Speaker 1: He'll be gon't be bad. It's the Internet. You're busy.
Speaker 1: Let's do this for October seventh, twenty twenty four. For
Speaker 1: the next hour or so, let me help you sort
Speaker 1: through the world of gaming on Game Mess Mornings Live
Speaker 1: with Me Jeff Grub. Today, Halo still has a future
Speaker 1: and metaphor refund Paszio reviews are in, but first please
Speaker 1: join me and welcoming today's co host to Game Mess Mornings.
Speaker 1: It's Jan Oh Joah Dan. How are you doing.
Speaker 2: I'm doing great for once Grub All right, Jed, it's
Speaker 2: a new John.
Speaker 3: It's a new day.
Speaker 1: It's a new day, New John. You were you were
Speaker 1: down at that Emma Fife's John right.
Speaker 3: Yes, once again.
Speaker 2: Congratulations to Emma's her new husband, Gabe.
Speaker 3: Well done, Yeah, husband Gabe. Lovely wedding. Congratulations. Uh Grub.
Speaker 2: I don't know how much time you've spent talking to
Speaker 2: Emma's now husband, Gabe, but it's it's very interesting to
Speaker 2: see two genuinely good people that seem like, oh, y'all
Speaker 2: just like fit and like that's inspiring and I love that.
Speaker 1: Yes, it was. I've always I've always had that feeling
Speaker 1: about them, very destined to be together all that stuff
Speaker 1: they do have, the they match each other's vibes very well.
Speaker 2: I there was a moment where I used the my
Speaker 2: moisturizers getting in my eyes thing that genuinely does happen
Speaker 2: to me when I was tearing up a bit.
Speaker 1: During Oh there you go.
Speaker 3: Oh.
Speaker 2: And the best thing is we were near where we
Speaker 2: were in Los Angeles. We were near a train station
Speaker 2: or train tracks, and it was Emma's turn to deliver
Speaker 2: her vat and I was starting to feel a little
Speaker 2: bit worried. The producer and me was starting to feel
Speaker 2: worried of like, oh, I really don't want Emma to
Speaker 2: have to pause during her vow if this train comes by,
Speaker 2: to like just let the train go, and then she
Speaker 2: goes to her vows, ends it perfectly. The next second
Speaker 2: grub the train passes by.
Speaker 1: Incredible, incredible. She knew too, She always she always knows.
Speaker 1: That's the thinking count I am before. How was the
Speaker 1: slumber party?
Speaker 2: Uh grab, I don't know how updated you've been on
Speaker 2: the newest current giant bomb lore. But there there's my
Speaker 2: Audi or my dear scumbag friend ban Bo Shoa and
Speaker 2: made an appearance. There was one point where I was
Speaker 2: like two three am in the morning. I was laying
Speaker 2: flat still in my suit, writhing around, rolling around Nikky
Speaker 2: Grayson's floor. Sure, and I think I was. I was
Speaker 2: yelling about something and Profusie apologizing and Nikki was like,
Speaker 2: shut up, we're going to get food.
Speaker 3: Give me your face. They grabbed my phone to unlock
Speaker 3: my phone.
Speaker 2: Then we we have had burgers and Barley Ate tried
Speaker 2: to eat some chili cheese fries.
Speaker 1: Barley I did bambo choa. Want to feed Barley the
Speaker 1: chili cheese fries.
Speaker 3: Never I know how much of a struggle for NICKI
Speaker 3: that'd be.
Speaker 2: Afterwards, there was a oh god, yeah, yeah yeah, there
Speaker 2: was yeah, yeah, somehow there was like fur net involved
Speaker 2: an hour before that, and then yeah yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 3: It was fun times.
Speaker 1: Sounds yeah, it sounds like a good time. But you're
Speaker 1: back home feeling recharge, ready to.
Speaker 3: Go, absolutely not.
Speaker 2: But a certain video game is reaching it's it's metaphors
Speaker 2: right inside of me grub.
Speaker 1: Hell yeah, all right, well well let's get to talking
Speaker 1: about that. But first let's explain what we do here
Speaker 1: mohsweek days. I Jeff Garb will help piece your gaming
Speaker 1: life back together. That includes breaking news and maybe even
Speaker 1: some of our own original reporting. For all these topics,
Speaker 1: I'll get the input by bona fide expert who will
Speaker 1: make me look smart. If you were watching live on
Speaker 1: twitch welcome, you could always listen to the show later
Speaker 1: on podcast feeds by searching for Game Best Mornings, or
Speaker 1: find the RSS on giant bomb dot com. You can
Speaker 1: also catch the show later with chapters and timestamps on YouTube.
Speaker 1: Hello YouTube. All right, we have a lot to get into,
Speaker 1: so let's start the morning mess with Metaphor Refundtasio. Reviews.
Speaker 1: They are in. It is kind of bouncing between ninety
Speaker 1: one and ninety two on Open Critic. I think it's
Speaker 1: in that same range for on PlayStation on Metacritic where
Speaker 1: it has a lot of reviews, and then on PC
Speaker 1: it's got a handful more. But yes, it's doing very well.
Speaker 1: Reviews are in, starting here with PC Gamer reviewer Lewis Parker,
Speaker 1: who gave it a ninety five out of one hundred
Speaker 1: and says it is a beautiful one hundred long, one
Speaker 1: hundred hour long journey from beginning to end. Metaphor Refoundasio
Speaker 1: takes the best elements of Persona five and somehow improves
Speaker 1: on them. Vgc's Giordaan mid Lure gave it five stars.
Speaker 1: Metaphor Refundasio could have so easily been Persona with the
Speaker 1: names filed off, but it's so so much more than that.
Speaker 1: It matches fun, expansive combat with an excellent cast of
Speaker 1: characters that make the near one hundred hour journey an
Speaker 1: unforgettable one. And then Digital Spies Jess Lee gave it
Speaker 1: three point five stars, says Metaphor borrows defining features of Persona,
Speaker 1: yet executes these ideas in a less meaningful way, and
Speaker 1: in taking much from the beloved series, it takes a
Speaker 1: long time for Atlas's latest to carve out its own identity. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think most importantly in the game mess open critic
Speaker 1: guessing game. I guess ninety two, my guest ninety three.
Speaker 1: It's at ninety two right now, So I'm gonna get
Speaker 1: double points for that. That's what really matters here. But
Speaker 1: I guess you've also been playing this. How are you
Speaker 1: finding this?
Speaker 2: I do want to mention to folks that I have
Speaker 2: not completed this because this is, uh, this is an
Speaker 2: Atlas ass game.
Speaker 1: Yeah it sounds like the full one hundred hours.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you were going to be in for a ride,
Speaker 2: but I'm happy to tell you that it it is.
Speaker 2: You also got to check out the ride that you
Speaker 2: do get in this game, because it is absolutely wild.
Speaker 2: Initially I was a little bit worried grub because it
Speaker 2: is set in that fantasy setting and that's not normally
Speaker 2: my bag at all, right, but I was I wanted.
Speaker 2: I was hooked from the jump because this game. If
Speaker 2: you if y'all thought that Persona was dripping in style
Speaker 2: and swag goo from the music and to the look,
Speaker 2: this blows it out of the water, which I thought
Speaker 2: was an impossible task. And on top of that, this
Speaker 2: delivers on everything that Atlas is already good at where
Speaker 2: I agree with Jordan. You could have filed off like
Speaker 2: the the name Metaphor or Fantasio and would have assumed
Speaker 2: that this is a Persona, right, and I think it
Speaker 2: would have one hundred percent fit with that, because it
Speaker 2: does have the calendar system, the social links system where
Speaker 2: you do have to kind of negotiate with your days
Speaker 2: and make sure that they matter, and then your social links.
Speaker 2: But sure, there are moments in the Persona games where
Speaker 2: I feel like some of the social links aren't the
Speaker 2: strongest grub in my time with the game. I've enjoyed
Speaker 2: every single aspect of it. And for folks that are
Speaker 2: curious about the story.
Speaker 3: Holy shit. Yeah.
