The Ringer-Verse - Nintendo News and 'Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree' Impressions | Button Mash

Episode Date: June 21, 2024

Ben, Steve Ahlman, and Matt James discuss the biggest news from this week's Nintendo Direct (including a 'Legend of Zelda' with playable Zelda and proof of life for 'Metroid Prime 4'), gaming's suddenly stacked release schedule for the rest of 2024, and what the Switch 2's launch lineup could look like. Then they reflect on the legacy of 'Elden Ring' and share their spoiler-free early impressions of its acclaimed new expansion, 'Shadow of the Erdtree.' Host: Ben Lindbergh Guests: Steve Ahlman and Matt James Producer: Devon Renaldo Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, my name is Dave Gonzalez, and I haven't read any of the books in George R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. I'm Joanna Robinson and I've read every book in George R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. And I'm Neil Miller and I have also read those very heavy books. Years ago, we hosted a Game of Thrones podcast called A Storm Spoilers, and we're thrilled to head back to Westrose to cover the second season of House of the Dragon on the Trial by Content feed. We'll be using our book knowledge to dive deep into each episode and answer your lingering questions. So send us a raven every week to Trial by Content at Gene. mail.com. Follow and subscribe to trial by content on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast to

join us on Thursdays where these two will explain to me which Targaryen is right. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tramphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tramphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor, doctor decides that you can self-inject Trimphia, proper training is required. Tramphia is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis.

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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 WeatherTech unless you plan on doing summer. Visit weathertech.com today. Is there no hope for redemption? The answer, sadly, is clear. By waving the tri-rod at a table she found, Zelda learned how to create an imitation of it called an echo.

Once you learn an echo of something, you can recreate it whenever you'd like. Even if there's a wall blocking your path, you can create echoes of tables to get a leg up. Just like that. The mere sight of your blades sets my heart flutter. Crush it in my grass. The villainous Tiki-Tack tribe has hypnotized the local wildlife

and stolen Donkey Kong's precious banana hoard. Each level is filled with hijinks, but they're no match for these top bananas. The Earth 3 is my people's enemy. By America long betrayed, set aflame. The latest game in the Mario Party series takes place on an enormous island resort. A purge without... There is nothing more terrifying.

Ready for an adventure of ghoulish proportions? Summon your courage and explore multiple mansions. Filled with ghoulish proportions. Filled with ghoulish proportions. goofy ghosts. In that forsaken place, blood must spill. And welcome into the Ringerverse, your nexus feed for all things fandom. My name is Ben Limgrave. Excuse me, Ben Lindberg. And I'm a senior editor at The Ringer and your host here at Button Mash HQ. When I was planning this pod, I first thought to myself, let me solo her. It'll be a button mash monologue.

But a wise man once said it's dangerous to go over. alone, and that's true of both Buttonmash and Melania. Thus, I am joined by a couple of pals. First, you know him and love him from the Midnight Boys and Mint Edition, senior podcast producer extraordinaire, sexy Steve Allman. Guys, I don't know how to say this, but I think Zelda's the girl. Four decades in, what a revolution. Confirmed.

Also, joining our party today is a man who is level in Eldon Ring 177, almost mirrors his numbers, of hours played 176. I'm sure he wouldn't brag about that, so I bragged about it for him. Ringer Deputy Art Director, Matt James. You know, actually, people wouldn't even brag about that. That's not even that. I'm not even on new game plus seven. So, you know, multiples higher than that. Well, you'll make up for it in the DLC. Level 180 now. Happy to be here. Fellas, we are recording on release day for Eldon Rings expansion, Shadow of the Earth Tree. It's morning where you are. And the game came out last. night, I hope you've had your coffee to escape the land of shadow. All night, Alman. How you

holding up? Pretty good. I've got the Eldon rings around my eyes to show for it. It's been a long journey. I'm having a good time though. It's a, we're back. We're back. It's wild to say that. Matt, you're nocturnal like me. So I assume you're in your element, except for the fact that's unlike Louis and Lestat, you had to stay up past sunrise to talk to me today. I got to bed before the sun came out. Thank you very much. But I did play deep into the night. I got six hours in. I would expect nothing less. Well, Eldon Ring can be hazardous to your health, both in-game and in real life, if you have an early appointment. And sometimes sleep is overrated. And one of those times is the day Eldon Ring DLC drops. So we will indeed be erding out about Erd Tree on the second half of this episode. Don't worry, no spoilers. We haven't gotten far enough to spoil. Just general early impressions and reflections on the legacy of a great game that just got greater. But guys, we've got to start about as far from from software as we can get.

Let's talk about Nintendo. So this week, the ever litigious Nintendo started sending cease and desists to some fans who've arranged some Nintendo's songs for sheet music. But Nintendo is neither ceasing nor desisting when it comes to making games for its massively successful system, the Switch. The Switch turned seven in March. It's the same age as my beautiful dog, Grumkin, and was starting to seem all but ready for retirement, unlike Grumkin, who's doing great. We've gotten a lot of Mario-related remakes and remasters lately, which is nice. Shout out to next week's Luigi's Mansion 2HD, but it seemed like the originals were being saved for Switch

too. As of last week, we knew next to nothing about plans for the Switch for the rest of this year and beyond. Well, this week, we learned much more. Last time I talked to Jess and Charity about summer showcase season and summer game fest and Nintendo to that point had been conspicuously quiet. But Nintendo got the last word thanks to Tuesday's 40-minute Nintendo Direct. Now, Nintendo's set and sort of lowered expectations by saying there would be no news about Switch 2, but who needs Switch 2 when there's this much life left in the original? I will list the biggest announcements in a sec, but big picture, Matt, what did you make of this direct relative to expectations at this point in the Switch's lifecycle?

Well, there were some rumors going around that this would be a pretty big Nintendo Direct before it hit. And my goodness, it was. This was one of the best Nintendo directs we've ever seen. It was one of the best presentations of this year, you know, aside, it's pretty much this and the Xbox presentation that came out of Summer Games Fest. man, pretty much everything you could have wanted aside from a re-release of The Legend of Zelda, Winwaker. Keep waiting. Keep the dream alive. Yes. Yeah. No, they're just going to release Winwaker

where you play a Zelda. They'll just skip straight to that step. Yeah. You know, Winwaker, we'll get it someday when they, for some reason, don't have a new Zelda game coming out, I suppose. But yeah, it looks like you're going to have to wait another year or so for that, Ben. That's okay, because we'll have plenty of great games to tie to us over. Steve, were you similarly impressed? I was. And honestly, given the fact that they explicitly said, we're not talking about Switch 2 now, I kind of have to widen my expectations to know that if they have the,

not so much audacity, but the bravery to give us all of these great announcements for a console that's very long in the tooth, I kind of almost have to assume that most of these games will be playable on my Switch 2. And I more so look forward to playing all of these games on my Switch 2 in 2026. 2025. Let's not wait too long. Well, when I can afford it, sure. Oh, okay.

