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The Games Gone By Podcast
Ramblings and retrospectives from three lifelong gaming enthusiasts.
The Games Gone By Podcast
[Bonus] Summer Games Fest, Nintendo Direct and More
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Adam and Austin give their takes on a slew of upcoming and recently announced games, including Star Wars: Zero Company, The Ocarina of Time Remake, Resident Evil: Veronica, Fable, Exodus and more.
...and of course, their most anticipated, Final Fantasy 7: Revelation.
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Follow us on social media @thegamesgonebypodcast
Contact us at gamesgonebyradio@gmail.com
Intro
SPEAKER_02And welcome back to a bonus episode of the Games Gone By Podcast. It is Wednesday, June 10th, at the time of this recording. I'm your host, Adam, and joining me, as always, the gaming expert enthusiast Austin. Austin, we recorded a mid-year recap and we were stupidly, foolishly speculating about a couple games despite a weekend ahead of us being just filled with announcements. So we cut that part out and have decided that we were just going to actually recap last weekend because I know you basically told me, I'm bursting at the seams. I cannot wait an entire week to talk about these games.
SPEAKER_00I just love talking about video games, man. Like the there was so much. This genuinely really felt like we were back in the E3 glory days for me. Like the every show hit, like every every one of these shows, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, and like the big, you know, Jeff Keeley's big summer games fest show, all these just hit at least two or three games that I was like, I'm so into this. So it's super cool to have that energy back. And I feel like everybody's been like buzzing a little bit in in all the communities that I'm in. So I'm just excited to talk about cool games, man.
SPEAKER_02Hell yeah. Um, so what what do we have here? We had the three like big publisher showcases plus Jeff Keeley's Summer Game Fest. Was there anything else I'm missing there?
SPEAKER_00Uh there was like PC Game Show and uh Day of the Devs and like future game shows, but that those are kind of like smaller shows that that don't usually have like big, like blockbuster type games. It's kind of smaller under the radar stuff, which is still cool, but it just doesn't get the hype and the the buzz as much.
SPEAKER_02Didn't get the blood flowing for Austin over here quite as much.
SPEAKER_00Not as not as much. Uh you know, look, there was some good reveals in those. We'll talk about some of them, but it's not the same as like bam, new god of war, whoa, you know.
SPEAKER_02Right.
GTA VI
SPEAKER_02So maybe we'll start off actually talking about what was absent from all of these shows. Although, as you note in the show notes here, that doesn't mean that its presence wasn't still felt, and that was the total lack of information about Grand Theft Auto 6. However, we all know it's coming out in November. They'll probably dump a bunch of info right before the launch. This is not unsurprising.
SPEAKER_00Right, like this game doesn't need marketing at this point, like it's gonna do what it's gonna do. Like it GTA 6 is gonna sell, and the the fact that every game is avoiding November as a release window is just so funny to me. Yeah, I think there are literally like three games or four games releasing in that time, and it is like Godzilla remake from the GameCube era, bar like some Barbie game, uh, a remake of Gothic, and this like small RPG called Crime Light, and that's literally it. That's crazy.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it seems like all all of the big hitters are like, nah, there's no way in hell uh that we're gonna even chance releasing at uh anywhere near that like November time frame because we can't compete. Um there is one game that might might be brave enough to try.
SPEAKER_00One one one to rule them all. Uh we will get there.
SPEAKER_02But first, let's talk about some of the state of play. So, what is state of play? There was I guess the other one here that I did not mention.
SPEAKER_00State of play is Sony's version of Nintendo Direct, essentially. So that's their big showcase. And it's where we got our the only thing that was announced for state of play, like the only thing that we knew about going into it
Wolverine
SPEAKER_00was that Wolverine details would be shown. We'd get like a full trailer gameplay demo, stuff like that. So we did get that, and I thought it looked awesome.
SPEAKER_02The other ones are nice enough to have the publisher name in the title of the trade show. I I this one's not called the Sony Showcase, so it threw me off. But yeah, no, Wolverine looks pretty cool. Uh, I think you were mentioning that it looks a little less open-wordy than the other ones. And I think that's man, that's probably a good move because how how do you compete with web slinging as a traversal mechanic?
SPEAKER_00The only thing I think of is like maybe giving like Wolverine a motorcycle or something to ride around on, because you know, Logan rides those. And and even in this little gameplay demo, we see him ride a motorcycle and he like hops off a cliff, but it's all in a scripted, like uncharted-esque sequence. Uh, the gameplay looks really fast, like very similar to what Spider-Man did. And I just love the the visceralness of the combat. It it looks like it is going with that sort of tone that X-Men Origins Wolverine had the game. I don't know if you played that.
SPEAKER_02I do, I do remember playing that.
SPEAKER_00Very bloody, very violent, like just a really aggressive game. This kind of matched that energy. There was a lot of blood, it was really gory. Wolverine's like stabbing dudes in the face. I was like, yes. Like, like, this is what I want from a Wolverine game.
SPEAKER_02It is funny to go from a series where every time you knock someone off a rooftop, you like magically web sling them to the side of the building so they don't die, to one where you are ripping out their organs on screen. So it is a welcome change of pace in that regard, I think.
Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis
SPEAKER_02The next one that uh a bit a big announcement here, which they had announced before, but I think they finally show were showing the big trailer for it, and that is Tomb Raider Legacy of Atlantis, a complete from the ground, full remake of the original Tomb Raider. Uh, I I played the original Tomb Raider back in the day. It was a lot of fun back then. It is definitely something that has aged a little roughly, mainly because it has some of that like early Resident Evil era tank controls going on with it. But man, all the things that I remember from it, like exploring the tombs and doing bat flips with two revolvers as you shoot animals, uh, all of that was like present in the trailer. Pretty excited for this one. There was, of course, a little bit of controversy.
SPEAKER_00Always. There's a couple games that have the same specific type of controversy from uh from this showcase, but Legacy of Atlantis has ruffled some feathers with its reported AI usage and assets that have found its way into some of the early like marketing stuff, but they've said they've cleaned it all out and like there's no assets that exist in the full release that that were generated by AI. Like everything was either touched up by a human or completely replaced by a human-made asset.
SPEAKER_02This is that controversy that's just never gonna go away. There are, and I'll say this: there are some people who are very consistent with it, they're very principled with it, they don't want it involved in anything they make whatsoever. And I applaud them. I think they're naive, and I don't think they're gonna get their way, but I but I applaud them. I don't, I don't care as much for the people that are basically like, oh, as long as it's not the art, it's just the code, that's okay. Uh I ranted about this a little bit in our last episode. I think I ended up cutting it, so I'm gonna rant again. I think it is a bonker's opinion to say that like the management and optimization and ordering and creation of the code and what is just the most interactive software medium that we have doesn't count as part of the art, right? Like it, I understand why people make the distinction. And I think it's also okay to say I don't care about it from a perspective of like it's not jarring enough for me to care. That I think makes perfect sense because I'm more or less that way, right? Right. The art, the actual like, I guess like visuals and music and that kind of stuff. When it's AI slot, that is a lot more jarring than like knowing that someone just vibe coded this entire level behind the scenes, like that ruins the experience less. But I think when it comes to like all of the same ethical concerns and the energy usage and all these other things, I don't I don't understand how people just like arbitrarily distinct distinct arbitrarily distinguish between these two things. But like ultimately, I do think this is one of those situations where if it doesn't look bad, it will ultimately not matter to the vast majority of consumers. And if it does look like some fucking Sora video stuff going on, then people will like really rebel against it. And I think that will just be the key going forward here. Is like, how how obvious is it AI and how bad is it, you know?
SPEAKER_00Right. There's always going to be people who have the you know environmental, ethical concerns or the I think it's stealing art from other places and like amalgamating all this stolen art, and you know, those things are always going to exist and persist, but as we see AI get better and better and like less distinguishable, uh people are gonna not even notice. Like it's this this box that has been opened, this Pandora's box, is not gonna close, I think, ever at this point. So the reality is like if if you want to take that principled stance and not ever play a game that has AI in it at all, more power to you. But I think that's just gonna get harder and harder as time goes on because everyone's gonna want to use it in this early stages of development where it's like we just need to get some background trees and stuff in there to see how this looks, and we don't want to hand design each one of them, you know?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and it it's one of those things too where uh so like I'm I'm a software engineer for a living, and I do programming that I might describe as like creative, but I would not describe as artistic, and I think there's like a difference there because I have to like get creative with how the user interface works and make sure it solves the person's problem and come up with like creative solutions to problems. But the only emotion I'm ever trying to convey through my work is do this make your job easier. And that's it. Like I there's no nothing no other consideration whatsoever, right? Whereas obviously with uh a video game, you know, something that isn't just uh, I don't know, Fortnite slop, I guess. Uh I just stop using the word slop. Let's become just like the most overused word. Fortnite garbage. We'll just go back three years. Fortnite garbage. Right. Um, something that isn't just that. There's always an an artistic intention, right? What are we trying to convey? Like sometimes we're trying to make the user feel sad, sometimes we're trying to make them happy, yada yada. That is how I would distinguish between like creative and artistic. And so maybe you could use that to distinguish between like the coding and the other stuff. But even then, I mean, how do you how do you get all these assets to convey that thing without making it play out in front of you in a certain way? So yeah, the distinction's weird. I think from an ethical standpoint, it doesn't make any sense. Like these are you're still stealing the code, there's still the copyright issue, you're still scraping the internet for that. But I do think from like an end user standpoint, I like I do understand why people want to distinguish between the two, because I more or less do too. When someone's like, all of these characters were generated by AI, you're like, I I don't have any fucking interest in this game whatsoever.
