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
Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8: Final Chapter Prologue delayed to January 24, 2017
Square Enix has announced that Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8: Final Chapter Prologue won’t be released in 2016 as originally planned. Today, the publisher confirmed that the PS4 game, which is a remake of 2012’s Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance, on January 24, 2017.
While this two-month delay is disappointing, Square Enix also released a new trailer for Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 today. The Tokyo Game Show 2016 trailer also features footage from the included companion chapters, Kingdom Hearts X Back Cover and Kingdom Hearts 0.2: Birth by Sleep – A Fragmentary Passage…
[The trailer] includes never-before-seen scenes depicting a mysterious meeting of the “Foretellers,” the five Keyblade Masters from the Kingdom Hearts origins movie included in the compilation as Kingdom Hearts X Back Cover. The trailer also features HD remastered gameplay of Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance HD and new battles scenes from Aqua’s adventures in Kingdom Hearts 0.2: Birth by Sleep – A Fragmentary Passage.
Through the trailer, fans can listen to the newly remixed version of “Simple and Clean” by popular singer Utada Hikaru.
Meanwhile, Kingdom Hearts III remains as mysterious as ever. Hopefully, we’ll hear more about it during this week’s Tokyo Game Show.
Posted in News, PS4
Tagged Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8: Final Chapter Prologue, TGS 2016
World of Warcraft’s Lead Designer, Rob Pardo, forms Bonfire Studios
As the Lead Designer on World of Warcraft, Rob Pardo was part of the team that profoundly changed the video game industry as we know it. Now, he’s struck out on his own and formed Bonfire Studios, a new game development house located in Irvine, California.
Writing on the company’s blog, Pardo said Bonfire hasn’t started work on their first project yet (or even decided on a platform), but his desire is to to let his team stay small while still being able to create blockbuster games:
Game developers live the dream scenario where passion meets work. We don’t view our week as something to get through so we can really live on the weekend. But often, developers must compromise and decide — do I work on a blockbuster game where I have less personal impact or the gutsy indie studio that struggles to get noticed? Our vision is to create a studio that doesn’t require them to choose.
Bonfire also has close ties with Riot Games, the development team behind League of Legends. “Riot’s aspiration to be the most player-focused game company in the world, aligns very nicely with our vision to build friendships through our online games,” said Pardo. So I wouldn’t be surprised if Bonfire’s first project turns out to be an online-focused multiplayer game.
Titanfall franchise comes to mobile devices with strategy card game Titanfall: Frontline
Your Titan will soon be ready on your smartphone. Respawn Entertainment and Nexon have announced that Titanfall: Frontline will be available this Fall for iOS and Android devices. Developed by Particle City, Titanfall: Frontline is a free-to-play strategy card game where players will “face off in head-to-head combat with other players in real-time.”
Featuring hundreds of Pilots, Titans, and special ability Burn Cards, Commanders will collect and upgrade their units and build their own unique decks. Players can build their IMC or Militia squad according to their play style, whether they prefer to assemble a dropship of fast, light Pilots and Titans to deal quick damage or wear out their opponents with the addition of strong defensive units, installations, and support personnel.
“We’ve worked hand-in-hand with Respawn to weave in card battle strategy and collectibility with the iconic gameplay elements that make Titanfall so unique and that will help evolve the genre,” said Larry Pacey, Particle City’s Co-Founder. “From dropping a Titan onto the field of play to turn the tide of battle to using a combination of Parkour and Rodeo Burn Cards to take a Titan down, Titanfall: Frontline is unapologetically intense and utterly Titanfall.”
Nexon and Particle City will follow Titanfall: Frontline with a series of additional mobile games based on the franchise as part of a multi-year agreement. A small batch of screenshots and more details about Titanfall: Frontline can be found at its official website.
First gameplay trailer for WWE 2K17 is here
With less than a month to go before WWE 2K17‘s launch, 2K Games released the wrestling sim’s first gameplay trailer over the weekend.
Puff Daddy provides the soundtrack (“Bad Boys For Life”) as a string of WWE wrestlers fight it out inside (and out of) the squared circle. So be sure to check the trailer embedded above for a quick glimpse at Goldberg, Brock Lesnar, John Cena, The Undertaker, Bret Hart, Stone Cold Steve Austin, and many, many, many, many more.
WWE 2K17 will be released for the PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One on October 11.
