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)
Most Recent: Articles
Outlast Review: House on Haunted Thrill
For a few years, I worked at a haunted house during the Halloween season. My job was, as one would expect, to scare the patrons. It was a great gig, and I have some fond memories of really freaking people out. But it wasn’t all about standing in a corner and jumping out at the most opportune time. There’s a real science behind the perfect scare. You need to be meticulous in your planning by first creating a sense of uneasiness, then instilling dread and fear, and finally, delivering the scare.
Horror games follow a similar process. For example, the dog jumping through the window in Resident Evil is one of the most famous video game scares. Things were already very spooky when you first stepped into that mansion. As you continued, fear crept in, as you knew that something was waiting for you around that corner. Then, when that zombified doberman finally crashes through the glass, it really hits you hard. Some of the better survival horror games follow this formula pretty religiously, creating some pretty intense experiences.
Outlast already has a pretty faithful following among the PC crowd. As a console-specific gamer (my PC can barely run The 7th Guest), I’ve only heard a few things about the game on various gaming forums. The sentiment was almost universal – this is one of the scariest games ever made. Now that I finally got a chance to play through the console version, I can say that I definitely agree with those sentiments. (more…)
Supergiant’s Transistor will be playable at PAX East 2014
Supergiant Games has confirmed that Transistor will be playable at this year’s PAX East expo:
@StrifeCross We're planning to go to PAX East and have Transistor playable there.
— Supergiant Games (@SupergiantGames) February 18, 2014
Transistor made its public debut during last year’s PAX East show. In addition to touting one of the longest lines of the entire expo, the game’s booth featured visits from Logan Cunningham (the voice behind the titular Transistor), Darren Korb (Supergiant’s in-house music man), and lead developer Greg Kasavin during the weekend. In June, Sony revealed that Transistor would exclusively launch on the PC and PS4 in early 2014.
While we know that Transistor will be playable at PAX East 2014, whoever is behind Supergiant’s Twitter feed has so far ignored tweets asking if the game will be released before or after April 11, the first day of the convention.
Posted in News, PC, PS4
Tagged PAX East 2014, Transistor
Irrational Games will close as Ken Levine wants to focus on a smaller studio
Ken Levine, the Creative Director of Irrational Games, has announced that he has begun “winding down” operations at the studio “as [we] know it.” Since completing work on the BioShock trilogy, Levine has begun writing the screenplay for a Logan’s Run remake for Warner Bros. He has also thought long and hard about the games he wants to make in the future:
While I’m deeply proud of what we’ve accomplished together, my passion has turned to making a different kind of game than we’ve done before. To meet the challenge ahead, I need to refocus my energy on a smaller team with a flatter structure and a more direct relationship with gamers. In many ways, it will be a return to how we started: a small team making games for the core gaming audience.
In time we will announce a new endeavor with a new goal: To make narrative-driven games for the core gamer that are highly replayable. To foster the most direct relationship with our fans possible, we will focus exclusively on content delivered digitally.
So what does this mean for Irrational Games? First, the majority of the studio’s staff will be laid off in the coming weeks. Many will move to different teams within Take-Two’s corporate structure and Irrational will hold a recruiting day for developers interested in catching on with an outside studio. According to Levine, about 15 members of the Irrational team will remain with the studio after the layoffs are complete. As for the BioShock series, Levine has revealed that it is now fully in the hands of Take-Two. What this means for the currently-in-limbo BioShock Vita or the eventual BioShock 4 is unknown as this time.
There’s no timetable on when Levine will announce what he’s up to next. But hopefully it’s sooner rather than later. Levine’s complete letter can be found at Irrational’s homepage.
Posted in News
Take “The Pledge” to join The Order 1886 in new trailer
Since its public debut, the PlayStation 4-exclusive The Order 1886 has been causing a stir amongst Sony fans looking for the system’s first truly next-gen, must-buy title. Now, the company has released a stonking new trailer that reveals more about the mysterious order of knights and their mission a technologically advanced Victorian London.
The game’s developer, Ready At Dawn, has taken a leaf from Naughty Dog with this new trailer, in which a gruff narrator talks while the camera glides through time, chasing a mysterious black ooze that seems to represent the evil forces players will face. Eagled-eyed viewers will spot various references and clues about the game hidden within the texts and newspapers that flash by. It comes to a head with a sneak peak at two of the knights, a young female and the moustached protagonist from the original reveal. As he says, “I think we should be prepared for anything.”
