Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Avowed Hypecast - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: January 29, 2025

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What's up everybody? Welcome to the Kind of Funny Games cast for Wednesday, January 29th, 2025. I'm one of your host, Greg Miller, alongside the best voice in the business. Paris Lily. Hello, Paris. Hello, Greg. How you doing? I'm excellent.

How are you? I'm doing okay. I'm getting over being sick. And I blame me being in the studio for getting sick. I've been sick since I want him getting a sinus infection. I appreciate that you blame the studio and not my sick son, the three-year-old. that I had you around at dinner all night long. Because that's why I'm sick.

That's why my wife's sick. That's why my son is still sick. We have just that toddler germ. He just doesn't go away. Yeah, see over here. Beston in the chat says, or J.T. Besta. Greg has been six since 23.

And it feels like that at the house right now. It definitely feels like that. How are you? Are you okay? You're okay? No, I'm okay. Like I said, it turns out I got a sinus infection

because my wife has been mocking me for about a week going, what is wrong with your eye? my eyes is like swollen, it's been all red and just a freaking mess. So got a bunch of antibiotics. I'll be all right. See, that's interesting because this is the whole thing we talked about on the shows throughout the last week. There was a whole, does Ben have pink eye or does he not? And it was like, I was like, he clearly does not have pink eye.

And then other people were like, no, he does. And this would make more sense because it's never developed into pink eye. But sinuses will make sense because he still has the boogies just like everybody. You know how it is. But that's a three-year-old for you. You thought you were out. When does it stop, Paris? You have adult children.

It never stops. It'll never stop. You will go to your grave and it will continue. It never stops. Well, that's not, that's not what I'm buckled up. I'm buckled up and I'm going to have a good time. And it gets more expensive. Them being sick?

Everything. You'll see. You'll see everything. Everything gets more expensive. I don't like that one bit. I don't appreciate that one bit. But what I do like Paris is video games. And that's why each and every weekday on the Kind of Funny Games cast,

we talk to you about the biggest topics in gaming, whether they be previews, reviews, or hypecasts, or we just want to gush you about the things we're excited for. If you're excited to be a part of that, we love you, and thank you so much for it. You can watch live on Twitch.tv.tv.com slash Kind of Funny Games and YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny Games. Listen on podcast services around the globe. If you're watching live, you have a special job.

Be part of the shenanigans by going to YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny Games and super chatting. Right now, of course, we're going to be talking about avowed. I want to know if you're looking forward to avowed why you are, why you're not, what's got you stoked, who you're going to roll all that jazz while we talk about obsidian's upcoming RPG. While we're talking about us being all about you, I want to give a shout out to all ups.

All ups in the Twitch chat right before we went live was saying they just got a dog. Congratulations on getting a dog. That's a lovely, wonderful part of life. I'm glad that worked out for you. Of course, if you like us, why not pick up a kind of funny membership over on YouTube.com slash kind of funny games, Patreon.com slash Kind of Funny. Apple or Spotify,

you can pick up the Kind of Funny membership to get all 20 of the shows we do each and every week. That's nearly 80 a month. You get them all ad-free. You can get the ability to watch the afternoon podcast live as you record them like today's Aliens in Review. And I assure you you don't want to miss what Nick and I have planned. And of course, you'd also get your daily dose of me,

Greg Miller, in a series we call Gregway. Some housekeeping for you. Of course, we are an 11-person small business all about live talk shows. You've already gotten Kind of Funny Games daily today, talking about the Bioware and PlayStation shakeups. After this episode of the games cast, you're going to get more Kingdom Hearts 2 with Mike on the stream. Of course, you can catch those later on YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny Games podcast services around the globe. If you're Kind of Funny member, you can get today's Gregway about when it was time for me to leave the newspaper business. And like I said, aliens in review this afternoon, which of course will be up with ads tomorrow on YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny Games and Podcast.

services. Thank you to our Patreon producers Delaney Twining and Carl Jacobs. Today we're brought to you by Better Help and Built, but we'll tell you about that later. For now, let's begin the show with what is and forever will be topic of the show. This is your avowed hypecast. Paris,

we've done hypecasts in the past, but we haven't done one in a very, very long time. So I think there's probably a few people here who are like, what the hell is this? And this is basically a support group. Because Paris,

I'm sick of checking my email, looking for the review code for avowed. A vowed? I cannot believe the hold it has on me. We previewed it last year before, I think November, maybe it was December. Yeah, it was November.

Previewed it there, and it was that thing where I played it, and I'm like, oh, man, I like a lot of the stuff that's going on here. I'll be interested to see if it pays off. And since then, it has never left my thought process. Every game I play when I sit down,

I turn on a system, I turn on my PlayStation, I turn on my Steam deck. I'm like, whatever I'm about to play, I'm like, it'll be great, but fuck,

I really want to play to Vowd because it just seems like such a nerdy ass RPG. And of course, we are so close now to the February 18th release date that I say, you know what?

We've been talking about doing Hypecast. We haven't done one in 2025. It's time to do it for Avowed and just talk to my boy, Paris Lilly, about this. Paris, how excited for Avowed are you?