SPEAKER_00Like that sounds terrible. I don't want that at all. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But anyway, enough of all that. Legacy of Atlantis. I think it looks pretty cool. This is not there's not gonna be like a day one by for me, but I almost certainly will pick this up on sale at some point because I would love to play the original again with just some of the rough edges removed. Because actually, the um the like remaster of the trilogy was on PSN monthly recently. Yes. And boy, like that. Yeah, it's it's old, man. It's old.
SPEAKER_00Well, you'll be able to play it early next year in February because if it's not coming out in September or October, it's pushed to February.
SPEAKER_02So I like how they're giving an entire three-month birth to to uh GTA 6.
SPEAKER_00It's it's really insane. Uh, but it's gonna be a recurring trend that I'm I'm just gonna laugh about every time I announce another game
God of War: Laufey
SPEAKER_00that's coming out in one of those three months.
SPEAKER_02Uh another another big release from Sony is the new God of War. Uh God of War Lao Fei? Lao Fei?
SPEAKER_00I think I think it's Lao Fei. There's been there's been debate about the pronunciation, but I think it's Lao Fei. This looks great. I mean, this is to me, you know, there's of course there's controversy about this because there's a female character in the lead and not Kratos. Everybody's like Kratos now. Right. How do you have God of War without the God of War? Blah blah blah. And it's like, yeah, yeah, but it's God of War Lao Fei. Like you have the the characters in the title, guys. Like uh, this this looked really cool to me. I think it it takes that same over-the-shoulder perspective that Sony Santa Monica has been doing with the 2018 and Ragnarok release of God of War, and it makes it a little bit faster-paced. Like Lao Fay's combat looks a lot more like what we saw in the early God of War games, very quick, you know, stabbing people and dodging around and stuff. Where I feel like Kratos is a little more methodical with his movements, like things were heavier, you you hit harder. This felt very light and floaty. And and I know that it's taking other mythologies and other gods and bringing them into this like one space called the Everwind, which was actually named by Alana Pierce, by the way. She was as she was reacting to it, she was talking about all the things that she wrote on it, which was kind of cool, because this is the game that she had worked on before she left Sony Santa Monica. Malevola. Yeah, exactly. You got it. I was like Malevola, but um Lao Fei is also being played by Deborah Ann Wall. Uh not sure how familiar you are with her with her work.
SPEAKER_02Uh you showed me uh was this the first time I was in True Blood?
SPEAKER_00Yes. I know her from Daredevil. She plays Karen Page in the in the Netflix Daredevil series. So like the the main love interest. And she's great in there. I've heard she's good in True Blood, I haven't seen that.
SPEAKER_02So that takes place in your neck of the woods, man.
SPEAKER_00You should sound like I gotta go watch it. You're your old neck of the woods, I guess. I keep thinking about it, right? I mean, listen, it's all swamps.
SPEAKER_02Like this is interesting though, because like I know after we got a couple games in the Norse mythology, people were like, what's next? Are we gonna get Egyptian? Are we, you know, what are we gonna get? And it seems like their solution to that is, well, we're gonna be in a place where these exist multiple things exist simultaneously, which allow us to pull from the Greek stuff that we haven't seen since, you know, God of War III, allows us to reuse all the cool stuff from the Norse mythology we've just seen, and just gives them the freedom to go wherever else they want to. So uh, you know, everyone loves like gods and goddesses and stuff. That's such a a cool thing that I feel like always works well in games when the game itself is also good, right? It's never really the case of like, man, the game was a lot of fun, but all the stuff about the god and goddesses just really dragged it down. Like that's you know that's typically not the case.
SPEAKER_00It's usually the highlight. They're like, oh man, yeah, all those all those cool gods and goddesses were sick.
SPEAKER_02You know, like Hades is of course one that comes to mind. Um yeah, this this is pretty interesting. I I'm kind of excited for this one. Pro again, probably not like one of my I must get on launches, but I I am certainly looking forward to playing it because I did like those those new God of War games.
SPEAKER_00This is almost certainly a day one bye for me. It's the the release date is still very like ambiguous. It's 2027, it could get pushed in a 28 for all we know, but uh I will be I will be there day one on this one, I'm sure.
Until Dawn 2
SPEAKER_02So me and Becca were watching some of the recaps on YouTube the past few days, and not a lot of these really got her like all that excited. But boy, let me tell you when that did. Until Dawn 2. Yeah. She is a huge fan of the original. Um, I I think she had a little bit of reservations from the trailer because she was like, What I liked about Until Dawn 2 is that one of her favorite horror tropes is that they're in a place for a reason that has nothing to do with trying to go explore a haunted or or ghostly area and then it becomes one. Whereas this one, the onset was just like, this is a haunted amusement park or whatever. But um, I still think she's excited about it. She knows she played the quarry, which was like another game like that. Um, she loved that. Uh, I think she's played some of those like dark man picture mythology uh anthologies or whatever it is.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah. The dark pictures anthology, I think is what it's called.
SPEAKER_02So this will be cool. Um, I will we'll almost certainly play that one together at some point. So I'll I'm sure I'll play this eventually. But I like those games, especially as someone who's typically not as into horror stuff. I thought the way those games handled it was actually just really interesting. Um, so yeah, this one's this one's pretty cool.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, t Taylor also really liked the first Until Dawn. We we played that one together and enjoyed it. And I think the I really liked in this trailer whenever you have the option to push the guy or let him stay. Uh and you go to push him and he just like falls on the rocks anyway, and you're just like, Well, maybe I don't do that.
SPEAKER_02It's like I I like that See from the tr the trailer I couldn't quite tell uh which one they picked.
SPEAKER_00Like well, I I guess that's true. I'm assuming that he pushed because the other option was like, don't do anything. So I assumed he would stay up there. So I assumed that it was a push, but who who knows? Maybe he just decided to jump without me pushing, and that's what caused him to hit rocks.
SPEAKER_02See, I think I think that's what they want you to think, so that when you go to play it, you you're like, oh man.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, subverting my expectations. Lyon Johnson's not me. The last Jedi strikes back.
Control Resonant
SPEAKER_00I know another one that we're both really excited about is Control Resonant, which is going to be sick. We got like three different trailers for this game throughout the course of the week. The one that was shown at like I can't even remember what each one was at this point. It's all they all just kind of blur together. But every time I see this game, I'm like, yeah, this is super cool. Like action-heavy control sounds awesome.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's it's a really interesting universe. Um, I do like I was actually playing control again recently, and I was like, I don't remember the writing being this cringy all of the time throughout the entire thing. But you know, everything that I do remember liking about the game is definitely still there. The combat's a lot of fun, the atmosphere is really cool. The whole Federal Bureau of Control thing is just a really unique environment that you don't you don't see a lot of stuff like that in games. So uh yeah, a much more action-centric one with like melee and crazy weapons. I I can definitely see that being a lot of fun. And I know Connor is also excited about this one. He's a big control guy.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that this one comes out in September. It's one of our one of our uh September releases that we're gonna have to contend with. Um I'll probably I'll probably get this one quick. This will be one that I'll get early on. But honestly, if Connor doesn't want to get it on PC, we'll probably game share it on PS5. And yeah, it's it just looks super
Marvel Tokon Fighting Souls
SPEAKER_00cool.
SPEAKER_02There's the next one you're gonna have to tell me about. Marvel toke tokon fighting souls?
SPEAKER_00I think it's token. It is it's a team, it's like a 3v3 team fighter uh from Arc Systemworks, who made like Dragon Ball Fighters and like Blaze Blue, Guilty Gear, all of those like famous Japanese fighting games that you've probably never played and hate. Okay. Yeah, yeah. So it's it's a Marvel version of that with the like Marvel vs. Capcom 3v3 tag team fighting mechanics, but made by Art Systemworks. So it's this one is really cool. They've kind of been releasing all of the characters, like revealing them all in teams of three. So we've had like a hero team that is like Captain America, Iron Man, etc. etc. This reveal was a villain team, so it's I think they revealed Doctor Doom, Magneto, Green Goblin, and Carnage with a with a four characters. And you don't have to play them all together or anything, that's just how they've been revealing them. You can mix and match whoever you want. Uh, this looked really cool. Like Magneto in fighting games is iconic, Doom in fighting games is iconic. Like Marvel vs. Capcom has had those characters as like pillars for a long time. So it's cool to see them in this game. It looks really sick every time I look at it. I just I like fighting games, even though I only play them for a few weeks, and then I'm like, I'm so bad at this, why do I even bother?
SPEAKER_02Hey man, nothing wrong with that. That's that's a lot of the games we play that involve other people besides us.
SPEAKER_00So very true, very true. I'll probably play a lot of this single player and not with other people, but I I'm looking forward to it. The fighting games are fun for me,
Resident Evil Veronica
SPEAKER_00so.
SPEAKER_02Uh so one that we instead of getting at the state of play, we got at Summer Games Fest instead, is a remake of one of my all-time favorite games from my childhood. Uh, this was actually a Sega Dreamcast exclusive when it first launched, which is a weird thing to say now.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, really.
SPEAKER_02But this is Resident Evil Code Veronica, which I guess now is just being called Resident Evil Veronica. And I wish I had seen the trailer live because you were telling me how much like it was such a cool reveal, because like you don't know what it is going into it. Uh as someone who played the first one and knew what the trailer was, I was like, what does this have anything to do with Code Veronica? I'm pretty sure it took place on like a random island and then Antarctica, and there was like these two twins as villains, and none of that is there, but like, whatever, they're probably doing something interesting with it. Um, it's certainly that that graphic style of whatever engine the Resident Evil series uses is so identifiable, though, that it's like, even if they hadn't flashed up like R.E. Veronica, it's like, oh, I think I know what this is. Because man, for in an era where there's like 90% of games use Unreal or Unity, uh, the fact that like a couple of them are still using their own thing and it looks so fucking good. Like I really I really appreciate that about the new Resident Evil games. And um, yeah, I'm excited to check this one out because I I love this one as a kid.
