Weekly Warp-Up: EA Has a Big 2016 Planned… But Probably No New Star Wars Game

Posted on January 31, 2016 by John Scalzo

No, that’s not a typo. Welcome to the Weekly Warp-Up, your weekly wrap-up of the biggest and the best articles posted at Warp Zoned this week…

EA delivered their quarterly financial report this week and the megapublisher announced big plans for the rest of 2016. First they confirmed that Battlefield 5 is on track for a Fall 2016 release and that Mass Effect: Andromeda and TitanFall 2 will launch shortly after. Could be late this year, or early next year, but both games will be available before April 1, 2017.

Though what you likely won’t see from EA in 2016 is another Star Wars game as the publisher said that Visceral’s Star Wars project is “a few years out,” even though the company shipped more than 13 million copies of Star Wars: Battlefront.

Elsewhere this week, UK Correspondent Andrew Rainnie filed another entry in his long-running Kickstart This! series. This time, he shined a spotlight on Consortium: The Tower, Dragon of Legends, and Wandersong. And finally this week, Contributor Sean Weiland turned in a review of Random Seed’s TimeFrame.

More news from the past seven days can be found after the break.

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Posted in News |

New Releases: XCOM 2, Gravity Rush Remastered, Megadimension Neptunia VII, More

Posted on January 31, 2016 by John Scalzo

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Are you ready to save the world soldier? This week’s new release report kicks off with XCOM 2, a PC-exclusive sequel to 2012’s XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Things didn’t go so well for humanity after the end of that game and the aliens took over everything. So it’s up to you, and a merry band of rebels, to ignite a worldwide revolution and take back the Earth. Dismissed!

Also available this week is Gravity Rush Remastered, a PS4 remake of a Vita adventure first released in 2012. Players will take control of Kat, a woman who can manipulate gravity, to save the world from an invading force.

The remainder of this week’s new releases feature a quintet of titles that is each more Japanese than the last…

For example, did you know that Idea Factory has produced six games in their Hyperdimension Neptunia series? The seventh game in the series, Megadimension Neptunia VII, will be released for the PS4 this week. The RPG franchise will actually be making the jump to the PS4 for the first time, and players will be asked to save “Gamindustri” once again.

Nitroplus is a popular producer of visual novels in Japan, and the company recently teamed up with developer Examu and publisher Marvelous to bring their many characters together in a fighting game known as Nitroplus Blasterz: Heroines Infinite Duel. It’ll be released for the PS4 this week.

Similar to the Go-Bots/Transformers split, the Digimon series has always existed as a budget-priced alternative to Pokemon, but the venerable franchise keeps trucking along and that includes the latest entry, Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth. Available next week for the PS4, players attempt to take down a band of hackers in cyberspace with the help of their Digimon companions.

Speaking of popular anime franchises, Bandai Namco will release Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 for the PC this week. The latest game starring the foxy ninja (and I mean that literally, the main character is part fox) will also be available for the PS4 and Xbox One next week.

Finally this week, Bandai Namco will also release Tales of Symphonia for the PC. Originally released for the GameCube in 2003, Symphonia will be one of the first games in the Tales series to make its PC debut.

Posted in News, PC, PS4 | Tagged , , ,

Kickstart This! Consortium: The Tower, Dragon of Legends, Wandersong

Posted on January 29, 2016 by Andrew Rainnie

Hello, readers, and welcome back! Let’s blast off in a big way with the first Kickstart This! of 2016. Although January is typically the month people are digging behind the sofa cushions for any spare change, now that payday has passed, a number of smart game developers and studios have recently launched campaigns. By sheer coincidence, all of our choices in this edition come from Canada. First up, we have what is deemed “an immersive sci-fi simulation” with Consortium: The Tower from Interdimensional Games Inc. Next, there’s the Celtic-and-Norse-themed action RPG Dragon of Legends by Thrive Games. Last but not least, there’s whimsical side-scrolling musical adventure Wandersong.

Oh, Canada…

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Posted in Features, Mobile, PC, PS4, Top Story, Xbox One |

Xbox Store Today: This War of Mine: The Little Ones, Level 22, AIPD, more

Posted on January 29, 2016 by John Scalzo

Today’s additions to Xbox Games Store get a little serious, before quickly delving into a lot of silliness.

This War of Mine: The Little Ones is now available to download for the Xbox One. An expanded adaptation of 11 Bit’s survival game, The War of Mine: The Little Ones examines what a war is like from the civilian side, while also asking players to protect a group of children from the terrifying battles. After that, things get a little strange….

  • Level 22 (Xbox One) is a cartoony stealth game where players have to avoid the wrath of their evil boss by sneaking into their cubicle without being seen.
  • AIPD (Xbox One) is a futuristic twin-stick shooter built with Tron-like neon styling.
  • The Living Dungeon (Xbox One) is a medieval-style board game where players take part in “a battle of wits, luck and skulduggery.”
  • Amazing Princess Sarah (Xbox One) is a retro-styled platformer where a princess has to rescue her father from an evil demon.

More information about all of these games can be found after the break.

