Warp Zoned Presents
Video Game Canon- Silent Hill, Dragon Quest, Skyrim, and More Announced as Finalists for the World Video Game Hall of Fame’s Class of 2026
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Has Another Big Night and Wins “Game of the Year” at the 2025-2026 DICE Awards
- 2025 GOTY Scoreboard: In Progress
- The Game Awards: All the Winners from 2003 to Today
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Racks Up Nine Wins, Including “Game of the Year”, at the 2025 Game Awards
Warp Zoned Presents
- Video Game Research Library
- 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)
- In 2005, games started rewiring our brains – The AV Club (2025)
All Articles: PC
Shovel Knight: King of Cards will be released in December
Yacht Club Games delivered Shovel Knight to fans all the way back in 2014, and they’ve spent the rest of the decade fulfilling a Kickstarter campaign promise to produce additional campaigns starring three of the game’s villains. Those expansions did a lot to fill out the world of Shovel Knight and they’ve helped make the main character something of an international superstar.
But now the developers are ready to close the book on Shovel Knight’s first adventure this December with the release of Shovel Knight: King of Cards.
A fittingly jampacked new trailer for King of Cards has been embedded above, as the developer said (on their official website) that the expansion will be the biggest Shovel Knight adventure yet:
King of Cards marks our grandest adventure yet, and we hope the trailer whets your appetite for the banquet of adventure which awaits! It has more levels, mechanics, secrets, and content than any Shovel Knight game to come before it. It’s a spectacle, crammed to the coffers with ideas- it’s the biggest game we’ve ever made, and we can’t wait for everyone to finally, finally play it. We’ve used everything we’ve learned in the past to make this game shine. We hope that you’ll find it both a delightful return and a fitting sendoff to Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove.
Shovel Knight owners will be able to download the King of Cards expansion for free for the 3DS, PC, PS3, PS4, Switch, Vita, Wii U, and Xbox One, though it’ll also be released as a standalone game for the PC, PS4, and Switch.
And if you haven’t dug into the Shovel Knight series yet, Yacht Club will package the original game and all four expansions together into a special retail edition, known as the Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove, for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
In the meantime, fans will be able to test out a demo of Shovel Knight: King of Cards at this weekend’s PAX West convention.
Posted in News
Tagged 3DS, PAX West 2019, PC, PS3, PS4, Shovel Knight, Shovel Knight: King of Cards, Switch, Vita, Wii U, Xbox One
Yacht Club Games is bringing Shovel Knight, Cyber Shadow, and an all new game to PAX West 2019
The good folks at Yacht Club Games have been very busy over the last two years. The developer is currently hard at work putting the finishing touches on Shovel Knight: King of Cards and Shovel Knight Showdown, and earlier this year, Yacht Club signed on to published Mekaskull’s Cyber Shadow.
All three of these retro-styled titles will be playable at the developer’s booth at this year’s PAX West convention, which will be held next week in Seattle (August 30th through September 2nd). But Yacht Club has also promised that a surprise will be waiting for fans who visit their booth… demo stations for a brand new never-before-seen game.
As of now, all we know about this unannounced game is that it’s currently in development for the Nintendo Switch. But even if you’re not attending PAX West this year, you’ll be able to learn more about it during the first ever Yacht Club Presents livestream on Wednesday, August 28, at 2:00 PM (Eastern Time). The livestream will be broadcast on YouTube and Twitch, and will also include “tons” of new information about Shovel Knight: King of Cards and Shovel Knight Showdown.
Posted in News
Tagged 3DS, PAX West 2019, PC, PS3, PS4, Shovel Knight, Shovel Knight Showdown, Shovel Knight: King of Cards, Switch, Vita, Wii U, Xbox One
Blazing Chrome Review – An Excellent Homage to Contra III and an Even Better Side-Scrolling Shooter
During this year’s E3 Expo, Konami shared the good news that they plan to resurrect the Contra franchise this Fall with Contra: Rogue Corps. But after eight long years in limbo, the publisher has decided to once again ditch the franchise’s traditional side-scrolling action for an overhead viewpoint and a wildly over-the-top art style. Sometimes, this has worked out well for Contra (2004’s Neo Contra instantly springs to mind), but other times… not so much.
There’s still a few months to go before we get a chance to test out Rogue Corps’s final form, but JoyMasher wants to fill the gap with a game that should please everyone looking for another dose of Contra-fueled nostalgia. The Brazilian developer recently delivered Blazing Chrome on all your favorite digital storefronts, and it’s a side-scrolling shooter that faithfully recreates the grungy post-apocalyptic vibe found in a lot of early 90s shooters (with most of its inspiration coming directly from Contra III: The Alien Wars).
While Blazing Chrome might not be an official new entry in the Contra canon, as an homage it gets almost everything right. (more…)
New Retail Releases: Persona Q2, Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II, MotoGP 19, More
The 3DS (sort of) rides off into the sunset this week with the launch of Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth, a brand new crossover RPG from Atlus. That’s because, barring an E3 surprise from Nintendo, Persona Q2 is currently the last major release planned for the venerable handheld. Players who decide to take the plunge will get to interact with characters from Persona 3, Persona 4, and Persona 5 as they explore a series of labyrinths parodying popular film genres.
