Speaker 1: Hello, everybody, Welcome back to the Game Informer Show, a
Speaker 1: weekly podcast covering the video game industry. Join us every
Speaker 1: Friday for a discussion about the latest gaming news, reviews,
Speaker 1: and exclusive reveals. Along it's a Game Informer staff and
Speaker 1: special guests from around the industry. I'm one of your
Speaker 1: hosts today, Alex van Aiken. Today I'm joined by Marcus Stewart.
Speaker 1: How are you?
Speaker 2: I'm doing good?
Speaker 1: How are you?
Speaker 2: I missed you.
Speaker 1: I know it's been a busy it's been a busy
Speaker 1: month so far. But happy to be back on the show.
Speaker 1: Thanks for holding it down, you know, how are you?
Speaker 1: How's January? Good? All good?
Speaker 2: Ah, you know it's all good down here. It's cold
Speaker 2: here in Florida. I know that's like you guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, let's pull out my at my weather app man.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you guys know what cold is,
Speaker 2: but down here in Florida, it's been a chilly fifty
Speaker 2: four degrees nice.
Speaker 1: It's supposed to be minus twenty three on Friday, but Eric, it's.
Speaker 2: Been windy, which makes it feel like it's thirty degrees.
Speaker 3: No, no, you don't get to pull that, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1: Our windshill on Friday is supposed to be like in
Speaker 1: the minus forties or something. Yeah, Marcus, you're lucky that
Speaker 1: you're lucky. We're on a podcast right now that's somewhat
Speaker 1: family friendly. All right. We're also joined by Eric Van Allen.
Speaker 1: How you doing, Eric?
Speaker 3: I thought I previously understood what cold was, and I
Speaker 3: think I had a frame of reference for what the
Speaker 3: word cold entailed. And then I went for a little
Speaker 3: walk to a local taco shop here little to get her, yeah,
Speaker 3: to get some food, and I experienced what actual cold
Speaker 3: feels like when a giant wind gust of minus thirty
Speaker 3: wind chill comes through and blasts you right in the face.
Speaker 3: And now I think Elsa is lying when she said
Speaker 3: the cold never bothered her anywhere anyways. I'd like her
Speaker 3: to move up to Minneapolis and repeat that sentiment. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: I think she's just like cushy in her castle life.
Speaker 1: She doesn't get it. Well. We got a pretty big
Speaker 1: show this week. Big news from UB Software being diving
Speaker 1: into the cancelation of multiple projects and reductions in staff
Speaker 1: and strategic changes that have been outlined in a recent
Speaker 1: call Investor's Call. We got all those details coming after
Speaker 1: a break later and before we get into that we're
Speaker 1: going to be talking about MIO, which is Memories in Orbit,
Speaker 1: I believe is what it stands for. Ye, and it's
Speaker 1: a new Metroidvania as well as t R forty nine. No,
Speaker 1: that's not a new calculator. That is a new puzzle
Speaker 1: game that Eric really really enjoys. So guys, so let's
Speaker 1: get into it, shall we. I just want to say
Speaker 1: before we do, head over to gamingform dot com slash
Speaker 1: subscribe and pick up a magazine. It's the best way
Speaker 1: to support us. If you're looking at store shelves at
Speaker 1: Barnes and Noble Books a million or international newsstands, you
Speaker 1: can find our World of Warcraft issue on store shelves
Speaker 1: in the US. It's eleven ninety nine. And if you
Speaker 1: are a subscriber, good news. We've just announced our next
Speaker 1: issue that is coming as double O seven First Light.
Speaker 1: That's our cover story. And Eric, you flew out to
Speaker 1: where do you? Where did you go?
Speaker 3: Copenhagen went cop Yeah, yeah, it.
Speaker 1: Was just across the water from Malmo.
Speaker 3: It was really really nice out there, lovely, lovely place.
Speaker 3: If you stay tuned to the GI YouTube TikTok, Instagram
Speaker 3: and stuff like that. We'll be putting up some behind
Speaker 3: the scenes of our trip out there, what it's like
Speaker 3: out there on the ground where the folks at Io
Speaker 3: make all their games, including the Hitman trilogy and the
Speaker 3: upcoming Double seven First Light. We've got some cool behind
Speaker 3: the scenes and just general like putting you.
Speaker 1: In the place.
Speaker 3: That's something we're trying to do a little bit more
Speaker 3: of with some of our kind of story trips. Is like,
Speaker 3: let you see the sites and sounds and places where
Speaker 3: people make these games, because I think that does carry
Speaker 3: a lot of story into how the games are made.
Speaker 3: So look for that. There'll be some cool stuff there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that issue launches early. The early Digital Access
Speaker 1: goes live next week, so next episode we'll be diving
Speaker 1: into our impressions of the game, what we saw on
Speaker 1: our cover trip, and then a couple of weeks later
Speaker 1: those issues will be hitting mailboxes and news stands at
Speaker 1: their normal time. Digital is always kind of like an
Speaker 1: early version early access, and you get that with a subscription.
Speaker 1: Go to GameInformer dot com slash subscribe. We usually have
Speaker 1: discounts running and it is cheaper to get a subscription
Speaker 1: than it is to buy issues from the news stand
Speaker 1: every time. So if that is an option for you,
Speaker 1: if you're in the States, I recommend it. But yeah,
Speaker 1: let's get into the show. Guys. Marcus, tell me about
Speaker 1: this new Metroid Vana Mio.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's it's so funny because this game I
Speaker 2: almost want to say, hey, do you like Hollo Nite,
Speaker 2: because this is what this game reminds me of the most,
Speaker 2: And I.
Speaker 1: Know haven't haven't had a Hollow Night experience in a while. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's been a minute.
Speaker 2: It's it's and it sounds productive, but it really is
Speaker 2: a cut from a similar cloth. So Meo Memory is
Speaker 2: in orbit. It's out now as of this week. It
Speaker 2: is like a sort of like sci fi uh, very
Speaker 2: very beautifully rendered uh Metroid Veana. It's got a really
Speaker 2: nice sort of like watercolor art direction that I really like.
Speaker 2: And you play as this little robot named Meo who
Speaker 2: wakes up in this mysterious world. And as far as
Speaker 2: I can gather, I have not finished this game, but
Speaker 2: you are sort of tasked with exploring this sort of
Speaker 2: like abandoned almost kind of like derelict. I don't even
Speaker 2: know if it's like a space station or if it's
Speaker 2: a planet, I don't know where you are. It's just
Speaker 2: a bunch of different biomes and you're kind of collecting
Speaker 2: or you're reactivating. I think these kind of like these
Speaker 2: nose that all make up part of like a seemingly
Speaker 2: like a larger consciousness, like like they're each sort of
Speaker 2: like biome contains like sort of the these like wall
Speaker 2: of mcguffins for the sake of the conversation. Yeah, like
Speaker 2: a mcguffin named after like a body part of like
Speaker 2: this area has the eye, this area is the spy,
Speaker 2: this one's the heart. And you don't know why you're
Speaker 2: doing this, and this kind of like you don't know
Speaker 2: totally why you're doing a lot of things. It's one
Speaker 2: of those games that's this.
Speaker 1: Sounds like there's not much exposition then.
Speaker 2: No, at least not yet, but it is one of
Speaker 2: those games that's sort of a bit it's a little
Speaker 2: bit cryptic in his story telling, like you're finding Audiologus
Speaker 2: along the way from seemingly a either a civilization that
Speaker 2: was once around that is no longer present or some
Speaker 2: of the other robotic life forms that you'll meet along
Speaker 2: the way, Like you'll come across these other robots that
Speaker 2: are either having like their own little problems, you can
Speaker 2: do a little quest for them, or you're coming across
Speaker 2: the robots that are just dead, like you'll just see
Speaker 2: like robots buried on the rubble and they'll have a
Speaker 2: little word prompt that'll just be like, Nah, this guy,
Speaker 2: he's too far gone. You can't fix him. And you're like, oh,
Speaker 2: that's kind of sad. But I bring up the Hollo
Speaker 2: of Night comparison, because like that game, it is a
Speaker 2: very challenging game. Mainly it does the holl of Night
Speaker 2: thing where you cannot see the map for a lot
Speaker 2: of the game. In the beginning, you're just sort of
Speaker 2: like flying blind until you eventually unlock the ability to
Speaker 2: see the map. And it all also has a similar
Speaker 2: sort of like progression system where you are collecting sort
Speaker 2: of like abilities, but you can only equip certain abilities
Speaker 2: at a time, and each one spends a like limited
Speaker 2: resource that you have, so you're constantly going to your
Speaker 2: sort of like safe station to swap out the ability
Speaker 2: to collect based on how much bandwidth you have. So,
Speaker 2: like one of the abilities gives you the the power
Speaker 2: to see the enemy's health bars or another one allows
Speaker 2: you to see your own status, So if which is
Speaker 2: that's an interesting one where like if you don't equip that,
Speaker 2: you have no idea what your health is, but you
Speaker 2: might want to equip it just to make you know
Speaker 2: room for something else that you might think is more important,
Speaker 2: Like I have one that makes your combo attack stronger,
Speaker 2: and then I got one recently where there's like some
Speaker 2: that like takes take away your bandwidth and exchange for
Speaker 2: an ability.
Speaker 1: Uh, Like I got one.
Speaker 2: It was like, oh, here's minus five off of my life,
Speaker 2: like currently, like my cap is thirty five. Like nodes,
Speaker 2: I guess we'll call them. But some of them can
Speaker 2: take like ten or right if like two that takes
Speaker 2: twenty where it's like I don't know, I would have
Speaker 2: to pretty much unequipped everything to use this one. But yeah,
Speaker 2: some of them are like, hey, you lose overall bandwidth,
Speaker 2: but you get this useful ability. So it's a lot
Speaker 2: of juggling around with those and sort of like switch
Speaker 2: switching them in and out depending on the situation, whether
Speaker 2: it's like a specific platforming segment or like a really
Speaker 2: hard boss. But I was like it thankfully it plays
Speaker 2: really well, like I think the combat like it's basically
Speaker 2: kind of like three hit combos, but it feels pretty nice.
Speaker 2: You've got kind of like a like a floaty or
Speaker 2: jump than maybe in something like Hall Night. But it
Speaker 2: does allow for a lot of sort of like like
Speaker 2: air combos on your part, or if you play your
Speaker 2: cards right, you can kind of like jump in the
Speaker 2: air like maybe a flying enemy and then just like
Speaker 2: hit a combo, then double jump, then kind of reset
Speaker 2: your jump and just keep hitting in the air and
Speaker 2: just kind of keep doing that and just kind of
Speaker 2: maintain your like airborne assault and while also dodging in
Speaker 2: the air. Like right now, I unlocked it ability where
Speaker 2: I can shoot sort of like a wire that can
Speaker 2: use kind of like a grapple hook and can also
Speaker 2: pull you towards enemies. That's been really useful. And then
Speaker 2: I also have like like a teleporting dodge. They see
Speaker 2: like he almost goes like or she almost goes like
Speaker 2: Nightcrawler just kind of disappears in a poof of smoke
Speaker 2: to like evade damage and then come back. So like
Speaker 2: those have kind of added some nice depth to what
Speaker 2: are often pretty challenging combat encounters. The regular enemies can
Speaker 2: take you down if you're not on your game. But
Speaker 2: the boss fights like Hollow Night are really sort of
Speaker 2: dependent on like reading enemy patterns and like you know,
Speaker 2: like trying to find out like what's my window here,
Speaker 2: like how many how much damage can I audition before
Speaker 2: I need to back off, And a lot of like
Speaker 2: maneuverability to sort of like try to stay behind enemies
Speaker 2: or just trying to trying to target their weak points.