You can expense it as a Mesh podcaster. Oh, wow. All right. You're giving us the go-ahead there. I don't know that I have. I didn't run that by Daniel Eck first, but let's run down the actual announcements here. I do want to talk about the implications for Switch 2, but first things first. Legend of Zelda, not the Legend of Link.

Echoes of Wisdom, September 26th. for the first time, we're getting playable Zelda in a series called The Legend of Zelda. I know there was Age of Calamity in Zelda's adventure, yes, yes, but a mainline Zelda game where you play a Zelda. Super Mario Party Jamboree, October 17th. Mario and Luigi Brothership, November 7th, the first Mario and Luigi game in, what, almost a decade? Donkey Kong Country Returns H.G. January 16th. And yes, it exists. Metroid Prime for beyond in 2025. And that's just the first party stuff.

Also announced Dragon Quest 1 to 3 HD2D remakes starting with Dragon Quest 3, a little out of order, but in chronological order on November 14th. And Marvel versus Capcom fighting collection, arcade classics, seven arcade fighters with online co-op and PVP later this year and much more. Matt, what were you most excited to see of the many things that you were excited to see? Well, I'm a Zelda stand. Yes. Zelda walking around that 2.5D.

High rule throwing tables down left and right. Yeah. That got me. Hi. We talked on this podcast before about how one of my desires, you know, is for Nintendo to be putting out those mainline franchises that are in 3D, like, you know, the new Zelda Tears of the Kingdom. But then give us, you know, a more retro style, one with the same production values. Yeah.

Not retro as in the DeLadier. developer at Metroid Prime 4. But throwback. Yeah, yeah. But so, you know, Metroid Prime 4 is coming out. We got Metroid Dread recently, which was, you know, a 2D Metroid. I love it when Nintendo does this back and forth where they push, you know, a franchise forward in 3D while then the next time they're coming back and doing a favor to some of the

people who like the old style Nintendo games. And I loved the Link's Awakening remake so much. on Switch that came out a few years ago, I couldn't be more hyped to play a Zelda with some new gameplay dynamics. It seems like Zelda's ability to summon items that she's already encountered and placed them anywhere in the world. It seems a little bit almost like a Tears of the Kingdom reimagining of the 2D Zelda space. It's very exciting to me.

I'll be a tiny bit of a grump in knowing that, like, why did you get Tears of the Kingdom in my Link's Awakening? Like we get to play a Zelda for the first time and we already got her rearranging furniture. I don't like that. You know, I want to make sure that this is an adventure. I want to make sure that this is a bigger thing. And I know that we'll have that.

And I know that this is going to be a wildly interesting and great experience for bringing in new mechanics to a very dated type of game and style that was Link's Awakening. So it's refreshing to do and see. But like I kind of almost wanted to do. a bit more like, I just want to give, is that wand like magic? Can we get like great fireball spells? I want her to fight.

I don't know, I want my Zelda to fight a little bit. She's a wartime general. Have you never thrown a table, Steve? Not like Zelda has. I've never stacked one on top of another on top of another to get to a new place. Well, you just haven't played the new Eldon Ring DLC long enough then.

Clearly I haven't. Link needs power bracelets to pick up rocks and throw them. Not Zelda. She just needs the tri-rod. Yeah, how dare you say dated? It's ageless. is the term that I prefer. Timeless, yes. Thank you.

Okay. I can't believe this is happening, let alone that it's happening in three months. I guess Waluigi still waits for his game, but playable Zelda and playable Peach in the same year, is the patriarchy over? Did Nintendo end it? And you're right.

I was going to say the same thing as you, Matt, because when we talked about yours, the king, we all loved it, but we wanted a future for the traditional top-down Zelda, just as a compliment because you used to have the handheld Zelda and the console Zelda, and now the Switch subsumed handheld development, you had one.

So it's been 11 years since the link between worlds, which was, I guess, the last original 2D top-town style Zelda. Not that Zelda can't have her own 3D game or a game where she swings a sword, but maybe this is one way that we can keep getting more retro Zelda's in addition to the gigantic games. And yeah, in my mind, it's kind of comparable to Wonder, Super Mario Brothers Wonder,

which blended 2D and 3D Mario. so it was a throwback, but it was new also. It seems like Echoes of Wisdom is blending the throwback, top-down look with the immersive sim creative gameplay of the open world games. So I'm extremely excited and extremely excited that it's going to be in our hands so soon after seeing like it would never be, right? And I hear you, Steve, on the concern there, but it looks to me like this won't be sort of a stripped-down simplified Zelda game

the way that Princess Pete Showtime was sort of a simplified platformer. For sure. There may be no straight up combat sword swinging here, but it seems like the complexity of the game, at least will be there in the depth that we would expect and the puzzles that we would expect from this franchise, because I wouldn't want Zelda to get shortchanged when she finally gets the spotlight.

I'm certain that she's not. It's just more of like when I see my expectations get hit with like, we finally get to play as Zelda and she's in her own adventure where she rescues Link. And I'm like, all right, stack that table, stack that chair, rearrange the water. I was like, oh, okay, this is what we got. All right, well, this can still be fun. If you just want to furnish your house animal crossing style and just duplicate all the furniture,

then you can do that too. She didn't need link anyway. The map looks like the one from a link to the past and a link between worlds. Not exactly, but I've seen people comparing. I've also seen people speculating about where this game sits in the franchise timeline, which bless their hearts or bless their heart containers. But if you're focusing on continuity, in Zelda, you're probably giving it more thought than Nintendo is. This is my favorite franchise of all time,

and I couldn't care less, particularly where this fits into the larger Zelda timeline. You know, Ben, if you speculate further, you're probably going to get a legal notice from Nintendo anyway, so you might not want to just clamp it down. We should probably move on. Matt, I know you have thoughts on Metroid Prime Far. I do have thoughts on Metroid Prime 4. Oh my God, Ben. Oh, my God. Good thought. I share your thought. That's my thought. We've been wanting to see this for so long, so long. And we had a sense that it was going to happen kind of soon-ish, as hard to believe as it is, just because, you know,

they put out Metroid Prime remastered recently, which I got to play through again for the first time, you know, since Metroid Prime came out. And that game held up so well over the many years that it got me even more excited for Metroid Prime 4. It looks pretty gorgeous. to the point where people seem to have been questioning whether or not it was actually running on Nintendo Switch hardware

versus Nintendo Switch 2 hardware. Now, Nintendo said they were not going to be discussing the next console at this direct. But when you put up a big 2025 and you're having your game look that good, you can't help but speculate when this game comes out, is this going to be a Switch exclusive? Is this going to be launched at the same time on Switch 2 and Switch? Is it going to come out later on Switch 2? You know, Breath of the Wild famously came out on Wii and Nintendo Switch, right?

