Warp Zoned Presents
Video Game Canon- Jordan Minor’s “Boss Fight Books: Super Mario Galaxy” is Now Available for Pre-Order
- 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
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
The Dark Knight returns this October in Batman: Arkham Origins
Riddle me this! What was Gotham City like before The Dark Knight battled The Joker in Batman: Arkham Asylum? We’ll get to find out this Fall as Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment has announced the third game in the Arkham series will be available soon for the PC, PS3, Wii U, and Xbox 360. Batman: Arkham Origins will be released on October 25 and will tell the story of a “young, raw, unrefined” Batman during the early days of his career:
Batman: Arkham Origins features an expanded Gotham City and introduces an original prequel storyline occurring several years before the events of Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City. Taking place before the rise of Gotham City’s most dangerous villains and assassins, the game showcases a young, raw, unrefined Batman as he faces a defining moment in his early career as a crime fighter that sets his path to becoming the Dark Knight. As the story unfolds, witness identities being formed and key relationships being forged.
Sadly, Arkham Origins won’t be developed by Rocksteady Studios, the team behind Arkham Asylum and Arkham City. Instead, WB Games Montreal will take up the cape and cowl for this origin story. With a little less than seven months to go before its released, we won’t have to wait long for details on Arkham Origins. For example, the game’s appearance on the cover of the May 2013 issue of Game Informer gives us our first look at one of Batman’s foes: Deathstroke.
A companion 3DS/Vita game, Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate will also be available on October 25. Developed by Armature Studio, the 2.5D game will take place after Arkham Origins and will feature a “Metroidvania” style of play.
Posted in 3DS, News, PC, PS3, Vita, Wii U, Xbox 360
Tagged Batman: Arkham Origins, Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate
Alternate covers for BioShock Infinite now available
As promised, Irrational Games has uploaded a few alternate covers for their latest game, BioShock Infinite. The eight covers are available at the game’s official website.
You can choose the image to your right as well seven additional images including two covers featuring just Elizabeth, a cover showcasing the “Falling” art, three covers in the propaganda poster style, and one more action shot with Booker and Elizabeth.
The page offers each alternate cover in two sizes: a PC/Xbox 360-style DVD case or a PS3-style Blu-ray case. Printing instructions are also provided so your new BioShock Infinite cover looks as “exceptional” as possible.
Posted in News, PC, PS3, Xbox 360
Tagged BioShock Infinite
Torment: Tides of Numenera becomes the most funded game on Kickstrarter ever
Every time I think the Kickstarter train has come to a stop, a different project pulls into a record-breaking station. This time, inXile’s Torment: Tides of Numenera has set a new record for a video game on the site with $4,188,927 in pledges from 74,405 backers. If you missed out on backing the RPG, which was inspired by the well-regarded Planescape: Torment, there’s still time. InXile has set up a PayPal Store for last-minute pledges and pre-orders.
Torment: Tides of Numenera is a massive undertaking and to help with development, inXile has recruited Chris Avellone, the Lead Designer of Planescape: Torment. Here’s what they have planned for Tides of Numenera, which you should be able to play by December 2014:
You are the Last Castoff, the final link in the chain of the lives of the being they call the Changing God. He once was a man who discovered a way to use the relics of the ancients to cheat death and skip across the face of centuries in a succession of bodies. But he never knew that his bodies lived on as his consciousness fled, a new consciousness arising in each. Now he has awakened an age-old enemy, the Angel of Entropy, and his days of change are gone as the Angel hunts him and all his works. That includes… you.
With the ever-present threat of oblivion looming over you, you must find your sire before he—and you—are eradicated by the avenging Angel. You will find allies and enemies among the other castoffs. You might inhabit their minds for a time through the devices called “the Meres,” turning their lives to your advantage. You will travel across the face of the Ninth World, and above and below it, with your companions at your side—or alone, if you wish. Your quest will take you to alternate dimensions and distant worlds under strange suns; particular Meres might afford you even more bizarre experiences, such as folding time itself. And you will build your legacy as you find your answer to the question:
What does one life matter?
You can learn more than you ever wanted to know about Torment: Tides of Numenera by visiting the Kickstarter page and, eventually, the game’s official site.
Posted in News, PC
Tagged Torment: Tides of Numenera
Activision officially announces April 16 release date for CoD: Black Ops II Uprising DLC
After weeks of rumors, Activision has officially announced the second downloadable expansion for Call of Duty: Black Ops II. The Uprising Map Pack will be available to download from the Xbox Live Marketplace on April 16 for 1200 Microsoft Points ($15). The pack is also included as part of the Call of Duty: Black Ops II DLC Season Pass. A PC and PS3 release will likely follow in May. Like the Revolution Pack before it, Uprising will add four new maps to the game’s multiplayer mode:
- “Magma” is a modern Japanese village with volcanic eruptions carving multiple paths throughout the town.
- “Encore” takes place in the aftermath of a deserted London music festival and leaves numerous opportunities for run-and-gun, close quarters combat.
