The Ringer-Verse - Our Top 10 Highlights From the Game Awards | Button Mash

Episode Date: December 12, 2025

Ben Lindbergh and Matt James share their instant reactions to gaming's annual awards show/trailer fest! First they discuss the dominance of ‘Clair Obscur: Expedition 33,’ Matt’s experience attending the show in person, and the award winners that made them happiest and saltiest. Then they count down their respective top 10 lists of exciting announcements about upcoming games. Intro (0:00)Reactions to the Game Awards (2:20)Top 10 highlights (18:36)Outro (1:01:26) Host: Ben LindberghGuest: Matt JamesProducer: Devon RenaldoAdditional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, everyone. Danny Hyfitz here from The Ringer Fantasy Football Show. We're coming to you multiple times per week to tell you who to draft, who not to draft. Honestly, that's kind of most of it. The Ringer Fantasy Football Show. YouTube, Spotify, wherever get your podcast, the Ringer Fantasy Football Show. 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 decides that you can self-inject Tramphia, 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. Serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them, and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a

vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tramfaya today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit Tramphiaraio.com. 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 Spectrum business. So visit Spectrum.com slash business to learn more. Restrictions apply. Service is not available in all areas. And welcome into the Ringerverse, your Nexus feed for all things fandom. I am Ben Minberg, senior editor at the Ringer. Some call me the Jeff Keely of Button Mesh. Some is me. I just called

myself that no one else ever has. With me is the winner of Best Button Mesh Co-Winger. host who was willing to stay up and record a podcast immediately after the game awards. He's back like Leon Kennedy. It's Ringer Deputy Art lead. Matt James. Hi, Matt. Hey, I thought I was going to get the Miss Piggy comparison, but I'll take Leon Kennedy. He's badass too.

Did you hook up with Miss Piggy too? Or was that only, Jeff? You got to come to the Game Awards if you want to find out what really goes down. Yeah, unlike him. You don't kiss Muppets and tell. Man, find yourself someone who loves any. thing like Jeff Keeley loves the Muppets. It's one of his most redeeming qualities.

I like it. Well, Matt, tomorrow comes, or in fact has already come in my time zone. Indeed. Who are the real midnight boys, I ask you? Those other guys get screeners now. They recorded a reasonable hour. But there are no screeners for the Game Awards. Yeah.

They do it live. We do it live. You've got to tune in live to find out whether Claire Obscure would win anything. Nobody knew beforehand. And no one. Spoilers. It did. It won a few things. I was watching at home in New York, one of what I'm sure will be announced as 11 billion people streaming the show. One of these years, Kiwi's just going to announce that the streaming audience is larger than the number of people on Earth and we'll all just accept it. But you were in the room where it happened. You have just walked in the door after returning home from Peacock Theater. You attended the Game Awards. You're still wearing your red beret. and black and white striped shirts. How was it? This is your first game awards in person.

It was my first game awards. I traveled all the way to downtown Los Angeles from a different part of Los Angeles. And I got to say, I had a really fun time. The vibe there is pretty great. The people are having a great time. One guy next to me, I thought he was going to lose his absolute mind

over Donkey Kong winning an award. He went, he went, He went, he went, he, it's like he was there for best family game or something. And then the rest of the show, he was like politely clapping. But D.K. Bonanza, he was there for D.K. Bonanza. And you would find plenty of people who were there for like, their niche interest. And it was just, uh, it feels like a really fun, nice celebration of gaming. People don't super care about the awards except for that one guy.

Yeah. And it's just fun to be in the room when exciting things get announced. Good show, good time. Yeah, I'll probably go again, and I'll probably try to go to Summer Games Fest too now because it's fun. I was expecting you to stride out on stage along with the rest of the Street Fighter cast because everyone else in the theater was on stage at that moment. A lot of people. I was a little far away for that.

Yeah, I want some of what the Street Fighter cast was having in the Green Room, whatever that was. because they seem to be having a fantastic time. Yeah. So, possibly the highlight of the show, I think. Whatever Jason Mamoa ate, drink, I don't know, maybe he was just high on life. They're drinking that Game Awards Kool-Aid. It's just a fun environment, whether you're on the Street Fighter cast or not. So loopy that he called Ryu Raiu, but that's okay.