SPEAKER_00The the RE engine is so sick. It's literally called the RE engine. I mean, it is is like built for Resident Evil and it looks so good. And like you said, it is very distinct. I think everybody when when the trailer came on was like Resident Evil, but I I think most people thought it was like Requiem DLC. Instead, they Reveal like towards the end of the trailer, they say Claire Redfield, and everybody's like, ah, it's called Veronica.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And you know, at one point there the old lady, and then it's talking about like your brother, your brother. And there's really only one iconic brother-sister duo in the series, so it's just kind of interesting.
SPEAKER_00I I don't know a lot about Resident Evil. I don't play a lot of Resident Evil, but this trailer was really cool. I liked the way it was revealed. It was the first one, it was the thing that kicked off Summer Games Fest. It was a very slow burn. You're talking to this old lady for half the trailer, and it's not until like the very end that they finally reveal what it fully is. And I just thought the pacing of this and the way it was all revealed out was really cool live and watching it in person. It got me excited for a game that I know nothing about.
SPEAKER_02So you know, we'd kind of talked about this on the mid-year recap, which may or may not have already been released by the time we release this. I don't know what order I'm doing this in yet. I would assume. We'll see. Yeah, we're talking about how like Capcom is on a fucking roll and they're not stopping, man.
SPEAKER_00Not stopping. They're nailing it. You know who else isn't
Gen Atlas
SPEAKER_00stopping? Famita Uwea.
SPEAKER_01Uh if this guy.
SPEAKER_00If you don't know that name, then you didn't listen to the Shadow of the Colossus episode, go do that. Um he he has made some of gaming's most beloved games that I hate to play every single time I play them.
SPEAKER_02Some of the rest of the gaming world's most beloved games, not ours, unfortunately.
SPEAKER_00Not mine. His his new game is called Gin Atlas, and it appears to be a sort of third-person shooter with a heavy emphasis on robots and sci-fi. It's something really different for him. And it looked cool, like the trailer looked cool. The robots looked really big. Yeah, which I mean, yeah, that there was that one shot of like the trailer uh in the trailer of the giant robot with like he's carrying a big stick or whatever, and it looks exactly like one of the Colossi for Shadow of the Colossus, and you're like, this tall, and I was like, Yeah, okay. Like that that's cool. I'm gonna hate to play it, but that was cool.
SPEAKER_02This could be interesting. I will say I did end up warming up to Shadow of the Colossus a little bit as as I went back to play it to collect like clips for shorts and stuff. It's definitely more so than like Okami, which I will never want to stop bringing up how much I hated that game.
SPEAKER_00Um I I just wonder, like, maybe with a modern control system, this will feel better. Like he's you know, building it in modern times, he's probably going to be incorporating more modern control schemes. And I can imagine more modern physics engines instead of whatever like shadow feels like. So I I'm hopeful that maybe some of that stuff will come through and I'll like it more because it looked cool in
Guild Wars 3
SPEAKER_00the trailer.
SPEAKER_02This next one was a bit of a surprise. Um, this was Guild Wars 3 was announced, and the there's been a little bit of like uh so I've been checking out the uh Guild Wars subreddits, and people are super hyped about it, but they're like, the trailer kind of looked like Highguard, which is funny because it was the same thing you said to me.
SPEAKER_00I was like, is this High Guard? And then I was like, oh wait, no, it's Guild Wars. Wait, what?
SPEAKER_02Um so like Arena Net had announced I put a little teaser on Twitter like last week, I think, and people were kind of speculating, like, what is it? And some people were saying, well, there's no way it's like Guild Wars 2 because or Guild Wars III because Guild War II is still like going strong and they're not going to cannibalize that. But no, it's straight up Guild Wars III. Um, there's very little information about it so far. But what is on the website is that they were really emphasizing like that you can play the game solo, which is kind of something that the um Guild Wars has sort of always let you do. Um, you know, the first one had these like NPCs that you could take into battle with you. Um, the second one just had a lot of like story-centric content that you could do on your own. Uh, but of course it's an MMO, so there's a lot of like group activities too. But they're also emphasizing movement. Like on the website, there's a there's a part where it talks about like you can use your speed to like increase your effectiveness. And it was making it seem like, you know, like running along a wall and then jumping off and like slamming a hammer or something would do more damage than doing it while you're like standing still. It's sort of the implication. So I think like Guild Wars has always done something pretty unique when it has uh like an MMO. I think it's like the president of NCSoft was talking about how Aeon 2 is also coming out at some point, and he was saying, like, no, that's really your more traditional like MMO affair. Like Guild Wars 3 is really gonna be something interesting. We're doing stuff with like uh much more reactive combat and movement, and it's and it's gonna be the next generation of MMOs. Like, we are not trying to make a wow clone, right? Um, which at the end of the day, Aeon is is a lot more like that kind of MMO. So who knows, man? This game probably won't come out for a long, long time. The the beta is set to happen in like the end of 2027, uh, and who knows if that will hold up. So yeah, I'm I'm very excited about this, but in that way, that's like, you know, I I was also super excited about Guild Wars 2, and I was very let down by that. So um much more of Guild Wars 1 purist. So we'll see, we'll see what happens.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean the the trailer looked neat outside of the fact that it'll take High Guard at first. I was like, Highguard 2? That doesn't make sense. Um but but yeah, I mean look, we'll we're gonna play Guild Wars for this podcast one day, and I'll let you know how I feel about it whenever we do that.
SPEAKER_02Maybe we'll do it for um you know next next year, right before this beta launches.
SPEAKER_00But there we go, there we go.
Star Wars: Zero Company
SPEAKER_02This next one, though, man, this is one that I think is definitely gonna be I might I might have a hard time not buying this today at launches because it kind of just combines so many of my favorite things, and that is Star Wars Zero Company, a game that has basically been described as Star Wars meets XCOM meets Mass Effect, and it's like someone was just making a tagline in a lab to get Adam to play it, is is how this game comes off.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but there's also Anakin. So how much does that, you know, outweigh your look?
SPEAKER_02Uh as much as I always like roll my eyes when the same five fucking characters are involved in every single Star Wars property, nothing's gonna stop me from playing this game. They they could have had like fucking baby Yoda out there, and I probably would still found the the drive to play this.
SPEAKER_00No, I mean I mean this seems really cool. We we got a story trailer at Summer Games Fest. It's the first real footage that we've gotten like extensively to cover this game. And it it looked really neat. It looked exactly like it's promise, right? XCOM beats Star Wars, and the the very end teases Anakin, so it firmly kind of places it, and they call him General Skywalker, so we know it's in the Clone Wars. I think they said it's in like the waning years, the so like at the very the tail end of Clone Wars. I don't know how that's going to play out story-wise, but all of your like main characters are all original, and they're gonna have hopefully the promise is that they'll have that mass effect level of getting to know them, forming that relationship, and then if they die, you'll lose them because it's permadeath stuff. So they'll bring in that like fire emblemness that we talked about earlier this year in that episode. Um I'm getting all the Jeff plugs in today. Uh and it'll be cool to see how they how they combine those elements of Mass Effect where it's like you you really get to learn everybody, but now they might die. So, how much of that is going to affect how they design the character, how the levels are made, and like how you play the game. So I I'm I'm definitely really excited for this one. I like XCOM, but I love Mass Effect, and I love Star Wars.
SPEAKER_02Did you ever play um Chimera Squad? XCOM Chimera Squad.
SPEAKER_00I did not. I did not end up playing Chimera Squad. I own it though, I think.
SPEAKER_02So that one was interesting because instead of it being like the first two XCOM, well, you know, I say the first two, the first two of like the reboots, right? Um, where it's there's really no storyline characters, right? It's all expendable soldiers. Chimera Squad instead had like a squad, that was called Chimera Squad, and each person was like unique in their abilities and stuff, and they were kind of story characters. I can't remember if they could die or not. It might be one of those things where they're just like injured for a number of missions or whatever. Um, but it seems like this is kind of borrowing some of that to there's definitely going to be like actual party members with like stories and a set design and unique abilities to them, and then you're gonna have your one main guy, I think, that you make that you can customize and they're you like you would be in a a Mass Factor or a Kotor or something. So it's really just a blend of so many of my favorite RPG influences like coming together.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I think that main character is the one that if they die, that'll trigger your game over screen. But otherwise, the the only way to you know get a game over is for them to die or or to run out of, you know, not meet the mission parameters, whatever that means, you know.
Star Wars: Galactic Racer
SPEAKER_02And funnily enough, this was not the only Star Wars game that we got more information about from this uh conference. Now, we already knew about Galactic Racer. It was announced during oh, was it the Game Awards? I believe.
SPEAKER_00I think so.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. But we got we got another trailer on that, we got some more information on that. It looks pretty cool. It basically looks like they looked at Pod Racer and were like, let's do that, but more. Uh let's add more types of vehicles and more types of things and that. So that that should be just like a good fun Star Wars game, which you don't need to like care too much about how it affects the lore, or having watched any of the side content, or having watched eight seasons of Clone Wars and a plus a movie or or whatever else, right? So that that's definitely cool. Um, do you are is that is that one of those that you're also looking forward to, like day of, or is that more of a later buy for you?