The Order 1886 will be released this Fall.
Posted in News, PS4
Tagged The Order: 1886
PS4 install base has surpassed 5.3 million
Another month, another update from Sony on the sales statistics for their PlayStation 4 console. According to internal reporting, which is current as of February 8, the company has now sold 5.3 million PS4 systems worldwide since the console launched in November 2013.
“I am thrilled that so many customers around the globe have continued to select PS4 as the best place to play throughout and beyond the holiday season,” said Andrew House, President and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment. “We are delighted that according to the NPD Group’s latest data, PS4 was January’s top-selling console in the United States. The PS4 system’s momentum just keeps growing stronger, and we are extremely grateful for the continued passion and support of PlayStation fans.”
Sony’s new PS4 sales total is an increase of 1.1 million consoles over their last announcement in January (for sales through December 28, 2013). And the system’s acceptance should only grew from here as the PS4 is scheduled to launch in Japan this Saturday, February 22.
Daily Scoop: February 17, 2014 – Post-IndieCade coma
It’s Monday, and I’m home after a long, wonderful weekend in New York City at IndieCade East. It was a blast! I’ll have more for you over the next few days, so stay tuned!
In the meantime, you can check out the Humble Weekly Bundle for some IndieCade games! Pay what you want for And Yet it Moves, chapters 1, 2, and 3 of The Dream Machine, and Luxuria Superbia. Pay $6 or more for Dear Esther, The Bridge, and 7 Grand Steps.
There are some sales at the Humble Store as well. You can get Cubetractor for $2.49, and you can also get early access to Starwhal: Just the Tip for $9.99. Finally, the Daily Deal at Steam is Guns of Icarus Online, which is just $3.74 today. Scoop ’em up!
There are a few good shirts up today for you video game-t-shirt aficionados:
Posted in Daily Scoop, Etcetera, News
Harmonix is developing Chroma, a music-based arena FPS
Back in 2012, Harmonix began hiring developers to work on a “combat game.” Today, they lifted the lid on Chroma, a free-to-play, first-person, multiplayer shooter for the PC. If this sounds a bit out of Harmonix’s wheelhouse, then you should also know that in Chroma, “Music is Your Weapon.” Hopefully, Harmonix will explain what that means sooner rather than later.
Harmonix has partnered with Hidden Path Entertainment (Counter-Strike: Global Offensive) to bring the game to Steam sometime this year. Players will be able to choose from multiple from character classes and form a “band” with their teammates to take on their opponents. Also, a “Change Up” system will unleash major moments that “dramatically alter the landscape of the battlefield in real time both physically and strategically, raising sniper towers, adding cover, and more in sync with the music.”
“Chroma has been a dream project of mine for some time,” said Harmonix co-founder and CEO Alex Rigopulos. “Watching the teams at Harmonix and Hidden Path begin to bring this vision to life has been tremendously exciting. We’re also thrilled to release an alpha version of this game and to evolve it in collaboration with our players. We can’t wait to hear what people think of this new approach to both first-person shooters and music games.”
Harmonix plans to offer players early access to Chroma through a closed alpha later this year. You can apply to enter the alpha right here.
Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark will be released this Summer
The continuity snarl that is the Transformers franchise makes the last half-century of Marvel and DC storytelling look neat and ordered by comparison. The series is rife with alternate universes and the executives in charge of this narrative morass have attempted to merge, split, and remerge the storyline since the 1980s.
The latest attempt at building an all-purpose Transformers universe is Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark, the latest game adaptation of the long-running series from Activision. According to GameSpot, Rise of the Dark Spark will merge High Moon’s War For Cybertron/Fall of Cybertron continuity with Michael Bay’s Transformers films to tie-in with this Summer’s Age of Extinction. Sadly, High Moon won’t be developing the game. Instead, Activision has enlisted Edge of Reality to create the PC, PS3, PS4, Wii U, Xbox 360, and Xbox One game. WayForward Technologies will develop a handheld version of the game for the 3DS.
Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark will be released this Summer to coincide with the theatrical opening of Transformers: Age of Extinction.