Rusty Lake, the studio, have for years been creating some of the spookiest, most bizarre, and engrossing puzzle games. Becoming known for their incredible series of (free) short mobile games, Cube Escape, they then moved into full-length Lynchian creep-fests like Rusty Lake Hotel, Rusty Lake Paradise, The White Door,…
Companies around the world are worried about chip shortages. But in Japan, if you like convenience store fried chicken, add another worry to your list. Family Mart is running low on its delicious Famichiki.
In 2019, there was a global manhunt for the manager of manga piracy site Manga-Mura. The manager, a Japanese citizen named Romi Hoshino, was arrested in Manila on copyright violation charges. In June 2021, he was found guilty, sentenced, and fined. If you thought that was the end of Japan’s piracy crackdown, you were…
I’ve reviewed a lot of video game adaptations as part of my board game coverage for Kotaku. As you’d expect, since this is first and foremost a video game website. Some of those adaptations have been OK, some have been pretty good, but I haven’t played any quite like Company of Heroes before.
The good news first: EA’s classic Skate 2 is one of the over 70 games coming to the Xbox Series X/S’s backwards compatibility list. The bad news? It’s going to be missing its online multiplayer shortly afterwards, because EA is turning off the game’s servers next month.
Earlier today, Star Fox received a patch that allows the 1993 Super Nintendo classic to perform as if it was taking advantage of an advanced accelerator chip, boosting its framerate from the single digits to something nearing a more modern game.
In a blog post published last week, innocuously titled Ricochet Anti-Cheat Progress Report, the Call of Duty team slipped in some drastic news about how their anti-cheat system is going to work.
When I nail an MV-38 Condor transport hovering in the lens flare-filled sky with my rocket launcher, Battlefield 2042 is awesome. When my squad bursts onto the climate-torn scene in a massive tank, ramming through debris and blowing up abandoned office buildings, it’s a thrill to return to DICE’s militarized…
It’s not always easy to predict which shows will instantly become appointment television. A dark fantasy series based on a half-completed run of novels? Yup! A profane but sardonically humorous soap inspired partially by Rupert Murdoch? Okay, sure! How about an animated prequel for a multiplayer game with more than …
In 2006, quadriplegic video game tester and streamer Randy Fitzgerald helped create “NOM4D,” a button layout for Call of Duty designed for disabled players. At the time, he says, he was told he’d be credited by name in the game, but that didn’t happen. All CoD titles since then have omitted his name too, but kept the…
In my mind, The Legend of Tianding is a perfect gaming experience. Not because it can do everything, or that it allows the player to do anything. It’s perfect because it accomplishes all of its aesthetic and storytelling goals without overstaying its welcome. Despite offering only six story-driven chapters, its gritty…
Today during Microsoft’s 20th anniversary Xbox event, the company announced that 76 new games are being added to the Xbox backwards compatibility library, including the entire Max Payne franchise, F.E.A.R series, multiple Star Wars games, and more. Xbox also announced that some of these classics will support FPS boost…
Let’s get this out of the way: Given all the ~everything~, simply releasing a game in 2021 is nothing short of a miracle. Every single one deserves a round of applause. But some, let’s face it, are better than others. As summer wraps, we thought it’d be fun to shine a light on the games that have excited us, moved us,…
Among the scores of monsters and traps designed to kill Elden Ring players, an inconspicuous hole in the tutorial area proved to be the deadliest aspect of the game’s preview build.
When Kaitlyn “Amouranth” Siragusa isn’t getting banned from Twitch for things like wearing a horse mask and suggestively slurping a microphone, she’s pulling huge viewership numbers month after month. Not only was she Twitch’s leading female streamer for October, she accrued almost as many view hours as the next two…
The item polishing mechanic introduced in the excellent Happy Home Paradise DLC for Animal Crossing: New Horizons starts off harmlessly enough, giving players a way to add a bit of sparkle to their home furnishings. But when all of the new features’ options are unlocked, including the ability to use custom patterns…
You might want to dust off your fake sneeze. Halo Infinite’s multiplayer component, which was initially slated for a December 8 release, is available today. Microsoft announced the news during Xbox’s 20th anniversary stream. And yes, it’s still a separate free-to-play mode. I’m, uh, suddenly not feeling so hot, boss.
Forza Horizon 5 has a ton of cars, and the most impressive ones all cost a ton of money, so players have been eagerly looking for the fastest ways to grind for credits and XP. The answer? A course called Goliath, which players can complete without ever touching their controller.
The recently “remastered” GTA trilogy has some of the ugliest rain I’ve ever seen, and a handful of days later, modders have fixed it. No longer will you walk the streets of Vice City at night, only to be covered in the drippings of Spiderman’s leaky web-shooter. Finally, you can be free of that oddly viscous rain.
