I enjoyed Bugsnax far more than I thought I would. At first, it didn’t strike me as my kind of game when I judged it by its saccharine advertising billing it as a cutesy adventure romp in which I would eat my way through an island of colorful foodbugs. The reality of Bugsnax is much darker than Kero Kero Bonito’s …
As of this week, Jin Sakai and the open-world samurai game he stars in—Ghost of Tsushima—turn six months old. Rather than a one-off, Ghost of Tsushima has received an impressively dedicated level of support from developer Sucker Punch with consistent quality-of-life upgrades, new difficulty levels, and a (surprise!)…
During an official Mortal Kombat 11 Pro Kompetition tournament on January 16, finalist Titaniumtigerzz was disqualified after jokingly calling out developer NetherRealm Studios by labeling his Sheeva variation—a personalized moveset that displays a custom name to opponents—as “WhyDidNRSdoThis.”
While there will always be a place in my heart for the original Space Invaders, Taito’s 1978 arcade classic is not the most engaging way to spend a quarter. Space Invaders Extreme, recently released for the Nintendo Switch and PS4 as part of the Space Invaders Forever bundle, is my preferred chaotic and colorful…
Back in the days of TV on DVD, no series was treated better than The Muppet Show—until it wasn’t. Disney produced lavish full-season sets for the series, including nifty bonus features, and even packaged them in flocked “fuzzy” boxes meant to replicate the supple feel of a Muppet’s... coat? Skin? For three of the five…
Absence can make the heart grow fonder, and with Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game the wait has set me up to fall in love with its retro gaming nostalgia-fest all over again. Its return couldn’t have come at a better time either. Cooped up in my home away from friends and family while the days are short, cold, and…
While you might still be a terrible World of Warcraft player who can’t get good parses to save their life, don’t let your gear hold you back. I can’t help you become a better player if you’re just button-mashing you way through the game, but there are plenty of tech tools you can use to ensure that you’re not losing…
It’s Tuesday and time for Ask Kotaku, the weekly feature in which Kotaku-ites deliberate on a single burning question. Then, we ask your take.
Finally, 2021 is here, and with it, so much television to look forward to. In fact, there’s so much, we’re breaking down our big new year preview of sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and superhero shows into three massive parts! Ready for part one?
Mario was back for another adventure. But this time, it was personal. Hiroji Kiyotake, the director of 1992’s Game Boy hit Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins, wanted to pursue the idea that this time Mario wouldn’t be fighting to help or save someone else. Hence: Wario, Mario’s greed-and-crime-focused rival.
Video conferencing is putting a lot of stress on us, forcing us to show our colleagues the insides of our apartments, learn new social norms (is “mute yourself” a rude thing to say?), and remember that there is still a deadly global pandemic ravaging the world. It may be putting stress on the planet, too.
Netflix’s marketing department is excited to let you know that the streaming service will be debuting at least one new movie every week in 2021. This is, perhaps, an attempt to distract from the fact that, now that Warner Bros., Disney, and NBC Universal, etc. all have their own streaming services (HBO Max, Disney+,…
Terraria doesn’t get the same level of fanfare as Minecraft, but its two-dimensional crafting is nevertheless responsible for some truly impressive player-made creations of its own. Behold the latest: an Evangelion lifting a warship over its head.
Terraria doesn’t get the same level of fanfare as Minecraft, but its two dimensional crafting is nevertheless responsible from some truly impressive player-made creations of its own. Behold the latest: an Evangelion lifting a warship over its head.
