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
Xbox Store Today: Cannon Brawl
Just one new addition to the Xbox Games Store today, and its Cannon Brawl, “an exciting mix of real time strategy and artillery gameplay” for the Xbox One. Developed by Turtle Sandbox, players will square off in Cannon Brawl will blast their opponent’s airships and castles while attempting to protect their own base.
More information about Cannon Brawl can be found right here, and on its page at the Xbox Games Store:
Xbox One Games
Cannon Brawl ($9.99)
Cannon Brawl is an exciting mix of real time strategy and artillery gameplay. Your ability to manage combat priorities and focus through the madness of battle will be put to the test. Advance across the kingdom in single player to unlock and discover new units, then experiment with each one to find your favorite combination in online multiplayer.
Rockstar and 2K have a ton of games in the works that Take-Two still isn’t ready to talk about
Take-Two Interactive delivered their quarterly financial report to investors yesterday, and the company’s executives used their time in the Wall Street spotlight to also talk about a few games they’re not exactly ready to talk about yet.
Strauss Zelnick, Take-Two’s CEO, started off by saying, “Rockstar Games is also hard at work on some exciting future projects that will be revealed soon.” Zelnick has made this same statement for several years now, so his definition of “soon” probably varies quite a bit from the Oxford English Dictionary. I suppose you can insert your own Red Dead Redemption 2 rumor right here.
Take-Two’s President, Karl Slatoff, also promised big things from Rockstar Games, along with Take-Two’s 2K label: “Looking beyond the current fiscal year, we have a robust long-term development pipeline across both of our labels, which features offerings from our renowned franchises, along with new intellectual properties that promise to further diversify our industry leading portfolio.”
During a previous quarterly financial report, Take-Two executives confirmed that their 2016 release calendar is set in stone, so it’ll likely be a while before we learn anything more about these future projects.
Bethesda unveils first Quake Champions gameplay trailer at QuakeCon 2016
Bethesda and id Software surprised the world when they announced Quake Champions at this year’s E3 Expo. While many people (myself included) assumed the developer would move on to a Quake followup after the smashing success of Doom, I don’t think anyone expected it to appear so soon.
But speed is the name of the game when it comes to the Quake franchise, and this hyperactive philosophy is on full display in the very first gameplay trailer for Quake Champions, which was unveiled at QuakeCon last night. As part of his keynote address, Studio Director Tim Willits revealed more information about the four “Champions” from the E3 trailer, and gave the audience an exclusive look at a fifth Champion, Anarki, “a lanky speed-demon with a sweet hoverboard.” Quake Champions will include more than a dozen Champions when the Closed Beta launches next year.
More of Willits’s address can be found at Bethesda.net, including this nugget about the game’s weapons:
In true Quake fashion, you’ll have an arsenal of powerful and unique weapons, each of which will feel familiar to long-time Quake players. “No loadouts, no limit to the amount of guns you can carry,” Willits assured the crowd. “Time the weapon pickups, or kill your opponents. That’s how you get weapons in a Quake game.”
And don’t worry, those rocket jumps will look incredibly impressive as Willits also promised that Quake Champions will run at 120hz with unlocked framerates.
Posted in News, PC
Tagged Quake Champions
Pokemon Ranger: Shadows of Almia and three other games added to Nintendo eShop
It’s a slow week for the Nintendo eShop as just four games were added to the digital storefront today…
The biggest name in the bunch is Pokemon Ranger: Shadows of Almia, which was originally released for the DS in 2008, and is now available to download for the Wii U through its Virtual Console service. Also new to the Wii U eShop this week are Dragon Skills, a retro-style game inspired by Arkanoid and Snake, and Overworld Defender Remix, an arcade shooter with music by the Italian chiptune artist Buskerdroid.
Over on the 3DS eShop, players will be able to get into the Olympic spirit with Stickman Super Athletics, a mini-game compilation starring a group of Stickmen. A free demo for Nintendo’s Style Savvy: Fashion Forward is also available to download now.
More information on all of these games can be found after the break. (more…)
XCOM 2’s PS4 and Xbox One launch delayed to September 27
Take-Two Interactive has announced that XCOM 2‘s PS4 and Xbox One debut will be slightly delayed. Previously scheduled to launch on September 6, the game’s release date has now been pushed back there weeks to September 27.
The publisher also held their quarterly financial report today, and Karl Slatoff, Take-Two’s President, revealed that developer Firaxis initiated the delay to “ensure the game is fully polished at launch and meets the team’s high standards.”
