Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - We Played Matthew McConaughey's Exodus! - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: September 4, 2026

Rate, comment, and follow Kinda Funny's podcast feeds on Spotify!Thank you for the support! Run of Show - 00:00:00 - Start00:01:05 - Topic of the Show:00:05:00 - Our thoughts00:15:20 - Resident Evil00:17:20 - Wolverine00:18:00 - Ghost of Yotei Complete Edition00:20:13 - Ghost of Yōtei: Echoes of Sekigahara00:21:35 - MONSTER HUNTER WILDS: ASCENDANCE00:23:10 - Ads00:25:00 - METRO 203900:29:10 - MANEATER 200:33:00 - CRIMSON DESERT00:35:50 - LEGO PLAYSTATION00:37:38 - FINAL FANTASY RESONANCE00:40:55 - GUNDAM ROGUE ORBIT00:43:10 - HUNTERS MOON00:44:50 - UNCANYON00:46:15 - KEEPER00:46:36 - REV. NOIR00:47:15 - RHAPSODY IN SCARLET00:49:05 - PS PLUS00:49:34 - SAROS: ZENITH UPDATE00:55:05 - GRAN TURISMO UPDATE00:55:30 - UNTIL DAWN 200:59:15 - GTA VI CONTROLLERS01:00:30 - FINAL FANTASY VII REVELATION01:06:50 - STATE OF PLAY JAPAN01:16:50 - Superchat! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you want to get our shows ad free and our exclusive shows, go to patreon.com slash kind of funny. What's up everybody? Welcome to the Kind of Funny Games cast for Friday, September 4th, 2026. I'm one of your host, Greg Miller, alongside the scream queen. Madeline Stanley. Hello, Madeline. Hello, Greg. How are you doing?

I'm great. It's always great to see you twice in one week. Come on now. What are we talking about? Are you still obsessed with Dawn Walker? Are you still thinking about Don Walker all the time? I'm always thinking about Don Walker. I'm thinking about Cohen.

What's he up to? Am I going to start another play through? Desecrated. We are doing the spoiler cast next week. So you'll be in town. You will be here. Very exciting. So don't miss that.

Everybody be locked in for that. And then of course, two Madeline's left. It's the Hispanic heartthrope. Texas treat Latino heat. Clicking heads and rip her shreds. Glove shot and head shot and three point shooting route and tutin lebitard show in Twitch.

Dot TV. Andy Cortez. Hello, Greg. Hello, how are you, Andy? I've been Don't walking, man. I'm almost done. I'm a Don't Walker. I'm getting close.

Yeah. You're going to be ready for the spoiler guest? Oh, yeah. That's what I like to hear. Dude, oh, man. Yesterday is some awesome shit. There's some really great questions. This game's real good, man.

It is really good. Of course, our... The Blood of Dawn Walker Review is live. It's kind of funny games cast from back on Monday. You can check it out alongside the Odie Mooseer review, alongside the Orbital's review. Of course, not next to. Actually, you know what?

I was about to say, not next to Star Wars Zero Company review, but in fact, we just penciled that in the past. We're in the future. We're recording this on a delay because I'm going to be, of course,

up in Seattle hosting the PAC's keynote. But we are doing a Star Wars Zero Company review so far, alongside Big Walk, tomorrow for us yesterday for you. Is that check out? Two days before. Two days before,

right around there. Beard am I alive in the future? I'm sorry? I'm sorry. I'm sorry to tell you. Damn, who's going to host this keynote? Everybody, of course, this is the kind of funny games cast. Each and every weekday, we come together to talk about the biggest topics in gaming, whether they be reviews, previews, or just things we need to talk about.

If you like that, remember, be part of the show. Usually, YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny Games with your super chats. You can't do it today, but you can chat amongst yourself. You can like, subscribe, share on YouTube, Twitch, podcast services around the globe. Of course, thank you to our Patreon producers. We couldn't do this without you over on Patreon.com slash Kind of Funny. So thank you Delaney the Sompatining and Omega Buster. For now, let's begin with what is and forever will be topic of the show.

Andy? Thank you, and I love a good role-playing game. I'm Commander Shepard, and I'm really excited to hear about Exodus. That's right. I have one more for you. I've been working on this for quite some time. Shepherd. That's real good.

Rex, man. Come on, you are not right. Not too long ago here on this very show, on this very channel, we did a thing talking about Exodus and was it the Mass Effect air. It did really well because everybody's really excited about Exodus, ourselves included,

but more importantly, so is Madeline Stanley, who we sent to Austin, Texas to play Exodus. Madeline, I have a million questions. I have a lot of things I want to dive into, but first I need to explain to everybody what the game is. Before I do that,

one question. Did you meet Matthew McConaughey? Alas, he was not there. No. I was wondering if maybe Andy could do a Matthew McCona impression and I could feel like I met him. I mean, not a general one. Everybody always says, all right, all right, but I can do. You do C.C. Orlev?

My name is C.C. or Lev. Strange times. There is. There is. Exodus is a sci-fi action adventure RPG where you become the traveler, leading humanity's fight for survival against the Celestials. Face our evolution 40,000 years in the future. Explore extraordinary worlds and confront time. itself to shape the fate of generations.

Step forward into the role of June, a salvager turned traveler, a renegade among the stars and a hunter of ancient secrets. Embark on interstellar missions to recover celestial reminents that may hold the key to humanity's survival. Return to a changed world where time dilation has amplified your choices in reshape the future of humanity. Developer archetype entertainment, publisher Wizards of the Coast. We have a release date.

April 7th, 2027, of course. We heard about a gamescom. Madeline, the floor is yours. How much did you play? Was it great? Was it wherever you want to start? I want to hear all about it. Yeah.

