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: PC
Bethesda has no plans to remake Oblivion or Morrowind; Skyrim Special Edition was a “one-off”
Bethesda will probably forever be linked with the Elder Scrolls franchise, but the publisher has spent the better part of a decade branching out beyond the RPG genre. And after launching games like Dishonored, Doom, and Wolfenstein: The New Order, they’ve begun to present themselves to the public as a place for all genres… and high production values. But according to Pete Hines, this desire to move in new directions make it unlikely that Bethesda will ever look to the past to create remakes of Oblivion or Morrowind.
Speaking to Xbox: The Official Magazine (via GamesRadar), Hines said that the Skyrim Special Edition was a “one-off” born out of a very unique set of circumstances:
OXM: You’ve got some big-name games and you’ve never really fallen into the remake culture that a lot of people are getting into. Skyrim Special Edition feels like a one-off. Would you say that’s true, are you more about moving forward?
Hines: Generally speaking, yeah. We did one for Dishonored but that was a unique case where it was a new IP at the very end of the last generation of consoles. So remastering it and bringing it to this gen wasn’t a ton of work and it made a lot of sense given the proximity of those two. Skyrim was more about the work that Bethesda Game Studios had done in the early days of getting ready for Fallout 4 on this generation of consoles – moving the Skyrim engine and doing some work to run it on this generation of consoles just to see how it worked, and so forth, before they started doing all their Fallout stuff. It’s the most recent thing they did.
Instead of remaking past titles, Hines said that Bethesda’s culture is very much focused on creating “something new”:
Hines:But these things take time, it takes effort and manpower. Generally speaking, our approach has usually been that instead of spending all this time on a thing we’ve already made, why don’t we instead spend that effort on something new, or on the next version of that thing?
One of those new things that Bethesda is working on is The Elder Scrolls 6. However, Studio Director Todd Howard said “it’s a very long way off” back in June.
Posted in PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Microsoft officially cancels Platinum’s Scalebound
Earlier this morning, we heard rumblings that Microsoft was thinking about canceling Platinum’s Scalebound. The game’s “hostile world” and “formidable dragon” were originally unveiled during the 2014 E3 Expo with a cinematic trailer, but the public hasn’t heard much about it since. And now it looks like we never will.
In a short statement to Eurogamer, Microsoft confirmed that Scalebound has officially been canceled:
After careful deliberation, Microsoft Studios has come to the decision to end production for Scalebound. We’re working hard to deliver an amazing lineup of games to our fans this year, including Halo Wars 2, Crackdown 3, State of Decay 2, Sea of Thieves and other great experiences.
According to Eurogamer’s earlier report, it appears that Scalebound was the victim of an overly ambitious design and scheduling problems:
Work on the game took a serious knock last autumn, Eurogamer sources say, when several senior members of the development team were forced to take a month away from the pressure of the project’s heavy workload.
These project members then returned, but Scalebound was now behind schedule. With continuing issues surrounding the game’s engine and overdue deadlines, the decision was made that the project could no longer continue.
As they said in their statement, Microsoft has several other games lined up for release in 2017. Hopefully, we’ll hear more about them soon.
Posted in News, PC, Xbox One
Tagged Scalebound
2017 IGF Awards nominees include Hyper Light Drifter, Inside, Stardew Valley, more
The Independent Games Festival has announced the finalists for this year’s IGF Awards, and it should come as no surprise that critical darlings such as Hyper Light Drifter and Inside have scored multiple nominations. But leading the way is Variable State’s Virigina, which received four nominations (“Best Audio,” “Excellence in Narrative,” “Excellence in Visual Art,” and “The Nuovo Award”) and an Honorable Mention for the “Seumas McNally Grand Prize.”
Other games in competition for the IGF’s “Grand Prize” include the aforementioned Hyper Light Drifter and Inside, along with Concerned Ape’s Stardew Valley, Blendo Games’s Quadrilateral Cowboy, Ocelot Society’s Event[0], and Ghost Town Games’s Overcooked.
The 2017 IGF Awards ceremony will be hosted by developer Nina Freeman on March 1. Fans will be able to tune in to the Twitch channel for the Game Developers Conference to watch the show, and GDC attendees will be able to test out every nominated game at the IGF Pavilion area on the expo floor.