SPEAKER_00I'll I'll probably get it day of. I think it's supposed to be a cheaper game, it'll be like 40 or 50 instead of the typical 70 that things are going for. And it's like a story-driven racing game, which is neat. I always like when that's the focus. I think Sabalba is supposed to play a big part in it because of course he does.
SPEAKER_02Um yeah, can you name one other pod racer?
SPEAKER_00No, no, there's like there's some guy named like Ben something, I think, but I I don't I don't know him. Uh this is another October game. Uh, we didn't actually talk about the Zero Company release date, but that comes out surprisingly early. That's August 27th. So that's soon. Like, yeah, that's like that's really soon in comparison to some of these other things. So I'm excited to get my hands on that so early.
Stranger than Heaven
SPEAKER_02Some other kind of smaller things, I wouldn't say smaller necessarily, but definitely not the biggest releases that were announced during this, is there was something called Stranger Than Heaven, which I believe is like the Yakuza developers, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's from RGG Studios, like Ryu Gaga Taku or whatever.
SPEAKER_02Which look, I don't know anything about those games, and I don't really care about those games. But what I did find uh particularly fucking fascinating is that Snoop Dogg comes on stage to announce it, and everyone's like, that's weird. I mean, you know, cool, maybe they're going for some hip-hop style, maybe he's voicing a character. And then what was reminiscent to me of the Coachella hologram from years ago, a big ass Tupac shows up on screen, and Tup Dog's just given this like, yeah, man, I feel like you know, we're really like honoring his legacy with a fucking the spirit, the spirit of Tupac lives on to this game or some shit.
SPEAKER_00I was like, what are you talking about?
SPEAKER_02Just like rip a blunt before I went out there and just started fucking talking about Tupac. But look, um, I it's definitely cool. Like, that's an interesting idea. It's neat that like is this a crossover anyone would have guessed in a million years?
SPEAKER_00I I never would have I never would have thought Tupac was gonna show up at the Stranger Than Heaven reveal trailer at uh Summer Games Fest.
SPEAKER_02Is that is that gonna help them get a new audience? Who knows? I hope I hope it works for them.
SPEAKER_00Well, it's so funny because Snoop comes out and he's like, you know, yeah, me and the Tupac estate, we're working close hand in hand, and we you know the spirit of Tupac lives on in this game, and I'm just thinking the whole time, like, dude, you just wanted more money. Like Tupac's family was like, Hey, can we get a licensed deal? Yeah. Of course, everybody reacting to this is like, what is happening? Are we are we AIing Tupac into this game? Like, what there's a couple that was like, my interest has now gone down in this game, right? I was like, just such a weird announcement. It's funny though. I got a good laugh out of it. I was like, what the hell is Tupac doing here?
SPEAKER_02It's it makes no sense, man. But uh, you know, sometimes we do complain about how we're just sort of circling the drain culturally and artistically with remake after remake. This has never been done before. So true. True.
Wolf Among Us 2
SPEAKER_02Man, another game that was announced that has that is a sequel to a very beloved game that has we haven't heard anything about in years and years. The Wolf Among Us 2. Man, when did that game come out?
SPEAKER_00The original Wolf Among Us, I think it was like it's been a long time. It was 20 like 15, 16, something like that. It's it's definitely the mid-2010s because it was the next game that they did after Walking Dead, and Walking Dead was like 2012. So the the fact they're remastering it, so if you haven't played it, you can play the remaster later this year. But getting a confirmed confirmation trailer, Wolf Among Us 2 is still actively in development and has a release window. It's 2027, so you know who knows? It's it's very ambiguous, but just having a release window, even having a date by it was like, yes, I loved Wolf Among Us. I've always really liked Walking Dead. Wolf Among Us did something very different, but but but kept that signature telltale style before it started to get really worn down and like tired. So I I am really excited for Wolf Among Us too.
SPEAKER_02Which does make you wonder if they're gonna go back to something that feels more like that original Telltale style, or if with the success of games like Dispatch and Mixtape and some of these other, you know, narrative heavy games, if they're gonna take a different approach. But I think either way, a lot of people can be really excited about this one because I was probably you know, after the actual first Walking Dead game and Borderlands, I think I always or Tales from the Borderlands always think of this one as like the one of the big three that people actually really liked from Telltale before they just started making license crap after license crap that no one really cared for.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that this one is super cool. I I love Big B as a character. I love what they did with like Snow White and all the other fables and fantasy characters. So I'm I'm super, super in this
Stellar Blade Bloodrain
SPEAKER_00one.
SPEAKER_02Uh another sequel that was announced was Stellar Blade Blood Rain. Now, Stellar Blade was one of those games that unfortunately, you know, we kind of talked about um Pragmata in the last episode. It's one of those games that got caught up in the culture war, and like I don't think anyone asked for it. I'm sure as a lot of the times there are, there was like an artist on Twitter being like, yeah, our game's gonna kill woke or whatever. But for the most part, like people out there are just trying to make games and it gets dragged in these stupid fucking conversations. This was one where like there was a little bit of boob physics. There was some like very um, you know, 2000s dead or alive character outfits, I would say. Um ultimately it was kind of like an action-y souls-like thing, something a little more action-heavy than like a souls game, but still relying on a lot of those tropes and in difficulty. I actually own this one. It was pretty fun. I only played it maybe like 10 hours before I kind of fell off because ultimately it was hard as fuck. And just like, you know, the original uh Dark Souls or Returnal and all these other games that are known to be hard that I actually really enjoy but still can't get past the first 10, 12 hours. This is one of those, but it should be it should be an interesting one. I think people it was received pretty well by the people who were actually taking it seriously as a game. And um, so yeah, it's cool that they made enough money to make a a sequel.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'm sure people are gonna be totally normal about this. Uh this this will be totally normal reactions to this. No, I mean I've already seen so many people who are like, the the main character looks too young, which like admittedly, the face does look a little young, but then you have an equal number of people who are like, that's just Korean women. It's it's just like nobody can say anything that is right about this game. So, what I will say is that the trailer looked really cool. The combat is very melee focused this time, which I think it was melee focused in the last game, but your main character had like a sword and actual weapons, I believe. This girl's like fisticuff, just like punching people in the face. Uh, it looked super cool, super fluid. The the art style, the like cybernetics and everything, really neat. I love the design of the town and the world that she was in. And there's a shot in the trailer where she like throws off her coat, and immediately I was like, Oh, okay, this this is one of those games. And then sure enough, it was Stellar Blade. I was like, okay, alright. But it it does look really cool, honestly. And like, I haven't played the first one, but I would like to play it at some point and then hopefully play this one because it I was sold
Street Fighter 6: Year 4
SPEAKER_00on the trailer, not gonna lie.
SPEAKER_02Look, man, the gaming audience has changed a lot over the years for sure, but there are definitely some people in the industry that can't just can't help themselves from delving into that. That core audience will always exist of a big boob lady punching people to death. And if you need more evidence of that, look no further than Street Fighter 4 has I'm sorry, Street Fighter Year 4 has Tifa from FF7 in it, the original Big Boob Lady who punches things to death.
SPEAKER_00That that was a very, very good segue. I uh very much approve that this is this is a really cool reveal to me because as to my knowledge, it was the first time Tifa had appeared in a fighting game. And especially one of such high caliber, like Tekken or Street Fighter or something like that.
SPEAKER_02And it's probably the only time it's been in one of high caliber, yes. That's that's a true story. But Austin, I couldn't believe you had never heard of Erghee's God Bless the Ring from 1998. A ridiculous fever dream of a fucking game that was just like this very mediocre 3D fighter that for some reason had like six FF7 characters in it, including like Cloud and Sephiroth and Vincent and Yuffie, I believe, were the podcast. Uh yeah. Some of them being like hidden characters. And then the weirdest thing about that game, though, by far the weirdest thing, is that there was just a whole mode that was like a totally different fucking game where it was this like two-player almost like Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance kind of thing, where it was like a sort of dungeon crawler action thing. Brother, I I it was it was so weird.
SPEAKER_00It sounds like we need to play this for the podcast, is all I'm saying. This this sounds like some nonsense that I I can't even believe exists.
SPEAKER_02So that was Tifa's first actual appearance in a fighting game. But you were correct. This is definitely the first time it's been in one that is uh, you know, a a property with any legitimacy whatsoever.
SPEAKER_00I I love watching Max react to this because the the other characters that were announced for year four are like basically nobodies and this cat like brand new characters that we don't know, and this character named Bosch that I think people are kind of mediocre on in Street Fighter lore. And everyone's like, that's it, that's all we're gonna get, and then all of a sudden Tifa pops out, and it's like wah! Everybody's freaking out. Uh so the this trailer was neat to see that, and it leads into probably the game that we're most excited about out of everything that was announced in this entire show and and every show this week, and that is finally
Final Fantasy VII Revelation
SPEAKER_00Final Fantasy VII part three, Final Fantasy VII Revelation. Adam, tell me about it. What are your feelings? Where are you at?
SPEAKER_02Look, if anyone listening has heard our episodes on rebirth and remake, they know how I'm feeling right now. I'm I'm quite excited for this. Uh game looks fucking gorgeous. Um, as as all of them have so far. We're getting we're actually getting the third one within like 10 years of the first one launching, which I gotta say, I was skeptical with the with the way games come out now. Um, we're gonna get both of them in the time frame since we got the last like naughty dog game, I think. So, you know, uh of course they had that thing they were working on that got cancelled, unfortunately.
