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: Fuse, Grid 2, Leisure Suit Larry Reloaded, More
Insomniac Games will release Fuse, their first multiplatform game ever, this week. The game, which was previously known as “Overstrike,” is coming to the PS3 and Xbox 360. Also available this week is Grid 2, the next big racing game from Codemasters. Like the first game in the series, Grid 2 will be available for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.
This week’s remaining releases are all for the PC and fall into one of two camps: strategy games and adventure games. On the strategy side is Wargame: Airland Battle and Crusader Kings II: The Old Gods, a Crusader Kings II expansion.
Over on the adventure side, there’s Leisure Suit Larry: Reloaded, 99 Spirits, and The Night of the Rabbit.
Microsoft executive believes the public will buy ONE BILLION next-gen consoles
Yusuf Mehdi has big dreams. Mehdi, who is Microsoft’s Executive Vice President of the Interactive Division, believes that there’s still plenty of life left in the Xbox 360 and he thinks the system can sell 25 million more consoles over the next five years for a total just north of 100 million. Mehdi laid out his plan to OXM UK, and while it’s ambitious, it sounds like Microsoft wants the Xbox 360 and Xbox One to coexist, at least for a little while:
“We believe over the next five years we can break a 100 million unit installed base. That’s something we’re shooting for, it’s not a financial plan as such, it’s just rough numbers if you will. To sell another 25 million, half of those will probably come from replacements, but half will come from new buyers.”
But that’s just phase one of Medhi’s plan for world domination. He also believes that when the sales of every eighth generation platform (that’s the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Wii U) are added together, they will total over a billion consoles sold during their lifetime:
“Most industry experts think the next generation will get upwards of about 400 million units. That’s if it’s a game console, over the next decade. We think you can go broader than a game console, that’s our aim, and you can go from 400 million to potentially upwards of a billion units.”
Collectively, the Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii have managed to sell about 260 million consoles since November 2005, so this would be quite a growth spurt for the industry.
Jonathan Blow’s The Witness is the latest PS4 game on Conversations With Creators
The latest episode of Sony’s “Conversations With Creators” video series stars Jonathan Blow and his game, The Witness. And like any true artiste, Blow is less concerned with making money than he is with making sure The Witness is good:
“We also have the freedom not to have to make a huge profit if we don’t need to. I would definitely like to make our money back on this game and I would like to make a profit on it, but it’s not actually the number one priority. The number one priority is to make the best possible game we can make that brings the most beneficial experience to the players.”
The Witness is expected to be available to download from the PlayStation Store around the system’s launch, so we shouldn’t have to wait too long to find out if he’s serious.
Posted in News, PS4
Tagged The Witness
Guster’s Ryan Miller finds inspiration in classic NES games for Kings of Summer soundtrack
Ryan Miller’s day job is being the lead singer of Guster, one of the greatest bands you will ever hear. When he’s not performing with Guster, Miller likes to spend his time composing film scores. His latest soundtrack is for the coming-of-age story The Kings of Summer.
The Kings of Summer is about a group of teenagers who run away from their parents and camp out in the woods. But rather than get all heartfelt and emotional, Miller saw the courage in it and looked to legendary Nintendo composer Koji Kondo for inspiration, specifically his work on Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda. The film’s director, Jordan Vogt-Roberts, even acknowledges this debt in the soundtrack album’s liner notes:
“The idea was that if kids from this generation were running away into the woods, the closest experience they could draw upon would be playing an adventurous video game. So the sounds that are guiding an audience should reflect that.”
The Kings of Summer soundtrack is now streaming (for free) at Paste Magazine and I highly recommend giving it a listen. It will be available to purchase on iTunes, Amazon, and other digital stores this Tuesday, May 28. The film will open in theaters next Friday, May 31.
Techland does zombies again with Dying Light for PS4, Xbox One, PC, PS3, Xbox 360
Techland, the development team behind Dead Island and Dead Island: Riptide, will do battle with the undead hordes once again in their next project: Dying Light. The first-person game is set to be published by WB Games on the PC, PS3, Xbox 360, PS4, and Xbox One sometime in 2014.
During the day, players will traverse an expansive urban environment overrun by a vicious outbreak, scavenging the world for supplies and crafting weapons to defend against the growing infected population. At night, the hunter becomes the hunted, as the infected become aggressive and more dangerous. Most frightening are the predators which only appear after sundown. Players must use everything in their power to survive until the morning’s first light.
So Dying Light is basically “I Am Legend: The Game.” I can get behind that.
We’ll get a “first look” at EA’s Star Wars games at E3 2013
Electronic Arts has a lot planned for this year’s E3 Expo. In addition to a more expansive look at Battlefield 4, the public debut of Need For Speed Rivals, and a rundown of their EA Sports slate, the megapublisher will give gamers a “first look” at their plans for the Star Wars series.
If you recall, Visceral Games is working on one title in the Star Wars universe while DICE’s new Los Angeles team is working on another.
All of this news will be delivered during “The Download,” EA’s 2013 E3 Press Conference. “The Download” is scheduled for Monday, June 10 at 4:00 PM (Eastern Time) and you’ll be able to watch on Spike TV or online at EA.com/e3.
Posted in News
Tagged E3 2013, Star Wars: Battlefront, Star Wars: Visceral
This is what the box for Forza Motorsport 5 looks like
The Turn 10 Studios Twitter account posted a preview of the Forza Motorsport 5 box design today. It’s also our first look at the box art of any Xbox One game.
The “Xbox Green” box used for Xbox 360 games has been replaced by a darker shade of green and the simple stripe along the top is a nice touch. Gone is all that “Xbox Live” and “Better With Kinect” verbiage because every Xbox One console will include a Kinect sensor and require access to Xbox Live. Those decisions may not be winning Microsoft any friends on the Intertubes, but it certainly makes for nice box art.
Now, let’s hope Microsoft opens up about the Xbox One’s used games situation next…
Posted in News, Xbox One
Tagged Forza Motorsport 5
Need For Speed Rivals races into stores this November; on PS4, Xbox One later this year
Criterion Games is taking the year off, but Electronic Arts will have a new Need For Speed game this Fall when Need For Speed Rivals launches for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 on November 19. A PS4 and Xbox One version will also be released before the end of the year.
Rivals is in development at Ghost Games, an internal EA studio in Gothenburg, Sweden that spun off from DICE earlier this year. Using the Frostbite 3 engine, Rivals “captures the adrenaline and intensity of the street’s ultimate rivalry between cops and racers in a stunning open road environment.”
In Need for Speed Rivals, gamers play as either a cop or racer, where each side of the law has its own set of high stakes challenges, rewards and consequences. As a racer, the goal is to become infamous for taking risks behind the wheel and capturing your most intense escapes on video for the world to see. The more cops players evade, the more Speed Points they collect, enabling them to unlock new cars and items. Keep raising the stakes race after race to become an ever-more valuable target to the cops – but risk losing it all if busted. As a cop, players work together as part of a team in pursuit of racers, earning prominence and rising in the ranks of the Police Force with every bust. Achieving higher ranks unlocks new police-only cars and more powerful pursuit tech.
Need For Speed fans will be pleased to know that Ferrari returns to the franchise for the first time since 2006’s Need For Speed Carbon. A hybrid single-player/multiplayer online mode known as AllDrive, which allows players to “seamlessly transition from playing alone to playing with friends.”
EA has also announced that if you pre-order Need For Speed Rivals, you’ll receive the “Ultimate Cop Pack” for free. The pack includes the Nissan GT-R Black Edition police car, “advanced pursuit technology,” and “a custom livery.”