Heart Machine cancels development of Hyper Light Drifter on the Wii U and Vita
In a heartfelt new update to the game’s Kickstarter page, Heart Machine’s Alex Preston has confirmed that Hyper Light Drifter is no longer in development for the Vita and Wii U.
Most of the problems with the ports can be attributed to GameMaker, the engine Hyper Light Drifter was built in. When trying to recreate the game for the Vita, Preston said they forced the engine to do things it wasn’t designed to do, making performance suffer:
With the Vita, we worked for months to get the project to run well enough on the platform. The problem is we pushed the engine incredibly far and made it do things it wasn’t meant to do. So the native port option has not been performing anywhere near our standards and would require a lot of majot reworking and downgrading to fit on a lower-powered platform.
Preston first discussed the problems his team was having with the GameMaker engine on the Wii U back in February, and it looks the engine’s lack of support for Nintendo’s console finally killed the port. The developer also cited his own health issues as a major contributing factor in dropping both versions of the game.
Preston confirmed that any Kickstarter backer who originally request the Wii U or Vita version of the game will receive a full refund. Though an option to receive a download code for the PC, PS4, or Xbox One is also available.
Finally, Preston said that “a big update” for Hyper Light Drifter will be released later this month, so we should all be on the lookout for that.
Posted in News, Vita, Wii U
Tagged Hyper Light Drifter
The Last Guardian hit with another delay… this time to December 6
After years of delays, The Last Guardian finally settled on an official release date, October 25, during this year’s E3 Expo. But it looks like Sony has been forced to push back its launch one more time.
Sony’s Shuhei Yoshida, writing on the PlayStation Blog, confirmed that the PS4 game will now be released on December 6 so that Fumito Ueda and his team can deliver “the most polished experience possible”:
Fumito Ueda (gen Design) and Japan Studio have a wonderful vision for The Last Guardian’s touching, emotional journey of friendship and trust, and we want to deliver the most polished experience possible for our fans who have supported us for so long. A delay is a difficult decision, particularly with this game, but we have encountered more bugs than anticipated while in the final stages of development. To ensure that The Last Guardian delivers on the experience that the game’s creators have envisioned, we need to take the extra time to work on those issues.
In addition to announcing the delay, Yoshida also confirmed that Sony would reveal more information about The Last Guardian ahead of its launch.
Posted in News, PS4
Tagged The Last Guardian
Sony has blocked release of modding tools for Fallout 4 and Skyrim: Special Edition on PS4
Fallout 4‘s modding tools have been available to Xbox One owners since the Spring, and Bethesda has continually promised to bring the feature to PS4 owners as well. However, a new statement on the publisher’s website revealed that Sony is currently blocking the addition of mod support to the PS4 version of the game:
After months of discussion with Sony, we regret to say that while we have long been ready to offer mod support on PlayStation 4, Sony has informed us they will not approve user mods the way they should work: where users can do anything they want for either Fallout 4 or Skyrim Special Edition.
Like you, we are disappointed by Sony’s decision given the considerable time and effort we have put into this project, and the amount of time our fans have waited for mod support to arrive. We consider this an important initiative and we hope to find other ways user mods can be available for our PlayStation audience. However, until Sony will allow us to offer proper mod support for PS4, that content for Fallout 4 and Skyrim on PlayStation 4 will not be available.
According to Bethesda, this ban also applies to the upcoming launch of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – Special Edition. The publisher will continue to work with Sony to come to some kind of agreement, but until then, mods will not be available in either Fallout 4 or the Skyrim Special Edition on the PS4.
Posted in News, PS4
Tagged Fallout 4, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Two new Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 trailers ask… “Are you a Hunter or a Runner?” and “Can you beat the Giant Ghost?”
Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 will gobble up your freetime in a just a few days, but in the meantime, Bandai Namco released two new trailers for the game to get players ready for the return of video gaming’s first star.
First, the publisher asked players how they prefer to play in the “Hunter Vs Runner” trailer. If you’re someone who chases Ghosts for maximum points, that makes you a “Hunter.” But you’re a “Runner” if you like to smoothly munch on Dots while studiously avoiding the Ghosts.
All this hunting and running leads into the game’s brand new boss battles, and Bandai Namco also released a second trailer asking players how they’d defeat “The Giant Ghost.” If you said, “With an army of Pac-Men,” then you’re on the right track.
Both trailers can be found after the break, and don’t forget, Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 will be released for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One on September 13. (more…)
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Pac-Man Championship Edition 2