The Besties - Reanimal Is Like Limbo with Friends

Episode Date: February 20, 2026

16 years ago, Limbo launched on Xbox Live.  It wasn’t the first puzzle-platformer, but its molasses-thick layer of fairy tale horror inspired a generation of grim, mostly wordless contemporaries. Arguably, the most successful of the bunch has been the Little Nightmare series, created by Tarsier Studios. Today’s game is the latest evolution of this sub-genre. With Reanimal, the Tarsier team adds co-op to the mix. Is playing with friends (or a computer companion) a clever addition or does it undermine the horror of being alone in a cruel, dark world? We have conflicting answers! Plus, The Besties pick through Sony’s recent State of Play and share their favorite announcements. 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!

I want to be the one responsible for naming the monsters in these Tarsier Studios horror games. Your little nightmares is and your re-animals. Because you'll be like getting chased by like a big nasty man. Skin man. A big nasty skin man. Is that it? Did we do it?

Do we do it? No, we can do better than that. Who do you think you are, Hideo Kajima? But then you get out of a, you get an achievement. It's like, that guy's name the whole time was the sniffer. And it's like, was that supposed to be scared? Like, am I supposed to be scared of them? I would call him something way cooler and way scarier than that.

I got to be real. Go ahead. Wait, wait, wait, no, for I should. Let's skip Giff in his face. What would you call the sniffer? That would be more scary than the sniffer. Flesh getter. The flesh getter.

Yeah, but he's just a player at that point. He's just out there to meet and greet. I guess so. If you put flesh in front of pretty much anything, it does make it scarier. You know, like, if you go, hey, the sniffer doesn't work. Flesh sniffer, I don't like that. I don't like that. Toss that in, just anything, I'm just saying I was so scared of this dude.

And then I got a tune and it's like, you got away from the sniffer. And it's like, that whole time? It's crazy. But I love farts. That's him. That's his voice. That's why he doesn't talk. Did I mention that that's why they don't talk in this game?

Oh, thank God. Yeah, yeah. My name is Griffin Macroy 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 Fraswick I know the best game of the week

Welcome to the besties where we talk about The latest and greatest In Home Interactive Entertainment Our reporter in the field Justin McRoy is still out of commission Still recovering from his Carpal Tunnel surgery He's not reporting on anything

Because he can't really play video games I guess he can play one-handed video games Yes we were able to play some Nagano Winter Olympic 98 on our stream yesterday because we all took just one button. He was able to do that. But yes, he sat out this one. We hope for a swift recovery in time for Resident Evil, at least.

But this week we're not talking about Resident Evil. We're talking about Re-Animal, the latest game from Tarzier Studios, who you may recognize as the creators of Little Monsters, one and two, a pretty, I would say, revered 2.5D horror platformer type. I think they're 3D. I'm going to go so far as to say 3D games. Yeah, I guess 3D games. So revered that neither of you remembered the actual title of the game, which is Little Nightmares. Did I say Little Monsters?

Yes. That's the Little Gaga game. That's the Little Gaga. Jesus Christ, guys. Great Howie Mandel, early 90s. Day Quill. Here's what you need to know. 16 years ago, Limbo comes out, makes a lot of money, and people say, we got to get in on these

puzzle platformers. Tarsi Studios comes in. They make two of these. Big, boom, bam, they're the new hot faves. Instead of making number three, they make this because they add co-op. Yeah, they also made a bunch of Little Big Planet stuff. DLC for the first game, I think they made the PSP or the Vita Little Big Planet, I want to say, and then Little Big Planet 3. I know that those games have a mixed reputation from a game field perspective, but I adored them.

That explains when the jumping's not very good. So that's what's coming up next as we discuss Re-Animal. Okay, did anyone here play Little Nightmares one or two? I played them both. Yeah. We did on the show, right? Pretty sure we did both for episodes of the show. It's possible.

I might have been too scared. Yeah. This feels very much in line with those games insofar as you're a cute little child-like being, running around in a very scary world, and generally speaking, you're up against very tall people who do not like you. I really think, jokes aside, I think knowing Tarsier's sort of like background with Little Big Planet stuff actually helps kind of inform a lot of what this game is achieving stylistically in terms of like they play with scale so much. You are, you are kids in this game, but you are not like, you're in the wrong world. Like you are in a world that is too big for you, not from like a

traditional like, I don't know, you're a small child type of way, but in a, like, you've climbed up the beanstalk type of way. And what's crazy is the people that are chasing you are even bigger than the world, like they're too big for the world. That's what I'm saying. So like the, there is a surrealist type of, uh, I don't know, core design principle behind these games. Yeah. That is really, I don't think anyone's doing anything quite like it. And also mechanically, like, it's a very interesting type of game because it's not a puzzle platformer. It certainly is not that.

The puzzles are like, go into this scary room and avoid this guy and get the key and bring him back. Like, I never felt like I was being sort of cerebrally challenge. Yeah, it's not hard.

It's certainly not like limbo in that way because it's not challenging for the puzzles. I think there needs to be, I don't, maybe this genre exists already, but four games like limbo and Little Nightmares and Reanimal.

For me, it reminds me of like the Eric Chahi kind of games from the 90s, like the out of this world or heart of darkness, where it's like you're going to die over and over and over again and the checkpoint is right at the beginning of the room. So it's not like they're making you worried you're going to lose a bunch of progress. Instead, it's like, I'm going to face this situation over and over again until I figure out

like the right kind of way to get through it without being like horribly killed instantly. Yeah, it feels more roller coastery or like you're in a Disney ride in that. way, then it's a puzzle game. It's about, it's, it's, it's a peril platformer. You are imperiled all the time. I like that. It's a peril platform where you're imperiled all the time, but if you die, it's like, I don't know, it doesn't deal with a lot of mechanicals types of fear, like, oh, you're going to lose

these precious resources or, you know, you have to manage this or that. It's, it doesn't, it just doesn't do that. I was also, they say, I will also say this. as a person that gets very scared very easily in video games for some reason I don't get scared as much as I do excited when I play these games

in particular or I guess this one in particular I got a little scared playing the little nightmares but for this one in particular it just feels more like a yeah like a dark room ride than it does like like Resident Evil 7 where it's like oh my God I'm like horrified to open any door. It doesn't necessarily feel like that, which is good because like the characters

you're playing as despite their small stature are not babies. Like they're pretty brave given the circumstances. But yeah. I want to I want to pull it that. But first, just very quickly, if it seems like we're not going deep in the story, part of that is because these games are basically like push further into the darkness is a story. Find more at peers.

