Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Greg Miller Apologizes to PC Gamers, Reviews Steam - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: October 16, 2025

Solo Leveling: ARISE OVERDRIVE, the action RPG based on the popular Solo Leveling franchise,launches on November 17 and is open for preorder and wishlisting on Steam and XBOX PC. But folks at TwitchCon can experience an exclusive demo at the Solo Leveling: ARISE OVERDRIVE booth.⁠https://slvariseoverdrive.netmarble.com/en/twitchcon⁠ Go to ⁠http://shadyrays.com⁠ and use code FUNNY to get 35% off polarized sunglasses. Thank you for the support! Run of Show - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up and welcome back to the Kind of Funny Games cast for October 16, 2025. Today we're brought to by Solo Leveling Arise Overdrive, the action RPG based on the popular solo leveling franchise, launching on November 17th, open now for pre-order and wishlisting on Steam and Xbox PC. But folks at TwitchCon can experience an exclusive demo at the solo leveling, a rise overdrive booth and Trady Ray's. But we'll tell you all about that later. I'm Tim Geddes.

This is blessing. Adioia Jr. day, Tim. Good day. Bless. Hello, Michael. Tim, it's terrible. It's terrible. It's terrible. It's terrible, Ernie. Cuff Bust. I played last night with my boys. I was really looking forward to Cuff Bust. This was like one of my most anticipated games, one of those fun party mode games with your friends. And we played for about an hour, and I will probably never play it again. Can we start being more honest when we see these trailers? That's cute as hell, blessing. What is Cuff Bust? Cuff Bust was the cute gummy bear escape from prison game, where you went up to 10 friends.

are locked up gummy bears and you have to escape from a super colorful vibrant prison in all sorts of ways. Maybe you take a helicopter, maybe you take a boat, maybe you steal the warden's car, right? There's different ways to get out of it. It just panned out to be terrible. Terrible.

Terrible. And round it out the group today, we have Greg Miller. It's that thing when you look at a trailer like this, Bless, you think of it like you and I do. Video game Critics. You know what I mean? What would we want to play? What will expand our mind? When Mike looks at this, he thinks fucking Farts McGee getting one million people to watch him on Twitch do it.

You know what I mean? He's like, oh, this is a dumb fucking game. Like, you should be this trailer. I understand that like, you know, when they announced this at Summer Game Fest 24, we're all like, oh, wow, this looks like it's, you know, fun. I look at this and I'm like, we got to be, we got to start being real. We got to start being honest with ourselves in these trailers. Well, when Killer Beers comes out of 2020, 27.

Killer Bean is going to be bad too. Great as GTA like, you can't play. I'm just saying, like, bless, in an alternate timeline, this could have been. been the peak of the year, you know? Yeah. But then peak became the peak. But peak was also lucky that it became peak. Like, peak is an exception to the rule. Peak had the sauce. Pink was good. Peek had the sauce.

But what about repo? Which one is that? Repo had the sauce too. Yeah, like, different world. For every peak, there is a thousand cuff bus. But then in that, in all this, we get one peak. We're like, oh, man, that was fucking fired. Pretty close. You're pretty good. Yeah. I don't like the name. Cuff bus?

It sounds very nasty. You know. It was cuffing. season you're going to bust. That's what I think about. Yeah. But what's that to do with gummy bears? I don't know. Hey, everybody. How's keeping for you? What? You can eat it all. Oh.

Happy ZA launch day. Our new Pokedesmiley Kroonex are now available in two colorways, perfect for catching Mon as the weather gets cold and grab them now at kind of funny.com slash store. Of course, you could also check out our Pokemon Za review on the Kind of Funny Games

cast a couple days ago. Games Daily was blessed in Mike talking about Quantum Dreams new multiplayer game. In this episode, we're doing a sponsored Arc Raiders interview with Virgil, the design director for Arc Raiders. So after the ad break here, we're going to switch out. It's going to be Greg and Andy, I think. Yeah, very, very cool.

So stay tuned. After this show, we're doing the great Pixar re-rank on In Review. Me, Joey, Andy, and Nick are going to, quote, write the wrongs of our past. I'm sure no one is going to be upset about the lists that we come up with, either individually or as a whole. We do not know the list. We will find it out live as you do with us.

And it's going to be a disaster. 29 movies being ranked, bless, nothing can go wrong. What's the best one? There's so many good ones. And we don't agree. Oh, what's the best one? Tor Story 3.

Oh, three. Or it's not a monster. That's incredible. That's incredible. It's incredible. It's incredible. Yeah.

Or it's, there's a lot, guys. Incredibles is the answer. Stay tuned. Incredible. Those are the one where they're fish boys and they're also Italian. Luca. Luca.

I don't know. You drive like you fix roads. Lousy. It will be 3.30 in a car. We haven't talked about cars in a week and Ben will say that. Good. You drive like you fix roads, lousy. Ben just has a constant. He's just like his dad. He's got

movie playing in there the whole fucking time. What was the 2020 movie where there are brothers? Onward. I like that movie a lot. Not one of the best, but it's a good movie. Kung Fu Pan. Remember light year. Pixar legacy, you know? I hate you so much. And also it's really good, Greg.

I didn't watch it until the last year when we did Kung Fu Pandid review. No, but it's good, Po, I know. Incredible stuff. If you put a character in your Po in, Po makes me watch it. Then after that, I and Greg are doing a sponsor dream showing off Nvidia at G-Force. Now, if you're a kind of funny member, today's Gregway's 20 minutes about how Greg prepares for an interview, very apt for what's happening today. Exactly.

And what happened yesterday, which you can only find out about in The Gregway. Wow. Thank you to our Patreon producer's call Jacob's Obambuster and Delaney the Psalm-Twining. For now, let's start with topic of the show. Tats, Tots, Tats. Greg. Yeah. You have something to say.

I'm sorry, PC gamers. PC games is pretty good. I don't think the mic picked that up. I didn't hear that. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry PC gamers.

I'm going to need you say that laugh. I'm sorry PC gamers. PC gaming is good. That's pretty dope. Character growth to everybody. That's huge. What a season. kind of funny it is Ben we're finally getting

here. Greg, I would like for you to expound. Are there any tricks here? Are there any plays? No, no, no. It's, I mean, it's, no. It's funny to see people in the chat who didn't know. We were talking about this and we were going live. We're like, what's happening? Why? They haven't kept up on the saga of this. No, uh, you know, I have been anti-PC gaming a long time. And that has developed into quite a character of then me just screaming and being

mean and bringing up all the erotic fiction on Steam and all these things. That's true. Are you going to stop doing that? Well, I got to start choosing my words more carefully about the PC gamers I'm talking to. Because I think over the past year, right, you've seen me really go around the bend on PC gaming via the handhelds. Of course, I'm holding up right now our ROG ally X that Andy broke that of course Andy had a poor mow on the Y button. Oh, it doesn't work. Barrett wake me at 4 p.m. so I can stream.

You know what I mean? I was fucking cute. I wasn't with you until now. It's like, half-handy. That's Andy for sure. You know, he's always doing it. Three boys shooting. Bruton, Newton.

You know? Rick Flair. But no. So as long as the internet is known Greg Miller, which has probably been near 20 years now, I've been a PlayStation guy, right? Because at IG and I was hired to write about PlayStation. It was my beat. And so I knew that really well.

But even before then I'd always been a call and so whole person, because I'd always had always had. so many hurdles to PC gaming of some pop-up, some problem, not having a powerful enough rig, yada, yada, yada. And that continued at IGN because I was so broke, I couldn't afford stuff. So I would get like Anthony Gaios's third hand-me-down PC, maybe Charles on yet would give me a scrap some part just to play Diablo, just to play SimCity, just to do whatever. And those wouldn't run that well.

