Half-Life, Revisited
I first played Half-Life in 1998 and played it again recently for a series of livestreams on Twitch. It’s been 20 years…
Red Dead Redemption 2's Puppet-Like NPCs Clash With Its Meticulous World
Red Dead Redemption 2’s excessively detailed world tries to suggest reality. Fall and you get covered in mud; while…
The Far Cry Series Needs To Let Things Break Again
Far Cry 2 was released on this day 10 years ago, so we thought it was appropriate to revisit what makes that game so…
Assassin's Creed Odyssey's 'Optional' Questlines Are Just As Important As The Main One
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey packs a lot of activities into its massive world, letting players wander to their heart’s conte…
Spider-Man's Take On Police Feels Out Of Touch
Spider-Man has taken on his share of street thugs and supervillains, sometimes teaming up with the police to face down…
Fallout 76's Approach To Nukes Seems Like A Shift For The Series
Fallout 76 will have nukes. Provided players find the keys, they will be able to fire these nukes off whenever they…
David Cage Games Keep Treating Women Like Shit
David Cage’s Detroit: Become Human wants to talk about difficult questions. The game from Cage’s studio Quantic Dream,…
A Look Back At Black Ops III's Strangest Level
Call of Duty: Black Ops III mixes the series’ familiar first-person shooting with a wild cyberpunk storyline. The…
The Shadow of the Colossus Remake Isn't Quite The Same
The Shadow of the Colossus remake brings the PS2 classic to a new group of players, boosting up the graphics and…
The Tricks That Make Echo's Stealth Gameplay So Tense
The enemies in Echo copy any action that you perform until they’re highly dangerous walking death machines. Level…
Breath of the Wild’s Best Stories Are Our Own
Breath of the Wild’s vast open world is full of discoveries. The most important discoveries we make come when the…
The New Call Of Duty Could Learn A Thing From The First Call Of Duty
Call of Duty: WWII wants to tell a harrowing tale of heroes and sacrifice by following the US Army’s 1st Infantry…
What Wolfenstein 2's Bloody Twist Has To Say About Its Protagonist’s Body
Wolfenstein’s BJ Blazkowicz is one of the original first person shooter protagonists. He is a muscle bound action hero,…
Binary Domain Treats NPCs Like Humans
Last night, I finished a playthrough of Binary Domain on Kotaku’s Twitch channel. The 2012 sci-fi shooter is rough…
What Destiny 2 and Overwatch Animations Tell Us About Their Characters
Even if we can’t see out character’s face and body, animation tells us a lot about characters in first person games.…
Sometimes A Weird Video Game Is Better Than A Polished One
I’ve been playing through Deadly Premonition and Binary Domain on Kotaku’s Twitch channel. One is an offbeat crime…
Gundam Versus Buries A Good Game Under A Ton Of Unlockables
Giant robots are awesome and Gundam Versus has some of the best. But can a game offer you too many options? Heather…
An Indie Game About Accepting Death
Dujanah is a gorgeous and bizarre indie game full of glitch cats, existential spider-men, and death. With key narrative…
Yakuza's Villain Is One Of Gaming's Best
Sephiroth, Liquid Snake, Ganondorf; video games have some wonderful villains. But making bad guy who is both…
Hellblade’s Design Captures The Trauma Of Loss
Focusing on themes of grief and trauma, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice employs a number of level design and mechanical…