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
- How a Second-Grade Teacher Revived a Beloved Video Game – The New York Times (2026)
- 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)
Most Recent: Articles
Rocket League heads to the Xbox One on February 17
Psyonix has announced that Rocket League, their “soccer with trucks” simulator, will be available to download for the Xbox One on February 17.
And according to a post by Psyonix Vice President Jeremy Dunham on the Xbox Wire, the Xbox One version of Rocket League will include a pair of Xbox-exclusive vehicles (“The Armadillo” from Gears of War and a Warthog variant from Halo known as “The HogSticker”), several new Garage Items, and all three previously-released DLC Packs:
Rocket League’s Downloadable Expansions
- Supersonic Fury – 2 Premium Battle-Cars, 12 Decals, 5 Paint Types, 2 Rocket Trails, 2 Wheels
- Revenge of the Battle-Cars – 2 Premium Battle-Cars, 12 Decals, 3 Paint Types, 2 Rocket Trails, 2 Wheels, 4 Toppers, 2 Antennas
- Chaos Run – 2 Premium Battle-Cars, 12 Decals, 2 Wheels, 2 Rocket Trails, 3 Toppers, 3 Antennas
Xbox One owners will be able to download Rocket League from the Xbox Games Store for $19.99.
Posted in News, Xbox One
Tagged Rocket League
Unravel, Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: Russia, Firewatch, and a lot more added to PS Store
EA’s adorable Yarny will make his video game debut on the PlayStation Store this week with the PS4 release of Unravel. The puzzle platformer has captivated the gaming public since its unveiling during last year’s E3 Expo, and it’ll be interesting to see what the megapublisher does with a lower-key superstar like Yarny.
A number of other titles are also now available to download this week including Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: Russia, Ubisoft’s third (and final) side-scrolling spinoff in the Assassin’s Creed series; Firewatch, a first-person adventure about a fire lookout and the woman on the other end of his radio; and Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4, Bandai Namco’s newest game based on the popular anime.
Finally this week, a pair of re-releases will give gamers another shot at a game they may have missed before. Techland will relaunch Dying Light as Dying Light: The Following — Enhanced Edition, which includes the original game and every downloadable expansion released in the past year. Vertex Pop’s We Are Doomed will also get a re-release this week on the PS Vita after launching on the PS4 last year. And it’s Cross-Buy compatible, so if you bought the PS4 version last year, you can grab the portable version for free.
More information on all of these games (and a few other new releases) can be found after the break. And, as always, a complete rundown of this week’s new game add-ons and discounts can be found at the PlayStation Blog. (more…)
Victor Vran Review: The Hunter of Baddies
Victor Vran is a top-down hack and slash dungeon crawler set in a steampunky, demon-infested European country. You play as the title character, and your sole mission is to find you best bud, Adrian. That is, until the helpless need help and bosomy queens asks for your assistance. (more…)
Posted in PC, Reviews, Top Story
Tagged Victor Vran
Learn everything you ever wanted to know about Far Cry: Primal’s world in this trailer
Far Cry: Primal is just a few weeks away, but Ubisoft wants to adequately prepare players for the harsh environments and savage enemies they’ll face with this new introductory trailer.
You are Takkar, a seasoned warrior of the Winja tribe known as “The Beast Master.” To survive, you must embark on a savage adventure filled with brutal weapons, warring tribes, and mystical journeys. Takkar and his people are at the very bottom of the food chain, threatened by man and beast alike. To overcome his many foes, Takkar has powerful weaponry at his disposal.
The five-minute trailer puts a lot of emphasis on the weapons Takkar will be able to wield in the game including a “Bee Bomb” and an an owl companion who is always by his side. Takkar can also “tame and command wild beasts” including badgers, tigers, and elephants (oh my)! But the trailer also expands outward to focus on rival tribes and the many horrors of day-to-day life in the Stone Age.
If you’re up to the challenge, Far Cry: Primal will be released for the PS4 and Xbox One on February 23. The PC edition will launch a week later on March 1.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Far Cry: Primal
Ubisoft will host a Tom Clancy’s The Division Open Beta from February 18 – February 21
After the successful completion of last month’s Closed Beta, Ubisoft has announced plans to offer an Open Beta for Tom Clancy’s The Division beginning on Thursday, February 18 (for Xbox One owners) or Friday, February 19 (for PC and PS4 owners). Regardless of which platform you pledge allegiance to, the beta will close up shop on Sunday, February 21.
The Tom Clancy’s The Division Open Beta will include all of the content from the Closed Beta, as well as an all new story mission. Everyone who participates in the Open Beta will receive a special in-game reward that’ll be unlockable in the full game. The Open Beta is now available to pre-load on all three platforms, and you can check out the trailer embedded above to learn more about the game’s factions.
