The Besties - Assassin's Creed Shadows Delivers on an 18-Year-Old Promise

Episode Date: March 28, 2025

Assassin's Creed Shadows finally takes the series to Feudal Japan. But is Ubisoft too late? Or does their AAAA mega release slice through the competition like a hidden blade to the neck of an unsuspecting foot soldier? Get the full list of games (and other stuff) discussed at www.besties.fan. Want more episodes? Join us at patreon.com/thebesties for three bonus episodes each month!

So Griffin is not here, obviously, but we were talking about Assassin's Creed beforehand. And without saying what Griffin thought, because even though he's not on it, I'm not going to say what he thought of this game, because if he wants to share that, he should be on the episode. We start talking about what Griffin was last in Assassin's Creed gave you. Did enjoy. He's like, I didn't like the last one very much. Like, oh, OK. What about before that? What about Odyssey? Did you like Odyssey? No.

Did you like Origins? No, no, no, I didn't like Origins. Valhalla? Didn't like Valhalla. It's like, okay, we... Griffin, who claims to be a fan of this series, has not enjoyed one since 2014. That is what we figured out. For 11 consecutive years,

Griffin has not enjoyed this franchise. Wowza. Do you think he regrets getting that giant Assassin's Creed back tattoo of Ezio? Probably. Well, he, it's just a big Assassin's logo and Griffin is still an Assassin. That's important. Like he still sides against the Templars. You know what this tells me? Conflict.

What? This tells me that you've never put the blacklight on your brother because everybody who knows him well knows it looks like the Assassin's Creed logo. But when you pin him down and hold a black light above it, it reveals the faces of Ezio and Desmond, the Deuteronomist. I've been to both Sleep No More and Meow Wolf with my brother. I've seen him in every possible light. Trust me. Yeah. Shh. Shh. Shh. Shh. Shh.

Shh. Shh. Shh. Shh. Shh. Shh. Shh. Shh.

Shh. Shh. Shh. Shh. Shh. Shh. Shh. Shh.

Shh. Shh. My name is Justin Macoroy and I know the best game of the week. My name is Christopher Thomas Plant and I know the best game of the week. My name is Russ Frushtrick. I know the best game of the week. My name is Christopher Thomas Plant and I know the best game of the week. My name is Russ Frushtag and I know the best game of the week. Holy shit, I sound terrible.

Welcome to the Besties, where we talk about the latest and greatest in home interactive entertainment. It's a video game club. Just by listening, my friend, you have joined our illustrious ranks. This week, we are returning to the world of assassination, but not that world of assassination, a different world of assassination. There are so many worlds of assassination, it's the multiverse of assassination.

Right, it's Assassin's Creed Shadows. Chris Plante, what's that? Assassin's Creed is approaching 20 years of existence in the video game world, and that entire time people have been begging for asking for craving a ninja Assassin's Creed and they got it after many other Assassin's Creed likes made ninja games. Does it surpass all of that?

Was it worth the wait? You will find out right after this break? Chris plant, I think you're the way you contextualize this is is so Perfect because I really think that's the story of Assassin's Creed shadows is For 20 years there has been this this huge lunch in front of Assassin's Creed It is like the ninja one and everyone was asking that, and then it feels like that lunch has been eaten many times over by many other people. And now Assassin's Creed has come to its beautiful table. Are there any crumbs left for Assassin's Creed Shadows?

That's... Yeah, that's a good question. I think it's so interesting, this franchise in particular, and maybe it's just because it's me, but this franchise almost exactly times with the beginning of my career in covering video games, and just thinking it over that span, it's very, very close. I remember, like, one of my first E3s seeing that demo

and being like, holy fucking shit of that first Assassin's Creed, and being like, this is unlike anything I've ever seen before. So it is interesting to see how it's evolved and how it hasn't evolved. But I do agree with you, like, it's a lot of pressure to put on this franchise, given the fact that, like, everyone and their mother has made an open-world ninja game.

Let me do a little bit more of a historical run-through, and I'll try to make this fast. Heck yeah, dude. Why should this be a ninja game and why did it take so long? The original series as we all know, it starts out in I think 12th century Jerusalem. And you are a ninja, like that's the thing about it.

That's a fair point. You're basically a ninja there and that's why people are like, hey they're gonna make this into a ninja game, right? Because I don't know why, but you're a ninja in 12th century Jerusalem. You're doing a re-time. I've never thought about this,

but you have really touched on the big problem here, which is the whole foundational premise of Assassin's Creed is, lots of places could have ninjas. Lots of different places could do different kinds of ninjas. To be fair, people haven't just said, I want a ninja game. People have said, I want a feudal Japan, a thousand creaking.

Yes, right, because what they're doing is they're playing the game and they're like, man, sure feels nice playing a ninja. I wonder what it would feel like to play in a ninja spot. That would be an interesting idea. That's just embarrassing though, because if they were thinking they'd be wanting to play a ninja in a cyber future world because that's more funner.

That would be fun. Cyber ninja is better. But the Ubisoft, and maybe they had that in their head all along. They're like, no, the appeal of the game is ninja, non-ninja spaces. So naturally, the next non-ninja space would be Renaissance Italy, of course, right? And then after that would be Colonial America, why not? But what happens- I also wonder, I also wonder part of it is just like a marketing thing where they're like,

what is the like broad game buying world? Like what would engage them? What history are they into right now? Yeah. And the one thing that history dorks are into at all times is ancient aliens. So they make sure to throw that in there too. It's always ancient aliens. And evil popes.

And evil popes. They're trying to...fanticipate the audience. Oh, I like this. And what they're gonna be into. Justin, you're off the podcast forever. Two years. I hate it, I hate it. Let me be clear, I enjoy all these games. I think all of us enjoyed most of these games.

Until Assassin's Creed 3 and then a weird thing starts to happen. They start to make it into kind of an action game. And then by the time we get to the most recent decade of Assassin's Creed games, again, games I like. They're just action RPGs. You are not a ninja in Assassin's Creed Odyssey. You are not a ninja if you get god powers and you can fight with a trident.

It's just a rule. It's not just that, it's also just the idea of like, can you stand in the center of a circle of guys and take them out like consistently? Yes, without even really paying attention. You couldn't in the first one and you started over time, you've like gotten more and more power. And I think that's kind of the story of the franchise for me

is like, I feel like they did the hyper stealth. And then I think they wanted something that was more mass market, obviously. And they thought, okay, we're going to tamp down the stealth, heighten the action. And I think that it took a few games before the action was good enough to sort of like make that feel good again. But at this point, we've kind of lost that metaphor so much. Like, it's not they're not ninja stealth games, really. They're like, like you said, they stand in the middle of a circle and like take on the whole place.

