What Are You Playing This Weekend?

The weekend is for caving to the pressure and buying an air conditioner even though the thought of installing one is terrifying. Also, video games. I have a bunch of games I have to check out this weekend that you’ll hear about next week. I’m also finally going to make some time to check out…

Hearthstone ‘Frost Festival’ Promises Three Weeks Of Free Stuff

Earlier this month, Hearthstone players opened their game clients to a nice surprise: Ragnaros the Firelord’s “Fire Festival,” a flame-themed mini-event that rewarded players with double gold for completing daily quests. In an unprecedented display of Hearthstone freebie-giving, the event went on for two weeks–but earlier this week, Blizzard announced that the ice god Ahune…

Finland Out-Dances Russia, Great Britain At In The Groove World Cup

Markus “Hippaheikki” Kokkonen just secured a second first-place finish in this year’s In The Groove World Cup. The Finnish dance gamer is a well-known champion in Europe’s In The Groove scene, having placed first in the Doubles tournament at last year’s EuroCup. He scored first in yesterday’s Doubles tournament at the World Cup. There are…

Splatoon 2 Splat & Chat Headset: The Kotaku Review

Just about any headset you can use with a phone or tablet can be used with Nintendo’s Switch app to chat with friends during rounds of Splatoon 2. You don’t have to pick up Hori’s official licensed headset, but there are a couple of reasons you might want to. First off, just look at the…

Raiden Was The Best Thing To Happen To Metal Gear

In 2001, Hideo Kojima pissed off countless fans with a simple twist. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty did not star everyone’s favorite rugged action hero Solid Snake. Instead, players spent most of their time playing as Raiden, a whiny rookie who didn’t know his ass from his head. It was perfect and still…

Ghost Recon: Wildlands Getting a PvP Open Beta Soon

Wildlands players’ long wait for PvP is almost over: This morning, Ubisoft announced that an open beta for Ghost Recon: Wildlands upcoming tactical PvP mode, called Ghost War, will start this summer Seriously, it’s real! After weeks of the Ghost Recon community speculating about a possible cancellation or a completely revamped mode, official details from…

Risking Scorn, Former Pro Is Trying To Make A Simpler Fighting Game

Fighting games are complicated. That’s just a simple truth. As the genre has developed over the last few decades, franchises have become inundated with mechanics that both alienate newcomers and drive divisions between players. The makers of the upcoming game Fantasy Strike are trying to change that. Developed by Sirlin Games, a studio founded by…

The Best Reason To Use The Switch App Is Shopping For Splatoon Gear

Chatting with your friends is great and all, but the Switch online app’s best Splatoon 2 feature is Annie’s SplatNet Gear Shop, featuring a rotating stock of exclusive items for the discerning squid kid. The SplatNet Gear Shop allows players to purchase exclusive timed items outside of Splatoon 2 proper. Unlike the in-game shops, which…

One Of Steam’s Top Selling Games Is A Dad Dating Simulator

Dream Daddy is a new dating sim where you play as a father and date other fathers. On the surface, it looks like a light game about hot dads and the dad jokes they make. It is that, but it’s also a sincere look at what it’s like to be a father. My dad is…

League of Legends‘ World Champions Suddenly Can’t Stop Losing

After this week’s League Champions Korea matches, the reigning world champions of SKT T1 have gone 0-8 in the last two weeks. It’s an unprecedented slide for a team that has been the de facto best in the world. SKT T1 is a three-time world champion, whose roster includes not just the god of mid…

Heavy Rain Ended Badly 

This week, we finished streaming David Cage’s crime thriller Heavy Rain on Kotaku’s Twitch channel. It’s a game of astounding highs and disappointing lows, with intense action and awful writing. It’s not as bad as everyone says, but it’s still not very good. Heavy Rain’s core concept of a father trying to save his son…

Bungie Promises Destiny 2 PvE Improvements To Grumbling Beta Players

If there’s a general consensus on the Destiny 2 beta, it’s this: Player vs. Player (PvP) makes you feel great; Player vs. Environment (PvE) makes you feel underpowered. Bungie is hearing all of those complaints. The studio says to expect changes when the game launches for real in September. Over the past three years, one…

Pokémon Go Players Are Preparing For Legendaries By Powering Up Golem

Legendaries are typically the most powerful monsters in the compendium, so getting one this weekend is likely going to be tough. Fortunately, players are already figuring out the most efficient counters to all the possibilities. During the legendaries trailer, we can spot a handful of familiar faces: Zapdos, Moltres, Articuno, Ho-oh, Lugia, and even Mewtwo.…

Poll: Japan’s Favorite Role-Playing Games

Gamers in Japan love RPGs. But which ones are their favorites? Weekly Famitsu set out to answer that question in a recent poll. Between June 22 and June 28, the magazine asked 2,295 readers for the RPGs they liked best. Out of those who replied, 56 percent were men and 43 percent were women (1…

On Splatoon 2 Launch Day, Japan Lines Up For The Switch 

Hellish lines formed today all across Japan. Splatoon 2 launched, and stores got a fresh shipment of Switch consoles, including the Splatoon 2 hardware bundle No doubt there were people waiting to just get Splatoon 2 and its Amiibos, but with theway things are in Japan Switch-wise, many folks were certainly hoping to get the…

One Piece Getting A Live-Action TV Adaptation

Popular Japanese manga and anime One Piece is getting a live-action television version. It will not be a Japanese TV adaptation, but a foreign one. Earlier today in Tokyo, Weekly Shonen Jump editor-in-chief Hiroyuki Nakano announced the news. In the Natalie photo below, the screen next to him states that One Piece is being turned…

Water and Sky. Xichang, China. By Chris Davidson. 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! 

Blizzard’s Official Doomfist Cosplay Is Incredible

Blizzard is at the San Diego Comic Con, and as part of their presence they’ve got some official cosplay of the newest Overwatch character, Doomfist. It is, even by Overwatch standards, absolutely fantastic. The company hired Henchmen Studios to create the costume, which took a team of 14 people six weeks to construct. It involved…

Behind The Scenes On A Game Pitch

Tendril is a studio that was hired three years ago by Ubisoft Toronto to help sell a game idea to Ubisoft’s HQ in Paris. That game is Starlink, and their pitch involved all kinds of work, from “preliminary vision” through to concept development, ship design, environments and even a trailer. You can see both the…