The Besties - Is This the Year of Prince of Persia?

Episode Date: June 7, 2024

Prince of Persia is back — again! For the second time this year, Ubisoft has released a new Prince of Persia game that shifts the series to a new genre. Rogue Prince of Persia is, as the name suggests, a roguelike. Built by the team that steered Dead Cells through its later updates, Rogue Prince of Persia builds on that game’s formula in clever ways. But! In a market full of killer games in this genre, where does this new one stand? 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, we just took a trip to Utah, and we brought along my young child who managed. There was some projectile vomiting, but that's okay. That happens with children. The thing that I found to be most disturbing of the entire trip, even though it was mostly good, was on the flight back, directly in front of my seat, was a person playing Animal Well. And if you want wanna know the most stressful scenario I could ever be put in. Oh my God, Russ Frush.

Oh my God, that sounds designed for you. That's a Twilight Zone episode. That's your good place, like, eternal torture test. Did your, as soon as you saw the screen, your glasses fall from your nose and break on the ground. Like, it's not fair! It gets, y'all, it gets so much worse. I'm watching the guy play.

He had just booted, it was the very beginning of the game. And he approaches the first, very first enemy, which is the little flying ghost thing that insta-kills you when it touches you. Tries to jump on his head like Mario. And he proceeds to try to like do the crank repeatedly and just keeps dying to the thing. And it's trying to like-

Oh my God, you don't go for the crank first. You gotta get the firecrackers, you dummy. And he's trying to like juke out the ghost and like jump over it and like move around it. And there's a fucking path all the way just to the North West. Just go up that fucking path and like run away from it. It's clearly killing you repeatedly and I'm like do I do I tap this guy on the shoulder I kind of want to like go and just like do top of the

head kind of move just that wouldn't be patronizing at all especially a stranger especially and then he fucking quit after ten minutes of dying and I was like, this is... Well, it's hard. It's not for everyone. It's not for everyone. YOLO, you know? What would be worse if somebody did this to you, Griffin or Hoops, that somebody taps

you on the head and then gives you the answer to the thing that you were doing in the video game? Yeah. Or just knowing that while you were struggling with a video game before turning it off, that some weirdo was behind you. Was watching, yeah. You did make the correct choice, Russ, not from your own personal anxieties,

but from the fact that if you said like, and I'm gonna be watching you for the rest of the flight, just to make sure, also I would posit that if this dude can't figure that out, maybe he ain't cut out for a whole animal well. You know what's really funny is that's the part that Chris Plant texted me about. Chris did.

When he first started playing, he's like, I just keep getting killed by the ghost. You thought my fault was a bad game? I think the pro move, Russ,, as you're walking off the plane, you just whisper in his ear something that'll break the whole case wide up. Like he didn't know you're watching, then as you're off like,

the 17th egg is glass. Yeah. He's like, whoa, what? Wait, the 17th egg, of course! I'm Billy Basso, and I have been the whole time. No one really knows what he looks like, I could be. I think he's actually been fairly public-faced. If you look across the aisle

and notice that Billy Basso is there, is it then worse or better for you? That's how you know. Do you feel like you can sleep at that point and it's Billy's hell? That's how you know it is someone's hell and you're in it because of the bad things you did in your life. Which I'll list for you.

All we can say for sure is it's hell. That's what Russ is saying. My name is Justin McElroy and I know the best game of the week. My name is Griffin McElroy and I know the best Prince of Persia of the week. My name is Christopher Thomas Plant and I know the best game of the week. My name is Russ Frusik and I know the second best 2D side scrolling Prince of Persia game of the week. My name is Russ Frusjic and I know the best, second best 2D side scrolling Prince of Persia game of the year. Welcome to Besties where we talk about the latest

and greatest in home interactive entertainment. It is a video game club and just by listening right now to this audio file, you've become a member of our illustrious ranks. This week we're gonna be talking about the rogue Prince of Persia. Uh, what's that? And I mean it this time.

A lot of times that's a setup, but like what, what? Yeah. So that's a, it's a great question. This is a different Prince of Persia than the most recent Prince of Persia we played. And I understand why people might be confused because before this, they just weren't in the business of making Prince of Persia games for a long time. Now they're back and they are back hard. It's basically a rogue-like but Prince of Persia. I love it.

Okay, so Chris Plant, the obvious headline here is the connection between this and Dead Cells, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the support team for Dead Cells, which Fresh reminded me had been like effectively making a lot of the Dead Cells updates over the past couple of years. Yeah, there's some- I think five years, right?

It's been a while. I'll give you like a brief, very brief history of where Dead Cells, so Dead Cells launched, it was made by Motion Twin, and then Evil Empire basically came in while Motion Twin was working on their new game, which is a game that I don't remember the name of, but it looked kinda neat.

Windswept? Windswept sounds right. And so while that was going on, Evil Empire was basically focused on all of the updates that were happening in Dead Cells, which were, if you were keeping track, Fucking radical. Great. Windblown, by the way. And a lot of them. Windblown. There was a shitload of updates, including happening in Dead Cells, which were, if you were keeping track. Fucking radical. Great.

And a lot of them. Windblown. There was a shitload of updates, including like a Castlevania one and a bunch of like story driven DLC, blah, blah, blah, so on and so forth. So that, so Evil Empire is the team that went ahead and made this game, which is Rogue Prince of Persia,

obviously using a lot of the framework of Dead Cells, but making some tweaks to the loop and to the gameplay to make it feel distinct from Dead Cells. But I would say the comparison is after, it's about 70% Dead Cells. Yeah, yeah, that's about right. I will say it feels definitely structurally like Dead Cells. I think they've made a couple of really interesting tweaks

to just the base combat. I would say that like the basic combat of this is more robust than Dead Cells without the weapon variety that Dead Cells has right now. What it has, the two I would say most prominent is, one, you have a vault button, which is on the face, which is weird, right? Like I can't think of, it's basically mirroring

that movement that you do in a lot of these games, pretty much everyone, where you're jumping over, turning around, attacking the back. Right, yeah. And this has a button that lets you do that right away. And it ties power-ups to it. If you vault over somebody, you'll throw daggers at them.

