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
Motiga delivers a new Gigantic gameplay trailer for the new year
Motiga has been laying low since the announcement of Gigantic‘s delay late last year. But the developer is getting ready to roar back to life in 2016 with a new version of their arena brawler (which they’re calling “Beta 2.0”) and a steadier stream of updates. To prepare fans for this next generation of Gigantic, Motiga has released a brand new gameplay trailer that shows highlights from a match with “expert players from Team Synergy.”
Gigantic’s Beta 2.0, which should be available later this month, will be exclusive to Windows 10 and Xbox One. It’s a blow to Windows 7 and Windows 8 players, but this new edition of the game will offer cross-platform play between all players and 24/7 access to the test servers.
If you’re interested in joining for the Gigantic beta, head over to GoGigantic.com to sign up for a chance to receive a key. Or let us know that you need one in the comments below… we’ve got a few spare keys lying around.
Minecraft: Story Mode’s first episode will be added to Wii U eShop this week
Telltale has announced that Minecraft: Story Mode will begin to build a home on the Wii U this week with the release of the game’s first episode, The Order of the Stone, on January 21. The first episode will be priced at $4.99, though a Season Pass to secure access to the remaining four episodes will also available for $19.99.
“Working with Nintendo, we’re tremendously excited to be bringing our unique style of storytelling to Wii U for the first time, and we couldn’t be happier to be kicking things off with a series like Minecraft: Story Mode that allows players of all ages to craft their own adventure across the Minecraft universe,” said Kevin Bruner, the CEO and Co-Founder of Telltale Games.
Subsequent episodes in the Minecraft: Story Mode series will be added to the Wii U eShop in “the coming weeks.”
Posted in News, Wii U
Tagged Minecraft: Story Mode
NIS America will bring Grand Kingdom to PS4, Vita this Summer
NIS America has announced they’re teaming up with Spike Chunsoft to bring Grand Kingdom to the PS4 and Vita this Summer. Grand Kingdom is a tactical RPG where players will be able to align with one of four factions as they attempt to reunite a fractured realm:
With an impressive battle system that combines fast-paced action with strategic planning, and featuring robust character creation and customization options, Grand Kingdom is a Tactical RPG unlike any on the market today. After the fall of the once-prosperous Uldein Empire over one hundred years ago, the Four Great Nations now wage war to claim dominion over the Resonail continent.
As the leader of a mercenary squad, players will assemble a team to lead across a battle-scarred continent to complete contracts for each nation. Players may also hop online to form an exclusive contract with one of the Four Great Nations, and participate in war with other players for the future of Resonail.
But remember—in this new age of war, there is only room for one Grand Kingdom.
NIS America has launched an official website for the game, as well as released a teaser trailer, which has been embedded above.
Posted in News, PS4, Vita
Tagged Grand Kingdom
ESRB says The Witness is coming to the Xbox One too
Jonathan Blow’s The Witness will be available for the PC and PS4 on January 26, and it’s scheduled to make its iOS debut a few months after that. But according to a new Rating Summary published ESRB, the developer plans to bring the puzzle game to the Xbox One as well.
While Blow and his team haven’t made any official announcements about an Xbox One launch for The Witness, the “About” page on the game’s official website has always indicated it would someday appear on “other platforms”:
It will be released on the PC and the PlayStation 4 on January 26, 2016. The game will come to iOS some months after that, and other platforms a bit later.
However, it might be a while before we hear more about the Xbox One version of The Witness as Blow likely can’t say anything until after his timed-exclusivity contract with Sony runs out.
UPDATE: Jonathan Blow said on Twitter (1, 2) this afternoon that he currently has “no plans” to bring The Witness to the Xbox One: “There are no plans right now for an XB1 version of The Witness. We just put that on the rating form so if we ever do XB1, we won’t have to get the game re-rated. (Provided the content is the same, which it would be).”
Lovely Planet Arcade brings old school FPS action to Steam this Summer
You kids today might not believe, but the first batch of first person shooters didn’t let you look up or down. Really! It’s true! And developer Quicktequila wants to bring back this style of shooter with their sequel to Lovely Planet.