But I was able to commit to PlayStation. As time has always gone on and the character has evolved to be so anti-PC gaming, it's always been met with the wink of the nod and the under the brink of the brink. breath sentence that well of course pc gaming is probably the best place to pay play but it's like hard i feel like we've turned a corner and it's interesting here on the precipice slash the day after the rag ally x review from y'all of like pc gaming for me greg miller has finally turned that corner where it it almost if not does just work where it is the idea i you know if you're an audio listener right now i haven't flown in front of me the razor blade 16 uh that they sent me after i reviewed

the Razor Blade 18, right? I have the Rogg ally X here. I have a million other ways. You know, we're doing the Nvidia G-Force now stream after this, Tim, right? Which I've been using on both my ROG at home, on my Mac, on, you know what I mean? Like, we've gotten to a point now

where it can still be confusing, but it's not so confusing or so annoying that I walk away with my hands up in the air. I still don't understand why we have to generate shaders every time I start a game. I don't understand what that means. we start up Borderlands 4.

I've played this game on this PC already. I got to sit here for 10 minutes while you generate shaders. People say, okay, that only happens when there's an update. Fine. Playing on the other game, Redacted, why am I generating shaders right now? I've already turned this game on. Now, granted, maybe they're pushing updates for Redacted.

I don't know. I think I did. I'm an idiot. But that's my, there's those little things, and then there's the occasional thing where I ask Andy to come to my desk and set the settings for me. Do I want to learn about VVR, VR, VR, SST, the USSR, no.

You know what I mean? I don't want to learn about that. So Andy just comes and clicks the buttons and then he walks away. Now, with a few games lately, one redacted, a couple I've been playing. I have learned it on my own. I've gone in there.

I've got the settings. I've turned down the screen tearing. I've got it to where it needs to be. I'm doing the thing, bless, you know what I mean? That's more than what I do. And again, coming off of Steam deck,

going to Rog Ally, and then Rog Ally X I've only played Skate on. It's a whole thing we can get into of why Andy joined the review and yet, I definitely want your initial thoughts on this thing later. But even there, it has been that, okay, this doesn't look good. Let's go in and tweak this.

Do that, fix this. Okay, this looks good enough and works good enough. Awesome. Like, again, PC gaming out of the box off the shelf is to a point that it works for me and is doing what I needed to. I will be fascinated in two, three years, what these devices, if that's still the case, if there's so much progress in what's going on here, you know, the razor blade 16 that I'm using and absolutely fucking. I mean, like, I put up images on my Instagram from this trip on Tuesday, right? But like airport lounge, cocktail there, fucking review game on this thing with me and an Xbox controller just chilling. I'm like, that's pretty nice.

Playing out of the plane last night, first class. Who could have thought less? Who could have possibly thought? Jesus. But what, that it would be good? Yeah. What, PC gaming or taking on the go? Because again, well, no, because the alien wares used to be a gigantic fucking, like, here's this massive.

In 2003. Sure. Okay. Yeah. I guess I've kept up. We're in the future, great. We are, and that's the whole thing.

We, and that's the whole thing, is we are in the future where now, like, this is a normal size laptop that I can take and have those experiences.

And more importantly, again, to, like, you know, I'm not saying you've always had it right, PC gamers. I'm not saying, but like the fact that, like,

I'm playing games on, I've been a big fan of this Xbox, Xbox ecosystem, right? Great. I can play it on the rock. I can play it on the Razor Blade 16. I can play it on the Xbox.

And so when I'm off doing something, I'm playing on the ROG. I'm playing on the PC or whatever. I come home. My save just goes to the Xbox Series X, Bada Bing, Bada boom. We're in the money. We're doing a thing.

I love this. The fact that now, no, no, you're going to love it even more. You're going to love it even more. The fact that now I do the Xbox play anywhere, and I throw it on the Xbox Series X. I'm like, oh, this looks like dog shit. And I plug the Razor League 16 into the HTML port.

Wow. They're fucking winning. Wow. That's a step beyond where I thought we're going to go. And so then you've got to wonder, am I going to buy a tower? Oh, my God. Am I going to build one?

Fuck no. I got life. But again, right now with the Razor Blade 16, this is not sponsored by a Razor, by the way. This is an awesome product, I think. The ability just to go and plug it in and do the thing is enough. And I had a crazy one the other day with a game. This blew my mind, motherfuckers,

where I was doing another redactant. It's not the redacted you're thinking about, I bet, where it's probably just a me thing or whatever, but I was trying to get it to run off the Razor Blade 16 into the thing. It just wouldn't load. Just wouldn't load. I'm doing troubleshooting. I'm talking to devs.

Again, unreleased software, whatever. Yeah, yeah. Rock Ally X, Xbox, Rog L-I-X? Guess what? No problem. Plug that guy in. The USBC doc I got that had all the things.

I'm just playing on the fucking thing there. And did it look as good as this? Of course not, but I was playing the goddamn game. And that's the thing. This is what's fucking crazy, Mike. Lay it on. This is what's fucking crazy. Is that PC gaming

has somehow stolen the convenience bullet point, which is why I went with console for the longest time, right? It's like, this is so convenient. I turn on the PlayStation. I turn on the Xbox. I turn on the, Switch and I just go and play the game. Yeah, maybe an update.

Hardy Har Har. But it's that now the convenience is flip-flop for me. And I know as much as I talk about handhelds, as much as I talk about my Rog Ally, as much as I talk about the Razor Blade. Like, not everybody is moving and traveling and taking their games as many places as I am. But I fucking am, especially with my job being, let's bring the games from work to home and back and forth and all that jazz. And so the fact that that community is bullet point that I've always talked about

and what drew me to Vita, what drew me to PSP, what drew me to the Switch, right? of like that and what made Switch a runaway success of having your hands docking it and be done with it right?

That PCs are doing that now in a way that you don't need to sacrifice while I'm going on the road so I'll play a lesser game or I can't play my AAA game

that I was playing at home on that. It's a pretty nice age. It's pretty good place. We're T-minus one year from Greg streaming from home. Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Write it down and Greg's going to have a Twitch channel in a year. Whoa, whoa. You fucking short-sighted motherfucker The only reason you have a job right now is because I stream from home. All right, I was streaming before you were on Twitch.com.

I'm saying, though, like, you're going to have the overlays. Like, you're going to be like, I had all that. I still have that at home. I mean, you're going to be doing it again now, though. When Ben's old enough, yeah, like, when Ben's old enough where I'm not like only getting an hour and a half with Jen, yeah, I'd love just, I, I, I, I desperately miss streaming. And there are plenty of times I'm like,

like Starfield, when I was obsessed with Starfield and just playing that day after day, I was like, these would be fun streams, except that I'm fucking exhausted. I'm a husk of a person after. talking all day and being a dad. I don't want you getting this twisted that I didn't have overlays. You're going to have the gaming chair. I do believe Andy. The headphones, the ears. He's getting the ears.

He's getting the ears. Roger got my wife the Gengar headset with the ears and she's using the streaming setup that I used to stream from for kind of funny. What are you talking about? We're going to see it. We're going to see it. I'm taking it a step further though. I think that within a year, we see Greg build a PC. I know right now you're like no

because everything you're saying right now You need to understand, Greg. You are now... Like, hold my shirt. Through the door. The steps you need to take to understanding the things so you don't need Andy to be the one to help you. But I like talking to easy. And I say that I still, like, I understand this stuff.

I still ask Andy to help me. I still ask Roger to help me. You know what I mean? I'll never ask Roger. There's still like levels to this shit. But it's like the basic understanding, you're right there. Yeah. Like, the moment you realize this thing does that thing, you're like, okay, you get the theory of it all.

