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
CoD: Ghosts Multiplayer Reveal: Create-A-Soldier, Squads, dynamic maps
Activision just dropped a ton of Call of Duty: Ghosts news onto the Internet. Are you ready for the full scoops on the game’s multiplayer mode? Here it is…
Ghosts will introduce the Create-A-Soldier system, in which “players can customize their various weapon loadouts, plus, for the first time in the series, the physical appearance of their soldier, delivering over 20,000 possible combinations, including heads, body types, equipment, gender, and more.”
Players will be able to take their created soldiers and drop them into custom squads, which leads us to a new gameplay mode, also known as Squads. In Squads, players can “enlist to play solo, cooperatively up to 6-players, or competitively for one vs. one, head-on matches pitting players and their squads against others and their squads. Squads features a variety of play-types, allowing fans at any time to swap-out their custom A.I. soldiers with real friends for quick-action co-op. The competition can be fierce as squad soldiers display life-like, skilled tactics and behaviors like side-strafing, corner-camping, jump-shooting and more. Players, plus their squads, will earn XP, and if you’re offline, be prepared as your squad may get challenged for play without you.”
Finally, Call of Duty: Ghosts will make multiplayer battles even more chaotic with dynamic maps. Dynamic maps are “the evolution of multiplayer maps through dynamic map events. Player-triggered traps and events allow gamers to strategically redirect the course of battle, including the ability to call-in a map-changing killstreak, which can completely transform or modify the map delivering new levels of strategy and gameplay.”
You can get a first look at Call of Duty: Ghosts’ multiplayer mode in the first multiplayer trailer, which features Eminem’s new song, “Survival.”
CoD: Ghosts Multiplayer Reveal: Collector’s Editions and Season Pass announced
Activision just dropped a ton of Call of Duty: Ghosts news onto the Internet. Are you ready to talk about limited edition goodies? I hope so…
The Call of Duty franchise pioneered the concept of the “premium” special edition and Call of Duty: Ghosts will be no different. As with previous releases in the series, Activision plans to offer two special editions for Ghosts. There’s the $119.99 Hardened Edition and the $199.99 Prestige Edition.
The Hardened Edition will include a copy of Call of Duty: Ghosts, the DLC Season Pass, limited edition Collectible Steelbook packaging, and a Paracord Strap. But the Prestige Edition is where it’s at. It will include everything from the Hardened Edition plus a Tactical Camera, a “full HD 1080p, water resistant, wide-angle mounted, wearable camera based on the actual helmet camera featured in the game itself.”
Speaking of the Season Pass, it is also available as a standalone purchase for $49.99 and will include free access to four DLC Map Packs beginning in 2014. The Season Pass also include access to the Ghosts Team Leader Pack, which features a “multiplayer character modeled from one of the characters from Ghosts’ single player campaign.” And for a limited time, if you purchase the Season Pass for the PS3 or Xbox 360, it will magically upgrade to a PS4 or Xbox One Season Pass at no additional cost.
Both special editions and the Season Pass are now available for pre-order.
CoD: Ghosts Multiplayer Reveal: First trailer includes Eminem’s “Survival”
Activision just dropped a ton of Call of Duty: Ghosts news onto the Internet. So let’s take it one step at a time.
First up is the first trailer for the game’s multiplayer mode. The trailer features plenty of footage from Call of Duty’s multiplayer mode as well a brand new Eminem song, “Survival.” More importantly, it’s our first look at some of the Create-A-Soldier options (now you can play as a woman), dynamic map events (that bus got blown up real good), and some of the new weaponry.
In addition to its inclusion in the trailer above and Call of Duty: Ghosts, Eminem’s “Survival” will be included on his upcoming eighth album. The title, first single, and release date of the album will be announced soon.
“Hacking Is Your Weapon” in this new Watch Dogs gameplay video
Ever since it was announced at E3 2012, Ubisoft has been touting the “hack anything” gameplay mechanic found in Watch Dogs. A newly released gameplay trailer, “Hacking Is Your Weapon,” finally gives us a better look at how exactly it’ll work.
Watch Dogs will be available for the PC, PS3, Wii U, and Xbox 360 on November 19. PS4 and Xbox One editions will also be released before the end of the year.
