Bloodborne Modders Discover Cut Boss Rush Mode

Bloodborne’s Chalice Dungeons are a lot to dig through, and people have discovered some strange things in their game files. Now data digger Lance McDonald has found several boss rush arenas that never made it into the final game. Chalice Dungeons are wholly optional dungeon dives in Bloodborne, and they can be accessed by using…

‘Shop Contest: Your E3 Hopes And Dreams, Winners!

E3 was this week, and we saw many different things appear onstage. Last week I asked you to create some images of the things that you wanted to see at the show, and golly did you deliver. The Electronic Entertainment Expo is the place where we learn about new games, get excited about upcoming ones,…

This Week In The Business: Fortnite Has E3’s Number 

STAT | 125 million – Total number of Fortnite players since the game’s original launch less than a year ago. STAT | 2 million – The number of Switch users who downloaded Fortnite in its first 24 hours of availability.  STAT | 0 – The number of Fortnite accounts that had been attached to PlayStation…

The Surge 2 Doubles Down On Limb Severing 

I’ve never been a Dark Souls fanatic, but I appreciate the vibrant new mini-genre of Souls-likes it’s helped inspire. The Surge is one of those, and from what I saw at E3 2018, The Surge 2 looks like it’ll be a big improvement with some new ideas of its own. The Surge’s developer, Deck 13,…

We’ve been running special E3 episodes of Kotaku Splitscreen all week. Some have gotten their own Kotaku articles, and some haven’t yet. You can listen to them all on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or directly on our feed. We’ll be back to regular programming next week. Thanks for listening!

EVE Online and Star Citizen Fans Trade Barbs Over Spaceship Design 

Fans of the still-in-development space game Star Citizen have been able to piece together scattered images of a brand new ship design from social media clues. This first look at the newly designed salvaging and utility ship, the Vulture, has many of them very excited—and many EVE Online players a bit perturbed. The Vulture’s design…

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

The weekend is for doing all those things you didn’t have time to do during E3, like sleeping, cleaning the house, and calling your family. It’s also for playing some video games instead of hearing about ones you can’t play yet. I am finally going to check out Prey’s new expansion. The Long Dark got…

Valve Adds Limits To Steam Achievements To Fight Rise Of ‘Fake Games’

Last year, Valve put limitations on Steam trading cards to stop sketchy developers from makinge a living leeching money from the user-powered trading card economy. Now it’s doing something similar with Steam achievements. In a post in Steam’s private developer-focused Steamworks group, Valve announced that achievements—like trading cards—will now be subject to a “confidence metric”…

Ask Dr. NerdLove: My Girlfriend’s Guy Friend Is Trying To Sabotage Our Relationship

Hello all you glorious Twitternet pervert herds, and welcome to Ask Dr. NerdLove, the only dating advice column to be ported to the Switch. This week, we’re air-dashing through dating dilemmas and charging your relationship’s recovery moves. What’s the polite way to handle the guy who keeps insulting your education in front of your girlfriend?…

Lego DC Super-Villains‘ Custom Characters Have A Lot Of Potential

At Lego DC Super-Villains’ E3 Demo, I spent a little too much time in the character select screen. The game is all about you creating a ne’er-do-well of your own and I thought… do they have a purple hat and black overalls in this thing? Could I really be any bad guy I could dream…

Seeing The Resident Evil 2 Remake In Action Soothes My Skeptical Heart

When Resident Evil 2 released in 1998, it had to follow up on a game that defined a new genre of horror. Not only did it manage to improve the formula, it went on to be what many people consider the best game in the series. After a long stretch with no new information besides…

What do Squid Kids Eat? Splatoon’s Producer Explains

Splatoon 2 is a game about squid-kids waging war with neon ink. It’s not an easy one to explain to grandma. And it takes place in a freaky world that raises a lot of questions—What did squid kids evolve from? How do they get so much ink in those little ink guns? Where are these…

Castle Sieges Bring A New Level Of Strategy To For Honor‘s Multiplayer

For Honor is getting a free new mode on October 16 as part of the game’s Marching Fire update, and after getting a chance to try it at E3 it’s the only For Honor mode I want play. Inspired by games like Dota 2 and League of Legends, Breach is an asymmetrical siege mode with…

Three Small Ways Shadow Of The Tomb Raider Is Changing Things

Rise of the Tomb Raider, released in 2015, was an excellent game, so it’s no surprise that the new Shadow of the Tomb Raider being demoed at E3 looks and plays a lot like it. There were, however, three small changes that delighted me during the press demo I watched. In Shadow, Lara Croft’s got a…

Sudden Dota 2 Update Wreaks Havoc On Qualifier Tournament

The North American open qualifiers for the 2018 Dota 2 International were off to the races yesterday, with dozens of games being played to determine who would take a regional spot. And then along came a patch containing Dota 2‘s new battle royale mode, and everything fell apart. A Dota 2 patch pushed yesterday included…

Every Super Mario Odyssey Transformation, Ranked

The core innovation of Super Mario Odyssey is Mario’s companion, Cappy. Cappy is a hat that can magically possess everything from non-living objects to living characters. Toss Cappy at an enemy, and the enemy will sprout a Mario moustache and a signature red hat. Mario gains full control over the creature’s movements and abilities. There…

How Yoshi’s Island Got Its Beautiful, Hand-Drawn Look

Prior to her interview at E3 this week with Splatoon 2 producer Hisashi Nogami, Kotaku’s Cecilia D’Anastasio asked me if there was anything I wanted to know. “Yeah,” I said. “Ask how Yoshi’s Island got its hand-drawn style.” Nogami, you see, was credited as a character designer on that legendary 1995 Super Nintendo game, which…