SPEAKER_00But I mean, I mean Wolf Among Us 2 literally still we're gonna get this before Wolf Among Us 2. So that's all I'm saying. The game was announced, shown, revealed, released all before Wolf Among Us 2. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Spring 2027, so this one's definitely not too far from now. Uh, you know, watching the trailer, it's got all the things I love about the combat. A lot of it looks a little more over the top. Like some of those, they were showing awful lot of Vincent and Cid, obviously, because those are the two characters we haven't gotten to play yet. Some of Cid's attacks are just like, whoa, summoning like water dragons and stuff. Um, so if any part of you was like, I liked any aspect of the grounded nature of the first two, I you're probably out of luck, but that's okay. We don't need to worry about that. We're seeing them skydiving out of the fucking high wind, seemingly just like wherever they want to. Um, who knows how that's gonna work exactly, but it looks like you're gonna have a ton of freedom. They they were showing um this almost job system. It was like you changed outfits to get and in an interview, I think you were telling me the creator's doing with Max Dude, or he went over to um his his house or his studio like right after.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02He was talking about you get to customize your like folios or skills or whatever this game's iteration of that is per outfit. And I was like, yes, of course. We finally get the skill loadouts I've been waiting for for two games, and they're locked behind changing your outfit. There's like such a Japanese thing. But man, I'm I'm so excited for this. Like, what else is there to say?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, somebody looked at dress spheres from X2 and was like, Yes, we need dress spheres back. It's like, did we? Uh, but no, like everything about these trailers was super cool. The it gave me everything I wanted seeing the weapons at the scale that they are, like going like looking in the Corel Desert and just having Ruby weapon towering over all the mountains. And you're just like, I'm gonna have to fight that thing. And it it just had this this sense of scale that I was so impressed by, and all the games have. But the I literally, when I saw them jumping out of the off the high wind, I was like, Is is is this Fortnite? Like, where do we drop it, boys? Like it but like what they're doing with it and the the scale that they're trying to hit. I think they've said every region will be open to you. You can go anywhere that you win in rebirth will be open here again, and there'll be new areas. They've mentioned Wutai is gonna be a big factor. There's just so much that they're gonna put into this game, I think. And they didn't even touch on really any of the story stuff or any of what they're doing with some of the crazy story concepts, which I I'm happy about, right? I don't want to see that stuff. Do you wait? Like, let's wait until the game comes out. I'm sure they'll give a story trailer at some point that'll give us some, you know, little tidbits, but so far we've gotten very little, and I'm I'm all the happier for that because they've shown off some really cool gameplay, and I'm really excited to see it, and I want that story stuff to be a surprise because there's so many things that they can do with it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you know, we we talked about in our episodes on the first two parts how they really went in a different direction with some of the story beats, and they're really emphasizing like the whole Zach thing, and um, you know, who even knows if Eris is like dead or not, and uh Cloud sure doesn't, and just all these things. So, yeah, it'll it'll be an interesting it if for no other reason than to just get what I consider to have been like the pinnacle of turn-based combat. Um I guess it's not even turn-based, right?
SPEAKER_00It's almost like it's it's a hybrid s they they describe it as a hybrid system. It's it's very action-heavy, but you can at times go into a turn-based sort of mode.
SPEAKER_02You know, I think over the last 10 years or so of gaming, I'd come really to not enjoy a lot of turn-based RPG combat. I had really, you know, I liked my XCOMs, I liked my strategy turn-based combat, but in more traditional RPGs, it just it started to get really uninteresting. But then we got the rebirth and remake systems, and then we got Claire Obscure, and I'm really enjoying just uh sort of these new fresh ideas coming to turn-based combat and hybrid systems like this, and yeah, man, it uh it looks damn cool, and I cannot wait to play
Gears of War: E-Day
SPEAKER_02it. But speaking of things I probably could wait for, that's almost just the entirety of Xbox's lineup these days, I swear. Um, no, no. That's that's harsh. There's actually one in here I'm super excited for. But a lot of this is things that never really resonated a ton with me to begin with. And I know Xbox is like struggling to figure out what they should make exclusive and what they should not make exclusive.
SPEAKER_00But you could have you could have stopped that Xbox is struggling, and that would have also probably been an accurate statement.
SPEAKER_02I mean, there's some interesting stuff here. Uh, one of the first ones I showed was Gears of War E-Day, which is something we knew was coming, but it's basically there's been this thing in the lore the whole time, Emergence Day. It's when the locusts, you know, rose up quite literally and started doing all of their things. And this takes place back around that time, and we have like a young version of all of our characters from the first couple games, and we get to see them in the past.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so this one's gonna focus really heavy on the relationship between Marcus and Dom, which, you know, if if you listen to our Gears of War episode, then you'll know that was a core part of the first game. And having that bond, kind of seeing how they got there, is gonna be really neat. We we know that the trailer shows them in their street clothes, which I thought was really cool. Like it was such a jarring thing to just see the gears in slim down, they just had their like jeans and and a you know, polo on or whatever, running through the streets killing locusts because they just pop up. And it's like that's a really cool premise to set us up for to start out in in this game.
SPEAKER_02And and the trailer looked pretty cool. I mean, I obviously it's like it's gritty realism is what Gears of War is, but I'm so glad we've moved past that 2005 era of where like gritty realism was brown, green, gray, and blood red, and those were your four colors for the entire there's a lot of color in this trailer, like a lot of things really popped.
SPEAKER_00The city environment design looks really good. I was listening to a preview today where the some of the like journalists who got to see the game behind closed doors were able to talk to the developers, and they were saying that they built all the assets from the ground up for UE5, they didn't use a single asset from any of the old games, it's all brand new. And part of the idea is that the whole game takes place over the course of three days and you get to watch the city kind of crumble. You know, like in this first in this first trailer that we see, most of the city's still intact, Emergence Day is just starting, and over the course of the three days, you're gonna see things become more and more devastated, and you'll go back to old areas that are a lot more devastated than they were when you started the game. And I think that's a that's a cool premise to kind of get us into this world and get us to where Gears 1 started. We'll probably see how Marcus ends up in jail, I imagine.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I guess we never found that out. He's just in jail at the start.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, at least I don't remember them talking about how he got in jail.
Fable
SPEAKER_02So something else from around the same time, no, maybe a few years before, I want to say that Fable, the original, was a OG Xbox title. Um and this is a series that like the first Fable was super well received, the second one was pretty well received, the third one was not, and we've basically gotten very little from it since.
SPEAKER_00There was one Connect game. There was a game that was you there was a Fable Connect game, like the Xbox Connect. You could like throw a spear at people and like shoot magic spells with your hands. I completely forgot about the connect. It was very well received, let me tell you.
SPEAKER_02You know, for as much shit as like the Wii U gets, I remember that it happened. Um, the connect is like a total just brain fog of it.
SPEAKER_00Remember when they bundled a connect with every Xbox to try and get people to use it and nobody used it still?
SPEAKER_02That's fucking crazy, dude.
SPEAKER_00Uh this trailer looked cool because it has Haley Atwell as the the character in it. Uh all these all these trailers have kind of shown a character highlighted and they're narrating the trailer, but this one had Haley Atwell in it, which I was like, I'm here for that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, Agent Carter as the villain is actually something that made me more intrigued in this than I was before because man, I had the sour taste in my mouth from Fable 3, and it's just absolutely asinine menu system, but I still think is one of the worst things I've ever seen to this day. Um, really made me like hate this franchise. But a total reboot of it, you know, go or not like a reboot, but I guess a reboot is the way to say that. Yeah, it's like a whole new thing. Um, they're putting a ton of money behind it, they got big names. It looks like, you know, it I'm excited about it. Uh, not again, not like a day one thing for me, but I'm gonna keep my eye on it and I and I think I'll definitely be interested in playing it when it becomes like uh who knows, maybe I'll renew Game Pass again one day and and pick it up, right?
SPEAKER_00I was I was about to say that this is definitely a game pass for me. I'll I'll pick up Game Pass in February because it got moved because GTA. It was supposed to come out in the fall, but they were like, uh no, we can't do that. GTA is in the fall.
SPEAKER_02So all roads lead to GTA, or all actually all all roads go around GTA.
SPEAKER_00But all roads, all roads diverge away from GTA. Um the this this one is also not going to be console exclusive. This one is going to drop on PS5, I believe. Okay. So it will be the first fable on PS5. Gears, they did confirm, is going to be a a console exclusive for Xbox. It will still be on PC, but it will not make it to PS5. There was rumor and speculation that it would because they released the trilogy on PS5 not long ago. They released like a 2G trilogy on PS5. So everybody was like, oh well, the new gears will come. And I think it was supposed to up until recently, whenever they were like, we need to go back to making exclusive games because nobody wants to buy an Xbox.
Halo: Campaign Evolved
SPEAKER_02Yeah, at some point you have to give people a reason to buy the actual fucking Xbox. And for the past several years, there just hasn't been one, like I swear to God.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and this next game could have been a reason to buy the Xbox, but it will also be on PS5.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I almost feel like they just like their their whole new strategy of exclusives just came around a little too late. Um, but this is, of course, Halo Campaign Evolved, a complete ground-up remake of the campaign from the original Halo 1. Kind of an interesting thing they're doing here. There will be no competitive multiplayer, right? It's strictly the campaign. Uh, it will have four-player co-op, either two-player split screen or four-player online. And it's supposed to be 50 bucks, right? Because they're like, yeah, we know it's not a full game. We know it's a game that already exists. Um, but we're really going to put the time into making this experience like a good one in a remade one. And here it is for a reasonable price. Um, I'm pumped for this, man. Uh, that that campaign is uh was to me was always the greatest first-person shooter campaign ever. Then we played uh Titanfall 2, so now it's second place. But it's it's so good. I've always loved it. The um the way the starting level kind of introduces mechanics and functions as a tutorial. Like, such a good example of good game design and and doing all of that through the gameplay and not just like um you know throwing up like Mega Man, Mega Man, press X to jump on your on your thing, you know. So yeah, I'm super pumped for this. Uh this will probably be a like I'll get it on PC as soon as I can kind of deal.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah, that this will be a renew game pass and and do this one for sure. This is a day one, and it's soon. It's it's July 28th. So we don't have to wait long. Yeah, we don't have to wait long at all for this one. There's gonna be three new missions, too, that are included. I don't know how exactly those work. I've heard they're prequel missions, but I don't know if they actually like start the campaign, if they're interspersed throughout. Like, I don't know. I think it might just be like three new missions before the first mission, but that would be kind of unfortunate considering how well that first mission, you know, introduces the game mechanics. So it'll be interesting to see how they do that.