Or at the most, like I would say, it's a little bit more dishonored, right? Where it's like start quiet and then go loud at a certain point. I think that's a good summary. And that is actually a really good segue to this game because it provides both of those experiences. It provides the stand in the circle and be a fucking powerhouse,

and be a super sneaky person that can now crawl on their belly, which I don't think we've ever been able to do before. Like a reptile. Is it... Is it... Maybe one of you guys could tell me, there is a split narrative here, Is it, maybe one of you guys could tell me, there is a split narrative here, and we start with like a different character,

a large sort of samurai gentleman, and then we pivot to our sort of main character who is not a big samurai guy, and I have a return to him. So I don't know if it's more of a framing device or what the deal is. No, he's in there. They become friends.

Oh, thank goodness. I was worried they might be enemies or something more romantic. I don't know. They're friends. Wait, you're telling me they become friends? That's not Jermaine. No, so the two lead characters, I actually don't have their names in front of me.

Yasuke and Naoe. Yasuke and Naoe. Naoe is like a ninja woman, effectively. And Yasuke is like a samurai fighter, a black man who is formerly a slave that basically gets brought to Japan and then... Taken on as like a feudal guard, basically. Yeah, he's like a feudal guard, right.

And in addition to like their very differing backgrounds, they play incredibly different as well. And then... Take it on as like a feudal guard, basically. Yeah, he's like a feudal guard. Right. And in addition to like their very differing backgrounds, they play incredibly different as well. So, Naue, again, predictably very sneaky, hide in the shadows, crawl through bushes, assassination, et cetera. And Yasuke? Yasuke, yeah. Can like fucking powerhouse his way through a base

with like giant slashing swords, he's got heavy armor, he moves a bit slower, but you kind of have that option. It's interesting though, because they start with him and they definitely like give you that feel at the very beginning, that's the first thing you experience

and it really pulls it all back for Naue. Yeah, it's interesting because a lot of the game is not super accessible to Yasuke. A lot of it is- What do you mean? In terms of literally- He's not nearly as mobile. The mobility of Assassin's Creed has always been the thing.

Okay, yeah. And he's like kinda slower to move through the world. He's got heavy armor and he's a bigger guy. And so it is an interesting contrast. You do get moments where like there's a dedicated missions for each character, but there are also missions where like you can pick between the two. And it did feel like I was a little more limited and railroaded into playing a certain way when I was Yasuke, whereas with Nawe,

I had a few more options. What did you guys think of, I always think, I mean, if Assassin's Creed has to nail anything, I think getting around the world and making that feel fun and pleasurable has to be one of the big things. How do you guys feel about, how do you feel about like as Nawe specifically,

because we're talking about that mobility, like getting around the world as her, how did that feel for you guys? It's wild how far the games come, you know, because you're right, the series has always been known about that and you can climb anything, you climb the tallest tower, but you go back and play those games and it is rigid,

like where you need to place yourself to climb. And yeah, and the challenge that the series has had since then is we want it to look beautiful, we want it to be cinematic, we want you to be able to climb most things. At the same time, we don't want the kind of Legend of Zelda thing where it looks like you're kind of just like wobbling along the side of everything.

Right. And I thought they did a good job of solving for it. One of the biggest fixes is a grappling hook. So when you are at an angle that would defy physics, whip out that grappling hook. And grappling hooks, we just understand in our soul physics don't apply to. whip out that grappling hook. And grappling hooks, we just understand in our soul physics don't apply to.

So you can flip it somehow underneath the hood of the roof and zip up at some weird strange angle. And it looks awesome. It looks awesome and it's really good in combat scenarios. It makes it really easy where you don't have to be looking around for an up. If you see L1, it's like, oh, that's my up button. I'm gonna go fuck out.

It's your Batman button. Yeah, it's my Batman button. I'm gonna Batman out of here. See you guys. I do think there were moments when I was playing this that reminded me of Assassin's Creed 3, because I'm not sure that like large nature-y spaces work super great for this format.

There were moments where I was looking for a high perch to do the fucking eagle scan shit. And getting to that perch in the open world, they clearly had a specific path in mind. And trying to walk in that path. If you think about the original Assassin's Creed games or two or whatever, when you're going through those cities, when you're going through Florence or whatever it is, you can kind of run in a straight line. And there was an automation

to like normal buildings where you would just grab a lot of the windows and the blah blah blah, so on and so forth. And you just don't necessarily have that. There are, I wouldn't call them invisible walls because if you go at the right angle It does work, but there are a lot of weirdly impact and Impassable areas in this map that does I think hurt some of the flow and I think my favorite moments of this game Or like I'm in a temple. I'm clearing the temple I'm using the grappling hook to like climb up and get above guys and hiding in bushes, etc Etc the second I'm in the open world,

it just feels kind of like filler to me. Like it doesn't assist the experience in any way. I really like the feeling of getting around bases and like force and stuff is very good. And that's part of the set, partially it's the setting, right? It's like, there's a uniformity to the height. There is like a lot of architecture that like gives you

the sort of like good, the sticky sticky, climbing around sort of geometry. But yeah, in the open world, it does feel a little strange. I think the moment to moment in the interiors also feels... They do a good job of making the enemies pretty stupid. And in the sense of like, it's not stupid, forgetful. Right? Like they'll see you the first time, be like, you're not supposed to be here. But if you hide almost instantly,

you see a little silhouette of yourself. And they're like, I think it's the game trying to say like, listen, one or two, like if you want to do the stealth thing, it is not keeping that from you. Like it is very easy to take a beat, hide, kill a guy, and like reset. I would say they are senseless in the most literal sense, as in they cannot hear or see, taste anything. It is incredible how many times I took pictures in the game where I was just directly underneath someone, but there was some shadow going on.

The most dangerous time to be a soldier, a foot soldier in this game, is when it is night and raining. Because you can just walk up to somebody within an inch of their face, and they're like, oh, I sure hope nobody stabs me in the neck right now. And you're like, that's too bad. You have moments that are a little bit like, you know how the predator, sometimes like,

when an animal can only see movement, it's like, just stay still, he can't see you. It's like, that doesn't seem right, but he doesn't see me. You're right, he doesn't. I am very disappointed by the way that in this particular take on Feudal Japan, I cannot assassinate people through the paper walls. No, you can!

I did not get that prompt. Maybe it's like an upgrade ability or something. It's an upgrade. The upgrade system is not great. Charming. So I can see how... Yeah, the upgrade system is a bit of a mess, but you can... Explain it to me, Chris, as both a public service and a service to me, because I would love to understand it better. I'd love to be humiliated. There's knowledge points.

