Warp Zoned Presents
Video Game Canon- Angry Birds, Dragon Quest, FIFA Soccer, and Silent Hill are the World Video Game Hall of Fame’s Class of 2026
- 2025 GOTY Scoreboard: In Progress
- BAFTA Games Awards: All the Winners from 2003 to Today
- Clair Obscur Completes the Sweep by Winning “Best Game” at 2025-2026 BAFTA Games Awards
- Boss Fight Books to Get a New Look for Richard Moss’s “Age of Empires”
Warp Zoned Presents
- Video Game Research Library
- With Grand Theft Auto 6 poised to take over the world, I reached out to Jack Thompson and it did not go well – PC Gamer (2026)
- Vib-Ribbon: An oral history – Design Room (2026)
- How a Second-Grade Teacher Revived a Beloved Video Game – The New York Times (2026)
- Spore: An oral history – Design Room (2026)
- Diablo IV PC Cooled With Real Human Blood Is Still Going Strong Two Years Later, Says Guy Who Won It – Aftermath (2026)
Author: John Scalzo
NASCAR Heat 3’s launch gets the green light on September 7
704 Games has announced that NASCAR Heat 3 is coming back for another lap on the PC, PS4, and Xbox One. The stock car racing sequel will once again be developed by Monster Games, and it’ll be released on September 7.
In NASCAR Heat 3, players will be able to put the pedal to the metal on eight dirt road tracks in the brand new Xtreme Dirt Tour mode. Other new features set to be included in the game are “a deeper career mode, additional race tracks, and expanded online multiplayer including online tournaments.” Players will also be able to manage their own race teams as an owner in the game for the first time.
The drivers from Hendrick Motorsports (Chase Elliott, William Byron, Jimmie Johnson and Alex Bowman) have been picked as NASCAR Heat 3’s cover athletes, and a debut trailer for the game has been embedded above.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged NASCAR Heat 3
Digital Extremes is bringing Warframe to the Switch
Yesterday, Digital Extremes announced that they’re bringing their popular online shooter, Warframe, to the Switch sometime in the not-too-distant future. The developer is partnering with Panic Button (the team behind the Switch conversions of Doom, Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, and Rocket League) to Nintendo’s newest console.
Like many other online shooters, Warframe will be free-to-play on the Switch, but here’s a refresher course on the game in case it slipped under your radar until now…
With more than 38 million registered players worldwide, the cooperative, free-to-play hit Warframe is a third-person online action game set in an evolving sci-fi world soon to be available on Nintendo Switch. Warframe gives players the chance to master the Warframe armor as the enigmatic Tenno, a race of ancient warriors wielding blade and gun, who are awakened from centuries of cryo-sleep by the mysterious guide, Lotus, to restore order throughout the Solar System.
Warframe features more than 35 unique Warframes, hundreds of weapons and thousands of customization options, the ability to upgrade weapons armor and items using a flexible mod system, and the ability to join clans, nurture pets, and explore massive new open worlds.
Warframe’s Switch debut doesn’t have a release date as of yet, but you can view the Announcement Trailer embedded above.
Pocket Rumble, 20XX, Shining Resonance: Refrain, more coming to Nintendo eShop this week
It’s another big week for the Switch eShop, as more than two dozen games will be added to the digital storefront over the next seven days. But three of those games stand out above all the rest.
Available to download today is Pocket Rumble, a 2D fighter from Cardboard Robot Games that was heavily inspired by the Neo Geo Pocket Color.
But Switch owners who wait until next Tuesday, July 10, will have to chance to download Shining Resonance: Refrain, the latest entry in the Shining saga from Sega, or 20XX, a roguelike homage to Capcom’s Mega Man franchise.
You can learn more about the rest of this week’s additions to the Nintendo eShop (including Another World, Pato Box, Super Rock Blasters!, and more) after the break. (more…)
Posted in News, Switch
Tagged 20XX, Pocket Rumble, Shining Resonance: Refrain
Deep Silver offers a small update on Dead Island 2’s development
Dead Island 2 has been killed and resurrected a few times since it was first announced back in 2014, with Deep Silver originally eyeing a Spring 2015 launch for the first-person sequel. But the game dropped off the radar completely that same year, and the publisher only eventually emerged to reveal that Dead Island 2 was no longer in the hands of original developer Yager.
Since then, Dead Island 2 was brought back to life by Sumo Digital, though concrete details have still been pretty hard to come by. But yesterday, we got a small update (via Twitter) about the sequel alongside the launch of mobile spinoff Dead Island: Survivors…
Dead Island 2 is still in development and we will share more on this at a later stage.
— Dead Island (@deadislandgame) July 4, 2018
That statement doesn’t stray too far from the ones that Deep Silver delivered in 2016 and 2017, but it’s nice to know that the Dead Island 2 is still in development somewhere.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Dead Island 2
SNK 40th Anniversary Collection comes to the Switch on November 13
An SNK 40th Anniversary Collection was announced for the Switch earlier this year, and now publisher NIS America has confirmed that the compilation will arrive in stores on November 13.
