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
Rise of the Tomb Raider Release Dates… Xbox One/360: Nov 10, PC: Q1 2016, PS4: Late 2016
Are you ready to raid some tombs this Fall? Square Enix has announced that Lara Croft’s next adventure, Rise of the Tomb Raider, will be released for the Xbox One and Xbox 360 on November 10.
Microsoft signed the game to limited exclusivity contract a few years ago, so PC and PS4 owners will have to wait a bit before delving back into Lara’s adventures. However, rather than keep the public in suspense, Square Enix went and announced tentative release windows for the game on both platforms. Rise of the Tomb Raider will be available for the PC in early 2016, while PS4 owners will get a chance to play it in late 2016.
So which tomb will Lara raid this time? Well…
In the critically acclaimed Tomb Raider, Lara Croft survived a harrowing experience only to be discredited as part of a cover up. Now, after uncovering an ancient mystery, Lara must explore the most treacherous and remote regions of Siberia to find the secret of immortality before a ruthless organization known as Trinity. Lara must use her wits and survival skills, form new alliances, and ultimately embrace her destiny as the Tomb Raider.
It’s silly, but a part of me loves that developer Crystal Dynamics treats “the Tomb Raider” as some kind of honorific title.
Life Is Strange’s fourth episode, Dark Room, will be available next week
The end of the world is getting ever closer as Dontnod’s episodic series, Life Is Strange, races to its conclusion. More than a million copies of the game have been sold to date and the fourth episode, Dark Room, will be available to download next week. This time around, things are not looking good for Max and Chloe and the rest of Arcadia Bay:
Max realizes that changing the past can lead to painful consequences and that time is not a great healer. Her investigation into the disappearance of Rachel Amber begins to reach a thrilling conclusion as she finds the Dark Room. Will the answers lie within? Or will there just be trouble?
It sounds bad, but this description doesn’t even scratch the surface of the crazy present in this trailer. Max is definitely in trouble after she discovers the creepy serial killer shack, witnesses a few swirling death clouds, and gazes across a breach littered with dozens of dead whales. The apocalypse that’s about to befall Arcadia is not screwing around.
Life Is Strange: Dark Room will be available for the PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One on July 28.
Most retailers have removed Mighty No. 9’s September 15 release date… is it delayed?
After signing a publishing deal with Deep Silver, Keiji Inafune’s Mighty No. 9 was given a September 15 release date by the publisher for its launch on the PC, PS3, PS4, Wii U Xbox 360, and Xbox One. But now it appears that that release date is in jeopardy as nearly every major video game retailer has changed the game’s release date to a placeholder date of “December 31, 2016” instead.
The placeholder release date, which strongly suggests a delay for Mighty No. 9, is currently shown on Amazon, GameStop, Walmart, and Newegg. However, the game’s original release date is still listed at Target and Best Buy. So hope is not lost.
VideoGamer attempted to get to the bottom of this by contacting Deep Silver, but the publisher declined to comment. Uh oh, I think I lost that hope. Can someone help me find it?
Hopefully Deep Silver or Keiji Inafune and his team at Comcept will clear up Mighty No. 9’s release date soon.
Escape from the Man-Sized Cabinet: Stephen Colbert’s Excellent Text Adventure
Stephen Colbert will be returning to TV soon. And just in time, too. As The Daily Show draws to a close with Jon Stewart at the helm, an old familiar sadness — which I first felt at the end of The Colbert Report — has crept back into my life as another door shuts in the era of damn fine fake news reporting. I wish Jon Stewart well, and also ask that maybe he come over for Shabbos dinner some time (Spoiler: It will be Arby’s).
Although we don’t know what’s next for Mr. Stewart, fans of Stephen Colbert can begin to live again, damnit, for he will return to our television screens in September. The character Stephen Colbert’s Colbert Nation may be gone, but the man Stephen Colbert’s Colbert Nation is just beginning! Just two more months, people! During his onscreen sabbatical, however, he has been busy behind-the-scenes preparing for his new hosting gig with tweets and hijinks and posts on The Late Show site. His most recent engagement with his cabal of Colbert-ites is in the form of a really awesome point-and-click text adventure game that reminds me of a Choose Your Own Adventure book. But much better because in those books I was never locked inside of a cabinet so long that I DIED.
