Culture

U.N. Squadron Has Some Great Tunes, Which Is A Boring Headline But

Welcome to Morning Music, Kotaku’s daily hangout for folks who love video games and the cool-ass sounds they make. Today set your wayback machine to the dawn of the SNES when Capcom delivered an early shoot ‘em up classic, U.N. Squadron U.N. Squadron (YouTube / longplay / VGMdb), which hit just a month after the…

Track: Valium Skies | Artist: The Verve | Album: Forth

Counter-Strike Pros Banned For Betting On Their Own Matches

The Esports Integrity Commission announced late Friday night that seven Australian Counter-Strike players have received year-long bans for “betting related offences”. In simpler terms, that means some Australians were playing in one of the more higher profile CSGO leagues — the Mountain Dew League run by ESEA — and betting on their own games, or…

The Waiting Room

Cristian Alberto Vasquez is an artist at design studio Atomhawk Design, who have most recently worked on games like FIFA 20 and XCOM: Chimera Squad You can see more of Vasquez’s work at his ArtStation page

Aerith’s Voice Actor, Cosplaying As Aerith

We’ve seen this before with Overwatch, but never with Final Fantasy! This is Briana White, host of Strange Rebel Gaming and also the voice of Aerith in the Final Fantasy VII remake, cosplaying as…Aerith from Final Fantasy VII Briana isn’t normally a cosplayer, so here, the dress and ribbon were made by Final Fantasy cosplay…

Facebook Continues Its Bullshit With Oculus Accounts

In case you weren’t uneasy enough about having to create Facebook accounts just to use a virtual reality headset, you should know that in some circumstances deleting a linked Facebook account will then remove your access to any Oculus purchases you have made. As Upload VR report, for now, owners of older Oculus headsets—currently existing…

Techno Viking x Assassin’s Creed Valhalla

My favourite type of cosplay video isn’t the one where fans are recreating scenes from the show/movie/game they’re cosplaying as. It’s cosplayers doing dumb shit like skating as Geralt, or recreating the famous “Technoviking” video, only starring the cast of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla Here’s Maul(also star of that Geralt vid) and friends turning medieval England…

Track: Oogie Boogie’s Song | Artist: Ed Ivory & Ken Page | Album: The Nightmare Before Christmas: Offical Soundtrack #SpookySongs

‘Shop Contest: Bautista Edition

Microsoft basically just did what we do: Take a person and add them to a video game they weren’t originally in. Well, we can do it better Microsoft! Your challenge this week: Add Bautista to other video games. Yes, if you didn’t see the news, Bautista will be added to the Gears 5 singleplayer campaign,…

The Latest Patch For The Last of Us Remastered Reduced Loading Times By Over 70% On PS4

The new consoles are only a few weeks away and both the PS5 and Xbox Series X will have much faster loading times. But you don’t need a new console to experience incredible loading speeds after an update for The Last of Us Remastered on PS4. Now the game only takes 14 seconds to load from a…

Plants vs. Zombies’ Viral Single Was So Weird People Thought It Was A Joke

Welcome to Morning Music, Kotaku’s daily hangout for folks who love video games and the cool-ass sounds they make. Today the zombies are coming—and bringing some funky, cute tunes with them—in the original Plants vs. Zombies. 2009’s Plants vs. Zombies (playlist / longplay / VGMdb) is an all-time classic tower defense and a game that…

Sunday Comics: Two Things…

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. Corpse Run by Alex Di Stasi. Published Oct. 22. Read more of Corpse Run Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich. Published Oct. 19. Read more of Awkward Zombie Clueless Hero by…

‘Shop Contest: Batman In A Robe, Winners!

Last week, some photos from the new Batman movie, filming as we speak, spread around online. One in particular caught my eye. It was Batman in a nice, comfy, black robe. So why not take this casual Batman on an adventure via a Photoshop Contest? He needs a vacation too! Our winning image this week…

That’s Not A Sword, This Is A Sword

This week on Snapshots we check out get a bit creepy, find a lonely pumpkin, go hunting, do some hovering, enjoy the fall weather, play around with lightsabers and show off a big, big sword. How big is too big when it comes to swords? 10 feet? 14 feet? 20 feet? Kotaku Snapshots is a…

There’s A Strange Monster Hiding In Hot Shots Golf 4

We are only a few days away from Halloween, so it seems like the perfect time for a video collecting some dark and creepy hidden things players have found in video games. From popular YouTuber Oddheader, this video features a wide variety of games, from a golf game to an online mini-game collection to even…

Dusknoir Eats Ghosts And Spits Out Corpses

Every Pokemon is interesting and worth talking about. I don’t play a ton of Pokemon, but I do enjoy the universe and I love learning more about the creatures in it. So, Here’s Another Pokemon! It’s Dusknoir! Dusknoir Details Type: Ghost Average Height: 7′ 03” Average Weight: 235.0 lbs First Added In Generation IV Of…

The Weird Tales From The Crypt Game Show Was Filled With Bad 90s CGI

In the summer of 1996, a Saturday morning children’s game show premiered on CBS. It was hosted by someone who went on to… well he was good here at least. The show was filled with early CGI and had players “interacting” with floating skulls and talking skeletons. The weirdest thing about this show was that…

Silent Hill Ain’t Doing Well In This Economy

This week we meet the woman who sang “Snake Eater” in MGS3, see the worst Walter White costume, meet the hacker who hacked Among Us, box up our consoles, and learn that Silent Hill has fallen on hard times. Great Kotaku Content From The Past Week Not a huge surprise that the hacker is an…

Mario Goes Hatless In Leaked Super Mario World Sprites

Apart from his prodigious jumping abilities, Mario’s key defining feature is his hat. He’s been wearing that thing since the days of Donkey Kong. Another little slice of the ongoing Nintendo leaks, however, reveals that the iconic red cap wasn’t always glued to the plumber’s head in Super Mario World Nintendo Metro, a fantastic resource…

Gears 5’s Next Update Lets You Recast Marcus Fenix As Dave Bautista

Back in the summer of 2019, the internet was pushing to get former wrestler Dave Bautista cast in the recently announced Gears of War movie. It doesn’t seem like that will happen, with Bautista saying on Twitter last year that he had “tried everything” to be in the film. But an upcoming update will at…