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: Xbox One
WB Games plans to release expansion sets for Lego Dimensions until “at least” 2018
Lego Dimensions is available on store shelves today, but WB Games has huge plans to keep the game fresh over the next few years. In fact, a developer at TT Games recently told Eurogamer that the publisher is working on an expansion schedule that will stretch out to 2018… at least:
“We have a three year plan at the moment and we’ve got no intention of stopping there,” associate producer Mark Warburton told Eurogamer during an interview conducted at EGX.
“We’ve created the technology to the degree that we’re happy it meets our needs for the future. We’ve created the toy pad so that it shouldn’t need to be updated. And we can just create new level and character packs to keep expanding that.”
In the more immediate term, WB Games will release dozens of Lego Dimensions expansion packs during the remainder of this year and into 2016. A number of them, collectively known as Wave 1, are available on store shelves right now. Wave 2 will be out in December, with the third, fourth, and fifth Waves following in, respectively, January, March, and May of 2016. That is a lot of Legos.
Great Scott! Heavy! Zoinks! Timey-Wimey! D’oh! Spared No Expense! And Such…
Second Transformers: Devastation behind-the-scenes video shows off more gameplay
Developers from Activision and Platinum Games recently released another behind-the-scenes trailer for Transformers: Devastation. This time, they’ve decided to show us even more footage from the game’s bot-filled brawls, in addition to discussing the story, the multiple difficulty levels (the toughest of which is known as “Prime”), and the Challenge Mode.
Transformers: Devastation will be released for the PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One on October 6.
Microsoft knows what the next ten years of Halo (including Halo 6) will look like
Back in 2011, Microsoft revealed their intention to create a new Halo trilogy, confirming the eventual existence of Halo 4 through Halo 6 in one fell swoop. With Halo 4 serving as the swan song to the Xbox 360, and Halo 5: Guardians exactly a month away, Microsoft and 343 Industries have turned their attention to the sixth entry in the Master Chief’s space saga.
More specifically, Franchise Director Frank O’Connor recently told GamesRadar that his team has plotted out ten years of stories for the series:
“We do kind of know what’s going to happen in the next game pretty well at this point,” explains franchise development director Frank O’Connor. “We’re doing serious real planning and even some writing on the next game already, and that’s a luxury – we’ve never been in that position before. So we both know at a very high level what’s going to happen in, say, ten years from now. But at that very granular level knowing what’s going to happen in the next game and that’s just been a great feeling for me”.
But according to Bonnie Ross, the Studio Head of 343, this type of long-range planning actually began with the Bungie-developed Halo 3: ODST and Halo: Reach:
343’s studio head Bonnie Ross talks about the long term plan, highlighting Frank and his team’s role back in the ODST and Halo Reach days, “to really lay the fictional foundation for the next twenty years”. There are ideas are in place. Several, in fact. “You can look at the ending of Halo 4 – and where Master Chief is,” she continues, “and obviously we had to know where we were going to take Halo 5 and Halo 6 with that. You have an epic sci-fi universe and we have multiple ways that we can go with this story, but all the pieces are laying there. The canvas is there for us to paint”.
Halo 5: Guardians will be released exclusively for the Xbox One on October 27. Surely, the Halo 6 speculation will begin not too long after that.
Posted in News, Xbox One
Tagged Halo Infinite
New Releases: Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5, NBA Live 16, Fallout Anthology, More
The father of skateboarding games returns to store shelves this week, and he’ll be joined by a new EA Sports simulation and a collected edition of one of gaming’s most famous franchises.
Tony Hawk has been a skateboarding superstar for more than 30 years, but he’s got a lot to celebrate this week as his eponymous video game series comes to the PS4 and Xbox One for the first time with Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5. The game will feature ten professional skaters including Hawk’s own son, Riley. I guess that “father of skateboarding games” thing is quite literal now.
Also available this week is NBA Live 16 (PS4, Xbox One), the latest basketball simulation from EA Sports. NBA Live 16 will feature Russell Westbrook of the Oklahoma City Thunder on the cover along with an all-new player movement system and an “easy-to-use HD face scanning app” known as GameFaceHD, according to EA Sports.
Finally this week, Bethesda is bringing all five games in the Fallout franchise together in a special collection known as the Fallout Anthology. Available exclusively for the PC, the Fallout Anthology will include Fallout, Fallout 2, Fallout Tactics, Fallout 3, and Fallout: New Vegas. Best of all, all five games will come packed in a box shaped like an atomic bomb. Something tells me that it’ll be explosively popular.
The complete list of this week’s new releases can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Vita, Xbox One
Tagged Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, NBA Live 16, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5
Mighty No. 9 will be released… for real this time… on February 9, 2016
Here we go again…
After their rather shady treatment of the gaming public and a string of delays, publisher Deep Silver and developer Comcept are finally ready to reveal the release date for Mighty No. 9. Barring any further setbacks, Keiji Inafune’s spiritual successor to the Mega Man franchise will officially launch on February 9, 2016.