I mean, there's more than... There's more to it. It's not like a back room situation where it's just like weird stuff's going to happen. Oh, no. Clearly you are children, I guess, in this environment where like seemingly the society has been like deskinned and then taken over by these new beings that are really unpleasant. And you are trying to find your friends. You are separate. You and a boy and girl who are the co-op.

characters. Maybe brother and sister are trying to find their friends who, like all you know is that they were looking down a well at one point. Maybe this is inside. The story is so, abstract and genuinely very creepy. Like, there are moments that will kind of suggest something extraordinarily sinister has happened in this like group of friends without necessarily getting especially detailed about it, I don't think, and that I think plays to the strength of the game, which is just like, it is so atmospherically,

oppressively, pretty scary all the time. It moves between sort of like arcs. Like, this is the one inside of this city where there's human skin suits just sort of draped all over the place. What's the deal there? Now we're in this, like, flooded corridor. What's the deal here?

Now we're in this house full of weird spider children. What's up with that? Like, it moves between those, but they're so, like, I don't know, the design of this game from pretty much every angle hit pretty good for me. And I think that's sort of in their lineage. Yeah, very much a game that where you could take any screenshot and, like, hang it on a wall.

Yeah. It's really that impactful. So the challenge for me with this game is the decision to go co-op basically prevents it from being a horror game. It cannot be scary twofold. And let me be clear, you can play it in single player. But if you play it in co-op, the point is like you're hanging out with your friends. You're talking.

The idea of like syncing to the mood that's not going to happen. That's not how playing video games online works. And when you're playing in single player, you have the challenge of waiting for the robot to do the things that you need it to do. And I found myself pretty early on having to experiment. and like you said, kind of like live, die or repeat, to be able to solve puzzles, which undermines the horror. I say all of this, not to say that it's a bad game. I think it was more of a, oh, I wish I had gone into it

with a very different mindset. Because if you are going into this thinking, oh, there's going to be a great horror experience, you're not going to get it. If you go into this thinking, I love games like It Takes 2, but I would prefer them to be like a little creepier, a little Grimm's fairy tale. I think you're going to really, really click with it.

But yeah, the decision to really embrace the co-op I think is, I mean, I guess it's a smart one. And like that's where I think the business is going. Little Nightmares 3, which was developed by a totally different studio because of an acquisition that was done with Tarsier Studios by Embracer Group, so and so forth. Both of them are now in co-op. I think co-op has been something that has been asked for probably since. the original. I agree with you that like, that's part of the reason

I didn't find this game scary. I didn't really have a lot of issues with the AI when I was playing in single player. In fact, if I could just interrupt real quick, the AI sometimes, like a lot of this game is big man in a scary room with stuff all around. You have to kind of scamper around and hide like a borrower to make it through because if he sees you, he'll kill you instantly.

Sometimes the AI will be like moving to the other end of the table that you're hiding under and you're like, oh shit, I should follow her because obviously, she She's the video game. She knows exactly where to go. Which honestly, at one hand, it seems like, well, it's removing a lot of the gameplay if the robot is like showing you how to get through these encounters.

But also, like, that's always been the most annoying part of these games for me is the like, okay, so I just had to guess my way through like which way this guy was going to be looking. Now you have a little help sometimes from your, from your pal. Yeah, it feels like you're chasing someone at times, which you're right. Like, given the circumstances at times feels quite good. I wasn't bothered by it. I do agree also with what Plant said earlier about the mood when you're playing in co-op because you don't have the like wacky hijinks that a nit takes to brings or a split fiction brings.

So you're really just like going through these grim environments and you just naturally won't maintain that tone. That being said, in a lot of ways I think this game is better for like newcomer beginner people. Yes. Then it is it then it takes two for a co-op experience. because really all you're doing is like running, jumping, pushing a button. Yeah.

There's a little bit of very, very light melee combat. But largely speaking, the stuff you're asked to do is very light versus like it takes two or split fiction. You might be flying a plane. You might be shooting stuff. I also feel like this game is a better, I don't know, newcomer experience than Little Nightmare. Little nightmares or Little Nightmares too, which I think those games are great. But also like, I don't know, they had some rough. rough edges mechanically.

Yeah. That, you know, they also were of sort of limited input. You're just sort of moving a little guy around an environment and avoiding big guys. But I felt like this game was a bit more dynamic and like interactive. Like those segments where you're sneaking through, you know, this laundromat full of human skins, it felt like, oh, well, there's actually a lot of different ways I could kind of, I could kind of get through here. There's also like very splashy moments. I would say on the verge of like an uncharted where you're like there's a sequence in an ice cream truck that's like incredibly exciting and thrilling.

So I think they do, it feels like they're really balancing what is the core gameplay is like sneaking around a room hiding from a big guy versus like we're going to like have a big bombastic moment at the end of each chapter. Yeah. I also think just visually the art direction is more my speed. Ironically, I think Little Nightmares Art Direction made more sense for co-op. It's a bit colorful as weird as it is to say that. This game's very

bleak. I mean, the color is pulled out of it and where Little Nightmares was doing I would say more of like the German expressionism I thought it was like a Grimm's fairy tale like that really stilted. Like it was more in line with

the Tim Burton kind of like creepy but kind of funny grotesque. This is, I mean, bombed out. It's, it's, they, they commit to the bit,

uh, to say the very least, which I like. This game also is, appears to be set like sometime, I don't, obviously it's not our world, but like around the 80s.