Speaker 2: But don't be surprised if it takes you probably at
Speaker 2: least and the bosses that I fay at least like
Speaker 2: three to maybe six or seven attempts to get past something,
Speaker 2: and the runbacks can be pretty lengthy until you unlock shortcuts,
Speaker 2: as you do in these kind of games. Okay, I
Speaker 2: do think does Matt actually pose this question? Matt Miller
Speaker 2: or editor and chief who reviewed this game, and you
Speaker 2: can read his review now on the website. He was
Speaker 2: kind of asking if he thought this game was harder
Speaker 2: than Hollow nighte Silk Song, and he brought up an
Speaker 2: interesting point that might put it over the edge, in
Speaker 2: the sense that me and mio you can't heal yourself
Speaker 2: at will, so when you begin the game, you only
Speaker 2: have two health pips whatever you want to call them, Like, essentially,
Speaker 2: you can get hit twice or three times before you
Speaker 2: go down, and there's no way to heal yourself, unlike
Speaker 2: an Hollow Night, where you can. The only way to
Speaker 2: replenish your health is that you have to reach these
Speaker 2: kind of like designated little checkpoints where you have to
Speaker 2: spin currency to replenish each pip individually. So one pip
Speaker 2: might cost like ten of this resource, and then the
Speaker 2: second we'll jacket up to fifteen, And so you kind
Speaker 2: of have to decide like, oh, do I want to
Speaker 2: spend money to heal right now or do I want
Speaker 2: to save this because I found like a shop keep
Speaker 2: that has an upgrade, I'm kind of you know, saving
Speaker 2: up for So what's the move here, especially because I
Speaker 2: got this like tough platforming gautlet ahead of me, and
Speaker 2: that has made the game, I think, at least for me,
Speaker 2: Like as someone that likes Hollow Night, I think this
Speaker 2: does make it a little bit more difficult in that
Speaker 2: sense of like you have two hits and you are
Speaker 2: not replenishing this until you can hopefully find a place
Speaker 2: where you can, you know, like the safe station, and
Speaker 2: then you gotta hope do you have enough money, which
Speaker 2: thankfully it's not super expensive, but when you're dying over
Speaker 2: and over again having to replenish it, run through your
Speaker 2: your wallet pretty quickly. Like I've had times where it's
Speaker 2: like I'm stuck on this little platforming segment and every
Speaker 2: time I take a hit, I double back to like
Speaker 2: replenish that hit, and then it's like.
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm out of money.
Speaker 2: Well, like it's going to work what I have, and
Speaker 2: then if I die, I'm going all the way back
Speaker 2: to the last checkpoint, which for a long time in
Speaker 2: this game, the first check point in the game was
Speaker 2: the only checkpoint I had. Jez, Yeah, it took me
Speaker 2: a while to find like the next real checkpoint that
Speaker 2: you can kind of fast travel between. Otherwise you're just
Speaker 2: kind of unlocking a bunch of shortcuts that just lead
Speaker 2: you back to the sort of like the initial checkpoint.
Speaker 2: This probably all sounds like, like I think, if you
Speaker 2: will know if you like this game, like if you
Speaker 2: enjoy kind of like challenging action platformers, well like A
Speaker 2: Holid Night or even like A because I think the
Speaker 2: other game this reminds me of a little bit is
Speaker 2: orient the Blind Force, at least on the platforming side
Speaker 2: and orient in the whist and it's like it's not
Speaker 2: just the combat that's tough, but there's stretches where it's like, Okay,
Speaker 2: now we're gonna have to really master your like double
Speaker 2: jump and your little grapple hook because you're going to
Speaker 2: go through this crazy series of like platforming challenges, and
Speaker 2: again with such limited health, where like I can get
Speaker 2: hit twice and then I'm out.
Speaker 1: Do you think it comes close to kind of hitting
Speaker 1: the same highs as something like an or not quite?
Speaker 2: I think I think because ORI's platforming I think is better.
Speaker 2: But also Ari is a lot more of a platforming
Speaker 2: focus game. Like I look at Ori, especially the sequel,
Speaker 2: it's like that is a platforming first and combat second game,
Speaker 2: whereas Hollow Nite is kind of the opposite, at least
Speaker 2: to me. Even though I think Hollow NIGHTE has like
Speaker 2: some good platforming sequence, I look at that game more
Speaker 2: as an action game than a platformer. I think Mio
Speaker 2: is in that camp, like closer to the Holomax kind
Speaker 2: of things, even though there are some like genuine like Okay,
Speaker 2: this is a pure platforming challenge here, this is this
Speaker 2: is the challenge is going to teach me to get
Speaker 2: good but the grapple hook.
Speaker 1: And also like.
Speaker 2: There's like like I got to this area and it's
Speaker 2: kind of like almost this really beautiful kind of like
Speaker 2: greenhouse area where it had like these flowers that you
Speaker 2: can hit, and when you hit the flower, it replenishes
Speaker 2: your double jump and your ability to use the grapple hook,
Speaker 2: because those are like very quick cool downs, but enough
Speaker 2: of a cool down to where if you don't touch
Speaker 2: the ground, you will just and you need to use
Speaker 2: a grapple hook, you just won't and then it will
Speaker 2: just fall into a pit and die. So it kind
Speaker 2: of like hitting those flowers kind of replenishes that resource
Speaker 2: in mid air. So I was in one little area
Speaker 2: where it's like, okay, I got to get through this.
Speaker 2: Like it's like I'm surrounded by this weird foliage that
Speaker 2: kills you if you touch it, and there's nothing but
Speaker 2: grapple points and those little bounce flowers that replenish your thing.
Speaker 2: I need to like just get through this and in
Speaker 2: mid air, hit those flowers, get my grapple back, and
Speaker 2: keep grappling across while also hitting those flowers and never
Speaker 2: touching the ground because if I touch the ground, it's death,
Speaker 2: it's that is it's all really fun. Like I'm enjoying
Speaker 2: the game so far. I couldn't tell you confidently what
Speaker 2: is happening in the story, but it's it's more like
Speaker 2: the lore and some of the at least the implication
Speaker 2: of the Lord that I find marg thing than the
Speaker 2: actual plot is just like, oh, this is just like
Speaker 2: a it's got a fun, mysterious vibe. I think some
Speaker 2: of the robots are kind of funny or like cute.
Speaker 2: The enemy seemed pretty cool, Like there's like they're all
Speaker 2: just they almost remind me a little bit of like
Speaker 2: Makeing X enemies because some of them are just like
Speaker 2: weird robot animals, like like there's these like chamellions in
Speaker 2: one area that can turn invisible and shoot their tongues
Speaker 2: at you, and you're like, oh, that's a cool enemy
Speaker 2: like stuff like that. I do think though, that the
Speaker 2: like I said, the run backs and sort of the
Speaker 2: the health restrictions are pretty rough, and I still don't
Speaker 2: know if I if I think the game needs that
Speaker 2: to be enjoyable, you know of like maybe it's like
Speaker 2: if I could heal in any time, would it really
Speaker 2: detract from the experience, which is why I recommend. I
Speaker 2: believe there are some like difficulty assist options in the
Speaker 2: maybe that you can turn on. I haven't really delved
Speaker 2: into them yet. I'm kind of like, I don't know,
Speaker 2: stubborn game or guy, I just feel like, yeah, I don't.
Speaker 2: I mean not that I think it's bad, I just
Speaker 2: I just typically don't. I just don't use those often enough.
Speaker 2: I should go in there sometime and just see what's
Speaker 2: what's actually available in there. But I know they're there,
Speaker 2: which is nice for those that want to if they
Speaker 2: can make the experience easier for them. But yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: enjoying it so far though.
Speaker 1: Overall.
Speaker 2: Have you guys started at all?
Speaker 1: No? Unfortunately, No. It has been on my list to
Speaker 1: get to this and of the next game we're gonna
Speaker 1: be talking about TR forty nine. Both of those are
Speaker 1: on my playlist for this month. I think I just
Speaker 1: felt like I needed a little bit of a break
Speaker 1: from a Metroidpinion because I sunk a lot of time
Speaker 1: into Silksong yeah, and got pretty burnt out, honestly, and
Speaker 1: the thought of doing that again isn't as appealing right
Speaker 1: now as maybe it will be with a few more
Speaker 1: weeks time or or even you know, next month or something.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I think it was Charles Charles Hard that
Speaker 2: made this jog where he's saying like, I wonder how
Speaker 2: much the MEO devs were so confident that Silk Song
Speaker 2: wasn't coming out that they were like, we can make
Speaker 2: a holidnight. Some songs never coming out and came not
Speaker 2: too long before there, it's like, oh crap, Okay.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I hope that's not the case because that's unfortunate.
Speaker 1: But speaking of TR forty nine, Eric would love to
Speaker 1: hear about that game from you. This is from Inkle right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: to Inkle is a dev tool, but they also publish
Speaker 1: their own games.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Inkle makes Ink the game development tool also has
Speaker 3: made overboard Highland song, the one that I never remember
Speaker 3: the name of the school, No, Heaven's Gate, Yeah that too,
Speaker 3: I was trying to think of the school one I
Speaker 3: think it's expelled is what?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, the one last year? Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3: A lot of really interesting narrative focused games in a
Speaker 3: lot of different directions, and this one kind of fits
Speaker 3: that bill where this is I think the top level,
Speaker 3: the least spoilery version of this that I can do,
Speaker 3: and I will endeavor to not disclose any amount of
Speaker 3: like substantial spoilers. But this is a game that's a
Speaker 3: puzzle box where like the unfolding of it is part
Speaker 3: of the enjoyment of it. So take that, you know,
Speaker 3: with what you will. It is very much Ankle doing
Speaker 3: a Sam Barlow or Inkle doing a like a Root
Speaker 3: Trees Are Dead Return of the Oberdin type game. They
Speaker 3: even cite those games as big influences for TR forty nine,
Speaker 3: which is you wake up in a damp, dark basement
Speaker 3: with a machine in front of you, and your only
Speaker 3: inputs are to input things on the machine, which takes
Speaker 3: two letters and two numbers and then finds an entry
Speaker 3: first said combination, and from there, guided by a handler
Speaker 3: who's coming in over the voice intercom the radio intercom,
Speaker 3: you kind of just have to figure out what's going
Speaker 3: on and why you're here, what you're doing, what this
Speaker 3: machine does, why the thing you're doing is importan, and
Speaker 3: who the handler is. It's a mystery box game in
Speaker 3: a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 3: There's a degree to which the unfolding of that mystery
Speaker 3: is important. And I say that because normally, with like say,
Speaker 3: say a Sam Barlow game is an easy example her story.
