Warp Zoned Presents
Video Game Canon- BAFTA Games Awards: All the Winners from 2003 to Today
- Clair Obscur Completes the Sweep by Winning “Best Game” at 2025-2026 BAFTA Games Awards
- Boss Fight Books to Get a New Look for Richard Moss’s “Age of Empires”
- GDC Awards: All the Winners from 1996 to Today
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Wins “Game of the Year” at 2025-2026 GDC Awards
Warp Zoned Presents
- Video Game Research Library
- We Pitched a Museum a 1993 Game Hint Line (And They Actually Said Yes) – Yarn Spinner (2026)
- The History Of The Word “Metroidvania” And How It Spread – A Critical Hit (2025)
- Creator of Hit Game Shovel Knight Is at a ‘Make or Break’ Moment – Bloomberg (2025)
- Shadow of the Colossus: An oral history – Design Room (2025)
- In 2005, games started rewiring our brains – The AV Club (2025)
Author: John Scalzo
Captain Cold does his best Sub-Zero impression in this Injustice 2 trailer
Just as we suspected when he was first unveiled in the “It’s Good To Be Bad” trailer, Captain Cold’s Injustice 2 incarnation owes a lot to Sub-Zero. The Mortal Kombat mainstay is the master of ice and cold, and it makes perfect sense that NetherRealm Studios would want to recreate his moveset for DC’s icy villain.
Sworn to ending all crime, the Regime hunted down and brutally executed every member of the Rogues, including Captain Cold’s sister. Using his skills as a thief and his iconic Cold Gun, Cold now seeks his vengeance. He’ll gladly use the Society to achieve it.
Captain Cold uses his Cold Gun to shoot icy projectiles across the screen. He can also freeze his opponents for a free hit or drop an Ice Ball on the ground as a trap. The supervillain even makes use of the Lin Kuei ninja’s Cold Shoulder charge.
Injustice 2 is just a little over a month away, and it’ll launch for the PS4 and Xbox One on May 16.
Posted in News, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Injustice 2
This News Is On Fire… NBA Playgrounds will be available for PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One in May
IGN is reporting that Saber Interactive will team up with the National Basketball Assocation to release NBA Playgrounds for the PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One this May.
NBA Playgrounds is following in the footsteps of the wild antics and insane dunks that NBA Jam and NBA Street pioneered more than a decade ago. Midway and EA Big may both be defunct, but their love of an over-the-top arcade basketball experience definitely lives on in 2017.
The game will feature 2-on-2 matchups with players from all 30 NBA teams, as well as a deep bench of retired legends such as Shaquille O’Neal, Allen Iverson, Patrick Ewing, and more. And as you might expect, players can pick up and play NBA Playgrounds in single-player or multiplayer (local and online) modes.
NBA Playgrounds will be available next month exclusively as a digital download, but do not miss the game’s debut trailer, which has been embedded above.
Slash the Roller Queen brings back the 90s in the latest Quake Champions trailer
You might have to be one of those crazy “90s Kids” to understand, but rollerblading was an extremely popular pastime during Quake III Arena‘s heyday. So it makes perfect sense that id Software decided to make Slash the Roller Queen a prominent playable character in the game.
With Quake Champions set to launch later this year, Slash will return for an encore performance in the Arena. And as part of their latest weekly reveal, the developer has given us a sneak peek at the “X-TREME” character:
Slash (Roller Queen)
It was her grandmother’s music box. Its tiny ice-skater twirled to Swan Lake. She loved it. She couldn’t sleep without hearing its tune. Then she heard it in her dreams. Then always. She would become a skater herself. She would twirl and twirl until the music stopped. But it never stopped. She began to see dark, spidery things. When the clozapine didn’t help, she turned to heroin. In the shooting gallery she met Anarki. He saw things, too. They became inseparable… until the things they saw became real.Active Ability – Plasma Trail: Activating Slash’s Active Ability leaves a bright trail of destruction in her wake, inflicting damage on enemies careless enough to pass through the wall of pain. Players can also choose to hit their ability button again, causing the trail to explode, inflicting massive damage to Champions in the area. Cut off key paths or encircle enemies or power-ups in a crushing barrier of suffering.
