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
- With Grand Theft Auto 6 poised to take over the world, I reached out to Jack Thompson and it did not go well – PC Gamer (2026)
- Vib-Ribbon: An oral history – Design Room (2026)
- How a Second-Grade Teacher Revived a Beloved Video Game – The New York Times (2026)
- Spore: An oral history – Design Room (2026)
- Diablo IV PC Cooled With Real Human Blood Is Still Going Strong Two Years Later, Says Guy Who Won It – Aftermath (2026)
Most Recent: PC
First Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment trailer will premiere tonight during The Game Awards
Host Geoff Keighley has promised plenty of surprises for this year’s Game Awards, but another eager developer has spilled the beans on a World Premiere trailer we’ll get a peak at tonight. In a short tweet, Yacht Club Games confirmed they’ll debut a new trailer for their next project during the show:
Want to see the latest on what we've been making here at Yacht Club Games?
Watch @thegameawards
12/1 at 5:30pm PT and reap what we show!— Yacht Club Games (@YachtClubGames) November 30, 2016
While it’s possible that Yacht Club will unveil something brand new, the pun-loving developers are most likely referring to Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment with that “reap what we show” line. Specter of Torment will be the second (of three) planned expansions for Shovel Knight, and it’s currently on track for a Spring 2017 launch on the 3DS, PC, PS3, PS4, Vita, Wii U, and Xbox One.
The 2016 Game Awards will be held tonight at 8:30 PM (Eastern Time), and you can watch the show at TheGameAwards.com.
Posted in 3DS, Mobile, News, PC, PS3, PS4, Vita, Wii U, Xbox One
Tagged Game Awards 2016, Shovel Knight, Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment
Red Dead Redemption will be added to PlayStation Now next week
It’s been a “Good” year for fans of Red Dead Redemption. The wildly popular western was originally released for the PS3 and Xbox 360 back in 2010, and Rockstar announced that a sequel, Red Dead Redemption 2, will be available next year. But the publisher has also kept the original in the spotlight thanks to its addition to the Xbox One Backwards Compatibility list in July, and its pending launch on Sony’s PlayStation Now service.
According to Rockstar, Red Dead Redemption (and its zombie-themed expansion, Undead Nightmare) will be available to stream through the PlayStation Now service on the PS4 and PC beginning on December 6. Believe it or not, but this will be the first time that PC players will have the chance to try out Red Dead Redemption.
Sony’s PlayStation Now service currently offers more than 450 titles to stream on the PS4 and PC. Subscription plans start at $19.99 (for one month) and discounts are available when signing up for a multi-month subscription.
Posted in News, PC, PS3, PS4
Tagged Red Dead Redemption
Lego Worlds will be available for PC, PS4, Xbox One on February 21
Lego Worlds is currently available in Early Access for the PC, but WB Games recently announced that the full version of the game will launch on February 21, 2017.
Console players will be happy to learn the open world adventure game will also be released for the PS4 and Xbox One on the same day. In addition to its console debut, a special Agents DLC Pack (featuring new characters, vehicles, weapons, and more from the Agents line) will be available exclusively on the PS4 for a limited time.
In Lego Worlds, players uncover hidden treasures in environments that range from fun to the fantastical, where worlds come to life with a dizzying variety of vehicles and creatures – from cowboys riding giraffes to vampires scaring Yetis, to steamrollers, racing cars, and colossal digging machines. Gamers can embark on a quest to become a Master Builder by helping other Lego characters along the way – find a sword for a king, protect a farmer from a zombie invasion, or build a home for a caveman.
Environments and creations are brought to life in any way fans can imagine, either by building brick by brick, placing down enormous pre-built Lego structures, or by using wondrous tools that let you paint and shape the landscape. Lego Worlds’ online multiplayer functionality allows players to explore each other’s worlds together, create together, and engage in cooperative and competitive play experiences that players can build themselves.
Lego Worlds is in development at TT Games, and the developer’s Jonathan Smith has promised that players will have “the freedom to create anything imaginable” in the game. A new trailer showcasing the many ways players can experience Lego Worlds has been embedded above.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Lego Worlds
Gigantic’s Open Beta will begin on December 8 on Xbox One and Windows 10
Motiga and Perfect World have announced that an Open Beta for their free-to-play MOBA, Gigantic, will begin on December 8 for Xbox One and Windows 10 players.
Gigantic is a 5v5 game where players attack their opponent’s massive Guardian while attempting to defend their own. The Open Beta will offer cross-platform play between Xbox One and Windows 10 players, as well as three maps (“Siren’s Stand,” “Ghost Reef,” and “Sanctum Falls”) and a weekly rotation of six heroes (out of 16).
“With Gigantic, we are trying to create an entirely new competitive experience. Throughout development, Gigantic has gotten attention for its unique art style, whimsical setting and fast-paced gameplay, but our goal has always been something more,” said James Phinney, the Vice President of Product Development at Motiga. “We’ve sought to build a game full of intense moments and meaningful strategic choices, where there are many paths to victory and it’s always possible to come back and win.”
