It’s hot tub stream summer, and everybody’s got an opinion. This week, for example, the biggest streamer on Twitch, Félix “xQc” Lengyel, called hot tub streams “trash,” saying that they’re “the most pathetic thing we’ve seen on Twitch in forever” and petitioning for them to be removed from the front page. It was the…

We at Kotaku have designated April as Backlog Month, in which we, in light of a looming dearth of new video game releases, turn our attention toward the games that we have wanted to play but missed. But unlike my colleagues, I’m having a problem—I have no idea what to do for Backlog Month, and it’s stressing me the…

A couple weeks ago, video game cover band Lame Genie recorded a fantastic version of the iconic Mortal Kombat theme song. Then they slapped on videos of comedian Gilbert Gottfried in place of the vocals for some reason.

Humble Bundle announced today that in May it will begin removing its distinctive sliders from game bundle store pages, in effect capping the amount of the purchase price customers can donate to charity. News of this change has enraged some onlookers, who characterized it as greedy.

It’s Backlog Month at Kotaku, which means we’re spilling a lot of ink on a plight shared by basically everyone who plays games. But this got us wondering: What defines a backlog? At what point does a game jump from being anything else in your library to being a (likely permanent) fixture on your ever-growing list of…

Narration plays a huge role in Disco Elysium: The Final Cut, the spiraling detective simulator that was recently updated for consoles. As such, one might expect the man chosen to lend his pipes to such a project to be some sort of master thespian, or at least a veteran voiceover artist. But in reality, the developers…

Last summer, director Christopher Nolan had the hubris to think that Tenet was a movie people would risk their lives to see. The first major blockbuster to open in theaters following the start of the pandemic, it was also... the last major blockbuster to open in theaters, after it kinda bombed. But this month it is…

“Critical race theory” is the right’s latest buzz phrase in service of silencing discussion of America’s racist past and how it informs the country’s still very racist present. Last night, Riot co-founder and chairman Marc Merrill tweeted and quoted an article about how critical race theory is “a threat” from a…

Most of us will probably never play every game we own right now, let alone all the others we’ll buy or download in the future. In that sense, backlogs are like the universe: infinitely expanding and confounding to physicists. Sometimes you just have to make peace—or force yourself to make peace—with the fact that…

A wise man once said, “I love it when a plan comes together.” And we do too—especially when we’re watching a movie.

The weekend is about slowly and joylessly working through our backlog, somehow dripping with sweat and covered with coal dust. Where did all this sweat-enhancing coal dust come from?

The Evercade is a lovely retro handheld that plays games sold in delightful cartridge-based collections. The Evercade VS is a new $100 retro console from the makers of the original Evercade with dual cartridge ports and support for four-player local multiplayer.

While we can’t wait to go to movie theaters again without worry, the pandemic lockdown has made the past 12 months an interesting time for cinephiles. Many critical darlings made their premieres to little fanfare on VOD; others launched on major streaming platforms as had been planned all along; and, sadly, more…

On March 18, Shigeru Miyamoto appeared at the Super Nintendo World opening at Universal Studios Japan. For the photos, he seems to have briefly removed his mask, which was probably safe. However, in light of the ensuing state of emergency, the photos reflect poorly on the seriousness of the pandemic, especially now…