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
Capcom adds new character Necalli to Street Fighter V
Street Fighter V finally received its first original fighter this weekend with the reveal of Necalli, a mysterious and savage fighter who reminds me a bit of Blanka. How mysterious is he? Capcom is still keeping his origin and storyline under wraps:
Possessing a wide variety of savage and close range attacks, all of Necalli’s moves have been forged through the heat of battle to ensure he’s inflicting maximum pain upon his opponents. Making full use of the Battle System mechanics, Necalli’s V-Skill allows him to pound the ground with both fists, creating an explosion that damages the enemy whereas the powerful V-Trigger allows him to channel a mysterious energy that changes his hair color and alters his personality for a short period of time. Capcom will be revealing more information on Necalli’s origin and storyline in the coming months so stay tuned for more details.
A trailer that showcases some of Necalli’s skills, which Capcom released as part of this weekend’s EVO event, has been embedded above. The character will be one of 16 (12 returning and four new) that will be available during Street Fighter V’s initial launch. Necalli joins the previously announced Ryu, Chun Li, M. Bison, Charlie Nash, Cammy, Birdie, Blanka, and Ken… so six more characters (three of them brand new) will be announced at a later date. As you might have guessed, more characters will eventually be added to Street Fighter V as post-launch downloadable content.
Street Fighter V will be released for the PC and PS4 in Spring 2016.
Posted in News, PC, PS4
Tagged Street Fighter V
Tremor will shake up Mortal Kombat X beginning tomorrow
Many seismologists believe that earthquake prediction is impossible. Someone at NetherRealm Studios clearly agrees as the developer has announced they’ll unleash Tremor, the fourth (and currently final), downloadable character for Mortal Kombat X much sooner than expected.
Kombat Pass owners will be able to download Tremor, along with Klassic Skins Pack 2, beginning tomorrow, July 21. Everyone else will get a crack at the character on July 28 as a standalone download ($4.99) or in a bundle with Klassic Skins Pack 2 ($7.99). The Skins Pack, which includes “klassic” duds for Kung Lao, Quan Chi, and Jax, will also be available by itself for $3.99.
Tremor first appeared in 2000’s Mortal Kombat: Special Forces, and has been a fan favorite ever since. It was these fans that encouraged NetherRealm to make Tremor a fully playable character for the first time in Mortal Kombat X. Able to control the earth itself, a trailer starring the latest incarnation of Tremor was unveiled during this weekend’s EVO event. It’s been embedded above.
Weekly Warp-Up: Satoru Iwata 1959-2015
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 only news last week was the untimely passing of Nintendo’s President and CEO, Satoru Iwata. Just 55 years old at the time of his death, Iwata wasn’t a prolific hitmaker like Shigeru Miyamoto or a big talker like Hideo Kojima, but his quiet devotion to video games has certainly made the world a better place.
Thousands paid their respects at Iwata’s funeral this weekend while thousands more have petitioned Nintendo to create an Amiibo figure to honor their late leader. After seeing Iwata perform hosting duties for Nintendo’s series of Nintendo Direct video, I think he would have enjoyed that very much.
More news from this past week, including our review of Kholat, can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in News
New Releases: Wolfenstein: Old Blood, Zombie Army Trilogy, Onechanbara Z2, F1 2015
Two, count ’em, two games about fighting the undead in the waning days of World War II will be available on stores this week. And, interestingly enough, both are currently available to download through digital storefronts. The public has spoken, and they want discs!
Wolfenstein: The Old Blood brings B.J. Blazkowicz back to the frontlines on the PS4 and Xbox One. As a prequel to last year’s Wolfenstein: The New Order, Blazkowicz will get to do some 1940s-style Nazi hunting, but he’ll also tangle with an entire village of zombies. Ach du lieber!
But Blazkowicz won’t be fighting alone as Zombie Hitler himself is behind the undead shenanigans in Zombie Army Trilogy for the PS4 and Xbox One. A standalone spinoff of Sniper Elite III, Zombie Army Trilogy is a team-based game where the Allies have to stop this final solution for Nazi world domination. Ach du lieber, wieder!
A third round of zombie hunting is available to shoppers this week in Onechanbara Z2: Chaos for the PS4. Published by XSEED, Onechanbara Z2 features the further adventures of the “bikini zombie squad,” a group of Japanese sisters who kill zombies with swords while wearing bikinis… obviously.
