Ethan Gach

Metro Exodus Leaves The Train Tunnels For A Dangerous Open Russia

Our train slowly chugged to a halt. Something was apparently blocking the road up ahead, possibly put there by a rival band of survivors. The captain sent my character out to investigate. Moments later, I was killed by a giant floating orb of static. Post-nuclear Russia is not a place to explore blindly. But explore…

All The Games Ethan Played At E3 2018

I managed to survive E3 2018, my first one in fact, and I can even remember most of the games I saw and played. There’s too many to name them all, but below are the most notable ones I got a chance to check out. I’ve written about some of them already on Kotaku, but…

The Surge 2 Doubles Down On Limb Severing 

I’ve never been a Dark Souls fanatic, but I appreciate the vibrant new mini-genre of Souls-likes it’s helped inspire. The Surge is one of those, and from what I saw at E3 2018, The Surge 2 looks like it’ll be a big improvement with some new ideas of its own. The Surge’s developer, Deck 13,…

Castle Sieges Bring A New Level Of Strategy To For Honor‘s Multiplayer

For Honor is getting a free new mode on October 16 as part of the game’s Marching Fire update, and after getting a chance to try it at E3 it’s the only For Honor mode I want play. Inspired by games like Dota 2 and League of Legends, Breach is an asymmetrical siege mode with…

Team Sonic Racing Could Be A Lot Weirder

There’s a new Sonic racing game coming, one that ostensibly brings an element of teamwork to the action. So why did I feel like I was the only one pulling any weight, during my demo? There is no “I” in team, but there is one in “Team Sonic.” In Team Sonic Racing, set to arrive…

My Friend Pedro Is Like A More Violent, 2D Max Payne

Before I knew anything else about it, I knew My Friend Pedro looked cool. I first came across the solo-developed indie game while going through the Screenshot Saturday hashtag on Twitter several years ago. Among all of the images of games in development shared by their makers was a masked man pirouetting through the air…

Minecraft: Story Mode is being turned into a 5-episode interactive Netflix series. Telltale confirmed that it will arrive on the streaming platform this fall and be similar to Stretch Armstrong: The Breakout, with occasional prompts to make choices for the characters. Telltale is also making a Stranger Things game.

Swinging Through New York City As Spidey Feels Effortless

The New York Insomniac created for Spider-Man is just about everything I’ve hoped for since the 2001 Sam Raimi movie with Tobey Maguire. The buildings are all very tall, divided between glass skyscrapers and old brick high rises. In between, there are alleyways bathed in the warm glow of a setting sun that never seems…

Forza Horizon 4‘s British Setting Makes It Feel Like Racing In A Witcher Game

The Forza Horizon games are great non-racing games. You try to drive really fast along a predetermined path, but they’re not about hugging turns or calibrating tire pressure the way the main Forza Motorsport games are. Forza Horizon 4 is no different, but it’s a little more beautiful. It’s better in some ways, as all…

Super Mario Party Lets You Combine Two Switches

Nintendo announced the first Mario Party game for Switch, Super Mario Party, is coming October 5 during its E3 Direct today. Rather than just be another iteration on the series, the new game looks like it’ll take advantage of all the Switch’s unique features, as well as create some new ones, like the ability to…

We Played Anthem, And It’s Pretty Fun

I sat down with Anthem, BioWare’s upcoming shared-world third-person shooter, for 30 minutes today. I came away surprised at just how good it feels to move around in the game’s fantasy sci-fi world. Flying through its gorgeous environments on my way to kill some bad guys, fix an ancient relic, or take out a giant…

New For Honor Expansion Adds A New Faction And Castle Sieges

In its biggest expansion since release, For Honor is getting an entirely new faction, graphical overhaul, and new competitive siege mode called Breach in its Marching Fire update coming October 16, 2018. Ubisoft’s medieval brawler has gotten a consistent trickle of new content since it released over a year ago, including a handful of new…

The Division 2‘s three year one updates will all be free. The game is also getting 8-player raids, Ubisoft announced at its E3 press event today. That’s two more players than Destiny’s raids, although we don’t know yet how involved The Division 2‘s will be. The first Division’s DLCs were each paid.

We’re Liveblogging Bethesda’s E3 Press Conference [Update: We’re Done!]

It’s the second big press conference of the day with Bethesda starting at 9:30PM EDT. Hopefully we’ll get more specifics about Fallout 76 and who knows, maybe a new Elder Scrolls. Gita and I will have live commentary here for you in a few moments. You can watch the press conference here or follow along…

Microsoft Reveals Gears Of War 5 (And Two Spinoffs)

Microsoft announced Gears of War 5 at its E3 Media Briefing today with a story trailer and is slated to arrive next year on Xbox One. But that’s not all: Microsoft-owned studio The Coalition is also working on two Gears of War spin-offs, Gears Pop, a mobile game, and Gears Tactics, a strategy game for…

Dying Light 2 Announced

Parkour zombie game Dying Light is getting a sequel. We don’t know much about Dying Light 2 but based on the trailer it looks like a colorful return to another violent undead world. And you thought the sustained flood of zombie games had ebbed. Chris Avellone, one of the narrative masterminds Planescape: Torment and Star…

Microsoft Buys Four Independent Studios

Microsoft announced it’s acquired four new game studios at its press conference today in an effort to increase the the number of exclusive first-party games it can deliver to Xbox One owners. The studios in question are Undead Labs, makers of State of Decay 2, Playground Games, who already makes Microsoft’s Forza Horizon series, Compulsion,…

Metro Exodus looks pretty badass in a new trailer set to Massive Attack’s “Angel.” Deep Silver showed off gameplay in the post-apocalyptic survival FPS at Microsoft’s E3 Media Briefing and also revealed it now has a release date of February 22, 2018, a day that’s already stacked with both Days Gone and Anthem.

Collection Of Rare Japanese Games Leaks Online Without Owner’s Permission

Earlier this week, a group of game archivists revealed that a trove of over 70 lost Japanese video games has surfaced, including the third game in the obscure Horror Tour trilogy of point-and-click horror games. The release of these games, from the personal stash of a Japanese collector, has touched off a debate about how…

Final Fantasy XV Finally Gets Mod Support On PC 

Final Fantasy XV got a new patch on PC yesterday that brought with it official mod tools. Less than a day later, the Steam Workshop is already rife with, among other things, keyblades. Who would have guessed. Called Mod Organizer, the new set of tools is Square Enix’s way of adding official support for mods.…