Well, I'll say what you got this deal, you click the, NVIDia guy, he pops up and he can, like, hey, do you want me to optimize your games? I'm like, yes, I do, Mr. NVIDIA. Thank you. You do that. Wow. But in the same way that everything you're talking about the convenience and all that stuff, it's never been easier to build a PC. Like, it is the most, like, if you can build a Lego set,

you can build a PC. And just the sheer understanding of it, I think does go a long way. You don't need to do it. I just think it's going to happen. I think that we're going to get there. What if we did a really fun stream where we all did did a little build and sip, everybody on the computer. And not a great combo.

I love the building. Mike's cooking right now. These men go to double find once. Mike's cooking right now. We get next part. And we're all there. Everybody's got their own desk and we build PCs together. Yeah.

I mean, I need to build a PC because I'm running, I'm T-minus less than 100 days out before a child enters my life bless. Yeah. And I told you, I'm like, I need a new PC before this because I need to be just set

because I'm not going to have time to do that later. So I am going to be building one. Maybe Greg can watch. Maybe Greg can. We do the, we do the cook chair. We got to do the bill to sit for the end of the year then. I love that. The PC built cup chair.

I love it. It's got a micro center sponsorship right away and let's get this thing. Let's get it going, man. They just opened one. Let's get it down the south. All right, Greg. Before we move on to a separate part of this that I want to get to, I want to stay on the Xbox side just for a little bit longer.

Because that seems to be where you're mainly staying when it comes to the PC gaming stuff. I know you're now big on the ally overall. I do want your initial thoughts on this new device that we reviewed yesterday. Sure. Yeah, the Xbox Rog Ally X, you guys reviewed yesterday. You did a great job. I slacks you all during the drive home of how great this episode was. Thank you.

Thank you. The different, well, first off, the hosting from Mike, but then the different perspectives and the way you all broke down your thoughts, you, Andy, and Paris. I thought it was all very excellent and really great stuff. And it was one of those where it's like I was bummed not to be on it. But then listening to it, I was like, oh, man, like, you're talking about it in a way that I don't talk about my experience.

with the alley. So I want to hear your experience though, because I think it was missed. I appreciate that. Yeah, as everybody knows, again, the whole reason you're getting an apology right now, PC gamers, of which again, I'm sorry for some of the things I said. I do think a lot of you still need to learn what soap is. All right? Get the Mr. Pib off your goddamn countertop. Clean it up a bit. Open up the shades. All right, you disgusting fuckos. I'm waiting for it. no the ragout i had incredibly limited time with i basically had two nights with it the first night as it was alluded to on the show there's so many updates it's pre-release hardware there's a million things in the back end we had to go do as we talked about the day i came in it wasn't doing what it should have been doing and then we got us to do what it was so i had one day of it doing

what it was supposed to do in terms of the full screen xbox experience and me playing a game on it what i can tell you in my limited first-hand experience which is about to get much more uh fleshed out next week when you see some reviews. It was that I, last week when we got it, was in between redacteds, so I was able just to play skate on it. And what I said to you, Tim, is that I was able to play skate on it for three hours on the couch comfortably, where my hands didn't feel like I'm holding up a weird hand. I love these handles on it. They actually felt like a controller, and that made it super simple. And it ran skate far better than my Rog ally X.

like the new chip set in here or whatever like don't give me wrong the old the other my old rog would run it for sure but it didn't look great it didn't do this one this one jumping up whatever the notches are

we jumped up tech wise here skate actually looked good enough where I was like oh the story goes Mike that when I booted skate the first time on my my original Rog ally X I was like oh you know what no this isn't good enough

busted out the portal and just played PlayStation Portal version of it this one I played over portal and I would continue to do it and I want to play handheld skate, I'll do this. And so I'm very excited to jump into a few of the redacteds I have and some of the other stuff we've been playing and tinkering with

and wanting to go back to and go with it. But yeah, my initial thoughts before Andy broke my Y button for some reason, even though, look, works for me. He was holding it down to. He's holding, yeah. He was, come on, what are we caveman in this? Like, be gentle with it. It's a delicate piece of machinery.

It's a thousand dollars, Mike. It should be treated like that. Exactly. This is why you don't deserve a new PC, all right? You don't respect the hardware, all right? I'm the voice of the new PC generation. Oh, man. God.

Yeah, so I like that. I like all that. Again, you know, a lot of conversation about power and tech and would you upgrade to it and this, that, the other. My thing about it is I love my ally X so much already. And I thought it did a great job of handling a Windows format in there. And again, I've always thought it's super responsive to the touch. easy enough to get around and stuff, easy to get into steam and all that jazz.

I agree with what Paris was saying here, where it's like, and you, I'll be interested in six months, nine months a year because it is that idea of like, cool, I'm in the Xbox thing and I open up Steam and then it is another clunky window on top of the other one. It's like, all right, well,

how much power am I really saving here based on what I was already doing on my ally? Again, firsthand with Skate, it runs things better. I know that. Again, using this one to boot redacted the other day when I couldn't get it to work on the real piece. and I plugged it into this thing.

It did everything I'm expecting and wanting one of my handheld PCs to do. So I'm excited to get a lot more time with it. And it is going to move in place of my Rog ally. So you expect this is going to be one of your daily driver pieces of tech. Yeah, 100%. Like I like these handles enough. I do want that extra power to see differences in games like skate or whatever I may be reviewing or playing for fun.

And yeah, that was the thing of like, I love the Razor Blade 16, but being on the plane the past two days and playing Redact. it on the plane. It was that idea like, okay, cool, sitting there and I'm like, I'm burning so much time on the tarmac. If I had the Xbox ally with me right now, I could just bust that out and go. And yeah, I would sacrifice graphical fidelity, but I'd have that convenience factor that I love so much. So speaking to that, actually, a great segue here. Jeff Blumen in the chat says, I don't understand how the convenience factor has flipped still, but okay, do you want to explain that a little? I think you did, but like just to make it a little bit more clear. I am going nonstop all the time, whether that is

going physically somewhere in a plane or going from my beautiful giant TV in the basement to the couch next to Jen to Ben's playing Switch on the TV and I'm playing next. My games right now, when the Xbox does this whole thing, take your games with you. You know, play anywhere. That's me. That's my life. I want my games to come with me. And that, of course, means also coming here and doing stuff here where it's like being

able to toss this or that into my bag every day and like at my desk, plug this in, boom, the games are there and I'm going in the best quality. and it comes home and does it rather than, hey, I need a PC at work and a PC at home and I can need to do that. Or, yeah, we have 30 minutes between a Gamescast, pop open the rock and sit here and do that thing or do it on a couch and stuff like that. Like, for me, above fidelity and all that stuff and above trophies, which again, I was already been put an end to because I don't, I saw this is an interesting thing I had seen on one of the Reddits in a conversation about it, right? of like, does Greg still care about trophies? And people coming in, and I felt like their takes were like 90, 80% there, but missing key factors of like, well, no, he just does,

he doesn't have time or this, that, and the other. And it's like, I don't care about trophy hoaring anymore. Where, hey, I'm going to play ZJ the ball and get a platinum. I'm going to play platy bird and get a platinum. I don't have the, I used to have multiple hours at the end of the night where it's like, I've played what I wanted to play for review. Now I just want to get a platinum trophy. so I'm going to play 30 minutes of this trash game to get it.