Speaker 3: You go into it with an idea that because the
Speaker 3: framework around you, you're watching what is obviously a police
Speaker 3: interview on an old computer, you can kind of start
Speaker 3: to elicit some Okay, there's like something that happened here,
Speaker 3: there was an event that I am searching for. There,
Speaker 3: there's a reason why this story is being told me
Speaker 3: through this medium. Telling lies is the same way where
Speaker 3: you're looking through somebody else's laptop and you're like, oh,
Speaker 3: this is very probing. This is you're investigating, but like
Speaker 3: in a way that you're not supposed to be, Like
Speaker 3: you would be worried if you got caught sort of thing.
Speaker 3: So telling lies like builds that and immortality gives you
Speaker 3: the sort of film archive presentation. So you're going, okay,
Speaker 3: this is about scanning through things, but like the edges
Speaker 3: that other people didn't get to see because they got
Speaker 3: to see the finished film but not you know, what
Speaker 3: happens before and after the snap.
Speaker 1: Bar and all that.
Speaker 3: So all that being said, what you kind of draw
Speaker 3: out of TR forty nine is you have this very
Speaker 3: mechanical machine, this very like it is built for a task,
Speaker 3: and so you don't really have a lot of emotion
Speaker 3: to build around it. You don't have a lot of
Speaker 3: intent to build around it. And discovering the intent of
Speaker 3: the machine is part of the game. Like even the
Speaker 3: person who's speaking to you like really obfuscates for a while,
Speaker 3: like he implies that he knows what it does, but
Speaker 3: that you don't need to know what it does. You
Speaker 3: just need to keep operating it, keep doing what you're doing.
Speaker 3: So what you end up doing, and that's a very
Speaker 3: long obfuscated way of saying, you're putting stuff in and
Speaker 3: you're seeing what comes out. You're trying to elicit meaning
Speaker 3: from it. So maybe if you discover that, I'm going
Speaker 3: to make up some examples so that way I don't
Speaker 3: spoil any actual solutions, but just dis cover that a
Speaker 3: certain author is in this machine. Maybe you figured out
Speaker 3: taxonomically what like how to find more works by them
Speaker 3: in the machine. This is actually something you should figure
Speaker 3: out while playing the game. So but maybe you start
Speaker 3: to understand better like, Okay, there are authors in here,
Speaker 3: there are books, what kind of books? What are the
Speaker 3: books saying? How are they relating to each other? And
Speaker 3: then as you dig in, some information will start to
Speaker 3: be offfiscated and you'll have to clear it up by
Speaker 3: uncovering more information from footnotes, from people who built the machine,
Speaker 3: people who have operated the machine in the past, and
Speaker 3: that's how you start to uncover everything about what TR
Speaker 3: forty nine actually is.
Speaker 2: Eric, Is it a someone I've been playing this game too?
Speaker 2: Is it a spoiler to say, like mechanically how you
Speaker 2: interact with this machine?
Speaker 3: Because I feel like, yes, like I said you, I mean,
Speaker 3: so I've played it with I played it with a mouse,
Speaker 3: and they have said that it's steam Deck Optimize, like
Speaker 3: built for steam Deck, even though it's not verified just yet.
Speaker 3: It just came out today as of this recording, so
Speaker 3: it's it is like steam Deck built. But the idea
Speaker 3: is that you can use touch screen or a controller
Speaker 3: or a mouse or whatever, but you kind of move
Speaker 3: these wheels around and punch in like two letters two numbers,
Speaker 3: and that is your like functional input into this machine.
Speaker 3: There's also a speaker button for talking to your handler,
Speaker 3: but broadly that is kind of how you're inputting.
Speaker 1: Is that kind of what you're getting at?
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, because I was it was going to lead
Speaker 2: into my point of sort of my annoyance.
Speaker 1: With this game.
Speaker 2: So I've put a couple of hours into this too.
Speaker 2: And this is a game that is very much up
Speaker 2: my alley. It's someone that loves you know, her story,
Speaker 2: root trees, that kind of stuff. But I think, like
Speaker 2: I'm having a hard time still wrapping my head around
Speaker 2: how this game works. A lot of it comes from
Speaker 2: what you mentioned, Eric of the Handler, sort of like
Speaker 2: intentional only sort of like offuscating your true purpose here,
Speaker 2: which to me, actually it kind of gets annoying just
Speaker 2: from a narrative standpoint where it's like like so your
Speaker 2: protagonist will constantly kind of ask like, hey, what are
Speaker 2: we doing or why are we doing this? And then
Speaker 2: he'll every now and then it'll be like it's because
Speaker 2: of Blake, Blake Blake, but it'll give like he'll give
Speaker 2: like the veguus answer possible. But this is also a
Speaker 2: person that you can freely call any time, kind of
Speaker 2: like almost like metal gear Codec style.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: And I just never understood why. I was like why
Speaker 2: she kind of like put up with it where I'm
Speaker 2: just like, can you just tell me what we're doing places,
Speaker 2: or at least just tell me explain like the base
Speaker 2: premise for me, because this the characters don't kind of
Speaker 2: like players surrogate of like, hey, what even is this
Speaker 2: weird machine?
Speaker 3: Like this doesn't look like why why am I here?
Speaker 3: Like like why did I wake up down here?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, and it's like where am I?
Speaker 2: And I think for me the player looking at this machine,
Speaker 2: I was, I'm still having I still haven't fully grass
Speaker 2: how this machine works. This isn't like any machine I've
Speaker 2: ever seen before. And I think where it's kind of
Speaker 2: lose me. Is that unlike something like root Trees or
Speaker 2: like her Story where it's like, oh, it's you're just
Speaker 2: it's a search engine. I understand that. I know how
Speaker 2: that works. I just need to understand what I'm what
Speaker 2: I'm trying to find, But I know functionally how this
Speaker 2: thing works. Where I look at this, I'm like, I
Speaker 2: don't even know what I'm Like when I was first
Speaker 2: of all like the numbers and stuff like what am
Speaker 2: I even supposed to do with this? And I'm waiting
Speaker 2: for like the TATORI to pop up like okay, give
Speaker 2: me the basic like what do these numbers mean? Like
Speaker 2: what am I even? And then it doesn't really do that,
Speaker 2: so you do have to kind of stump, like really
Speaker 2: just stumble and wait for kind of like conversations to
Speaker 2: pop up where they might illuminate like this is what
Speaker 2: you're supposed to do, but it's also I don't know,
Speaker 2: I don't know if it's dependent on like you have
Speaker 2: to find enough things before they start saying, hey, here's
Speaker 2: how this, here's an important thing. You should know about
Speaker 2: how this works, so that you're not just punching numbers
Speaker 2: in and letters blindly and just going, I don't know
Speaker 2: what this is gonna do. I guess this is what
Speaker 2: I'm doing.
Speaker 3: The game does eventually start to basically tell you what
Speaker 3: the thing is that you're looking for and what the
Speaker 3: task is that you are trying to accomplish, which that
Speaker 3: being said at that point, yeah, yeah, that being said,
Speaker 3: I think the biggest hurdle for this, again speaking back
Speaker 3: to what I was saying about the Barlow stuff and
Speaker 3: what you were just talking about, is that those games
Speaker 3: told mysteries within familiar implementations, whereas here we are trying
Speaker 3: to understand how to operate the machine while we are
Speaker 3: trying to discover what the purpose of the machine is.
Speaker 3: And I think you do eventually get a sense of
Speaker 3: like like an early thing you have to solve is
Speaker 3: just what is in this machine? Like what does this
Speaker 3: machine ultimately collect? What does it have within itself? And
Speaker 3: what am I searching through when I do that? And
Speaker 3: I think you get that answer within probably about the
Speaker 3: first thirty minutes or so.
Speaker 2: I get it feels like it feels like learning how
Speaker 2: to drive. And I'm like in like I'm riding on
Speaker 2: an instructor and I'm like, I've never seen a car.
Speaker 2: I don't know how the car works. Can you show
Speaker 2: me how to car works? And they're like, don't worry
Speaker 2: about it, just start driving. You're like, well, maybe I
Speaker 2: need to know how to turn the car. You need
Speaker 2: to tell me how the car work. And you're being
Speaker 2: like a weirdly vague about like, well, you know the
Speaker 2: wheel makes the car move, like you told me that
Speaker 2: like five minutes after I've was telling you have this
Speaker 2: even like where these buttons Like I don't. It's just like,
Speaker 2: can you just tell me, just like give me the
Speaker 2: basic thing, like how do I make this go? And
Speaker 2: then we can get into like where we're going and
Speaker 2: what I should be a.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, so you want to talk about the car analogy? Okay,
Speaker 3: so you understand functionally how the machine operates right, Like,
Speaker 3: you know how to input and receive an output with
Speaker 3: the machine that means.
Speaker 2: The fare's minimum. I think, I think I do.
Speaker 3: So you understand how to drive the car, because to
Speaker 3: drive a car, all you have to do is you
Speaker 3: have to understand what the inputs are and what the
Speaker 3: expected result is. Sure, Yeah, the interesting thing and I
Speaker 3: think where this is hitting some friction. I've talked to
Speaker 3: other people who've played this early. There are a lot
Speaker 3: of hot reviews out there. I'm also one of the
Speaker 3: hot reviews. I would say this is a pretty pretty
Speaker 3: fascinating game, especially if like you're hearing me talk about this,
Speaker 3: and the idea of what if you could hide a
Speaker 3: mystery inside a library card catalog like just perks your
Speaker 3: ears up like that. You should probably check this game out. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you understand how the car works. What you don't know
Speaker 3: yet is the destination or even if you're on a
Speaker 3: road right now, like what the format of the thing is,
Speaker 3: what the implied intended end goal destination is, and how
Speaker 3: to get from point A to point B, like what
Speaker 3: the markers are along the way, And that is kind
Speaker 3: of the interesting thing to try and decipher through the
Speaker 3: lens of this machine is to say, how do I
Speaker 3: get this information out of there? And how do I
Speaker 3: make it make sense to me? Like how do I
Speaker 3: interpret it as something that will be useful for me
Speaker 3: to solve further mysteries? And I think to your point,
Speaker 3: I also I think if I was going to put
Speaker 3: knocks against this game, I do think the narration is
Speaker 3: part of it, because I think the narration is very
Speaker 3: well done. It's very good. It's moody, it's tense, it
Speaker 3: happens a lot. It kind of constantly tries to just
Speaker 3: build up the same beats over and over again. There's
Speaker 3: mystery in here. You need to discover something. What am
Speaker 3: I supposed to do that's not for you to know?
Speaker 3: Just keep doing it. It like kind of builds up the
Speaker 3: first few times it works while you're like, oh, this
Speaker 3: machine has things in it that maybe I'm not supposed
Speaker 3: to uncover or maybe the person on the other side
Speaker 3: of the phone doesn't want me to uncover it. But
Speaker 3: then you have that conversation again and again and again
Speaker 3: and again, and it's like it loses impact the further
Speaker 3: it goes. I know a few times I would be
Speaker 3: in the middle of like trying to suss something out
Speaker 3: or figure something out, or I'd have my pen and
Speaker 3: paper out and I'd be trying to do actual literal
Speaker 3: math equations to figure some stuff out, and then the
Speaker 3: intercom would be lighting up, like I'm here to talk
Speaker 3: to you about why you're doing something important, but I
Speaker 3: can't tell you what it is. And I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 3: I get it, I get it. Let me focus please.
