Hate Plus, the sequel to Christine Love’s terrific visual novelAnalogue: A Hate Story, will be out on August 19. In the meantime, enjoy this kicky trailer.

Let’s Be Real About Walkthroughs

Fact: websites like GameFAQs and game-specific Wikis are some of the biggest, most popular websites on the internet. Fact: a lot of gaming culture prides itself on the pursuit and overcoming of difficult challenges. Hmm. Doesn’t it seem like both of these shouldn’t be true at once? Looking up how to beat a game, after…

Moneysaver: QuakeCon Deals, 20+ Games for $90

The Id Software, your ego, and the super-deal. To celebrate Quakecon, Id and Bethesda titles have been discounted across the Internet. We briefly mentioned a couple sales in today’s Moneysaver, but we’ll get into it here. The highlight is of course the Quakecon Pack on Steam, a huge bundle of more than 20 games including…

In Facebook’s Bleak New Feudalism, Creators Are Mere Serfs

In recent weeks, Facebook has been sending emails imploring me to complete a survey about how they might improve their development platform. I’d been deleting the messages, but after the third request or so, I decided to click through. For those lucky enough to have avoided it, the Facebook Platform is a set of tools…

All The Elder Scrolls Games Ever Made, All In One Box

Today at QuakeCon, Bethesda announced an all-inclusive anthology of Elder Scrolls games and add-ons coming to PC in September. Per Bethesda, the anthology will include: The Elder Scrolls Arena The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind Tribunal Bloodmoon The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Knights of the Nine Shivering Isles The Elder Scrolls…

Finally, A Dragonborn Statue For The Dragon Priest Fans

As soon as I acquired the Dragon Priest Morokei Mask is Skyrim, I never — NEVER — took it off. So this new, extremely limited edition Dragonborn statue is the one for me, as long as I can convince my accountant to let me part with $370. Only 250 of these 16 inch, poly-stone beauties…

Watch John Carmack’s QuakeCon Keynote Live, Right Here

QuakeCon 2013 officially begins today in Dallas, TX. You won’t want to miss legendary developer John Carmack kicking things off on stage. His previous appearances have always been educational. Hell, we might even hear some more about Doom 4! His opening speech begins at 4:30 central time, but this Twitch stream will be your home…

Blizzard’s Next Subscription MMO Is No Longer A Subscription MMO

The project code-named Titan is changing direction completely, Blizzard said on today’s Activision earnings call. It used to be a subscription-based massively multiplayer online game. No more. “We’re in the process of selecting a new direction,” Blizzard president Mike Morhaime said on the call. Titan, which has been under development for quite some time now,…

“Video Games Are The Next Big Religion”

How do you feel about the idea of gaming as religion? I wouldn’t blame anyone for feeling skeptical, and yet it’s difficult to disagree with many of the points Andy Robertson makes in this talk that compares gaming and religion. These things have a lot more in common than you’d think! I’m not sure I’m…

Job Interviews at Resident’ Evil’s Umbrella Corporation Would Be Weird

Oh, it’s not called Umberella but anyone who’s been around video games for the last 20 17 years knows where this job interview is happening. Sparsely scattered bullets? Illegal genetic experiments? Parasol, indeed. If you’ve played Resident Evil—or, really, any other survival horror game—the jokes in here will make you laugh. You’ll also think that…

Taco Bell is debuting a new Doritos Locos Taco flavor on August 22. They’ve done Nacho Cheese and Cool Ranch. What could it be? I’m hoping plain.

Watch Us Play… Pikmin 3 And Try To Do This Thing Called ‘Teamwork’

Pikmin 3‘s timed missions are tough, even in co-op. Here’s one of the early ones. Kotaku‘s Steve Marinconz and I had just seven minutes to slay a mighty monster. Could we do it? We recorded the video a couple of days ago, if that matters to you. For more impressions of the Wii U’s first…

The new Wolfenstein game has been delayed to 2014, Bethesda confirmed to Kotaku today. “We felt the game deserved some additional time for polish,” a spokesperson said. [h/t Polygon]

The Drowning Changes The Way Mobile First-Person Shooters Are Played

Last year former DICE Sweden creative director Ben Cousins promised to revolutionize touch screen controls for mobile first-person shooters. He’s kept that promise with The Drowning, but the game’s free-to-play structure is dragging it down. It really is a joy to play The Drowning with its default, two-fingered control scheme, so much so that trying…

Moneysaver: Lost Planet 3, Tropical Freeze, XCOM iOS, Buffy

August is the cheapest month. Welcome to another Moneysaver, featuring pre-orders on Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, Wii Fit U, and Lost Planet 3, along with a nice discount on XCOM: Enemy Unknown for iOS. Most importantly, don’t miss out on the even-better-than-usual free trial for Amazon Prime. Here’s our coverage of all the QuakeCon…

Take on Mars, the sim that lets you take control of a Mars rover and explore the Red Planet, is now available on Steam Early Access.

The Burliest Adventure Time Cosplayer Goes On A Badass Journey

A ton of people love to cosplay Adventure Time’s Finn, but I’m sure we can agree that Future Finn—or, as many know him, Bearded Finn—may be one of the beefiest. And as much fun as it’s been to see the man at cons or reblogged on Tumblr, given that he’s a Finn cosplayer, you’ve gotta…

QuakeCon 2013 begins today in Dallas, TX. John Carmack will be back on stage with a keynote presentation at 5:30pm eastern time that we’ll have streaming live on Kotaku for you. Hang tight.

Don’t Count On A New Super Mario RPG Any Time Soon

Today, Nintendo’s iconic plumber stars in two big RPG series—Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi. But longtime fans will remember that Mario’s first experiments with role-playing came through a wonderful collaboration with Squaresoft called Super Mario RPG Super Mario RPG, released for the SNES way back in 1996, is remembered fondly today not just for…

Watch Us Play Rise of the Triad, A Throwback To 1995

The re-imagining of Rise of the Triad is here and unafraid to let you loose with nothing to guide you other than your intuition. Too bad my intuition is rubbish. I get myself lost on the way to the shops. But it’s safe to say Rise of the Triad is as gore-filled and over the…