Tom Clancy’s The Division is a team-based shooter that takes place in New York City during the aftermath of a viral attack on Black Friday. It’ll be available for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One on March 8.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Tom Clancy's The Division
Amazon launches Lumberyard, a free-to-use game development engine for PC and consoles
Amazon has been trying to break into the video game industry for years. First with their Fire Tablet, and then later with the Fire TV and the formation of Amazon Game Studios. But today the web retailer is going one step further with the launch of Lumberyard, a free-to-use 3D game engine that will attempt to compete with Unreal Engine 4 and Unity. Amazon also gave the green light to GameLift today, a paid service that offers assistance with “deploying, operating, and scaling session-based multiplayer games.”
Lumberyard is currently compatible with PC and console game development, and Amazon hopes to add support for mobile games and virtual reality experiences in a future update. In addition to a development environment that includes easy access to Amazon Web Services, the engine will be closely integrated with Twitch, the world-famous game streaming service that also happens to be owned by Amazon.
Some of Lumberyard’s other features include:
Create the Highest-Quality Games — Amazon Lumberyard helps developers build rich, engaging, world-class games—from a full-featured editor, to native code performance and stunning visuals, and hundreds of other features like performant networking, cloth physics, character and animation editors, particle editor, UI editor, audio tools, weather effects, vehicle systems, flocking AI, perception handling, camera frameworks, path finding, and more. Developers also have full access to Amazon Lumberyard source code, making it easy to customize the technology to create differentiated gameplay.
Build Live, Online Features in Minutes — Live, online games enjoy higher engagement and retention than offline games. Amazon Lumberyard’s visual scripting tool, with its drag-and-drop graphical user interface, makes it easy to build connected game features that access AWS, such as DynamoDB, Lambda, and S3. In minutes, game designers can create features such as granting a daily gift or sending in-game notifications without having to write a single line of code. Amazon Lumberyard also comes integrated with AWS’s C++ SDK to provide developers access to dozens of AWS services through native C++ code, the most common language used to make games.
Reach and Engage Fans on Twitch — Amazon Lumberyard is integrated with Twitch so that developers can build gameplay features that engage the more than 1.7 million monthly broadcasters, and more than 100 million monthly viewers on Twitch. With Amazon Lumberyard’s Twitch ChatPlay, developers can use a drag-and-drop visual scripting interface to create gameplay features that let Twitch viewers use chat to directly impact the game they are watching in real-time. For example, with Twitch ChatPlay within Amazon Lumberyard, a developer could build a game that lets viewers on Twitch control a character or vote on game outcomes using chat commands like “up,” “down,” “live,” or “die.” And, the Twitch JoinIn feature within Amazon Lumberyard helps developers build games that allow Twitch broadcasters to instantly invite their live audiences to join them side-by-side in the game, with a single click, while others continue to watch.
More information about Lumberyard and GameLift can be found at Amazon.com.
Blizzard celebrates their 25th anniversary with a message from co-founders Mike Morhaime and Frank Pearce
In 1991, Mike Morhaime and Frank Pearce launched Silicon & Synapse, a game development studio that would go on to obtain global recognition under its current name, Blizzard Entertainment. Morhaime and Pearce (along with Allen Adham, who is no longer with the company) started small, developing puzzle platformer The Lost Vikings and racing game Rock N Roll Racing before moving on to the first game in the Warcraft series, Warcraft: Orcs & Humans.
Blizzard’s take on the real-time strategy genre helped shape the future of the company (and the video game industry as a whole) in ways that no one could have imagined. You can draw a direct line between that game and all of Blizzard’s subsequent projects including Diablo, StarCraft, World of Warcraft, Heroes of the Storm, and Hearthstone.
So to celebrate all of the monumental things the company has done in the last 25 years, Morhaime and Pearce recently sat down to narrate a thank you to their fans. They reminisce about the past, they’re proud of the present, and they look to the future and the next 25 years.
Blizzard’s next game, the hero shooter Overwatch, will be released for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One this Spring. The developer will also release World of Warcraft’s sixth expansion, World of Warcraft: Legion, sometime this Summer.
Dark Souls III’s Opening Cinematic is appropriately dark and somber
From Software’s Dark Souls franchise has a deep and engrossing backstory that I am woefully unequipped to discuss in any depth. However, that didn’t stop the developer from releasing the Opening Cinematic for the upcoming Dark Souls III. And even without any knowledge of the nuts and bolts of the series, I can still see the beauty in the dark and somber short film.
Dark Souls III will be released for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One on April 12.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Dark Souls III