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
Sega and Game Freak team up to bring Tembo the Badass Elephant to PC, PS4, Xbox One
Game Freak, the development team behind the Pokemon franchise, has teamed up with Sega to release Tembo the Badass Elephant on the PC, PS4, and Xbox One. The star of the downloadable title, Tembo, definitely lives up to his billing. He’s a massive “commando elephant” that is aided by his small bird friend Piccolo. The two have joined forces to combat PHANTOM, an organization bent on destroying Shell City.
I swear, not one word of that was a joke. Here it is straight from Sega:
Shell City is plunged into a state of emergency after coming under attack from the devastating forces of PHANTOM, led by a mysterious masked commander. Terrifying war machines, emblazoned with skulls, tear through the city leaving a trail of destruction in their wake! As the National Army struggle to contain PHANTOM, General Krenman sees the mammoth task at hand and calls upon the only thing that stands between Shell City’s obliteration and its salvation; the peanut chompin’, villain stompin’, PHANTOM romping Badass Elephantidae… Tembo the Badass Elephant!
Tembo will include 17 side-scrolling levels and a butt stompin’ elephant when it launches this Summer.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Tembo the Badass Elephant
Here’s the PAX East 2015 teaser for Boss Key’s Project BlueStreak
As promised, Cliff Bleszinski brought an early look at his next game, Project BlueStreak, to PAX East 2015 this past weekend. The former Gears of War helmer showed about a minute’s worth of footage of a work-in-progress multipayer map that includes a futuristic space station and a tranquil Japanese garden. Bleszinski, and the rest of the development team at Boss Key Productions, also confirmed that Project BlueStreak will be created using Unreal Engine 4, marking something of a homecoming for the developer.
“We considered several options regarding what technology we’d use to build Project BlueStreak. Ultimately, we found ourselves coming full circle to my friends at Epic Games and the elegant solution for rapid and quality game development that is Unreal Engine 4,” Bleszinski said. “We look forward to making a top-tier product through this partnership.”
While it’s a bit hard to tell from the teaser trailer above, Project BlueStreak will be a free-to-play arena shooter for the PC that takes place in a “recovered apocalyptic sci-fi setting.” Hopefully, Bleszinski will explain what that means soon.
Posted in News, PC
Tagged LawBreakers, PAX East 2015
Launch flag for Project CARS won’t wave until mid-May 2015
A caution flag has been raised on Slighty Mad’s Project CARS once again as the racing sim has suffered another delay. Instead of the previously announced April 7, 2015 release date, Project CARS will now be available for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One in mid-May. The Wii U and SteamOS versions of the game are still on track for a “TBA 2015” launch.
Ian Bell, Slighty Mad’s Studio Head, penned an explanation for the delay on the developer’s official website. According to Bell, a few nagging issues and bugs still need to be squashed:
Despite our long heritage and pedigree in making critically-acclaimed racing games, Project CARS is by far the grandest and most intricately detailed of them all. Despite therefore the game being 99.9% complete, the remaining 0.1% attending to small issues and bugs has been tricky to anticipate. We’re absolutely dedicated to delivering a ground-breaking experience and by targeting mid-May fans can be assured that’s what they’ll receive.
To make amends for this delay, Bell also revealed that Slightly Mad will produce special bonus content that will be available to download at launch:
Since the gaming community is our primary focus and has always been at the heart of the project during development, we would like to offer some free content to all players as compensation for this short delay and as acknowledgement of how grateful we are. This gift, that we’re sure is going to excite fans, will be available from day one and revealed shortly.
This is the fourth confirmed release date for Project CARS. The game was originally scheduled to launch in November 2014 before being pushed back to March and then April.
Video Game Release Calendar Changelog #2: Post GDC/PAX East Edition
Don’t Forget! This is just a changelog of recently announced release dates. Warp Zoned’s complete Video Game Release Calendar includes every title we could find with a 2015, 2016, or unannounced release date.
Even though there’s still a lot of snow on the ground in most places, both of video gaming’s Spring showcases came and went last week. New release dates aplenty were announced at the Game Developers Conference and PAX East, along with a few dozen more since our last Video Game Release Calendar Changelog. Players with a love for AAA blockbuster will want to pay close attention to September 1, as WB Games staked out that spot on the calendar for Mad Max on the same day that Konami attempted to reserve it for Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.
If you’re looking for games about to be released in the more immediate timeframe, Sony’s Spring Fever promotion has locked in eight of indie gaming’s most interesting titles over the next two months culminating with Shovel Knight‘s April 21 launch on the PS3, PS4, and Vita (it’ll also be available for the Xbox One). Working backwards, April 14’s Titan Souls, April 7’s Bastion, and March 31’s Axiom Verge should also be on your radar if you enjoy retro-styled games.
Moving forward, other big games with confirmed release dates include the PC version of Grand Theft Auto V (now scheduled to launch on April 14), Wolfenstein: The Old Blood (May 5), and the PS4 version of Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster (May 12). Microsoft and Square Enix also confirmed that, respectively, Forza Motorsport 6 and Just Cause 3 will be out by the end of the year.