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Posted in News, Xbox One |

Michel Ancel talks about the future of Beyond Good & Evil 2 with Tim Schafer

Posted on January 29, 2016 by John Scalzo

In his spare time, Double Fine’s Tim Schafer also hosts Devs Play, a webseries where he invites developers to visit the Double Fine office to play their classic games. Michel Ancel, the creator of Rayman, recently closed out the second season with an in-depth discussion of Beyond Good & Evil. Naturally, Schafer (and his co-host, Greg Rice), couldn’t resist asking about Beyond Good & Evil 2.

As usual, Ancel tried to steer the conversation away from the long-in-development sequel, but he did admit that the pressure to live up to the reputation of the first game is substantial (the exchange starts around the 48-minute mark):

Michel Ancel: We did a nice trailer for Beyond Good & Evil 2…

Greg Rice: What can you say about Beyond Good & Evil 2?

Tim Schafer: Yeah, tell us everything we should know about Beyond Good & Evil 2.

Michel Ancel: Um… maybe we could continue playing Beyond Good & Evil 1. That’s the problem, [we have] no choice. [Beyond Good & Evil 2] has to be great. When we started [Beyond Good & Evil] there was not that much pressure. The crazy thing is that [Beyond Good & Evil] was really not that successful and nobody talked about the game. And Miyamoto talked about the game at E3 and wasn’t very happy. […] And now, year after year, more and more people are talking about [Beyond Good & Evil 2].

And towards the very end of the episode (at 1:07), Ancel admits that Beyond Good & Evil 2 is still in the works:

Tim Schafer: You’re still in the headspace of this game because you’re making a sequel right. You’re thinking about [the Beyond Good & Evil] world still.

Michel Ancel: Yeah, but it’s difficult because it’s hard for me to redo the same game two times. I don’t know how you’re going to manage that for Psychonauts 2.

Beyond Good & Evil 2 was first revealed during Ubisoft’s Ubidays event in 2008. Ancel has spoken about the game a handful of times since then, but it looks like we’ve still got a very long wait ahead of us… if it ever comes out at all.

Posted in News, PC, PS4, Wii U, Xbox One | Tagged

We Are Doomed will be released for Vita on February 9

Posted on January 29, 2016 by John Scalzo

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We’re big fans of We Are Doomed here at Warp Zoned, so it’s exciting to learn that the twin-stick shooter will be available to download for the Vita beginning on February 9. Vertex Pop’s Mobeen Fikree announced the good news on the PlayStation Blog yesterday, while also including a number of tips for the oftentimes frantic shooter.

He also revealed that We Are Doomed is Cross-Buy compatible, so it’ll be a free download on the Vita if you already own the PS4 version.

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TitanFall 2 gets a Late 2016/Early 2017 release date; New Battlefield, Mass Effect Andromeda still on track for 2016

Posted on January 29, 2016 by John Scalzo

EAlogoEven though it has yet to be officially announced, EA is confident that TitanFall 2 will be released during the late 2016/early 2017 period. CEO Andrew Wilson delivered the good news during the company’s quarterly financial call yesterday, while also ticking off tentative release dates for the next Battlefield game (Fall 2016) and Mass Effect: Andromeda (late 2016/early 2017):

An all-new Battlefield game from DICE will arrive in time for the holidays, we’re excited to have a new TitanFall experience coming from our friends at Respawn and of course, Mass Effect: Andromeda from the team at BioWare will launch later in the fiscal year.

Wilson would go on to say that the next TitanFall is shaping up nicely, and that he can’t wait to talk about it “in the months ahead”:

Again, it’s a little early to start talking about the details of TitanFall in this juncture, and that wasn’t the purpose of raising it. What I would say, having seen the game, is it’s looking fantastic. Our relationship with Respawn is extremely strong; we have great faith in that entire team to build a spectacular game and are really looking forward to sharing more details in the months ahead.

While it’s possible we might learn more about all three of these titles this Spring, we’ll likely have to wait until this year’s E3 Expo. Though EA recently said they’re skipping this year’s E3 Expo and will instead hold their own event, EA Play 2016, in the days just before the convention.

Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One | Tagged , , ,

EA ships 13 million copies of Star Wars: Battlefront; Visceral’s Star Wars game might be “a few years out”

Posted on January 29, 2016 by John Scalzo

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Star Wars: Battlefront was an extremely popular present this holiday season. Yesterday, EA revealed exactly how popular it was during their latest quarterly financial report.

Chief Financial Officer Blake Jorgensen announced that EA has shipped more than 13 million copies of Star Wars: Battlefront to stores since it was released in November. And that number includes the more than one million copies of the game that were bundled with a brand new PS4.

Since Battlefront made a boatload of money for the video game megapublisher, it seems reasonable to assume they’d rush another Star Wars game into stores as quickly as possible. But you would be wrong. Near the end of the report, Jorgensen admitted that the company’s next Star Wars game, which is currently in development at Visceral Games and Motive Studios under the supervision of Amy Hennig and Jade Raymond, is likely still a few years away:

[W]e are obviously announcing that we are investing in some action-based SKUs by bringing people like Jade Raymond and Amy Hennig into our organization to help build those. And those are obviously a few years out in our SKU plan.

Very little is known about Visceral and Motive’s Star Wars game, though it’s widely believed to focus on a young Han Solo. Which is quite the coincidence when you think about it, because Disney plans to release a young Han Solo film in 2018. Or, if you prefer, “a few years” from now.

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