Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Is Early Access Bad? - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: April 17, 2024

From Hades 2 and The Rogue Prince of Persia to No Rest For The Wicked, and Palworld, Tim, Blessing, and Andy try to break down the pros and cons of games releasing in early access. Run of Show - - Start & Nick’s Pokemon Kinda Nuzlocke - Housekeeping - The Year of Early Access - No Rest for the Wicked Hype Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So right before we went live, Blessing read a tweet that broke all of us. And I feel like we need to share with the world right now. Chief Benjo on Mike Azui to like nut and bolt. The words. Shout out to Michael. Michael. Michael. Michael Heim right.

A poet. A real poem. A real poet. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to the Kind of Funny Games cast. Of course, I am Tim Getty's. I'm joined by the new face of video games. Blessing at A.

O.e. Jr. Drop him. Give me 50, Tim. Just going to continue, isn't it? Give me 50. I love it. And the nitro rifle, Andy Cortez. Hello, gamers.

Hello to you as well. How you doing, Andy? I'm doing great, man. Yeah. I'm doing great. I've realized that, you know, the game playing has slowed down a bit ever since we started doing this Pokemon mod thing. And I've just gotten really invested in editing parts of it and just having a lot of fun with it.

Can you talk about that a little bit? Because for people that don't know, Nick has been playing Pokemon Fire Red for the very first time. over on the streams. They've done three days now, a long one, two other days, and by the time you listen to this, there's probably another one on the way. It's a Nicklock.

It's not a Nuslock. Exactly. Well, it's Nick playing Fire Red for the first time. Right. Playing Pokemon for the first time. Exactly. But we decided to adapt the Nuslock rules, which if you don't know what those are,

it's just essentially a challenge mode to make Pokemon more interesting for the 10,000th time you're playing through it. But for Nick, it being his first time, we wanted to add some fun, but not make it too difficult. Yeah, the real Nuslock rules are like, you can only catch the first,

Pokemon you encounter in a region or in a little zone. In a little route. And if you don't catch them, then you can't catch that Pokemon ever again. And like all that stuff was like a little too strict. We realize and we also, with the, you know, a lot of the people in the audience who were donating and gifting

subscriptions, they wanted to be able to name the Pokemon too. So we wanted to have as many names as possible. So we wanted to make it a bit easier. And basically we're keeping the Permadeath mode in there. If you have a Pokemon, that Pokemon faints, it's going in one of the boxes and it's never going to see

the light of day again. We have a little in-memorium segment for it. We talked to its loved ones and we let them, you know, they set up a GoFundMe and we kind of like help them out with any of the funeral expenses and everything. But it's been a freaking blast. And as we are getting closer and closer, I was like

I just Googled like Sprite replacement. Because I think it'd be really cool if I could see like Nick walking around in the world. And then I found an awesome program named Hex Maniac hex maniac advance. So it's like essentially a Pokemon editor for Game Boy Advance games and really just kind of fell into a rabbit hole

and just lost myself to it. And I've been having a lot of fun replacing the Knicks sprites, replacing most of what I could do in game because the game still has a lot of limitations that suck. Like I wanted all of us in the game. I wanted friends of kind of funny. And like the game just doesn't really allow a whole, whole lot of that, unfortunately.

How come? What are the limitations that you're bump it up against? Sprite and, well, palette limitations for sure. I'm sure there's a way to, like, get around the coding there, but I'm able to edit some of the sprites that are only for emeralds, because it's also, it's a fire red and emerald mod. And so I can edit some of the emerald sprites because those aren't in fire red, and I can put them into fire red, but there's like some of the little, the overall ones

were the ones I really wanted to edit. Yeah. I wanted Nick to be walking around and be like, who the fucks is redhead guy with the bushy hair? That's goddamn snow bike Mike. He's in the, he's out here like roaming around. Unfortunately, I can't do that. So I'm just having to like edit the sprites as you get into battle and you see that little sprite come across.

And it, that part does sting because I wanted all of us to be there and unfortunately I just can't find a way around that, but it's been so much fun. Do you think that there is a world where you have are able to just make your dream Pokemon game? I think so. I mean, that could be done here.

Like, you can edit all the maps. You can put the MPC place from wherever the fuck you want. You can put items here. You can make that trainer walk this way. You can make this trainer just kind of like walk up and down. Like, there's a lot of custom. This is like basically you can customize everything you want. But I'm hoping for the development to continue on this.

They haven't updated it since like December of last year, which is kind of a bummer. But the Discord does seem like pretty, you know, active. So I'm hoping that they're continuing work on it. Because I want to get all of us in the game. I want to see all of us in there at random moments kind of pop up. The storyline with Mike is that anytime you run into Mike, he's undergoing a new fad and you've changed in his life.

He's like, I'm really into bug catching now. And he's bug catcher Mike. And in the cave, he's like, I got into hiking. I got into hiking. I bought some hiking boots for. $400. And so hopefully I want to see that storyline through and have them pop up in random moments. Here's your storyline where you're wearing really short shorts.

Yeah. My job was like basically before every, before every gym leader, you would see me pop up. And I'd be one of the people in there. Unfortunately, I had broken the encounter where you're, before you fight Misty,

there's a dude in the water. I can't swim. So you're supposed to walk up to my spot. And my spy goes, like, time to battle. And he's like, please help me, dude. Like, I'm fucking struck. I'm so scared. I don't know why I signed up for this.

Why I applied for this job. And unfortunately, that I found out why that encounter broke and stuff. But it's just, it's been a lot of fun. And like getting back into like that game dev mode of all of the trial and error and creating so many duplicate files to like, well, this one, I'm, I only want to edit this to see if it breaks this or whatever. It's been a lot of fun. So damn cool.

Blessing. Are you, have you ever been more impressed with any human being besides Andy Cortez? No, I love seeing the. footage. Like, just the fact that one, you're able, like, you're, you have the artistic skill to actually put those sprite arts together and then also, like, be able to implement them in game and have that all that shit work. Like, when you first called me over to your desk, what, a week or two ago and show me, like, I think it was Kevin at the beginning of the game. I'm like, this is fucking awesome. It's so, it's so funny to just kind of go in the, you know, we've had,

we've encountered a lot of deaths, uh, in this game so far. A lot of, like, permanent deaths where some Pokemon have, have bid the dust and they're now six feet under. And now tonight I can go back into the game and the next time he talks to Greg who is the rival Greg I'm going to edit the text to be like damn you lost this Pokemon and this Pokemon I don't you're not fit to really own Pokemon and a bunch of rant there's a lot of like random little like bits of humor that I'm kind of dropping in there there's a guy coming up pretty soon who looks like an old man but he's like I'm actually I'm not actually an old man I'm in wearing a disguise my name is Ethan Hunt and I've been disabound I've been disavowed of my government

I love it. So there's a lot of like cool stuff I'm kind of like putting in there. But a lot of it is like very kind of funny centric humor. At one point, the NBC that I had made for, uh,

for Bless, just started off with, um, Hey man. And that was the way that he approached you for battle. So I really want to try to get that in for the future. I love it. On top of like all the stuff you're doing being really cool.

