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
Explore the extensive timeline of the Call of Duty: Black Ops franchise in this video
Beginning with the birth of Victor Reznov in 1913, the Black Ops saga spans more than 100 years of history… most of which has been redacted. Thankfully, developer Treyarch has compiled this primer to help players read through the lines before the upcoming release of Call of Duty: Black Ops III. If you’ve got ten minutes to spare, I highly recommend you spend it reacquainting yourself with the events behind Black Ops and Black Ops II.
And if you skip to the end, you’ll even find out which of Black Ops II’s multiple endings is considered the true ending by Treyarch.
Call of Duty: Black Ops III will be released for the PC, PS4, Xbox One, PS3, and Xbox 360 on November 6.
Posted in News, PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Call of Duty: Black Ops, Call of Duty: Black Ops II, Call of Duty: Black Ops III
IO Interactive delays Hitman’s debut to March 2016
It looks like IO Interactive’s ambitious release plan for the next Hitman game, simply titled Hitman, has proven to be a bit too ambitious. The developer confirmed earlier this week (via the Hitman Development Blog) that the game will no longer be released this December as originally planned. Instead, Hitman will be released for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One in March 2016.
IO Interactive is positioning Hitman as an episodic game… but with a twist. Instead of giving players the option purchase individual episodes at regular intervals, the developer wants to sell Hitman for full price upfront and release a number of free updates throughout the year. Part of the reason for the game’s delay is to ensure that more content is available at launch:
[W]e’re going for a new release model where we put out a good chunk of the game when it begins and then release the remaining locations over time. We want to make absolutely sure you all get the best possible experience when you join, so we’ve made the difficult decision to move the initial release date to March 2016. These few extra months will mean we can add more to the launch content of the game, more than we had originally planned, and then follow with a tighter frequency of updates, which ultimately will create a better game for everyone. And in the end, that’s what we’re all looking for.
To help fans visualize the scope of their latest project, IO Interactive also created an impressive infographic to better show off the size of Agent 47’s new playground. The gray layer in the infographic represents “Street of Hope,” the largest level in Hitman: Absolution. Meanwhile, the red layer directly underneath shows “Paris: The Showstopper”, a Hitman locale that’s roughly six times larger. This mission will also give players the option of 300 potential Targets (versus 50 in Absolution), and more than 25 unique areas to explore.
IO Interactive will announce more details about how the size of Hitman’s world will affect Agent 47 next week. The team also plans to reveal more details about the game’s episodic release schedule at the same time.
Xbox Store Today: Skylanders SuperChargers, FIFA 16, Blood Bowl II, more
Today is the first day of Fall and that means that Activision and Vicarious Visions are back with another entry in the popular Skylanders franchise. This time, the Skylanders will hop into a variety of different vehicles in Skylanders SuperChargers, which is now available to download through the Xbox Games Store on the Xbox One and Xbox 360. “Epic adventures over land, under sea, and through the sky” are promised, but you’ll need to own a Portal of Power from a previous Skylanders game to experience it all.
Also available to download this week is a pair of sports titles that use a football field in two very different ways. EA’s FIFA 16 (Xbox One, Xbox 360) is a traditional soccer simulation that features hundreds of teams from across the world. And in a first for the franchise, it also features 16 women’s teams that were part of this year’s World Cup. However, the other side of the pitch is occupied by Blood Bowl II, a turn-based strategy game that melds American football with the fantastic characters found in the Warhammer universe.
Finally this week, two arena fighters will battle it out for your gaming dollar. In this corner, Golden Ruby Games will release Extreme Exorcism, a supernatural single-screen arena fighter, for the Xbox One. And in this other corner, Self Made Miracle will release Penarium, an arena game set in a sinister circus, for the Xbox One.