Oh, I don't know. The technology that I've seen in the game is like, like, you see computer. There are computers. Yeah, yeah, yes, you're right. It's like all over.

Yeah. There's a sequence where you are like in an in a war zone that maybe did not vibe that way for me that it was the 80s, but I don't, I don't know. Yeah. It's really hard to tell, really to pick this game apart. I'm sure there are people, it is the type of game that I think people are going to write like, you know, hour long YouTube essays like breaking down like what actually happened. Yeah, I mean, that's my shit. I'm glad I think it's cool when a game is doing enough stuff that it can support that, that, that, that. level of sort of dissection and discussion because there's there's obviously like an enormous amount

of like symbolism happening here with the just with like the core cast but also like this is a a huge man who can teleport through skin like it's there's there's a lot of like seemingly biblical references and a lot of shit to kind of break down there's a very cool sequence where you're going through a movie theater I'm gonna say like filled with just dead bodies like sitting in all the seats and the only way to get from one side of the movie theater

or the other is by like like scooching your way Let me just get through the And while this is happening there's like a movie playing on the screen That's just like a fucking ring level Like weird shit happening where rabbits are eating each other

And like crazy shit like that So like they yeah the tone is really spot I don't know I felt like this was an easier experience than Little Nightmare which honestly does, you know, get rid of the fear aspect of it, even playing in solo. Like it didn't feel like super scary. It doesn't deal in a lot of jump scares, which makes the ones that they do pop out there,

like, I don't know, hit pretty good. But like, it's just weird. Like you're seeing weird sort of incredibly stylish shit all the time and not having to repeat those gameplay segments over and over again and just getting to the next cool thing. I don't know, I felt like it was a good decision. I enjoyed this one a lot. Yeah, me too. It's exciting to see that they landed with a new franchise and they can kind of do their own thing.

I know people were kind of let down. I didn't play it, but people were let down by Little Nightmares 3 saying it wasn't like a complete experience. And to some extent felt like a retread of the first two games, like a greatest hits, if you will. And this feels, you know, not that different. Obviously, the base is the same, but it feels like they're doing their own thing. I feel like it's going to be huge, right? Like, you take the series that people already like and then you add co-op right now. Yeah.

Damn, this guy. I'm very curious to see what they do next. Let's take a quick break. And then let's talk about the most recent PlayStation State of Play event where a lot of stuff was announced. Apparently, Legacy of Kane is back in a big fucking way, guys, in 2026. Who to thunk it? We'll find out about that. more after this short break.

Legacy of Kane is a franchise that I didn't, I only like dip the toe in with Soul Reaver. Oh, dog. Sure, yeah. Dude, when we got our PlayStation 1 is Christmas 97, I think, and we got three games. I got Final Fantasy

7 as like a me present and I fucked my shit up. Like that changed the trajectory of my whole shit forever. So many discs alone. So many discs, right? And then Travis, I think, got Resident Evil and Justin got Legacy of Kane or maybe flip those two. And Legacy of Kane, Blood Omen.

Is that the first? Yeah. And that game scared the fucking shit out of me. It opens up with a 3D rendered cinematic of like a woman being murdered with a big knife. And it's like, holy shit. I'm 10. Well, that was one of the games announced at State of Play because, well, not that game in particular.

Legacy of Kane Defiance is being remastered. It was one of the announcements as part of State of Play. Yes. A game that I literally had no idea existed. So Legacy of Kane spawned off Legacy of Kane's Soul Reaver. Right, I played that one. Which is got a different character, and that was more based around, like, there's a shadow world that you can kind of like morph into, and it was a 3D action platform.

It was pretty fucking lit, and they made a couple of those. And this game, Legacy of Kane, Defiance is like the mashup. You're playing as both of them as, as, as, Asriel? Rosiel? Yeah. This is fucking name. What's interesting is It wasn't particularly well received

That original game So it's interesting that it's being remastered It's also like at this point Fucking 30 years old It looks it too Even the footage of this remaster It's it I don't know man It is a weird

That's a weird era To try and remaster I feel like That like I don't know Mid PlayStation 2 I want to say kind of territory Yeah It's hard to really spit shine that one.

I don't know why. There's also a new Metroidvania search action game, I believe, starring Legacy of Kane. Kane from Legacy of Kane. And there's a demo of the canceled Legacy of Kane game

that is included with Legacy of Kane defiance, which feels like the whole reason that any Legacy of Kane fan would want to have to play this thing. Yeah. It's Legacy of Kane a is the new 2D platform.

I don't know why we started with that. I think it's just the one that surprised me the most. Oh, yeah, maybe. Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's some other stuff I'm looking right now. Control, there's a new one of those. There's a new Silent Hill. Okay, yeah.

There were a couple, I think, larger IPs. Sure, sure, sure. You mentioned Control. That seems like a good place to start. Control, this is the sequel to Control. It's Control just resonant, I think is the, yes. And they've made, it into something that looks a little more like an open world game you're like actually running

around in the city and in terms of combat it's not a third person shooter as much as it is like a melee yeah i i didn't play a ton of control i played a lot it's a game i've tried to get into a bunch of times and i've never really managed to crack through uh but this seems wildly like this felt this looked like a plat some platinum game shit yeah when the person started to zoom all over like shifting gravity to land on the walls and doing sick combos and shit. I don't know. It just felt like a different beast. Yeah, the original control

had moments that were like very wacky, but usually they tended to be more in the like cutscene, not cutscene, but like those sequences in Allen Wake 2 were like they get fucking Buck Wild, like that's where it kind of made its bones. And then the actual combat had some wacky moments, but mostly it was like telekinesis and shooting guys. And this feels like they're kind of blending the

to a little bit more where you're having those wacky moments within the combat itself. Yeah. Which I think is a good thing. I think there were other things that kept control from totally being fantastic that hopefully they'll address things like itemization and gear and things like that. But just that as like a look, like seeing you running through a very fucked up New York City. Hey, I look sick. It looks really fucking sick.

