Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome back to Game Mess Mornings with Me
Jeff Greb, your host from giant bomb dot com.
Speaker 2: Thank you for tuning in.
Speaker 1: In this episode, we're gonna be talking about a new
strategy that physical game fans are implementing in their campaign
to counter Sony and why a square Enix still so weird.
It's gonna be a good one because we have Sean
McDowell on the show Turbo Sean, how are you doing.
Speaker 3: I'm doing good, Jeff. I am maybe a little tired
because maybe I stayed up until two am playing the
Token Bait until it ended with a friend who can say?
Who can say?
Speaker 2: I'm jealous?
Speaker 1: I didn't get a single chance to play it at all. Well,
you know what, let's just tell me real quick.
Speaker 2: How was it? I mean, you say you.
Speaker 1: Stayed Okay, hell yeah, it's got the GS man. Yeah,
all right, fantastic.
Speaker 3: It's awesome. I was. Yeah. I played it on upf
Ye with Will and the other guy, Jeff Backlar, and
so yeah, they are neither one of them big fighting
game fans, and so it was interesting talking to them
explaining the game to them. Oh fun, Yeah, yeah, because
Will's very much one of those I only play smash
kind of guys, and then back layers just like keep
me away from all this and so explaining to them like, okay,
so to con has a very entry level thing where
you can just match buns and cool stuff happens, but
it's not necessarily gonna be very good. And then there's
the next level beyond that of you can do chain
combos of like light, medium, heavy, special attack, and that'll
get you a more complicated combo and you can start
thinking about things a little bit more. And then there's
the high level where you just play like Marvel versus
Capcom and people are zooping all over a place and
you're getting six setups with green Goblin and stuff, and
that's the real Syco stuff. I'd like that there's layers
to token. I'm curious to see how the competitive scene
really takes to it.
Speaker 2: I will be as well. I I we can just
have some a good time with it.
Speaker 1: In any sense of like what that single player is
going to be like, it seems like they really are
going for something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 3: Single player was in the beta. Interestingly, Yeah you did
great beta because it had online casual modes, it had lobbies.
They had public lobbies, private they had I said, casual
as ranked matches as a training mode with tutorial, full tutorial,
and three chapters of the story mode, so people could
see what the single player yourself was like. And I
think they're doing something very smart where ARC System works
not super equick to do a big elaborate story mode
like say Street Fighters six or teching a Mortal Kombat.
So instead they are doing motion comics, and so they're
telling the story through motion comics and the like. That's
instead of like super elaborate cut scenes. They do that,
then they cut to a fight kind of another realm
style where you see a little more of a motion
comic instead of a cut scene, and then get into
a fight. It's a smart way for them to tackle
something like that in a more traditional way without allocating
a bunch of resources. And it's something they're not super
experienced with yet, so I think I think it'll maybe
a little simple compared to some of our big single paramodes,
but at least there's something there that fits the theming
of a comic book game.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. It's a smart use of resources. Yeah, I
always appreciate that, you know, they got to do something.
They know how these games get reviewed, right, A lot
of times that is just based on how people can
play by themselves.
Speaker 3: And yeah, that's that's why I knocked Invincible Verses. I
think is a very fun versus game, but not great
single players. So it's good that token has a little
more meat on the bone there.
Speaker 1: All right, that is encouraging. All right, excellent. Let's explain ourselves.
We're Giant Bomb. We are a small team of internet
video game defaces, and we're independent and if you want
to support independent games media, you can go to giant
bomb dot com slash join. That ensures we can keep
doing things the way we want to do them. For example,
we just did the big Giant road trip, which we'll
have plenty of more content coming out of here very soon.
Speaker 3: Yeah, real quick, real quick. How'd that go? I feel
like we haven't heard much from you guys outside when
he called in from the road.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it went really well. It was a lot of fun,
it was.
Speaker 1: The drive was great, stopping at Trees of Mystery and
doing a few other roadside things and going to going
to Danny's and stuff like that was really great. Yeah,
the chicken was amazing, and there's lots of great moments.
We were able to pack in a bunch of cool
stuff and the whole time, Dan's like, oh, he's planning
to edit the travelogs, so look forward to that. He
had a lot of fun ideas and so yeah, we're
really happy with the way things went. And we like
went right from that into Mysterium and like you know, Saturday,
we were there and it was like we had the
whole day booked with like one thing after the other,
although a large chunk of Saturday at Mysterium was just
us quietly working on puzzles pen and paper puzzles at
a table with like strangers and stuff like that, and
it was it was a delight.
Speaker 2: It was really really fun. So it went really well.
Loved it.
Speaker 1: I'm hoping people will really appreciate what they're going to
see out of it. Like I said, a lot of
content will come out of that for sure.
Speaker 3: Nice.
Speaker 1: So yeah, you'll be supporting stuff like that and other
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You don't want to miss that. It's very cool stuff
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Speaker 3: I edited episode eight there. He can keep proclaiming it,
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Speaker 1: I think it's gonna be very obvious to everyone else
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Speaker 2: And we appreciate it.
Speaker 1: As far as this show goes, most weekdays, I Jeff
Greb will help youse your gaming life back together. That
includes breaking news and maybe even some of our own
original reporting. For all these topics, I'll get the input
of a bona fide expert who will make me look smart.
If you were watching live on twitch Welcome, you can
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giant bomb dot com. You can also catch the show
later with chapters and timestamps on YouTube.
Speaker 2: Hello YouTube.
Speaker 1: All right, we have a lot to get into, so
let's start the morning mess with a quick PSA. Xbox
does seem to be continuing to experience major outages. Microsoft
says it's working to mitigate the problem, affecting sign ins,
game library, store acts, as subscriptions, and app launches. The
official status page does still show service alerts this morning,
so if you're having problems there you go the all
digital future. It's a game one, right, exactly. There's there's
no escaping it. Even like a lot of times, this
stuff does affect like those physical games, but it's it's
definitely way worse. You're just trying to launching again that
you have to authenticate on the.