Speaker 2: In the same ways that the Persona series has really challenged,
Speaker 2: you know, uh, virtually everything, relationships with society, societal relationships,
Speaker 2: interpersonal relationships, religious concepts, this game is going for it,
Speaker 2: and for the most part, I think it sticks to
Speaker 2: landing grub by swinging for the fences and trying to
Speaker 2: make those gigantic leaps when it is talking about when
Speaker 2: it is talking about religion and race, and it's talking
Speaker 2: about self perception as well, and then that relationship of
Speaker 2: that shared experience just being a living being in the world,
Speaker 2: and it really really nails that so well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it seems like when I do kind of glance
Speaker 1: at some more reviews and was kind of trying to
Speaker 1: capture a few for the news this morning, and also
Speaker 1: kind of glanced at a Jessie Now Jessica Cogswell over
Speaker 1: at GameSpot. She gave it a ten. And one of
Speaker 1: the the emphasis a lot of people who are making
Speaker 1: is on excellent storytelling, excellent characters, really good pacing on
Speaker 1: that side of things is that is that carrying most
Speaker 1: of the game for you? How how are you also
Speaker 1: finding the tactics.
Speaker 2: One hundred percent grub like the it It is like
Speaker 2: a slight twist on Persona five combat system. Like if
Speaker 2: you were to look at screens of it, you would
Speaker 2: just assume that the world of Metaphor is a different
Speaker 2: dungeon in a Persona game, specifically Persona five. And I
Speaker 2: think it uses the utilizes all of that, uh and
Speaker 2: and and and still manage manages to pull it off
Speaker 2: well and make it its own in a certain way.
Speaker 2: Then that differentiates it enough from Persona and I just
Speaker 2: love it.
Speaker 3: Grubb it.
Speaker 2: It feels like we are so fucking back with turn
Speaker 2: based Uh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they seem to be on top of the genre
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways. And part of that I
Speaker 1: think is, you know, Final Fantasy kind of you know,
Speaker 1: beefing in a tiny bit with its real time action
Speaker 1: based combat for Final Fantasy sixteen, which I thought was
Speaker 1: pretty good, but it's not so good that it should
Speaker 1: be the standard for the genre going forward. Whereas obviously
Speaker 1: Bouldersgate and this on kind of both sides of that coin,
Speaker 1: and a lot of the games as well. Clearly clearly
Speaker 1: crushing it for turn based combat. Yeah. So okay, So
Speaker 1: if a persona fan is coming into here, what like
Speaker 1: do you have like a pointer for them to like
Speaker 1: some tips to like make sure that they can hit
Speaker 1: the ground running or they just kind of is going
Speaker 1: to be sort of seamless.
Speaker 2: I think it'll be seamless if you already have experience
Speaker 2: with I think any story heavy JRPG, I think you'll
Speaker 2: not maybe not immediately click with it. Sean and Chat
Speaker 2: is saying that the gameplay itself is not necessarily clicking
Speaker 2: with him. Don't want to put words in Sean's mouth,
Speaker 2: but I can perhaps see where Seawan is coming from there.
Speaker 2: I think, just be mindful and don't put too much
Speaker 2: pressure on yourself and get the choice paralysis of like
Speaker 2: which social links to perhaps max out. Just play the
Speaker 2: game as you would want to play out, and whichever
Speaker 2: characters are speaking to you in that moment, just explore
Speaker 2: those relationships as you naturally would. And you know, I
Speaker 2: know that we live in a world where people are
Speaker 2: spoiling games left and right, spoiling TV shows left and right,
Speaker 2: But just take your time with it and really let
Speaker 2: the messages resonate with you. I know, people joked around
Speaker 2: that Final Fantasy fifteen was a road trip.
Speaker 3: Game with the boys. Yep, this is definitely that.
Speaker 2: This is let's take a cross country road trip to
Speaker 2: not only destabilize the country's racist systems, but also let's
Speaker 2: just see some cool shit with some homies.
Speaker 1: Okay, it's I mean, it sounds very promising. I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people probably aren't gonna especially with glowing
Speaker 1: reviews like this. Even people among the Persona fans might
Speaker 1: have been like, well, you know, I want Persona. I
Speaker 1: think they'll probably pop in for this now. That's exciting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess any other big takeaways from the game, any
Speaker 1: other things that you wish people would know before they
Speaker 1: hop in.
Speaker 2: I think I appreciate the the CEO Jones on that
Speaker 2: list when it comes to trying to tell these heavy
Speaker 2: handed messages because not a lot of people can, not
Speaker 2: a lot of studios, not a lot of developers.
Speaker 3: It's funny.
Speaker 2: I feel like like indie dev's are very good at
Speaker 2: tackling very specific messages, and sometimes with Triple A studios
Speaker 2: it just falls flat and crumbles on the own weight
Speaker 2: of such a big game. But time and time again,
Speaker 2: I feel like the people at Atlas do such a
Speaker 2: good job at handling very serious issues in a way
Speaker 2: that is palatable and manageable.
Speaker 3: That being said, I do wish.
Speaker 2: Grub because I know that this is such this is
Speaker 2: gonna be such a time investment. I read Jess's review
Speaker 2: and she said that she spent eighty hours on this game.
Speaker 2: Eighty hours is a lot for any Yeah, anyone.
Speaker 1: Honestly, kind of like the scuttle butt when we were
Speaker 1: all in the review process and I haven't touched the game,
Speaker 1: but it was like I was thinking about it. I
Speaker 1: had a code in front of me, and I give
Speaker 1: it to someone else when I when I heard Jessica say,
Speaker 1: uh yeah, fifty hours for it to really click for me,
Speaker 1: I'm like, ah, okay, I'm too busy for that. You
Speaker 1: all have fun. I bet it's gonna click for most people,
Speaker 1: but I personally can't spend fifty hours. I bet it's
Speaker 1: not gonna take fifty hours for most people, but I
Speaker 1: think it'll take some time and some people might actually
Speaker 1: end up playing it and it might not click with them.
Speaker 1: So I've heard I've seen that a couple for a
Speaker 1: couple of people as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so my idea was and get ready to cut the.
Speaker 1: Check please, Okay, here we go.
Speaker 2: I get I understand that we will do a re
Speaker 2: release of a Persona game like a couple of years
Speaker 2: down the line, like Persona five Royal. What if instead
Speaker 2: of that we just have metaphor Refantasio Turbo where we
Speaker 2: just we just cut some of the.
Speaker 1: Fat speed three minute matches.
Speaker 2: That's it, Like grub, I am dead set that there
Speaker 2: are a lot of people that would enjoy more of
Speaker 2: Persona if it was not eighty to one hundred hours.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I guess when I think of RPG's
Speaker 1: this day to these days, I do think that they
Speaker 1: are like eighty hours. That's the number I think of.
Speaker 1: But it's like I was, you know, I'm kind of
Speaker 1: like reading old magazines these days, and it's like, oh no,
Speaker 1: the RPG's back then were you know, the big ones
Speaker 1: were thirty hours. Those were the massive ones. So uh, clearly,
Speaker 1: you know, there's always going to be that arms race
Speaker 1: that causes both sides to you know, all sides everyone
Speaker 1: in that genre to be like, well, ours even bigger,
Speaker 1: has even more stuff, and they always feel like I
Speaker 1: got to have something bigger than their last game, so
Speaker 1: I get how we get here. I wouldn't hate for
Speaker 1: them to take all of their stylings, all of their
Speaker 1: gameplay prowess, and apply it to something that is a
Speaker 1: turboized version of what they've made before. That'd be cool,
Speaker 1: all right, quick breaking news, Actually, let me just write
Speaker 1: the headline in here for you. Alien Isolation sequel confirmed.
Speaker 1: This comes from Tom Ivan at VGC, who just kind
Speaker 1: of got the news for us. Sega has announced an
Speaker 1: Alien Isolation sequel. The game is in early development at
Speaker 1: Creative Assembly. The announcement on Monday came out to coincide
Speaker 1: with the tenth anniversary of the original game today. I'm
Speaker 1: delighted to confirm on behalf of the team that a
Speaker 1: sequel to Alien Isolation is in early development, said al Hope,
Speaker 1: almost said Ai Hope. Al Hope, a creative director at
Speaker 1: developer Creative Assembly. We look forward to sharing more details
Speaker 1: with you when we're ready, And then the Sega count tweeted,
Speaker 1: we are so back, So there you go. I think
Speaker 1: this is a great idea. I think this is one
Speaker 1: of those games that at the time it reviews a
Speaker 1: very specific way because the reviewers are like I have
Speaker 1: to think about this holistically, there is this really great
Speaker 1: mechanic here of you trapped on a spaceship with an
Speaker 1: alien and all that stuff is great, and the game
Speaker 1: is too long and that drags it down. Therefore, this
Speaker 1: game is a blank and it's whatever number that is
Speaker 1: lower than maybe they would have given it just based
Speaker 1: on how good the mechanics are. Now, it's it's really
Speaker 1: grown an estimation over time, and in a lot of
Speaker 1: fans eyes it's it's got a cult following. It's only
Speaker 1: you know, it grows in like players around this time
Speaker 1: of year every year. I think you take what you
Speaker 1: learned last time, and you really focus in on what
Speaker 1: worked and don't feel like you need to make a
Speaker 1: thirty hour game this time. I think when this game
Speaker 1: came out ten years ago, there was definitely this real
Speaker 1: strong need to be like, we need to be able
Speaker 1: to justify this game being the price it is, and
Speaker 1: we need to, you know, to take up room on
Speaker 1: store shelves and all this stuff. So it's got to
Speaker 1: feel like it has a ton of content. I think
Speaker 1: people are a little bit more willing these days to
Speaker 1: be like, if you give us all the gameplay mechanics,
Speaker 1: we want just make the game until it stops being
Speaker 1: good then end it. And I think that people be
Speaker 1: more open to that these days. I'm excited about this,
Speaker 1: how about you.