Okay, so we have, listen, I think, let me say this. Normally besties, I feel like we do not traffic in this level of knit and or grit, but with Assassin's Creed or like Call of Duty or Madden or whatever, I feel like the knit and the grit is the thing. So how do you level up at this game? I do not fully understand it.

There are levels. Okay, so you're playing through the game and every time you like stab somebody in the neck you get a little thing that's like 10 XP and then you like stab an important person in the neck you know like 110 XP and you're like, oh shit that's great. And it sucks by the way that you can stab super, super unimportant people and get like 5 XP. It's like, that doesn't feel right. Yeah, yeah, there's basically snitches everywhere that they want you to kill, unarmed snitches. Just maids, just like kill a maids with 5 XP.

And this game is gore, we'll come back to the gore, we'll come back to it. But first, the XP. So you do all this, and then every once in a while little numbers pop up. And you're like, great, I got like a point, right? And then you go into the menu and there are like, I don't know, five trees. But they're locked by tier. So you would think, oh, I spent some points a lot in this like one in the assassin tree and then that'll unlock my next tier. False.

You could you fill it all up and it doesn't unlock. Wait, why? Why? What's happening? There are also, as Fr also as fresh dick said knowledge points that you unlock and you do this by like Quests, I think I think I mean spray it all the shrines. I found some schools and that gave me a knowledge point Yes, so you have to unlock those to unlock the future stuff So what you get in a scenario like me where I did not prioritize that

and I'm just like rife with ability points right now. I'm just, I'm a bank of ability points. I'm sitting here wondering, have I ever spilled one? I don't know. Am I sitting on a big pile of them? And when you go in, it does that classic thing where like the first thing you see is, oh, it increases blank 5%.

And you're like, oh, okay. I'm not gonna sift through all five of these trees. But if you do, you will find that you can stab people through a wall, which gets us to the thing that I wanted to ask y'all about. The violence of this game, how did it hit y'all? Not in like a puritanical way, I enjoyed the game. But I was kinda surprised where it goes for it.

For me, I would say this. I could still use more animations, because the animations are pretty gory, but you do notice them being repeated fairly quickly. Almost every time you kill somebody, you got a stunt on them. And sometimes I wish it was a little bit more like, pop! You know that sometimes it's that really funny Assassin's Creed animation? Every Assassin's Creed has little bit more like, pop, you know that sometimes it's that really funny Assassin's Creed animation, every game has,

every Assassin's Creed has one that like casual kill, like the, just like a little, I would like more of that, that Anton Chigurin, just like a quick, so they do have that, it just feels, I got, I didn't get offended or I got a kick out of it, but it is like, for Nawe as a character, it does color for me her like conversations because like she is having conversations with people

where she seems reasonable and canny, but I know the truth. She is a fucking lunatic. I mean, if you get her in a room, a hundred people, she will level it. She will murder everyone in there. She's a maniac. I think visually the violence came off as like,

I had, you know, I finished Shogun a couple months ago, like in the same ballpark as that amount of violence. Yes, I think they're going for a lone wolf and cub type of like 70s. If you do the paint stuff. Japanese, yes. But it's like when you slash someone, blood sprays across the room,

but there's not a lot of like dismemberment. I think you can, but it's not. There's some heads that come up. Common, yes. If you count that. Yeah, it's gory. It's pretty graphic. But to Hoops's point,

there are scenarios where you go into a room and they have the, I can't remember what it's called, it was a way of making the floor sound like a bird, crying basically. When you step in it, it was a security measure in old temples and forts and castles. And you'll step on it and like three maids look up like you just you know they're the gazelle and you're the lion and you're like oh i know how this one's gonna end and i mean the room is covered in in in viscera there's like time you're done yeah i get i went to a temple we're gonna clean that up just earlier yeah right he's gonna clean this i got got kind of harvey kytel get the wolf down here i listened down here. I watched, I did one right before this where there was a guy, just a guy, and he was in front of a chest.

And like I used my eagle visor or whatever. It's like, whoa chest! Gotta get it! It's like, are you sure? Cause he's right there. It's like, nah. Unfortunately, he's chosen an extremely bad place to boast up cause he's right next to the chest. And I do need that chest. I think that they... The moment to moment things, I would say, I have not found a lot of them to be super enjoyable. And I would like to talk to you guys about how this game handles

getting around the world and finding your objectives, because I'm curious. That feels very different to me, and I'm curious how it resonated with you guys. And if you left it like as designed or if you switched to like a more guided experience. I don't know which is the design version, because they do offer, as you sort of alluded to, a pathfinder mode that literally gives you like a GPS ghost to follow to an objective. So right, so that's like, yes. And you can, it's confusing again, right? Because it can give you, that pathfinder mode

can still work in the whatever they call it, like guided whatever, but the alternative mode is like, it will give you waypoints to go to, that you're like literally. Correct, I started with that, and then there were moments where I was like, I have no fucking idea how to get to this waypoint,

and then would oftentimes switch to pathfinder. You can use the wayfinder to plot a point on the map manually, and you can go to the way, do you know what I'm saying? Like the pathfinding works regardless of whether or not you know where the objective is. Yes, I'll talk through this find your own way mode a little bit more.

So if you picture a traditional Assassin's Creed or open world game, you get your quest, and then you open the map, and then the thing that you need to go do is just plot it there, and you go from point to point to point until you finish the game, right? And then eventually there are like 500 things on the map for all the different stuff you

can do. In this game, and I think that they had done a version of this in a couple of the previous Assassin's Creed, there is a fog of war and you clear the fog of war as you travel the map. And one of the most important things about clearing the fog of war as you travel the map. And one of the most important things about clearing the fog of war is you see the regions and cities and names of things added to the map. That's important because you kind of on a kill bill

ask mission for the game to like knock out all these different heads of gang, I guess, basically. Secret organization. And to do that, you will say, okay, I'm gonna pick this one person, and to find them, I need to knock out three other sub kind of goals. And when you pick any of those sub goals,

it still doesn't give you the location to go to. A thing comes up on the map and it's like, hey, it's south of Kyoto, wedged into the mountainside, you know, near a bunch of trees or something. And if you have found Kyoto- Or if it's a person, it'll be like, they're in the firearms district,

west of Sakai, near this guy. And you can open your map and you can be like, dang, well, I know where Sakai is, but I haven't cleared the fog of war out in that entire area yet and I'm busy doing other things. You can use a recon soldier effectively in the map and point them at that area and that character will clear out the fog of war and that and discover quote, any of the things that are in that area. And you can do this, I guess, like twice a day.

