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
- 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)
Most Recent: News
Cuphead is coming to the Nintendo Switch on April 18
Nintendo uploaded their first Nindies Showcase of 2019 earlier today and they kicked things off with an absolutely huge announcement. Studio MDHR will bring their side-scrolling platformer, Cuphead, to the Switch on April 18. Featuring gameplay that pays homage to the Contra franchise, as well as a hand-drawn animation style inspired by cartoons from the 1930s, and a jazzy original soundtrack, Cuphead was originally released to great acclaim in 2017:
Cuphead, the all-cartoon Magical Wondergame, is coming to Nintendo Switch! Play as Cuphead or Mugman (in single player or local co-op) as you traverse strange worlds, acquire new weapons, learn powerful super moves, and discover hidden secrets while you try to pay your debt back to the devil!
Cuphead’s Switch debut was partly made possible with an assist from Microsoft, and the they confirmed on the Xbox Wire that a variety of Xbox Live features will soon be accessible on the Switch through Studio MDHR’s ultra-hard shooter:
We are partnering with Studio MDHR to investigate bringing Xbox Live features beyond Xbox and PC to Nintendo Switch. Yes, this means that fans will now have the opportunity to experience Studio MDHR’s award-winning debut game on Nintendo Switch with Xbox Live! We’ll be working with Studio MDHR to implement Xbox Live features into Cuphead on the Nintendo Switch in the coming months. Given the early stage of our work with Studio MDHR, the Xbox Live features will appear in a post-launch update to Cuphead on Nintendo Switch. We’d like to thank Studio MDHR and Nintendo for their help in this investigation!
In addition to bringing the game to Nintendo’s newest console, Studio MDHR is also hard at work on The Delicious Last Course, a new expansion for Cuphead that’ll launch for the PC and Xbox One (and presumably, the Switch) later this year.
Google’s game streaming service will be known as Google Stadia
While Google tried to play it off as a big secret, the search giant finally unveiled their long-awaited game streaming service today at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. Officially known as Google Stadia, the service won’t require a console of any kind, and will instead offer game streaming through a large number of devices, including laptops, desktops, Chromecast dongles, and select phones and tablets.
According to Stadia’s official website, Google is promising the service will offer 4K resolution gaming with no lag, provided your Internet connection is powerful enough. Stadia will also hook up with the YouTube Gaming livestreaming platform, and players will theoretically be able to jump from watching a stream right into playing that same game “in seconds”:
- Game where you want, when you want – Play across multiple devices, including laptops, desktops, and select phones and tablets. (High speed internet connection required)
- New ways to play through YouTube and beyond – Go from watching a video to playing a game in seconds, with even more innovative experiences to come for select games.
- Up to 4K HDR at 60 FPS – Enjoy gaming the way you love, with beautiful HDR graphics and smooth frame rates. (4K HDR at 60 FPS are dependent on your bandwidth. Gameplay experience may vary based on quality of internet connection.)
- Play instantly – No updates, no downloads. Jump right into the game.
- Always getting better – Stadia’s cloud based infrastructure evolves to meet the demands of players, developers, and YouTube creators.
On the surface, Google Stadia will offer a lot of the same features as Sony’s PlayStation Now streaming service, but it’ll have its own unique set of bells and whistles to make it stand out.
Google Stadia will be controllable with compatible third-party controllers on a PC, but players will also have the option of using the official Stadia Controller. Closely resembling a standard Xbox One controller, Google’s gadget will include an Instant Capture button for streaming to YouTube, a Google Assistant button powered by a built-in microphone, and a direct wi-fi connection to whatever device you’re using.
But what games will you be able to play on Google Stadia? That’s a bit of a question mark. So far, only Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey and id Software’s Doom Eternal are confirmed to be coming to the platform. Additional games, which will be exclusive to the platform, will be produced by the company’s new Stadia Games & Entertainment division, which will be lead by Jade Raymond.
It’s currently unknown if Google will sell individual games through Stadia or offer a monthly subscription to access the service’s entire library or some combination of both. But we do know that it’s currently scheduled to launch sometime in 2019.
Posted in News, PC
Tagged Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, Doom Eternal, GDC 2019
Activision and Tencent will launch free-to-play Call of Duty Mobile this Summer
Way back in 2017, Activision announced that Candy Crush developer King was hard on a new game in the Call of Duty franchise for mobile platforms. We still don’t know when we’ll learn more about that game, but late last night the publisher revealed an entirely different Call of Duty mobile experience from Tencent’s Timi studio.
Call of Duty Mobile is currently in development for Android and iOS devices, and will be available to download throughout the world as a free-to-play Public Beta this Summer:
In Call of Duty: Mobile, players will experience the fluid, first-person combat of Call of Duty, fighting head-to-head in fan-favorite modes such as Team Deathmatch, Search and Destroy and Free-For-All, in iconic maps from the series such as Nuketown, Crash, Hijacked and more. Along the way, players will earn and unlock classic Call of Duty characters, weapons, scorestreaks and other gear to equip and customize their loadouts as they battle to be among the best in the world.
Fans can pre-register to receive updates about Call of Duty Mobile’s progress at the game’s official website, and Activision has promised that “more modes of play” will be announced soon.