The Muppet Show? Oh, The Muppet Show! 15 seconds to curtain, The Muppet Show! Or, make that one month: Disney+ has announced that all of five seasons of Jim Henson’s pioneering variety show will join its library February 19—the show’s streaming debut, if you don’t count all the YouTube rips we’ve been watching while…
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla (PS5) | $35 | Amazon
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla (PS4) | $35 | Amazon
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla (XBO) | $35 | Amazon
Hitman 3 made me care more about its plot than crafting the perfect murder. The narrative, which I usually see as a flimsy excuse to play dress-up and cause globe-spanning mayhem, bleeds into the structure of its levels and creates some unexpected moments of emotion and vulnerability. Its dark story plays with the lie…
The aisles of the Minnesota State Fair are host to a teeming game of lard-coated one-upmanship. On the left, hot dogs wrapped in funnel cake batter. Across the way, baked potatoes cocooned in mozzarella cheese, served on a stick. But it wasn’t always this way.
Nintendo Switch Ultimate Case XL | $12 | GameStop
Nintendo Switch Car Headrest Mount | $12 | GameStop
Nintendo Switch Ring Wall Mount | $8 | GameStop
The one thing the Nintendo Switch has over every other console at the moment is accessory potential. The unique portable/console hybrid design lends itself to all sorts of…
Finnish artist Juho Könkkölä took a single sheet of 68cm x 68cm wafer-thin Wenzhou paper and folded it for fifty hours. The result? A samurai papercraft that is around 20cm tall.
Most mystery stories involve flashy detective work and sharp deductions, culminating in a dramatic reveal. In the novel Murder on the Orient Express, there’s a point where detective Hercule Poirot gathers everyone together and dives into a detailed breakdown of exactly how a murder occurred, and how deep its roots ran…
Ever since there’s been more than one person on the internet, there have been arguments. Some forum debates have become so outrageous that they’ve been forever ensconced in the collective unconscious of the web. And now, they can be turned into Phoenix Wright debates.
It’s hard to make the cyberpunk genre feel fresh nowadays. Its tried-and-true tenets of a dystopian future overrun by corporations and technology have, after all, been true for a while. Of course, cybernetic implants aren’t de rigeur in the real world so we can’t have secret chainsaws in our hands, but we already have…
The history of the MOBA genre is one of mods and iteration. Its most popular and still-standing games today are the result of multiple reimaginings and tweaks to skirt copyright issues. Now, there’s one more absurd step to the story: the makers of Auto Chess are making a MOBA. An Auto Chess MOBA is a game based off a…
A mod years in the making launched just last Friday, and it was a launch so big it took Nexus Mods with it. Fallout: The Frontier is essentially a new game, built onto Fallout: New Vegas.
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game, after years of being stranded on old consoles, was finally re-released last week. I’m eager to hop back in, but more than just playing through it one more time, I’ve been digging re-listening to the game’s perfect pop-rock soundtrack.
Robot anime Choudenji Machine Voltes V debuted on Japanese television in the late 1970s. Now, decades after being banned in the country, it is getting a live-action television show in the Philippines.
Tomonobu Itagaki made his name creating Dead or Alive and designing Ninja Gaiden games. After leaving Koei Tecmo, he founded Valhalla Game Studios, releasing Devil’s Third. Now, he’s back with a new company.
Duncan Halleck is a concept artist and illustrator currently working on Utopia Syndrome, an upcoming point-and-click horror/adventure game.
Look, weren’t we only just warning people last week to be more careful playing this game in these strange and uncertain times?
Load up on expired cans of soup, flamingo costumes, and explosive golf balls. Hitman 3 is almost here and it’s time to kill some assholes.
IO Interactive outlined how levels and progress will be carried over to Hitman 3 from the previous games in a complicated FAQ over on its website today, and it’s a mess for players on PC seemingly thanks to Epic Games Store and Steam not playing nice with each other.
Yesterday, the New York Times ran a story that focused on how kids are spending too much time playing video games and using their phones during the covid-19 pandemic. Today, that story was on the front page of the paper. This seems strange considering how the world is falling apart and democracy is dying in front of…
Turns out, Taco Bell is run by some kind of sentient potato. Who knew? Though the reasoning behind removing potatoes from the menu now makes more sense.