I wouldn't be surprised if we see the same kind of thing happening here with Metroid Prime 4. It just looks very nice. And more importantly than how it looks, though, is just playing Metroid Prime Rast recently, remembering that as good as it's going to look, Like the secret sauce of this is Nintendo designs a brilliant game. You know, it's not operating on a first-person shooter level. It's operating on a Nintendo adventure game level, which is something that you can't really explain to people

who aren't familiar with the franchise through a trailer. Yeah. Twilight Princess came to my mind, too, is another game that sort of spanned generations and came out for the GameCube and the Wii. and it did look great graphically, certainly by Switch standards. The experts at Digital Foundry pronounced that they thought that this was running on the original Switch hardware, but the fact that it made us look and speculate, that's pretty impressive. And really, this game's been out of sight for so long that all it had to do was show up to steal the show,

even in a show that also included a playable Zelda game. Gameplay-wise, it does, at least from this brief look we got just look like more Metroid Prime to me. Not that that's a bad thing, but it's been in the works for a while. So I almost expected some complete reinvention of the Metroid formula. And who knows, maybe it does that. But this initial demonstration was just, oh, Samus still has the morph balls. Samus still shoots. There are still space pirates, right?

You're still scanning to collect information about things. It looked like Metroid Prime, which, again, it's been too long since we got a new Metroid Prime game. Steve, you similarly hyped for Metroid Prime 4. I am. This looked so good that it made me, tad suspicious as to what the holdup was because to your point, Matt, like, it looks

part and parcel for what a Metroid 4 would be expected to look like. And I was like, well, maybe that first iteration, because this has been remixed and like started back from scratch over and over again, perhaps they were a lot more off the mark than

we thought when it came to what a Metroid 4 could look like and this is a return to safety. This is a return to the back to the basics, things that people know and love. And if anybody in Nintendo's camp loves consistency, it's that fan base.

We can, for the fans that love the same type of Pokemon game that more or less won't change, Metro 4 could be that. But I'm very excited for what this looks like. I would love to know, like, how deep this story goes, because I really liked Samus's story

in, like, certain instances. And this has been, like, really cool to see a brand new entry. I'm very excited for this one. Me too. So we're having a big year for Mario R.P. We've got remakes of a thousand-year door, and now we've got Brothership, a new installment in Mario Luigi. Any of the other games I mentioned or anything I didn't mention, catch your guys' eyes.

It's hard to compete for attention with a new playable Zelda game and also Metroid Prime 4. But overshadowed, though everything else was by those announcements, anything else you want to shout out before we move on. Can I quickly talk about a little bit of the importance that comes with this Marvel versus? Capcom collection that's coming out because it's not only coming out for Switch, it's coming out for multiple platforms, current gen and PC. Yeah, not Xbox. Not Xbox, but, you know, better luck next time, guys. This is probably what I could only imagine is a litigious nightmare for a game to come out

and simply making a port of a collection of games that have been from a community like hacked and rombed and made to death based on its popularity. The simple fact that you could have just pumped this out with little to no concern and people would buy it is one thing. But to know that there's a lot of care that's being put into this, that there's like both rollback, online, good solid net code, as well as a roster of characters that actually isn't available unless you hack the original ROMs. If you go on the official website for this game release, they give you the version of the ROMs that each game comes with. So not only is this like the non-patched version of Marvel versus Capcom one, but this is the pre-patched version of Marvel vs. Capcom 2, where there are not like wall infinites

that have been patched out. And it's the knowledge and like care that Capcom has for this stuff to know that like, okay, we're actually very in touch with the community and what it wants. And we know you've been clamoring for this for a while because Marvel versus Capcom 2 is like, I mean, between the three of us,

like one of the most popular fighting games that we've ever played and one of the best ones we have ever played. The simple nostalgia factor alone is incredible. but I'm very impressed with the package that they've delivered here. And a lot of people have been asking for this. And it might have stolen the show for quite a number of people. Yeah, any other show. Matt, did you have a third or fourth place hype finisher here?

Yeah, Dragon Quest, HD, 2D remakes. I haven't ever played one, two, or three. I understand that Dragon Quest 3 is held in a high regard where people think it's perhaps the best RPG of the 8-bit era. And I know it's kind of hard for a lot of people to revisit some Nintendo games, especially RPGs in the modern era and keep their attention. So I think this graphical update is going to be really a great entry point for the series for a lot of people. I've spent a lot of time in the past year, gradually playing through Dragon Quest 11 for the first time.

And that has been my introduction to the series. And man, what a wonderful... RPG series. It is just center lane, really relaxing. Oh, it's just so much not Eldon Ring. It really isn't. If there's one thing that it isn't.

It is not Eldon Ring in a very beautiful way. I'm very hyped to experience those games for the first time. You know, the Capcom fighting thing? That got me pretty hyped too, Steve. I'm not going to lie. I played those games a lot when I was a kid. I had especially X-Men versus Street Fighter

for some reason. That was the one I played. the most of on Sega Saturn, which is wild. I have a quick question regarding the Dragon Quest remakes. Because when that came out to me, it's very hard for me to see a 2.5 JRP come out now and not think, oh, is this just another Octopath traveler? Or this is, oh, okay, great.

This is just that thing that Octopath Traveler did, and then we're going to be, like, I'm curious because this artistic style has been, like, it's not done to death, but this is kind of the milieu of like, okay, if you want to update a classic, JRP. The art directive

innovation that came with Octoback Path Traveler with like the tilt shift focus 2.5D sprites along a 3D environment. It looks gorgeous and pretty much in any game that you put it in it's going to look like that and I'm curious if there has ever been like was this something that you might have wanted

or would you have wanted a more modern version of that adaptation? Is that something that you like or is this more like okay we have like a the shiniest version of a classic model here. The full Final Fantasy 7 Rebirths, treatment. The thing is, from what I understand,

these games aren't really deep enough to accommodate that. You'd have to be generating so much new lore. And the game, as a Nintendo Entertainment System game, it's just not deep enough. You'd pretty much be creating a whole new game if you were to actually make it a 3D,

full-on 3D RPG with, you know, lip-sinking and voice acting and all of that, like, you'd be talking about pretty much a whole new game. So in this instance, this is like the prime example of when an HD2D remake makes sense to me. Like, this is an NES game that needs to have more visual input to keep your attention, I think. Yeah. This is just prime example of when to do this, I think.

Well, a link to the past four swords and Metroid Zero Mission and Perfect Dark and Turok coming to Switch online. They'll never kill them. We wanted a Turak remake. This isn't quite that, but close enough. But still no Wind Waker on Switch. It's true. It's sad. And even though we saw Metroid Prime 4,

Hollow Night's Silk Song was still a no-show. You gotta hold out hope, though. If Prime 4 exists, then Silk Song is out there. Is the Goodwill evaporating for Silk Song? I feel like it is. It's out there. The Cotor remake is out there. All these games are going to be good and come out.

