Ethan Gach

Yesterday, Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth players got to play as Satoru Iwata The former head of Nintendo died in 2015. Every year since, he’s appeared in the game on December 6, his birthday. Afterbrith never made it to Wii U or 3DS, so was the first time the tribute was on a Nintendo platform.

New Hearthstone Card Looks Suspiciously Familiar To Magic Players

Hearthstone’s latest expansion Kobolds and Catacombs launched today, featuring 135 new cards. One of them is called Violet Wurm, and as some players have noticed, it’s almost exactly like a Magic: The Gathering card that came out 17 years ago. Here’s the tale of the tape: Violet Wurm is a new Hearthstone card, a minion…

Ubisoft Says It Won’t Remove Russia From Its 2018 Olympics Game

Earlier this week the International Olympic Committee announced Russia was banned from the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Despite that news, Russia is going to remain in the winter sports sim Steep Road to the Olympics, at least for now. Road to the Olympics is a new expansion to the 2016 winter sports…

After Two Years Minecraft Finally Gets A New World Record

Ender Dragon is Minecraft’s final boss, a serpentine collection of dark blocks that launches fireballs at the player. Minecraft speedrunners have long struggled with it, but this week speedrunners finally discovered how to bypass the Dragon altogether. It’s already led to a world record. Part of what makes the fight against the Ender Dragon time…

People Are Spending Millions Of Dollars On Fake Money To Buy Fake Cats

CryptoKitties lets you exchange a made-up thing called Ethereum for fake cats. Naturally it’s the next big thing in the super convoluted world of cryptocurrencies, where people spend a lot of time cooking up fancy new names for pyramid schemes. Like people who hoarded Beanie Babies back in the day, digital collectors are gathering and…

Star Control’s Creators Call On Stardock To Stop Selling The Original Games

The space fighter series Star Control is at the center of a new dispute over who owns the franchise, and what that means for the future of the series. In a recent series of posts, Star Control creators Fred Ford and Paul Reiche III have called on the publisher Stardock, which purchased some of the…

A Trippy Way To Tap Into Ocarina of Time Nostalgia 

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time came out in 1998. For a certain generation, it represents the peak of electronic entertainment. Link could climb, swim, and swing his sword like never before. It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that decades later people are remixing and augmenting the game that defined their childhood in music. Zeldawave…

The Week In Games: Curse Of More Loot

Destiny 2’s first DLC expansion arrives this week which means too many of us will be magically drawn back into its universe and grinding for loot whether we want to or not. Last week Bungie laid out a number of small changes coming to the game when Curse of Osiris arrives as well as some…

It Might Be Time To Rethink Difficulty Menus

This is the difficulty menu for Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus. In a callback to the original games which also showed up in The New Order, the menu’s telling you only babies play the game on easy. It’s funny on the surface, but also an insidious kind of peer pressure. Don’t listen to it. At…

Wizard of Legend is a pixel animated brawler coming in early 2018. Created by Contingent99, a small studio consisting of two high school friends, the game looks like the Hyper Light Drifter combat that’s become so popular distilled down into a co-op dungeon crawler for PS4 and PC.

The Xbox One X Points Toward The Future Of Backwards Compatibility 

Mirror’s Edge took people by surprise when it released back in 2008. The first-person parkour game was transportive, making you feel the air rush past you as you bolted across rooftops. It’s also one of the games that you can upscale to 4K on the Xbox One X. Almost a decade later, not only play…

Speedrunner Loses His Shit After Finally Breaking Legendary GoldenEye Record

Dam is the first mission in GoldenEye. For fifteen years the fastest anyone was able to complete it as 53 seconds. Bryan Bosshardt set the original record back in 2002 and people have only managed to tie it ever since. Yesterday, Karl Jobst made history by finishing the level in 52 seconds “Fuck! Fuck! Oh…

Sunday Comics: Rough Week 

Welcome to Kotaku’s Sunday Comics, your weekly roundup of the best webcomics that usually occurs on Sunday except when it doesn’t. The images enlarge if you click on the magnifying glass icon. Nerf NOW!! by Josué Pereira. Published December 2. Read more of Nerf NOW!! Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich. Published November 27. Read more…

Watch The Creator Of Little King’s Story Discuss His Love Of Arcades 

In the latest installment of the toco toco TV, the beautiful and melancholy documentary series about Japanese game makers, Yoshiro Kimura talks about the experiences that have led to his small oeuvre of lovely, idiosyncratic games including the PS2’s Chulip, Little King’s Story for the Wii, and most recently Million Onion Hotel In the beginning…

Torment: Tides Of Numenera‘s Opening Accomplishes So Much With Just Words 

I’ve never been so enthralled by the opening of a game that focused almost entirely on a blank screen. Most games like to begin with a quick cutscene. It’s usually a simple and straightforward way too pull players in. High production values, beautiful looking cinematics, and a quick glimpse of the the characters, setting, or…

Track: I Was a Fool | Artist: Sunflower Bean | Album: I Was a Fool (Single) Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

Drama Around Milwaukee’s Pokémon Go Ordinance Ends In $83,000 Settlement 

A lawsuit against Milwaukee County for its ordinance requiring the creators of augmented reality games like Pokémon Go to get permits to operate in its parks will conclude with an $83,000 settlement against the municipality. This all started after Pokémon Go players trashed Lake Park last year. In response the county got Niantic to remove…

Cuphead just got a new patch on PC. The new update mostly fixes some existing bugs and tweaks gameplay balance, but it also includes notable changes like the ability to now maintain a weapon charge during a parry. Unfortunately it also does away with the infamous Mugman army glitch

The Weekend In Esports: Gears Of War Pro Circuit And DreamHack Winter

December is off to a nice start with plenty of major tournaments throughout esports, including Dota 2, Rocket League, and Gears of War 4 In addition to the MLG Dallas Open and ELEAGUE Cup, DreamHack Winter 2017 is underway in Sweden with tournaments ranging from Smash Bros. Melee to H1Z1. Below you’ll find where and…

The Investigation Into Toad’s Head Continues 

In case you didn’t know Toad is at the center of a heated, ongoing debate. On one side are the people who think the mushroom on his head sits there like a hat. On the other side are people who think the mushroom is part of his head. Thanks to the latest Boundary Break video,…