So we played about an hour and a half. We played most of a mission. There was some stuff chopped out. But we played like a part of a mission on PC. But I believe it's out for PC, series X, PS5, everything. Oh, yeah, that's on everything. On all of the things. I really, really liked it.

I had a great time. I actually interviewed Chad Robertson, who's like the co-founder of the company and the GM, and I was like, yeah, I'm pretty upset. And he kind of got worried. And I was like, because I want to play it right now. I'm like, oh, my God, thank you. Thank you.

Man, if only you had recorded that interview. Well, I did record that. Whoa. And we'll be including it here on the games cast today, everybody. It's a jam-packed episode. Woo. So, yeah, he was a joy to talk to us. We got some interesting context for this.

But yeah, I really liked it. I think as a fan of Mass Effect myself, I got in, played all the mass effects on the legendary edition when that came out and have been a big fan ever since. And this definitely is scratching that itch for me. I left that one and a half hours being like, are you sure I can't play a little bit more? Like you don't have an extra half hour for me? I could just do a little bit more. No.

The preview is cursing. Do we know what? Heck yeah. So what did you do in the demo? Where do we find June in this one? Cool. Yeah. So we're with June.

We, you can be female or male June. We were playing as male June. I am going to play femme June because I was also a femme ship. Okay. Yeah. As the only choice. The only right choice.

Yes, exactly. I disagree. And, oh. I was just doing that. I was doing your shimer. And we are basically.

And we are basically. kind of plopped into middle. So for the larger story, I'm a little lost as to where we are. For the immediate mission, we are going to this planet that has been taken over by some intense soldier forces. And we're kind of trying to save these people called the K. They are a species of awakened frogs. Nice. So the awakened in the Exodus universe are animals that have awakened and have sort of a sentience.

and each awakened has a different personality like a human would be. So we went to this planet, fought a lot of people. We talked to a lot of these different awakened frogs. Every single one of these K frogs were so cool and so fun. They all had wildly different personalities, different voices, different things. And I think I'm at six or seven of them. And each one was like a joyous experience. That's like one of the things that I left this.

preview with is that even random side there's a robot who is like kind of not really a character but he's just like a side little guy who's like you can go in that room if you want um you know there's enemies in there and he was hysterical to talk to and so like everything that i interacted with that spoke to me was so like well-crafted and interesting and joyous and like joyous is the best word because i just i yeah i left my the whole play through just feeling like I had the biggest smile on my face. Oh yeah. Yeah, this guy.

How do they get awakened? The guy I'm talking about. Sorry, Andy. How do they get awakened? Was there just like a big kind of like wave of energy that awakened a bunch of different species? Do you know? I don't know the answer to that. I'm not sure how they become awakened.

Because we know because we know of salt. The octopus. We know of that wolf in that intro cutscene where the in the wolf was just sitting next to June talking to him. we've seen the bear in one of the, you know, fight scenes way early on in combat when they were sort of leaking gameplay. So, yeah, I mean, I wonder what the heck it was in this universe that allowed everybody just says. And also, I wasn't expecting him to be big, Greg.

I'll say that. Well, I expected Manilin just be talking to normal size frogs. Now, I'm just blind jumping into the Exodus game fandom wiki, okay? Awakened. Genetically engineered animals. Awakened are designed with various accentuated qualities. Some are made larger or stronger or more intelligent. Most are designed to serve in some capacity.

Some awaken are bred for military purposes and can be extremely aggressive. Some are as intelligent as humans. Awakened have control patches that allow them to be controlled through neural induction pads. It is unknown whether all awaken have control patches. Okay. You'll accept that answer? No, not really. There is a prequel.

book or two books, I think, that you can read. If you want to get it all up on the Exodus lore, by like a very notable sci-fi author, there's a whole prequel series. Here's what I'm saying. It's always push and pull the game you're excited for. Do you want to jump in and get a lot of it, or do you want to stay away and just, you know,

so I usually let the trailers come to me, the previews come to me. I've sent to assets a one minute and 30-second trailer from the Exodus Channel called Exodus Cinematic, the Awakened Raven reveal trailer. I can't promise you, Andy, that this trailer will have any answers as to how this raven awakened. But I feel like we should dive in. Okay.

Barrett, can we see the Exodus cinematic, the Awakened Raven Reveal trailer? There was a myth back on earth. Talking Matthew. Two raven sitting upon the shoulders of a god. Feeding him information about the worlds below. No secret safe from there all-seeing eyes. Awaken ravens were engineered to be problems. Solvers, king curiosity and remarkable memories.

But when their arc ships stopped on the wrong planet, that memory became a curse. They can't forget what went wrong. Not even all these generations later. Ravens are problem solvers. Matthew's killing it. Left to their own devices. Cause problems. They need a guiding hand and all-knowing guardian, uncovering secrets, pushing themes in the right direction.

Are these tiny people or big birds? Yeah. Ravens are watching us. I think it's just a perspective. Oh. I'm C.C. or Lev. Hell yeah, you are. Yesterday.

Today. And tomorrow. That was the end of his podcast. You're listening to this courtesy of my bar energy. They were designed for something. Then their arc broke down. Yes, Matthew McConaughey crushed it there. We've been very critical of Mr. McConaughey in the strange times.

Strange times we find ourselves in. Yeah, very critical, but that, I mean, that sounded awesome. I like that. Madeline, did you see or hear from Matthew McConaughey inside of this video? Did CC Orlov show up? CCRLEV was not involved in this particular mission. This is some false advertising. This is a bait-and-switch.

Mm-hmm. I know. No, we, I spent most of the mission with two of the companions. I think there's six. You've seen the Salt Reveal trailer. We unfortunately also didn't get to hang out with Salt. But we were with Solomon and Elise. Okay. So we spent most of our time. They were both really interesting. Elise was like in a giant mech suit as well. I think this is Elise right here that you're seeing now. She's kind of sassy, you know. She's got a sassy vibe.

