My New Best Friend Is A Blade & Soul NPC

NCsoft’s martial arts MMO Blade & Soul is filled with colorful non-player characters voicing their enthusiastic praise, desperate pleas for help or dramatic plot advancement. Then there’s Ronsul. She’s the best. Most non player-characters with services to offer pour on the charm, enticing the player. Ronsul, a Dragon Trader posted at the Sandstone refuge, doesn’t…

This Week In The Business: Witness Pirates

QUOTE | “It seems The Witness is the #1 game on a certain popular torrent site. Unfortunately this will not help us afford to make another game!” – Indie developer Jonathan Blow talking about the unfortunate levels of piracy that he’s seen for his much-praised new game The Witness. Elsewhere in the business of gaming…

Why One VR Game Is Letting Players Shoot Themselves In The Head

I whirled around and plugged two perfectly placed shots into an enemy player. I was finally getting the hang of Vive VR shooter Hover Junkers. I was in the zone. I thought nobody could take me by surprise. Then I watched as another player slowly raised a gun to their head and pulled the trigger.…

Diaries of A Spaceport Janitor, a game about “picking up trash in an alien bazaar,” looks charming as heck. Sign up for the beta here. Contact the author at [email protected]

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

Whether you’re catching up on stuff from last year or playing the newest thing, there are a lot of good options for games at the moment. This weekend I’ll be playing through a bunch of stuff: I’m clearing out Batman: Arkham Knight on PC, and continue to like all the extra DLC missions and challenges…

12 Steam VR Games That Look Cool, Even If I Didn’t

Valve and HTC’s virtual reality headset, the Vive, is almost here. It’s the one that tracks you while you move around, and it’s pretty damn cool. During a recent event, I got to play 12 of the games that it’ll launch with. Here is what they look like and what I looked like while playing…

Counter-Strike Players Think Valve’s Strict New Mod Rules Go Too Far [Updated]

Valve recently brought the hammer down on custom Counter-Strike servers that don’t fall within a set of very specific guidelines. It’s a big change to the game’s ecosystem, and many players don’t think it’s for the better. In a post on Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s official site, Valve announced the following rules: We’re aware that some…

The 15 Most Twisted Video Game Achievements

My favorite trophies and achievements in video games are the gimmick-based ones. They’re not about finishing a level or getting a certain amount of headshots. They’re about doing something specific, often something outlandish, silly, deliberately provocative, or plain screwed up. They can add levity to a sober gaming experience, provide a diversion from a linear…

The Division Is At Its Best When You’re Stabbing People In The Back

The only technical testing I’ve done with the beta of Ubisoft’s upcoming game The Division is seeing whether I’ll like it. So far, it has passed that test. The third-person online shooter, the full title of which is Tom Clancy’s The Division and which I’ve been playing on Xbox One, is designed to at least…

What It’s Like To Watch Your Game Studio Financially Fall Apart

As the pace of new video games picks up, so does the amount of people writing about ‘em. That’s good for Worth Reading, our weekly round up of the best stories around the Internet. Hey, You Should Read These “Great work on Starward Rogue, team! Now you’re all laid off…?” by Chris Park It’s never…

Rise of the Tomb Raider: The Kotaku Review

When we last saw Lara Croft, she was growing out of being a victim. A victim of fate, of other people’s aggression, of her own uninspired previous playable incarnations. She’s still growing, but she’s different now. [This review originally ran on 11/9/2015. We’re bumping it up because the PC version just came out. We’ve also…

Danny Devito Would Make For An Excellent Detective Pikachu

If you needed proof of this magic combo, Tealhollow1 on YouTube has created a hilarious video demonstrating why Nintendo should get behind this idea. As of this writing, 19,497 people have signed a Change.org petition. There are a number of us that feel as though Danny DeVito would be a prime fit for the voice…

Some Real Rules For Shilling Video Games On YouTube

Earlier this week, Kotaku was approached by a marketing firm working for the publisher Perfect World. They wanted us to help sell two of their games. And in the process, they inadvertently gave us a behind-the-scenes peek at what it looks like when YouTubers shill for game companies. The marketing firm in question, Reelio, sent…

Thunderdome Is A Game Where You Play As A Flying Chainsaw Bear

This is everything that makes video games wonderful (and ridiculous.) In Thunderdome, not only can you compete against other players to try to murder as many humans as possible, you can also duke it out against other chainsaw bears, too. Judging from the footage, the whole ‘chainsaw’ thing makes up for not having full control…

Cancelled Saints Row Game Gets Released For Free

Last night, the developers at Volition did something remarkable. They revealed a cancelled game in their biggest series, Saints Row, and then they set it free, releasing it to the public for anyone to download. The game, Saints Row Undercover, was originally slated for the PSP before Volition decided to cancel it. At first it…

Suramar, World of Warcraft: Legion‘s New Zone, Looks Stunning

World of Warcraft’s next expansion is shaping up nicely. It just got a new alpha build, and while it’s still in early development, one thing’s for sure: Suramar, a new zone in the Broken Isles, is already looking absolutely terrific. You might remember a simpler version of Suramar from WarCraft III. It is the home…