This is where it just gets endlessly complicated to me because you also use these soldiers to claim special treasures in certain forts. And if you've used them in one spot, you can't use them in another. But you can get them- And they refill when the seasons change. Or you can refill them when you go back to your home base.

But I'm not sure if there's a punishment for changing seasons. And yeah, there's like so many systems at play. That's kind of the big challenge I had with the game is there are so many systems that I would end up kind of getting lost in one thing and then forget what game I was even playing. As in there's a fort that I did last night that was probably in total an hour and a half. I spent an hour of it looking for six different sub bosses so that I could open a special crate.

And then I got like a relatively novel piece of gear. Right. And, but, but then. That's all good stuff. In doing that, the sport is so huge and finding these enemies was so big or took so long. And then at the end I got that gear, but then there was these other treasures that I just couldn't claim and I didn't fully understand why. I kind of did because it was tied to these like

helper characters, but I was like, I guess you have to like send helpers in to. Yes. And I was like, I guess I should have spent more time getting helpers, but then I realized, oh wow, I haven't finished the main mission yet. I want to do that before we talk about it. And as I kind of pulled back, I realized I was

like eight layers deep of not knowing what I was supposed to do. And I like you can build up your base, but I'm not sure why I should build up my base. Again, I had already mentioned that I didn't have the knowledge points to use my ability points. So all of these things on their own are cool. I think when you really understand the game and you know the system, they probably work well, but it requires, one, that you spend the time to like learn every individual part of the system, and then two, that you bring your own self-control to not getting pulled down any one avenue for too long. It's hard not to feel like Assassin's Creed games,

in particular, are maybe the worst current AAA franchise for the Besties podcast. No, no, no. Geez, Russ taking some big swings. Wow. For the Besties podcast specifically, because I think these games are designed to be played in the way that like, I just buy Madden every year.

I think people that are South Creek fans buy, maybe they buy one game and they play it over the course of six to 10 months. And that's what, this game feels so dense of all of those systems at play that I think, I enjoyed my time with it, but I think it is not designed for a just short- I don't know if I enjoyed my time with it,

but I did spend a lot of time with it and wanted to keep spending more time on it. And I think that it would be, it's always that thing with Assassin's Creed games that bothers me, like there's super rewarding stuff, right? Like there's a narrative, there's a story that people have worked really hard on and it's like, it looks incredible.

I just wish like the time, it didn't require so much time of me to like manage systems and stuff, to get at the stuff that's really interesting. Like I like all the content. It's just like, it's not hard to make compelling systems. Like there's lots of big games where the systems are understandable, right?

Like, and the leveling is understandable, and like, you can understand system, like the size of it. Including Assassin's Creed games. I mean, for me, I know what you mean, Fresh, and I think that's right. I think people who listen to the show, who really just like,

are cool spending as much time as possible in a world, and are fine with some of that being like, hey, that's like real six out of 10 energy in exchange for the 10 out of 10. This is for you. That said, Odyssey is an amazing game, and what Odyssey does is it traps you on an island at the beginning, and you leave that island

once you understand how the game works. Yeah. And I think that's the problem here is... I mean, Breath of the Wild does the same thing. Yeah. And it's a great solution. And here I am, you know, I don't know. I'm probably like somewhere between 15 to 20 hours

into this game. And I'm still bashing my head against some of the systems. That's just kind of weird. I had another question for you. You know, while I was playing this, I think it's fair to say that I was thinking of some other games in this milieu and ghosts of Tsushima kept coming to mind and the thing specifically that came to mind was there was like a lot of like Visual design stuff in ghosts of Tsushima, which I wouldn't describe as realistic

But I would describe as striking and I wasn't getting that same striking, like picturesque aspect from this game. What? You don't think so? Well, I think this is just taste. I'm the opposite. Are you talking about picturesque or are you talking about like artistic flair? Because this game is obviously like super picturesque. It loves how picturesque it is. Yeah, sorry.

Flair is a better way to describe it. It makes you look at it and will not let you skip the synchronization sequences, even if you're somebody that gets really easily bored watching a camera spin around an environment for 30 seconds. I got the zoomies, guys. Let me go kill someone. Thank you.

I think it's flare. I guess that's the answer. It's like you don't have that like golden sundown moment that you get from a Ghost of Tsushima or the like poppy fields that are just like, oh, I could, this is my fucking wallpaper. This feels like more like, I guess the analog would be like Death Stranding,

which is like at a glance, not necessarily like a flary environment, but it is like picturesque or like a spot you would wanna take a vacation to. I will, I'd like to touch on something that I felt while playing this game, and I think it's so close to ephemeral, but I wanted to touch on it, is that I understand,

I think you're totally dead on about getting around in the open world feeling weird. I will say that I felt like stealthing through the natural world was actually pretty pleasant. I think that they do a good job of like Integrating the landscape in a way where it doesn't feel like you're fighting it as much as it is like you're kind of using it To your advantage. I think it that feels pretty good a lot of shrubs It's a lot of shrubs the forest actually look and feel like forests as in they're hard to get around and when you're up high

They look like a forest in a way they just don't in video games yeah and there is this amazing feeling in the game where you come out of a forest like was I even really supposed to walk through that area and suddenly you're in a field dawn is breaking over this little village and you know that you're just about to wreck shit in it. And that feels incredible. That to me is when it, again, it's the, going through the forest, six out of 10. Approaching a village at dawn, ready to kick some ass,

10 out of 10. And if you can make that exchange, you're in a pretty good spot. I don't know if, for me, if you're someone, if you're an Assassin's Creed fan, like we've said on this, I feel like we're pretty, we feel pretty confident that like it's a pretty good one of those. Unless you're deep in the lore, I have no idea how the broader Assassin's Creed lore

is being addressed here. I don't think I can talk to you if you're deep in the lore of Assassin's Creed. If you're deep in the lore, actually, you should listen to another podcast. You're not welcome here, but. I know we're running long on this segment, but that's the strangest part is you're right, once you start the game, good luck. It's going to be a long time until you start to tie in everything else. You get a little nibble at the beginning.

But every time you load the game, it the game, it assumes you must be the biggest Assassin's Creed lore fan on the planet, because you can actually cycle through the other characters that you played as in other games. They're trying to make an Animus for you. Yeah, they're trying to make this giant mega Assassin's Creed game, where it looks like at any moment you could switch to any of the other AC games. So yeah, it's... It's very ambitious. I think there's no reason to think that the...