Speaker 2: I never checked out the original Alien Isolation, but I
Speaker 2: do remember seeing like a positive upswell over like the
Speaker 2: past couple of years, scrub every time that anything Alien related. Yeah,
Speaker 2: whether it's the movies or the games get talked about
Speaker 2: of like what if you just did that one again?
Speaker 2: So yeah, I hope that they take what they learned
Speaker 2: from the first one and make this one dope.
Speaker 3: Maybe we should play it on the website.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that'd be fun. That'd be a good time. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Alien is one of those franchises has a million games,
Speaker 1: a million entry, it's million movies now, and it hasn't
Speaker 1: really lost its appeal for me. Even though I'm not
Speaker 1: like checking out everything, when something does look good, I'm
Speaker 1: still there and I'm like, this is such a cool world.
Speaker 1: They do such a good job with that and this
Speaker 1: The original game definitely was like, hey, we are going
Speaker 1: to have the CRTs and all this stuff's just gonna
Speaker 1: look like Alien and Aliens, and it's I always appreciated that.
Speaker 1: Do you think that there's a chance that they kind
Speaker 1: of try to go the alien aliens route here, and
Speaker 1: it's like, well, maybe more space Marini, more aliens were
Speaker 1: action y.
Speaker 2: It seems like a lot of people really jived with
Speaker 2: the fact that you're kind of like a regular, decular person.
Speaker 2: I think so the original alien isolation and I think
Speaker 2: adding more of a hoorah space marine vibe to it
Speaker 2: will kind of shift the tone in a dramatic way.
Speaker 3: So perhaps they maybe you're a baby this time.
Speaker 1: There you go, the most helpless of all. That'd be ideal,
Speaker 1: but and yet somehow just crawling around in ducks and
Speaker 1: the aliens can't get to it, just like, yeah, just.
Speaker 3: Put them in the mech suit. Yeah, a little babby there,
Speaker 3: a little baby mech suit.
Speaker 1: No timeline on that, they said, it's an early development,
Speaker 1: probably still years away, but cool to get a sign
Speaker 1: of life from this from this series and see it
Speaker 1: coming back. It feels like this is one that was
Speaker 1: well earned. And next up we'll get Randy Pitchford's Space
Speaker 1: Marine two Colonial Space Marine two. There you go.
Speaker 3: Cool?
Speaker 1: All right? The future of Halo is coming and it
Speaker 1: includes multiple games. This is from Ethan Gotchi Kotaku. Ever
Speaker 1: since Mass layoffs at Halo Maker three four three Industries,
Speaker 1: which it's not called that anymore. Fans have wondered what
Speaker 1: the future will hold for for the famed sci fi shooter.
Speaker 1: It turns out Microsoft still has big plans for master Chief,
Speaker 1: and they involve multiple upcoming projects as well as the
Speaker 1: franchise making the jump to Epic Games. Is Unreal Engine,
Speaker 1: the tech that powers Fortnite and a host of other
Speaker 1: Xbox first party games. Three four three Industries revealed the
Speaker 1: news during the twenty twenty four Halo World Championship, including
Speaker 1: that the studio will be called Halo Studios going forward.
Speaker 1: Instead of continuing to use its current slip Space Engine,
Speaker 1: which was created from the ground up for Halo Infinite,
Speaker 1: the franchise will abandon it for Unreal Engine five. An
Speaker 1: effort called Project Foundry is also currently underway to build
Speaker 1: a foundation for training and best practices for developing Halo
Speaker 1: within the new tech. So yeah, those are like the
Speaker 1: basics here. They say that there's more games coming, uh
Speaker 1: and and also Halo Infinite. Meanwhile, we'll continue to get updates,
Speaker 1: but it sounds like it's kind of on the ooh,
Speaker 1: should we deemphasize this more and more and more, or
Speaker 1: kind of try to keep it going a little bit
Speaker 1: longer while we work on this other stuff that is
Speaker 1: to be determined.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: What really matters here is I think people will see
Speaker 1: this Jen and uh, you know, I think the jumped
Speaker 1: conclusion from people who you know, they aren't in the
Speaker 1: weeds with this stuff, and I think that's completely fair.
Speaker 1: Mostly the Mike Minauds of the world will be like, oh,
Speaker 1: they're switching to Unreal Engine because it's uh, they want
Speaker 1: better graphics. And I'm throwing him under the bus there
Speaker 1: he knew what he was talking about. When it really
Speaker 1: why they're switching is Unreal Engine is the most used
Speaker 1: engine among the Triple Triple A developers, and it makes
Speaker 1: it easier one to hire people, but two Like, really
Speaker 1: what it is is the tools are there to just
Speaker 1: get a lot of content out fast. That was the
Speaker 1: problem with Slipstream. It made a game that looked pretty.
Speaker 1: It's it was an engine that even once you got
Speaker 1: like these people or smart people, they can learn how
Speaker 1: to use new tools. That's fine. In fact, this project Boundry,
Speaker 1: what that's saying is we're gonna be building our own
Speaker 1: tools to use Unreal Engine. So what it really is,
Speaker 1: how capable are those tools? How malleable are they Can
Speaker 1: you take them and be like, we have an idea,
Speaker 1: let's execute on that idea and a reasonable amount of
Speaker 1: time with a reasonable reasonable amount of money and resources.
Speaker 1: And the answer for slipstream was clearly over time they
Speaker 1: could not do that. I think that's why we ended
Speaker 1: up with the single biome that they had in a
Speaker 1: Halo Infinite didn't bother me too much of soone playing
Speaker 1: the game, but clearly they're like, we just got to
Speaker 1: keep working with the resources we have. Just take that
Speaker 1: tree and use it one hundred and fifty thousand times
Speaker 1: throughout this world. So that will solve a lot of
Speaker 1: the problems I think for the next Halo. Do you
Speaker 1: feel like this is going to solve enough of the problems?
Speaker 3: I am not one hundred percent sure, Grub, mostly because
Speaker 3: there are just parts of Halo Infinite Infinite that I
Speaker 3: did like, just I don't think was able to sustain
Speaker 3: me in the long run, And maybe that was just
Speaker 3: due to like the problematic lead up of the game
Speaker 3: getting delayed and then wondering, okay, when is the game
Speaker 3: fully out?
Speaker 1: Out?
Speaker 2: Okay, co op isn't here yet, but now it is
Speaker 2: a couple months later and then just thankfully the multiplayer
Speaker 2: was never felt like it was a mess.
Speaker 3: Now it was just just a fun It was always fun.
Speaker 2: It just went in waves of popularity, like with like
Speaker 2: my friend group and even on site we played it
Speaker 2: a couple of times and we circled back a couple
Speaker 2: of months later. My hope is with the pivot to
Speaker 2: Unreal Engine five, that yes, they are able to produce
Speaker 2: content faster and maybe adapt faster to trends. I just
Speaker 2: hope that it isn't let's throw everything at the wall
Speaker 2: approach and see what winds up sticking. Oh, definitely, because
Speaker 2: ultimately I feel like I don't know if the Halo
Speaker 2: franchise isn't healthy of a place to sustain itself with
Speaker 2: that method of of development, right, because sure we could
Speaker 2: get a couple of Halo games in the next couple
Speaker 2: of years, but what does that ultimately do to the
Speaker 2: name Halo that is kind of already I don't want
Speaker 2: to say damage, but it isn't as popular as it was.