And Solomon's kind of like, I don't know. know how do I describe him. He's like this, he's like kind of like a sexy, oh, annoying man. Oh, like me. He's like kind of a creep, but you like him. Just like Nick. Um, where he's like a little rude, but also you kind of like him. He was the guy they were talking to the frog. Yeah, I'm on the way, the page here. All right. Uh, it says for, uh, you're saying, Solomon is how they pronounce it. Mm-hmm. Born into the Tengen dynasty and orphan young, Solomon was taken in by the mysterious parliament of Ravens and raised as an operative,

wealthy, reclusive, and dangerous. He's caught halfway between the worlds of the awakened and humanity. Meanwhile, Elisa's bio reads, a blunt, no-nonsense sleeper from the 23rd century Earth, a seasoned mercenary, weapons expert,

and former gang member turned salvager. If Elise has your back, it means she's in front of you, clearing a path. Okay, hell yeah, hell yeah. Your homie looks quite a bit like the male June.

Yes. Thank you, Andy, because I thought the same thing. I was like, we're related or something. Because we look a little similar. As I spent more time, like, you kind of see a little bit of differences, especially their voice acting is quite different. But I do think we look very similar. Like, we're both kind of bad boys with the same hair.

It looks like you, like this character, you started to take more of the sinister renegade path. And you started to become more evil. You know what I mean? It looks like a, oh gosh, what's his name? the evil Jedi Skybreaker Sky Talker

Are you talking about Darth City? Anakin Skywalker? No. Darth Sidious. No, the bad guy in the In the Palpatine. For a Jedi.

Kylo Redd. Oh, Star Killer. Star killer. There you go. The Vader Secret Apprentice. Yeah, his podcast was StarTalker. I forgot. I got that wrong.

So for these companions, and I guess this is overall, how much did you get to play around with them in terms of choice, Did you see differences and or things where the story could have branched? Yeah. So that was something I talked to chat a little about. We were kind of locked in with these two people so we couldn't swap them out.

But one of the cool things that we that you can do is that in the in I think it's something for mass effect, right? You pick your two people. You go. You do the whole mission together. Something that was interesting here is that you can kind of change who you're with throughout the whole mission at different checkpoints. So like when you checkpoint, you can swap in and out.

your people. So if you want to see, like I asked, oh, salt might have a different perspective on this mission because they are also an awakened. And this mission has to do a lot with the, the awakened K frogs. But yeah, they interact a lot with each other. You can see when certain, when certain people are happy or upset about your choices that you're making. Definitely towards the end. There wasn't a lot throughout the mission itself where, you know, know, you were seeing like Solomon likes that or something like that, but, but towards the end, there was a big choice where one of them really wanted me to do one thing, one of them really wanted me to do the other thing and kind of how that, that played out. They worked really,

I really liked the way that their move set worked together. Yeah, I was going to say, how does combat feel? Yeah, the combat feels really good, really smooth. There, you all, there's like a bunch of different ways you can approach the combat, obviously. You have a ton of different weapons that you can use, but then you also have your gauntlet powers, which have a bunch of different powers than them. And then you also have the powers of your companions. So the end, and then you can combine them together to make like specific powerups with different powers that they have to, you know, execute a much, a much stronger impact. So I've played a lot around with, you know, using my gauntlet power. Yeah, to freeze there. You can petrify the bear. And then, you know,

use one of your other gauntlet powers to do your own sort of synergic. power and then you can do a synergy power between your companions as well. So there's a lot of different different combat options that make it feel very like fluid and fun. This battle specifically was really cool because you could also, I can't think of what the word is now where you like repel upwards. What is that thing called? Grapple.

Yeah, you can like grapple up to the top and do combat from the top and the bear will kind of like rush into the column and destroy it while you're up there if you stand there too long. Yeah, I see one of the. columns being electrified right now? Is that like, would you lower him over there to kind of hurt him or? Yeah, you can. Oh, gotcha. Okay.

So is that like a, is it being electrocuted right now kind of showing like it's almost fully, damn, almost fully destructive or destroyed? Sorry, that's the word I was looking for. Yeah, I think when it run, when the bear runs into it, then it goes into electric state and then you can go back up there again. Yeah. Very cool. Jesus.

What's, what's he doing on his back right now? Is that just like his like berserk mode where he's going to be? That's the armor. Yeah. That's the captain, the captain's armor because this is a captain of the arms. Oh, cool. It's a big time bear.

This looks graphically awesome. Did it look graphically awesome playing it? It looks really great. That was one of the things I noted. I really think the lighting is really beautiful in the game. Like there's a lot of dynamic lighting within the game where there's, where they play a lot with light and shadows. There's a section of the mission that we played

where we went out onto the outside of the ship and you're kind of seeing the space and the sun's passing by and the ships going over the sun. It's very, yeah, I think graphically the fidelity is really nice. Oh yeah. Very cool. Did you do anything with character customization

at all? No, we did not. So I don't know that, I don't know how much customization, we kind of had just the standard mail June. So I'm not sure. As far as like cosmetics, as there is like a skill tree, but we didn't spend a ton of time on that, but that was also very cool. It looks like a constellation. So like a typical RPG, there's different sections you can kind of put your skills into.

But not, didn't spend a ton of time in that either. Different pieces of armor at all by any chance? Yes, there you can swap in and out. a customization for your armor and for your gun. So you're constantly picking up new things, very like in the kernels there of them and maxing all the different things. I ended up spending those time with the shotgun. So I was picking up all of that and putting everything into the shotgun variant,

which I think was called a shredder, I think is that one. And they had electric ammo, which you could customize and that sort of thing. And then, yeah, different armor as well. Did the combat feel, was somebody who's played the legendary edition of Mass Effect, did it just feel like Mass Effect? Did it feel like, oh, they're pulling from it?

