it’s about the game everyone is mad about

NEW: Kojima drops ACRONYM for HOKA

bsky is going great!

It’s 20% off right now, if that makes it any easier to justify

another reason 1.0.6 is the best update the game has seen so far

I have played 69 hours of Marathon 2026 on my Sony PlayStation 5

nice

buying games from JP, it’s always struck me as better to go through something like buyee (to browse yahoo JP, mercari, etc) since you cut out the often US-based person would would be doing the same thing /and then/ selling it to you via eBay with a steep markup to absorb eBay cut & keep a finder fee

i’ve slowly started to see some headlines that don’t include “sad dad game” in it and that’s a start

it wasn’t until i listened to a podcast this weekend that i started to learn what it *actually plays like* — the flattening of the discussion to foot stuff, kid stuff, and sad dad games is wack, man

someone walked by my desk at work, clocked it and said, “oh my god wait until you get to the second book”

and i spun around, “there’s a second book already?!”

lol

do YOU want a whodunnit so absorbing that you’ll often forget the larger stakes of titans trudging out of the ocean during the continent’s wet season that threaten to kill everyone?

do YOU want military officers so slick that even the protag doesn’t realize they’re coming onto him?

do YOU want

ripped through 100 pages while getting my snow tires off just now and am posting to remind:

“the tainted cup” is very good

again, i guess?

“do not give me a cigarette” tee shirt meme But instead of someone handing the person wearing the shirt a cigarette, they’re holding a small bag of Tostitos hint of lime tortilla chips, and the person’s shirt says “do not under any circumstances give me a hint of lime no matter what I say” while they’re holding a chip

Kotaku hires Rebekah Valentine as Senior Reporter as site expands under new ownership Owner Keleops says that traffic has doubled in under a year; further hires planned to drive further growth

I work at Kotaku now! :)

You can go watch back today's KFGD to hear me talk about it a little if you want. You could also read my alma mater @gibiz.bsky.social to learn more! www.gamesindustry.biz/kotaku-hires...

Design Room is six months-old (and we're having a sale) Six months in, we look back at what we've gotten up to so far, look ahead at what's coming up, and announce a subscription sale.

We just passed our six-month anniversary, so it seems like a good time to check in and post a sale on subscriptions.

demand less of your time
smaller scope, lots (more) bespoke level geometry since outsourcing and / or huge teams didn’t put stress on all world building being modularized down to the atom
control schemes affording experimentation in mechanics
collectibles
collectibles unlocking concept art somewhere

the effects

Ackh it keeps getting worse somehow!!!!

Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike DJ MIX || Full OST YouTube video by dedeco /// VGM DJ

it’s here @dedeco-vgmdj.bsky.social with another massive mix

youtu.be/GPlmDHea-0E

before your time there was a guy who wore sock feet to the bathroom and it never ceases to horrify me whenever i am forced to recall this cursed memory

A Forbes article about a father who killed eight children, with an embedded prediction widget inviting people to speculate on whether "Congress will pass new gun safety legislation before 31st December 2026"

ghoulish

Open the windows and let him in

THE ROOFWALKER

Only in theatres, 25 December

A screenshot of a white-on-black terminal depicting a 19x19 go board in ascii graphics, with empty grid intersections as periods, and black and white as Os and #s

It’s absolutely incredible that one of the largest Japanese-run Go servers, which has been running since 1992, is still accessed entirely via Telnet. And while most players use GUI clients that use Telnet under the hood, you can still connect manually and get ASCII graphics streamed to you

if this is the Dan Olson video, please tell me you know the added context of The Nostalgia Critic’s review of Pink Floyd’s The Wall and why that matters for the Mr. Beast video

marathon posting

had a great night of low-to-no stress runs tonight; crew filled and ended up playing for 2 hours with a random and a buddy of mine and we tried the dire marsh sponsored kit playlist — super fun

marathon is definitely a much better game as of last patch, easier to recommend now!

much of the discourse around pragmata really obscures what it actually is and that seems unfortunate

I love when you can tell a level designer was at the end of their rope at one point

Why do the Japanese like their buns askew (2026)

Bungie Marathon style pixelframe image that reads: “I absolutely, 100 percent, am not going to play ‘The Boys Are Back In Town’ again,” I promised, punching the buttons to select “The Boys Are Back in Town,” which I had memorized. Which is an excerpt from the funniest piece of writing on the entire internet, “I Played ‘The Boys Are Back in Town’ on a Bar Jukebox Until I Got Kicked Out” by Timothy Faust (2015, Vice.com)