XCOM 2 was originally released for the PC this past February.
PS2-On-PS4 re-release of Indigo Prophecy will be available to download on August 9
After a last-minute delay scuttled its planned July 18 launch, Quantic Dream has announced that Fahrenheit: Indigo Prophecy will be released for the PS4 on August 9. Like all PS2-On-PS4 re-releases, the game will include 1080p visuals and full Trophy support.
Writing on the PlayStation Blog, Quantic Dream’s Co-CEO, Guillaume De Fondaumiere, shared a bit about the game’s unlikely journey from an untested idea to a bona fide cult classic:
Indigo Prophecy was initially launched in 2005 in partnership with Atari. Looking back, I can say that our team’s serenity and faith in what we were creating was in direct opposition to the skepticism of a great number of people to whom we pitched the game.
This skepticism was so radical that we had to switch publishing partners during the last third of the game’s production. While we were showing off the beta version, a certain group of high-profile professionals even claimed that we would never be able to finish the game!
The reason for this skepticism was that we were creating something radically new, as we were attempting to resolve an equation that many thought was unsolvable: putting the story at the very core of an interactive experience and inventing gameplay that allowed players, through their actions and decisions, to change the way the story unfolds.
Fahrenheit: Indigo Prophecy was originally released in an “uncut” version internationally, and slightly edited for its North American release. It’s still currently unknown which version of the game will be added to the PlayStation Store next week.
Posted in News, PS4
Tagged Fahrenheit: Indigo Prophecy
Rumor: Nintendo will release new Mario and Pokemon games for NX in 2017
It’s time for another round of rumors related to Nintendo’s NX console, and this time they come from the business-minded Brits who run MCV. According to the report, which cites “sources close to Nintendo,” the consolemaker plans to release new entries in some of their biggest franchises during the NX’s launch window, including The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, a new Pokemon game from Game Freak, and the next Super Mario game:
Developer Game Freak will bring Pokémon to the platform, while Nintendo’s first party titles include the previously announced Zelda game – Breath of the Wild – and a new Mario game. All three products are scheduled to appear within the first six months of the machine’s life.
It’s interesting to note that Game Freak has never produced a Pokemon game for one of Nintendo’s home consoles, which means there’s a real possibility this rumored new entry in the series is a full-fledged Pokemon RPG, and not a spinoff. As for Mario’s next adventure, Producer Takashi Tezuka began brainstorming ideas for a new Mario game back in late 2015, so a 2017 release date seems reasonable.
MCV sources would go on to say that Nintendo is recruiting a large number of third-party publishers to produce games for the NX including Sega, Square Enix, Ubisoft, Activision, and Warner Bros. Both Sega (Project Sonic) and Ubisoft (Just Dance 2017) have previously announced they’ve got NX projects in the works, so it seems likely this list is accurate.
And speaking of accuracy, MCV’s sources also stated that the rumored console/handheld hybrid design of the NX is “100% accurate.”
Nintendo is expected to fully reveal the NX in September and will release the console in March 2017, so we won’t have to wait very long to find out exactly what shape it’ll take.
Posted in News, Switch
Tagged Pokemon Switch, Super Mario Odyssey, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Xbox Store Today: Happy Dungeons, Telltale’s Batman Episode 1, Dead Island: Retro Revenge, more
It’s time to get happy… today’s Xbox Games Store update is now available.
And speaking of happiness, Toylogic is back with Happy Dungeons (Xbox One), a free-to-play sequel to Happy Wars. This time, the multiplayer action RPG takes the battle deep underground with a “witty, upbeat storyline that’s never short of a surprise.”
But if you feel that happiness is overrated, let Telltale help you challenge your angst with Batman: The Telltale Series. Episode 1: Realm of Shadows is now available to download for the Xbox One, and players will be able to take control of both Batman and Bruce Wayne as they try to clean up the streets of Gotham.
Deep Silver’s Dead Island: Retro Revenge is also available as a standalone download for the Xbox One. Previously exclusive to the Dead Island Definitive Collection, Retro Revenge is a side-scrolling beat ’em up through a zombie-infested California.
Finally this week, Introversion’s slammer simulator, Prison Architect, makes a break for the Xbox 360.
You can learn more about all of these games (and a few other new releases) after the break. (more…)
Posted in News, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Batman: The Telltale Series, Prison Architect