Speaker 3: Surgeme libraries is the one that I get.
Speaker 1: Yes, that one always is very frustrating, exactly, all right.
PlayStation fans are planning a week long blackout over Sony's
disc decision.
Speaker 2: This is from Sammy Barker at Push Square, as I write.
Speaker 1: As I wrote in a recent article, Sony's run run
out of goodwill with its most loyal fans, and the
PS five disc of debacle is the straw that broke
the camel's back. Now, engaged fans are rallying to organize
a blackout which will see all like minded parties unplug
their consoles from August twenty third to August thirtieth.
Speaker 2: That's the idea, at least.
Speaker 1: The idea is to send the company a message by
hurting one of the statistics and treasures most active players.
In a statement shared on social media, organized Or said
the platform holder had grown further apart from its fan base.
The postal laments the loss of first party developers like
Bluepoint in Japan Studio, as well as the abandonment of
franchises such as Sly Cooper and Resistance. In fact, the
letter is so strongly worded it concedes that bringing back
physical games would only be meeting players halfway. While I
personally don't agree with a lot of issues being raised,
I do think it's representative of how the core fan
base has been feeling lately.
Speaker 2: PlayStation has always existed.
Speaker 1: To make as much money as possible, like any company,
but there was a period during the latter days of
the PS three and throughout much of the PS four era,
where it seemed to genuinely care about its fan base
because they're aligned with making money. That hasn't been the
case for many years now. There's a full statement from
the people that are organizing the SEAN, but basically it
boils down to, yes, people have been getting loud and
that's great, but we want to start pairing that up
with other stuff because they're getting a sense that Sony
is really batting down the hatches and planning.
Speaker 2: To see this through.
Speaker 1: Uh, there is reporting that like this is of there's
a very strict messaging inside of Sony of never ever
acknowledged this ever, and it's yeah, that's probably true. I
think that if like you're dealing with this as someone
who either works at Sony or works at one of
these companies that has deals with Sony, it's probably hard
to distinguish this from a lot of other outrages online
because you know, people are just doing their day job.
Like I'm making a game. I'm not really thinking too
much about what people are how they're consuming those games necessarily,
but I'm making entertainment for you. This looks a lot
like you know, times when people are mad about censorship
and vagina bones or something like that, and it's hard.
It's hard for people and these it's hard to see
the tree the forest for the trees sometimes. So it's
like I think people are like, we gotta really sort
of make it clear that we're serious here.
Speaker 2: Do you think?
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm of the opinion that, like, yeah, this
is going to be difficult to really make a dent,
and I think a lot of people who are even
planning to participate in this recognize that. But I think
the fact that people still want to do something Sean
does say that there's going to be juice for this.
Speaker 2: For a while.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Okay, well let me start with I think with
Sony they can't. I don't even think it's necessarily about
separating out this outrage from the usual gamers are always
angry outrage. I think it's more about the fact that, well,
they can't change anything because this is the plan now, Like,
this is what they're committing to. And there's multiple reasons
they would want a digital future and the corporate red
side of it. Of course, like any business, they just
want maximizing profits. But there's also things like, you know,
they cite the diminishing physical market. Sure, but there's also
rumors of a handheld and like if they're focusing on
handheld because console gaming is getting too expensive and we're
seeing diminishing returns and they want to capture a different market,
the growing PC handheld market that's starting to overlap with
the switch market a little bit more. Even if that's
a significantly smaller slice of the pie, they're going to
want to double down and commit to that digital future
where someone can buy a game once from them, play
it on all their devices and it works out well
for them because all the console makers, they look at
Steam and they look at Wait, there's an ecosystem where
people want to buy games digitally and the platform holder
just gets that flat thirty percent cut on every single game. Oh,
we want that for ourselves, and we've talked about it
a lot at this point, but it just feels like
PlayStation has jump the gun with that. They haven't led
happen naturally and provide a service that people want to
buy into. Instead, they're forcing it upon people. And that's
how we get to this point of the rage of
the anger of you're taking something away from me. I'm
not making this choice. You are the next two years
less than two years forcing me to make this decision.
I don't want to do this. I'm going to be angry.
I'm going to use whatever voice I have and get
loud about it. That being said, this reaks a little
bit of you know that meme the the Steam group
boycott Modern Warfare two and then they're all playing Modern
Warfare two. Like right, ah, words are.
Speaker 2: Nice, that's how these go.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, we'll see how many people commit to that.
But also, dog, they got your money. They don't care
if you're not playing your PlayStation. You're still spending a doughar.
We add now six hundred dollars on a console and
seventy dollars on games. They don't care if you don't
play it that month. Like the thing that I'll send
a message is if you don't buy games, if you
stop subscribing a PlayStation plus, that's a big one for them.
It's PlayStation plus nowadays, like don't feed money into the ecosystem.
Walk away from the ecosystem is what sends them a
message that they did something wrong. And ironically, there's only
so much they can do be A PlayStation is not
putting out a lot of games. Everyone's a weird situation.
Speaker 1: Well, Wolverine would be the moment, and it's like that
that really highlights just how difficult this would be, right
because Wolverine is a mainstream, mass appealing game that would
would reach I.
Speaker 2: Mean, I think that this.
