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
New Releases: Wolfenstein: The New Order, Drakengard 3, Mugen Souls Z, More
In Wolfenstein: The New Order, the Germans managed to win World War II through a combination of mechs and mutants. Now it’s up to William “B.J.” Blazkowicz to turn the tide and make this alternate 1960 a very Nazi-unfriendly place. Wolfenstein: The New Order was developed by MachineGames and will be available for almost every current platform including the PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.
PS3-owning RPG fans will find a pair of interesting new games on store shelves next week as well. Square Enix will bring Drakengard 3 to Sony’s system while NIS America will release Mugen Souls Z.
Finally, a few re-releases round out next week’s batch of new games. First up, Grasshopper’s Killer Is Dead will make its way to the PC as Killer Is Dead: Nightmare Edition. Also next week, Nordic Games will re-release a few of the games they picked up from the THQ auction including the Darksiders Collection on the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360; the Red Faction Collection for the PS3; and Red Faction Complete for the PC.
A complete list of next week’s new releases can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in News, PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Drakengard 3, Mugen Souls Z, Wolfenstein: The New Order
Rumor: Halo: The Master Chief Collection will compile series on Xbox One this Fall
Did you think that Halo 2 Anniversary Edition rumor was a good idea? Well, check this out. In a new report published by Engadget, the technology blog is claiming that Microsoft will release a compilation of the four “main series” Halo games this Fall for the Xbox One. The bundle will be known as Halo: The Master Chief Collection and it’s said that it won’t include spinoff titles like Halo 3: ODST and Reach. Instead, we’ll be greeted to remastered and remade versions of the Master Chief’s four big adventures ahead of the release of Halo 5: Guardians in 2015. Engadget also notes that Saber Interactive, the developer behind Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary for the Xbox 360, has an unannounced Xbox One project in the works.
It’s certainly interesting speculation and would go a long way towards filling up the Xbox One’s rather sparse Fall 2014 lineup. Microsoft has said that this year’s E3 Expo will be a “great” time for Halo fans and the announcement of a Master Chief Collection would certainly serve as an appropriate apology for Halo 5’s delay.
Posted in News, Xbox One
Tagged Halo: The Master Chief Collection
Naughty Dog working on third project in addition to Last of Us PS4 and Uncharted 4
Naughty Dog’s Neil Druckmann recently sat down with Edge to talk about the work required to bring The Last of Us Remastered to the PS4. The ease-of-use of Sony’s next-generation console system has been praised by many developers, but porting one of the most complex PS3 titles to the PS4 wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows:
“I wish we had a button that was like ‘Turn On PS4 Mode’, but no,” creative director Neil Druckmann says. “We expected it to be Hell, and it was Hell. Just getting an image onscreen, even an inferior one with the shadows broken, lighting broken and with it crashing every 30 seconds… that took a long time. These engineers are some of the best in the industry and they optimised the game so much for the PS3’s SPUs specifically. It was optimised on a binary level, but after shifting those things over [to PS4] you have to go back to the high level, make sure the [game] systems are intact, and optimise it again.”
Druckmann’s discussion of the difficulties Naughty Dog faced with The Last of Us Remastered is quite interesting, but he also dropped a bombshell in regards to the studio’s next project: “We’re working on this re-release, but at the same time we’re working on two other brand-new experiences.”
One of those “brand-new experiences” has to be Uncharted 4, but the second project is currently a big mystery. When we last checked in with Naughty Dog, the developer was debating whether or not to move forward with The Last of Us 2 or an entirely new property. It looks like that decision has been made, but it’ll probably be a while before we hear anything else about it.
Transistor launch trailer unmasks four villains ahead of May 20 release
Transistor will be available to download for the PC (through Steam) and PS4 next week. Supergiant Games has kept quiet about much of the game since it was announced last Spring, but a newly released launch trailer has shed a little more light on the hybrid action/strategy RPG.
Narrated by the Transistor itself (Logan Cunnignham, also the voice that guides the player in Supergiant’s Bastion), four faces are introduced as the villains of the piece for the first time. These characters don’t have names yet, but their inclusion gives a deeper look into Transistor’s dystopian world.
According to Supergiant’s Greg Kasavin, the shroud of secrecy around Transistor was deliberate. Speaking to the PlayStation Blog, he said: “Our feeling is that the less you know going into a game like Transistor, the more likely it is to surprise you. And we think experiencing genuine surprise is one of the rarest and most pleasurable sensations that games can provide.”
Kasavin also used the PS Blog post to tease Transistor’s Recursion Mode, a “New Game Plus” mode that opens after the player completes the story. In Recursion Mode, players will retain their User Level and Transistor Customization while experiencing a completely different resistance from enemies and “some new surprises” in the game itself.
Recursion Mode… a Second Quest if you will.
Posted in News, PC, PS4
Tagged Transistor
Gears of War 4 development is in the “prototype stage” at Black Tusk Studios
Development on Gears of War 4 (or whatever the next Gears of War game will be called) began when Microsoft purchased the rights to the franchise from Epic Games. But just how early in the development cycle is Black Tusk Studios? Studio Manager Rod Fergusson recorded the company’s first Live Podcast to tell us about it.