I just feel like it's such great content. Like this is one of those kind of funny streams that I feel like is going to go down in history. Like it reminds me of the metal. gear stream, right? Yeah. The Mario World stuff we did. Like, this one's just hitting different. And so thank you everybody for showing up. But it also reminds me of one of my favorite video game entertainment moments of my life, which was TwitchPlay's Pokemon. Oh, right. Where I was glued to that watching the updates and like getting so attached to the lore of these Pokemon. And I feel like you guys are doing a great job where I'm watching. And like, there's something that like faint. And I'm like, no. And like, you get weirdly invested in like Nick's Pokemon, man. It's like a very cool things. So thank you guys for doing such great work, but also thank you all for watching and hanging out. And they're going to continue. So

please keep supporting. We're 18 hours in and we haven't hit the SSN. Too badges. We got two badges, baby. I was telling Nick this. By the way, Nick is in. Which makes me so excited that Nick is actually having a great time. I was telling Nick, I was like, hey, there's a million

Pokemon games, man. So we'll see how this goes. It's a lot of fun. But anyway, this is the kind of funny games cast. Reaching every week, we get together to talk about video games and all the things that we love about them. You can support it with the kind of funny membership. It gets you the show ad free. You can watch live as we record it.

And you get a daily exclusive show from Greg Miller. Of course, if you don't have a buck to toss our way, that's totally cool. You can watch on YouTube or listen on podcast services around the globe. But if you really wanted to go above and beyond, you can become a Patreon producer like Carl Jacobs, Kieran Hovesapien, and Delaney Twining have done. We appreciate all of you. so very, very much. For this episode of Gamescast,

we've been doing a lot of reviews, we've been doing a lot of look back episodes and all that. I want to do a general discussion topic. One of my favorite things to do here on Gamescast. We don't get to do it enough. Hades 2. The Rogue Prince of Persia. Hellskate.

Hyperlight breaker. No rest for the wicked. What do all of these games have in common? It seems really good. They all seem like good games I want to play. Yeah. How do you want to play them, though? And they're done.

They're 100% released and out to the public. Yeah. But what could I interest to you in playing the games and giving you access early? I mean, is it like, if I'm playing these games early, but I still have access to them? Mm-hmm. Does this sound real? I don't believe it. I don't believe that.

I told you that this is the world. We're talking about early access games, everybody. Andy, you brought this topic up in our meeting. You're just like, we should talk about this. is a lot coming out. I just recently did a preview for Rogue Prince of Persia. I got to play about 30 minutes of it. That's coming to early access in just about a month.

You got to play Hyperlight Breaker during GDC. That we don't have an actual date on, but it will be coming to early access. And then today, as of recording, Hades 2 was just announced to be coming to early access with whatever the hell they're calling it. A technical test coming. That's the test before the early access even begins. So I think that's actually a great place to start. I know and also we were on the, I want to say, Eve of No Rest for the Wicked coming early access as well.

So, Andy, let's start here. What is early access? Early access is a way for developers to get their game out there, to not only get funds into the studio because you're paying for this early access unless it's a free to play game and meant to always be a free to play game. but it's a way to get funds into the studio to kind of continue development while also getting really key feedback. And I had only really heard of this, I think, through Hades One.

I think that was the first time that I heard of what Early Access was. And I had early access. And I remember it was the year that you dropped water on my laptop. And then Razor sent me a new laptop to replace it. And I was back home in the RV and I had Hades 1 on my Razor laptop. And I kind of hopped in for a bit. I was like, okay, this is cool and kind of forgot about it. And if I remember correctly, actually.

End up coming out and becoming one of the goats. That was Game Awards where that happened, where I spilled the water. And that, if I remember correctly, it was during that game awards that they actually announced. And I'm pretty sure it was during the pre-show of the Game Awards, they announced Haiti's early access. You can get it. I might be wrong about that, but I think that adds up. So, yeah, so did you end up playing it then? I played a little bit of Hades during that early access period.

and I wasn't, I knew that like, I'm probably not the target for this. I think the early access, unless you just get really into a game, right? Like, I've gotten super into a lot of these survival games during early access. And then I fall off mainly because I want, I want to kind of discipline myself to, let me step back a bit and I'll, there's other stuff I need to play now. I'll get back to this when, in a couple of months, whenever there's a large milestone release. A lot of these early access games will kind of have smaller intermittent releases where, hey, we made, I don't know, fucking crafting faster. We made you pick carrots out of the ground a little bit quicker.

And then they'll have, here's a big milestone release where there's a new dungeon and there's a new boss. Go try out this boss now. And a lot of it, you know, on the negative side of things, you can look at it as like, oh, you're paying to test out the game. And on the positive side, it's like, well, a lot of these games have been made way better because of immediate fan feedback. And we saw that with Hades and we saw it with Balders Gate 3. Dead cells? Well, Dead Sales was early access? I believe it was.

Oh, shit. I don't remember that. Yeah, Balders Gate 3, I think, is like one of the best examples of a lot of people playing it early on. And maybe not fully thinking this is going to be one of the best games all time, but being into it. And enough of the hardcore fans are there to provide feedback. and to say this should be better, let's get on that Discord to tell the devs this, let's get on the subreddit to let them know this feedback.

And through the early access period, the 1.0 release happens, and that's the day that, hey, the game's out now. The game's gone gold. The game's ready for people who don't want to just necessarily beta test a game. It's out now. 1.0 is out.

Go after it. we got super into a multiplayer game called oh gosh it was a four-player dungeon crawler Minecraft Dungeons It was It's a first person game on Blankin on it Hopefully chat can

The one where Kevin kept fucking Yeah Kevin kept lining himself on fire Regular Minecraft Very similar But that was an early access game And that hit 1.0 last year And there's I think a bit of excitement about that whenever you play an early access game

you're into and you feel like I've kind of hit the limit, I've hit the wall. Oh shit, one point O's out now. It's a year and a half later, two years later. Let's hop it. Let's hop back into that game we enjoy. Let's see what has actually changed here. So,

I love early access and I also know that if there's a game that I want to wait for, I might just wait for the big 1.0 release, you know? Myth Force. Myth Force. Thank you, my dog. Okay. The more, the cartoony one, right? Yeah, it looks like a Saturday morning cartoon.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Plus, what's your top level take? Like, what's your opinion personally on early access games? I think it's great. I think it's a proof is in the pudding situation where so many of the biggest indie releases, especially are like, you know, non-Tripple-A releases we've gotten in the last however many years have come out as early access, right? And like, we go through the list of games, talk about Hades.