It is weird. They've set up a UI that looks like something that they cannot do, but you're right, Flint. That's what it looks like. Who do you want to explore as today? It's like, that's a different video game. I do not own that. Yeah.

Yeah, they've talked about working on this for many years of like having the equivalent of the Call of Duty app for Assassin's Creed. It does not work in this context because as we've all talked about, like not all, most of these games are not even supported on the platform you're playing it on. So, ooh.

I do think though, if you wanted to at some point get me, I think that they could do, I would do Animus as a subscription service that isn't just like Assassin's Creed games, but like some of these like more historical environments that you could go explore at will, right? For a monthly fee, you can go look around Egypt whenever you want, go explore these other places.

I'd do that. Why are you turning this into a monthly fee, Justin? You could just- Because I have a subscription, sales, I want it to actually happen. And I'm trying to keep- I think they had that for free though, I think, or they sold it for $5 where you like explore a fucking-

I like that. Yeah, I'm saying as a unified thing, right? Unified. Give you a unified app that's all, it's the history book of Assassin's Creed. Yeah, and you can go explore. Yeah, as any character. That's sure to bring Ubisoft from the brink of-

That's gonna save everything. I don't know what I was gonna say. I think if you like Assassin's Creed, you're gonna like this. I don't know if I was gonna say. I think if you like Assassin's Creed, you're gonna like this. I don't know if it does enough to differentiate itself from like to go back to where we talked about. I don't know if it does enough to differentiate itself from the other games that are very, very,

very similar to this. I mean, we are getting into like nitty gritty again, but like this goes to Shusima, Sekiro. There was a way of the samurai. What was that one, the Sony one that we played like two years ago with the glider? Rise of the Ronin? Rise of the Ronin, very similar. It's very similar.

I don't know that it does enough. And I don't know that it, you know, it's funny. There is a meditation mini game in this. And it is a mini mini game in this. And it is a mini game where you try, they try to give you the approximate feel of meditating. And it is a mini game where you can meditate and mess up at meditating.

And there's like a little bong, you messed up meditating. It's like, okay, guys, with all due respect, we don't need to bring every element. You're right. I mentioned that to Griffin. He's like, compare that to Wanderstub for a second. Like, how are these two things approaching the same idea? I don't know that it does enough to separate those,

where if you play a lot of games, or if you played other games in this genre, I don't know that there's enough here to separate it. Because even during this conversation, we've been trying to figure out which mechanics are which game, right? Like trying to remember like, wait, was this this you could do this in?

Like, I don't know that it feels different enough. I personally, I liked Rises, Ruin and more. And I know that game got kind of buried, but I just liked the freedom of it. I mean, realistically, what I want is not something that's narrative driven and this is incredibly narrative driven. Yeah. And I don't think the narrative and this is incredibly narrative driven. Yeah.

And I don't think the narrative in this is particularly noteworthy. Did you guys do English or Japanese? English or Japanese? I did do English voiceover, yes. I did Japanese, but I think it might be more of a historical Japanese because I was like, real like some of these games,

listen, I do not understand Japanese when I play these games, but I can pick through it, and I was like really overwhelmed by it. I did a plant, okay, for whatever it's worth, you know more Japanese than me, but I had a very similar experience where I can like listen to Japanese with text on the screen and like connect a couple of things,

but like, and that's not weird. There's whole tenses of the language now that I don't know. There's formal tenses of the Japanese that I don't understand, right? There's like, I understand very little, but it was like... Yeah. It was really hard to grab. Yeah, I... One last thing of the Ubisoft of it all.

It feels like they knew this was the last great bet that they were going to make and they went all in and fresh you mentioned Rise the Ronin. A challenge that I have with this game and where the series has been trending anyway is they want it to be everything for everyone. And they wanna make sure they're offering something in there that will make sure that somebody buys it.

And that, in my experience, often got in the way of me finding the thing I probably would enjoy doing the most. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was having trouble finding my way through the sheer density of stuff. Yeah. It's not, yeah, I don't know. finding my way through the sheer density of stuff. Yeah.

It's not, yeah, I don't know. I'm very curious how this came down. I'm very curious where this reason is. I really think people that will spend 80 hours will, if, look, you come home from a long day of work, you have an hour, you play through it, you have an experience, and then you have, you know you have that for the next six months of your life.

I think there are people that want that. Yeah. I don't. I just, again, Russ, I do wanna push back against that because we do long games a lot here. This isn't that. It's like, how rewarding is the time? And that's the issue that I have is like,

you spend, if that time is valuable, you don't wanna spend it fucking around with systems. You wanna spend it playing. Yeah, I agree with that. And I feel like that is what is hurting. I mean, part of the other issue is valuable, you don't want to spend it fucking around with systems. You want to spend it playing. Yeah, I agree with that. And I feel like that is what is hurting. I mean, part of the other issue is like, the experience that we had, I mean, plant played longer than we do,

but in the first five, 10 hours, it's all fucking systems. You're buried in systems. And some of that is like a mistake. They should spread that stuff out or figure out a way to better tutorialize it. Obviously, once you understand what's going on and you know, oh, I need to recruit these guys to do this, et cetera, et cetera, there's less of that.

But I agree with you. It's very front loaded. And it's just a piece of advice for that. Don't make my mistake. Follow the main quest, I suspect, for the beginning. Because I just started exploring every corner of the map I could. And I think that was an issue where I, again,

am not getting into some pretty basic functionality. Yeah, you'll hit walls where it's like, you don't have this thing to do this thing, and that sucks, that's not a good feeling. Yeah, and that sucks to find out, but it's like the cost of letting you have as much freedom as you do, and letting them put as much stuff in,

you don't feel that editorial hand. It reminds me of that plant we were saying earlier, it reminded me of that Mark Twain quote, I didn't have time to send a short letter, so I sent a long one. If this feels like that, right? This feels like a lot of competent teams making really competent stuff,

and no one at the top saying like this, but not this. Yeah, cut this, cut this, cut this, yeah. Great, let's take a quick break. And then when we come back, we're gonna check in on the Game Developers Conference with our man on the street, Chris Platt. Chris, tell us about, man, when you say it out loud, it sounds like the most boring fucking shit imaginable.

The Game Developers Conference, obviously we love game developers here, but. That was one of your better ones. Saying Game Developers Conference out loud sounds so boring. He says, from the hosting seat of a video game podcast. Like, what are you talking about? It's also a conference I actually genuinely-

Learning about how games are developed, meeting and greeting, networking, snore. I don't know what it is. I love that conference. I love attending that conference. It is, it's great., snore. I don't know what it is. I love that, I love attending that conference. It is, it's great. But, yeah, I don't know, it sounds incredibly fucked up. You know what, I think there's a little bit of a thing that I think a lot of journalists, I don't know,

this was always my experience at GDC, it's such a cool thing and you are an outsider and you feel that more at Game Developers Conference than anywhere else because it is a conference for game developers and you wanna an outsider and you feel that. More at Game Developers Conference than anywhere else because it is a conference for game developers and you wanna feel like more on the inside of that but it is a little bit like looking outside looking in. That's how I felt when I traveled to Japan.