I mean, I'm very excited for it on multiple levels. I've said for years that I wanted to see what Obsidian could do now that they're a part of Xbox and fully funded and they can do whatever creatively they want. And this is about this is the first opportunity to see what that's going to look like. Sure. Not to mention to what you just said, it's going to be a nerdy ass RPG and going to Obsidian being able to sit down with the team and see how excited they. They are. So jealous. Yeah. I mean, they're excited for us to be able to play this. And I went, we all went many years wondering what the hell was about going to be.

Turns out it's a part of this Pillars universe. And I have no idea about anything Pillars. So this is my introduction into this universe. So I really want to soak up all the lore that's going to come out of this and understand what this world looks like. I'm very excited about the various combat combinations of swords and guns and spells and all these crazy things that you're going to be able to do. I want to check out these other regions in this world that we haven't seen yet that again, talking to the people at Obsidian, they're very excited for us to see what we have not seen already because they have so much

in store for that. The artwork that we've already seen, it's such a pretty colorful game. Not to mention, you know, when we first saw it, it looked a little underwhelming, right, at that one showcase, but then getting this preview and now it's on Unreal 5, all of a sudden you see that visual upgrade to it and it really pops on the screen as well. So yeah, I'm absolutely hype for this, man. I cannot wait to dive into this. And we'll talk about it again for a review in a few weeks.

Yeah, I can't wait for that. But I thought, again, I think so many times these games gestate with us and then we come out at review and talk about them there and our excitement for it, I kind of like using this hyper, hypecast ideas away as a prep for everybody to get on the same page about. what makes this game I mean honestly for me

this is weird I'm using 80's contender but I would say literally a contender for what I think I think this will be on my game in the year list by the end of the year

based on the snippet we played and based on everything we've seen and I feel like it's interesting to dive into that because we do the you know I want to watch the developer direct from a while back

I want to read some of the stuff here I want to watch some of the gameplay videos I'm sitting on their YouTube channel has been putting up these little snippets of like introducing you to the world, to the lore, to the races, all this stuff. Like, there's so much content out there

that you could totally blow by or have forgotten about or not know about that I thought it'd be interesting to try this out and see if the audience cares about it if it connects with us or them and the way it connects with us. And so. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, let's do it. Where I want to start for why I'm so stoked is PC gamer. Over there, Ted Litchfield had an article that's titled Avoud's newly revealed character creation backgrounds tripped my RPG sicko radar. This is the headline, offering funky fantasies like Noble Sion,

court auger, and Vanguard Scout. First spotted by the gamer in a recent threat on X, the Everything app. Obsidian showed off the character creator for its upcoming first person RPG avowed, which of course could be played in third person, which we'll talk about a second pair of you are. In addition to demonstrating the gamut of appearance options

like rainbow hair or mushroom frills, Obsidian also revealed all five potential character backgrounds coming to the game. They go, arcane scholar, court auger, noble Scion, vanguard scout, and war hero. In the shared screenshots, we can also see the full description for one of these backgrounds, the noble sion. Quote, you were born to a noble house of great influence, middling wealth, and questionable morals. When scandals and secession disputes saw your family cast down, you threw yourself on the emperor's mercy and he shielded you. Can he yet refined, you have become a forbler force at court and in an indebtory.

invaluable ally to the emperor. Avaat has a classless RPG system, meaning any character can invest into any combination of its ranger, fighter, and wizard skill trees. But I dig the way these character backgrounds are sort of playing double duty to suggest a starting point for your character's mechanical fantasy, in addition to shaping them from the story and the role-playing perspective. Sort of like how the divinity's original sin gave you a starting point like Shadowblade or Wayfair for the similarly skill agnostic systems. Going from top to bottom on Avowed's list, the backgrounds are giving Mage, Cleric,

Bard, Ranger, and Fighter respectively. Paris, for me, this was among the first things that made me go, oh shit, when we did the preview. Because for me, I've talked so much about this where I love Starfield.

I enjoy Dragon Age the Veilgard. I love Dragon Age of the Veilgard. But I felt like, Vailgard did such a great job with the backgrounds. Okay, cool, I can do this kind of thing. Starfield, I took so long to find who I was to then rollplay that game. The idea of getting in here and immediately have it. I have a screenshot from my preview where I can tell you the Arcane Scholar background, right?

Because they call this, if you don't understand why you'd be picking this, the game itself tells you this. Your background provides unique dialogue options and determines your starting weapon. All equipment and abilities are available to you regardless of your background. Arcane Scholar's description, which is what I picked on my preview. goes like this. After graduating with honors from Braganol Academy, you published a, that's literally a screenshot off my computer, so hold on, or TV. You published a treaty eyes on soul lineages that threatened the legitimacy and drew the ire of a local lord. When he had you

arrested, the emperor intervened and recruited you into the archives of your imperial court, of the imperial court. Your mind is a bottomless well of occult knowledge, legal precedent, historic observation, and poetry. You've forgotten more than much. most people have ever learned. Like, Paris, these backgrounds jumping in, like what worked for me so much

in terms of, I'm going to be this character, whether it be my character, Becky and Starfield, whether it was Rook and Vailgard. It really is wanting to have a narrative to then make the choices based on. And this being,