That's gone. I still make time for games and I make time to get the trophies in the games I care about. But it's like now it's just about playing the game I want to play. And I don't have time for the bullshit like I used to have time for the bullshit. And that's why I think, again, the convenience of having it with me on every device, on a streaming screen, on a handheld, on this thing, on Nvidia, G-Force now. Like, all the ways I'm using games, I want one unified library. And that's what PC gaming is giving me, whether,

be the Xbox ecosystem or the Steam ecosystem. Wow. Like, how does this make you feel? I got a smile on my face, Tim. I think it's a lot of growth. I still think that he gets the best of both worlds, being able to still play on his PlayStation for games, be able to jump over there.

I think I've had this a couple years prior. You know, Andy and I really pushed me into the PC gaming world, and I kind of fell in love with that, and I have Steam as such a daily driver for me. And having Xbox, the team that I love, have their games come day, one to Steam or Xbox GamePass PC. It's like my world has kind of morphed into now I'm on the PC and having the Steam cloud

saves where all of a sudden you end the game and you see it goes uploading to the cloud and within seconds it says it's in there, right? And I know I can be comfortably moving from hey, over onto my Steam deck or down over here at work. I know I have that save ready to rock. It's a big deal. And I think, you know, that's something again that Steam, because there's both me apologizing to PC gamers for being wrong about some things.

even though I always admitted you were right. But then also the fact that like Seams just does all this so much better than everybody else. Because it is that idea of like, yes, the Seams Cloud Save, Sink and it's like flawless of like in on the couch just moving it back and forth. Whereas sometimes still with this Xbox play anywhere, I get the I turn off a game here at work and I'm like, I think it did it. And I get home and it's like, oh man, it's taking a while to upload the save. I'm like, what the fuck are you talking about? It's been 45 minutes. It's been three hours.

You know what I mean? It's plenty of time to upload a small save, but still better than I think what PlayStation does where sometimes is somebody who moves around on PlayStation's. And this is a very 1% problem, not in terms of wealth, but in terms of user cases, right? Where we move sometimes between the PlayStation work, the PlayStation home, the two PlayStation's at home because I need it. Sometimes there, I'll get the one of, oh, you're moving too fast. Like, hold on.

Restore your licenses. Yeah, you're trying to pull a fast one. I mean, he works 30, wags his finger at me in the thing, right? And again, back to then what seemed us so well, I think, is the polished interfaces across the board. Like, I would give Steam a nine out of ten, all right? is an amazing platform. So I do want to actually jump over to that.

Like that was the other side is the Greg Miller review steam portion of this. So like jump into this great. Give me the Greg Miller steam review. What a user experience. You know what I mean? And again, this is something you guys mentioned yesterday talking about where Xbox is now and where they'll go with their handheld and full screen experiences. But what a unified experience across the board of whether I'm opening up Steam on my phone,

I'm opening it up on the computer, I'm opening up on the Bragg, I'm opening up on my Mac. the amount of having these things up and running and then be able to redeem a code boom it's in the library be able to install it to be able to stream be able to do this it's flawless it's snappy it's quick it's great i don't like some of the pop-ups like when i redeem a code and the pop-up and it's got like the little robot man that's been there for like a decade i'm like we can make this look better that's why it's not a 10 but it's the idea of like all these different things that's why it's the wishless thing and they got stuff in there i never need to chat who am i going to chat with i just sent any inappropriate things nick sometimes inappropriate he doesn't check though it's upsetting. I think it's fun to be here after seeing the PlayStation app and the PlayStation dot com and how many games I've redeemed there and how many installs I've done from there and the way they've been chasing this and still haven't hit it. You know what I mean?

In terms, and even Xbox, I would say the same thing. Like their apps have gotten way better and obviously full screen yada yada yada yada. I'm more versed in PlayStation being a PlayStation guy. And it's just the way of like, oh, clearly this is what you were trying to copy and you still haven't been able to catch up in terms of how snappy it is, how fast. It is the lag, the hoops I have to jump from of redeem code. Yes, redeem it again. Okay, go to my library.

Okay, download it to this. Whereas, like, Steam's just bam, bam, bam, what do you need? What do you want? Bless. Do you have any thoughts on Steam? I mean, I love Steam. It's fun hearing Greg come to this conclusion, right? Because I think Steam's been this for a while.

For me, it was getting the Steam deck when that launched, right? That was the thing that really opened my eyes to, oh, I think this is going to become more and more of the main platform that I used to play games. And it's funny. I think the ecosystem part of it is such an important part that, I think often even downplay, but really that is what it comes down to. Like, I'd like to believe that I'm the person that I'm like, I'll play anything anywhere as long as there's a good game awaiting me there. But when I think about my history of playing games, right,

I went from being a kid owning an entity four to then hopping to PS2 and having like Nintendo consoles on the side or whatever, or at least having a PS3 and then having my Wii on the side. And then like PlayStation became my ecosystem because it was the thing of, oh, I like this as a home base. I like having like my PlayStation and my Vita and the game. are speaking to me and all that stuff, right? I think now we've gone to a place where it's mattered less and less and less,

especially because you have Xbox games coming to PC. You have PlayStation games coming to Steam. And I think for me, the big factor of it is just the ease of, or not even the ease. For me, it's the benefit of, all right, I have my PC tower at home that I know is going to give me the best fidelity. I know it's going to give me my ultra-wide screen experience that I really enjoy and value. I know that if I want to even stream or do something that will be the easiest to do through being able to play the game on PC,

but then my Steam deck really does change the game as far as being able to go on a plane, being able to this last weekend, we were in L.A. for a wedding, being able to be there and play games that I'm not going to say because they're redacted. For me, that does so much, let alone the Steam sales, let alone, like, you know,

there's just so much to it. The amount of demos. Going on right now. Even, I'm like not, I'm not dove deep into the mod scene, but I have lightly to do like, you know, among the streams of people. or Minecraft streams or whatever that require being able to get into the weeds there. And even just seeing the amount of options that are available to really tinker and do things with my games,

that I would just wouldn't be able to do on console. Like, you know, I won't give it a review score, but I echo the fact that it is amazing. It is my favorite ecosystem currently to exist in because for me it just does it all and has it all. Yeah, I think something nice about it that, and again, I know none of this is revolutionary to anybody he uses this. And again, as we can, I keep mugged at the camera and doing stupid stuff. Remember, the joke always was that I knew Steam was great. I just wasn't in that ecosystem because I didn't have a way to engage with it at home on the TV.

Steam link wasn't for me. My towers were never powerful enough. The PlayStation was easy rather than jump through the hoops and, you know, update something it isn't. It's the fact here of, I think this will sound stupid, but stick with me. Steam is great because, of course, it was doing this already. I'm not trying to say it stole this idea. Stick with me. but it is so much what PlayStation 4 got right at launch.

We're all about games, games, games, games, here you go. I turn on my PlayStation 5 right now. It drops me on that screen where the half of it is my controller's charging, but here's don't forget your play. And it's just noise. It's just fucking noise, right? And you open Steam and yeah, there's pop-ups that can be noise and ads or whatever, but your drop-down, here's Next Fest.

You know, here's this thing. Hey, you wishless these games. We're notifying you that they're on sale because there's so many things. You know, I fuck up the second part of this story. But the first part I get right, right? When Andy and I were watching the 6-1 indie showcase, they showed a game that that looked awesome. And I said, wow, that looks awesome. And Andy's like, oh, it's from the folks who made crosscode.

You should play cross-code. You'd really like it. It's actually up your alley. It's from 2019. And so I was like, okay, cool. And I wish-listed it and forgot about it. And then there was a night after in between reviews. I was like, oh, you know what?

I should try that. Went in on my Rog ally. There it was. And it happened to be on sale for the autumn sale they were just running. Not even Next Fest, Autumn. And I got it for like three bucks, and it's fucking fantastic. And it's this little indie game.

