#4 | After Dark

Transcript

Speaker: And we're live. Welcome to Seriously Irrelevant, a gaming podcast still very much in development. I am the Lanky Llama, your host, Dylan Gursley.

Speaker: There's only one host on this show joined by co-host, a decidedly second fiddle, Brendan Connelly. K. Poros Flight, Brendan, how you doing, buddy?

Speaker: I'm doing well. Doesn't the existence of a co-host imply that you are also a co-host? Listen, we don't need to get technical about the words. I know that's usually my shtick.

Speaker: Like when fucking Colin Moriarty puts the TH in a date on an announcement tweet for his new game, that's definitely Castlevania, but refuses to say that it's Castlevania and cries about vampire survivors. Yep, that same guy.

Speaker: You know what's funny is one day I hope to like be on a show with Colin and he's going to be like, hey, we watched all your shows and videos and it turns out it seems like you hate me. Yeah, I can't wait for you to be held accountable for your words.

Speaker: I've never really experienced accountability in my life. It's kind of like a privilege I have. um Superpower, one might say. Superpower. Super privilege.

Speaker: Brandon, I just got back from the bar. This is Seriously Irrelevant After Dark. Welcome to episode four of Seriously Irrelevant, the true episode four. We've recorded episode four twice before this, if you remember.

Speaker: Once in January 2024, perhaps February 2024, and again, February 2026, when Zencaster decided that my default mic was my shitty-ass webcam and not the mic that I paid over $400 for.

Speaker: And it ruined the entire show that even Adobe Podcast couldn't save it. So we're never publishing that episode despite, despite what you may want in your little Asheville privileged abode.

Speaker: Don't get rid of it. We can paywall that one day. Wait, sorry. um Do you think I just doxed you? No. Remember last week how you were like, or not last week, well, in the viewer's mind two weeks ago. Or never.

Speaker: Remember how you were like, don't tell them where I live. Nobody cares about you. not Your parents don't even know where you live. Yeah, they can't find their way here. Dude, I was like scrolling over to my second screen to try to pull up the notes document. The notes document doesn't exist.

Speaker: Oh, perfect. i wast an egg We're winging it. That's why it's seriously irrelevant after dark. Can you stop stepping on my lines?

Speaker: Really happy to be here with you today, buddy. We got a lot to discuss. It's too bad we don't have anything noted down. So why don't you just lay it on me? Why don't you give me the guide since you want to demand the title of co-host so so so so readily.

Speaker: Why don't you drive? Drive a little bit. Co-pilot a bit. group i Don't. Not that. Don't say co-pilot out loud anymore. That's trigger word for me. Yeah. cope You know, we used to respect co-pilots and then Microsoft came about.

Speaker: Yeah. Speaking of Microsoft, what do you think about that new CEO at Xbox? I mean, a Khalifa's sister. So I guess we'll we'll talk about that again, because I think we talked about that in the bonus episode. It's not getting posted.

Speaker: Yeah, I guess you're right. But let me say it to you like this. I didn't say it to you off the off the record. I'll say it to you on the record. Yeah. So I started doing YouTube, the Lanky Llama on YouTube. Please follow me, subscribe, like, comment. I really want your comments. If you don't subscribe, that's okay for now. I'm more interested in your comments.

Speaker: Side note, no idea how the algorithm works. Maybe your subscribe is worth more than comments. I don't know. i just want somebody to confirm that they have indeed watched what I've put on YouTube.

Speaker: um However, I've been on YouTube having a ton of fun without you because you're unreliable. And it's nice to get in front of a mic together without you alone. And...

Speaker: I've talked about a lot of things and you made the joke to me after my first video, which was, i can't wait until you've recorded long enough to be caught in conflicting opinions.

Speaker: yeah And it happened like three days in. ah The thing about it is, man, when you make content every day or you strive to make content every day or you strive to be there for a topical news item, what happens is things develop. Stories change. You get more information. Your opinion might change.

Speaker: That's all good. The only thing it's not good for is the viewer. Because they're constantly running a, uh, an assessment on you to say like, Hey, are you telling the truth? Are you intelligent at all?

Speaker: And the answer is i am sort of intelligent. Hope you are. But information changes. Therefore, my opinion changes.

Speaker: It's been incredibly interesting. The Bluepoint closure, Asha Sharma, Phil Spencer, High Guard shutting down, Sony leaving PC. All of these things have come out since I started doing YouTube two weeks ago.

Speaker: All of them have developed since the day that I first posted a video. And all of them have given me more information as the days go by since the video that maybe makes me change some of the things I may have said in the video. I do i have to say.

Speaker: I wonder if Mr. Matty plays, if the guys that we watch do this, do they watch the videos that they post? I don't consider it cheating. It feels like cheating for me because I get no views.

Speaker: Right? So like one view for me is like gold. Like that one view for me is maybe 10% or more of a video that I post. But...

Speaker: It's important to me to watch it because I wonder how it goes on YouTube and and, you know, is the audio good? Is the video good? Does it change? Things like that. But when I watch it back, i say to myself, that opinion might change.

Speaker: I didn't have enough information there. I need more information. And then the days go by. Am I making sense here? You're looking at me crazy. You look like you're looking at a ah work item. do you need No, well I'm just um' um um figuring out. Your video just got incredibly grainy. How's it on my side?

Speaker: It's fine. It's fine. I think I, from what you've told me, I think I've probably gotten the whole picture. And I think what you need is probably three Our Fathers and 10 Hail Marys. And that'll take care it. I've been told that before.

Speaker: yeah Are you uncomfortable? or That was an uncomfortable laugh you just gave me. No, I'm just, it does kind of sound like you're, uh, you're like confessing to me.

Speaker: You're like, these are my YouTube confessions. All my, my conflicting opinions and fungible ethics. I just got to get it out there, man. I'm being serious. It's been, uh, like I said, i've I'm having a ton of fun. It's been an incredible learning experience.

Speaker: That is cool growth. Yeah, dude. The growth is so real. Like, ah we We have a buddy, mutual friend, really big friend of the show. He wrote and produced and created the title track of Seriously Irrelevant.

Speaker: His name's Pat. we so we you know I send him every video I make, I send to Pat. And really, it's like, ah you know,

Speaker: He's like, dude, look at the look at the growth that you've had. he He sent me a comparison shot between the first video and the the most recent video. It's actually not even the most recent anymore. It's one video before that.

Speaker: And he was like, look at the growth. It's only been a week. It's only been 10 days. And look how far you've already come. And every time I sit down to a video before yesterday, I have felt that growth myself and it's so rewarding. It's very self congratulatory. I don't mean it to sound such, but it does feel really good. If only you cared about any of this as much as I did.

Speaker: Yeah. There it is. I just love when you fill up your sales so that I could suck the wind right out of them. Do you think I sound good? Because it seems like your wave is bigger than mine.

Speaker: Okay. i my It's flat on my side. now we're It's not making any signal on your side? Everyone's watching the sausage get made right now. Wait, so you're telling me your wave on your side is non-existent?

Speaker: Yeah, same, both. There's there's no signal like that I can see. and then theres And the videos are going in and out, but I know they're getting recorded locally, so it's all good. Here, let me send you.

Speaker: I'm hoping we talk about video games at some point. We're not fucking going, though. that says This is all practice.

Speaker: This is Dylan's YouTube testimonials. I just sent it to you on your, like, my computer can do both iMessage and life. I know that your computer can't because you bought a bad product.

Speaker: Yeah, what'd you send it to me on? So like I have a Mac, so i send it to you on text because I have an iPhone, which is an iMessage. So you you should be able to open it. Oh, you can't open it on your computer. Waveforms.

Speaker: Very cool. Thanks, dude. Wow. The sausage getting made and you don't even appreciate the sausage that you're making.

Speaker: Why don't we just cut to the chase since you're so clearly uncomfortable? cause Yeah, dude, i'm i'm ready to I'm ready to roll. I'm ready to talk about some real shit. Well, tell me what you're playing then. Oh, you want to know what I'm playing right now?

Speaker: i'm playing Slash me up. Slash me up. I'm playing X-Men Origins Wolverine by Raven. Developed by Raven. Yeah, it's actually a it's a very good game.

Speaker: Did you just go to commercial break? You're such a piece shit. We will be taking a break now while you speak. ah Oh my God, you're such a dick. hu Tell me about X-Men, buddy.

