Transcript
Speaker: Hello and welcome to the Fog of Warcast. Today we're going to have a really fun episode. We're going to talk a little bit about what's happening with future releases and which games have been announced this summer.
Speaker: But before that, with me, yeah I have my co-host Johan Mossberg and Magnus Ek, and my name is Andreas Eriksson. Cheers, guys. How are you and what have you been playing this summer?
Speaker: Well, cheerio, my old friends, cheerio. ah Actually, i since I live in northern part of Sweden and we happened to get this kind of heat wave, so I haven't been playing...
Speaker: much at all to be completely honest but I've had an eye on Gamescom this past couple of days but I can't really say I've played a lot I've gone back to the old classics Total War Warhammer 2 Rogue Trader I've been immersed in the Games Workshop universe What about you Magnus?
Speaker: Well, and I've been playing Grand Strategy as always because that's the only thing worth playing. But I'm also kind of, you know, excited or not excited, but I'm debating with myself whether to buy the new Doom because I think that's a cool game to kind of go away from, and head away from our topic.
Speaker: ah But apart from that, I'm really excited to record this episode because it's the first one I'm doing with a decent microphone. ah So I'm sorry for all you listeners out there that have had to hear cats and keyboards and things in the back of the podcast.
Speaker: And I really do hope this episode sounds better. Yes, and I can already say that it's ah it's crisp and clearing really good. Less ah tapping and fapping in the background, so to speak.
Speaker: Me, I have been playing a bunch of strategy games, actually. So I dipped in and played a lot of Shogun 2 again, which was really fun. Then I went over and played um Free Kingdoms, another total war game.
Speaker: Then I got distracted and started trying out a game called Heroes of an Annihilated Empire or something like that. It's strategy game from 2006, it's a really new one ah for this podcast.
Speaker: I can't recommend it, unfortunately. dipped into a bunch of the Red Alert games. um the ah who Oh, yeah, I also tried out Steel Division. So I've been trying to catch up during the summer. And, the well, it's going okay, I guess.
Speaker: This is the first time I'm hearing about Steel Division after we talked about it. So, yeah, really excited to play that with you. I also dipped into a bit of Red Alert. I think I might be too young. ah But the jury's still out, and we'll get back to that on the podcast.
Speaker: Yeah, it's a game. It's a game. yeah Yeah, you're correct. It's a game. Yeah, in particular, and I want to talk about this sometime in the future when we feel that we can do a new episode about really all the games. We should probably not just do all the games, but when we feel i like doing that, I want to talk about back in the day when games were unfair.
Speaker: Because this is something which struck me hard when playing Red Alert Remastered. That game doesn't like you. That game is not about you facing an equal opponent. yeah he's serious were probably yes It's a problem-solving game that wants to beat you up.
Speaker: But it's all games. And we are going to talk about something much much more recent. And then the new games. Johan, you have been watching the Gamescom Expo. Oh, I have. I have. And it's it's been a delight.
Speaker: But something kind of realize when you start watching Gamescom and Fairs in that kind of magnitude is There's a lot of grand-star games and RTS games that kind of drown in the bubble because people, that they watch out for that new Battlefield, the new Call of Duty, the new FIFA, all of that.
Speaker: And this GameCon has been... quite lacking in RTS games, and especially in new releases and new announcements. We got some big ones, some good ones, but mostly we get a feel and a show of games that has already been announced.
Speaker: but But we had some gems, and I think I've picked out... a
Speaker: A kind of good mix between this this is the big release from Gamescom, but also some gems to look out for, it yeah in my opinion, at least. But then again, come at me, I might be wrong.
Speaker: But it also, before we start this, I know in the sense Magnus could apologize for his microphone and his sound... I want to apologize for calling something, calling a satchel charge a bundt charge ah in in the still division.