And it's again, like, we talk on the 6-1 indie stream. We talk on all the streams we do. Wish list these games. No one makes it easier to wish-list your games than Steam, right? Again, whether you're on your phone, you're on the portal, you're in the app, right? And this is, again, where you see so many of the games you will go on to love,

start, have that page where this thing, that they can then go and talk to people about getting money for this game and get a publishing deal and look at the interest we have. I think on top of that, even the store pages on Steam are great. Like when I look at a games page, everything is so uniform. They give me the, like,

plenty of videos and screenshots and all the stuff. And every store does this, right? But the framing of it on the Steam store for me is just way easier to navigate. But it's so snappy. It's snappy. It's like PlayStation. Like, again,

think about how you've seen it in our reviews change where we now read the Steam description. Because it's way easier than going to Google and going to the page and get through all the bullshit on the marketing page or go to, I would never go to PlayStation look for this because their search sucks. You go to Steam, you instantaneously have it, you know where to look, you know what the release is. You have the short bio on the right.

You have the detailed bio. If you scroll down a little bit, you have all the genres there. You have the, like, it is organized so beautifully and everything's so uniform. And you can add that to the, the wishless button is right there for you.

And it's all organized still perfectly. And on top of that, like... It's game developer first, which I like a lot. And I, Steam also, you know, it's spoiling me in a way because I think there's also

the added benefit of not having to pay for playing games online, if I want to play games online, right? And like, I don't know, it feels so, user-friendly compared to as console gamers

wake up. Honestly. You know what I mean? Yeah. So funny. I want to get to some super chats before we close out this section here. Nicholas Chamber says we got Greg

apologizing to PC gamers before GTA6. Yeah. And this is kind of in line with it. Alexander wants to know Greg, what was the last platinum trophy you've got? And do you still care? Has handheld gaming completely taken over? Do you remember the last trophy you got?

My last platinum? No. I know it's been a while. and that stream was talking about it. Let me, I can go to PSN. Spider-Man 2? No. Astrobot? Astrobat.

Astrobat might be it, yeah. Yep, Astrobat was the last one. There we go. January 2025. Wilfredo says, growing up, I made all the excuses about not playing on PC, but at the end of the day, I just couldn't afford it. Getting my first grown-up job, I got my first PC and consoles are now just secondary. And to see your point about the convenience and just like the changes that have happened and the quote-unquote, it just works. I do think it's like, I've seen.

I've said this a million times recently, but it is a funny thing of like PCs have gotten more accessible and easier to use, and consoles have gotten just more PC-like and complicated and firmware and updates and stuff. So I think the education process is just kind of got us to this point. But on top of that, the actual real talk, it just works stuff that controllers connecting, Bluetooth working, you know, like all of that stuff. The fact that now we're at a point that PlayStation DualSense controllers have a PC app that allows you to update and do things.

That's crazy. Xbox has been on that stuff for years and years and years. They weren't always, but for the last 10 years, they've been, Xbox controllers just worked flawlessly with PC. And we're at the point now that PlayStation controllers do. Like, that's so impressive. And I do think is all of that stuff adds up to like, oh, like any reason that I used to have of like, I want to, I want to the higher fidelity of PC gaming, but there's these things.

I just don't want to, hoops I don't want to jump through. Those hoops are gone. Yeah. I think that's to the point. Sorry, but like it's to this thing of me, like the tower I've had at home that I've had, you know,

we're doing the quarry and they only have quarry codes on PC. So I'm playing it's like for some reason that one drops Bluetooth connections all the time. And I've gone, I've run through the hoops that I want to run through for it and I can't. So I just fucking tether it with a USB and like what I. I was having a ton of Bluetooth issues and I bought a $20 Bluetooth adapter and it has changed the game entirely. I have two of them though. So I can give you one.

Oh, well, no, because I mean, now the Razor Blade 16 beats the, living fuck out of this thing. I mean, again, of like the comedians of having a one with, what, a 50-90 in it that's just like, hey, here we fucking go, let's go. And sometimes it sounds like a jet engine, but like that's when it's working on these crazy games, making something insane happen.

And then I'm usually using it to play fucking kind words or whatever, like some weird little weird little indie or I want to cry. And to Tim's point about like the clunkiness, right, the console is getting a bit more clunkier as PCs become a bit more approachable. Even the console generation aspect of it, being able to go to Steam. That's the, that's the game where you type out. Just sorry. Being able to go to Steam and not have to worry about

am I playing a PS5 version or PS4 version? Like we had a recently where we were playing Rainbow 6 Siege X and I just struggled on the console side of like why won't my store page open me to the PS5 version when I'm playing PS5? Why is it to keep download of the PS4 version and for it to be on Steam and be like cool I don't have to worry about any of this shit, right? Like we've just gotten to a point where it's ironed out more and more and more and

like not even mentioned the fact that video games come out more on Steam. Like when we're talking about these indie titles like Steam is the first place that these games are going to go because it's way more accessible to be able to publish games on it. If you're going to put out a pat-upon spiritual successor named Rattatan, and you're only putting out PC, I'll follow you, I'll be there, and I've got to get it. Same thing with Moonlighter. Moonletter

too. Tom says, I can't wait for Greg to become a hot tub streamer. It's going to happen. I mean, no problem. You know what I mean? Come on a hot tub? What's wrong with that? Hang out with my friends? Leaving Legend said, Steam's even more amazing in full screen mode. And then Marty Pixel Ron has the final super chat for now

saying, speaking of Steam games, I've been making a game while watching you guys on my third screen, I literally press the release button in our... Prototype Juan is a mini-Metroidsvania for $4. What's it called? Prototype Juan, J-U-A-N, is a mini-Metroidsvania for $4. Prototype One, a tale of two Mondos.

Juan's been banished to prototype version of his game. He's gone from a colorful 16-bit hero to a tiny one-bit homie, help him platform his way in a narrative action platform with Juan himself, teaching you, how to control and move through this mini Metroidvania. I'm buying it on sale 399. That's it's an easy one.

So yeah, that is Greg Miller's PC gaming Revelation slash Steam review. We're here everybody. It took a while but it's a good time and it's going to be a long time, I'm sure. Thanks to everybody for finally making devices that work easy. Yeah. You know what I mean? We did it everyone.

We will be right back with a interview with the Arc Raiders devs. There's just one month left into the launch of solo leveling Arise Overdrive, the action RPG based on the popular solo leveling franchise. I adore solo leveling. I've seen every episode, and this game cannot come at a more perfect time

as I patiently wait for the next season. And being able to experience this world solo or with up to three of my friends for some co-op raids is right up my alley. Andy, if you're listening, we'll be playing this soon. In the game, players will work their way up as Sung Junu, an E-ranked nobody that no one wants in a raiding party clawing their way up to becoming the powerful monarch of shadows.

If you're at TwitchCon this weekend, you can play an exclusive demo at the PC gaming stations located at the solo leveling arise overdrive booth. Attendees will also be able to experience additional activities at the booth, including a themed photo booth. For fans viewing events from home, head to the official solo leveling arise overdrive Twitch channel, which will be live streaming from the booth. Pre-orders for solo leveling arise overdrive are live now, so add it to your, steam or Xbox PC wish list to prepare for Genu's next chapter.

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Awesome to see him out and about looking dope. for our listeners Shady Race is giving out their best deal. Head to ShadyRase.com and use code funny for 35% off polarized sunglasses. Try for yourself the shades rated five stars by over 300,000 people. That's 300,0001 if you include Tim. And we are back for a sponsored interview about Arc Raiders. It's me, Greg Miller, alongside the man who broke my Rog ally Xbox X, poured his little Mountain Dew all over the Y button,

and then acts like he didn't do not. Nothing to it. Andy Cortez. Go look at my steam deck right now. You know, try to... Well, there's a shito dust on, and I'm sure I can't look at it. Feel those buttons. Is it sticking for you still? No.