It was a similar vibe where it's like, I just wanna absorb all the things around me but it's very different from my day-to-day life. So it was cool. So true, they're identical. Japan and San Francisco's game of- It's just a personal analogy, Jesus. Wow, they're being hard on you today, Russ.

I'm sorry, man. They're not gonna like this. So we talked about it on Arresties that folks can hear, and maybe you already have heard on the Patreon. I'll spare people the nitty gritty of the GDC thing itself. But I will talk about what the mood was at GDC, which was weird. The great thing about going to GDC is it's kind of

a taste of the state of the industry. They have these sub-summits where it's like, AI, here's 30 panels on AI. And you go and you get a sense of who's feeling confident and who's not. And the answer is nobody is feeling confident. It's not like you go to the AI panels and everybody's like, it's going to be great, but like this is where the money is. No, there's a general sense of fear and malaise that I would say bounced off the walls. The weird thing though is there were a number of people that I spoke with who were doing well in the sense there is I don't really wanna talk about it.

I don't wanna make a big thing of it because there's also an anxiety of things are so bad. I don't wanna be the person over here who's like, well, actually my studio is thriving and I'm feeling great. of things are so bad i don't wanna be the person over here who's like well. Actually my studio is thriving and i'm feeling great so it was this kind of weird vibe of a lot of people feeling bad and the people who are doing well really, taking a victory lap at an awkward time. Well, yeah, it does seem like the number of people doing well is probably very small compared to the number of people that are, like, kind of struggling right now. Yeah, I think that is almost certainly right. It's also strange because GDC is, as Hoob's mentioned, a great place for networking.

It's where a lot of students go to learn from, you know, kind of industry veterans. And it is where more junior employees could go to get new jobs. But it cost a lot to go. I can go and get a press pass, but it cost a small fortune to go if you are a normal person. And money is tight right now.

Money is tight for individuals, but it's also tight for companies who are not just going to drop a ton of cash to send 30 employees like they may have done in the past. Maybe they send just a couple now. So it felt smaller in a way than it used to. So yeah, it's certainly not dying by any means, in the same way that the video game industry itself is not dying, but both of them are going through pretty clear change. And you can tell that people are uncomfortable with the growing pains. Did you get to like, I know they have the section of one of the halls dedicated to like very bizarre input devices.

No, I didn't, I didn't get to do it. So it's called alt GDC and people should Google this and you can see whatever was there this year. But this is usually when fresh and I would go together our favorite spot. Like, can you give an example of the type of thing that you would see there? I feel like I played a game where I was drumming on a butt. I might be imagining that.

Probably. That sounds right. But that seems like something I did. I did see a video of someone. There was a game. Maybe it was Patches played this, Matt Patches at Polygon, where you have to like pet a dog, like a furry dog. And that was the input device.

But it was like a stuffed animal dog. So there's like all sorts of stuff, there's like one where it's like you're eating noodles, and that's like the way you interact with the game. I always love, that's always like my favorite part of the show. Yeah, there was one that I remember that was a single line of LED strip light, and they had coded a game using that single line of light and it was fantastic but yeah it's all these kind of like challenges like that. It does seem weird though because like the my like days of yore when I would cover GDC always had the like the indie part of it was always so scrappy and we're

talking about like 15 years ago where people would just like show up with a laptop and just like do their best and I'm sure that's still happening but like then you look at like the indie game awards and it's like basically a lot of games that you already know and were already like super successful and it's just it's just like the industry has changed in that way and it kind of bums me out that there doesn't seem to be as much of a megaphone for those micro devs. You say that, but so the IGF, the independent games festival is the award show that happens during this each year. And the winner was a game by a team of,

I think, four or five people, a game called consume me Me, but... It's pronounced Consume. Huh? Huh? It's pronounced Consume. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha.

Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. The level of pride. I wish people could see your face right now. Just beaming. Yeah, it's a weird time for the industry. And it's a weird time to be young people in it. I think that is you're right, the scrappiness that you're talking

about, fresh, there would be there's a park right in the center of the convention center, called your VaBoeina Gardens. And it was something different kind of every year. Like some years it felt like all the college kids had really taken it over and made it their own. Or kind of an anti GDC movement had taken it over and made it this like, hey, if that's the expensive thing, we're going to give free courses out here. And it could always be something. And this year there was no kind of main gimmick. Nobody had taken the throne of like what you're going to use that space for. And I think that is where again you kind of feel this like sapping of energy where, oh, you know, there's not...

You can almost tell something is like's significance by its counter movement. And they're not being one is, is kind of like a bummer in a weird way. Uh, but there's always next year, you know, do you have the sense that, uh, there used to be a, I feel like a GDC thing where it was a place where game developers would often say things that would make headlines because we didn't let game developers talk a lot back then. Yeah. So sometimes I'm speaking specifically in this instance of when Chris Hecker said that the Wii was basically two GameCubes duct taped together.

If you guys remember that maelstrom. That was also the Phil Fish quote about JRPGs was from GDC. Right, exactly. That used to be a... Is that still... Do you still... Do you get the sense that you have a lot of people, like, listening? Like, you can still, like, change the conversation at GDC? I think it's less in that... Hmm. It's less in that people are just more cautious, I think.

Post Gamergate, post all social media brouhaha's. I mean, that people are just more cautious. I think post Gamergate post all social media Brujajas, I mean that's just such a different time. It's also a different time where people would say that stuff and a few years earlier the people who had report on it worked at like EGM and they only had so much space in the magazine and by the time it was for published they would forget that they even wanted to include it where suddenly you had the joysticks, the Kotaku's, the Destructoids of the world where if you said anything like that, they were, that poster was up within five minutes. Right. I mean, I, I'm sure you remember that period where somebody said something like that and

you're like, my bills are paid for the week. I got my laptop on here. I've got this crappy little wifi-Fi hotspot extender. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think everybody's gotten a bit more shrewd about all of it, for better or for worse. Let's see, what is, you wanna talk about readermail? We'll see what people are.

