Speaker 1: You'll go be beer.
Speaker 2: It's the Internet. You're busy. Let's do this for February
Speaker 2: twenty eighth, twenty twenty five. For the next hour or so,
Speaker 2: let me help you sort through the world of gaming
Speaker 2: on Game Mess Mornings Live with Me Jeff Grub. Today,
Speaker 2: Monster Hunter Wilds is off to a roaring start, despite
Speaker 2: numerous complaints about its performance on PC. But first, please
Speaker 2: join me and welcoming today's co host to Gay Mess Mornings.
Speaker 1: It's lex a lot of everybody, LEXI, how are you doing?
Speaker 3: Not too bad? Grub?
Speaker 4: This being an hour later is really fucking with me.
Speaker 4: It's now five pm for me, and yeah, so I'm like,
Speaker 4: I'm finishing up for the day and here I am
Speaker 4: talking with you chuckleheads like it's the fucking morning.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 4: So I'm pretty sure last week Tom mentioned that that
Speaker 4: he wanted you to try to get Jordan on.
Speaker 1: I didn't even try.
Speaker 4: I wanted to tell the entire giant Barmb audience Jordan
Speaker 4: Middler will not appear on this podcast until he takes
Speaker 4: me on one on one at what's the name of
Speaker 4: the wrestling event.
Speaker 1: You go, the let's see fast Lane.
Speaker 4: At w w E Fast Lane, get fucked. Middler, You're
Speaker 4: not You're you're not even Middler.
Speaker 3: You're minor.
Speaker 4: Get get fucked, and I'm major. And if you divide
Speaker 4: that by two, then you I don't know the rest
Speaker 4: of it.
Speaker 2: No, that was you're cutting a promo. It works, that's uh,
Speaker 2: that's perfect. Yeah, Jordan Midler a coward and we all
Speaker 2: know it. Lexie, how are you doing otherwise?
Speaker 3: I'm doing pretty okay.
Speaker 4: I just got back from visiting grandparents today, so that
Speaker 4: was like done. I've been trying to digitize all family tapes,
Speaker 4: which boy analog signals, they're wonderful to work with Powell
Speaker 4: version of analog signals even more.
Speaker 2: I didn't think about that. That's that's got to be
Speaker 2: a fun challenge. I don't blame analog. I blame digital.
Speaker 2: I think digital did not respect analog enough. And uh
Speaker 2: and it's so I put full, full blame on that
Speaker 2: side of the equation there. But yeah, it's you know,
Speaker 2: I've been plugging in sixty four into various things recently
Speaker 2: and that's been, uh, that's.
Speaker 1: Been wilde Like oh, what makes the start and what doesn't.
Speaker 4: The nice thing of this is like, yeah, I'm like
Speaker 4: recording all this like family footage or whatever from camcorders.
Speaker 4: But actually what I'm doing is getting a setup for
Speaker 4: like recording my PS two.
Speaker 3: That's what I'm actually doing.
Speaker 2: You once you're done with the VCR, you could just
Speaker 2: plug in the PS two and you're good to go.
Speaker 1: There. Yeah, that's definitely.
Speaker 2: I've been spend a lot more time thinking about plugging
Speaker 2: in old consoles and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: I don't want to. I'm not going to become a collector.
Speaker 2: I like like Dan Record's basement, but I don't need
Speaker 2: my basement to be filled with games. I just want
Speaker 2: the old consoles to have like the ever drive on
Speaker 2: it and stuff.
Speaker 1: And that's That's been a fun process getting off.
Speaker 4: I wish I was the same way. But I'm looking
Speaker 4: at an Amazon basket with Babylon's.
Speaker 3: Falling it right now, and I'm like, I should own that.
Speaker 2: Well, okay, owning games for a bit, I like a lot.
Speaker 2: I do have multiple copies of Balance Wonderworld, and I
Speaker 2: don't know who to blame for.
Speaker 1: You're welcome, you'll well, yep, then I do know who
Speaker 1: to blame. Yeah, one of them, Oh yeah, at least one.
Speaker 1: I think I might have. I might have bought the
Speaker 1: other one. I don't know. I'm trying to think, did
Speaker 1: you give me this switch one too? At some point?
Speaker 4: Yes, I gave you the switch one at Summer Games first,
Speaker 4: you know, so you can play it on the go.
Speaker 2: And I must have bought the Xbox one myself. They're
Speaker 2: both up there on the wall. I should get that
Speaker 2: back in frame.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you playing anything big right now.
Speaker 4: I had just reviewed Like a Dragon Pilot Yakuza in Hawaii,
Speaker 4: which I super liked. I reviewed it the Game of Guides,
Speaker 4: gave it eighty eighth and guessed on the entail end
Speaker 4: of that stream. I know you've been enjoying that game.
Speaker 4: It's just a real good time. I put like fifty
Speaker 4: hours into it. Round a platinumingsh and yeah, it's kind
Speaker 4: of It's kind of what I needed. I'll take one
Speaker 4: of these a year. If they want to keep doing
Speaker 4: one of these a year, I'll play through one of
Speaker 4: these a year. And I just in solved Monster Hunter.
Speaker 4: Got a code just today, so I'm going to play
Speaker 4: that this evening. I'm playing a thing that's embargoed but
Speaker 4: I think is fucking awesome. And I also played a
Speaker 4: bunch of Ninja five oh, yesterday. You find that it's good.
Speaker 4: It's a yeah, it's not like a fancy port or anything.
Speaker 4: There's a bit of like artwork and you know, small
Speaker 4: things like that, but like it's very solid. It's like
Speaker 4: a step down from the Castlevania collections and stuff like
Speaker 4: that when it comes to like the stuff that has
Speaker 4: in it. But it has a nice rewind feature, It
Speaker 4: has trophy support and achievements and everything. And it has
Speaker 4: both Ninja five oh and Ninja cop Honish, so both regions.
Speaker 4: And yeah, that game is fun. Of shit, that game
Speaker 4: is still really fun.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been a long time hitting Jim on the
Speaker 2: game Boy advance to the point where the physical copies
Speaker 2: that you know, they didn't print a ton of those
Speaker 2: very expensive, so you know, north of one hundred dollars
Speaker 2: I think a lot of time. So yeah, being able
Speaker 2: to just buy this game for twenty five bucks pretty
Speaker 2: good deal. All right, let's explain what we do here
Speaker 2: most weekdays, I Jeff Grub, will help piece your gaming
Speaker 2: life back together. That includes breaking news and maybe even
Speaker 2: some of our own original reporting. For all these topics,
Speaker 2: I'll get the input of a bona fide expert who
Speaker 2: will make me look smart. If you are watching live
Speaker 2: on Twitch welcome. You can always listen to the show
Speaker 2: later on podcast feeds by searching for game Mes Mornings,
Speaker 2: or find the rsso giant bomb dot com. You can
Speaker 2: also catch the show later with chapters and timestamps on YouTube.
Speaker 1: Hello YouTube.
Speaker 2: All right, we have a lot to get into, so
Speaker 2: let's start the morning mess with Monster Hunter Wilde surpasses
Speaker 2: one point three million concurrent players on Steam. This is
Speaker 2: from Ben Lyons at Game Reactor. It looks like we'll
Speaker 2: be hearing about Montar hundred wilds smashing some crazy sales
Speaker 2: milestones in the coming hours or perhaps at the latest days.
Speaker 2: We say this because on Steam alone, the game almost
Speaker 2: just surpassed one million concurrent players.
Speaker 1: This is the earlier version of the story. They will
Speaker 1: update it here at the end.
Speaker 2: And this is all ahead of its opening weekend, which
Speaker 2: will no doubt see this peak rise and rise and rise.
Speaker 2: That's usually how it works with these games. They hit
Speaker 2: their peak in the first weekend a.
Speaker 1: Lot of times.
Speaker 2: Although this is a you know, a game that could
Speaker 2: continue to grow over the next couple of weeks as
Speaker 2: word of mouth spreads, although maybe that won't be so positive.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about that as well.