Speaker 2: They have a bad habit of also it'll be like
Speaker 2: one conversation that's broken up.
Speaker 1: Over multiple calls.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which I'm a little annoyed by where there'll start
Speaker 2: like a sentence about like, hey, this is where we're
Speaker 2: gonna get eco week for lunch. This is an example,
Speaker 2: like what do you want for lunch? I'm gonna get
Speaker 2: a hamburger you know a place, and then they'll stop
Speaker 2: talking and you're like, oh, I guess that's the end
Speaker 2: of it. And then I'll be like call again, and
Speaker 2: then they'll be like, I know a place called mcdennick,
Speaker 2: McDonald's or whatever. You're like, why isn't it just one call?
Speaker 2: Why don't calling you back to continue this line of thought?
Speaker 2: Like it should just be one continuous things. I kind
Speaker 2: of want to just focus on the thing, but I
Speaker 2: keep thinking it's got this is like a new information
Speaker 2: you're gonna give me.
Speaker 3: I also noticed at least one instance, and granted I
Speaker 3: might have gotten into some information before I should have,
Speaker 3: but I got into at least one instance of a
Speaker 3: character remarking upon a revelation to something that I should
Speaker 3: have already known by information that I'd already seen. And
Speaker 3: maybe then there's just a disconnect between player and player
Speaker 3: character where player character is assumed to have not inferred
Speaker 3: that information but as the player have, Like there's always
Speaker 3: that that sort of possible disconnect. But that's why usually
Speaker 3: in other mystery games, you're usually like disambiguated from from
Speaker 3: being an actual like character character and a lot of
Speaker 3: the stuff, or or at least like you don't have
Speaker 3: a present role in the mystery. If that, I know,
Speaker 3: I'm getting into like a lot of weird, heady philosophical
Speaker 3: stuff with this. But like when you play her story,
Speaker 3: I know, right, so when we play her story, which
Speaker 3: is like, again, the easiest comparison to this game, I
Speaker 3: think this is the most like one to one of
Speaker 3: similar game style is her story. Yeah, you are a character,
Speaker 3: and that is important at some point, But you being
Speaker 3: a character does not mean that you are having voice
Speaker 3: conversations with other people or having to project character into
Speaker 3: the space. You being a character ends up just kind
Speaker 3: of being background for what ultimately ends up happening. Same
Speaker 3: with the other two games that the Barlow's done, or
Speaker 3: like Root Trees or Over a Din. You have a character,
Speaker 3: but that character doesn't exactly have to like take the
Speaker 3: stage at all. And so that's that's like a weird
Speaker 3: wrinkle in TR forty nine that does alter the way
Speaker 3: some of the mysteries and discoveries play out, where the
Speaker 3: character being present and having these speaking lines back and
Speaker 3: forth and having internal character development throughout the course of
Speaker 3: the game does then shift how those revelations feel like
Speaker 3: they play out a little bit, and sometimes for the better,
Speaker 3: and sometimes they do hit those hitches. So yeah, I
Speaker 3: think I need to I was thinking about when or
Speaker 3: if I'll go back to it. I think if I
Speaker 3: do go back, I think I have to start over.
Speaker 3: So I think I got to the point I would
Speaker 3: not start out. I promise you you don't want to
Speaker 3: start over because you're just gonna because I would essentially
Speaker 3: say starting over is what you'd be doing no matter what,
Speaker 3: because you're still going back with largely the same knowledge
Speaker 3: that you have.
Speaker 1: And so if you go back in right now, I.
Speaker 2: Just feel like I'm so far in, like I've gotten
Speaker 2: down so many rabbit holes, but I don't know how
Speaker 2: I got there.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so I'd say just go.
Speaker 3: Back and start revisiting the information that way.
Speaker 2: I don't know, no, because I don't know what notes
Speaker 2: to take. I don't know what matters yet, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean. I just found it, and I'm like,
Speaker 2: I don't even you know, It's like I solve the problem,
Speaker 2: but I don't know how I did it. So I
Speaker 2: feel like I don't haven't learned enough about it, you know.
Speaker 2: So it's a little frustrating, and I'm like, I don't.
Speaker 2: I guess I found that is this important? Which I'm
Speaker 2: fine with, like I don't know if it's important. Like
Speaker 2: I said, I like Sam Barlow stuff, but like, I
Speaker 2: don't know something about this one.
Speaker 1: It's like annoying me.
Speaker 2: Because I guess because I'm still feel like I'm trying
Speaker 2: to grasps just like the sort of like foundationally what
Speaker 2: am I doing? And like when I look at the
Speaker 2: little book when it's like you need to match the
Speaker 2: things with the things.
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh yeah, Yet we should probably mention that
Speaker 3: that is a core mechanic that is not immediately apparent
Speaker 3: but does become apparent, is that you start like matching
Speaker 3: the names of things with catalog in tries, and that
Speaker 3: becomes a pretty important part as you go deeper in.
Speaker 3: And that is sort of the Obradin mechanic in there
Speaker 3: is that you are you will do that and then
Speaker 3: if you get it. It does not have the same
Speaker 3: thing as root trees or Obradin where you have to
Speaker 3: get a certain number right. So that way like it
Speaker 3: can kind of you can kind of brute force some
Speaker 3: stuff in this game if you ultimately need to, where
Speaker 3: if you're like I think I know what this is,
Speaker 3: but I don't know for sure, you can kind of
Speaker 3: just run through a bunch of different options and brute
Speaker 3: force your way there, and the game will be like
Speaker 3: you got it, good job, and you won't have to
Speaker 3: do the get three right the way that Obradin or
Speaker 3: root trees did. That sort of obfuscates and gets around
Speaker 3: the sort of player brute force method, which I personally
Speaker 3: was kind of back and forth on because I did
Speaker 3: brute Force a few entries that I was like, I've
Speaker 3: got a rough idea, but I'm not one hundred percent sure,
Speaker 3: so I'm just going to run through like the four
Speaker 3: that I think might be right. And then when I
Speaker 3: got to the third one, it was like, oh, that's
Speaker 3: the right one. Okay, that's and now I have context
Speaker 3: for where that fits, and I can all the other three.
Speaker 2: I guess I was saying start over is my understanding
Speaker 2: and my it is so messy and sort of scattered
Speaker 2: brain that I almost want to just like clean slight,
Speaker 2: go in, reframe, and then just more see if I
Speaker 2: can more intentionally create a thread back to that stuff.
Speaker 2: But at least I feel like I have a better
Speaker 2: understanding of how the roots two things work instead of
Speaker 2: just instead of just purely finding my chance and not
Speaker 2: understanding how I got there in the first place.
Speaker 1: Does that make sense? Oh?
Speaker 3: I mean, like literally, I still have not gotten the
Speaker 3: true ending of this game, because there's stuff that I
Speaker 3: have not discovered. I've only seen two different because there's
Speaker 3: different endings. I've seen two different credit roles, but I
Speaker 3: still haven't found what I would consider the golden end
Speaker 3: or whatever you.
Speaker 1: Want to call it. Do you know what the is like?
Speaker 3: Do you I have a mild hint of what it
Speaker 3: might entail, but I'm trying to figure out the method
Speaker 3: in which i can access that, is what I will say.
Speaker 2: I'm just wondering if it would like, if it's a
Speaker 2: thing we'll like, you'll know it if you see it.
Speaker 1: A little bit.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's a point in this game where, once
Speaker 3: you have learned what the most critical information is to
Speaker 3: see an ending, like your character will outright tell you.
Speaker 3: We'll just say like, I've got everything I need, I
Speaker 3: can finish this now, and they will say that aloud,
Speaker 3: And so you have that as a barometer at least,
Speaker 3: But otherwise it's I find it really fascinating TR forty
Speaker 3: nine as a narrative experiment into what these sorts of
Speaker 3: games can be. And I do think it's a little
Speaker 3: bit more obfuscated and weird to move around in compared
Speaker 3: to some other games of its ilk, but I find
Speaker 3: I really like that, and it does some really clever
Speaker 3: things with some of those things. So I would say,
Speaker 3: if you get stuck, for you, Marcus, or for the
Speaker 3: folks at home, examine your information. Look at the details
Speaker 3: of what you have examine, especially how they are being
Speaker 3: defined by the machine. That will help. That will do
Speaker 3: a lot to get you somewhere, because even just understanding
Speaker 3: the taxonomy of the machine does so much for you
Speaker 3: in this game. But also, as I some good advice
Speaker 3: I once got when I was getting started in this
Speaker 3: industry was that all stories have people at the center,
Speaker 3: and I find that often applies to solving mysteries as well.
Speaker 3: Is that ultimately understanding the people and how they relate
Speaker 3: to each other will then ultimately lead to truth, will
Speaker 3: lead to what the thing is that you're trying to do.
Speaker 3: So the people will help, will be your guiding north
Speaker 3: stars and all this. So going back examining who are
Speaker 3: these people, who is involved, who is doing what, when
Speaker 3: are they doing what? That sort of thing will help
Speaker 3: a lot. Will will kind of paint the broader picture
Speaker 3: for you. And take notes, take notes. This is I
Speaker 3: love a game that gets me to pull out pen
Speaker 3: and paper and start writing crazy like a I was
Speaker 3: looking for just a moment ago. I have a Pepe
Speaker 3: Sylvia noteboard that just looks like scribblings of letters and
Speaker 3: numbers all over it. That makes sense to me, makes
Speaker 3: sense to nobody else. I showed it to somebody who
Speaker 3: was thinking about playing this game because they're like, what
Speaker 3: do your notes look like? And they were like, does
Speaker 3: that make sense to you? And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: it makes sense to me. It probably doesn't make sense
Speaker 3: to you, but but it will. You'll understand it better
Speaker 3: once you're playing. So take notes, take it slow. This
Speaker 3: is a very cozy game. It's cold outside for those
Speaker 3: of us in the colder climates. Uh, this is Get
Speaker 3: some tea.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah yeah down previously yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: We're the same.
Speaker 3: Get some tea, some coffee, a warm drink, sit by
Speaker 3: the fire. Pull this up on your Steam deck. I
Speaker 3: think you'll have a good time if you enjoy a
Speaker 3: good puzzle.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, that's a good pitch.
Speaker 2: I'll go back to I'm gonna back. I want to
Speaker 2: like it, and yeah, I just have to. And I
Speaker 2: admit that some of the friction is probably like on
Speaker 2: my end, but there are some of that's the game too.
Speaker 2: But I do, like I said, I love these kind
Speaker 2: of games and it does tick what that part of
Speaker 2: my brand. It's like ooh, looking for things in a
Speaker 2: machine like this mystery, So yeah, I want to give
Speaker 2: it another shots. It's there's something there, but man, it's
Speaker 2: just from the beginning, I was like, what what is this?
Speaker 1: What am I even doing right now? Well? Cool, Well
Speaker 1: that's going to do it for what we've been playing
Speaker 1: this week. We're going to take a quick break and
Speaker 1: then come back and talk through all this ub Soft news.