We'll forgive him. That movie could be gloriously bad. I'm pretty excited. I feel like if it is, we'll talk about this, but I feel like if it is going to be bad, it's going to be fun bad, not like borderlands back. Yeah, I think so too. And Qie kept the trains running this year. It went pretty smoothly.

No unplanned viral moments. You didn't rush the stage. I could have had an exclusive interview with you if you had just run up there wearing some shirt and shouted a meme or something, although you might have been in custody and that we couldn't have recorded. But you behaved yourself and everyone else did too. The cops did seem very nervous for some reason that. all the gamers taking over LA Live, I must say.

Yeah. Yeah. It was almost disappointingly practiced and predictable. It all seemed to go according to plan. And we like it when it does not go according to plan at all times. But I guess Jeff just had it on lockdown. There was no secret in-person only Half-Life 3 reveal, I assume? No, there was not.

That's disappointing. Okay. Well, a lot of people were talking about it, though. I'm sure. You'd walk through the hall. in the theater and you'd hear little half life three half a long nothing yeah well we will briefly talk about the awards we will devote as much of this podcast to the awards as the game awards do to the awards which is not very much we will quickly get to the announcements and trailers and

reveals are you tired of hearing do do do do absolutely no how did I do that was you did get I was I could tell immediately what you were doing. Yeah, not bad. I heard it enough times. It is seared into my mind if it wasn't already from playing the game. We got nine awards for Claire Obscure, Expedition 33, including, of course. I like how you say that. Game of the year.

Like, it's our team. We did it. Right. Our victory. We all did it. Yeah. You know, we all felt good when we played that game. It was kind of.

Except for Steve. Except for Steve. Yeah. Steve crying all night. coaching Clareps or win everything, I'm sure. So let's talk just briefly about an award we were happy about, an award that we were sort of salty about. If there was one, was there one that warmed your heart? I mean, maybe not as much as the fellow who was so pleased about Donkey Kong winning best family game.

I don't know if I ever be that happy. You were pleased? Yeah. Yeah, there was one award that I was very pleased about. And it's the one that I had my eye on tonight, and it turned out much differently than I expected. I was so sure coming into tonight that we would watch Jeff Keely hands an award to Hideo Kojima on that stage. I was so sure that he was a lock for Best Game Direction.

And I very much feel as someone who did not play Death Stranding 2 that Claire Obscure, Expedition 33 was a masterfully directed piece of art in every sense of how you could define direction. I think it is incredible. And Hideo-Kajima is a very talented guy. You and I have some slightly different opinions on him in another year without Claire Obscure. I can see it.

I could be fine with it. But I wanted Clarebskir to win, and they did. and the Kajima fanboys were in shambles. We're in shambles in the crowd. Yeah. Yeah. It would have been so disappointing if Claire Obscure had lost that award, really. It would have been snubbed.

Poor Claire Obscure. Yeah, I guess if there's any one or anything that Jeff Keeley loves more than Muppets, it is Hideo Kojima. So he must have been jealous about Jeff's relationship with Miss Piggy. Maybe it's some sort of thruple situation. But you're right. If anything could have overcome the power of Clare Obscure, it would have been Jeff Keeley putting his thumb on the scale somehow for Hideo Kajima. But it didn't happen.

Nothing could stop the juggernauts that was Clare Obscure. Well, I think my favorite win here, it's a little lower profile. But I was pleased that No Man Sky won best ongoing game. How about that? Because this was a category in which Clare Obscure was not nominated and therefore something else could win. I wonder whether can Claire Obscure be nominated next year in Best Ongoing Game, if they maybe release some DLC or something? Yeah, maybe.

I don't know. Find another way to give them an extra. They just did tonight. They dropped some. Yeah. They announced it. Yeah. How about that?