Or was it a complete copy? Or did it feel good? Like, when you would talk about what this actually felt like, because it looks so Mass Effect adjacent, I feel like I'm going to drop in, but then I also feel like I'll be either let down if it doesn't nail that or surprised if it does. Yeah, so for me, yeah, being,

being off of Mass Effect Legendary Edition, I feel like there's obviously a lot of similarities with having the two companions and kind of the space and everything. I do feel like this combat feels a lot more fluid to me where I feel like when I would play Mass Effect, it was like, okay, I'm like stopping, I'm setting this thing, I'm doing these two and then watching sort of how these things play out. I feel like because I have all these different options that I mentioned of, you know, using the weapon, using the gauntlet powers, using their powers, I just feel like it feels. a lot more fluid and in one motion, which I really liked. It felt like an improvement to me on the mass effect combat. It definitely looks way more modernized, you know?

Yes. Not as clunky, you know, with with Shepard in the old mass effects. It often felt like you're either sprinting forward and then if you want to turn, you got to just stop running and then turn your whole camera and then sprint that way. It was very like, it reminds you of gears of war where it's like, you would do the roadie run. It's like you can turn a little bit, but like you want to stop completely

if you want to be able to turn. But yeah, I think the combat looks super good so far. Uh, talk. Yeah, like you're saying, Andy,

like, yeah, uh, it feels, I feel like when in Mass Effect, you kind of feel like you're like a tank almost. Like you're like, move forward,

stop, do a thing. Move forward, stop, do a thing. Whereas this, I feel a lot more, um,

inclined to move around, constantly kind of changing up the ways that I'm doing things. I'm not relying on. any specific move over and over again. There's a lot more room for fluidity, for experimentation, and approaching things in, like, slightly different ways from room to room. Were you doing that slide at all?

Yeah. Hell yeah. The electric slide. It looks so good. I know we're talking about, you know, companions and these interactions and conversations, how was the writing? Like, were you interested? Did they all have, did it seem like it had a unique voice, was the story they were

taking you on somewhere you wanted to go. Yeah, I like, like I was saying about the K, like that was something I was really impressed by. I'm, I'm still not 100% read on June himself because I feel like he didn't, he, he himself didn't talk a ton. I feel like during my play through. But like everyone else around him, I got a very good grasp of like what their character was, what their motivations were, why they were doing the things that they were doing. And they were all very consistent, surprising and interesting. Like when you meet six awakened frogs, you're like, how different can each of them be, right?

Like they're not even, you're just talking to them for like a short period of time. But it's like one is like obsessed with music and like metal music specifically. So he's like listening to the radio all the time. And he's like, yeah, rock out with me. And you're like, okay, little frog, I will rock out with you. And then, you know, one of the other frogs is like, oh my God, that guy's so annoying. Like he plays his music too loud, blah, blah, blah. and like has a very then there's like a valley girl frog each frog has their own kind of different

personality and then my companions themselves like they i feel like when i first got in there it felt a little stock character i was like oh i was worried right because you got the brash lady whatever and then this kind of like smarmy man who's you know from a rich background or whatever who's like you like but he's little evil sure but i feel like they got a lot more fleshed out as i spent time with them and was finding out why they were here with me. I think not being dropped into the middle of something will help a lot with that as well, because I'm only getting, you know, a little bit of their personalities, but they do shine through.

Very cool. Did they talk at all? And I know you, we have an interview here playing it. So I'm not trying to get too far. Then they talk about how long they're shooting for. I know this has been a conversation, obviously a soft Dawn Walker, right? Like, okay, cool. How long is this RPG going to be?

Did they talk at all about that? Ooh, I'm trying to think, I don't have it here. Fair enough. I don't know if they did. Fair enough. Got to keep them. I don't. I don't have a sure answer for that.

I'm looking in my notebook really quick to see if I just didn't make it over to my notes. Prontive for you. Every time I interview developer and I ask that question, which isn't every time. It's not like a stock thing. But when I do, I always do that. I know this is the most annoying question to answer, but how long is this game? Nobody wants to say, nobody knows. Do you ever start to preface things with like, I know,

you get a lot of questions that start off with like, I know this is annoying. You know, listen, I know you. Madeline, what was the enemy variety like? That's a great question.

I will say that was one where I don't feel like there was a ton of variety in the enemies. I don't know if that's just because of this one mission of where we were. Sure. But there were, they were like colloquially called them ghosts, some of the people who were left there, but they're like all these mech soldier guys,

these robot soldier guys. And then there was like some human soldier guys. But between those, those were kind of the things we were fighting the whole time. So there was slight variations between some of them would like explode if they got too close to you. Most some of them would run at you. And then some of them were kind of more of the standard.

But they were all kind of these like roboty guys that you're seeing up there now. And then kind of give me that destiny vibe. Yeah. Yeah, I can see that. which was the white thing in their centers and whatever and pop them. The awoken or the... I feel like I ran that a lot.

I feel like I ran that a lot. Sorry. But there was a couple of... There was like a couple little mini bosses along the way that were different. That was like a different awakened animal or just a different type of humans. So there were some options, but on the sort of like main part of the mission, it was all the little robot guys. But they were the ones who were supposed to be taking over this planet. So I'm not sure if that's consistent for the rest of the game or if that's just because those were the people trying to take over this planet from the frogs. Were your NPCs useful at all without you telling them exactly what to do?

Yeah, they would go on and kind of do their own stuff. I'm very micromanagey, though, so I was always telling them to do stuff. Once those cool downs are up, Leo. Yeah, like when the battle is started, they are, they're engaging on their own. So it's not like they're just standing there waiting for me to tell them what to do. But I just like telling them what to do because I'm bossy. So I was always, always telling them what to do. But when someone would attack me, yeah, they would start going in as well.