So that's cool. Yeah, I mean, Dead Cells for Wordsworth had a dodge button, but it wasn't this like up and over kind of move. Right, right. It's a different, it's a little bit different of a vocabulary. And the other thing that is big is there's a kick

that you can use to kick enemies into each other or enemies into traps. It's very quick and springy and works very quickly. And you've got like a charge attack as well. Yes. Yes. That's in every video game in the world. So I wasn't going to mention it, but yes, if you hold down the attack button,

it will do a more powerful version of that attack. What? I don't think so either. I don't think so. Who cares? Like, you know, I think, you know, I was struck with how- It's a different game, Russ. Why think that who cares like you know I think you know I I was struck with a different game Russ why are we even comparing these two? I've lost track. I was struck by how more kind of

Thoughtful, I think the combat is in this game. I feel like in Dead Cells It's very much like I always just try to make a build that just steamrolls Everything as quickly as possible because I like to play that game real fucking fast. And the game actually encourages that. Dead Cells encouraged you to really sprint through either that or go no hit. Those were the two.

Right, it has the timed gates that if you can make it through the first level in less than three minutes you get a bunch of currency that you can spend on these permanent unlocks. This one is very much more like there's shielded enemies. If you can kick one enemy into a shielded enemy it instantly gets rid of their shield. Or if you can kick one enemy into a shielded enemy, it instantly gets rid of their shield. Or if you can kick an enemy into spikes or into a pit,

it kills them instantly. And combat also takes a couple seconds longer. I feel like per fight, enemies have a little bit more health, your weapons aren't these diabolical tactical nukes. And so I don't know, I tried playing this game like dead cells and it didn't work for me.

Yeah. Uh, well, so the, the, the, I think the joy of this game is how you can build on top of that really basic combat system. So eventually you get these effectively like card slots and those card slots have a special boost or powers tied to the different core combat abilities. So for example, there is a jump and down attack that you can have and one of the cards when you use that could cover the area around you in oil.

You keep saying, I think they're medallions. They're medallions but like in video games. It's just if you say cards, people are gonna start expecting a Slay the Spire experience. They're perks,ions, but like in video games. It's just if you say cards, people are gonna start expecting a Slay the Spire experience. They're perks, they're boosts. Yeah, whatever you, yeah. Talismans, whatever.

Yeah. But, so you could do one where you can get that. You could do one where you can, I think, like increase your health every time you do a successful vault over people. You can do like, do a kick and it throws tar on the ground. Yes, and then the long-term, I think, magic of the game is how you decide to tie those things together in two different ways. One is, say you have a tar and then you have another expression where the tar, any tar on the ground

that hits an enemy turns into poison and it poisons them. So now suddenly you can both slow people down and poison them with a single move. The other thing, and this is where it starts to be pretty complicated, is this is where I said like, cards, because it feels kind of to me like a card game in the medallion area where you assign these, is when you assign them, each medallion has the ability

to raise the power of other medallions, either to the ability to raise the power of other medallions, either to the left or to the right. Based on placement. Right, right. Yeah, based on its placement. And you, each medallion, if it is upgraded by other medallions, can become much, much, much more powerful.

So you are motivated to like, both consider the placement of your medallions. Each one has a different, if I could clarify one thing that I think might be- Please. There's four slots for these and each medallion has a certain number of slots. It'll do the slots to the left and right of it,

it will boost, or it'll boost the two to the right of it. Or if you find a particularly strong medallion, it might destroy the medallions in adjacent spots also. So there's a lot of consideration that goes into it. And you might want to put a new medallions in adjacent spots also. So there's a lot of kind of like consideration that goes in many places. And you might want to put a new medallion, say that you fill out all four slots, you might wanna put a new medallion into a spot,

destroying your progress on one of them, because it will help you upgrade one that's more important. It's a smart way of adding variety and shaking up your like build that you wanna do. I think it can reward like a hard pivot away from, rather than just like, okay, I'm just doing all kick stuff in this, in this run or whatever. It's, it's Well, and it does the thing that we've talked about, I think Dead Cell specifically, where you, you make your decision of how the combat is going to feel early and then you work towards

it where this is, hey, we want you to have an evolving experience as you play. Yeah, it's a little more reactive. I will say, I don't know if this is, I've played a few hours of the game, I've done several runs, and I don't know that I found like, very much synergy, and that might just be because there is also the sort of dead cell system

of you find blueprints in the world that then you then can unlock permanently by purchasing those blueprints with a currency that you also discover as you play through the game. But also this game is, I don't think said to this point, in early access. Yeah, I was thinking we should have mentioned that earlier. It feels like there's, I don't know,

it's funny we're doing this right after Hades 2, which felt like pretty fucking fleshed out. I kept getting the feeling with this game of like I've seen most of what it has to offer me so far. I'm really torn on it. I've played it a lot and the playing of it, like just the moment to moment, I think it's pretty good. Like the core loop, I think is solid

and that's probably the most important thing for the nail, but- And the animation is sick. Oh, the animation looks really, I really like the look of it. I love the music is fucking- The music is out of nowhere. It's Persian trap, electronic art.

It's so fucking tight. I think it's, I feel like, and this is none of my business cause I'm not running the place. I don't know the particulars of think it's a, I feel like, and this is none of my business, cause I'm not running the place. I don't know the particulars of Ubisoft's business, but this feels too early to me to be out for public consumption. I think for a big publisher, it is surprising that it's as early as it is.