Yeah, we have a few quick readermail things. These are actually from a couple weeks ago, but obviously you guys weren't here last week, so I wanted to save them. This is from Slec. The way you describe Wanderstop reminds me of Monk the Robot Books by Becky Chambers. The first one is named A Psalm for the Wild Built,

and they're pretty short novellas. They're about a tea monk and their wild robot friend with motivation similar to Wander and see the books are relaxing or Refreshing to read highly recommended. That's cool. And I also want to call it this Luke Mail Griffin mentioned that the wander stop soundtrack isn't going immediately into his listen at work List I'm always looking for good ambient video game music to throw on at work. What are the besties top tracks? Anything jump to mind? Juice?

I was just kidding. I don't listen to a lot of video game soundtracks in my... I'll shout out one that I've listened to from time to time, apart from the obvious, like the Stardew Valley to the world, Stardew Valley is like a staple. Packing, that game Packing, was that what italleys like a staple. Um, packing that game packing. Was that what it was called or unpacking? Now I'm forgetting unpacking.

Unpacking, I think the game was called unpacking. Sorry. Uh, unpacking had a great soundtrack. Uh, and I've definitely turned to that as just like a productivity soundtrack option. Um, it's not super long, but it is quite good. Uh, plant, do you have any ambient, uh ambient video game soundtracks you listen to for vibes? Not a big video game soundtrack person because I find it a bit repetitive because I think it's supposed to be when you're in the game.

What about the Nier games? Yeah, I'll listen to Nier now and then. I'll go to a Nier concert now and then. I'll go to a Nier concert in Japan and then in Los Angeles. No big deal. It's not a big thing. I have two that I actually am looking through my writing playlist now that I listen to a lot. The Bastion soundtrack. Oh, yeah. I do listen to a lot. That's great. I love the way that thing is orchestrated.

That's part of my thing with video game music. I like that sort of more folk sound where you can hear more of the instrumentation stuff. That's really, really good for that. You know, the other one, this is like, you guys, I guarantee you have not even thought about this game for 100 years, because I'd have never heard that sort of more folk sound where you can hear more the instrumentation stuff that's really good for that. You know the other one, this is like, you guys, I guarantee you have not even thought about this game for a hundred years, because I definitely haven't.

But if you remember Remember Me? Oh yeah. That was a soundtrack that the, let's see, it was by Oliver Derivier. I don't know, listen to that one, it's very cool, because that was a game about like time manipulation and the soundtrack does cool stuff with like the sound warping back in on itself and stuff.

But that's a really cool game soundtrack that I still listen to regularly. Those are the only two. Cool. And oh, Elder Scrolls. Do you actually listen to the Elder Scrolls soundtrack? When I need to get there, you know? I need to get pumped.

Remind myself that I am the Dovahkiin, you know. That's a different... Should we do some honorable mentions? Fus Ruh. Fus Ruh, don't rain on my parade. Thank you. I have an honorable mention. I wanted to talk about Noita, which is a game that I just recently learned how to pronounce, because I've been saying Noita for about four years. I talked a little bit about it last week with Griffin, and I've played more since.

And man, this game is so fucking up my alley. It is basically Spelunky and Binding of Isaac mashed together in like... But I would say I think it is difficult to a detriment of the game. And so I would echo what I said last week, which is please install some quality of life mods. Is that the game changer for you? Because you've played this before. Yeah, I have. I know. I know. I played this before. Like, you played this a couple years ago. Yeah, I have. I know. I know, I played it before, and the game, the game is so genius in its systems,

but like, the big chunk of the systems doesn't even reveal itself until you get past the first level, and most people, I think, just die constantly in the first level. Okay. And I don't think in this case, it necessarily helps the game to keep a lot of that stuff secret.

There are tons of secrets in the game and like weird esoteric like alchemy shit. That fine, you wanna keep that a secret, that's fine. But like the game does not tutorialize the fact that you can build these very intricate wands that have like infinite combinations of like interactions with the world. And there's just so much of it that I think is just

obscured by the fact that it's a very difficult game that you get one shot immediately. So this is less of a recommendation, more of a criticism for the people that made it and how they should change it, right? I'm not asking them to change it. I think they should change it, because I'd like to play it.

So fix the things that Russ is saying, and then I'll play it. Well, good should change it, because I'd like to play it. So fix the things that Russ is saying, and then I'll play it. Well, good news, Justin, because they do support Steam Workshop, which makes it incredibly easy to add mods. Allowing other people to fix it is not the same as fixing it, Russ. And I'm not a fan of this gig economy.

I already provided some mods that I'd recommend. There's a great health container mod. There's a mini map mod that I think was really good. And all that stuff has just allowed me to appreciate the game in ways that I couldn't before in the same way that like Binding of Isaac gets infinitely more approachable and enjoyable when you have the item description mod installed

that lets you know what you're picking up. So. Do you think, Russ, can I ask you something? Do you feel like that is, we've never really talked about this, but I think it's interesting. As a mental thing, do you think that is, we've never really talked about this, but I think it's interesting. As a mental thing, do you think that is a legitimate game design path

is to say like, if I put it in the game, then that's part of the game. So the pure experience is without these. But I do understand, like, is it a mental trick? Like putting it outside the bounds of the video game itself makes it so that you're not necessarily approaching it with those things in mind. Like is it-

Are you talking about me or are you talking about the developers? I'm talking about how you feel about that as a design thing. How do you feel- And when you say that, you mean adding Steve Warshot? The idea of recommending a game, but the game is designed to let people mod it to make it different than it is,

like to make it easier or more accessible. Like, cause I always get in my head about like, well, then is this like cheats? Like what am I, I don't know what experience you want me to be having, I guess is my question. I mean, well, here's what I did, is I played a lot of the game without mods and experienced like the game as intended

and found that I wasn't able to see as much of the game as I wanted to. So the way I was able to get around that was by using mods. And they- This is the thing I'm interested in. Obviously that's valid. Would you prefer that be part of the game

or is it better for you to be outside the bounds of that mentally? Is it different? Is it different to have? No, I would rather it be part of the game because I think it opens, it makes it much easier for me to recommend this than saying in addition to downloading the game,

install these mods, I'd rather just be like, pop into settings, turn this on, turn this on, turn this on. I'd rather it be built in. I understand it can't always be built in and honestly, like a lot of these things are pretty intricate additions on top of a game that is already very intricate, so it's possible it creates more instability

by having some of these on. But yeah, no, I guess I answered your question. I mean, it's tough, because the ones you recommended for Binding of Isaac really unlocked it for me. I mean, I spent dozens of hours in that after those little tweaks, like. Yeah. And I think that's, it's a similar situation with Noita.

