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
2K’s “Advent” is actually a PC-exclusive XCOM 2 from Firaxis
2K Games has teamed up with IGN to reveal our first look at XCOM 2, a PC-exclusive sequel to XCOM: Enemy Unknown in development at Firaxis Games. Scheduled for release this November, XCOM 2 takes the story 20 years beyond the alien invasion of the first game. Oh yeah, and we lost…
Watch the debut trailer above for a glimpse into a future where the aliens are in control of the Earth, and XCOM has gone underground to fight to overthrow their Advent government. This new guerrilla force will face more powerful enemies in unpredictable combat scenarios as they fight to turn the tables on a technologically superior enemy.
XCOM 2 will include “new soldier classes, new aliens, stealth-infused tactics, procedurally generated maps, and more.” IGN has also promised that Creative Director Jake Solomon and Lead Producer Garth DeAngelis will sit down for an interview later this week to discuss why XCOM 2 is skipping consoles.
2K Games and IGN will get together again in two weeks to reveal the first XCOM 2 gameplay trailer during this year’s E3 Expo.
Bloodstained coming to Wii U with Vita version now in sight
As expected, backers have pushed the Kickstarter campaign for Koji Igarashi’s Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night past the $3 million mark, reaching a huge stretch goal and opening up a few more.
First things first, this new monetary benchmark means a Wii U version of the game will officially go into development at Armature. The porting house plans to make full use of the GamePad’s second screen and will feature a map that can be fully annotated. Though if you prefer Off-Screen Play, that will also be included. Miiverse integration, and Wii U Pro Controller support will be included as well.
A pair of additional stretch goals have also opened up including Asynchronous Online Multiplayer at $3.25 million and a Vita version of the game at $3.5 million. And actually, the Asynchronous Online Multiplayer features that “Iga” would like to include sound very cool:
- “Borrow” a friend’s character stats for a certain amount of time (your friend will get a bonus)
- Ghost Data (See friend’s saved character movements while fighting a boss)
- Friend’s playthroughs affect your game in some way (e.g. a gravestone and an offering might mark the spot where your friend died)
Bloodstained’s campaign still has 12 days to go, so both of these stretch goals (and surely a few others) seem well within reach.
New Releases: Heroes of the Storm, Lord of Magna: Maiden Heaven, Tetris Vita, More
As we close the book on May and its scant slate of new releases, we look ahead to June and find… another scant slate of new releases. Sigh.
This week, Blizzard is ready to roll out the full version of Heroes of the Storm, their entry into the crowded MOBA field. Also available as a Battle.net download for the PC, this “Starter Pack” will include five heroes (Sonya the Warrior, Zeratul the Assassin, Zagara the Specialist, Li Li the Support, and Jaina the Assassin) and a Golden Tiger Mount.
Also available this week is Lord of Magna: Maiden Heaven, a new strategy RPG for the 3DS from Marvelous and XSEED. Lord of Magna follows Luchs as he attempts to recruit seven maidens to save the world and battles enemies by literally bowling them over. Speaking of knocking things down, Ubisoft will also bring everyone’s favorite puzzle game to the Vita this week as Tetris Ultimate.
Finally, Rescue 2: Everyday Heroes is a firefighter sim for the PC and a sequel to Rescue 2013: Everyday Heroes.
Posted in 3DS, News, PC, Vita
Tagged Heroes of the Storm, Tetris Ultimate
Lords of the Fallen 2 will be released in 2017
Eurogamer has learned that Lords of the Fallen 2 will be released sometime in 2017. Marek Tyminski, the CEO of CI Games, also shared the news that 900,000 copies of Lords of the Fallen have been sold since the game’s Fall 2014 launch.
However, Tyminski also had some bad news for the European news site. He confirmed that Lords of the Fallen’s main developer, Deck 13, will not be involved with the sequel. From the sound of it, the split appears to be mutual:
“We have spoken about certain things we could probably do after the release of Lords of the Fallen but at the end of the day we came to the conclusion, both sides, that it won’t happen, and as far as I know they have another project, and I wish them luck. We have very clear thinking on how we want to make Lords of the Fallen 2 and we have a very good idea.”
