Ethan Gach

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,…

Players Worry Paladins‘ New Card System Inches Closer To Pay-To-Win

A new update to go live on Paladins’ public test server is already drawing a lot of criticism from some of the hero-based shooter’s most dedicated players. In addition to the normal gameplay tweaks, the OB64 patch introduces a new system for how players can use cards to customize their favorite characters and make them…

Putting Games On Mute Might Make It Harder To Play Well

From the limited findings based on a recent experiment, researchers at Brandeis University found that sounds can affect how we interpret visual cues. Participants in an experiment found it more difficult to score points in a simple game when its audio was messed with or turned off entirely. More proof that listening to podcasts while…

Meet The 19-Year-Old Who Spent Over $10,000 On Microtransactions

At the height of the controversy surrounding microtransactions in Star Wars Battlefront II, a Reddit user who goes by the name Kensgold posted an open letter to publisher EA and other developers in the video game industry. “I am 19 and addicted to gambling,” he wrote. Kensgold wasn’t talking about roulette tables or online poker.…

The Beginner’s Guide Creators’ New Game Is About Keanu Reeves Stabbing People

“Welcome player. It’s a fucking video game. Get your stats ready,” Absolutely: A True Crime Story begins. Then it asks you to boost one of your starting character’s stats like strength, dexterity, or something called J3V. None of these stats matter: the browser game is just a random, nihilistic parody. But it’s funny, mostly because…

The Week In Games: Xenoblade Strikes Back 

Xeno is Greek for “foreigner,” though Xenoblade Chronicles 2 hardly seems like a stranger at this point. A cult classic in the PS1 era with Xenogears, a lackluster trilogy of vague prequels with the PS2’s Xenosaga, and then a series stumbling toward renewed JRPG greatness across three different Nintendo platforms in the modern era. Clearly…

Speedrunner Gets $1,000 Donation While Playing Ocarina Of Time Thanks To Sheer Luck 

Speedrunner Cheese was attempting a 100% run of The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time when the unthinkable happened. A Twitch viewer in the chat dropped a cool grand on the streamer to celebrate some bizarre random number generation. 100% speedruns require players to do just about everything there is to do in a…