Speaker 1: It's definitely a little wit, right, Yeah, absolutely, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think they have to kind of continue to treat
Speaker 1: the next games as big, huge and important, and and
Speaker 1: that means yeah, not being too just like you said,
Speaker 1: throwing stuff at the wall. That's a good point. And
Speaker 1: I think what they probably should do here is establish
Speaker 1: this very strong foundation and uh and build something out
Speaker 1: that like feels like, Okay, this is the next big
Speaker 1: Halo thing. And then at that point, once it's live,
Speaker 1: once once you have some some momentum there, then you
Speaker 1: have the tools and be like, Okay, now we can
Speaker 1: sort of respond to what the community wants. We can
Speaker 1: work with them. We can give them, you know, the
Speaker 1: player the in game foundry where they can make their
Speaker 1: own stuff and build unreal engine to to be able
Speaker 1: to handle that. And then once that stuff is popping off,
Speaker 1: maybe we can take some of those ideas and expand
Speaker 1: on them very very quickly because now the tools will
Speaker 1: simplify that process. That's I think it's the hope. And
Speaker 1: then you know, at that point they can they can
Speaker 1: try to throw a little bit more at the wall
Speaker 1: because they have the strong foundation of this is what
Speaker 1: Halo is. People are happy with it. We can continue
Speaker 1: telling stories in this world and having cool multiplayer stuff
Speaker 1: and now and now we're not afraid to try things
Speaker 1: all that said, it's you know, Halo's problems are they
Speaker 1: do come down to can they get enough attention? Can
Speaker 1: they get enough popularity? Can they get people to care
Speaker 1: about the game? And I think that like clearly with
Speaker 1: Halo Infinite Multiplayer, I think one of the biggest issues
Speaker 1: was the lack of content. That seemed to be the
Speaker 1: thing that everyone pointed to. But I always wonder if
Speaker 1: it's like that, is that something people say and what
Speaker 1: they really feel is something deeper and harder to express,
Speaker 1: And it comes down to maybe they just don't care
Speaker 1: about Halo the way they once did. And I wonder
Speaker 1: if those problems will remain while they all of all
Speaker 1: these other technical and development problems.
Speaker 3: I'm it's it's tough to say grub right because.
Speaker 2: For some people, some of that stink is going to
Speaker 2: remain no matter how good the gamelinds up being right. Yeah,
Speaker 2: ultimately across the board, I think Infinite wound up reviewing
Speaker 2: pretty well.
Speaker 3: But that perception of.
Speaker 2: Grub what what I guess what would you call it if,
Speaker 2: like Doom and Quake are a boomer shooter and Halo
Speaker 2: occupies kind of that mental game space for me before
Speaker 2: like modern Warfare two.
Speaker 1: Master Chief of the Millennium because he came out like
Speaker 1: right in two thousand, right, so uh, I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Boomer Shooter and the boom son of Boomer Shooter, I
Speaker 1: don't know, Like that's probably none of Boomery son of Boomer.
Speaker 3: It's an yeah, yeah, poor sob.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that there will be always be your right.
Speaker 1: It's like churning back of Oh, I really missed that
Speaker 1: we've had enough of Fortnite. Let's try something else, you
Speaker 1: know what. That's maybe that something else should be nostalgic
Speaker 1: and and Halo could jump back in at that time.
Speaker 2: So we've seen a couple of indie games blow up,
Speaker 2: battle Bit remastered, Yeah, the battlefield formula. I'm kind of
Speaker 2: surprised that we haven't seen too many games try and
Speaker 2: indie games or indie shooter games try and recreate a
Speaker 2: Halo to some degree. So maybe it's just gonna be
Speaker 2: the Halo team or the Halo studio moving forward that
Speaker 2: just tries to recapture that nostalgia and reframes it for
Speaker 2: a newer audience.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just make go DST again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, did you see the recent update t Halo emfit
Speaker 1: It where they're they're adding a third person cameras to
Speaker 1: the to the action.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know if I need that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I was like, that's fine. I think
Speaker 1: I was a little surprised by like how many people
Speaker 1: responding to the tweet about it. We're like super excited,
Speaker 1: like this is the thing that they've been waiting for
Speaker 1: and Halo and I'm like kind of doing that the
Speaker 1: Clint Eastwood me like, get off my lawn, like, kids, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can't handle first person. Come on, what's wrong with you?
Speaker 1: It looks cool though, it does look cool. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: well maybe we could check that. I still like Halo Infinite.
Speaker 1: Maybe the most exciting part for me of all this
Speaker 1: news is this means that we can get to the
Speaker 1: point where people are no longer like judging Halo Infinite
Speaker 1: on how much it is, you know, hitting their pleasure
Speaker 1: receptors in that moment, and they could just assess it
Speaker 1: as was it fun to play, and we're gonna be
Speaker 1: in the Halo Infinite was good zone here very quickly.
Speaker 1: I think, so looking forward to that as someone who's
Speaker 1: always enjoyed that game and would love to play it
Speaker 1: at any time. Halo Infinite just a fun, good, solid
Speaker 1: multiplayer game.
Speaker 2: I think they should definitely try and push the marketing
Speaker 2: again and just have like another relaunch style thing where
Speaker 2: just reminding folks like, hey, this game's around and it's good,
Speaker 2: check it out. We don't just buy bags of doritos
Speaker 2: and you'll be better at the game than everyone else.
Speaker 3: My grub.
Speaker 2: My other speculation is, with the switch to Unreal Engine five,
Speaker 2: do you think Halo is going to join the rest
Speaker 2: of modern day first person shooters multiplayer first person shooters
Speaker 2: and have skins and guest characters.
Speaker 1: They'll definitely have, you know, the skins, clearly, yes they will,
Speaker 1: but like guest characters, I don't know. I feel like
Speaker 1: what this might open them up to is make it
Speaker 1: a little bit easier to borrow characters from other Microsoft games.
Speaker 1: Like if the guy some Gears of War showed up
Speaker 1: in the Halo multiplayer thing, I feel like that wouldn't
Speaker 1: be too out of place or too strange. I guess
Speaker 1: the way that they started moving around floaty that would
Speaker 1: look weird. I don't know, it's hard. Yeah, because you
Speaker 1: add in Harrison Ford is Indiana Jones. Can he just
Speaker 1: go running around and jump like and looking like that.
Speaker 1: It looks weird, so I think I think it'd be
Speaker 1: difficult to pull off. But but who knows. Maybe they
Speaker 1: could try a bunch of different modes where it makes
Speaker 1: more sense, so or something along those lines. I think
Speaker 1: they probably just try to play around in here's a
Speaker 1: skin for your master Chief character.
Speaker 3: Here's Optimus Prime in Halo.
Speaker 1: Okay, well that would be cool. He's aren'ty already locked
Speaker 1: down to Overwatch? Well one of those games got Transformers Watch?
Speaker 1: Come on, I don't know anymore. You know. That does
Speaker 1: speak to a point though, that this is now the
Speaker 1: latest Microsoft studio to fully embrace Unreal Engine, just like
Speaker 1: many of the other studios have. Clearly the the the
Speaker 1: the Gears of War team, not the initiative. I can't
Speaker 1: ever remember the name of it. They they they are
Speaker 1: masters of unreal Engine. They've been working with that for
Speaker 1: a very long time. Uh. And they are like the Coalition,
Speaker 1: thank you, CHET, and they like are such experts that
Speaker 1: they like come in and help other teams work on
Speaker 1: unreal Engine. Now they could do that and help out
Speaker 1: the Halo team, and all these teams can work together
Speaker 1: to build these best practices. As they're talking about undead labs,
Speaker 1: I think, use this unreal engine. There's a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of that now at Microsoft, it makes sense long term
Speaker 1: because they have all this expertise, and now that expertise
Speaker 1: can't like I think, you know, the Coalition did help
Speaker 1: on Halo to a certain extent, but they would have
Speaker 1: been able to do a lot more if it was
Speaker 1: an unreal engine, and now they're going to be able
Speaker 1: to execute on that.
Speaker 2: Speaking about long term for Halo as a franchise moving
Speaker 2: forward and Halo Infinite, do you think we might actually
Speaker 2: see a Halo game come out on the PS five
Speaker 2: as well as an Xbox and PC. Maybe not at launch,
Speaker 2: but maybe like a couple months down the line over time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean probably probably it's uh, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: not the next one, but in like ten years, what
Speaker 1: is any of these we're already of these boxs is
Speaker 1: going to be that It's just the audience that they're
Speaker 1: going to be aiming for with these games is going
Speaker 1: to be so big and so much bigger than just
Speaker 1: any one console that I just don't think that they
Speaker 1: are even like they've emphasized the importance of the consoles
Speaker 1: today and it doesn't seem like that decision is going
Speaker 1: to get revert reversed. It's only getting They're only more
Speaker 1: and more leaning in that direction. So eventually they have
Speaker 1: leaned so far that it would be weird if Halo
Speaker 1: wasn't released on everything. Now we're not there yet, but
Speaker 1: I feel like I feel like they are walking in
Speaker 1: that direction and steadily we'll get to that point. And
Speaker 1: that point could come before the next Halo game.