Speaker: Yeah, it's um it so I had always heard the game was good. Dude, yeah? What are you doing, are you piece of shit? Just let me do it in silence. You don't need to worry about it.

Speaker: um Yeah, so it's i always I always heard that X-Men Origins old Wolverine was good. It's like one of the the few good tie-in games that was ever made. And this came out during an era, I think it was like 2011 or somewhere in there, when like movie tie-ins for video games were almost always terrible.

Speaker: They were like... low, low quality, not, not everyone, but that was kind of the rule and good games were the exception. And so this game is definitely one of the exceptions. um I don't, what is the cover of the game?

Speaker: It's just, it's, I think it's the same as the movie cover. It's just like, yeah, is it Hugh Jackman or whatever? Yeah. Well, yeah. Cause Hugh Jackman actually voices his character in the game. So like, dude, this cover is crazy. This isn't the cover I thought when you told me that you were playing this. So you have this like on yourself. It's, dude, I'm saying it's very expensive. What did you pay for this? I i think I paid 50 or 60 for it. Cause did buy it. Dude, saying it's a hundred bucks online.

Speaker: Maybe new. I didn't get it new. I got it. Like, did you get it from orbit? No, no, I got it from eBay. Orbit didn't have it. Yeah, I got it from eBay. I think it was like 50 or 60. I mean, it was like the game and like the cases busted up, but the game works fine. That's all I really cared about.

Speaker: But i yeah, it's very like God of War-like um is is what I'm experiencing. So it's a hack and slash. Yeah, it's definitely a hack and slash. You know, combos but minimal. It's like square, you know, press square a certain number of times. You can press triangle to do a finisher and depending on how many times you hit square, you do different finisher moves. There's a couple power moves. You have like a rage meter that builds up. But...

Speaker: What's really, really cool about the game from a visual standpoint is that Wolverine, in the character model, like takes the damage that he receives from enemies. So if you're fighting like a sword-based enemy and they're slashing him up, the slashes up appear on his body and like his body takes damage, his skin like melts away. It's like a pretty gory game. You can dismember dudes. Is it rated M? Yeah, it's rated M, which is hilarious because the movie was rated PG-13.

Speaker: So it was an M-rated game for a PG-13 movie. But like they went all in like there's gore. He's chopping dudes heads and arms off like he's getting depending on how much damage you take in a battle.

Speaker: Almost all of his like body can be gone down to the adamantium skeleton. And then like over time it the skin like reforms and heals back. It's really fucking cool actually.

Speaker: um I'm hoping I'm really hoping Insomniac. takes some of that and puts it into their Wolverine game. Because up until now, I think this is pretty much the definitive like Wolverine video game experience.

Speaker: um But it's just, it's very good. It does a lot more than the movie. Like, I haven't seen the movie in a while, but I know this game... It's a video game. They have to stretch, you know, like, I don't know, an hour and a half of movie story out into like 10 plus hours of game time. So there's all sorts of other stuff they probably pulled from the comics and things, but it's a very fun game.

Speaker: One thing that is funny, though, is like... Like I said, Hugh Jackman voices his character in the game. And so in any cut scene where it's him and any other character, you do really see the difference in like caliber of acting. The other characters are just...

Speaker: they're Not good. There's like one scene when you run into this room and there's like this doctor and he his healing factor is not working. And he's like, oh, you know, do did whatever Wolverine lines he has. And it's like very convincing. And then there's this this female doctor. She's like, quick, get into the machine and I will restore your healing factor. It's like it's such like a video game ass like.

Speaker: delivery and this character is like a nobody. They just like disappear five minutes later. They exist for this one reason. So it's, I keep running into this with my, my headphones, but it's, it's a really good game. Um, I think is that the pulse headset? Yeah. Yeah. They're too far. You got the white one.

Speaker: Oh no, sorry. This is, this is the, the white ones, the pulse elite that I have hooked up to the console. These are like what I use at my desk. Is it the pulse three day Yeah, Pulse 3D.

Speaker: Gotcha. They're too big. There's no reason for it. But yeah, it's it's a good game. um So i'm I'm probably just under halfway through it. I think there's like six chapters. I'm on chapter two, or it just got to chapter three.

Speaker: um I'll definitely platinum this. Like most of the trophies are super doable. It's like, do you know kill this number of enemies this particular way, which is very reasonable. When you first play through the game, you can either play on easy or normal. And then once you beat the game once, you can play through on hard and there's a trophy for that. So I think...

Speaker: That's probably going to be the last trophy. I'm kind of getting most of the other ones as I'm going through. And i i don't think there's a new game plus component. So I do expect like on the hard playthrough, you are starting from zero, which is fine. Like by that point, you know you're much better at the combat system.

Speaker: um So that should hopefully feel like a bit more of a victory lap too, because I'm not going to be like trying to kill enemies in a very specific way. It's just going to be like, okay, what's the best way to get through this combat scenario?

Speaker: And like so far, I haven't encountered any combat scenarios where I walk away thinking, oh, man, when I do this on hard, that's going to be really, really tough, um which is something that I usually clues me into how troublesome like a platinum is going to be if I have to play through on a lower difficulty. And I'm like, I just barely made it through that.

Speaker: So yeah, it's it's a good game. um So you are going for the platinum. Definitely, definitely. Yeah. and then But it requires multiple playthroughs. Just two, just two.

Speaker: Gotcha. Yeah. So what are you what are you playing right now, actually? I am playing Inscription. I think the last we spoke on published recordings was I was playing a little bit of Dishonored.

Speaker: Played Bioshock. it really it really wasn't as incredible as people said. There are flaws to the game, but it's funny talking to you being in such a PS3 state that you are.

Speaker: Yeah. Playing that game and showing it to other people in my life who don't know games Everyone forgets that Bioshock is game. Yeah. Yeah. It's from that era. Yeah. It's 2007. Bioshock is incredible.

Speaker: it's two thousand seven

Speaker: bioshock is incredible Everything that everyone has said about the game is probably accurate. I feel like I haven't heard a lot of criticism about the game. Obviously, people have played, you know, they did play the game 20 years ago and I did not.

Speaker: um So maybe they're a little out a touch on it or or haven't gone back to it with a modern lens, but it's essentially like, There are issues, right?

Speaker: Like, is it a 10 out of 10 game? Absolutely. But that doesn't mean it's not without flaws. um The audio mix is bad. The mastering is bad. Clearly, they, you know, I've read a lot about it.

Speaker: Clearly, they went in to make it an RPG and then backed away from that. so there's like kind of the the vestiges of... of RPG mechanics that they didn't fully pursue. And you can kind of feel the tension of that with, you know, why am I pursuing?

Speaker: Anyway, you got to play it You haven't played it. You felt the same as I did, which is ultimately that it is really creepy to start. In the beginning, especially. In the beginning, especially. And I think you have to push past that because...

Speaker: It is absolutely incredible and it and it does change so much. And I think the lesson that I continually learn from video games and really life in general is is the more you engage with something, typically the more you will get out of it.

Speaker: I don't know why I have to relearn that lesson with every new game that I play. Whenever I finish a game and I go into a new one, it always takes me a couple days to really get back in the swing of multi-hour play sessions.

Speaker: Yeah. So I started with Dishonored. i do try to follow in your footsteps of going for the Platinum all the time. Dishonored turned me off because I thought it would be a nice bridge. I didn't want to go right into Bioshock 2. I don't particularly like the idea of playing as a big daddy. Yeah.

Speaker: I didn't want to go to Bioshock 2. I wanted to be a little fresh, like take a break from Rapture and come back. Go to Dishonored. It seems similar to Bioshock. The idea of playing through the entire game without you know purchasing a single power-up just to get one trophy seemed stupid to me, but I was like okay, no problem. And then i you know I get a couple hours in and I'm like, this sucks. The game is begging me.

Speaker: to get more powers and I'm refusing them to get a single silver trophy. And I don't even know if I like this game enough to get a platinum. So I've been really frustrated with that and I keep running into wall. It's like I'd play it for 30, 45 minutes and I'd be like, I just, I don't know.

Speaker: Let me go talk to friends. Let me go do anything else. Then I'm like, you know, I love card games. I always have. I think, I don't think I even bought it until after i started playing Dishonored.