you're so good, Paris. So good. Yeah, and that's kind of the thing of, you can see the level of detail that they're going into these character backgrounds. And then the exciting part of that

will be what you're saying, this goes into your decisions as you go through this game. How is that going to affect your interactions with certain characters, who's going to be friendly with you, who will disregard you, enemies you might make, just because of who you are and where you came from. I remember pretty sure I was a war hero is what I chose in my background. But again, who knows what I'll do when we actually jump into the final build? But that's exciting about having all these different options to use and what direction you

want to go because I think we'll see a lot of different water cooler conversations as a result, which is exciting too. And this is a conversation me and Andy have had. We had it yesterday talking about the Veilgard, right? Excuse me. That we both started with these characters that we were so happy with that the conversations played so naturally with. But when Andy went and replayed Veilgard, that's where he ran into, oh, I made a different

character. I gave him a different background. And so then this conversation didn't make sense or that choice didn't work. back to why this works so well for me in the preview it was making these choices and then getting to that first real dialogue conversation right there is a woman I believe it was in a cell you know trying to make out

and it was hey I have like seven different dialogue options and they're bracketed of like oh this is because of your intelligence oh this is because of your race this and I was like oh man like this is what I want I want to get into the weeds because what I I was so the SpongeBob meme looking out at everybody having fun, right? Of when Baldersgate hit

and there was all these permutations and all these things and I just didn't like the gameplay. First person, you know, basically, first person RPGs in the vein of a fall at a Skyrim or whatever. Like that is so my bread and butter. That is what I love to play and to get that kind of thing here.

I'm so excited for it, Paris. Yeah, absolutely the same. And, you know, you touch it on a little bit. There will be a third person, there for people that want to take advantage of that too. Of course. I dabbled around with it in the preview a little bit, but I'm pretty sure I'm just going to go first person.

I think that's my preference. I think I'll like that too. Yeah, because that seems to be, that fits my gameplay style the most. I think it also fits how they developed the game, right? Even when we were in preview and we're jumping in and out of it, and somebody gave me shit for looking at, well, Greg doesn't use the share button.

This was preview code on a PC. I didn't have my key bindings. All right. I'm sorry, I couldn't get my share button to work right away. It is that idea of when I did jump. up to third person in the demo we had, which of course, unfinished, it didn't feel nearly as on point. Like maybe the final version will no different, but like, if, Barrett, if you want to throw up the first, well, not the first link, but my first link of the day, where I would say the

latest gameplay footage turned heads, this got posted to Reddit, and it got a lot of love out there for what it is. And I think it does such a great job of showing what the combat looks like in here, right? Where it is, here's third person, which doesn't look bad whatsoever. But when you're in first person and you have the bone air, you have the sword and shield, you have your magic wand, you have dual magic wand, you're doing all this different stuff.

Like, I think this is going to be such a fun game. And even right there, they talked so much in what they've talked about in their previous things of being able to switch your load outs on the fly. Like, I'm stoked for this game and what these permutations are going to be, Paris. Oh,

yeah, same. And again, going back to comments that Obsidian devs have made at Gamescom, and then again, during that preview period, when we visit the studio, they talked a lot about from a combat standpoint that you're going to see, there's going to be some unique creations of things that they haven't even thought of yet internally

at the studio. Like the one person made the, what was it? I'm blanking on it now, but it was the blood mage or something like that that they just created on the fly when they're at gamescom. And that was just something fun to do. But the fact that we're going to have all these different combinations of weapons and magic spells and things that you're going to be able to use as a player. I love it because you're going to be able to experiment with that stuff.

You're not going to be locked into a certain class of, this is who I am for this entire game. If you realize halfway through it, well, I want to shift my play style over to this. I want to start using swords. I want to start using guns or I just want to be a full on wizard mage where I'm just, you know, zapping people with all these crazy spells. You can do that in a vowed. So I'm very excited to be able to tinker and play around with that stuff.

I want to go and watch the deep dive with you. Of course, this is the Xbox developer direct that had happened, not the last one, but the one before then. It's a seven-minute presentation. I think it's a good refresher and a good jumping off point. But before then, I want to get some super chats in. Remember, like I said, be part of the show, right in with why you're excited about a vowed, what you think of it, why you're not, if it's not working for you, what doesn't work for you.

Anakin, JMT, super chat, and said, been an obsidian fan since Cotor 2, and I'm stoked. Plus it comes out of my birthday. Shot it to 2022 when I got Horizon Forbidden West and Uncharted movie out of my birthday. You're the first person I've ever heard thank someone for the Uncharted movie, but I'm glad it was, I'm glad it worked for you, Anakin. I'm glad that was there for you. Dolphin Corn says, I love Path of Exile 1 and 2, so I'm, or POE, yeah, that's right, P of E 1 and 2, so I'm excited for a vowed. And then Trevor says, I'm not the type to cave on a special edition to get early access, but yesterday with Game Pass, I got the 20-ish dollar

deluxe edition to get five days early. I cannot wait. Oh, and then while we were going, Docs the Fox writes in and says, I have faith in obsidian. at least in the narrative. I think they will crush it. Also shot it to the upgrade system. Game Pass offers deluxe edition acquired. So there you go. Pillars of Eternity.