I'm pretty excited about that one. Not a joke. I am so excited for Death Stranding 2. to come to PC. I believe March 21st was the date that they gave. Yeah, it's coming March. Our Goody, 2025, I always wanted to play more of. But my gaming time these days is so profoundly limited.

The idea of being able to squirrel myself away in my office where my PS5 is to play like long stretches of Norman Redis's walk in Sam is just unthinkable. So having this bad boy on the old Rog Ally X, I pray to God it will run. Hopefully it runs. I hope it will run. I have no idea, but... I think they are adding DLSS and, like, dynamic whatever that'll presumably let it run on more devices.

I think it should run. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, speaking of great uses of our time, Metal Gear Solid 4 is coming. I can't believe it, man. Yeah. So Konami announced the Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Volume 2,

which is not a surprise. Like, the first one was called Volume 1, so it doesn't really should. shock the world that there's a volume two. It does bring us Metal Gear Solid 4, which is obviously a franchise, a title that

we probably all have strong feelings about. I certainly don't have the most positive feelings about it, but it's there. I don't, I don't like that game. I don't know, man. I played it once. I don't remember any other. Very good first act where you're in the war zone

and then kind of... I remember the ending being pretty fucking lit. Yeah, I mean, you can watch the ending on YouTube. It's probably pretty good as a visual novel, right? Remember that wiki that you could read? Hey, we should get it out of the way. The number of people have been like, hey, you're going to play that, right? Because you played all the other Metal Gear Solid games.

Here's the scoop. Maybe. It's a big maybe. I will commit to playing it. I don't know if we're going to do a full Metal Gear Solid for retrospective episode because that's going to come out. I mean, the problem is it's so different from chapter to chapter. Yeah.

That if you go and you, like, realistically, are we going to spend 30 hours playing your solid four for an episode? Probably not. No way. So, uh, all we're going to really get through is maybe two or three of the chapters and like not representative of like a good chunk of the game. Yeah. It also comes out of August 27.

It's, it's the only one that I haven't like played a bunch of. And so I, I would like to. I mean, you beat it, right? Yeah, sure. So you've, yeah. Yeah. What about Peace Walker? Have you played Peace Walker?

I was going to say. Barely. That was the PSP one, right? Yeah, I barely played Peacewalker. I've heard very good things about that. That's the bigger news for me. I'm very excited about that. Because it takes a lot of inspiration

from Monster Hunter, right? My understanding is Peace Walker is the like, what would become Metal Gear Solid 5. Like the stuff that they introduced where you're like capturing people and bringing them back to your base. Fulton system and all that jazz. But then I get it confused with portable ops.

I get to confuse a Metal Gear Acid, which was this trading card game based Metal Gear Solid Game. There was acid, that was that. And then Portable Ops, I think was the PSP one. And then Vita was this one?

I don't know. Can't keep them straight. Hard to say. Still, curious. Maybe not excited, but curious. Curious.

I am very excited. I'll say the announcement that got me most jazz was Castlevania Belmont's curse. Oh, hell yes. This is made by Motion Twin and Evil Empire.

Team members that did Dead cells. Dead cells. And obviously, Dead cells had that Castlevania D. see, so I'm sure they got real chummy with Konami in that process, and now they're making

their own thing. I'm not sure, and this has maybe been revealed, but I'm not entirely sure. Like, is it a Dead Cell style rogue like? Is it a more traditional Castlevania game? I'm not entirely sure. Looking at the trailer, it looked more like a roguelike to me, but either way, I'll play either of those fucking games. And it's quite honestly nice to see Konami making

video games again. Like, they are legit making games. games again. Like that new Silent Hill. We got a new Silent Hill. A new Guy in Silent Hill. Sorry, I know we want to talk about Silent Hill. This Castlevania, Belmont's curse game looks so goddamn good. Yeah, it looks great. I'm so excited for this fucking thing. Are you kidding me? You guys did it. You guys had a good turn here. Proud of you. Yeah. But yeah, it's a Konami. Good, good for them. They're making games again, and they're making a brand new. In addition to the Silent Hill game we got last year,

scary 60s Japan's Silent Hill game. We have another Silent Hill game. We have another Silent Hill game. which has a very good name, let me say. What is it? It's Silent Hill Townfall. That happens in all of them. So, like, I don't know why this one needs to have it specific. Like, pretty much every town has a bad time in the Silent Hill games. But how many of them have puns right there in the title?

Zero. I guess it is like downfall, huh? That's good. Right. Sounds like downfall. Yeah, I didn't think about that. Also, it's first person, which looks. looks good stuff.

Let me get really creepy in that space. I'm all about it. My big thing that I am cautiously very excited for is Star Wars Galactic Racer. Man. Y'all? Yeah. Yeah. Get hyped because it's being made by Fuse, which is a whole bunch of people who came over from Criterion.

And the game itself, now that they've shown more of it, looks like a mix of, of like classic need for speed criterion game and Motor Storm, where you are like hardcore crashing vehicles into each other as slow-mo explosions. It looks sick. I am. Has Fuse made anything yet? They only formed like a few years ago and I don't know if they actually released anything. I don't know if this is their first thing or not.

I remember that the announcement of them forming and like, God damn, there is not a, there is not a genre. of a game that I used to love a whole lot that I feel like I haven't played a good one of in a while besides these like criterion games. I used to fucking love me a need for speed game. A big open war. I know Forza Horizon scratches that itch for some people.

It's never really clicked for me. I would be so stoked for that shit to come back. And with Star Wars shit on it too? Get out of town. So the immediate question that I think everyone had was whether Subalba is in it. He is indeed in it. Yeah.

apparently the other big reveal was that Ben Quadinaros is in it. Yeah. Who the fuck is that? Ben Quadonaros is, he is a, God, I don't know what. Is that a Star Wars character? Yeah, it is a Star Wars character. He looks like he's from a Bugs life. He looks like he is from a Bugs life.