Speaker 3: We'll see all right, Yeah, one last thing, please God.
Speaker 2: It feels so weird that we could potentially in two
Speaker 2: three years time have a mobile Halo game that, yeah,
Speaker 2: that could pop off in a way that cod Mobile has.
Speaker 1: Right, And I do wonder about that too, with like
Speaker 1: a you know, Unreal Engine very malleable for you can.
Speaker 1: I remember early on with Unreal Engine for one of
Speaker 1: the big things, it's like, hey, we developed this game
Speaker 1: and it's on PC and it looks really great, but
Speaker 1: we could scale it down and run on switch because
Speaker 1: they were kind of thinking, we want to have something
Speaker 1: that could be scaled all the way down to mobile.
Speaker 1: And then those games, those games started appearing on mobile.
Speaker 1: Unreal Engined five carries forth a lot of that stuff,
Speaker 1: and so it is an engine that you could very
Speaker 1: easily take the game you're making for PC and for
Speaker 1: console and scale it down and put it on phones
Speaker 1: and it wouldn't like and like scale it down enough
Speaker 1: so that you're not like destroying the battery and all
Speaker 1: that stuff. I do wonder if they do that, or
Speaker 1: do they do what the Call of Duty did and
Speaker 1: build the bespoke mobile version. That's probably still the move, right,
Speaker 1: but they could they could do.
Speaker 2: This, yeah, if you create I feel like the problem
Speaker 2: with trying to poort a triple A game onto a
Speaker 2: phone is that that is not the experience that people
Speaker 2: are used to on a phone. They just want to
Speaker 2: play a quick round of something, and you already have
Speaker 2: people in that hamster wheel with cod mobile.
Speaker 3: I would say, just try it.
Speaker 2: You could definitely adapt Halo to fit that, I don't
Speaker 2: want to say weird but specific live service game mobile
Speaker 2: format yep.
Speaker 1: Future of Halo very I'm still very curious about it.
Speaker 1: They have had a lot of turnover there, I mean,
Speaker 1: the Infinite Its failures definitely caused Microsoft to look at
Speaker 1: that studio and I think they basically basically fired a
Speaker 1: lot of the leadership there. I know a lot of
Speaker 1: the leadership left and and you know, we're caught up
Speaker 1: in various layoffs, but most of the leadership were just like, hey, please,
Speaker 1: you're done, you can resign, get out of here, and
Speaker 1: that means there should be a fresh new crop in
Speaker 1: there kind of overseeing things going forward. This is their
Speaker 1: chance to really sort of write the ship, because you know,
Speaker 1: for as much as people love Halo and the reason
Speaker 1: and then as far as it's fallen, it does feel
Speaker 1: like it's fallen due to missteps more than anything else.
Speaker 1: For as much as it's easy to be like, well,
Speaker 1: maybe people don't like those games anymore, I think the
Speaker 1: biggest problems have been that people didn't love four's a multiplayer,
Speaker 1: and they didn't love five's story. I camera one or
Speaker 1: the other might be might be mixing that up. And
Speaker 1: then Infinite Yeah, and then Infinite was like a lot
Speaker 1: of this stuff is good, give us more of it,
Speaker 1: and they're like, well, we can't. This is it would
Speaker 1: take too long to make more of this game, and
Speaker 1: that now here we are. So I think if they
Speaker 1: can address those problems first and then just put out
Speaker 1: a good Halo, the rest of it might take care
Speaker 1: of itself in terms of getting people to care about
Speaker 1: this character. Again.
Speaker 3: Part of me now thinks that maybe they made the
Speaker 3: switch to have it be called Halo Infinite versus another
Speaker 3: proper Halo numbered title, just to avoid the stink that
Speaker 3: had developed from four and five.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And do you know what, Grub, I played an
Speaker 2: obscene amount of Halo three on the Xbox three sixty yep,
Speaker 2: and that muscle memory is stored inside of me, and
Speaker 2: the couple times that we've played Halo Infinite on this website,
Speaker 2: it has come out and now we kind of got
Speaker 2: the itch again.
Speaker 3: Grub, thanks a lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, hey, I'm always look forward to playing some Infidite.
Speaker 1: Let's do it. We can play some master Chief collection too,
Speaker 1: It would be fun.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's see here. Let's take a break. Let's take
Speaker 1: a break when we come back. Is Saudia Arabia taking
Speaker 1: over Nintendo? We'll talk about it right after this. All right,
Speaker 1: we're back, let's hit this. Saudi Arabia is considering a
Speaker 1: larger steak in Nintendo. This is from Jordan Miller at BGC.
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund is considering a move to
Speaker 1: increase its stake in Nintendo. That's according to a new
Speaker 1: interview in which the firm discussed that the Saudi Arabia
Speaker 1: Public Investment funds the PIFF plans for growth. Prince faizel
Speaker 1: Bin Ban Dauer Bin Sultan al Saud, the group's vice chairs,
Speaker 1: set in an interview with Kyoto Kyodo News that's with
Speaker 1: a d out of t that there are always opportunities
Speaker 1: for further investment investment. It's important to keep the communication
Speaker 1: going so you get there in the right way. He said,
Speaker 1: we don't want to rush into anything.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: They have an eight point five percent in a stake
Speaker 1: in Nintendo right now that that has grown over time,
Speaker 1: and they're thinking about growing some more in buying more Nintendo. Now.
Speaker 1: This has caused a lot of people to be like,
Speaker 1: what's going on here? Are they going to like try
Speaker 1: to take over the board of directors and stuff like that?
Speaker 1: And I would probably hesitate towards worrying about that too much. Clearly, Hey,
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia a lot of problems. They killed a journalist.
Speaker 1: That's that's just a bad country. And with leadership that
Speaker 1: is directly responsible for that. It's a publicly traded company, Nintendo,
Speaker 1: you can't stop them from from investing as far as
Speaker 1: I'm aware, it would be very difficult. In fact, Nintendo
Speaker 1: didn't know about like most of these investments from Saudi
Speaker 1: Arabia until it happened was in the news, because that's
Speaker 1: just how public training works. Like those shares are out there,
Speaker 1: they went out and bought it from someone else. Nintendo
Speaker 1: wasn't involved in the transaction at all, But eight point
Speaker 1: five percent is a lot, and if they do buy more,
Speaker 1: it would like be something that they would have to communicate. Well,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't have to, but they've said themselves like we
Speaker 1: would communicate to let them know and let them know
Speaker 1: what we're trying to do here. The point of investing,
Speaker 1: for the most part is to make money from other
Speaker 1: people's work, and that's not going to be not true
Speaker 1: of Saudi Arabia. What they're doing here is they see
Speaker 1: an opportunity to invest in the video game space. Of
Speaker 1: obviously they own all of U SNK, they invested in
Speaker 1: a ton of other video game companies, but they see
Speaker 1: clearly Nintendo has a chance to grow, especially with switch
Speaker 1: to coming out, and they want to make money from
Speaker 1: that just like anything else, and be well positioned to
Speaker 1: leverage that stuff in the future as they try to
Speaker 1: do more with games in Saudi Arabia, they're trying to
Speaker 1: diversified their economy very much, you know, I guess get
Speaker 1: gas station in the world that right now, they're trying
Speaker 1: to be more than that. But that does not mean
Speaker 1: like buying Nintendo and transplant in it, transplant into Saudi
Speaker 1: Arabia or something like that.
Speaker 2: Right right, I definitely hope not. God that is so,
Speaker 2: I guess I've never thought about it that way, Grub.
Speaker 2: But where a public, publicly traded company is just so
Speaker 2: public that even the people internally at said company, yeah,
Speaker 2: aren't in control despite the company being theirs.
Speaker 1: Wow, yep, I mean those those shares are just they
Speaker 1: belong to someone else. So yeah, and if some epison
Speaker 1: wants to sell it to Saudi Arabia, they don't have
Speaker 1: to tell you and then they know and they don't
Speaker 1: have to loop you in in any way.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's weird.
Speaker 3: It's uh.