RPG fans will also be able to revisit Falcom’s Legend of Heroes franchise this week, as XSEED will re-release the second game in the series for the PS4 as The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II – Relentless Edition. The Relentless Edition will include a visual upgrade, a Turbo Mode to explore the map at high speed, a Japanese dual-audio option, expanded English voiceovers, and all previously-released downloadable content.
Elsewhere on store shelves this week, a trio of new games will fill out the lower tier of titles that typically launch ahead of the E3 Expo (which, remember, is happening next week).
Milestone will rev their motorcycle simulation engine one more time with the launch of MotoGP 19 for the PS4 and Xbox One (and on the PC as a digital download). Bigben’s Warhammer: Chaosbane, the first hack and slash based on Game Workshop’s fantasy universe, will also appear on all three platforms this week. And PQube returns with a new visual novel, Kotodama: The 7 Mysteries of Fujisawa, for the PS4 and Switch (and on the PC as a digital download).
Finally, after a slight delay, Bethesda will release The Elder Scrolls Online: Elsweyr expansion for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
That’s it for this week’s retail releases, but you’ll find plenty of other new games on the PlayStation Store, Xbox Games Store, and Nintendo eShop later this week.
Yacht Club delays Shovel Knight: King of Cards and Shovel Knight Showdown
Yacht Club Games originally planned to close the book on the Shovel Knight saga on April 9 with the release of Shovel Knight: King of Cards and Shovel Knight Showdown. But plans change, and late last night the developer confirmed (via their official website) that both titles would be delayed by “several months… at most!”
Naturally, this delay will also apply to the upcoming retail release of Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove (a compilation containing all five Shovel Knight games), as well as the Amiibo 3-Pack featuring Specter Knight, Plague Knight, and King Knight.
This is not a major delay so much as more space to bring everything together for a polished and complete finale. As always, these last steps require coordination with many teams beyond our own.
We realize the delay is disappointing. To communicate better with everyone moving forward, we will not be announcing a new date until we know one for sure, from all partners involved. All builds shipped out, updates ready to launch, for everybody and everyone. We will announce it for good once it is 100% all across the board!
The final two games in the Shovel Knight saga are currently in development for the PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One, but other platforms will also get in on the fun. King of Cards will be available as a free expansion on the 3DS, PS3, Vita, and Wii U for owners of the original Shovel Knight, while Showdown will receive a similar release on the PS3 and Wii U.
Posted in News
Tagged 3DS, PC, PS3, PS4, Shovel Knight, Shovel Knight Showdown, Shovel Knight: King of Cards, Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows, Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment, Switch, Vita, Wii U, Xbox One
Jumpgrid Review – Pac-Man + Super Hexagon = An Addicting Action Puzzler
All the way back in 1980, Pac-Man took the world by storm with its grid-based gameplay around dodging ghosts and munching dots. A little over 20 years later, Terry Cavanagh helped kickstart the fledgling mobile game boom with Super Hexagon, his geometrically-based keepaway game.
And now here we are in 2019, and Australian developer Ian MacLarty has combined the two into a wonderful little gem known as Jumpgrid. (more…)
Stan Lee, the legendary co-creator of many of Marvel’s superheroes, has died
Excelsior!
From behind his typewriter, Marvel’s Stan Lee used to answer fan mail with that authoritative declaration when he really wanted to drive home a point in his “Stan’s Soapbox” column. But there’s never enough that can be said about the man who helped define pop culture as we know it today.
Along with Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, Lee created many of Marvel’s most famous characters… The Spectacular Spider-Man… The Mighty Thor… The Incredible Hulk… The Fantastic Four… “Stan the Man” had a way with adjectives. Sadly, he passed away this morning at the age of 95.
After shepherding his comic creations towards the silver screen in the 80s and 90s, Lee lent his voice to more than a dozen video game adaptations starring Marvel’s mightiest heroes. Most often playing himself (starting with 2000’s Spider-Man), Lee closed the book on his voiceover career with an appearance in Insomniac’s Spider-Man earlier this year as a Short Order Cook.
Lee was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 2008 for “his groundbreaking work as one of America’s most prolific storytellers.” The National Endowment for the Arts’s advisory committee also recognized Lee’s fight against injustice in his comics, adding, “His complex plots and humane super heroes celebrate courage, honesty, and the importance of helping the less fortunate, reflecting America’s inherent goodness.”
As Lee would say, “Nuff said!”
Bot Gaiden Is A Side-Scrolling Platformer With Style: An Interview With Doug Pohl of SwordSwipe Studios
MetroidVanias rose to fame in the 80s and 90s thanks to the popularity of the Metroid and Castlevania franchises, but the genre went dormant in the 2000s as developers pushed pixels aside for polygons and aspired to create sprawling 3D worlds. After being rediscovered and remixed by the indie community, the MetroidVania is finally having its moment here in 2018.
But what if you’re looking for something else from a side-scroller? What if you want the fast action and self-contained levels that characterized the Ninja Gaiden and Contra franchises? Enter SwordSwipe Studios, and their upcoming game, Bot Gaiden.
The gameplay style and artistic inspirations for Bot Gaiden came to us straight from the 80s, but unlike most side-scrollers now on the market, SwordSwipe’s platformer doesn’t look like it came from the 80s. We sat down with Doug Pohl, one of the developer’s co-founders, to find out exactly how he’s bringing back the fast action and precision platforming of those classics in a new package. (more…)