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
Overwatch beta will begin on October 27
Blizzard has announced that the long-promised beta for Overwatch will begin on October 27, a little less than two weeks from now. Players in the Americas will gain access to the beta first (with Europe and Asia following soon after) and if you’re interested in taking part in the test, be sure to sign up at Battle.net.
The developer plans to employ a two-tiered structure for the Overwatch beta. A constantly available “Closed Beta” will offer a limited number of players access to every map and every hero to test every nook and cranny of their team-based shooter:
Closed Beta
The Closed Beta will be composed of a small number of testers who will have regular access to our public beta test. Our goal for the Closed Beta is 100% gameplay feedback, and we’ll be encouraging participants to discuss and dissect every hero, map, ability, and other aspect of the game on our upcoming beta forums.In order to get the most meaningful and constructive feedback possible, the total number of players in the Closed Beta will be extremely limited… though we’ll be adding more people from time to time to make sure we have the right number of heroes actively engaged.
Meanwhile, a much larger player pool will be invited to take part in “Beta Test Weekends,” which will feature a more restricted set of maps and modes:
Beta Test Weekends
From time to time, we’ll also need to open up the floodgates and call upon an army to overwhelm our hardware. The goal: get as many heroes playing as we can, all helping us “stress test” our servers to ensure they can withstand the assault.These larger-scale Beta Test Weekends will be brought online occasionally for a limited time, generally over a weekend, and will run concurrently with our ongoing Closed Beta test. Because Beta Test Weekends are primarily hardware- and tech-focused, the number of heroes, maps, and gameplay modes will be restricted—but feedback on everything will definitely be welcome.
If you’re unable to get into the beta, Blizzard also plans to bring a playable version of Overwatch to this year’s BlizzCon, which will be held at the Anaheim Convention Center on November 6th and 7th.
Gun Media resurrects Summer Camp as Friday the 13th: The Game
Absolutely nothing can kill Jason Voorhees. In fact, not even a starring role in a terrible NES game from 1989 can keep the machete-wielding monster down. So it should come as no surprise that Gun Media has announced a brand new Friday the 13th game, which is slated to be released for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One in October 2016.
Friday the 13th: The Game is actually an expanded and reworked version of Gun Media’s previously announced horror game, Summer Camp. Friday the 13th creator Sean S. Cunningham offered the license to the developer (and stealth announced it) earlier this year after Gun Media secured the services of special effects wizard Tom Savini, composer Harry Manfredini, and stuntman Kane Hodder. Now, the developer and their who’s who of horror have turned to Kickstarter to help fund the most authentic Friday the 13th game possible.
Gun Media isn’t “starting from scratch” and a lot of what made Summer Camp interesting will also be present in Friday the 13th. The game is being designed as a 7v1 asymmetrical multiplayer title. Up to seven players will be able to control the counselors, each of which has their own personality and special abilities. But one player will be able to slip into the hockey mask of Jason Voorhees and stalk these teens throughout a semi-open world version of Camp Crystal Lake. A single-player campaign where players can control either Jason or the counselors in scenarios based on scenes from the classic film series will also be included.
A lot more information on exactly how Friday the 13th will work is available on the Kickstarter page. Gun Media is seeking $700,000 to fund the game, and as of this writing, they’ve already received pledges totaling $111,000.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Friday the 13th
Allison Road’s Kickstarter campaign canceled after developer signs contract with Team17
Allison Road, a terrifying first-person trip through a haunted house, was originally created as a hobby project by developer Chris Kesler. After a strong reply from the gaming community (and many comparisons to Hideo Kojima’s PT/Silent Hills), Kesler announced his intentions to build a team and release Allison Road as a full game.
Kesler’s team, Lilith, launched a Kickstarter campaign on September 21 to help fund the game’s ongoing development. But here we are three weeks later and the team is ready to deliver some good news… they’re canceling the campaign! In a Kickstarter Update posted yesterday, the developer revealed that they’ve signed a publishing agreement with Team17. The UK-based publishing label will provide Lilith with funding and development support, as well as giving Kesler and his team every opportunity to make Allison Road the best game it can be.
With a publisher in place, Lilith plans to “go quiet for a while,” but we’ll surely hear more about Allison Road before its late 2016 release on the PC.
Posted in News, PC
Tagged Allison Road
Treyarch delivers a thick coat of pulpy noir in this prologue to CoD: Black Ops III Zombies
The hardboiled detectives and wicked dames of noir fiction have lead to the genre’s continued popularity for more than 90 years. And why not? Noir films and books all feature bad people doing bad deeds before meeting a bad end… which makes it the perfect environment for an undead uprising.