Speaker 1: We've got a lot to get into, our thoughts on
Speaker 1: the company as a whole and as it pertains to
Speaker 1: this really big story. So we'll see you on the
Speaker 1: other side. Welcome back to the Game Informer show. We're
Speaker 1: going to be diving into all of the ub Soft
Speaker 1: news that dropped earlier this week. We're going to be
Speaker 1: getting into what you be Soft has announced is a
Speaker 1: quote major organizational, operational and portfolio reset to reclaim creative
Speaker 1: leadership and restore sustain growth end quote. Marcus, you have been,
Speaker 1: you know, working on this story for us this week,
Speaker 1: covering the news. I know, I think we're all pretty
Speaker 1: on top of what's happening. It's a big it's a
Speaker 1: big story. It's kind of the continuation of, you know,
Speaker 1: a larger effort by Ubisoft to kind of find its footing.
Speaker 1: And yeah, there's there are huge changes here. I guess
Speaker 1: before we get into the meat and potatoes of it, Eric,
Speaker 1: what do you think? What do you think about all
Speaker 1: this stuff that's kind of happening here.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's it's difficult to to really like put
Speaker 3: it all into perspective because today feels like another step
Speaker 3: up the ladder of what's been happening for a while
Speaker 3: with Ubisoft. There have been headlines for a while. I
Speaker 3: mean even last week they were there were layoffs announced
Speaker 3: incoming from Massive Entertainment and Ubisoft Stockholm. And that's just
Speaker 3: like one segment of a broader series of Ubisoft pushing
Speaker 3: things back, layoffs, restructurings, and I feel like Ubisoft has
Speaker 3: always kind of been fighting with the giants in a
Speaker 3: lot of ways. I often think back to the days
Speaker 3: of the Vivendi possible takeover and things like that. But
Speaker 3: this really seems pretty dire in a lot of ways,
Speaker 3: especially for the people on the ground at different studios
Speaker 3: who you know, we're all thinking about here today. It's
Speaker 3: never easy to be in that position, but it's really
Speaker 3: it's a pretty big shake up to say that was
Speaker 3: six games are being outright canceled, seven are being delayed.
Speaker 3: It makes you wonder what the roadmap ahead that they're
Speaker 3: talking about even looks like when they say that they've
Speaker 3: rethought their next three year roadmap, what do the next
Speaker 3: three years look like if thirteen total games are affected
Speaker 3: by this massive shit?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting because, uh the press release uh that
Speaker 1: that you'd be seff put out says you know that
Speaker 1: that it's canceled six discontinued, six games that do not
Speaker 1: meet uh like their their quality standards. And that includes
Speaker 1: the Prince of Persia, the Stands of Time remake, as
Speaker 1: well as four unannounced titles, including three new ips and
Speaker 1: I think the I think the wording is a little funny.
Speaker 1: And then it says ani mobile title. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: where we're getting six. They've only listed five they listened
Speaker 1: Prince of Persia and then four unannounced titles, but they
Speaker 1: say there are six discontinued.
Speaker 2: I was wondering that too. I almost wonder like, is
Speaker 2: the that six to one and announced the game that
Speaker 2: they just did it name and that doesn't fall in
Speaker 2: a sprier or they're just weird math. But yeah, I
Speaker 2: don't know, but we'll say five to six games are
Speaker 2: no longer it's it's six, and then there's probably at
Speaker 2: least something in there that was not announced, was not formalized,
Speaker 2: was just something that was somewhere and they said, no,
Speaker 2: never mind, cut it. This is not the first time
Speaker 2: Ubisoft has done that where they announced that they had
Speaker 2: been working on something by canceling.
Speaker 3: It, it has happened. But I do want to highlight
Speaker 3: this from a statement that went out as part of
Speaker 3: this their press release, in two paragraphs, they say, against
Speaker 3: this backdrop, today's announcement introduces a radically new value creation
Speaker 3: model colon a more gamer centric organization structured around creative genres,
Speaker 3: relying on integrated business units, with faster, decentralized decision making
Speaker 3: and a greater ability to quickly adapt to players expectations.
Speaker 3: This transformation will be supported by a right sized and
Speaker 3: more agile organization delivering improved structural efficiencies over time. We'll
Speaker 3: talk about what that means in the second because this
Speaker 3: does also mean a large structural change for what Ubisoft
Speaker 3: looks like. The second paragraph is probably the more important
Speaker 3: one to note for the folks at home. The new
Speaker 3: operating model will further empower the execution of the group's
Speaker 3: strategy centered on open world adventures and GaAs native experiences.
Speaker 3: That's games as a service, native experiences supported by targeted investments,
Speaker 3: deeper specialization and cutting edge technology, including accelerated investments behind
Speaker 3: player facing generative AI. So this is Ubisoft saying this
Speaker 3: is what our way forward is. We are looking at
Speaker 3: open world adventure games, open world adventures, whatever that may mean,
Speaker 3: games as a service, and they are putting some chips
Speaker 3: down on jen AI. So that is the statement coming
Speaker 3: out of this camp, which.
Speaker 1: Is not new news.
Speaker 2: Like they've they've been pretty front facing with supporting AI,
Speaker 2: and even if they weren't, like this, it plays in say,
Speaker 2: there's sort of like their strategy, like Ubisoft is all
Speaker 2: been a we will put our hands into anything and
Speaker 2: see what sticks, like like whether it's we will be
Speaker 2: day one on every console launch regardless of the platform,
Speaker 2: or hey, NFTs are taking off, let's try.
Speaker 1: That, like they will.
Speaker 2: They are rarely picky about the businesses that they decide
Speaker 2: to kind of like wade into. So like hearing them
Speaker 2: be like, yeah, we're doing AI, it's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: of course you would. You guys kind of do everything
Speaker 2: anything that pops up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it kind of gives desperation for me a little bit,
Speaker 1: but yeah, we can get into that they've kind of
Speaker 1: denoted like five creative houses that a lot of this
Speaker 1: is kind of getting wrapped into. You you mentioned the
Speaker 1: gamer centric approach eric that they they're talking about, and
Speaker 1: in the press release we get a little more detail.
Speaker 1: I'll quote quote Each creative house will be organized around
Speaker 1: a distinct creative genre and designed to concentrate deep expertise
Speaker 1: and specific types of player experiences. Each creative house will
Speaker 1: be responsible for fully owning the gamer relationship, developing must
Speaker 1: play experiences for specific audiences, and engaging player communities earlier
Speaker 1: and constantly throughout the development process. It goes on to
Speaker 1: say that Creative House one is Vantage Studios, focused on
Speaker 1: scaling and extending Ubisoft's largest and established franchises to turn
Speaker 1: them into annual billionaire brands. Yeah.
Speaker 2: For those that don't know, Dvantage is that new subsidiary
Speaker 2: that they formed last year. Like they basically form a
Speaker 2: company within a company and a sort of it's now
Speaker 2: managing the Assassin's Creed, Rainbow six and Farcry franchise.
Speaker 1: Yes it is.
Speaker 3: It is also a cross venture with a heavy investment
Speaker 3: from ten cents.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's kind of where a lot of that direction
Speaker 3: came from. Was they spun out. They said, we're going
Speaker 3: to make Vantage Studios, We're going to put Assassin's Creed,
Speaker 3: Far Cry, Rainbow six kind of the Golden Geese, I
Speaker 3: think Mini would say of Ubisoft, and then also ten
Speaker 3: Cent is going to get heavily invested to it. I'm
Speaker 3: looking for the exact amount. It looks like three point
Speaker 3: eight billion heroes from a November twenty first, twenty twenty
Speaker 3: five press release, I want to say was you know,
Speaker 3: you can quote me if you want in the original thought,
Speaker 3: but I think it was like ten percent of the
Speaker 3: company ten sent is invested in. Yeah, no, I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: That was that was the enterprise value of it. The
Speaker 3: cash investment from Tencent was one point one six billion,
Speaker 3: So yeah, that's a lot of money.
Speaker 1: And I think that.
Speaker 3: Is already an interesting thing when you consider the previous
Speaker 3: statement about the focus on open world adventures and games
Speaker 3: of service, those are kind of the the banner bearers
Speaker 3: for those things, right. Assassin's Creed is what you would
Speaker 3: think of when you think of an open world adventure game,
Speaker 3: especially from Moviesoft, and then Rainbow six uh is obviously
Speaker 3: probably their most dominant games as a service title at
Speaker 3: this point with Siege. Yeah, they have a new mobile
Speaker 3: game coming out next month, like Rainbow six Mobile gets
Speaker 3: a global launch like early February.
Speaker 1: I think it's the fifth. Muh. Creative House two is
Speaker 1: dedicated to competitive and cooperative shooter experiences, including brands like
Speaker 1: The Division, Ghost, Recon, and splinter Cell. Creative House three.
Speaker 2: Design that's the shoot shooting studio. These other four don't
Speaker 2: have names, which is not ironic for the creative studios
Speaker 2: that they have the least creative names.
Speaker 1: It does mirror.
Speaker 3: I mean you look at Square and they have like
Speaker 3: Creative Business Unit, Yeah, something like that.
Speaker 2: Nintendo R and.
Speaker 1: D Coom similarly has some internal stuff like that. Yeah. Uh.
Speaker 1: CH three is designed to operate a roster of select
Speaker 1: sharp live experiences brands including for Honor the Crew, Writers, Republic, Brawlhalla,
Speaker 1: Skull and Bones. No's they this is this actually Riders Republic.
Speaker 1: I bought that recently on Steam after I'd played it
Speaker 1: on console when it first came out. Ye form. You
Speaker 1: know the downhill biking in that game really solid.
Speaker 2: Former Best Dorks winners from that game.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is a studio that's had to handle a
Speaker 3: lot of I think scrutiny from from the outside our
Speaker 3: our own statements included. And and that's because Skull and
Speaker 3: Bones took years to come out. Brawhalla. By all accounts,
Speaker 3: bra Hala is still running and going, and weirdly enough,
Speaker 3: I've seen like a weird resurgence in for honor, like
Speaker 3: on shorts and tiktoks and stuff recently, which is weirding
Speaker 3: me out. I think, like the the crowd is coming
Speaker 3: around and for honor. But yeah, it's this is kind
Speaker 3: of the live service games that aren't Tom Clancy games,
Speaker 3: is how I would define this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, not Tom Clancy's presents. Creative House four is dedicated
Speaker 1: to immersive fantasy worlds and narrative driven universes, brands including Anno,
Speaker 1: Might and Magic ray Man, Prince of Persia, and Beyond
Speaker 1: Good and Evil.
Speaker 2: Beyond Beyond Good and Evil Too, by the way, survived
Speaker 2: the cancelation spree, which I found very interesting.
Speaker 3: Dude, do we have confirmation that was one of the
Speaker 3: games that survived it because they haven't named it yet, right, No,
Speaker 3: it's it's been known as Beyond Good and Evil Too
Speaker 3: officially for no no, No, I mean I mean like within
Speaker 3: because they have said that the Prince of Persia remake
Speaker 3: was part of the cancelations, but they haven't said whether
Speaker 3: Beyond Good and Evil too was part of either one
Speaker 3: of the buckets, right, I assume not because they said
Speaker 3: the other ones were unannounced. Okay, So I was like, okay,
Speaker 3: so Beyond Good and Evil two would be exempt. Sorry, y'all,
Speaker 3: this this news is literally like hot off the presses.
