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
XBL Store Today: TitanFall, Dark Souls II
While Sony continues to work on getting this week’s PlayStation Store update uploaded to the PSN, Microsoft has added two games that need no introduction to the Xbox Live Store. So say hello to the multiplayer mech madness of Respawn’s TitanFall (Xbox One) and the brutal medieval action of Bandai Namco’s Dark Souls II.
But if you really need an introduction, here’s a bit more information about both games:
Xbox One Game Store
TitanFall ($59.99)
Stand by for Titanfall. Crafted by key developers behind the Call of Duty franchise, TitanFall is the first next-gen shooter that combines pure adrenaline, wall-running, double-jumping action with powerful, fast-paced titan warfare to set the new bar for online multiplayer gameplay. Delivering blistering fast, fluid combat that gives you the freedom to fight your way as elite, assault pilots or agile, heavily armored titans. Rethink fundamental combat and movement with new abilities to change tactics on the fly, attacking or escaping depending on the situation. Heart-pounding multiplayer action combined with dramatic, cinematic moments lets you enjoy the fiction and characters of the universe without having to leave your favorite game online multiplayer mode. Online multiplayer matches featuring both human/AI allies and enemies create an experience like none other.
Xbox 360 Game Store
Dark Souls II ($59.99)
Developed by From Software, Dark Souls II is the highly anticipated sequel to the punishing 2011 breakout hit Dark Souls. The unique old-school action RPG experience captivated imaginations of gamers worldwide with incredible challenge and intense emotional reward. Dark Souls II brings the franchise’s renowned difficulty & gripping gameplay innovations to both single and multiplayer experiences.
Posted in News, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Dark Souls II, TitanFall
Get to know Diablo III: Reaper of Souls’ new character class: The Crusader
Diablo III‘s first expansion, Diablo III: Reaper of Souls, will be available exclusively for the PC at the end of the month. In addition to a higher level cap and several new gameplay modes, the expansion will give players the option of a new character class: The Crusader.
The Crusader’s origin, and his/her ability to dole out divine justice, is explored in a new trailer for Reaper of Souls that was released today by Blizzard.
Diablo III: Reaper of Souls will be available for the PC on March 25. The expansion will also be released for the PS4 sometime this year as part of the “Diablo III: Ultimate Evil Edition” bundle.
Posted in News, PC, PS4
Tagged Diablo III
CD Projekt pushes the release of The Witcher 3 into 2015
CD Projekt RED’s The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was one of the first games announced for the (then nameless) next-generation consoles from Sony and Microsoft. Originally scheduled to launch for the PS4, Xbox One, and PC in late 2014, CD Projekt RED confirmed today that the release of The Witcher 3 has been delayed.
In an open letter to fans and shareholders, the Managing Board of CD Projekt RED has revealed that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt will now be released in February 2015. The development team believes that the delay will give them enough time to create the game that gamers expect from them:
We recently reexamined what we had achieved thus far, and faced a choice about the game’s final release date. The decision we made was difficult, thoroughly considered, and ultimately clear and obvious. We could have released the game towards the end of this year as we had initially planned. Yet we concluded that a few additional months will let us achieve the quality that will satisfy us, the quality gamers expect from us. Consequently, we have set the release of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt for February 2015.
The full text of the letter can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Sony sends DriveClub “back to the drawing board”
When Sony and Evolution Studios originally announced DriveClub during the PS4 reveal event, it was expected to be a launch title for the next-generation system and a stopgap before the next entry in the Gran Turismo series. Instead, the game’s release was pushed back into February, with plans to launch it alongside the PS4’s Japanese debut. That date came and went, and now the game has been delayed indefinitely.
Speaking to IGN, Scott Rohde, Sony’s Head of Software Product Development, has revealed that DriveClub is undergoing a massive overhaul. More specifically, Evolution is going to take it “back to the drawing board” to ensure it represents the great game the studio originally set out to make when it is finally released:
“What I will say is that it all comes back to that fundamental principle, and that’s that we want to build great games,” Rohde said. “And we really don’t want to release a game before it’s ready. And sometimes, this happens in the normal course of business, where we think we’re on track to deliver what we think is going to be a great game, and when we get closer, we realize that we’d be doing everyone a disservice if we shipped it before it was ready.”
“So, I think that at PlayStation, perhaps more than at other places, we’re willing to kinda eat that [cost],” Rohde continued, “and go back to the drawing board and make sure the game is great before we ship it. And that’s what’s going on right now with that game.”
