Let’s have a look. Japanese site 4Gamer took most of these images. One case modder to note is Fuxk, which has been winning case mod competitions for years now. Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture,…