SPEAKER_02Well, also the first mission literally picks up after the last mission of Reach, right? You get the payload on the ship, Captain Keys jumps into hyperspace with Cortana, and then Halo 1 starts. So I don't know exactly how that's going to work, but I trust it'll be done in a way where I think everyone will enjoy it. You know, I have no reason to think they can't figure that part out.
SPEAKER_00I will say every time I've seen gameplay of this, it looks just so good. It it's it feels like what you remember the Halo campaign to be, even though it probably doesn't actually play like that anymore. Like it probably doesn't feel that good, but it looks like it it does. Like it looks like what you remember it to feel like. It looks so good. All the detail, all the like visual fidelity that this has, so impressive to me. It looks amazing every time I look at it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I think it's gonna have some of the more modern Halo like mechanics, right? So it's gonna have Sprint and Dual Wheel and some of these things. So we'll we'll see what happens
Persona 4 Revival and Persona 6
SPEAKER_02there. But uh, this next one I know you are super excited about. I not not as much my thing, although I have enjoyed uh you know, I had my I had my fun with Persona 5 and I uh really enjoyed Metaphor. So Persona 4 Revival, a complete remake of the fourth game. How are you feeling about this one, buddy?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, this is awesome. I the fourth game, I think for a lot of persona fans, Persona 4 was their entryway into the series. I played Persona 3 first, but I think a lot of people caught on at four. It's the most grounded of the bunch because it takes place in like a small town, it's a murder mystery story of you know, people are like disappearing in this town, and you have to figure out why and what's happening to them. And it's it's not about yeah, it's a lot of the same concepts that Persona 5 has with kind of facing your yourself and like learning about yourself, uh like these characters learning about themselves, I guess, and just dealing with like issues that would affect teenagers. But the way that Persona 4 does it is probably the most grounded, and I just can't wait to play this again. Having it be a remake on the scale of Persona 3 reload, which was their last attempt at a remake, and it's a very good attempt, like it's a very good remake. So having them kind of take that same scale and just rebuilding all the combat, making it feel like a modern game is awesome. It's it's a little bit later next year, it's it's in you know that February range that everything else is avoiding GTA 6. Um, but I I'm excited for it. It'll be a game pass as well for me. The bigger announcement here though, if if you can even imagine, is that they finally showed off a teaser for Persona 6. We've we've known it's been in the works for a long time now. It's been very loosely like there's a new persona coming out, because of course there is, but persona 5 was I think 2017 or 2016, like persona 5's older than you think it is. And so so to finally have a new look at a new mainline persona game, it's very small teaser, but it's going for a much darker approach. It had a very spooky atmosphere, and it's green. Every every persona game has a color, right? Oh, okay. Right. Persona 4 is yellow, uh, persona three is kind of blue. This one looks like it'll be green, and it's got like a horror vibe to it. It almost looked like a Shin Migami Tensei game a little bit, which is the same developer, so it makes sense that they kind of are taking some of that influence. But yeah, I'm just really excited for a new persona. It's probably still like two or three years away, but I just give it to me. Give me more persona.
State of Decay 3
SPEAKER_02A couple more things that were shown off here. We've known about State of Decay 3 for a long time. Uh, it got moved to 2027. Maybe it'll come out one day. I feel like this game has been delayed multiple times. I loved the first two games. The second one is actually like one of my favorite games, but the whole thing when they announced it, it was like, okay, number one, we're gonna get the foundation down. Number two, it's gonna be like a co-op game. And number three, it's gonna be an MMO. This kind of fell apart, and that's good. We don't need a state of K MMO. But the worst part is that the co-op system in the second game sucked. It was awful. First off, it was like fucking impossible to get it to work because it was like game for Windows Live or whatever the hell uh when it first came out, um, or just like Windows Store. And then when you finally did get it to work, it was like that person's progress didn't really save. Uh, one person basically had to like always carry it, and you you were sort of this weird clone, even though there was like other characters you should be able to control. You couldn't get very far away from each other. It was terrible. It was massively disappointing. They've been working with the grounded team at Obsidian on the multiplayer aspects of State of Decay 3, and that gives me a lot of hope. This could actually be a really fun, like it's it's it's like half survival crafting, half really fun action game, uh, State of Decay, and it's like zombies, and you you gotta build your city and you gotta like build your community, and it's like, you know, got some Walking Dead influence. It's a really, really cool game. I would love to play it with other people. State of Decay 2 just made that fucking impossible.
SPEAKER_00And grounded, grounded's co-op works really well. So no reason that if if they're taking influence from grounded,
Crazy Taxi
SPEAKER_00that it shouldn't work really well.
SPEAKER_02We mentioned earlier we're just circling the drain artistically and culturally. So here's another um reboot of Crazy Taxi World Tour is returning. Uh that's that franchise is returning. We get a 2027 release. This is another one with some some AI usage controversy, supposedly in some of the background art. Who knows if that will if that will really affect it? This is one that I think a lot of people have been saying for years they want to come back, but it's also like, how big was Crazy Taxi really? So I don't know, it won't be interesting.
SPEAKER_00People are acting, people are acting like they've been deprived of Crazy Taxi, man. They're like Crazy Taxi. That offspring, that trailer starts with offspring, and you're just like, all right, crazy taxi was done. Exactly.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Such a strange the second game was literally like just two offspring albums, and really only like three songs from each one. That game had a soundtrack of like eight songs, and it was all the offspring. It was so strange. Um, but yeah, it was it was fun. I there's not a lot of depth to those games. It's just a goofy little like, you know, you deliver people as fast as you can kind of thing. Yeah, just make you wonder yeah, is there enough there to really exist in the year 2027 without adding a bunch of shit? And then if you add a bunch of shit, does it take away from the soul of the experience? I think that remains to be seen. But that was another game announced at the Xbox showcase.
Final Fantasy Resonance
SPEAKER_02Moving on now to the third publisher showcase, the Nintendo Direct. Now, this one happened uh the latest of all of these, right? Just a couple days ago.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, literally yesterday.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Yeah. So we got what is really interesting, um, especially because they were people were saying, like, this is the first turn-based Final Fantasy game in like a decade. And you're thinking to yourself, that's crazy. That can't be right. I think it might be right. I I think so. So they announced Final Fantasy Resonance, and it looks like the Octopath Traveler games in sort of what they call that HD or 2D HD art style. But it is a single-player like uh condensed version of that weird mobile game that they had.
SPEAKER_00It was like a gotcha game where you could collect all the famous Final Fantasy characters from the past, so you get like Cloud and you know, Tifa and Squall and all these characters, and it looks like that still retains, right? They're still retaining that, but you don't have to do all the money gotcha systems that the mobile game had.
SPEAKER_02So have you played any of the Octopath traveler games?
SPEAKER_00I played a little bit of the first one, but never finished it. I love the art, but I never I could never get into it for some reason. I'm not really sure why.
SPEAKER_02It's because turn-based combat and the JRPG traditional style is just sucks now. Um no, I I played the second one a decent bit. It's pretty cool because they do do something unique with every single character. I think if they keep building off those ideas, this could be a pretty fun one. I don't know how much the combat is gonna be like the mobile game or if they're gonna try to shake it up. Um, but yeah, definitely interesting that we're getting a true turn-based Final Fantasy.
SPEAKER_00And it's and it's releasing this year, October, of course. Um yeah, what else? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um the the this this direct was so controversial, I feel like, amongst Nintendo fans. Some people were like, uh, this is the best direct ever. And some people were like, this is the worst Nintendo direct I've ever seen. The the online reaction has been so diverse on this one. Like, if you're like a Fire Emblem, Xenoblade, Final Fantasy fan, you're like, yes, I'm eating good. This is amazing. If you like Mario, you're like, there is no Mario.
Kingdom Hearts IV
SPEAKER_00But the thing that everybody universally could agree upon was what the fuck is Kingdom Hearts 4 doing at a Nintendo direct? I mean, seriously, I the so that they open this with a collection of the Kingdom of all the Kingdom Hearts games are coming to Switch 2 like locally on the game, because like on the cartridge or downloadable. The only version of Kingdom Hearts that currently exists on Switch is cloud versions. So you buy a game and you have to stream it. It's crazy, it's crazy. It doesn't work well, everybody hates it. This is the first time that it's I and it's just because the Switch couldn't handle it without streaming it, right? Like that was the problem. Switch 2 is powerful enough to do it, so they combined all the games and put them on the cartridge and made it downloadable and whatever, right? And that's what everybody thought the reveal was, and that was cool. Like, Kingdom Hearts fans are like, Great, we got that thing. And then they dropped a trailer for Kingdom Hearts 4, and it was just like madness. I was like, what is happening right now? I literally went to our Discord chat and I was like, Connor, red alert, this is not a drill, Kingdom Hearts 4.
SPEAKER_02Like this is one of those games where people have basically been like, this is the year it's gonna be announced for like the past eight years, right?
