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: Articles
Content Crash #4: Indie Studios Versus AAA Games
Welcome everyone to the Content Crash podcast. I’m your host, Dan Hartnack, and as always, joining me is Keno Eastmond.
Today, I’d like to talk about indie studios versus AAA studios. What do indie studios bring to gaming that’s different from AAA? What defines the AAA space? And what indie studios are doing to push the industry to new levels?
Let’s go!
You can subscribe to the Content Crash podcast on YouTube or SoundCloud.
Dutch PR firm reveals that Dragon Quest XI will be released outside of Japan
Will Square Enix release the next Dragon Quest game outside of the Japan? And if they do, how long will we have to wait? RPG fans have had to go through this same song and dance for most entries in the franchise, and it looks like things won’t be in different for the upcoming Dragon Quest XI: In Search of the Departed Time. But a Dutch PR firm may have spilled the beans a bit early.
Speaking to Gamer.nl, the unnamed company revealed they would be handling public relations for the title after Square Enix launches Dragon Quest XI in Europe and the rest of the “Western market.”
But assuming the company is telling the truth, we still don’t know when Dragon Quest XI will be available outside of Japan. And we also don’t know if all three versions of the game (it’s in development for the 3DS, PS4, and Switch) will make the trip.
All we know for sure is that Dragon Quest XI: In Search of the Departed Time is set to launch in Japan for the 3DS and PS4 on July 29. I hope you have your dancing shoes on, because anything after that (including the launch date for the Switch version in Japan) is still a mystery.
Posted in 3DS, News, PS4, Switch
Tagged Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age
Insomniac shares some more story details about their upcoming Spider-Man game
We still don’t know what part Miles Morales will play in the game, but Insomniac shared some new story details for their upcoming Spider-Man adaptation on Twitter over the weekend.
According to the tweets, Peter Parker has been Spider-Man for eight years, and he built all of his own technology (unlike the Stark Industries suit Peter will wear in this week’s Spider-Man: Homecoming). Players will also do battle with The Kingpin in an early level, and later tangle with Mister Negative and his Inner Demons in back half of the game:
Explore a new, original Spider-Man universe and story. [Source]
Peter Parker has been Spider-Man for eight years, and is masterful at protecting the city. [Source]
After you defeat Kingpin, the Inner Demons move in on Fisk’s territory. [Source]
Martin Li [Mister Negative] is a philanthropist, and runs the F.E.A.S.T. homeless shelters. Aunt May works for him at one of those shelters. [Source]
Peter Parker uses his ingenuity and lab experience to build his own suit and tech. [Source]
Insomniac’s Spider-Man will be released exclusively for the PS4 sometime next year.
Posted in News, PS4
Tagged Spider-Man
Watch “The Mexican Runner” beat Battletoads in under 13 minutes for a new world record
Battletoads. Just saying the title surely conjures feelings of blissful nostalgia and controller-throwing rage in anyone over the age of 30. As a unique and interesting platformer from Rare, it was beloved by a generation of kids. But those same kids also hated it for its insane difficulty and less-than-perfect controls.
Personally, I think I’ve only advanced past the Turbo Tunnel just a handful of times, and the entire game beyond Level 4 is a complete mystery to me.
But this blind spot definitely doesn’t apply to Piotr Delgado “The Mexican Runner” Kusielczuk. Over the weekend, the speedrunner used a combination of warps and glitches to reach the of the game in 12 minutes and 45 seconds. This astonishing feat set a new world record for an “Any Percentage” run. Kusielczuk bested his own world record of 12:47, which was set less than a week ago.
In other speedrunning news, the annual Summer Games Done Quick marathon kicked off yesterday. The event benefits Doctors Without Borders and features some of the best speedrunners in the world.
Yacht Club continues to joke about Shovel Knight 64… and talks seriously about King Knight expansion
Developers from Yacht Club Games have joked about creating Shovel Knight 64 for a few years now. But the company’s “Pixel Artmancer,” Nick Wozniak, revealed that their fanciful daydreaming about a Shovel Knight sequel that uses the blocky polygonal style made famous by the N64 might be real during an E3 2017 interview with App Trigger:
App Trigger: I’ve seen a little bit of Yacht Club talking about working on more Shovel Knight, or more things besides Shovel Knight after all this is done. What would your personal preference be? If you could work on anything, what would it be?
