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
“Next-Gen Call of Duty” game in development at Sledgehammer Games
Sledgehammer Games was founded in 2009 and the currently have just one credited game to their name: 2011’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Six months after that game shipped, the developer announced that they were staffing up for their next project, which was to be a new game in the Call of Duty series. With Black Ops II and Ghosts released in the interim, its fair to ask, what happened to Sledgehammer’s CoD game?
Apparently, it’s still in the works and the company is still hiring new people to work on it.
Sledgehammer recently posted a large number of job announcements to their Careers page concerning a “next-gen Call of Duty game.” Details on the game are scarce, but several postings describe it as “hyper realistic.”
We know that Activision plans to release another Call of Duty game this Fall. Will Sledgehammer get their time in the spotlight? If history is any guide, we’ll find out for sure this Spring when Activision will officially unveil the next title in the Call of Duty series.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare
Early Access version of DayZ surpasses one million in sales
Marek Spanel, the CEO of Bohemia Interactive, has announced that the standalone version of Dean Hall’s DayZ has already sold one million copies:
Thank you! – Four weeks after the release, #DayZ just passed one million sales. http://t.co/kFeszP2oI7
— Maruk (@maruksp) January 13, 2014
The standalone version of DayZ was originally released in an “alpha” state in December through Steam’s Early Access program. With its sales success, Hall and Bohemia will have plenty of cash to play with as they add features and tweak the still-early-in-development game. But we might be in for a bit of a wait, Bohemia has said that the “beta” version of DayZ is still a year away.
Outlast coming to PS4 next month as PS Plus freebie
Outlast, Red Barrels’ creepy asylum-set horror game from last year, will soon make the jump from the PC to the PS4. According to a post on the developer’s Facebook page, Outlast is almost ready to be released and we can stop saying “soon” and start saying “sometime in February” instead:
Outlast will be free in February for all PlayStation Plus users (PS4 only). #OUTLAST #PS4 #PSPLUS
As you can see, after it’s released, the game will also be included as one of the free downloads offered through PlayStation Plus. Regular pricing for players who don’t subscribe to Plus wasn’t announced.
Call of Duty: Ghosts Onslaught DLC Pack to be available on XBL Store on January 28
Activision and Infinity Ward have announced that the first map pack for Call of Duty: Ghosts, Onslaught, will be available to download from the Xbox Live Store (for both the Xbox 360 and Xbox One) on January 28.
The coolest map is clearly “Fog,” a love letter to the horror films of yesteryear. Players will even be able to become Halloween‘s Michael Myers and deliver the killing blow with a bloody axe. Players will also be able to frag their friends in the California boardwalk of “BayView,” the war-torn Mexican village of “Containment,” and the aging Florida space launch facility of “Ignition.”
Onslaught will also include a new weapon, a dual-purpose Assault Rifle/Sniper Rifle known as the Maverick, and “Nightfall,” a new chapter in humans vs aliens Extinction saga. In “Nightfall,” players will guide a small strike team to a snowy Alaskan base in search of the origins of the alien invasion (and to battle the biggest boss Infinity Ward has ever created).
Once again, Onslaught will be available to download through the Xbox Live Store on January 28 with a release on other platforms to follow. The DLC pack has been priced at $14.99 individually and will also be included as part of the $49.99 Season Pass.
More details about all of Onslaught’s maps can be found after the break. (more…)
SimCity Offline Mode will be included in next update
Even though EA claims that SimCity included as “always-online” requirement because it was developed as an MMO, the publisher plans to cut the online cord with the next update. According to a post on the official SimCity blog, when Update 10 is made available to players, it will add the ability to play offline in a new “Single Player Mode.”
Patrick Buechner, the General Manager of Maxis, had this to say about Single Player Mode:
Yes, Offline is coming as a free download with Update 10 to all SimCity players. When we launch it, all of your previously downloaded content will be available to you anytime, anywhere, without the need for an internet connection. We are in the late phases of wrapping up its development and while we want to get it into your hands as soon as possible, our priority is to make sure that it’s as polished as possible before we release it. So, until then… testing, testing and more testing. As one of the final steps, we’re putting Offline into the hands of some of our most hardcore players, the DevTesters. This group of volunteers is going to put Offline through its paces before we release it.
EA and Maxis plan to reveal more details about SimCity’s offline mode soon.
Weekly Warp-Up: PlayStation Now… or Later 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…
Now that all the blogs and news sites have handed out their year-end awards, it’s time for the game industry organizations to wave their magic wands and declare what was great in 2013. Three major groups announced their nominees this week including the Independent Games Festival, the Game Developers Choice Awards, and the Writers Guild. If you haven’t played The Last of Us, Gone Home, Tearaway, or Grand Theft Auto V yet, these groups really think you should.
The annual CES expo was also held this week in Las Vegas and we got our first glimpse at Sony’s streaming service, PlayStation Now, as well as the WWE Network.
There’s more news to be bad from the week that was after the break. (more…)
Posted in News
2014 Writers Guild Awards nominees announced
The Writers Guild of America has announced the nominees for this year’s Writers Guild Award. The award, which honors “Outstanding Achievement in Writing for Videogames,” will be given out on Saturday, February 1 during the 2014 Writers Guild Awards ceremony.
This year, the writers behind Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, Batman: Arkham Origins, God of War: Ascension, The Last of Us, and Lost Planet 3 will all battle it out for the award. A full list of every nominated writer can be found right here:
Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag (Ubisoft)
Story by Darby McDevitt, Mustapha Mahrach, Jean Guesdon
Lead Scriptwriter: Darby McDevitt
Scriptwriter: Jill Murray
AI Scriptwriter: Nicholas Grimwood
Scriptwriter Singapore: Mark Llabres HillBatman: Arkham Origins (Warner Bros. Interactive)
Narrative Director: Dooma Wendschuh; Writer & Senior Narrative Designer: Ryan Galletta
Writer: Corey MayGod of War: Ascension (Sony Computer Entertainment)
Written by Marianne Krawczyk
Additional Writing: Ariel LawrenceThe Last of Us (Sony Computer Entertainment)
Written by Neil DruckmannLost Planet 3 (Capcom)
Head Writer: Richard Gaubert
Writers: Orion Walker, Matt Sophos
Posted in News, PC, PS3, PS4, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, Batman: Arkham Origins, God of War: Ascension, Lost Planet 3, The Last of Us
3DS Release Dates: Yoshi’s New Island (3/14), Disney’s Magical World (4/11)
Whatever your opinion of the Wii U is, it’s impossible to ignore the great year the 3DS had. According to Nintendo, more than 16 million 3DS games were sold in stores and through the eShop in 2013. Also, more than 11.5 million 3DS (and 2DS) handhelds have been sold in the US since the system launched.
So what does Nintendo have planned for 2014? Well…
Yoshi’s New Island will be released on March 14. The game is being produced by Takashi Tezuka, who was the Creative Director of the first game in series, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island. In the game, players can expect to see “Yoshi [reunited] with Baby Mario in a gorgeous landscape to help him to safety.” The game will also include “flutter jumps, ground pounds and egg throws, along with some new actions that use the unique features of [the] 3DS.”
The never-before-announced Disney Magical World will also be available this year. On April 11, players will be able to take control “dozens of Disney characters in a variety of Disney-themed worlds.” They can also “customize their characters with hundreds of Disney-themed outfits and accessories, all while managing a cafe, planting crops and collecting Disney character cards.”
And, of course, Bravely Default is still on track for a February 7 launch and Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy has been penciled in for a February 28 release.
Posted in 3DS, News
Tagged Yoshi's New Island