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
Battleborn’s first DLC character, Alani, will be available very soon
Gearbox Software is getting ready to release Alani, the first of five free downloadable bonus characters for Battleborn. If you purchased Battleborn’s Digital Deluxe Edition or Season Pass, you’ll be able to play as Alani as early as Tuesday, May 24. Everyone else will be able to download the character a week later, on May 31.
Alani is a Warrior-Monk, who has the ability to heal while also charging into battle like a badass. You can get a look at the character on the game’s official website, and learn more about her backstory right here:
A member of the Eldrid faction who was raised as a healer, but forced to be a warrior, Alani is all that remains of her order after Rendain’s Jennerit Imperium stole the oceans from her world. As a warrior from a planet with vast seas, Alani’s attacks and abilities revolve around her power to control water to dish out pain, or heal her fellow Battleborn.
Gearbox is also introducing “Hero Keys” for Digital Deluxe and Season Pass owners later this month. With a Hero Key, players will be able to instantly unlock any hero in the game, even if they haven’t completed the necessary Challenge Objective or reached the requisite Command Rank. Everyone who participated in the Open Beta on the PS4 will also receive a Hero Key, and access to the first Story DLC Pack.
Finally, Gearbox will host a Double XP Event for Battleborn players all this weekend. The event kicked off a few hours ago and will come to an end on Wednesday, May 25, at 11:00 AM (Eastern Time).
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Battleborn
Poe Dameron is the star of the first Character Trailer from Lego Star Wars: Force Awakens
Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens will bring the beloved franchise back to that galaxy far, far away in just a few weeks, but first the developers are doing their best Han Solo and jumping to lightspeed with a series of brand new Character Trailers. First up is Poe Dameron, the decorated X-Wing pilot played by Oscar Isaac.
Isaac recorded new dialogue for Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens, proving that even a Lego Minifigure can be cocky and charming all at the same time.
Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens will be released for the 3DS, PC, PS3, PS4, Vita, Wii U, Xbox 360, and Xbox One on June 28.
Rockstar is hard at work on multiple projects that will be revealed “soon”
Executives from Take-Two Interactive presented the company’s quarterly financial report to investors yesterday, and they had some very interesting things to say about Rockstar Games.
The famed developer released Grand Theft Auto V in 2013, but since then, they’ve been happy to create additional content for “Grand Theft Auto Online” and re-release some of their older hits on mobile devices and the PS4. Not that this strategy hasn’t paid off, according to Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick, the company has shipped more than 65 million copies of Grand Theft Auto V worldwide since its launch.
However, Zelnick also confirmed that development teams within Rockstar are currently working on multiple new projects, and they will likely be revealed to the public soon: “Rockstar Games is, of course, also hard at work on some exciting future projects that will be revealed soon.” One of these projects is widely assumed to be Red Dead Redemption 2.
The CEO previously told reporters that Take-Two will be in attendance at next month’s E3 Expo “in a big way,” so we probably won’t have to wait too long to find out what Rockstar is up to.
But hold your horses, Zelnick later confirmed that Take-Two’s 2016 release calendar is set in stone, so any new offerings from Rockstar won’t be released until 2017 at the earliest: “We’ve announced the entire release schedule for the year and that’s what you should expect our release schedule to be and that’s what our outlook is based on.”
Is id Software teasing Quake 5? Developer is telling prospective employees they’ll get to work on “franchises like Doom and Quake”
After nearly a decade in development, Doom is now available on store shelves and nostalgic FPS fans are loving its mixture of modern design and retro sensibilities. So the developers at id Software are probably feeling pretty good about themselves. But that hasn’t stopped the company from going on a hiring spree.
More than a dozen job openings at id Software were recently added to Bethesda’s Careers page, and once again, they’re offering prospective employees the chance to work on “legendary game properties like DOOM and QUAKE.” Obviously, this isn’t a guarantee that Quake 5 is in the works at id, but the last time the developer went on a similar headhunting operation was in 2013, about a year before they debuted Doom to a packed house at QuakeCon 2014.
Of course, this is probably just the regular employment churn that occurs at all companies, combined with an HR department too lazy to write up a new job description. But after the amazing return of Doom (and Wolfenstein before it), I am ready for more Quake too.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Doom (2016), Quake Champions
NIS America will bring Phantom Brave to Steam on July 25
Way back in 2004, Phantom Brave was one of the first games released in the States by NIS America. Along with Disgaea, it helped establish the NIS America label and allowed the publisher to spread their unique brand of strategy RPGs throughout the world.
Phantom Brave takes place on Ivoire, the small island that a lonely girl named Marona calls home. An orphan since she was very young, Marona uses her special “Chroma” ability to speak to phantoms and complete tasks for the other islanders. This gift has come in handy over the years, but the optimistic Marona, and her ghostly companion Ash, are about to embark on their biggest adventure yet.
The Steam version of Phantom Brave will be based on the 2009 Wii re-release, but it’ll also include the bonus content created for the 2011 PSP re-release. And don’t worry, support for Steam Trading Cards, Achievements, and Cloud Saves will be also be part of Phantom Brave’s PC debut.
Hanzo and Genji are the “Dragons” at the center of Blizzard’s latest Overwatch short
With Overwatch just a week away, Blizzard has released a new animated short to give players further insight into the lives of Hanzo and Genji. I don’t want to spoil anything, so let me just suggest that if you liked the Winston and Tracer shorts, you should drop everything and watch this one too.
Overwatch, Blizzard’s upcoming MOBA-like arena shooter, will be released for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One on May 24.
Kickstart This! Lynn and the Spirits of Inao
UPDATE: The Kickstarter campaign for Lynn and the Spirits of Inao has been canceled after allegations that Bloomylight Studio illegally refused to pay a group of interns who helped develop the game. More information is available in this post on Reddit and in an update to the campaign.
ORIGINAL ARTICLE: Welcome back, potential crowdfunding donors, to the weekly Kickstart This! This week’s focus is on Lynn and the Spirits of Inao, a magical platformer courtesy of Bloomylight Studio. It had some stiff competition, namely from Pirates of the Polygon Sea by Praxia Entertainment, which is a fast-paced, cartoony version of the sailing sections in Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag. There’s also 80s arcade space shooter Dystoria, which piqued my interests with its retro style, but also looked like a retread of The Last Starfighter.
So let’s see why Lynn and the Spirits of Inao won me over… (more…)
Bethesda commissioned a chainsaw artist to create a sculpture of Doom’s Revenant
It’s not uncommon for a publisher to create a life-size statue of a larger-than-life character to show off at fan conventions. I remember Sega being especially proud of the absolutely massive Power Loader they created for Aliens: Colonial Marines when it was on the con circuit. So I guess it’s not really news that Bethesda asked Australian artist Rob Bast to create a similar statue for Doom…
Except they asked him to use a CHAINSAW.
It took Bast more than 130 hours (and eight different CHAINSAWS) to carve the imposing Revenant out of cypress wood, and Bethesda recorded the whole process to give fans a closer look at the incredibly intricate design…
Which, again, was created with a CHAINSAW.
After nearly a decade in development, Doom was released this past Friday for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One. And if you live in Australia, Rob Bast’s Revenant sculpture is currently available for viewing at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image in Melbourne.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Doom (2016)