Speaker 2: The crazy thing about this number is it's all but
Speaker 2: affirms that a million copies of the game have been
Speaker 2: shifted on PC alone. So usually with like you know,
Speaker 2: when you look at the concurrent numbers, and so as
Speaker 2: a reminder, that is people playing the game at the
Speaker 2: same time right now online on Steam. That's that's where
Speaker 2: we get these numbers from. Usually it's probably safe to
Speaker 2: assume that it's like usually sold about double that, right,
Speaker 2: because there's gonna be people in that and the Awake regions,
Speaker 2: places in the world where it's daylight, where people are
Speaker 2: still playing games that aren't playing the game in that moment.
Speaker 1: And then there's the whole other half of the world.
Speaker 2: That might be sleeping in that moment who also probably
Speaker 2: have bought quite a few copies of that game. So yeah,
Speaker 2: this is probably racing to two three million copies sold
Speaker 2: on Steam instantly. That is really really impressive. This franchise
Speaker 2: has officially broken through, right, I Mean, I've been huge
Speaker 2: for a long time, but it feels like it is
Speaker 2: caught on in a major way with this release.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'd be super curious to see these numbers compared
Speaker 4: to World and Ice Born and to see like how
Speaker 4: big those were on seam when they first launched. I
Speaker 4: know they launched later on Seam and that was like
Speaker 4: a big problem that those games came out later on
Speaker 4: Steam than on consoles. But yeah, without even factoring in
Speaker 4: console sales, which like in regions like Japan, a lot
Speaker 4: of these sales are going to be on PS fives
Speaker 4: set of on PC. Yeah, that's a it's a wild number.
Speaker 3: It's huge. It's like games.
Speaker 4: Just don't sell like that at the moment for the
Speaker 4: most part, Like even games that sell well don't sell
Speaker 4: that well unless they're Call of Duty right now.
Speaker 2: Yep, it's a yeah, one point three million concurrence on Steam.
Speaker 1: One million, one million, three.
Speaker 2: Hundred and seven and seventy six is what it hit
Speaker 2: earlier today, kind of yes, earlier today, which makes it
Speaker 2: the sixth most concurrently played game at one time ever
Speaker 2: on Steam already. And again it's going to probably have
Speaker 2: more people playing this weekend than this, so, I.
Speaker 4: Mean, it puts it right up there with Blackmith Wukong.
Speaker 4: And when you consider what a cultural moment that was
Speaker 4: for the most populous country on the planet, like the
Speaker 4: cultural penetration worldwide for this is really impressive, and so yeah,
Speaker 4: it's it's super interesting.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: I mean you mentioned it releasing on Steam at the
Speaker 2: same time as the consoles obviously helped, but you wouldn't
Speaker 2: expect like the jump from World. Sambo Nis and Chat
Speaker 2: reminds us that World had an all time peak Cup
Speaker 2: three hundred and thirty thousand, and then Rise had an
Speaker 2: all time peak Cup two hundred and thirty one thousand US.
Speaker 1: So yeah, you could see already that it's like.
Speaker 2: Grown significantly more than three more than tripled, you know,
Speaker 2: honestly kind of quadrupled. So yeah, that this is the
Speaker 2: game catching on, breaking through finding that massive wide appeal audience,
Speaker 2: and you know, it's what Capcom wanted to do with
Speaker 2: this game. So Mission accomplished in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2: Now there is the other half of this, at least
Speaker 2: on on Steam on PC, and that is while the
Speaker 2: numbers for Concurrent players off the charts, the reviews on Steam,
Speaker 2: the user reviews much more middling. They are I think
Speaker 2: it's you know, below fifty percent positive reviews or something
Speaker 2: like that, in the forty percent range for you know,
Speaker 2: thumbs up or thumbs down. The majority of giving it
Speaker 2: a thumbs down because of performance problems.
Speaker 1: It is. I watched a little bit of the Digital.
Speaker 2: Foundry thing and it's like, if you have a GPU
Speaker 2: with eight gigabytes of RAM, and Nvidia still loves selling
Speaker 2: GPUs with only eight gigabytes of v RAM, this game
Speaker 2: is really rough to the point where you have to
Speaker 2: turn textures down to their lowest and this is a
Speaker 2: game where textures they call it medium, but the medium
Speaker 2: texture option.
Speaker 1: It makes the game look really bad.
Speaker 2: And then even then you're still going to get quite
Speaker 2: a bit of stuttering, and so it they like just
Speaker 2: the the across the board recommendation in this moment is
Speaker 2: don't buy this game on PC unless you.
Speaker 1: Can route force your way to performance.
Speaker 2: That is not hurting the game in this moment, LEXI,
Speaker 2: do you think that is something that could slow it down?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it's definitely like Team of Views Last Forever,
Speaker 4: and that's something that a lot of smaller developers have
Speaker 4: been finding for a long time.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: I think No Man's Sky they basically like threw a
Speaker 4: party in the office when they ticked over to from
Speaker 4: mixed to mostly positive or whatever and then took.
Speaker 1: Eight years, nine years or something. Crazy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So yeah, like it's it is something that lingers
Speaker 4: around the game, and it's a hard number to change
Speaker 4: because how many people go back and change a review
Speaker 4: after if things get fixed. That is to say, like
Speaker 4: if Capcom do fix it. I know they put in
Speaker 4: a bunch of work to Dragonsagma two and that runs
Speaker 4: a fair bit better now both on like base hardware,
Speaker 4: PS five pro and PC.
Speaker 3: So hopefully they do support.
Speaker 4: It, and like you imagine that when it comes to
Speaker 4: just good will in the community, they kind of have to.
Speaker 4: Now that's so much of their playerbase is there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I think they will make improvements over time,
Speaker 2: but you get the sense that they were using some
Speaker 2: crutches on PC. That the fact that it starts with
Speaker 2: a dialogue box suggesting that you turn on in Nvidia
Speaker 2: DLSS frame generation it was worrisome to the guys over
Speaker 2: at Digital Foundry, and it's something I haven't seen in
Speaker 2: a game before.
Speaker 1: That is usually an option that is unchecked by.
Speaker 2: Default, and you go in there turn it on if
Speaker 2: you have the performance to plug those frame generation frames
Speaker 2: on top of decent performance. The trouble is if you
Speaker 2: have stuttering and performance that maybe drops to the thirty
Speaker 2: forty frames per second. Range frame generation basically doesn't function
Speaker 2: the way you need it to get a good, good
Speaker 2: looking game. So it was weird that they're like, no,
Speaker 2: just turn this on. This is what we expect you
Speaker 2: to do, so just take it and run. It's a
Speaker 2: sign that maybe they are hoping they can put a
Speaker 2: band aid on there with brute force methods and it's okay.
Speaker 2: You definitely came in with it came in hot, at
Speaker 2: least for the PC version. Now PlayStation five, Xbox haven't
Speaker 2: heard similar complaints. Seems like it's running pretty well on
Speaker 2: those platforms. Definitely PlayStation.
Speaker 4: It is one of those things where like, this is
Speaker 4: a genuinely big issue that probably just doesn't crop up
Speaker 4: in a lot of reviews because you think the people
Speaker 4: who are asking for a PC code when Monster Hunter
Speaker 4: comes in, they have a good PC. They have looked
Speaker 4: at what that game is like and they're like, yeah, no,
Speaker 4: I'd rather play this on PC than on my console.
Speaker 3: So it's just something that probably hasn't.
Speaker 4: Come up in a lot of reviews up until it
Speaker 4: gets in the hands of people who have more mid
Speaker 4: end PCs and this is their only way to play games.
Speaker 4: This is the only platform to play games on, and
Speaker 4: then it's a huge problem.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's an issue. There's also you know, we'll
Speaker 1: get back to the performance here in a second, because
Speaker 1: Capcom Dead respond to that, but let's kind of go
Speaker 1: through some of the other criticisms here. They did.