Passive Ability – Crouch Slide: Slash is already super mobile, but by crouching while running, she’ll use her skates to go into Crouch Slide, allowing her to move full speed while crouching and whip around corners smoother and faster than other Champions.
Access to Quake Champions’s Closed Beta will be available for the first batch of selected participants beginning tomorrow. If you’d like a chance to receive an invitation sometime in the future, be sure to sign up for the game’s Closed Beta at Quake.com.
Posted in News, PC
Tagged Quake Champions
Xbox Store Today: Enter the Gungeon, Lego City Undercover, Use Your Words, more
Today’s Xbox Games Store update features guns, bricks, and words. Are you ready?
After launching exclusively for the PS4 last year, Dodge Roll’s Enter the Gungeon makes its Xbox One debut today. The twin-stick shooter asks players to delve deeper and deeper into a procedurally-generated “Gungeon” in search of the Gun That Can Kill the Past. Featuring hundreds of guns and dozens of bosses, Xbox One owners who purchase Enter the Gungeon will also receive access to the game on Windows 10 thanks to the Xbox Play Anywhere program.
Xbox One owners looking for some action might also want to explore the open world of Lego City in Lego City Undercover. Now available to download, Lego City Undercover stars Chase McCain, a police officer who’s been tasked with going undercover to hunt down the notorious criminal Rex Fury.
Finally today, Smiling Buddha Games will launch Use Your Words for the Xbox One. Use Your Words is a party game that asks players to respond to a variety of mini-games and prompts with “the funniest answers they can think of.”
More information on all of today’s additions to the Xbox Games Store can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in News, PC, Xbox One
Tagged Enter the Gungeon, Lego City Undercover
Cars 3: Driven To Win will be released for every available console on June 13
WB Games and Avalanche Software have announced that the Cars 3 video game, Cars 3: Driven To Win, will be released for the PS3, PS4, Switch, Wii U, Xbox 360, and Xbox One on June 13.
Taking place after the events of Disney/Pixar’s upcoming film, Cars 3: Driven To Win will ask players to master advanced racing abilities such as “Drifting, Turbo, Two-Wheel Driving, Driving Backwards and Side-Bash” as they rise through the ranks of the Piston Cup. Naturally, the game will also feature splitscreen multiplayer for competitive and cooperative modes:
Picking up after the final big race in the film, Cars 3: Driven to Win extends the storyline of Cars 3 with all-new action packed adventures and takes players through a high-speed competition that is filled with both familiar and new faces. Players will be able to join Lightning McQueen and Cruz Ramirez as they prepare to take on rival racer Jackson Storm. The game features more than 20 customizable playable characters including popular heroes from the Cars franchise and next generation racers. Players can also select their favorite race environments from a series of iconic settings from the film, such as Radiator Springs and Florida International Speedway, with over 20 unique tracks to choose from across 13 different locations.
We also got a glance at the first trailer for Cars 3: Driven To Win, and its been embedded above.
Persona 5, Drawn to Death, PaRappa the Rapper Remastered, more added to PS Store
After nearly a decade of waiting, Atlus has delivered Persona 5 to fans. The RPG is now available to download for the PS4 and PS3, and it gives players the chance to live a double life… first as a regular high school student by day, and then as a member of the heroic Phantom Thieves at night.
Speaking of long-awaited returns, developer David Jaffe is back with his latest game on the PS4 this week. Featuring an art style culled from the notebooks of weirdo teens everywhere, Drawn to Death is a multiplayer shooter that also mixes in “the nuance of a fighting game.” Best of all, it’s a free download for PlayStation Plus subscribers.
