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
- 2025 GOTY Scoreboard: In Progress
- 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”
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)
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Daily Scoop: May 16, 2014 – More cheap games
It’s day four of the Humble Daily Bundle, and they’re not slowing down! Today it’s the Humble Indie Re-Bundle 8. Pay what you want for Dear Esther, Capsized, Awesomenauts, Thomas Was Alone, and Little Inferno. Pay more than the average to unlock Hotline Miami, Proteus, Tiny & Big in Grandpa’s Leftovers, English Country Tune, Intrusion 2, and Oil Rush. And it includes most of the soundtracks as well.
That’s not all. Steam’s got two amazing sales going on right now. Their Weekend Deal is The Stanley Parable, on sale for $7.49. Their Daily Deal is Deus Ex: Human Revolution – Director’s Cut for $4.99. Scoop all of these up!
Let’s end this with some t-shirts, shall we? (more…)
Posted in Daily Scoop, Etcetera, News
Naughty Dog working on third project in addition to Last of Us PS4 and Uncharted 4
Naughty Dog’s Neil Druckmann recently sat down with Edge to talk about the work required to bring The Last of Us Remastered to the PS4. The ease-of-use of Sony’s next-generation console system has been praised by many developers, but porting one of the most complex PS3 titles to the PS4 wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows:
“I wish we had a button that was like ‘Turn On PS4 Mode’, but no,” creative director Neil Druckmann says. “We expected it to be Hell, and it was Hell. Just getting an image onscreen, even an inferior one with the shadows broken, lighting broken and with it crashing every 30 seconds… that took a long time. These engineers are some of the best in the industry and they optimised the game so much for the PS3’s SPUs specifically. It was optimised on a binary level, but after shifting those things over [to PS4] you have to go back to the high level, make sure the [game] systems are intact, and optimise it again.”
Druckmann’s discussion of the difficulties Naughty Dog faced with The Last of Us Remastered is quite interesting, but he also dropped a bombshell in regards to the studio’s next project: “We’re working on this re-release, but at the same time we’re working on two other brand-new experiences.”
One of those “brand-new experiences” has to be Uncharted 4, but the second project is currently a big mystery. When we last checked in with Naughty Dog, the developer was debating whether or not to move forward with The Last of Us 2 or an entirely new property. It looks like that decision has been made, but it’ll probably be a while before we hear anything else about it.
Transistor launch trailer unmasks four villains ahead of May 20 release
Transistor will be available to download for the PC (through Steam) and PS4 next week. Supergiant Games has kept quiet about much of the game since it was announced last Spring, but a newly released launch trailer has shed a little more light on the hybrid action/strategy RPG.
Narrated by the Transistor itself (Logan Cunnignham, also the voice that guides the player in Supergiant’s Bastion), four faces are introduced as the villains of the piece for the first time. These characters don’t have names yet, but their inclusion gives a deeper look into Transistor’s dystopian world.
According to Supergiant’s Greg Kasavin, the shroud of secrecy around Transistor was deliberate. Speaking to the PlayStation Blog, he said: “Our feeling is that the less you know going into a game like Transistor, the more likely it is to surprise you. And we think experiencing genuine surprise is one of the rarest and most pleasurable sensations that games can provide.”
Kasavin also used the PS Blog post to tease Transistor’s Recursion Mode, a “New Game Plus” mode that opens after the player completes the story. In Recursion Mode, players will retain their User Level and Transistor Customization while experiencing a completely different resistance from enemies and “some new surprises” in the game itself.
Recursion Mode… a Second Quest if you will.
Posted in News, PC, PS4
Tagged Transistor
Gears of War 4 development is in the “prototype stage” at Black Tusk Studios
Development on Gears of War 4 (or whatever the next Gears of War game will be called) began when Microsoft purchased the rights to the franchise from Epic Games. But just how early in the development cycle is Black Tusk Studios? Studio Manager Rod Fergusson recorded the company’s first Live Podcast to tell us about it.
According to Ferguson, development on Gears of War 4 is in the “concept/prototype stage.” He further explained: “It’s only been 100 days. I can’t go into a lot of depth about a lot of things. This isn’t going to be the place where I announce the name of the next game and all these sorts of things. Obviously it’s going to take some time to get to a point where we can do some stuff like that.”
One takeaway from Fergusson’s first public address should be that Gears of War 4 likely won’t appear at this year’s E3 Expo in any capacity.
But he also sounded enthusiastic about the future of the franchise, saying that he’s a fan of the game’s universe, but that fun trumps lore established in books or comics: “I believe fun is greater than canon. That’s not to say I’m going out of my way to destroy canon, but if I get to a situation that may invalidate a comic book or a book, I’m going to make that fun decision.”
Part of this enthusiasm is due to the fact that most of the developers at Black Tusk have never developed a Gears game before. Fergusson is thrilled that they can bring a fresh eye to a franchise that is pretty set in its ways.
But the developer is also happy about Microsoft’s commitment to Gears, especially the monetary one: “We’re able to push a lot harder in a lot of bigger areas. The franchise can do a lot more now that Microsoft owns the IP; we can expand it’s breadth and do a lot more with it.”