SPEAKER_00I mean, yeah, what so we got like a little we got a little teaser of it in 2022. They they dropped like a 30-second to a minute, like, it exists, it's coming, you'll see it later, and then literally radio silence, not a single word about it until a random reveal on a Nintendo Direct. Like I I literally had it on this list as a game that didn't show up because I had no faith that it would show up at a Nintendo Direct, yeah, and then it was there.
SPEAKER_02That series has been very long running now, and the for god the first one came out when I was in high school, I'm pretty sure. And of course, there's just been an endless collection of like intermediate titles in between the three major ones at this point, but crazy story that's never gonna stop.
SPEAKER_00Are you telling me that? You don't love Kingdom Hearts 3D dream drop distance or Kingdom Hearts back cover key something nonsense.
SPEAKER_02I feel like Kingdom Hearts is like uh responsible for like a certain percentage of like xenophobia toward the country of Japan. Like it's it's just like it cost it. That's crazy.
Ocarina of Time Remake
SPEAKER_02Uh another another game that got a big announcement that I think is sort of up there with Kingdom Hearts 4, as far as like for a decade now, everyone's just been saying this is the year, this is the year, this is the year, is the Ocarina of Time remake. That I know this was rumored, but brother, I think our podcast might have some like universal powers because I mean this has happened a couple times now with the things that we've done. I remember like we were going to play Max Payne, and then Rebini was like, We're remaking Max Payne, so we didn't do that. Uh, you know, now we we made we did the Pokemon episode, and a few months later they put red and green out. Yeah, yeah. Now we do the Zelda episode and they announced the remake. So man, we just gotta find games that we really want to be remade.
SPEAKER_00There we go. Yeah, this this one got a leak earlier this year that was like pretty reputable. It has been rumored for a long time, but there was a leak earlier this year, or like late last year, from a really reliable leaker that was like, it's gonna be announced and it's gonna come out this year. And I think everybody was kind of waiting for it. And I think that actually hurt this reveal a tiny bit because we only see a shot of like there's like a there's like a tapestry on the wall, and there's a voiceover that is giving history, and they're like, there's a boy who lives in a forest and he didn't have a fairy, and yada yada. And then it has the opening shot from the original, like like the beginning of Ocarina of Time, where it pans down to Link in his bed, kind of like shivering from a bad dream, and you see the Triforce on his hand, and then it just cuts away. But the art style looks super cool, super different than anything we've seen from recent Zelda games. And I mean, if you listen to that episode, you know that I absolutely adore this game. So this I mean, this is a day one. It could I'm hoping they drop it on November 19th. Let's just go head to head, GTA versus Ocarino. Like, I'll be playing Ocarino.
SPEAKER_02This this is what we mentioned earlier in the episode. Like, there's one game that can stand up to GTA 6. This might be it. I saw a little bit of um oh commentary on the internet this week since the I guess really just on the last day, since this announcement, where people were saying, like, the art style looks a little bit like uh someone took Sora and said, Hey, remake uh Ocarina of Time with Unreal Engine 5 and show me a cutscene. Um, I don't know. I mean, I think it's just that people aren't used to the sort of more photorealistic style. I think the last time they even went that direction anyway would be like Twilight Princess, maybe. Um I do think it's just something people aren't used to. They're certainly not used to it with Ocarina of Time. Um I at this point, I will give Nintendo the benefit of the doubt with these kind of things that they do with their beloved franchises. They tend to like, you know, safeguard them and are very careful about the major releases. So I have no reason to think it's gonna be some like art style that doesn't actually work. I think a lot of the people making noise are the ones that are like, I wish we had more than this because I've already known about this leak because I follow everything.
SPEAKER_00Um yeah, uh and that is really kind of the the energy, I think, is if if we hadn't known about this so prominently from a leak, I think this would have been like game of the show, knock your socks off, you know, an Ocarina of Time remake. Like that's insane. And I I think they're gonna do some really interesting stuff here. I think the world is gonna be I don't think you're gonna have any loading screens or anything, everything's gonna be seamless. I have to imagine they're really trying to blow this out and like make it a super well thought out, well-developed, big expansion on Ocarina. They've already done the 3D remaster. It doesn't make sense to not really go all in, and I think that's where the art style comes from, that's where all this stuff comes from, is this sense of like we want to really make Ocarina something for the modern age.
SPEAKER_02And I wouldn't be surprised if they tinker with some of the dungeons, and not just for reasons of, say, like the Water Temple for obvious reasons, but maybe like, you know, they did the whole Master Quest thing where they actually redesigned some of the dungeons and made them more challenging and changed the puzzles around. And I do think since this audience is probably primarily people who have played the game 300 times, they probably do want to add some new elements to it. Um, probably new dungeons entirely. So, you know, maybe they'll they'll flesh out things like the ice cave or under the well into like a full full-on dungeon. I mean, who knows? Um, but yeah, definitely, definitely something to keep your
Switch 2 Ports
SPEAKER_02eye on here.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, the the other Nintendo had a couple other things, not a lot of like crazy big announcements outside of the ones that we mentioned. They they talked about a new fire emblem that's coming out this year. They finally showed us another trailer. It looks cool. Uh, every game ever is getting a switch to port. Like it's so many, like Devil May Cry 5, uh, all the Kingdom Hearts games, uh, Metaphor. So many games are getting Switch 2 ports, and that's great for people who only have a Switch 2, right? Like, they'll get to play these games, and it shows that Nintendo finally has a platform that's capable of handling things, which is nice. Um From Software showed a small trailer and announced a network test for their new uh Switch 2 exclusive game called Duskbloods. It's like a multiplayer thing. Could be kind of vampire. Yeah, I it could be cool, but like after Night Rain, I I never want to play a multiplayer from soft game again. They announced the new Xenoblade Chronicles game. That's cool. People who play those games love those. I never played any of them. Uh Star Fox got a demo. That's I haven't played it yet, but I I have it downloaded, so I plan on playing it soon.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I know a lot of people were saying, like, is this a missed opportunity? Because like Star Fox 64 was already kind of like a remake of the SNES one to some degree, and like they've done some other Star Fox things, like couldn't they have done something new? But I was looking at some sales numbers. Uh dude, Star Fox 64 outsold every other Star Wars property by such a large fucking amount that this, like, of course, this is the one, this is the route they're going, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, I think people some people think this is going to be a I guess like a tease for a Star Fox Adventures or something down the line. Like that they're getting people back into Star Fox to do a bigger thing later. We'll see. Um, they announced a new Nintendo Switch Sports game. That's exciting. Um I mean, hey, look, Wii Sports did really well. Switch Sports, I think, sold well, so I I'll play it. Uh other than that, though, just kind of a lot of a lot of random ports and stuff.
Exodus
SPEAKER_02Well, as we'd mentioned before, there was a few other conferences going on. One that I think really caught some buzz though, or at least you and I were super hyped looking at it, was in the future game show, a game called Exodus, which I believe has let's see, it was written by Drew Carpishin, which is like a a Mass Effect one and two writer. It was developed by some former Mass Effect devs. And if you go watch the extended gameplay trailer for this, this will come as absolutely no surprise. Because it is at its DNA, it looks so Mass Effect, but in a way that is like fresh and it's an it's a new sci-fi setting. They're doing this thing with like instead of aliens, you have these awakened animals, which are basically like sentient animals. I know there's some there's some wolf that like talks to you telepathically. There's like an octopus that's inside of like a mech.
SPEAKER_00Um, and like an elephant or shopkeepers of like an elephant shopkeeper or something, I think. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Really unique spin on that. It's you know, but like when you look at the combat, it just the powers are just like yes, like that is cool Mass Effect's physics shit, right?
SPEAKER_00It literally looks like the exact gameplay mechanics of Andromeda, basically, in a modern in a modern day version, and the the story, the the tone, like everything feels like it was ripped straight out of Mass Effect. And look, I don't mean that in a bad way, I mean that in a great way.
SPEAKER_02Like where have all my Mass Effect clones been for the last 15 years?
SPEAKER_00I mean, like, come on. Of all the games that should be getting clones, where's the Mass Effect clones?
SPEAKER_02I would have bought all of them, and even if I hated them all, I would have fucking spent money on them. You guys decided you weren't giving me any of them.
SPEAKER_00That this game has Matthew McConaughey in it, man. I mean, don't you just love that? Um, you know, this looks really cool. It's still probably a ways away. They're saying 2027, like that could be November, December, could even be pushed into 28 for all we know. Yeah. But they they did show like a sizable amount of gameplay and talked a lot about the story and kind of the world that they were building. I think they're supposed to be like prequel novels. It had a um in that do you remember that secret level show that they did on Amazon Prime? Oh, yeah, like anthology thing. Exodus, I think, has a a little anthology short in that secret level. Oh, okay. So probably something to go back and re-watch because I know I saw it, but I don't remember a thing about it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, what an interesting idea. And at least like it hopefully that worked out for everyone better than it did for Concord. But true. Very true. But yeah, that one looks cool, man. I'm excited for this. I just want to do Mass Effect like things in a Mass Effect-like universe again.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Uh and since we didn't see Mass Effect 5, uh, this is the closest we'll get. I I think we both have maybe more faith in Exodus at this point than we do Mass Effect 5, though.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I will say, like, one day I do want to go back and play Andromeda because I do think it was a fun game. It just it obviously doesn't really like do the same things for you as the Mass Effect trilogy does. But man, have we had some stinkers uh in the past few years that make Andromeda seem like a pretty well put together production?
SPEAKER_00So true, true. I the biggest problem for Andromeda for me was just like the the story feeling so much like a ripoff of what Mass Effect had done already. Like whenever the big reveal is that the villains were exactly the same thing as the collectors, basically. I was like, what are we doing? Like, this is just the collectors again. Like, what are we doing?
