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
- 2025 GOTY Scoreboard: In Progress
- 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”
Warp Zoned Presents
- Video Game Research Library
- With Grand Theft Auto 6 poised to take over the world, I reached out to Jack Thompson and it did not go well – PC Gamer (2026)
- Vib-Ribbon: An oral history – Design Room (2026)
- How a Second-Grade Teacher Revived a Beloved Video Game – The New York Times (2026)
- Spore: An oral history – Design Room (2026)
- Diablo IV PC Cooled With Real Human Blood Is Still Going Strong Two Years Later, Says Guy Who Won It – Aftermath (2026)
All Articles: Wii U
Square Enix: “We’d love to bring Dragon Quest X to the West”
Square Enix has expressed interest in bringing Dragon Quest X to western countries ever since the game first launched in Japan in 2012. Originally available for the Wii, Dragon Quest X’s reach has expanded to include versions for the Wii U, PC, and 3DS (which just launched last week). But is Square Enix still interested in trying to bring the game west? The answer is most certainly yes.
Siliconera recently spoke to Yuu Miyake, Dragon Quest X’s Executive Producer, and has response was an enthusiastic, “We’d love to do it!” He further elaborated that cultural differences between Japan and western countries have made this a difficult process:
“In terms of this being an MMO, again, we have to consider the operation and logistics of how to make that feasible,” Miyake elaborated. “We also have to think about it from a business standpoint. With Final Fantasy XI and XIV, it’s a global-scale endeavor. In terms of Dragon Quest, the way it’s perceived in the different countries is very, very different. How it’s perceived in Japan is different than how it’s perceived in the United States.”
Finally, Miyake said that business considerations could further complicate a North American launch for Dragon Quest X as a new data center would have to be constructed to serve a North American playerbase. But with the success of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, this might not be as large a hurdle for the publisher as it has been in the past.
Posted in News
Tagged 3DS, Dragon Quest X, PAX Prime 2014, PC, Wii, Wii U
Rumor: Super Smash Bros. 4 full roster leaked
It looks like someone (possibly from the ESRB or Nintendo themselves) has leaked the full roster of fighters slated to be included in Super Smash Bros. For 3DS. Turn back now if you want to be surprised, but everyone else should plow ahead for yet another reason why the next Smash is going to be a must have.
Ready? Here it comes…
If this leak turns out to true, the Duck Hunt Dog will be a playable character in Super Smash Bros. 4! He’ll be joined by a few other never-before-seen fighters including Bowser Jr. and Shulk from Xenoblade Chronicles. Eight unannounced returning characters round the rumored final roster: Ganondorf, Ness, Star Fox, Falco, Wario, Jigglypuff, Dark Pit, Dr. Mario, and R.O.B. Pictures and video from the leak can be found at Kotaku.
I really want this leak to be true as the inclusion of the Duck Hunt Dog is just amazing (and completely unexpected). Nintendo hasn’t commented on the leak yet (nor do I expect them to), but we’ll all get to try it out for ourselves when Super Smash Bros. For 3DS is released on October 3. Super Smash Bros. For Wii U is slated to follow it into stores someone this Fall.
Posted in News
Tagged 3DS, Super Smash Bros. For 3DS, Super Smash Bros. For Wii U, Wii U
Meta Knight officially on the Super Smash Bros. 4 roster
OK Smash fans, you can breathe a sigh of relief – Meta Knight has been officially announced as a playable character for Super Smash Bros. For Wii U and Super Smash Bros. For 3DS. The Kirby anti-hero tops Super Smash Bros. Brawl‘s tier list, and is a favorite among many fans of the Wii outing. Let’s just hope he’s a bit nerfed this time around – he was an absolute beast in the last game.
Super Smash Bros. For 3DS will be released on October 3 with the Wii U version following later in the year.