Treyarch came to the same conclusion when developing Call of Duty: Black Ops III as the franchise’s famed Zombies Mode will flashback to the 1940s in “Shadows of Evil,” a morally ambiguous tale of good and evil that stars Jeff Goldblum (as The Magician), Heather Graham (as The Femme Fatale), Ron Perlman (as The Boxer), and Neal McDonough (as The Cop). The developer recently screened the co-op mode’s prologue at the New York Comic-Con, and yesterday, they released it for public consumption. Film noir fans will enjoy the period touches, but like I said, these are bad people people who’ve done bad deeds. Can you keep them from a bad end?
Be sure to watch the prologue again and let’s all find out together when Call of Duty: Black Ops III is released for the PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One on November 6.
EA is offering a Season Pass (with four expansions) for Star Wars: Battlefront
Star Wars: Battlefront will be released on November 17 for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One. But if you want to take part in even more battles from that far away galaxy, you’ll have to pony up for the game’s Season Pass, which is now available for pre-order.
Electronic Arts has announced (via the game’s official website) that the Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass will include four expansions and an exclusive “Shoot First” emote. Players who purchase the Season Pass will also receive access to the expansions two weeks before the rest of the world.
Priced at $49.99, the publisher has said that we’ll learn more about the Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass “in the coming weeks,” so I’d keep your wallet tightly closed until we find out some real details about these four expansions.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Star Wars: Battlefront
No Time To Explain Review: Laser Rifles, Time Travel, and Dancing
No Time To Explain is a fast-paced 2D platformer where your main mode of travel is a gun so powerful that it doubles as a jet pack. You start out by using your super-powered rifle to chase yourself through time and the game’s looping plot keeps getting more outlandish from there. So dig in, because I do have time to explain.
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Posted in PC, Reviews, Top Story, Xbox One
Tagged No Time To Explain
Fallout 4’s system requirements ask if your PC/console is prepared for the apocalypse
We’re t-minus 29 days until the launch of Fallout 4, and Bethesda wants to ensure that your PC and/or console is up to spec for the post-apocalypse that’ll follow. So without further adieu, your PC must be exactly this powerful to ride Bethesda’s latest atomic bomb like Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove:
Minimum System Requirements
- OS: Windows 7/8/10 (64-bit OS required)
- CPU: Intel Core i5-2300 2.8 GHz/AMD Phenom II X4 945 3.0 GHz or equivalent
- RAM: 8 GB
- Hard Drive: 30 GB free
- GPU: Nvidia GTX 550 Ti 2GB/AMD Radeon HD 7870 2GB or equivalent
- Internet: Internet Connection and Steam Account required
- Controller: Plug & Play compatibility with Xbox One and Xbox 360 controllers
Recommended System Requirements
- OS: Windows 7/8/10 (64-bit OS required)
- CPU: Intel Core i7 4790 3.6 GHz/AMD FX-9590 4.7 GHz or equivalent
- RAM: 8 GB
- Hard Drive: 30 GB free
- GPU: Nvidia GTX 780 3GB/AMD Radeon R9 290X 4GB or equivalent
- Internet: Internet Connection and Steam Account required
- Controller: Plug & Play compatibility with Xbox One and Xbox 360 controllers
If you’d prefer to play Fallout 4 on the PS4 or Xbox One, you might want to know that the game’s installation process will require 28-35 GB of hard drive space. Fallout 4 will offer a number of different language options throughout the world and players in North America will likely fall on the lower end of that spectrum as the game only needs to support English and French. However, most European territories will support English, French, Italian, German, and Spanish, which necessitates a larger install size.
Whichever platform you use to play Fallout 4, it’ll be available on November 10… except if you’re located in Asia (where it’ll be released on November 11) or Japan (which has to wait until December 17).
Deathstate will be available on Steam on October 20
I first got a chance to play Deathstate earlier this year as part of the Indie Minibooth installation at PAX East. The game’s retro style helped it stand out amidst this sea of monitors, but I have to admit, its tagline definitely didn’t hurt. According to developer Workinman, Deathstate can be described as a… “top-down roguelike bullet hell single-stick shooter.” That is a lot of adjectives for one game, but you’ll also find plenty of Lovecraftian story elements once you start to dig deeper:
In Deathstate, you are a traveller of the outer realms. You have discovered the secrets of deep astral projection by entering into a fully death like meditative state. While in your Deathstate, you can go beyond the beyond to realms previously only imagined by those enlightened or mad enough to dwell upon them. Tread lightly though, for these far planes of demi-existence that you choose to explore are extremely hostile to mortal souls.
So Deathstate is actually a “Lovecraftian top-down roguelike bullet hell single-stick shooter” and Workinman has just announced it’ll be available to download through Steam on October 20. If you think you can handle all that, you might want to check out the brand new trailer embedded above.
Posted in News, PC
Tagged Deathstate