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
New Retail Releases: Dissidia Final Fantasy NT, EA Sports UFC 3, Railway Empire
Let’s get ready to rumble! Three new games will be available on retail shelves this week and they all involve a bit of rumbling.
First up is Dissidia Final Fantasy NT, a team-based brawler for the PS4 from Square Enix and Team Ninja. A spinoff/sequel to 2008’s Dissidia and 2011’s Dissidia 012, this new entry will bring together more than 20 classic Final Fantasy characters in 3v3 arena battles.
The MMA octagon is also something of an arena, and EA Sports is returning to the cage with EA Sports UFC 3, a new fighting sim for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One. In addition to a revamped graphical presentation, EA Sports UFC 3 will feature a brand new Career Mode and Ultimate Team Mode.
Finally this week, a different kind of rumbling will be at the center of Railway Empire. Players will need to take control of a fleet of trains and lay a rail network that connects the coasts on the PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
That’s it for this week’s New Retail Releases report, but we’ll be back later this week with a look at all the new additions to the PlayStation Store, Xbox Games Store, and Nintendo eShop.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Dissidia Final Fantasy NT, EA Sports UFC 3
Celeste, Dragon Ball Fighter Z, Monster Hunter: World, more added to Xbox Store
Microsoft is closing out the week with a big Xbox Games Store update and the launch of four new Xbox One games…
First up is Celeste, the new side-scrolling platformer from Matt Thorson. Unlike the multiplayer antics of his first game, TowerFall, Thorson has asked players to complete the jumps necessary to climb Celeste Mountain in his “super-tight, hand-crafted platformer.”
Also available to download today is Dragon Ball Fighter Z, a 2D fighting game set within the Dragon Ball universe. Developed by Arc System Works, Dragon Ball Fighter Z includes dozens of characters and an anime-like graphical style.
Massive battles are also at the center of Monster Hunter: World, which is also available to download today courtesy of Capcom. Players will be able to explore a brand new world by themselves or with up to three friends and fight it out with a diverse set of giant beasts.
Finally this week, Awesome Industries will launch the budget-priced Drift Zone, a racing game that’s all about drifting.
You can learn more about all of today’s additions to the Xbox Games Store after the break. (more…)
Posted in News, Xbox One
Tagged Celeste, Dragon Ball FighterZ, Monster Hunter: World
Get your first look at the new multiplayer maps from CoD: WWII’s Resistance DLC Pack
Call of Duty: WWII players on the PS4 will be able to download the game’s first expansion, the Resistance DLC Pack, beginning next week. And yesterday, Activision and Sony unveiled a new trailer showcasing the add-on’s three new multiplayer maps at the PlayStation Blog.
Here’s a few details on what to expect from the Resistance DLC Pack when it launches on January 30:
Anthropoid – Based in Prague, Czechoslovakia, this map is inspired by Operation Anthropoid – the famous assassination attempt on a high-ranking German officer during World War II. This map features a center lane divided by a river, with long-flanking paths that can be used by snipers for ranged attacks.
Call of Duty: WWII – The ResistanceOccupation – In this remake of a classic Call of Duty map, players battle through the streets and shops of German-occupied Paris during WWII. Long side streets encourage mid-range combat, with nearby homes and storefronts lending defensive positions for ambush and recovery.
Valkyrie – Located in the Masurian Woods, East Prussia, this map was inspired by The Wolf’s Lair – Hitler’s Eastern-front headquarters during Operation Barbarossa – the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. This is a medium-sized map with gameplay focused around a dangerous center lane covered by multiple overwatch positions and mounted machine guns.
Call of Duty: WWII’s Resistance DLC Pack is also in the works for PC and Xbox One players, and it should be available to download sometime in late February/early March.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Call of Duty: WWII
EA might have delayed Anthem into 2019 as Dragon Age 4 begins development
According to a new report in Kotaku, BioWare is currently going through a bit of a rough patch, and it looks like both Anthem and Dragon Age 4 have been affected.
Speaking to several people “familiar with the project,” Kotaku’s Jason Schreier has learned that EA has pulled the entire BioWare team onto Anthem (minus the small teams maintaining Star Wars: The Old Republic and doing pre-production work on Dragon Age 4). But even with this increased amount of manpower, Schreier’s sources say that Anthem will most likely be delayed to Early 2019:
Anthem, which was announced at E3 2017, is now scheduled for release in early 2019, according to three people familiar with the project. The “fall 2018” window mentioned during that E3 announcement was “never realistic,” one source said. Exact dates remain in flux—and Anthem’s developers must also plan for a beta release, an EA Access launch, and an ongoing schedule of patches and updates—but it appears unlikely to developers that publisher EA will allow BioWare to delay the game any further than March 2019, when the company’s 2019 fiscal year comes to an end.
