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
Get a preview of the new maps in CoD: Black Ops III’s Eclipse DLC Pack right here
Call of Duty: Black Ops III‘s Eclipse DLC Pack will be released for the PS4 on April 19, but for fans who just can’t wait a few more days, Activision and Treyarch have unveiled a series of teaser trailers for each map.
In case you need a refresher course, the four maps of Eclipse are a varied bunch including “Spire,” a sub-orbital airport terminal set high in the clouds. But watch your step, because there aren’t any railings. “Rift” also requires some fancy footwork as its’ a munitions plant perched above the caldera of an active volcano. Meanwhile, “Knockout” imports a Shaolin Temple from a 70s Kung Fu movie into Call of Duty. And yes, there is a disco room so you can dance, dance, dance. And finally, “Verge” reimagines World At War‘s “Banzai” map as the wasteland of a distant post-apocalyptic future.
You can find all four trailer after the break. And don’t forget, the Eclipse DLC Pack will also be released for the PC and Xbox One sometime in May. (more…)
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Call of Duty: Black Ops III
New trailer shines a spotlight on Doom’s character customization system
Players who plan to jump into Doom‘s multiplayer modes will find a deep player progression system and loads of customization options for weapons, armor, and taunts. And you can get a glimpse at some of the ways you can make your characters yours in the brand new trailer from Bethesda that’s been embedded above.
And if you’re interested in trying out the customization options for yourself, you won’t have to wait until Doom’s May 13 launch. An Open Beta for the game is now available to download on the PC, PS4, and Xbox One, and it’ll stay open all weekend long. Beta participants will get to try out two maps (the hellish “Infernal” and the industrial “Heatwave”) and two modes (Warpath, a King of the Hill mode, and Team Deathmatch).
Bethesda is also bringing Doom to next weekend’s PAX East expo. This Bethesda.net post has more details on all the festivities, but congoers will get the chance to try out an all-new map and all-new mode against a never-before-seen demon.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Doom (2016), PAX East 2016
Shovel Knight has sold over one million copies; Specter Knight and King Knight expansions will be finished by the end of the year
Yacht Club Games is in a rather celebratory mood this morning as they’ve announced that Shovel Knight has now sold more than one million copies. According to a blog post on their official site, the current number is actually over 1.2 million copies, with 200,000 sales coming from the game’s recently released retail edition.
For statistics nerds, this blog post is a treasure trove of information including a sales breakdown for each platform, region, and retailer, as well as sections for Steam User Stats, the Plague of Shadows expansion, and the Amiibo figure.
And speaking of expansions, Yacht Club has pledged that development work on the Specter Knight and King Knight expansions will be completed by the end of the year. Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll launch by the end of the year, but they’re much closer to release than they were yesterday.
The developers at Yacht Club condensed a lot of this information into a great infographic, which you can find right here.
Posted in 3DS, Mobile, News, PC, PS3, PS4, Vita, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Shovel Knight, Shovel Knight: King of Cards, Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows, Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment
A Green Thursday for The Division… it was the best-selling game of March 2016
Tom Clancy’s The Division deals with the horrific aftermath of a terrorist attack on New York City on Black Friday, but everything came up green for Ubisoft last month. According to The NPD Group (as reported by GamesIndustry.biz), the multiplayer shooter took the top spot as the best-selling game of March 2016.
A bevy of new releases helped the retail game sector perform just as well in 2016 as it did in 2015. That includes The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD at #3, EA Sports UFC 2 at #5, MLB The Show 16 at #6, and Pokken Tournament at #7. And don’t worry, Grand Theft Auto V and Minecraft continue to hang around the top ten, at #4 and #10, respectively.
A complete look at last month’s top ten best-selling titles can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in News, PC, PS3, PS4, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Grand Theft Auto V, Minecraft, NBA 2K16, NPD, Pokken Tournament, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Tom Clancy's The Division
Nintendo Download: Bravely Second, Another Round of SNES Classics on 3DS, more
It’s a big day for the Nintendo eShop as more than a dozen new titles are now available to download through the digital storefront on the 3DS and Wii U.