Speaker 3: So we are working with with what we're learning right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I just found that so fast, like man,
Speaker 2: Prince could not It did not pass the did not
Speaker 2: pass the test. But I guess Beyond Good and Evil
Speaker 2: to still talking a lot somewhere.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 3: Uh yeah, they do say discontinued six games. These include
Speaker 3: Prince of Persia, the Sands of Time remake, as well
Speaker 3: as four unannounced titles.
Speaker 1: There.
Speaker 3: There is a floating there is a floating and tree
Speaker 3: in there.
Speaker 1: They have one floating manna that.
Speaker 3: Man floating how many cards in hand?
Speaker 1: Be soft? I think they just couldn't let Jason Gordon
Speaker 1: leve it down. What's the name, Joseph Gordon Levinseph? Jason?
Speaker 1: I called him, Wow, great joke. Creative House five is
Speaker 1: focused on reclaiming position and casual and family friendly games.
Speaker 1: Brands include Just Dance, Idle, Minor, Tycoon, Catch App, Hungry Shark, Invincible,
Speaker 1: Guarding the Globe, and has Bro.
Speaker 2: You Can't Kill.
Speaker 3: I was about to say you just don't probably the
Speaker 3: biggest money maker there, but uno a real close second.
Speaker 3: I'm not even being facetious.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, who knows?
Speaker 2: Huge, huge, got it got a bunch of wrestlers through
Speaker 2: the pandemics.
Speaker 1: I think you knows.
Speaker 2: Still really a big anchor.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The press release goes on to say, quote. In addition,
Speaker 1: there are four new ips currently in development, including March
Speaker 1: of Giants. Ubisoft will communicate on their respective creative home
Speaker 1: at a later stage. Each creative benefit.
Speaker 2: Oh oh, I'm sorry, real quick, March of Giants. I
Speaker 2: had to look this up and I was like, what
Speaker 2: is March of Giants? Have known about this? Apparently this
Speaker 2: was a mobia that was originally being developed by Amazon
Speaker 2: Games until last month when Ubi Salt announce it had
Speaker 2: acquired the game from Amazon. So now they're going to
Speaker 2: finish it. But it is like this upcoming, like just
Speaker 2: this Mobia that has a Steam page and everything. I
Speaker 2: was like, I have not heard of this ever. I
Speaker 2: was wondering, you guys have ever heard of March of Giants?
Speaker 3: I am a MOBI boy and I had not really
Speaker 3: heard of March of Giants. I probably wrote it off
Speaker 3: in my head because it had Amazon attached to it.
Speaker 1: But uh, I don't.
Speaker 3: Know if like, like it's the Moba Iron's kind of cold,
Speaker 3: Isn't it like like there's that that genre solidified a
Speaker 3: while ago, Like everybody went into one of two buckets
Speaker 3: and that is where they have remained.
Speaker 2: Remember what I said before about Ubisoft trying everything. Have
Speaker 2: they tried a Moba yet? Is this their first one?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 3: They probably have? Hold on, I'm going to look this
Speaker 3: up because now I'm curious.
Speaker 2: I was going to say, like, have they ever have
Speaker 2: they tried their own mobi and were like, ah, we
Speaker 2: should just buy this one that's over.
Speaker 1: Here, there's March of Giants.
Speaker 3: I don't know a lot of this does not feel
Speaker 3: you know, obviously, it's it's the forward facing pr is
Speaker 3: going to try to be like we're trying to position
Speaker 3: our creative houses for the best possible success moving forward.
Speaker 3: I think for everybody reading this from the outside, it's
Speaker 3: really hard. Did not see this as pretty dire news
Speaker 3: coming out of Ubisoft to not see this as I
Speaker 3: don't think a healthy company has to this like like
Speaker 3: significantly shift itself if something is not worrisome somewhere in
Speaker 3: the pipeline.
Speaker 2: I mean, they've had some high profile kind of like
Speaker 2: underperforming Triple A releases, like like Star Wars Outlaws apparently
Speaker 2: didn't hit the mark. I think Avatar two from what
Speaker 2: I remember, Avatar front sas of Pandora, I think maybe some.
Speaker 2: I think Assassin's creat Shadows did pretty well for them.
Speaker 2: It felt like that was like the first kind of
Speaker 2: like I don't hit I guess in a while for them.
Speaker 2: But I mean this is a company that a year
Speaker 2: year and a half ago there were like very heavy
Speaker 2: rumors that they were going to go private because of
Speaker 2: just the state of things, and I think even the
Speaker 2: Gymo family had to like make a statement about that
Speaker 2: or they like either go private or just be purchased
Speaker 2: by someone like that. Those are like it seemed like
Speaker 2: that was like kind of like the riding on the
Speaker 2: wall for Ruby Saw for like the last almost two
Speaker 2: years now. But yeah, they've been kind of in the
Speaker 2: middle of this giant restructurings over the last year at least,
Speaker 2: and has resulted in some studio layoffs, like we mentioned before.
Speaker 2: And I just don't I don't know if they're like
Speaker 2: like in their wording they're trying to like simplify sort
Speaker 2: of their their like work pipeline because they have so
Speaker 2: many studios all over the place working on everything at
Speaker 2: all times. Uh, And it just I don't know, maybe
Speaker 2: they're like they're trying to like because of all the
Speaker 2: kind of like the misses with some of their Triple
Speaker 2: A stuff, at least financially, it seems like they're like
Speaker 2: they're trying to bet or like trying to find more
Speaker 2: sure bets and kind of like doubling down on like
Speaker 2: you know, the franchise that they know will make the
Speaker 2: money and then sort of like you know, like they
Speaker 2: say Games of Service and then I guess using AI
Speaker 2: to try to you know, saved some money here and
Speaker 2: here and maybe like streamline the pipeline even more. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I I don't know. It's it's they're in a weird
Speaker 2: place right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's uh, I mean they've just I think Assassin's
Speaker 1: Creed Shadows was you know, uh, it was a fine game.
Speaker 1: You know, I think it you know that came out
Speaker 1: last year, but last February almost a year ago. Yeah, yeah, sold,
Speaker 1: well yeah, yeah sold, fine, Yeah, I don't know, it's
Speaker 1: you know, I'm trying to think of other other releases
Speaker 1: that have done well for them recently.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, I'm trying to think. It almost feels like
Speaker 2: their output hasn't been as frequent as it normally is
Speaker 2: because what else, like outside of their annual stuff like
Speaker 2: Assassin's Creed and there was just the last.
Speaker 1: Year, what else?
Speaker 3: I mean there was Star Wars Outlaws was a big
Speaker 3: one years and and and aforementioned like Frontiers of Pandora.
Speaker 2: Which they've done big expansions for both of those games
Speaker 2: in the last year or so. Yeah, uh do this.
Speaker 1: You know they need to put out a new Trials game.
Speaker 1: They need to publish a new Trials game.
Speaker 2: Well that's that studio was also hit else, if I
Speaker 2: remember correctly.
Speaker 3: I was going to say, like, I feel there's enough
Speaker 3: studios and properties here that maybe what ends up happening
Speaker 3: doesn't look too dissimilar from when Square Knicks was divesting
Speaker 3: of its Western studios. Sure, when it started, you know,
Speaker 3: dumping things like you know what ultimately led to Io
Speaker 3: breaking off and going independent, what ultimately led to Crystal
Speaker 3: Dynamics being split off and several other companies that went
Speaker 3: under the umbrella of Embracer. I I personally feel like
Speaker 3: that could be eat something here, especially because they're identifying
Speaker 3: certain properties in their list but not other ones. I
Speaker 3: feel like track Mania is still under them, right, It's
Speaker 3: is that under.
Speaker 2: Or I'm still under them? I know I don't keep
Speaker 2: up with track.
Speaker 1: Mania, but I like track Media. Track Media was crazy.
Speaker 2: I would just love the note, like in terms of
Speaker 2: like if you take inventory real quick, do you guys
Speaker 2: remember what else they have in the pipeline that they've announced,
Speaker 2: just to get an idea of what's coming in the
Speaker 2: next few years, because we know they have.
Speaker 1: Somewhere I believe, I don't know. I'm sorry, that's crazy.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how public like all of this has
Speaker 1: been stated. I'm pretty sure they've they've publicly commented on it.
Speaker 1: But like, I think there's some like division stuff happening.
Speaker 2: There's division that was announced. Yeah, then there's also the
Speaker 2: division Resurgence, which is like a separate thing. I forget
Speaker 2: the scale of that one. Is it a mobile thing
Speaker 2: or it's like a it's another division game that it's
Speaker 2: a Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I pulled up a list of the currently announced
Speaker 3: but unreleased Ubisoft games, and the list stands at Heroes
Speaker 3: of Mighten Magic Olden Era that's supposed to do an
Speaker 3: early access this year, as well as Maiden Magic Fates,
Speaker 3: which is a mobile version. We have several Assassin's Creed
Speaker 3: projects there. There's the code name Hex and code name Invictus,
Speaker 3: as well as Assassin's Creed Jade, which that one was
Speaker 3: a mobile title, I believe, Yeah, obviously, like you said, Yeah,
Speaker 3: by the way.
Speaker 2: That's the one I'm excited about that's supposed to be
Speaker 2: a kind of like Slavic, kind of like Witchcraft one
Speaker 2: that it's if they keep up with the annual thing,
Speaker 2: that's probably gonna come out this year or at least
Speaker 2: get a full reveal this year, because I think that's
Speaker 2: the next one on docket.
Speaker 3: Yeah, obviously, like you said, Beyond Good and Evil two,
Speaker 3: which has been in ovens since time immemorial, March of Giants,
Speaker 3: which just recently came under the umbrella Morbid Metal. I
Speaker 3: don't know what that one is, no clue, no idea
Speaker 3: what that is.
Speaker 1: Zero.
Speaker 3: I'll do some research here in a second and the
Speaker 3: Division three in the Splinter Cell remake. So that's still
Speaker 3: like you think about what they were talking about earlier,
Speaker 3: especially with the Vantage Studios, they're big properties. That's several
Speaker 3: Tom Clancy games, that's several Assassin's Cree games. Right, nothing
Speaker 3: really on the docket for far Cry. I feel like
Speaker 3: Farcre has been fairly quiet for a few years now.
Speaker 2: We're due for a Far Cry announcement like that. Feels
Speaker 2: like that has to happen this year.
Speaker 3: But also just a lot of focus on a few
Speaker 3: franchises and then seemingly just kind of tossing one up
Speaker 3: out of the earth every now and then just to
Speaker 3: kind of see like, hey, this still doing all right.
Speaker 3: I mean, they also have other stuff that's been cooking
Speaker 3: as well. A new ono came out last year. I
Speaker 3: know the Strategy heads do enjoy a good ano. Just
Speaker 3: dance continues to persist through through the eons, through the eras.
Speaker 3: But then otherwise a lot of their stuff is here's
Speaker 3: here's X Defiant, Here's Skull and Bones, which took forever
Speaker 3: to come out. Here's a couple of Prince of Persia games.
