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
- 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”
- GDC Awards: All the Winners from 1996 to Today
Warp Zoned Presents
- Video Game Research Library
- Spore: An oral history – Design Room (2026)
- 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)
Most Recent: News
Surprise! Chrono Trigger is now available to download for PC
Square Enix surprise-launched Chrono Trigger on Steam this morning, and fans can now play the classic RPG on the PC for the first time.
Chrono Trigger was originally released for the Super NES in 1995, and was created by a “Dream Team” of developers that included Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of the Final Fantasy series; the creator of the Dragon Quest series; and Akira Toriyama, a manga artist who created the characters for Dragon Quest. This new version of the game will include the enhancements from the portable re-releases, but it’ll retain Chrono Trigger’s signature 16-bit art style:
Features
- Two Extra Dungeons – Includes the mysterious “Dimensional Vortex” dungeon and “Lost Sanctum” dungeon that first appeared in the Nintendo DS and mobile releases.
- Updated Graphics and Sound – While keeping the atmosphere of the original, this version features optimized visuals designed for modern PCs and a re-recorded soundtrack under the supervision of original composer Yasunori Mitsuda.
- Updated Controls – Optimized PC experience that supports both controller and mouse/keyboard configuration.
- New Autosave Feature – Automatically saves while still featuring the original title’s Save Point function.
A new trailer celebrating Chrono Trigger’s PC debut has been embedded above.
Posted in News, PC
Tagged Chrono Trigger
New Retail Releases: Payday 2, De Blob 2, Gravel, More
A pair of sequels will find new homes in this week’s New Retail Releases report.
Overkill will bring their cooperative crime simulator, Payday 2, to the Switch for the first time. The developer will add an exclusive new character to the Switch version, as well as a brand new local multiplayer mode. Also new on store shelves this week is THQ Nordic’s De Blob 2 for the PS4 and Xbox One. Originally released in 2011, this remastered version of the game includes a cooperative multiplayer mode and improved graphics.
Italian developer is also burning rubber for retail stores this week with the release of Gravel on the PS4 and Xbox One. Gravel is an off-road racing game that includes several single-player and multiplayer modes.
Finally this week, bargain hunters will be able to pick up Don’t Knock Twice, a horror adventure, and Shiny, a colorful platformer, for the PS4.
And that’s it for this week’s New Retail Releases report, but we’ll be back in a few days with a look at all the upcoming additions to the PlayStation Store, Xbox Games Store, and Nintendo eShop.
Turok and Turok 2 will be available to download for Xbox One on March 2
Nightdive Studios has announced that Turok: Dinosaur Hunter and Turok 2: Seeds of Evil will be available to download for the Xbox One on Friday, March 2.
The first two games in the Turok franchise helped fuel the first FPS boom on consoles after they were originally released for the Nintendo 64 in the late 90s. These remastered versions will be priced at $19.99 apiece, and will include enhanced graphics powered by a new visual engine:
Turok: Dinosaur Hunter
A world where time has no meaning – and evil knows no bounds. Torn from a world long gone, the time traveling warrior Turok has found himself thrust into a savage land torn by conflict. An evil overlord known as The Campaigner seeks to shred the fabric of time and rule the universe using an ancient artifact known as The Chronoscepter. The Chronoscepter was shattered thousands of years ago in an effort to keep it from falling into evil hands. The Campaigner has constructed a massive focusing array which he plans to use to magnify and pervert the power of the Chronoscepter in order to shatter the barriers between the ages and rule the universe. Turok has vowed to find the eight pieces of the Chronoscepter spread throughout the Lost Land and put an end to The Campaigner’s evil plot…Turok 2: Seeds of Evil
Having defeated the Campaigner, Turok throws the Chronocepter into a waiting volcano to destroy it. Unfortunately the blast awakens an even deadlier force – The Primagen. Once again a Turok is tasked with restoring peace to the land and stopping the Primagen from merging Earth with the nether world.
A new trailer for Turok’s Xbox One debut has been embedded above.
Posted in News, Xbox One
Tagged Turok 2: Seeds of Evil, Turok: Dinosaur Hunter
Fable Fortune, Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet, more added to Xbox Store
Welcome to another Friday update for the Xbox Games Store. Here’s what Microsoft and their third-party partners have added to the online storefront today…
Exiting the Game Preview program today is Fable Fortune, a free-to-play collectible card game set within the Fable universe. Fable Fortune is an Xbox Play Anywhere title, and it’s now available to download for the Xbox One and Windows 10 PCs.
Also available today is Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet, the first game in Bandai Namco’s Action RPG series to appear on the Xbox One. Players will be able to interact with characters from the Sword Art Online anime and take part in massive gun battles in Fatal Bullet.