And actually in several instances, there would be an enemy ahead. And this might be annoying to some people. I didn't mind. But they would go ahead and start the fight for me. Oh, yeah. They would be out of me starting the fight. And I would be like, okay, fine, you guys got it. was there like an active dodge to get out of the way of some of those attacks we were just seeing?

Yes, I think there is a dodge. I'm trying to remember. I'm pretty sure there is, but it looks like some of those attacks could have, you know, maybe there were some opportunities to get the heck out of Dodge. And I don't know if, uh, and now I'm just thinking Greg, like, you know, I love a good slow-mo during a dodge. Who doesn't? Feels good. I know.

Feels great. It's like, here's your prize. You earn this. Like in Don Walker, man. Exactly like in Don Walker. Donald Walker. Matt, what haven't we asked you about that you want to talk about? Okay.

The music. I really want to bring this. Specifically, I know Andy's big music guy. The music was awesome. Like I was just had the video up of my gameplay. I was just listening to the music from the game while I was writing my notes. I really, really liked music. It was so atmospheric and haunting when you were by your,

on the space. It was intense and crescendoing when you were fighting. Like it, I loved the music. It was something that I, one of the first things that I wrote down was like, oh, this score works well for this game. It's, it's very, very good. I really liked that. They're doing all the right things.

They are. But I love, I mean, I just love that shockway move so much. I mean, it just reminds you of all. Stab again. Yeah. Stoked about. Yeah, exactly. I love any sort of ability like that.

Like, were you made? guessing around with a whole lot of, I know you talked about some of the arsenal where it's like weapons or I saw some of your squadmates had like a, maybe like a missile or something like that, but the, your gauntlet moves. Did it feel like there was maybe more than that ground pound with the wave of rock energy that comes out? So we had three unlocked, but it looked like there were spots for at least two more powers that you would maybe get for your gauntlet. And the fun thing about that that I really liked was I, you have to use, you don't, I guess you have to use them for puzzles. Like there are traversal puzzles. There's also puzzles to get loot and that sort of thing that you use your gauntlet skills for. And for me, like when I was first playing for maybe like the first 30 minutes, I was like, oh, that's what my gauntlet powers are for.

And then all of a sudden I accidentally triggered one during the fighting. And I was like, oh, right, I can use these during battle too, I guess. And so that's when I started doing, there's like a petrify one where you can freeze someone. And then, yeah, you can go to town on them because they're stuck. There's one that you basically, it's like a line area of attack. So you're like smashing the ground and then it's shooting all of this debris right into them in a line. And then the other one is like a lance that's kind of like a sword that goes out that goes through armor and stabs them.

And all of those are really. cool to play with both in the world, the sort of puzzle traversal mechanics and then also within the combat. So I love that they do the sort of double duty there. Hell yeah. I also wanted to bring up a really fun, like little thing that I meant to ask chat about but I forgot to or I meant to mention it to him. There was a safe that you could crack. And I feel like, you know, we've seen a lot of lock picking mechanics and safe mechanics and they're generally very similar. This one was so fun. It was kind of like wordle

with numbers. Whoa. Oh shit. You know I love a good hacking slash lock picking game. You may have just brought this podcast like the big breaking news. That's exciting. You have a safe and essentially there's a total number at the end and then there's four digits.

And so you're trying to figure out what the combination is but the numbers in the combination have to equal up whatever that number is. So let's say it's 26. So each of those numbers have to equal up to 26. And then it will show you, you know, yellow if it's the right number in the wrong place or green if it's the right number in the right place. And I found a note before going there that said, I think one of the numbers is nine. And so I had kind of a head start on the safe because I knew what one of the numbers were

and where it was in the thing. So I could use math and, you know, logic and deduction to figure out the other numbers. And that's tough because like with Whirl, you're like, all right, it's probably the letter R, E, let me just try to figure. But with numbers, it could be anything, Greg. It could be seven. Honestly, I feel like most numbers have one in them.

Two does have one. I was going to say, it could be two, but it does have one in there. Can't get to one. Can't get to two with that one. Ah, shit. She broke the argument. What about zero? I guess then closing it out, really, Madeline, like, so

what was the most disappointing or the thing on a negative side that caught you? You talked a little bit about enemy variety. Maybe the character's looking a bit similar. Was there was that it or was there anything else that stood out to you? I think the only other thing that stood out to me was just one of the big, one of the big beats that they've been talking about is the choices. And I feel like he got one big one at the end. And I didn't see a lot of smaller ones.

Like there were things I could choose to do or not do. But it didn't seem like there was just one big implication. And one of the things they are also talking about with the game that I'm like extremely interested in. um is the time dilation aspect which yeah if you all are familiar from interstellar where like you know five years on this planet is 50 years on another planet and because we're just doing what you know one part of one mission we don't really get to see the implications of that I do want to know how does that affect the game how does that work and we didn't get to see it and I that was kind of a bummer for me because I want to see some of the the larger choice implications I think that's hard

to do in a small one and a half hour section um I will say the choice at the end was very interesting to me. I'm not going to spoil it by any means, but there's sort of two paths. It's not the renegade versus what's the good version of Mass effect again? Paragon versus Paragon, yeah. This one is immortal versus Paladin. So it's kind of similar. But I felt like the choices were a bit more gray than I had found in Mass Effect. Like I feel like in Mass Effect, the renegade choices are generally pretty scumbaggy. It's the dickhead option, yeah. And in this one, I felt like I was like, oh, I could see why someone would choose the other option.

