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)
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Daily Scoop: May 11, 2016 – So many Pokemon shirts!
Like so many other people last night, I started my final journey with Nathan Drake. Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End is breathtaking so far, and I had to be peeled off the couch to go to bed last night. It’s pure bliss and I am trying to savor it and not play it too quickly!
Not into the Uncharted games? No worries! There are lots of great games on sale, including a big spring sale at the Humble Store. Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor Game of the Year Edition is $12.49, Rogue Legacy is $3.74, and Gone Home is $3.99, among many others.
The Midweek Madness at Steam is Jotun, which is on sale for $7.49. You can also add the soundtrack for just $4.99. The Daily Deal is a Playism Publisher Sale, which includes great deals like In Space We Brawl for $2.69, Gunhound EX for $3.74, and Astebreed for $4.49.
Hit the jump to see today’s t-shirts! (more…)
Posted in Daily Scoop
Enter the Gungeon Review: A Few Steps Forward, More Steps Back
Strange though it may seem, in 2016, video games are an old medium. The various genres and mechanics of the medium have, over time, formed a kind of complex language that makes sense to those who are video game literate but is impenetrable to those who aren’t. Good guys are blue, bad guys are red. This is simple if you’ve played a few shooters, but is not immediately obvious. This creates a problem for the critic when describing a game’s mechanics: to some people, Red Dead Redemption is a simulation of the Old West in which you meet with people who need tasks doing; to others, it’s GTA with horses.
Enter the Gungeon is a top-down, twin-stick shooter in which you explore procedurally generated dungeon floors armed with weapons, bombs, keys, and a special item. You fight your way through each floor looking for shops and item rooms to arm yourself for the boss fight that allows you to move down to the next floor of the dungeon. It’s usually best to avoid comparisons, but if this description reminds you of The Binding of Isaac, then you’re on the right track. (more…)
Posted in PC, PS4, Reviews, Top Story
Tagged Enter the Gungeon
Star Wars: Battlefront 2 is officially coming in 2017, alongside a new original title from EA
I think it’s time to dust off your “Evil Empire” jokes, because EA executives delivered an uncanny impression of Emperor Palpatine during their quarterly financial report yesterday. According to CFO Blake Jorgensen, the megapublisher has mapped out their plan for global domination of the video game industry with a massive slate of upcoming titles that’ll take us all the way into 2020.
First, Jorgensen confirmed that Star Wars: Battlefront will be released in 2017, complete with maps based on the new series of films: “Next year we will see Star Wars: Battlefront back with bigger and better worlds, because we now have the new movies to work off of, not just the historical movies that we used before.” He added that EA will also release at least one Star Wars game per year until 2019 or 2020. That includes Visceral’s Star Wars game, which will be released in 2018, and Repawn’s recently announced game, which has no release date but should probably be penciled in for 2019.
The executive then pivoted away from Star Wars to reveal that an internal EA studio is working on an original property for 2017, and the publisher has started development on multiple action games that’ll be released 2018 and 2020:
“We do have a new IP coming next year. We haven’t yet announced it, but it’s something that you’ll see probably coming up soon.”
“We’re making broad investments that fuel the growth of the company well beyond [2017 and 2018]. Really today we’re building an action genre product that’s probably [due in 2019 or 2020]. Most of what we’re investing in that’s incremental now probably comes in [2018 or 2019]. But clearly, some of our investment is to grow out our product base for what we’re going on as well.”
It might be a while before we learn more about some of the more distant games, but there’s a good chance we could hear something about the upcoming original title at this year’s E3 Expo.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Star Wars: Battlefront II, Star Wars: Visceral
Nintendo’s 2DS is now just $80 and includes a Mario Kart 7 download in the box
Nintendo’s handheld for the whole family, the 2DS, will become even more affordable next week. Beginning May 20, the 2DS will be available on store shelves for just $79.99, which is a savings of $20 off the current price tag. Best of all, the new 2DS package will also include a full game download of Mario Kart 7.
“Nintendo 2DS is the best value available for a portable dedicated gaming system and is great for gaming on the go,” said Scott Moffitt, Nintendo of America’s Executive Vice President of Sales & Marketing. “The system has a library full of high-quality games for purchase, some in our Nintendo Selects category for less than $20 each, featuring Mario, Donkey Kong, Yoshi and Zelda.”
The 2DS is compatible with all 3DS games, and its non-folding design is perfect for smaller hands to hold. The 2DS also features most of the same functionality as its bigger brother, but as its name implies, it doesn’t include the glasses-free 3D display technology of the 3DS.