Thank you. Path of Exile on the brain. You understand I'm a Diablo guy. Thank you very much for setting me straight, everybody. Yeah, let's, I mean, obviously there. And I do want to talk about obsidian's history, obviously, with pentamint, grounded, outer wilds, whatever. But like, a world's. But for now, Barrett, run the deep dive, and let's watch,

and we can commentate, we can stop. We can do whatever we want. Welcome to Obsidian Entertainment. I'm so proud to share with you. our upcoming fantasy action RPG, Avowed. Avowed is an adventure into the heart of the living lands, a frontier at the edge of the known world, where you must put a stop to a mysterious spiritual plague

and discover a secret at the heart of the living lands. At Obsidian, we love creating worlds with deep themes, dynamic gameplay, and thoughtful reactivity. And Avowed is no different. We set out to blend the believable and fantastical to give players a world and experience like no other. It's colorful, it's vibrant, it's strange. It's one of the most incredible settings in the world of Aura. There's going to be a lot of great secrets to discover,

one of which has a really personal connection to you as the player character, and you're going to have a great time getting to know those secrets and leaving your mark on the world. And when it comes to encounters, our combat brings the best of the most, moment to moment fun that comes with action-oriented gameplay and the depth and breadth of choice that you get with an RPG. Here to talk more about avowats combat is Gabriel Peramo, gameplay director. Here at Obsidian, our team's overarching goal is to empower you with choice. So we develop the flexible combat system.

That's what I want to hear. Empower you with choice. Again, like this is what I want out of these kind of RPGs. He's about to go into talking about combat. and switching up the loadouts, which I think is so cool. But for me, Paris, it's the choices in the narrative,

the decisions of who I'm leaving behind, who I'm taking with me. That's what I'm honestly feel like in the RPGs I've been playing lately, I'm so thirsty for. Go ahead, Paris. The best, like we keep talking about, these nerdy RPGs,

the best RPGs give you that flexibility. So that you're creating these branching paths of not everybody when you go and play a game, play an RPG game, is just doing the same exact thing. thing. It's the fact that, oh, man, I made this choice. Oh, crap, that happened to you. Oh, man, I made this choice and all this happened to happen to me. That's the exciting thing that I think about is can be able to bring to the table. And I think that's the comparison to make right for me.

And everyone knows how much I loved Starfield and how much I enjoy Starfield and still love it to this day. But it was that, you know, disappointment of starting Starfield that first time in going into Constellation HQ and starting to shoot people there and then being like, oh, stop, or whatever. And they wouldn't die. Like, oh, that sucks. And I understand that's a Bethesda RPG. That's the narrative they're telling. They're doing something very specific there, but even to jump to Shattered Space, right, where you get to the ending of Shattered Space and you make a choice there, right, of who you go with, who you put in charge, yada, yada, yada.

And I've heard no one talk about that decision. I can tell you in the big decision what I did, but in terms of who I turned the land over to or whatever, I don't remember. Like, that wasn't impactful because those people didn't matter to me. I'm hoping what we get here is a narrative and a backbone and a vow that makes me feel like it. And we're going back to the Dev Direct, I swear. but something that was so cool I thought in the preview was how fast they gave you the stakes

and drops you into the game where it is the emperor is sending you out there you have to go out there into the living lands and deal with this dream scourge figure out go do it right and of course I already know my relationship to the emperor because in character creator I chose the backstories I just read through and every one of them involves the emperor

and why you're there so to get you there get you off and get you off on the adventure I'm very excited Sorry. So even before you continue, so one thing that Kerry just talked about at the very beginning and you just said was the living lands itself. And again, I don't know the Pillars universe. So this is all new to me.

So that's again, as a part of the excitement is discovering these new biomes and areas and worlds that I know there's fans of it that they're going to be very familiar to them. But as a new player coming in, yeah, I love this. I love discovering something brand new and not knowing what to expect. when you go into these worlds. And we saw a brief glimpse of that just in that initial deep dive. It was going to be a lot of biome diversity there as well. So very exciting to see.

All right. Sorry. Barry, back to it. You're killing it, Barry. Good job. That allows you to quickly swap from spellcasting and sharpshooting to melee combat. We want to give you the freedom to mix and match your loadout to fit the way you want to play from moment to moment uninterrupted.

For all battles, you can combine a variety of weapons, attacks, and abilities for tactical advantages against a wide range of enemy types. It's not just hacking and slashing. You're making real-time decisions about when to use your abilities, powerful melee attacks, blocks, parries, and special attacks. If you choose to approach combat with a one-handed wand, it feels quick and snappy when dealing damage to enemies at mid-range. Using the Tanglefoot ability, you can stop enemies in their tracks, giving you the opportunity to focus on weaker or tougher combatants in an intentional and controlled manner. It's important to pay attention

to the types of enemies you're dealing with. Some units are extremely defensive. Some are brutishly difficult. And others, you must make sure you prioritize or their healing capabilities. Have you running to him? Is he difficult? In a tough spot.