They've gone ahead and said, the developer, not Ubisoft, have said the intention is to essentially double the amount of content that is in this game where it's at at early access. I don't know how long that's going to remind me though of like it reminds you know the feeling of playing it. It reminds me a lot of Rogue Legacy to where when it launched at launch.

Yeah, like it's it's not that there's not a content for me. It's that the loops aren't constructed well enough right now to where I finish a run and I feel like I wanna hop back in and try again. Some of the big things that I noticed is one, especially early on, the kicking I think is too powerful and it can make going through the early levels kind of mechanical.

Cause if you just kick people enough. Kick everyone. If you just kick everyone, eventually they'll run into each other or a spiked wall, so they gotta shake that up a bit. There's also like, it's not exciting enough to get currency and spend it on upgrades, because what it does is it just kind of adds them to the pool,

which is the thing with Dead Cells 2, right? But you're not getting like an immediate boost out of it. It's not feeling immediately. I don't think the weapons feel different enough. but you're not getting like an immediate boost out of it. It's not feeling immediately. I don't think the weapons feel different enough. Or like, dead sales. I'm wondering something in terms of what you guys played. And maybe I just didn't get there.

There's a very weird way this game unlocks features where when you first start playing that, like finding blueprints, like currency, doesn't show up for like two or three runs. And I still, I've done probably 10 or 11 runs at this point. I still have not seen the way to like, for example, increase the number of health potions that I get. I only have one.

And it seems like that's- So you've saved, wait, you've saved, you've gotten some of the, I think it's called glimmer. You've gotten some. Yes, I've gotten the glimmer. I can unlock weapons. I can unlock like equipment, but I have not seen like, I mean, maybe if you've seen like a meta progression thing that does-

Have you unlocked talismans? I think so. Have you, there's a second guy at camp? Yeah, I found the second guy at camp. With talismans? Yeah. Okay. If you look through his menu, I think there is a health upgrade in there.

It just looked like a potion. But that might have been to make potions show up in the rotation of things. I don't know if it actually... You're touching on something that was huge, there's no expanding your central power. There's no expanding your central health strength. You do not feel like you're just opening up the chance.

You're becoming more powerful. You feel like you're personally becoming more powerful. You feel like you're just getting more options. Yes. This, this is where I'm so torn with this game because we've talked about my opinions on Roguelikes and that I don't particularly enjoy Roguelikes where I feel like I've just spent the first 10, 20 hours grinding to get powerful enough for the computer to decide that I can actually beat the game now. This game is all over the place when it comes to that. The big one is the game is very, very easy

when you are in the normal levels. Very easy. And then you get to a boss fight that is impossible. Just un-fucking-flee- a boss fight that is impossible. Just un-fucking-bleatable. Impossible. It's completely out of whack. But then the other part is, yeah, your character is not itself getting stronger, which on one hand I kind of appreciate, but to just even know what is going on in this game, you have to die many, many, many times to the point where honestly the most effective way to play

this game seems to be- Die a bunch of times right at the start, yeah honestly the most effective way to play this game seems to be... Die a bunch of times right at the start. Yeah. Don't even try to play the game. Yeah, it is just get the basic features. I mean, they withhold so much of the basic features of the game, and I just kept wanting to enjoy the game. And I think with it being early access, it's especially poor because I don't know what is an early access issue

and what's not here. Is the gaming complete or do I need to play another 10 rounds to get some of the basics? There's not a variety in each run to make it where you want to rush back and do it. The early levels feel very similar. There's also some like, they've tried to put in some Prince of Persia style, like sort of obstacle areas that feel a bit more Prince of Persia-y and those don't change as far as I can tell, which feels weird to like do the same little running and jumping puzzle over and over again.

It really removes the dynamics. And it's a bummer because the one or however many that are there feel cool. Yeah, they're fun. When you're doing it, it feels awesome. We didn't really talk about it, but the, you know. Also very easy though. In addition to the combat, the game is like

way more interested in mobility and moving around the map than Dead Cells is. I was gonna say, it's wild we haven't talked about this. The game is like way more interested in mobility and moving around the map than Dead Cells is. Like Dead Cells is- I was gonna say, it's wild we haven't talked about. We should have talked about this. The best, maybe the best wall running mechanic in like a 2D game where, you know, if you can imagine, you know, exploring a big map in Dead Cells,

you can, you start off the game being able to wall run anywhere where there is a wall in the background of the screen. You can then chain that into like, you know, jumping off of a, you know, jumping off of a wall in the foreground of the scene. It like allows you to, or grab onto a pole and swing up it and jump and wall run off of that.

It really shockingly feels a lot like Sands of Time, like the good shit from Sands of Time. I very, I way more enjoyed just sort of getting around the world more than I did the like, the unlocking and progression and all that stuff. That's a problem though too, I think, is that when you're hit, when the mobility is locked in and you're like sort of cruising, it feels bad.

It reminds me of Sonic the Hedgehog, where you like, you get the vibe going and then there's like, oh, there's a guy down there. I should probably go down and attack that guy. And that's one of the other weird, like the maps feel a little too small for how mobile you are. You know what I mean? Like I kept wanting to like have more of a flow

through the level versus like squatting down and pressing the jump button to come through this platform because there's guys below, guys below me. And there's also some weird stuff where like a lot of times you'll be on a platform and you'll look below you and you can't see if it's like a guy or spikes. And it's like, I would like to know if it's a guy or, the prince could look down, right?