More information on all of these games can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in News, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Blood Bowl 2, Extreme Exorcism, FIFA 16, Skylanders SuperChargers
Extreme Exorcism Review: This House Was Cleaned… With a Twelve-Gauge Double-Barreled Remington
Golden Ruby’s Extreme Exorcism is what you get when you combine the single-screen baddie-bashing of something like Mario Bros. with the pattern memorization requirements of the most chaotic Treasure shoot ’em up. Toss in a throwback retro look and an Army of Darkness-style arsenal, and you’ve got yourself a game.
But there’s got to be more to Extreme Exorcism than that, right? Of course, and the power of Christ compels you to read on… (more…)
Dontnod will release the final episode of Life Is Strange on October 20
The world of Life Is Strange will come to a close on October 20. Dontnod Entertainment announced the release date for the finale of their episodic game series on Twitter today, which hints at an apocalyptic end for Max, Chloe, and the rest of Arcadia Bay:
Life is Strange Ep 5 is aiming to release Oct 20th! Prepare to weather the storm #LISFinale http://t.co/kDDtJ7oqko pic.twitter.com/ZLypWoT0oE
— Life Is Strange (@LifeIsStrange) September 21, 2015
In keeping with the game’s photographic theme, the final episode has been titled Polarized by Dontnod. Once again, if all goes well, it’ll be available to download for the PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One on October 20.
A launch trailer for Lego Dimensions jumps into view ahead of next week’s launch
Lego Dimensions is just a week away and WB Games has given us one final look at it in the launch trailer embedded above. It features a lot of the same stuff we’ve seen from the game before including various scenes of Batman, Gandalf, and Scooby-Doo being awesome. But we also get two seconds of Bart Simpson on a Hoverboard… so that’s definitely something new!
Lego Dimensions will be available this Sunday, September 27, on the PS3, PS4, Wii U, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.
New Releases: Lego Dimensions, FIFA 16, NBA 2K16, More
Sport fans should gather up their foam fingers and beer hats once more as the soccer shenanigans of FIFA 16 and the raucous roundball of NBA 2K16 will both arrive on store shelves this week for the PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One. Blood Bowl II, and its fantastical version of football, will be available for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
But if you’re a Lego fan, the release of Lego Dimensions is likely a much bigger deal this week. Mashing together more than a dozen media franchises, Lego Dimensions could very well be the ultimate Lego game. Developer TT Games has clearly come a long way since 2005’s Lego Star Wars. Sadly, Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker won’t be part of the magic, but characters from DC Comics, The Lord of the Rings, Scooby-Doo, The Simpsons, Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, Doctor Who, and many, many others will appear in the PS3, PS4, Wii U, Xbox 360, and Xbox One game.
Finally this week, 3DS owners will get to play decorator as Nintendo will release Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer for the handheld system. It will launch alongside a new range of Amiibo-powered cards and a New 3DS + Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer Bundle.
All of this week’s new releases are available in a handy list format after the break. (more…)
Posted in 3DS, News, PC, PS3, PS4, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer, Blood Bowl 2, FIFA 16, Lego Dimensions, NBA 2K16
Xbox Store Today: Plague Inc: Evolved, Inside My Radio, Book of Unwritten Tales 2, more
Ndemic Creations unleashed a “viral” sensation on the world in 2012 with their mobile hit, Plague Inc. Today, the developer is bringing their disease simulator to the Xbox One through the Xbox Games Store. PS4 and Wii U owners are no doubt green with envy… of course, that could also be the result of the game’s signature pathogens infecting another host. It’s a wild premise for a strategy game, but if Plague Inc: Evolved is half as good as its mobile forebear, then killing billions of people with a horrible disease will be the most fun you have on your Xbox One in a long time.
Three other games are also available to download for the Xbox One today including Inside My Radio, a musical side-scroller; The Book of Unwritten Tales 2, a fantasy spoof that promises hours of point-and-click fun; and Pumped BMX +, a BMX stunt racer. And if you haven’t upgraded to an Xbox One just yet, The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 is also available for the Xbox 360.
More information on all of these games can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in News, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Plague Inc: Evolved