Speaker 2: The further this goes along, it's going to be an
Speaker 2: interesting road to navigate, you know, using your wallet to
Speaker 2: vote in a sense, right Grub of who you choose
Speaker 2: to support, and that being already very calm implicated to navigate,
Speaker 2: but that being especially challenging to perhaps navigate as Saudis
Speaker 2: share in Nintendo continues to grow. Yes, they are definitely
Speaker 2: trying to diversify not only the public perception of them, but.
Speaker 3: You know, they're not doing a great job.
Speaker 2: But also just in the terms of industry they're trying
Speaker 2: to enter. Perhaps they were trying to create a competitive
Speaker 2: Jengle league. They tried to draft me.
Speaker 1: And maybe maybe they're out there trying to get that
Speaker 1: jam for their for their for the Jingle League of
Speaker 1: the j L. Yeah. I think that Saudi Arabia is
Speaker 1: not going to be going away in video games or
Speaker 1: a lot of these a lot of these up marketplaces
Speaker 1: that they keep getting involved in. Uh, And what can
Speaker 1: you do about it? I mean, I don't know. At
Speaker 1: a certain point, for as vile as the government has been,
Speaker 1: I'd kind of like take their money, just take their
Speaker 1: money away from them and go use it for something good.
Speaker 1: I guess.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's mentality that I have too, of like all right,
Speaker 2: just give us your money and we're gonna keep doing
Speaker 2: our thing that you know.
Speaker 3: Disrupts your perception of yourself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, because I mean it's not you know, if
Speaker 1: you don't take it, someone else will. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia's never offered me any money. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't like want to be like seen cheerleading in
Speaker 1: that country. Uh, I'm not I'm listening. I don only
Speaker 1: speak for myself. I can't say that same sentence. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think in a situation like this, where it's like
Speaker 1: it's publicly trade in, they're just like investing in your company. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you kind of can't stop that. But I it's like
Speaker 1: they show up your door with a with a check.
Speaker 1: It's a little bit stranger. So I don't know, but
Speaker 1: I think the bottom line here is people worried about
Speaker 1: like the video game industry at at large and Nintendo specifically,
Speaker 1: not nothing's gonna relate change here. It doesn't seem like
Speaker 1: it's gonna change. I don't I doubt even that Saudi
Speaker 1: Arabia would want a place on Nintendo's board they could
Speaker 1: demand it. Though they could demand it, it just seems
Speaker 1: like that to what end they want the money. They
Speaker 1: don't like necessarily want to control what Nintendo's outputting. I
Speaker 1: think they do want to have some influence in that industry,
Speaker 1: but they are able to get that with said money.
Speaker 1: So I don't think much would change here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, unless they demand that Nintendo comes to Saudi, the
Speaker 2: Kingdom of Saudi Arabia three four times throughout the year
Speaker 2: it makes a game specifically for the crown prints right.
Speaker 1: Exactly, and who knows that could happen. Yes, that's right,
Speaker 1: grub has heat with the Saudis there you go? Cool?
Speaker 2: Uh?
Speaker 3: All right?
Speaker 1: Moving on here. Ubisoft response to rumors about an acquisition
Speaker 1: from ten Cent. Meanwhile, it's the other one that's always
Speaker 1: investing in video games. This is from Javier Escorbano at
Speaker 1: Game Reactor. Following last week's rumors about a potential acquisition
Speaker 1: of Ubisoft by ten Cent, a spokesperson from Ubisoft has
Speaker 1: tried to slow speculate by claiming the company is reviewing
Speaker 1: all of its strategic options but remaining focused on its strategy.
Speaker 1: Ubisoft has noted recent press speculation regarding potential interest around
Speaker 1: the company. Ubisoft said to BGC it regularly regularly reviews
Speaker 1: all its strategic options in the interest of stakeholders and
Speaker 1: will inform the market if and when appropriate. Ubisoft also
Speaker 1: reiterates the management is currently focused on executing its strategy
Speaker 1: centered on two core verticals, open world adventures and games
Speaker 1: as a service in native experiences. That's got to be
Speaker 1: thrilling to investors and just kind of oh, the same
Speaker 1: thing as always. Huh. Yeah. The thing here is like
Speaker 1: tencent does seem to be like one of the only
Speaker 1: options that Ubisoft might have if and by Ubisoft I
Speaker 1: mean the Gimel family, Yeves Gamo, if he wants to
Speaker 1: stay in charge, because the publishers in a bad way,
Speaker 1: they are kind of one more bad game, one more
Speaker 1: bad launch away from being to be in free fall
Speaker 1: in terms of the stock price, and if that happens,
Speaker 1: even with all the Gemos on the board of directors,
Speaker 1: it could be very challenging for them to stand in
Speaker 1: the way of a bunch of people are saying, hey,
Speaker 1: we should consider some other options, like maybe letting Vivindi
Speaker 1: come back here and take over or something along those lines.
Speaker 1: If if the Gimo family wants to have control over
Speaker 1: what happens next, it might require them to partner up
Speaker 1: with a handful of companies that out there that could
Speaker 1: actually have actually could make that happen. And really the
Speaker 1: only option on the table seems to be ten cents,
Speaker 1: So I get that they're saying that, hey, we're considering everything.
Speaker 1: I don't know what else think. I mean, I've heard
Speaker 1: in the best I've said like maybe they went to
Speaker 1: go talk to like EA or something and said, hey,
Speaker 1: we should team up, and I was like, what the
Speaker 1: fuck are you talking about? No way. So I just
Speaker 1: don't know who else would be willing to buy. You'd
Speaker 1: be soft and take on tens of thousands of people
Speaker 1: on payroll. It would be very.
Speaker 3: Awkward, incredibly awkward. And also.
Speaker 2: Knowing that the Gaumont family still wants to be on
Speaker 2: that board and have a gigantic say, I don't necessarily
Speaker 2: know that if getting acquired by ten Cent is gonna
Speaker 2: fix the ship at all. It's just gonna be like
Speaker 2: patching the hole in the boat that is already slowly
Speaker 2: sinking grub, you know, instead of like repairing the hole
Speaker 2: and getting rid of the rotting wood, We're just gonna
Speaker 2: let that rot spread with more money.
Speaker 1: Now. Yeah, it's it seems right like this is not
Speaker 1: going to actually solve much. But I think that's a
Speaker 1: good point because that's the perspective that we're actually talking
Speaker 1: about here. Again, it's like the Gemos don't necessarily not
Speaker 1: necessarily thinking about the future of Ubisoft. They are thinking
Speaker 1: about the future of their power within that infrastructure. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I think they could team up with ten Cent and
Speaker 1: be like, Okay, we get some of your money and
Speaker 1: we'll do the work to control the company and you
Speaker 1: fund it and we'll take it private again and private
Speaker 1: between Tencent and ourselves. But then the the goal then
Speaker 1: would be to take it public again one day, I
Speaker 1: would imagine, And it's it's it just seems very rocky
Speaker 1: in terms of a pathboard for the company. But that's
Speaker 1: where they are. They've they've they've been in this situation
Speaker 1: a bunch of times, have sort of skated by and
Speaker 1: been able to dodge some bullets, and feels like that
Speaker 1: luck has run out and the the final destination of
Speaker 1: where this company was always headed is finally about to
Speaker 1: take it.
Speaker 2: It just feels like such a bummer grub because I,
Speaker 2: due to your recommendation, I have spent a little bit
Speaker 2: more time in Star Wars Outlaws and it is starting
Speaker 2: to grab me. I think I am finally turning on
Speaker 2: it in a positive way, and it just thinks that
Speaker 2: it feels like you be soft is hanging the game
Speaker 2: out to dry, despite you know, the game being continually
Speaker 2: worked on and developers promising like, hey, we're going to
Speaker 2: make this game even better than it already is. It
Speaker 2: just feels like you be soft as the publisher and
Speaker 2: the company is just like blaming it for all of
Speaker 2: the problems that have been building up, not just this year,
Speaker 2: but over the past couple of years. Yeah, remember Stolen
Speaker 2: Bones came out?
Speaker 1: No, I don't. Actually, yeah, that's that's wild. I think
Speaker 1: that it's indicative of like all the problems we've heard
Speaker 1: that Assassin's Cruise shadows. One of the big reasons it
Speaker 1: was delayed is all the people working on it were
Speaker 1: being like, hey, we should delay this, and you know,
Speaker 1: the same thing was true of Star Wars Outlaws, but
Speaker 1: they probably got to a point where, like they knew,
Speaker 1: they weren't going to be able to get to ask
Speaker 1: for another delay, so they did the best they could
Speaker 1: with that game, and as we're seeing it continue to
Speaker 1: get updates and get very significant changes to the quality
Speaker 1: of that game. With some of these updates, it's like
Speaker 1: in a matter of months they were able to make
Speaker 1: something that feels much better already. Had it had another year,
Speaker 1: it probably would have been in a much better place now.