Speaker: I've gotten some feedback from that, not only from ah my fellow podcasters and from myself, but from and and people in my head surround that surrounding that said that, no, it's not called a bundt charge. A bundt charge is something that you use when you build yeah high-end wave thingies from Vattenfall.
Speaker: So it's a satchel charge, absolutely, but yeah. Johan, I really don't think you need to apologize for this. It's just fun for you guys because we're doing this in our second language, obviously. Anyone that listens to the podcast can tell.
Speaker: ah But a satchel charge in in Swedish is called a bundtladdning. Yeah. And somehow in the heat moment, you just auto-translated that and it became a bunt charge. And I think that's, I thought that was fun. So I mentioned it because a bunt cake is kind of like a sponge cake.
Speaker: And I got some really fun pictures of the kind of an explosive explosive cake. I don't think you need to apologize for it. No, but have you had a bad bunt cake? Because those things are hard as steel and could probably disable a tiger.
Speaker: Well, if you release whatever is happening in your stomach afterwards in a Tiger, you'll be able to keep driving. yeah But I mean, I've i've been looking at Gamescom and I don't know, can I just get into this? Because there were some things that i got me excited, but we also I would kind of like to start at the games that we got to see something more. They are already announced, but we got to see more of them.
Speaker: and i Some of them. I know a game that you and me, Andreas, are really looking forward to. It's Anno 11.7, Pax Romana.
Speaker: We got to see more from that. And my God, it looks stunning. It looks like what I really want from Anno game, but also in the and In the Roman times.
Speaker: It looks magnificent. It looks beautiful. And I can't wait to play this. I can't wait to get my hands on this game. Because they're working a lot with.
Speaker: Yes you have your city. But they work a lot with. Vassals. They work a lot with client states. They work a lot with. What the senate has. It's basically the taken things from.
Speaker: Rome Total the War and Rome Total War 2. When you get senate missions. But they kind of scaled it up. and And it looks magnificent. It looks and really really good. I am incredibly excited about it. um yeah so One of the early games I played when I was a kid that that I didn't have, like a paid played at a friend's house.
Speaker: It was say one of the old Caesar games, one of the first. Love Caesar. And as I said, I wanted a game that plays like my memory of death game played, like a city builder in Rome with Roman architecture,
Speaker: But I don't want to go back and play it. It's easy games because, well, unfortunately, most of them are too old. The um the day latest one, I think Season 3, it's not exactly, it doesn't feel right.
Speaker: So want a game that feels right now as my memory of the old Season game felt, but I think this might be it. I think this might be at least ah And I'm really happy because i loved Season 1 and Season 2 and Season 3.
Speaker: They were really great games. And this looks like it can be that game. It can be the game we want. We are sold on the hype. Yeah, I'm sold on the hype train.
Speaker: But I mean, I said when we did the City Builder episode, like, why am why don't I play more City Builder games? I think this might be the one to really get me get me hooked. It looks just... So, Crisp, a really beautiful game. And we haven't talked about beautiful games. I mean, I don't think it's the thing that decides it for me, whether it looks cool or not, whether it looks good or not.
Speaker: It just looks so pleasing with the pictures we've gotten. I really hope that the gameplay holds up. ah I'm a bit... if I can you know play devil's advocate here I'm not sure about like because it's cool that they're doing that they're letting you choose like you want to be do you want to play as the Roman Empire you want to play that setting or want play in kind of like a in quotes barbarian setting and let you do a Celtic kingdom in Albion I mean, a Celtic kingdom feels like a little bit derivative or a little bit, you know, it's it really what joined with the Rome thing. No, no, no.
Speaker: I'm all for playing a rebearing kingdom, but that's the problem with the setting because when the Roman emperor is at its height, it means that the rest of Europe. really isn't. ah So it might have been, I mean, for for the Barbarian gameplay, might have been cooler to do this. And I know that, you know, the historical evidence is still kind of shaky, but it might have been cooler with an earlier earlier setting. Or why don't they do Persia?
