The Ringer-Verse - 'Halo' Hits PlayStation, 'Ninja Gaiden 4,' and 'The Outer Worlds 2' | Button Mash

Episode Date: October 31, 2025

This is an Xbox ... episode of Button Mash! First, Ben Lindbergh and Matt "The Matt-ster Chief" James breaks down what the upcoming multi-platform remake of the original 'Halo' portends for the future of Xbox. Then, they stick with the theme by sharing their spoiler-free reactions to two new Xbox-published multiplatform games, 'Ninja Gaiden 4' and 'The Outer Worlds 2.'Intro (0:00)The Future of Xbox (1:46)'Ninja Gaiden 4' and 'The Outer Worlds 2' Reactions (25:18)Outro (1:09:13)Host: Ben LindberghGuest: Matt JamesProducer: Devon RenaldoAdditional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up? It's Todd McShay, host of the McShay Show at The Ringer and Spotify. We're building this thing up and I couldn't be more excited to be back, talking college football and everything NFL draft with the most informed audience out there. That's you. My co-host, Steve mentioned I will be with you three times a week throughout the football season with all the latest news, analysis, and scouting intel from around the league. For even more insight, subscribe to my newsletter, the McShay report, to access my micaw. drafts, big boards, tape breakdowns, and other exclusive scouting content, you can't get anywhere else. It's going to be a great season. And I hope you'll be with us at the McShea Show every step

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I am Ben-Mindberg, Ringer's senior editor and Button Mashed Ninja. joined today by the Ringer's deputy art director, Matt. The Master Chief, James. Hey, Ben. How you feel in Master Chief? More compatible with PlayStation than you previously were? Perhaps, although I've got to admit I've been pretty compatible with PlayStation personally. Yes, you personally have always supported and been supported by PlayStation.

But the Master Chief now will have some new dig soon. We're going to talk about that because this will be, an Xbox-centric episode. Don't turn it off if you don't have an Xbox. Don't cancel the episode. Yes, good news or possibly bad news, depending on your perspective, owning an Xbox is no longer required or even really encouraged to play Xbox games. So today we will be talking about two brand-new Xbox Game Studios published,

single-player but multi-platform games, Ninja Guide and The Outer Worlds 2. But we should start with the big news of the week, though, really the worst kept secret in gaming, perhaps. In fact, if you heard our conversation earlier this year about Forksa being ported to PlayStation, you heard us forecast that Halo would happen also, that it would eventually make its way to PlayStation. We did not predict how many memes of the Trump administration Master Chief would make his way into. That is quite curious. But the PlayStation news, a little less surprising. and yet still significant. And it was officially unveiled earlier this week. Halo, the original, combat evolved, but now rebranded as campaign evolved, will be coming next year. To Xbox, two Windows, but also to PlayStation 5.

So this is yet another example after Forza and Gears of War and everything else, the Lions, Lion down with the Lans, Halo, Master Chief, Xbox, PlayStation, and just all big buddies these days. How do you feel about it? This is the final domino to fall in the, maybe the last nail in the coffin of Xbox exclusivity. It does kind of feel like that. I think it's not a brand new Halo,

which I think would be particularly weird. The remaster's coming is even less surprising to me. But yeah, there's also no multiplayer. in this remake, apparently, which is quite a choice. Hence the name, I guess, campaign evolved. By sure, you know that it's just the campaign. The rest has devolved, evidently.

Yeah, we've been preparing for this for so long that it doesn't really move the needle much. I don't think that once Forza started selling as well as it did on PlayStation, I think that we knew that this day was inevitable because Xbox will take all of the money that they can get right now from all of the sources that are willing to give them money, not just the whales that continue to pay for Game Pass like me.

Yes, they are not discriminating. If you have money, they will take it, and they will let you play their games, equal opportunity players at this point. And it does feel wrong and weird and as if something that should never meet has met, much like when Sonic started showing up on Nintendo Systems. And then we all got used to that. Sure it is.

And Sonic and Mario were in games together and it gets sort of normalized. But it just meant so much to the Halo brand, the original Halo Combat Evolved and Master Chief as a mascot that it does take a little acclimating to, even though we've had time to adjust to it. At this point, though, I guess you could say, and I say this as someone who has sunk as much time into the Halo franchise as just about anything else over the past quarter century, Halo is probably a bigger name than it is a game, right?

Because Halo Infinite, as much as I enjoyed it, the multiplayer just didn't really catch on, you know, didn't thrive and flourish the way that Xbox was hoping it would. And so that kind of faded. and it's not as if there's a new super hotly anticipated Halo game on the horizon. It's just, it's been a bit since Halo was really at the center of gaming, and yet there's still sort of the residual fame and fondness and warm, fuzzy feelings surrounding it, and especially the original game, which was such a milestone and Trailblazer.

Yeah, and it'll be interesting to say there have been some rumors this week that Halo 2 and maybe 3 remakes will be on the way, after this. So it'll be interesting to see if they want to put the multiplayer back into those remakes, if those rumors have legitimacy. And we don't know the price of this remake yet either, which I think also is going to be a big factor in how many people end up dipping into this remake, regardless of platform.

So there's definitely a lot that we still. don't know about this. I'm curious to see how long it is before we do get a new Halo. I assume that will be sort of a next-gen thing. I think we can pretty much assume that this generation's new Halo output is done. Halo Infinite, as you mentioned, did not take off so much,

I think largely because people were... The interest was finite. Well, the interest was finite, but I think that was also due to the fact that Microsoft and Xbox they weren't ready with enough updates and support for that game. People wanted to

boot that thing up and have new content, new maps, new modes. And based on the buzz when it hit, I think if they had continued to have that roadmap of new content, it could have ended up being a very different story. And I think

that was a massive, massive mistake that they made. I mean, that game had already been delayed extensively as they continued to polish it, it seems like they should have delayed it even more so that they could catch up on that roadmap because Halo Infinite was pretty solid. I think that was built on their own engine,

which they've now pivoted off of for the first C-HR-in-on-reel now. But as Xbox is heading towards their next generation, and it is murky, it's all hell about what that's going to look like. I think we all have a sense that it will be probably some sort of PC environment, ideally with backwards compatibility for your existing Xbox catalog.

