Warp Zoned Presents
Video Game Canon- 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
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Wins “Game of the Year” at 2025-2026 GDC Awards
Warp Zoned Presents
- Video Game Research Library
- 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)
- In 2005, games started rewiring our brains – The AV Club (2025)
Most Recent: PS4
New Retail Releases: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, More
From Software is back in the spotlight this week, but it’s not for a new game in the Dark Souls franchise (or even the oft-requested Bloodborne 2). Instead, the famed developer will bring an entirely original game, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, to the PC, PS4, and Xbox One on Friday. Published by Activision, Sekiro’s players will take control of a disgraced warrior (the “One-Armed Wolf”) and attempt to rescue a young lord from the clutches of the Ashina Clan.
Speaking of ninjas, GameMill Entertainment will release American Ninja Warrior Challenge for the PS4, Switch, and Xbox One this week. This game adaptation of the over-the-top athletic contest will feature more than a dozen obstacles, a Character Creator, and a Course Creator.
Elsewhere on store shelves, SNK will launch the SNK 40th Anniversary Collection for the PS4. Compiling 24 games from SNK’s earliest days, fans will be able to replay Crystalis, the Ikari Warriors trilogy, P.O.W., and more.
And finally this week, Marvelous will release Fate/Extella Link, the latest action-adventure addition to the franchise, on the PS4 and Switch.
A smattering of new games will also be available to download through the PlayStation Store, Xbox Games Store, and Nintendo eShop later this week, and some of them will surely feature even more ninjas.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One
Tagged Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, SNK 40th Anniversary Collection
God of War captures “Game of the Year” at 2019 SXSW Gaming Awards
Sony Santa Monica’s God of War continued its award-winning ways this weekend with a trio of wins at the 2019 SXSW Gaming Awards. The action-adventure title was awarded “Game of the Year” by SXSW’s Gaming Advisory Board, as well as “Excellence In Design” and “Excellence in Visual Achievement.”
The rest of the 2019 SXSW Gaming Awards were spread out among a large number of games, and like Kratos, several managed to secure multiple victories. Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption 2 was the only other game to win in three categories, and it took home some hardware as the “Trending Game of the Year,” along with “Excellence in Technical Achievement” and “Excellence in SFX.”
Insomniac’s Spider-Man won two awards (“Excellence in Convergence” and “Excellence in Animation”), as did Epic’s Fortnite (“Most Promising New Esports Game” and “Excellence in Multiplayer”) and Beat Games’s Beat Saber (“VR Game of the Year” and “Most Promising New Intellectual Property”).
Congratulations to all the winners, and you can find a complete list of every award-winning game from the 2019 SXSW Gaming Awards at Video Game Canon.
Posted in Mobile, News, PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One
Tagged Celeste, Detroit: Become Human, Fortnite, God of War 4, No Man's Sky, Octopath Traveler, Red Dead Redemption 2, Spider-Man, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Tabletop Games, Tetris Effect
Yacht Club is bringing “something new” to PAX East 2019… and it looks like a post-apocalyptic ninja game
Yacht Club Games originally released Shovel Knight in 2013, and the developer has spent the half-decade since producing multiple expansions for the game to fulfill promises made during its Kickstarter campaign. The final two expansions, King of Cards and Showdown, will be available later this year, and now it looks like Yacht Club is getting ready to move on to their next project.
Yesterday, the developer uploaded a stunning bit of artwork to their Twitter account, while also confirming that they’re bringing “something new” to PAX East 2019:
Who is that, lurking silently in the distance? Something new will emerge from the shadows at @officialpaxeast … pic.twitter.com/w1MQhIrYiB
— Yacht Club Games (@YachtClubGames) March 16, 2019
Unlike the medieval aesthetic found in Shovel Knight, this new project looks to feature a more post-apocalyptic vibe as a ninja stands amongst the rubble of a modern skyline.
Yacht Club’s new game is obviously a bit of a mystery, but we’ll all find out what they’re cooking up in just a few weeks. PAX East 2019 kicks off later this month in Boston on Thursday, March 28.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One
Tagged Cyber Shadow, PAX East 2019
Turtle Rock will develop zombie-focused co-op shooter Back 4 Blood for WB Games
Turtle Rock Studios is best known as the driving creative force behind 2008’s Left 4 Dead and 2009’s Left 4 Dead 2, and fans have been clamoring for a threequel in the co-op zombie shooting series ever since.
While Valve retains the rights to the Left 4 Dead name, Turtle Rock is back in the news with the announcement of a brand new zombie-focused co-op shooter known as Back 4 Blood. Set to be published by WB Games, Back 4 Blood will use the foundation of the Left 4 Dead franchise and marry it to “new features and state-of-the-art technology.”
