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
Octopath Traveler, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, Hand of Fate 2, more coming to Nintendo eShop this week
It might be the middle of Summer, but it’s a big week for the Nintendo eShop…
Switch owners have been waiting patiently for another epic RPG to grace the console, and it looks like they might get their wish with tomorrow’s release of Octopath Traveler. The retro-styled RPG was created by Square Enix… and it features 2D sprites, 3D special effects, and eight overlapping stories. RPG fans might also want to be on the lookout for Hand of Fate 2, which drops players into a “living boardgame” and asks them to defeat the enigmatic Dealer. Hand of Fate 2 will be released for the Switch on Tuesday, July 17.
But don’t worry, Nintendo has no plans to sit this week out, as the consolemaker will bring Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker to the 3DS and Switch for the first time on Friday the 13th. Originally released for the Wii U in 2014, Captain Toad is a puzzle-adventure game that’s built up a fervent (but small) fanbase over the years.
You can learn more about the rest of this week’s additions to the Nintendo eShop (including Adventure Time: Pirates of the Enchiridion, Let’s Sing 2018, Radio Hammer Station, and more) after the break. (more…)
Posted in 3DS, News, Switch
Tagged Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, Octopath Traveler
Fortnite Season 5 kicks off with a dimension-hopping trailer (and a new song from Joywave)
Epic Games launched the Season 5 update for Fortnite today, giving players the chance to find out what’s going on with all those crazy portals:
Worlds collide in Season 5! A viking ship, desert outpost, and ancient statues have appeared on the island, changing the world of Fortnite as we know it. Hop in an ATK (All Terrain Kart) with your squad and uncover all new mysteries and locations. New Season, New Battle Pass.
Epic also teamed up with Joywave to provide music for the battle royale game’s spacey new trailer, and you can hear a snippet of the band’s new single, “Blastoffff,” in the Launch Trailer embedded above. If you like what you hear, you can also find an “Audio-Only Video” for the full song after the break. (more…)
Bandai Namco delays Code Vein’s release to 2019
Bandai Namco announced today that the launch date for their anime-styled vampire game, Code Vein, has been pushed back to 2019.
Code Vein was previously expected to be released on September 28, but the publisher decided to devote more time to the game’s development to “ensure that the final product delivers on the expectations set amongst media and fans”:
“Code Vein has received an enormous amount of positive feedback from eager fans who have received hands-on time with in-development versions of the game over the past nine months,” said Eric Hartness, Vice President of Marketing for Bandai Namco Entertainment America. “Armed with knowledge of how well the game has already been received, we made the decision to postpone the release of Code Vein to further refine its gameplay in an effort to exceed the expectations fans already have of the title. It was a difficult decision to make, but we feel it is the correct one.”
Featuring gameplay inspired by the Dark Souls series, Code Vein is currently in development for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
20XX, Shining Resonance: Refrain, Earthfall, more coming to Xbox Store this week
If you’ve already seen this week’s PlayStation Store update, you’ll also have a pretty good idea of what’s newly available through the Xbox Games Store this week…
Batterystaple Games will start things off for the Xbox One this week with 20XX, their Mega Man-inspired roguelike. Also available this week for the Xbox One is Sega’s Shining Resonance: Refrain, a remaster of an action RPG that was originally released only in Japan in 2014.
Elsewhere on the Xbox Store this week, Xbox One owners will be able to do battle with their friends online in Defiance 2050, The Culling 2, and Earthfall, a trio of new online shooters. But for players who’d prefer to work together, Warhammer: Vermintide 2 includes four-player co-op set within Warhammer’s “Fantasy Battles” world.
You can learn more about the rest of this week’s additions to the Xbox Games Store after the break. (more…)
Posted in News, Xbox One
Tagged 20XX, Shining Resonance: Refrain
20XX, Lumines Remastered, Shining Resonance: Refrain, more coming to PS Store this week
A platforming roguelike, another battle royale game, a new online shooter, and a pair of re-releases lead the way in this week’s PlayStation Store update.
