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
XSEED @ E3 15: Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel 1/2, EDF 4.1 PS4, EDF 2 Vita, more
XSEED Games has big plans for the remainder of the year. The publisher, which specializes in localizing obscure and niche titles from Japan, will release ten more games by the end of the year and they plan to bring all of them to this year’s E3 Expo.
Here’s a quick look at XSEED’s full lineup:
- Corpse Party (PC) – The first game in the survival horror series is in development for the PC. (Fall 2015)
- Corpse Party: Blood Drive (PS Vita) – The third, and final, game in the survival horror series will be released for the Vita. (Fall 2015)
- Earth Defense Force 2: Invaders from Planet Space (PS Vita) – The second game in the bug-bashing shooter series will shrink down onto the Vita in its first American release. (Fall 2015)
- Earth Defense Force 4.1: The Shadow of New Despair (PS4) – An enhanced version of Earth Defense Force 2025 will come to the PS4 with an expanded level count. (Fall 2015)
- Return to PoPoLoCrois: A Story of Seasons Fairytale (3DS) – Farm and fight in this turn-based RPG. (Fall 2015)
- The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky Second Chapter (PC, PSP) – Yes, the “Trails in the Sky” series will finally continue in America with this PC and PSP release. (Fall 2015)
- The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel (PS Vita, PS3) – Another Legend of Heroes game, set in the same universe as “Trails in the Sky” but starring different characters, is also coming soon. (Fall 2015)
- Onechanbara Z2: Chaos (PS4) – The “bikini zombie slayers” will be back chopping heads on the PS4 soon. (Summer 2015)
- Senran Kagura: Estival Versus (PS Vita, PS4) – The wave-based fighter will offer ten-player play on the PS4 and four-player play on the Vita. (Fall 2015)
- Senran Kagura 2: Deep Crimson (3DS) – The anime-influenced fighting series will return for another go-round shortly. (Summer 2015)
Finally, XSEED will also release The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II for the PS3 and Vita, but it currently has no release date and likely won’t be at this year’s E3 Expo.
Posted in 3DS, News, PC, PS4, PSP, Vita
Tagged E3 2015, Earth Defense Force 2: Invaders from Planet Space, Earth Defense Force 2025
Wolfenstein: The Old Blood will get a retail release on July 21
Due to “popular demand,” Bethesda has announced (via the Bethesda Blog) that Wolfenstein: The Old Blood will be available on store shelves for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One on July 21.
Originally released as a digital download on May 5, The Old Blood’s file size weighed in at a hefty 37 GB. I don’t think anymore needs to be said about why fans were clamoring for a physical release.
Wolfenstein: The Old Blood is a prequel to Wolfenstein: The New Order, sending B.J. Blazkowicz back to the frontlines of World War II. There, he’ll tangle with “Rudi Jager and the Den of Wolves,” a maniacal prison warden who runs Castle Wolfenstein; and “The Dark Secrets of Helga Von Schabbs,” a Nazi archaeologist who uses occult artifacts to raise the dead.
The physical version of Wolfenstein: The Old Blood will retail for $19.99, which is the same price as the digital download.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Wolfenstein: The Old Blood
Bloodstained officially coming to Vita; final stretch goals announced
Koji Igarashi’s Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is officially coming to the PlayStation Vita after crossing the $3.5 million mark in total pledges over the weekend.
Like the Wii U version, the portable port of Bloodstained will be developed by Armature. They plan to offer a music import option to transfer Bloodstained’s soundtrack to your Vita music library, PS4 Cross-Save support, touchscreen map support, and PlayStation TV compatibility. Like all other versions of the game, digital and physical copies are currently available to backers.
With the campaign scheduled to conclude in just four days on Friday, June 12 at 11:00 PM (Eastern Time), Igarashi and his team at Inti Creates have revealed the final stretch goals, which include another playable character and a separate prequel game created created in a retro style:
$3,750,000 – Orchestrated Tracks: Yamane and Yamada are thrilled to see this goal on the horizon, as it will enable them to have some of their compositions performed and recorded by a live, professional orchestra! These tracks will, of course, end up in the game, not to mention on the soundtrack.
$4,000,000 – Online Challenge Mode: Compete and cooperate with a friend to earn points in specially designed stages by clearing challenges, killing enemies, collecting items, and more. Rumor has it there there may even be incredibly powerful bosses which drop rare crafting materials…
$4,250,000 – 3rd Playable Character: Iga and Inti Creates will include a third playable character in Bloodstained! They don’t want to give away too much—it might even be a character you haven’t met yet.
$4,500,000 – Prequel Mini-Game For Consoles: Inti Creates is so excited about Bloodstained that they’re hoping to create a 2D, pixel-based, retro-styled mini-game that sheds some light on the world of Bloodstained before Miriam awoke from her coma. This is a complete game which will be sold separately, but every $28+ backer copy of Bloodstained will come with a FREE download of this game on PS4, XB1, Wii U, or PC! (Backers at Physical+Digital tiers will be eligible for 2 copies of the mini-game.)
$4,750,000 – Prequel Mini-Game For Portables: At $4.75 million Inti will port their side story game to the PS Vita and Nintendo 3DS. Backers $28 and up will be able to choose any platform for their free copy (or copies)!
$5,000,000 – ?????
More than 44,000 backers have pledged over $3.6 million to Bloodstained so far. Can Igarashi find more folks to push it to $5 million? Check back Friday to find out.
