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
The Odd Gentlemen assemble an impressive cast for King’s Quest in this new trailer
Sierra Games and The Odd Gentlemen are still toiling away at King’s Quest, but they’re ready to give the game’s expansive voice cast the spotlight in a new behind-the-scenes trailer.
Back to the Future‘s Christopher Lloyd steals the show as Old King Graham, but its Josh Keaton (best known as the voice of Spider-Man in The Spectacular Spider-Man, Spider-Man: Edge of Time, and Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions) as Young King Graham that players will get to know the most. As the main character of the game, he’ll interact with all the other characters including Tom Kenny (Adventure Time) as the wily Merchant of Miracles, Zelda Williams (The Legend of Korra) as “no-nonsense blacksmith” Amaya Blackstone, Wallace Shawn (The Princess Bride) as “clever” Manny, and Maggie Elizabeth Jones (We Bought A Zoo) as Gwendolyn, the King’s granddaughter.
According to the Activision Games Blog, the remainder of the cast will include Michael Benyaer, Loretta Devine, Gideon Emery, Jean Gilpin, Michael Gough, Andy Pessoa, Kevin Michael Richardson, Kath Soucie, Fred Tatasciore, Richard White, and Michael-Leon Wooley.
The first episode of the King’s Quest reboot will be available “later this year” for the PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt brings out Conan O’Brien’s wild and sexy side
CD Projekt will release The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt next week, but first, they brought the RPG to Conan O’Brien for an appearance in the latest “Clueless Gamer” segment. After bashing dozens of monsters and being subjected to the game’s rather intricate backstory, the Conan host got the chance to have an “erotic adventure” atop a stuffed unicorn. You read that right, a stuffed unicorn. Really, what more needs to be said?
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt will be available on May 19 for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Ark: Survival Evolved will let you ride dinosaurs on the PC, PS4, Xbox One
Newcomer Studio Wildcard has announced its first game, Ark: Survival Evolved, will be available for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One in early 2016. Set on a mysterious planet brimming with futuristic technology and prehistoric dinosaurs, players will be forced to survive, and then thrive, by taming the wild beasts:
Powered by Unreal Engine 4, Ark: Survival Evolved takes on the survival genre with a unique blend of emergent multiplayer cooperation and competition. Players awake naked and starving on the beach of a mysterious island among a herd of other confused humans. On Ark, they must then hunt, harvest, craft, research technology, and build shelters to protect against scorching days, freezing nights, volatile weather systems, dangerous wildlife, and potential enemies.
In addition to domesticating dinosaurs, players will be able to band together with other players to form villages and challenge other survivors for resources and land. Players will even have the chance to wander the game’s fully open world to discover the secrets of Ark. For example, why are there dinosaurs, dragons, and UFOs in the trailer? I’d like that question answered please. And while you’re at it, what other “prehistoric beasts” will the game throw at us:
Tame one of 60 amazing dinosaurs and other prehistoric beasts, including gargantuan creatures on a scale never before seen in video games! Fly a Pterodactyl squadron over the snow-capped mountains, race through the deep jungle with your pack of trained Raptors, tromp through a fortified enemy base along a convoy of gigantic Brontosaurus, or chase down prey on the back of a raging T-Rex. Players will quickly learn that dinosaurs aren’t the only dangerous creatures on the island.
Before its full release early next year (which will include Oculus Rift and Project Morpheus support), Ark: Survival Evolved will be available through Steam’s Early Access program. Its coming to the platform on June 2, so we’ll get our hands on it a lot sooner than you’d think.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Ark: Survival Evolved
Shovel Knight PS3/PS4/Vita/Xbox One Review: Still Digging It
What a difference a year can make! This time last year, Shovel Knight was just a promising platformer that was still two months away from release. A lot of people backed its Kickstarter campaign and still more got their hands on it at PAX East and PAX Prime, but most people were probably unaware of its existence. While we liked what we saw at those preview events, we had no idea just how good the game would actually turn out to be.
So here we are in 2015. Shovel Knight made its debut last June and instantly won the hearts of gamers everywhere. Perfect review scores (like this one from us) piled up like the sacks of gold collected by the title character. Six months later, a gaggle of “Game of the Year” awards rained down from outlets across the Internet (including a selection to Warp Zoned’s “Apocalypse List”).
So what does Yacht Club Games do for an encore? They put the exact same game on the PS3/PS4/PS Vita and the Xbox One and add a pair of platform-exclusive bosses. If you bought it last year, there’s no need to buy it again, but everyone else needs to fill the Shovel Knight-sized hole in their tool shed right now. (more…)
Koji Igarashi is back with a Kickstarter campaign for Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
Koji Igarashi, the famed creator of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, has returned to game development. Igarashi, known as “Iga” to friends and fans, shepherded the Castlevania series as its Director until 2014, when he left Konami to form his own studio. Today, the developer announced a partenership with Mighty No. 9 developer Inti Creates to bring the gothically-styled Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night to Kickstarter.
