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
Batman: Arkham VR will swoop down on the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive on April 25
Batman: Arkham VR was one of the higher-profile titles available during the PlayStation VR’s launch period last Fall, and now WB Games has announced it’ll be available for the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive on April 25. A new “Announcement Trailer” for the game’s PC debut has been embedded above.
“Bringing Batman to VR was a very rewarding experience for us here at Rocksteady. The Dark Knight has always been an incredible character to work with due to his psychological depth, so it’s really exciting to use this immersive medium to delve deeper into his psyche than ever before,” said Sefton Hill, the Creative Director of Rocksteady Studios. “We’re thrilled that PC players can finally wear the cowl for themselves and take on the role of the World’s Greatest Detective with the addition of the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift versions.”
Batman: Arkham VR will support both the Oculus Touch and Vive Controller, as well as the PS4 DualShock 4, Xbox One Controller, and Steam Controller.
Posted in News, PC
Tagged Batman: Arkham VR
It looks like Udon will publish a Shovel Knight: Official Design Works artbook in August
We’re still waiting patiently for the release of those children’s books based on Shovel Knight (they’re currently scheduled to arrive in stores on April 18), but it looks like you’ll be able to purchase yet another tome featuring the titular knight later this Summer.
According to a new listing on Amazon, Udon Entertainment will publish Shovel Knight: Official Design Works on August 29. The artbook will include 184 pages of images from the game, as well as new information about Shovel Knight from the development team at Yacht Club Games:
Shovel Knight: Official Design Works collects the fun and original artwork behind this landmark title. Inside you’ll find key art, character concepts, enemy designs, sprite sheets, unused ideas, and an all-new Shovel Knight tribute art gallery! This epic tome is also packed with creator commentary, as well as exclusive interview with the Yacht Club Games team.
Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment, the newest expansion to Shovel Knight’s side-scrolling adventure, will be available to download for the PC beginning tomorrow. If missed its Nintendo Switch launch last month, you might not know that it’s an AMAZING addition to the franchise.
Volition’s Agents of Mayhem gets a new trailer and an August 15 release date
Volition’s Agents of Mayhem roared back into your line of sight yesterday, with a new trailer that cribs heavily from The A-Team, Knight Rider, and today’s superhero-driven cinema.
The world first heard about Agents of Mayhem last year, when the Saints Row-adjacent project was unveiled at the E3 Expo. But now we know when it’ll be released (August 15), and a bit more about the game’s fame-hungry heroes:
After the horrors of Devil’s Night, the world was left in ruins from the devastation that the shadowy supervillain organization LEGION (League of Evil Gentlemen Intent on Obliterating Nations) had left in its wake.
They needed heroes.
They got the Agents of MAYHEM (Multinational AgencY for Hunting Evil Masterminds).
In a case of bad versus evil this elite band of often unstable misfits, armed with a variety of crazy weapons, work under the watchful eye of Persephone Brimstone, ex-LEGION lieutenant, and her assistant Friday, to bring down LEGION and its mysterious leader, the Morningstar.
Explore the city of Seoul with a diverse cast of twelve interchangeable agents that you can assemble into squads of three, each with their own distinct look, sense of humor, weapons, and skillset. Players can build and customize their squads however they choose, switching from Daisy, a mini-gun wielding, beer-swigging, foul-mouthed roller derby girl, to Rama, an immunologist with a futuristic bow firing energy arrows, to Red Card, a loveable but psychotic German soccer hooligan with a temper that can literally clear a crowd.
With a toy box of twelve unique agents to choose from, players can jump between reality TV star/pretty boy Hollywood, to sky pirate and internationally infamous thief Fortune, as the open-world missions demand.
Agents of Mayhem is an open-world action game currently in development for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One… and I cannot stress enough how 80s-tastic the new trailer is.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Agents of Mayhem
Jak and Daxter’s PS2 adventures will be available for the PS4 later this year
Sony has announced (via the PlayStation Blog) that Jak and Daxter will make their PS4 debut later this year with a special PS2 Classics re-release of the first four games in the franchise.
Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, Jak II, Jak 3, and Jak X: Combat Racing will be available to download for the PS4 later this year with full Trophy support and up-rendered to 1080p. Unfortunately, it looks like Sony had to remove Jak X: Combat Racing’s online multiplayer. But both single-player modes (Adventure and Exhibition), as well as splitscreen multiplayer, will remain intact.