You can learn more about the rest of today’s additions to the Xbox Games Store after the break. (more…)
Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild wins “Game of the Year” at 2018 DICE Awards
Nintendo was definitely the big winner at last night’s DICE Awards presentation. The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences awarded 11 victories to the consolemaker, including “Game of the Year” for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Link’s newest adventure also received accolades for “Adventure Game of the Year,” “Game Design,” “Game Direction.”
Studio MDHR’s Cuphead received several awards for its outstanding sound and visual at the 2018 DICE Awards, including “Original Music Composition,” “Animation,” and “Art Direction.”
Developers for several other games strode to the stage to collect multiple awards during last night’s ceremony. That list includes Guerrilla’s Horizon: Zero Dawn (“Story” and “Technical Achievement”), PUBG Corporation’s PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (“Action Game of the Year” and “Online Gameplay”), Nintendo’s Snipperclips: Cut It Out Together (“Family Game of the Year” and the “D.I.C.E. Sprite Award”), and Oculus’s Lone Echo/Echo Arena (“Immersive Reality Technical Achievement” and “Immersive Reality Game of the Year”).
Congratulations to everyone who won big at the 2018 DICE Awards. A complete list of all the winners can be found after the break. (more…)
Pac-Man CE 2 Plus, Payday 2, SteamWorld Dig 2, more coming to Nintendo eShop this week
I feel like I say this every week, but it’s another big week for the Nintendo eShop. Over the next seven days, 18 new games will be available to download for the Switch, including a few big games that have found a new home on Nintendo’s console/handheld hybrid.
Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 Plus is one of those games, and Bandai Namco will bring the wild technicolor visuals of the Pac-Man Championship Edition sub-series to the Switch for the first time, while also adding an exclusive two-player co-op mode. Nearly five years after it was first released, Overkill’s co-op shooter, Payday 2, will also be released for the Switch this week
Switch owners interested in puzzle-solving will also have a few new games to choose from this week including Typoman, a wordy platformer, and Bridge Constructor Portal, a bridge construction game that takes place within the Portal/Half-Life universe.
Over on the 3DS side of the Nintendo eShop, Image & Form has launched SteamWorld Dig 2, their acclaimed MetroidVania, on Nintendo’s handheld current device.
You can learn more about all of this week’s additions to the Nintendo eShop after the break. (more…)
Posted in 3DS, News, Switch, Wii U
Tagged Pac-Man Championship Edition 2, Payday 2, SteamWorld Dig 2, Typoman
EA’s E3-adjacent EA Play 2018 event will include Battlefield V, Anthem, new EA Sports games, more
UPDATE: EA has announced that “Battlefield 6” will officially be known as Battlefield V.
ORIGINAL STORY: It’s beginning to look a lot like E3…
Even though it’s only February, Electronic Arts has announced the first details of this year’s EA Play event on their official website. As always, the event will run adjacent to the E3 Expo from June 9-11, and it’ll be open to the public.
Fans who visit the Hollywood Palladium during EA Play will get the chance to try out the upcoming Battlefield 6, this year’s slate of EA Sports games, and The Sims 4. An “inside look” at BioWare’s Anthem will also be on display, as well as “a few surprises”:
At EA Play 2018, you will have a chance to play our next Battlefield experience, new EA Sports games, and get an inside look at the stunning new action game, Anthem. The Sims 4 and our mobile games will be on hand, and of course, we have a few surprises as well.
If you are able to make it to Hollywood, we have a lot in store for you: hundreds of game stations, awesome game demos, lots of experiences for attendees and families, including music, art, food, and entertainment for everyone.
Tickets for EA Play 2018 will be available this Spring, and best of all, they’ll be free.
Posted in Mobile, News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Anthem, Battlefield V, E3 2018, The Sims 4
Monster Hunter: World is king of the jungle… and the bestselling game of January 2018
The Monster Hunter franchise is an absolute phenomenon in Japan, and Capcom has been trying to replicate its success in North America since since Monster Hunter was released for the PS2 in 2004.
It might have taken more than a decade, but it looks like the series finally broke through with Monster Hunter: World, which was the best-selling game of January 2018. According to The NPD Group (via GamesIndustry.biz), Capcom’s unique Action RPG helped push the industry to its best performance in January since 2011.
However, Capcom wasn’t the only publisher to post a monster-sized debut in January. Bandai Namco’s Dragon Ball Fighter Z fought its way to the #2 slot, beating out some of 2017’s biggest titles, including Call of Duty: WWII (#3) and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (#5).
All told, video game fans purchased more than $517 million in software, as well as $278 million in hardware. Microsoft’s Xbox One, Nintendo’s Switch, and Sony’s PS4 were neck-and-neck-and-neck, and total hardware sales crossed one million units during the month.
You can find the NPD’s recounting of January 2018’s top ten best-selling titles after the break. (more…)