Speaker 1: Ubisoft hasn't done that recently, even though they kept saying
Speaker 1: that they would, you know, really avoid ever being in
Speaker 1: the situation again after previous examples of them beefing it
Speaker 1: with by leasing games too early or underbaked, and they
Speaker 1: kind of it seems like they can't help themselves because
Speaker 1: they're just too big, too massive, too expensive. They can't
Speaker 1: go several quarters in a row without one of these
Speaker 1: big games releasing, and that seems like a problem, and
Speaker 1: that that problem seems unsolved as well.
Speaker 3: Do you think the problem Grub is that no one
Speaker 3: wants to dance anymore?
Speaker 1: No one wants to just dance. That Just Dance game
Speaker 1: is still coming out this holiday, right, there's a new one.
Speaker 3: Like Clockwork Grub every single year. Yep, every single platform.
Speaker 1: Yep. It'll be on everything except for PC, like always PC.
Speaker 1: You could just like watch the YouTube videos and pretend
Speaker 1: like that's what I h Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: That's It's surprising that the audience that buys Just Dance
Speaker 2: has not glommed onto that fast, right.
Speaker 1: A lot of the kids have They're like, I'll just
Speaker 1: watch the YouTube video and dance to this. This is great. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then the score is always like from someone doing
Speaker 1: it perfect, so you can pretend you did it perfect.
Speaker 1: It's wonderful.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: All right, let's keep moving here. Assassins Creed Black Flag
Speaker 1: remake is closer than you think.
Speaker 3: Oh.
Speaker 1: This is from Insider Gaming. We first got when of
Speaker 1: an Assassin's Creed Black Flag remake earlier this year, and
Speaker 1: informission sent to Insider Gaming suggests that the game could
Speaker 1: actually be coming sooner than you might think. When rumors
Speaker 1: of the Assassin's Creed Black Flag remake began to circulate
Speaker 1: on the Internet, many including ourselves, assumed that the game
Speaker 1: would be would still be some years away from releasing. However,
Speaker 1: new details and documentation on the game sent to Insider
Speaker 1: Gaming under the condition that it does not go public,
Speaker 1: so just that the game is well into development and
Speaker 1: could be released much sooner than we all thought. The
Speaker 1: timeline here apparently is it could come holiday of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five, around November twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: Now, I've not played Assassins Creed Black Flag since, you know,
Speaker 1: the year it came out, but my memory of that
Speaker 1: game is that's, you know, one of the first Xbox
Speaker 1: One and PlayStation four games, and it probably feels like
Speaker 1: it's still and there was like zero zero problems, like
Speaker 1: in terms of that game needs to be remade now.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's more data than I'm remembering, but I doubt it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that game probably still plays completely fine, grub. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think a lot of well, you know, Sony would
Speaker 2: beg to differ, but a lot of games released on
Speaker 2: the PS.
Speaker 3: Four are still pretty good today, yep, grub.
Speaker 2: I hope that people listening have never found themselves in
Speaker 2: a toxic relationship where you know, we've clearly addressed a
Speaker 2: potential pain point in said relationship and then your significant
Speaker 2: other continues to be aware and cognizant of said issue,
Speaker 2: but continues to just do the thing that has been
Speaker 2: identified as a problem. And I feel like we can
Speaker 2: all agree that the Internet is not saying, in yelling,
Speaker 2: stop making Assassin's Creed games, but maybe slow down.
Speaker 1: Maybe slow Well, what this sounds like is they are
Speaker 1: speeding up because this comes out November twenty twenty five,
Speaker 1: apparently allegedly, and so does Assassin's Creed Invictus, I think
Speaker 1: is which is the multiplayer, multiplayer focused one I guess,
Speaker 1: so there'll be two Assassin's Creed games next year, and
Speaker 1: then immediately after that. I guess that the hex one,
Speaker 1: the Holy Roman Empire one it takes place in like
Speaker 1: the German Germanic region, that would probably come in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty six. And at that point, you know, if Invictus works,
Speaker 1: they'll be updating that as well. All alongside that, they
Speaker 1: and they've told us they have a lot of Assassin's
Speaker 1: Creed projects. Some of them are TV and movies, not
Speaker 1: like most of them are. Most of them are games.
Speaker 1: And the number that they keep throwing around is something
Speaker 1: north of ten, eleven, twelve, something like that, more and
Speaker 1: maybe more than that. Uh So there's a lot of
Speaker 1: Assassin's Creed coming, and uh, I don't know. It also
Speaker 1: feels like that is just speeding towards a brick wall
Speaker 1: of if you have one more another like unity situation,
Speaker 1: all that blows up in your face, and then you're
Speaker 1: talking to us again about how, oh, we're going to
Speaker 1: delay all those projects until we can get this right,
Speaker 1: just like you've done three times already, Greb.
Speaker 2: I forget what it's called when you start offering civilians
Speaker 2: in Assassin's Creed. And then is it destabilizing or desynchronizing
Speaker 2: desynchronizing yes, yeah, yeah, oh boy. I feel like the
Speaker 2: world has been yelling at Ubisoft like you're desynchronizing from
Speaker 2: the rest of us, and what we actually want fucking stop.
Speaker 1: Really, I've been thinking about it that now it's like
Speaker 1: a euphemism going on a decenchronization spree.
Speaker 3: That's the kind of boy, it's so bad, it's good.
Speaker 2: Okay, we're gonna take out un Alive from the vernacular.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: De sink is in. Unlive is out? Everybody there you go,
Speaker 1: oh boy, uh yeah, hey, I don't need this, but
Speaker 1: I get why these companies do this. Assassin's Creed Black
Speaker 1: Flag probably the like the one that if you were
Speaker 1: to go ask fans, what's the one you like most
Speaker 1: want to play again? I guess it would be this.
Speaker 1: I think, you know. Assassin's Creed two also is one
Speaker 1: that I think a lot of people out with are
Speaker 1: very fond of. I prefer Brotherhood, but I think a
Speaker 1: lot of I think a lot more people played too
Speaker 1: or something like that. So getting to a point where
Speaker 1: it's like you are now supplementing your Assassin's Creed releases
Speaker 1: with some of these remakes and release re releases. It
Speaker 1: makes some sense, but it's just like for so many
Speaker 1: of many of them, they've repackaged and re released them
Speaker 1: already a couple of years ago. So that means this
Speaker 1: next remake will have to be something much bigger. And
Speaker 1: I guess I don't know. Maybe for a game from
Speaker 1: Xbox One, it's not that much work to make it
Speaker 1: feel like a remake. But I think that also speaks
Speaker 1: to how much demand is there going to actually be
Speaker 1: for this. And we're seeing Until Dawn, you know, not
Speaker 1: not a similar kind of game, but from the similar generation,
Speaker 1: and that game is getting just got released as a
Speaker 1: remake or remaster and it's on a PC and no
Speaker 1: one's playing it, no one, no one seems to care.
Speaker 1: So I think it's very easy to mess these up,
Speaker 1: or to put a lot of work into it and
Speaker 1: people being like, well, no, we don't want to replay that,
Speaker 1: we already bought it.
Speaker 2: I like, I've actually, now that I think about a grub,
Speaker 2: I've seen people streaming Assassin's Creed Black Flag on on
Speaker 2: TikTok of all places, and game surprisingly steel completely fine.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's fine, And we're already in that position
Speaker 2: Grub where it feels a little silly to remaster a
Speaker 2: game that came out only five or so years ago,
Speaker 2: or whenever Black Flag came out, at least on the
Speaker 2: PS four console generation, because again, for a lot of people,
Speaker 2: a lot of people still haven't upgraded to newer consoles,
Speaker 2: so the PS four base experience is still their day
Speaker 2: to day and it is completely fine. Oh oh lordie, Grub.
