It’s Warp Week on Kotaku! What’s Warp Week? I’m glad you requested. It’s a theme week aimed toward excavating gaming’s previous with tales about large video games, occasions, and moments as if we have been reliving them. These aren’t simply retrospectives. A few of the opinions, options, and information posts are written as if it have been 2002 once more. Some supply a retelling of gaming’s historical past with the insights and sensibilities of immediately.
We’re kicking issues off with a front-page splash, however could have further tales going stay all through the remainder of the week whereas persevering with to cowl gaming’s current as we usually do. Warp Week will culminate on Friday with an inventory of our prime 12 video games from 2002, similar to those we publish on the finish of yearly presently. We thought this may be a enjoyable facet quest to go on in the course of the mid-summer information slowdown earlier than we head into Gamescom and the autumn launch calendar picks up.
Have been you alive in 2002? If the reply is not any, excellent news: you’re taking part in an important position in reducing Kotaku‘s general viewers age demographic. For everybody else, nicely, it was a yr to keep in mind that gave us A Walk To Remember. American Idol debuted on Fox. And Jay-Z and Beyoncé collaborated on their first track together. In gaming, folks have been accusing The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker of wanting prefer it was for infants whereas Grand Theft Auto: Vice Metropolis was heralded as proof that video games were finally growing up.
The console struggle was in flux. The demise of the Dreamcast supplied a gap for the Xbox. It was coasting off a robust vacation launch the yr prior. One in two Xbox house owners were playing Halo: Combat Evolved. Nintendo, the established large, was getting its ass kicked by the PS2 regardless of an unbelievable slate of video games coming to each GameCube and the Sport Boy Advance. Sony, with out hardly any significant first-party exclusives to its title, was working away with it.
However in different methods, 2002 appears surprisingly acquainted. Folks have been hyped a couple of new GTA. Folks have been hyped a couple of new Spider-Man film. Folks have been hyped about Cloud Strife and Mickey Mouse being in the identical recreation. The highest 5 best-selling video games within the U.S. have been, so as, Vice Metropolis, Madden NFL 2003, GTA 3, Spider-Man, and Medal of Honor: Frontline. Substitute Fashionable Warfare 4 for Medal of Honor and Wolverine for Spider-Man, and the 2026 checklist most likely received’t look shockingly totally different.
2002 has by no means historically been on the checklist of contenders for greatest years for gaming that individuals are likely to toss round, however it was definitely one of the most important ones. I hope this transient detour by a few of its largest and weirdest moments is a enjoyable one. Let’s get began.