Posted in 3DS, News, PC, PS4, Vita, Wii U, Xbox One
Tagged Bloodstained Prequel, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
Blizzard introduces us to Tracer, Reaper, Symmetra, Torbjorn in new Overwatch gameplay trailers
Blizzard is back with another batch of gameplay trailers highlighting four more characters from their upcoming hero-based shooter, Overwatch. Embedded above is a gameplay trailer for Tracer, a teleporting adventurer who zips across the arena with deadly speed. If you recall, Tracer was the star of the ridiculously entertaining cinematic trailer Blizzard used to reveal the game to the world. If Tracer is not to your liking, three more gameplay trailers can be found after the break featuring Reaper (a mysterious mercenary), Symmetra (an “architech” who can bend reality to her will), and Torbjorn (an eccentric weapons designer).
A closed beta test for Overwatch will be available sometime this year. You can sing-up for a chance at a spot in the beta at Battle.net. (more…)
XCOM 2 “had to be PC exclusive” but may come to PS4, Xbox One in the future
2K Games and Firaxis surprised a lot of people earlier this week when they announced that XCOM 2 would be released exclusively for the PC this November. Even though its predecessor, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, received a simultaneous PC/PS3/Xbox 360 release, developers at Firaxis told IGN the sequel had to be PC exclusive.
“When we looked at what we wanted to do with the sequel, we had all these very, very ambitious goals,” said Creative Director Jake Solomon.
Solomon, and Lead Producer Garth DeAngelis, also said that XCOM 2’s heavy focus on “high-fidelity characters and environments, better-looking destruction, physically based rendering and, […] procedurally generated maps” required staying close to home. And for Firaxis, the PC is home. This allowed the team to optimize the control scheme for keyboard-and-mouse as well as add more detailed tactical information to the on-screen action.
Finally, Solomon confirmed that XCOM 2 may come to the PS4 and Xbox One sometime in the future (“We’re certainly not opposed to that”), but he went on to say, “I can assure [you] that’s something we’re not even discussing yet.”
Spike Lee will write and direct MyCareer mode in NBA 2K16
A few months ago, the rumor mill said that famed filmmaker Spike Lee would take the reins of NBA 2K16‘s MyCareer mode. Yesterday, 2K Games confirmed that Lee will indeed be writing and directing the game’s story. Lee spoke to USA Today about his first video game project and explained what he hopes to bring to MyCareer:
“We follow a kid through the trials and tribulations of being a top high school player and the decisions he has to make,” Lee tells USA Today. He says that although he managed to master the intricacies of a 12-day motion-capture shoot at 2K Games’ Bay Area studios, his video game skills leave a lot to be desired.
2K’s Ryan Peters told the newspaper that Lee shot about 90 minutes of “cinematic narrative,” which will be incorporated into the 12-hour MyCareer mode. Peters said, “We just told Spike, ‘You transform the narrative, and we’ll change that into digital polygons.’ And he did that, bringing a protagonist and antagonist to the story.”
2K Games also revealed that NBA 2K16 will have three separate covers when it hits store shelves this Fall. Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors, James Harden of the Houston Rockets, and Anthony Davis of the New Orleans Pelicans will all be the face of NBA 2K16. However, only Curry is playing in the NBA Finals, and with the Warriors up 1-0, he could claim his first NBA Championship ring by the end of next week.
If so, that’ll look mighty nice on his NBA 2K16 cover, which will be available for the PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One on September 29. Though players who pre-order will receive it four days earlier, on September 25, so they can take part in 2K’s “Tip-Off Weekend.”
Mighty No. 9 gets Cross-Buy on PS4; Retro Hero Mode, Collector’s Edition, on all platforms
Mighty No. 9 is just three months away, and new publisher Deep Silver is gearing up to offer gamers plenty of extras if they buy in near the September 15 launch date.
First up, the Collector’s Edition will come packaged with a 6.5 inch, individually-numbered statue of Beck. The $59.99 box (available only for the PS4 and Xbox One) will also include the Retro Hero DLC Pack and special foil packaging featuring a facsimile signature of creator Keiji Inafune. The Retro Hero DLC, a special difficulty mode that offers one-hit death and a retro-inspired look for Beck, will also be part of the Launch Edition, which will be available digitally and on store shelves.
Mighty No. 9 will be available on a wide variety of platforms this September including the PC, PS3, PS4, Wii U, Xbox 360, and Xbox One. However, if you purchase the game on the PS4, you’ll also receive a downloadable copy of the game for the PS3 and Vita through Sony’s Cross-Buy program. Mighty No. 9’s Vita launch will take place sometime after the PC/console release. The game is also in development for the 3DS.
Finally, Deep Silver and Comcept have released a brand new trailer for Mighty No. 9 featuring the game’s many bosses.
Valve will launch Steam Machines in November or pre-order to get one in October
The time has come, Valve has announced a release date and pricing for its Steam Machines line of living room PCs. According to Valve, Steam Machines from Alienware and Syber are currently available to pre-order, with “limited quantities” scheduled to ship out to customers on October 16. Steam Machines hardware will be available on store shelves beginning on November 10.
The Steam Controller and the Steam Link streaming set-top box will also be released on November 10, with “limited quantities” available on October 16. The Steam Machines hardware line starts at $449 with the Controller and the Link box both retailing for $49.
Valve’s Steam Machines will be powered by SteamOS, a Linux-based operating system that uses “Big Picture Mode,” Steam’s television-friendly display mode. SteamOS is compatible with “over a thousand” games on the Steam storefront, though more than 4,000 games (at least) are currently listed for sale through Steam, meaning less than 25% of all available games are currently compatible with Steam Machines. That said, any Steam game can be streamed to any Steam Machines-connected television.
More information on the Steam Machines pre-order campaign can be found on the Steam website.