Speaker 2: They did the kind of an all nasty trick, that
Speaker 2: one that I'm not a fan of and I have
Speaker 2: always really despised when publishers do this move during the
Speaker 2: review period. There was no clean of this thing that
Speaker 2: has now already reared its head now that the game
Speaker 2: is live, to change your to change your appearance, you
Speaker 2: get like one free time to change your character's appearance
Speaker 2: in certain ways, like I think you can like change
Speaker 2: your hair at any time for free. But if you
Speaker 2: want to go in there and make more drastic changes,
Speaker 2: it is you quickly get into a micro transaction store
Speaker 2: and you have to pay some money, and it's oh, okay, wait,
Speaker 2: where where did this come from? And you know, you know,
Speaker 2: I get why they don't have these stores sometimes running
Speaker 2: when when it's in a review period, I suppose, but
Speaker 2: it's like that that is part of the game. It
Speaker 2: should be there for reviewers to assess and decide how
Speaker 2: it affects things, and so to turn it on once
Speaker 2: it's live. I very much disliked that, but I'd like
Speaker 2: that that's a Capcom move recently.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's the kind of thing that like, That's
Speaker 4: why review guides are there. Review guides are there to
Speaker 4: let you know about things that may not be fully
Speaker 4: working purely because it's a not out to the public
Speaker 4: version of the game, or you know, you don't have
Speaker 4: all the additional information that you have once a game
Speaker 4: is publicly available, and that stuff that should be upfront
Speaker 4: and told to the viewers. And it's super shitty that
Speaker 4: it's not. Like I've only found out about that today
Speaker 4: browsing through Blue Sky, and I was like, man, that sucks,
Speaker 4: because tonight I kind of just wanted to load up
Speaker 4: and play a bit of the game and check it
Speaker 4: out and then go back and change my character later.
Speaker 4: But now I'm going to be like, oh, I have
Speaker 4: to get my character fucking right. So I'm going to
Speaker 4: be in there for fucking two hours making sure my.
Speaker 3: Character looks right.
Speaker 4: And it's also worth noting that, like pretty much all
Speaker 4: the reviewers that do get these games get the Deluxe edition,
Speaker 4: which have made.
Speaker 1: And maybe that's what happened here. Yeah, good point.
Speaker 4: Yeah, which have extra cosmetics and things like that, and
Speaker 4: so you're kind of like you're going into it with
Speaker 4: the mindset are like, oh, this game like has a
Speaker 4: bunch of cosmetics from the go, and even though you
Speaker 4: know maybe a third of them or half half of
Speaker 4: them were stuff that you got because you got the
Speaker 4: deluxe version, and you know, you just don't pay that
Speaker 4: much attention to each and every cosmetic item that came
Speaker 4: in the version of the game that pure sent to you,
Speaker 4: and you just stop playing the games for all review.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I think that's like super shitty and fucking
Speaker 4: don't do that.
Speaker 1: Yep. Yeah, it's it's it's annoying. It's a definitely a
Speaker 1: black mark on the way Capcom is operated. Recently.
Speaker 2: They have done similar sort of micro transactions in their
Speaker 2: games a lot recently. I think people pointing out in
Speaker 2: chat worlds had similar stuff. Dragon's Dogma two had similar
Speaker 2: micro transactions.
Speaker 4: So I mean, like, even weirdly enough, the Resident Evil games,
Speaker 4: you look at their staw pages, they are shock full
Speaker 4: of bullshit and you look at it and you're like,
Speaker 4: I don't want any of this because it ruins the
Speaker 4: balancing of the game, Like why would I ever want
Speaker 4: to engage with any of this stuff?
Speaker 2: And maybe there's something to be said for the reason
Speaker 2: people don't complain is a lot of the stuff is
Speaker 2: easy to ignore. But being able to change the way
Speaker 2: your character like just looks at a base level charging
Speaker 2: for that feels weird.
Speaker 4: Especially when like when such a big point to this
Speaker 4: game was then being like yeah, was then being like, oh,
Speaker 4: transmog is something that we've worked with from the beginning,
Speaker 4: and we want you to be able to customize your
Speaker 4: character and look how you want to look, and then
Speaker 4: to take the maybe most personalized part of that and
Speaker 4: like coordinate off as something that you may have to
Speaker 4: pay extra for if you want to go in deep
Speaker 4: and sucks. I remember I hadn't played Destiny to four years,
Speaker 4: but they reintroduced the option to read to change your character,
Speaker 4: and like, I put in three thousand hours into Destiny one,
Speaker 4: Like I loved my character, but when I went back
Speaker 4: to play it, every time I went back to play it,
Speaker 4: I was like, Oh, it's a man.
Speaker 3: That's not cool.
Speaker 4: And then I went back in and they were like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 4: you can just change your character's holders now and you
Speaker 4: can change your agenda and you can change whatever. And
Speaker 4: I was like, oh, it's nice. This is changed literally
Speaker 4: nothing for anyone else if they don't want it to.
Speaker 4: But this is a nice addition, and it's something that
Speaker 4: I can go back to change my character. And now
Speaker 4: suddenly I feel way more inclined to play Destiny to
Speaker 4: again because there's one less thing that I look at
Speaker 4: when I load up, and I'm like, hmm, And that's like, ultimately,
Speaker 4: what all these things are is whether it's a thing
Speaker 4: that like is personal in my case, or if it's
Speaker 4: a microtransaction that are like these tiny hang ups. And
Speaker 4: you'd think that those are the tiny hang ups that
Speaker 4: game developers and the publishers are trying to like stay
Speaker 4: away from right now because it's so hard to people
Speaker 4: to even get in the door and play their games.
Speaker 4: And like news stories like this, we've seen them snowball
Speaker 4: out of proportion because people take them at their worst
Speaker 4: and read way too much into them. So it's a
Speaker 4: weird thing that they've kind of allowed to slip by.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and uh, you know, Capcom has mostly gotten away
Speaker 2: with it the most part, and people point out, like
Speaker 2: there was definitely references to this is the way it
Speaker 2: would work in the beta and during the review period.
Speaker 2: It's just God, I've read a couple of reviews and
Speaker 2: no one mentioned anything like this, And I guess it's
Speaker 2: easy to if you don't interact with this stuff, or
Speaker 2: you've got the character you wanted to when you start,
Speaker 2: it'd be easy to miss this sort of thing. So
Speaker 2: I could see that that's probably what happened here as well.
Speaker 2: Either way, It's like the fundamental criticism here, of course,
Speaker 2: is this is a weird thing to charge people for.
Speaker 2: It feels Nickel and Dimi for products that are already
Speaker 2: very expensive things to purchase.
Speaker 4: And yeah, like I went looking at that deluxe edition.
Speaker 4: It's like one hundred and thirty euro. It is expensive.
Speaker 2: Yep, absolutely all right, So back to the performance issues.
Speaker 2: Capcom has responded for the PC issues.
Speaker 1: This is from Jordan Miller at VGC.
Speaker 2: Capcom has responded to performance Jordan Midler I responded and
Speaker 2: they said, let's see here. Mons Around Wilds was released
Speaker 2: on Friday, and almost as soon as the PC version
Speaker 2: was in the public's hands, players reported issues with optimization, performance,
Speaker 2: and more. The game, which has received praise from fans.
Speaker 2: Outside of the performance issues, hits hit almost one million
Speaker 2: concurrent players.
Speaker 1: Blah blah, blah blah. Now.
Speaker 2: Capcom has responded to the issues and has provided some
Speaker 2: suggestions to fans as to how to fix their performance problems.
Speaker 2: A post on Monster Hunter Status the franchise's official support
Speaker 2: account reads, if you're experiencing experiencing any initial issues with
Speaker 2: Monster Hunter Wilds on Steam, please try try updating your
Speaker 2: graphics driver, turning off compatibility mode, and then require readjust
Speaker 2: your settings. In the linked post on the Monster Hunter
Speaker 2: support website, Capcom has suggested several steps that could fix
Speaker 2: the issues, including that driver update, adding the games folders
Speaker 2: and files to it, to the players anti virus exception list,
Speaker 2: and more. Yeah, this is uh, this is a bit
Speaker 2: much too, because it's like I get, like, Okay, these
Speaker 2: things might be able to help one or two percent,
Speaker 2: but none of these things are going to actually fix
Speaker 2: the fundamental issues.
Speaker 4: It kind of like it puts the onus on the
Speaker 4: consumer for some that you.
Speaker 2: Know, yes, and you know, I think fair enough, but
Speaker 2: like you go into the game and I think there's
Speaker 2: a reason to have some hope. They're like, Okay, look
Speaker 2: at all these graphics options these things, like it actually
Speaker 2: presents itself as very helpful, where each setting has a
Speaker 2: like a rating for how much it affects the different
Speaker 2: components on your PC. So it's like, this is affecting
Speaker 2: your CPO CPU the most, or it's kind of affecting
Speaker 2: your CPU, but it's actually affecting your GPU way more.