To help with the different encounters you will face, we provide customizable loadouts that can be quickly switched during combat. That means you can play however you want. Equip a sword and shield and charge into battle. Dual-willed pistols and control the encounter mid-range.

or even dual-willed wands to feel like a gun-slinging mage. You could use your enchanted wand to freeze enemies and then use your offhand weapons power attack to shatter them. We've worked hard to keep you constantly engaged as battles unfold by creating a balance between pressure and manageability during combat. Players will have ample choices for how to build and progress their envoy in the world of the living lands as they get to know the game and the story and explore the many diverse regions. Can you pause on that?

question about. Who's there? Yeah, just going back to the combat stuff. I heard you mentioned in there. I gave a look. I did encounter a dude at one point where that had the big shield. And yeah, it was a pain in the ass trying to beat that dude. You had to actually, you could like he's saying, you couldn't just hack and slash your way through it. You actually had to be a little more thoughtful about your approach to that enemy to get a shield down, get your blows in. And then just they talked again, kind of about just about the ease of use of mixing and matching in the combat. I don't know about you when you're in the preview, but it felt intuitive enough that it took me a second to get used to it. But once I did and it clicked,

very easy to go in there and manipulate. Do I want to be one-handed? Do you want to be two-handed? Dude, I'm forgetting it. Pull out the spellbook. Am I doing the one? Like all of that made sense to me from a combat perspective in first person. So again, I think the combat is going to be a lot of fun. I think people are going to come up with some unique combinations out of that. And then, yeah, I can't wait, man. Because, yeah, some of those, some of those enemies are not easy. Like, I even remember when I played it at LA Gamescom, one dude I ran into, he was almost like a mini boss, I guess, right?

Oh, yeah, I was dying left and right, because I didn't know what the hell I was doing, but that was the point. It wasn't just easy. And so the two things to piggyback off of that for my, number one, my preview, I was way too boring. And I didn't, I didn't, I, it was, I didn't tinker enough. I spent so much time on character creator and all that jazz and then getting in there. I kept it really sword and shield and I think at the very end was using a spellbook.

And so I did not mix and match the way I want to in the final game or when we actually get going on it. So I'm looking forward to really getting deep into that, experimenting with that. The pistols look great and I never even touched those or did anything with that. The flip of it though, when they show the tangle spell and catching the dude there to work on an ad or work on a heavier thing, the main thing I would like out of my entire devout experience is for it the combat never to become too easy isn't right brain dead I guess and what I mean by that is as much as I love Starfield and continue to play it when they drop new DLC I'm I'm a god like nobody can stop me every gun I have like no matter what you can

be a 99 level guy to fight he's down there's never a threat of death like I hope This is going to continue to challenge me as we go and not get to that point where I feel like, okay, cool, I'm just blitzing through everything. One of the things in the chat here, the public chat, Yel Singh, I believe it was over on the YouTube, said, from what you guys play, what did you guys play? Did you enjoy the combat more than the combat in the outer worlds? I've gone back and started, I did, started a new playthrough of the outer worlds. Of course, I reviewed it back when it launched.

Started a new playthroughs I've been sitting here, jonesing for a vowed or whatever. And I stopped very early. I did like two or three nights with it or whatever. I enjoyed it. No, no shade to it. But my problem was that, oh, this just feels like fallout, which also just feels like Starfield. So I'm just doing the same thing.

Yeah. You're with me on that, Paris? Yeah, 100%. Yep. And so, yeah, I'm craving this. This combat is new. Obviously, it's first person, hack, it's last, and magic. And there's nothing new under the sun.

But again, in the way you're changing loadouts, which I didn't get to really experiment with, that's new. The expansive skill tree, wherever you want to go with it, that's new to me. And again, I know I use this all the time. Not in the actual feel of it, but in terms of the freedom of it, it reminds me so much of kingdom of Amalur, which I loved so much in using my glave or using my sword or whatever. So to get in here and really pick a character and then be like, well, what would this character with this background use? What are they going to be like? I'm very excited for. Yeah, same. Completely agree. Sorry, back to the video, Barrett.

Have you make difficult decisions with profound consequences. Like this side quest, you may encounter a shatter-scarp. The third region you'll explore on your journey through the living lands. As you're exploring, you come across the bodies of these fallen soldiers. And as you explore the remains of the battle, it's up to you to determine who, if anyone, is at fault. Just the four of us. Manu, Keri, Naoki, and me.

Training under Captain Ruiki, trying to keep thirdborn safe. In other words, you're a gang of vigilantes. Not that I'm one to judge. Here, take my badge, take everyone's. Our families deserve to know we fought and died for them. Making the right choice isn't always what it seems. We embrace moral nuance and gray areas, trusting players to make tough decisions in complicated situations.

Fuck yes. My squad and I rested in the cave by the water last night, and as we were sleeping, we were ambushed by those miserable Zoro. I was so surprised and it was so dark. I just got separated from everyone else. Look, I can't face those monsters alone, but I have to know if anyone else made it out. Of course he did. Sergeant Asui never has a thought he won't say out loud.