And his name is Ben? His name is Ben Quaternaros, and he's a pod racer. and he's got, you would recognize him in the film, his face is sort of Manta ray shaped, kind of like a big open kite. Okay. And he's got sort of Shrek antennas. You know him.

Yeah, and his name is Ben. Yeah, Ben Quadanaros. You know him, you love him. Yeah, you act like you're not like very keenly familiar with this character. At that point, Sabulva's name should be like Gregory. Oh, well, that's his first name. Subalba's his last name. Oh.

Hey, did either you guys play the, fucking got a war 2D game that came out? I did not. I heard it was not great. It didn't look, it didn't look great. Reviews were pretty moderate. It's a shame because like the idea of a side-scrolling MetroidVane search action got a war game is pretty enticing.

Yeah. But it sounds like maybe it didn't quite make the splash that they were hoping, especially given the fact that the franchise is, has been on ice for a while. Yeah. And we'll continue to probably be. They are working Sons of Sparta is the

title for that. They are working on a remake for the first three games so there's that but this is obviously like a brand new spang of thing

and I think at this point like expectations for search action games in particular are very very high because you have games like that Prince of Persia game which is so fucking good

and obviously Silk Song and the like standard has been raised yes it's just weird this was like for the God of War original trilogy

remake, that was just like a title card, right? There's like nothing. Yeah. Which like, you can, I, you can extrapolate what that means. Yeah, to me at this point, seeing a title card for some big thing is just a like, all right, shut the fuck up already. Like, it's good. We'll do it, I guess.

Shut up. Like, it'll be 2036 or whatever and we'll, we'll give you back the original. But it's just a remake. Like, it's just a remaster of the originals. I guess so. It's a remaster or is it a remake? I thought it's a remake. It's a remake.

My understanding is a remaster. I don't think it's like a full making it to scratch. It's such a tonal different thing from the most recent God of Ward games. And I don't know, the idea of an ecosystem existing where Sony is selling both of those types of games on the same game stop store shelves just seems a little bit weird. And then this, yeah, this Suns of Spartan game just didn't look very exciting. the combat didn't look very exciting, which is like, that's kind of what you, what you want from your god of war.

Okay, here's what I'm to say. I'm very skeptical of that. Yeah. Because I think they can say whatever they want and call it whatever they want, but there's no, I think we all think that a remaster is the equivalent of like an HD re-release, like Legacy of Kane remastered, HD re-release.

The problem is if it's a remake in the style of, let's say, like the Resident Evil II remake, for example, making it from total scratch, ground up, changing gameplay things and all that stuff, you're not going to do three games at once. You're just not. Yeah, that's crazy amount to do. But the game is just so short, right?

So like... No, the games are not that short. Are they? No, not, yeah. They're legit. I mean, I wouldn't say they're long, but they're pretty long. Yeah.

And it would be a lot of work. So I think it's, I think they're going to do what they did with Delta, which is a metal result of Delta where they just basically up, you know, redid all the graphics.

Like they did all the, a lot of work to that, but largely speaking didn't, you know, make that many changes. Yeah. Okay, so Saber Interactive is making a John Wick game. Yes. Did we know about that? Or is this a new? I think that's a newly announced.

I tried to look up Sabre Interactive and I think they have done mostly licensed games. Yes, that's true. They're one of those studios that has done like a bunch of different stuff and also like assisted in like the development of the the halo remakes and um what else uh remastered the first or tomb raiders four through six uh they're working on a tarot game they uh let's see have like pain killer as a franchise had released last year okay just like looking at the wikipedia page they have eight titles listed as tBA in development and it's like like Jurassic Park Survival, Cotor remake, Untitled Avatar The Last Airbender title,

Turak Origins, untitled John Wick title. I don't know, it's just like, that's a crazy amount of shit to have on the boiler all at the same time. I don't know. Yeah, they have a pretty big slate. It didn't seem like there was a lot there, like the footage that they showed of John Wick spinning around and shooting dudes. I don't know.

I wanted a little bit more, I guess. I'm cautious. Yeah, I think it's still too early. Yeah. Hey, how are you all feeling about marathon? Because it comes out now in like a week, right? Yeah, I've had a fun journey with it where like when I was still playing Destiny 2, I was obviously into it.

And then it's just it's gotten maybe the most negative press routinely out of any game I've maybe ever seen in development between just sort of like negative initial reactions to it and then all of the, like, AI shit and the using other people's, the plagiarism on, like, the textures. And I don't know, it feels like that game's stock has really, really dropped so far down. But I do also like how bungee shooters feel.

So I don't know, man. It feels like High Guard did a speed run of what Marathon is experiencing over the course of two years, where Marathon has been, you know, had some high expectations, and then the beta came out and people were not thrilled

and then obviously all the AI stuff whereas Highguard had a bad initial reaction came out had some complaints about it, they made some changes and then they laid off their entire studio because no one was really playing the game.

So things are from the live service standpoint not the safest investment, I would say. Oh yeah. Yeah, I will say to add some texture to the Highguard thing, it's hard to know what any of the decision making. It's hard to know why any decisions have been made superficially

because now we're finding out that Tencent was funding it. And a lot of the business decisions there, I don't know. I would be hesitant to say that people got laid off because there wasn't enough players. Yeah. I mean, there are not enough players. I looked at the other day and it was like 3,000 concurrence. Like they're not.

They do not have... There's a lot of reasons why that is true, right? It's not just like the game is of a quality that it attracted 3,000 players. Because I actually heard the game was... I didn't play it. Yeah, I heard it was okay. I think it's more just a competitive set and then also like... It's the most competitive game to wonder into.