Speaker 2: So maybe turn that down. I kind of see if
Speaker 2: that helps. Here's something that's like just blasting your RAM.
Speaker 2: Maybe that's the issue. Because there's a RAM meter as
Speaker 2: well that you see in a lot of games, and
Speaker 2: in that Digital Foundry video he demonstrates that, like he
Speaker 2: goes to settings.
Speaker 1: That are well below the like yellow.
Speaker 2: Line, not even the red line, but the yellow line
Speaker 2: for performance for v RAM on the forty sixty, and
Speaker 2: even in that case, there is a ton of stuttering,
Speaker 2: especially when just turning the camera at the beginning of
Speaker 2: the game. And that all that is after a six
Speaker 2: minute shader compiling period when you first start up the game.
Speaker 2: So it's just like, Okay, it feels like this should
Speaker 2: be running a lot better, and I don't know if.
Speaker 4: The worst all this, Yeah, Greg Miller is going to
Speaker 4: be so insulfable about this. I can't imagine why he's
Speaker 4: gonna get people so mad about it.
Speaker 2: Yep, Yeah, they played a bunch yesterday. I'm sure they
Speaker 2: were all on PS five for the most part.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's uh, it is annoying because, yeah, I
Speaker 1: get it.
Speaker 2: This game clearly can run better, it is better optimized
Speaker 2: on PS five, although some people in chat mentioned that
Speaker 2: some people didn't weren't happy with the PS five pro version.
Speaker 2: I have not been able to keep up with that,
Speaker 2: so I don't know. Yeah, and Sean saying it's not
Speaker 2: good on PS five either, So okay, there you go. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think this is goes back to what I was
Speaker 2: about to get to next, which is Capcom switching the
Speaker 2: Resident Evil or the RI engine reach for the Moon
Speaker 2: Engine to open world and kind of seeing a lot
Speaker 2: of what happened with Dragon's Dogma two repeated here. They
Speaker 2: just have not been able to sort of optimize this
Speaker 2: thing for the open world games they are now making
Speaker 2: with that thing. And it's a bit of a shame
Speaker 2: because the storyline of our E engine up to this
Speaker 2: point was, Hey, this thing is powerful, it's optimized, runs great.
Speaker 2: Our engine games can scale down to the switch pretty
Speaker 2: easily because it is so well optimized and a capcom
Speaker 2: knows how to use it, and then they're like, well,
Speaker 2: let's make it for open world games now, and that
Speaker 2: instantly kind of just changed everything. And you know, it
Speaker 2: comes down to what the problem seems to be is
Speaker 2: streaming in assets into RAM and that process just really
Speaker 2: crushing most processors on most devices, and like it's yeah, it's.
Speaker 4: Kind of the problem with computers as a whole, and
Speaker 4: it's something that is very easy for us to armchair criticize,
Speaker 4: like a computer program runs grash until it doesn't. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and like they we looked at the OE engine and
Speaker 4: we're like, oh, Resident Evil Village looks incredible in all
Speaker 4: of this, but like we didn't know that that was
Speaker 4: maybe the ORE engine running ninety nine.
Speaker 3: Percent flat oush.
Speaker 4: And then they push it a little bit harder and
Speaker 4: suddenly it's just like, ah, man, it really was at
Speaker 4: its limit already and we didn't realize.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's like the reality here is there are
Speaker 2: no modern engines that are just perfect at open world
Speaker 2: games where you have to stream in a lot of assets.
Speaker 2: UI five it struggles with that, and that that engine
Speaker 2: was made to be the open world engine, so uh.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Danil's told me exactly.
Speaker 2: He called me his best friend said you're you're wonderful
Speaker 2: or whatever the at least said during that thing. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 2: so performance issues, but the game is popping off. Capcom
Speaker 2: will have a chance to make some improvements here. But
Speaker 2: Reside Eval nine up next rumored to be more open
Speaker 2: world because it's part of this initiative from Capcom with
Speaker 2: there engine any concerns about that, LEXI.
Speaker 4: I mean from a a franchise perspective, I think it's
Speaker 4: a really good direction for like the franchise because Resident
Speaker 4: Evil has always been a series that loves to come
Speaker 4: back to Raccoon City, So actually exploring an open world
Speaker 4: Racoon City sounds really exciting as a fan of the series.
Speaker 3: From a performance side.
Speaker 4: I understand where people would be very hesitant of it.
Speaker 4: I do think that when you were in something like
Speaker 4: a city environment compared to something like Monster Hunter Wilds,
Speaker 4: which is a lot of big, open, wide spaces with
Speaker 4: very long field of distance and like long views out
Speaker 4: into the distance.
Speaker 2: And we would have to stream in and be ready
Speaker 2: to stream in in case the player goes in any direction.
Speaker 4: M I think they kind of have a little leg
Speaker 4: up by just having buildings as something that they can
Speaker 4: rely on to slow people down. Like we're going to
Speaker 4: talk about Half Life in a second, but like it's
Speaker 4: been a thing since Half Life of create a long haul,
Speaker 4: you know, create a long haul so that we can
Speaker 4: load things in front of the player and delete things
Speaker 4: behind them. And ultimately it's not still that simple, but
Speaker 4: like that's still kind of the name.
Speaker 3: Of the game.
Speaker 2: Yep, absolutely, Oh yeah, mechanized And I'm sorry Max lastras
Speaker 2: and Chad points out the god what is it called?
Speaker 2: I just had it in my head, but the Horizon engine. Yesimah, yes,
Speaker 2: that has been pretty good for open world games so far,
Speaker 2: although I'm sure they'll push that to the limit as well.
Speaker 2: All right, let's actually take a quick break. We come back,
Speaker 2: let's talk about it half Life three. Right after this, everybody,
Speaker 2: all right? Half Life three almost fully finalized, according to
Speaker 2: the latest rumors. This is from Marcus Person at Game Reactor.
Speaker 2: The rumors surrounding Half Life three continue unabated, and according
Speaker 2: to a new report from Tyler McVicar, the game may
Speaker 2: be close to completion, a conclusion reached by now and
Speaker 2: analyzing recently updated code from several of Valve's games. These
Speaker 2: include Dota two, where references to HLX or Half Life
Speaker 2: X were found, findings that would indicate that the game
Speaker 2: is in an optimization phase, in other words, the end
Speaker 2: of its development process and includes, among other things, improvements
Speaker 2: to AI AI opponents excuse me, and the implementation of
Speaker 2: FSR three. Based on his analysis of the code, McVicar
Speaker 2: predicts several features in the upcoming game, Advanced physics engines
Speaker 2: the advanced physics engine. The game could have a physics
Speaker 2: engine similar to that of Half Life two, with detailed
Speaker 2: simulations of fluids, buoyancy, and how objects are affected by fire.
Speaker 2: Intelligent AI computer control characters are expected to react dynamically
Speaker 2: to sound, site and even smell, and adapt to changes
Speaker 2: in the environment. Dynamic gameplay elements such as enemies, health,
Speaker 2: and weapons can be placed randomly like the AI director
Speaker 2: in Left for Left fo Dead series, and advanced vehicle
Speaker 2: simulation Half Life three can be as detailed as the
Speaker 2: most advanced simular.
Speaker 1: So yeah, listen, it's not I think people will hear
Speaker 1: this and be like, Okay, someone's looking at games that
Speaker 1: are released.
Speaker 2: Look, they're diving into the code and they're finding stuff
Speaker 2: about half Life three that sounds unlikely. Rumors about Half
Speaker 2: Life three being late in development are are coming from
Speaker 2: more places than just this. There are reasons to believe
Speaker 2: that this actually is at least in development. Whether it
Speaker 2: actually comes out, that's a whole other thing. Who knows
Speaker 2: with valven steam, but it does seem likely. There were
Speaker 2: reasons that people were like actually predicting we would see
Speaker 2: Half Life three at the Game Awards, And it's because.
Speaker 1: That word is going around. So LEXI, what do you
Speaker 1: think is happening here?
Speaker 4: I think it's like at this point and it sounds
Speaker 4: about As someone whose job it is to care about
Speaker 4: this self, I'm just like, just call me when it happens.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: Oh no, I think a lot of people are in
Speaker 2: the boat with you thinking that exact same thing. That
Speaker 2: it's been so long now and people get so weird
Speaker 2: about this for so many years that what is the
Speaker 2: point of putting on the clown makeup? Well, just yeah,
Speaker 2: let's just talk about this thing when it's real.
