Mario Maker? No, This Is Zelda Maker

It’s unofficial as hell, and Nintendo are probably in the process of nuking it from space, but for now you can totally download this Legend Of Zelda maker and start making your own version of a Zelda game. Hurray! We covered this in September, when the project was in its infancy, but now it’s been…

Hello…Kitty

Reno Levi is an artist who works at Call of Duty developers Infinity Ward. He’s also worked on games like Halo Aniversary and Hawken You can see more of Reno’s work at his ArtStation page To see the larger pics in all their glory (or, if they’re big enough, so you can save them as…

Nintendo: “We Need To Go Deeper”

Spotted by Tiny Cartridge, from an Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer trailer that was pulled shortly after being published.

Kingdom Strips Strategy Games To The Bone

Strategy games sometimes get dinged for being too complicated. Kingdom strives to be minimal. Kingdom is a sidescrolling strategy/management game that just launched on Steam, where it’s been in and out of the top ten best-sellers for the past day. It’s not hard to see why: true to its regal nature, the game’s got luxurious…

Action Figure Accused Of Showing German Footballer As Nazi

Kotaku’s action figure coverage generally extends to “here is a cool action figure”. So excuse this brief interruption to bring you actual news involving an action figure. So, this is Bastian Schweinsteiger. He’s one of the world’s best footballers. Captain of the German national team (the current World Champions) and newly-signed midfielder for Manchester United.…

Niche Witcher 3 Cosplay Is Excellent

The Witcher 3 is the best. Witcher 3 cosplay is the best. Like, Priscilla cosplay? Priscilla cosplay! Who would think/bother to cosplay as such a relatively minor character? Corneline would, because she knows there’s no such thing as a minor character in The Witcher 3

Proof That Counter-Strike‘s Guns Are Surprisingly Unreliable

Sometimes Counter-Strike’s guns will just miss, even if you’re aiming perfectly. Guns that some people believe are solid at all ranges—like the AK-47—suffer the most. Basically, even if you’re aiming like you’ve got the eyes of an eagle and the steady hand of a stone statue (of someone who’s really great at aiming), there’s a…

Ask Dr. NerdLove: Can I Turn A Fling Into A Relationship?

Hello, Internet! Welcome to Ask Dr. NerdLove, the only dating column that’s the galaxy’s last, best hope for peace. This week, we’re getting into the differences between real life and what’s in our heads. One reader had an amazing holiday fling, but is having trouble bringing that back into his real life. Meanwhile, another reader…

Losing My Mind In A Mario Maker Level Designed To Troll Me

I’ve spent four days banging my head against a Mario Maker stage called Hypercube. Full of misdirection, false pipe gods, and music notes, it’s (mostly) a clever stage. Eventually, starved of solutions, I broke my rules and used the editor to learn what was going on. What I found made me do a spit-take. Anyone…

League Of Legends Pro Fined $556 For Giving Opponent The Finger

On the last day of the 2015 League of Legends World Championship group stage, European pro player Fabian “Febiven” Diepstraten said in an interview that he expected American team Cloud9 to lose their match that was about to begin. Star C9 player Hai “Hai” Du Lam responded by flipping him off. That cost Hai $556.…

Here’s how Fallout Shelter is getting in the Halloween spirit. There are even pumpkins! I got five free lunchboxes when I opened the game up today, too. Neat.

Hey, Making Video Games Is Really Friggin’ Hard

This week, we learned the whole messy story of what really happened to Destiny. But how often does that sort of thing happen in the games industry? Let’s discuss. Today on Kotaku Splitscreen, we’re joined by Amazon Game Studios’ Kim Swift, best known as the lead designer of games like Portal and Quantum Conundrum. Kirk…

Harmonix Employees Caught Posting Amazon Reviews For Rock Band 4

In the cut-throat music industry, you’ve gotta do anything you can to stay ahead of the curve. So it is with the plastic music industry, too. Perhaps that’s why Harmonix employees have been posting a whole bunch of positive Amazon reviews for their own game, Rock Band 4, as discovered by Redditors last night. “Loving…

Don’t Play Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons On iOS

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is a great game, one that deserves as huge an audience as possible. So it’s good that the 2013 game is out now for the family of iOS devices. But porting it over to Apple’s mobile devices robs the game of some of its charms. As anyone who played…

After Nine Years, Massive Space Game Might Finally Get Made

For almost ten years now, Flavien Brebion has been working on a space game that was so ambitious he couldn’t get it finished. That game, Infinity: The Quest For Earth, sounded too good to be true. Inspired by titles like Frontier: Elite II, it would have let you roam a seamless galaxy, able to fly…