He could look down and be like, oh, that's a guy. I'm gonna attack him, right? But you don't have that option a lot. That's not- Yes. Did you get to the point where you can start at different places? Like, yeah, like the different pathways. So there, there was a, yeah, there was one pathway that I opened up that had a lot more verticality and I was like climbing really, really high. I've actually, yeah. Okay. Yeah. And that to

me weirdly felt like the truest version of whatever this game is trying to do because it relied so much on that mobility and moving upwards solved for the small screen problems where it's like, oh, I'm moving at a reasonable clip here. I'm seeing stuff before it gets to me. It is all natural. The other thing is that, that wall kind feels so OP at first because you can infinitely chain,

right? And what running up a sidewall with wall running. So you can run up against a hard sidewall and wall run up. And the way that they respond to that is they start putting holes in the wall. So you have to like create paths that feels so much more like the game.

But then you're right, Justin. I remember I got up to the top of one of these like huge towers and then I just jumped off and it was like, well, I hope there's something at the bottom. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

They do do some little, one thing I kind of dig is they have some like, that feels like progression is they have a mind map that is like, basically you unlock like little story beats in the world, which is like, again, cool. The first time you do it. But at like a lot of the mobility stuff, it's cool. The first time you do it. But like, if the thrill of these games is every time it's a new experience and a new variety, I know how you make combat feel that way.

I'm not sure how you do that with mobility. You know what I mean? Like, make that engaging every time. I think this is a particularly, like, unfortunate case, I feel like, where I am having trouble sort of separating my feelings from how I feel about this game, which I have had some fun with,

from the fact that, like, it is an early access follow-up to an immense fleshed out, honestly perfect, like Dead Cells is a fucking perfect game with so, so much shit going for it. You can play 300 hours of Dead Cells and not see everything. You can play it so much, right? And so to follow it up with this, coming out in early access is is in a lot of ways,

like it compares so unfavorably to that, that I kept finding myself honestly feeling like, you know, I didn't actually crack into all of the Castlevania DLC to Dead Cells, so I kinda just wanna go check it out. It compares, it's in a really rough position, I think. And the reason I think we're talking about, like it is fun to, like-

The loop is good. And the loop is- And that's the hard part to do. Basically fun. Yeah. Like it's like, it is fun. It doesn't compare well to Dead Cells. It doesn't compare well to-

The Lost Crown? Well- Oh, okay. The other Prince of Persia game that came out this year? Hades 2. And that was the third one. It doesn't compare well to Lost Crown. I feel like Lost Crown, like, is doing a lot of this stuff better, you know?

Like, it's very interesting, but I almost feel like this needed six months to become subservient to Lost Crown. Like, we're just picking up that. Like, it does feel... I don't hate the idea that there's a bunch of Princes of Persia running around, but bother me, but it feels like it needed more except for the Jake Gyllenhaal Prince of Persia I don't like that. He's right. I want to tell you my baseless fear And I don't know that it's happening with this game, but it's the fear that I kept going back to while playing it If big publishers like Ubisoft start doing early access, what is preventing them from putting a game out, again, they said they're gonna double the content, putting it out halfway through,

and it's really not halfway through production, I know by the time you get the game up, yada yada yada, but what is preventing them out from putting it out early being like, let's see how it does, and then if we feel like we wanna cut our losses, we're in a position to do that. Right, oh, it only sold 20,000 copies. We're just gonna stop updating it. And then if we feel like we wanna cut our losses, we're in a position to do that. I don't think that's happening this year. We're just gonna stop updating it.

Can I just say though, I mean like, would that be the worst thing in the world? I mean, I understand that like, if the alternative is, you spend twice as much development time and then release something that isn't as successful as you thought and you take a huge hit. I don't think it's the worst thing in the world to be able to cut losses on something that's not working.

Today, when games are as expensive as they are. I think that makes sense that you are the developer and you have your own say over that. And that's kind of what early access' point is. I think that makes sense. What scares me about a publisher like Ubisoft doing it is who is the person making that decision of when does it go live? Because I mean, how often even with like completed games does a game go out?

And then we hear from the developers that, Hey, we thought we needed another year on this, but yeah, it was forced out the door. So in any- You're saying your fear is they'll sell a half finished thing and basically leave the development team, like it'll basically try to cut development costs by just releasing things half finished. Yeah. Although I would have- Or release it half finished and then when it doesn't sell, they'll be like,

look, people just don't want more of it. And the team's like, it's half a game. The pedigree of this studio, I think, is incredibly strong, right? No, if you have not played Dead Cells since launch, the shit that came after is incredible. It is so, so, so good. And I don't doubt that they could turn this into,

I think there's something really fun here, and I think that they can turn it into something really, really neat. I just think that the early access model is working against it actively in this case, and Ubisoft might be so obtuse as to look at that and be like, people hate this fucking gig, get it out. I don't understand the decision to put this out right now.

I legitimately don't. It seems like such a bad time. I understand they want it to build towards something else, but man, it just seems like a lot's working against it here. I don't know, I hope that it bubbles back up. I think that this game, this kind of game, you're hoping that a community is going to get obsessed with it and want to put a lot of time and energy into it.

And I don't think it merits it where it's at right now. I think what I am curious about is this team built a lot of DLC for Dead Cells that was based on other game franchises. Specifically, I'm thinking- Castlevania is obviously- Castlevania, but then there was the whole Indie Pack, right, isn't there like the Shulma-

Yeah, there's like references to Hollow Knight and a bunch of other franchise games. Like, I wonder if this was going to be that, like a Prince of Persia Dead Cells expansion that maybe got turned into- It feels so different. I felt that too, but it feels so different from normal dead cells that I, it's hard for me to imagine you could jam this

into the engine of dead cells and not have like a ton of work ahead of you. I think this made sense for them as a project. I think it has potential. I guarantee when the game hits 1.0, you'll see another like wave of attention drawn to it. And we'll just kind of have to see. I agree. I think the Rogue Legacy 2 comparison is a good one,

which is like, it doesn't feel like there's enough there yet, but they have promised more. And we just kind of have to hope that they're going to like make good on that promise, because as of right now, at least it's not, you know, burning up the charts on Steam. It's doing well. And the people that have played it like it. But I think they also kind of ghost dropped it. I feel like there was zero fanfare about this. There was a little bit of trailer attention here and there

on like Nintendo, or one of these streams, but not a lot. You guys wanna hear my tinfoil hat theory about this game? Yeah. I feel like if this is true, then a lot of what we're talking about this game. Uh oh, yeah. And this is, I feel like if this is true, then a lot of what we're talking about makes sense. I wonder if Ubisoft is using this as a, has designs on making a sub-franchise within the broader Ubisoft world.