Speaker 1: Like sort of uh, people being upset about fiscal games
going away has reached out into a mainstream audience, but
not the one or not as large as Wolverine is popular. Right,
Wolverine's going to reach out to so many people, and
you could be like, hey, we're going to call for
the blackout, and then the next thing we're doing is
that first week, don't don't buy Wolverine, at least for
the first week. It's like that very likely would not
show up in the numbers. Very likely you would not
be able to see the effect of that thing, not necessarily,
not like guaranteed. There's a chance maybe they would notice it,
but not very good of a chance. So it's like,
I don't know, I think that if you pair that
up with all of the continuing of like every time
you have an opportunity to ask someone about it, whether
they work at PlayStation or not, you ask about it,
you know that dan Hauser was just Commenting on this,
Rockstar co founder Dan Hauser says that when consumers want
games on disc, companies should continue providing them. Like he
was asked about I think VGC talked to him at
San Diego Comic count or something like that, someone did,
and that was his response, And that's like, you know,
rock Star co founder, like, it's a headline right there,
and then you pair that up with some action like this,
and you kind of keeping it ping ponging it back
and forth and hopefully keeping it in the headlines and
keeping it at the front of mind the front of
minds of a lot of people. But it's going to
be difficult because Sony just I think they've been through
these things so many times now that they do have
a strategy for dealing with it, and there's a large
financial incentive for them that they believe. You know, Now,
if things do begin happening where it's like there is
some evidence like once they go through with this of hey,
we stop providing physical games and now there's an audience
that's just not showing up for our stuff anymore. At
that point, investors will begin asking questions. I think some
investors might ask questions before that, but more. We'll ask
it at that point if that happens, but by then
it's far too late. I don't think that they will
be so far along the line of we have moved
on from bringing down the manufacturing plant that makes these things,
which I still think is going to happen no matter
what I think. If there was a change, you're shown
it would be some alternative solution with some third party.
But I still think that even that solution would have
to be put in place very early and wouldn't be
able to be something that they come up with at
the last minute for PlayStation six or something.
Speaker 3: Right, it just feels like they're passed the point of
no return once we're talking about manufacturing is not being
done on the thing that people want anymore. They can't
just magically announced, oh wait, wait, we're bringing it back.
We're bringing back the manufacturing and everything and striking all
these deals, spinning up a plant, whatever needs to be done.
However scale we're talking about, it feels like, no, what
they need to do is and you kind of get
that with like an alternative, make their digital store better,
give us refund policies that are worth a damn give
us a refund policy basically, because right now, what is it?
You may be able to get a refund by talking
to customer service if you did not even download the game.
If you download the game without even launching it, that
can't get a refund.
Speaker 2: That's right, Which is not Annomas refund, that's right. Yes,
it's insane.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you would even have to be in place
first before we win here. That's what I was expecting,
Sean is. Yeah, there'd be a slow sort of implementation
of the features required to run a digital store in
this day and age, and they have none of that
stuff as they ripped off this band aid, so it
feel like the wound hadn't healed yet.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I do think about conversation I had with a
console only gamer one time where I was explaining PC
gaming and because they were curious, like why are people
so attached to Steam? Like it's all icons on your desktop.
By the way, I don't have any icons on my desktop,
so that's wrong. But they're like, it's just icons on
your desktop and you just launch it from whatever store,
so like, why do people care if it's on Steam
or Epic or whatever. I'm like, well, okay, so here's
the real reason. I explained how refund system works. I
explained how Steam has all these tiny little features that
the other platfor that the other platforms don't have, that
they are launchers they don't have, and I explained that
the other ones just simply don't work some of the time.
And they were like, that don't sound right, Like there's
no way that, like a major company would have a
product that just doesn't work like that, and I was like, nope,
that's the crazy thing. They literally don't work some of
the time. And we had we had a little bit
of back and forth as I continue to explain this,
but that's that feels like that's where we're at with
PlayStation of Hey, you just don't have the things that
people want of a digital or front. That's really why
people are mad. There's going to be people who you know,
don't have good Internet, who still have airnet caps, all
all these things like it's it's cheaper to buy physical,
still trading things in and stuff like that. But ultimately
it wouldn't be as big of a deal if people
liked buying digital from your storefront and didn't just see
it as a convenience factor. And I think that's the
thing that they need to remedy.
Speaker 2: Yes, all it has is the convenience.
Speaker 1: It's it's not and it's the convenience of not having
to go to the store. That's the convenience I'm referencing there.
That's yeah, it it is not like you know. The
thing that Steam does really have is the deal hunting
aspect that is fully integrated into the Steam ecosystem, whether
it's happening on Steam or how happening elsewhere where. The
codes are officially handed out to third party stores and
they can discount stuff because they'd be like, oh, Steam
takes a thirty percent cut when you have me your code,
Steam gets actually none of this, So we'll take a
twelve percent cut and you can just get the same
amount of money you were getting, and now it gets
sell it for less and we can all kind of
or maybe we maybe could take even to get a
larger cut, and we'll still take twelve percent, and that
still leaves a large margin where we can discount the
game versus Steam, and then people can who are savvy
and really like going on the hunt for deals, which
is a huge amount of people.
Speaker 2: That is a very human thing.
Speaker 1: It's human nature to be like I got one over
on this other side, this company or whatever, and I
got away with something. I saved a little bit of
money that is part of the game and that is
not in any way represented usually on these console digital stores.
And that's just like one small aspect of it. Obviously,
they're being able to return games and things like that,
and the stability of the store, all that stuff factors in.
But you're right, like, there's just a laundry list of
expectations I think people have for the way Steam works today.
That is, so people feel so positive about that. These
other stores are just nowhere. Yes, so there's a couple
other things here. Ubisoft ceou Gamont, just continuing to be
like to be out there talking for some reason, argues
that PC's move toward digital dis distribution helped grow the
market and that Sony's decision will not seriously disrupt the industry.
Speaker 2: I think we just explained how it's very different.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we just explained to the CEO of this company
that sells digital games, why you're fucking wrong, Eves.
Speaker 1: Uh huh. And then let's see here. Oh, yes, this
is just worth bringing up. It is a weird sort
of quirk of one regent's regional rules. But a tangible
flashpoint emerged where Japanese PS five edition of GTA six,
the code that is inside those boxes will expire one
hundred and seventy days, not after you buy it, one
hundred and seventy days from the November nineteenth launch, because
that's just how those codes work in Japan.