Speaker: This game called Inscription. It came out originally on PC 2021. I believe it came to all consoles, Xbox, Switch, PlayStation in 2023. It's developed by a solo developer, Daniel Mullins, known as Daniel Mullins Games, published by the Devolver Digital.

Speaker: It is an incredible experience. I'm playing it and I had this realization that this is a PC indie game.

Speaker: And you can feel it, man. I think there is a difference between playing a console game and playing a game that you know was made for hardcore Steam guys. Yeah. And this is one of them.

Speaker: And it's just been incredible. I don't want to spoil too much. I do want to do a video on my channel, the Lanky Llama on YouTube. The first one, the one with the seriously irrelevant logo for now, not the fake one.

Speaker: I have more subscribers than the fake one. I'm thinking about reaching out to him. Maybe I can get in contact with him and tell him to buzz off. But anyway, all that to say, I don't want to give any spoilers, but the game starts and it combines a variety of genres.

Speaker: And it combines RPG, dungeon crawler, rogue light, and deck building into one. You're trapped in a cabin. Clearly, you're somebody trapped in this game to play the card game.

Speaker: you don't move around when you're able to get up from the game board and move around the cabin. You don't move around as if it's a 3D world. You move around as if it's a dungeon crawler like fantasy star in the 80s, which means you just push forward and your character moves forward to the next spot that will stop similar to Google Maps Street View.

Speaker: If you go to Google Maps Street View, you can kind of toggle yourself forward along each of the address points on a street. You don't actually like move down the street inch by inch you kind of move from door to door and That is similar to how it works when you get up from the table and inscription There's puzzles when you get up from the table you go back to the table you play the game It's a board game and card game.

Speaker: So you will move to different points on the map on the board And that will be what you engage with. So sometimes it's a power up. You can put your card down, power up its health, power up its its power.

Speaker: um You can do that as many times as you would like, so long as the... you know, the wax figures or whatever they are standing around the the fire, there is a chance that they take that card and destroy it.

Speaker: So it's a gamble, right? The first one is always free. The second, third may not be free. So only once did I lose a card on the second time of asking.

Speaker: Not many times did I go for the third time of asking because I'm risk averse. um But anyway, slowly you come to realize through death, And through just playing the game, you realize what you need and what you don't. and that's when the game really had an uptick for me. i i always enjoyed it because there's this creepy horror feeling as you're trapped in this cabin and you realize that you're trapped in the cabin and that the guy you're playing is the freaking devil.

Speaker: and you just want to kill his ass, um you know you're playing through this, and and you just slowly pick up the mechanics. like What does each point on the board mean? Where do I want to go? Because usually there's branching paths, right? It's like, do you want to get a new card, or do you want to power up one of your existing cards?

Speaker: And through playing it and dying so many times, you realize what it is you want and what it is you don't want. And not only what it is you want and what you don't want, but what it is you want and what you don't want after you get what it is you don't want or do want.

Speaker: Does that make sense? So I started thinking in the way that I love because I, i you know, I loved magic, the gathering. I still love board games.

Speaker: I know you're not as much of a fan, but I love the idea of like a very, there is like a sort of analog nature to planning out your moves and, in a way that isn't captured, I think, by AAA games because it's so fluid and it's so kind of in the moment.

Speaker: Whereas the this game is way more like, you're going to do this move and what's going to happen is what's going to happen. But you can kind of make the best point and the worst point in your mind and then you could say, regardless of what that is, I should get closer to what I want And then what's after that?

Speaker: Okay, I actually don't like the point after that, which looks like a boss battle. we not ah In the case of Inscription, it's not a boss battle, but there's battles where it's just a regular battle, or it's a battle where your opponent will have a totem, and that's a power-up.

Speaker: Do you want to fight the power-up, or do you want to fight the regular battle? And then you can go back. You could say, okay, one of those is a new card, or one of them is a card upgrade. okay i want the card upgrade and the card upgrade is worth the more challenging battle to me worth more to me than the challenging battle does that make sense i'm kind of tripping over my words at this point but um yeah yeah you're not even listening you're googling inscription because you don't know what the hell it is but What's funny is like not to interject too much, but you over the last few days, like you've, you've told me bits and pieces about it and you'll, you'll get like real deep into the combat mechanics, but it's a car, it's a deck builder. So like, it's kind of inherently complex and the, the language is specific. So you're like, yeah, I did that. And I got like three resurrections and that was awesome. And I'm like, I have no idea what you mean. Yeah, no. And it is funny how like,

Speaker: I played Ball Pit earlier this year. That's a roguelike. or I don't know. if Is it roguelike or roguelike? I don't actually know what difference But, yeah, it is one of these things where it's like,

Speaker: You just slowly start to learn an inscription when you die, because you will die and you actually have to do die to advance the story. I don't know if you can beat it on the first time. You may be able to, at this point, I may be able to, if I went back to act one and started a new game, I might be able to beat it on my first try.

Speaker: But the idea is every time you die, you get a death card. And so the the the devil character that you're fighting against takes a picture of you, and he says, create your card.

Speaker: And it goes through three stages. The first stage is its cost. The second stage is its power and health. And the third stage is its ability or lack thereof. And each of those is randomly generated from three cards in your deck.

Speaker: So I quickly realized that I should go for the lowest cost possible. In some cases, that's free. I should go for the highest power and health possible and the best ability possible.

Speaker: And I started playing to that. I started playing to the idea of how can I maximize this death card, which means powering up my existing cards and not taking a chance on a shitty card.

Speaker: to ruin that and so by the time i finally beat him i didn't do enough story-wise to make that be the end but i had enough powerful death cards that uh i realized i could beat him without struggling as much as i had um again i don't want to spoil anything i do want to leave some of it for the video because i will spoil it and get into it in the video but the game changes drastically when you get to the end of Act 1, it is an incredible game.

Speaker: It's so impressive that it was made by one guy from what I know. And it just has so much about it that I think can only be found in the indie space that makes me realize, especially when we have some of the news that we've had the past week or two, that indie will always deliver.

Speaker: That doesn't mean that all 10,000 games a week or whatever it is that comes out of the indie space doesn't mean all of them will. But I think there's a much higher chance of a special moving experience coming out of these independent creators and publishers than there is on the AAA level when there's hundreds of millions of dollars on the line and they simply cannot fail.

Speaker: Yeah. I don't mean they're too big to fail. I mean the risk is so great that they are playing it so so safe as not to fail.

Speaker: Yeah. And I suppose that brings us to our first topic. Do you know what it's going to be?

Speaker: Igar? Sorry, dude. I was going to talk about blue point closing. ah That's fine with me. No, I'm just kidding.

Speaker: Let's talk about High Guard. Concord 2 came out January 26th after a big reveal at the Game Awards and it failed. I've seen some interesting discourse on Twitter about this. Of course, High Guard, the free-to-play, hero shooter, 3v3, capture the flag-esque game that Brendan refused to play with me because there was a trophy for completing the tutorial.

Speaker: That game will shut down on March 12th. The studio has laid off over 90% of its staff. It is, in essence, to me, ah Concord 2.

Speaker: Until I went on Twitter and I was reminded that Concord had less than 1,000 concurrent players at its peak. And High Guard amassed over 1.5 million players in its first month.

Speaker: And its concurrent player count, I think, was somewhere around 10,000. maybe less, 7,000, somewhere in there. So somewhere between 7 and 10 times better than Concord.

Speaker: Brandon, we now know that Tencent, the old Chinese communist video game publisher, invested in Wildlight Entertainment and High Guard.

Speaker: They did. We now know that as big investors of the Game Awards, That is probably why Jeff Keighley gave it the final spot. We now know that High Guard. Did I say Concord there earlier? I meant to say High Guard. Did I say Concord?

Speaker: You're not even listening. they know They sound so similar. It's a bit of tomato to motto at this point. We now know that High Guard will shut down on March 12th and is, unfortunately, an abject failure of a video game in the AAA space. Brendan, I know you didn't play, so that makes your opinion all the more valuable.

Speaker: Tell me, what do you think of this news? Um, I guess I'm a little disappointed, but not too surprised. I was actually, you were right. I was a little distracted.

Speaker: i was looking up, uh, how viable it is to get the platinum in high guard, because I know that once it was announced that Concord was going to be shutting down, there was like a mad dash to get the platinum trophy. Cause it's a limited edition platinum essentially.

Speaker: So interesting you say this because it is true. High Guards closure was announced on March 2nd. Today is March 4th.