Look at that… the Xbox One DOES NOT require Kinect to function
After all their talk about integral the new Kinect sensor was to the Xbox One, Microsoft’s “Hard Hittin'” Marc Whitten has confirmed that the system does not require the peripheral to work. The good news was revealed during an “Ask Microsoft Anything” session with IGN users today.
Whitten said, “[L]ike online, the console will still function if Kinect isn’t plugged in, although you won’t be able to use any feature or experience that explicitly uses the sensor.” Naturally, this bombshell required some clarification and Whitten complied: “You have the ability to completely turn the sensor off in your settings. When in this mode, the sensor is not collecting any information. Any functionality that relies on voice, video, gesture or more won’t work. We still support using it for IR blasting in this mode. You can turn the sensor back on at any time through settings, and if you enter into a required Kinect experience (like Kinect Sports Rivals for instance), you’ll get a message asking if you want to turn the sensor back on in order to continue.”
So now we’re left with the $499 question… did the Xbox One EVER require the Kinect sensor to function? (Probably not). Is this just more Microsoft backtracking in the face of consumer complaints? (Most likely). Were they scared of the proposed We Are Watching You Act? (Maybe, but I doubt it). Are there now plans to sell the Xbox One console without the Kinect sensor?
I hope the answer to that last one is “Yes.” What do you say, Mr. Whitten?
Get a closer look at the Xbox One controller with Major Nelson
Microsoft’s Major Nelson continues his “unboxing” of the Xbox One console with an “insider’s look” at the next generation consoles’ controller. He’s joined by Zulfi Alam, the General Manager of the Xbox Accessories Group, to get a developer’s eye view of the new D-Pad, the triggers, the face buttons, the force feedback motors, the “screwless” design, and the controller’s new wireless/wired design.
It’s definitely worth a watch, if only for the ridiculous green light that makes Major Nelson resemble The Joker.
Ubisoft, Hasbro strike deal to bring Monopoly and other board games to next-gen consoles
Get up and go to your game closet. Chances are you’ll have a well-worn copy of at least one of the following board games in there: Monopoly, Scrablle, Trivial Pursuit, Risk, Battleship, and Cranium. What do they all have in common? First of all, they’re all published by Hasbro.
Also, new versions of each game are coming to current-generation and next-generation consoles courtesy of Ubisoft.
“Hasbro makes games that we all know and love, and we’re thrilled to be able to work with them to create video game experiences based on some of their most popular brands,” said Tony Key, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Ubisoft.
Electronic Arts previously held the Hasbro board game license for console games. They will still be able to publish and develop apps based on Hasbro board games for mobile devices.
Ubisoft knows how the Assassin’s Creed series will end
With the always impending release of a new Assassin’s Creed title, it’s hard to tell just what Ubisoft has planned for the franchise. After the ending of Assassin’s Creed III, gamers thought that perhaps they’d finally reached the end of the story. But with the announcement of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, there was a collective gasp, followed shortly by a cry of excitement, as the gaming world realized that the blockbuster franchise was not over yet.
Of course, with Ubisoft releasing a new Assassin’s Creed game every year and continuing on beyond what appeared to be a very conclusive ending to the story of Desmond Miles, it’s hard not to wonder if they aren’t just milking the Assassin’s Creed name for as much money as they can. While it’s definitely true that they are seeking to capitalize on the success of the Assassin’s Creed name, a recent interview with Assassin’s Creed IV game director, Ashraf Ismail, revealed that the powers that be behind the franchise do have an idea of how they want the story to end. Each installment in the series is carefully placed within the framework to progress the story along while still providing a unique, inclusive experience within the game itself.
According to Ismael, one of the key advantages of working with a yearly title franchise is being “able to seed stuff earlier and earlier.” He cited Edward, the protagonist of Assassin’s Creed IV who was seeded in Assassin’s Creed III, as a good example of this. He also claims that this leads to many advances in gameplay, as things that are touched on in early installments become more fleshed out in later installments. For example, the team behind Assassin’s Creed III wanted ship boarding to happen in real-time, but had to be implemented as a cutscene. In Assassin’s Creed IV, the mechanic has been perfected and ship boarding will be happening in real-time. It’s comforting to know that the team behind Assassin’s Creed actually has a plan they are following rather than just releasing a completely insane amount of titles in the hopes of milking their target audience dry.
Of course, this just means we’ll all have to keep buying Assassin’s Creed installments every year if we want to know how the story ends.