Speaker 2: That is, if you go to the GTA six like support.
Speaker 1: Page, it says that it's like, I'm not going to
like blame take Take two in Rockstar for that. That
is definitely like a weird sort of aspect of how
these codes work in Japan.
Speaker 2: And I would expect if like the whole.
Speaker 1: Industry is moving in this direction, including Sony, a big
player in that region, they would be able to address
this and maybe get this changed. And I just don't
know who this serves. Why would the regional and again
I don't know the rules. This could be there could
be something I'm not recognizing here that's causing this. But yeah,
one hundred and seventy days from GTA six is launched,
those codes in a box, the ones they launched on
day one will no longer work.
Speaker 2: It's very silly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and the regional thing is also an issue with
Marvel Tokon Yeah, has the same restriction that Hell Divers
had because you need to sign into a PlayStation account
in order to play the game game. And I think
there's an offline mode, or at the very least there's
going to be with the full release. I can't imagine
like PlayStation you know, owned Evo and has worked with
the fine game community enough I would imagine our system
where so it was like, no, this is a requirement,
we need an offline mode for tournaments and anything like that.
But as a requirement of like playing online with the
PlayStation account or anything like that, they are making it
so you can't. You straight up can't buy the game
in the same countries I forget like the count and
where exactly, but the same countries that you could not
buy Hell Divers in, or at least initially. I think
they fixed that with Hell Divers, didn't they? Or is
it still they can't buy it if you don't have
a PlayStation network.
Speaker 1: Hell Divers did get fixed, but I think all the
other future games still had the same issue going forward.
Speaker 3: Okay, but the point is, the point is like at
least with you know, a physical game, For example, someone
can still let's say they live a region where PlayStation
isn't at in general, they could have a PlayStation five.
You know, it could be given to them as a gift,
they could import it, whatever the case may be, and
then buy a physical copy, and they could play with
their friends. You know, someone could run a tournament with it.
You can still play that game. But that's another problem
with digital restrictions is that PlayStation Sony says what you
can and cannot do, and so you can't even access
the game, which is a wild thing to happen. So, yeah,
these regional restrictions are also a big issue here.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, like you said, we talked about this a
lot now, and I do think we're going to continue
talking about it because.
Speaker 2: The point of the show, Yes, it's important.
Speaker 1: The point of the show is not just like here's
what companies are saying. It is let's cover the things
people actually care about and I like. And to go
back to the right around through that to that earlier
point of does this look very different to like the
normal game or outrage about stuff that doesn't matter to
these companies. You're going to have to stick it out
and prove that you're that you're not that like that.
The people who care about these things, which it does include.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just just anecdotally, you know, when I talk to
my friends once a week, normally friends had not heard
about the Xbox, not even the Microsoft layoffs. They did
hear about this PlayStation killing physical discs. So that is
absolutely the kintthing that people care about, you know, like
even someone who maybe knows, yeah, thousands of people getting
laid off is a terrible thing, but they don't necessarily
understand how that impacts them specifically. They understand that, hey,
I'm getting something that I use every day taken away
from me, and that fucking sucks and I hate it.
And so that's the kind of thing I gets anybody about.
Speaker 1: That, And like, you know, a lot appearance was part
of that reporting of saying, like, it seems pretty clear
that Sony new people would hate this and coordinated the silence,
and so think I just think, like think about ways
to get around them. Would be my recommendation to people
who want to If you're coordinating blackouts and stuff like that,
I think you the best thing you can do is
be disruptive and and and get at people like the
Yeves gamos and be like, hey, we're not gonna we're
specifically not gonna buy your game on PlayStation. The third
parties that that can then go and talk to PlayStation
be like, hey, this is affecting us. You're gonna have
to sort of bypass it. And they're not going to
listen to you. They're not going to look at your comments.
They're not So you have to get someone else to
comment on your behalf. And that means be kind of
it's kind of being an asshole on the internet to
the right people, and and.
Speaker 3: Right be kind to each other, be assholes. The CEOs frankly.
Speaker 1: Ass the the CEOs exactly, yes, yeah, and like and
and you know, I think the commenting on like indie
games on YouTube even like like hey, I'll buy your
game elsewhere, but right now I'm mad at Sony and
so like the fact that your game's here, I'm gonna
have to not buy it.
Speaker 2: I still think that is a right.
Speaker 3: That's a strong message. There's a strong message right there. Yeah,
PlayStation puts out a video and say cool can't wait
to buy it on Steam. Cool can't wait to buy
it on my switsch too, Like whoever your other platform
is like sending a message of hey, I think this
is neat and I would have bought from you, not
going to anymore if enough of those messages get across eventually,
that's the kind of thing where when a higher up
checks in with social media manager or community manager whatever,
and the sentiment is it seems like people are actually
starting to move away from buying things on our platform,
and then they see that eventually when we get there
to yeah, sales are down, boss, Then that's the kind
of thing where they realize that they have to Yeah,
I don't think we really have a story about today,
but like you know, Xbox jingling the keys, you know
they're doing that because they while to get people on
their side. PlayStation's going to have to do something eventually
to win people over, and it won't happen less people
get loud like you.
Speaker 2: Said, yeah, and you know, we'll move on here after this.
Speaker 1: But like the uh, the realistic sort of middle ground
we might end up in is at least we're seeing
Sony to add some of these features to their digital
store that will make a somewhat more pleasant experience, uh
like at least being able to have a better return
policy that like at the very and you know, maybe
there is a form letter that people can begin putting
together or a form comment of Yeah, like you said,
I'm gonna buy this game on Steam instead, and you
can imagine the response to that from from like defenders beyond, like.
Speaker 2: That's all digital.
Speaker 1: It's like, I'm going to buy this game on Steam
unless you match the features that Steam provides, which are
blank blank blank blank blank.