And that was very intriguing. I just wish I got to see more implications of the action. So that's not like a problem with the game. It's just more a virtue of the amount of time we got to play it. But it's like, I just don't know how it's going to play out. And then, yeah, that was that was my main. point was just I want to feel a little bit more of of the choices but I do feel like the final choice was really interesting. I thought what where they were going with it and the reasoning behind

each one was strong enough that I didn't have an immediate decision. I had to stop and think about it, which is what I want from a choice game. Like I don't want it to be an obvious yes or no. Yeah, I love that. Yeah. When you know, if you remember like I when me and Andy went back and did the show, whatever, I went and watched everything. And so when McConaughey came out at Game Wars and talked about it, he was like, it's a game that deals with time dilation, which I have like a, you know,

background in ha, ha, ha, even the way they describe it, like I was hoping maybe you got to see that of going back to wherever to see two years of past for the one mission you were gone and what that actually led out to. Yeah,

it's like in the, in the trailer for Salt, you can, they mention it too, like Salt left her planet and took a certain amount of time and she left some, some baby octopus eggs there.

And it's like, oh, well, it's been 70 years and she left them. Like, yeah, that'd be pretty devastating if you were a mom. leaving your eggs behind for 70 years or whatever the number was.

And it's like, I wish we could have seen a little bit about more how that plays out. Well, we will. That's going to hit the feelings. Come April. I know. I'm ready to be, I'm ready to feel the big feels. Well,

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Get shows ad-free and access exclusive content. But if you don't got a buck to toss our way, we've got you covered. Head over to our Spotify podcast feeds, follow, watch, listen, and rate us. We've been gaining a lot of support from new eyes over there, and your help goes a long way. and Spotify even has video versions of all of our podcasts if you like looking at our beautiful faces. So head over to Spotify, rate, comment, and follow to keep up with all of our upcoming reviews and daily gaming coverage. Nice to sit down and talk to you. I just finished playing like an hour and a half.

Nice. A full mission, I guess. It's not the full mission. Not the full. Yeah. Yeah, cool. A section. Okay, good, good.

Good enough. Really, really enjoyed that. Oh, my gosh. Thank you. I think that when I, you know, we talked, you talked earlier today about kind of the inspoes of being, being, why am I blanking on the names now? Dune was definitely one of them, Interstellar and Star Wars. Right. And I definitely feel the vibes of all of those.

Nice. Good. And the sort of lived in world building that I think exists. Yeah. And I think that's my favorite thing. But one of the things I wanted to ask you about. because it's the thing that I really care about is you spoke a lot about emotion and really connecting and making these big choices and feeling in the world and we got some of those today

but I'd love for you to speak a little bit on how you're doing that and what does that look like that's a deep question but it's a deep question not because it's tough to answer but without being able to provide you know unfortunately I can't give you more examples today yeah yeah there's, like, there's some moments in the game we hope that players are just, you know, taken aback by what happens. And, um, and the emotional gravity of it hopefully will land, you know, every individual trip or stuff like that differently.

But I think the coolest thing for us, in terms of having chosen to use, you know, this science fiction background with time dilation as part of it is, we talked about this a lot, but, and I think we mentioned in the intro is, like, we can, play with the stakes of those choices are so much higher because of the time in fact being you know something that jew can't control entirely and without spoiling things there are some moments where jew realizes he can't control things entirely um and and so that opens up this playing

field of well how do we tie connections to family and connections with campaigns that you love or even just you know a home that you live in that you you know without again spoiling too much you've finally gotten to establish yourself in and you're in a critical person there and now you're going to be gone for a while and what does that mean? And so for every player or every person that lives this story

I think they're all hopefully they all take it and interpret it a little bit different way based on their own preferences and everything else but I know we're excited about that aspect of it just because it gives us a means to tell a story at a greater scale, but also make the player feel like they're part of something really big, where it is impactful. I mean, the core of the story of saving your home world isn't necessarily unique, but some of the things that June has to do and the way we tell

that story we think are pretty special. And, you know, I hope it names with players. Yeah, I think that's something that's so interesting about telling a sort of, not even global, but interplanetary, intergalaxy story, is that, like, I think you connect a lot of, you connect a lot with a story that's close to you. But a lot of times something that you're going to do to like benefit yourself might have great at great, great implications to the rest of the world. And you kind of have to decide how selfish you want to be. Well, you know, you saw like the, that's a great thread. Like you saw with that choice at the end of the mission where, you know, what you decide is going to impact an entire species in that case.

And I mean, I hope the player stops and thinks about that. I mean, every, every, every, every, Some people are going to click through it. Some people are going to sit there and have to put their controller down. Which is what I did. Yeah, I mean, in emotion, you know, I love those moments. And I think the team, you know, in general, loves those moments. Like, we talk a lot about, you know, weekly team meetings and design meetings. Like, how can we, you know, how can we make the gravity of this meet and be special to the player?

You know, we love the control, put the controller down, the angst of that and all that stuff. I've said that before. but yeah, if we deliver on that, you know, and I'm optimistic that we are, I think it'll be a cool experience for players. Yeah, that last choice I'm not going to spoil what it is or anything like that, but there, you know, you have the sort of paladin and then the other. Immortal. Yeah, yeah. But what I loved, and I hope to see more choices like this in the game, which is that I didn't really find, like sometimes I feel like choices can be very like. black and white. You're like, okay, like, kill 50, 100 people and, like, save a little squirrel.