We just got to wait and bite our time. But all in all, a pretty incredible direct. And before we finish this segment, let's just talk about how the Switch 2's launch lineup and the overall release schedule for the second half of this year are taking shape because we have much more clarity, at least on the latter now, after all of the announcements that we've gotten in the past few weeks.

So Switch-wise, Pokemon Legends, Z to A, and Metroid Prime 4 coming to Switch next year, you've got to think, as Matt said, there will be a Switch-2 enhanced version of one or both of those, or even that Metroid Prime 4 will be a cross-platform switch-2 launch title. But here's the thing. Nintendo has so many series and so many different development teams that there are many other things that we could get excited about here. Even though it seems like they've kind of fired a bunch of their bullet bobs here, there's just a lot that they have to have holstered.

Because, I mean, Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Bowser's Fury, Mario Maker 2, okay, those have all been good and have come out in the past several years. but we haven't gotten a full-fledged 3D Mario game since Odyssey in 2017. You've got to think that a sequel is coming. Mario Kart 8 came out a decade ago. The deluxe port for Switch, the best-selling game on the system, came out before Odyssey. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, the future for that franchise is hazy, but that game came out in 2018. Luigi's Mansion 3 came out in 2019. Animal Crossing New Horizons came out in 2020.

That's five flagship franchises that have not had a new installment. in four to seven years. So you've got to think that that stuff is in the pipeline, that they're preparing that for a big launch as we have this big finish for the switch. So if as expected, switch two is backwards compatible, and if there are any enhancements applied to original switch titles,

you're looking at a pretty easy case to make to the massive switch install base that they need to stay in the switch ecosystem. I mean, it's a pretty easy sell, right? It's like, here are all these, great games, you can still probably play them on Switch 2. And also, by the way, we also have all these other great franchises that we haven't even tapped lately.

So it certainly seems like there's a lot more in store. Am I misreading this situation? I don't think so. I think that the biggest thing that we can probably expect from the end, not so much the end of the Switch's life cycle, but the overlap from the Switch to the Switch to, whatever that is called, I think the bigger games that we can expect for a Switch 2, that would be exclusive are still going to be in the tuck. I don't think that, like, knowing that Metroid Prime 4 will likely, most likely,

be compatible with the Switch 2, that is likely going to be its last Blockbuster exclusive, question mark, before we get something that's as big as, like, say, a Mario Odyssey 2 or something like that. That is exclusive to the Switch. Like, the pack-in games, I think that we will have at least one Mario thing and one possibly a more adult skewing type of product there. But we'll likely have whatever our gimmicky controller game is that comes with it and stuff like that. Right.

And some of the biggest games on Switch have been Wii U games originally. Now, it's a little bit different because no one had a Wii U. It's the one Nintendo system, even I have never owned. I think, well, I guess I never owned a Virtua Boy, but I had a friend who had one and I got to play this. We all had a friend that had a Virtua Boy, and they were really cool. I rented it from the video store. That's how long ago that was. So these games have a long lifespan, right?

And you can get the deluxe version of something for Switch, and it'll be a big seller on Switch 2, even as you're getting Mario Kart 9 or whatever it is. But it does go to show, I think, that A, Nintendo devs are wizards when it comes to getting the most out of this aging hardware. And B, this is not news. It's been the Nintendo mantra almost since the start,

but software is still supreme. Right? You keep putting out new games, even if this thing chugs frame rate-wise, even if the loading times are long, at least on non-Nintendo developed games, you keep making these games and you keep optimizing them for this system based on the experience that you've had of developing for this platform for seven years or longer at this point. It will work, right? And even Switch 2 probably won't have a candle to the Series X and the PS5 or the PS5 Pro horsepower-wise. It's not going to go toe-to-to-to when it comes to the specs with those systems. But, If the games are great, it doesn't matter that much. And Nintendo has kind of carved out this lane for itself, where it's not trying to keep up with the Joneses, right, with the Microsofts and the Sony's on that dimension. They're just trying to make good games, make games that can be played portably.

There's sort of a switch game, right? You kind of know what to expect when you have a switch and there are certain genres that are really strong and have always been and probably will be for some time. So this formula is still working. Now, as for the rest of 2024 across all platforms, it's been a very strong first half, as we will discuss on our next episode. But prior to showcase season, the second half was looking light. Now it's not.

Now it's looking stacked. The month or so from late August through late September in particular, just get a load of this. Like Black Myth, Wukong, August 20th. Star Wars, August 30th. Stocker 2, September 5th. Astro Boy, September 7th. Echoes of Wisdom, September 26th. Are you kidding me with that stretch? I've got about five weeks of paternity leave left. And now I know when I'm taking them to bond with my daughter.

So I'm back in. Now I'm back out. Yes. It might just happen to coincide with a time when I'm bonding with my other daughter, Zelda. But that's just a coincidence. And don't worry, I'll still do pods about those games, even if I'm on leave because how could I not? And in addition to those games and the other games that we just talked about from this direct, you have Assassin's Creed Shadows, you have Indiana Jones in the Great Circle, you've got Snake Eater, Silent Hill 2, metaphor refentazio, Arc 2,

Kingdom Come Deliverance to Dragon Age the Vail Guard, Sonic Sex, Shadow Generations, Concord, a World Warcraft expansion, Visions of Mana, Madden, Blackop, Six, not to mention all the adaptations that are in store, borderlands, like a dragon, Tomb Raider, Arcane, Sonic 3, not to be the Jeff Keely hype man here for the industry,

but I'm kind of amazed that this year has been so stacked after the highs of 2023. You kind of figured, okay, that was the peak, this will be the valley, especially given the closures and layoffs left and right, and yet somehow gaming just keeps trucking. The industry is just still cranking out more bangers than we have time to play.

So what is each of you most hyped to play, I guess, other than the games we've already singled out here, when it comes to the second half of this year, Steve, is there anything that you are particularly looking forward to? You mentioned Blacksmith Wu Kong. Literally every single piece of trailer and gameplay that I've seen from that, I do not believe is real. It looks so good. Suspiciously, like one of those fake games that people made in Unreal Engine just to be like, what if, like, you know, this was that kind of a thing. I'm blown away that this is actually

happening and I don't know if I'll actually believe it until I'm playing it in my hands because it looks so good and so enthralling. I was also very, very intrigued by the curiosity that I have for Melguer Solid 3 Delta. It's kind of like making me both cynical and also incredibly excited because it's kind of the most audacious thing that Konami can do after getting rid of Kojima and making this top to bottom remake of this classic game that looks kind of good, but also, again, suspiciously, how can it be that great? Because there are so many things that would need updating. There's so many things that would need changing.