According to Ferguson, development on Gears of War 4 is in the “concept/prototype stage.” He further explained: “It’s only been 100 days. I can’t go into a lot of depth about a lot of things. This isn’t going to be the place where I announce the name of the next game and all these sorts of things. Obviously it’s going to take some time to get to a point where we can do some stuff like that.”
One takeaway from Fergusson’s first public address should be that Gears of War 4 likely won’t appear at this year’s E3 Expo in any capacity.
But he also sounded enthusiastic about the future of the franchise, saying that he’s a fan of the game’s universe, but that fun trumps lore established in books or comics: “I believe fun is greater than canon. That’s not to say I’m going out of my way to destroy canon, but if I get to a situation that may invalidate a comic book or a book, I’m going to make that fun decision.”
Part of this enthusiasm is due to the fact that most of the developers at Black Tusk have never developed a Gears game before. Fergusson is thrilled that they can bring a fresh eye to a franchise that is pretty set in its ways.
But the developer is also happy about Microsoft’s commitment to Gears, especially the monetary one: “We’re able to push a lot harder in a lot of bigger areas. The franchise can do a lot more now that Microsoft owns the IP; we can expand it’s breadth and do a lot more with it.”
Posted in News, Xbox One
Tagged Gears of War 4
Ubisoft will continue to support PS3/Xbox 360 with new Assassin’s Creed game this Fall
According to Ubisoft, this Fall’s entry in the Assassin’s Creed series, Assassin’s Creed: Unity, is only in development for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One. However, the company’s CEO has declared (during their quarterly financial report) that the PS3 and Xbox 360 will also receive a new Assassin’s Creed game this Fall.
Speaking to investors, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said: “Assassin’s Creed: Unity will be released this fall on Xbox One, PS4, and PC. We have not disclosed our plan yet for the Xbox 360 and PS3 SKUs. We have made it clear that as a company we expect to continue supporting those consoles for the foreseeable future.”
Guillemot’s statement makes it sound like Unity will be released in some form for the PS3 and Xbox 360. However, back in March, Kotaku reported that the publisher had an exclusive Assassin’s Creed game in development for the PS3 and Xbox 360 known as Comet. The game is said to take place in the 1750s and would somehow tie in to the appearance of Haley’s Comet in 1759.
Wouldn’t it be wild if PS3 and Xbox 360 owners get both Comet and Unity?
[Source: EGM Now]
Posted in News, PS3, Xbox 360
Tagged Assassin's Creed: Rogue
Microsoft reveals Halo 5: Guardians and confirms Fall 2015 release date
With this year’s E3 Expo just under a month away, Microsoft has officially re-announced the next Halo game. Halo 5: Guardians will be released exclusively for the Xbox One in Fall 2015, alongside the Steven Spielberg-produced Halo: The Television Series. This launch timeframe is technically a delay, as 343’s Bonnie Ross originally promised that our Halo journey would begin in 2014 during last year’s E3 Expo.
Apparently, we all misunderstood her meaning:
Many fans noted that I was very deliberate with my phrasing on stage at E3 last year. I spoke about a “journey,” rather than a destination – and that journey definitely begins in 2014 with a giant leap, rather than one small step. We’ll give you much more information about our plans for this year at the Xbox E3 2014 Media Briefing on June 9, and we’re confident that Halo fans will be pretty excited about the special plans we have in store.
I’m not sure I believe that. But it is good to know we’ll learn more about Halo 5: Guardians, which is being built with a “brand new and more powerful” engine, during E3. Ross also stated that Halo 5 will be a bigger game, in terms of both content and scope, than Halo 4. The 343 team wants to take everything they learned in creating the Master Chief’s previous adventure, “technology, aesthetics, performance and scale,” and expand on it for Guardians.
As for Halo: The Television Series, it will stand alone, but it is also meant to “complement and enrich the game experience” of Halo 5. We may find out a bit more about it during this year’s E3 Expo, but we’ll most likely have to wait until closer to the show’s Fall 2015 debut.
Posted in Etcetera, News, Xbox One
Tagged E3 2014, Halo 5: Guardians
TitanFall stomps the competition yet again as the best-selling game of April 2014
After selling 925,000 copies in March, TitanFall continued to roll over the competition at retail as the NPD Group crowned it the best-selling game of April 2014 as well.
The remainder of the top ten was made up almost entirely of games released last Fall including Call of Duty: Ghosts (#2), NBA 2K14 (#3), and Lego The Hobbit (#5). Amazingly, Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition continues to hang out in the top five, landing at #4 for the month of April. That ranking may improve next month now that the retail version of Minecraft: PlayStation 3 Edition is available. And speaking of things that are amazing, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was the only other April release to crack the top ten (it was #8).
Finally, according to Joystiq, Sony’s PlayStation 4 can lay claim to the next-generation consoles sales title for another month. That makes four in a row for the PS4.
The complete top ten list for April 2014 can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in 3DS, News, PC, PS3, PS4, Vita, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, Call of Duty: Ghosts, Grand Theft Auto V, Lego Marvel Super Heroes, Lego The Hobbit, Minecraft, NBA 2K14, NPD, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, The Lego Movie, TitanFall