You know, you're like, okay, these are, these are very black and white choices. Whereas, like, I felt like the choice that was brought up, like, there was one that was immortal one was, um, paladin. But I didn't feel like either of them were like the clearly right thing to do, which I love. I love having some nuance and like what it means. A little bit of, a little bit of moral ambiguity to them because everybody's going to interpret them differently. Again, without spoiling it for anybody who hasn't seen it yet, I won't play it until the game comes out, that choice you're referring to at the end, if you actually pay really close attention to the way Solomon responds to you, he's actually, I don't know, choice you made, but on the axis where you choose against him initially,

he actually understands why, you know, because he accepts it because he recognizes the position you're as the player, or as the leader, I should say. And so, but it does add some tension to the really. relationship and that's kind of there's a cool dynamic there that kind of evolves as well. So yeah, it's cool you picked up on that. Yeah. Speaking of the companions, we got to spend a lot of time with Solomon and then I'm blinking on her name, the other character. At least. Yeah, yeah, in the next step. Yeah, yeah. And we spent a lot more time with Solomon, I think, than her kind of in the face-to-face talking. But how important were companions to you making the game and making them feel connect?

to each other, to you, and the dynamic and kind of their personalities. Yeah, I mean, Drew, our narrative director who's with us today for these interviews, he, yeah, I've been fortunate to work with him for a long time on my career. Like that's a, that's a cornerstone for us, you know, with him and him driving the narrative the way that he does, understanding the criticality of both those companions to gameplay but also those companions to your emotional connection to it and to caring about it. I mean, you know, pick an RPG that you love, you know, whether it's something from CD Product Red or BioWare or Bethesda. You know, like there's always some connection to the people you go on these journeys with.

And those are the things that I remember the most, generally speaking. And I don't know, like if we get this, you know, if we get it right, which, you know, I'm optimistic from feedback that we're doing some things right here today, which is great to hear, like, you'll remember some of these companions, and you want to go on another journey with them. Maybe not all of them will be available to you on the next time around, but that's part of the, you know, that's part of life and part of what you've got to go through in these experiences. So, yeah, I mean, deeply critical for us, but like so much so that I'd say the fun of building something like this from scratch very early on was like, okay, what is our companion say going to be? And we've got

everything from, and we haven't introduced them all in detail yet. But, you know, you've met Elise, you've met Solomon, we've talked about salt. Yeah, and that's just sort of the, there's the tip of the iceberg, if you will. I love it. I love talking to players and then finding out who their favorite is and why, and if it's not yours, then it's always an interesting story as to why. Yeah, it is always fun talking like, oh, you, you know, you always brought Garris with, and you're like, oh, I never brought Garris.

or one of my favorite companions is like Boone from Fallout New Vegas. He's so serious and intense, but you're just like, I just connected with him. But it's so funny because everyone has different touch points for everything. Yeah, that's right. That's right. I mean, and I think that's, I mean, isn't that why we love role playing games? I mean, like, let's be honest. It's like you get to make the story your own.

And, I mean, within the limits of what we've built into the game. But yeah, I hope the players can resonate with, um, Our companions resonate with, you know, the players that engage with them and they find their favorites and then, you know, do their own fan art and fan stories about them and all the wonderful things that come creatively from the player base. So you have to. Yeah, I love to when you can swap out commandants. They're like, this combo together has this type of vibe and this combo together has this type of vibe. Yeah. So the, you know, we, a little inside story.

We debated what you saw at the way stations you can change companions. This demo doesn't, didn't fully let you exercise that. But you do have the freedom to do that in the game within reason. But that was something we debated. Like do you want to be able to refit? But when you, you know, Chris King, your game director, he uses this phrase a lot. Like the companions are an extension of the player kit, meaning like the tools that you can use to get to this world.

And if you view it that way, then of course you want to be able to swap them. And not all the missions can you do that, but on the ones where you've got all of them with you and they're going to come on the journey, they're at least available for you to make that decision. And then, you know, it's another access where you can make a choice, another access where you can bind to them and, you know, hopefully fall in love with them or, you know, whatever you want to do along this journey. Yeah, are there romance options in this? There are romance options. The one thing we give a very clear upfront on is that you cannot romance salt, but it's because salt doesn't like to do this. That's very fair.

She's not in the humans. That makes complete sense as salt is the awakened octopus in a next suit, which is very cool. And that's one of the things like going back to the companions that I was thinking about when we were doing some mission today. We encountered another awakened animal. And I was like, oh, I would have loved to see what salt had thought about this mission. If we brought salt with us, like would they have, would she have a different opinion? Because she's meeting other people of her kind. Maybe the mission has to do kind of along with that.

And those are the things in, you know, really good RPGs that I'm always thinking about, oh, how can I, next time maybe I'll bring salt with me or let's see how that changes things. Yeah, there's, I can't spoil too much, but there's some cool areas on your home world where the Awakened takes center stage. And it'll be interesting to see how players respond to that. Because, you know, you got to meet a lot of the K, like 42C is that first K-Frog that you met today. and I don't know if you saw some of the ones in the side I tried to find them all

so I mean they all have their own personalities now you know take that across species and across you know some other mechanics and game play and there's some cool things that I think players will find some surprises for them so you did say there's like a hub world and that's more of like an open section or it's like

it's really where you know like anything it's your home between missions it's where you're going to go back and kind of regroup and you know a lot of what you're trying to save your home world is the core part of the narrative journey that you're on and your home city is on that that home planet um and so after your mission after all your missions you return home and kind of regroup and you actually have to re-equip and kind of you know do the things necessary to prepare yourself for the next journey out the exodus missions that you go on the

that are at near light speed travel where you're traveling to other star systems are to a distant place from you is are the ones that are going to take even more preparation if you will and so there's some things you have to do in your home world that set you up for that and without spoiling too much it's where a lot of your interactions with companions will happen you'll get to do a lot of interesting side activities and some other things that you think fill in the game really nice and make it feel like really true and needy in terms of a little people's face. So yeah, stay tuned for that. Yeah, to kind of circle back to the time dilation thing, because that's something I feel like we didn't really get a big taste of, but it seems like

it's a big part of the sort of overarching story in the world. If people are unfamiliar, I always like you, I think y'all mentioned it as well. Like if you've seen Interstellar, you know, there is a point in the movie. Spoilers for a long out movie, but. Yeah, it's been a lot. you know, Matthew Gona Hay and Anne Happily go to a planet. They get stuck on it for a little bit longer. For them,

it's like 40 minutes. For the person on the spaceship, it's like seven years. Yeah, so in this game, you have all said you're respecting actual light speed, speed of light travel. Right.