We talk about Baldur's Gate 3, you talk about Dead Cells. I think Minecraft might have been early access at first, right? Like, I believe it was Fortnite also? Yeah, like, I think a lot of battle reality. Yeah, like a lot of these games, a lot of the biggest and best games that we've had in the last, I'd say decade, have started off in early access. And like, me personally, I don't know if I've ever gotten in on the early access, right? Like, I'm somebody who prefers to wait until like a full release, unless it's something that is a, I guess, a Fortnite situation or a multiverse situation. My mistake, I think Fortnite was in beta for like eight, three years.

It was called beta for like way too long. Yeah. But it never was like not a final. release, which I always thought was interesting until they finally did it. And it was like, all right, cool. I guess it's final now. But go play the game you've been playing. Yeah.

But, you know, I think a method of putting out a game so you can get that technical feedback from maybe millions of players or like, let's say a million players, right? Like, that is a luxury that you don't have when you're creating this game in a bubble. And it is your team of developers and your QA and whoever you have. You're not able to test games out to the same degree. And so I think that's what we get something like Hades. where we get that final version and it is, oh man, this feels tweaked to perfection. This feels like they've taken so many things to account.

It's not buggy. Like this game just works and it comes out and it feels perfect. I'll say the same thing with dead cells where I'd be so curious to play that first version, that first early access version of dead cells versus the final release version of dead cells and see what the difference is because I imagine it's probably a big like, oh man, this feels great. Like the numbers feel right. Like the upgrades feel right. I think it's fascinating that a lot of, I think a lot of the early access stuff tends to fall in a

certain genres. Like I think it's a lot of survival, but then also a lot of like rogue lights. And I think a lot of that comes down to, hey, these are games that really depend on how the players are playing them, right? Like these are the evolution of like, I guess the gameplay loop or the game play progression is so hinged on how people are interacting with the thing that even as a developer, it's like, okay, well, there's only so much I can do with my own information or with like our information as a team. We need hundreds of thousands of people to be playing this thing so we can really understand how to make it great. But yeah, like me personally, I've so rarely jumped into an early access thing.

I'm even looking down the barrel of this year where we talk about Hades 2 or No Rest for the Wicked or Hyper Lightbreaker. And I'm super excited for all three of those games. I feel like there's a fourth one I might be missing. Oh yeah, the Prince Persia. I'm excited for all four of these games. All four of these games are exactly my type of thing. I don't really, I don't have interest as much in the early access.

I think with something like Hyper Lightbreaker, that I'm so curious about that I want to jump into it. But Hades, too, I'm like, I can wait for Hades too. I can, I'll play maybe a one or two sessions of no rest for the wicked and then put it down, right? But like, I want to play the final versions of these games. But if this is what they need to do to make these games incredible, then go for it. I think that's a good thing. Yeah.

I think I'm with you too. It's just, I can't lie that I have like a mental blockup with it, where I just, I feel a lot less compelled to play the games when it's early access and when it's promoted this way. And it just, it kind of feels like, I'm like, I don't want. want to do the work of like testing the thing. I want it to be be done and it's like, all right, cool. Then just wait until it's, it's all out. But there is a lot of cases where these things are free.

But then there are cases where you need to pay for it. And there's something about that that I just don't love the concept of. But I also understand that like for a lot of these games, they are from smaller teams. And even from bigger teams, it's like the money has to come from somewhere. Like you need, there has to be the business to be able to back up the creativity. I think a lot of. of it does come from the super fans of the project. Yeah. It's somebody

who, me as a massive hyperlight drifter fan, and always wanted, what would this world look like in 3D? And then now to have HyperLybreaker, and even if I had not played it, and I was not in media, I'd be like, yes, I'm going to throw down money

because I want to help out this developer, because I want them to make this cool thing that they're working on. And you don't got to leave feedback. Steam does have a refund policy. you know, you can't get your shit refunded. But I think what we're seeing with a lot of these early access stuff, like you're rarely going to get the fringe fan in.

A lot of it is the person that knows this game is coming out, is excited for this game, wants to get in and see how it looks right now. A lot of it is also to kind of see the promise of it. Like, you know, when I was offered that opportunity to play No Restful Wicked last month and was able to hop in and be like, holy shit, this is, I knew this game was going to be good. I don't know it was going to be this. And now my excitement just shot through the roof on that.

And now I want in again. And what have they done since the last thing I played? And what sort of things were maybe held back from that version that I can now kind of get a glimpse of. I think I just like, because I know the way I like games to feel, I'm super down to leave feedback on things like this and be like, hey, the lock on feels kind of weird in this moment. maybe level progression doesn't feel fast enough or maybe it's a little too in this survival game maybe it's like too extreme on you

I'm the type of person who love is providing that but for someone like you who's like I don't want to do the work like I think the best part of it is like the people doing the work are going to be the hard cores that have been invested in this project before they can even invest their money and it is funny because like something like Hellsgate

which is very much a Tim thing where I'm like I know how that's supposed to feel. And I'm so impressed with the game because it is so close to feeling exactly the way that it should. And it's like, I'm not tempted to like give that feedback though.

You know what I mean? I know we talk on shows and stuff, but like it is, there's just like barriers to it where it's funny. Like with something like Hellscape, like I am so excited for that game and I have a playable version right now and I just don't feel compelled to pick it up and play it on my Steam deck just because I'm like,

I don't want to even taint my experience with this. I just want to wait for it to be finished. And like that I know that that's a me problem because it's like there's no i don't need to play it then i don't need like everything's totally fine it's out now like i can just play this and it's great so far but there's just something about it being incomplete where i'm like i don't want this weird experience with it i think that's also the way you play games and the way i think the way we all play games where there's somebody in chat who mid modogynic 96 is well bless try two k xo or fuck two xkoh i hate this

game so much yeah well let's try two xkoh there's an early access or beta this year and like i mean we talked about like you know beta versus early access for whatever reason right i play plenty of beta is i played the overwatch beta uh like what when it came out a few weeks before overwatch actually came out but that was like a oh this is up for a week and it's your chance to test out or not even test out try out the game for yourself right like i i see there being a difference between early access as a way for devs to get that feedback versus hey this is a way for you to see if you're going to like this game yeah that said like i don't know if i expect 2XCO to come out in early access.