Speaker 4: I do think, like the bigger thing that I'm curious
Speaker 4: about at this point is like I get that this
Speaker 4: would be a big deal, but as someone who wasn't
Speaker 4: alive when the first Half Life came out. Is it
Speaker 4: as big a deal?
Speaker 3: Sorry? Sorry about that?
Speaker 1: Really sorry?
Speaker 4: Is it as big a deal as like, let's say,
Speaker 4: the Valve News network might think it is, because you know,
Speaker 4: Michael mcvick, oh what's his name? Time, Yeah, like, this
Speaker 4: is his life and his livelihood and his personality, and
Speaker 4: I get that. But also, like, I know a lot
Speaker 4: of people who play video games pretty die hard who
Speaker 4: have never played a half Life and have never really
Speaker 4: understood why a half life is important, and they're not
Speaker 4: that much younger than me. And so even as someone
Speaker 4: who knows that, like, oh yeah, a new half Life
Speaker 4: is a big fucking deal, does that spread out to
Speaker 4: the younger generation of you know, has this game's meme
Speaker 4: dumb actually sped to the point that it will influence
Speaker 4: its still being relevant in twenty twenty five or twenty
Speaker 4: twenty six.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you're right to point out that it's
Speaker 2: definitely been a long time since we had one of these,
Speaker 2: since Half Life two essentially, yeah, half Life Alex, But
Speaker 2: that was VR. That's a different thing. Most people didn't
Speaker 2: play VR, haven't played VR games, and so like just
Speaker 2: wouldn't count that towards what we're talking about with this
Speaker 2: relevant scene.
Speaker 4: Now, a lot of young people haven't played VR games
Speaker 4: because they're all broke as shit.
Speaker 2: Right exactly. It's an expensive hobby within an expensive hobby.
Speaker 2: So the expectation that people would have played Alex it's
Speaker 2: just not there for me. But everyone has Steam and
Speaker 2: Half Life three being front and sand and are on Steam.
Speaker 2: We'll give it that you know, front running advantage there,
Speaker 2: and then on top of that, you know, describing here.
Speaker 2: Let let's just take all this stuff at face value.
Speaker 2: You know, detailed simulation, uh, physics, really smart ai. It
Speaker 2: doesn't sound like your typical triple A blockbuster video game
Speaker 2: from a major publisher. It sounds like, you know, the
Speaker 2: successor successor to the lineage of you know, classic PC
Speaker 2: games that we're trying to do ambitious things. So if
Speaker 2: they are going to do some interesting stuff here at
Speaker 2: this game feels like it has the chance to you know,
Speaker 2: build an audience on its own merit. And then on
Speaker 2: top of that, it is Half Life three and the
Speaker 2: memes have been there for a very long time, and
Speaker 2: even if you haven't played the games, you know, the
Speaker 2: joke is, oh, or are they going to announce Half
Speaker 2: Life three, everyone at least knows that joke.
Speaker 4: Jamie h and Chap makes a really good point that
Speaker 4: they should just market it as a skibby toilet prequel.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then we'll do great, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean the strong chance that there's a Skibbity toilet
Speaker 2: reference in the game, Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 4: How fuck would it be if we live in a
Speaker 4: world where there's a skibbty toilet reference in Half Life
Speaker 4: three but not in Borderlands four? Okay, yeah, that would
Speaker 4: be pretty like I imagine if the Borderlands four writers
Speaker 4: were more fucking like restrain themselves more.
Speaker 1: I listen.
Speaker 2: I think everyone involved with Half Life should be proud
Speaker 2: of Skibbity Toilet and claim ownership of it and take
Speaker 2: it within, bring it into the family that is, you know,
Speaker 2: the part again part of the lineage there.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, you think this game could come out this year?
Speaker 4: Can anything could happen this year? Have you fucking seen
Speaker 4: what shit's like out there? Anything could happen too, Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 4: like GJ six could be delayed until like twenty twenty
Speaker 4: age just for the hell of it.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, fucking funny.
Speaker 4: Microsoft could like just pull out of the console market.
Speaker 4: Are entirely like, fucking none of these things are off
Speaker 4: the table at this point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I uh, you know, I think if this game
Speaker 2: really is in the stage of getting FSR three and
Speaker 2: optimization and you know, sprucing up the AI and stuff
Speaker 2: like that, that's where they're at.
Speaker 1: It does sound like it could release this year, but
Speaker 1: who knows.
Speaker 2: Honestly, the black Box and Steam Valve Valve developers can
Speaker 2: take their time because they really are operating on their
Speaker 2: own timelines because Steam makes enough money.
Speaker 1: But go ahead, you were gonna say.
Speaker 4: I truly believe though, is not a video game I
Speaker 4: would rather view less than Half Life three because holy shit,
Speaker 4: can you imagine the reaction if you didn't like it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, absolutely, it's uh that I feel
Speaker 2: like it would be another one of these cultural inflection points.
Speaker 1: Although you know, we could talk about this real quick.
Speaker 1: Let me do this real first.
Speaker 2: Shit, I wish I wouldn't have talked about this story
Speaker 2: because my plan was to get this in Fantasy Critic,
Speaker 2: and now Nicki is trying to do the same thing. Nicki,
Speaker 2: it's we're in the the bid finalization period, so you
Speaker 2: can only bid on things that other people have been on.
Speaker 2: On Monday, you'll be able to bid on this again,
Speaker 2: but I don't think you should.
Speaker 3: And Nicky really needs it right now.
Speaker 4: I looked at the Fantasy Critic the other day and
Speaker 4: they're on minus points already.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, we're all gonna get those minus points eventually,
Speaker 2: because there were not good options for the counterpick, and
Speaker 2: Nicky's just had to happen to come out first. But
Speaker 2: we'll see. Yeah, NICKI will need a little bit of help.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I was going what we're gonna I was
Speaker 2: talking about, So I was gonna bring something something, Yeah,
Speaker 2: something half Life three just that.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: Someone pointed out like steam os might like launch as
Speaker 2: a standalone thing later this year. They could tie it
Speaker 2: together with that, sure, but yeah, overall, I just think
Speaker 2: that they will take this and and be like, Okay,
Speaker 2: we are making games. There are people inside of Valve
Speaker 2: that want to make video games still, so despite steam success,
Speaker 2: we are going to be the company that does that.
Speaker 2: And I think this will be a may oh and
Speaker 2: this was the other POINTU it's gonna bring up. This
Speaker 2: will be a major inflection point for the industry. It
Speaker 2: does feel like gamers are beginning to get a little
Speaker 2: bit annoyed with the way the like YouTube and reactionary
Speaker 2: ecosystem has been using them to like crank through ad revenue.
Speaker 2: And I think it's been because of a vowed and
Speaker 2: handful of other games recently where it's like people have
Speaker 2: been told by their favorite YouTuber that these games are
Speaker 2: woke garbage made by people who hate them, and then
Speaker 2: they go and try them because it's on game Pass
Speaker 2: and wait, I think this game's just fun to play.
Speaker 1: What are you talking about?
Speaker 2: And there's nothing is annoying about it the way you're
Speaker 2: describing why you're freaking out, and the backlash is beginning
Speaker 2: to grow in the other direction. It feels like a
Speaker 2: little bit now, of course, so it just takes one
Speaker 2: Ubisoft game to come in and undo all that and
Speaker 2: put us right back to where we started. But I'm
Speaker 2: hoping some people are starting to like put two and
Speaker 2: two together and realizing that, God, you don't have to
Speaker 2: hate every game that comes out. It's okay to just
Speaker 2: ignore it if you don't want to play it and
Speaker 2: have my thream could make that super worse. Or maybe
Speaker 2: if people are like try to do that the Half
Speaker 2: Life three as well, it could be the thing that
Speaker 2: kind of breaks some of these YouTubers.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I do really.