I'm really hyped for those two in specific. Matt, what about you? Listen, Astrobot. Astrobot. Right there with you. Astro bot. It really is Astrobot. Yeah.

Oh, my God. Everyone who's got their hands on this thing so far has been blown away by it. I was such a big fan of the Astro that we got on our PS5s when we bought them. One of the best packing games ever. Yeah. And I just could not be more hype for this.

That is probably my most anticipated game of the rest of the year, I think. Yeah. Perhaps. Outlaws into Astro Boy into Zelda for me is weeping. worthy. We will be eating, as they say. We will be. And you know what? All of this discussion that we've had, we haven't even mentioned there are so many exciting indie games that are coming out between now and the end of the year. I'm sure we'll be talking about a lot of them on this pod as they seemingly

come out of nowhere to be the most talked about games of the year. Yeah, this is just what we can foresee. This is what we know to be psyched about. You never know what will come along that we're not even aware of that's not even on our radar yet. So we've discussed upcoming games. Now let's tease some upcoming podcasts. The ringerverse isn't a souls game. There's no hidden path ahead here. We are deep into hot nerd June. So you know the drill. Talk the Thrones right after House of the Dragon airs on Sunday, followed by Midnight Boys on Monday and House of Our's Dragon Deep dive on Tuesday. Then on Thursday, more Midnight Boys on the Acolyte and the Boys and House of Our's Acolyte Deep dive and all of that is now available via video in the Spotify app and on the Ringerverse YouTube

channel. Smash that subscribe button, as the streamers say. And hey, our feed is extra full. We're working Steve hard these days because next week, we've got a Wednesday summer road trip draft for Mint Edition. And on Friday, the June edition of Ringervverse recommends, which means this month is almost over. June has been a blur.

And by the way, we need listener recommendations. So if you want to tell us and potentially our listeners about a book or comic or game or movie or show that came out this month that hasn't been covered in depth on the Ringiverse or Hasabar, we have our hands full this month. Stuff has slipped through the cracks. Send your nomination and explanation to Ringiverse Recommends at Gmail.com. Of course, you can also contact this show at Ringiverse Gaming at Gmail.com. We want to hear about the best games you've played in 2024 because Steve and Matt will be back on button mesh with me in less than two weeks. when we name our games of the first half of the year. And you know what?

One of those games just might be the game we're about to talk about. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable Internet means everything for your business. And even this podcast, that's why I trust Spectrum Business. They keep companies of all sizes connected with Internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, mobile services, plus 24-7 U.S.-based support. Millions of business owners already trust

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They're made with farm-fresh cream and real milk. Each serving has just three grams of sugar, 40% less than the leading coffee. creamers. Two good creamers are available in sweet cream, roasted vanilla, and lavender. So which one are you trying first? Find two good creamers at your local retailer in the creamer aisle. Guys, we have covered the Nintendo Switch family-friendly, accessible side of things. And now for something completely different, Eldon Ring, Shadow of the Erd Tree, came out this week for Windows, Xbox, and PlayStation. We did not have a head start on this one. We're in the Erd Tree trenches with you.

So we're just going to give you our early impressions and we'll dig in deeper next time. And a bit of background for our soulsless listeners. Eldon Ring was the consensus 2020 game of the year, an internet phenomenon, 25 million copies in counting sold, the game that brought from Software's Soulsborn gameplay to an open world and made it mainstream. Why did it take more than two years for the DLC to drop? Well, it's not your standard DLC. recently from Software said there would be only one DLC for Eldon Ring but left open the possibility of a sequel.

This DLC essentially is a sequel. It's that big and evidently that good. Eldon Ring has a 96 metacritic rating and Shadow of the Nerdtree, as we're calling it, has not tarnished its reputation, so to speak. It's sitting at 95, the highest rating of any game release this year. And I believe a record for a DLC. So just to start, can we reflect on the legacy? of Eldon Ring, which has been burnished further by this expansion to the base game. But Matt, two years on now, what stands out to you as the greatest thing that Eldon Ring accomplished

or how it's changed the industry or what influence it's had? Well, Ben, looking at the big picture, this is a game that really did change the industry. You have so many people diving into a really difficult genre that they've never touched before, you know, when Eldon Ring came out. The Soulslike was a very niche thing when Eldon Ring dropped. And now just looking at the game trailers we've seen this year from upcoming games, almost everything coming out, it's looking like a Soulslike all of a sudden in the way that like we had the Battle Royale phase a few years ago.

Everything was a Battle Royale, right? Like there are now a lot of games in development that are trying to mimic the success of Eldon Ring. I think for me, the enduring legacy of the game, though, is something that has been my kind of trigger point in loving games my whole life, and that has been exploration. There is no game that I've played in the past few years that that transports you to a mystical, magical place full of wonder and lets you explore and makes that rewarding, like Eldon Ring. That, to me even overshadows the inescapable discussion about difficulty and get good and, you know, all of that.

Yeah, the explanation, really. Discussion in a sec. But Steve's just waiting for me to hand him to the mic to talk about that. But yeah, no, I think you're right. I mean, it's really like every game developer's favorite game, you know, it's many gamers' favorite game as well. But the odd tones in which many game developers speak of Eldon Ring or say that they're, inspired by Eldon Ring. And, you know, I don't know that we've seen exactly like carbon copy

Eldon Ring likes coming out yet. Maybe it's too soon, right? I mean, from software just got their Eldon Ring like out. And they had a head start because they made Eldon Ring. So if you played Elden Ring and then you said, hey, I want to make a game that's somehow inspired by this, we may not have played that yet. So we probably haven't even hit peak games inspired by Elton Ring coming out. And yet you constantly hear it's just such a touch. Stone. It's just an iconic game that people compare to that other developers talk about. You know, Yoshi P of Final Fantasy 14, they're releasing the next expansion for Final Fantasy 14 a week later to allow people time to play this DLC and also allow themselves time to play this DLC because

they were clearly influenced by it. So it's up there, I think, with Breath of the Wild Tears of the kingdom when it comes to other developers looking at this and being like, how did they do that? How are they so good at this. This is inspiring and demoralizing at the same time. And how do we take something from this? Which is just let's not hold the player's hand, right? Let's let them adventure. Let's let them explore. Now, should they maybe hold the player's hand a little bit every now and then just a little, you know, touch a pinky? Perhaps. Steve, do you have any thoughts on that? I do. And I don't want my thoughts to come to diminish my actual feelings about what I think Eldon Rings' legacy and impact on games it rightfully deserves to be, which is one of the most important games

kind of ever made because it's a coronation of a style of game that is an iteration on something that, again, was niche, was small, and was like kind of scaring a lot of casuals and a lot of people into wanting to play it because it's kind of a bummer for somebody who just wants to sit at home and unwind from a day. of work and then you're given more work by making the track into a Soulslike game. But when it comes to a big DLC that comes out to one of the biggest games

of many, many years, I think the biggest complaint coming into this is prep and prep time. And knowing that a community that you have drummed up and galvanized into excitement for this big expansion to a game that was beloved and elevated to a point of community and praise that has may or may not have been seen since,

probably since like Ballersgate 3. I think the biggest complaint that I might have is only getting to the start line with this game. Right. And it's only because all of my social media feeds, all of my YouTube channels, all of the things that we would see in gaming press is like, all right, what do you got to do to prep for this? And to anybody who has only just plugged in Eldon Ring for the first time since they last picked it back up two years ago,

or whenever it started, this is a bit of a wait, I can't just pick this back up again. And that's, I think, the hardest barrier of entry when it comes to coming back to a Solzite game. I know that people love being immersed and entrenched in a Soulslike, and especially Eldon Ring, because it rewards you for however long you stay in it.