Posted in News
Tagged 3DS, Super Smash Bros. For 3DS, Super Smash Bros. For Wii U, Wii U
Shovel Knight sells 180,000 copies in first month as Yacht Club breaks down budget/sales
When Yacht Club Games created their Kickstarter campaign for Shovel Knight last Spring, they didn’t just set out to create a retro-styled platformer. They also wanted to make the development process more transparent by regularly releasing budget figures and sales numbers.
To that end, the team revealed that their initial budget for Shovel Knight was $1.44 million. So what’s a developer to do when their Kickstarter campaign only brings in $328,000? In Yacht Club’s case, they deferred the salary of their outside composer, split off the Stretch Goals into post-release content, and forgoed paychecks for the last five months of development.
“It was a difficult period, where some of us were awkwardly standing in front of cashiers having our credit cards declined, drawing from any possible savings, and borrowing money from our friends and family,” a Yacht Club team member said.
But it appears to have paid off as the team sold more than 180,000 copies of Shovel Knight during the game’s first month of availability. Amazingly, it’s selling at exactly the same pace on each platform as the 3DS, PC, and Wii U versions all account for about a third of the sales.
With a success on their hands, Yacht Club is ready to embark on creating those promised Stretch Goals. If you’d like to read more about Shovel Knight’s wild ride from Kickstarter darling to beloved game, head over to Yacht Club’s website.
Posted in News
Tagged 3DS, PC, Shovel Knight, Wii U
NES Remix 1 and 2 will be packaged together for retail release this Fall
Nintendo has announced plans to release NES Remix and NES Remix 2 as a retail disc this Fall. According to the Comic-Con announcement, the compilation of retro-inspired minigame collections will be titled NES Remix Pack…
NES Remix Pack – a physical version of both #NESRemix and NES Remix 2 – is coming to stores this holiday season. http://t.co/w3WYQPG6IT
— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) July 26, 2014
A price for NES Remix Pack has yet to be announced, but both games are currently available as eShop downloads for $14.99 apiece. So $29.99 sounds about right for the retail compilation.
Posted in News
Tagged Comic-Con 2014, NES Remix, NES Remix 2, Wii U
Everything you ever wanted to know about Hyrule Warriors in one trailer
Nintendo has released an epic four-minute trailer for Hyrule Warriors that includes a look at all of the announced characters (including Sheik, Ruto, and Darunia) as well as an NES-styled map, some of the game’s big bosses, and the two-player multiplayer mode. There’s a quick glimpse at the “world colliding” theme that brings all of these heroes together. If you weren’t interested in Hyrule Warriors before, you should be now.
Hyrule Warriors will be released exclusively for the Wii U on September 26.
Posted in News
Tagged Hyrule Warriors, Wii U
Hyper Light Drifter “probably” won’t be released until early 2015
Those of you who were hoping to get you hands on Heart Machine’s much-anticipated action RPG Hyper Light Drifter may have to wait at least another few months. During this year’s PAX East, studio head Alex Preston revealed to Destructoid that, while the game was progressing, an early 2015 release date is “probably […] more realistic” than the current late 2014 target.
Speaking about how the company had managed to raise $600,000 for the game on Kickstarter, Preston said, “We’ve seen a lot of backers come out [to PAX East], and it’s been fantastic to meet them, and the reception from everyone else has been pretty damn good.”
Hyper Light Drifter, an homage to 16-bit RPG classics but with modern mechanics, has been described as a fusion of the best bits of franchises like Zelda and Diablo. To find out more about the game, you should check out our own PAX East preview right here.
Michel Ancel teases concept art from Beyond Good & Evil 2
I know it’s been a long time, but Beyond Good & Evil 2 is still in development at Ubisoft under the direction of Michel Ancel. Further proof of the game’s continued existence was delivered by Ancel himself a few weeks ago during a Q&A session with BG&E Myth. At 2:06 in the video above, Ancel unfurls a poster showing Jade’s new character design. The image shows Jade wearing clothes and in a pose very similar to traditional Japanese drawings of samurai and ronin.
Beyond Good & Evil 2 is in development for next-generation consoles and will be released eventually. Probably a few years from now after several more teases like this one.