But if it does, I think I'll jump into it. And I think the main reason and the main difference between 2XCO versus something like Hades 2 or something like No Rest for the Wicked and these other games are coming out is that 2XCO is way more of a competitive thing that I see myself playing for a longer period of time. Right? Like I want to get on the ground floor because I want to be good with like the people that are playing. And I want to, I think for me, I look at this game is something I'm going to return to you

and time and time again. anyway. And so I'm going to play it in that fashion for Hades 2 or for No Rest for the Wicked, or if you name any single player game that I'm playing this year that I picked up recently, it is, all right, we get the review code or I buy the game and I am playing it for a week to two weeks and then I finish it and I put it down. It is done forever, right? Like I am not coming back to, I guess right now is the very time because I am coming back to Hades, right? But that's mainly because I didn't beat it. If I had beaten Hades back in 2020, it's not like I'm coming back to Hades every two months to play more. I might come back to it a few years later, right? I might

play it maybe twice a year or if I'm somebody who's a big fan, you know, I'll come back to a time like a few times here and there. But it's not that consistent thing of yeah, I want to like have my moment with this game right now and then put it down for eight months and then come back around and have my moment with the game again. I feel like for early access, it is, well, if I'm going to invest myself into this game and play it for the 10 to 15 hours or 30 hours I expected to play it for. I just want to play it when it comes out in that case. I don't want to like I guess bust my load early. Yeah.

No, dude. Yeah, that's me with that like when I was playing in Strattardt early in the year. Like I, I fucking blew my load too early on that game where like I was in there for so long and again, a lot of that comes down to the ADHD hyperfixation shit where I'm just like, this is all I care about right now.

And that's all I cared about for like at least six or seven days straight. And then I was like, you got to stop because this game's going to eventually come out, you know, and check back in a year from now to see where it's at. Like, don't, you know, don't burn yourself out too early on it. And with YouTube saying, like, you don't feel compelled to leave feedback, like, that's not a you problem at all.

That's just like, that's just human nature. Like, we, we get 15,000 views on these videos and, you know, 200 people click the like button. Yeah. And it's like, one of those things. It's like, it's such an easy thing to do, but sometimes people just don't feel like doing it. And that's totally fine.

And, like, I think, again, I think a lot of this. comes down to supporting the project that you want to believe in this project, you want to support it. And the idea for me is like, there's so many games out there. There's so much saturation in the market right now. There's so many big games coming out all the time. It's really hard to keep people's attentions in one way or another. And if I want a certain project to succeed, like I'll back it in hopes that the people working there don't get laid off anytime soon you know what I mean? Like there's that other aspect to it where

this creator I want to see them create things for this foreseeable future. Let me throw a couple bones at it and you know hopefully that'll extend the lifespan of the studio. So taking this in a bit different of a direction of looking at some of the games we're talking about like clearly there's been major success stories when it comes this early access stuff and then a ton of failure stories. but we don't talk about those as much because they end up not really becoming the big things we're talking about. Do you think that with something, does it read weird to you guys that with something like Hades,

that Hades too is also going to be in early access? Like that with something like dead cells, that rogue prince of Persia is also going to be early access? It's like wouldn't they have gotten what they needed to learn about those type of things from the first game to apply? Like I know there's going to be new weapons and new features and new things, but like there's something about that that I find I'm curious with. Like, why? And it's like, well, you found this since this has before, so do it again? But like, do you get what I'm saying here? I do.

I think a lot of it comes down to the studio just wanting to get money in early. And you could look at that as a good or a bad thing, depending on the size of the studio and depending how maybe scummy the higher-ups are. Where, you know, when we hear about Robert Kirkman from Invincible wanting to crowdfunding games, like, well, fucker, pay. Get funding. What do you mean? You want to, you know, like, you shouldn't need funding for a video game.

and I think a lot of it comes down to the same reason why we've seen large companies do Kickstarter every once in a while. Who would say no to extra money up front for a product that may not be fully done for a while where if we wait to put this game, if we wait to put out this Prince of Persia game

in a year and a half, who knows if it even sees the light of day in a year and a half? if we ask for early access funding right now and we believe in this product if shit pops off those sales will get rolling in immediately that's immediate income into the studio like that's kind of the way that I look at it I think for me it's more of a question of why not

like I think if you have the ability to put something out there and get the feedback before you really put it out there and now it is go time it is reviews it is all these things then I think you're running lower risk right like I think you you have that period where you can go, all right, how do, like, how do we make sure, I think if you ask the question, how do we make sure that our audience is going to love

the thing, you put in front of the audience to go, hey, do you love the thing? And then based on the things they don't love, you fix those things, right? And that is, I, it almost becomes a question of why doesn't every developer release a game in early access? And to that, I'd be curious on, like, what those conversations are internally in studios. I think a lot of the time we get early access from games because it is like smaller studios or indie teams or maybe Kickstarter and it's a Kickstarter goal type thing to get the audience in front of it so that they can have that feedback because they're

there to fund it. I think you have plain of those reasons. But I think when you, for a Hades too, and it working so well with a Hades one, I think it is a, well, we know how to make a Hades, but, you know, like we still we're putting in these new powers, these new abilities, these new features, let's make sure that this is right with our audience. And so when you do put it out,

it's a 10 out of 10. It almost feels like cheating. But it's like, well, that's the game. But why is it? Yeah, exactly. I think you maybe also run the risk of not having that first, like that punch when you do put out the game fully, right? I think some games are able to do it. Balder's Gate 3 had it where you had early access and you had the punch. Hades had early access and they had the punch. But I don't know if that's going to work for every game.

Like if Nintendo put out Mario Odyssey in early access, for example, would that launch day fuel the same? I don't know. Like this comes back to a argument I have with a conversation I had with Roger all the time. back like I think last year we did the blessing show where me and him went back and forth because I'm like you know I wouldn't come to the blessing show I'm like you know I don't know if I want to put out like the headline of the episode I'd rather just premiere the episode and like as it's premiering the people learn what it's about right but Roger likes the idea of hey if we do the YouTube premiere the weekend earlier right like get people to advertise what the blessing show is

about maybe that brings people in and it is you kind of have to weigh it as a developer yeah um I it's interesting because I the way I look at it is like I see Cameron Kennedy in the chat right now comment that I usually don't end up going back to games from New Game Plus so like most games won't get a second lie for me even if I like them

and for me the way I look at it is like I am not beating this game in early access like in no way will I play this enough to have hit credits or anything like that I know that that's something that I will wait for like 1.0 release or whatever. And as far as like

sort of spoiling the reveal the debut of it, it kind of reminds you of like games always kind of have a second life whenever they come to PC from PlayStation, right, that's always like a year and a half later. It's like a brand new debut. Let's talk about all the numbers and everybody gets

the social media splash from it. I think because of how sensational a lot of like media can be now, if the game isn't great in early access, like that does not spell great for you because I think Hades and Balders Gate 3 being an early access

and being more under the radar as they were when they were in early access and then them coming out and being this massive success, I think that has likely hurt a lot of other smaller developers trying to do the same thing. I'm not like trying to cast blame on those two awesome studios for doing that, but it makes it tougher because smaller studios then trying to do that and people

go, oh, it's out in early access? Oof, game's not good. And maybe them, maybe not necessarily knowing that, yeah, of course, it's early access. Like, Hades wasn't this good at launch. Ballard's Gate wasn't this good at launch. And we have to wait for the 1.0 release

in order to truly judge it. But I think in some cases, the early access may be looked at as, damn, this is what you all came out with. Like, oof, not looking great for you all. And see, that's really interesting. And I want to talk about why? after a word from our sponsors.