Speaker 3: And Jeff, we did a podcast the other day where
like we spent longer than this amount of time explaining
why Steam is an example of how right, And there
was still a comment on the video of all these
journalists still seem to like Steam in all digital platform
do were you not listening?
Speaker 1: You're never gonna We're never gonna be able to get
through to those people, right So, but it's like there
are people who are reasonable who will see these things
and understand for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, let's go ahead and take that.
Speaker 1: First break, when are the only break on this show,
and then when we come back, plenty more headlines to
get into.
Speaker 2: If you want to skip out on these ad messages,
you could do.
Speaker 1: So go to gimebomb dot com slash join you can
find the ad free version there, we will be right back.
It's Game mess Mornings, everybody. I'm Jeff Grubb. That's Turbo, Sean.
Let's continue on here. Sony is dangling some keys, Sean.
That's so they're dangling keys for maybe something else, but
this might still actually be part of this. Sony dates
God of War lou Fey and confirms the next game
reconnects directly to it.
Speaker 2: This is from Andy Robinson at VGC.
Speaker 1: Sony has confirmed that God of War Laufey will release
on February sixteenth, twenty twenty seven, as the series creative
lead confirms Credos will return in the next installment. Speaking
during a panel at San Diego Comic Con this weekend,
Sony Santa Monica Studio creative head Corey Balrog announced that
the next God of War will connect directly to the
Lofty story and star Credos. No further details were view
during the panel. This is like pleased into the last one.
Also frustrates me a little bit because what we're talking
about is they're going full shutdown silence on the disc thing.
But this does feel to me. Maybe it was and
maybe this was always planned to be announced this way,
but it feels to me like a response to the
shitheads who are like, where's the man?
Speaker 2: I like to play as the boy?
Speaker 1: Where's what's because Crados never going to be in a
game again, And it's like, of course not, you dip shit.
But they had to come out and say it out loud. Again,
I'm probably reading too much in this. This was probably
always the plan, but it's just what it feels like
to me in this moment.
Speaker 2: How do you read it, Sean?
Speaker 3: Uh? Yeah? How dare they give us the gay out
of war? We need the manly man.
Speaker 2: Version of it? Right?
Speaker 3: Yes, it's like I was hearing. I haven't seen the
Aussie yet, but apparently there's a queer person in it
and the chuts are mad and it's like, oh honey,
you know nothing about mythology, Yes, right, nothing mythology?
Speaker 2: Uh huh exactly?
Speaker 3: So does this I mean that this is Corey Barlog's
like secret project that he's been working on. Is that
what I'm taking away from this?
Speaker 2: Uh? Yeah, uh?
Speaker 1: I think low Faye is his secret project. Lowface is
the one he was working on. So yes, that's why
that's why it was like it's different, but it's it's
And then it was like recent. It's like it's different,
but like it still takes place sort of in the
God of War universe, and to me, it's like, no,
this is just the next God of War game.
Speaker 2: I kind of don't know what people were talking about there.
Speaker 3: But yes, low Fay is barlog okay, So and then
that is continuing the story and it's like a side
story and then we'll like bring it back to Credos,
you know, when the time is Okay.
Speaker 1: It seems like, so what he's saying here is this
will set up what is going to happen next in
the next Credos game, So you know, it kind of
feels like this will bridge that over into whatever new
pantheon or or maybe like this underworld aspect of it
is exactly what Kratos will be dealing with as well.
Speaker 2: Though that feels like maybe that'd be a bit too
much of that.
Speaker 1: So but but yeah, this game is here now, and
they're going back to Crados with the next game as
this game sets that up.
Speaker 2: That's the plan, Okay.
Speaker 3: Cool. Yeah, it definitely does feel like the keys being
dangled in front of everyone's face a little bit of
yeah as a response, which is ad sure, I guess
I don't know. I think, uh, you know, we watched
the additional trailer for Lafe, and I don't A lot
of you guys were like pretty underwhelmed with what we
saw in general, and I.
Speaker 1: Think it just reminded me a lot of God of
War And yeah, I'm kind of like I'm those games
as much, right, I mean, yes.
Speaker 2: I totally those ones.
Speaker 1: I totally respect is Like I can tell they're good games,
they just are not something that like spark joined me immediately.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think that trailer was absolutely terrible.
It's the first thing to show from it, But once
they got into the combat, I don't know, I thought,
pray fun and our things. So I'm I'm curious to
see where this game goes. I'm curious to see if
it's if it's a fun game to play, because that's
ultimately what I cared about. And you know what, I
didn't play a Ragnarot because it just looked like more
of the same. I didn't see enough different from Gala
War twenty eighteen, a game that I did really enjoy.
I just wanted something else from it, and I think
ala Fe is bringing that and so Frankly, I'm even
more excited for this game than I am for the
Next Guy to War bringing it back to Credos, because
they're gonna have to do something else with Credos. I
kind of don't care about that, do it anymore? So
I'm glad that they're taking the side story, and it's
good to see a date for it.
Speaker 2: Yep, same, all right.
Speaker 1: Yoship says a Final Fantasy six remake could require four
or five games.
Speaker 2: Hell are you talking about?
Speaker 3: How?
Speaker 1: This is from Chris Sculling at VGC. Final Fantasy fourteen
director in Aoki yo should Have, also known as Yoship,
has explained why a Final Fantasy six remake isn't necessarily
feasible without it becoming an even larger project than Final
Fantasy seven remake was. Yo Shoulda was on stage at
the Final Fantasy fourteen fan Festival in Berlin, where he
was discussing series with fellow director in Nioki Hamagucci, who
who directed the Final Fantasy seven remake trilogy and is
My best Friend. Hamagucci was asked which game was the
biggest influence on his life. He answered that it was
Final Fantasy six, but also warned that every time he
says this, it results in stories saying he's going to
remake it, when that.