But if that is the case, and they do go into that PC realm, and down the road we get a new Halo, it will be interesting to see if that comes out on PS5. You would assume it would, but... Yeah, at this point, I think the seal has been broken, and we're not going back. Yeah, but also, if they really do go all in on this PC realm in the future,

there is a scenario where they could potentially wind it back a little bit if they happen to not make a mistake on their new hardware and they have all of the PC world to sell games to. If all goes right for them, they could potentially down the road, try and squeeze PlayStation out a little bit, But, yeah, that's a long way down the road and a lot of correct decisions made by Microsoft away. So I think it would just be... And they made so many correct decisions.

Yeah, they're really on a roll. It's just a killing streak, really, from Microsoft right now. But, yeah, it's my personal interest in campaign evolved is somewhere in the moderate range, I guess. I mean, you know, there was an anniversary remaster for the 10th anniversary of the game. And then there's the Master Chief Collection, and I sunk so much time into the original that I'll probably check it out. It's been incredibly controversial, just people breaking down the most minute changes to the design of the original game, just the placement of rocks and level architecture and how dare they tamper with the sacred design of the original game. And of course, it's, you know, a different developer now Halo is in different hands than it was when this game originally came out. So there's always the remaster, remake decision, how faithful do you want to be to the era,

how much do you want to modernize? And then if it's not even the original curators of that experience who are now revisiting it, they may be tempted to put their stamp on it in some sense. So I am kind of curious to see how that all works out, but more deeply curious, I guess, about, yes, the future of the franchise, do they continue to go in that open world direction that Infinite did? And then the state of Xbox, which at this point is all. almost like the state of Star Wars or the state of MCU.

It's just the ongoing discussion in the gaming industry that everyone relitigates after every development. And the latest developments, in addition to Halo going to PlayStation, there was a big report from Bloomberg that seemed to explain some of the behavior that we have seen from Microsoft and Xbox lately, that Microsoft has set a goal, a target for its gaming division of 30% profit margins, which is about double what Xbox has done lately

and well above the industry standard. That's kind of, if you had a great year, maybe you're at 30%, and that's what they want essentially the baseline to be. Hence, why we have seen maybe just flooding the market, putting all of these games on every possible system to reach as many people as you can. And, you know, raising prices

or at least flirting with raising prices, and maybe cutting back the hardware plans long term. And that's what you were referring to, that the CEO of Microsoft sort of teased the next generation of hardware. They've constantly, the refrain has been, we're not getting out of the hardware business. Xbox is not going away. And yet it's clearly evolving.

It's clearly going to be different in a very significant way because they've essentially lost the hands. head-to-head battle between Microsoft and Sony. And so the CEO and Xbox president, Sarah Bond, who described it the next generation as a very premium, very high-end curated experience. And that does not just refer to constant price hikes on the existing systems or the $1,000 that it takes to buy the Rog Ally X, the new Xbox-branded AIS partnered handheld, which the gimmick is kind of, oh, you can play in the Xbox ecosystem on a handheld.

You can play Windows games. You can play Steam. It's sort of open in a way, perhaps even more than the Steam deck in some respect. So that is the way that they're heading, as you say. And there is a world where that works out because they are just the biggest publisher in gaming. So it's not as if Xbox is going away, but they have acquired so many developers that that has kind of put the pressure. on the gaming division internally in Microsoft because, hey, we just spent so many billions of dollars to merge with Activision Blizzard. We better actually see some proceeds from that.

So we will continue to see Xbox games, but will people buy Xbox hardware if you're not giving them the exclusives that in the past has been the main draw? And it's kind of funny because they're in this predicament where they have clearly lost the battle hardware-wise with PlayStation, which is outsolded by a factor of two or more in this generation, because at least in part, the exclusives weren't there, right? That's one big reason why Xbox has fallen behind. So how do you see this shaping up? Well, first, I want to correct you, Ben,

because you made a huge mistake. You said the ROG ally X. That is not the device you're thinking of. You're thinking of the ROG Xbox ally X, which is completely different. My bad. Yes, appreciate the real-time fact check there. Yeah, got a fact- check you on that. Xbox famously really clear and concise with naming of their hardware in the past,

you know, two decades. Man, they just will never name a device well, ever, will they? There's always next generation. Yeah. We just, PlayStation's just like, we like that the first time. Now, this is just the PlayStation 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Pretty easy. This one's a pro. Self-explanatory. Very good. Yeah, well, that one, I didn't buy, but. Yeah, me neither. The fact that they're coming out of the gate and being like, yeah, the next generation is going to be premium. It's like, premium.

Let's break down what that means. Obviously, that means it's going to be expensive. Yeah, I think that's the only real conclusion we can draw is that it's going to be expensive. As far as premium goes, that's quite a claim for Xbox to make, I think, given that Sony is kind of, held that title, I guess, within the console space, at least in the past few years. PlayStation has felt like more of a luxury item than Xbox. So for them to kind of be immediately at the gate being like, no, we're premium. I swear we're premium is an interesting development.

But back to what you're talking about with the 30% goals. You know, as you were saying, that is probably not realistic. for many companies in the gaming landscape, and it's certainly not realistic for Xbox, as you mentioned, they have had a lot of good games, but they haven't been absolutely on fire like you would need to be to hit 30%.

I mean, that is just 30% is a number that is so high for a company that is clearly only doing okay, if we're being generous, I think, that that just says to me that they want to lay people off, which they have done, which they have done. Mission accomplished on that score. And yeah, all the price raising, arguably gouging that we've talked about with the Xbox Game Pass price raises.

As we said, in the short term, maybe that's a decent play If what you want to do is pump up your profit margins to satisfy your corporate overlords, then that's one way to do it. But you are also pricing people out and long-term shrinking your reach. Yeah. And, you know, it's a dangerous thing to put too much stock into anything that is said by Xbox representatives. I feel like any time they release a statement, you need to just sit down and kind of decrypt what they are trying to convince you about

and what's actually happening. When Xbox started releasing some of their first party titles on PlayStation, at first the word out of them, right? It was, it's just these five games for now. Like, don't panic. Right? And that was a truthful statement.

It was just those games for then. But now it's not just because we've slipped all the way down the slip. Yeah. Yeah, I just don't think that I think everyone is just exhausted anytime Microsoft or Xbox puts any statement out because you just are doing backflips trying to decode like what's going on in the background. How much is some higher up leaning on Xbox to go in a certain direction with things? What is the actual plan that they want to execute? How much do they actually have a plan?