So you got the rogue Prince of Persia, right? But what if I told you there's a rogue Assassin's Creed? What if I said there's a rogue Splinter Cell out there and you've got to track them down? What if I said there's a rogue Braw-Halla? And you go, you know. Rogue Rabbids. There's a rogue, there's the rogue, the rogue Rabbids.

I mean, I think it's like, it writes itself guys. Every time it's a new rabbit They die and then the next rabbit takes over that would be a straight up. I'd play the shit out This is what I'm saying. It would not surprise me if Ubisoft's like let's just do all our fucking Hey, you guys may you guys put Castlevania into dead cells. Let me flip that on you Just make Splinter Cell into a dead cell. I don't think there would be anything, they have the opportunity to do the funniest thing ever

by making a new Splinter Cell game to having it be a side scrolling platforming road bike. There is, hey listen, if you can conceptualize it, like you're sending in agents into a skyscraper, right? You're sending spies into a skyscraper. Oh, I'm not saying it's not a bad idea. I'm not saying it's a bad ass idea. I'm saying that this is a franchise

that certain people are clambering for. Yeah, no, I know. You just get at me. I mean, by the time some people listen to this episode, a new Splinter Cell might be announced. Here, we'll see. The Rogue Splinter Cell. The Rogue Splinter Cell, while redundant.

It is redundant. It's splinter cell, while redundant. It is, it is, it is, it is, it is, it is, it is. The rogue renegade splinter cell. The lone rogue renegade splinter cell. I'm something of a lone wolf. Yeah, we know, you said it five times. Okay, let's take a break. Okay, so just recently... Happy E3, everybody.

Happy E3. Yay! We're entering the realm of E3. Next week, we're going to have much more discussion on specifically Summer Game Fest. You hope. Which is happening this weekend. But today, just for this second half of the show, we're gonna talk a little bit about PlayStation State of Play,

which had quite a number of announcements. And there is one announcement in there that I literally was like, holy shit, this is the best announcement they could have done. And I'm curious if you guys agree with that. Jeff told Kotaku as of Monday that he wants that people should lower their expectations about that. About Summer Games Fest.

He really did? Yeah. Well, he didn't tell the Kotaku, it is in a stream on the Game Awards Twitch channel, but I'm reading from Kotaku, he said, there will definitely be new announcements, but the show is largely focused on, I think, existing games that have new updates for fans.

So I don't know. Whatever, Jeff. Maybe December is Jeff's sweetest honeypot and he doesn't wanna distract with his summer lights. Either that or it's like a presidential debate situation where you're trying to lower expectations and then blow them out of the water. It's a mid-win.

Isn't it wild how we have let this landscape shift from E3 and media things to turning Keeley into sort of a Willy Wonka S figure that just joins us every six months. Like, look at the delights I've prepared for you. It's like, what are you talking about? Why do we let Jeff do all of it? He's like, this is a video games for today.

I've made them all. It really goes to show you that like no one, at once the ESA basically folded, no one was ready to step out except for him. If you, it is really actually for me at least, gratifying as somebody who grew up in games media, like I've been working it for 15 years, whatever. And to see Keely, Keely is a hundred percent

a fantastic example of, and I don't mean this in a disrespectful way, but fake it until you make it. Jeff Keighley has had sort of a vibe like he's kind of in charge of video games for 15 years. You talk to him and he's like, he knows all the video games and he acts like he's in charge of video games.

And when you first meet him, it's kind of like, where does this guy get off? But I'll be damned. He just stood around and was Jeff Keighley for so long that everyone fell to his feet. And he's like, I guess I'm the only one standing. I'm in charge of video games now. And to his credit, like did the leg work.

Oh no, he has absolutely been hustled. But he was acting like his stuff was a bigger deal until eventually everything else died and he worked really hard on his thing. And only Jeff remained. And it's just a single man controlling the fate of the entire industry. I love it.

It's great. It's cool. Okay, but before Jeff's big show kicks off, PlayStation had its state of play. Which is the official title. I cannot believe he did that. He changed it to Jeff's Big Show. Astrobot was announced.

Yes. And there is no, legitimately, I don't know of another PlayStation franchise that I am more jazzed about than seeing a full Astrobot title. And for people that are not aware, there have been two Astrobot games, as far as I'm aware, unless we count that like demo disc that came up with the PS4.

There was the VR game, which was an excellent VR game that no one played because it was on PlayStation VR. And there was Astrobot's Rescue Mission. Is that the game that came with the PS5? Which was basically like a three to four hour like 3D platforming game. That was like- Celebration of the Sony properties. Right, with a bunch of properties. But from a gameplay standpoint was like Nintendo good. It's like- It was very good.

The closest Sony has ever gotten to a 3D platformer that could compete with like a Mario Odyssey. And now they are finally giving that team the keys to make a full on Astrobot game. And I am so fucking jazzed and it's coming this year and it is maybe now for the rest of the year my most anticipated game outside of like other ranked DLC. Wow.

This game figured out the trick. Sony has wanted a mascot forever. Everybody's wanted a mascot forever. Everybody's wanted a mascot forever. They've wanted their Mario, right? And then they kind of like make do with what they have. Like, like, sure. I guess it's master chief or whatever.