But when you go away, and come back, this is hard. That's the thing that's going to be tough for people to come back to. Yeah, so access to this DLC is gated, which is not a first from software, but I think a lot of people realized over the past couple of weeks, oh, crap, like, I'm excited for this game, but I can't actually play it if it comes out because I haven't achieved what I need to achieve to get access to this thing. So you have to beat General Radon and Moog of the base game in order to get access.

to the DLC. And those are optional but fairly late game bosses, right? Like, that's not something that you can just kind of get to in a day if you haven't picked up Eldon Ring before. And so a few weeks ago, suddenly there were a lot of stories coming out, like looking at achievements that people had gotten or hadn't gotten. And it seemed like, oh, maybe like two-thirds of people who have Eldon Ring cannot actually play the DLC right now because they have not checked off those boss boxes yet. And so people have been catching up and have been kind of grinding if they weren't already there

or getting reacquainted with the game. The rapper Travis Scott was one of those people who was working on his Eldon Ring build in preparation for the DLC and then he got arrested on Thursday. So terrible timing, Travis. Yeah, it's not great to get arrested at any time.

Same goes for you. No getting arrested before. You need to review. No public disturbances, please, Matt. Yeah, you know, this is the only reason why I haven't been arrested a lot It's just because the games that are coming out are just too good. Yeah.

It's no time. You can't go to jail. I'm wild. Your access. You all know that. The way you said that with your slight, with a slight way, I'm wild. And just generally leveling, even if you could get access, a lot of the buzz has been, this is hard. And this is hard.

Even if you thought Eldon Ring was hard, this is harder. And so even if you've leveled high and you've got your great build and you think you're a pro in Eldon Ring. this game could still kick your ass. And so people have been putting a lot of time in, and they might have a rude awakening if they think, oh, I'm going to be over-leveled for this game. When they walk into the shadow realm here, they will quickly get their comeuppance.

So you've been playing. We spent some time with this game in the hours after it came out. How did you find the difficulty calibration to be mad? I guess we can start with you. Well, Ben, I've had, you know, it's been a year of DLC. It's been a life of DLC lately, honestly. And I am always happy to get more of a great game. Don't get me wrong.

But, man, it is such an uphill battle sometimes to get DLC for a game that you haven't touched in a while. This game is literally uphill a lot of the time. Like a lot of hills and mountains. Yeah. Like, I've played through all of the Final Fantasy 16 DLC this year, and jumping back into that each time was like, oh, man, what are the buttons? What do you do here? And nothing has ever been harder to jump back into that Elton Ring.

Let me tell you, it's been two years. I boot the game up a few days ago just to check where I'm at, make sure I didn't do anything weird with my bill that I have to fix before the thing comes out. I couldn't even remember how to take a health potion, man. It's not like riding a bike. I lost it all. I needed a bunch of hours for it to come back to me. You need to respect. yourself to get back into this game.

Yeah, I need to respect myself. Right. And this is just to get to the point where I can start playing the game again. Okay, so I did that, right? It took me, I don't know, four or five hours to get back into the flow of what this game was. And I boot up the DLC and, man, let me tell you, it feels weird to walk into a game at level 177 of anything. Right. And take a few steps and encounter enemies that can two-shot you as a level 177.

That's an absurd level for any game. You should never be at level 177 in anything. And the enemies in this game can just two shots, you're done. It is really humbling experience. This is what they want, though. They want you to hit the DLC and be like, okay, whether you're level 320, 177, 150, maybe you're on new game plus four, it doesn't matter. The scaling of this DLC is such that you're going to get wrecked at the start. It's going to be real contentious no matter how much fun you've been having in the past few weeks and months, like perfecting your builds and trotting through Eldon Ring, knowing all the secrets, dominating everything.

Well, this ain't Eldon Ring anymore. This is the shadow of the earth tree. And the way that they kind of do this is a really interesting scaling system. What they've done is they have power ups that are hidden throughout the shadow realm. And if you don't collect these fragments, you're not going to gain enough power. You're not going to have enough damage reduction to survive. So regardless of what level you come to this thing at, these power ups that are, their effects are specific to this expansion realm. you need to collect those to level up.

You need to collect those to not be two-shotted by enemies. And initially my experience was, man, they are really, really hammering at home that this is going to be a difficult experience. But then, you know, three, four hours into the DLC, my frustrations started to disappear. I've gotten a bunch of these power-ups that help you level. your character within this new system and I could see you know I went back to a boss that I didn't even want to try

beat it you know you can see very quickly not very quickly but you know three four hours you can start to notice like okay it's not going to be like this the entire time we're going to be able to do this yeah so if you haven't jumped into it yet and you're going to jump into it

you got to give it like at least four hours. It's not going to be like this the whole time. And I'm going to tell you what, Matt. I'm still on suffering hours. I'm going to tell you right now. I died. I'm in the very beginning areas of the game, just getting reacclimated.

You mentioned before, I started playing this about a week or two prior to just get my bearings again. And I opened the game and I see a wizard I don't recognize in a hat that is way too big for him. and I look at my inventory and I cannot remember the level of Google spreadsheets

that I would have needed to open to understand it all. And once I even get to that, I'm like, okay, what did I need to be? This is where I'm going. This is what I've got. This is what I'm doing. I'm pretty high level. Okay, this is a kind of a cakewalk for right now.

And then I get back to this new DLC area and it's gorgeous. I think the best part of this game has been its environmental. design and its discoverability because that's actually the thing that I think people can really glum onto and be like, oh my God, I get to see this new cool place. I see these new cool enemies and this is what I have to fight. That keeps me locked in for a lot longer than I give it credit for sometimes. But it feels so big and so difficult and so new, especially for people that, again,

haven't really picked this back up. It borderline makes me think, I'm like, could they have gotten away with making you almost completely respect? Start from zero. This is a Eldon Ring 1.5. New game. So new character, everything.