Speaker: Concord was given three days notice. Yeah. Yeah. It was you you had people that were, yeah, probably just Mountain Dew, Gamer Fuel, all night baby. They were jumping off the map at the very beginning of the game to end the round because that would give more experience than playing out a game.

Speaker: Right. Which is hilarious. that like That was actually the best way to optimize for ah progression over playing the game. Which that begs the question. i know we're supposed to be talking about high guard. That does beg the question for me.

Speaker: Would people have actually started doing that if Concord had stayed live? Like, I know they probably would have figured that out and done that to get the platinum more efficiently. But I do wonder, like, i think it was more a time plus experience equation.

Speaker: Right? Like, you probably would get more for completing the match and getting a ton of kills or whatever. But that's no guarantee. Right. So, say you could complete the match and get 300 XP. You just spent 15 minutes.

Speaker: Or you can end the match and get 250 XP. Yeah. Right? Wouldn't you just end it immediately and then farm the 250 even if a completed match was worth more?

Speaker: Exactly. i agree. i mean, I do think I think basically you would get a couple you have different types of players, the the ones that would do that, that farming technique and ones that would earnestly play the game. But it just is so funny that that was.

Speaker: That exploit was discovered and used to get get the platinum before the deadline. So yeah, this one, I mean, quick quick Google of this. It looks like the true achievements is putting this high guard platinum at like 15 to 20 hours.

Speaker: Well, they they're saying to unlock all the achievements, I would assume. The trophies is the same as the achievements. Do you want to do it? I don't. I don't really want to spend my week. I'm doing it.

Speaker: Yeah, I'm busy. I'm traveling this weekend. also i would do yeah but i was like if i had Honestly, if I had played it with you the other week and it was on my trophy list, i would I would go for it. I'd be like, sorry, fuck this. like It would be cool to get, right? Yeah, it's a limited edition platinum trophy, which is funny. Like, that's not a thing that they deliberately do, but it's now happening organically with these live service games that come out and then shut down. It's I mean, Suicide Squad could have wound up on that pile, too, if they hadn't put in a little bit more effort to create an offline mode.

Speaker: Very true. Yeah. But yeah, i High Guard, I mean, it's not surprising. Like, this is not, it I'm not saying anything anyone else hasn't, but like, yeah, it came out into a super saturated market. It was too similar to other things. Like, this might come out a little bit out of left field here, but like, when I look at the live service games that are coming out, this was generic. Like, people said this looks generic. They said the same thing about Concord.

Speaker: One thing that I haven't heard that that word applied to is that Horizon game that Sony announced that is definitely a live service. It's like, a i don't remember what it's called. It's like Hunters of the Breach or something. it's called Hunters Gathering. Hunters Gathering. I knew Hunters was the name. So like that game, it's live service. it doesn't It doesn't look like my kind of Horizon game, but it does look unique somewhat.

Speaker: um so that that will be interesting that that game you know i don't want to divert the uh divert the conversation too much but i do think about that with these live service games like there's not one way to bake a cake when it comes to live service like but i think a lot of people or developers seem to be falling into the trap of like oh live service first person shooter what can we do with that and it's like that's not really the question you you want to ask like I want to create a game that people are going to want to play recurrently and come back to and be interested in.

Speaker: What kind of gameplay would be fun for something like that? um First person shooter, it's it's kind of been done a lot of different ways. Not to say that it can't be, they can't you know there's not another nut to crack in that that domain, but it's like, it's okay to branch out a little bit.

Speaker: um do you not think they did i mean we haven't played it so but i do think there were some novel i don't know how novel it was but there was some weird stuff right the spectral horse the 3v3 and a large map it just wasn't different enough i don't think it's like whatever itch they were gonna scratch i think was kind of already getting scratched by other games Or they weren't capturing enough people.

Speaker: one of One of the bullshit things you said to me that you regurgitated from someone else was that it didn't have enough content, which I don't know how you can say having not played it, but also I don't know how but you have zero experience with live service games.

Speaker: Oh, that's not true. That's not true. Okay, give gave it to me. What did you play? All Out 76, day one, baby. Okay, so then maybe you should understand that these games don't launch content complete.

Speaker: Yeah, of course not. So then why the hell were people like you and people like SkillUp criticizing, in fact, crucifying HighGuard for a lack of content? Dude, it was out for four weeks.

Speaker: and Do you know how they work? Like they go through and You're not going to launch with everything on day one for a live service game. The idea is that you hook people in and then you drip feed them. You drip feed them. Yeah. And you keep them there.

Speaker: Are you not able to understand that? or No. Are you in SkillUp not able to understand that? You know what's funny too is with Marathon coming out, comes out tomorrow, I think, right? March 5th.

Speaker: Today's March 4th. That's tomorrow. SkillUp, shit all over Marathon. In his whatever, his server slam review, I've never seen a louder out. Finally, finally, people are seeing through this Aussie New Zealand, whatever he is, people seeing through his fucking bullshit.

Speaker: And they're saying, wow, this guy who jerks himself off about his self-righteous opinions is finally getting caught with his pants down because all he does is dress himself up as the supreme opinion giver Without balance, without understanding what a game is and what it's meant to do.

Speaker: People are like, dude, you should see it's where Twitter. Twitter's in a rage. And Twitter's a vertical slice. It's not everything. But I, for one, am happy. As someone who appreciates some of what Skill Up does, I don't think he's a negative on the industry.

Speaker: But my God, this guy thinks he's... he He believes he's so important. And people like you drink that up. You eat it up. You just you lick it up too.

Speaker: And you know what? All he does is shoot from the hip. Oh, this is what I think. You don't understand what you're talking about because you don't play these games.

Speaker: You don't. You done? Yeah. i so well Was that a rant? i'm just It just bothers me. I have a rebuttal. Go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah. So i I want to go back to what you what you started with before you went on your your skill up tangent. I don't disagree that live service games are supposed to... I agree. They're not supposed to be content complete when they come out.

Speaker: Totally appreciate the business model. Same for Fallout 76. Day one, that game was a train wreck. it it It was, it should have had more.

Speaker: It should have run better. it should' ah It should have done a lot of things different. But what I will say is that, and I know Fallout 76 is a different game. It's more of like a multiplayer adventure game. It's not like a a recurring kind of match game. But like that game did actually have enough content and space in it to occupy players for a decent number of hours, probably like 10 to 20 comfortably, just exploring everything. So to switch gears to like these live service games that are more just like recurring match stuff like Concord or High Guard,

Speaker: high guard I'm not saying that they have to have enough like pure content to occupy people for the initial like launch period, but they either have to have a certain ah you know enough enough original content to do that, or the gameplay loop has to be like interesting and dynamic enough to keep people occupied.

Speaker: Like you said, they they had a roadmap. It sound sounded like they were going start putting stuff out maybe like a month after it came out. But that's exactly. They did release ah its final update, which which included a new character for High Guard.

Speaker: And that's great. But that's kind of the exact problem is that there wasn't enough there for players to chew on to stay interested for even a few weeks.

Speaker: And that's like... that i don't see i don't know ifify I don't know if I agree with that in this in the context of Concord. Or... In the context of High Guard because, wow, they really do have the same kind of ring to them. It is eerie.

Speaker: ah No, I... I can't, I guess, I don't respect your opinion. Noted. Neither of us have played the game, so neither of us should respect the other's opinion.

Speaker: But it's just unfathomable to me to to critique a game like that for content completion or lack thereof. When you haven't even seen it develop as it was intended to develop.

Speaker: And I don't think you can say, well, clearly it wasn't enough because players didn't come back. Maybe you need some context. Jeff Keighley and Tencent foisted that game into the last position on the game awards.

Speaker: And though that has kind of a, a weird inverse relationship of increasing eyes on the game that they may maybe never would have gotten if they didn't have that spot, right?

Speaker: two Almost 2 million players, 1.5 million players. I don't think they would have gotten over a million players without that spot at the Game Awards. Agreed. Conversely, i don't think that those play those same players would have been as primed to hate the game as much as they did to leave a review, an overwhelmingly negative review on Steam with less than an hour played. Those same players would not have felt empowered to do that if it wasn't the final showing at the Game Awards, a la Intergalactic from Naughty Dog.

Speaker: Right now, the reviews are mixed on Steam. Exactly. You know why? Because the people who played the game said it's not that bad. It's not that bad. Not that bad isn't good enough for, for, I didn't say it was good enough, but you're there. The game was tanked, not by it's not simply by its own faults.