More details about these games will be revealed closer to their launch date, but for now, Sony has uploaded a rather celebratory “Jak and Daxter on PS4” trailer, and it’s been embedded above.
Posted in News, PS4
Tagged Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy
The purr-fect way to start the week… a new Injustice 2 trailer featuring Catwoman
Harley Quinn is looking to recruit Catwoman for the “Gotham City Sirens” in the latest Injustice 2 trailer, but things don’t end well for the reformed supervillain.
Consistently walking the line between hero and villain, Selina Kyle’s pilfering past as Catwoman prevents Batman from ever placing his full trust in her. As the ashes of the Regime give rise to the sinister Society, the Caped Crusader must once again speculate where this thieving feline’s loyalties lie.
Catwoman first appeared in Injustice: Gods Among Us, and like her previous appearance in the franchise, her Injustice 2 incarnation is an acrobatic martial artist who’s quick as a whip.
Injustice 2 will be released for the PS4 and Xbox One on May 16.
Posted in News, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Injustice 2
Nintendo unveils “Humpback Pump Track” stage for Splatoon 2
ESL hosted the Go4Splatoon European Grand Finals over the weekend, but after the winners were crowned, Nintendo of Europe had a surprise in store for the crowd. The consolemaker unveiled a brand new stage set to appear in the upcoming Splatoon 2.
“Humpback Pump Track” is the name of the stage, and it takes place in the middle of an indoor BMX track. Inklings will be able to zip through the stage’s “curvy ups and downs,” as they trade ink in Turf War. Nintendo’s short video introducing the “Humpback Pump Track” can be found after the break.
Splatoon 2 will be released exclusively for the Nintendo Switch this Summer, and congratulations to Team Rising Moon, the winners at the Go4Splatoon European Grand Finals. (more…)
Posted in News, Switch
Tagged Splatoon 2
Insomnaic’s Spider-Man will likely be released in 2017
Insomniac’s upcoming Spider-Man game won’t be connected to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but it’ll likely make its debut on store shelves alongside the wallcrawler’s first film adaptation from Marvel Studios. Ryan Penagos, the Vice President and Executive Editor of Marvel Digital Media, revealed that the game “is on the horizon for 2017” during an episode of THWIP! The Big Marvel Show.
However, the video was originally uploaded more than three months ago (it was the “Best of 2016” episode), and a lot can change in that amount of time. But Penagos sounds pretty confident, and this is the closest thing we’ve gotten to a launch window since Spider-Man’s announcement at E3 2016.
Spider-Man: Homecoming will open in theaters on July 6, and be available as a Blu-ray/DVD/Digital Download sometime this Fall. Either one would be an excellent time for Insomniac to launch their Spider-Man game.
UPDATE: Insomniac replied to the hubbub on the Internet today with the following statement (via Twitter): “No release timeframe has been announced”.
While that’s true, I’d assume that Sony and Marvel are very interested in piggybacking on the extensive marketing campaign for Spider-Man: Homecoming. The developer might not be ready to announce a release date just yet (which means the game could slip to 2018), but 2017 sounds much more likely to me.
Posted in News, PS4
Tagged Spider-Man
Weekly Warp-Up: Did You Get Fooled on April Fool’s Day 2017?
No, that’s not a typo. Welcome to the Weekly Warp-Up, your weekly wrap-up of the biggest and the best articles posted at Warp Zoned this week…
It was April Fool’s Day yesterday, and as usual, game publishers delivered a few goofy gags for their fans. And a few of them even turned out to be real.
The creators of Breaking Bad are NOT working on a Grand Theft Auto series for AMC, and NetherRealm is NOT adding the Wonder Twins to Injustice 2. However, you actually can dash down streets as Ms. Pac-Man with the “Insert Coin” filter on Google Maps. And Sega really did release 8-Bit Bayonetta as a free download through Steam.
But I think this year’s most interesting prank might be the BlizzCon Textual Adventure (a parody of the Choose Your Own Adventure books) that Blizzard added to the convention’s official website.
If you’re looking for more actual news, the biggest headline from the previous seven days has to be that Destiny 2 is officially coming to the PC, PS4, Xbox One on September 8.
And speaking of shooters, we looked at how Disorganization Leads to Criticism At Halo World Championship 2017 Finals, and offered up our impressions of the Splatoon 2 Global Testfire.
Finally this week, our latest Scientifically Proven Best Video Games of All Time essay looks at the urban legends spawned by Pac-Man.
You can read all about the rest of this week after the break. (more…)
Posted in News