If you wonder into it with anything other than your fucking ready best, loaded, lock, stock, and barrel, if you limp into it sort of half measure, like it's simply cannot. And the people that are into that are super hard. core are already playing right so they're already playing whatever and so like I don't know how marathon is a is like a success story

I haven't followed it particularly closely because this extraction shooter genre is like not my jam but like destiny's my fucking jam like I played so much of that game and the feel of it is what kept me kind of coming back so like I don't know I would I would be curious to check out Marathon but just I don't know there's so many there's visible stink lines coming off of it

from a, I don't know, a reputation standpoint. I think the advantage that Marathon has, and it's for all these games, is if you're willing, if the parent company is willing to, like, weight it out and keep investing in it, these things can turn around.

We've seen that a million times. And Sony has put so much money into Marathon, but really bungee, that it's very hard, if not impossible for me, to imagine them doing, a high guard or a Concord

to this project. That would seem... I mean, never say never, like that would be horrifying, but it seems less likely. Just to put a bow on it, the other challenge that Marathon is facing is a very similar-looking extraction shooter called Arc Raiders

came out several months ago and is massively successful. And it seems hard from you to imagine that people are going to abandon whatever they're doing to just drop and do another one, especially one that might, I mean, we'll see what the reviews are. I think if the reviews are good, that's shot, but yeah, hey,

last thing, is this the year that I get into a fighting game? Is that going to happen? That's the game you want to talk about, Chris Plant? That's your last game. I think the most important game, Marvel Toccoen, you want to talk about it? Oh, oh, I thought you were going to mention Dead or Alive. Dead or Alive,

six, no. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not going to touch about that teaser trailer. That's, I won't need that. Marvel Tocone is what I'm going to talk about because it looks sick. It's anime X-Men fighting each other. Like, yes, I definitely want to be Wolverine in Spider-Man getting in the ring. The only problem is I have to learn how to be good at fighting games. But other than that.

That's the only issue. It's a small problem. I was going to say I thought you were going to talk about pragmatta as the last thing. That game continues to look really good. It does. Pretty excited. It's basically dead space, but you've got a little AI girl riding on your back giving you, like, instructions and hacking enemies. Have you, have either of you played it yet?

No. Nope. Okay. Is it like a trailer out for it or something? I played it at an event, I think, last year. But the hacking stuff. It's a puzzle game. So basically, you have to play two games at the same time, Henry Hatsworth style.

Love it. A reference that three or four people are going to enjoy. It feels so cool. I am so damn excited for this game. It's going to be great. I don't know that I want to stake my reputation on it or anything, but I think that 007 game looks pretty cool. Yeah, it's going to be a good game.

I'm excited about that. I'm still embarrassed about how I didn't know it existed. And I was like, wouldn't it be cool if the hitman, if the hitman does the Jay's fog game. He was like, yeah, that's happening. Does he use disguises? Because James Bond doesn't really like really going disguise that often. No, yeah. I mean, Casino Royale mostly just rolls up like, hey, guys, I'm James Bond.

I'm going to kiss all your girlfriends and I'll have your cars. And he does. And he does. He does all that stuff. Yeah. First, should I tell you that? So there is an infamous press event for this game at Game Awards, I guess. Yeah, I think we talked a little bit about it.

And Lenny Kravitz was there, and I don't think I told Frush this, I actually ran into Lenny Kravitz after the event. And I am a cheap skate, and I asked if I could actually just catch a ride with him because I think that we were like living the same area. And then he said, are you going to go my way? And I said, he didn't believe how long you fucking dragged me along for that story, Chris. I feel betrayed. I hate it. Okay, we got some reader mail here. This first letter comes from Aaron talking about Mugenics.

After listening to this episode, as well as the wonderful interview on postgames, I'm starting to understand Mugenics a bit more. This is a brief segue. Side note from me saying, definitely listen to that episode by Chris Plant interviewing Edmund McMillan on Nugetics. It really is terrific. You really got to hit that M. Mugetics.

Thank you so much. Anyway, Aaron writes, I have a daughter with Down syndrome. Chris's interview with Edmund brought up the idea that eugenics are used today, and I wholeheartedly agree with the advent of genetic testing. Some studies report that 60-90% of fetuses diagnosed with Down syndrome are terminated. My daughter is so loving, gentle, and kind. I can't imagine life without her. This game just brings to one person's mind the worthiness of people with intellectual, genetic, physical, or other atypical. I'm all for it, even if it's not my kind of game.

Yeah, it really was a terrific interview, and I think the game is, I think, for a lot of people bringing up some interesting thoughts in ways that you probably wouldn't imagine coming from a weird cat fighting game. Russ, can you comment, Winky Sinclairson in a letter it says colorblind options in Mugenics would be cool? Okay.

Check for that. Good note, Winky. When I was playing the game, and I played it for quite a while before the game actually came out, I was sending in some feedback to the developers regarding colorblind stuff. and what I found was actually the game is pretty accessible for colorblindness

because anything that has color tied to it generally also has some sort of pattern or iconography that indicates like what it is so that would be like what the different classes kind of color code the cats yeah the different classes are different colors but you don't necessarily need to see the colors because you can see there's icons that indicate oh this is a holy spell or this is a healing spell whatever. The only area that I ran into

colorblind issues was the danger area on the floor. There's a thing where you can like see the targeting area of enemies. And it's,

for enemies specifically, it's red. And there are areas in the game that have red floors or dark floors. And it's really, really hard to see that.

So that is a note that I gave the developers. As far as I can tell, and trust me, I played a lot. For me, that was my only issue. Right.

Obviously, everyone has different colorblind requirements and things like that. But for me, that was the only issue that I ran into. And it's pretty playable even despite that. But always room for improvement there. If it's honorable mentions time, I mean, I would love to just keep talking about Mugenics because it is the other thing that I have been playing. And I don't know. The longer, the more time I spend with it, the more I feel like I agree with Russ pretty confident.

It's going to be a fucking contender this year. It continues to throw surprising, exciting shit at me just constantly, runs starting out as one thing and then because of some twist of fate turning into a completely different thing and learning how to like pivot when like your ideas stop working. I don't know. It's like something that never happened for me in Isaac where in Isaac like you're working and you're trying to get this good build and it either peters out. or it doesn't and you turn into a god.