One final Closed Beta test will be held this weekend, and participants can join a match from Thursday, December 1 at 12:00 PM (Eastern Time) through Monday, December 5 at 3:00 AM (Eastern Time).
Users of Perfect World’s Arc Games platform will be able to join the Open Beta at a “to-be determined date” sometime after December 8.
New footage from Nintendo’s Zelda: Breath of the Wild and 2K’s Prey will debut during the 2016 Game Awards
The 2016 Game Awards are just a few days away, and in addition to crowning this year’s “Game of the Year,” host Geoff Keighley will also introduce a handful of World Premiere trailers featuring some of 2017’s biggest games.
Yesterday, we learned the names of two more games that’ll get a few minutes in the spotlight courtesy of the awards show… Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and 2K’s Prey:
Catch @thegameawards on 12/1 for an exclusive look at The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. pic.twitter.com/JkJjeoeUlO
— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) November 28, 2016
Don’t miss the worldwide debut of new #Prey gameplay @thegameawards Tune-in Thursday night at https://t.co/u70K4l9Oyx and Alter Your Reality pic.twitter.com/d0tjKqxZfM
— Geoff Keighley (@geoffkeighley) November 28, 2016
The 2016 Game Awards will kick off at 8:30 PM (Eastern Time) on Thursday, December 1. Keighley has promised the night will be full of surprises and the host previously confirmed that BioWare will also take the stage this year to debut the first gameplay footage from Mass Effect: Andromeda.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Switch, Wii U, Xbox One
Tagged Game Awards 2016, Prey (2017), The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Kickstart This! Ariel
If you didn’t notice, there hasn’t been a new Kickstart This! in over a month, mostly because John works us all far too hard (joke), but largely because the column was becoming a bit hum-drum. Kickstarter has started to feel less like a creative space for games that could not find life with a traditional publisher, and more like a graveyard for great ideas poorly sold, or a junkyard for half-baked ideas that had not been given time to mature.
I had heard Kickstarter was also going to be updating the crowdfunding platform in a “major” way. This turned out to be more than a lick of paint, which, as an aside, the site has received – it runs a lot smoother and the and the options are much clearer now.
The big change turned out to be Kickstarter Live, which launched on the 1st of November. It allows creators to host a live broadcast, and to field questions from potential backers in the comments section. The benefits of this should not be underplayed. Audience engagement is one of the toughest nuts to crack when raising funds via crowdfunding. While project updates offer people news, being able to interact with backers on the same platform, instead of hosting an AMA on Reddit or a Facebook Live broadcast, especially in the early days of a campaign, means that you can rally your troops and harness that momentum more easily.
Speaking of rallying the troops, the world has change quite a bit over the last few weeks, and Kickstarter is no different. With a wave of protests and a renewed sense of charity sweeping the globe in response to recent world events, Kickstarter temporarily changed their front page in support.
And in honor of Kickstarter’s expansion into Mexico, we’re looking at Ariel, a video game developed south of the border, this week. (more…)
Celebrate the holidays with this Dead Rising 4-themed Yule Log
Have you sat down to watch a Yule Log video and thought… “This needs more zombies”?
Well, today’s your lucky day! Microsoft and Capcom have teamed up to produce a special Dead Rising 4-themed Yule Log video starring Frank West, his light-up baseball bat, and a whole mess of zombie limbs roasting on an open fire.
Dead Rising 4 will be available as an Xbox Play Anywhere title for the PC and Xbox One on December 6.
Posted in News, PC, Xbox One
Tagged Dead Rising 4
No Man’s Sky “Foundation Update” is now available… and it includes a lot of new content
As promised, Hello Games has released the “Foundation Update” (Version 1.1) for No Man’s Sky. The update, which will be the first of many free updates, includes all of the new base-building options the developer talked about on Friday… along with a few surprises.
In addition to building a homestead, Version 1.1 of No Man’s Sky will allow players to create a Hydroponic Lab within their base and grow different plants. These plants will provide “a steady supply of resources” and eventually lead to the discovery of new resource elements. And for players who want to venture away from their base, they’ll be able to make camp anywhere with Save Points and color-coded Waypoints.
However, if you’d prefer to always be on the move, players can purchase a Freighter to move large amounts of resources across the galaxy. Freighters can also be crewed by three other characters to research new technologies. And speaking of resources, the “Foundation Update” will also add new biome and star-specific resource types to the game, as well as a simplified user interface.
But the biggest change to No Man’s Sky is the addition of three new game modes, including a brutal (and “much more challenging”) Survival Mode:
- Normal Mode is the original chilled exploration experience
- Creative Mode allows players to explore the universe without limits, and build a huge base
- Survival Mode really changes the game, creating a much more challenging endurance experience
A trailer offering more details about No Man’s Sky’s “Foundation Update” is embedded above, and the full Patch Notes can be found at the game’s official website.
Posted in News, PC, PS4
Tagged No Man's Sky