Speaker: I mean, Persia, whatever, is so cool in this. Do that as a DLC. Yeah, this is something, oh this is something we are already teasing the second half of this episode when we're going to talk about realism.
Speaker: So I've been reading a bunch of books And ah very recurring theme in the books I've been reading is, because I've been reading about civilization and how various historical civilizations worked, and a very recurring theme has been that, like, in the ancient days and in the pre-ancient days as well, like, but essentially from when we start having written records, the main European or sort of Western civilization was a Persia all the way up to Northern Mediterranean civilization.
Speaker: ah Talking about a European civilization would have been incredibly ahistorical, ah because that's what not where the trade routes went, that's not where people had common languages, that's not where people migrated, stuff like that. So so yes, I totally agree. I would want it to move eastwards rather than northwards.
Speaker: yeah Yeah, I can get that. I mean, Persians are cool, but if we're going to talk about the Persians, why not the Phoenicians? That's cool.
Speaker: The Egyptians, that's cool. That's where we have something from from the starting. Yeah. The point for me is it looks magnificent. i hope it can live up to the hype.
Speaker: So that's one of the gems i kind of brought to you. And from 11.7... and les elevenmon salmon to the first the 40th millennia we got a look at Mechanicus 2 which is a Warhammer 40k game and Mechanicus 1 was very well received we got some looks from that it's already been announced it's a good game it looks good if you like plasma rifles and clunky xcom 2 gameplay but it looks great ah games workshop might be on the way to redeem themselves with this game
Speaker: and They also have ah another game coming that I'm going to talk about bit later. But Mechanicus 2, it looks great if you like... The Mechanicus, yeah, sure. That's probably going to be a good game. i don't know if it's going to be a wild... or a big seller.
Speaker: I don't think so. I think it's for the fans of Warhammer 4K. But it looked it looks great. It really looks great. And the same can be said for Tropical 7, that we got to see some more gameplay of. And I mean...
Speaker: I, for one, I love the Tropico series. ah It is SimCity without the moral questions, because you can just behave the way you want.
Speaker: and But we got to see something more of that. But before I get into the big release and the big hype, I mean, we got to see something more from e five It looks great.
Speaker: It really does. It really looks like a game we... I mean, we know this. All of us are going to play it. We're going to have opinions.
Speaker: and We're going to love it after they patch it. Because it's a paradox game. We know what's going to happen here. But... Year 5, guys.
Speaker: It looks great. Yeah, I have so much I want to react on here. Just first thing, do you know why it's called Anno 117? And we've got to figure out how we say that.
Speaker: I haven't read up on that. It's obviously 117.
Speaker: 117, yeah. case can We agree. That's how we're that that's where we're calling it. ah It's the year hadron took or um Hadrian from Trinidad. Hadrian's World. okay so Yeah, of Wall fame.
Speaker: Also, well so like one of the classic five good emperors. ah And the first one that didn't really focus on conquest. So you had the Dacian Wars and the kind of Roman conquest, which fits Anno quite good. Okay, it's not conquest, not in focus. We still want to focus on this kind of shining pinnacle of Roman imperial history.
Speaker: 107 is a perfect year. I just wanted to throw that in there. I'm so psyched for a new tropical game. yeah Yeah, it's going to be great.
Speaker: Yeah, but and so it's it's so fun to have one of these... i mean, because it is it could have been a much more like serious game. it is The old tropical games are that good. and I mean, they they do focus on kind of like fun mechanics, about controlling... ah And not just controlling, but enabling a whole society...
Speaker: but it's a fun setting, which is a weird thing about a game about dictators. ah But i've I've always loved kind of like the pitch of tropical games. yeah So that will get a buy for me. Mechanicus, I haven't played any of the Warhammer games.
Speaker: So I'll have to say, like I said about the City Builder game um ah where'mer forty k games, 40k games. I've played, obviously, Total War games. But it's... yeah yeah I always feel like ah this is cool. I'm not sure that I'm going to play it, but cool game.