And hearing this number of 30% behind the scenes is a little bit of a peek behind the curtain of why these statements have been so cryptic, so loaded in the past few years. Yeah. In theory, I might be in the market for this super premium Xbox hybrid console PC creation because, you know, who knows if Valve slips back into this space? I mean,

if this is sort of a souped up steam machine, I as primarily a console gamer who has Steam envy sometimes because I don't really have a great gaming PC right now, but there are PC games that I want to play. If you give me essentially a gaming PC in a box that I could hook up to my TV and play with the controller and not have to worry about mostly. And I can access Steam games on there and I can play Windows games and I can play Xbox games. Maybe sold. I mean, it depends on exactly. Yeah, how premium it is, of course.

And you know what, though? It's not about how premium it is because what it's about is how seamless that experiences. Yeah, exactly. And with the release of the ROG Xbox Ally X that has just, come out. That is $1,000. The big test for that device has been, okay, they've put a version of Windows on that device, and you can put it on other devices. I believe it is of just a version of windows that you can put on whatever portable device. But the thing about that device is it was going to

debut with this sort of friendlier handheld version of Windows. And the reviews on that are pretty mixed and that it still feels like Windows you're still going to have to deal with a bunch of stuff. You're going to have to be a tinkerer. This isn't a device that you could just hand to

a clueless relative like you could a steam deck and trust that they can suss it out. And that is really the biggest hurdle. If they can't get to a place before that hardware comes out,

where it is a seamless experience where you could give this to anyone in your family and they could just figure it out, then the whole thing is going to kind of implode on that because people don't want to get a new gaming device and have to uninstall Microsoft Teams from it. Yeah, that's true. That is the standard first step that I go through on any device

when Teams is pre-installed. All right, we will, monitor this as it evolves. We will see whether Microsoft and Xbox can get their act together as they flood the zone with games and also as they manage to flood the library level of Halo campaign evolved a little less than the original version did, evidently. Look, lack of exclusivity, that is the way that things are moving across media generally because there's just such an imperative to reach as many people as possible. But you have to have a, compelling product, regardless of which platform you're on to get people to sign up for it.

So we want to talk about a couple Xbox games that are already out, that are in our hands. I will also just give people a sneak peek at what's coming up on the feed and specifically for ButtonMash, because we have pretty much our roadmap for the rest of the year. As always, tentative, subject to change. Some games will be surprisingly good. Some games will be surprisingly bad. There will be big surprise drops that we had no idea we're coming. But tentatively in November, we're going to be covering Dispatch, which is the new sort of superhero

workplace comedy telltale-esque episodic game. That'll be in the middle of the month when dispatches season wraps up. And that also happens to be right around the fifth anniversary of this console generation, which is kind of incredible that we are at the fifth anniversary of the Xbox series and of places So we will take stock of how it's going and where it's going. After that, we will do, our plan is to do an online shooters shootout. So we haven't covered Battlefield 6 in depth. We did kind of preview the battlefield's call of duty battle.

But it's a three-way battle now because Arc Raiders is out and Arc Raiders has hit. And so we'll be doing an online shooters shootout where we will put each of those games through their paces. They're all slightly different, but also slightly competing. So we will see which has come out ahead and which is our personal favorite. After that, we're going to do a speed run of this year's surprise Steam sensations. So all of the games that went mega viral or Megabonk, in one case, the game that everyone was playing on Steam and everyone was streaming, we're just going to play all of them at once. Catch up on repo and Schedule 1 and Peak and Reiki and Reiki. match and Megabunk and maybe now we're going to have to add others to it too because we've got to do escape

from Duckoff, obviously, right? So we'll see what we get to on that one. After that, we'll have Metroid Prime 4 start of December. So that's something to look forward to as well as Marvel Cosmic Invasion. Release date finally announced start of December another superhero side-scrolling beat-em-up hack-and-slash throwback. We will also have a sequel to Five Nights at Freddy's, the movie, Five Nights at Freddy's two in theater. So we'll cover that. And right after that, Fallout Season 2 will be starting. And we will be starting weekly breakdowns of Fallout Season 2 on Button MASH. I got to revisit and play Fallout New Vegas in the next month or so to prepare for Fallout Season 2. Speaking of Obsidian Games, which we are about to.

And then, of course, we will wrap up the year with our contentious Games of the Year draft. I saw that Polymarket, the market is open for Game of the Year 2025 at the Game Awards. You cannot wager on Polymarket on the game of the year according to Buttonmash for some reason. But early, just prohibitive favorite, your presumptive game of the year, Claire Obscure Expedition 33 with as we speak, 82% title odds. And nothing else above single digits. Steve Alman tearing his hair out somewhere. Banana. And we will hash that all out in December before we get to our preview of what we're looking forward to in 2026.

But it's been quite a year. And also, maybe in our online shooter shootout, we can talk a little bit about the Call of Duty movie, which we did before when the news was that there was going to be one and that Steven Spielberg would not be directing it. Now we know who will be, Peter Berg, with a co-writing and co-producing assist from my man, the new billion-dollar deal lender, Taylor Schuster. Sheridan. I suddenly got much more interested in the Call of Duty movie because I'm in the Sheridan verse. I'm just the Taylor Sheridan heads, which means that now I will probably be seeing the Call of Duty movie for better or worse. This episode is brought to you by Weather Tech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and making a mess. You don't need WeatherTech floor liners in the summer unless you hit the beach or go camping. Then you'd want a cargo liner or road trip goes sideways,

ketchup goes rogue, ice cream drips. Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those weather tech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer. You don't need weather tech unless you plan on doing summer. Visit weathertech.com today. This episode is brought to by Whole Foods Market. Spring is here, so celebrate it with fresh, juicy, seasonal produce and some very tasty, limited time flavors.

New Whole Foods, Market Peach, Apricot Rose, a town. in soda. Perfect for a picnic or brunch, as is their trending mango, Yuzu chantilly cake. But if you're on the go, new 365 strawberry pretzels make a great sweet snack. That sounds delicious. Get savings with yellow sale signs storewide and everyday low prices on 365 brand items. Enjoy the fresh flavors of spring. Save at Whole Foods Market. This episode is brought to by the Active Cash credit card from Wells Fargo. That's a mouthful, but that's because it packs a lot in. Earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases with it, big or small.