And so how, I'm so curious how that's going to affect, I can imagine in my mind how that might affect some relationships if you, you know, leave someone back at your home planet and go to really far. It might be 40 years or something like that.

There's a few, there's a few twists that we think will be a little bit emotional for players. The, it, it, this is a related aside. I'll share with this since you brought up interstellar. When we, um, when we first talked to Matthew McConaughey and, uh, to see if you'd be interested in being part of the game. Um, and I won't, I won't butcher and try to talk to Matthew McConaughey. But you can imagine that he said it in his true choice. Yes. Um, he, you know, we were on a Zoom call with him and he, he said, why me?

And we gave him the most truthful and honest answer we could have because it was actually exactly what we felt, which was because to us, you represent this very complex topic of time dilation in a way that had made it relatable to viewers and carried with an emotional weight and all these things. And so if we can carry some of that understanding into players' adoption and awareness of Exodus, it's a wonderful thing for us. There's a bunch of other reasons too because there'd be connections with him that worked out. But like going back to your point about time dilation, like there's a, that is a, it's a very complex topic. But at the end of the day, the emotional weight from it is what really matters the most. And, you know, he represents that through interstellar. You know, he plays a really cool role in the game as CC Orlev, who has experience with time dilation because of his prior, prior journeys as a traveler. And so June looks to him for advice, but it all kind of comes together in this nice kind of

synerg-well, we believe it comes together in this nice synergistic way where all these things come together and it kind of makes it feel like, you know, real to you as a player. So time dilation isn't this abstract concept, even though it is a real physical phenomenon for us. I don't know. I'll put the answer players. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm excited. Yeah. So I'm very, I'm very sad because I don't get to play this anymore. Like, now I have to wait for Exodus to come out. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you. But thank you.

That's a greatest compliment. Thank you. I really want to keep playing it. So my last question for you is, what should I, like, be reading, watching? Oh, yeah, yeah. Playing to, like, get myself in the Exodus mood. So there's one of our favorite science fiction authors is Peter Hamilton,

and we are fortunate to have had two novels now written in the Exodus universe with Peter. you've got to be a serious science fiction fan to adopt these books, but they're amazing. Peter is, he's a prolific writer and his ideas have helped us in so many ways expand the universe. But there are really core parts of the game that Peter helped us define, that you will find threads through. It can make those books. Yeah. Including things that tie into even basic stuff like, you won't understand. until you start playing the game fully, but there's pieces that tie into like June's Heritage

and June's genetic makeup that Peter touches on those books. So if you really want to, you know, really want to go deep on it. Okay. Then I got to get deep into the thick side-by. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The first book, I believe, is called Archimedes Engine, the cycle one's called Hylian C. It just came out a couple months ago, I think. So, yeah, yeah, yeah. They'll occupy, they're, I don't call them light summer reading, but they're, they're, they're, fun science fiction that's reading. Perfect.

So yeah. Cool. Thank you. Great questions. Yeah. Great questions. And we're back. What a great interview, Madeline.

Thank you for doing it. No problem. I had so much fun talking to Chad. And I really want to commit to reading the prequel books, but they're really thick. So I don't know. Maybe audiobook.

Maybe audiobook. There you go. Oh, yeah. Get on that. Nothing better than reading a book with your ears. You know, it just flies by. You're like, why do people make this so tough? It's not that tough.

Almost done with my Witcher audiobook. But Gerald. But Gerald. Gerald. God damn it. Gerald. Gerald. Gerald. Gerald. Gerald.

Gerald. Gerald. Gerald. Gerald. Gerald. Gerald. It's Gerald. It's like Gerald. With a hard Gerald. Gerald. But N a T. Gerald. Gerald. Like Gary.

You're saying Gerald so many times. I just, it's lost all meaning. Pretend you're going to start with Gary. Gary. Gerald. Gerald. Gerald. See, that's the thing is, again.

to if you're just joining this ongoing debate since 2015, I feel like I'm saying it right. And so then when I do it wrong, it's just like Roof. I think I'm saying Roof right. No, you're nailing it with Gerald. But here's the thing.

I want you to know, the bit starts and stops with when I say the wrong version, I don't know what I'm saying wrong. I don't get it. The wrong version is when you go Geralt. Gerald. Gerald.

I say Gerald sometimes. Yeah, you're putting emphasis on the second part of the word versus the first. But I would even say, Gerald. I would even say Gerald is better than Geralt. Did I say that sometimes? That's what you were doing the first time.

Damn. You did a Gerold. You know what I mean? Damn. You know? It's all Greek to me. Sometimes it gets you, you know. And I've played like 50 hours of this game.

I want you know, I've watched season one of the show. I adored it. Can't fucking say the words. Gerald. Gerald. Madeline, where can everybody keep up with you?

Yeah, you can find me at Twitch. com. Or on Instagram over there, too, for some fun photos. And yeah, those are the places. Or maybe here. I don't know.

You can find Madeline all over. Kind of funny. Of course, yesterday Madeline put up her Halloween review so far as a Gregway. Today she put up, Madeline went to Texas for kind of funny as her Gregway. A 15 minute vlog she did there in Austin doing all sorts of stuff. And most importantly,

next week, Madeline is in the office, Wednesday and Thursday to be on all sorts of content. Most importantly, two Halloween streams we're very excited for. Woo! So, yeah, follow Madeline here.

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