- “Vertigo” is a futuristic high rise in India housing a high-tech lab featuring dizzying vistas and multi-tiered pathways.
- “Studio” is a Hollywood movie back lot with a variety of cinematic themes that range from Sci-Fi to the Old West. It’s also a contemporary remake of “Firing Range,” a fan-favorite multiplayer map from Call of Duty: Black Ops.
An expansive new Zombies mode, “Mob of the Dead,” will also be included in Uprising. Similar to Black Ops‘ “Call of the Dead,” “Mob of the Dead” will recruit four of Hollywood’s most famous wiseguys: Ray Liotta as Billy Handsome, Joe Pantoliano as Al “The Weasel” Arlington, Chazz Palmentiri as Salvatore “Sal” DeLuca, and Michael Madsen as Michael “Finn” O’Leary. At the start of “Mob of the Dead,” these four made men are residents of Alcatraz. But instead of hanging with the Birdman, they’ll have to take on a zombie horde:
With plans to break out of Alcatraz foiled by the rise of the undead, the quartet of inmates will have to lean on their mob-derived skills with firearms, blunt instruments and improvised weaponry as they battle the zombies infesting and overrunning the island. In order to survive, players must work their way through the steel cells and aging concrete buildings while fighting off a multitude of zombified prisoners and guards trapped on the island with them.
I’ll just say it, welcome to The Rock!
Posted in News, PC, PS3, Xbox 360
Tagged Call of Duty: Black Ops II
The Cross and the Controller: BioShock Infinite and Social Exclusion
Joshua Wise is the founder of Crossed Purposes. Crossed Purposes is a website which engages pop culture and theology through reviews, discussion and a weekly podcast. It looks at video games, books, movies, television, and music from a number of different theological disciplines including Systematic, Historical, Liturgical, and Biblical.
BioShock Infinite, Irrational Games’ second BioShock adventure,1 is a masterpiece of world-building and a penetrating insight into the extremes of American civil religion, the nationalization of religious traditions, and the vicious cycle of isolation, division, and insular identities. (more…)
Dead Island: Riptide Hands-On Preview: Wasting Away in Zombieville
Dead Island: Riptide is a sequel to Dead Island, which was released to middling reviews and disappointment after a strong advertising campaign in 2011. Deep Silver’s marketing for the sequel has already stirred up controversy with their plan to include a “bloody torso” statue in the UK special edition. The game itself will be out this month, and was playable on the show floor at PAX East. The developers were showing off a cooperative mode, allowing you to work together with other players to fortify an area and keep the zombies out. But between collision issues, terrible graphics, and hysterical ragdoll phyics, the game was a jumbled mess. (more…)
Posted in PC, Previews, PS3, Top Story, Xbox 360
Tagged Dead Island: Riptide, PAX East 2013
North American services ending for Dungeon Fighter Online
Sad news today for the warriors of Arad, as Nexon has announced that North American services will be coming to an end for Dungeon Fighter Online. Seriously, it really is coming to an end – and that’s despite some of Nexon’s related announcements having April 1 timestamps.
In a statement posted to the game’s North American regional website, Nexon America CEO Min Kim said that the company simply “has not attracted enough player interest to properly service” Dungeon Fighter Online for the region. He continued, “Internally, we struggled deeply with the popularity of DFO in North America as the title is immensely popular overseas. For more than three years, we went through many milestones and several pushes before we came to this very difficult decision.”
Kim noted that the Nexon team has “worked hard in hopes of building a strong community through new content updates, service fixes, and events. We tirelessly battled hackers and farmers. We even had the honor of presenting the game to you at E3 and PAX. However, Dungeon Fighter Online was not able to grow beyond its very special and proud core following [in the North American marketplace].”
Nexon America will begin drawing its services for the game to an end over the next seven weeks, with the game’s item mall closing up shop on April 11. All remaining services will be terminated on June 13. Players who are in good standing with Nexon America’s services for the game will receive compensation for all permanent and duration-based items, along with that for any purchased consumables, based on dollar amount purchases for the previous six months from today’s announcement. Furthermore, special deals will be available to all recently active Dungeon Fighter Online players in other Nexon-serviced games, also based on similar criteria for both DFO and their new game of choice within the Nexon catalog.
A complete FAQ sheet has been posted to give players some additional information regarding the announcement.
Watch Dogs PAX East Impressions: Hack the Planet, or Maybe Just Chicago
Ubisoft didn’t have Watch Dogs playable on the show floor at PAX East, but the game still had an enormous presence. The publisher showed a special behind-closed-doors presentation of the game, which included a special Watch Dogs lanyard as a giveaway (and if you were wearing it on the show floor, you may have gotten a surprise visit from a Frag Doll with a free t-shirt). I would have much preferred being able to play the game myself, but what I saw on the screen was a somewhat impressive, if disappointingly short, display of the capabilities of main character Aiden Pearce. (more…)
Posted in PC, Previews, PS3, PS4, Top Story, Wii U, Xbox 360
Tagged PAX East 2013, Watch Dogs