So whether it's buying tickets to the game and grabbing a coffee, it earns unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases. Say it with me, the active cash credit card from Wells Fargo, be a 2%er. Learn more at Wells Fargo.com forward slash active cash terms of play. All right. Let us talk about our new games. And of course, you can contact us via email.

at Ringiverse Gaming at gmail.com. We're talking about two new Xbox published games that are also on PlayStation and PC, though I did actually play them on Xbox for old times' sake. Ninja Guide 4, which is the latest installment in a series that dates back almost 40 years

to its original arcade incarnation and NES and S-NES installments. But really, this is the latest in a lineage that dates back more than 20 years to the 2004 revival reboot 3D, directed by Tominobu Idaaki, who died earlier this month, RIP. This one was co-developed by Team Ninja and Platinum Games,

published by Xbox Games Studios for Xbox Series, Windows, PS5, also on GamePass Ultimate and PC GamePass. So this is the seventh mainline Ninja Guideon game, but the first since, believe it or not, Ninja Guideon 3 makes sense, they can count. that came out 13 years ago. Weird from Xbox. Good point.

They could have come up with a far more confusing name. Yeah. But actually there was as big a gap between, well, this is actually kind of confusing, between Ninja Guidon 3 and 4 as there was between the original Ninja Guideon 3 and the 3D reboot, because this is one of those series where you have to distinguish between sequels with Roman numerals and sequels with Arabic numerals, which you can't really convey on podcasts. But we're in the Arabic numerals era of Ninja Guiden.

And as we mentioned previously, this is the year of Ninja Guiden. After many years of no Ninja Guiden, we got Ninja Guiden 2 Black, a remaster of Ninja Guiden 2, which came out in January, followed by the hack and slash platformer spinoff Ninja Guiden Ragebound in July.

And now we've got Ninja Guiden 4 with a new protagonist, Yakimo, which helps if you haven't played a Ninja Guiden game before, I guess. Though good old Ryu Hayibusa does show up here. So good to be back in Ninja Guidenland. Oh, well, yeah, definitely. I was way into Ninja Guideon Ragebound earlier this year. Loved that game.

Really loved that game. I just thought it was such an wonderful modern take on a 2D platformer. and I was excited for Ninja Guide and 4. I was optimistic about it, and I had quite an unusual experience with it. I booted it up, and I think that within the first couple hours, I might have just fell off it

if I didn't have to play it for the pod. Yeah, that's a great motivator, you know, when you have to create content related to the game that just really lights the fire under you. It really does. And then the craziest thing happened, I ended up really loving this game. I think that it's great combat. That's the headline, is that the combat system eventually is fantastic.

But I think at the top, there's a lot about the game that feels budget. There's a lot about the game that feels like it is from a bygone era, like maybe like a PS3 era. I get this feeling a lot with Team Ninja Games. This is the makers of Ninja Guide and Dead or Alive, Nio, Rise of the Ronan, specifically. That really gave me that feeling of, this feels like it's from a couple of console generations ago. Yeah, I guess this is more of a platinum games game this time. Yes, it is.

It's co-developed, yeah. But still, there's elements of it that right off the bat, like some of the ways that the character moves in an incredibly exaggerated fashion through. rather uneventful hallways and repetitive backdrops is a little dated. It just hits you at the jump and feels a little dated. And then the bigger issue I had off the bat

was that the combat system in this just feels very overwhelming at first. The number of moves you have, the number of moves you are learning at the jump in the like the tutorial mode and you're unlocking. talking new ones. Yeah, a lot of pop-ups with button presses and instructions.

Yeah, and it just takes a very long time to kind of process the depth of it. I mean, it ends up being really great, but the intimidation factor of it mixed with that initial impression of how dated certain elements of it are, I was just kind of playing it thinking about all of the other incredible games that are coming out that I was not playing. Tough timing.

Yeah. At the time. And I pushed through that. And I came to find some of those dated things a bit endearing. This might be a common theme of this episode because the Outer Worlds

too is kind of a grower too. Also a slow starter. Yeah. And as I played more and more, as I put more and more time into it, I started to really get a feel for the combat and it started really clicking with me and I unlocked new weapons and those new weapons gave a different feel that was very welcome while still working within that same combat system

and the plot is not great. The voice acting is like not great but still there are like it has an action movie feel to it enough of like this is like a dumb action movie where you still want to see what happens next and it's totally consistent at least that's that's true that's a charitable way to put it yeah but you know there there are moments though where like the the music is hidden and some dumb shit is happening and the bosses are at times very interesting I think uh the The difficulty for me was not as intense as some previous Ninja Guide in entries, at least on normal difficulty, which is how I played it. The original 3D revival was really known for being punishing.

This is not so much. And you can switch difficulty levels at any time, and it's much more accessible. Yeah, but did you find, what was your experience? Like, this game took me about a little under 10 hours to finish. What did you think of? Yeah, I was in the same range, which is nice. I mean, 10 hours, it tells you something about how long games are that I'm thinking, oh, bite-sized, a little snack of a game, 10 hours, but that's what it feels like these days

and when you're playing something like Outer Worlds 2. So, yeah, it didn't click for me immediately either because everything except the combat is completely unremarkable and unimpressive, which is maybe not a surprise for an Injikhaiden game. of what do you expect, really? What have we gotten before? I'm always conflicted. You know, when we talked about split fiction and how much that story didn't really resonate with us

and the writing and everything, I saw some people saying, you know, who cares, right? Like, this is for the gameplay. And we praise the gameplay too, but as long as there is still a story and a plot and writing and dialogue, I think it's not really fair to fault. Yeah, you know, I mean, it's not the main selling point. You're coming to Ninja Guide.

for the action. Team Ninja hasn't won a game of the year like off the back of their narrative before. No. Yeah.

They do not appear to be on the polymarket leaderboard for game of the year. Although the Outer Worlds is there with a 2% chance. But yeah, this is, as you said,

kind of a, you know, it's like a super group team up in a way between Tim Ninja, which made all the games that I mentioned and then Platinum Games,

which is best known for Bayonetta, but which is now kind of an all-purpose co-developer that's worked on everything from Metal Gear Solid to Star Fox to near Automata. So yes, the engine is more of a platinum games experience, but it does feel very much like a Team Ninja game just in a lot of other ways. The English voice acting, at least, is among the worst that I've heard lately. It's a bland level design, as you said.

Just a lot of like, you know, it's set in this kind of near, future Tokyo that's cyberpunk-ish and like still kind of cursed by the remnants of the dark dragon, the adversary and a lot of ninja guided games. It's like an evil god that Ryu previously defeated, but didn't totally defeat. So you have to defeat it again, of course. And I guess the main effect of the dark dragons husk still being wrapped around Tokyo is that it rains a lot. It's like really rainy. Really inconvenient.