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Andy, Hades to Hades to. I feel like that's, uh, what's a interesting part of this is like it's a known quantity already, right? So it's like there's expectations. So it coming out in early access, I feel there's going to be a lot more. I guarantee. there's going to be a lot more people playing Hades 2 in early access than there were to play Hades 1. It shifted the landscape. Yeah. And so it's like, is that good? I don't even know.

Like I feel like going back to it. Like there's something. It's great for Super Giant. Potentially. Well, if the game's amazing, which we kind of expect it, it's going to be. But it's just, it's weird to me where I understand, oh, this game's, there's a beta, there's early access for a multiplayer shooter game or for a super in-depth. I mean, all a lot of it comes down to multiplayer. of like getting the balance right of things.

There's something I always thought was weird. I remember first seeing Hades being like, why is this game in early access? Like it's a single player just game. Like what are you doing here? But clearly it worked for them. So them doing it again, I get it.

But do you have concern, bless about Hades 2 being early access compared to Hades 1? I think my biggest concern comes back to what else talking about with punch, right? Where when Hades, say Hades 2 comes out in early access this year, and then Hades 2 comes out full release, fall 2025.

when we get to the full release of Hades 2, do you still have that punch, right? Like, are you holding things back from early access that now that you've dropped the full thing, it feels like this big, like, oh shit, all right, we're here. Like, Hades do is happening and everybody's showing up to it like it's a full game.

You imagine through early access, the full thing isn't available, right? Like, I didn't play the Hades one early access, but imagine it only be like maybe one or two of the areas. Maybe over time they add in a couple more areas to see what people think. But, like, I would, it would have to, I think you would have to have that balance,

you hit that balance right, of, hey, we're holding so much back in the Hades to early access build, just to make sure that we're getting the data we need from people, and then during that full release is when it is, all right, throw everything at them, right? Like, give them the full thing. If you can have that punch,

then I'm fine with it. I'm of the mind that I think even more games should have early access, right? Like, no man sky back in the day, I think if that launched the early access, that would have been so much better for that game. Like, GTA6 is coming up, right? I think if for GTA 6, we've seen the online launches and how those look for AAA games in general, let alone what GTA 5 was from GTA 5 to GTA online.

If they can put out a GTA 6 and then they go, hey, we're putting up online, let's say a week or two later, but it's early access online and then maybe a month or two down the road. They do the full release of online to get through those kings, get through those weird bugs and shit. I might think that's a better way to do it. It's so interesting. It's supposed to what they did What you came by. Literally just putting words on a thing Just to be like,

hey, and they finish. But I do that I think words can make a big difference. Yeah, they totally sway the perception of it. And like, you get people defending, like you get people on your side of like,

hey, they're working through it. Like, and hey, let's give the feedback and get it there. And I think you can turn the conversation to be more positive as opposed to fuck this.

It doesn't work. Yeah, as opposed to, oh, you got to wait for like the two or three week patch to come to fix those issues. Like if we're, if you're playing a,

Hades type game and there's an enemy that's just ridiculously powerful and then that's something that maybe they would fix later on, why not just have them fix it during the early access period? And you chop it up to, hey, we were just waiting for feedback, you know. You get lost in the game development sort of like haze. You don't really know what's good or bad anymore. That's where all of those moments can really be beneficial for the game and for the studio. And not only for like, more for like the press side of things, right? like getting that that positive marketing out there you know do you do you think anthem would still be

around if they had launched an early access holy and called that first year this first year is this early access year absolutely yeah absolutely because like the core of the game felt so fun anyway like just the core flying around and shooting was i think strong enough to carry the weight of that that project and from then on any issues that people had would have been well a lot of them were technical issues, just things not working, random enemies spawning here and there, but a lot of the issues that people had were the gear and the loot and the leveling up

and like the enemy's not feeling set. Like all of that stuff is like, hey, BioWare is working on a destiny-like sort of game, right? It's a shared world shooter, whatever the hell you want to call it. We have up to the first big boss that you play. Try it out. See what you think. Let us know about progression. It's about six hours of progression.

How do you feel leveling up? I think this system could be beneficial for anybody going forward, except for maybe like, I'm only thinking of like maybe super story-driven campaign type games. I don't really know how this. Yeah, like I don't think a last list needs. Yeah. I mean, you can always use,

I mean, a lot of that is also just QA, giving feedback of like, hey, this feels weird, or other people in the studio letting the developers know what doesn't feel right of what could use improvement. but I just really think about like I don't know

what genres don't work for this and I really do think it'd likely be a sort of story-based game that you don't want spoilers for or whatever you know I think especially for the multiplayer stuff like I go through the roll decks of the failed ones that have come through right like the anthem or fall fall 76 out count is like

didn't have a good launch it still is a place where I like go back to it I'm like oh but if that came out early access I think people would at least give it a bit more mercy right Like I think people still might not be happy with it. And like I think the question is do you eventually get there? I think the biggest problem with Anthem outside of like it not being early access is that they abandoned it pretty quick.

Yeah. If they had like launched an early access and didn't abandon it and continue to like, hey, let's make the content. Let's give people what they want. That could be a flourishing game. Like I think that game had everything going for it aside from yeah, you play that version at launch. It's like, oh, okay, well, this doesn't have enough here. Not enough variety. Not enough variety.

And like I think I think there are so many other examples of like most player things that come out and it's like, oh man, if you had given this some more time and you could have maybe bought more time, I think it comes with a couple, that comes with a couple of stipulations. One, obviously the shoe doesn't fit, shit doesn't fit every foot, right? Like, you have suicide squad. That fucking shoe. You have suicide squad that came out this year. I don't know really access would have changed the story of suicide squad, right? Like, you have plenty of games like that. But there's that. And then also, would people have the, or would people be willing to pay and, and, you know, an EA $60 to play Anthem and early access. I could see that being a problem. I think the benefit for a lot of this early access stuff, like one of the benefits is you usually pay less for it up front. Is that the case though? Yeah.

Yeah. Because like I'm trying to find info on rogue prince of Persia of how much it's going to cost because I was just under the assumption it's going to be free. But it doesn't seem like that's the case. Oh, you mean access to the early access? Yeah. Oh, well, I mean, free isn't ever usually a thing unless it's a free to play game. Like most early access stuff I've done, it's like you can pay 20 bucks against your early access, try it out, see what you think, or maybe you just fall in love with it.