Speaker 2: Isn't the case.
Speaker 1: I've given this answer to a lot of media interviews,
and it is also a scoring X title, so apologies
for that, but Final Fantasy six is the reason I
wanted to work in games.
Speaker 2: So that was always that always has a special place
in my heart.
Speaker 1: But every time I give that answer to a journalist
or someone, the next day there's an article online saying
Hamagucci will be remaking Final Fantasy six. So I also say, no,
I am not. At the same time, he joked, Yo
should have then explained that while there may be appetite
from players for a Final Fantasy Final Fantasy six remake,
the work involved in such a project would be immense
given the scale of the game. Of course, I understand
the feelings of the players, but you've got to think
about it, he explained. Look at the Final Fantasy Look
at Final Fantasy six. It's such an incredibly huge, huge game.
The scale is just immense, and the same applies for
other titles like Final Fantasy eight and Final Fantasy nine.
So of course, now since you're working on Final Fantasy seven, remake. Oh,
I guess he was talking to Hamagucci. Now, I do
get that people would be asking for a remix of
other titles, but if we did remake those other titles,
we'd probably end up having to release them in four
installments or maybe even five installments. I'm a Guchi went
on to explain the fact that Square Innox was able
to mostly keep the same team together to make Final
Fantasy seven remake over three games over ten years, and
that's a miracle, and you shouldn't expect that to be
able to beat something that you could do at Square
Innix for another project like that. Sean, is that the
only way to remake Final Fantasy six?
Speaker 2: Or is that just like the Square Innox way of
doing things?
Speaker 3: You know, it's interesting because I genuinely do think that. Okay,
let's put it this way. I think what he's trying
to get out here, what they're both trying to get
at here, is that if a remake of Final Fantasy
six were to happen, they would want it to be
something big, epic and fresh feeling in the same way
that Final Fantasy seven remake is. And it's you know,
as reverence for the source material but also it is
this new epic adventure that people can hop in on
for the very first time that they're completely new to it.
And with followed with like sixteen bit RPGs, even eight bit,
really they because everything was so simple, the graphics were
so simple, the combat systems even were simpler. They didn't
have to put as much development time into these things,
and your imagination filled in the gaps when you're playing
them on your CRT. Back in the day, they you know,
they could put out one of these games in somewhere
between depending on the size. Like you know, three years
even was like a massive amount of time to be
developing a game back then, and so nowadays, yeah, ten
years for a trilogy of games that look the way
that the Seven Remay trilogy does, it's a like you said,
it's a miracle that this trilogy was made and with
the same team and with people from the original FF
seven team, And so I think when it comes to
something like f F six, it is a big game.
It is one of those sixteen RPGs where, yeah, your
imagination was doing a lot of heavy lifting, and they
can't rely on that anymore, so they would either have
to do something extremely straightforward, like say Dragon Quest seven reimagined,
which is probably not what a lot of people want. Well, like,
if f F six is your favorite Final Fantasy, you're
probably looking at seven remake, Like come on, man, that
one again? The popular guy got it again? What about
the real good one of the series? How about the
real best point again it's remake. So I think that's
what they're trying to address here, is the expectation of, well,
we can't really do a big, big remake of something
like six, something that also may probably won't sell as
well as seven because it just does makes sense and
it's so large that we would have to release it
over multiple games or anything like that. I think there's
maybe more of a market for that small scale remake
than they realized, but at the same time, it's probably
not as big as something like this remake trilogy has
been able to grab and slowly is grabbing more and
more people as it releases more platforms because side note, yeah,
release a multiplatform day one.
Speaker 1: We're seeing with Revelation, turns out that's gonna work. Yeah,
I think you're right. I think this is a very
much a situation of to a hammer every problem as
a Nail and to Yoship and to Hamaguchi. Hamaguchi's been
making a remake for the last ten years, been working
on in that team for the last ten years, and
it has looked a certain way, and so when you
bring up the concept of remake to him, he steeped
in this idea of what that would mean. Yoship has
kind of just made massive games recently, massive big expensive games,
like with incredible fidelity, and then if you ask him
to begin imagining remaking Final Fantasy six, he's going to
remember the key scenes and be like, what does that
look like when you blow it up to the kinds
of games I make now? And then if you say, like, well,
you don't have to do it that way, well, then
it's not involving these guys. It would be would go
to another team that like does HD two d's or
something in between, and that that would probably also go
to a different team as well. That would go to
like a maybe a third party sort of contract team
that would upgrade all the visuals.
Speaker 2: But that's the problem with the Super Nintendo games.
Speaker 1: That's why you know the next story here is a
Sasin's Creed Black Flag Recinc. Doing very well that game's
from thirteen years ago. It already kind of looked like
a modern game in a lot of ways, doesn't take
a ton of work. That's a relatively small budget to
get that up and running again. As a remake or remaster,
whatever you want to call it, it would have to
be something different than that, unless they're just doing another
sort of pixel upgrade or an HD two D games.
So I could see like why they feel this way,
But it's like, there's got to be something in between
if and there's also got to be a way to
sort of remake a game like that, upgrade it in
all the ways that we are probably agreeing like what
that would mean, and then keep it within fifty to
sixty hours. But at the same time, maybe they're like
that just the business model for that doesn't make a
ton of sense.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I think it's a bit of a side effect of
video games in general ballooning out of control, and how
we've seen it with PlayStations specifically, where they painted themselves
into a corner where you can't really PlayStation releases a
game that doesn't look like a Naughty Dog game, like
I'm tried for the last fust part two something like that.
People think less of it in the more casual audience
because they say, well, I got this last one that's better,
and it's you know, a prettier things. It's a bigger game,
like why why didn't you do this again? So I
think there's just that expectation that they've built up themselves
over the years, and how Final Fantasy is in this
place Square Knicks in general is in this place where
our big games are really freaking.
