Warp Zoned Presents
Video Game Canon- Clair Obscur Completes the Sweep by Winning “Best Game” at 2025-2026 BAFTA Games Awards
- Boss Fight Books Gets 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
- Silent Hill, Dragon Quest, Skyrim, and More Announced as Finalists for the World Video Game Hall of Fame’s Class of 2026
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
Summer 2015 release announced for One Piece: Pirate Warriors 3
Bandai Namco has announced plans to release a new game based on One Piece, a popular manga and anime that (believe it or not) has spawned more than a dozen game adaptations.
The next game in the long-running series will be known as One Piece: Pirate Warriors 3, which will be released for the PC, PS3, PS4, and Vita sometime next Summer. According to the publisher, Pirate Warriors 3 will give players the chance to “explore the origins of Luffy’s crew” and you can get your first look at it in the teaser trailer above.
Watch this fan-made Shovel Knight Holiday Special right now
In just a short time, Shovel Knight has captured the hearts of gamers everywhere. After being created by Yacht Club Games, the character has gone on to cameo in a whole host of games and will make the jump to the PS3, PS4, and Vita in 2015. But first, you should watch Shovel Knight’s Holiday Special, a fan-made animated short created by Wind-Up Dog Animation that features a special appearance from Shield Knight.
I gotta admit, I’d watch an entire series of animated adventures starring Shovel Knight. Especially one from this creative team.
Dragon Ball Z/Naruto/One Piece crossover J-Stars Victory Vs+ coming to US in 2015
Bandai Namco has announced that J-Stars Victory Vs+, a crossover fighter featuring characters from Dragon Ball Z, Naruto, and One Piece will make its way to North America next Summer.
Based on the popular Shonen Jump manga magazine, J-Stars Victory Vs+ is a two-versus-two fighting game that will be released for the PS3, PS4, and Vita. According to Bandai Namco’s Tumblr page, the North American version will include a brand new Arcade Mode.
Posted in News, PS3, PS4, Vita
Tagged J-Stars Victory Vs+
Check out the first trailer for Theatrhythm Dragon Quest
Square Enix doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to bringing Dragon Quest spinoffs to North America. But perhaps that’ll change with next year’s Theatrhythm Dragon Quest.
The publisher released the first trailer for the 3DS rhythm game over the weekend during the Jump Festa convention. Theatrhythm fans will surely appreciate a new entry in the series while Dragon Quest will jump for joy at the NES-themed level and all the recognizable monsters.
Theatrhythm Dragon Quest will be released for the 3DS in Japan on March 26. Hopefully an American release date will be announced soon.
Posted in 3DS, News
Tagged Theatrhythm Dragon Quest
Weekly Warp-Up: Christmas Countdown 2014 Edition
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…
Are you ready for Christmas? Is your tree up? Is your shopping done? Have you told someone how much you hate Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime”?
Now that you’re in the proper holiday mood, feel free to look back at some of the articles we posted this week including my review of Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions and Andrew Rainnie’s latest Kickstart This! column, which includes Aviary Attorney, Curse of the Darkness, and Spectrum.
NIS America dropped a pretty nice batch of presents down our chimney this week as well with the announcement that the publisher will release will release The Awakened Fate Ultimatum (PS3) on March 17, Operation Abyss: New Tokyo Legacy (Vita) in Spring 2015, and Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance (PS4) in Fall 2015.
More news from the last seven days can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in News
CoD: Advanced Warfare’s Exo Zombies will star John Malkovich, Bill Paxton, Rose McGowan
Sledgehammer Games is currently hard at work on the first episode of the “Exo Zombies” cooperative mode for Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, which will be included in the Havoc Map Pack. And now we know which Hollywood heavyweights have been tapped by Activision to star in the downloadable expansion.
John Malkovich (!), Bill Paxton (!!), Rose McGowan (!!!), and Jon Bernthal (apparently he’s on The Walking Dead) will play four “unprepared and untrained” Atlas employees who suddenly find themselves face-to-face with the living dead. You can hear Malkovich monologue about their desperate situation in the trailer above.
Can they work together? Can they survive? Will Bill Paxton get killed in particularly gory fashion, as he is wont to do (and will he yell “game over, man” as it happens)? We’ll all find out together in January. Well, Xbox owners will. If you’re playing Advanced Warfare on the PC or PlayStation, you’ll have to wait until February.
Halo: Master Chief Collection owners will receive Halo 3: ODST for Xbox One for free
Microsoft and 343 Industries are still working on a patch to fix the matchmaking problems found in Halo: The Master Chief Collection. As a way of apologizing for these issues, the publisher and developer will offer players who purchased the game before December 19 a free month of Xbox Live Gold service and a series of free content updates over the next week:
- All ten Halo 4: Spartan Ops episodes
- Exclusive In-Game Nameplate
- Exclusive In-Game Avatar
Finally, Microsoft will add “Relic,” a remastered Halo 2: Anniversary multiplayer map, and the popular Halo 3: ODST campaign to Halo: The Master Chief Collection sometime in the future. According to Xbox Wire, development has just begun on both, so it might be a while before they’re available. But as with the Spartan Ops episodes, both will be available for free for Master Chief Collection owners who purchased the game before December 19.
Presumably, both downloadable additions will be available for everyone, but no announcement has been made as of yet.
Posted in News, Xbox One
Tagged Halo 3: ODST, Halo: The Master Chief Collection
Respawn is working on a non-TitanFall game… and probably more TitanFall
Respawn Entertainment’s CEO, Vince Zampella, recently sat down with Game Informer to talk about the company’s rather eventful year and their presently percolating future.
First things first, Zampella confirmed that the company doesn’t have any additional DLC planned for TitanFall now that the Season Pass has run its course. However, EA previously announced that they had contracted with Respawn for “new TitanFall experiences,” so perhaps the developer is already hard at work on TitanFall 2? Zampella alluded to that in the interview by saying, “Respawn Entertainment does want to make more Titanfall.” He also reaffirmed that “future [TitanFall] projects will not necessarily be exclusive” to the Xbox and PC.
Finally, Zampella also revealed that Respawn is now home to a second team, which is working on a “non-TitanFall project.” This team is headed up by the recently hired Stig Asmusson, who you might remember as the Creative Director behind God of War III.
But whatever Respawn has in the hopper, a public debut will have to wait. Zampella closed the interview by saying, “Next year will be a little quiet. We’ll be heads down, back to work.”
Posted in News
Tagged TitanFall 2