Mighty No. 9 will be available on store shelves and as a digital download for the PS4, Wii U, and Xbox One. Players will also be able to pick it up exclusively as a digital download for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360. A portable version of Mighty No. 9 for the 3DS and Vita is also in the works and will be released at a later date.
With the game’s final release date set in store, Deep Silver and Comcept are also ready to release the promised demo edition. Kickstarter backers are encouraged to visit Humble Bundle (and register with the same email address connected to their pledge) to receive access to the demo.
Xbox Store Today: Guns Gore & Cannoli, Fermi’s Path
If you’ve been browsing the Xbox Games Store recently, you might have noticed that two new Xbox One games were added to the virtual shelves today.
Guns, Gore & Cannoli is a side-scrolling shooter set in the fictional city of Thugtown, circa 1925. Thugtown has a serious organized crime problem, but godfather and goon alike are about to discover the city’s serious zombie problem. Just give ’em the “Moe Green Special” and everything will work out, capisce?
Also available this week is Fermi’s Path, a game that lets players take control of a subatomic particle forced to navigate a neural connection. That’s a very science-y way of saying that Fermi’s Path mashes together a rhythm game with the ring-collecting from Sonic the Hedgehog 2‘s Special Stages.
More information on both of these games can be found right here:
Xbox One Games
Guns, Gore & Cannoli ($9.99)
The game tells the story of Vinnie Cannoli and his mob family, set in the fictional Thugtown circa 1925, the height of prohibition. Beneath the city overrun by zombies, there’s a dark story of conspiracy and betrayal. Unravel the sneaky mafia ways and government conspiracy while you try to look for your lost pal and for answers about the zombie-outbreak. Lose yourself in an exciting, elaborate tale of the underground and underworld. Experience friendship, betrayal, vengeance, and witness first hand the rise and fall of a criminal mastermind.Fermi’s Path ($9.99)
In this action-loaded arcade game you play the role of Fermi, a particle on a terrific trip through subatomic space. Driven by the music you have to avoid obstacles and eliminate incoming particles on ever-accelerating levels to crack the top score! After mastering each level you can play it in infinity mode in an open-end highscore.
Posted in News, Xbox One
Tagged Guns Gore & Cannoli
Pre-order Rock Band 4 through Xbox Live to get bonus songs from Weird Al + 11 other acts
A few weeks back, Harmonix and Sony offered PlayStation Plus subscribers the chance to pre-order Rock Band 4 through the PlayStation Store. Everyone who jumped on this offer would receive a special Bonus Pack of ten additional tracks featuring Duran Duran, Janis Joplin, Pantera, and others. Yesterday, Microsoft revealed that a similar deal will be extended to Xbox Live users who pre-order the game through the Xbox Games Store… but their Bonus Pack goes up to 12.
Highlights from the Xbox-exclusive Bonus Pack include songs from Marilyn Manson, Mastodon, and My Morning Jacket. But the biggest coup for Microsoft is the inclusion of Weird Al Yankovic’s “My Own Eyes,” which is a style parody of David Letterman’s favorite band, Foo Fighters (“Wherever they go, they’re fighting foo”).
Here’s the complete list of songs available in the Bonus Pack:
- All That Remains – “What If I Was Nothing”
- Babymetal – “Gimme Chocolate!!”
- Earth, Wind & Fire – “September”
- Interpol – “All The Rage Back Home”
- Jefferson Starship – “Jane”
- Linkin Park (featuring Daron Malakian) – “Rebellion”
- Marilyn Manson – “The Mephistopheles Of Los Angeles”
- Mastodon – “High Road”
- My Morning Jacket – “One Big Holiday”
- Pierce The Veil (featuring Kellin Quinn) – “King For A Day”
- Weird Al Yankovic – “My Own Eyes”
- The Wild Feathers – “Backwoods Company”
However, it’s important for Xbox One owners to remember that Rock Band 4 requires a special Legacy Game Controller Adapter to make instruments originally released for the Xbox 360 compatible with Microsoft’s newest console. Harmonix understands the hassle this is for gamers and they’ve partnered with Amazon to offer a $15 discount on the dongle with the “RB4ADAPTER” coupon code. Standalone Xbox One instrument will be available in early 2016.
Rock Band 4 will be available for the Xbox One (and the PS4) on October 6.
Posted in News, Xbox One
Tagged Rock Band 4
Endure the latest video in Fallout 4’s S.P.E.C.I.A.L. series… E for Endurance
“Following total atomic annihilation, the rebuilding of this great nation of ours may fall to you. Study these materials carefully to ensure your survival and to discover what makes you S.P.E.C.I.A.L.”
Betehsda is back with another educational look at the traits necessary to survive in Fallout 4‘s harsh Wasteland. This time, the publisher has decided to focus on the benefits of Endurance… which apparently leads to a lot of cannibalism and a few run-ins with rampaging mutant crabs.
Fallout 4 will be released for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One on November 10. And tune in next week… Same Vault-Time, Same Vault-Channel… for Charisma, the next entry in the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. video series.