In Astrobot, they effectively have a Funko pop because all they have to do is throw Shadow of the Colossus horns on him. He's got a Kratos beard. Yeah. You, you, you do whatever you want from all the, have to do is throw shadow of the classes horns on him. He's got a Kratos beard. Yeah. You, you, you do whatever you want from all the, all the different IP that you already have that people love. And then you have this really cute little toy that you can decorate.

And I, I, I saw that trailer and I was like, Dave, Dave figured it out. I might, my fear, that's not the right word, but my concern, that's still not the right word. It's so much smaller than any of that. But them making this game is that they would run away from what they did in the last Astrobot game. But they'd be like, it's just a game about their universe, it's not about PlayStation. And it's like, no, the whole silliness of the series is that this little robot is just shameless PlayStation history marketing. I mean, it more or less matches what they were doing with Smash Brothers,

which I know Sony has tried to do in the past to make a literal Smash Brothers competitor. And here, this is just, yeah, it's shameless PlayStation marketing, but it's also extraordinarily fun to fucking play. Like, great platform. I mean, I haven't played the new one, but those past ones were like a fucking blast to play. And it just feels like this team, again, I don't know what they've been doing, but it feels like they've been underutilized

until this moment. And now we're finally like letting them shine. You know, it's interesting watching this. It reminds me of Sony very much tried to push Little Big Planet into this slot. Yes Yeah, like if you're a media molecule watching this there's got to be a little bit where you're like man What else do you need we made dreams an infinite? I'll make it astrobot dreams. Give me a week. I'm making dream

You know what that team should have done is made the jumps feel better in Little Big Planet. Oh, I'm not gonna, we're not gonna fucking relitigate the jumps in Little Big Planet. I'm not saying one is better. I'm talking from like a- I'm saying one is better. Okay, I don't like either of them. I'm saying that like Little Big Planet was this

before Astro Bot was this. Yes, I would agree with that. And I think it's interesting that they shifted midstream to Astro Bot, which is better to look at. Looking at the Sack Boys is bad, and a lot of people didn't wanna talk about that, but they are boys made of sacks. It's not pleasant.

They're very ragged. What else is going on? A brave position to take. There were some other announcements that I didn't super care about, but I'm sure other people are excited about this. There's some good shit in here. I'm excited for the Silent Hill 2 remake.

Infinity Nikki looks fucking wild. I was blown away at how off some of the big tent pole sort of things in this presentation were. It seemed like Concord kinda went over a lead balloon. This is their, pretty Guardians of the Galaxy, heavily inspired, it seems, 5v5 shooter. I mean, it's Overwatch, right? Isn't it just Overwatch?

That's what it seems like, but it did not go over particularly well. Who wants another Overwatch? Then there was like a Marvel, like, arena combat, like multiplayer arena combat game that like, there's just a lot of stuff in here that seems like it's... It feels like it was greenlit three years ago when everyone was like, oh shit,

there's an Overwatch 2 coming, there must be like a future, four years probably, and now these games are coming out and the market has completely shifted. Yeah, I also was excited to see more of Monster Hunter Wilds, but that's not really a new quantity. I was, I didn't think it was interesting to see Skydance come out with what appears positioned to be like a,

I know I would never say AAA, but like, I'm quite surprised to see a big VR 2 thing, and maybe I shouldn't be, but the vibe on that was so negative for so long, and it surprises me to see them talking about it still, I guess. It's still, I think we're just the gap between something being greenlit and a video game being made has just gotten too long. It is no longer tenable and it is now just straight up bad gambling.

And I, I thought the, the Sony showcase like proved that out in that how many souls likes and Or VR games and or overwatch clones can we get announced in the shortest window possible and Yeah, I don't I don't know like how video game studios fix that problem, but it's a real problem. Um, and it is why I think we're going to start seeing these like mid tier, not mid tier, but mid level studios that can spin up a game in a shorter amount of time, be in a better position. I mean, fresh.

And I talked about this with a hell blade too, and I'm glad a lot, a lot of people like that game and I'm, I'm sincerely, oh my God, I'm doing the thing, Justin, that you tear me down for, and rightly so. I'm just glad people like this game. But it to me is also this, like, it just feels so of a different era. And I don't know. It seems like the lead time is too long

to chase trends anymore. Yeah. It seems like if studios time is too long to chase trends anymore. Yeah, yes. It seems like if studios are chasing a trend, what you end up with is a crop of also rants, four years after anybody is caring about it. And there's like, why are there five of these? This is so wild.

No one cares about this. It does feel, but isn't that kind of what we were just saying we didn't want you yourself to do? Okay, so this actually reminds me of a thread and I'm gonna we'll put it in the in the newsletter. But there was a thread by Jacob Novak, who was basically talking about the scenario that all these publishers are in. And there was one chunk of it that I thought was particularly interesting. He says, if a game costs $100 million to make and it takes five years, then you have to beat as an example, what the business could have returned in investing $100 million into the stock market over that period. For the five years prior to February 2024, the stock market average the rate of return of

14.5%. Investing that $100 million in the stock market would net you a return of $201 million. So that is the baseline. That's the mark they have to hit. So you need, it's not just like breaking even, which I know like Square has gotten a lot of shit because they feel like the expectations are too high for the sales of their games. You need to beat that the market of just like

not trying it all and just putting your money into a bond of some sort. And that's the challenge that all these big studios are facing and the way to compete about that, as Plant said, smaller games, shorter development cycles, making sure that you can hit your deadlines and not take these huge risks on these enormous projects. I think also you have to trust that you're going to make something really good.