Posted in News, Xbox One
Tagged Gears of War 4
Ubisoft will continue to support PS3/Xbox 360 with new Assassin’s Creed game this Fall
According to Ubisoft, this Fall’s entry in the Assassin’s Creed series, Assassin’s Creed: Unity, is only in development for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One. However, the company’s CEO has declared (during their quarterly financial report) that the PS3 and Xbox 360 will also receive a new Assassin’s Creed game this Fall.
Speaking to investors, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said: “Assassin’s Creed: Unity will be released this fall on Xbox One, PS4, and PC. We have not disclosed our plan yet for the Xbox 360 and PS3 SKUs. We have made it clear that as a company we expect to continue supporting those consoles for the foreseeable future.”
Guillemot’s statement makes it sound like Unity will be released in some form for the PS3 and Xbox 360. However, back in March, Kotaku reported that the publisher had an exclusive Assassin’s Creed game in development for the PS3 and Xbox 360 known as Comet. The game is said to take place in the 1750s and would somehow tie in to the appearance of Haley’s Comet in 1759.
Wouldn’t it be wild if PS3 and Xbox 360 owners get both Comet and Unity?
[Source: EGM Now]
Posted in News, PS3, Xbox 360
Tagged Assassin's Creed: Rogue
Microsoft reveals Halo 5: Guardians and confirms Fall 2015 release date
With this year’s E3 Expo just under a month away, Microsoft has officially re-announced the next Halo game. Halo 5: Guardians will be released exclusively for the Xbox One in Fall 2015, alongside the Steven Spielberg-produced Halo: The Television Series. This launch timeframe is technically a delay, as 343’s Bonnie Ross originally promised that our Halo journey would begin in 2014 during last year’s E3 Expo.
Apparently, we all misunderstood her meaning:
Many fans noted that I was very deliberate with my phrasing on stage at E3 last year. I spoke about a “journey,” rather than a destination – and that journey definitely begins in 2014 with a giant leap, rather than one small step. We’ll give you much more information about our plans for this year at the Xbox E3 2014 Media Briefing on June 9, and we’re confident that Halo fans will be pretty excited about the special plans we have in store.
I’m not sure I believe that. But it is good to know we’ll learn more about Halo 5: Guardians, which is being built with a “brand new and more powerful” engine, during E3. Ross also stated that Halo 5 will be a bigger game, in terms of both content and scope, than Halo 4. The 343 team wants to take everything they learned in creating the Master Chief’s previous adventure, “technology, aesthetics, performance and scale,” and expand on it for Guardians.
As for Halo: The Television Series, it will stand alone, but it is also meant to “complement and enrich the game experience” of Halo 5. We may find out a bit more about it during this year’s E3 Expo, but we’ll most likely have to wait until closer to the show’s Fall 2015 debut.
Posted in Etcetera, News, Xbox One
Tagged E3 2014, Halo 5: Guardians
TitanFall stomps the competition yet again as the best-selling game of April 2014
After selling 925,000 copies in March, TitanFall continued to roll over the competition at retail as the NPD Group crowned it the best-selling game of April 2014 as well.
The remainder of the top ten was made up almost entirely of games released last Fall including Call of Duty: Ghosts (#2), NBA 2K14 (#3), and Lego The Hobbit (#5). Amazingly, Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition continues to hang out in the top five, landing at #4 for the month of April. That ranking may improve next month now that the retail version of Minecraft: PlayStation 3 Edition is available. And speaking of things that are amazing, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was the only other April release to crack the top ten (it was #8).
Finally, according to Joystiq, Sony’s PlayStation 4 can lay claim to the next-generation consoles sales title for another month. That makes four in a row for the PS4.
The complete top ten list for April 2014 can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in 3DS, News, PC, PS3, PS4, Vita, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, Call of Duty: Ghosts, Grand Theft Auto V, Lego Marvel Super Heroes, Lego The Hobbit, Minecraft, NBA 2K14, NPD, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, The Lego Movie, TitanFall
Newton, Sherman show why they’re #1 seeds in first round of Madden NFL 15 Cover Vote
Voting is complete for the first round of the Madden NFL 15 Cover Vote. Some were close and some most certainly were not, but the higher seed came away with a victory in almost every matchup. The lone upset was Luke Kuechly’s victory over Denver’s Demaryius Thomas. His win earns him the right to go up against Colin Kaepernick, the #2 seed of the left bracket.
Cam Newton and Richard Sherman, the tournaments #1 seeds, showed why EA Sports thinks so highly of them. Sherman won his matchup against Alshon Jeffery with 73% of the vote while Newton clobbered Pittsburgh’s Antonio Brown 80%-20%. Here’s what the remaining matchups look like heading into Round 2:
Left Bracket
(1) Richard Sherman (CB, Seattle Seahawks)
(4) Jimmy Graham (TE, New Orleans Saints)
(2) Colin Kaepernick (QB, San Francisco 49ers)
(6) Luke Kuechly (LB, Carolina Panthers)
Right Side
(1) Cam Newton (QB, Carolina Panthers)
(4) Jamaal Charles (RB, Kansas City Chiefs)
(2) Andrew Luck (QB, Indianapolis Colts)
(3) LeSean McCoy (RB, Philadelphia Eagles)
Second round voting will remain open until next Thursday, May 22.