In this one, like, I had a team that was just really strong. I had bred up a team of real killers. And my strongest was my fighter, who was like the up-close melee attacker, had like crazy speed, could go anywhere in the map. And just like totally, the DPS was out of control. And then he got inflicted with a thing called blood, what's it, blood frenzy? Blood frenzy, yeah. Just from a random event on the map.

And now all of a sudden, anytime he kills an enemy, he immediately takes another turn. And he has madness on that turn. So he will not, you don't control him. The AI controls him and he can't differentiate friends from enemies. And when this happened, I was like, fuck. I, you know, he killed one of my teammates like pretty much right away. And I was like, well, I guess I just won't use him. Like, I'll just keep him towards the backfield.

But then I realized, like, can I do something with this and swapped around his equipment? So he had like really low speed. And then I could just get him to the other end of the map, have him kill somebody. And then as he works his way back around, he'll just fucking wipe the floor with everyone before he can like reach my cats. And it just turned into this puzzle game of like, how can I send this super soldier to the other side of the field to like clean them out without him reaching me and killing me too? And it's like, I don't know.

That's just like a challenge that I wasn't anticipating when I was like setting that run up. And I feel like it does shit like that every. single time you play. It's really the sandbox of this game is truly out of sight. It is so vast. Yeah. I frequently think about Binding of Isaac as like the

comparison. Yeah. And you're right. Like when you're on a build, you're hoping for like increase in damage or spreadsheet or homing shot, whatever it is and everything's sort of building on each other. But the interactivity of the way, the abilities and the passives and the items all work in meugenics mean that you really have to constantly reevaluate who is your star player, who are you supporting, who are you keeping in the back?

Do I need more healing? Do I need more items? Like half of this game I spend just like staring at my inventory list thinking like what do I take? What do I toss at the end of a run? Do I don't need it anymore? And there's like limited inventory space. There's just so like so many ways to kind of min-max it.

Even the breeding side of things. Like, I will set up an intricate system where I'm, like, trying to get cats with perfect stats and have two different sort of family trees that I can sort of mix together to, like, avoid inbreeding. And, like, spend all this time, like, working on this perfect cat warrior engine. And then I'll go into a run where someone will get mutated. I just had one where someone got mutated with a mutation that makes it so that they can re-roll their level-up choices. Cool.

And it's like, well, fuck, I have to dismantle my entire operation, because I'm, I want that on, I want that on more cats. Like that's a crazy, crazy benefit to have. It's just like, I am genuinely thinking I can play this game for, for the rest of the year. And I'm going to have to peel myself away from it sometimes, I think, to play other stuff. I had a hard time, honestly, with reanimal knowing that I had, I had this one waiting for me whenever I was done. Yeah, I still have not beaten it properly. There's like an actual ending to me.

Oh, interesting. I don't think that's like a delete all your cats ending, but just like a there's a credits roll, and then there's like a after the credits, which is like a large chunk, and I'm still working my way through. It feels like I'm getting close. But yeah, no, it just keeps going.

And there's still countless challenges that I could be doing. The quest, like each quest is like an item that locks into your character when you leave like the home base with it, and then you have to keep it equipped at all. times and they're so wild. I think I talked about like the bubble one that I was stuck with last week where it like gave everybody knockback five. So if you like hit anyone, you and them would go flying away from each other and just bounce off the walls until what like both of you died eventually. I don't know. They they have to be played in a very specific weird way that you have to build

for and like trying to figure out how you're going to do a run where you have the stopwatch that only gives you five seconds to make your move before it does it for you. Like is it different kind challenge it's it's really really a remarkable game i i'm i'm not going to spoil anything here so fresh especially you can keep your your headphones on but uh i watched a video of the ending first ending of this game and then immediately after a very uh fun stuff happens it's like oh a twist that's not the end of the game there's more um and now youtube has been serving me these about once a day with more and more what i think i am watching is the real ending of this game and it's never the real ending.

The game is... The level to which it goes... It's pure chaos at this point, each time I get served one of these. What a charming game. Frush, you... Delicious and Dungeon? Have you been watching Delicious and Dungeon?

I realize I'm late to the party on this one. This is anime on Netflix. I only watched it a few months ago. I only watched the first season. Really delightful. Really kiss us. The premise, if you haven't seen it, is just there's a fantasy world and there's this party of people that are struggling to rescue their sister from the belly of a dragon, but they have no money. And they realize the only way to really fund this adventure in a reasonable way would be to go through the dungeon and eat their way through all of the monsters that they fight and kill.

So it turns into a half cooking show, half adventuring show. Yeah. And very similar to Monster Hunter, there is a clear passion for food on the part of the creative team because they spend so much time in energy making the meals look fucking fantastic. Also a passion for similar to Monster Hunter, like an ecology. Yeah. That is the thing that really characterizes this whole series for me. And like, it is why I was so impressed with it and churned through that first season in just like a few days is the idea of just like a show set inside of dungeons that is about the food chain inside those dungeons and the like reproductive cycle of this monster. And I don't know.

It's it's just a really, really interesting way to do a genre that is so, you know, thoroughly explored at this point. I would love to say, I don't know if I don't think they've made a video. game yet, but it, like, has so many video game notes of like, oh, I've met this monster before and I realize if I use like basil, it'll be like plus 10 strength or whatever the fuck. Yeah, sure. Would be really cool. I strongly recommend checking out the manga.

Not that one is better than the other because the anime is one of the most beautifully animated last year, but the manga is so good at letting you sink in to the ecology of it and the recipes and like, you know, breaking it online. monster in half and seeing how it's inside works. It's great. I very quickly just want to chat about bored. Griffin, you mentioned this a few weeks ago, and I'm doing an episode of Post Games later this year

about basically like how a family game has evolved since the Wii and the Connect. And after the big companies ceded that territory and all these new people are coming. So I reached out to them and they sent me one. So obviously that caveat there. But holy moly has it been a revelation in our house? Oh, wow. It's been incredible because I've talked about this before. My son is neurodivergent playing traditional board games has been a challenge for any number of reasons.