And I will be interested to see this, guys. I'm wondering if some of the recent success stories that we've had in video game adaptations will incentivize more big publishers to launch original properties, like to have original worlds ready to be licensed, you know what I mean? Rather than keep returning to the well to keep making new things that they can repackage as transmedia properties and TV series and everything.

Yeah. Can we talk about honorable mentions? Yeah, sure. Yeah. I would like to talk about Destiny 2, The Final Shape, which I know I think we're gonna do an episode on in a couple weeks after we've had enough time to kind of dig into it.

I've been playing a lot of Destiny over the last like month or so, kind of getting ready for this DLC. The servers were a fucking disaster yesterday, so I've only had maybe three hours that I've put into it. But I did just wanna talk about the new big thing in this DLC is- Wait, can I touch on, as a non-Destiny person, I just wanna say it's really, really funny to me

that on this, the last big push for Destiny 2, the servers are still, like it's still managed to be like, I don't know, man. Although credit to them, like, nah, if we can get through this, I think we're gold, baby. Let's just crank these servers out for another couple days and then I think we're set for life. My favorite thing about Destiny 2,

and it's gotten just sort of even better over the last couple years, is like build crafting, right? Like this idea of having this perfect synergy between the class you're playing and the armor abilities that you have and the different weapons with all the different perks. Like I love that shit. With this new DLC with the final shape, the big thing they're adding is called Prismatic, which is a new subclass for all the three classes. It basically lets you mix and match components of all the other subclasses. So instead of like, oh, well I'm playing my solar warlock. It's like, well, I've got the Solar Grenade

and I've got this Stasis Melee ability. I'm using the Void Super ability. They've also- So is that not just the default now? Like, why would you not do that? Because it, that's a good question. I thought this too. They actually limit, so you don't have the entire kit

of every subclass, there are specific abilities that are exclusive. Jack of all trades, master of none. Sort of, but it's almost more kind of complicated than that because like this, the way that it works now has cracked open the whole idea of build crafting to this whole nother level. I'll give you an example.

One of the like aspects that you can equip to your character on Prismatic is called Bleak Watcher, which lets you charge up your grenade to throw down this turret that shoots out these freezing bolts at enemies, right? But you can also use this arc exotic that lets you when you charge up your grenade, it creates like a little auto turret over your shoulder.

You activate both of those with the use of like a single ability now. And that's like fucking busted. Like that's so, so powerful. Not only that, they're also going to be adding, I think after the raid drops in a few days, exotic class items that let you take two different exotic abilities from other classes. So as a Warlock, I can have this one exotic item that has a perk from a Titan chest piece and a hunter helmet to mix together, to make something just fucking unbelievable

that has not really been possible in the game before. And so in the three hours I've been playing the game, I've spent maybe half of that just fucking around and seeing, like, I created that double turret build now that is like, well, I only wanna use this because this feels so good. For a game that has been so careful about how it balances out these different things

and makes these tiny percentile tweaks to these things, to all of a sudden just throw open the gates like this. Are they kind of taking the rails off a little bit because it's setting towards the end game? Yeah, I think this is the last time they'll do a big expansion for this game. This is, yeah, I mean, this is the end of what they are calling the light and darkness saga.

I mean, the story is, I'm not deep enough into it, but I'm enjoying it a lot, just for this one sort of aspect of it alone. Does this sound like, again, we're gonna talk about this a lot more, but does it feel right now to be a thank you to the people who have been playing, or does it feel more like come back on?

That's fair. No, well, who are they serving? Are they serving existing players, or is this like, come on home? Because everything you're saying to me, it is like inscrutable, and I've played hundreds of hours of this. And not inscrutable, but like, it's very-

It's a lot very it's a lot I a lot and it's not like my big problem last time I played that scene was fuck. This is really There's so much complexity here. I'm completely lost Yeah, what you're saying is like they finally they finally loosen it up now you can get really silly with it's like what are you? Here's what I'm doing, which I think is a good contrast to Griffin My intention is to basically, and I haven't played serious Destiny since Forsaken came out,

which is probably four years ago, maybe five, I don't know how long it's been, a while. And my intention is basically just to play through the campaign. And I played a mission yesterday and had like a great time. And it's still like probably the best feeling shooter on the planet right now. And I'm just enjoying that. And if that leads to like me wanting to raid,

which God I hope not, because honestly I don't have the time. But if it leads to that, like I get it and it'll at least like onboard me a little better. That being said, I did spend a literal hour yesterday trying to figure out where the fuck the quest menu is, because there are so many screens.

That's gotten scooched around quite a bit. It's so complicated to figure out where things, just quitting the game required me to Google something. So it's definitely an onboarding thing, but I think Justin, for your purposes, if you just play the campaign on normal, basically anyone could do it that has played Destiny. You'll get the feel, you'll probably like dip a toe

into the new features and then you fucking peace out. And like, it's a fun game to play. It is a fun game to play at the end of the day. You can go down the rabbit hole. I'm playing it on legend difficulty, which like if you can do that, like you get like an exotic at the end of it. I did that for the last couple of expansions

and I really, really like playing Destiny through a story mode that is genuinely, extremely challenging from start to finish. But yeah, I think genuinely, if you have enjoyed playing Destiny in the past, I think you'll enjoy this too. The story, as far as I can tell so far, is very geared towards here's Zavala and Ikora,

and these are the characters, we're not gonna like take you to some new planet, introduce like all this shit that nobody cares about. I watched a recap, I like skipped around, but it was like 40 minutes long, and the TLDR is basically, there's a light ball and there's a dark ball and they don't like each other, that's really all you need, and Kade 6 died,

like that's all you really need to do. Yeah. For now. I've also been playing Elden Ring to get ready for that DLC. When is that happening? Soon, a couple weeks. 21st. 21st.