So what did he tell you? That Captain Ruiki was sick? That I was paranoid? That I was a dumb baby. Dumb baby? I heard it all often and loudly. Wait, if you found Sergeant of Sui, why is he not? here with you. What happened? At the end of the quest, you have a choice. When you confront

Private Naoki, if you believe the story he's told you, you can hand over the badges and let him go back home. You're right. Real battle isn't something you can prepare for, is it? It's not my fault. No, they, they should have never have camped in the cave. I'll take the badges. I'm going back to thirdborn. But if you confront him, if you believe that he fled the side of the battle as an act of cowardice, then he might challenge you to a fight to reclaim his honor. Either way, when you return to town, you'll see the consequences of your actions and the choices you made during this quest. Creating an immersive experience like Avowed is anchored in the world we build.

Art director Matt Hansen and the team have worked to create a unique, colorful, and dynamic visual style. From the outset, we knew that we wanted a Vowed setting to feel rich, weird, and wonderful. We found inspiration in a wide swath of real-world cultures, helping us create a unique RPG experience. By contrasting the vibrant, with the dull, or verdant spaces with sickly ones, we can better deliver complex emotional experiences

for our players. The living lands is a continent of untamed valleys with widely varied biomes, from luxuriant forests to volcanic wastes, And each of those regions itself is a conflux of storied landscapes. All of the regions have a lot of special things associated with them, but I have a deep place in my heart for Shatterscarp. As you're wandering the wastes of Shatterscarp,

you might notice off in the distance a vibrant jewel of color. By transitioning from destitute, muted tones of a wasteland of sand and marching in towards a beautiful oasis, There's the opportunity there for life, for adventure, and even a little danger. We hope you've enjoyed this look at a vowed. We're thrilled to share more about the game in the coming months. Enough that we're re-watching and making more content about it. You can cut it there, man.

Thank you so much. I'll wait until it finishes. Sure. What do you got from Paris? No, but I would just say when Matt was just talking right now, because I got to speak to him and a couple other people from the art team when I was there. And it's just the excitement on his face for that. Basically, we haven't seen shit yet when it comes to the world of a vowed,

of all the stuff that we're going to see and just the love and care that they put into the art design and the level design of the living lands. I guess it's what it's called. Right. So that, again, like I said before, it gets me excited to see that people that making the game are excited for us to do it. Like there was no warrior. Oh, I hope you really like it. They were like, oh, no, you're going to love this when you get it. So, yeah, I can't wait, man.

I can't either. And, like, my hope is, you know, that I, there's, I want to talk about the length of it, because that's been a big topic of conversation, right? That it's out of world's length. So that could be like 13 hours for main quest, 26, 30 or whatever, with everything, blah, blah. My hope is that I enjoy it so much that when I roll credits, I immediately go and start a new character and do it different. You know what I mean?

Make all the choices I didn't do because I feel like so many of the RPGs we play these days, for me personally, not casting this on anybody else. is that I go through, I have my canon play-through, and then I'm like, I don't have another 60 hours to go run this again. I'm happy with what it is, and I will talk to Andy, I will talk to Paris, I will find out what would have happened if I went A, B, or C rather than D like I did. So we'll see. But, yeah, we'll see. And I guess what I heard comment seems to be about, you could probably do this in about a 25 to 30 hours if you really want it to. Yeah.

But you're encouraged to go off the beaten path and discover side quests and do things. which, you know, will increase the length of it, but there's also replayability there to exactly what you're talking about, create another character, try something else. Dude, make a different decision, see where it takes you, that type of thing. So I'm looking forward to it.

And again, I don't need a hundred hour RPG to be satisfied. If it winds up being 30, 30, 40 hours, I'm good, you know. And, you know, the preview we did, again, going off the beaten path, going, you know, you want me to go right, I'll go left. Yeah.

It was, oh, there is a treasure chest. There is an enemy encounter. There is something going. on here. You know, Destin's preview talking about running into a spider boss and all these different things in there. There's tons of things you do and I want that as well. But... Absolutely. What I also want is you to support us. Remember,

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God damn, I wish I had this game. One of the things I've been trying to psych myself up for that I just don't think I can do is the godlike features. We talked about this in the preview. It's obviously hinted at in the cover art of it.

Your character is godlike. You've been touched by a god here. And what that means is that you are. I would say what, quote unquote, I think they call it disfigured in the game where you have like the Last of Us mushroom growing on your head. It is a thing with you, when you're in character creator, you have a million different options for it. And you can turn it off where you won't see it, your character won't have it, but people will still comment as if you do. And I was shocked during that preview how off putting I put it. After so much Last of Us content and clickers and everything else. I just couldn't deal with it and I had to click it off and I had to just

ride with a normal look, a quote unquote normal looking person or character, whatever class I even was. And then just have them talk about it. I've been trying to psych myself up to actually have it in this, but I don't know if I'm going to be able to do it. Harris, are you doing it? What are you doing with the godlike feature? I'm doing it because I did it when we did the preview and I just embrace it, man. You know, I thought I looked pretty good. So I'm going to go for it. I put all the mushrooms and flowers you can on me. I'll make it work. I'll try. I don't know. I'll see what I can do. I don't know. Not only do I, I'll see what I can do, but no matter what, I really love that narrative decision and that commitment of like, this is what separates you in this world. This is why you have