Finally this week, Codemasters will release F1 2015, the latest Formula 1 racing sim, and first to be released for the PS4 and Xbox One. If you love open wheel racing, this is the game for you. But sorry, no zombies.
Posted in News, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged F1 2015, Wolfenstein: The Old Blood, Zombie Army Trilogy
Shenmue III sets record for most-funded video game on Kickstarter with a few hours to spare
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night and its record-shattering $5.545 million crowdfunding campaign was only able to hold on to the record for a month as Shenmue III‘s Kickstarter campaign surpassed it this morning. And fans still have a little more than five hours to add to its tally (currently sitting at $5.9 million), and further cement its status as the most-funded video game in Kickstarter’s history.
Game Director Yu Suzuki recorded a message for Shenmue’s many fans, thanking them for their support and inviting them to a special live broadcast to celebrate the end of the campaign. The livestream, which begins at 7:00 PM (Eastern Time), can be viewed at Twitch.TV/shenmue3official. Suzuki will be joined by Animation Producer Hiroaki Takeuchi, Main Character Designer Kenji Miyawaki, and other special guests.
And after that comes the hard part… waiting for Shenmue III’s December 2017 launch on the PC and PS4.
UPDATE: Shenmue III’s Kickstarter campaign closed with $6,333,295 in pledges, nearly a million dollars more than Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night.
Posted in News, PC, PS4
Tagged Shenmue III
Xbox Store Today: So Many Me, No Time To Explain, SlashDash
Three brand new side-scrollers for the Xbox One make the Xbox Games Store a very retro-tastic place to be today.
So Many Me, which is available for free to Xbox Live Gold members, is a puzzle platformer that puts players into the fluffy shoes of Filo and his “band of misfit clones.” Using this mass of green puffballs, players will hop from platform to platform in a fight against an “ancient, malevolent evil.”
No Time To Explain is also a puzzle platformer, but it asks players to “blast through time” to rescue their imperiled future self.
Finally this week, SlashDash stars a quartet of “adorable” ninjas in a two-on-two local multiplayer game where players will slash, dash, shoot, and teleport their way to victory.
More information on all three of these games can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in News, Xbox One
Tagged No Time To Explain, SlashDash
Gearbox’s post-Battleborn game is “extremely different” from everything else they’ve done
Randy Pitchford continued his tear through the Develop Brighton conference by telling IGN that his company’s next game will be “extremely different” from everything else they’ve ever done:
“It depends on how you define soon,” he said when asked if a reveal was imminent. “You’ll see it before the end of the generation! In some ways it’s extremely different to what you’ve seen from us. Astonishingly so. In others, you’ll see how we’re taking advantage of what we’ve learned.”
Gearbox is currently hard at work on Battleborn and plans to release the “hero shooter” later this year. So that means this “extremely different” new project is likely a few years out, though Gearbox has been working on it since at least 2013, when it was first mentioned by Pitchford at PAX Prime 2013.
Develop Brighton has kept Pitchford very busy as the Gearbox CEO also revealed that the company has begun preliminary work on Duke Nukem 5 and Brothers in Arms 4. It’s unknown where these two games fit into Gearbox’s schedule, but they’re looking to partner with at least one outside development house to produce both titles.
Posted in News
Batman: Arkham Knight stands watch atop the best-selling games list for June 2015
Rocksteady’s Arkham trilogy went out with a bang last month, and it looks like a lot of fans went along for the ride, as The NPD Group has confirmed Batman: Arkham Knight was the best-selling game for June 2015.
Aside from the problems with the PC version, WB Games had a pretty good month as four of the publisher’s titles placed in the top ten. Newcomer Lego Jurassic World joined Arkham Knight near the top of the list in the #3 spot, while The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (#4) and Mortal Kombat X (#8) held over from May. NPD’s Liam Callahan told GamesIndustry.biz, “Warner Bros. Interactive is the top corporate publisher so far in 2015, with dollar sales growing 217% versus the first half of 2014.”
But WB Games wasn’t the only company having a nice Summer as Bethesda has a hit on their hands with The Elder Scrolls Online. It was also a good month to be a squid as Nintendo’s Splatoon held strong at #5, and became the only platform exclusive to crack the top ten.
The industry as a whole should be very happy about last month’s sales as consumers spent a lot more than they did last year. Overall sales were up 18%, $869 million versus $734 million, over June 2014. And that includes increases in hardware (+8%), software (+21%), and accessories (+34%).
The complete top ten list of best-selling games for June 2015 can be found after the break. (more…)