Capcom is bringing back Mega Man in a big way in 2018, but first, Batterystaple Games is here to deliver a roguelike take on the platforming legend with 20XX. Available to download now for the PS4, 20XX includes two-player co-op (local and online) and a neverending stream of stages to scratch that Mega Man itch.
Also available to download for the PS4 this week are a pair of re-releases. Puzzle fans will get to experience the minimalist design (and fantastic music) of Lumines once again in Lumines Remastered. And Sega is bringing the Shining series back to North America with Shining Resonance: Refrain, a remaster of a PS3 game that was never released outside of Japan.
Finally this week, The Culling 2 is another entry in the growing battle royale genre. And Defiance 2050 is an online shooter based on the SyFy series. Both games are available for the PS4 and both are free-to-play.
You can learn more about the rest of this week’s additions to the PlayStation Store after the break. (more…)
Posted in News, PS4
Tagged 20XX, Shining Resonance: Refrain
20XX Review – Batterystaple Games Has Perfected the Ability to Generate a Great Mega Man Game
Back in 2015, we all got to relive the instantly recognizable beats of the first six games in the Mega Man series thanks to the Mega Man Legacy Collection. It was surprisingly easy to slip back into the familiar patterns of the franchise, but at the time I wondered if we’d ever get the chance to apply that muscle memory to something new. So while we continue to wait for this Fall’s Mega Man 11, the newly-released 20XX is here to fill the gap… and to prove that games inspired by the Blue Bomber can feed your nostalgia needs just as well. (more…)
Slam Land will be available for the PC, PS4, Switch on August 7
Bread Machine Games has announced that Slam Land, their wildly surreal hybridization of Smash Bros. and basketball, will be released for the PC, PS4, and Switch on August 7. Up to four players will be able to compete each other in the game’s three modes, as they all try to amaze the Giant Blue Man:
Dunk your friends to amaze a giant blue man in Slam Land, a magnificent new 4-player couch fighting/party game by Bread Machine Games.
Select your fighter and punch, grab and DOUNK! your way through five modes, ten levels, and a surreal world overseen by a benevolent (?) giant whose only amusement in life is to witness sporting and majestic slams.
You can prepare yourself for Slam Land’s launch next month by watching the new trailer embedded above.
Chasm will be released for PC, PS4, Vita on July 31
After more than five years in development, Bit Kid has announced that Chasm, their medieval-styled MetroidVania, will be released for the PC, PS4, and Vita on July 31.
In addition to the release date news, Chasm received a new trailer yesterday (embedded above), and Game Director James Petruzzi stopped by the PlayStation Blog to discuss the game’s lengthy development process:
One distinctive feature of Chasm is that the world map is procedurally generated when you start up a new campaign. That feature has led to a lot of questions and confusion, so I’d like to address exactly how it works and why we designed it that way. The latter part is easy to answer. Our entire team is composed of Metroidvania fans. Whether it’s Castlevania: Symphony of the Night or Axiom Verge, we’ve played through our favorite games so often that we’ve long since memorized the maps. We love how those games play but wish we could wipe our memories so we could get that experience of exploration all over again. It’s our hope that people who love Chasm the way we love our favorite games can play it over and over and still have it feel fresh. But at the same time, people who only play the game once should have no idea that there’s anything procedural about it.
But that’s not to say that everything’s completely random; there is a fundamental structure to the game that never changes. If you’re familiar with Castlevania: Symphony of the Night you may recall that first you get the Jewel of Open, then the Leap Stone, then the Soul of Bat – in that order. As you get these upgrades, new areas of the map become accessible. Chasm, like most titles in this vein, follows this structure. When you start up a campaign, the game always has these key upgrades and plot points in the same place.
What’s different is how you get from one key point to the other. Chasm has a bunch of pre-designed rooms that are slotted in modularly in different combinations. So you won’t have any rooms that feel like they were designed by a computer. Instead, you’ll encounter rooms in a different order and even encounter new rooms you never saw the first time, and your path will be different each time you start up a new campaign.
Chasm will be priced at $19.99 when it launches later this month.