Lovely Planet Arcade will be released for the PC (via Steam) this Summer, and it’ll include the same colorful construction paper style of the original game. It also won’t let you look and down. Lovely Planet Arcade will also include more than 100 levels across four worlds, a Mirror Mode, a Fast Mode, and an original soundtrack by Calum Bowen.
If you’re planning to take a trip down to San Antonio to attend PAX South in two weeks, you’ll get a chance to try out a Lovely Planet Arcade demo at publisher TinyBuild’s booth.
John Romero created a new map for Doom… his first in 21 years
“Phobos Anomaly” is the memorable climax to Doom‘s first episode, “Knee-Deep in the Dead.” The map itself is pretty simple, but it ends with the first appearance of the Barons of Hell, one of Doom’s most terrifying demons. A little over 22 years later, Doom developer John Romero thought he could do better.
Romero recently uploaded the WAD file for a sprawling new version of “Phobos Anomaly” that he likes to call “Tech Gone Bad.” The map’s insane descent into Hell really delivers that grand finale feel you want for the end of an episode. But don’t just take my word for it, check out the great playthrough by YouTube user “VarianSanctuarium” I’ve embedded above. And definitely download it yourself if you’ve still got Doom installed on your machine.
“Tech Gone Bad” is the first Doom map created by Romero since 1995, and he refers to it as “a warm-up” in the WAD notes. He also wrote up a very Romero-esque description:
My boss level replacement for E1M8… 22 years later
After exiting the Computer Station you knew the worst was up ahead. You still hadn’t reached the place where the demons were coming from. The steel door shuts behind you as you realize you’re there; you’re at the Phobos Anomaly. Cracks from hell are all over the place as seepage from the portal invades the entire installation. Now it’s time to find the portal and stop the demons from coming through. You know UAC had hundreds of scientists working at a high-tech lab somewhere in this area, and the portal must be connected to it somehow. Time to lock and load.
I don’t know what “Tech Gone Bad” is supposed to be a warm-up for, but maybe Bethesda’s Doom reboot is going to have some competition this Spring!
Posted in News, PC
Tagged Blackroom, Doom (1993)
Weekly Warp-Up: Call of Duty: Black Ops III Sells Big…
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…
The NPD Group has delivered its monthly report on the state of the game industry’s retail sales, and once again Call of Duty: Black Ops III is sitting atop the top ten. The research firm also publishing its findings for all of 2015 and Black Ops III topped that list as well. To bandwagon on all this bragging, Activision added that the Call of Duty franchise has now sold more than 250 million copies since its debut in 2003.
If you’re looking for another recap of last month, the Warp Zoned staff got together to talk about What We Played in December 2015. And then we followed that up with a discussion of The Games of January 2016.
More news from the week that was can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in News
New Releases: Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam, Resident Evil Origins, Life Is Strange, More
It’s been a few weeks, but welcome to the first roundup of new retail game releases for 2016!
We start off the year with Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam, a new RPG for the 3DS from the Nintendo. After years of keeping them separate, the publisher has finally decided to merge their Mario & Luigi series of RPGs with the Paper Mario series of RPGs. I’m a bit surprised it took this long, but maybe Nintendo felt they needed more time to prepare the world for GIANT PAPERCRAFT BATTLES.
Also available this week is the Resident Evil Origins Collection for the PS4 and Xbox One. After redoing Resident Evil last year, Capcom turned their trained recreationists towards its prequel, Resident Evil 0, which had previously only been available on Nintendo platforms. The publisher packaged both games together for a retail release, but players can also acquire them as separate downloads through the PlayStation Store and Xbox Games Store (and Steam, for that matter).
Moving from remakes to re-releases, Dontnod has compiled their episodic game series, Life Is Strange, into a retail package for the PS4 and Xbox One. Players who missed out on Max Caulfield’s time-traveling adventures in Arcadia Bay will now be able to experience the complete story without waiting weeks between episodes. Also this week, PQube will re-release the Vita version of SteinsGate in a “Limited Edition” that includes a 2016 calendar.
Finally, get on the bus (and drive it) this week with Astragon’s Bus Simulator 16 for the PC.
Posted in 3DS, News, PC, PS4, Vita, Xbox One
Tagged Life Is Strange, Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam, Resident Evil, Resident Evil 0, SteinsGate