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
Arkane Studios is likely working on Prey 2… for real this time
Back in May, it was reported that Bethesda had taken Prey 2 away from Human Head and handed it off to Arkane’s Austin studio. The rumor stated that Arkane was being given free reign to throw out the entirety of Human Head’s work and start over. The new project, which may still carry the “Prey 2” name, was said to resemble System Shock.
As is their habit, Bethesda denied these rumors. But a new report on Kotaku purports to show a leaked email from the company confirming Arkane’s involvement and the cancellation of Human Head’s version of Prey 2.
In light of this new information, rather than issue another denial, Bethesda declined to comment:
When reached by Kotaku for comment today, Bethesda sent over a statement: “We aren’t talking about what Arkane is working on and we have no new information to share on Prey 2.”
Why are they being so vague? Why mislead the public like this? Maybe there are legal issues involved here—the relationship between Bethesda and Human Head is still very bizarre—but it’s an unusual and unfortunate situation.
It may be a long time before we hear anything new about Prey 2, but we’ll let you know when we do.
NCAA Football 14 finds the endzone as July’s best-selling game
The July 2013 best-selling games chart has been released by The NPD Group and EA’s NCAA Football 14 has gone to the head of the class. It will be the last game to carry the “NCAA Football” moniker as the NCAA has ended their licensing agreement with the game publisher.
A mixture of recent and older titles populates the rest of the top ten, which you can view right here:
1. NCAA Football 14 (Xbox 360, PS3)
2. Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition (Xbox 360)
3. The Last of Us (PS3)
4. Call of Duty: Black Ops II (Xbox 360, PS3, Wii U, PC)
5. Animal Crossing: New Leaf (3DS)
6. Far Cry 3 (Xbox 360, PS3, PC)
7. Battlefield 3 (Xbox 360, PS3, PC)
8. Injustice: Gods Among Us (Xbox 360, PS3, Wii U)
9. NBA 2K13 (Xbox 360, PS3 ,Wii, Wii U, PSP, PC)
10. Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes (Xbox 360, Wii, DS, PS3, 3DS, Wii U, Vita, PC)
Posted in 3DS, DS, News, PC, PS3, Vita, Wii, Wii U, Xbox 360
Tagged Animal Crossing: New Leaf, Battlefield 3, Call of Duty: Black Ops II, Far Cry 3, Injustice: Gods Among Us, Lego Batman 2, Minecraft, NBA 2K13, NCAA Football 14, NPD, The Last of Us
Nintendo Download: Donkey Kong, Galaga, Splinter Cell: Blacklist (Tuesday), more
Once again, the Virtual Console is home to the highlights of this week’s Nintendo Download. The NES adaptation of Mario’s first adventure, Donkey Kong, has been added to the 3DS eShop. Meanwhile, the NES adaptation of Galaga is now available on the Wii U eShop.
Also available today is a quartet of 3DS title… budget compilation 10-in-1: Arcade Collection, squeaky clean Barbie: Glam and Groom Pups, miniature shooter Heavy Fire: Black Arms 3D, and equestrian sim My Western Horse 3D.
On Tuesday, Wii U owners will be able to download Sam Fisher’s latest adventure, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Blacklist, which is definitely the biggest new release of the week.
More details about all of these games can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in 3DS, News, Wii U
Tagged Donkey Kong, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Blacklist
Grand Theft Auto Online promises a “living online world”
Rockstar Games has revealed Grand Theft Auto V‘s multiplayer component in a new video and they hope that the online mode, known as Grand Theft Auto Online, will capture “the heart of the Grand Theft Auto experience.”
Grand Theft Auto Online takes place in a “persistent and continually expanding world.” The multiplayer mode will also include “an array of structured and unsctructured activities” such as arm wrestling and motorcycle cliffjumping. Rockstar plans to develop a ton of post-release content for Grand Theft Auto Online, but players will be able to create their own using an in-game editor.
The entire thing looks ridiculously huge. And we’ll find out exactly how big it is on October 1, when Grand Theft Auto Online goes live for all PS3 and Xbox 360 owners of Grand Theft Auto V.
Posted in News, PS3, Xbox 360
Tagged Grand Theft Auto V
Longtime Valve voice actor claims Half-Life 3 delay is because mo-cap tech is lacking
John Patrick Lowrie is a voice actor who has lent his pipes to many of Valve’s recent games including Half-Life 2, Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress 2, and DOTA 2. He is also married to GLaDOS, or rather, Ellen McLain, the voice actress behind the popular Portal character. Needless to say, Lowrie has a pretty good “in” with the people at Valve. So when he talks about Half-Life 3 development on his blog, specifically, why it’s taking so long, we should listen.