You know, there's also a really strong YouTube community of people making content around the game, explaining it and like how wand crafting works, things like that. It's been great. I'm playing on Steam Deck. I think it's probably easier to play with a mouse and keyboard, but it is playable on Steam Deck. It's just a little more challenging.

It sounds like it does not need that. It sounds like it does not need any more challenge than it already has. There is a mentality that I have about when I'm adding mods. I'm like, well, if I was playing on mouse and keyboard, it would be harder. So let me see if I could balance things out, you know, be easier. So let me see if I could balance things out. You know, be easier, so let me see if I could balance things out. So, Noite is great. It means witch in Finnish.

Oh! Interesting. Um, I am playing Blueprints. Still under embargo. But I'm talking about the demo. I don't, yeah. I don't even want you to talk about the demo. Okay, well, I'm going to let people know that I'm having a nice time playing the demo.

Yes. On Blueprints. Okay. It's a great game. Don't tell me secrets. Did you guys figure out the secret of the title? I figured this out. I did yesterday when Griffin said it.

Yeah, I told Griffin, live on the show, I told Griffin. Yeah, and I experienced it too. You see, Prince is normally known for being purple, but now he's blue. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, sorry for being obnoxious on this episode, y'all. Wait, sorry, that was pre-recorded. I just have that saved as a bumper.

Let me play it again, hold on. Sorry for being obnoxious on this episode, y'all. Who was winning that? Well, it was gonna be Blueprints honestly so I don't know nada jack shit what did I oh okay I played the entirety of a game about digging a hole. Oh. I had a lot of flights so I played all the game about digging a hole. What is the game called? A game about digging a hole. No no no game called? A game about digging a hole. No, no, no, but what's the actual game called?

So you're right. So that's fun. You start with a... You guys already give the pitch on this. I don't want to get the full... No, we haven't done this game. You haven't done it? Yeah, Griffin mentioned it. I think maybe on a different episode,

but he said it in passing. It's a game about digging a hole. You show up at... It is a 3D thing, is a three dimensional first person game where you show up at a house that you've purchased and you are told that there is treasure in the backyard at the bottom of this, somewhere in the backyard,

there's treasure and you get a very bad shovel and you're encouraged to start digging. And when you dig- God, I hope you can upgrade that shovel. Oh, good news, man. You can upgrade the shovel. You can start digging and you find minerals. You take the minerals back with you to your shed.

And at the shed, you sell the minerals and you can upgrade your digging. You can buy a lamp to make the digging go better. You can power up your jet pack to make getting out of your gigantic hole better and As you start digging deeper you start finding Like other dirt and more dirt that you can't break through right away. So you got to get a better shovel yeah, keep digging down and

it is Very pleasurable. Do you think it's like a click? Is this a clicker? It's not, it's not. It's really, it's more about the exploration, right? Do you know what it reminded me of? Okay, I watched a lot of Curse of Oak Island, okay? And on Curse of Oak Island, if you don't know, it's this show about these aging brothers,

everybody's aging, middle-aged brothers, old men, that go out to this island in Canada where there is supposed to be treasure. Everyone knows there's not treasure, but we all have to pretend there's treasure for the TV show. And as they dig down, every once in a while, they'll be like, hey, we found wood fibers that date back 600 years.

We gotta keep digging here. What's fun about this game is that you'll be digging and then you'll hit like something weird. It's like, I don't know what this is. So I'm gonna excavate this thing to figure out what I'm looking at here. That's fun and that's the whole thing. That's it.

It's just about digging around the yard, excavating. There's obviously a, it is obviously doing the video game loop of like a very concentrated version of you get the thing, you get the more powerful thing. But it is, you're not gated with any of that, right? So you could dig through the whole yard with just the basic shovel if you wanted to,

but why would you? Imagine telling your, let's say 10 year old self that you played two games this week. For one of them, it's like $200 a month. It is a one-to-one recreation of feudal Japan. You get to play as two awesome characters, amazing story. It looks real. Like it looks like real. It's like a movie.

Like real. It's like a movie. And like, you can ride a horse, you can climb up mountains. The other one, you can dig a hole in the backyard It doesn't really look like a bag. It doesn't look like much of anything and there are different types of dirt I don't know. It's like maybe like an hour long no guns And they're like, oh great. So like good thing you didn't have to play that dirt one very long. No, no, no, no I'm sorry. No, no, no, no. I played all that and went back and there was an achievement and I played some more of it

So yeah, that's the one that I was really. That sounds fucking sick. I got like legit, that sounds sick. It's great. Well, here's what I will say. I've made more space in my heart for things that just bring me pleasure and calm. And it was, I turned on a book

and I dug around in this yard and I made a like a nine hour flight just disappear. And it was amazing. Oh, very quick, very quick. I have a book for you specifically, Hoops. I think you will love. This will be my thing since I can't talk about Blueprints. Everything Must Go.

It's a non-fiction critical history of apocalypse fiction, starting with the Torah and the Bible all the way up to like last of us. And it is fantastic. And it is that sweet spot where you can listen to it like you would a podcast and still be able to get your chores done and drive. There's some nonfiction that I listened to where I'm like, too dense, can't listen to it while driving, well, you run off the road. This is right in that sweet spot, and it is so good, and has also just recommended so many books

that I wanna read now along kind of the journey of the book. It is awesome. Cool. All right, cool. We talked for so long even without Griffin. Yeah. Crazy. Griffin and I did a long one too, just us two.

It's like we're not as anxious to get off when there's not four people screaming at each other. Maybe that's it. It's just more pleasant to conduct. It's just a better show with three people. I wanted to thank some folks over at the Patreon, patreon.com slash the besties, some new members that have joined us,

James, Sarah, Ashland, and The Eagle. Thank you for joining us over there. You can gift subscriptions to the besties at patreon.com slash besties slash gift if you wanna get that for someone. We also have a bunch of merch for our besties specifically. We have a nice bestie shirt. There's like a challenge coin that has New York draft on it. There's like cool shit in the merch store. It's the McElroy merch store. I

don't know how to get there but I'm sure you could Google it and search bestie stuff and it'll it'll pop up. I think we have a good sale going on right now for that stuff. So keep an eye out next week Next week's a big week the switch 2 is being announced next week, I imagine we'll probably do something on that and Maybe other games Yeah, Adam fall one one other note We have a new episode of the rest he's up One other note, we have a new episode of The Rest is Up, but the ending got cut off a little bit short.

Oh no. And we were going to do a re-upload of that, so people will know how that picks. Sorry about that. I don't know how that happened. Don't worry, I'll take care of y'all. Well, that's gonna do it for us for this week on The Besties.

Be sure to join us again next week for The Besties, because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games? Besties!