Ethan Gach

Here’s Why A Newly Formed Pro Dota 2 Team In China Has People Excited

Newbee is a powerhouse when it comes to Chinese esports, especially Dota 2. The organization already has a youth feeder team to pull from and was looking exceptional after taking second at Malaysia’s ESL One Genting 2017 just over a week ago. But it’s the most recent team to form under the Newbee banner, Newbee…

Whale Falls From The Sky In Witcher 3

Did you know there are whales in The Witcher 3? Well there are and they’re huge. Sometime yesterday, a prolific YouTuber, who goes by the name Blah Blah, uploaded one of the strangest gameplay videos of The Witcher 3 I’ve ever seen. Geralt appears to be walking along the top of a tower for the…

Street Fighter V Player Reaches Top Rank Thanks To Hacks

The Street Fighter V player BEST_KOREA holds the number one spot in the game’s ranked mode despite not being all that great. In fact, the player recently served as a punching bag for the world renowned Daigo Umehara. So how did BEST_KOREA climb the ladder so easily? As Shoryuken reported recently, sitting at over 10,000 LP…

Track: (No One Knows Me) Like The Piano | Artist: Sampha | Album: Process Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

Mod Letting Players Hunt Pokémon In Ark: Survival Evolved Gets Hit With DMCA

Ark: Survival Evolved now has Pokémon in it thanks to a mod by Mystic Academy. But who knows how long it will last since, as per the Steam Workshop page, a DMCA notice of copyright infringement has already been filed against the item. The mod in question replaces all of the dinosaurs in Survival Evolved…

Half of Rain World’s two-man development team took to Sony’s PlayStation Blog today to talk more about the game. Joar Jakobsson describes the once industrial landscape battered into grimy disrepair by constant rain as an ecosystem to be survived rather than defeated. Years in the making, Rain World is still due out sometime in 2017.

The Winner Of Last Weekend’s Smash Wii U Tournament Won A Giant Cup Of Noodles

At Saturday’s 2GGC: Genesis Saga tournament for Smash Wii U, accomplished Diddy Kong player Gonzalo “ZeRo” Barrios appeared to stroll through the winner’s bracket with ease, eventually taking the grand finals three games to one against challenger Komorikiri’s Cloud Strife. So naturally he was awarded a crap-ton of noodles in addition to his nearly $3,500…

25 Years Ago, Mega Man 4 Changed The Series Forever

Mega man 4 was the first game in the series to let you charge up your shots. Capcom called this new ability the Mega Buster, an upgraded version of Mega Man’s blaster that was first introduced into the world 25 years ago today. The new gun fundamentally changed how people approached the game in ways…

The Week In Games: Gravity’s Rush 

If anyone understood gravity, it was the Canadian prog-rock band Rush. A new documentary that aired last week titled Time Stand Still made that abundantly clear. 40 years of music and tours will warp the fabric of space and time and give arthritis to even the best of us, including drummer Neil Peart So if…

Kotaku ‘Shop Contest: Midnight Mario

It was great to finally get a real look at the Nintendo Switch and some of the things it’s capable of. But even if the future of Nintendo’s latest console remains uncertain, what I’m really worried about is Mario. I just have a feeling New Donk City is going to eat him alive. Not only…

Track: Ocean Drive | Artist: Miami Nights 1984 | Album: Turbulence Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

Awesome Games Done Quick Raises A Record Breaking $2.2 Million For Cancer Prevention

All week long, the Awesome Games Done Quick marathon has been streaming speedruns to raise money for charity, but the last day was especially dramatic thanks to robots and a ton of last minute donations. It was just after noon yesterday when AGDQ broke the $1,000,000 mark. Over the next twelve hours, however, the group…

China’s 2016 World Electronic Sports Games Were Lit

China has been building ghost cities, constructing man-made islands in the Pacific, and more recently diving head-first into the world of competitive gaming. When it comes to esports, the World Electronic Sports Games are entirely next level thanks to gigantic prize pools, unusual rules, and inconsistent live streams. The WESG 2016 took place at the…

Sunday Comics: Flying Monster Guy

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 January 10. Read more of Nerf NOW!! Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich. Published January 9. Read more…

Miami Heat’s Esports Partner Gets Counter-Strike Team Following Labor Dispute

The Counter-Strike players for the esports organization Team SoloMid have all left following a dispute with owners over which leagues they could play in. Instead, the squad have all joined with Misfits, an organization that just this week announced its new partnership with the Miami Heat News came by way of two announcements, first from…

Speedrunners Race Their Own Hellish Creations With Super Dram World

In the waning hours of the Awesome Games Done Quick charity marathon, player grandpoobear raced through Super Dram World, a game designed to torture speedrunners. If you weren’t aware, Super Dram World is a hacked version of Super Mario World for the SNES. It was inspired by a previous hack of the game called Kaizo…

Watch The Final Day Of The Weeklong Awesome Games Done Quick Charity Marathon

It’s almost the end of the 2017 Awesome Games Done Quick at the Hilton Washington Dulles Airport Hotel in Herndon, VA. Speedrunners from the far corners of the internet meet in person to raise money for charity by playing their favorite games apace. Along with its summer variant, the Awesome Games Done Quick marathon has…

Counter-Strike Pro Is Godlike With His Starter USP

Janusz “Snax” Pogorzelski is a beast with Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s silencer pistol, and a recent match at the WESG 2016 CS:GO Finals proves it. Virtus.Pro’s Snax is routinely one of the best players currently in the game, known in part for his prowess with the USP-S, CS:GO’s version of the previous game’s USP. It’s a…

The Weekend In Esports: Some Pros Are About To Get Rich In China

This weekend marks the end of the first World Electronic Sports Games finals, with several tournaments across Dota 2, Hearthstone, and more featuring giant prize pools thanks to the event’s deep-pocketed organizers. Unlike your regular esports tournament, WESG 2016 teams each represent a country, much like the World Cup. It also takes place it China,…

The Week In Games: Hold On To Your Vocals

The latest Hatsune Miku game hits the West this week along with a handful (literally) of other games. Prepare your ears for the tones of the future and some beats that will blow your mind. For those unacquainted with the Hatsune series, like me, they are ports of arcade rhythm games that star a Vocaloid…