Culture

DOTA 2 Update Forces Players To Re-Learn A Game That Took Hundreds Of Hours To Understand [UPDATE]

DOTA 2‘s biggest update yet is here, and players are coming to terms with the fact that a game they spent hundreds of hours barely wrapping their heads around just got turned upside-down. Ever since Valve took the reigns on DOTA with DOTA 2, the game’s received all sorts of updates over the years. While…

Drastic Renovations

Hugh Pindur is an artist who has worked on stuff like the RPG Pathfinder and Wil Wheaton’s Titansgrave You can see more of Hugh’s work at his ArtStation page To see the images in their native resolution, click on the “expand” button in the top-left corner. Fine Art is a celebration of the work of…

Track: Town Called Malice | Artist: The Jam | Album: The Gift Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

The Week In Games: Get In The Car And Drive

The year is almost over, but there are still a few games left to come out, including the trippy, mind-bending racer Drive!Drive!Drive! The premise is that you drive along multiple tracks at once, learning to feel the road beneath you, where it exists, on multiple levels at once. The Pittsburgh synth duo Zombi created the music…

From Regular Dude To Geralt Of Rivia

As we’ve established repeatedly over 2016, Maul is the King of Witcher cosplay. We normally only see him as Geralt, though; here’s a look at how he becomes Geralt. The shot tracks the beginning to the end of a session with make-up artist Maja Felicitas, who doesn’t just add blood and hair colour, but as…

Cosplay: Teen Titans Now Young Adult Titans 

Here is some excellent Raven, Robin and Frodo Baggins Beast Boy cosplay. Nearly all the costume work across all three characters was done by Ginger Armadillo, who is also cosplaying as Raven. “My goal, as it often is, was to introduce details, textures, and elements of realism to the costumes, while maintaining the visual integrity…

Unreleased Akira Game Found For The Game Boy

There has never been a good Akira game. There have been bad ones, however, and more interestingly, there have been cancelled ones like this Game Boy effort, the remains of which were recently bought by a video game collector and are somewhat playable. Patrick Scott Patterson managed to get his hands on not one but…

Speedrun’s Unique Idling Requirement Leads To Temporary Twitch Ban

The third day after embarking on a multi-week speedrun of Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean, a streamer who goes by the name Baffan woke up to continue streaming his attempt only to learn that Twitch had temporarily suspended his account for “non-gaming content.” That’s because he had left the game idling all…

Sunday Comics: Get Back To The Mines

Welcome to Kotaku’s Sunday Comics, your weekly roundup of the best webcomics. The images enlarge if you click on the magnifying glass icon. Nerf NOW!! by Josué Pereira. Published December 9. Read more of Nerf NOW!! Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich. Published December 5. Read more of Awkward Zombie Penny Arcade by Jerry Holkins and…

Kotaku ‘Shop Contest: Ellie And Garfunkel, Winners!

Holy Clickers, Batman! Everyone really went above and beyond this week. You took the a not-obviously exciting ‘Shop proposition and turned out some really rad mash-ups. And a million and one props to people like Orionsangel and others who shared their much better cutouts with the crew. Also, Orionsangel won. Sorry! It was just too…

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

It’s the weekend! I’ve had a heck of a week and am looking forward to only emerging from my bed when I absolutely have to. Though I also just got an iPad, which means I could technically play FTL in bed, so leaving bed at all is up for grabs. I’m going to (finally) make…

OneShot Is A Game Where The Main Character Knows Who You Are

OneShot first freaked me out when it said my name. My real name. I don’t know how it got my name. I didn’t give it my name. It’s not even part of my Steam profile. In OneShot, an adventure game that just came out on Steam, you play as a cat creature named Niko. However,…

Building Some Of The Biggest Things In Video Games

EVE Online’s Citadels are some of the biggest, most impressive objects in all of video games, some of them designed to be 150km tall. Which presented quite a challenge for the people who actually had to design them. One of those people is artist Pavel Savchuk, who has shared some of his early work creating…

Snacktaku Drinks Starbucks’ Pokémon Go Frappuccino

Live from New York, it’s Snacktaku, featuring special guest Cecilia D’Anastasio. Watch us drink Starbucks’ Pokémon Go marketing tie-in as we ponder whether or not they skinned the Pokémon before grinding them up. The video below was filmed in front of a very small studio audience at Kotaku headquarters in New York City, and was…

Track: Dear Prudence | Artist: Siouxsie And The Banshees | Album: Nocturne Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

When You Gotta Fight A Space Battle At 12 Then Hit The Beach At 3

Ben Nicholas is an artist who has worked for companies like Ubisoft, Adidas, 343 Studios (Halo) and Creative Assembly (Total War, Alien: Isolation). There’s a ton of amazing stuff here, but the Chris FOss-like starships at the top are just the best You can see more of Ben’s work at his ArtStation page To see…

The Last Guardian’s Boy Is Dancing Like He’s Never Danced Before

Today on Highlight Reel we have Last Guardian dance parties, Titanfall 2 flag caps, NHL goals and much more! Watch the video then talk about your favorite highlight in the comments below. Be sure to check out, like, and share the original videos via the links below. Subscribe to Kotaku on YouTube for more! Steep…

No One Can Hide From This Widowmaker Cosplay’s Sights

The only thing better than Overwatch cosplay is Overwatch skin cosplay This Huntress Widowmaker skin is by Moth Child, and is just fantastic. Photos byThe Nerdy Monkey

We Happy Few just got a big update. The very British, slightly BioShock-esque survival game launched in Early Access over the summer. I found it intriguing and weird, but also aimless and fairly barebones. The update improves that by completely overhauling NPC behavior, encounters, environments, and quest states. It also adds a story-driven tutorial.

Podcast: We’re Hungry For Games That Feel Different

This week on Kotaku Splitscreen, Jason and I sat down in the very same room to talk about hamburgers, poutine, and also occasionally video games. Just kidding, we actually talked about a ton of different games this week. I’ve played a lot more Final Fantasy XV, so we got more in depth about that lovely,…