Leading the way is tomorrow’s release of Bravely Second: End Layer, an RPG sequel from Square Enix that continues the story they began to tell in Bravely Default. Designed as a throwback to the turn-based RPGs of old, Bravely Second asks 3DS owners to rescue Agnes Oblige and save the kingdom of Luxendarc.
Speaking of throwbacks, Nintendo is flooding their Virtual Console service with new releases this week. The 3DS eShop is now home to a trio of certifiable Super NES classics… The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Super Metroid, and Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest. Meanwhile, Wii U owners can now download Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day!, a DS game that took the world by storm back in 2006.
Finally this week, Bandai Namco’s Lost Reavers, a free-to-play co-op game for up to four players, is now available in a “Beta Test Version.” Wii U owners can put it to the test now ahead of its full release on April 28.
More information on all of these games (and a few other new releases) can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in 3DS, News, Wii U
Tagged Bravely Second: End Layer
Final Fantasy IX is now available to download through Steam
After a bit of a delay, Final Fantasy IX is now available to download for the PC through Steam. Originally released for the PlayStation way back in 2000, this is the first time the classic RPG can be played on a PC. And to make sure it’s a special occasion, publisher Square Enix has added a number of new features to Final Fantasy IX for its Steam debut:
- Steam Trading cards
- High Definition Movies and Character Models
- Cloud Save Feature… Allows players to back up save data to play across other compatible devices
- Auto Save Function
- Seven All-New Optional Booster Features… Including High Speed Mode and No Encounter Mode, which will allow players to automatically master equipped weapons and gear, as well as maximize character levels, magic stone counts and gil
And in case you need a refresher on a 16-year-old RPG, here’s what Final Fantasy IX is all about:
Final Fantasy IX tells the story of the bandit Zidane Tribal, who plans to kidnap the princess of Alexandria, Garnet Til Alexandros the 17th, with the troupe of thieves known as Tantalus. An unlikely series of events set Zidane, Garnet, the shy yet powerful black mage Vivi Ornitier, the loyal knight Adelbert Steiner, and other memorable characters on an epic journey as they learn about themselves, the secrets of the Crystal, and a malevolent force that threatens to destroy their world.
Final Fantasy IX on Steam will be regularly priced at $20.99, but it is currently available for the discounted price of $16.79 until April 20.
Posted in News, PC
Tagged Final Fantasy IX
Nintendo is teaming up with Nickelodeon for a SpongeBob Splatfest
Brace yourselves… the SpongeBob Splatfest is coming.
Nintendo is teaming up with Nickelodeon to decide, once and for all, who is the greatest resident of Bikini Bottom. Players in the US and Europe will be able to visit Splatoon‘s Inkopolis Plaza today to register their choice for SpongeBob SquarePants or his starfish pal, Patrick… even though everyone knows the best character on that show is the squirrel in the spacesuit (Google tells me her name is Sandy).
This jumbo-sized Splatfest begins on Saturday, April 23, at 9:00 AM (Eastern Time), and will be the first time that North American and European players can be matched together. Participating Inklings (but not Squidward) will be able to splat it out in Turf War for 30 hours and the Splatfest will end on Sunday, April 24, at 3:00 PM.
Now, someone get that freakin’ theme song out of my head.
CoD: Black Ops III’s next Zombies episode is Zetsubou No Shima… get a sneak peek here
Treyarch will release the Eclipse DLC Pack for Call of Duty: Black Ops III next week, but the developer couldn’t wait to upload a brand new for trailer the next Zombies episode to the Activision Games Blog.
In “Zetsubou No Shima” (which roughly translates to “Want of Despair”), players will guide Takeo, Dempsey, Richtofen, and Nikolai through an isolated island in the Pacific that’s populated with zombies, mutant spiders, and plant monsters:
Zetsubou No Shima continues the saga of Treyarch’s Origins characters as they find themselves stranded on a remote Pacific island. To survive and uncover the mysteries of the island, Takeo, Dempsey, Richtofen, and Nikolai will have to overcome powerful new enemies created within a secret Division 9 research lab housed there.
PS4 players will be able to download the Eclipse DLC Pack beginning on April 19, while PC and Xbox One owners will have to wait until sometime in May. In the meantime, you can also check out Zetsubou No Shima’s prologue, which is embedded after the break. (more…)
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Call of Duty: Black Ops III