Speaker 3: They had they had lost Crown and Rogue Prince of Persia,
Speaker 3: the latter one being developed by Evil Empire. Uh, there's
Speaker 3: there's just a lot of stuff hitting the fan and
Speaker 3: seeing the sticks to the wall, and maybe this is
Speaker 3: the illustrative moment of Ubisoft has been trying to figure
Speaker 3: out what works for it and what doesn't, which is
Speaker 3: a bummer too because I remember Lost Crown was really good.
Speaker 3: A lot of people came out of it really liking
Speaker 3: that game.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's talk about Prince of Persia. Actually for a bit,
Speaker 2: the series has kind of been like like the remake
Speaker 2: is kind of like maybe the biggest news story like
Speaker 2: that getting canceled out of this this development, like like
Speaker 2: as a Prince of Persia fan, it was it's been
Speaker 2: like simultaneously exciting and like frustrating because you know, for
Speaker 2: the longest time that series was completely dormant, and then
Speaker 2: boom they start coming out with like really three new
Speaker 2: game announcements between the Sands of Time remake, Lost Crown,
Speaker 2: and the Rogue Prince of Persia. You know, we get
Speaker 2: Lost Crown, phenomenal game like in my top ten that year,
Speaker 2: and then not terribly long after it comes out and
Speaker 2: gets this wave of praise they disband the studio that
Speaker 2: made it and just sort of like dispersed them to
Speaker 2: other projects within Ubisoft, but effectively mean I was like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I guess we're not getting a sequel to that game,
Speaker 2: which is unfortunate, so okay. And then of course you
Speaker 2: get the rogue Prince of Persia, which is, like you mentioned, Eric,
Speaker 2: developed by a Death Cell's team. That game, you know,
Speaker 2: comes gets out an early axis, is kind of under
Speaker 2: the radar for a lot of its early access life,
Speaker 2: and then came out in one point zero last year,
Speaker 2: and even then was still kind of under the radar.
Speaker 2: I'm really curious how that game has sold overall. I
Speaker 2: feel like if it did like Gangbusters, zoe Soft would
Speaker 2: have been out there and been on look at this,
Speaker 2: look at this Prince of Persia game doing really well.
Speaker 2: I just have no sense of like where that game
Speaker 2: even stands with Ubisoft, like if they're happy with it.
Speaker 2: It just seems like the redheaded step child of the
Speaker 2: Prince of Persia series, which is unfortunate because it's a
Speaker 2: really fun game. I really liked what I've played of it.
Speaker 2: And then you get this remake that was announced around
Speaker 2: the time that Eric and I joined Game four or Eric,
Speaker 2: excuse me, Alex and I joined Game in Former.
Speaker 1: Like it's we're two different people, Marcus every time. Every time, Hey,
Speaker 1: at least I did it the other way. I do.
Speaker 1: I do appreciate that I do. Yeah, Alex, we've worked
Speaker 1: together almost six years, Marcus.
Speaker 2: We've been working together as long as that Prince of
Speaker 2: Persia remaker. We've outlasted it somehow.
Speaker 1: Somehow we died at one point, we did. We died
Speaker 1: and came back and hey we were the time, you know,
Speaker 1: yeah ye.
Speaker 2: But yeah, like they you know, that thing was announced
Speaker 2: and for those that know, like like the whole trajectory
Speaker 2: with that remake is is fascinating because it was announced
Speaker 2: in September twenty twenty and it was originally given to
Speaker 2: Ubisou's Indian studios, like it was like in Moon Mumbai
Speaker 2: and Pune. I'm not sure how you pronounced the city there,
Speaker 2: but they were at the time built as like new
Speaker 2: studios and it was this was like their first big project.
Speaker 2: And then it's wild to think that the game was
Speaker 2: originally announced to come out the following year in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty one, because and at the time you were like, yeah,
Speaker 2: that makes sense. You know, it's a remake, They've probably
Speaker 2: been working it for a while. They have a template
Speaker 2: to work with, so it shouldn't probably shouldn't take that
Speaker 2: long to put together. And this is at the start
Speaker 2: of the new generation too. And I don't know if
Speaker 2: you guys remember, but they released that first trailer and
Speaker 2: then a lot of fans poop poo dicks. They thought
Speaker 2: the graphics didn't look amazing or at least what they
Speaker 2: should be for a remake. So then I don't know
Speaker 2: if they I think they explicitly said it. For that reason,
Speaker 2: they delayed it, and it was originally supposed to be
Speaker 2: like a brief delay, and then a few months later
Speaker 2: it got delayed indefinitely, so now had no release window,
Speaker 2: and then it went quiet for a while, and then
Speaker 2: it was in twenty twenty two that it would be
Speaker 2: Soft announced that they had taken development from Mumbai and
Speaker 2: transferred it to Ubisoft Montreal, which is kind of like
Speaker 2: the like like the big Ubisoft studio and also the
Speaker 2: studio that originally developed The Sands of Time. So you're like, okay,
Speaker 2: maybe it's like a metrod Prime four situation, like we're
Speaker 2: giving it back to the team that made the old
Speaker 2: one to really get it back on track, and then
Speaker 2: it was just radio silence for the most part for
Speaker 2: another couple of years, and then it was Ubisoft four
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four that out of nowhere we got a
Speaker 2: new Prince of Persia remake teaser that announced the twenty
Speaker 2: twenty six launch window. So, you know, still a long way,
Speaker 2: but it was like, Okay, at least this game seems
Speaker 2: to be happening. That's that's cool. And then I think,
Speaker 2: as far as I know, the last update was last
Speaker 2: summer June, when they, like Prince of Pergel twitter account
Speaker 2: just kind of put out a post just saying, hey,
Speaker 2: we're still working on it, you know, just we're excited
Speaker 2: for you to see it, but you know, it's still happening.
Speaker 2: It was just like like the slightest sign of life anywhere.
Speaker 2: But and it's like, okay, great, And again, I just
Speaker 2: as a Sans of Time fan, I was so excited
Speaker 2: for this game. I'm not terribly surprised to hear it's canceled,
Speaker 2: because it was It's been on the verge of like
Speaker 2: cancellation it seems like forever. So my mind was already
Speaker 2: kind of in the space of like I'll believe this
Speaker 2: game when I see it, Like, if they canceled it today,
Speaker 2: it would be disappointing but not surprising. So to see
Speaker 2: it finally happen it it it does sting a little
Speaker 2: bit more than if it had happened maybe a few
Speaker 2: years ago, just because that sign of life. It is
Speaker 2: just like I think this might this seems like it's
Speaker 2: teetering more towards a like this this might actually come
Speaker 2: out Okay, and then it's like, oh, just kidding, because
Speaker 2: it was supposed to come out this year, so I
Speaker 2: was like, okay, maybe around Summer Games first time we'll
Speaker 2: get an update. I think I saw. I didn't check
Speaker 2: into this, but I apparently there's some There was some
Speaker 2: sort of rumor that they were gonna announce it or
Speaker 2: shadow drop it like sometime before March of this year.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there were rumors going around for a bit, but
Speaker 3: I didn't really see too much substantiating them besides just
Speaker 3: what you would typically ascribe to, like the rumor mill
Speaker 3: of gaming that is just always humming in the background.
Speaker 3: But to illustrate your point, like the six year mark
Speaker 3: I think is really interesting because I think if we're
Speaker 3: gonna mark when Ubisoft started having these struggles. I do
Speaker 3: think it's around the time of the pandemic. I think
Speaker 3: it's around the time that we moved into there's kind
Speaker 3: of a concurrent new generation pandemic where Ubisoft up through
Speaker 3: the three sixty, like PS four era was Ride and High,
Speaker 3: was doing pretty well. It had kind of become the
Speaker 3: dominant company you think about when it comes to Triple
Speaker 3: A games, especially the way that they're designed. I mean,
Speaker 3: I feel like we have Ubisoft to thank for watchtowerss forever.
Speaker 3: But around that time, I do think there was a
Speaker 3: noticeable shift in the studio, in it's or in the studio,
Speaker 3: in the publisher and its output and how it's studios
Speaker 3: were handling things. Projects started getting shifted around, delayed, moved around.
Speaker 3: We had stuff that just started falling to the wayside,
Speaker 3: like Skull and Bones, like X Defiant, like The Prince
Speaker 3: of Persia remake, like Beyond Good and Evil too. And
Speaker 3: this is kind of where we're standing at the bottom
Speaker 3: of the hill as the landside landslide has been coming
Speaker 3: down this whole time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was gonna say, like, does all that like
Speaker 2: you mentioning all those games that were all in development
Speaker 2: concurrently and all had kind of like I don't know,
Speaker 2: maybe Less so X Divine, but certainly Prints Uh, Beyond
Speaker 2: Good and Evil and Skull and Bones all famously protracted
Speaker 2: and troubled development cycles all at the same time. Like
Speaker 2: I wonder if, like maybe Ubi Sauces or Ubi Sauce,
Speaker 2: Ubi Sauce, would you like some Ubi soft on Obi
Speaker 2: Sauce in Newburger But like it seems like maybe their
Speaker 2: house just wasn't in order, Like maybe that is why
Speaker 2: they they've kind of been restructured, like realized. Like our
Speaker 2: development pipelines, at least for some of our major pripe
Speaker 2: our studios and projects were kind of like ft, like
Speaker 2: we need to find a way to do this better
Speaker 2: because like we've had three big projects take forever.
Speaker 1: To come out.
Speaker 3: I think there was well, sorry to cut you off,
Speaker 3: it's just I think there's also a matter of there
Speaker 3: were a lot of projects coming out that just seemed
Speaker 3: to be staggered out and just trying things. We had
Speaker 3: Roller Champions was was in this this realm the roller
Speaker 3: der begin and and here's one that's going to really
Speaker 3: freak you out. Remember Hyperscape. I remember I played Royal
Speaker 3: hyper Escape, I played.
Speaker 1: I played a little bit. Yeah, I got a yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, neither of these games are around anymore.
Speaker 1: I I same with I think it last that long.
Speaker 3: No, A lot of a lot of them suffered pretty
Speaker 3: quick turnarounds from launch. I mean, look, that's not unique
Speaker 3: to Ubisoft. I mean, you can look at any other
Speaker 3: major publisher in the last three or four years and
Speaker 3: you'll find a similar graveyard of live service titles.
Speaker 1: Like it just happens.
Speaker 3: But I think for Ubisoft, if that stuff isn't working,
Speaker 3: if the blunderbuss of live service attempts is not working,
Speaker 3: and then also the Triple A titles maybe aren't succeeding
Speaker 3: at the level that they want them to, that this
Speaker 3: could also be a knee jerk reaction to that.
Speaker 2: It is weird to hear them doubling down on them, yeah,
Speaker 2: because it's like, is like outside of Rainbow succeede what
Speaker 2: what I mean?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: They have, But I mean besides that one, do they
Speaker 2: have another one that is genuinely doing well for them?
Speaker 3: I think a lot of this So I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 3: gonna draw a parallel here because there there was a
Speaker 3: line that stuck out to me in what Van ay
Speaker 3: Con said earlier from the press release. Uh, and it's
Speaker 3: something that I'm going to pull from the slide here.
Speaker 3: Scaling and extending. This is vantage studios like Ideology laid
Speaker 3: out in a slide scaling and extending ubisof's largest and
Speaker 3: established franchises to turn them into annual billionaire brands. I
Speaker 3: that's that's a big number. That's a really big number.
