Culture

VVVVVV’s Old-School Chiptunes Are Flippin’ Fantastic

Welcome to Morning Music, Kotaku’s new, daily hangout for folks who love video games and the cool-ass sounds they make. VVVVVV was one of the top indie games of 2010, and its tremendous soundtrack played no small part in elevating the already-great material. VVVVVV (longplay / VGMdb) is hard to pronounce, but easy to play:…

The Division 2 Is Getting A 100-Story Skyscraper Mode

One of the most common criticisms of The Division 2—at least in terms of its game design—is its lack of a repeatable but varied endgame mode. That would be something that players of the urban third-person shooter could keep returning to for a fresh experience. The first Division had been expanded to offer two of…

My What A Big Sword You Have

Karl Sisson is a matte painter at WETA. You can see more of Karl’s stuffat his ArtStation page

Video Game “Walk Cycles” Are Just The Best

A “walk cycle” is the part of video game animation that covers the most basic, default movement of your character. It’s maybe the thing you see the most in a game alongside a HUD, and as such might also be something you take for granted! Today, let’s not take them for granted. Louis Brooks has…

Nintendo x Puma Have Some Super Mario Bros. Sneakers Coming

Just in time for the series’ 35th anniversary, Puma is about to release an official Super Mario Bros. shoe. It’s a version of the company’s RS Dreamer silhouette, with a very Mario Bros. colour scheme, a Super Mario logo on the tongue, and a star on the heel. Perfect if you’re 11 years old! Maybe…

He Comin’: Fall Guys Devs Tease The Arrival Of The Big Yeetus

Fall Guys developer Mediatonic hinted today on Twitter to the addition of a new element to maps called the Big Yeetus. The tweet features a gif of a Fall Guy being yeeted (yeet · ed verb to be thrown, punched, or otherwise flung over a great distance) by a big rotating hammer toward the Dizzy…

Here’s The Not-E3 2020 Press Conference Schedule

Just because E3 2020 is canceled doesn’t mean everything developers were going to show there has suddenly disappeared. While no digital version of E3 is in the works, other companies and organizations have stepped up with their own virtual events to deliver news on their latest plans and upcoming games. This article was originally published…

Upcoming Indie Game Nour: Play With Your Food Wants To Make You Hungry

At the elementary school lunch table, after I was finished with my chicken nuggets or whatever else the cafeteria had served up for the day, my friends and I would mix all our leftovers together. We’d use empty milk cartons as the vessel for our alchemical experiments, throwing in whatever we weren’t eating anymore to…

Crusader Kings III, As Told By Steam Reviews

If you want to know if a game is good or bad, you read its Steam reviews—except in the case of Crusader Kings III. If you want to hear a whooooooooole lot about incest within dynastic families, then you read Steam reviews of Crusader Kings III Crusader Kings III, the long-awaited sequel to one of…

More Games Could Use Invincibility Modes Like Control’s

Control’s latest update added an assist mode that makes protagonist Jesse into a paranormal killing machine with the click of a button. It’s an option I wish more games had. While many games launch with multiple difficulty modes ranging from chill strolls to brutal death marches, Control only had one when it came out last…

How’s It Going? New Edition

I’ve been wanting to do this since I took over this post. Welcome back to our daily open thread. The only question about the New Edition edition of How’s It Going? was which song to use. “Candy Girl” is too obvious. “Mr. Telephone Man” hasn’t aged well. So I went with the most modest of…

India has banned the immensely popular PUBG Mobile game along with 118 other China-based mobile apps according to a press release from the Indian Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology. This is the latest round of Chinese app bans from the Indian government after TikTok and WeChat were banned in June.

It Took 12 Years, But I Finally Got A Platinum PlayStation Trophy

Sony introduced trophies for PlayStation 3 games in July of 2008. Since then I’ve earned more than 3,000 virtual accolades on PlayStation consoles, but it wasn’t until last weekend that I finally joined the Platinum trophy elite, thanks to Hello Games’ The Last Campfire. I wasn’t looking for fame and notoriety as I wound my…

Gyruss Remixed Bach, Then NES Remixed Gyruss

Welcome to Morning Music, Kotaku’s new, daily hangout for folks who love video games and the cool-ass sounds they make. Today we’re checking out Gyruss, which impressed early arcade-goers with its switched-on Bach, then sounded even better on the NES and its Japan-only disk add-on. 1983’s Gyruss (longplay), by Time Pilot creator and future Street…

Track: September (Live) | Artist: Earth, Wind & Fire | Album: Live in Orlando

Big Tank

Tim Douglas is an artist who has worked on games like Squad and Beyond the Wire You can see more of Tim’s stuff at his ArtStation page

Twitch Employee Accused Of Sexual Assault No Longer With Company

Back in June, Hassan Bokhari, accounts director of strategic partnerships at Twitch, was accused of sexual abuse and assault by a Twitch streamer named Vio. Now, after an investigation that began months ago, Twitch has banned Bokhari from the platform, and he is no longer an employee at the company. This evening, Twitch banned Bokhari’s channel,…

Oh Look, Microsoft Is Accidentally Mentioning A Next-Gen Console They Haven’t Actually Announced, Again

To date, Microsoft has announced a single next-gen console: the Xbox Series X. Thing is, we all basically know that there’s a second console coming, one that is yet to be announced, despite the fact there are more and more products out there that specifically mention it. Products made by Microsoft! That console is the Xbox…

The Twitch Viewers Who Dedicate Their Days To Trolling The Army And Navy

Sam is a 20 year-old college student who says he felt deceived by military recruitment efforts at his own high school. Recently, he found a way to push back. He and dozens of others, spread across a couple of Discords, spend chunks of their day trolling the military on Twitch. They harbor no delusions. They…

Adventures in the Forgotten Realms Will Bring Some D&D To Magic: The Gathering

Magic: The Gathering fans, get ready to get a little bit of Dungeons and Dragons chocolate in your Magic: The Gathering peanut butter. In today’s official Zendikar Rising preview, Wizards of the Coast announced a new card set coming in Q3 2021 that will bring some D&D flavor to the planes of Magic While Dungeons…