I Tried Remaking My D&D Adventure In Divinity: Original Sin 2, And It (Mostly) Worked

Divinity: Original Sin 2 has a mode that lets players design their own Dungeons & Dragons-esque adventure inside the role-playing game, and in case you were wondering what kind of dweeb would port their homebrew D&D game into DoS: 2, the answer is me. My experiment was instructive and, I think, says a lot about…

Game Designer Says Developers Would Be More Candid If Gamer Culture Wasn’t So Toxic

Video game enthusiasts often muse about the secrecy surrounding game development, which is at times treated as if it were operated by the NSA. Over the weekend, one developer offered an interesting take: Game developers are secretive because being open can lead to too much toxicity. Designer and programmer Charles Randall, who has worked for…

New Ocarina Of Time Speedrun Beats All Dungeons Without Opening Any Doors

Ocarina of Time speedruns are already challenging, from Any% that use all sorts of glitches to speed through the game to 100% runs that collect everything. A new tool-assisted runtakes things a step further, completing all dungeons without opening a single door. A tool-assisted speedrun (TAS) uses emulation and special software to play a game…

How An NFL Joke Slips Into A Japanese Game

Danganronpa V3, like previous entries in the excellent humor-horror series, is full of pop culture references. But how did an NFL joke get stuck in there? As a longtime New York Jets fan who has nothing but bile for the New England Patriots, I very much enjoyed seeing the above line, a non sequitur delivered…

This Is A $2,200 Retro Gaming Machine

This is the Zette System, handcrafted from wood by Swedish artist Love Hultén. In its resting state it resembles a stylized wooden boombox, but it’s actually a retro gaming machine with a pair of wireless gamepads and a built-in projector. Only 25 of them are being made, and they are not cheap. From boombox mode,…

Japan’s Newest Giant Gundam Is Finished And So Awesome

This weekend, the one-to-one scale Unicorn Gundam was officially unveiled in Tokyo. It looks fantastic. The 64.6-foot statue replaced a previous giant Gundam that went up in 2012 and came down this past March. The newest life-sized Gundam is the most impressive one yet as the tweets uploaded on Barukan Log show. Kotaku East is…

First Permanent Sailor Moon Store Opens In Japan

Until now, the only Sailor Moon stores in Japan have been temporary pop-up shops. That’s changed with the country’s first permanent Sailor Moon store opening in Tokyo’s Harajuku. According to The Japan Times (full disclosure: I am a columnist there), the store opened this weekend, selling an array of Sailor Moon goodies. “Because more goods…

It Sucks When Ultraman Lands In Your City

In Japanese superhero and monster movies, massive battles lay waste to cities. We rarely get to see what it’s like to experience that from the point of view of a regular citizen, but that’s exactly what City Shrouded in Shadow offers.  Developed by Granzella, City Shrouded in Shadow is the spiritual successor to the Disaster…

The Cosplay Of The Tokyo Game Show

It’s that time again. Time for cosplayers to descend on the Tokyo Game Show. The two public days bring out some of the most talented and most interesting cosplayers around. Below are photos from the public days as well as from the Cosplay Collection Night event. Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture,…

In the Dolomites. The Alps. By Robbert Vervuurt. JPGs is a photo peek into wherever gamers might find interesting. If you’re a photographer and have images you want to share, drop us a line! 

Catch The Latest Uncharted’s Story Without Actually Playing It

Want to skip playing a very good video gameand just catch up on that very good video game’s story? Andy Gilleand has you covered with this “movie” that covers Uncharted: The Lost Legacy’s plot in just under, um, four hours. For the record, he’s done this before with the other games in the series, in…

Small Child Cannot Comprehend That The Game Boy Does Not Have A Touch Screen

Reminder: children born post-smartphones/tablets have not been conditioned to use buttons. This very cute thing is what happened when Chris Cohoon handed his daughter an old Game Boy Color the other day. You can laugh/make bad “want to feel OLD” jokes if you want, but these kids are growing up with superior user interfaces. She…

The Journey Down, a point-and-click adventure series blending sci-fi with “Afro-Caribbean vibes” that’s been running since 2010, is wrapping up with the release of its third and final chapter

The Week In Games: Back To The Pitch 

Another year. Another Pro Evolution Soccer. Another FIFA. The leaves are falling and soccer balls are in the air. Where most sports games have their sub-genre locked up (when’s the last time Madden had to compete with anything but its younger self?) soccer is one of the few where there’s still competition. That means fans…

Puyo Puyo Tetris Finals End With Stunning Comeback

In Puyo Puyo Tetris, it’s never over until the screen falls down. With both his screens piled up to the top and more grey blocks coming his way, winner’s bracket player DDR_Dan was moments away from Wumbo resetting the CEOtaku Puyo Puyo Tetris grand finals bracket on him. It was 2-2 in series, 1-1 in…

Kotaku ‘Shop Contest: Autumn Game Harvest

It’s that time of year again. With the first day of autumn having come and gone earlier this week, it’s time to get into the spirit of the season with some epic mashups. Whether it’s apples, pumpkins, or blockbuster video games, it’s time to move from cultivating and growing to harvesting. To celebrate the changing…

The Studio Behind Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture Is ‘Going Dark’

The Chinese Room released the ambient exploration game Dear Esther in 2012. Five years and several games later, co-founder Dan Pinchbeck says the studio will be pausing operations for the time being. Pinchbeck announced the news via a post over at the company’s blog filed earlier today. In it he writes, “There’s an interview coming…

Hellblade‘s Fenrir Encounter Belongs In The Pantheon Of Great Boss Fights

Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice has been lauded for mind-bending cinematics and top-notch voice acting, but it’s worth remembering one fight in particular that shows the game operating at the peak of its potential. Ninja Theory’s third-person action game can be frustrating. In some moments that works, but there were plenty of times I got snagged on…