The Story Behind Hue‘s Brilliant Soundtrack

Two years ago, Alkis Livathinos had no idea he’d eventually be working on a small puzzle game called Hue. The game’s creators, Henry Hoffman and Dan da Rocha, who had already begun working on the project, didn’t know either. In a way though, the match had already been made. After licensing some of Livathinos’s music…

Picking Apart A Single Frame In DOOM 

Ever wonder what exactly goes into rendering each painstakingly detailed frame in a game like DOOM (2016)? Well, Adrian Courrèges, a software Engineer based in Tokyo, has you covered Taking an in-depth look at one particular screenshot, Courrèges explains step-by-step all of the different processes and considerations at play: Unlike most Windows games released these…

Destiny Player Discovers Rise of Iron Ghost Fragment

It’s September which means back to school for some, pumpkin spice lattes for others, and for a deranged few, obsessively combing through the world of Destiny in search of new items and secrets. With Rise of Iron just around the corner, Bungie is paving the way for the game’s third year with a patch that,…

Rule of Rose Is Now 10 Years Old And Still Savagely Twisted

I was young when I saw the not-at-all good 1990 adaptation of Lord of the Flies, but the scene where Piggy dies is still etched into my memory. It’s the first time I can remember seeing kids kill other kids on screen. Since then, Battle Royale and The Hunger Games have made the concept much…

Focus Wins Over Flair In This Morning’s StarCraft II Tournament

“ByuN” Hyun Woo took home just under $35,000 after winning the GSL (Global StarCraft League) Season 2 finals earlier today in South Korea. You can watch him almost completely dominate his hot-shot opponent, Kim “sOs” Yoo Jin, across five separate matches below. The technologically advanced Protoss, helmed by sOs, took on ByuN’s brutish space marine…

Steins;Gate is now on Steam. Richard Eisenbeis called the game “simply a fantastic visual novel” when he first reviewed it and I have to agree. So go send emails into the past and watch the diabolic horror that ensues, if you’re into that sort of thing. The follow-up, Steins;Gate 0, is already out in Japan

Hey Kotaku, It’s Me, Your New Weekend Editor

What keeps you up at night? The fear of failure? The fear of success? Bills to pay? That one exotic engram you can never seem to find? It’s a weird question to ask so early on a Saturday Morning, I know. I began this introduction the night before. I thought it would be easy to…

This Week In The Business: It’s Not Looking Good For The Xbox One

QUOTE | “Really this could be a final nail in the coffin for Xbox One now that Microsoft has told consumers to wait until 2017 [for Scorpio]. Sony will have the powerful system with VR now and a well-executed plan that leaves consumers no reason to wait.” – DFC Intelligence’s David Cole says PlayStation 4…

Overwatch Player Never Touches The Ground In The Game’s New Level

I’ve featured one dedicated Overwatch wall-rider before, but this person has turned it into an art form. If you’re in need of some chilled-out Friday afternoon viewing, I can’t recommend Seba’s wall-ride of Overwatch’s new level, Eichenwalde, enough. This combination of slick movement and soothing beats will heal you from the grotesque wound between weekends…

Two Years Later, The Sims 4 Sex Mods Have Gotten Intense

Normally, ‘woohooing’ in The Sims 4 is pretty tame…that is, unless you download some of the latest mods. (NSFW WARNING.) Released a couple of months ago and further updated this week, WickedWoohoo is a mod that allows players to do an extraordinary number of new sex-related acts within The Sims 4. Seriously: the feature list…

Steam’s Latest Hit Is A Great Mix Of FTL And XCOM

Halcyon 6 is a sumptuous video game stew. It’s got hints of XCOM, FTL, 4X space games, and JRPGs, plus gobs of humor and personality. I’ve taken to calling it 4XCOM for short. I’ve only played for a couple hours, but this feels like the sort of game that will keep me hooked for weeks.…

Phoenix Wright: Spirit of Justice: The Kotaku Review

In a world plagued by legal manipulation, political corruption, and a general lack of fairness for the underprivileged, there’s something comforting about a video game where justice is always served. Sure, everyone lies under oath and one out of every four witnesses is a murderer, but at least the innocents always go free. Phoenix Wright:…

World Of Warcraft: Legion Progress Report: The Other Side Of The Level Cap

When you’re working through the post 110 content of World of Warcraft’s Legion expansion with one Alliance character and are getting bored of running through the same content on five others, sometimes you need to take a walk on the Horde side. We’re at the end of the second week of Legion, and I’m progressing…

One Man’s Maddening Quest To Walk Across An Entire No Man’s Sky Planet

The planets in No Man’s Sky are supposed to be, well, planet-sized. Most players will only see a small percentage of any locale, if that, before boredom sets in and another planet is explored. One man, however, decided to undertake a pilgrimage that tested the limits of his sanity, if not the limits of the…

Meet Kotaku‘s New Staff Writer, Heather Alexandra

On the 22nd of August, Kotaku welcomed Heather Alexandra to our ranks. On Kotaku, Heather’sbeen producing thoughtful, critical videos about abstract concepts in games for a few months, but now, we’re proud to have her full-time as a staff writer. Hooray! We’ve seen Heather explore “time” as the scariest video game monster, as well as…

Ask Dr. NerdLove: Should I Date My Best Friend?

Hello, you electric pheromone beasties. Welcome to Ask Dr. NerdLove, the first dating advice column to achieve an N7 rank in the Alliance. This week, we’re going to be talking about two sides of the same issue: desire. How important is simple, sexual attraction in a relationship and what can it affect in the long…

Witness World Of Warcraft: Legion‘s Amazing Steam Death Cave Before It’s Gone

The air is festive and steam-filled inside the cave of the northeastern coast of the Broken Isles, as the bodies of Horde and Alliance players alike form a pile around an orb that must be clicked to complete the Legion expansion’s recently-discoveredsecret world quest I’ve been working my way through the Kosumoth the Hungering quest,…

Rise of Iron Gear Is Already Dropping In Destiny

It’s an exciting time in the world of Destiny, a video game in which players travel through space, killing aliens and gradually realizing that nothing really matters because we all die alone. A new patch that launched yesterday in preparation for the upcoming Rise of Iron expansion (which goes live on September 20) is full…