Nathan Grayson

Valve Says Steam Link Hardware Is ‘Almost Gone’

It seems like only yesterday that Valve declared it was making hardware. In reality, Steam controllers, Steam machines, and an odd little gadget called the Steam Link came out back in 2015. Now, three years later, the most useful of those devices is about to enter retirement. While Steam machines and Steam controllers didn’t exactly…

Ninja Keeps Reporting Fortnite Rivals, And It’s Not Sitting Well With Fans

It’s one thing for a regular player to report somebody who might be cheating or griefing in a game like Fortnite, but when a Twitch star does it? Then it unavoidably carries a different weight, especially when it’s the Twitch star, Tyler “Ninja” Blevins. Over the past week, Blevins has found himself surrounded by an…

Valve Says It Will Reduce Artifact’s Hidden Costs, Following Fan Complaints

Artifact is, for better and worse, shaping up to be a very Valve card game in that it’s a clever, complex re-imagining of DOTA 2—complete with lanes and heroes—but it’s also heavily tied into a real-money marketplace. In fact, there’s currently no way to earn new cards without spending at least a pinch of your…

Battle Princess Madelyn is a Ghouls ‘n’ Ghosts-inspired action-platformer whose “honorary assistant creative director” is a 7-year-old girl. Madelyn Obritsch wanted to be in Ghouls ‘n’ Ghosts, so her dad, game designer Christopher Obritsch, decided to grant her wish—and involve her in the creative process. The resulting game, which smashed its Kickstarter goals last year,…

Toronto Esports Team Pulls Out Of Overwatch Because It Couldn’t Use ‘Toronto’ Anymore

There’s taking your ball and going home, and then there’s whatever Toronto Esports just did. After a few days of unusual tweets from the organization’s president and founder, including an unanswered challenge issued to Overwatch League’s new Toronto team, Toronto Esports suddenly dropped out of Overwatch’s minor league, Contenders, over a naming dispute. In a…

Overwatch’s newest hero, Ashe, is live. The new patch also includes a handful of other changes, including buffs to Mercy, Symmetra, Reaper, and Roadhog, the latter of whom Kotaku’s resident Roadhog expert Cecilia D’Anastasio says is now “saved.”

Void Bastards is a strategy-shooter inspired by BioShock and System Shock 2. In it, you guide a group of prisoners through “derelict spaceships and myriad dangers.” You plot a course, study ship layouts, infiltrate ships, and fight/sabotage/distract your way through them. Also, your distraction tool is a kitty. Oh, and if the aforementioned stew of…

Valve Pays $20,000 To Hacker Who Found Steam Bug That Generates Free Games

Somewhere deep inside Valve’s labyrinthine compound of Steam-sustaining tubes, wires, and pipes, somebody is thanking their lucky stars for Artem Moskowsky. The self-described “bug hunter” came across a glitch that allowed him to generate thousands of free keys for any game on Steam. A lesser person might have kept that knowledge to themselves. He reported…

A UFC fighter whose nickname is “Cowboy” and who’s also a real-life cowboy likes the cowboy game. Ahead of his fight against noted buffoon Mike Perry this weekend, Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone told TMZ that he’s “obsessed” with Red Dead Redemption 2 despite not considering himself a gamer. When asked if he was an honorable cowboy,…

Ninja’s Fallout 76 Stream With Rick, Morty, And Logic Did Not Go Well

People say they want good gameplay from streams, but what they’re really looking for is acceptable gameplay paired with great chemistry. Top Twitch streamer Ninja, rapper Logic, and cartoon characters Rick and Morty unfortunately do not have that. If nothing else, it was an ambitious experiment. Last night on Bethesda’s Twitch channel, Ninja and Logic…

Overwatch‘s Next Big Patch Will Require A Full Reinstall Of The Game [Update]

Overwatch has had a handful of sizable patches in the past, but the next major one—which presumably will include new hero Ashe—is going to necessitate a full reinstall of the game. Blizzard chalks the inconvenience up to under-the-hood changes that go deeper than just a fresh coat of paint. “The next major patch will have…

Warframe Fans Ask Developers To Avoid Crunch

This year, game players have learned many uncomfortable truths about video game crunch. If what happened on the Warframe subreddit in the runup to the increasingly MMO-ish co-op shooter’s latest expansion is any indication, we’re starting to see players push developers to take better care of themselves, even if that means slower game releases. Warframe…

Overwatch Probably Won’t Get A Hero Wackier Than Wrecking Ball

There was a time, hard as it might be to remember, when Overwatch’s wackiest hero was a peanut-butter-loving science ape from the moon. Earlier this year, however, he was usurped by a mech-piloting, robo-voiced, Thunderdome-battling hamster who’s also from the moon. How do you top that? Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan isn’t sure he wants to.…

Track: One Armed Scissor | Artist: At The Drive-In | Album: Relationship Of Command Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to at the moment.

Skatebird is a game about a bird who skateboards. Not sure what else you were expecting, really. In it, you skate around an “expansively tiny world,” do Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater-inspired tricks, and try to cheer up your “big,” probably human friend. It’ll be out sometime next year.

Jeff Kaplan’s Plans To Combat Overwatch Fatigue

This year’s BlizzCon was an odd one on a lot of levels, but I was personally stricken by the number of friends and acquaintances who told me they’d taken weeks or months off from playing Overwatch. Last year and the year before, it was an obsession. Lately, though, it’s felt a little stale. Despite that…

Blizzard Is Adding World of Warcraft References To Warcraft III: Reforged

At first glance, remastering 2002’s Warcraft III seems like a fairly straightforward task. Take the ugly bits and make them pretty. Overhaul the cutscenes. Give all the muddy terrain and building textures a 2018 makeover. Redo Arthas’ weird face. For Blizzard’s classics team, though, that’s just the beginning. Warcraft III, after all, opened the door…

Blizzard Explains Why Overwatch Still Doesn’t Have A Black Woman Hero

Overwatch fans disappointed with Ashe should know that six new heroes are in the works, Blizzard has told Kotaku, and that fans hoping for more diversity in the popular game’s cast of characters will hopefully find what they’re looking for in upcoming updates. “I think if you look at the history of Overwatch, there’s been…

Overwatch‘s Ashe Is More Than Just Another Sniper

In many ways, Overwatch’s newest hero Ashe is a contradiction. She’s pinpoint-accurate at a distance, but she’s not exactly a sniper in the same sense as Widowmaker or Hanzo. Her HP pool drains faster than a water balloon hitting a ceiling fan, but she can get down in the thick of things and help capture…

Blizzard Says It Wasn’t Expecting Fans To Be This Angry About Diablo Immortal

Yesterday, during a BlizzCon Q&A shortly after the announcement of mobile game Diablo Immortal, a fan in a red shirt approached the mic. “Just was wondering,” he said in a deadpan tone, “is this an out-of-season April Fool’s joke?” The audience cheered. It was just the beginning of a very long weekend for Blizzard. The…