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: PS4
New Diablo III: Reaper of Souls trailer shows off the expansion’s many features
BlizzCon opens today in Anaheim, California and to get you in the right mood, Blizzard has released a new trailer for Diablo III: Reaper of Souls highlighting the expansion’s many new features:
- Collect Bounties in “Adventure Mode.”
- Battle a seemingly unending wave of enemies emerging from “Nephalem Rifts.”
- Organize your friends in “Clans and Groups.”
- Visit a new Artisan, “The Mystic,” to enchant and transmorgrify your gear.
- And become even more of a Paragon with the “Updated Paragon System.”
Diablo III: Reaper of Souls will be available sometime next year for the PC and PS4.
Posted in News, PC, PS4
Tagged Diablo III
Infinity Ward’s Mark Rubin “won’t rule out” Call of Duty IN SPACE
While they were riding high off the success of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 in 2010, Activision filed a trademark application for Call of Duty: Space Warfare. The publisher let the trademark lapse last year, but with the genie out of the bottle, fans and the press have been asking about a sci-fi-tinged Call of Duty ever since.
Infinity Ward’s Mark Rubin had to field another of these queries while speaking to the Metro newspaper about the recent launch of Call of Duty: Ghosts. The question is especially relevant now as Ghosts featured several missions on a space station high above the Earth. While it looks like Call of Duty: Space Warfare isn’t happening right now, Rubin wouldn’t rule it out completely:
Metro: The space levels got me thinking about all the rumours that you or Treyarch were going to do a space marine type game and this really convinced me it would work. You could play it straight, it doesn’t need to be Warhammer or have aliens even. But you could have levels with different gravity, different weapons and it would still be perfectly grounded in realism. Perhaps ironically, more so than the current games.
Rubin: Yeah. It makes sense. I wouldn’t count it out. Everything’s on the table. When we start a new game every possibility’s on the table. If we think that it’d be cool to have a battle over Jupiter, sure. Why not?
The rest of the interview is definitely worth a look as Metro’s David Jenkins spends his time hammering Rubin with more questions about “Call of Duty IN SPACE” and about the perceived graphical differences between the PS4 and Xbox One. Rubin doesn’t say anything about that, but it’s a fun read all the same.
Activision shipped $1 billion worth of copies of CoD: Ghosts to stores
It’s another billion dollar day for the video game industry… sort of.
Activision has announced they shipped more than $1 billion worth of copies of Call of Duty: Ghosts to retail outlets across the world for the game’s launch yesterday. The $1 billion figure doesn’t include download revenues from Ghosts, which also launched on Steam, the PSN, and the Xbox Live Store yesterday. It’s unknown how many of those copies have been sold to fans (or even how many copies “$1 billion” represents), but I’m going to guess that both numbers can be rounded up to “a lot.”
The literal pile of money that Activision is sitting on right now will only grow in the next few weeks as CEO Bobby Kotick reported that Ghosts is GameStop’s “most pre-reserved next gen title.”
Not known for his humility, Kotick also told reporters, “The [Call of Duty] franchise has never been more popular.”
Infinity Ward offers up another look at CoD: Ghosts’ Extinction Mode
Call of Duty: Ghosts is available in stores today (for the PC, PS3, Wii U, and Xbox 360) and, as one last appetizer before the main course, Infinity Ward has released a new trailer for Extinction Mode dubbed “First Contact.” Watch as a squad of soldiers defends Earth against a slimy alien menace and then they… become an appetizer for the aliens. Whoops. Maybe the aliens can ask Kang and Kodos for some culinary tips.
The developers at Infinity Ward also sat down with GameSpot to deliver an extended look at Extinction Mode, which you can view after the break. And don’t forget, Call of Duty: Ghosts will be available for the PS4 and Xbox One later this month. (more…)
Sony will call up MLB 14: The Show in Spring 2014
Sony’s critically acclaimed baseball simulation series, MLB: The Show, will return in 2014 with its next entry (and first on the PS4): MLB 14: The Show. The game, which is scheduled for release sometime in the Spring, will also be available for the PS3 and Vita.
Naturally, the PS4 version of the game will enable the developers at Sony San Diego to create a more lifelike simulation. “The handcuffs and restraints have been taken off,” according to Game Designer/Community Manager Ramone Russell. But the next-generation system also allows Sony San Diego to add a Quick Counts mode for faster game lengths and year-to-year saves for Seasons, Franchises, and Road To The Show.
Fresh off his selection as Player of the Year at last night’s 2013 Player’s Choice Awards, Miguel Cabrera has been selected as the cover athlete for MLB 14: The Show. Cabrera has earned many awards and accolades in his 11-year career, but his greatest claim to fame is no doubt the Triple Crown he won in 2012. It was the first time a player had lead the league in home runs, batting average, and RBIs since 1967.
Posted in News, PS3, PS4, Vita
Tagged MLB 14: The Show
The AAA Game: Where It’s Been, Where It’s Going, and Did It Kill the Mid-Tier Game?
An edited and updated version of this article is now available at Video Game Canon.
With a new generation of consoles almost upon us, there is the worry that the spiraling budgets and massive teams required to create AAA games is hurting the industry. But for all the hand-wringing about how the AAA game is detrimental to mid-size developers, no one can seem to agree on what exactly a AAA game is or when the AAA designation was even first used. In attempting to solve this etymological mystery, I found that the AAA designation shares much in common with Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s obscenity test from a 1964 case: “I know it when I see it.” But I also found out that “Will the AAA game survive?” is probably the wrong question to ask. (more…)
Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes will be available in Spring 2014
No more tricks and no more subterfuge, Konami has officially announced a release date for Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes. Better known as the prequel chapter to Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, Ground Zeroes will be available for the PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One in Spring 2014.
Hideo Kojima, the creator of the Metal Gear Solid saga, had this to say about the Ground Zeroes prequel: “The advanced capabilities of the Fox Engine have allowed me to tell the new story in a new way. There will be a significant difference in what Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain brings to the series, so we want to ease players into the new open world environment and its potential. As such, Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes has been designed to introduce key elements, allowing them to fully benefit from all that the new game will offer.”
Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes will receive a retail release on the PS3 and Xbox 360 (priced at $29.99) as well as a digital release (priced at $19.99). The next-generation PS4/Xbox One version will also be priced at $29.99 and will only be available as a digital download.
As for Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, it currently has no official release date.
Posted in News, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
2K has “more than 10” next-gen games in development; next Borderlands 2 DLC set for November
Take-Two Interactive published their quarterly financial report yesterday and while revenues were down, the company expects to post a very healthy profit by the end of the year thanks to Grand Theft Auto V.
Looking to the future, Take-Two announced that they have a wide variety of next-generation games in development. According to Take-Two’s President, Karl Slatoff, the company has “more than 10” next-generation titles in the works including Turtle Rock’s co-op shooter Evolve and an unannounced game at 2K’s recently opened Bay Area studio. And before you get your hopes up, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick adamantly refused to talk about the company’s next-gen plans for the Grand Theft Auto series.
The publisher plans to begin unveiling some of these titles “during the next several months” and plans to release several of them during their 2015 fiscal year (April 2014-March 2015).
But in the more immediate future, Take-Two also confirmed that the next Headhunter Pack for Borderlands 2, “Wattle Gobbler,” will be released in November.
Posted in News, PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Borderlands 2, Evolve, Grand Theft Auto V