special abilities. Other people don't have. And for so many people, this is not a good thing. They don't look at you and go, oh, wow, you're a superhero. Like, oh, my God, like, you're a freak. Get away from me. I love that storytelling feature of it. again this is what I'm saying I'm I'm ignorant to the pillars universe so I'm excited to see how all that lore plays out and why being godlike you know is is a good or bad thing you know to certain people in the world uh CJ splits on super chats I want to get some of these going because we have so many thank you so much and says do you care about the lack of romance Paris are you upset you won't be getting married in this game I mean it's not mass effect I'm not commander shepherd trying to hook up with everybody in the universe so it's fine It's fine. I mean, if it was there, cool, I would probably embrace it, but it's not like a deal breaker for me that I'm not romantic characters, which by the way, if I could pause real quick, we're going to talk about during the deep dive is the ability of the companions and utilizing them in combat as well. So I'm going to love to see the different combinations depending on the companions that I have with me at any given moment, how you utilize them in combat. So again, just another layer to what they're going to be able to bring to the table with it. Yeah, you know, for me, what's interesting is I, I, I, Imran Khan on a hot take games cast a while back, a while, a while back now, had made the point that his hot take was romance in video games is always bad. Like, it's not good. And even as somebody who is in a loving, committed relationship with Andrei Jen Starfield, I could run through everybody else I've partnered up with in other games. I kind of tend to agree with that, that I think romances are often forced. in video games and are often very unnatural as you choose a dialogue option that leads to this

but then this is that, I mean, like... There's so many aspects that you have to, like, write for depending on how you play it, that like, it doesn't really feel like any one thing you choose, or any one person that you choose in a relationship system is going to be very, like, satisfying or,

I don't know, rewarding in any sort of way, right? 100% right, where it's like, I understand doing it for the story options and the conversation, blah, but I think camaraderie is so much more natural, if that makes sense, versus a romance, right? Where I think even for Starfield, like, Barrett is such a great companion in that, just like he is in real life, Barry.

So funny, so clever, whatever. And it's like, I'm not romantically interested in him, but I do want to have a beer with him and ride, you know, throughout the galaxy, shooting shit up. And I feel like with them doing so much stuff here, in terms of your companions, who you're going to have, you know, having the garrous voice actor whose name's escaping me right now be the first NPC we meet.

I'm like, fuck, yeah. Like I'm already in and I just want to hang out with these people. I don't need to fuck them. I think like this has flirting in it. I think flirting works just fine. That's good enough. That way you're not committing to anything. Sure.

I like what I see. Gondor's Condor has the Sophie's choice question. Paris pick one. A vowed or south of midnight? Oh. That's not fair. I can't. I'm not to run out.

No. that's my answer no no you got to do it we all we love both these games i'll do it i mean yeah i haven't seen i've only seen well then here's what i'll say here's what i'll say because i'm being a thousand percent bias on this south of midnight because they're representing the deep american south and that is where i'm from so i'm excited to see all the lore and the legends that will come out of south of midnight and tutto tom in that pig there you go fair enough that's why i'm picking a vowed of course because they got godlike features just like me no i am picking about i south the midnight looks great and I can't wait and that's definitely a Gregass game.

I can't wait to see it play it. But avowed I've just been frothing at the mouth for so long to get into a nerdy fucking RPG world where my choices will matter and yet. I mean being serious for a second is legitimately just both. I want to play both of these games. I'm very excited to play both of these games, which, you know, in the grand scheme of things, good on your Xbox. You're finally hidden like that.

The dominoes are falling. I mean, like the one thing we haven't talked about is what if we're wrong? what if a vowed isn't great? Like what if we're like the trust I don't feel is misplaced from what we've played and then of course the track record. And I'm just going with like more imminent releases, right? Pentiment from Obsidian got an 86 on Metacritic grounded, had an 83. The outer world's 85. We can go back to Cotor 2.

Of course. We can go back to Fall Out New Vegas. We can go back to South Park. Like obsidian is great developer and I'm expecting great things here. But I really hope I'm not fucking wrong. Yeah, obviously I hope I'm not wrong either. And again, we're obviously going by by reputation. Again, what we've already played and what we've already seen.

It just made me even more excited about it because, you know, like when I talk to Carrie, I told her straight up. I was like, I didn't know what the hell this game was. I was very skeptical of this until I actually played it. And I'm like, now I get it. Now it makes sense to me. What do you think Metacritic's going to be on this one? I can see 85. Yeah.

I'll be so... 85. I mean, potentially could hit 90. I mean, we'll see. Damn, Paris. Damn. Look, look, you're asking you and I, we're the Indiana Jones guys, so...

Who knows what the fuck this industry is going to say about video games anymore? I would be, I mean, thrilled, but shocked if it hit a 90. Because my thoughts are, again, my hang up with it, and I'm using air quotes, was that when I started combat, you're like, okay, I get it.

And I didn't experiment, and I didn't use the different things, and I didn't change my loadouts crazily. It was just like, oh, I'm fighting another mushroom dude or whatever. Like, I want to make sure that there's varied enemies and varied enemy encounters, and it's not brain dead. That was the other thing. Fighting so many goddamn lizards, right? Like, if they make every one of these encounters rewarding and fun to go,

they're going to be fine. But if it ever starts going into, all right, just more guys to fight, I think that's where the medicate goes down. Yeah, I would agree with that. I mean, as long as you're mixing it up and you're actually able to try out all the different combinations of things that combat's going to have, story holds up, decisions actually matter. Yeah, I mean, again, it's going to be a nerdy-ass RPG, so I think it'll be fun. LOV says in the chat on YouTube, who had a vowed in the Open Critic League?