Speaker 4: Hope that like at the end of the year, when
Speaker 4: some of those people are trying to like rally up
Speaker 4: what games were on their side in the culture war
Speaker 4: or whatever, like tally that up, they include Like a
Speaker 4: Dragon again, because that game literally has a whole sub
Speaker 4: story where a woman where you help a woman understand
Speaker 4: that sex work is we all work, and that she
Speaker 4: should write a book about it because sex is an
Speaker 4: important part of culture. And just like see if they
Speaker 4: like defend that as anti woke or something.
Speaker 2: Yep, it's it's incredible that the whole franchise now has
Speaker 2: become or at least maybe it's always been. But as
Speaker 2: far as I played the recent games, is hey, wouldn't
Speaker 2: it be awesome? For everyone? Was like super nice, yeah,
Speaker 2: and like was super empathetic to everyone around them, and
Speaker 2: it turned every enemy into a friend through the power
Speaker 2: of friendship and love.
Speaker 1: And empathy, yes, just empathy.
Speaker 2: And as a back of the box video game feature,
Speaker 2: like that is where Like a Dragon is at these days,
Speaker 2: and so yeah, of course it's just absurd for them
Speaker 2: to claim ownership of that. All right, let's keep moving here, EA,
Speaker 2: releases source code for Command and Conquer to moders.
Speaker 1: This is from Dean Takahashi at Gamespeed.
Speaker 2: EA has released the source code for several Command and
Speaker 2: Conquer games, including Command and Concker, Tiberian Dawn, Read Alert,
Speaker 2: Renegade Generals, plus its expansion Zero Hour under the GPL license.
Speaker 2: This move aims to empower the moding community, with EA
Speaker 2: acknowledging the community's dedication to keeping these games alive. The
Speaker 2: release includes the full source code, enabling deeper modifications and
Speaker 2: improvements by the community. EA has also enabled Steam Workshop
Speaker 2: support for several of the Command and Conquer titles, allowing
Speaker 2: users to easily upload and share custom maps and more. Additionally,
Speaker 2: EA released a CNC moding support pack with source files
Speaker 2: for the game using the Sage engine. These actions follow
Speaker 2: previous efforts by EA to support the C and C camemmunity,
Speaker 2: including the release of the Command and Conquer Ultimate Collection
Speaker 2: on Steam and the source code for the Command, Command
Speaker 2: and Conquer Remastered Collection dlll files. The Command of Conquer
Speaker 2: producer at EA, Jim Vicella, emphasized the company's ambition to
Speaker 2: deliver continued improvements to the franchise, and a longtime member
Speaker 2: of the C and C community spearhead of the initiative
Speaker 2: to restore the source code archives and facilitate these releases.
Speaker 2: So yeah, EA doing some cool stuff. That's weird but
Speaker 2: very welcome. I love this stuff. I am every day
Speaker 2: I wake up more and more like turning to open
Speaker 2: source as a savior for all of society's woes.
Speaker 1: And of course it's not that, but that's what I
Speaker 1: got these days.
Speaker 2: And whenever a corporation takes something that they own and
Speaker 2: says let's unleash it as an open source thing that
Speaker 2: people can claim ownership and do what they want with it,
Speaker 2: it is.
Speaker 1: A very nice thing to see.
Speaker 2: And I think this is only going to do very
Speaker 2: good things for Command and Conquers, to the point where
Speaker 2: EA goes on to make a new Command and Conquer.
Speaker 2: This act of goodwill will actually pay dividends. Do you
Speaker 2: think that's right?
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's like my very cynical analyst brain looking at it,
Speaker 4: going like, oh that's fair. This Yeah, this is like
Speaker 4: the one franchise that EA looked at that they have
Speaker 4: any interest in keeping alive or doing anything with, and
Speaker 4: they were like, which one of these games can we
Speaker 4: like get some goodwill out of, and how can we
Speaker 4: make sure that it doesn't affect any Michael transactions that
Speaker 4: are currently in the games that we want to sell
Speaker 4: Michael transactions in, or we want to sell four price
Speaker 4: products of. I think they looked at all these back
Speaker 4: catalog of Command and Conquer games that still get you know,
Speaker 4: not incredible numbers on scene, but still have a user
Speaker 4: base and a dedicated community, and they were like, yeah, like,
Speaker 4: it doesn't hurt us to release the source code for
Speaker 4: this because none of this source code affects any of
Speaker 4: our other games. It's not like it will help cheats
Speaker 4: with Apex Legends. It's not like it is going to
Speaker 4: influence how much people are spending on the sims. It's
Speaker 4: you know, totally siloed off. And it's a feel good
Speaker 4: news story for them for a franchise that they probably
Speaker 4: have interest in bringing back at some point, especially because
Speaker 4: like that Command and Conquer remake sold pretty.
Speaker 1: Well, did very well. Yeah, and they did a good
Speaker 1: job with it too. It was way better than what
Speaker 1: happened with Warcraft with it's remastered a camera what that
Speaker 1: was called. But yeah, Warcraft three, it was just people
Speaker 1: really were not happy with that. I I yes, you're right.
Speaker 1: You're right one. That's how how it always goes though.
Speaker 4: And it's interesting that EA have an active producer for
Speaker 4: Command and Conquer. There's someone whose job title is Command
Speaker 4: and Conquer producer just at EAISE.
Speaker 1: That didn't exist before that remaster. I bet they appointed
Speaker 1: someone after that because it did so well, so it
Speaker 1: made it make sense.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I think this is a an example how
Speaker 2: software should kind of always work though, where we know
Speaker 2: the motivations corporations, we know what their desires are, and
Speaker 2: instead of them always sort of trying to build a
Speaker 2: dam and a moat around themselves so that they can
Speaker 2: be protected from any sort of competition from open source,
Speaker 2: getting them to work hand in hand with it is
Speaker 2: the ideal scenario. Because I do not think we can
Speaker 2: make corporations into good things, good actors. All we can
Speaker 2: do is try to line up their interests with the
Speaker 2: rest of ours occasionally and then get something good out
Speaker 2: of it. And that this is an example of that.
Speaker 2: Because you're right, this is not magnanimous. This is not
Speaker 2: them being angels. It is I'm trying to set up
Speaker 2: something or you know, the individual work inside of the
Speaker 2: company that could be that could be someone that believes
Speaker 2: in open.
Speaker 4: Soorce, yes, that's for this to happen, someone has to
Speaker 4: lobby for it. Someone internally has to champion this as
Speaker 4: an idea and go to the money people and be like, hey, no,
Speaker 4: this is like something worth doing. So like not to
Speaker 4: take away from the hard work that's someone on several
Speaker 4: poll obviously did to gather sauce code for these old games,
Speaker 4: which oftentimes isn't easy to find and to locate, and
Speaker 4: so yeah, like shout outs to the people who worked
Speaker 4: on this, because it's a really fucking cool thing.
Speaker 1: Yep, absolutely all right.
Speaker 2: Metroid Dread dev's new game is Blades of Fire, releases
Speaker 2: in May. This is in Blair Marnell at game Spot.
Speaker 2: It's been a long time since Mercury Steam released an
Speaker 2: original game, but the studio behind Metroid Samus returns and
Speaker 2: Metroid Dread has finally revealed a first look at its
Speaker 2: upcoming dark fantasy action RPG, Blades of Fury, and the
Speaker 2: announcement trailer, players are introduced to Aaron de Leira as
Speaker 2: he prepares to face his destiny ahead on against some
Speaker 2: dangerous foes. Luckily, for around Aaron, I'm gonna say Aaron said.
Speaker 2: Luckily for Aaron, he's well armed with weapons of his
Speaker 2: own creation. In the game's backstory, Aarin is the firstborn
Speaker 2: of the King's Ward and he's forced to take this
Speaker 2: take a stand after the recently crowned Queen Narrea uses
Speaker 2: dark magic to solidify her power in the kingdom. Thanks
Speaker 2: to Naraea's spell, all steel on the Kingdom has been
Speaker 2: turned to stone, and only the evil creatures at her
Speaker 2: command have the Divine Metal that can oblate, obliterate any
Speaker 2: normal weapon used against them. That's why Aaron will have
Speaker 2: to forge his own weapons to counter the Divine Metal's power,
Speaker 2: and there are several different weapons that can be chosen. Yeah, a,
Speaker 2: this game not a Metroid Vanya at least, or not
Speaker 2: two D Metro Advanya. There could be Symmetro Avena elements
Speaker 2: to it. It honestly looks a lot like God of
Speaker 2: War twenty eighteen.