Speaker: and Not that psyched about the Mechanicus. ah Not my favorite part of that you know that universe. ah So you wanted reactions. that Those are my reactions to it. EU5,
Speaker: so psyched, so scared. i i just don't want them to blow it. I really don't want them to blow it. But the good thing about Paradox is that even if the game's, you know, even if it isn't that good when it releases, it gets better.
Speaker: And worst case scenario for me that, as I've talked about in the podcast, loves EU4. I just continue playing e four for a bit by EU5 and then wait for it to kind of find its path.
Speaker: ah But I'm really ah very interested to see what they bring on from ah from the latest Victoria and Crusader Kings game.
Speaker: because from what I've seen about the gameplay they do they are even more inspired i think about from inspired by VK and Victoria than from the last EU4 game there's not much that carries over from the last EU4 game so you really have to look at everything that the studio releases you can't just think this is a new EU4 they will take EU4 and then they'll polish that up you really need to look at the other games they're releasing ah but I'm um py and um I'm I'm scare psyched yeah and and I mean i i think it looks good ah but as we always say but with Paradox Games give it half a year before you try it
Speaker: let them polish everything out. Or half decade. Yeah, maybe half a decade. As long as it doesn't end up like Imperator. Yeah, sure. ah i'm I'm probably going to be happy. I'm going buy it.
Speaker: I'm going to play it. In that sense. But the Andreas, do you have any reactions or should I just go through with... i'm I'm holding my reaction. I know from Googling a little bit that the games I'm most excited to talk about are coming. yeah Yeah, probably that.
Speaker: and also have this small little gem that did... Did any one of you play Rebel Star when it came out? Okay.
Speaker: Because now we have Arch Rebel, which is clone... It's a new make of Rebel Star. it Rebel Star came out in 1986 for the Atari.
Speaker: It was very popular. Then they kind of cloned it to PC. Now Arch Rebel is coming, which is hot-up clone of this game from Arch Rebel.
Speaker: And it looks stunning. They've taken this kind of 1986, 1992 aesthetic,
Speaker: And just bumped it up to 2025. It looks great. I hope it's going to be amazing. and But we'll see. Then we had Heroes of My Dematic Old era They showed some gameplay and I can just see how excited Andreas is getting here.
Speaker: Yeah, tell me all about it. Yeah, I mean, we talked about this in the Heroes episode. It looks great. it it it It is everything I want it to be.
Speaker: Everything I want it to be. And it just... I can't wait. I'm so sucked for this game. This game looks amazing. It feels amazing when you see it.
Speaker: I think we can have ah hit here. Yeah. What i want to say is, because I'm not really, ah I'm not about game hype very much because a lot of games has made me disappointed over the years.
Speaker: and What I like in gaming is not what is still current mainstream, but a Heroes the Magic game, which tries to go sort of back to the roots, but with current tech issues.
Speaker: It is so hard for me to see how it could fail. This is essentially the perfect recipe. and They have the the the player base so they can just stick to the old format. They don't need to do anything really new just to attract a new audience. um Heroes Mathematics 3 was in very many ways sort of a, for its time, at perfect game.
Speaker: and that They have learned a lot since making it. So just like... keeping some of the lessons, for from ah especially from Heroes 2, and also a little bit of ideas from the later ones, but being dedicated to just go back to the old format.
Speaker: I can't see how they can fail. If they fail, I'm gonna be so incredibly upset. Yeah, yeah. I agree with you here. They can't fail.
Speaker: From the looks of it, they can't. Guys are scaring me so much. I've never heard a pitch more, that you're setting us up for so much to say. i mean, they have the good old games, they have the player base, they can't fail. We have done an episode of remakes. We know that you can fail. You can absolutely fail.
Speaker: They fattled in so many games, don't take this away from me. It's a good point because they sort of did fail the remake, but the the people working on this game does not seem to be the the same, or I think it's not exactly the same studio who did the um most of the other are Heroes games.
