Joel Green, The Child Who Inspired That Dragon, Cancer, Has Passed Away

Joel Green, the young boy whose battle with terminal cancer inspired Josh Larson’s intensely personal game, That Dragon, Cancer, has succumbed to his illness. He was five years old. In a blog post late last night, Green’s mother Amy wrote that he had been taken to Children’s Hospital in San Francisco after his health had…

Dubstep Visualized With Fire Is A Great Way To Burn Your Eyebrows Off

Ever think to yourself, man, being mesmerized by a digital music visualizer is just too safe? Fixing that problem is easy: just add fire. Also, science. Okay, speaking seriously, this fire visualizer made by the folks at Hard Science is really cool. You can watch them make it (and then test it) in the video,…

Thralled—the chilling indie game about a runaway slave who’s also a mother—has found a home on Ouya. Lead developer Miguel Oliveira tells Kotaku that Thralled will be an exclusive in exchange for the console company’s support and that he expects a release later this year.

Layoffs Hit Popcap

Popcap, the EA-owned game studio behind Plants vs. Zombies, has just laid off a number of employees, Kotaku has learned. One source pegs the cuts at 30-40 people, and we hear the company has been gradually laying people off for the past year. EA won’t confirm the number, but they did send over a statement…

A new game set in Wyoming? That’s Firewatch, a nifty-sounding PC game just announced by indie outfit Campo Santo. They say you’ll play as a fire-lookout in the Wyoming wilderness, drawn out of your watchtower by strange events and tethered to humanity only by the voice on the other end of your radio. More info…

People Are Making New Games For 30-Year-Old Consoles

Yep, that’s a game where you shoot Bowser with a Doom-style shotgun, in a Virtual Boy, the system that was so awkward it gave people migraines. When these guys say they’re only doing this because they love it, they aren’t exaggerating. These guys have been around for a while, but Animal recently interviewed the people…

The Final Fantasy Type-0 Fan Translation Comes Out In August

The story of Final Fantasy Type-0 is long and depressing: released for PSP in 2011, Square Enix’s role-playing game never made it outside of Japan, despite being announced at E3 in North America, and for years now, fans have been wondering whether we’ll ever get to play it in English. (Adding insult to injury: I’ve…

An Elaborate New Vegas Mod That Lets You Play As The Enclave

Modders are kind of the best. Case in point: this amazing New Vegas mod which adds another joinable faction in the game. And not just any faction, mind you—it’s the Enclave The mod—called “For The Enclave”—was made by Otellino and CNC. It took three years to make, and you can tell just by looking at…

Double Humble, PSN Cash, Yoshi 3DS XL, Murdered: Soul Suspect [Deals]

Bonus credit offers are some our favorites. Spend $60 on PSN by March 18 and get $10 back. Put that together with the Spring Fever 2014 Sale which is better with your Playstation Plus membership, and Sony Rewards for an ultra combo. [Sony] Amazon is raising the price of Amazon Prime by $20 per year,…

Titanfall on Xbox One Versus PC

Debating between two of the available versions of Titanfall? Maybe seeing the graphical differences between the Xbox One and the PC version will help. This video by IGN gives us a glimpse what Titanfall looks like on both platforms, though for those of you interested in stills, you should go here. A small taste: Xbox…

Here’s a new developer diary for Alien: Isolation, which comes out later this year for PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.

Come See Kotaku At PAX East

Dear friends, frenemies, straight-up bad guys, and anyone else who reads Kotaku—if you are headed to Boston for PAX East next month, be sure to catch our panel: Kotaku’s Incredible Fantastic Panel Extravaganza XVIII-2. We’ll be hanging out, talking about video games, taking questions, and maybe even bringing some surprises—if you’ve ever wanted to see…

Today’s selection of articles from Kotaku‘s reader-run community: Pro-Tips For Game Collecting • References and Symbolism: A Rant • Muv-Luv: The TAY Review TAY Classic—TAY Open Forum—Beginner’s Guide To TAY Follow them here.

The HD upgrade for Mirror of Fate—which originally came out for the 3DS— will be getting an upcoming Steam release later this month. The second game in Castlevania‘s Lords of Shadow offshoot precedes for the just released Lords of Shadow 2

I’d Love To Hang Out In This League of Legends Gaming House

Siv, mostly known for his streams on Twitch in the League of Legends community, is here to guide us through their new gaming house in Holland. It is… a little bit different from those packed eSports houses in South Korea. Skip to 7:23 to see the ultimate setup for streaming on Twitch. Fantastic apartment for…