Speaker 3: And the thing it immediately reminded me of was the
Speaker 3: way that EA had talked about Battlefield going into the
Speaker 3: latest Battlefield release, where they were saying, this is this
Speaker 3: is it. We're going to make this game, and it's
Speaker 3: that's going to be the game. It's going to make
Speaker 3: so much revenue, it's going to do so much. This
Speaker 3: is the metric that we have set. And there are
Speaker 3: a lot of jokes at times of companies want to
Speaker 3: make Fortnite right, because if you make Fortnite, do you
Speaker 3: ever have to make another game again? Or can you
Speaker 3: just keep making stuff within Fortnite and around Fortnite. Now
Speaker 3: you've you've made the golden goose what the modern golden
Speaker 3: goose is at least, And so maybe that's the drive
Speaker 3: behind all this is to just start putting chips down on.
Speaker 3: We're going to make the thing that becomes the modern
Speaker 3: service model, the modern Fortnite, the modern Roadblocks, the the
Speaker 3: third place online that everybody wants to go to and
Speaker 3: spend their time in and especially spend their money in.
Speaker 3: But can Ubisoft make that and what does it look like?
Speaker 3: That's those are big questions to answer.
Speaker 2: It's sad because like, remember, it wasn't even that long ago,
Speaker 2: like a decade ago to Dubisoff had that kind of
Speaker 2: like I guess their version of like the was it
Speaker 2: the a originals, like their little Indian initiative sort of
Speaker 2: thing where they had like Child of Child of like
Speaker 2: Valiant Hearts, like those smaller like artsy games.
Speaker 1: That were like I love yeah, yeah that one. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's like they're so far away from that now, unfortunately,
Speaker 2: and it's I mean a lot of big publishers are
Speaker 2: now just focusing on a few core brands.
Speaker 1: But it's it's.
Speaker 2: Unfortunate because it really it was not that long ago
Speaker 2: that that was kind of like a key part of
Speaker 2: their business was those smaller games.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, Siegees is kind of the outlier and
Speaker 1: their live service attempts. You know, it's made it ten years, right,
Speaker 1: it's now Rainbow six Siege X as well. They kind
Speaker 1: of rebranded it kind of in celebration of that ten
Speaker 1: year marker, and it still has I mean, if you
Speaker 1: look right now in Steam charts, like on Steam alone,
Speaker 1: Rainbow six Siege has fifty thousand players playing right now,
Speaker 1: and you know that doesn't even factor in consoles where
Speaker 1: the game is actually very big on platforms like Xbox
Speaker 1: in particular, there's a lot of people who play there
Speaker 1: as well as PlayStation, and I wonder like if they're
Speaker 1: just kind of trying to replicate that. But if you remember,
Speaker 1: you know, Rainbow six Siege had very had a very
Speaker 1: rough launch and was given a lot more charity I
Speaker 1: think from the company. Then most games get these days
Speaker 1: to kind of right the ship. I don't think you
Speaker 1: get a Rainbow six Siege in today's climate because companies
Speaker 1: instantly just if it's not hitting the numbers, you know,
Speaker 1: a month, then it's like, okay, we're we're sunsetting this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Siege was had the benefit of coming out on
Speaker 2: the time before kind of like everyone like like like
Speaker 2: the primary pillars of life service kind of had established
Speaker 2: themselves and everyone. It kind of picked. This is my
Speaker 2: live service game. I'm Destiny too for life. You can't
Speaker 2: pull me from this. I'm Fortnite for life. You can't
Speaker 2: pull me from this. Like it was still a little
Speaker 2: bit of the wild West back then. I mean Fortnite
Speaker 2: hadn't even come out yet, nor did PUBG. So it's
Speaker 2: like it got it at a good time. Like like
Speaker 2: you said, if that, if that happened today, and that
Speaker 2: thing would have been dead in like a year if
Speaker 2: it was.
Speaker 3: It was also like for for all defaults at launch.
Speaker 3: I remember playing Siege when it first came out and thinking,
Speaker 3: they've got the bones of something good here. And that's
Speaker 3: coming from somebody who, like my background is I love
Speaker 3: Rainbow six Vegas and Vegas two. Yeah last to me,
Speaker 3: and yeah, god what I love to see those brought
Speaker 3: back in some way. Those games are excellent, But like
Speaker 3: Rainbow six, Siege had the foundation there, and there was
Speaker 3: a team that has clearly over the years believed in
Speaker 3: what they're doing, believed in the world that they've set up,
Speaker 3: believed in in their game type, their way of looking
Speaker 3: at what Rainbow six competitive looks like, and it's it's
Speaker 3: panned out and it's even survived its own spinoffs. I mean,
Speaker 3: Rainbow six Quarantine kind of came and went pretty fast, and.
Speaker 2: I forgot about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, this this is now a podcast
Speaker 3: segment titled Let's Remember some Ubi Soft Games.
Speaker 1: Patriots was on the cover of Game Informer. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: remember reading that, and I mean that eventually, I think
Speaker 1: kind of got morphed into what Siege is. But but yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, it's it's rough and.
Speaker 3: It's really difficult, and I think we should reiterate again,
Speaker 3: this is going to have tangible effects not just on
Speaker 3: the video games that you at home get to play,
Speaker 3: but on the people who make those video games. I
Speaker 3: think everybody at an Ubisoft studio right now is definitely
Speaker 3: looking at this news and being a little bit concerned
Speaker 3: with good reason. And so, you know, like our thoughts
Speaker 3: are with them because they make this stuff. They make
Speaker 3: the stuff that we enjoy and talk about and look at,
Speaker 3: and it sucks to see a lot of people and
Speaker 3: a lot of talent put into this position where their
Speaker 3: future gets murkier now. And like, I don't know, for
Speaker 3: me personally, I actually really like the Ubisoft era of
Speaker 3: like Xbox three sixty up through the PS four.
Speaker 1: I it's weird.
Speaker 3: Someone wants asked me or you an Assassin's Creed fan,
Speaker 3: and I was like, I'm not sure, but I sure
Speaker 3: have played just about all of them, and I'm yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: which I think is the most natural answer to that question.
Speaker 3: But I like Assassin's Creed too on any given day,
Speaker 3: could be one of my favorite third person action games
Speaker 3: of all time. And and I love games like Black Flag.
Speaker 3: I was definitely intrigued by the rumors that were going
Speaker 3: around of a potential Black Flag rekindling of some kind.
Speaker 2: Yeah, allegedly that is one of the uh that is
Speaker 2: one of the games that is rumored to have been
Speaker 2: part of the delay, the internal delay in the story,
Speaker 2: but that game has still not been officially announced or confirmed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's I really love those series. I love
Speaker 3: far Krai. Farkrai had like one through three, pretty much
Speaker 3: a lot of the early far Cries, Rainbow six, we
Speaker 3: already talked about like these, they they make games, even
Speaker 3: the Division, the Division game that I think was very
Speaker 3: ahead of its time in a lot of ways, like
Speaker 3: really laid the groundwork for what Tarkov and other games
Speaker 3: would become with its dark Zone. So, like, I think
Speaker 3: there's a lot of talent and a lot of potential here,
Speaker 3: and I don't know what the road forward looks like
Speaker 3: now with this massive restructuring and commitment to principles that
Speaker 3: might not be conducive to the sorts of exciting ubisav
Speaker 3: things that we normally enjoy seeing from them.
Speaker 2: So I'm excited for the live service ray Man game
Speaker 2: we're gonna get.
Speaker 1: Oh God, listen, you want to fix eb Soft, bring
Speaker 1: back ray Man, bring back Trials, and give us a
Speaker 1: damn new ghost recon game. Get get the Mario and
Speaker 1: Rabbits team cooking again soon. Ex Rabbits, I'm telling you,
Speaker 1: did that team get split up too? A good question? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I feel like I don't know. Maybe I might, I
Speaker 2: might be confusing a different report, but yeah, I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 2: like weird little things like that. I give me more
Speaker 2: of that, Ubisoft, and maybe we'll get another again. It's
Speaker 2: a Prince of Persia fan out of this remas gone.
Speaker 2: I'm like, man, when are we going to get another
Speaker 2: Prince game? Because we're not getting a Lost Ground sequel.
Speaker 2: It looks like that, So I have no idea what
Speaker 2: the future of at least of that franchise.
Speaker 1: Is right now. I would not be surprised of that
Speaker 1: is put on ice.
Speaker 3: The most recent news out of that team, which was
Speaker 3: Ubisoft Milan, is that they're hiring for some sort of
Speaker 3: triple A RAYMN game. That's that's from a report from VGC.
Speaker 3: It looks like they're kind of collaborating with Montpellier on
Speaker 3: the future of rain Man. Raymon almost had rain the
Speaker 3: rain Man. Yeah, the future of rain Man. Yeah, which,
Speaker 3: you know, RAYMN wasn't part of those Sparks of or
Speaker 3: Mario and Rabids games. I think at some point was
Speaker 3: DLC for Sparks of Hope. But uh yeah, I'd be
Speaker 3: curious about that. I do like ray Man. But there's
Speaker 3: just so many incredible games that come out of Ubisoft
Speaker 3: over the years. Track Mania we talked about earlier. I
Speaker 3: love track Media, you know, I would hope that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: the pod listeners Van Aken is holding up ray Man.
Speaker 3: Is that Legends and Origins it is? Yeah, Yeah, their day.
Speaker 3: It's remember the Legends was a launch title for the
Speaker 3: p S four and Xbox One.
Speaker 1: Man, that game was.
Speaker 2: Incredible at games are great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Oh yeah, I I mean, I think they're kind
Speaker 1: of neck and neck. For me, they're both incredible platformers.
Speaker 1: I love those games so much. Yeah, well, anything else, guys,
Speaker 1: before we wrap up this topic and get out of here.
Speaker 2: What's the over under on Ubisoft getting purchased at this
Speaker 2: point with this big kind of like slimming down and restructuring.
Speaker 3: I don't know about the whole, the whole Wooly Mammoth,
Speaker 3: but I do think we can see themselves in my key.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you think they would still IPD for.
Speaker 3: Just being bought out, right, That's yeah, That's usually the
Speaker 3: way it goes is, you know, pieces get shorn off
Speaker 3: and and and sold off and moved around. The bigger
Speaker 3: question would be, in my opinion, like who's buying these days?
Speaker 3: Who would want to buy? Maybe some of the lesser.
Speaker 1: Folks leave and start their own studio, buy back the
Speaker 1: the trials, IP give ghost recon to some, they keep
Speaker 1: respond they they keep all of Tom Clancy. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: keep all the time camp. They clutch on to Tom Clancy.
Speaker 2: With the first Yeah, if GIF give a Prince of
Speaker 2: Persia to from software, give me a Prince of Persia.
Speaker 1: So now we're talking, and now we're talking.
Speaker 2: It makes the game easier when you can just rewind
Speaker 2: your mistakes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, all right, well that's going to be the
Speaker 1: show for this week. Thank you all for listening. Of course,
Speaker 1: be sure to pick up a copy of Game infrom
Speaker 1: a magazine. We've got the Double O seven First Light
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Speaker 1: Got a lot of great features in there. And if
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Speaker 1: that I wrote on World of Warcraft Midnight. Got a
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