It's hilarious. It's something about the way you hit it that makes it stick. Just been able to recreate... Everybody was able to re-traying. No, I mean, I remember when you gave it to me initially and I did it, I did it, and then you're like, hold it push, and I held it push, and that's what did it. But I just don't do that. Just don't do it that way, you know?

When you play Hades, you're going to have to. But I won't, it doesn't make a special. And then. we are of course joined by the one, the only, Virgil Watkins, the design director for Arc Raiders. Hello, Virgil. Hi. How are you? Good.

How are you guys doing? Good. How tired are you? Extremely. Because what, you know, Arc Raiders developer? That's just here on NorCal, right? You're not, you're right off the street. Oh, where are you from?

Well, I'm from Michigan here in the U.S. originally. Yeah. I just flew over from Stockholm, Sweden. Stockholm, Sweden. Yeah. Good Lord. Just for this? Just for this.

Just to hang out with us. Well, I'm honored. Virgil, how are we feeling a feeling? Of course, Arc Raiders is upon us. October 30th, the release date, you are doing a server slam starting tomorrow and running through the 19th. Yes, correct. It's been a lot. Yeah.

Getting the build together for the server slam while also getting the build ready for launch has been a fun endeavor. But really excited to have players get back into it. We saw a lot of excitement from TT2. So, of course, now this is an open test. You can just join. And now everyone can get kind of in there. couldn't get a chance during the last one. Yes, test is of course free on PlayStation 5,

Xbox Series X and S, Steam, Xbox Series X and S, Steam, and the Epic Game Store this weekend. Yes, and G4S now. Oh, we love G4S now. Hello, hello, Greg. So you mentioned TT2, I'm assuming that's codename for the second test

that happened. Correct. Sorry, technical test too, and so this will be the third time that people will be able to hop into the world of Arc Raiders, and you're talking about this server slam, which I know a lot of multiplayer studios do to try to, like, let's just try to break the server, see what we could withstand. Hopefully they don't break, but let's see if we're prepared for something really, really massive.

What are the things that you are hoping to see the most from this Arc Raiders server slam weekend? I mean, aside from seeing if the servers explode, really just excited. We've made a lot of changes, balance changes, additions, things to the game. Not all of that will be present in this server slam, but enough will crop up that I'm hoping players that either saw a lot of the footage from TT2 or headhands on themselves can see the quality improvements we made, the passes we made on the systems they might have seen before,

but also within the build we have a lot of like placeholders and teasers where you can see the features that will be in full launch, so you can read a little bit about those things, and we've already obviously put out some blog posts and other things that explain some of those. So just kind of really excited to see how players feel about what they saw on TT2

and then what they can project for launch. So here in the live chat, Deja BD says, Virgil, your game is very good. I think it will sell real good. Don't sweat it. Do you have that level of confidence in 2025? Yeah, that's a tough one, right? Yeah. I mean, certainly I'm extraordinarily proud of what the team has been able to put together

with this game, especially after the history of pivoting to this new genre and things like that. But yeah, I hope. I'm hopeful. I'm confident. And really, it's just about resonating with this. many players as we hope to. So before we go any further, I see Langley,

I'm nearly saying, service plan sounds like a great indie band name, and also will this be the first multiplayer game I play? I think a lot of people who are joining us mid-show here and coming to the interview might not know what Arc Raiders actually is. So what is the elevator pitch for what we're getting? So Arc Raiders is a third person. We call it an extraction adventure because we kind of wanted to break away from just the shooter element,

given that we've put in so many other elements. We have like an RPG-style skill tree, a lot of like storylines, quests, things like that. And it does follow the like standard extraction loop where you go into a session, you scavenge and scrooge and fight. And to succeed, you need to make it out alive. And that really ends up being the sort of core loop you go through.

So if you're familiar with Escape from Tarkov or the cycle frontier or other games like that, then you kind of know the gist of it. And then we just sort of tried to put our own twist or our own flare on those mechanics or additional mechanics that we've tried to add to that core loop. Over the last week, Virgil, I've been seen a lot of articles, especially, you know, whenever I go to my Google news section, I see a lot of headlines, right? And I saw this one headline from Kataku that really kind of stood out to me.

It said, Ark Raiders is trying to fix one of the most frustrating things about extraction shooters. Now, if somebody who didn't read this article from Claire Jackson is sitting in front of you and asked you, what? So you go to Google news? You don't read the article. You just read the headline. I read the headline. I read the head.

And made me wonder, like, obviously, that is one very frustrating thing about playing an extraction shooter for somebody who doesn't who can't know life the video game somebody who plays a lot of different things when playing um other extraction shooters that have recently been cropping up here and there that can always be a bummer but that's also kind of the point of the game what are you sort of trying to marry here where are you are have you all been trying to really find like a happy medium with all of this in a way yeah so after we made the pivot one of the core tenets of the project was approachability. And certainly in my background, I play a lot of things like extraction suitors, Millsims, things like that. I love the military simulator at there, Greg. Thank you very much.

Yeah. I like the experience as a Ford, but a lot of them are not approachable. I don't know if anyone's played Armo or especially older Armour games and other things where it's very fiddly, very detail-oriented. And if you're in it for the experience, you can work your way through that and fight through the clunky UI or the pain of how you interact with stuff. And we took a lot of steps to, to try to make it more approachable so people who don't really want that barrier of entry can still have those high tension moments, the risk-reward gameplay, the stories that come out of those. And then aside from that, we've tried to add what we find to be rational safety nuts for people, because very often in extraction games, you can have a few bad rounds and you're

down to nothing and you're running in with just your knife or really an empty inventory. And And while that can be exciting when you manage to finally take someone down that way and get their kit of gear and you've made it out, that's one great story, but too often that ends up in a format where you're playing the game kind of not as intended. You can't even compete. So we've included a free loadout that doesn't have strings attached, but it is randomized so you don't get to know necessarily what it is. And if you're careful or clever, you can claw your way back up from that load out. we also have Scrappy the Rooster who tries to provide an economic baseline to players so he gives you some materials on a regular cadence so you can build the weapons or the gear that you want and we've tried to make that as kind as possible to players at the like if they're struggling or just having a difficult time or having a bad run and then the higher end players can still let their own success and their own skill and everything else carry them higher and they can make use of that. So I know I'm asking this question when we're on the precipice of launch,

October 30th, it's right there, to go way back, was there a fight internally of where this sweet spot would be? Because you don't want to make the game too casual, right? They're the hardcore player, like the Hispanic heartthrob over here

wouldn't be out there looting and shooting three-point shooting. Getting out of course. And like, fuck. Yeah, you don't want to make it so hardcore that somebody who, like me, like that loves the division vibes.

And I love the division. And I loved the dark zone. That's the thing I kept on pointing out to you. That's like, you know, we get offered a lot of previews for a lot of games similar to Arc Raiders. A lot of games that are like, they look awesome on the surface. And then maybe when you dive in, you find out you're not so in love with them. But I was taking these preview events. I was like, Greg, like this, it gives me a lot of the division vibes.

It is this third person shooter and it looks gorgeous and it runs fantastically. And like, it's one of these things that we keep on going, maybe this is the one. Maybe this is the one. Maybe this is the one. Gets us back into this genre. We playing on Steam, Andy, you know what I'm saying? Come on, man. Steam guy right here.

Big Steam guy. Sorry, first. I'll back to you. We're having a bromance. I appreciate it. No, I wouldn't say there were any fights internally, but it absolutely was a lot of back and forth about how to actually achieve this.