And this has completely clicked. Can you remind people sort of what it is? Oh, yeah. Thank you. Yeah. So board basically imagine the world's biggest iPad. It's humongous. And you put it on your table and then it comes with a whole bunch of little baggies full of pieces that are like board game pieces.

And you pick a game from the giant board tablet and it'll say, hey, go grab the pieces for this game. It looks like this. It looks like this bag. You open that up and then you put the pieces on the board and they interact with the game. So you might have a game that's like very traditional arcade game. like a asteroids where you put a little like spaceship on it and then you can shoot asteroids together and there's like co-op or versus modes they got crossfire too with that it feels fucking great um there is a like virtual pet in there there's a cooking game which um mosey loves

he goes and gets his giant chef's hat um and lets us know that we are going to be playing the cooking game each night and you like chop up all the pieces it's kind of like a diner dash sort of thing. Very limited interaction. That one is more like managerial. I feel like overcooked, like trying to keep a bunch of plates spinning than. Yes. I don't know.

It didn't give me cooking mama vibes, which I would be here for. And there is a Lemmings game, which I think might be his favorite. It is so good. The only real challenge with it is there's not like a marketplace for games for it. That's it. Yeah. So there aren't a lot of games. For us, that's perfectly fine because we have been desperate for like a game that we can all play together as a family.

And now we have like six or seven, which is just an infinite surplus of where we were. The other thing that I will say about it is you might be skeptical looking at it and like it's just another video game on a screen. Like, why not just play video games together? And the point that my wife made who does not play video games is like, oh, I like this so much. We're looking at each other when we play it. Sure. Because we're like all around the table. We're not like just like looking out at the TV.

And it's true. It's like it is a much more physical experience than when I play Switch with my son, which they both are great. they just serve different functions. And also having the tactile, like, stuff there that you are actually touching and moving, I feel like it's. The board is kind of a mixed bag for me. It works so well. Like, and it kind of has to because if it was the type of thing where, like, sometimes when

you put the pieces on the board, it couldn't figure out what it was. Like, it would be instantly, like, well, this is fucking garbage. It really works super duper well. We haven't played ours and, like, maybe. me a couple weeks at this point because we played a lot of it. But I don't think they've dropped any of the new games yet. And so like these specialty like co-op local gaming devices that are sort of family oriented. This and like the next playground is one that I'm like a huge fan of, which is the like little cube that is basically a connect or like an eye toy.

It works really well. And my kids like, we still will check in on that one because that actually, that store. They are putting up a lot of games on that. But like, I don't know. There's a, it's like 500 bucks, 600 bucks. Yeah. I don't, I forget how much. And so, like, to spend that much money on a thing that is like not a iPad,

which is going to get 100 million games released for it every other day, I don't know. I struggle with the value proposition of these types of things. But the technology is so fucking cool. And if there was like a storefront where like, if I could play D&D on that, this thing. Yeah. I've played so many tech demos at like, you know, nerd events and shit of like, here's the, here's a, you know, virtual tabletop playing on a big touchscreen.

Like, that's fucking cool. And this feels like a vector through which you can kind of get that into the, into the house. But you would have, I mean, the business model for it would have to be pretty dramatically different. And I'm not sure that that's like a pivot that can even take place. My big hope is that this is a first generation. product and that they do get that price down because then you mentioned the next playground that's like

250 i think i'll go on the map for the next playground guys as we have to wear our kids out or they won't fucking sleep and sometimes it's the only way that we can do that is to get them to play fucking fruit ninja for a while it's also just the new connect if you've been missing the connect it's just it's waiting for you and i i think the benefit of getting the price on is one not only do you get like more people to buy it i think you get more people to develop for it sure that is the thing that you're starting to look for, right? So, yeah, it still feels like early days for board, but I am, I'm looking forward to chatting with them because I'm very curious what the plan is. Like, are they going to do the D&D thing? Like, is it just a family thing? I don't, I don't know.

They've done a thing that I feel like a lot of companies have tried to do or, like, have demoed and then never actually released. Like, I think it's, I think it is as a product, pretty fucking incredible. I just don't know that the back end is going to I don't know be what I want it to be. But I don't know.

I'm also a sucker for you know, for tech and early adoption of stuff and cool shit and this is cool shit. Do we got anything else? I think that's pretty much it. We have some patrons to thank

over at patreon.com slash the besties. We've got Chris Z. We've got Ben N. we've got Smooch the Wizard and Lord Eyeball. Thank you for being members. Thank you to everyone else for being members over at patreon.com. So there's the best needs. New content coming at you all the time,

new episodes of the resties and bracket battles and all sorts of good stuff happening there. For next week, maybe we're going to be doing Resident Evil Requiem. It depends on when we get code for that game. And so we would love for that to be the episode next week. partially for SEO reasons I'll just say or mercenary

is a big big game to discuss but also because I want to play it I am excited for this one and I can't believe it's almost here so that's our goal we will stay tuned to our

various channels and we'll let you know if the plan changes but that's our hope is Resident Evil Requiem next week indeed Plant do want to recap what we talked about today

yes I definitely want to do that and I'm definitely prepared to do that We are talking, we talked about the animal. We talked about so much stuff from state of play. I'm going to put all of it in the newsletter. I'm not going to list everything that was in state of play right here. But I will say we also talked about meugenics.

We talked about Delicious and Dungeon, which I believe is on Netflix, if you want to watch that. And we talked about Bored, which speaking of SEO, very challenging SEO to find. Oh, no kidding. Yeah. But good luck. I think it's a board dot fun maybe. Maybe yes, that's right. That's great.

That actually is right. So we might be back next. We will be back next week, maybe with Resident Evil Requiem. So stay tuned. Stick around. Come on back here for the besties because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games. Besties!