As for Dragon Age 4, a small part of BioWare has begun to work on the game, and the team is currently looking to add “live” elements to the game that’ll keep players coming back after they complete the main story:
The day following the publication of this article, BioWare studio head Casey Hudson confirmed that the next Dragon Age will indeed be a live game. “Reading lots of feedback regarding Dragon Age, and I think you’ll be relieved to see what the team is working on,” he wrote on Twitter. “Story & character focused. Too early to talk details, but when we talk about ‘live’ it just means designing a game for continued storytelling after the main story.”
While Anthem’s likely delay and Dragon Age 4’s “live” makeover were the big scoops to come out of Schreier’s sources, his report also includes several gritty details about the day-to-day environment at BioWare and how many of the developers feel about the company’s direction.
Ubisoft will re-release South Park: The Stick of Truth for the PS4, Xbox One in February
PS4 and Xbox One owners will be able to head on down to South Park and have themselves a time next month. Ubisoft has announced they will re-release South Park: The Stick of Truth for the two platforms on February 13.
Originally released for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 in 2014, South Park: Stick of Truth is an RPG from Obsidian Entertainment that also doubles as a parody of ridiculous fantasy sagas like The Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones.
South Park: The Stick of Truth likely won’t be enhanced in any way for its PS4 and Xbox One debut, but it’ll be available for $29.99 as a retail disc and a digital download.
Posted in News, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged South Park: The Stick of Truth
Closed Beta for Sea of Thieves begins today
Ahoy, matey! Earlier today, Microsoft and Rare raised the Jolly Roger and launched the Closed Beta for Sea of Thieves.
The pirate simulation will be available for Windows 10 and Xbox One on March 20, but fans who joined the “Sea of Thieves Insider Programme” before December 1 and anyone who pre-ordered the game can take part in this week’s Closed Beta. The pre-release test kicked off at 7:00 AM (Eastern Time) this morning and players will be able to plunder and pillage all they want until January 29 at 3:00 PM (Eastern Time).
A short trailer promoting the Sea of Thieves Closed Beta has been embedded above.
Posted in News, PC, Xbox One
Tagged Sea of Thieves
Batman: The Enemy Within – Episode 4, OK K.O.! Let’s Play Heroes, more added to Xbox Store
Welcome to the latest Xbox Games Store update as four new games are now available to download for the Xbox One.
First up is OK K.O.! Let’s Play Heroes, a beat ’em up based on Cartoon Network’s new series. Developed by Capybara Games, players will smash and bash their way through hordes of evil Boxmore robots in an “epic” quest to save Lakewood Plaza Turbo. Also available to download today is Batman: The Enemy Within – Episode 4: What Ails You, the latest chapter in Telltale’s episodic comic adventure.
Elsewhere on the Xbox Games Store, Digital Dreams Entertainment will release the full version of Mutant Football League for the Xbox One (it’s been available in Game Preview since last year), and DOMO Studio will launch an RPG known as Xuan Yuan Sword: The Gate of Firmament.
You can learn more about all of today’s additions to the Xbox Games Store after the break. (more…)
Posted in News, Xbox One
Tagged Batman: The Enemy Within, Mutant Football League
Creative Director of Uncharted: Lost Legacy joins Crystal Dynamics to lead Avenger Project
Crystal Dynamics is continuing to make progress on their Avengers Project, and today the developer confirmed that they’ve hired Shaun Escayg as the game’s Creative Director. Escayg was previously employed by Naughty Dog, where he served as the Creative Director on Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, as well as the Animation Supervisor on The Last of Us in addition to his role.
Of course, because this is an Avengers project, it’s possible that Escayg allowed himself to be captured so that he could then unleash his diabolical scheme from inside Crystal Dynamics. It’s what Loki would do.
“We’re committed to delivering an incredible, completely original Avengers experience to our gamers, and that means we are always looking to add amazing developers to our existing best in class studio talent,” said Scot Amos, the Co-Head at Crystal Dynamics. “As development progresses, our studio continues to grow. The tremendous progress we’ve made on The Avengers Project further drives us toward our goal of crafting something all Marvel fans will be proud of, and will play for years to come. We can’t wait to show you what we mean in the future.”
Crystal Dynamics added a total of 15 new faces to the Avengers Project team, and in addition to Escayg, they also hired Stephen Barry (formerly of Visceral Games), as well as veteran developers from Eidos Montreal and DICE.
“We recently hired fifteen world-renowned industry veterans, spanning production leadership, animation, design, art and engineering, who have previously worked on games such as Batman: Arkham Origins, Dead Space, Star Wars: Battlefront, and many more.” said Ron Rosenberg, the Co-Head at Crystal Dynamics. “Their AAA experience adds to an already deep roster, making us well-positioned to deliver on the ambitious goals we’ve set for ourselves with The Avengers Project. It’s a stellar addition of many people who fit incredibly well into our wheelhouse of building game experiences we all love.”
If all goes according to plan, we should learn more about The Avengers Project later this year.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged The Avengers Project