Speaker 2: Big, really big.
Speaker 3: May that's a that's an entirely different conversation we could
have about how Square Enix has a problem with that
Square Nanx games don't sell to the level that they
need to in order to support that, and that's why
you always hear them talking about, you know, it didn't
meet our expectations and everything. So yeah, it's it's a shame,
I think, is really where we're at. But yeah, I
would like to see them do something with other Final
Seas because I like in general what they've done with
the remake trilogy, and I would like to see what
they would come up.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it is Final Fantasy six is probably
you know, all the ones before that are probably probably
gonna be one that they're going to need to really
think about how they would do that.
Speaker 2: I think WHI says like eight or nine.
Speaker 1: At a certain point, like they just sort of upgraded
the graphics of I can't remember Dergie Cerberus.
Speaker 2: Is that the one that they just sort of swapped
in the new graphics like that? Right? Thank you Crisis
Core that.
Speaker 3: Like, I'm distracted. I just got a notification on my
phone apparently we're gonna have is this right three inch
size hail soon here?
Speaker 2: That's oh shit, what the hell? What is going on? Man?
The weather's beIN back. Man might be ending.
Speaker 1: Oh we used to like, you know, I was kind
of my I saidy of Denver, we would get a
lot of hail, and it was like at a certain point,
like the insurance companies were like, we this is We're
just not going to help you with this stuff anymore.
Speaker 2: It's it was crazy. Uh, but yeah, I think that
they need to just like step back.
Speaker 1: They need to get through Final Fantasy seven remake still
sort of just take a beat, like have a conversation about, hey,
there are other ways of.
Speaker 2: Attacking these problems.
Speaker 1: And people do point out Yoship's team like oversaw the
remake of Tactics. I still think that when they're talking
about remaking Final Fantasy six, they're not imagining that.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: But again, there's a lot of different opportunities to do
stuff here. It will just take a second for them
to sort of They don't have infrastructure in place to
suddenly just take Final Fantasy six and do the obvious
thing that would require some effort, But I think they'll
get to that point.
Speaker 2: Remakes are too big.
Speaker 1: Of a business, As proven by this next story, Assassin's
Create Black Flag Recinct exceeded annual expectations in its first
two weeks of sales, sold more than three point five
million copies since released. That is two weeks, and you'd
be Soft told investors that is already more than what
we were expecting to sell in the first year of
this game. Obviously, a big part of that is Black
Flag is a really beloved game. A lot of people
really really enjoyed that this game's This recinct version is
an admirable update. It is a sort of one that
really removes a lot of the friction, so it's very
easy to get into, and it also looks stunning in
like images in trailers which I think did help sell
this game. But you know, but Black Flag is one,
like we said, that is very easy to sort of update.
But this proves there's business there. These companies are not
going to be able to ignore remix. I think we
can all go. If I'm given the choice, do I
want a remake or for them to focus efforts on
new stuff, I think new stuff probably usually wins out.
Although I love playing remix all the time, I've enjoyed
what I've played of Black Flag Recinct, which is not
a lot. It was on the Besties. That's one of
the games they were talking about. I'm like, yeah, I'll
check in on this, but I enjoyed what I played.
The business is too big to ignore. So why when
they talk about Final Fantasy six, eight and nine and
they warn us about that. I think that that's still
something that they will try to figure out going forward,
and every company will. It is approven business model by
companies like Capcom and now ubi Soft is in that
in this business right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's Black Flag Recint seemed like a really good remake,
and I I think Ubisoft should be looking at that
and saying, yeah, we should be doing more. The more
with this and I'm looking at this quote here two
weeks in the title has already see the annual expectations
we had. Ubisoft CEO Eves Gilma said, I would like
to warmly thank the teams who's talent and dedication brought
to life. Yeah, I would like to thank those teams too.
Where are they? Where are they? Eaves? Yeah, what'd you
do with them? They're they're they're cool. Right, everything's good. Yeah,
they made a game that made you tons of money,
and so like you kept them going on next project, right,
E's right.
Speaker 1: Uh, yeah, that's Barcelona that got all the layoffs there,
which is one of the support studios on the game.
Speaker 2: But it's like this, the success here just immediately parlayed
that into the next big remake. In the Assassin's Screed series,
there are other ones that are are beloved. You know,
I think that.
Speaker 1: It's it's insane that this is how this company works.
But that's I mean to me, that is such a
tragic sign of Ubi Seft's prospects. They have a huge
hit games. They had the signal in the first day
that this game was going to be a massive hit,
and yet on that first day they still laid off
that studio, laid off many people at that studio. So
the ability to trust Ubisoft's ability to execute on this
stuff going forward is still very low. This feels like
a one off thing, and then they're going to stumble
trying to repeat this going forward because they will be
crumbling constantly under the leadership there. All Right, a couple
more things here. Tomb Raider Catalysts appears to have moved
to twenty twenty eight. This is from Chriscian at VGC.
Tomb Raider Catalyst appears to have been delayed to twenty
twenty eight. According to a recent interview, Amazon's general manager
of Gaming Jeffrey Gaddis was speaking to the Game Business
about the range of titles being funded by publisher or
published by Amazon excuse me, and whether it's strategy mainly
focused on TRIPAA, DOUBLEA or indie titles. Gaddis replied that
its strategy involved all of those and gave examples of this.
At one point, he mentioned Catalysts and said it was
coming in twenty twenty eight, something that hasn't been officially
confirmed yet. It's all of those, Gatus explained, from what
we call game night games, which are those phone as
a controller games, which I think of as you know,
single A games, we're that are in the single millions
of dollars to develop, all the way up to Triple A. Obviously,
we're We've announced the two tumb Rator titles, and you know,
Atlantis comes February twelfth of next year, and then we'll
follow on in twenty twenty eight with the next one.
Speaker 2: So we're excited about those.