You pour a lot of hours into it. But when it comes out, it'll be more expensive. So you're being benefited by hopping in early. And then a lot of that also goes to like when you're talking blessing about like you have to give these games time. to develop that second life and that second debut. And a lot of that doesn't happen without funding.

And if those early access, you know, the game has to come out looking super promising in an early access form to where word spreads and people go, oh shit, that game's actually really good.

Might as well hop in now and not have to fully pay the extra $10, $15 whenever it comes out. But that also, again, just really benefits the studio by keeping that studio being able to develop that game for the next year, year and a half or whatever. It just provides a lot of stability, I think. Yeah.

Like Valheim is one that was super beneficial for being in early access. Valheim being an awesome survival game that comes out and is in early access and does really, really well. And word spreads like wildfire of like how good this game is already. and then eventually more and more people start paying for it and they have a shit ton of money to continue to develop the fuck I didn't realize Valhan was still in early access Yeah it is like still it is still a developing game And I don't know when they'll ever exit that it feels like

I mean it feels like that was the release I mean they came out with a they came out with like a DLC I've I thought this is so bizarre It has 381,000 reviews on how many players has But obviously it has millions of players right like yeah that's pretty insane. I would have assumed that that was a full release. Is Powell World full release yet? No. Power World is still early access.

Well, I mean, I barely came out. Like came on like what? February or whatever? February, yeah. I see Powell being an early access for into the year or two. And I thought that was a full release too. I didn't realize power was also early access. But yeah, like in what Power World is 30 bucks. Valheim is 20 bucks. And like we saw the sales on Power World, right?

Like that had that sold more than many full game releases. Yeah. And they made that money. and they're going to come out with a full release, but whether or not the full release is even like as successful as early access, does it matter at this point, right? Like they made the money. So I'm looking at the Rogue Prince of Persia's Steam page right now.

There's a couple things I want to read. And the reason I keep coming back to this game, one, I'm very interested in Prince of Persia, but two, I'm fascinated by the release marketing plan that this game has had. Like this game was, did not exist. There was a couple rumors and leaks, like maybe like two weeks before it was formally announced.

But then it was an announcement. where I got to play it and then they're like, yo, it's coming next month. Like, that's pretty wild, especially how close this is to Prince of Persia lost crown, which I find baffling that they would want to put these out so close to each other,

given how similar the genres are. But seeing this, it's going to be early access. So I kind of give them a little wiggle room with that of just like, hey, the actual game's not going to be coming out for who knows how long. So it won't be like right next to Lost Crown in that way. But reading through,

here. So why early access? We want to work with the player community to create the best version of the game that we can. We believe we've created a great core of a game and we have our plans to expand it out. But we know the invaluable impact of directly involving the players. Early access will let us arrive at version 1.0 with the best possible game experience. And then they go on and talk about working on dead cells and updates and DLCs has allowed them to see under the hood of one of the best rogue lights out there and appreciate how effective of early access and the importance of open communication between the dev team and the players can be.

We want to do the same thing for Rogue Prince of Persia. So it's cool that they're at least being completely straight up about everything that we've been talking about here. Approximately how long will this game be in early access? We plan for it to be in early access for about a year, probably a little longer. Of course, we have our plans for extra content, but the whole point of early access is to work with you, the community.

So if we need to take a couple months more to improve the game because you're giving us great suggestions, then we're going to do it. Um, what's the current state of the early access version? A challenging but accessible action platformer, roguelite combination of fluid platforming. There are six levels, two bosses, several primary and secondary weapons and upgrades and medallions. And then will the game be priced differently during and after early access? Our current plan is to double the amount of content from early access to 1.0.

So we might raise the price. To barely reflect the content of the game as it develops. Of course, any price increase will be communicated well in advance. So it's just, it's interesting where, you know, they're being as transparent as possible. But you can only, you can only look at this a little bit kind of weird because it's Ubisoft and it's a big publisher. Like I think that's where that's where the lines get blurred. And then at that point you're like, well, at what point do you stop looking at it weirdly because of, you know, Super Giant is a very big studio as well? That's the thing.

Larian's giant too. It's like, I mean, I, I think it's great for, for products and games and projects to be able to. to flourish for the longer term because I think without early access a lot of these projects will get killed off quicker and not really given the amount of time to fully see

its full life and its full potential. I just checked right now by the way Valheim which has not had a major release at all like in a long time has 12,000 concurrets on Steam. Power World has 24,000 on Steam only. That's not Xbox.

That's just Steam only. He's 24,000. thousand concurrent players is still like pretty nuts for these games and again a lot of that isn't really i don't know if that happens without early access i don't know if that happens without you being able to tell the the community hey the problems that are there we get it we're working on it i think if you advertise yourself as fully out then it's looked a lot more negatively you're like well then why you fuck you put it out if you knew the there was a lot of pro um issues there problems. Like, you knew there were problems. Why did you release it? As a way different way to look at it. It was like, oh, it's an early access thing, man. I'm just these problems. We know that they're

there. We want you to help us with the feedback. I can't help but hate this. It's a nice marketing. It's nice marketing. I don't have any issue. Like, I think even on the AAA side, even if you're a AAA publisher for your Ubisoft, right? Like, I look at something like Rainbow Six siege and that wasn't early access, but that came out and the launch was like kind of like, all right, it's fine. Like it was, it wasn't a big launch, but then over time, they built that game and that became, that game became a sensation. What's the difference between that and an early access, right? Like if they were to just put the label of early access and go, hey, this first year, this is a feedback year, right? Like, we're taking in what you have to say, like we're making this game

better. And then year two is the official launch and you have the same exact result. I think that's the same thing without as much disappointment in that year one, right? Where it is, okay, well, we know what this is. You know what we're talking about. And I go back to the GT Online thing, where if Rockstar is like, hey, GT Online for the first month, it is early access. Even if they say for the first six months to a year, honestly, we talk a lot about how are they going to do it. Are they going to release online and single player separately? That took like two years to get good. Yeah, right? You know how long it took for GT Online to kind of get there, right? I think if GTA6 online, they go, yeah, we're launching online the month after GTA6, but this first

year is early access, so you're not going to get heist, you're not going to get X, Y, and Z thing, but you can run around the world, you can do all these fun things, and we're taking in all your feedback so we can make sure that this game is awesome. Again, GTA6, well, or GTA, one of the highest grossing franchises of all time, I'm fine with it. Like, yeah,

do your thing, get your money. I guess technically they're getting it to you through GTA6, but even still, right? Like, if a AAA publisher wanted to charge me, let's say, $10 less or $20 less of what that game actually is, go for it. Like, if it makes the better. I think it's, I

yeah, I think it's a good thing. Tim what would make you feel good about it? I don't know. Is it, is it a money thing? Is it like, if it were free, fuck it, why not? But then you look at it as like, why would they make it free? If they could charge. Right? Like, there's something about it that I just, I, I feel like it's a genre thing where it's like for big online stuff, I get it a little bit, like, not a little bit, a lot differently. Like, I understand the needs for things. But when it comes to something like, and I get the, like, the, there's

something to the balance of rogue likes and like all of that of like wanting to make everything great but i mean isn't that what making a game is you know what i mean it's like it's like you want to make a movie and you want to have a great story it's like well the story is the point of that whereas the mechanics of the the balance of the weapons and stuff that is what the game is yeah a 2d dead cells type thing and like i know you can make that argument about anything but like that to me is the thing that i'm just like yeah sure every single game ever could be better if it had a built-in year-long get-feedback stage

and then everyone gets feedback back. Like, yeah. Any movie could be made better with all the Zach Snyder cut B-roll, you know what I mean? Yeah, you want to make your movie better, but it's going to be two hours longer sort of the situation.

