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
Double Fine partners with Fig to launch crowdfunding campaign for Psychonauts 2
After years of teasing, Tim Schafer and Double Fine Productions are finally ready to announce that development has begun on Psychonauts 2… but wait, there’s a catch.
Like Broken Age and Massive Chalice, Double Fine will partially fund the creation of Psychonauts 2 through a crowdfunding campaign. This time, the development house has teamed up with Fig in an attempt to raise $3.3. million for the game. In addition to the standard crowdfunding reward tiers, backers will also have the opportunity to earn a piece of Psychonauts 2’s profits if they sign up as an Investor through Fig (and if the campaign is successful, of course). Finally, Double Fine has contracted with an external partner to raise the more than $10 million they expect to need for a proper sequel to Psychonauts.
Schafer is quite literally getting the band back together for Psychonauts 2, as multiple members of the original team (including co-writer Erik Wolpaw, artists Peter Chan, Scott Campbell, and Nathan Stapley, composer Peter McConnell, voice actors Richard Horvitz (Raz) and Nicki Rapp (Lili), and voice director Khris Brown) have returned to Double Fine for the sequel. And what a sequel it could be:
In Psychonauts 2, Raz will realize his dreams and visit the Psychonauts Headquarters as a fully established agent. But when he gets there he finds it’s not the perfect place he expected, and he quickly realizes that the Psychonauts need him, more than he needs them.
Psychonauts 2 will feature a new hub world inside Psychonauts HQ. You’ll access new mental worlds as Raz peeks inside the minds of a host of new characters who need his help to combat their inner demons and unravel their deep-seated emotional issues. Raz will hone his secret agent PSI-abilities—and learn new ones too—using them to solve mysteries and uncover evil plots.
If all goes well (and Double Fine has already raised almost a $1 million after in less than a day), Psychonauts 2 will be released for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One sometime in 2018.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Game Awards 2015, Psychonauts 2
The Walking Dead: Michonne is a standalone Telltale Games series that’ll launch in February
Originally announced as a small expansion to The Walking Dead Season 2, Telltale Games revealed that The Walking Dead: Michonne will be released this February as a standalone three-part series during last night’s Game Awards.
Set during Michonne’s previously untold absence from The Walking Dead comic book (issue #126 through #139), Telltale has said that players “will discover what took Michonne away from Rick, Ezekiel, and the rest of her trusted group… and what brought her back.” Samira Wiley (Orange is the New Black‘s Poussey Washington) will portray the character throughout the series.
“We’ve been hard at work on this very special exploration of The Walking Dead universe that will further bridge together our game series with the canon of Robert Kirkman’s comic though one of its most complex characters struggling to maintain her own humanity,” said Kevin Bruner, Co-Founder and CEO of Telltale Games. “Deeply haunted by the decisions of her past, putting players in the role of a character like Michonne to navigate the broken world around her is an experience that feels uniquely Telltale, and something we simply cannot wait for The Walking Dead fans to play.”
Like Telltale’s other Walking Dead adaptations, The Walking Dead: Michonne is in development for the PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and mobile devices.
Posted in Mobile, News, PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Game Awards 2015, The Walking Dead: Michonne
Mortal Kombat X’s Kombat Pack 2 includes Leatherface, Xenomorph, Tri-Borg, Bo Rai Cho
NetherRealm’s Mortal Kombat X is going to get even crazier in 2016 (and stepping ever closer to Ed Boon’s proposed slasher movie fighting game).
After this year’s Kombat Pack added Jason Voorhees and The Predator to the game, next year’s Kombat Pack 2 is going to double down on horror icons. The new downloadable expansion will see the chainsaw-wielding Leatherface (from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) and Alien‘s Xenomorph burst into the Mortal Kombat arena. Interestingly, the Xenomorph in Kombat Pack 2 will use Baraka as its host, so the Tarkatan’s arm blades made it through the metamorphosis. I’ll give you a moment to get giddy at the possibilities of an Alien with Baraka’s arm blades.
Also included in Kombat Pack 2 will be classic Mortal Kombat characters Bo Rai Cho, the “master of the drunken fist,” and the cyborgs, (Cyrax, Sektor, and Robot Smoke), who have merged together to form Tri-Borg.