Like, would that have been better? Could you have seen the same success or even more success from that case? Because you get into a bit of philosophy when you're like, okay, no, we're committed to making this part of the same game that people have had for years and that may or may not

have been keeping up with it for that. long. And this is what we're going to give you now. And it's going to be harder. And you've got to, again, hashtag TM get good. Yes, right. They're not compromising their principles here for better or worse. And the reason why it doesn't bother me or I don't consider it necessarily a negative that it's so hard is that if you play this game, you know what you're signing up for. Right. And you have gotten good enough, at least, to enter this game. And it may still be a shock to your system, but it's not going to be taking you unaware, right? Because you've played Eldon Ring, you've probably played Souls games before they've been

pretty clear in the messaging about this game that it's going to be hard. So they're limiting the reach somewhat by making it so that you have to play and beat a lot of Eldon Ring to get into this game. But because that, I mean, it's like a roller coaster or something that has a you must be this tall to ride. It's like you must be this level to get in. And yeah, you might still get your ass kicked and die many times. but probably you're into that if you're signing up for another tour of duty here, right?

And that's part of the appeal as sadistic as it seems or sadomasochistic or whatever. But, you know, thus far, yes, it's very hard. It's tough based on what we've seen so far to kind of compare it to the full Eldon Ring experience. Based on reviews I've read or watched, it seems like the game tiptoes up to the line of being unreasonably difficult or unfair at times, but never quite crosses it. That's been kind of the consistent theme from people who've played through this whole thing

and have sunk dozens of hours into it already, except perhaps for the final boss, which is already apparently legendarily hard, even by Eldon Ring standards, and it's taking people days to play and beat. But again, like, that's part of it. We're only getting one Eldon Ring DLC. This is it.

So if it takes you a while, to actually get through it. Well, maybe that's a feature, not a bug. It's Eldon Ring. What can we say? We're in the trenches. We're smiling. We're having as much fun as I can, at least.

I'm stressed. I know, man. I, man. By the way, what's your build, Matt? Are you a wizard? Are you a sork? I got like a ninja sork build right now. Right now I'm high intelligence.

Right. I'm shooting spells. Rock sling, rock sling. Great sword. you know, dark, dark moon great swords, that would have? Yeah, I think so.

Oh, there you go. And I might respect soon, actually, just because I found a bunch of new weapons in this game so far, even the ones where I'm like, this isn't really my style. It looks really cool. I'm still like, damn, this is, this is going to be somebody's style for sure.

Yeah. Like, I haven't picked up like a new weapon type yet and been like, well, that's lame. This is boring. Right. My personal philosophy is like I'm still a wuss. If I can cheese my way into fighting people from afar or whatever the easiest like weapon that I could use to kill as fast as I can.

Yes. I'm using that. I don't care if it looks cool. I don't care if it's cheap. I don't care if I just use rock sling all the time. Cheezing is such a harsh word, you know. I'm solving a puzzle. If it works, it works.

All right? It's clever. It wouldn't have put in the game if it didn't. Yeah. Get good? How about get smart? Yes. Fundamentally, it's more Eldon Ring, which is what most people would want, right?

That's not a negative. That's exactly what you want. Now, it doesn't reinvent the genre or the formula the way that the original game did. That would be a tall order given the turnaround time here. But it is much more expansive than I think you would expect from an expansion, right? Or a DLC, certainly. It seems like glorified DLC. We shouldn't even call it DLC.

It's something greater than DLC because it's not just an add-on. It's a full game in its own right. I mean, the area may pale in comparison to the base game, but not by that much, right? And I mentioned the verticality. It's almost like tiers of the kingdom, which was like, well, how do you make this high rule even larger? You go up and you go down. And there was some of that in the original Eldon Ring.

But here you've got twisting, winding paths and climbing. mountains and cliffs and you're wending your way into passages and then you suddenly end up in this big open area that you didn't even suspect existed, right? And it's all so well designed and beautiful in the way that the main game was, but maybe even more so. And there is more stuff. It's not just more of exactly the same. There are new weapons and combat systems. As you said, Matt, there's this new power scaling system that's sort of specific to Erd Tree and doesn't really carryover back to the base game with the tree fragments and the spirit ash blessings so that you can level in this game without being O.P. and the original and vice versa. And then there's some quality

of life improvements too, which have also been applied to the original. Oh, my God. The recent tab. Oh, my God. Oh, yes. I feel so vindicated by the inventory improvements that have happened here. And this has been patched into the original game here because this was my thing. Which you have to enable it. They don't, for some reason, they didn't default it to on. But go into your settings. Please, God. And then not holding your hands. When it comes to making things easier. Yeah, and you can enable it. I feel vindic, because this was my main complaint with Diablo and Eldon Ring and Jess was like,

no, I love the inventory. I'll just dig into this. I'm like, I can't find anything. And what do I drop? And where do I find what I just picked up? Now that's flagged for you, which is very, very helpful. The game is hard enough without making you do all that extra busy work. Get good in the inventory.

Yes. Yeah. If you can name the item from memory that gives you more souls as you kill people, then I'm probably in the inventory too long. Yeah, yeah. And narratively speaking, again, we've only seen so much of it so far, but based on what we've seen,

what we've heard, I think maybe there's even more lore here than there was in the original game. And you can go through Eldon Ring without really experiencing any of the lore if you're not poking around, if you're not doing a lot of reading and do your own research

when it comes to Elton Ring, right? It's a loaded phrase, but the YouTube community is thriving in this space. It's okay to go on a four-hour YouTube rabbit hole. In this case, yes. You can go as deep or as shallow as you want, but there's a lot here if you do want that. And of course, you're kind of tracking down the demigod, Mikala, who's conspicuously absent from the main game. And you're finding her followers and figuring out what she has been up to.

Mikla may be kind, but your enemies are not. So there's a lot of detail. There's a lot that really enriches this world, I guess, George R. Martin, he's been busy with this, at least, if not necessarily what we want him to be busy with. And there are. Anything but. Ten remembrance bosses in this game compared to 15 in the base game. So it really stacks up pretty favorably to a gigantic full-length game that you can play for hundreds of hours.

It's not that enormous and sprawling, but it's not far from it. And that's pretty impressive, given that this is a two-year turnaround time and that this is just blowing away the expectations that you would typically have for DLC. Yeah, a lot of people are saying it's around 60 hours if you really do everything. That's kind of how long I want games to be. Yeah, all games? I don't want to go longer than that, certainly. I don't really like putting 170 hours into a game.

As much as I definitely have done that. How much did you put into Bay-Seldon Ring? Let's go right now. Yeah, like 176 hours. I don't want to do that. What are we doing here, Matt? We're here for the long haul. Eldon Ring is a very complex thing for me.