So I don't know, I think this definitely for me does just come from a privileged consumer perspective of I want to make the game good at the first. Yeah. You know what I mean? And I understand that like a lot of this comes from the reality of them wanting to just make the best product possible, not caring necessarily about that first impact,

but more about the lasting impact. And at the end of the day, that's probably a better call. Yeah, the way I look at it is like, I think a lot of that is why QA exists, and a lot of that is why you see, if a studio says, hey, why do we got to hire QA,

if we can just fucking put out early access and make money off of that, right? And that's what really sucks is like how QA is, becoming so devalued, even though they are so valuable as a department. And on the other side of things, the products will only really exist for the foreseeable future. If when you're getting that feedback, you can kind of get into, again, that sort of game-dev haze.

Or when you're drawing something and you've looked at it for so long, you can only have a certain perspective on it. And then you put it out to the consumers and they go, man, progression is so slow in this. Why am I taking it so long level up? You're like, fuck, you're right. We should have, like, maybe fix all of those things. And that's where that immediate feedback helps out. But I don't disagree that you can look at it.

I totally understand your viewpoint of, like, well, that's what kind of making a game is. It's about figuring out what, you know, what the perfect sort of concoction of, you know, progression and items and level ups and all that stuff, like, especially for a rogue light, which requires, a lot of experimentation with builds and with, well, shit, now this thing is super OP because I got the plus five, you know, you eat an apple and you get massive amounts of health and maybe that wasn't necessarily tested out. Like, there's so many variables in rogue lights that I think adds to the difficulties in, in development, but I totally see your point of like, well, that's game dev. I think the more gamey something is, the more it becomes a necessity, right? Like I, I think the way

I think about it is like gone home For example Gone home can never come out in early access Right If you played an early access version of gone home You'd be like what the fuck right Like so walking walk in them I'm picking up notes like

Are you gonna how you're gonna tweak the notes How are you gonna balance the fuck is right? But like you know I'm right now I'm working with One of my friends We're trying to make a card game And we're talking about you know We've done a few play tests

And we're talking about okay We gotta go to either a PACs on plug Or we got to like Pax Western whatever it is And get this in the hands of people and watch them play it and get that feedback. That's the only way that like, and that is a, that's a board game thing, right?

Like that is a very accepted and very, like, like, that's the thing everybody does in tabletop games is you get your game in many people's hands and get as much feedback as possible. I think the thing about video games that makes it interesting is that video games is a balance of game design, but then also it's the story and the art and all these things. And I think a lot of the time,

when you're looking at the art side of it, yeah, it's like, you know, you don't, I wouldn't want to play early access Death Straightening or an Early Access Last Plus or an early... Yeah. I think you can cross genres in terms of how much you want to you want to call it art and story versus gameplay or whatever it is, right? But like there's so many things where I wouldn't want to play the early access

version of it in the same way that I wouldn't want to watch an early access version of Oppenheimer or like my favorite movie. But I think when you're talking about... I think multiplayer games like we're talking about, right? Or something that is a roguelight where it is... Any of the tweets... Yeah. Anything that needs to be balanced. needs that intense amount of balance, it is more, I think it is more healthy for a video game

to get that early access stage or get that feedback stage. Obviously, feedback has always been a thing. It's not like, you know, you have the QA, you get, have demos, you have all this shit. Early access, I think, it's just a new way of doing it that it is an interesting way to frame it. It's a way to monetize a demo. Yeah, it's a way to monetize it. It's a way to like have it out there for longer and get that continuous feedback. It's a way to like see over a long period of time. How do people interact with this thing and how does it grow? I think it's a valuable form of feedback, but it is to your point, like, I get the, I get the concern confusion and like trepidation when it comes to, oh, well, like, you're just making a game, right? Like, this is, this is part

of the process. Like, isn't like the point of it to get into people's hands at the end of the day as opposed to before the day ends. Yeah, yeah. And it's interesting in the chat, Jesse Omero says, majority of films do audience testing. So it's almost like early access. And it's like, yeah, Absolutely. Testing and getting people's hands, getting in front of people, all that's so important. But that's all behind closed doors. That's not a public thing that anybody can opt into. And that is usually very specific targeted demos that are trying to get specific feedback about.

And you're not paying certain things. And you're not paying, right? And more often than not, you're getting paid to do that stuff. Or it's, you know, some type of perk or something. So obviously there's differences in movies and TV are not games. And games do have a lot of unique things about them that I think make early access, make more sense about getting feedback from people that are actually interacting with the thing that is interactive, like just how it feels, the feel of something you don't really need to worry about

for movies and things like that. It's a different type of feel. But yeah, so I do totally get it. I get it business-wise, for sure. I just think that it's hard for me to not start with like a and oftentimes end with the, oh, man, I don't like this for things where rogue prince of Persia like, all right, cool. And next month, I'm going to get to play some of the game. Yeah. You know, but. You're essentially having another little demo preview period almost.

Yeah. And in that case, some people just don't want to, you know, spoil the experience for themselves. That to me is kind of the biggest thing, too. And again, I know a lot of this is me just personally talking about how I play games. But it's also, Tim, it's also like not voting. You can't complain about who's in office if you're not voting, you know. That is true.

You got to use your voice. You got to. You got to use your voice. but also I still complain about who's not this. True. It's true. But like when I'm playing through a game, and some of these things do have like progression into like the final versions of the game,

which is cool. I don't know if that's going to be the case for this. I don't know if that was the case for Hades, but I hope that it was. And that to me does make me a little bit more excited of like. I think for the most part or most of the time, I don't think it is. Unless maybe most player stuff.