Speaker: The game was tanked because of negative, because of bad actors.

Speaker: So I think what I'm hearing is that you want to get back into fire break. a game played day one. It's grown. It's changed. Maybe we should give another chance.

Speaker: Have a good You know the first time I fired up fire break, I said, this game isn't content complete. on not ever fucking playing. No, that's what's funny to me is that you can sit here and criticize these games that you haven't played, but you consistently ask me to pick up fire break again.

Speaker: When fire break was an unimpressive experience from front to back.

Speaker: Unrewarding. The only reason we liked it was because we were together in Remedy's universe. That was it. Certainly that's enough for me.

Speaker: I'm willing to do it again. They add some new content. I'm willing to do it again because we get along so good sometimes when you're not just putting skill up on a pedestal, but like, I feel like you're missing the point, right? Are you tell me you're doing that ironically?

Speaker: Well, I, I think I, I, the one thing I would do, high guard was better than fire break. At launch, I think you're right, probably. i can't I can't comment on if higher guard was better or worse than worse than other games, but what what I feel like I can do is analyze how it performed in relation to like the market, in relation to other games, and given its exceedingly high player count from from day one.

Speaker: So... I mean, I also recognize Concord had a buy-in cost. Interesting thing, though, now that we're talking about Firebreak 2, is Firebreak did also cost $40. That game is still up and running.

Speaker: They didn't write that game down like Concord. And like High Guard is doing. So like, I'm kind of wondering what to make of that. it Yeah, it is an interesting thing you bring up. I talked about this on my YouTube video.

Speaker: What is the play for High Guard? Do they refund all the microtransactions? The microtransactions were purely cosmetic. They had no impact on gameplay.

Speaker: I feel like they're completely worthless if they're gameplay too, but because they aren't gameplay, they're even more worthless if that's even possible. Right? yeah If the game doesn't exist, what is your cosmetic worth?

Speaker: It didn't even help you win a game. I think they're either going to write it down or Tencent is like, this was all an experiment anyway and we never really cared. If it like if it blew up, great. If not, we don't even give a shit.

Speaker: So I've read i read more about that and it's like, we don't know how much money Tencent gave, or at least I don't. If you've seen reporting on it, please correct me. But the idea is I don't think they paid it for the whole thing.

Speaker: Right? Assuming they did not, because I don't know that either. They can afford to spunk 50 million. Yeah.

Speaker: And see if it turns into a billion dollar property. Right. You know? Also, i didn't i wish I shared this with you if we prepped better for the show, if if I didn't go to the bar.

Speaker: A HighGuard developer posted a ton of interesting stats from the game that I thought was a ah look behind the curtain that we would rarely get. And it was sad to see some of the Twitter responses of like, cool, thanks for sharing the data.

Speaker: Your game failed because it sucked. And it was like, hey, man, this guy's not sharing the data to protect what what you may think, to protect the game of what he thinks versus what you think.

Speaker: He's sharing the data because it's a topical conversation in the games industry for people who care about games. So maybe be a little kinder. The game's dead and buried. You don't need to say, hey, your game sucked.

Speaker: Yeah. um So maybe we do it. We do another. I'll probably maybe I'll do a YouTube video about that. And maybe you can be a part of it. But I don't know if I want you a part of anything. of my life I don't like when you disagree with me. No. And I if i I hope I didn't come off indicating that I think the game sucked.

Speaker: That's certainly what I wasn't saying. I just think it was. he didn't play it. Well, right, of course. I don't have i don't have a a way to say that. um Yeah, so nobody thought that, so you're apologizing to nobody.

Speaker: So anyway, let's get into real news because nobody cares about High Guard anyway. R.I.P. Bluepoint, the Texas-based Sony studio, has come to a close.

Speaker: Sony announced this news a few weeks ago, and indeed, their premier boutique remake studio will no longer see the light of day. The studio famed since 2009 for remakes, including Shadow of the Colossus, Metal Gear Solid HD Collection, and of course, the PS5 launch title, Demon's Souls in 2020, will no longer be in existence.

Speaker: Brendan, more of the story has come out. They supported Sony Santa Monica on God of War Ragnarok. yep They then made were attempting to make a God of War live service game.

Speaker: And then, after acquisition from Sony in 2021, after never spending a dollar for Sony of their own revenue since then, They are closed in 2026 without having released the game.

Speaker: The most expensive support studio of all time?

Speaker: Lay it on me, buddy. What do you think about the closure of Bluepoint? i think I think I talked about this on the ah on the Lost episode that's that's unposted, but it is... young You don't need to say that. it it is It does seem tragic from the outside. It's also...

Speaker: I think the the closure of im remembering the timeline the closure was announced shortly after the or the state of play where they they also it was either shortly before or shortly after the state of play where Sony and was after after the God of War original trilogy remake that I guess Santa Monica is going to do either in house or in collaboration with another studio stupid.

Speaker: Right. And I think like that, that to me is that that's what I would want. And what I would love answers on is like, why not Bluepoint? Like they they said, the project is in early development, right? Which I guess is different than pre-development.

Speaker: But it it just seems like Bluepoint would have been a no brainer candidate for that kind of thing. And I understand that they were doing that live service God of War, but that was canned over a year ago.

Speaker: So what happened? um I think I speculated last time that without additional information, my best guess is that the Bluepoint that was shut down was, you know, a ship of theseus situation compared to the Bluepoint that put out Demon's Souls in the beginning of the PS5 generation.

Speaker: um I mean, yeah it's just, it would surprise me if you could take a studio that does remakes and and remasters and ports, which they were doing all the way back in, PS3 generation, I think, and then say, we're gonna do a live service now, you're gonna have to have different talent come into that equation.

Speaker: And I don't think it was a big studio. It like 80 or something. So you're going to have new talent with live service specializations probably come in there. And I would expect some amount of attrition from your existing talent that's just not interested in doing a live service game.

Speaker: So, you know, I don't, I haven't gone through the Moby games or anything. i I don't know what the head counts look like, but I just, I think that Sony looked at them and they were like, the The blue point we have now is not the not the studio, not the blue point that we would want doing a God of War trilogy remake, which is which is sad. I mean, imagine imagine imagine the blue point that put out Demon's Souls on PS5 getting their hands on the God of War trilogy.

Speaker: with the i mandate to remake those games. that would have I think that would have been exceptional. Especially like, i I was watching a documentary a while ago on like the Demon's Souls remake and it was it was just it was clear how much passion they had for the game, like the little details they put in that like didn't exist in the original game, but are lore correct and it also like you know loops into gameplay and things like that. It was just very, very cool.

Speaker: the philosophy they they applied to the demon souls remake and it would been amazing to see that that applied to something like god of war so we'll never get that i mean i'm sure the god of war remake is going be great when it comes out in six years or whatever but it would have been cool to have it now that's there there's an alternate reality where ah following up on demon you know maybe they did a little ragnarok support work and then they're like you know what you guys do uh You guys do that God of War trilogy remake, and we're getting it before the PS6 out. but

Speaker: that will never be. so disappointing. Yeah, disappointing. just um i agree. Your analysis was disappointing. a lot A lot more to say about Bluepoint.

Speaker: um Why are they not remaking God of War? And why did they not start in 2021 or 2022? Why are we just hearing about God of War trilogy being remade as an announcement that it's being remade in almost spring 2026.

Speaker: twenty twenty six This is another example in Sony's long history since the PS5 and possibly before of studio mismanagement.

Speaker: And Sony fans like yourself are unwilling to acknowledge this because of a simple fact that does not impact you in the slightest, which is console sales. Oh, they're beating they're beating Microsoft and Xbox on console sales. They're beating the pulp out of Microsoft and Xbox on console sales. So therefore, everything's great.

Speaker: Wrong. Everything is not great. Everything is not great. They're shutting down Bluepoint because they mismanaged them from the time they bought them.

Speaker: And we've heard numerous stories. Oh, they pitched this that this live service game. They've pitched that live service game. I don't give a shit what Bluepoint pitches. If you're an executive at Sony, you take their pitch, you throw it back in their face, and you say you're remaking God of War.

Speaker: You know why? Because we bought you to be a remake studio because we care about the past and the brand that we've created painstakingly over decades.