I've been kind of stressed the past couple of weeks just with this looming on the horizon. Because ultimately, like, I don't like to play stressful games. I don't. But more than I don't like to play stressful games. 2.5D RPGs to calm you down. Yeah. I love playing good games. So my desire to play a great game will override.

my dislike of putting 176 hours into a game. But 60 hours, that is so palatable to me as a huge open world game. That is very much more digestible to me. And thus far, six hours in, all of that kind of stress that I've had in the past couple weeks leading into this has sort of started to erode a lot

because I've been focusing on, oh, man, it's going to be hard, it's going to be annoying, There's going to be really difficult times during this. But, like, man, you just catch yourself exploring new areas and looking around and being just immersed in this world. And that is something I kind of lost sight of, I guess, a little bit in the lead-up to this. And engaging in that feeling again after so long, man, it really is so special. And I think I lost a little bit of that in that.

hindsight of thinking about Eldon Ring and just how difficult a game it can be. Yeah. Yeah. There's beauty in the terror and the trauma, right? But it is really impressive that this is arguably the most anticipated DLC ever. Is that too much to say? And yet it hasn't disappointed. It has met or surpassed those elevated expectations. Whereas the original Eldon Ring, obviously from software fans, Souls fans were extremely excited for it, but it wasn't necessarily seen as something that was going to blow up the way that it did,

much like Balders Gate 3, where it became, oh, everyone's playing this, everyone has to play this, even if this isn't the type of game I would normally play, guess I got to do it for the zeitgeist or because everyone says it's so good despite my apprehension. And so that game took people by surprise to some extent

and really blew everyone away. And that set the standard that, somehow this DLC has at least met. And we're now at a point. I mean, we'll talk more about goady candidates next time and obviously at the end of the year. But this has the best reviews of any game this year thus far. And it's been a good year. Can a gody DLC be a gody itself?

Is that possible? Can that happen? Can you go back to back like that? And what does that do to the legacy of Eldon Ring? granted it doesn't reinvent the wheel here. It's more Eldon Ring, but... It's just another great wheel. Yeah, it's actually less consequential

than the Phantom Liberty Cyberpunk catch, you know? That's true, right. Yeah, no, we don't want to break this wheel, Danny style, right? Like, we want this wheel. It was rolling as opposed to cyberpunk, which really... Which is like, we need to just destroy this wheel and make a new wheel. Yeah. Whereas this is giving people exactly what.

what they want and maybe even more than they expected. And so what then does that do to the standing of Eldon Ring, which is already regarded as one of the greatest games of all time, which not only great, but also that influential factor, which is kind of hard to quantify, but will probably reveal itself more and more in the years and decades to come as its stature only grows. And so now to be reminded of that and to see it demonstrated,

like people have imitated Eldon Ring or have taken inspiration, from it, but no one has duplicated except from software itself. And so they have thrown down the gauntlet here and been like, yeah, we're the only ones who can do this this well. And I think that only enhances the legacy of what was already one of the greatest games of all time. I don't know if I'm being too hyperbolic here. I'm just, I'm in a hyperbolic mood.

Yeah, I think you're really overlooking. I think you're really just kind of overlooking another crab's treasure, you know? That's probably a little insulting to them, but that's fine. Yeah, well, that just goes to show how pervasive the Soulslike is that we're in kind of this, let's take the Souls like tropes. But then let's make it kind of cartoony. You know, we're already in the next phase where it's like how can we. Yes, switch up the formula a little bit here. And Eldon's like, we don't need to switch up the formula because the formula is freaking awesome.

So we'll just give you more of the formula. Ben, if you say you're too cowardly to play horror games and yet you find, you know, calm in something like Eldon Ring, I really think that we need a reassessment here. I don't know if I find calm. That might be a bit too far. I find beauty. I find admiration. I find something to really respect about this game.

Oh, of course. I'm extremely stressed and at the point of tears and rage quitting constantly. As you're literally hunkered inside of a blanket right now. Yes. That's for sound dampening purposes, Steve. You should know that is not because I'm still cowering and shaking. You're very cozy from my Eldon Rigg experience. Yes.

All right, any final thoughts or really final preliminary thoughts because we will spend much more time with this game and return to it on the podcast. But anything that stands out to you, either about the original in retrospect or what you've seen of the DLC so far. I know I've been a grump about just getting to the start line when it comes to this DLC and probably more so on Slack and in public than in this.

But once I'm immersed in this, this is probably, you know, this is the juice that we've been waiting for. and we've been anticipating since we've first started this game. And to know that we've gotten more of it is genuinely a sight to behold because I am impressed every time that from software can pull out a game and a world like this. And I think that that's really something to be celebrated. And I can't wait to actually set more than three feet in an area before I died. My last thought is, kudos to everyone who did get early review codes for this.

because, man, playing through this at the same time as the entire community is a really special experience. Just walking around the new expansion, you're just kind of struck by all the little markers that other players have dropped to help other players. It's not all people dropping little markers that tell you to jump off a cliff where there isn't anything. I've found overwhelmingly, like, people are being so helpful in the DLC, warning you of like, oh, there's something on the left here or, like, you know, look out for this. It's been rare for me so far to be completely caught off guard by something. Because if you're paying attention to the little markers on the ground, like, people are really looking out for each other.

We'll see how long that lasts. Yeah, we'll see how long that lasts. But it is a sight to behold, like in a single player game, so to speak, you can get such a incredible sense of community. Yeah. And it's nice amid all the surprises, the sensations that we didn't see coming, the balachros and the pal worlds and the animal wells and the, you know, Hell Divers too, which Steve saw coming as a big OG Hell Divers fan, but not everyone else did. But when the Rebirth or the Eldon Ring DLC, when those come through the games that we were looking at late last year earlier this year and saying,

okay, we can sort of circle those on the calendar, you know? And when they deliver, that's extremely satisfying too. So we're just getting started with Shadow of the Earth Tree, but we're winding down this episode. We've got to get back to the land of Shadow. Steve, Matt, hope you guys can grab a nap before it's Erd Tree time again. Thanks for staying up.

getting up and coming on. Glad to be here. Thanks also to Devin Ramcoldo for producing today's pod, to Arjuna Ramgapal for directing traffic on the feed during this busy month, and to you for listening. Send your nominations for Ringaverse Recommends to Ringaverse Recommends at Gmail.com and contact ButtonMash at Ringaverse Gaming at Gmail.com. We'll be back with more Erd Tree coverage and our games of the first half of the year,

the goat Fahodes. Until then, try finger, but hold. Those stripped off the grace of gold, Shadow need death. We hope you're looking forward to playing as Zelda in this new adventure. Come now, touch the weathered arm and travel to the realm of Shadow. I will not be far behind me. May we meet again. Relax and let Ralph's delivery handle your grocery shopping this week. We start with only the freshest items, then,

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