That's bad. Yeah, yeah, just bring an umbrella around. this futuristic Tokyo all the time. I think Seattle has that dragon as well. Yeah. So we're trying to clear up the skies for the residents of futuristic Tokyo here. And there's kind of like a crossover with the underworld and a kind of doom or death-stranding sense. But basically, you're just beaten stuff up. It has the most forgettable story and cutscenes imaginable. And that's okay. That is okay. The combat delivers ultimately, and it makes it worth all. all of those other nitpicks.

And yeah, it did take me a little time to master it, but once you get the hang of it, it's extremely satisfying. And kind of, you know, over-the-top violence and kind of arcadey. Like, you know, your character's movement is sort of twitchy and very fast. You're sort of sprinting all the time, even when you're not sprinting.

Fast is the keyword. Yeah. It feels super fast to combat. Like you really are at an incredible breakneck pace in this game. And I think that's what works so well about the combat is that sense of speed. It kind of feels like you're operating faster

than you are capable of it at some points. Like when you're really in the thick of it in a boss battle, your focus level is just off the charts because if you miss a dodge, that can be like a very big amount of damage that you're dealing with. So, yeah, I think they're, you know, this isn't one for as, you know, as old as we're getting.

I think there are going to be a few people on the older side whose reflex is just like can't hang anymore. Who are just like, I can't do it, man. I don't know. I'm in the training mode trying to hit the parry that they're telling me and it's taken like 20 times. I can't. Yeah, you need those quick twitch reactions.

I was going to say, actually, that's one thing. that always makes me feel young. When I play a video game, I usually don't tamper with the default settings all that much because I just generally feel like, oh, this is the way they intended me to play it and I'll at least start this way on the default and then adjust as needed.

And often I don't need to adjust at all. But the one change that I always immediately, automatically make, I'm not an inverted controls guy. That's for monsters, obviously. but I am always a increase the sensitivity guy. Really? Dramatically, always. The camera, you know, I always find,

I don't know if this is just like being more of a PC player in my younger days and just being accustomed to mouse and keyboard and being able to swivel quickly. But I always just immediately pump up the joystick, you know, the camera rotation and controller sensitivity. And that always makes me feel superpowered. because it's just like, wow, I must be incredibly coordinated. Yeah, my processing speeds must just be so much better than the baseline. I don't know, but I do that in every game immediately as soon as I start. I always feel like it's too low.

It's like I'm moving through molasses here. Well, you certainly don't want to feel that way, Ninthagyden 4. I'm sure, like, the camera whipping back and forth in this is actually pretty useful because, you know, being a frantic 3D game, the camera is not. always where you want it to be in this game. You really have to be slanging that thing around to make sure you can see all of the people on the screen. Now, they give you little radar indicator warnings

when an attack is heading your way. But yeah, you really are manipulating that camera a lot. So that does make sense to me that you would have altered that. And it's not easy to center it, really. You do just have to rotate it. There were times where I felt like, it was almost a fixed camera angle game and I kind of forgot to rotate the camera.

I don't know if that's just because Ninja Guy didn't feel sort of old school to me or what, but there would be default angles when you enter a place or after you're partway through a fight where I couldn't really see where I was going and I forget, oh yeah, I can move the camera. I don't know why that was. I was a little slow on the uptake,

but it is pretty important to see around you and adapt because there's a lot going on. Yeah, there is a lot going on. And that's what it is, is that it's moving at such a frantic speed that you're really just thinking about the next move and about the timing of the people in front of you. And I understand why you would just leave the camera there because you got a lot of stuff to worry about in this game. So that makes perfect sense to me. Yeah. And if you've played Ninja Guiden games before, you'll be pretty familiar with the main

thrust of the combat. And there are various upgrades, of course, that you can get in different weapon types, probably the biggest innovation combat-wise is the Blood Raven form, which you can trigger. It's sort of Marie-Marot from Gen V. Manipulate blood ability, but a little less gross, but cool-looking, where you can kind of extend your weapons to get a greater reach, or there are certain enemies that you just have to use Blood Raven form. Just your standard attacks are ineffective, and there's kind of a color code to tip you off, okay, I should use blood rape and form. And then there's a strategy aspect to it because there's a bar, a meter that goes down pretty quickly. So you have to be judicious about how to use that. But I guess that's the main way

that it differentiates itself other than the new protagonist who's entirely forgettable because you might think this series was sort of in hibernation for more than a dozen years. Maybe they were cooking up something completely new and different. And not really. It's still just an Hayden, which is good. I don't know why we went so long with that one. Yeah, we got to get Rob Mahoney to play this because Yakimo reminded me a lot of Squall from Final Fantasy 8. His faith.

Just a, just a, like an S-tier sad boy. Yes. Just brooding around the world. Yes. There's an old Penny Arcade comic that I have always remembered is about one of the Prince of Persia games and the Prince in the Penny Arcade comic. says, I smolder with generic rage. And that is how I think of Yakima.

He's like mostly grunting. Yeah, except when he... A petulant teen. Yeah, pretty much. He's moping. He's sulking and he's killing. Those are basically things that he does. There's some laughable dialogue with him where like, oh, yeah.

Character will ask him like a question about something and he'll just kind of be like, fuck you. And you're just like, all right. Yeah. Right. All right. You want to be like that? Yeah.

I guess we'll just get back to hitting things with our sword. Then that's fine. Yep. Yep. Yeah, I did like that blood mode, though. Like the way that you would be like mid-combo against an enemy and they would maybe block or start a power attack and you will hold the left trigger to enter that like more powerful mode

where those attacks can break through a block. They can cancel. It's the right trigger, isn't it? Which is weird. Was it right? It took some left on Xbox at least. I think it was right. I think the right trigger was dodge, if I'm not mistaken.

Anyway, you hold a trigger down to get into that powered mode where your attacks will stop special moves from enemies, and that stuns them, or if they're blocking, you can break through that. And you're managing that kind of meter. Obviously, you would like to use those powered attacks, but that meter runs down and you fill it by defeating other enemies. and like it's a very nice loop there in addition to the other weapons that you have and like the executions that you do when you do enough damage to an enemy,

they become covered in blood, and then you can just tap the strong attack to kind of do an execution there, which not only is cool, but also lets you kind of escape damage that you might be doing. If you happen to be in the middle of an execution, you don't take damage from the other enemies. There are all these little things, all these little nuances that at first you don't pick up on, but with enough time in the game, you really see the full breadth of how this was designed the combat system

and how well it functions aside from perhaps the camera not being where you wanted to be while you're. Yeah, there is a fair amount of dismemberment. And yes, the triggers, I remember being confused about this initially because it is dodging is right trigger. And then the blood stuff is left trigger. And I felt like it should be the other way around because I'm used to doing the more offensive thing with the right trigger, maybe, the more attacky thing than the Dodge or Perry thing. So that also took a little adjustment.