The Announcement Trailer for Call of Duty Mobile has been embedded above.
Blazing Chrome’s new Boss Trailer confirms the shooter is also coming to Xbox One
The Arcade Crew and JoyMasher have unveiled a brand new trailer for Blazing Chrome that shines a spotlight on the side-scrolling shooter’s towering bosses.
But prospective players won’t just get a peek at the game’s rampaging robots and messy monsters. The publisher and developer also used the short clip to confirm that Blazing Chrome will be released for the Xbox One (in addition to the PC, PS4, and Switch) later this Spring:
New video shows off the terrible bosses you will have to fight to save humanity from extinction.
Blazing Chrome is a throwback to the golden days of side-scrolling shooters with modern touches ensuring its gameplay feels as precise as it does authentic to the era it channels. Players can tear through six highly-varied stages filled with deadly, bullet-spewing AI as Mavra, a lone human resistance fighter, or the rebellious robotic insurgent Doyle.
Blazing Chrome was heavily inspired by games such as Contra and Metal Slug, and while a final release date hasn’t been locked down yet, it should be available “soon.”
New Retail Releases: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, More
From Software is back in the spotlight this week, but it’s not for a new game in the Dark Souls franchise (or even the oft-requested Bloodborne 2). Instead, the famed developer will bring an entirely original game, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, to the PC, PS4, and Xbox One on Friday. Published by Activision, Sekiro’s players will take control of a disgraced warrior (the “One-Armed Wolf”) and attempt to rescue a young lord from the clutches of the Ashina Clan.
Speaking of ninjas, GameMill Entertainment will release American Ninja Warrior Challenge for the PS4, Switch, and Xbox One this week. This game adaptation of the over-the-top athletic contest will feature more than a dozen obstacles, a Character Creator, and a Course Creator.
Elsewhere on store shelves, SNK will launch the SNK 40th Anniversary Collection for the PS4. Compiling 24 games from SNK’s earliest days, fans will be able to replay Crystalis, the Ikari Warriors trilogy, P.O.W., and more.
And finally this week, Marvelous will release Fate/Extella Link, the latest action-adventure addition to the franchise, on the PS4 and Switch.
A smattering of new games will also be available to download through the PlayStation Store, Xbox Games Store, and Nintendo eShop later this week, and some of them will surely feature even more ninjas.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One
Tagged Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, SNK 40th Anniversary Collection
God of War captures “Game of the Year” at 2019 SXSW Gaming Awards
Sony Santa Monica’s God of War continued its award-winning ways this weekend with a trio of wins at the 2019 SXSW Gaming Awards. The action-adventure title was awarded “Game of the Year” by SXSW’s Gaming Advisory Board, as well as “Excellence In Design” and “Excellence in Visual Achievement.”
The rest of the 2019 SXSW Gaming Awards were spread out among a large number of games, and like Kratos, several managed to secure multiple victories. Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption 2 was the only other game to win in three categories, and it took home some hardware as the “Trending Game of the Year,” along with “Excellence in Technical Achievement” and “Excellence in SFX.”
Insomniac’s Spider-Man won two awards (“Excellence in Convergence” and “Excellence in Animation”), as did Epic’s Fortnite (“Most Promising New Esports Game” and “Excellence in Multiplayer”) and Beat Games’s Beat Saber (“VR Game of the Year” and “Most Promising New Intellectual Property”).
Congratulations to all the winners, and you can find a complete list of every award-winning game from the 2019 SXSW Gaming Awards at Video Game Canon.
Posted in Mobile, News, PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One
Tagged Celeste, Detroit: Become Human, Fortnite, God of War 4, No Man's Sky, Octopath Traveler, Red Dead Redemption 2, Spider-Man, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Tabletop Games, Tetris Effect
Blizzard files trademark application for Diablo television series
While Diablo IV continues to remain frustratingly out of reach, it looks like Blizzard is continuing on with their plan to produce “multiple Diablo projects” in the future.
On March 8, the publisher filed an application with the United State Patent and Trademark Office for a Diablo trademark related to “Downloadable films and movies featuring narratives based on a video game and provided via a video-on-demand service.”
By itself, this filing doesn’t mean much. But when combined with the persistent rumors that Blizzard is teaming up with Netflix (you know, the biggest “video-on-demand service” in the world) to produce an animated adaptation of Diablo, it starts looking a lot more likely.
Hopefully Blizzard has something to announce about a Diablo animated series (and Diablo IV, for that matter) soon.
Development has begun on the “Next Major Sonic Title” at Sonic Team
Sonic the Hedgehog has found a home at the SXSW Gaming Festival, and fans have been looking forward to the Spring event for the past few years to learn what’s next for Sega’s mighty mascot. This year was no different as Sonic Team’s Takashi Iizuka confirmed at the “Gotta Go Fast” panel that development has begun on the Next Major Sonic Title.
“You could probably guess it already, but we have already begun production on the Next Major Sonic Title,” Iizuka tolds fans on Saturday. “We are excited to share more news with you in the future, but for now, thanks for your patience until we have something to show.”
No other details about the upcoming titles (including which platforms its in development for or when it might be released) were announced. Presumably, we’ll learn more about the Next Major Sonic Title after the launch of Team Sonic Racing in May.
Posted in News