Nathan Grayson

Surprise! Elite: Dangerous is now on Steam. The expansive space sim has kept to its own client since release, but today it warped into Steam’s orbit, shocking everyone and maybe flattening a few Early Access survival games. It is a Very Cool Video Game

Players Are Making The Most Brutal Shooter Even More Realistic

First-person military shooters don’t get much more hardcore than Arma III. And yet, its most diehard fans think they can do even better. ACE3 is a merger between three high-profile Arma III modding groups: the teams behind ACE2, AGM and CSE. They’ve spent the past few months working together on “the most comprehensive and realistic…

The Best Steam Guides For Pillars of Eternity

Pillars of Eternity is goddamn fantastic. It’s also sometimes intimidatingly deep, with all of its interlocking old-school-RPG-esque stats and systems. Here are some guides to help you on your way. Let’s take it from the top. First, the most difficult part of every RPG: the character creation screen. Pillars runs on a new, non-D&D stat…

Mario Kart Is Getting A New, Harder Difficulty Level

Ever since the olden days when Mario and co raced in horse-drawn carriages, Mario Kart’s had three difficulties levels. Soon, though, that’s going to change. On April 23rd, Nintendo will release a free update to Mario Kart 8 that’ll add a 200cc mode. It’s apparently far faster than 50cc, 100cc, and 150cc, requiring a mastery…

The Steam Stream Finds Out What The Hell Is Up With Asteroids: Outpost

Today I’m playing a bunch of new Steam releases for your viewing pleasure, foremost among them a first/third-person survival game based on Atari arcade classicAsteroids. Yeah, the one with the little triangle ship. No, I don’t get it either. Watch below. Other games on the docket for today: Avatar: The Last Airbender-esque action game Son…

What Do You Want Valve To Change About Steam?

Steam is great, but nothing’s perfect. Valve’s beast of a service is colossal, multifaceted, with a million different limbs being pulled in a million different directions. Inevitably, it sometimes falls flat. What features do you wish Valve would add to Steam? Or take away? Personally, I can think of a bunch, but for simplicity’s sake…

Half-Life 2, Now With More Scares (And Big Jumps)

Half-Life 2‘s been around since Kotaku was a bouncing baby blogglette—freshly hatched from its internet egg—but people are still making some brilliant-looking mods for it. Today, one with gut-wrenching atmosphere… and the ability to leap over buildings. After two years in the making, Transmissions: Element 120 is out. It’s a spooky, atmospheric single-player story set…

Team Fortress 2 Fan Film Is The Best Action Movie I’ve Seen In Ages

Got 20 minutes? Cool, that’s enough time to watch one of the funnest action movies I’ve seen in ages. And yes, it was made in Team Fortress 2. Live and Let Spy is the latest mini-film in The Winglet‘s “Fedora Chronicles” series, which also includes The Bolted Behemoth and Operation 2Fort. You don’t need to…

Players Add Flyable Planes To Cities: Skylines

I think I’m gonna name my firstborn son “Cities: Skylines modding community.” I pretty much have to, at this point. Steam user Ulysius has released a mod called “Flight Cimulator,” a riff on Microsoft’s classic Flight Simulator series. It lets you hop in the cockpit and fly planes over your city because what genre even…

Watch Me Play Dyscourse, Aka Lost: The Video Game

Dyscourse is one of the most intriguing new games on Steam this week. It’s island survival ala the TV show Lost fused with branching choices out of a Telltale game. Difference is, Dyscourse doesn’t want any two playthroughs to be the same. Ever. Let’s see how it goes. Update: The stream is over, but here’s…

How Players Pulled Off The Longest Turn In Hearthstone History

The arcane missile bombardment has finally stopped, the dust has cleared, and the longest turn in Hearthstone history is complete. 45 hours. 45 goddamn hours. But how did they do it? (Note: there is a video that will auto-play near the bottom of this post. Sorry, there’s no way to make it not do that.…

Rust Chooses Players’ Race For Them, Things Get Messy

Many games let you choose your character’s race, but not Rust. The chaotic survival game is doing its best impression of the gene pool—randomizing who’s white, black, and everything else—and players have reacted in unexpected ways. Prior to this, everyone in the game was white and looked more or less the same. The changes to…

How To Make Cities: Skylines Look Like Borderlands

Love Borderlands‘ cartoony vistas and pastel-colored expanses? Well, now you can make your game of Cities: Skylines look just like it—minus roughly a million gallons of blood, of course. The Bordercities 2 mod gives the absurdly popular (and infinitely moddable) Steam city builder the Borderlands series’ trademark cel-shaded look by doing these things: -Adds ‘edge…

DayZ Player Sings (And Plays Guitar) For His Life

What could’ve been just another blood-soaked tale of DayZ douchebaggery turned into something, well, kinda beautiful. In this DayZ video from Michael Gramlin, a player is taken hostage with all the traditional fixings—bag over his head, tied up, surrounded, and marinated in a baste of his own sweat and urine—with zero hope of escape. But…

People Aren’t Waiting Around For Nintendo To Make A Female Link

Nintendo may or may not ever give us a woman version of Link from Legend of Zelda, but where there’s a will, there’s a way. Or a game jam. In recent times, there’s been speculation that the next Legend of Zelda‘s Link will be a lady, not to mention an honest-to-goodness lady Link sighting in…

Valve Rejects DOTA 2 Character, Player Makes It Anyway

I’m not sure Valve was serious about their rejected redesigns for DOTA 2 hero Faceless Void, but that hasn’t stopped a fan from painstakingly modeling one for use in the game. Of course they went with Faceful Void. Of course they did. Easily the goofiest-looking of Valve’s somewhat, shall we say, out of character remakes…

Hearthstone Player Is Six Hours Into Attempt At Longest Turn Ever

Hearthstone is great, in part, because it’s so damn fast. If you don’t make a move in 90 seconds, tough luck. One player, however, has figured out how to make a single turn last more than 40 hours. As Eurogamer discovered, a player named Mamytwink is trying to break—or shred into a breathable mist of…

Three Fourths Home now has an extended edition. The new version of the heartbreaking narrative game adds an epilogue that’s nearly as long as the original story. There are also new stories from main character Kelly’s brother, Ben. It’s an astounding game. Highly recommended.

When DOTA 2 Meets Classic Art

You get this fusion of DOTA 2 hero Meepo and the Mona Goddamn Lisa, courtesy of Haryon. Freakin’ unbelievable, but in a good way. You can see the full, even more massive thing below. The Steam Community Showcase is a regular look at the cream of the Steam community’s boundless crop. Art, videos, guides—whatever. Each…

Guy Uses Team Fortress 2 To Come Out To His Friends

Coming out to friends about any sort of sexuality or queer identity is terrifying. What if they don’t understand? What if they don’t like you anymore? One Team Fortress 2 player decided to tell his friends in a language they all understood: the game itself. Corbin W, aka Rocketjumpingotter, took a two pronged approach to…