Finally this week, the PlayStation Store is now home to a trio of PS4 re-releases that’ll bring old favorites to a new group of gamers. First up is PaRappa the Rapper Remastered, Sony’s attempt to rebuild one of the world’s first rhythm games. It’s joined by People Can Fly’s weird and wild first person shooter, Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition, and Lego City Undercover, a family-friendly open-world action game from WB Games.
You can learn more about all of these games (and the rest of this week’s additions to the PlayStation Store) after the break. (more…)
Posted in News, PS3, PS4
Tagged Bulletstorm, Drawn to Death, Lego City Undercover, PaRappa the Rapper, Persona 5
Square Enix has shipped more than one million copies of Nier: Automata
The original Nier has gathered together a rather dedicated cult following since its release in 2010, and this built-in audience has helped propel the recently-released sequel to new heights. Nier: Automata was released for the PC and PS4 last month, and Square Enix announced today that worldwide shipments and digital sales of the game have surpassed one million copies.
Square Enix also turned the Square Enix Blog over to Character Modeler Hito Matsudaira, who went over the process he used to create Nier: Automata’s 2B:
Does anyone famous in particular come to mind when you think of a character modeler? No one comes to my mind – character modelers rarely come out in public these days! Fortunately for me, I was given this opportunity so I would like to explain what kind of thoughts I had, and how I modeled the character 2B using some in-progress images of the character.
I would like to show you that the process isn’t as simple as changing an illustration into 3D.
If you’re still on the fence about Nier: Automata, a demo is now available to download for the PS4 through the PlayStation Store.
Posted in News, PC, PS4
Tagged Nier: Automata
CoD: Infinite Warfare’s Continuum DLC Pack goes back to the 70s on April 18 with “Shaolin Shuffle” and four new multiplayer maps
Activision has delivered our first look at “Shaolin Shuffle,” the 1970s-set Zombies Mode chapter set to launch as part of the next downloadable expansion for Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. The trailer also introduces players to Pam Grier’s “Shaolin Sister,” who will help players fight back against the undead with four new kung fu fighting styles:
“Shaolin Shuffle,” the next thrilling chapter of the Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare zombies experience, features the return of Willard Wyler, the mysterious movie director villain portrayed with voice and likeness by Paul Reubens (Pee-Wee’s Big Holiday, Gotham). This time, Wyler has trapped the four protagonists inside a new horror film, set in the unforgettable 1970s. Players will face all-new zombie enemies across a variety of disco-era New York locations, including subways, flashy nightclubs and a martial arts dojo headed up by the Shaolin Sister, played with voice and likeness by Pam Grier (Jackie Brown, Foxy Brown). In addition to hallmark Call of Duty action, “Shaolin Shuffle” introduces four unlockable kung fu fighting styles, each with its own set of unique combat moves.
The Continuum DLC Pack will also include four new multiplayer maps that favor close-quartered combat and unique architectural design:
Multiplayer Maps in Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare’s Continuum DLC Pack
- Turista – A plush spa and resort, “Turista” is nestled in the middle of a giant skeleton of an ancient creature. With sniper spots scattered across a majestic, central waterfall, Turista also boasts tight interiors for fans of close-quartered combat and a three-lane design that caters to a variety of play styles.
- Scrap – Set in an abandoned junkyard on the Moon, “Scrap” features a combination of extended sightlines and tactical pathways that reward players who engage in both long and short range combat.
- Archive – Fast, frenetic engagements set the pace in “Archive,” a post-futurist art gallery where tight engagements contrast with open exterior battlegrounds in this wide three-lane style map.
- Excess – Perched atop a gilded penthouse in a sprawling future metropolis, “Excess” is a small, circular map re-imagined from the classic Modern Warfare 2 map, “Rust,” that retains the intense, fast-paced combat from the original.
The Continuum DLC Pack will be available to download for the PS4 on April 18, while PC and Xbox One owners will receive access to the expansion sometime in May.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare