I’ve played plenty of board games that are better than GKR, but I don’t think I’ve ever played one that’s cooler than GKR.

Toward the end of my time with pirate RPG Pillars of Eternity II, one of my crew members, foul-mouthed furball Serafen, presented me with a gift.

When Dark Souls released in 2011, it helped solidify a new genre of action RPG. Since then, players have held onto the game, with fight clubs and massive, yearly revisitations. Dark Souls is more ritual than game at this point, and it was only inevitable that we’d get a remaster. I think I’m okay with that.

The PS4’s latest blockbuster moviegame Detroit: Become Human is like something my Alexa would come up with, were I to ask her to write a story about androids with feelings.

It’s easy to get in over your head in the open-world zombie survival game State of Decay 2.

Hyrule Warriors came out for the Nintendo Wii U in 2014. It came out for the Nintendo 3DS in 2016. In 2018, Nintendo finally looked “Hyrule Warriors” up in the dictionary. That’s my joke about the word “definitive”! Don’t worry. I, uh, I won’t make another one, much as I would like to.

Someone is a spy and you need to take them out. There’s only thirty seconds left for them to bug the ambassador and complete their mission. You see movement out of the corner of your eye? Is that balding man reaching towards the ambassador’s pocket? You take the shot and the party goers scream. Over Skype, your friend…

Yakuza 6 is a game of firsts. It’s also a game of lasts.

Playing Sea of Thieves feels a bit like working in a theater before the set has been completely built. There’s plenty of space to goof around and a few swords in the wings to have mock fights with, but none of its quite ready for show time. A lack of features and polish has frustrated some players, but those willing…

A Way Out merges narrative games with couch co-op, and the result is a smart and emotional experience so good that it had to be reviewed by two Kotaku writers. We’ve never played a cooperative experience like it.

I’ve spent a long time trekking across Far Cry 5’s fictional Hope County, Montana fighting the members of an apocalyptic cult led by a man called Joseph Seed, and I’m still not sure what their deal is. They drive around blasting weird Christian synth and shooting non-members on sight. It’s weird and terrifying and…

Vengeance is what happens when someone takes the murderous revenge tale of movies like Kill Bill and turns them into a board game. Or at least tries to.

It can be difficult, as a jaded adult, to appreciate a great fairy tale—one where the hero always wins and naivety is a character strength rather than something to grow out of. So it is with Ni no Kuni II. But if you can look past this game’s more childish tendencies, you’ll find a fairy tale worth experiencing.

Great games are interesting, as are terrible ones. Mediocrity’s a bore. Too bad Nintendo’s newest Kirby game is just that.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance was a grand idea. In a genre awash with fantasy epics, it sought to ground a role-playing adventure not in some distant and imaginary land, but in history. There would be no wizards, no dragons, no giant rats—just you, a horse, some mud, and a cast of flawed human beings.

Secret of Mana is a broken game that I will always love. Playing through the recent remake forced me to reckon with why that is.

Metal Gear Survive is wreckage of the long battle between the series’ lead creator, Hideo Kojima, and Konami, his long-time employer who ditched him three years ago. Kojima split with Konami after a lifetime of making Metal Gear games, going back to the first in 1987. Survive is Konami’s attempt to make a new one…

Into the Breach is a game about the accumulation of small decisions, good or bad. It’s a game that never lets you forget your past runs, especially your failures.

The best thing about Adolescence is that it eventually ends.

If you’ve played an hour in one Dynasty Warriors game you’ve played an hour in all of them. That’s been the conventional wisdom for a while now and although Dynasty Warriors 9 doesn’t disprove it, it does point toward some interesting new possibilities for the series in its new open world setting.