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
New Releases: Quantum Break, Dirt Rally, RBI Baseball 16, More
Remedy Entertainment ends their hiatus this week with the release of the time-bending Quantum Break on the PC and Xbox One. The game, which also includes a series of live-action interludes starring Shawn Ashmore, Dominic Monaghan, and Aidan Gillen, will also be available as part of the Quantum Break + Xbox One 500GB Console Bundle. And all versions of Quantum Break will come packaged with a digital download of Remedy’s previous game, Alan Wake.
Also available this week is Dirt Rally, the latest entry in Codemasters’s popular offroad rally racing franchise. Available for the PC since December, Dirt Rally’s launch on the PS4 and Xbox One adds a number of new features including Classic Mini and Super 1600 series races, 21 Advanced Rally Driving Video Guides, the Pikes Peak course, and more.
Athletes of a different sort will compete in another of this week’s new releases, RBI Baseball 16. The rebooted baseball sim will get its first-ever retail release this week on the PS4 and Xbox One.
Finally this week, first-person adventure Ether One will launch for the PS4, and Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Chronicles series of side-scrolling spinoffs will come to the Vita.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Vita, Xbox One
Tagged Dirt Rally, Quantum Break, RBI Baseball 2016
Graceful Explosion Machine is a dreamy shooter with a great name
Vertex Pop’s first game, We Are Doomed, was a dreamy take on Geometry Wars. Yesterday, the developer announced their second game, Graceful Explosion Machine… a dreamy take on Defender.
In addition to being a great name for a starship, Graceful Explosion Machine is a game that asks players to dash back and forth across a 2D field, blasting baddies along the way with a number of different weapons.
Graceful Explosion Machine will be released for PC and consoles in early 2017, but Vertex Pop plans to bring a playable demo of the game to this month’s PAX East convention (April 22-24) as part of the Indie Megabooth area.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Graceful Explosion Machine, PAX East 2016
Hitman: Episode Two will be available on April 26
IO Interactive has revealed (via Twitter) that the second chapter in their episodic Hitman series will be released on April 26:
Episode Two.
Sapienza.
April 26. pic.twitter.com/8I3qYVcDCu— HITMAN (@Hitman) March 31, 2016
Agent 47’s second mission will take him to Sapienza, a fictional coastal town in Italy. Further details on the famed assassin’s Italian trip are currently pretty scarce, but we did enjoy the Intro Pack quite a bit. However, IO’s marketing tactics haven’t gotten any better over the years.
This live-action Doom trailer will prepare you to “Fight Like Hell”
Doom‘s Closed Beta kicks off tonight, and publisher Bethesda wants to prepare everyone for the carnage to come with a brand new live-action trailer for the game. Joe Kosinski (who also directed Oblivion and Tron: Legacy populates Mars with Imps, Cacodemons, Barons of Hell, and all the rest of Doom’s demonic forces. It might be a slightly less-than-typical trip to the Red Planet, but don’t worry, Doomguy’s got this.
Doom will be released for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One on May 13. And if nothing else, this trailer gives me hope that some Hollywood types could eventually produce an amazing film adaptation of id Software’s seminal shooter.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Doom (2016)
Second Call of Duty: Black Ops III DLC Pack, Eclipse, will launch for PS4 on April 19
Activision and Treyarch have announced the second downloadable expansion for Call of Duty: Black Ops III will launch next month. The Eclipse DLC Pack will include four new multiplayer maps (including one based on CoD: World At War‘s “Banzai”) and a new chapter in the Zombies saga:
- Spire: Spire takes Multiplayer combat to a futuristic sub-orbital airport terminal set high in the clouds. Multiple levels and open areas promote intense, mid-range combat around a clean, high-tech civilian environment. Watch your step, because one wrong move could send you plummeting back through the stratosphere.
- Rift: Head to the core of a harsh futuristic military complex, set high above an active caldera. Rift funnels and forces tight, intense engagements, where the only way through is forward. Utilize the unique core movement opportunities to outsmart and outplay enemies as you traverse the suspended rail system.
- Knockout: Housed in a traditional Shaolin Temple with a retro twist, Knockout sets the stage for a bloody Kung Fu tournament. This mid-sized map showcases a sharp contrast between the mid-range engagements of the traditional exterior architecture and the tight close-quarters of an eclectic 1970’s styled interior.