My big gripe is whenever in any game, you put either a Perry or a Dodge on an analog trigger, I think it's stupid. Yeah. Because that button has so much give. And that needs to be the button that you can, input quickest and most efficiently. So any travel on that is just kind of dumb.

And games just continue to do this. It doesn't actually matter as much as I feared in this game to the point where I didn't even look if I could remap it. I think I probably could have. But I ended up not because I found that Dodge Windows are actually kind of surprisingly forgiving for how you can be spamming that Dodge, and it's completely fine. If those Dodge windows were tighter, I would just lose my mind over that and be trying to remap it instantly.

I was like a game that lets me block bullets with a sword. And you can get that from Ninja Guideon 4 and much more carnage. Let's talk about the other game on our plate today, the Outer Worlds 2, which is a first person primarily, though you can play third-patient now, action RPG, developed by Obsidian. it's the sequel to 2019's, the Outer Worlds, which I think took three years to develop. The sequel took six. That's the way that games are going these days. It is also out for Xbox series Windows, PS5.

It is also on GamePass Ultimate and PC GamePass. You got your combat, you got your stealth, you got your exploration, you're going to do your dialogue trees. Oh, yeah. And if you've played an obsidian game before, you will know what to expect. I mean, maybe not if Pentamination.

was the Obsidian game you played. That was perhaps not the most representative of the studio. But this is a similar amount of dialogue, at least. Yeah, that's true. But, you know, this is going back to Cotor 2 and, well, never winter nights and fallout New Vegas, as I mentioned, and avowed, which came out just this year, in fact. Sure. We mentioned that this was the year of Ninja Guidon.

It's also the year of obsidian, which somehow managed to release. least three games. Yeah, grounded two. Grounded two. Yeah, which I guess technically is still in early access, but still it counts. So avowed grounded two and the outer worlds too. So good things come in three, I guess, although don't deaths supposedly also come in three? Deaths aren't good.

I'm not sure there's any truth to these things. They seem directly in conflict with each other. But a lot of Obsidian games is the point. People are having difficulty getting any games made. And the Obsidian said, watch this. What a flex. we will release three in the same year, including two that are sort of in similar genres, at least. Well, it helps to delay your games into the next year where you actually are releasing your games.

Yeah, or if you go three years without releasing any games, and then you stack them up. Again, I have some notes, you know, maybe spread out the Ninja Guiding games instead of none for many years and then three all in one year. The same sort of note to Obsidian, perhaps. But sometimes these things are tough to predict game development. You never know which way it's going to go. Obviously, it wasn't the same teams and the same developers within Obsidian, who were working on all three of these games at the same time, presumably, though that would have been pretty impressive multitasking.

This game was originally going to be one of the $80 games, but no, it's only $70. They walked that back, so just like Ninja Guide and not 80. Wow, what a deal. Yeah, I know, really. It's a discount. It's like they anchored us to 80. And then they're like, you know what, we're good guys.

We'll lower it to 70. And then we say, oh, thank you. This is one of those. Don't listen to the things that you hear Microsoft saying kind of things. Yeah. So if you didn't play the original, the Outer Worlds, not to be confused with Outer Wilds, which is a wonderful game, but a different one. And to be frank, I did not play the original Outer World.

So I would include myself in that group. But the premise of the series is that President William McKinley was never assassinated. So Teddy Roosevelt never became president, never got to seize the bully pulpit, and big business wasn't broken up. You know, the way big business has been broken up in our timeline, apparently. So we've got many mega corporations and faster than light travel and colonization and terraforming. And the first game, again, not speaking from personal experience here, but I did my research, took place on the colony of Halcyon, where, this one takes place in a richer, more isolated colony called Arcadia.

And you play as an agent of the Earth Directorate, which coordinates things between Earth and the colonies, and you're investigating why the colonies have been cut off. You're a space cop, pretty much. Yeah, basically you're a space cop. Yeah, there are rifts in space and time. What's up with that? That's your job to figure it out.

You get embroiled in local politics and disputes. There's some revenge and aesthetically, tonally, there's like a little bit of Bioshock and Borderlands and cyberpunk and DeSX, but very much leaning into and sending up the tropes of futuristic mega corporations in kind of a self-conscious, winking satirical way

with the gameplay of obsidian games and maybe Mass Effect or Fallout, etc. So did you play the original The Outer Worlds or was this your inaugural journey as well? I put a few hours into it way back in the day and kind of fell off it, not even enough for me to really remember much of it. So this is pretty much a fresh slate for me. Obviously, I played New Vegas, and I am plenty of obsidian games.

So that element of it felt very familiar, just looking for loot everywhere. And characters just have it a lot to say and opening it up computers and being like, okay, three pages of stuff to read here. Let's get into it. Yep, yep, very much that. Yeah, the reception to the Outer Worlds, the original, was muted. It was tempered. It was kind of okay.

It was like, it was your classic, all right, this is a fledgling journey. This is a new IP, and it's an interesting world that they've set up, but it's in need of some refinements and improvements, which is what the Outer Worlds 2 is for. and generally the reaction has been warmer to this one. And this kind of feels like maybe this is the fuller expression of the outer worlds that they wanted to make the first time around. They learned some lessons from that. And they made some tweaks and ended up with a better game,

even though it took twice as long. Maybe those things are correlated. So you did not bounce off of this one, again, I guess, because we were podcasting about it partly. but this is another case maybe where you're rewarded the more time you put into it and then eventually it becomes not because it's your job and you're obligated to keep playing but because you want to. Yeah, I mean, honestly, it's rare for me to feel like I'm obligated to play a game.

