Warp Zoned Presents
Most Recent: PC
Open Beta begins for top-down battle royale Watchers
If you’re a fan of dystopian sci-fi like The Running Man or The Hunger Games, you know the scene. A group of contestants will be fighting to the death at the behest of some horrible overlord, but the action will constantly cut back to the faceless workers in “The Control Room,” who tirelessly work to add chaos to the arena (usually while some plucky resistance group plots to take them down).
Now, Alawar Premium and Blindfold have taken this pretty established locale and tweaked it for their new top-down battle royale, Watchers.
In Watchers, players will do battle with their friends and neighbors in an “arena” that looks a lot like a suburban housing development. But combatants eliminated from the game will be able to return as “Watchers” who can change the course of a match by deploying anomalies against the remaining players:
Watchers is a free-to-play Battle Royale top-down shooter where killed battlers enter a unique Watcher game mode. Watchers bet on their favorite battlers and influence the course of battle through experiments. The fewer battlers remain on the map, the more Watchers are out there ready to execute different experiments and turning the tide of the battle.
An Open Beta for Watchers is now available to download for the PC through the game’s official website, and interested participants can jump into a match everyday (at specified times) between now and August 4.
The first trailer for Watchers has been embedded above.
Super Mario Maker 2 builds its way to the top of June 2019’s list of best-selling games
It was only available on store shelves for a handful days during the month, but Nintendo’s Super Mario Maker 2 has been crowned the best-selling game of June 2019 by The NPD Group.
According to the analyst firm’s rankings (as posted by NPD’s Mat Piscatella on Twitter), Super Mario Maker 2 fended off a challenge by fellow new release Crash Team Racing: Nitro Fueled (which took the #2 spot) to come out on top, as well as surging sales from Mortal Kombat 11 (#3), Grand Theft Auto V (#4), and Minecraft (#5). No other new release managed to break into the Top 20, but more mainstays filled out the rest of the list, including Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (#6), Mario Kart 8 (#9), Red Dead Redemption 2 (#12), and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (#13).
However, without a robust new release slate, overall sales for the gaming industry dropped slightly in June 2019 versus a year ago. According to NPD, total sales of hardware, software, and accessories reached $959 million last month, a 13% decline from June 2018.
Unsurprisingly, the Switch was the best-selling hardware platform last month, and that’s unlikely to change throughout the year as the launch of the Switch Lite approaches and as gamers continue to save their pennies for the PS5 and Xbox Scarlett.
You can find a full list of best-selling games from June 2019 after the break. (more…)
Doom: Annihilation will be released on Blu-ray and DVD on October 1
Universal Pictures Home Entertainment has announced they’ll release Doom: Annihilation on Blu-ray and DVD on October 1… just in time for the spooky season.
Doom: Annihilation is a Direct-To-Video reboot for the film franchise, and it won’t have any connection to 2005’s Doom (which, believe it or not, starred The Rock before he became one of the biggest movie stars in the world). Nor is it based on id Software’s excellent Doom 2016 or it’s upcoming sequel, Doom Eternal. However, it is rated R (for “bloody violence and language throughout”), and it has portals to Hell, a bunch of nasty demons, and a platoon of space marines to serve as gory cannon fodder:
Based on the popular original video game, Doom: Annihilation is an explosive, terrifying thrill ride. On the darkest moon of Mars, scientists have found an ancient portal which allows teleportation throughout the universe. Considered to be mankind’s greatest discovery, it’s actually a gateway from Hell, unleashing a swarm of demons looking to steal the souls of everyone who gets in their way. It’s up to Lieutenant Joan Dark and an elite unit of Marines to destroy an ever-growing horde of bloodsucking and soul-stealing beasts and prevent them from taking over planet Earth.
Doom: Annihilation probably won’t be a cinematic masterpiece, but there’s surely worse ways to fill time on a dreary October day.
Tetris Effect will be released for PC on July 23
Enhance has announced plans to bring their psychedelic puzzle experience, Tetris Effect, to the PC later this month.
With its wide array of pulsating colors and shimmering lights, Tetris Effect is easily the most visually-impressive version of Tetris ever. On the PC, players will be able to play through the game with an unlocked resolution and uncapped framerate, or they can strap on a VR headset (specifically an Oculus Rift or HTC Vive) and optionally experience the game in virtual reality:
As the ultimate version of Tetris Effect, the PC version is capable of running at resolutions of 4K or more, with an uncapped framerate (if Vsync is disabled), and includes ultra-wide monitor support as well as other expanded game and graphical options for both 2D and VR play (including adjustable particle volume and size, texture filtering, and more) not found in the PlayStation 4 console release.
Music, backgrounds, sounds, special effects—everything, down to the Tetriminos themselves, pulse, dance, shimmer, and explode in perfect sync with how you’re playing, making any of the game’s 30+ stages and 10+ modes something you’ll want to experience over and over again.