“It’s hard to overstate what an awesome opportunity this is. We get to return to a genre that was born in our studio with over ten years of additional experience and zombie ideas racked up in our brains,” said Chris Ashton, the Design Director at Turtle Rock Studios. “We also have some of the best teammates in the business at WBIE who understand our development process and are equally committed to our player-first mentality. We love being able to announce, so we can start working with the community right away.”
Details pertaining to Back 4 Blood are still pretty scarce, but a short FAQ on Turtle Rock’s official website confirms that the game will feature a Campaign Mode and PVP. The document also confirms that the developer’s previous partnership with Perfect World has been canceled.
Back 4 Blood is currently in development for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One, and according to Turtle Rock, we’ll learn more about it at a much later date.
The Behemoth is probably bringing Castle Crashers to the Switch, PS4
The Behemoth recently uploaded a mysterious new image to their Twitter account that is most likely pointing to an upcoming launch of Castle Crashers for the Switch. The tease is very subtle, but see if you can spot it…
— The Behemoth (@thebehemoth) March 14, 2019
All joking aside, linking the Castle Crashers’s color scheme with a quartet of Joy-Con Controllers was an absolute stroke of genius. The image is instantly recognizable and it says everything that The Behemoth wants to say without actually saying anything at all.
We don’t know when Castle Crashers will be released for the Switch (or even when it’ll be officially announced), but PAX East is coming up in two weeks and The Behemoth plans to have a big presence at the Boston-based show. I’d wager we’ll learn more about the developer’s future plans for Castle Crashers there.
UPDATE: A further tweet from The Behemoth is now hinting at a PS4 launch for Castle Crashers as well.
Posted in News, PS4, Switch
Tagged Castle Crashers, PAX East 2019
God of War receives ten nominations and leads the way at 2019 BAFTA Games Awards
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) has announced the nominees for this year’s BAFTA Game Awards and Sony Santa Monica’s God of War lead the way with ten nominations, including an unprecedented four nominations in the “Performer” category (one each for the actors behind Kratos, Atreus, Freya, and The Stranger). Boy!
Naturally, God of War is also in running for the “Best Game” Award, and it’ll be competing against Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, Sony’s Astro Bot: Rescue Mission, Matt Makes Games’s Celeste, Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption 2, and Lucas Pope’s Return of the Obra Dinn
The BAFTA Game Awards will be held at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London on April 4, and the ceremony will once again be hosted by comedian Dara O’Briain. Fans across the globe are encouraged to tune in to a livestream of the ceremony at BAFTA.org.
The complete list of nominees in all categories can be found after the break. (more…)
Gearbox will most likely reveal Borderlands 3 at PAX East 2019
It looks like the time has finally come. Gearbox Software is strongly hinting that they plan to reveal Borderlands 3 at this year’s PAX East convention… and they’re not even being subtle about it.
The image to your right was added to Gearbox’s official website late last night and it bears several telltale markings linking it with the Borderlands series. The franchise’s signature cel-shaded visuals are instantly recognizable, as is a partially-obscured “3” along the top of the sign. And while Boston might not be everyone’s favorite town, it definitely isn’t surrounded by a dusty wasteland. You’re much more likely to find that kind of terrain on Pandora, the alien world that’s home to Handsome Jack and the rest of the Borderlands crew.
Developers from Gearbox will host the “Gearbox Main Theater Show” on Thursday, March 28, and they previously promised that fans would get to hear “never-before-seen reveals, exclusives, and surprises” from the team. Borderlands 3 certainly qualifies, even if it’s still officially just speculation on my part for now.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Borderlands 3, PAX East 2019
Here’s the first Teaser Trailer for the Doom movie reboot Doom: Annihilation
Universal Studios has been promising/threatening to release a new film based on id Software’s Doom for years. But even though original stars Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Karl Urban, and Rosamund Pike all became massive stars in the intervening years since 2005’s Doom, the studio decided to go the reboot route when they officially announced the new adaptation last April.
Now we know that it’ll be titled Doom: Annihilation and that it looks to be a slightly more faithful adaptation of the game franchise. A newly released Teaser Trailer gives us a glimpse at a platoon of space marines (though no clearcut shot of the Doomguy), a roving band of demonic imps, goretastic special effects, and the promise that unethical scientific shenanigans opened a “Portal to Hell.”
However, the film also looks to have a much lower budget than 2005’s Doom, and that’s because Doom: Annihilation will be released direct to DVD/Blu-ray and streaming services sometime this Fall.
And just in case you were wondering what the developers at id Software think of the new film, they rather bluntly informed a fan that “We’re not involved with the movie” on Twitter.