So that's quite an interesting feeling at the beginning of Ninja Guidon 4 for me. But I didn't have that at any point with the Outer World Steel. I actually have not finished it yet. I think I'll just under 30 hours into it, and I am someone who plays these games in a very completionist manner of, I'm going to clear all of these side missions before I do the main mission. I'm going to explore every notable thing on the map before moving on. And if you're planning on a completest play-through,

you might be halfway through the thing. Yeah, I'm not finished either. There's a lot more of this game left for me. But that's how I like to play these games. That's how I played all the fallout games in the past. And, you know, I'm finding a lot of baseball cards that improve your stats because I'm looking everywhere. I think that the reason why the reception to this has been warmer

and the reason why I think it is, you know, perhaps more of a compelling experience for people than the first one is because everything that you want out of an obsidian game, all of those kind of tropes, a little bit of jank here and there, that's all there for you to feel nostalgic about and be comforted by, but the thing that they do really well in this,

that they have been people, it's all they ever want from these games is the idea that your choices matter, that you, the decisions that you make alter what's going on in the plot, alter what's going on with the characters, and alter what's going on, with your particular character's gameplay

and the way that they interact with the world, there are multiple ways to do almost anything that you have to do in this game. I have had boss encounters where I just talked the dude down. He was like, damn, you're really right. I almost made a big mistake. I've seen error of my ways.

Yeah. Yeah. And then there are boss fights where I said the wrong thing or something to happen. Anyway, we have a big old fight, and then I get to the end of the fight, and he realized like, oh, I could have done this thing and would have skipped this interaction entirely.

And now I hope that that character being gone doesn't create a problem for me down the line, right? So there are just so many options of how to do things. And you pick your perks at the top that that sort of, give you specializations and a few things. And the game really does want you, if you're going to play this game, you haven't started,

the game wants you to commit to a narrow number of things. If you're going to play this game, don't just put like two points and everything. That's not the way to play this game. Pick a few things. In fact, as a start when you're choosing your core attributes, you can just choose one specialty.

If you even choose a second one, then it comes with some negatives. some drawbacks too. So yeah, they want you to sort of pick a lane. Yeah. And the Outer Worlds too succeeds very well in that flexibility with your character build and your route

through it. And it's fun. And I have a feeling that once I'm done with this, I'm not going to play it again because there are so many other good games this year that I need to play. But if I did play it again, I would be really eager to just do it

completely differently. and I feel like there would be a lot to discover in a second play-through, just a tremendously different experience you could have in a second run. And that's really rare, I think. You're not going to play Ninja Guideon 4 again and feel like anything. A completely different experience, yeah. You know, this is about Ninja Guideon 4, I guess, but like towards the end of that game, you kind of feel like you're already replaying that game.

No spoilers, but yeah. And there is a little bit of repetitiveness when it comes to, say, enemy types and, you know, creatures that you encounter in the world in the outer worlds too. But, yeah, there's a lot of variety in how you actually impact the playthrough. And that's something that is just perennially disappointing to me, because that's always the promise of games. Just you can shape the world. you can shape the narrative. And maybe that's why Baldersgate 3 hit the way that it did. One of the reasons, because it actually delivered on that premise more than any other game,

more than the vast majority of other games. Right. And so so many games, I mean, that's the allure of D&D of playing like the tabletop version, but then you poured it into the digital realm. And well, suddenly it's difficult because you're not just limited by your imagination, but you actually have to program stuff. Yeah. You have to record lines of dialogue.

for endless amounts of time. And so you can't make an endless number of permutations of the game to support any possible play through. And so you have to fudge that or you have to in the telltale games put a message on the screen that says so and so we'll remember that. And then it doesn't actually, you know, maybe it affects like a few major choices or something. And then you can see, oh, X percent of people made this choice. But the grand scheme of things, it's sort of the same game.

But yeah, this does feel on the more impressive side of, oh, okay, I'm actually putting my stamp on this world. Yeah, it does. And in addition to that major success, the other elements of the game, I think, are really great, too. I think the gunplay feels really good. Even the melee kind of feels good in this game. The stealth system, if you want to go down that route, is good enough. Like, avowed a lot of people were, I think, a little bit down on. I actually ended up really liking a Voud.

Yeah, I was going to ask you, because I didn't play AVoud, but I knew that you did and really liked it. Yeah, I would say that I loved Avoud, which is not a common opinion. How does this compare? I feel like they probably learned a lot in Avout about how weapons should feel, how gunplay and everything should work. because that was the strongest part of a vowed for me was the weapon systems and the feel of those. And I feel like in Outer Worlds 2, there's a lot of that DNA in it

and the kind of modifications that you can make to the weapons are interesting. The ways that you put points into certain skills and then can unlock specific skills that interact with your weapons in interesting ways. That's all very successful to me in this game. And the only criticisms I have really about the Outer Worlds too are that it can be a bit verbose at times.

I love that there's a lot of dialogue and voice characters. I feel like the story is perhaps not as... It's good. I think it's good. And I really appreciate a lot of the satire in this game about our modern age. Like, you know, you're either a religious zealot or you're just like so lost down capitalism that you're kind of blinded by that. And that tends to be. And there are bros who are essentially like modern day like AI bros in the games.

And all of that commentary is great. The actual like plot line of the story sometimes is a little. little lacking for me. It's okay. I don't know why you're in the protectorate and like the big faction you start off against is the directorate. It's just very confusing.

Like, come on. That's like so don't you forget which or it you're for and against at the start. And like it takes a while to get that story going. And sometimes it's great. And other times it's kind of

it can be kind of boring. And as I said, like rolling up to a new area of the game and opening a computer terminal to read five lengthy emails, when you're really not sure if this is going to be worth your time because is this relevant to the story?

Is this just like one guy who worked at this substation and you're just supposed to glean that like he didn't like his coworker and you're five pages deep and being like, this could have been one email. Yeah. Yeah, this five emails could have been a meeting. This five emails could have been a meeting.

Yeah. Yeah. We could have seen this and not read this, right? Yeah. Yes. The story gets better. Yeah, as you go, I think just because the focus of it changes and you get to know the factions and this world and universe a little bit better

and you just feel more grounded and situated there. Absolutely. And I also find, yes, the weapons are cool kind of in a borderlandsy way, but more designed than procedurally designed or almost like ratchet and clanky kind of wacky guns sometimes that adds a little levity and also changes the way you play. And again, I didn't play the first game, but combat was not the strong suit of that game as I understand it. And it is, I think, much improved here, or at least I liked it. Yeah, very enjoyable. Yeah, it's a little like maybe Death Stranding 2 in that way where they really You're still a Death Stranding Kojima hater.