All four characters from Mortal Kombat X’s Kombat Pack 2 are expected to be released early next year.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Game Awards 2015, Mortal Kombat X
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt wins Game of the Year at 2015 Game Awards
After racking up more nominations than any other title, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt easily waltzed away with the “Game of the Year” prize at the 2015 Game Awards. Held last night in Los Angeles, the game also secured the “Best Role Playing Game” statue during the awards show, as well as “Developer of the Year” honors for CD Projekt Red.
While The Witcher 3 is known for its size, two smaller games also managed to win multiple awards last night. Sam Barlow’s Her Story took home the Game Award for “Best Narrative” and “Best Performance” for actress Viva Seifert. Meanwhile, Rocket League reached its goal by winning for both “Best Independent Game” and “Best Sports/Racing Game.”
Nintendo had a good Game Awards as Splatoon took home a pair of awards for its unique take on the multiplayer shooter (specifically, “Best Multiplayer” and “Best Shooter”). Nintendo also won “Best Family Game” for Super Mario Maker.
Many other titles took home a trophy last night including Mortal Kombat X (“Best Fighting Game”), Life Is Strange (“Games For Change Award”), Ori and the Blind Forest (“Best Art Direction”), and Lara Croft Go (“Best Mobile/Handheld Game”). And Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain won “Best Action/Adventure Game” and “Best Score/Soundtrack,” though host Geoff Keighley explained that he wasn’t able to accept either award as Konami had barred him from the event.
While that turn of events was a bit shocking (and frankly, rather petty), the biggest surprise may have been that Bethesda’s Fallout 4 was completely shut out at the 2015 Game Awards.
A complete rundown of this year’s winners can be found after the break. (more…)
Rive pushed back to 2016 by Two Tribes
Netherlands-based Two Tribes has announced that their side-scrolling shooter, Rive, will miss its planned 2015 release date. Instead, the game will launch sometime in 2016 for the PC, PS4, Wii U, and Xbox One. Designer Collin Van Ginkel gave a very direct explanation for the delay on the company’s website: “The reason why we’re moving it to 2016 is simple… we’re not done yet.”
Ginkel added:
Since moving to a three man team early last year we had to rediscover how to handle things with less man-power. This means a lot of tasks have to be handled sequentially, instead of spread throughout the team. If we need a new trailer, the level designs stall for two weeks. If we decide to attend PAX or EGX with a booth, the entire project is paused for several weeks. It’s frustrating, especially since it means we can’t let you play the final game yet, but it’s our current reality and we are adamant to make Rive the absolute best game we’ve ever created.
Two Tribes has also released a trio of new screenshots for Rive. You can find them at their website.
SteamWorld Heist will be released for 3DS on December 10; Other platforms to follow in 2016
Image & Form has announced that SteamWorld Heist, their turn-based space adventure starring sentient robots, will be released for the 3DS on December 10. SteamWorld Heist will be regularly priced at $19.99, but Image & Form is slashing the price by $3 (to $16.99) for its first three weeks of availability. The developer also revealed that a brand new trailer for the game will be available just ahead of the launch date, on December 8.
SteamWorld Heist will also be released for the PC, PS4, Vita, Wii U, Xbox One, and mobile devices sometime in 2016.
This Mighty No. 9 “Features Trailer” is mighty retro
Because Mighty No. 9 is developer Keiji Inafune’s loving homage to the Mega Man series, it features many hallmarks of the wildly popular franchise. You want a side-scrolling platformer? You got it. You want a robotic main character who can absorb abilities from enemy robots? Yup, that’s here too. So it should come as no surprise that the announcer in this “Features Trailer” is bombastic and a little ridiculous… just like he would have been in the carefree 90s.
So learn a little more about Mighty No. 9’s Boss Rush Mode, Challenge Mode, Online Challenge Mode (Competitive and Co-Op), and One-Hit Death Maniac Mode, and get yourself ready for the game’s release on February 9, 2016.
Ubisoft goes Shakespearean with the Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege launch trailer
Entertainment Weekly described Tom Clancy’s prose as “tortured” when the magazine reviewed Rainbox Six in 1998. Ubisoft settled on a considerably more acclaimed writer of words when looking for the perfect narration for the Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege launch trailer.
William Shakespeare’s “Once more unto the breach” passage from Henry V (with narration by Idris Elba) is used to illustrate the game’s “Infiltrate Versus Fortify” style and background music from Handel’s “Sarabande” gives the special forces/terrorist skirmishes a nice Die Hard feel. There’s little to no gameplay footage, but the trailer is a nice overview of the game’s theme nonetheless.
“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.”
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege will be released for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One this Tuesday, December 1.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Siege