Speaker: ah So at least they're untainted. But from looking at it, I mean, it it does look like precise what I think I wanted, what I said I wanted for remakes when we did that episode. it it is it's It's very reminiscent of the old game from what i what I'm seeing, like the look out of your settlement or castle, ah the battles, the magic mechanics, and just polishing that up and using what's happened in tech and computers since then, it it could be really good. And if they if they pull this off, it could be the benchmark for how you remake an old game.
Speaker: So that is actually, you know, a new experience 20 years later, more than 20 years later. um So, yeah, really cool to see how they pull it off. also follow up Before we move on with other games, I want to say something. And this is um speaking of weird hype.
Speaker: So I mentioned that like after half a decade, a Paradox game generally gets good. ah Currently, the most current reviews of Imperator Rome are actually very positive.
Speaker: I might actually have to start playing that again to see if there if if it's true, if it has gotten good with like the the normal Paradox cycle of someone mobbing it until you like it.
Speaker: Oh, screw you. You got me. You got my sight. Yeah. You're setting me up for another disappointment on the same game. Yeah, i'm that's kind of afford and I'm not going to fall in that trap.
Speaker: That game sucks. Nope. I'm not playing it anymore. I've tried. Andreas has pushed me into this. I'm not going to be able to let this go. I'm going to have to play it again.
Speaker: Yeah, because we can we can play multiplayer sometime and I can still sit and say, it sucks. Yeah, but I'm such a Romaboo. I mean, you you noticed when we talked about Anno 117.
Speaker: I just wanted that game to be good so badly. I just wanted it to be good. and it didn't stack up. It just couldn't scale. And I get why. It's so hard when you're looking at a historical player that goes from small-scale sediments to vast empires. How do you fit that into one game mechanic?
Speaker: They barely pull it off with U4. Barely. And that has its problems. um But, yeah. Okay, yep you got me psyched for a number of games here.
Speaker: Yeah, I know you want it to be good, but that's not why we're here. We're talking about other games right now, but there hopefully it can be good. And when it's good, tell me and I'll try and play it and probably be in my late yeah or early 40s and say,
Speaker: Eh, this sucks. But it sounds like it's worth following Gamescom. ah For me, that has to follow it. You've been our kind of like our Gamescom correspondent here from the podcast.
Speaker: Yeah, and I haven't talked about the most exciting game yet. There's more? Oh, yeah, there's that's one game more. I've missed a lot of them, and I've cut out a lot of them. i just wanted to give you gems that we can go through.
Speaker: Guys, you know i love Warhammer 40K, right? I've noticed. You've noticed. Yeah, yeah. it Borrowed some books for me.
Speaker: Dawn of War 4 is the big RTS title that's been released on Gamescom. And hear me out here. I loved Dawn of War 1.
Speaker: It was probably the pinnacle of Games Workshop, Warhammer 40k, RTS games. That was the best. Hands down the best.
Speaker: Then we got Dawn of War 2, which was... And then we got Dawn of War 3 that kind of killed the series eight years ago. It was when George Clooney stepped into the role of Batman in Batman Forever, I think it was called, with Mr. Freeze on a Schwarzenegger and all that. And George Clooney said publicly, I thought I killed the Batman franchise.
Speaker: Then Christopher Nolan came back with The Dark Knight. This is what's happening now, eight years later, from Dawn of War 3 to Dawn of War 4. We're getting a new Dawn of War, and it's the studio King Arth that did Iron Harvest, which was impeccable RTS game.
Speaker: And now they're taking on Dawn of War 4, and it looks fantastic. It looked like everything that Dawn of War 2 and 3 should have been, but wasn't.
Speaker: It looks great. It's an amazing game, I think.
Speaker: I am very interested about that. ah So I've always been skeptical about the Dawn of War series because to me it feels like yeah Company of Heroes in space. I actually think there was the same studio for a while. It was. Yeah, the Dawn of War. I think it's two. I think they they they started with Dawn of War and moved on to Company of Heroes and not the other way around.