Oh, I'm sure I'll get to it, yeah. Eventually. Eventually, after you put 30 more hours into the Outer Worlds 2 and read many more emails. But yeah, I feel like that was kind of a weakness and not a focus of the original game. And then in Death Stranding 2, it's like, okay, this is actually kind of a fun shooter when it needs to be. and the same could be said about the outer worlds too. And in fact, I am saying it. And I think like the morality of it is also sort of satisfying

because it's a little more nuanced. It's not like your sort of standard mass effects, Paragon, Renegade. I know this is the good choice. I know this is the bad choice or like this is the good faction and this is the evil faction. Yeah. It is, yeah, there's like some shades of gray. And they're really successful. Like they're, I stumbled upon an area.

controlled by a faction that I particularly dislike and found that like the guy running this area is a good person trying to help people and do the right things, even though he's like, you know, under the rule and, and in his beliefs are with this faction I don't like. And I ended up like, you know, helping this guy out, despite the fact that I normally wouldn't be helping this faction because he's a good leader and he's like helping these people in real ways, you know? And those gray areas of the game, like they don't want you to find the faction that you like

and be all about that faction. They want all of these factions to have things that they're maybe right about and things that maybe they're wrong about. And that makes for a much more interesting decision tree throughout your playthrough than just like good guys versus bad guys, you know? And I like the companion.

As in the first game, you can't romance them. And what's even the point of having companions if it must be chaste and platonic at all times? But for companions, you can't have sex with. They're great. Not even the robot, man? Well, I mean, not going to judge. But I think they're kind of in the mass effect vein where like you collect companions who represent different points of view and perspectives that you encounter in the world.

and then they're sort of the mouthpieces for that, the representatives for that, except they're not like Mass-Effect companions, because, again, you can't have sex with them. But other than that, I think it's a strong cast, some memorable characters, some strong personalities there. So, yeah, I'm enjoying my time through this thing. And I think they've sort of done enough to establish that there's more meat on the bone and that this is a franchise that they could pursue and keep pumping out sequels to, and people would be happy to have them. Yeah, I think that's the general response that I've seen

is that you already kind of know if you're going to like this game or not. And if you like this kind of game, then you're going to like this game. If you don't want to read computer terminals and open every drawer and pick up ammo every 10 feet and it might not be for you. And that's fine. But for the fans of this kind of thing, I think obsidian's really delivered on the promise of what a space version of Fallout kind of is in ways that Starfield kind of fell on his face. Yeah, I was going to say there was a space version of Fallout.

It wasn't the best. And I like Starfield quite a bit, but I had some good times. I wouldn't recommend it for most people, whereas I think this is a much easier. recommendation. Yeah, compared to, first of all, it's just a little more fun and lighthearted and funny. That's not really what Starfield was going for. And because the scope is smaller, I mean, it's not Starfields, which was super procedurally generated. And then they were like, wait, space is boring, though, mostly. And we didn't really give you anything to do most of these places. And it all kind of looks the same. And Outer Worlds is a little less like that. So, you know, you can't

go anywhere and do anything. But anywhere you can go, there is actually something to do, which makes it kind of punch above its weight. So yeah, it feels more curated and designed than a game like that. So, you know, it's not a no man sky or something. And, you know, sometimes I longed for that sort of biodiversity and variety in the design. There's some cool looking areas, to be clear, but just like the wildlife is not what you're going to get in a no man sky. but it's not No Man's Sky. It is a very different kind of game. It is a back to the Outer Worlds too.

So both of these games were in the same range review-wise, and I guess our reviews, even we're not scoring them, but I guess we were sort of similarly praising or debiting. Right now, Ninja Guideon 4 has an 82 on Metacritic, and the Outer Worlds 2 has an 83. You know, I might maybe bump up Outer Worlds relative to Ninja Guidon, just a little bit more than one point. But I think that's the general range.

And that's a tough range to be in these days. I mean, this year and this stretch of a couple months specifically, because there are just so many great games, as you said, that you put out a good game, you know, even borderline, very good game. There's just a deep bench of those this year. But there are so many other games that are closer to the short list of game of the year contenders that just sort of outshine everything else, which is just a tough spot to be in.

Yeah, and I'm sure Xbox probably would have hoped that metacritic number was a bit closer to 90 for how long it was in development for. But I don't think they can view this as, I mean, obviously I don't know the sales numbers, but just from a critical standpoint, I think that they have to at least be somewhat happy that this wasn't a miss, right?

And look at us, two Xbox games. we're talking about on the pod. We liked them both quite a bit. It's almost like we didn't spend the first half of this podcast just really questioning everything about what Xbox is doing. It was so over half an hour ago. And now it's not. Xbox is so back.

They're so back. Wow. Just really changed quickly. We almost had two separate state of Xbox conversations. I have been playing a lot on my Xbox this month. I've been playing. I played keeper. I played all X-Based.

Pitt. I played Power Watch Simulator 2. We haven't even talked about. Oh my goodness. I mean, that's your goady right there. That's that was the main competition for Claire Obscure, really for you was Power Wash Simulator 2. Yeah. And it's got split screen co-op. I'm cleaning with my wife. Hals of Torment is out on GamePass now, which is, which I will be playing on Xbox. I hear that's great. It's like, I don't know, it's a weird time where I'm playing a lot of Xbox and then being like, oh, Xbox. Xbox is doomed. But I can't stop playing it.

You're totally fucked. Anyway. Yeah. Okay. Well, Xbox contains multitudes, I guess. And stay tuned for Ringiverse recommends, which will be the next podcast coming out on the feed after this episode

of Butmash. And you can hear Matt praise Ballex Pit on that podcast. Maybe you can recommend PowerWash Simulator 2 on next month's Ringaverse recommends even though technically that will be a month after it came out. That's okay. That's okay.

I want to let you have your space. Everything will still be dirty in that game. Yeah. There will be so much more to clean. And dirty ain't going nowhere. Thank you as always, Matt. It was a pleasure. Thanks for having me, Ben.

What a lovely Xbox talk we've had. It really was. But not only for Xbox. It was a multi-platform conversation because that's what Xbox is these days. Thank you to Devere Linaldo, who will also be heard on Ringaverse Recommends and helped us produce this podcast, thanks to our Juna Ramgapal, who will also be heard, I believe, on that Ring of Verse recommends. The whole gang will be there. Stay tuned. Next week, I believe the Midnight Boys will probably be covering Predator Badlands,

Piu, and I already outlined the rest of the year for Button Mash. So there's so much to look forward to. And next time, we will probably be talking dispatch and the five-year anniversary of this console generation, you can contact ButtMash at Ringiverse Gaming at gmail.com. Finish the fight. Finish the podcast. Feels like every product claims real protein these days. But real doesn't start on a label. It starts at the source.

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