Originally released for the PS4 last Fall, Tetris Effect will be available to download for the PC platform exclusively through the Epic Games Store on July 23. A trailer for Tetris Effect’s PC debut (featuring an eye-popping amount of “Best of” awards) has been embedded above.
Posted in News, PC
Tagged Tetris Effect
Activision will reveal Call of Duty: Modern Warfare’s “Multiplayer Universe” on August 1
Activision and Infinity Ward have announced that fans will get their first glimpse at Call of Duty: Modern Warfare‘s brand new “Multiplayer Universe” on August 1. Fans are encouraged to tune in to Call of Duty’s official Twitch channel for the full reveal:
As players enlist in the heart-racing Modern Warfare story, multiplayer continues the experience as players head online into the ultimate playground for the global balance of power. Featuring unified progression across modes, Modern Warfare seeks to unite the community with plans to support cross-play across platforms and the removal of the traditional season pass in order to deliver a greater mix of more free maps, content, and community events post-launch.
In the meantime, the publisher has unveiled one piece of Modern Warfare’s new online muliplayer experience, the 2v2 Gunfight Mode, on their Activision Games Blog. Gunfight is a made scramble that features 40-second rounds which take place on a series of “custom-made [and] confined” maps. A duo is victorious after securing six wins, and Activision has described the mode as very similar to “a fighting game with armaments and set in the Call of Duty universe.”
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare will be released for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One on October 25.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
Blazing Chrome’s Launch Trailer includes one last blast of the game’s Contra-inspired visuals
The Arcade Crew and JoyMasher have finally put all the finishing touches on Blazing Chrome, and the two companies launched the side-scrolling shooter for the PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One earlier today. They also delivered a retro-tastic Launch Trailer for the game, which was inspired by Contra and Metal Slug, that includes a very era-appropriate live-action intro:
The Arcade Crew has released a fittingly retro gameplay trailer celebrating humanity’s uprising to properly introduce the resistance’s two leading warriors; Marva, a resilient soldier who’s here to chew bubblegum while kicking ass, and Doyle, a robot who’s had a deadly change of heart.
With a varied arsenal of distinctive weapons, badass pilotable mechs and vehicles, and unlockable characters to help curb the AI army’s ruthless oppression, Blazing Chrome plays the way you remember classic action games feeling. JoyMasher’s modern refinements to that satisfying shoot-em-up playstyle will make scrapping hordes of mechanized foes and skyscraper-sized bosses feel as comfortable as getting back on that hoverbike you haven’t rode in years.
Blazing Chrome is now available to download, but it’ll also be available this Fall as a physical release from Limited Run Games for the PS4 and Switch.
Netflix teams up with Studio MDHR to produce The Cuphead Show!
Chad and Jared Moldenhauer poured their hearts and souls into the development of Studio MDHR’s debut title, Cuphead. In the works for more than seven years, the brothers parlayed their love of 1930s animation and the gameplay stylings of Contra III: The Alien Wars to create a platform shooter for the ages.
Now, Netflix has signed on to adapt the game into a new animated series known as The Cuphead Show! The series will follow the adventures of Cuphead and Mugman throughout Inkwell Isles and, naturally, it’ll employ “an animation style inspired by the classic Fleischer cartoons from the 1930s”:
The game that has won the hearts and minds of fans with its gorgeous retro hand-animated style, crazy boss-brawls, and challenging gameplay will come to life on television for the first time ever in The Cuphead Show! The new series will expand on the characters and world of Cuphead, with an animation style inspired by the classic Fleischer cartoons from the 1930s.
The character-driven comedy follows the unique misadventures of the impulsive Cuphead and his cautious but easily swayed brother Mugman. Through their many misadventures across their surreal home of the Inkwell Isles, they’ve always got one another’s backs.
We don’t know when the first episodes from The Cuphead Show! will be available to stream through Netflix, but hopefully it’s pretty soon.
Level-5’s Hino Yoshihiro confirms that multiple Ni No Kuni games are currently in development
Hino Yoshihiro, the President of Level-5, recently sat down for an interview with Japanese newspaper Nikkei, and he had a few things to say about the future of the Ni No Kuni franchise.
Yoshihiro told the newspaper that he wants to release multiple new games in the series after the animated film adaptation, which will be released in Japan in August. The developer will start this ambitious plan right away with the launch of a Remastered version of Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch for the PC, PS4, and Switch in September.
After that, Yoshihiro said he would like to take “a new approach” with future installments in the franchise (all but confirming Ni No Kuni 3), while also adding that Ni No Kuni games will also continue to be associated with smartphones.
Aside from Wrath of the White Witch Remastered, nothing is known about most of the new Ni No Kuni games in development, and it’s possible it could be a very long time before we learn more.