- Verge: In this re-imagination of the classic Call of Duty: World At War map, “Banzai,” Verge drops Multiplayer combat into the center of a distant post-apocalyptic future, where two warring factions are entrenched in constant battle. Take control of the key bridge, fortresses, tunnel systems and waterfalls as you engage in high-speed action through this medium-sized map.
Eclipse also sets the stage for “Zetsubou No Shima,” the highly-anticipated, all-new entry in the Call of Duty: Black Ops III Zombies storyline that spans the four DLC Map Packs for Black Ops III this year. The Origins characters continue on their mission to stop the zombie apocalypse not only in this universe but in all universes. Our heroes find themselves stranded on a remote Pacific island which is home to the Division 9 facility: a secret biological research lab whose experiments with Element 115 and its effects on human, animal, and plant biology has created horrors beyond belief. “Zetsubou No Shima” features a foliage rich island map including new terrifying zombie enemies, a variety of innovative transport mechanics, more devastating traps and classic Zombies side quests.
The Eclipse DLC Pack will be available for PS4 owners on April 19 as part of the Black Ops III Season Pass or as a standalone download. And if Activision follows their standard operating procedure for Call of Duty DLC, PC and Xbox One owners should be able to download the new maps sometime in late May.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Call of Duty: Black Ops III
Two new Dark Souls III trailers reimagine the game as an animated short and 80s Direct-To-Video schlock
With less than two weeks to go before Dark Souls III‘s launch, Bandai Namco has decided to have a little fun with their marketing materials.
First, the publisher commissioned Eli Roth (the director of Cabin Fever and Hostel) to produce an animated short based on the game’s lore. In “The Witches,” a “lonely knight” comes face-to-face with three witches and attempts to repel their attacks. If you’re at all familiar with the Dark Souls franchise, you can guess how well that goes.
The second video reimagines Dark Souls III as the kind of ridiculous Direct-To-Video flick that haunted the shelves of Blockbuster in the 80s and 90s. You can check out a faux commercial for this “VHS release” after the break.
Dark Souls III will be released for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One on April 12. (more…)
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Dark Souls III
Indie Megabooth will showcase 87 games at PAX East 2016
The Indie Megabooth has announced they’ll provide space on the PAX East show floor for more than 80 developers during this year’s convention.
The PAX East 2016 lineup includes 87 titles, and several of them have previously appeared in our twice-yearly Best of PAX roundup. This year’s PAXpocalypse alumni include 20XX from Batterystaple Games (PAX East 2015), Refactor from NextGen Pants (PAX East 2014), Scale from Cubeheart Games (PAX Prime 2013), and Tumblestone from The Quantum Astrophysicists Guild (PAX East 2014 again). Graceful Explosion Machine, a semi-sequel to Vertex Pop’s We Are Doomed (a PAX Prime 2013 selection) also has a spot in the Indie Megabooth’s Minibooth this year.
Personally, I’m also a huge fan of single-stick shooter Deathstate and heady puzzler Gnog, so be sure to check those two out if you’re attending this year’s PAX East convention, which will be held April 22nd through the 24th.
A complete list of titles included in the PAX East 2016 Indie Megabooth is available after the break. And more information on every one of those games can be found at the group’s official website. (more…)
Posted in Mobile, News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged 20XX, Graceful Explosion Machine, PAX East 2016, Refactor, Tabletop Games, Tumblestone
Square Enix will release a Final Fantasy XV pinball game for mobile devices soon
Square Enix’s epic Final Fantasy XV “Uncovered” event took place a few hours ago, and we’ve got a lot of ground to cover, so let’s get right to it…
The final piece of the Final Fantasy XV transmedia experience is Justice Monsters Five, a pinball game for mobile devices (iOS, Android, and Windows 10).
According to Square Enix, Justice Monsters Five is the favorite pastime of Final Fantasy XV’s main character, Noctis. In fact, he loves Justice Monsters Five so much that Final Fantasy XV players will even be able to man the flippers themselves during breaks in the RPG’s story on the PS4 and Xbox One. In the middle of a war, Noctis somehow finds time for pinball.
Thankfully, in the real world, the mobile version of Justice Monsters Five won’t require players to dodge a warzone. The pinball game will “combine role-playing elements with some of the franchise’s most iconic monsters” and the first trailer has been embedded above.