So I think initially we probably did pull too far back and really softened up the experience because, of course, as noted, the game started as a PVE co-op game. I think a lot of people refer to it as a looter shooter, but part of the reason we pivoted is there was no metagame. We had nothing to, and I think recently we had that edge article where Patrick and others talked about it

because the game just wasn't fun. So as soon as we added PVP, I think so many of the elements in the game were geared toward PVE that it wasn't a compelling experience yet. And then as we built up the meta game and we built up more features, we had the baseline covered for approachability and people could get it in play,

but then certainly as we started adding, or tuning things to be a bit harder at the high end because that's where we needed players to stay entertained and feel like they progress towards something. That's where you could definitely see a split and some attitudes about people finding, oh, this is too difficult or this is too unforgiving. And then it just became a game of how to make that gradient feel good.

So when you did graduate out of the early game into the midgame and from midgame to late game, you felt like you were standing on those plateaus correctly instead of just really being slingshotted around to different scenarios. Now, do you plan on nerfing those sniper towers, sniper robot dudes? I was like someone's been playing arc raters. Pain's in the asses, Greg, let me tell you.

This was one of those that I, we talked about on the games cast recently is like going into this latter half of the year, or we've been in the latter half, but go into this final quarter with, there's a lot of shooters around, and it was like, what are your rankings? what you're looking most forward to. And for me, it was like, I'm looking forward to Arc Raiders the most,

and then Call Duty, and then Battlefield 6. And it was, it's a weird thing that I found with Arc Raiders where I was hopping in alone to games, not even trying to make content out of it, not even trying to stream it. Just like, I'm, I'm having fun enough with this progression, and I want to level up this next bench, and I want to see what that next, you know, armor type is, or I'm getting a better weapon after this

once we kind of go out there. And I've found a lot of love with that rhythm. And I, but again, these damn sniper towers, which is, you know, they train on you from so far away, Greg. And, you know, pain's in the asses. So maybe just delete them completely. I mean, we have tuned to telegraph a little bit, so maybe you can dodge a little more effectively,

but they're doing their job. Very, very good dodge roll. This is, to jump in, I mean, as much as your girlfriend around. And I know, again, this is a sponsor interview like we're talking about. But the excitement is so genuine here. And I was telling you, you know, we're not going to name names. But you guys had started one of your tests or betas, I know.

And I heard tangentially the stream team had done it. Then they went and played something else the next day. And then they were going to play the something else again. And there was a hollow blue from Nick. I was like, but what if we played more arc raters? And that was when I turned on like, wait, what is arc raters? Like, what are you guys talking about? Because it was the other one you were more excited for.

So it's cool that there's like a ground. swell out there, let alone the community. I've seen a lot of people on our chat talking how much they like it. Yeah, there's something about the rhythm to it. I also think, like, kudos to the audio team. I'm so impressed by a lot of things about this video game. I think the audio team, like, really, really shines when you're playing this game, and you're in a large, massive building, and it's just you and your squadmates, and from far away, you hear just little pitter-patter of footsteps, you're like,

holy shit, there's somebody here and here with us. I don't know what floor they're on. This game does so much impressive stuff with verticality on the level design side. I would like to ask, what sort of inspirations were you all having while figuring out what these levels were going to be? Because art creators lets you hop into a couple different locations, correct? Yeah, no, the levels themselves, a few, or rather two of them were inherited from the old game, essentially, which was the dam and spaceport. But obviously those were built for a very different game.

So we had to retool them for the current day. And then the other one that would have been played in TechTest 2 was Buryd City. And that was the first one we built specifically for this game and a lot of the affordances that it needs. So, I mean, primarily the inspirations came from our concept team. They were the ones who came up with a lot of the, like, core inspiration for these locations. And then, of course, we have the game itself based in Italy. So trying to take inspiration from the landscapes and the biomes there. and then of course

well there is pasta in the game so trying to then mesh what our style and tone and what we like for the environments into those areas and then on the level design side it became a much bigger deal to create these intricate interiors

that you can now explore and move through and have fights in and that became kind of the core of creating these spaces where players could collide. So loot areas, activities, enemy placements and all of that is done in such a way that players are constantly having to make decisions about whether or not they would draw attention or run into other players or go after the thing they need. And most of what we do when we lay out these levels is to cater to that. And then, of course, you have your core things like where you spawn, where you

extract and then kind of whatever we're able to do to make you on the outset create a journey for yourself or maybe you're on a quest where it kind of you know it's an extrinsic motivator so you're going to go for your quest or whatever else but that's really the core of how we put these together and the verticality is just kind of a bonus because we inherited that from the old game and then stuck with it because it ended up being incredibly fun and creates a lot of very interesting dynamics in play so yeah the maps can be very very massive um for the player out there that uh that says I'm not the biggest PVP fan.

What is their PVEE-wise? Even though I'm still hopping into this knowing it's a PVP-centric video game. I'll run objective. But I want to hang out with my friends. Is there anything for the PVE Enjurer? Absolutely. I mean, I don't know the exact number for launch,

but it's something like 80 or 90 quests to take you across multiple little storylines and they interconnect and have a lot of, nice treatment in there with that. And then of course you can, it's trickier, of course, but you can play by avoiding PVP if you're clever enough. So you can go in, take note of where players are, observe the patterns of groans.

Okay. I mean, there's definitely a couple players we have internally on the team who, whenever they possibly can't, don't PVP at all. So they come in with stealthier kits, they bring silenced weapons, they're very careful. They bring like grenades and gadgets, to things that are making distractions or admobility and things like that. So they've definitely gotten pretty adept at avoiding other players and really just being a ghost.

And I've done my own stints playing like that where I won't engage others, but I will fight back if engaged. And I think that's what I'm pretty happy with how well it's worked out is we've given enough tools that if you want to go in heavy and have fights, you can do that. If you want to go after just fighting the drones and getting your loot, you can do that. If you want to never be seen, you can stand a good chance of doing that too. The trailers you all have shown off Have shown a decent amount of really cool looking robots

And big awesome spider-looking drones And things like that Are there still some secrets That you all are kind of holding back Like I can't wait for people to kind of discover this Yeah I mean we Tell them now Ruined the secret

No one's seen all the drones yet And certainly we're As with the old game We had the giant drone or the giant, the barons and queens and kings that we showed off, those are still around and still part of our ambition. You saw the queen and TechTess 2, and I think we'll have some surprises coming up shortly after launch

that players can get into. But that's something we're continuously doing is expanding the roster where we see fits and kind of filling the niches that are left in the game. So if there's an enemy that's better suited for wide open spaces or tight interiors, then we start chasing. down what those can be. Now Greg, every team needs a snow bike mic.

I think that's what every friend group needs. Someone who just flakes on you and doesn't return focal? Well, that's too. But the amount of fun that we had while we are out and there's all these drones, kind of, it's a war zone. It is like an insane, it feels like I'm in a battle royale video game. And there's another team that's about to, like, we're about to clash of them. And Mike decides like, we're going to befriend them.

So it's just a random team. And he's like, hey guys, and my computer was kind of crashing in this moment. And he was like, hey, my homie, he's, he's, oh, by the way, great that you can reconnect into a match. Oh, very nice. Yeah, so I was able to reconnect. He's like, if you see a guy with a hat of this, you know, don't shoot him. He's our homie or whatever.

So we befriended another squad of like three people. And now it's like, all right, us three and the other random squad, let's shoot at the other enemies. So we like kind of, and then by the end of it, Michael's like, Andy, were going to fucking kill them. But they were able to extract before we could do anything nefarry. So we all kind of extracted.