Igarashi is seeking $500,000 to develop Bloodstained, and he’s more than halfway to his goal as of this writing. With more than 30 days to go, it seems likely that this spiritual successor to Symphony of the Night (now with 2.5D side-scrolling and co-op) will reach its funding target. Interested backers will have two options to obtain a copy of the game including a $28 digital copy or a $60 retail disc (which will include bonus content). Whatever choice you make, Bloodstained is scheduled to be released for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One in March 2017.
Igarashi channels Dracula in the pitch video embedded above, but what is the game all about? Well, it’s a tale of curses and loss… also, there are swords and whips:
You are Miriam, an orphan scarred by an alchemist curse which slowly crystallizes your skin. You must battle your way through a demon-filled castle summoned by Gebel, your old friend whose body has become more crystal than flesh.
Igarashi and his partners at Inti Creates and Fangamer have created a ton of ridiculously loaded backer tiers for Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. If you love the side-scrolling Castlevania game, I definitely recommend giving the Kickstarter campaign a look.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
Check out this 60-minute video from Nintendo’s Splatoon Global Testfire
In case you missed it, Nintendo held the Splatoon Global Testfire, their first-ever beta test, this weekend. By all accounts, the test was a huge success with Wii U owners getting three chances to jump into an hour-long test session with the and other players from around the world.
The Nintendo Treehouse crew also took control of a team of Inklings during the test and gave players a guided tour of the game’s Turf War mode. So get your Splattershot, Splattershot Jr., Paint Roller, and Charge Shot ready for over 60 minutes of colorful chaos.
Splatoon will be available exclusively for the Wii U on May 29.
Lego Dimensions will get Portal, Simpsons, Doctor Who expansions
Your wallet probably winced at the Lego Dimensions Starter Pack’s $99.99 price tag. But WB Games and The Lego Group are also planning to release dozens of Level Packs, Team Packs, and Fun Packs featuring some truly unexpected characters. Even though it’ll put a pain in your pocketbook, prepare those “Shut Up and Take My Money” images now…
Kotaku discovered a catalog on Lego’s official website detailing some of the upcoming expansions to Lego Dimensions including a Portal 2 set, a Simpsons set, and a Doctor Who set. Those three properties, along with a Back to the Future set, will be turned into Level Packs, in-game expansions that also include a variety of mini-figures and vehicles. And yes, players who buy the Portal set will get Lego Chell and a Lego Companion Cube figures.
Other packs featured in the catalog were a Scooby-Doo Team Pack (Shaggy, Scooby, a tower of food, and the Mystery Machine), a Juassic World Team Pack (which includes a Lego Tyrannosaurus Rex), three Lord of the Rings Fun Packs, three Lego Ninjago Fun Packs, three Lego Chima Fun Packs, a Simpsons Fun Pack (featuring Krusty the Clown), a Wicked Witch/Flying Monkey Fun Pack, and a Lego Movie Fun Pack (with Unikitty).
The inclusion of Portal, Simpsons, and Doctor Who sets says to me that WB Games is definitely going all in with the crossover craziness of the Lego Dimensions concept. Seriously now, who expected Portal? But this catalog barely scratches the surface on the insane number of add-on sets that’ll be available this Fall when the game launches for the PS3, PS4, Wii U, Xbox 360, and Xbox One on September 27. So who knows what other Lego universes we’ll get to visit?
Is Visceral working on a Star Wars: Han Solo game? Probably…
In the past few weeks, Electronic Arts and DICE have been very forthcoming about their plans for Star Wars: Battlefront, which will be released for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One on November 17. The same can’t be said for the Star Wars game in development at Visceral Games… it’s been shrouded in mystery ever since the agreement between EA and Lucasfilm was announced. Or has it?
Game Informer has collected a number of cryptic social media posts from Visceral’s staff that all have a common theme… Han Solo. Pictures of the pilot frozen in carbonite, a Star Wars-themed pirate flag, and more than a few references to the Millennium Falcon are pretty suspicious, to say the least.
Even though Han is one of the trilogy’s most important characters, he is rarely a playable character in any of the dozens of Star Wars games that have been released over the years. OK, there was that one Xbox 360 game from a few years ago, but it is not the game you’re looking for.
So, are these teasers proof that Visceral is working on a Han Solo game? Maybe… or maybe not. I would put my money on yes, but we’ll have to wait for an official announcement from EA to know for sure.
I’m solo, I’m Han Solo. I’m Han Solo, I’m Han Solo, Solo. Yeah, I’m feelin’ good tonight.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Star Wars: Visceral