Nick Wozniak: Anything? I think one of the things we want to work on in the far future is definitely like a Shovel Knight 64, a 3D platformer. We would all love that. We all love Mario 64 to pieces and would just love to be able to jump into that.
Of course, this wasn’t an official announcement for Shovel Knight 64. Wozniak said that Yacht Club doesn’t just want to be known as “the Shovel Knight company,” and that they’re currently hard at work on “something new.”
However, the developer is also putting the finishing touches on Shovel Knight’s King Knight expansion, and Wozniak also had a bit to say about the game’s final add-on:
App Trigger: [King Knight is] great. He’s the light-hearted guy. Even though you guys gave us choices at the beginning of Shovel Knight, your eye is drawn more toward King Knight, so I think that’s the one a lot of people start with.
Nick Wozniak: He’s great. He’s the first guy you probably encounter, and he sets the tone of the rest of the game. You know what to expect, kind of, when you see King Knight. He’s a joke, even in his name. He’s not a king, he’s a knight who’s kingly, and that’s ridiculous and stupid and it sets the bar for your expectations of what the game is and what the knights are. His campaign is going to be a big departure from the very tragic story that Specter Knight was, but it will be interesting and focused on his journey to becoming King Knight. I’m not sure what the timeline is now, we’re still working through what it is, but it’ll be goofy.
Yacht Club has previously said they want to release the King Knight campaign before the end of the year, so it shouldn’t be too long before we can all be royals.
New Hey! Pikmin trailer shows us what the little guys are up to now
Captain Olimar is off on a rocketship, and ecstatic with the view… but something happens… and the spaceman crash lands on a strange new world (again) in Hey! Pikmin. But as you might have guessed, the Pikmin appear to help him collect the Sparklium his ship needs to fly again.
In this new “Lift-Off Trailer,” Nintendo offers up a primer on the game’s universe, including the types of Pikmin Captain Olimar will meet, the dangers he’ll face, and how he can use Amiibo figures to his advantage. If you were in the dark about Hey! Pikmin before, the consolemaker managed to pack a lot of new information into this trailer’s four-minute running time.
Hey! Pikmin will be released exclusively for the 3DS on July 28.
Posted in 3DS, News
Tagged Pikmin For Nintendo 3DS
Bandai Namco will release Gundam Versus on September 29
Get ready to climb inside your favorite Gundam Mobile Suit this Fall, as Bandai Namco has confirmed that Gundam Versus will be available for the PS4 on September 29.
World famous giant robot series and notorious head-to-head smash hit, GUNDAM VERSUS, is coming to the Americas for the first time for home console, this time built from the ground up exclusively for the PlayStation 4 system. Pilot legendary Mobile Suits, each equipped with their own weapons systems to learn and master along with enhanced mobility options allowing for advance strategies to evade and outwit opponents, in explosive two-on-two and three-on-three online battles.
Fans of the franchise should be thrilled by this announcement, because Gundam Versus will be the first game from the series to be released in North America since 2011’s Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 3.
Posted in News, PS4
Tagged Gundam Versus
Kickstart This! Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Space Odyssey
E3 2017 has come and gone, but there was actually very few indie titles on display at the big show this year. While the Nintendo Switch is gaining traction with indie developers for its ease of use, Sony showed no love for smaller games. Only Microsoft made a case for the indie scene, surprising given the volume of paperwork small developers have to sign before any agreement is sealed for the Xbox platform.
But there is a wealth of amazing video game ideas on Kickstarter. Though some are a little rough around the edges, and could use the input of a publisher or producer to guide them to greatness. This month I’ve chosen a project that not only speaks to topics close to my heart, but one that seeks to involve its backers at a more basic level, to create a community that will be part of every step of this odyssey. And it is presented by the one and only Neil deGrasse Tyson! (more…)