It was a successful run. And there's been other moments where I'm running in solo alone, playing offline. And I have no gear. And I hear a little rustling in the woods in the forest. I see a do, shoot him. And of course, it's got proximity chat. So the guy goes, hey, man, please don't,

don't shoot me, dude. I just got here. I have nothing. And I was like, all right. And so I just walked the other way. And there are so many cool little organic moments. We talk about the emergent gameplay situations. I think this game is full of that in addition to the really cool robots that you go,

oh shit, I don't want to go anywhere near that right now because it's not only going to bring a lot of attention to us, but it's going to ruin this run. There's no way we could take it down. You have a stupid SMG, you know? That's not going to do anything against this. So I think there will be a lot of cool moments that I'm hoping to get you in the party with us and just see how it takes things can get. I'm very interested in streaming this with you guys. I know we have a bunch of plans.

So that's exciting. Well, this week, that'll be this weekend thing. Service slam. Well, I'm doing a redacted review this weekend. But when the game comes out on October 30th, you don't got to play that. What? You don't got to play the other ad. Oh.

But what about the games cast for next week? Nah, no more. Virgil, how long have you been working on this game? So I've been at Embark for four years. I joined as a senior technical designer right before the pivot. So I worked on the old game, as it were, for about six months. And then the game itself started essentially when Embarked it. So it's been about six years for some of our developers who've been working on this game.

What has that been like to be working on it while you see so many other games, both in the genre or around the genre, come out, stumble, fail, fall, go back into beta, go away. Like, what was that like? Did you know or think you had something and this is going to work out? Or was there this? I hear from so many developers when you're working on the game. You get that point, you're like, I don't know if it's good or bad. I don't know what it is.

Yeah, I mean, it's definitely true. You're so close to the work that you can't really be 100% confident, I think. So, I mean, yeah, it's seeing a lot of things that came out and tried to do what we're doing or tried to do similar things. I think the best you can really hope for there is to try to learn lessons from what they have chosen to do or not do. And then adapt that. necessary to what you're doing. I mean, there's a lot of mechanics or features that may work in one

context and don't work in another, even if it's a similar game mode. So we had to be very deliberate about what we did take a lesson from, because there are certain mechanics that may make sense in a game mode for extraction, but in the way we've wrapped the entire game, don't make sense. So it's a little nerve-wracking to see all these titles come out and try some stuff. And we're like, oh, we were thinking about that, but maybe not now. Or like, we'll try to take a mechanic that seems proven.

And then put it in our context and it's not. And then rather than shoehorned in there, we rip it back out and try something else. You know, what pivot's got to be great. Ritchie here says, I never play online games. We played the last tech test and it was amazing. Haven't stopped telling people about it. Can't wait for tomorrow.

Super chat from Mandel Delgado says the atmosphere, the aesthetic attention, the entire design, but everything feels professionally unique and different from what is currently out here or out there already pre-ordered the deluxe edition. And that is one discussion that I do remember hearing from you all is, you know, in those sort of first previews

that I was joining and being a part of the mention of we were free to play and now we're switching to 40. And it's going to be $39.99, you know, whatever the... I'm not sure what the deluxe edition is. $599. And a lot of the internal discussions saying, well, when you make a free-to-play game,

a lot of your work and assets being created usually go to things that are going to help the health of the business. And you know, you're usually creating stuff that are purchasable as opposed to like creating things that are just gameplay focused. And I, like, what are some things that you're excited about that maybe, you know, we don't have to always just make, we don't have to have the full team working on you know,

kidnereers or, you know, jackets or whatever. Like now we can kind of focus more on gameplay. Yeah, we'll never be the full team. There's at least one guys of making robots.

But, yeah, I mean, what it, I think, helped with the most is we, we could back off on a lot of systems

that were intended to retain players in a very, like, sticky way. Maybe it's a little too grinding. Maybe it takes a little too long to do something. And then we could back off of that

and make it just feel right for what the mechanic was. So certainly on our end in design, it made a lot of things much more straightforward. So I could just, you know, we could build a crafting mechanic that felt right for a crafting mechanic. We could build lute that felt right for lute.

We could build progression that felt right for progression rather than needing to like kind of keep yanking. We wanted to be this cool, but it can't be that cool out the gate, so you need to be doing this to get to cool. We're like, wait 50 hours, and then it's pretty cool. And then wait 150 hours,

and then it's really cool. So yeah, It just kind of removes a lot of those complications off the board where you, you no longer have to like, I won't say artificially extend gameplay, but you do have to like pad things out a little bit in the free to play area. And that's kind of the road we were looking down as we made the pivot. And then we started implementing some of these systems and it was just not quite jelling. And then thankfully the decision came down that we flipped a premium. So immediately we just set to work kind of adjusting a lot of this stuff or even removing. entire thing.

One system I really, really love, and I know we're kind of winding down this interview, but it's such a nice little quality of life thing that not a whole lot of games have, but whenever, I don't know if I saw footage of it earlier, if we could bring up that trailer we were watching earlier, but when you loot something, you could just like open up your bag and add it or whatever, or if you just pick it up, it'll show you just a quick little overlay over your body of there are now three kind of filled in

squares out of the other empty squares in your inventory. Just a quick little visual of one. Yeah, and it's such a nice, easy thing that doesn't require me to always open up the bag, what have I got to drop? And it's little things like that that I've just made the experience less like

you know, instead of pushing the player away with some systems and you know, it is nice to something. times have that tension there to sort of, there are some systems you are that are maybe going to fight you, but that's rewarding. I'm glad that there are a lot of things that kind of help out the player in that way. Very cool. Yeah, we're pretty happy with the amount of quality of life we've been able to put in and still have a lot more we'd like to do, but it comes back to the whole thing of approachability. I think it makes sense to take the players' attention or time during gameplay

to distract or, you know, make sure they're focusing on something. But to obfuscate, like, simple information isn't really super necessary i don't think i real quick one last thing will we still be will there still be maps that are sort of you know only accessible at certain times oh like the conditions that were yeah yeah absolutely and we've extended what's there we've got uh what we mentioned now that there's a fourth level that you haven't seen coming with the uh launch and that's got its own set of conditions that are unique to it as well as the shared ones so Yeah, we've got plenty of those going around. And just to kind of explain to Greg, you know, you can hop into the normal mass,

but there will be some sections that are like, hey, that one map will be open in three hours. Okay. Or 30 minutes or whatever. That's when people will be hopping into that map and you're expecting our funnel where the action is going to be. Yeah. So this will be kind of a limited time that we can hop in here, but expect a lot of action. Yeah, exactly. So I think you guys played probably the night raid that was available.

So that's one of those examples where you can see. like oh yeah at an hour it'll be night time on spaceport and you can go try that one where the scenario is a bit shifted yeah for that type of lot scary a lot scary i think we were very happy with how those ones turned out in terms of the increase in tension it was nice well hell yeah i won't lie to you i didn't expect to end this interview being like i got to play arc graders but i'm gonna play our craters of course you can as well the server uh slam is this weekend october 17th to 19th anyone can dive in arc raters on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X-N-S, Steam, and the Epic Game Store. It's free to play for the weekend,

and then it's, of course, got a big release date, October 30th. Andy will be there streaming. Yes. You're going to help me, you know, teach me? Can we get a stream on the books that I can play with you guys? Or am I forced out? Is Nick going to be better than me at this game?

Oh, man. Because I got the division chops. He'll have a better shot than you, maybe, but, you know, having Nick on the squad is having another than me on the squad. You don't want to really, really horrible ADHD. Like just not focusing on anything. Virgil, congratulations on getting to the finish line. I know you're almost.

I've got more to do, but you're there, and I won't see you before October 30th. I don't know. Thank you for making the time to come by, too. No, thank you guys. And of course, thank you. Ladies, gentlemen, and NBs for watching this episode of the Kind of Funny Games cast.

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