Speaker: And then I have to hear from people like you who got to say, oh, oh but boy, it's not good. No, it's more than not good. It's abysmal.

Speaker: It's abysmal mismanagement. What are you smiling about? You're an angry elf. Yeah, i and I had a couple drinks. so Because it really bothers me. Because I think in any other reality, in a reality where Nintendo is on the same console timeline as the others, in a reality where Xbox was more of a force than they are, I think Sony would be bleeding right now.

Speaker: And the only reason they are not is because they are lucky. It's because of inertia. Phil Spencer said it best. Rest in peace, Phil Spencer.

Speaker: ah Xbox lost the worst generation to lose. Yep. There's a reason that Epic will never compete with Steam, and it's because they can't compete against the existing digital library of ah of a consumer.

Speaker: It's the same thing in console. It's just that PlayStation has has been around for the digital-only generation, which started really earnestly with PS4 and Xbox One, and they won that.

Speaker: And it's just inertia. It's inertia from 2013. Are you still there? You kind of cut out. Are you still there? Yeah, yeah. ah Okay, okay. So I could work. it's It's just unbelievable to me that we're sitting here with studios like Media Molecule, like whoever the hell's making VR games, like Bend,

Speaker: and we're closing Bluepoint, and Herman Holtz still has a job, and Jim Ryan definitely wasn't fired.

Speaker: Like, come on, man. Name one success of the entire PS5 generation that isn't Ghost of Yote that came out three weeks ago or whatever the hell it was three months ago and wasn't, oh, Returnal was good, Ratchet and Clank.

Speaker: No, they were good because we liked them. They weren't good because the general population of 110 million users liked them. 10% or less liked these things that we talk so much about.

Speaker: Sony went all in on live service. They pulled their boutique remake studio into it, and now they have nothing to show for it. I was reading stuff like, oh, Bluepoint was closed down because they didn't generate any revenue.

Speaker: Why didn't they generate any revenue? Because Sony didn't put them in a position to generate revenue. That's why. It's not Bluepoint's fault. Right?

Speaker: poor Poor Blue Point. You tell me, are we running a federalist system here? It's up to Blue Point to decide what they do?

Speaker: You're telling me Jim Ryan, Herman Holtz, whoever the hell's in charge couldn't go in there and say, here's what you're making? I don't give a shit what your employees think they should make.

Speaker: i agree. Your resistance to criticizing Sony is a symptom of disease in this industry.

Speaker: Okay. I think I just said I agree. It's not good enough. It's not. It reminds me of High Guard. You need to strip down and flagellate yourself. No, I'm just, I just, you know, I'm just tired of it, man.

Speaker: All we hear about is how shitty Xbox is and how they can't release a single good game. And then the moment they put a fucking racing game on PlayStation, it sells 5 million copies.

Speaker: And you're telling me Sony couldn't figure out how to sell 5 million copies from a Bluepoint remake? Give me a fucking break. Seriously. what What's going on at Sony?

Speaker: They're going to put Hiroki Tatoki in charge. They can't put a fucking Miyazaki in charge? Oh, Dylan, Miyazaki doesn't work for Sony. You're telling me they don't have a fucking guy over there that can be better than Dutch-ass Herman Holst and whatever the hell he thinks?

Speaker: Sucking at the T to Horizon? Which, by the way, nobody's playing that playtest. Yeah, I think it it seems like Sony got kind of high on their own supply a bit. Like they were, they, as you said, they had a ton of success in the PS4 generation and that gave them the license to experiment. And I think, I think some of their experience experimentation was really interesting. Like you brought up the PSVR.

Speaker: It's not a success, but personally, as someone who, who plays Sony games, I think it's an interesting experiment. Yeah. Now, i don't I don't think they put an amount of money into PSVR 1 and PSVR 2 that like detracted from other you know game creation opportunities. I really do think it was the live service push. As you said, taking funds that could have been spent elsewhere to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars and...

Speaker: putting it into live service initiatives that that didn't pan out or or colossally failed and pulling first party studios into that mess. I think that was that was the experiment that they took too much license with.

Speaker: So i would i mean I would love to see Sony reevaluate and really consider what made them successful in the PS4 generation.

Speaker: I'm a little optimistic with them. I think the the reports are indicating that for the console itself, they're targeting a more budget-friendly demographic or budget-friendly system similar to the PS4.

Speaker: The PS5, they went boutique, and I think that was the wrong move. And they're still they're still selling like gangbusters, but... I mean, it was the same price without a disc, without a disc drive. Same price as the, wasn't it?

Speaker: It was. Or was the PS4 300? Day one, PS5 was like 400 without 500. Without a disc drive. Yeah, 500 with a disc drive.

Speaker: So yeah, that might have been more akin to the PS4 at launch. And I know like inflation and everything might have been cheaper. I don't think 400 is that bad. No, I agree. I agree. I know everyone on the internet wants to cry about spending money for for anything, but $400 for PS5, let me tell you.

Speaker: Even though Sony sucks, $400 for PS5 is a gift. Oh, definitely compared to what it costs now. So I don't know. I'm hoping they've done a lot of re-evaluation. I i kind of think it's hard to... it's hard to light on fire close to probably a billion dollars all told with all these live service initiatives and and failures and and not sit down and say, all right, hang on.

Speaker: what went so right in that generation that we can't continue to capitalize on in this generation despite all of our preexisting success? Because you're right, it's inertia right now. they They got fat and complacent, I think, in a lot of ways. And like they they experimented without considering like what really made them successful. And so the things that were successful were exactly what we expected to be successful. Insomniac, Spider-Man 2. ghost of yote returnal was was unexpected but i'm not sure that that was like wasn't that successful yeah same with ratchet and clank you know the the stuff we thought would be successful was death stranding 2 i think it was pretty successful god of war ragnarok god of war yeah exactly like forbidden west

Speaker: Right, which was also a PS4 game. And that's that's the thing that's the funny thing too. It's like, where's Horizon 3? Like, we we haven't seen that. i mean, that was Forbidden West. Was Forbidden West 2021?

Speaker: I feel like it was longer. Man, I keep running into this freaking thing.

Speaker: Yeah, we should be seeing the next Horizon in 2027 or 2028 at the latest. Okay, yeah. So actually, yeah, we're not why not too bad there. but they're spinning it off into... There's the Korean... Korean MMO....life service game.

Speaker: And then the... The Hunters Gathering. Hunters Gathering, is for everyone. Which is Gorilla. Yeah, right. not Neither of those are Gorilla. Only one of them is going to be on a PS5. um And then you have Call the Mountain that was the VR2 debut title. Oh my god, this does say that they are the developer.

Speaker: Oh, no, I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hunter's Gathering is is in-house Gorilla. Yeah, yeah, They were all over that. Dude, what? That changes my opinion of that game a lot.

Speaker: Oh, opinion change in real time. More information came in. Erase my prior takes. No, don't erase the prior take that Sony sucks. This is what bothers me. Why can't you just say it?

Speaker: Say what? They've mismanaged the entire PS5 generation. Just say it. Yeah, they've mismanaged the entire PS5 generation. that's an That's easy to say. Jim Ryan was fired.

Speaker: Yeah. as executive as As fired as an executive can be. Yeah. They are making bad calls.

Speaker: I think they have been making bad calls. we don't know if that exclusive call we don't make We don't know if they're making bad calls right now. We'll find that out in like two or three years. I'm really hoping they're making better calls right now.

Speaker: This is the other, you're, you're still at your sandbag. Here's the thing. Let me tell you this point blank. They are failures.

Speaker: Maybe dude, can I be real with you? Maybe more than Xbox. Yeah, i Xbox has certainly been like trying a lot harder, I would say, in the in this generation. And that's because they were the underdogs.

Speaker: Like after Xbox One. That doesn't matter. Well, I mean, to compete, like if you're the underdog, you do have to play a lot harder. And I think that they were, and unfortunately for them, it wasn't enough. Also, the we've we talked about the Activision stuff. that was They punched Icarus. they they like They flew right up to the sun.

Speaker: They did. And then the wings melted, and they fell down into third-party developer territory, which is where a lot of the leadership wanted to be. Yeah. I don't like how this thing fucking follows me. Yeah, every time you move. I haven't noticed in it until now. It loves thought i turn that shit off.

Speaker: Clearly not. Anyway, man. I know you think I had an outburst there. The simple fact is that you're wrong, and I'm tired of hearing from Sony ponies about how fucking fantastic all the single-player games are when they don't fucking exist.