So check out Stephen Colbert’s Escape from the Man-Sized Cabinet and save Narnia a public domain fantasy kingdom from an evil wizard. Do what I did and read it in your head in his voice. Play it a few times to make sure you hit all your options. It’s the American way.
Alex Morgan, Christine Sinclair, Stephanie Catley, others join Messi on FIFA 16’s cover
FIFA 16 will become one of the first games to include female teams and players when its released this Fall. But EA Sports isn’t stopping there. In another first, the publisher also plans to include a trio of stars from the 2015 Women’s World Cup on the game’s cover as part of its series of region-specific covers for the game.
FC Barcelona’s Lionel Messi is the “featured” cover athlete, and he will share the spotlight with the following footballers:
- Alex Morgan, a Forward on the World Cup champion Women’s National Team, will appear on the cover in the US.
- Our neighbor to the North, Canada, will receive a cover featuring Christine Sinclair, the Canadian team’s Captain.
- Stephanie Catley will sprint alongside Messi on the Australian cover, along with a player to be named later on August 13.
- The United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland will see Liverpool FC’s Jordan Henderson on the cover.
- C.D. Guadalajara’s Marco Fabian will break out of the midfield as the cover athlete for Mexico.
- Antoine Griezmann from Atletico Madrid will represent his home nation on the French cover.
- Chelsea FC’s Juan Cuadrado will appear on the cover throughout Latin America.
- Finally, Borussia Dortmund’s Shinji Kagawa will grace the cover in Japan.
“It is an incredible honor to be one of the first women featured on the cover of FIFA 16,” said Alex Morgan. “I know people all over the world play this game and I’m really excited that FIFA 16 is putting such an important spotlight on women’s soccer. And now to share the cover with today’s greatest player is surreal.”
“This year’s World Cup showcased the unbelievable talent and skill in women’s soccer,” added Christine Sinclair. “I’m thrilled that EA Sports is celebrating female athletes in FIFA 16. To be featured in the game and to promote women’s soccer with Alex is really special and another exciting step for women in sports.”
FIFA 16 will be available for the PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One on September 22. You can view all nine covers (including Messi’s solo cover) at the official FIFA 16 website.
Double Fine’s documentary chronicling Broken Age’s development has reached its last episode
In early 2012, Double Fine nearly broke the game industry when they introduced the words “Crowdfunding” and “Kickstarter” to many gamers for the first time. The crowdfunding model has become a fixture of the gaming landscape in the years since, and while Double Fine’s campaign may not have been the first, they certainly made it a viable option that developers such as Brian Fargo and Keiji Inafune would eventually use.
Along with the game that would eventually become Broken Age, Double Fine also produced a behind-the-scenes documentary series with 2 Player Productions known as Double Fine Adventure. In Schafer’s words, he wanted to “show us how the sausage was made.”
After more than three years of filming, and twenty main episodes (along with countless extra “Sidequest” episodes), the documentary reached it’s grand conclusion over the weekend. Originally, the series was an exclusive for Kickstarter backers, but as the game neared completion, Schafer decided to unleash the series to the public early.
Regardless of what you thought of the game, the documentary series has made the whole ordeal more than worth it. As someone who backed the Kickstarter campaign all those years ago, I can’t tell you how inspiring and informative these episodes are. Before this, the world of game development always happened behind closed doors, but no longer.
This series has been different. It’s showcased game development from the very start of the creative process to the release of the game, and it’s aftermath, and it did it with a relatively large studio as well. We like to think game development is all sunshine and lollipops and that everything is all fun all the time, but this series goes to show that isn’t the case. I heartily recommend it, even if you’re not interested in game development because it’s so much more than a behind the scenes, how-to documentary, it’s a captivating look into the creative process.
2 Player Productions recently began work on a Blu-ray release for Double Fine Adventure and you can pre-order it at adventure.DoubleFine.com.