Posted in 3DS, News
Tagged Mario Kart 7
Uncharted 4, Doom, MegaTagmension Blanc + Neptune Vs Zombies, more added to PS Store
Nathan Drake is a man of action, and he doesn’t have time to go to the mall or wait for the postman… so it’s a good thing that Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End (PS4) is now available to download through the PlayStation Store. At the start of A Thief’s End, the fortune hunter is retired and living a life of marital bliss with Elena Fisher, but all that changes when he’s “forced back into the world of thieves” by his brothers. A Thief’s End will be the final Uncharted game from Naughty Dog, so let’s hope Drake can make it out alive.
Also available this week is Doom, the latest resurrection of id Software’s seminal shooter series. Designed as a “challenging modern-day shooter experience” by id Software, while also existing as an homage to the developer’s past, Doom will be available to download on Friday, May 13.
Finally this week, Vita owners will get the chance to download MegaTagmension Blanc + Neptune Vs Zombies, yet another spinoff for the HyperDimension Neptunia series, and MOP: Operation Cleanup, a puzzle platformer starring a “curious and unique” cleaning robot.
More information about all of these games can be found after the break. And a complete rundown of this week’s new add-ons and discounts is available at the PlayStation Blog. (more…)
Posted in News, PS4, Vita
Tagged Doom (2016), Uncharted 4: A Thief's End
Disney shuts down all console development and cancels Disney Infinity franchise
Two months ago, the Disney Infinity franchise was put on hiatus by Disney Interactive. Yesterday, the Walt Disney Company announced the end of Disney Interactive with the cancellation of all console development and the closure of the entire division.
Speaking during the company’s quarterly financial report, Chief Financial Officer Christine McCarthy said, “During the quarter, we took a charge of $147 million in connection with the shutdown of our Infinity console games business. Going forward, our console games strategy will focus solely on licensing our great portfolio of content.”
This closure extends to developer Avalanche Software, and Disney Interactive General Manager John Blackburn thanked them for all their hard work on the publisher’s official website:
Our goal for Disney Infinity was to bring the best of Disney storytelling to life in homes around the world, and with your support we accomplished that. We hope you had as much fun playing the game as we had making it.
And as we turn to the next chapter in our story, I want to thank everyone who helped bring Disney Infinity to life, particularly Disney’s Glendale-based production and publishing teams, our external development partners, and of course the incredible Avalanche team for their tireless dedication to this project.
Avalanche will complete work on the remaining Disney Infinity content that is currently in development, including three figures from Alice: Through the Looking Glass (which will be available later this month) and a Finding Dory Play Set (coming in June).
With Disney’s console development future tied up in licensing deals, we should probably expect to hear about more third-party partnerships, like the one the company struck with EA to create Star Wars: Battlefront, soon.
Posted in 3DS, Mobile, News, PC, PS3, PS4, Vita, Wii, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Disney Infinity, Disney Infinity: Marvel Super Heroes, Disney Infinity: Star Wars
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Blood and Wine expansion will be available on May 31
Prepare to ride with Geralt of Rivia one last time as CD Projekt Red has announced the Blood and Wine expansion to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt will be available to download on May 31.
“Blood and Wine makes The Witcher 3 complete [because] it’s Geralt’s final mission. Containing more than 90 new quests, and over 30 hours of brand new adventures, it’s something that I think gamers will remember for a long time,” said Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, the Game Director at CD Projekt Red.
“There’s also a massive amount of features we’re giving gamers with this expansion like a dynamic Point of Interest system, a new Gwent deck, new endgame mutation mechanics, and even a place Geralt can call home…. And it’s all happening in a new region as big as No Man’s Land in the base game,” he added.
In addition to the absolutely massive expansion, European fans of The Witcher 3 will be able to pick up a special Limited Edition that contains a Blood and Wine download and two real-life Gwent decks (Northern Realms and Nilfgaard). More information on this rather cool extra is available at The Witcher 3’s official website.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
EA will release next Need For Speed game in 2017
Ghost Games brought the Need For Speed franchise back last November with the simply-named Need For Speed. Since then, they’ve added to the racer with a number of expansions, including the upcoming SpeedList update. But don’t worry, they’ve got big plans for the future.
Writing on the franchise’s official website today, the developer revealed that an untitled new Need For Speed game will launch in 2017:
We are now building upon the foundations that have been laid with Need for Speed and delivering our next game in 2017.
That’s not to say that we’re going quiet between now and then… far from it. We’ll be working with our community and there will be multiple opportunities to bring many of you into the studio in the coming months to get your feedback on where we’re headed.
Your passion and dedication for Need for Speed continues to motivate, inspire and drive us forward. It’s absolutely amazing. From all of us at Ghost, thank you.
It’s possible, though unlikely, that EA might discuss the next Need For Speed game during their 2016 E3 Press Conference, which will be held on June 12.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Need For Speed Payback