I'm so excited. That game still slaps ass, man. It still is so rad. I'm trying to like- Should I get back? Oh man. Just get yourself to the beginning of the DLC. I don't, no, I don't have any time to do anything. I don't know, no, I can't.

But you have a character, right? This is silly, what? You have a character, you play the game a lot. Is that it? You're probably right. Yeah, if you're, yeah. Run around and. As long as you didn't start a new game plus.

As from what I understand, the DLC on new game plus is going to, is. There's just too many great video games, guys. That's right. Sure. Choose your fight. What did I watch this week? What did I ingest this week?

I watched a very good standup set from Jenny Tian on YouTube. It'll be linked in the newsletter, but I was pretty blown away by her standup. She's an Australian standup and very, very funny. So highly recommend it. I have been playing more 1000X Resist, which is just climbing the charts of my heart. Do y'all know anything about this game?

No. It is the near automata of this year. Effectively, it is the big story game and Justin is taking off his headphones and throwing them into the trash. But it's really something special. It's kind of a heartbreaking game. Is it fun? Because sometimes you like fun ones. Nier Automata is fun.

There's no argument. I've gone on the record saying that's a good video game. Nier Automata minus the combat. So I'm going to guess. So know that. There he goes. That it's a no for you, dog. Yeah, I keep being back and forth

on how I wanna talk about it on this show because I really don't wanna spoil anything. I think you spoiled it pretty good. You could spoil it pretty quickly, but it is set in the future following a pandemic that is very clearly inspired by the COVID-19 pandemic. Fun.

It's getting better and better. Yeah, dude. And it's also dealing with family trauma. Tell me I'm gonna watch my son die. The Hong Kong protest. Not so far off. You drive the tanks through the village. It is a tough hang, but it's just so sweet.

It's just, I don't know, it feels really nice when you get to play a video game and you're like, wow, the people who made this seem to love people. They seem to love their characters. They seem to like love talking about their family and their friends. They seem to be wondering why we exist on earth. And it just makes your like brain,

all the different parts of your brain tingle and Spark and you have ideas while you're playing it. I don't know. It's great and there is like a good game feel to it It looks really simple, but the way that you kind of navigate the space at times has a little bit of a gravity rush feel So it like it does have a little bit of niceness, but I know this game is not for y'all. I'm talking about it mostly for the type of people who listen to the show and love visual novels. I think that this is going to be one of their favorite games of the year. Cool. I think we did it. Uh, I want, oh, you want to recap plant? Uh, I mean, yeah, we was kind of all over the place. We talked about Rogue Prince of Persia, the Rogue Prince of Pers all over the place. We talked about Rogue Prince of Persia. We talked about Destiny 2.

We talked about all the games that PlayStation stayed to play, and then we talked about a comedy set and a video game that none of you are gonna play called 1000 Next Resist, and that's it that's pretty much it hey wait plant tell me the name of that one more time 1000x resist one one more time 1000x resist no it's not gonna stick I thought maybe if I heard it a couple of times but no it's not it's not I want to thank the following people for being patrons

of the besties at patreon.com slash the besties, spaghetti skater, Garfunkel horseman, Iggy Celtic and Frank Sausage. By the way, we have a new fresh bracket battles episode. This is voted on y'all the fans, a best Roguelikes, I guess pretty relevant for this episode in particular. Y'all. Pretty spicy.

It's a spicy one. Pretty spicy. Pretty spicy. So that's up. Actually, here's a clip. I think from a narrative standpoint, maybe the strongest game on this entire list because Returnal is actually telling a story where whereas most roguelikes do not. I know Rogue Legacy 2 tells a bit of a story

and things like that, but there are- And they all tell a bit of a story, kind of. But Returnal is like more of a narrative game than I think most roguelikes even try to approach. And I think it does the narrative stuff really well and is super interesting the way it- And folds the narrative into the roguelike thing, which is really cool, I think, when you can figure it out.

And stylistically stunning, and it just doesn't feel like anything else. It's really, really hard. Really hard. It's really hard. It's too hard for me. It's hard in a way that is, I think, and this is my big knock against it,

because this is one where, you guys know, I feel like I'm pretty demanding. I feel like I'm kind of a baby, right? I really don't usually try to meet things halfway. I like my entertainment to come to my door and say, "'Come on, Justin, forget about it all.'" Returnal, I really made an effort with, because there's a lot of parts of it that are so cool.

The narrative stuff they're doing with the chronology and everything and the performances. And even like the base combat is like, it's really cool. But you get into situations in this game that are so overwhelming that it just feels like demoralizing. And honestly, the biggest knock with Returnal, I could say, to the learning curve is when you have a bad run with this game, you want to delete it. Like you want to uninstall it. And then in fact, I did. That's what happened.

I once got so angry. I got so angry. I learned from my Dark Souls experience to not throw my controller at the wall or take the disc out to the backyard and hit it with a hammer, which I did with Dark Souls once. Sneak preview, not only do some games not win that one,

some of them don't even get to be roguelikes by the end of it. Some of them were stripped of the designation. It's, there's a lot. Thank you everyone for supporting the Patreon and just Patreon and, and, uh, just listening to the show and sharing and spreading the word. We really appreciate it. But by the time this episode comes out, you'll be a few days away from the rest of these

episodes that we're talking about some stuff that I'm really excited about. Oh yes. Very, very cool. There's a new game that, Hoops, I gotta get you on this too. Uh, it's like if Double Fine made Simpsons hit and run. Holy shit. There's a new game that, Hoops, I gotta get you on this too. It's like if Double Fine made Simpsons hit and run. Holy shit. I wish you'd said that before I started downloading

1,000 times Resisting. You remembered it. That's like 150 gigabytes. What is this, plant? You remembered it. That was the wrong name in two different ways. So no, I didn't. Thank you so much for listening to Besties. We'll be with you again next week.

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