That said, Tyminski also told Eurogamer that his goal with Lords of the Fallen 2 is to “make a much better game.”
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Lords of the Fallen, Lords of the Fallen 2
Get a VIP tour of Lego Jurassic World in this new trailer
I know it’s quite cliche to open an article like this, but welcome to Lego Jurassic World! WB Games and TT Games have released a new trailer to promote their Lego-ized adaptation of the four Jurassic Park films and this time we’re treated to a “VIP Tour” of the park.
We’ve also learned that the first two DLC packs will be available as a free bonus to fans that pre-order the game through the digital storefronts:
Pre-Order Through PlayStation Store (PS3 or PS4) and Get…
Jurassic Park Trilogy Pack #1
Characters – Dino Handler, Eric Kirby, and Paul Kirby
Vehicle – Animal Control Vehicle
Pre-Order Through Xbox Games Store (Xbox 360 or Xbox One) and Get…
Jurassic Park Trilogy Pack #2
Characters – Jurassic Park Helicopter Pilot, Lex Murphy, and Tim Murphy
Vehicle – Ian Malcolm’s San Diego Cruiser
Both packs will be available after launch for $0.99 each.
Lego Jurassic World will be released on June 12 for the 3DS, PC, PS3, PS4, Vita, Wii U, Xbox 360, and Xbox One. Jurassic World will open in theaters on the same day.
New Batman: Arkham Knight gameplay trailer goes to war
Back in March, WB Games and Rocksteady Studios released “Officer Down,” an extended gameplay trailer for Batman: Arkham Knight that focused on the Caped Crusader’s hunt for Scarecrow’s safe house. That chase continues in a new gameplay trailer released today, and embedded above, titled “Time to Go to War.”
It’s another exciting Bat-adventure that manages to throw in a ridiculous Batmobile versus tank battalion scene and a snarky Poison Ivy. Snarky villains are the best.
In other Bat-news, Sony has released a new trailer detailing some of Arkham Knight’s exclusive PS4 content including Adam West’s Batman suit, his Batmobile, a Justice League 3000 suit, and the trippy Scarecrow Nightmare Missions. The PS4-exclusive content will remain exclusive until sometime this Fall and you can find the trailer after the break.
But Batman: Arkham Knight will be released for everyone, including PC, PS4, and Xbox One players, on June 23. (more…)
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Batman: Arkham Knight
FIFA 16 will include women’s national teams for the first time
The start of the Women’s World Cup is just a few days away, and EA Sports has used this opportunity to announce that women’s national teams will be added to the FIFA franchise for the first time in FIFA 16. FIFA 16 will launch on September 22 with 12 women’s national teams: USA, Germany, France, Sweden, England, Brazil, Canada, Australia, Spain, China, Italy, and Mexico.
“I honestly can’t believe all of the science and technology behind the game itself, let alone getting us into the motion capture suits and eventually into the game,” said Abby Wambach of the United States Women’s National Team. “We’re all excited to see ourselves in the game, but even more excited to see the reaction from all of the fans.”
Wambach’s motion capture session was shared by fellow Team USA players Sydney Leroux, Alex Morgan, and Megan Rapinoe as they helped EA Sports create “realistic animations and attributes” for the female players. Developers from EA Canada even traveled to tournaments around the world to capture facial features and hairstyles from all the included players. More details on the process, including an interview with Alex Morgan, can be found at the official FIFA 16 website.
FIFA 16 will be available for the PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One when it launches on September 22.
We Are Doomed Review: A Dreamy Twin-Stick Shooter You Shouldn’t Miss
If you love twin-stick shooters, then this is a great time to be playing video games. After reaching perfection with the release of Smash TV in the early 90s, the genre faded away for more than a decade before Bizarre Creations brought it back with Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved. Since then, a ridiculous number of twin-stick shooters have been produced, and the control scheme has even been co-opted by a growing number of roguelikes. Basically, you can’t swing a dead hedgehog at a game convention without hitting a developer showing off their new twin-stick title.
Into this crowded fray comes We Are Doomed, the first PC/console game from Vertex Pop. (more…)