If you go to kind of funny.com slash KF League 2025, you can see our fantasy critic league and you can see that the one, the only, Andy Cortez and Nitro Rifle games have avowed. We will see if that is a good pick for him and pays off for him. And he has Siv 7? That's crazy. And he cleaned up and look at them back to back. He's ready to go. By the way, side note, before you move off of this, because I saw a Barrett post on Blue Sky about Roger.

And then I realized like, man, Roger trying to win this shit. He's going to get everything. See, that's what it feels like right now. I also have the feeling that four of these games are going to get, delayed out of this year and then he's only going to have $23 to gamble. Yeah, yeah. Because when I saw he grabbed Ninja Guy before him, like, crap, I didn't even think to get that right away.

He drafted it for $56 bears. It's crazy. See if it pays off bold move cotton. Let's get some other chats in here. I like this one. Cowhan Fodka says, big fan of the hypecast formula, Greg. Thank you very much.

That I appreciate that. Thanks for everybody who's watching right now. Music and avowed sounds great too. The Outer World's two themes still sits with me. That's for me. I've never been the audio guy. That's a Tim thing, right? But like, I'm interested to see how it plays hearing what goes on with it. Did it stand out for you at all pairs? Yeah, I thought it was good. I mean, you know, nothing, nothing truly stood out, but it was, it was solid, solid soundtrack that was in there.

Obviously, the background music, everything was going on. It was very solid. And then our final super chat for this episode of the hypecast games cast, uh, George Corona the third says, renewed three months of game pass for the first time in two years for a vowed and south of midnight. Wasn't feeling eternal strands, so I dove into Pillars One instead. And as a fan of Baldersgate 3, I'm loving it. Can't wait. Harris. Smart decision.

The best value in gaming. And being real for a second since I wasn't on the show yesterday and I won't go into a big diatribe about it. Of course, yesterday's show Snowback Mike's beef with Xbox and his lamenting that Xbox is no longer just one box for him. it's everything and where does that leave him as an Xbox fan? I think everything Mike said was valid and it is up to Phil and the team to deliver the vision that they're talking about. They actually,

we got to see the results of it. But from a GamePast standpoint, I think we're here now as far as when you talk about best value in gaming that now you can see the content actually consistently starting to come out for it that if you're subscribed, you're not going to unsubscribe because there's always going to be something next. to play. So yeah,

I think they're doing a good job when it now. We've joked for years about the Dominoes but it really does feel like Xbox has been a great lineup this year if these all hit the way they should

and hopefully like again one of the reasons for the hypecast is I think a lot of people are sleeping on about and I understand until you play it and again, I think even when we watch that the latest gameplay turned heads thing I put out from Reddit right

like you look at that and you compare it to when we first saw a vowed and it's like oh my God this looks so much better but that first impression right solidified for so many people. So to get here, hopefully have this game come out to

low expectations so it can super exceed them and then hopefully that's off to the races for Xbox. No, completely agree. They did make the right move to bring it to February versus putting it out in November which allegedly, I guess they never officially said November, but that, I mean,

with Cod around that time, indie behind it and, you know, there's just, there was a lot of different stuff that came out around that time. this might have got lost in the shuffle. It feels like coming out on February 18th, I guess, seems like it's going to have some room to breathe on its own and let people discover it.

Like, I was actually surprised when you read in Super Chats before that people were taking advantage of the GamePass stuff to get it five days early. Yeah. Because I honestly didn't think there had been enough recent marketing and talk about a vow that it was top of mind for people to get excited about it. I would imagine they're about to start ramping that stuff up.

But, yeah, I mean, hey. I'm really looking forward to it. Yeah, we will see. I imagine, yeah, you know, once we get to February and you got those two weeks counting down to early launch, five days early, what the 13th? I think you'll see it. Yeah, ratchet up quite a bit, but we will wait and see, of course, when we can, you will get an avowed review from us.

Paris, you're going to be on that with me? I forget. I'm pretty sure I am. Hell yeah, that's what I want to hear. Of course, ladies gentlemen and NB's avowed comes out February 18th. Like I said, five days earlier, it would be the third. unless I have my math wrong, which is possible with crazy Xbox math. We'll be talking about it.

We'll be reviewing it because that's all we do here at Kind of Funny Games. Of course, you can see us each and every day with live talk shows about video games. YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny Games. Twitch.d.d.m.D.V.D.V.E.S.com. Spotify. You name it. We're there talking games. You already got Games Daily. You're about to get a stream from Snowbike, Mike. And of course, if you like all this content we put out, please pick up a kind of funny membership. 10 bucks a month gets you all of our shows ad free.

that's 80-ish a month. Of course, you also get your daily dose of me in a series we call Gregway, and you could watch exclusive recordings of shows like in review this afternoon when we do aliens before anybody else gets them. For now, though, it's time to say goodbye and watch that inbox and wait for avowed. Until next time, it's been our pleasure to serve you.