Ethan Gach

The Weekend In Esports: Counter-Strike Descends on Barclays

In an otherwise quieter weekend, four elite CS:GO teams will be lighting up the Barclays Center for ESL One New York. The big story so far is that both Cloud9 and Team Liquid managed to eek out spots in the semifinals despite the best efforts of European powerhouses Astralis and Na’Vi. That the unlikely triumphs…

Battlegrounds Continues To Break Records On Steam

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds continues to dominate Steam, dethroning Valve’s Dota 2 for highest concurrent player count of all-time. It was only a month ago that the game reached over 800,000 active users, placing at the top of the digital platforms chart for what people are currently playing at any given time. Now it’s also displaced Dota…

The Week In Games: Once More Unto The Breach 

Some habits are hard to kick. Destiny is second on my list of most-hours-played, wedged firmly between Dota 2 and Super Smash Bros. Melee. Hundreds of hours later I’m still not sure what that says about the game or me. Is Bungie’s post-Halo MMO shooter my second favorite game of all time? No. Do I…

League Pro Goes The Entire European Summer Final Without Dying A Single Time

Sometimes it’s enough just to not die. Survive, and the rest might follow. That was certainly the case for G2 Esports’ Jesper “Zven” Svenningsen at today’s European League of Legends Summer Final. In League, as in most sports, the plays that often get the most attention are the ones that do damage. We remember how…

Game Developers Explain Some Of Their Favorite Ways To Trick The Player 

Games lie to us all the time. Recently, some developers took to Twitter to share a few of their ones, revealing design tricks used in games ranging from Surgeon Simulator to Bioshock In the latter, for instance, the first bullets fired at you by enemies always missed. You might have thought you were just an…

Track: Dirty Work | Artist: Steely Dan | Album: Can’t Buy A Thrill  Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

The Good Life Shows Off Sheep And Day Drinking In New Gameplay Trailer 

Revealed earlier this month as the latest game from the creator of Deadly Premonition, The Good Life looks as weird as anything Hidetaka “SWERY” Suehiro has ever worked on. The latest trailer offers a first look at some gameplay and, yup, it’s definitely looking like a SWERY game. The Good Life is a murder mystery…

Sunday Comics: Official Lore

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 August 31. Read more of Nerf NOW!! Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich. Published August 28. Read more…

Gwent Delivers The Witcher 3‘s War-Weary Fatalism In Elegant Card Form

The Witcher 3 is one of this console generation’s best games. It might even be one of the best role-playing games ever made. Maybe it shouldn’t come as a surprise then that Gwent, its side-quest distraction turned standalone card game, is every bit as detailed, complex, and beautifully crafted. There’s a card in the game…

Sonic Mania Boss Pays Homage To Deceased Fan Hacker

Moto Bug is the first enemy you ever encounter in Sonic. Is the series’ Goomba, in other words, and there’s one in Sonic Mania named after a member of the Sonic hacking community who died a few years back. Named Jimmy after the late Polygon Jim, it appears in the Lava Reef Zone as part…

Here’s A Ton Of New Lore On Destiny 2’s Cabal

Destiny 2 doesn’t release until next week, but at least one Collector’s Edition was delivered early thanks to Amazon Canada. The $250 bundle is filled with art work and lots of different knick-knacks, including a special booklet filled with lore that Reddit user Canadian decided to upload and share with the internet. Bungie’s shooter MMO…

The Weekend In Esports: League Summer Finals And More

It’s Labor Day weekend, the unofficial end of summer, which means it’s also time for the League summer season to draw to a close. Immortals will be making the organization’s first-ever appearence in LCS finals where they will have the tough task of taking on veterans Team Solo Mid. It’ll be up to the newcomers…

The Week In Games: Rabbids Ahead 

Summer must be winding down because the release schedule is starting to ramp up. Knack II is just around the corner! But this week belongs to Mario and the Rabbids and a few other late August slackers. Absolver’s out this week, along with another episode of Life Is Strange. And of course, the long awaited…

It’s Nice To See Daigo Win A Major Street Fighter Tournament Again

It’s been almost a year since Daigo “The Beast” Umehara has won a premier level SFV tournament. That changed earlier today when he took first place at the Hong Kong Esports Festival, a victory many in the fighting game world were glad (and possibly relieved) to see the aging star a achieve. Ever since the…

What Are You Dreading About Tonight’s Game Of Thrones Season Finale?

Season seven wraps up tonight. What’s the worst thing that could happen? I started out extremely hopeful for the show’s developing third act back in July. It seemed like the boulder set in motion all the way back in season one had finally picked up enough momentum to start moving things along to the many…

Final Fantasy XIV Director Uses Kinky Meme To Congratulate Cosplay Winner 

Toward the end of Games Com this past week in Germany, there was a cosplay contest for Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. Naoki Yoshida, the game’s director, helped judge it. “Step on me, please,” he told the winner. Let me explain. Stormblood was released earlier this summer. The expansion included new job types, locales,…

This Guy Prefers To Play Smash Bros. Melee With The Controller Upside Down 

And it’s mesmerizing. Nooch is a sixteen-year old burgeoning speedrunner and Smash Bros. enthusiast. He was attending Shine 2017 this weekend, his first ever major Smash tournament, when god-tier Melee pro Juan Manuel “Hungrybox” DeBiedma spotted him on the floor and took this short video. Nooch apparently plays at lot of games with the controller…

Battlegrounds Now Has The Second All-Time Highest Concurrent Player Count On Steam

Last year around this time no one would have understood what you were talking about if you muttered the word PUBG. This weekend it was the most played game on Steam. With a twenty four hour peak of just north of 870,000 concurrent players, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds sat at the top of Steam’s “Current Player Count”…

Sunday Comics: It’s A Solar Eclipse

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 August 24. Read more of Nerf NOW!! Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich. Published August 21. Read more…

Square Enix’s Library Is Full Of Games Worth Remastering 

After the success of Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age and Square’s announcement that Secret of Mana will be getting remade for the PS4 and Vita, it’s clear the company wants to see its deep back catalog live on, but there are a few games in particular Square Enix should think about reviving sooner rather…