Speaker 3: Do you want?
Speaker 4: What it really reminds me of is if Mercury Steam
Speaker 4: made that Castlevania Lords a shadow game in twenty twenty five. Right,
Speaker 4: So I'm I had that guess on Blue Sky where
Speaker 4: it's like I'm calling my shot that Mercury Sima working
Speaker 4: on a Castlevania thing for Kuonami.
Speaker 3: That's superna.
Speaker 4: But this isn't a million miles off of where that
Speaker 4: would have gone if they had kept doing that. And
Speaker 4: this looks interesting. It's five oh five publishing, who obviously
Speaker 4: like do Control. I'm not sure if they're still publishing Control.
Speaker 1: They're not publishing Control too.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I can't remember who even owned Yeah, I can't
Speaker 4: remember the last thing five or five put out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean five or five days. A lot of
Speaker 2: B games and things like that. This, and honestly, you know,
Speaker 2: in terms of I don't know. When I look at this,
Speaker 2: I think I think be game, and not in a
Speaker 2: negative way. It looks like the B movie equivalent of
Speaker 2: God of War twenty eighteen or the Casavania games, as
Speaker 2: you pointed out. So yeah, I think this looks pretty cool,
Speaker 2: and Mercury Steam feels like they are ready to take
Speaker 2: a big step forward with a big original game.
Speaker 1: You know, good for them.
Speaker 2: I know there have been reports out of Mercury Steam
Speaker 2: that there were you know, some workplace toxicity, so of
Speaker 2: course you always hope that that stuff has been addressed
Speaker 2: and it's not a problem or as minimized and mitigated
Speaker 2: as much as possible, but as far as.
Speaker 1: This game goes, it looks I'm curious. I'm curious. I
Speaker 1: would like to see how it performs and how it
Speaker 1: does and how it plays. But yeah, good for them.
Speaker 2: I think the problem for me is, I God, I
Speaker 2: hope you know Nintendo found someone to make the next
Speaker 2: two D Metroid because apparently it's not Mercury Steam, or
Speaker 2: if it is, it's another team there. And now they
Speaker 2: seem like they must have been really busy making this game,
Speaker 2: because it looks like a very very big game. So
Speaker 2: you know, in my head, I was always fantasy booking, yeah,
Speaker 2: they would make the next new Metroid game after DREG
Speaker 2: because Drag was so so so good.
Speaker 1: Of course Nintendo would want to keep.
Speaker 2: Them on doing that, but maybe they weren't able to
Speaker 2: do that, and maybe Mercury seem's like, we don't even
Speaker 2: want to work with you because we have bigger ambitions
Speaker 2: for our own game.
Speaker 1: And again, good for them, but got a like I
Speaker 1: would like a new Metroid.
Speaker 2: I don't know, all right, forts the Horizon five on
Speaker 2: PS five pro even hass features the.
Speaker 1: Xbox version doesn't have. This is from alex co at
Speaker 1: Dual shockers.
Speaker 2: Last month, Microsoft surprise gamers by announcing that another Xbox
Speaker 2: exclusive game is headed to the PS five and that
Speaker 2: it's racing game for the Horizon five. It's not just
Speaker 2: a straight part as today, Playground Games has revealed that
Speaker 2: the PS five version will even have features not available
Speaker 2: on Xbox platforms. In a new blog post by Playground Games,
Speaker 2: the developer confirmed that the PS five Pro version of
Speaker 2: the game will feature in game ray tracing in gameplay
Speaker 2: and in the open world. The Xbox versions only has
Speaker 2: this feature available in garages. Well, this might seem like
Speaker 2: a small, detailed this is still odd to see given
Speaker 2: an x in Xbox first party game technically will look
Speaker 2: better on a competitor's console.
Speaker 1: Excuse me.
Speaker 2: At the very least, car reflections should look way better
Speaker 2: on the PS five Pro. Alongside that, Playground Games also
Speaker 2: announced the graphical modes players can expect for the PS
Speaker 2: five version of the game. There's a Performance mode at
Speaker 2: sixty frames per second, a Quality mode that runs to
Speaker 2: thirty frames per second. Playground Games added that on PS
Speaker 2: five Pro, the Performance mode receives increased visual fidelity, while
Speaker 2: Quality mode adds ray trace car reflections to races and
Speaker 2: free realm. Like, see, I'm not going to turn on
Speaker 2: ray trace reflections if it means I'm getting thirty frames
Speaker 2: per second in a racing game.
Speaker 1: But that's me still.
Speaker 2: You know, the story here is the game technically has
Speaker 2: features and looks better on a PlayStation than it does
Speaker 2: on an Xbox. Should people freak out about this? And
Speaker 2: to me, I don't know, this feels like a very
Speaker 2: normal thing these days. You're putting it on a new platform,
Speaker 2: selling it to more people. That's going to make the
Speaker 2: juice of this effort worth the squeeze in a lot
Speaker 2: a lot of ways. So it just doesn't shock me
Speaker 2: all that much.
Speaker 1: How about you.
Speaker 4: I feel like super bad for the people who were
Speaker 4: probably working on this version of the game, and at
Speaker 4: some point they had to go into a meeting with
Speaker 4: Microsoft giving updates on how development is going and explain like, hey,
Speaker 4: we want this game to be the best it can
Speaker 4: be on the platform that we are releasing. Yeah, of course,
Speaker 4: we like, we thank you for your support and you
Speaker 4: know you own us on all of this, but also
Speaker 4: we want it to be the best version of the
Speaker 4: game that people can play. Yeah, And the idea of
Speaker 4: like selling a version of Forts Horizon five that is
Speaker 4: like intentionally held back on PlayStation five.
Speaker 1: Pro also the more powerful platform.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, because that's kind of the exact thing that
Speaker 4: Microsoft was promising the courts that they wouldn't do was
Speaker 4: release subpower versions of Call of Jugi and things like
Speaker 4: that on a competitors console. So in a lot of ways,
Speaker 4: you know, the existence of the PS five Pro has
Speaker 4: put them in a very awkward position because it's a
Speaker 4: box which is better than their box on a fundamental
Speaker 4: power level, and they have to to like be seen
Speaker 4: as good sports, to be seen as good business partners,
Speaker 4: which you always want to be a good business partner, Like, Yeah,
Speaker 4: they just have.
Speaker 2: To work with that, and I think, you know, it's
Speaker 2: an awkward position for maybe the Xbox platform people within Microsoft,
Speaker 2: maybe if they even care. But at the very least
Speaker 2: it's not awkward for the developers because, as you said,
Speaker 2: they're job is to make the game run as good
Speaker 2: as it possibly can wherever they're putting the game out,
Speaker 2: and that is going to be their their their priority
Speaker 2: first and foremost. They're not going to hold it back
Speaker 2: because of some like implied or some perceived idea that
Speaker 2: they are favoring PlayStation over their home console. They are
Speaker 2: not going to be thinking about that. These are people
Speaker 2: who want to who are making a game, and they
Speaker 2: want their game to be as good as possible.
Speaker 4: So the people, the people who like I do genuinely
Speaker 4: feel bad for in this situation is the community managers
Speaker 4: and the public facing developers who are going to get
Speaker 4: shipped from like absolute assholes who will use.
Speaker 1: This as titled gamers.
Speaker 4: Yes, and it's like, man, these people are literally just
Speaker 4: doing their job in the very simplest the terms, like
Speaker 4: they have done nothing wrong here in this situation.
Speaker 1: Yep, all right, a couple more stories here.
Speaker 2: Pokemon Champions unintended switch to be digital only paid games,
Speaker 2: just kind of small details still coming out of that
Speaker 2: Pokemon Day Direct presentation that we had earlier this week.
Speaker 2: This is is one of the basically the only new
Speaker 2: new game that they announced, obviously Pokemon Legends z A.
Speaker 2: Pokemon Legends z A it hasn't come out yet, but
Speaker 2: this was a new announcement in Champions, which is the
Speaker 2: battle mode from a Pokemon Stadium game. Essentially, who ripped
Speaker 2: out of a game, ripped out of a game, put
Speaker 2: on iOS, Android and Switch and they are gonna sell
Speaker 2: it to people, so it's not gonna be like a
Speaker 2: free down load.