But I feel like what, Baldur's Gate 3. I feel like I remember people being like, all right, cool, time to start over the type stuff. Yeah. His reason why I wouldn't jump into it. And that to me sucks where it's like, Hades too. If my progression will carry over,

I'm a lot of my concern goes away. Am I all right, cool. Hades is a game I want to put the progression matters to me. Every run you get something and it makes the whole thing better. That to me makes a lot more sense than just like, hey, you're just literally like playing parts of this game that are unfinished

that we're literally looking for feedback. I don't know. I'm making the same point over and over. If Nintendo put out the next 3D Mario early access, You jump in into that shit? I'm going to jump in, but I'm going to be as upset as like I am, which is like at the end of the day,

not that upset. It's just like, I'd probably be upset too. Save this for the, for like that magical moment when I get to play the final build. And it's like, I,

I would that make the Mario game better? Probably, you know, but like, does it need to be? Or just can we just get the thing we're going to get? And like,

love it or need it for the reasons we do. Give him a gun. Everybody. Imagine watching Dune 2 in early access. It's just like, in theaters for a year, but there are some scenes missing, and they have that version, they have that version available. As long as I had the scene of the

harkening flying up the side of the mountain, that's all. I watched Wolverine Origins in Early Access. Oh, me. Oh, yeah, so did I. The movie leaked before it came out, and it was like, I thought you're joking about the final movie, just feeling like as I'm finished. Oh, yeah, wow. That too, but it was

all unfinished CG, and God, it's a ride. It was bad. It was like, a lot of animatics of just, like, like a fucking T-Pose Wolverine doing shit. Like it's really terrible. Um, all right. Well, any final thoughts on early access? I'm stoked for no rest of the Wicked tomorrow.

Hell yeah. I am too, man. I've been a little down on it just because I'm a creature of habit. I just want more of the things I like. I like sequels. I just, I like the thing once. Give me it again.

And I love hoary. So I was just like, I don't know about this. But the more I look at it and the more I hear you all talk about it, I'm just like, fuck. This is going to be good, isn't it? Dude, it's special, man. Yeah.

I'm so excited. Dang it. What's the deal with it? Because I know we just talk for an hour about early access, but this game's coming out in early access. This week? Thursday. Thursday.

Thursday. The 18th. All right. Is that the 18th? Do you know, and I'm trying to put you on the spot here, but like what is that going to entail? Well,

so the portion that I got to play, which was, I got to assume an earlier build since I was like over a month ago. And full transparency, see, we're sponsored on Thursday by them to do the stream. But I got to play it before any of that

like sponsorship stuff happened. I fucking love it. It is a, it's a portion of like you starting the game and you create your character and you kind of just start running around in a very like sort of top down orthographic thing. The thing I love about it is like

it has the sort of, it's not top down orthographic view in the way the Diablo is. it's more like animal crossing where the world is kind of like built on a cylinder to where you see further off into the distance than you really should

because in like in Diablo you're mainly you're just seeing the ground you're not really seeing what's off in the horizon and in here you can kind of like you're seeing new horizons as you move further north you see newer horizons you see like the world off into the distance which is a cool kind of rendering technique

that they've got going and yeah it's like procedural loot so when you're picking stuff up off the ground you might find like a this enemy may have like a great sword or whatever and you're like oh maybe I don't like the feeling of this great sword

let me go kill more dudes and they may drop a bow and arrow or a magical wand or double daggers for like faster attacks or whatever and it's still like it's built like a souls game in terms of like you can level up strength if you want to be like a big hands

cameraman or a big great sword guy, or you could level up dexterity if you want to be a bow and arrow, dagger, fast, quick moving dude. You could pick up a shield to do freaking like parries and stuff like that. But it's essentially Moon Studios version of what would a top-down action RPG be like if we made it? And it's just stunning in every way visually. And it just feels great to play. Like it's, I really dug the the exploration and the discovery. Like, what's shocked me the most was the amount of movement and verticality where, like, there may be a lift that, like, takes you up to the next level and now you're on the top level of this, like, castle or whatever. But, like, you can just kind of climb whatever surface seems climbable. Like, and usually that just doesn't happen in these games. They're just, like, very, very limited and gated in that way. But I was just super blown away by, yeah, right here we're seeing on the video, like, there's so, that down. ground tree becomes like a bridge. Here I didn't know I can get up there,

but I saw a treasure and I was like, I can't get that treasure up there until I get like a double jump or some shit. And no, you could just kind of climb the stones next to you and go up there and get that piece of loot. But it's interesting because like looking at it, it actually kind of looks like a modern version

of what the PS2 God of War games were. You know? Like more action RPG as than that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The camera's more zoomed out. But like, it is, it's cool that like, you know, obviously there's Diablo inspiration there, but it's like it's almost more third person.

I mean, the way I look at it is like, it's a top down, it's a top down Souls game in the way that it plays, where like you have to be really thoughtful with what attacks you're taking. This, that you can't just go in there, spamming an attack button and slash away slash away.

Like you're, it's all animation based is what the developers have mentioned. So like when you, when you hit that heavy attack, you're dedicated to doing the full fucking heavy. You can't dodge out of it. You can't dodge roll or, or,

cancel the move or whatever. You're stuck there. So you want to like, just like a soul's game, attack when it's most beneficial to you and dodge when it's most most beneficial to you. Because their attack patterns are very telegraphed as well. And they, you know, you see that big sort of windup coming, you know, to dodge out of the way or whatever. But yeah, the boss fights are great. And I love the way they're doing loot. They have like standard kind of common loot, but they're, and then the upgrade is rare, which is like the blue ones. that you pick up. And the blue has two added perks onto the loot.

The purple one isn't just better in every way. The purple one, god damn, I have like a rogue hair on my forehead. The purple one has a curse as well. Purple items are cursed. So you have two awesome benefits, really,

really cool benefits on these, whether it's like added fire damage or added electric, whatever the fuck. But then there'll be a curse of like, but you can carry less weight on your character. But you have a little bit smaller of a health bar. So it's like two awesome benefits of one drawback.

And then they have their legendary items are really neat because they're not procedural. They're all like actually made by somebody in the studio of like, awesome. I want this item to have these perks, to have this name, to have this lore or whatever. It just seems like insanely special right off the bat, which is why I'm stoked about the early access because normally I go into early access like already like what's going to be missing? What am I going to? What sort of like level gating will there be?

or just gating period of like you can't kind of explore over here or this whole system is completely blocked off from you. I'm stoked to get in there and see, oh shit, well, what I played a month and a half ago was like really damn awesome. Yeah. Just give me more of that,

which is what I'm super stoked for. But Andy, imagine if they just gave you the game if it was just out. You know what I mean? I'd have to wait two years. I'd have to wait two years for that, Tim. I'm ready to hop in now.

Let us know in the comments below if you're excited to get your hands on no rest for the wicked. and what your thoughts are on early access overall. And also just what you plan on having for dinner tonight, you know? Engage that comment section. Hit that like button. Okay, he was talking about. Do all the Algo stuff.

Until next, I'll love you all. Goodbye. Left over from yesterday. Sounds good.