Speaker: no they started with Dawn of War, went to Company of Heroes, and then they had to do of War 2 and 3 and kind of fucked it up.
Speaker: So that is a strong case for this being good. so i'm I'm sort of excited about it. It's not exactly, or it hasn't historically been my style of strategy games ah because it's like a little bit more tactics games focused or a little bit like smaller scale, mostly unit tactics, stuff like that.
Speaker: I don't get the base build as much as I want, but it can be good. And you're right, as I said earlier on, the Warhammer 40k games have... Historically, they have been some of the shittiest games available because Games Workshop has been a little bit slutty with their licensing.
Speaker: ah Recently, almost all of the yeah Games Workshop games have been really good. yeah. I mean, we've moved away from how Fire Warrior, which was shitshow of a game.
Speaker: we've we might I remember that. Oh no. Now I remember it. I don't want to remember it. No, you don't want to remember it. I bought it. I remember it. I still have the CD here somewhere on my shelf.
Speaker: Yeah, Fire Warrior game that is actually about space marines. Yeah, when you play a Tau Firewar, but it's more about Space Marines. And yeah, it's just bad.
Speaker: It's horrendous. But that was when Games Workshop kind of played hooky with the license. Oh, you like me, you get license. Oh, you like me, you get license.
Speaker: And we got a shit ton of bad games. But Dawn of War 4 and also Mechanicus 2, I think, can kind of pull back Wyrmoth 4K into the RTS grand strategy, strategy gaming community.
Speaker: Yeah, it's going to be fun. I'm excited i'm sacked about it. yeah Yeah, I mean, I'm so psyched. And if you haven't seen it, I'm going to send the and the link to the reveal trailer to you afterwards so you can check it. I am so psyched.
Speaker: I am so pumped for this game. it It looks great. It looks magnificent. Knowing you, I think... Since this is Games Workshop 40k game announced during yeah the expo, I guess this is sort of also the like finishing piece. there yeah yeah Yeah. The big one. Yeah, it always finishes on a big hype and it always finishes with a good, or the potential of a good Games Workshop game.
Speaker: Interesting. Yeah, I've looked through the games that they presented so far, and the the only one I think we might have missed a little bit, but it's very much stretching the definition, it's that they...
Speaker: showcased a little, little bit more of Bannerlord Warsails, the sort of introducing the Scandinavia analog to Mountain Blade Bannerlord. Yeah. i yeah she is It seems sort of fun. It's sort of sort of a strategy game because you can go into the sort of commanding your army mode. It's actually pretty cool.
Speaker: I want to see more games doing that sort of but battle battle command. um but it's probably mostly an action RPG with the strategy elements or something like that.
Speaker: Yeah, I saw it and I cut it out for time's sake. Yeah. But it looks good. it And it has been in some way announced for a really long time. yeah It's just finally we get some footage.
Speaker: Yeah. So that is exciting. And I think it's really exciting because it sort of um argues against one of my theses from an earlier episode, which was that there are very few real or good strategy games being announced.
Speaker: So I looked at the early expos during the the the beginning of the summer. There were like three of them, out of out of which two had a bunch of major releases.
Speaker: And I remember writing to you guys that I was really disappointed that there were almost no strategy games. I think in the, in the what it was it called? summer Summer Game Fest. I think the only really sort of actual strategy games was, first of all, a park management game based on Jurassic World.
Speaker: Then an actual RPG with tech elements. it there was almost no strategy games in real sense. When I looked at the, when I followed the expo, it was insane.
Speaker: and then at the d the other one, i the future game show, summer showcase, It was almost the same thing. yeah You have to stretch your definition a lot.
Speaker: so Like you have Lost Adelons and Golf Architect, which are a sort of strategy in the sense that they are city builders or roguelites with a tactics element.