Speaker 2: I feel for the people internally at Ubisoft me too.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, we'll see what they say that maybe
Speaker 1: this thing is mixed up or something we'll hear or
Speaker 1: maybe they present they'll be like, oh, okay, I get
Speaker 1: why they're remaking it. There's a chance for all that
Speaker 1: wait and see. Real quick here, let's just hit some
Speaker 1: of these highlights real quick. Monoliths Soft is busy developing
Speaker 1: its in house engine, building on Zeno Blade engine for
Speaker 1: future games. You're a Zeno boy, right, You're happy to
Speaker 1: hear this, Hey, reinvest in that technology, make more of
Speaker 1: your stuff, like because they also are partly responsible for
Speaker 1: like the world in the Zelda games with all their technologies.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that sounds good to me too.
Speaker 2: Grubs as a someone that really really really loves Eno
Speaker 2: Blade Chronicles three.
Speaker 3: Give me more debt, Give me more flutes.
Speaker 1: More flutes. There you go, you heard them. Uh, the
Speaker 1: Nintendo switch mod chip Maker is going to fight Nintendo
Speaker 1: without a lawyer, apparently.
Speaker 3: Because it's Joker too.
Speaker 1: Hits Joker so well. I don't know, but there might
Speaker 1: be more singing and that's who knows. We'll have to
Speaker 1: wait to seem. Yeah, that's not that's a bad idea,
Speaker 1: but that apparently they're like, there's had a bunch of
Speaker 1: counts Nintendo, and they went through and like deny, deny, deny,
Speaker 1: and they still haven't got a lawyer. So uh, it
Speaker 1: sounds like they might try to go to court and
Speaker 1: fight Nintendo themselves. Good luck. I hope, I hope you.
Speaker 1: I hope they don't kill you. It's Nintendo and then yes,
Speaker 1: Until Down is one of the worst Sony releases on
Speaker 1: Steam in terms of players. It just feels like the
Speaker 1: game is not like, oh, that's an assessment of its quality.
Speaker 1: It's just like maybe people aren't even aware of this
Speaker 1: is happening, or like, didn't it wasn't already out, No,
Speaker 1: it's on PC now. It just feels it's missing some
Speaker 1: zeitgeist thing. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think so, And it feels especially unfortunate because we
Speaker 2: are in the spooky season where yeah, maybe it'll pick up,
Speaker 2: maybe it'll pick up. I think there's also the perception, Grub,
Speaker 2: similar to the problems that Black Black Flag Remaster could
Speaker 2: have of like, isn't this already here? Don't I already
Speaker 2: have this?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I think that's probably a big part of it,
Speaker 1: you know, in that until Dawn movie just finish? Should
Speaker 1: finish film? Mean that one? Maybe when that comes out,
Speaker 1: this will pop up again. That could be fun. All right,
Speaker 1: poll question, let's do that real quick. I have the
Speaker 1: results here from last week. What do you prefer single
Speaker 1: player games or multiplayer games? Seven percent say they prefer
Speaker 1: multiplayer games and ninety three percent say they prefer single
Speaker 1: player games. That's on four thousand votes, and I think
Speaker 1: that's you know, obviously going to be the kind of
Speaker 1: audience we get on our stuff, without a doubt. It
Speaker 1: makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 3: That's astounding, though, Grub.
Speaker 1: I think it's yeah, I you know, I think multiplayer Listen,
Speaker 1: if you look at that way, you know, people spend
Speaker 1: money on games, multiplayer games make more, they just do.
Speaker 1: And then uh, and then when they were like when
Speaker 1: you were just looking at how many copies they would
Speaker 1: sell for years there they would sell way better than
Speaker 1: single player games. I think they are just more popular
Speaker 1: with a wider, more casual audience, and then single player
Speaker 1: games are a bit, just a tiny bit more niche,
Speaker 1: that's all, but that audience shows up for shows like this, uh,
Speaker 1: and clearly they do ninety three to seven percent.
Speaker 2: I am curious to see how many folks that are
Speaker 2: like big in a Final Fantasy fourteen and like that
Speaker 2: is an MMO that you can totally play solo dolo
Speaker 2: I've heard. I wonder if that blurs the lines for
Speaker 2: some players. I think it does, And I.
Speaker 1: Think I think, well, you know, when you say, hey,
Speaker 1: I for for single player games, you're probably also playing
Speaker 1: multiplayer games. It's just like, no, if I had to choose,
Speaker 1: I'll choose single player games now. I do wonder if
Speaker 1: if companies like feel sentiment and are like are like, hey,
Speaker 1: can we get back to investing more in single player games,
Speaker 1: or they're like looking at underlying data, or they're looking
Speaker 1: at some notable flops recently and being like, actually, this
Speaker 1: might might be dangerous to go this path because at
Speaker 1: least multiplayer games. Maybe it's actually a little bit less
Speaker 1: expensive to make it. Now these days it seems like
Speaker 1: it's just as expensive as anything else, like look at Concord.
Speaker 1: But maybe it's a little bit less expensive because don't
Speaker 1: have to build out this whole massive campaign. You can
Speaker 1: have a few maps, a bunch of characters, and then
Speaker 1: build on it from there and then if if it works,
Speaker 1: the ceiling board is astronomical when we can make more
Speaker 1: money than ever. So I think that's why they continue
Speaker 1: to lean towards multiplayer games. But clearly the single player
Speaker 1: game not going away, just like always. No, okay, new
Speaker 1: poll question. We'll get to that here in a second.
Speaker 1: First jam, what do we have happening on the website?
Speaker 1: What should people know about our week?
Speaker 2: We're going to go and decide what's happening this week
Speaker 2: immediately right after this Jeff grub. But I can tell
Speaker 2: folks at home to look forward two chef reactions on voicemail,
Speaker 2: dump truck and Yeah, we will definitely try and line
Speaker 2: up together a BCR that is metaphor refantasio centric. Uh,
Speaker 2: we'll get that focused focused up. Well, we'll develop a roster,
Speaker 2: go on a road trip to podcast. It's not divorce
Speaker 2: week everyone.
Speaker 1: It's not. No, no, it's not divorce week. It's it's
Speaker 1: spooky season. It's it's ah October. So we'll do uh,
Speaker 1: we'll do play some scare games here and there. We do.
Speaker 1: We do want to play until dawn. I just I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go to that baseball game with Mike. Actually, you
Speaker 1: got his tickets, so that's at four pm. So I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna be able to play until dawn today. But
Speaker 1: maybe we'll start it on Wednesday and try to finish
Speaker 1: it another day. Uh, but yeah, grubbed by goolies, I'll
Speaker 1: do that. Yeah. I want to play a variety of
Speaker 1: like actual scare games and then spooky fun.
Speaker 3: Games Alien Isolate.
Speaker 1: Jan Okay, yeah, I would like that a lot. That
Speaker 1: would be very good. Yeah, or Sean says, but what
Speaker 1: if we play without you? Yes, that'd be great too.
Speaker 1: If you guys want to do that.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, have you played until don though, I'm not see
Speaker 2: that's part of the kicker is I want to see you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but what if it's until Sean?
Speaker 3: No, no, no, that's Dave. Sean.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're right, you're right. Excuse me, I shouldn't overstep it.
Speaker 1: You're right, we gotta get him on day.
Speaker 2: Sean first throw Shawn's name into titles for shows and
Speaker 2: Sean is not allowed on the action.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love it, perfect, wonderful. Hey, I can I
Speaker 1: can watch me and Michael just gonna go get lunch
Speaker 1: downtown near this, near the park, and I'll I could
Speaker 1: give my answers in chat about what we should do.
Speaker 1: We'll see you guys could decide I'm down for anything.
Speaker 1: Anything else, Jan that we should say. Yeah, like you mentioned,
Speaker 1: we'll have chef reactions. Get your calls in now, everybody,
Speaker 1: make that happen. Seven o seven exit flu all right,
Speaker 1: newpole question, what or do you want an Assassin's Creed
Speaker 1: Black Flag remake? Yes or no? Go ahead and give
Speaker 1: your response to that. That'll be up on YouTube dot
Speaker 1: com slash at Giant Bomb under the community tab. You
Speaker 1: can vote there. We'll get the results. We'll discuss it
Speaker 1: on the show on Wednesday, Tomorrow's the BombCast. Tune in
Speaker 1: for that. It'll be a great time as always. Other
Speaker 1: than that, Jan, I think we should get out of here.
Speaker 3: Man, Let's go and get out here. We got a meeting, got.
Speaker 1: A meeting, Jen, Thank you so much for hanging out
Speaker 1: with me today and talking about video games.
Speaker 3: I really appreciate it. That's my favorite way to start
Speaker 3: a Thursday.
Speaker 1: And thank you all for listening and watching. You're the
Speaker 1: best audience in gaming. Until next time, have a good one,
Speaker 1: take care of yourself. Goodbye. Wow