An unnamed Sony representative would also tell IGN that more details about DriveClub’s future will be revealed soon. So hopefully we won’t have to wait long to find out the game’s new release date.
Double Fine treats us to a Costume Quest 2 announcement
Double Fine has begun development on their first sequel as the Tim Schafer-led studio announced today that Costume Quest 2 will be available for the PC and consoles this October. The developer has partnered with Midnight City, Majesco’s indie publishing label, to bring gamers back to the world of one of their first hits:
In Double Fine’s triumphant return to Auburn Pines, our candy-crazed crusaders Wren and Reynold must once again protect Halloween from untold horrors, and grown-ups! Your favorite trick-or-treaters will come armed with a new batch of costumes they wear to transform into giant super powered fantasy Hallowarriors. Yeah, we totally just made that up. Fans of the original can look forward to a sweet upgraded battle system and a story that is unmistakably Double Fine.
Tim Schafer is absolutely thrilled about the return of Costume Quest: “Whenever Halloween came around, I felt like something was missing. No matter how many pumpkins I carved, apples I bobbed, or candy I ate, it just couldn’t fill the big spooky hole inside of me. But then I realized what was missing: I needed more Costume Quest. And also, I really wanted a T-Shirt with glowing skulls on it.”
While it doesn’t include any glowing skulls, I recommend checking out Costume Quest 2’s wacky “Announcement Trailer” above.
Posted in News, PC
Tagged Costume Quest 2
Gone Home is coming to consoles this year
The Fullbright Company has announced (via their blog) that they plan to bring Gone Home to consoles this year. The console edition of Gone Home will be published by Majesco’s indie imprint, Midnight City.
Gone Home is an adventure game told from the first-person perspective of Kaitlin Greenbriar, who has returned to her Oregon home and found it deserted. As Kaitlin explores the empty house, players attempt to piece together what happened to the rest of the Greenbriar family.
Gone Home was one of 2013’s most critically celebrated titles, garnering multiple nominations from the the DICE Awards, GDC Awards, and the BAFTAs. Fullbright was not ready to announce a release date or possible platforms for the console port, but they’ve confirmed that more information will be available soon.
Marvel is creating a connected universe of games too
Ladies and gentlemen, time to light your cigars, the “Marvel Cinematic Universe” is about to get a baby brother. Speaking at this weekend’s SXSW Festival, Marvel’s Vice President of Games, TQ Jefferson, revealed that the company is working on linking all of their video game projects through a similar shared universe:
“You might have noticed that certain similarities and threads touch from one game to the next. Much like you see in publishing and film, we’re trying to build a gaming universe connected by common elements and narrative into a larger gaming initiative.”
Obviously, this new gaming initiative is still in the early going as the publishing rights to several recent games based on Marvel properties, including Deadpool, The Amazing Spider-Man, and Lego Marvel Super Heroes, were licensed to outside companies. However, Marvel has shown great interest in expanding and updating Marvel: Avengers Alliance, a free-to-play title for mobile devices that tied in with the Avengers film. Perhaps that will be the seed from which their connected gaming universe will grow.
The future of Marvel’s game development ambitions may lie with their parent company, the Walt Disney Company. But Disney, and their Disney Interactive division, hasn’t had much success in developing games in-house. Disney Infinity sold like gangbusters, but the company passed on developing new Star Wars games and doesn’t appear to have any new titles in the works aside from Disney Infinity 2.
[Source: Variety]
Posted in News
Weekly Warp-Up: Time Is On My Side 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…
The clock is ticking ever so slowly away from Winter, but things sped up last night as we’ve sprung forward thanks to Daylights Savings Time. Even though time has skipped a beat, or an hour, you can still skip backwards and check out What We Played in February. When we weren’t playing, we managed to put together our very first Monthly Recap video as well. Hopefully, this is the first of a lot more video content to come from the Warp Zoned stuff. Oh, and for all you forward-thinkers out there, we also put together a look at The Games of March.
Speaking of lost time, Dan Hobbs recently reviewed Eidos Montreal’s Thief reboot and he wants the developers to return all the time they took from him. Finally, I dug into a few beloved puzzle games (including Threes, Dr. Mario, and Tetris) and asked why they’re so beloved. The secret is A Playing Card With Fangs or “How Puzzle Games Use Characters to Get in Our Heads.”
More news from the week that was can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in News