According to Lowrie, the game’s long development cycle is due to Valve’s dislike of the current state of motion capture technology. Basically, the developer wants to do more with mo-cap than is currently possible. Lowrie writes on his blog:
Here is the biggest challenge with bringing out HL3: the big thing now with FPSs is motion capture, or mo-cap. One of the great things about HL2 is that all of the characters that you meet actually look at you when they talk to you no matter where you go or stand. With mo-cap you can’t do that, at least not yet. Once you film the actor doing something and capture that motion, that’s what the character is going to do. This works great in movies, but when you make something interactive it gets way less interactive with mo-cap. So that’s one of the things they’re working on.
But the actor doesn’t stop there. In attempting to clarify his remarks, he reveals that Valve isn’t even currently working on Half-Life 3:
As far as I know they are not developing HL3 now for several reasons, among them the mo-cap issue. Sorry for any confusion. What they might decide in the future depends on lots of different factors. I hope they do, personally, but it has to make sense for them.
I never thought about it before, but “Valve isn’t working on Half-Life 3” is probably the most logical answer to the question, “Why is Half-Life 3 taking so long?”
Posted in News, PC
Tagged Half-Life 3
XBLA Today: Charlie Murder
The Xbox 360’s Summer of Arcade continues this week with Charlie Murder. The wild and wooly beat ’em up comes from Ska Studios, the same team responsible for the equally insane The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai and The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile.
It’s a punk rock apocalypse! Team up with your friends to lead embattled punk rock band Charlie Murder in their epic quest to save the world from rival death metalers Gore Quaffer and their legions of evil. RPG it up as you hoard insane loot to buff your character (and look excellent), earn fans to unlock powerful finishers and teamup moves, get tattoos to channel your “Anar-Chi,” and uncover mysterious relics of modern myth!
Charlie Murder is available to download for 800 Microsoft Points ($10).
Posted in News, Xbox 360
Tagged Charlie Murder
CoD: Ghosts Multiplayer Reveal: Create-A-Soldier, Squads, dynamic maps
Activision just dropped a ton of Call of Duty: Ghosts news onto the Internet. Are you ready for the full scoops on the game’s multiplayer mode? Here it is…
Ghosts will introduce the Create-A-Soldier system, in which “players can customize their various weapon loadouts, plus, for the first time in the series, the physical appearance of their soldier, delivering over 20,000 possible combinations, including heads, body types, equipment, gender, and more.”
Players will be able to take their created soldiers and drop them into custom squads, which leads us to a new gameplay mode, also known as Squads. In Squads, players can “enlist to play solo, cooperatively up to 6-players, or competitively for one vs. one, head-on matches pitting players and their squads against others and their squads. Squads features a variety of play-types, allowing fans at any time to swap-out their custom A.I. soldiers with real friends for quick-action co-op. The competition can be fierce as squad soldiers display life-like, skilled tactics and behaviors like side-strafing, corner-camping, jump-shooting and more. Players, plus their squads, will earn XP, and if you’re offline, be prepared as your squad may get challenged for play without you.”
Finally, Call of Duty: Ghosts will make multiplayer battles even more chaotic with dynamic maps. Dynamic maps are “the evolution of multiplayer maps through dynamic map events. Player-triggered traps and events allow gamers to strategically redirect the course of battle, including the ability to call-in a map-changing killstreak, which can completely transform or modify the map delivering new levels of strategy and gameplay.”
You can get a first look at Call of Duty: Ghosts’ multiplayer mode in the first multiplayer trailer, which features Eminem’s new song, “Survival.”
CoD: Ghosts Multiplayer Reveal: Collector’s Editions and Season Pass announced
Activision just dropped a ton of Call of Duty: Ghosts news onto the Internet. Are you ready to talk about limited edition goodies? I hope so…
The Call of Duty franchise pioneered the concept of the “premium” special edition and Call of Duty: Ghosts will be no different. As with previous releases in the series, Activision plans to offer two special editions for Ghosts. There’s the $119.99 Hardened Edition and the $199.99 Prestige Edition.
The Hardened Edition will include a copy of Call of Duty: Ghosts, the DLC Season Pass, limited edition Collectible Steelbook packaging, and a Paracord Strap. But the Prestige Edition is where it’s at. It will include everything from the Hardened Edition plus a Tactical Camera, a “full HD 1080p, water resistant, wide-angle mounted, wearable camera based on the actual helmet camera featured in the game itself.”
Speaking of the Season Pass, it is also available as a standalone purchase for $49.99 and will include free access to four DLC Map Packs beginning in 2014. The Season Pass also include access to the Ghosts Team Leader Pack, which features a “multiplayer character modeled from one of the characters from Ghosts’ single player campaign.” And for a limited time, if you purchase the Season Pass for the PS3 or Xbox 360, it will magically upgrade to a PS4 or Xbox One Season Pass at no additional cost.
Both special editions and the Season Pass are now available for pre-order.