Speaker 1: There are some other Triple A things that are in
various stages of discussion right now as well. Amazon's last
official word on turmb Raider Catalyst, which everyone thinks he
must mean by the next one, was that it was
planned for release in twenty twenty seven. This is not
you know, this could be a slip of the tongue,
could be a million other things, probably the other games
coming out in twenty twenty eight. So yeah, I mean,
Amazon's history with games has always been spotty bad, it's
probably the better way to put it. Yeah, company that
has always been able to tackle just about any space,
sort of underestimating the requirements to put out a game
that can compete.
Speaker 2: That has happened repeatedly with them.
Speaker 1: They've found some answers like, hey, let the people who
make Hitman make a James Bond game. But even that
seems like they're not sure if they're fully understanding just
what they have there. And there's talks I believe it
was from Jeffrey Gattis saying oh, yeah, and maybe we'll
have another team to do the next one, Like what
are you talking about? But yeah, tomb Raiders is one
of those ones that I've always been I don't really
care all that much. Even then when it was coming out,
I was not super into it. But yeah, I guess
catalyst I'll check in on it. I think people liked
what they played of Atlantis, which is again I believe
the remake of the first game Sewan correct.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I'm a pretty big tumb Raider fan, So yeah, I
was looking forward to this, and I think it makes
sense if Legacy of Atlantis was supposed to come out
this year and got the way tonight year, if they
would also then push the next one that was supposed
to come out next year the year after that, because
don't release two games in the same series in the
same year, even if you're leading from one to the other,
unless it's a like straight up re release like HD
version as just you know, like a twenty dollars download
or yeah, yeah, yeah, and then you lead into the
new one. That makes a little more sense. But yeah,
don't release something that at least looks like a new
game and then go into your actual new game, because
that's going to get people who bought the new game
to think, well, wait a minute, I just bought one
of these games. I don't need to buy the new one.
Speaker 2: So yeah, good point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would assume that the new new game here
is going to be put out in twenty twenty eight.
I think that makes a lot of sense. I'm maybe
a little worried about the development since they ain't have
good answers to the usage of jen Ai in these games.
You like see seeing them fumble around in the game
in Former interview and everything like that. It's like, well, cool,
And that's where we're at with a lot of games nowadays,
as we know. And I hopefully development's going okay over there,
but I've I'm losing a little bit of faith in
the series, especially under the hands of Amazon, right So
I don't know. I hope the game is cool, and
I hope that development gets better and smarter over there
when it comes to those kinds of things. But yes, absolutely,
it looks like Catalyst is now twenty twenty. We'll see
what that one ends up looking like.
Speaker 2: Updates for today and tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Today, Monday July twenty seventh, Forever Skies reaches Xbox Series
consoles unbeatable. I think this is one of yours sean launches.
Switch switch to switch to version for that.
Speaker 3: So then when you go back to that, because like,
the only reason that I didn't think better of it
last year is that was so buggy when I played it, like,
especially in that preview period, it was like to the
point that I'd like, progress breaking bugs. I want to
go back and maybe.
Speaker 1: Switch two versions here. That says to me, like, oh,
they probably figured out the game every Yeah.
Speaker 3: I know they fixed a lot of things, so yeah,
presumably that's here in the switch too version.
Speaker 1: Who Arms leaves early access on PC based Tatico RPG
Prelude Dark Pain Enters PC early access, and then tomorrow Tuesday,
July twenty eighth, Halo Campaign Evolved receives its full PS
five Xbox Series and PC launch at eleven am Eastern,
following Premium early access, which already began, Gothic Classic comes
to PS five, Xbox Series, PS four and Xbox one,
and ever ever Quest Legends launches on PC, which I
this is like a prime, like a kind of a
single player or like small team multiplayer remake of EverQuest.
Speaker 2: That's my understanding.
Speaker 3: I'm a reimagined version of Classic aver request Front's original
release in nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 1: Yes, and like you can play at single player. It's
kind of the idea I believe. I know we have
some EverQuest for free small group sys. Marina Marino is
my EverQuest free because that's reference. So yeah, I'm kind
of like maybe we should play some of that. I
would be curious about it. All right, that does it
for the headlines. I think we did have a poll
question that I never answered. Let me go, yeah, okay,
let's get there quick. I'm going to refresh get the
most recent information from four days ago, which backwards combatible.
Speaker 2: Xbox game are you going to play on PC? First?
Speaker 1: I did play Crimson Skies High Road to Revenge along
with twenty one percent of others. Let's see nineteen percent
said conquer live and reloaded, and then nine percent said
Blinks the Time Sweeper. But the big winner was none
not interested. Sorry slash Fusion Frenzy.
Speaker 2: Which was fifty one percent. So there you go. A
new poll question. We'll get to that here. You know,
let's get to it here right now.
Speaker 1: What would you want from a Final Fantasy six remake,
massive multi game series or one game that's forty five
hours with limitations? Look, get the results of that, talk
about it on Wednesday, because tomorrow here on Giant Bomb,
it's Tuesday, we have the Giant BombCast. Looking forward to
getting back on the show after missing it last week.
I have plenty of games to talk about, looking forward
to getting there and talk about the road trip and
all that stuff. It'll be a good time, everybody. We
have some other stuff happening this week, but we got
to have a meeting to figure out exactly what it's
all going to look like.
Speaker 2: So definitely stay tuned.
Speaker 1: We'll let y'all know, but expect Blake Club, expect a voicemail,
dumb truck.
Speaker 2: We're looking at some upf games. It'll be a good week.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think with all that out of the way, I
think what we do now is Sean, thank you so
much for hanging out with me today and talking about
video games.
Speaker 2: Man, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Oh, it's a good time, Jeff.
Speaker 1: Thank you all for watching and listening. You are the
best audience in gaming. Until next time, have a good one,
take care of yourself and goodbye.