Speaker: So it' so my my take was that, oh damn, strategy games 2025 is just not happening. So this is good. This is great relieving. here yeah I mean, they are happening and I think we can see when E3 rolls about, I think we will see even more strategy games and RTS games.
Speaker: But yes there's there's so certain lacking standard to RTS and strategy games especially games that look good Gamescom had a few I've ah ah been nitpicking here but future games yeah when I watched future games I felt like um man is this what we've come to but I think E3 will run around and be good I think going to have to disappoint you there I don't think there is going to be an E3.
Speaker: um When I Google it, it looks like it was cancelled last two years and will probably not be running. um I noticed this just when brain awareness I just looked at the highlights for Gamescom that someone mentioned that in the chat there was not going to be any free. And when I Google it, it looks like that. The last official one was 2021.
Speaker: um ah Yeah, they they did... I'm looking it now. They did Summer Games Fest 2025. But yeah it it looks like they're going to do i Winter Games Fest 2025.
Speaker: one five kit so Yeah, because Summer Games Fest, as I covered, it was way smaller than the Classically Free Convention, ah which means that the Winter Games one is probably also going to be a way smaller. Yeah, probably. They don't have that many many opportunities to give us any good strategy games now.
Speaker: Well, screw them then.
Speaker: Now, and if you might see something, it's that, I mean, we talked about a series of exciting games on the at least how I feel now, I could buy pretty much all of these just to have a look at them.
Speaker: ah And that's a good haul, but a lot of them are, I mean, they are sequels. It's run long running game series that dont either, you know, keep shutting along or they're trying to revive something.
Speaker: um you and Have you seen anything that's, okay, this is brand new, but I think this could be cool.
Speaker: Yeah, we saw um ah Inter Darkness, which I think can be a good game. and I also saw a game that...
Speaker: ah yeah Right now I forgot the title from it, but it is kind of this... Someone has read a lot of Terry Pratchett because it takes place on a whale going through space.
Speaker: where you have to manage resources and your cities. I'm just going to see. i can't remember the game title, but it's an indie game. looks cool.
Speaker: But with that said, it's an indie game. We haven't seen from the greats from the big studios any new releases or any game that's not a follow-up game.
Speaker: yeah As far as i'm I'm aware, I might have missed something. Please come at me at chat. but
Speaker: But yes, yeah I can agree with you here, Magnus, that a lot of the games that comes now are sequels or follow-ups. Which is sad. And Byrus is kind of sidetracking us at the end of what should be ah a small standalone episode about Gamescom.
Speaker: Not anymore. Not anymore. But, I mean, as a I don't think we've talked about this. ah But, I mean, we're all, to be fair, we're all middle-aged.
Speaker: ah Younger middle-ages, but we're all middle-aged. And do you think it's because, you know, a lot of the audience for strategy games or grand strategy games are are middle-aged like us? Are we kind of losing the kids on this? Well, we are. um yes say I have made this point a little bit before about how strategy games have gotten, how the trend in strategy games has been Apart from perhaps the Total War and Paradox games, which are really legacy games at this point, mostly all the new ones have gone towards simplification and towards ah essentially less of the classical strategy and and um more of a tight gameplay loop doing a one or ah two small things.
Speaker: And I mean, just looking at the releases, I think we can say that like If a strategy game had a golden age, somewhere in the late 90s, during the early 2000s, when there was a bunch of new series and new studios and new games released, what has its ah its current heyday is probably yeah the roguelite type of game.
Speaker: There seems to be a ton of roguelites, often from smaller studios, often with new ideas so or everything between like maze games, ba climbing games, action shooting games with roguelike sort of style.
Speaker: um So I think that is what is the current thing that yeah we are training young people to like. And that the yeah our generations were trained in a similar way to love strategy games because there were so many released at the same time and so many developed at the same time. So yes, I think yeah ah think we are sort of trending away from strategy games and have been for a while.