The latest game-breaking bug in New World has been allowing players to duplicate items. Amazon locked down the MMO’s entire economy (again) after concerned players started posting about the situation on its official forums. As of the time of publication, New World players can’t send money, trade with other players,…
A 34-year-old resident of Tokyo’s Shibuya has been arrested on suspicion of violating Japanese copyright law after selling unlicensed Demon Slayer cakes.
According to Kyodo News, the women sold the cakes through Instagram, with customers submitting their desired images to be turned into frosting, cream, and sugar. The…
In honor of Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl’s release, Twitter user Uma decided to create a paper diorama version of Twinleaf Town, the first town players encounter in the game.
So the new Battlefield has this mode called Portal that’s like a great big sandbox, where players can customise games to basically be whatever the hell they want. And at the moment, because we live in the world we live in, a lot of those games are XP farms.
2022 is shaping up to be a bumper year for Games Where We’re Playing As Cats. We’re finally getting Stray, that sci-fi feline adventure, but now we’re also getting Little Kitty, Big City as well.
A skin in the new Battlefield 2042 will be renamed in the game’s next update, after users pointed out that it had a lot in common with a group of Russian soldiers involved in the country’s annexation of parts of Ukraine in 2014.
This week Pokemon Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Pokémon Shining Pearl hit the Switch following some leaks earlier this month.
Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - Definitive Edition was released on November 11 on all major platforms including the Switch. However, for folks who bought the game on PC, they’ve been unable to play the game since just shortly after it was released. Now three days later, fans are still unable to access the game they…
Forza Horizon 5 is fantastic. If you look up fun in the dictionary you’ll see a gif of someone hitting a massive ramp in Forza Horizon 5 in a car covered in anime at like 200 MPH while listening to the Beastie Boys. What I’m saying is, it’s really, really good. And Forza Horizon 5 also contains some of the best,…
No, it’s not just you. Yes, Back 4 Blood is hard, and also, yes, the game is still spawning way too many special infected. Turtle Rock, the devs behind the popular zombie shooter, admitted that Back 4 Blood is currently harder than it intended and has plans to address various issues behind the unexpected high…
Hello! It’s time for Kotaku’s Sunday Comics, your weekly roundup of the best webcomics. The images enlarge if you click on the magnifying glass icon.
As players continue to criticize the recently released GTA Trilogy remastered collection, Rockstar Games parent company Take-Two Interactive has decided this is the perfect time to use DMCA takedown notices to remove some more GTA mods and fan projects.
Doomscrolling is that thing where you spend way too much time flipping through Twitter or Instagram reading bad news. And apparently, a metal guitarist in Dallas, Texas thought it would be the perfect name for a new band. But after attempting to trademark the band name, Doom devs Id Software began a legal opposition…
Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - Definitive Edition has suffered a pretty bad launch since releasing on November 11. On PC, players have been unable to play the game for over 24 hours due to Rockstar Launcher issues. All versions of the game are filled with bugs, visual glitches, horrible weather effects, missing fog,…
Since the Xbox Series X launched a year and two days ago, it’s been impossible to get your hands on one—a situation that’s not likely to abate any time soon, thanks to an ongoing confluence of factors. For some well-heeled gamers, however, there’s soon to be another avenue. Italian luxury fashion house Gucci will soon…
Refamiliarizing oneself with their Animal Crossing: New Horizons island after spending a considerable amount of time away can feel like navigating a labyrinth of your own making. This was certainly the case for actor and screenwriter Avery Monsen, who recently returned to the island that he’d literally shaped into a…
Fishing in video games is tricky to nail. Many games offer such a mechanic, but few actually pull it off. Personally, I can’t even recall a single fishing mini-game I’ve wrung enjoyment out of in the last few years. Pokémon? Tedious, annoying. Fire Emblem: Three Houses? Zzzzz. Hades? The only thing resembling a flaw…
Although the latest installment in the Battlefield series officially launches on November 19, folks who doled out extra money to play Battlefield 2042 early say the game won’t stop crashing on Xbox Series X.
After months of rumors, speculation, leaks, and teasers, Rockstar finally released the remastered Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - Definitive Edition collection yesterday. It landed with a thud as players encountered and documented countless visual bugs, gameplay glitches, and odd changes to models and textures. Even…
Early this morning, From Software held its first closed network test session for the upcoming Elden Ring. The long-awaited Dark Souls successor transplants that franchise’s fantastic action RPG gameplay into a Breath of the Wild-like setting. Players now have the opportunity to both explore a beautifully crafted…
This morning, the developers of Genshin Impact shared details about the forthcoming 2.3 update via livestream, including significant seasonal and permanent additions to the game, as well as wintry minigames. The limited characters Albedo and Eula will be available simultaneously, followed by Itto and Gorou’s…