SPEAKER_02Any new ideas? And then just the very obvious, like, um the other arcs for the other species that were gonna be like DLC or sequel potential, but that show is dead in the water.
Company of Heroes Definitive Edition
SPEAKER_02Some other things at at this show was uh a company of heroes remaster, no release date on this one yet, but uh you know, that's a really great game. It probably does feel a little dated at this point from a both like mechanical and graphics perspective. I really always loved the campaign in that game because it's like it's World War II, it's you know, it's not like 100% historically accurate, but it's enough to keep it interesting, and it's got the directional facing elements and all of that stuff that like Dawn of War had, um, because you know, same company relic. So that's exciting.
SPEAKER_00That's another one we talked about doing for the podcast that's now getting a remaster. So, you know. Oh, you're right. Yeah, it's you know, like we we just keep doing that, you know. Now we'll have to wait. It's like the problem is we have to keep waiting on these things to come out so that we can God.
SPEAKER_02So should we only do games that we don't want remasters on?
SPEAKER_00Otherwise, we're gonna have to we'll never have episode quad content.
SPEAKER_02Man, uh based on what we're uh we've been playing lately. Ooh, that could be a real interesting remaster coming around. And you know, Amazon's got like the I'm about to say I'd be down for it, man. Yeah, we'll see, we'll
Valheim 1.0
SPEAKER_02see. Uh crazy thing to me was the Valheim 1.0 release date because brother, we played this at launch, which was it was COVID. That was like peak COVID. Yeah, that was 2020, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Or maybe it could have been early 21, and I don't remember for sure. Yeah, but it was definitely COVID era, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And we put like a lot of hours in that game. We had a ton of fun with it. One of those games where it's like hard to go back to because there's been so many changes, and despite the fact that they've added more content, you still just kind of you really feel like you kind of got your fill of that kind of game with how long we played it. But um, man, they they took that money and they ran with it and they kept building, and they have reached an actual 1.0 release date, and like good for them. I'm happy for them.
SPEAKER_00I'm about to say, I'm I'm surprised this got an official release date. Like, I I just it's one of those where it feels like it already hit 1.0 at some point over time, but it just never did. It's still been early access, and and now we have it. It's for September, because of course.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it was just one of those games where despite being like early access, it just felt like such a complete game with so much to do and it was so fun. Um, which you know, you really hope most early access games are that, but yeah, we we unfortunately.
SPEAKER_00Not always the case. Not always the case.
What Was Missing??
SPEAKER_02Well, let's let's round down this discussion with a little bit about what was missing. Um, because yeah, we've already mentioned some of those things like Mass Effect 5 and There Was No Mario. Um, but something that god, this was actually teased at some point over the last couple years, right? A jet set radio game?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it was teased at the same time as Crazy Taxi. They they said at the same time, like, yeah, we're bringing those two games back, and they showed Crazy Taxi, but no jet set.
SPEAKER_02No. Um, we you know, we did that one for the podcast recently. We played Future. Interesting idea. It would definitely be fun to see what they do with it in a modern setting. Um, get the GOAT, Hadeki. Um, oh god, what's his name? Meganuma, something like that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that sounds right. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, get him back for the soundtrack, and you know this it would blow up. Um, but yeah, a little disappointing. We didn't hear anything about that whatsoever. Um, we know that Dawn of War 4, Warhammer 40k, is coming at some point. Um, but nothing in it in PC Gaming Show or anything else was maybe a little surprising.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they showed it last year at PC Gaming Show, I think. Like that's where they revealed it. So I was surprised we didn't get any sort of update. I think it's also no, I think it's also September, September 17th or something like that. So it's coming this year. Like we we have a release date. It's I guess maybe they just felt like they didn't need to show anymore, but I I would have thought they wanted some of the marketing on that. Like give us a little bit of, you know, hey, this game, like, here's some of the new stuff we're doing, or here's some gameplay footage, but just radio silence, which was surprising to me.
SPEAKER_02They might be waiting for because I know like the 40k universe, you know, games workshop just announced the next they do this, right? The next iteration of Warhammer 40k. It's like a a lore reboot, a re-I don't know how they do these things, but they do it with their franchises a lot. So maybe they're gonna tie it into that somehow. Who knows? Um, no Witcher 4, which is not totally surprising because you gotta figure that's a little ways off. And we got some information about it recently, but we also got that Witcher 3 DLC announcement recently.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. They probably don't wanna they probably don't want to like erase that. Yeah, yeah. Which is crazy. A Witcher 3 announcement in in 2026 is insane.
SPEAKER_02The game is 11 years old, and yeah, they're like, here's a DLC. Dude, it's also like one of the top 15 best-selling games of all time.
SPEAKER_00So it's it's crazy, yeah. The people who love Witcher, man. I I could never get into it, but people who love Witcher love Witcher.
SPEAKER_02That's something else. We were talking about putting up our Witcher 1 episode sometimes. Yeah. And then they announced the Witcher 3 DLC. I'm telling you, brother, we we have magic. We have magic.
SPEAKER_00We got some some some prophetic shit going on over here.
SPEAKER_02No Jedi Part 3.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. No, no future of Calcestis. Uh I think people were expecting it to maybe be here, but not a not a word on it. Which is like probably fine. Let it sit for a little bit longer. It's coming. I I liked Survivor enough, but let him, yeah, let it cook.
SPEAKER_02I was gonna say Survivor's a lot of fun. I know you and I liked sort of the more focused experience of a Fallen Order a little more, but like those games are so damn fun. And I I gave excited for the third one for sure.
SPEAKER_00I I thought it was interesting that we didn't get any of the Avatar Legends game that's coming out, the new fighting game that's coming out soon. Uh, we didn't really get any updates on that. It got pushed back from a July, I think it was July 3rd, and it got pushed back to July 23rd. So uh a few weeks delayed. There is like a beta that's going to be happening with that in that original release window. They're supposed to be doing like a an a beta for anybody who pre-ordered. So it'll be cool. I really like the look of that game, a lot like tocon that I was talking about earlier, kind of the same energy. It's just a 1v1 fighter, though, not a tag team fighter. And it looks really cool. It's got all your favorite, your favorite avatar characters, and it's like 30 bucks. I'm like, yeah, uh, I'll check it out.
SPEAKER_02And and to be clear, we're talking about the last Airbender avatar, not James Cameron's, correct?
SPEAKER_00Correct, correct. If if it were James Cameron's avatar, I would not be interested in it at all.
SPEAKER_02So neither would be anyone else.
SPEAKER_00The last Airbender fighting game. That's a great time for that series.
SPEAKER_02I say, except apparently billions of people around the planet that somehow make these movies like just the highest.
SPEAKER_00I was saying, I I didn't even see Fire and Ash yet, but there's like, you know, a billion people who have because it made so much money.
SPEAKER_02Um Intergalactic, which is Naughty Dog's new game, we got a little bit of a tease on that with um Game Awards, I believe, right?
SPEAKER_00Yes, yeah. Or it was sometime last year we got a a trailer for that, the first official trailer. And then I would have thought for sure it would have been here somewhere, though. This one is legitimately surprising to me. Because I I would have thought that Naughty Dog would have wanted to show something of this by this point.
SPEAKER_02Especially with whatever game they were making that got cancelled that they had spent so much time on. You'd think they just want to be able to say, like, hey, don't worry, like, your favorite studio has something coming, we're here.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_02Like we're we're still making games, so Dragman's been too busy making the fucking TV show, so that's why they've got no, I don't know.
unknownI don't know.
SPEAKER_00We we didn't see any of uh Star Wars Fate of the Old Republic either, which is I guess also not surprising, but I just I want it. Like I just want it really bad. I want to know something about it.
SPEAKER_02Even though that game is because like uh we were talking about this with the Game Awards episode, right? Where wasn't it like we decided they they announced it in a way where uh Casey Hudson was only there for like four months before we saw the trailer, so this game can't be in production like very far at all, right?
SPEAKER_00Right. It's probably you know five years away still.
SPEAKER_02Only last thing to really talk about is that uh we've now gone eight years since Outer School VI has been released. And or revealed, sorry, and uh that's it. We don't know fuck all about it. We don't know fuck all about this game.
SPEAKER_00Literally nothing for eight years. That's insane.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think people were saying like it's now been longer since like uh it's like been longer since they announced the game to it still not being having been released, and it took them between Morrowin and Skyrim or um
Outro
SPEAKER_02Oblivion and Skyrim, right? So that's insane.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Uh yeah, man, but that's that's pretty much all the major announcements. I think off the top of my head, the ones I'm most excited about are Exodus, Star Wars Zero Company, Campaign Evolved, Gilda Wars 3, and of course The Big Kahuna, FF7, Revelation.
SPEAKER_00I think you hit all the the major ones there. I mean, Revelation is the one that we are definitely I think we're both locked in on that one, and Wolverine's gonna be sick. Uh there's so many great games here. It felt like E3 again, and I'm just so happy to have it back, you know, to have that energy back.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I can already promise you Revelation's gonna be an episode um when it comes out. 100%.
SPEAKER_00We uh how could it not be?
SPEAKER_02And that about wraps up our discussion on all the latest gaming announcements from Nintendo Direct, Xbox Showcase, State of Play, and Summer Games Fest.
SPEAKER_00You can find this episode as well as all of our other episodes on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or your favorite podcasting platform. And as always, you can find everything we do on our website, gamesgone by.com.
SPEAKER_02Signing off for Games Gone By. I'm Adam. I'm Lustin. Thanks for listening, everyone. We'll see you next time.
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