Speaker: And I think it's sort of self-reinforcing. But it's also sort of promising because this happened to role-playing games back in the day. ah Like, there was an era when we just rarely got a good RPG, but we got a bunch of shooters.
Speaker: And then all of the RPG audience um managed to earn sufficiently to be a strong consumer group. And but now we have the Baldur's Gate clones coming up over, well, every orifice, actually.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah. I mean, but This is one of the points where I kind of, I mean, I like to agree with Andreas, but here it kind of pains me to agree with Andreas.
Speaker: But I think he's on something here, and which which is sad. it basically, because I'm i'm i'm a 90s kid. I grew up and during that decade, and we got strategy games and grand strategy games and RTS games coming out, as Andrea said, out of every horror of us.
Speaker: And now we get Dawn of War 4, we get Europa Universalis 5. We don't get new titles in in the same amount that we're used to or that I'm used to, that I want And that's sad.
Speaker: that That kind of sucks, actually. To be honest.
Speaker: Yeah, I just hope it comes back. Yeah, that's sad, but but let's let's just rewind a bit and say that there came a bunch of interesting games out of this Gamescom. mean, we've been talking about it for 40 minutes, so it's not like we have a dearth of good games to play. ah The real i mean real situation is that ah probably in six months we'll have to conclude that we played a few of these games.
Speaker: And it's good to see that coming out. I mean, a couple of new good Warhammer games, i'm so I'm so psyched for Tropical. I'm so psyched for Anno. ah So, yeah.
Speaker: And we haven't even talked about the games that came earlier this year. I mean, none of us has played the new Civilizations game, I think. No, not yet. I haven't. i'm I'm doing the same thing with Civ as I'm doing with Paradox, giving it somewhere between half a year and half a decade until I trust that they have modded it through the game I actually want to play. Yeah.
Speaker: But yeah, I agree. um I would have loved there to be more new RTS games. And it is mostly because I don't like where the genre has been going. i won' I want a few new studios to try to go like big and insane again. Because I learned that.
Speaker: I love the total Total Annihilation style of like, this strategy game doesn't really have an end. We don't have an upper limit. The upper limit is your PC crashing. I love that.
Speaker: And of course, I would love someone to come back with it. ah But still, just the fact that we got a bunch of really promising sequels, it is still big.
Speaker: Yeah, it is. And I just don't want us to head in the direction that TV is going, that if a new show isn isn't a super hit, it gets canceled or you don't even try it. I mean, Netflix is throwing a lot of, you a lot of past at the wall just hoping that anything sticks and I think that's doing negative things to the quality of quality of new shows and I don't want games to be going in the same direction that would just playing you know we're just playing it safe I agree and i I don't think that's going to happen an interesting observation I've made across over the years is that most of my favorite games are not from AAA studios
Speaker: It's like the AA game, the ones that are slightly cheaper because they're the ones who dare to experiment. And I think that is, I want it to come back, but I assume it's going to come back because, well, the strategy game doesn't have to be that expensive in many ways. You don't need the same sort of incredible visuals, incredible effects.
Speaker: You don't even need to bring expensive actors. Do you should? Because I've been playing Red Alert recently and it's amazing. Westwood Studios! Yeah. and And Q, you once ranted about how EA ruined game series.
Speaker: I've already been ranting about the Games Workshop in this episode. i can always rant about EA. yeah But Johan carries out on a glad note. On a happy note, I think we've had, even though there sequels, we've seen ah good lineup of games, promising games, and I'm psyched to play them.
Speaker: I'm really psyched.
Speaker: And in that there on that note, we're going to finish. Thank you all for listening to the Fog of Warcast. And ah stick around. Stick around for further episodes, but also share, like, subscribe, do whatever to be keep just bringing new listeners.
Speaker: Because we're we're not going to stop doing this, so you should not stop listening. yeah ah Have a good one, folks. Take care, guys.
Speaker: you