Speaker 1: It's gonna sell it to you, but it's not gonna
Speaker 1: be a physical game.
Speaker 2: It'll just be a digital only thing, which makes sense
Speaker 2: because it's a phone app that they're also putting out
Speaker 2: on switch right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was gonna say, I have like negashuv, I
Speaker 4: have no interest in any Pokemon self whatsoever.
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure on your continent, Jordan Midler has sucked
Speaker 2: up all of that for himself, so no one else
Speaker 2: does either.
Speaker 4: Yeah, all Irish people hate the whatever British people like.
Speaker 3: So I see Waldon like that. I'm like, well, gotta
Speaker 3: hate this. I'm curious.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we didn't hear it. We didn't get to hear
Speaker 4: the reaction from them from one Joe who Yeah, okay,
Speaker 4: that's all I wanted to hear.
Speaker 1: Cool, that's all you need to know. Yeah, so, you know,
Speaker 1: I think they didn't give us an idea of like
Speaker 1: when this is coming, but it's probably or maybe they
Speaker 1: said like a general time frame, but either way, probably
Speaker 1: this year.
Speaker 4: Karachi in chat just said Ireland is a Digiman country,
Speaker 4: and boy, this this racism sweeping America has gotten out
Speaker 4: of hand.
Speaker 3: The anti Irish sentiment.
Speaker 1: Point not to lie, I don't see it all right.
Speaker 2: According to analysts, Avowed will be a bigger hit than
Speaker 2: Indiana Jones in the Great Circle in its first month.
Speaker 1: This is from Alberta Grito at Game Reactor.
Speaker 2: February has proved to be a tremendously busy month for
Speaker 2: video game releases like Kingdomcome, Deliverance to Civilization seven, Like
Speaker 2: a Dragon, Avowed, Monster Hunter, Wilds, and more. Uh and
Speaker 2: these are just the most important ones. You can check
Speaker 2: out the rest in it. They have an article and
Speaker 2: now that some of them have been on sale for
Speaker 2: a few weeks, we can extrapolate how they have performed
Speaker 2: or will perform in terms of sales and popularity. The
Speaker 2: game analytics agenda mind game Data has shared its projections
Speaker 2: for the first month on the market for Avowed, the
Speaker 2: recent RPG from Obsidian and Xbox Game Studios, and the
Speaker 2: data is quite surprising. According to the analyst firm, Avowed
Speaker 2: will reach four point nine million players in its first
Speaker 2: month on sale, including both game Pass subscribers who have
Speaker 2: played it there and those who have purchased a copy
Speaker 2: of the game digitally or physically. That figure alone is
Speaker 2: telling enough, and it seems we weren't the only ones
Speaker 2: to enjoy its colorful adventure. Blah Blah Blah points out
Speaker 2: that that is more so than the around four million
Speaker 2: that Indiana Jones managed in its first month. To me,
Speaker 2: the way I read this Lexi is that people are
Speaker 2: kind of feeling good about Microsoft's game output and a
Speaker 2: way that they were not for a while there. So
Speaker 2: it's like, actually, what's happening is a vout is building
Speaker 2: on the success of Indiana Jones, where people are more
Speaker 2: willing to be like, oh, let me get my Xbox out,
Speaker 2: let me get it connected again. I'm playing Indiana Jones
Speaker 2: and now a vouts here, and people who were maybe
Speaker 2: waiting on the sideline or like, well, now there's two
Speaker 2: good games, so that I have even more of a
Speaker 2: reason to go over there to either buy these games
Speaker 2: or subscribe to game Pass or I got game Pass
Speaker 2: because the Indiana Jones and now I'm playing a vout
Speaker 2: on top of that. So I think the sort of
Speaker 2: idea that Microsoft had behind acquiring all these studios and
Speaker 2: releasing all these games is starting to pay off. Fore,
Speaker 2: it is having a little bit of a network effect
Speaker 2: and one is doing better than the next, or one
Speaker 2: is doing better than the last.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that goes especially so for studio like Obsidian,
Speaker 4: who are one of the very few Microsoft studios right
Speaker 4: now who have multiple releases under their belt since they
Speaker 4: have been acquired by Microsoft.
Speaker 3: Like, it's one of the few studios.
Speaker 4: That you can look to and you can go you know,
Speaker 4: Outer Worlds, Pentiment and Grounded all have kind of been
Speaker 4: supported and came out under Microsoft's.
Speaker 1: Like Watch and all like kind of punched above their weight. Yeah, am, and.
Speaker 4: People generally like so like, people feel good about Obsidian
Speaker 4: games at the moment, and you know what.
Speaker 1: We can probably wrap up the show about is selling well?
Speaker 1: Good for it? It is?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I got I really enjoy that game. It is
Speaker 2: going to have long legs, It's gonna it's gonna do
Speaker 2: well over time. People are gonna be picking out that
Speaker 2: game up throughout this entire year.
Speaker 1: I think, all right, let's see here, pull question. If
Speaker 1: you're ready for it, Jan, I'm not so. There we go.
Speaker 1: Let's let me get it up over here. Do you
Speaker 1: have a handheld gaming PC? Let me refresh that and
Speaker 1: see if that is the uh right one? There we go.
Speaker 2: Nope, The right one is have you ever bought a
Speaker 2: controller from eight bit Dough? I have, In fact, I
Speaker 2: just bought one yesterday.
Speaker 1: And holy crap, forty eight percent of our respondents of
Speaker 1: the two point six thousand people that voted, have bought
Speaker 1: an eight bit dough controller. Man, that is quite quite
Speaker 1: a few of you.
Speaker 4: When I think of the Giant Bomb audience, that is
Speaker 4: maybe the most biased call that you have done in
Speaker 4: a long time. I mean, be inclined to buy an
Speaker 4: eight bito controller. It's people who watch Giant Bomb.
Speaker 2: And people who have been influenced by us not shutting
Speaker 2: up about it. Fifty two percent said no, uh yeah,
Speaker 2: that ultimate to control here should be here tomorrow and
Speaker 2: I'm looking forward to trying it out.
Speaker 1: So I got the purple one. I'm pretty excited about it.
Speaker 2: Oh excuse me, all right, you have a new poll
Speaker 2: question before we get to that, Lexie, why don't you
Speaker 2: tell peop where they can.
Speaker 1: Find you on the internet what you have going on
Speaker 1: all that good stuff.
Speaker 4: Yeah, find me at basically Lexi on Blue Sky and
Speaker 4: the Stamman You podcast has recently come back. Second episode
Speaker 4: is going up on Monday. We have special guest Squidge
Speaker 4: rugby on, which, if you know anything about rugby, is
Speaker 4: very exciting. He is probably the best rugby analyst in
Speaker 4: the business, but also a big old fucking nerd on
Speaker 4: a He's glace. So we hung out with him and
Speaker 4: talked about the Pokemon presentation and what he's been playing
Speaker 4: on rug Be twenty five, which is a bad video game.
Speaker 1: Well then, jee, should we be doing this in a
Speaker 1: video Ninja baby? Okay? Cool? All right?
Speaker 2: Well, new pole question? Where are you playing Monster Hunter Wild's?
Speaker 2: Xbox PlayStation PC? And here's a little special one for
Speaker 2: you all out there.
Speaker 1: I'm not playing it. You can also vote for that
Speaker 1: if you're not playing it instead of just trying to
Speaker 1: see the results. We'll get the results of that, all right, everybody,
Speaker 1: we have, So we did a new poll question, where
Speaker 1: are you playing Monster hunder Wilds? Thank you Lexi so
Speaker 1: much for hanging out with me today and talking about
Speaker 1: video games. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 3: For talking glob This is the first time I've thanked you.
Speaker 2: Yep, that's right and first and only time you're ever
Speaker 2: gonna have to thank me. Thank you Jan for producing
Speaker 2: through this message. We kind of piece everything together and
Speaker 2: figure out what it's going to look like now. Thank
Speaker 2: you everybody for watching all week while we did some
Speaker 2: fun stuff on Giant Bomb, But most importantly, thank you
Speaker 2: for watching and listening this show.
Speaker 1: Until next time, have a good one, take care of yourself,
Speaker 1: and goodbye. I'm going to reach my hand over to
Speaker 1: Lexi's side of the window. Bye.