Speaker: You haven't played any of them. Oh, where is Naughty Dog? I'm on PS3 right now. Where is Naughty Dog? Oh my God, dude. Yeah, that's a tragedy. sony santa mon You already said it. Sony Santa Monica and Gorilla made PS4 games.

Speaker: Yeah. Sort Naughty Dog. Listen, the PlayStation 5 was never intended to be a Sony exclusive machine in the sense that there's no other games to play. I don't think that the PS5 generation has been a lost cause maybe as much as some other people do.

Speaker: I just do feel like it's a unfinished story. And if we get to PlayStation six and 27, which allegedly that's being pushed back, push back.

Speaker: Thank fuck. I feel like this story is just getting started.

Speaker: For the PS five or for, have we even gotten to act two of the PlayStation five arc? I think we're starting it. I don't think it's going to be much different than act one personally.

Speaker: So what's act three. I think act three is a bloodborne remake. I think if you're disappointed now, you're going to be disappointed for the rest of the PS five generation. Well, I'm not disappointed. I do want to say that. I think Sony fucking sucks, but I'm not disappointed, I'm going have a great time.

Speaker: Yeah. I mean, Hey, I'll play inscription. Hey, do you got any more card building deck slayers there? Um,

Speaker: Here's my prediction. pisses me off. Go ahead. go So here's my prediction. You still but go ahead. They fucked. Sony fucked up the whole first half of the PS5 generation.

Speaker: And I think we're too late into the generation for any of the pivots that they made to manifest before that ends. What I am hopeful of is that the PS6 generation is going to be more of a return to the PS4 generation. Because right now,

Speaker: Hear me out. Right now, if they earnestly learn from the mistakes that they made with a lot of their first party studios, their allocation of resources, ah what they greenlit and what they didn't, if they are able to reposition those assets in, you know, starting with last year, moving into the next couple years, if we're talking four year, three to five year development cycles, that could set them up to have a lot of good games come out once the PS6 drops throughout its life cycle.

Speaker: What developer has a three-year development cycle these days? It would be a smaller thing. But yeah, virtually no one. What, you mean like something Bluepoint would make? ha Not anymore.

Speaker: So this thing is driving me crazy.

Speaker: Dude, I got to say I love this low-profile one. This one sits, like, not at desk level. It's obviously slightly above, but it's not this, like, arm. Yeah, i just um I need this, like, yeah, this this this can't rotate beyond this because this little ah this thing. Well, you got to, like, loosen it, and you got to play with it before the show. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker: I'll play with it. I'll do work Give it a couple rubs. Kind of losing my train of thought on all the bullshit you just said there. But really...

Speaker: I don't think it was the wrong decision to pursue live service, just like I don't think it was the wrong decision for Xbox to pursue Game Pass. yeah I just don't think it's worked.

Speaker: yeah So for you to sit here and say, oh, by the time they get to the PS6, which by the way is next year, 18 months away. Oh, it's 18 months away. Boohoo. You're going cry about it.

Speaker: ah What will have changed? You're telling me they've gone in those 18 months and and the past six months? So that's two years? they they've theyve fixed They fixed all the problems.

Speaker: When you just told me that there's three to five-year development cycles, which by the way is also a lie. There's no three-year development cycle in 2026 studio. for a aaa studio

Speaker: I don't think like this, like people like you sandbag this so hard. This is almost irreparable.

Speaker: In what way? All they have is inertia. All they have is inertia. And that's, that's why they they sell a box or anything. They sell a box and then you're telling me they don't want to make a hundred percent of the the profit on a game that they made.

Speaker: Yeah. They, if they have zero games that they release, you think they're still okay. Actually, probably. Yeah. Yeah, they're probably okay to the tune of half of what they are now. I don't i don't want to put this thought in their head, but like... Nope. If they cut all of their... If they were just like, no, we're not we arere not making games anymore.

Speaker: we just make ah We just do a console. Yeah, dude. We just do console, and we're getting rid of all of this headcount. All this headcount. I, yes, they, I, I think they're more profitable making games and I'd love, I wish, I wish they would make more first party games. I wish they would make more money by making more better first party games, more, better, more, better, more and better.

Speaker: That's where my my optimism comes. i I think the lessons they learned and the cash they lost in this generation was so much that I'm kind of hoping it puts them back in a position where they're like, we really do need to compete now, like earnestly, actually.

Speaker: um I know they're not really competing Xbox. I just think that is bullshit, too. Yeah. You're telling me every time you go to work, you're not ready to compete?

Speaker: um' I'm saying that depending on the environment, you people can feel licensed to make better or worse decisions or take bigger or smaller risks. Now, I don't want them to just become risk averse, but they mismanage resources.

Speaker: I think we can both agree on that. Oh, you think? It's the first reasonable thing you've said all night. Oh, yeah. I don't know why you're so offended by this.

Speaker: By what? Even in personal conversations, you get offended by this. By what? Sony has mismanaged the last six years of a console lifecycle. You know who did that?

Speaker: You know who did that, right? Yeah, Jim Ryan. No, no, no, no, no. You know, come on, you know who did that. I'll tell you who did it. Don Matrick and Phil Spencer with the Xbox One.

Speaker: Oh, yeah. oh Oh, yeah. So easy to say. But when it's staring you in the face with the blue team, you're scared to say it And you'll say it You'll be like, well, yeah.

Speaker: That's what happened. I think i think the difference and the difference is that Sony's not competing anymore is the is the thing. Like this is the generation they could afford to lose. I hate that shit, man.

Speaker: It's like when you go play FIFA online and it's the championship game and you don't need it to get promoted to to division one, right? You got 19 points. You're already promoted, but you get three more. You win the title. You win a gold division title.

Speaker: you don't need to win. And you're up. You're up three, nothing. You're up three to one. It's the 75th minute. Just hold the ball. And he can't even fucking hold the ball to get the win. He'd lose 4-3. And you know what you don't get? You don't get a gold division title.

Speaker: And you're okay with that. You know who's not okay? I'm not fucking okay with that. You're telling me Xbox could look at clear obscure expedition 33 and throw the cash at them and say, this is, this is a special game. This is what we need.

Speaker: And Sony can't come up with one fucking good game outside of their five premier developers.

Speaker: That's an embarrassment. It's an indictment on you as a consumer. And it's something that you should feel more strongly about.

Speaker: yeah yeah i can't even engender a reaction out of you tonight. Dude, I'm just having such a good time on the PS3.

Speaker: it yeah why do we even ask you what you think it's a little good joining because like why don't we just come up with a time machine and go back to 2007 and release this podcast because because that's all that matters i know man i'm like living in the golden age here it's it's tough i hear i hear about the hear the future's a shit show but i'm having a good time funnily enough that's when they were struggling i know that that's when they had to really fucking try and And you know, I don't feel that with Xbox.

Speaker: Like I don't look around at Xbox and say like, oh my God, there's so many great games to play because they're trying so hard. Every time I think about Xbox exclusives or Xbox published games, because they don't really have that anymore, i think, eh.

Speaker: and Indiana Jones looks like a seven out of 10. I played Starfield. That was a great seven out of 10, but you know, which by the way, you're going be playing Starfield. Yeah, actually, I didn't say this earlier, but I, you know, after Wolverine, I'm kind of getting the itch for a Bethesda game. To go to PS5? you did say. Yeah, Bethesda game. Like, I was looking, haven't played ESO, and I haven't played Oblivion remake, and I was kind of looking at both of those, but now with this April 7th, I guess, I know if you want to do an intro, but yeah, it looks like they've...

Speaker: announced to April 7th. So it's going be out in ah just over a month. That's kind of going to sync up perfectly. Yeah. So Starfield, Bethesda's first new IP in ah quite a while, is coming to PlayStation 5 on April 7th.

Speaker: Only European prices have leaked 50 euros. I assume that means $50 on the USD side. which is $20 less than the 70 they charged for Xbox. It might be 60. Let me see what the exchange rate is, actually. It doesn't matter what the exchange rate is. It's one-to-one in all prices for for stuff like that.

Speaker: If an audio component comes out for 1,000 euros, it $1,000 in United States.

Speaker: and states That's the law. And we're sticking to the law. And other industries, please apply it here equally. Thank you. I'm really excited for you to play that. So selfishly, I hope you don't play Oblivion.