Finally, a few games slid into “TBA” slots after not being announced at all. Harmonix announced that Rock Band 4 will be released sometime this year while Square Enix did the same for the North American launch of Dragon Quest Heroes. Capcom strongly hinted that Street Fighter V will be in Spring 2016, but wouldn’t officially commit to any specific date. It’ll be joined in 2016 by Level-5’s Yo-Kai Watch, which will definitely cross the Pacific next year.
The full list of games from the Video Game Release Calendar Changelog Update #2 can be found after the break. (more…)
Creative Assembly’s console team is hiring for “another multi-platform AAA blockbuster”
Creative Assembly has released five downloadable add-ons for Alien: Isolation since it launched in October, but it looks like the developer might be moving on. A large number of listings were recently added to Creative Assembly’s Jobs page for their console team. There’s currently no indication what the team is working on, but many of the posts state the developer is looking to create “another multi-platform AAA blockbuster.”
Late last year, the Lead Designer at Creative Assembly, Gary Napper, said that the team was considering a sequel to Alien: Isolation as their next project. An announcement on exactly what Creative Assembly is working on likely won’t be announced for a while, but if it is a sequel to Isolation, it might look a bit different from the first game. Interestingly, one of the job listings is for an Online/Multiplayer Programmer, even though Alien: Isolation was, as its title implies, a single-player affair.
20th Century Fox currently has several other Alien projects in development including a sequel to Aliens directed by Neil Blomkamp and a sequel to Prometheus directed by Ridley Scott.
Giant monsters battle it out in Gigantic’s PAX East 2015 trailer
Motiga erected a massive installation to promote Gigantic at this past weekend’s PAX East expo and it paid off. The 5v5 third-person MOBA was the hit of the show, especially after the developer partnered with Microsoft an Xbox One edition of the game earlier in the week at the Game Developers Conference. For those who weren’t able to attend the show, Motiga has released a brand new trailer highlighting the player-versus-player combat as well as the monster-versus-monster carnage that these too factions are trying to trigger.
A closed alpha of Gigantic is currently underway and a beta test of the free-to-play game will take place sometime in the near future. The final version of Gigantic should be released for the PC and Xbox One by the end of the year.
Posted in News, PC, Xbox One
Tagged Gigantic, PAX East 2015
The Evil Within: The Assignment is now available to download
After announcing a few details and a release date last month, Bethesda is finally ready to launch The Assignment, the first expansion for The Evil Within. The Assignment takes place alongside the narrative of the main game and follows Juli Kidman, the partner of main character Sebastian Castellanos:
In The Evil Within: The Assignment and The Evil Within: The Consequence, players take on the role of Detective Juli Kidman, Sebastian Castellanos’ mysterious partner, in a concurrent story that looks to answer some of the questions surrounding her whereabouts during The Evil Within. Along the way she will encounter disturbing new enemies, discover new mysteries, and uncover new horrors. The Assignment and The Consequence give fans of The Evil Within the perfect opportunity to discover Detective Kidman’s hidden motivations and her mysterious connection to Mobius, the shadowy group thought to be behind the gruesome events of The Evil Within.
The Assignment will be followed in the Spring by a second expansion, The Consequence. Both The Assignment and The Consequence have been priced at $9.99 apiece or $19.99 as part of The Evil Within’s Season Pass. If you’re not ready to drop a few dollars on the DLC just yet, be sure to check out Bethesda’s recent gameplay stream of The Assignment, which has been embedded above.
Batman: Arkham Knight is rated M For Mature because of blood and torture
People were reasonably curious after the ESRB awarded an Mature rating to Batman: Arkham Knight last month. With yesterday’s publication of the game’s Rating Summary, now we know why.
Arkham Knight is said to include fight scenes reminiscent of previous Arkham games as well as the colorful characters that are typically found on the streets of Gotham. But the game also includes several scenes of torture and a lot of blood. One section of the game even combines the two as a character is tortured on a bloody operating table. Also, someone says the word “gobsh*te” (please be Batman, please be Batman, please be Batman).
The full Rating Summary from the ESRB can be viewed right here:
This is an action-adventure game in which players primarily assume the role of Batman as he battles several villains spreading chaos across Gotham City. Players traverse a variety of locations around Gotham while battling thugs, examining crime scenes, and occasionally rescuing hostages. Players engage in melee-style combat using punches, kicks, and gadgets (e.g., batarangs, explosives). Enemies cry out in pain when struck, and some takedowns are highlighted by brief slow-motion effects and loud impact sounds.
Some sequences allow players to use tank-like vehicles with machine gun turrets and rockets to shoot enemies; a vehicle’s wheels are also used to torture an enemy in one sequence. Cutscenes depict characters getting shot (on and off camera) while restrained or unarmed.
Large bloodstains/pools of blood appear in crime scenes and in the aftermath of violent acts; one room depicts a person torturing a character on a bloody operating table. During the course of the game, players can shoot unarmed characters and a hostage. Neon signs in a red-light district read “live nude girls” and “XXX.”
The words “b*tch,” “gobsh*te,” and “a*s” appear in the dialogue.
Batman: Arkham Knight will be released for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One on June 2.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Batman: Arkham Knight