With games like Crystalis and Ikari Warriors leading the way, the SNK 40th Anniversary Collection will include more than a dozen classics from the SNK vault, with additional titles set to be revealed in the coming months:
- Alpha Mission (Console/Arcade)
- Athena (Console/Arcade)
- Crystalis (Console)
- Ikari Warriors (Console/Arcade)
- Ikari Warriors II: Victory Road (Console/Arcade)
- Ikari Warriors III: The Rescue (Console/Arcade)
- Guerrilla War (Console/Arcade)
- P.O.W. (Console/Arcade)
- Prehistoric Isle (Arcade)
- Psycho Soldier (Arcade)
- Street Smart (Arcade)
- TNK III (Console/Arcade)
- Vanguard (Arcade)
- More to be Announced…
But for now, you can check out the latest trailer for the game, which has been embedded above.
Posted in News, Switch
Tagged SNK 40th Anniversary Collection
New Battle Princess Madelyn trailer shows off the game’s updated stages
The developers at Causal Bit Games are still working hard on Battle Princess Madelyn, their modern-day homage to the retro stylings of Capcom’s Super Ghouls N Ghosts, and earlier this week they unveiled a brand new trailer featuring “updated stages, collecting weaponry, and armor shards from the cursed chests.”
The developer also posted a new update to Battle Princess Madelyn’s Kickstarter campaign, detailing a few more changes and additions that have been made to the game in the last month:
The final boss was redrawn and redesigned a few times. Nothing was feeling epic enough. Following the story too close wasn’t cutting it, it started as a rival sorceress girl the same age and size as Maddi, but the first half of the fight felt too plain and samey. I worked with Maddi a few times on how the last boss should look overall. There was a giant zombie woman head, dragon snake things, and I can’t even remember what else now. This one has been redone over and over for the better part of a year. But finally I got a clear head about it, and we sat down and came up with something amazing! We aren’t going to show that obviously but we’re not that far away from you seeing it yourselves!
Creative Director Christopher Obritsch also discussed rather scary-sounding heath issue towards the end of the post and everyone at Warp Zoned wishes him a speedy recovery.
Battle Princess Madelyn will be released sometime soon (but we don’t know exactly when) for the PC, PS4, Switch, Vita, Wii U, and Xbox One.
Red Faction: Guerrilla, Runbow, Nobunaga’s Ambition: Taishi, more coming to PS Store this week
It’s time for another PlayStation Store update. Here’s what you can grab on Sony’s platforms this week…
Explosions in the sky will match the explosions coming out of your PS4 if you opt to download the Red Faction: Guerrilla – Re-Mars-tered Edition. THQ Nordic is resurrecting the physics-based destruction of the Red Faction franchise for this re-release, which features a fully reworked visual design including improved lighting and shadows. Also available to download for the PS4 today is Runbow, a colorful runner/platformer that includes multiplayer options for up to nine players.
And finally this week, strategy fans will be able to purchase the latest entry in the Nobunaga’s Ambition franchise, Nobunaga’s Ambition: Taishi, for the PS4.
You can learn more about the rest of this week’s additions to the PlayStation Store after the break. (more…)
Posted in News, PS4, Vita
Tagged Red Faction: Guerrilla, Runbow
Giannis “The Greek Freak” Antetokounmpo is the cover athlete for NBA 2K19
Giannis Antetokounmpo has been making life difficult for play-by-play announcers since his NBA debut in 2013. But “The Greek Freak” has also built up an impressive highlight reel over the years, and 2K Games had plenty of reasons to select him as the official cover athlete for NBA 2K19. The publisher’s basketball simulation is celebrating its 20th anniversary this Fall, and Antetokounmpo will be the first international player featured on the cover.
“I am honored to be the first international player featured on the cover of NBA 2K19,” said Antetokounmpo. “I love playing NBA 2K so this means a lot to me. I have worked hard to earn recognition in the NBA and being on the cover of NBA 2K19 is a dream come true.”
You can sneak a peek at Antetokounmpo’s NBA 2K19 cover in the short trailer embedded above.
NBA 2K19 will be released for the PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One on September 11. Fans who pre-order the basketball sim will receive a few in-game bonuses including 5,000 Virtual Currency, 10 MyTeam Packs, and a Giannis Antetokounmpo Sapphire MyTeam Card. But players looking to get a head start in MyCareer can download the NBA 2K19: The Prelude demo for the PS4 and Xbox One beginning on August 31.
And in case you missed it, 2K Games previously announced that the Lakers-bound Lebron James will be the cover athlete for the 20th Anniversary Edition, which will come packaged with even more in-game items when it launches on September 7.