Speaker: I have to say that I was really intrigued by Oblivion back when I was still a Game Pass subscriber. And then the more you read and saw, it was like, yeah, it's not technically good. And I just, I told you about this Bioshock. Like there were like save issues with Bioshock and weird shit that I thought shouldn't exist in a remaster. Don't know why they did.

Speaker: Maybe just a vestige of the time that it originally came out. But sometimes I can't deal with that, man. It didn't change my actual experience of Bioshock. Like I barely even remember it. But i don't know.

Speaker: Even Skyrim, like you didn't say, I can't remember what you said, My experience of Skyrim on the PS3 was not as bug riddled as the internet made it out to be. Like you could barely play it or you had to play it differently to get it to function.

Speaker: That wasn't my experience as a child putting over 120 hours home on one save. um But I wasn't in the mood to to go to Oblivion and deal with that after hearing about it.

Speaker: So I hope you do Starfield simply because I'm curious to hear what you think about it. Yeah. I thought it was the best quest writing I've ever experienced from Bethesda.

Speaker: I'm young. Were you shocked? I said something positive tonight. I was actually. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's not a Sony studio, so they can actually do something right. I was a Microsoft studio. Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah. I, uh, I am looking forward to it. i I'm curious. I really, though, I kind of can't get over these prices. um I understand that like on the Xbox side, like if you bought it on Xbox, I'm sure it's discounted now because it's been out for so long.

Speaker: I guess I really did think that they were going to put it on PS5 for the full 70 for like the base, the base game. They haven't done that with any other game, though, have they besides maybe Forza?

Speaker: Maybe Indiana Jones. Yeah. Avald was discounted. and Oh, it was. Okay. I didn't realize that about Avald because that's... ah Yeah, Avald just came out last year, right?

Speaker: On Xbox. But wasn't Indiana Jones only like a couple months? Yeah, it was a couple months. So it was the same price. That's practically day and date. Starfield's three years old. That is crazy, actually. Three years. i Feels like it went quick, huh? Yeah. Yeah, I didn't realize had been that long. So... Yeah, I guess with the three years, it makes sense. I mean, there's DLC, so there's more than there was. Apparently, the DLC is horrible.

Speaker: Oh, yeah, Shattered Space. I've heard it's not that great. I'm curious, though, if this is going to be Starfield 2.0 or... I thought so, but... or i i thought so Because that would be weird if they like put it out on the PS5 and they're like, well, there's like a 2.0 update coming. it's like well Oh, yeah. It should launch simultaneously. Yeah. if it I mean, if if it's not, I'm not going to play it day one then. I'll wait the better. I've waited this long.

Speaker: Mr. Matty Plays said this on Defining Duke. where he you know he was like, yeah, I've played Starfield 2.0. And obviously he's under embargo, but the way he said it, which was both kind of like, of course I've played it, and also like not very impressed. um makes like If he's not like, oh yeah, I played it, then what what would there be to excite me?

Speaker: Yeah, i mean, it sounds like, yeah.

Speaker: There's an IGN article about it too from from late February talking about the next update is not going to be like the kind of 2.0 you would imagine that like cyberpunk ad. It feels like every time people talk about Starfield being better, Bethesda's like, no.

Speaker: te Temper expectations. Yeah. What is up with that? Even Shattered Space, like, you haven't played it, so I don't want to spoil it, but I thought Shattered Space was really going to explore the most underdeveloped but interesting part of that game.

Speaker: And, of course, again, I haven't played it, but based on reviews, I would never play it because it doesn't explore that, and it just seems like bullshit. Much like Brandon's opinions on Sony. So...

Speaker: I don't know. It's just so disappointing. i think Starfield's one of the games where I like was so hyped for, man. I remember the reveal in June. like You got into it when it came out.

Speaker: Yeah, of course. But I mean, not the reveal trailer, but like the the first in-depth look, the June before the August release. Mm-hmm.

Speaker: I was like, oh my god, I wish this game was out like today or next week. I'm so ready to play it. And then it came out, and I paid for the early access. And I was like, cool. Nice. Nice.

Speaker: here I do remember back then there there actually was a sense of like saltiness from a lot of Sony fans because Starfield originally was slated to come out on the PS5 and Xbox. And this was like right around the time when Microsoft purchased Bethesda and they were like Xbox exclusive.

Speaker: And it was like i I was like, ah that's a bummer because i like I love Bethesda games. And at the time i had already, I played every other Bethesda game, you know, on like modern hardware.

Speaker: And I was like, this would be the next thing that was way before oblivion remaster came out. And was like, oh, that's too bad. Like it's going to be on Xbox. So I'm, I'm not going to like buy an Xbox just to play star field. And then it, it came out and it like, wasn't the reviews were kind of a bit middling.

Speaker: Um, Yeah, but maybe sevens and eights, I feel like is is where a lot of stuff landed. Midfield. And so i I'm going bet that there were probably a lot of vocal folks back then that were like, oh, fuck Starfield, fuck this. That'll probably be all over its dick now when it comes to PlayStation.

Speaker: i am I'm curious.

Speaker: Kind of looking forward to it. I don't know. I'm not as excited for it as I like was back then, I think. now with time and like reviews and all of the uh the discourse around it perhaps i'm conflating conversations over over the years with you but i feel like very quickly after release of me being like oh my god you gotta play it like go buy a series s and play this you were like i remember even then and maybe i'm wrong but i remember even then i feel like you saying it's gonna come to ps5 i'll play it when it's on ps5

Speaker: Yeah, it was it was it was one of those games. I mean, this was also like the first Bethesda game that was in in a long time. I know Morrowind was back on on the Xbox.

Speaker: This was the first Bethesda game, though, in modern like modern generation that was like, oh, okay, well, now it's just Xbox exclusive. I felt at the time like Starfield was too big of a game to just be sequestered to a single console.

Speaker: But then ironically, that kind of turned out not to be the case. Like, it I think it got a decent pull when it came out. But apparently it didn't make a material impact on Game Pass. Right. And it was assistant seller. But it's not a great Game Pass game. Which they hope it's a terrible Game Pass game because it takes so many hours. It doesn't justify the subscription.

Speaker: But yeah, it I, yeah, I think it's, I'm very curious though, to see how it sells on PlayStation. That will be fascinating. It's going to sell millions copies. Probably. Yeah. Like it's probably going to sell far more than it did on, on especially at 50 bucks.

Speaker: Yeah. That's sick. Yeah. Dude. I don't think Starfield is a bad player purchase. It's not the greatest game I've ever played. It's not the top 10, 20, whatever.

Speaker: I'm not upset that I played Starfield. Yeah. you know I'd rather play Starfield than Wolverine.

Speaker: you just fucking dig at me for Wolverine, dude? Yeah, well, I gotta try to get a rise out of you for something here. You ain't been awake all night. You're like, get angry with me. I'm angry enough at work. I don't want to bring it into this.

Speaker: This is for fun. Well, I'm sorry that you think I didn't have fun. I did. I had a lot of fun finally letting the mask drop and come at you for your your sandbag takes where you try to see everything with a neutral lens that simply shouldn't exist when abject failure is staring you in the face. you got this Ladies and gentlemen.

Speaker: That has been seriously irrelevant. A gaming podcast still very much in development. Thank you for joining us today. Please listen. Rate us on iTunes or whatever the hell called. i have a podcast now. I suppose it's not 2005.

Speaker: um This has been episode four. The true episode four on take three. Brendan, what are you doing after this? I... I'm probably going to play five minutes of Wolverine.

Speaker: Yeah, let's do it, dude. You know what I'm going to do? What are you to I'm going to call you. Oh, yeah. Hey, buddy. um Brandon, it was really good time tonight. Thanks for making time for me after dark here.

Speaker: Hope you enjoyed the setup. Please follow me on YouTube, the Lanky Llama. Like, comment, subscribe. Please just follow or whatever. Download the podcast. Leave us a rating. Please reach out to us.

Speaker: We would love to hear from you. We would love to include your insights on the show to give us more fun things to talk about than Brandon's horrible takes on the industry and his bias on terrible YouTuber viewers like Skill Up.

Speaker: Bad takes all around, dude. And we hope that you continue to join us for all of those bad takes. Again, seriously irrelevant. A gaming podcast is still very much in development. Thank you for listening.

Speaker: Have a good night. See ya.