Ethan Gach

The Gamers Of The Year, 2018

At the close of every year, Kotaku highlights not just video games but gamers—people who did noteworthy or influential things in the world of video games. This year, we’ve decided to honor an entire community, one that did its best to group together and recover after a senseless, unthinkable tragedy. In the early afternoon on…

Player Collects Every Unique Moon In Mario Odyssey Without Taking Damage

The idea behind the challenge is simple: collect all 880 unique moons in Mario Odyssey without getting hurt or dying. The execution, however, is hard, which is why it took speedrunner Timpani over 10 hours to be the first to do it, finishing in the early hours of Christmas day. Timpani’s run is amazing to…

Ethan Gach’s Top 10 Games Of 2018

I played more games in 2018 than in any prior year, which makes sense given it was also my first year as a full time staff writer at this illustrious website. There were so many that were so good, and yet I still didn’t manage to play as much of some of the year’s biggest…

Possibly The Best Player Camp In All Of Fallout 76

There have been a ton of negative things to talk about when it comes to Fallout 76. Last week, on the game’s one month anniversary, I recapped a number of them. But as I tried to relay in my review of the game, there’s good to be found in Bethesda’s multiplayer survival game as well.…

Instagram sensation Backpack Kid has announced he’s suing the makers of Fortnite for ripping off his dance to create its super popular flossing emote. He joins the ranks of actor Alfonso Ribeiro and rapper 2 Milly who are also suing the studio for stealing their signature dances as well.

Spider-Man PS4 Players Are Still Holding Out Hope For The ‘Sam Raimi Suit’

Spider-Man for PlayStation 4 includes dozens of suits that players can wear during the game, each drawing from a different piece of the character’s comic book past or recent cinematic appearances. There’s the Scarlet Spider, or the suit from the recent film Homecoming. But there’s one suit that is conspicuous by its absence, and fans…

New Trophy Data Reveals How Many People Are Playing Certain PS4 Games

To celebrate the five year anniversary of the PS4, Sony recently launched “My PS4 Life,” a marketing campaign that creates videos highlighting players’ individual stats and milestones. It turns out that some of the data shown in these videos can also be used to reverse-engineer how many people have played certain PS4 games, shedding some…

Wargaming, creator of World of Tanks, is making a Diablo-style dungeon crawler and put out a new trailer showing gameplay today It looks very sturdy and has a bunch of loot and flashing lights, but because it’s Wargaming I’m still a little skeptical. On the plus side though, it’s not free-to-play.

Street Fighter V‘s Best Players Battle This Weekend For The Game’s Biggest Prize

The best Street Fighter V players in the world will face off in Las Vegas this weekend for the 2018 Capcom Cup, and after last year’s shocking finals, it’s anybody’s guess as to who will take away the trophy. Competitors qualify for the cup based on their performance in Capcom Pro Tour tournaments throughout the…

Fallout 76, One Month Later

It feels like Bethesda’s post-apocalyptic shooter has already been out for a while, especially since its early access-style beta began all the way back in October, but Fallout 76 officially launched just one month ago. And what a long month it’s been, filled with release-build bugs, post-launch updates, and a big controversy about a bag.…

Below Is Finally Out, And It’s Not Screwing Around

Below came out today on Xbox One and PC, after five years in development. I’ve spent about five hours with the game. Despite going in with very few expectations, the game still managed to defy them. First revealed at E3 2013, Capybara Games’ minimalist roguelike dungeon crawler has been in development for over five years,…

SNK 40th Anniversary Collection On Switch Is A Brilliant Historical Package

New anthologies of old games have gotten a lot better recently, especially on the Nintendo Switch. In addition to Sega releasing individual games from its back catalog with new features, the company also recently ported its smartly packaged Genesis Classics collection to the console. Recently, the Switch also received the SNK 40th Anniversary Collection, another…

Rain World is coming to the Nintendo Switch later today. I actually really loved the survival platformer’s esoteric rules and thought they complimented the game’s beautiful, mysterious world, but fortunately, Switch is getting the 1.7 version which includes an easy mode for when dying all the time starts to wear thin. 

Valve Says Artifact Exploit Had Little Effect On The Game’s Economy

The in-game economy for Valve’s new digital card game, Artifact, was upended earlier today after the company accidentally created an exploit that made it possible to buy its card packs at a heavily-discounted price. While Valve said the impact wasn’t huge, it’s led to renewed debate within the game’s community about what Artifact should be.…

Kingdom Two Crowns Doesn’t Feel Like A Sequel But It’s Still A Great Minimalist Strategy Game

Kingdom Two Crowns is a clever, streamlined side-scrolling strategy game filled with beautiful pixel art and a great sense of atmosphere. I’ve had a hard time tearing myself away from it these past few days. While it doesn’t feel like a full sequel, it brings a bunch of worthwhile additions that make it superior to…

Fallout 76 Event ‘Feed The People’ No Longer Feeds The People

Fallout 76, Bethesda’s troubled online survival shooter, received an update today that included a number of bug fixes and the addition of push-to-talk on PC. These all looked like welcome improvements, except for one small thing: the game’s “Feed the People” public event no longer gives every player on a server cans of meat stew.…

It’s Mad Easy To Hack The PlayStation Classic

The PlayStation Classic was a great idea that was disappointingly executed. Not surprisingly, hackers have been hard at work trying to crack the novelty console as they’ve done already with Nintendo’s NES Classic and SNES Classic The job’s been made easier, the hackers claim, thanks to Sony reportedly housing the key to decoding the PlayStation…

The Infinity Blade Trilogy has been removed from the App Store. A spokesperson for Epic Games declined to comment to Kotaku on the series’ future. Epic said in a blog post the games were removed because it was becoming “increasingly difficult” to continue supporting the series “at a level that meets our standards.” 

The State Of Xbox One In 2018

In sports they call it a rebuilding year. Xbox One has had a few of those recently, but it’s an especially appropriate description of the console’s 2018. This wasn’t a year for new hardware nor a major blockbuster exclusive game. The most exciting announcement to come out of Microsoft was the news that it is…

Man Arrested For Alleged Domestic Abuse Recorded During Fortnite Stream

Police arrested a video game streamer Sunday night in Australia and charged him with assault after he allegedly abused his girlfriend while streaming Fortnite on Twitch. Clips of the incident have been circulating on social media and show the man, who goes by MrDeadMoth on Twitch, shouting at his girlfriend, who is off screen, to…