A complete list of the nominees and honorable mentions for the 2017 Independent Games Festival Awards can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in Mobile, News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged GDC 2017, Hyper Light Drifter, Inside, Stardew Valley
Valve is adding Xbox One/Xbox 360 controller support to every game on Steam
Most games on Steam will support Valve’s fancy new Steam Controller and a variety of other controllers, including those packaged with the Xbox One, Xbox 360, and PS4. But the next Steam Client Update will include the option to use Xbox One and Xbox 360 controllers with any game on Steam.
The update is currently in beta testing, and here’s the relevant entry from the Patch Notes:
Added Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Generic X-Input controller configurator support. This allows all recognized controller types to use the advanced mapping features of the Steam Controller Configurator. Note that because X-Input currently lacks per-controller means of unique identification, all controllers of that type will share personalization and configuration settings. As they share the same inputs, Xbox 360/One/Generic controllers will all see each-others configurations when browsing. Automatic conversion will be attempted when loading configurations from other controller types.
It’s unknown when the update allowing Xbox One/Xbox 360 controller support for all games will be released to the public, but you can learn more about how to opt-in to Steam’s Beta Client by visiting the Steam Client Beta Group.
Warp Zoned’s 2016 Golden Pixel Awards: A Look Back at the Year in Video Games
In a very real way, the game industry wiped the slate clean in 2016.
After nearly a decade of development difficulties, Square Enix unleashed Final Fantasy XV on the world. Fumito Ueda and Sony Japan Studio overcame similar troubles to finally release The Last Guardian. Id Software shook off the past and was reborn after the launch of the fourth game in the Doom franchise. Blizzard closed the book on their failed “Titan Project” with the release of Overwatch. Naughty Dog said goodbye to Nathan Drake, but gamers said hello to altered realities that were both “augmented” and “virtual.” Nintendo found new kingdoms to conquer with Super Mario Run. And the launch of No Man’s Sky taught us that while the hype machine sometimes fails to deliver, the chance for a brighter tomorrow is always there.
But before we venture off into that great unknown, let’s look back at some of gaming’s highlights from 2016. (more…)
Posted in 3DS, Etcetera, Features, Mobile, PC, PS4, Top Story, Xbox One
Tagged Dangerous Golf, Dark Souls III, Doom (2016), Dragon Quest Builders, Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of the Forgotten Past, Final Fantasy XV, Hyper Light Drifter, No Man's Sky, Overwatch, Pac-Man Championship Edition 2, Pokemon Go, Pokemon Sun/Moon, Superhot, The Last Guardian, Uncharted 4: A Thief's End
Slightly Mad says Project CARS 2 will be released in “Septemberish”
Slightly Mad’s CEO moves so fast that we missed this bit of news around the end of last year. Replying to a fan on the company’s official forums, CEO Ian Bell confirmed that Project CARS 2 will be released this Fall:
F1_Racer68: It sounds like we are getting pretty close now (7 months of QA would mean potentially a late July/early August possible release? Still inline wiht your original target.).
Bell: It’s still a very tight run as we’re a bit behind on GUI and Career so nothing is set in stone yet. Current guess is Septemberish.
Bell has clearly left himself some wiggle room with his announcement of a “Septemberish” release date for Project CARS 2, but it sounds like the racing simulation should be released for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One by the end of the year.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Project CARS 2
PC/Mac version of Minecraft has sold 25 million copies
A few years ago, Microsoft acquired Mojang, the developers behind Minecraft, for $2.5 billion. That sounds like an absurd number even today, but it’s possible that Microsoft may have gotten a bargain.
Over the weekend, Mojang updated Minecraft’s Sales Statistics page and confirmed that more than 25 million copies of the popular sandbox game have been sold on the PC and Mac platforms. As I write this, the real-time counter has currently ticked up to 25,079,420. Several more copies will be surely purchased by the time I finish writing this news report. And its sales figures will be even higher by the time you finish reading it.
Back in June, Mojang revealed that the game had sold 100 million copies across all platforms… with no signs of slowing down. I think it’s safe to say that Minecraft has become a sales juggernaut. And yes, Microsoft definitely got a bargain.
Mass Effect: Andromeda’s CES 2017 trailer includes a look at combat and menu options
Gaming gadgets became a rare sight at the annual Consumer Electronics Show after the organization of the first E3 Expo in 1995.
But a few companies still make the trek to Las Vegas, and this year, Nvidia offered BioWare a chance to show off the latest Mass Effect: Andromeda gameplay trailer on the big stage. The new trailer features a heavy focus on combat, but fans also got a glimpse at the game’s upgrade tree and menu options.
And in case you missed it yesterday, BioWare confirmed that Mass Effect: Andromeda will be released for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One on March 21.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Mass Effect: Andromeda