It's the prize drop. So what a mistake for them. Yeah. The nominees, although I guess the eligibility period for next year's the game award since it already opened probably. But Best Ongoing game, the nominees were Final Fantasy 14, Fortnite, Hell Divers 2, Marvel Rivals. I was pleased to see No Man Sky

because that game is still going strong almost 10 years later. It's gaining strength with every year, seemingly. And they just release free package of content after free package of content. I don't know how they do it. It's incredible. I mean, they're busy making another game, ostensibly,

and we know how long they can maybe take to make games sometimes. but No Man Sky turned out to be worth the wait because there's long afterlife. And it's like Final Fantasy 14, which was also nominated in this category, that just sort of rehabilitated itself after being a disappointment. But No Man Sky, it's morphed into an entirely different game. And I wasn't really playing it actively this year. But I was enjoying seeing just all the clips of people building death stars in No Man Sky

because it's just like upgraded over and over and over again. And I guess the economic mind. model works because every time they release some new batch of stuff, it gets more attention and people buy the base game again. And it just sells well forever. So I don't know if that's really a replicable model, but it's pretty great. Probably not. It's this beautiful anomaly within the gaming industry of just they just keep making that one game better and they don't ask you for more money. It's like, okay. I like that. I was a little surprised that. I was a little surprised that I thought hell divers had probably the best shot to win.

They made a big splash this year. I guess perhaps maybe the updates didn't retain as many people's attention, perhaps. I don't know. I don't know, but that was one of the more interesting and pleasant surprises of the night, I would say. Yeah. And shout out to Battlefield 6 for being the only game to actually beat Claire Obscure in a non-player's choice category. because Battlefield 6 won best audio design. Now, I don't have strong opinions on the best audio design category.

I think Claire Obscure had perfectly fine audio designed. I'm sure it would have been a deserving winner. But, you know, something snapped the streak and interrupted the sweep. And it was Battlefield. So, well done. Hat-tipped the battlefield. And also withering waves in players' choice. I guess it turns out that there are a lot of voters.

in China. Yeah, I was going to bring that up when you were when you were going to talk, we were going to talk about disappointments. That was my pick, weathering waves being the player's voice. Winner. You wanted another clear obscure win. Not enough for you. You know, I guess in this case, like, yeah.

I think if Clarebskir weren't in the category, I'd probably, honestly, I'd probably be mad that it wasn't Silk Song. I'm just trying to see how many games would I have to eliminate in that category. before I'm not mad and it's all of them but Genshin impact. Yeah, I just, you know, it's a good thing that these aren't just voted on by people because those players' voices, I don't need to hear them. You're not the men of the people. You don't need to hear from the lamps, the unwashed masses.

I don't need to hear like that the players want a free-to-play. structure with micro transactions. Aren't you the guy who's been playing 40 hours of where wins meet for the past few weeks? That is not true. That's at least up to 60. And I would love to talk about that at another time. Sorry to sell you short.

Because I love that game. And it is a free-to-play game with some micro-transactions. But on another pod, we will talk about how differently that game operates and why it is a game. that is worth your time, even if you're an absolute free-to-play hater such as myself, who is seething about weathering waves tonight.

I should also say that Clare Obscure lost twice in the best performance category to Clare Obscure, Charlie Cox and Ben Starr, both defeated by Jennifer English. So you could either be Battlefield with your audio design, or you could be Clare Obscure going up against itself, and not even Clare Obscure could win more than once in a sense. single category. They could not. It was a, that was a nice moment, though. It was a great speech from Jennifer English. And I think when it, when you boil down Expedition 33 to to one character to one performance, I think they made the right call there. I think it really is about that character

male and Jennifer English's performance. And it was outstanding. Yeah. I mean, there were, well, there were, you couldn't pick anyone in that category who, who didn't deserve it. To be honest, Atsu, voiced by Erica Ishi. She was incredible. I mean, Yes, just everyone. Everyone was top notch in that. Yeah. Yeah. And people have talked a lot about whether there should be a best mocap or best physical performance category.

Maybe we'll see that at some point too late for Claire Obscure to win another award. I guess Ghost of Beote got shut out. Yeah, I think we expected that. But it's nice to be nominated, right? Yes. Well, the opening performance set the tone. It was going to be Claire Obscure all the time. And I guess the Game Awards Thunder was somewhat stolen by the ringer.com publishing our games of the year or top 10 games of the year on Wednesday.

That was the second most commonly whispered thing in the hallways after halfway three. It kind of felt like, yeah, it was a bit of anticlimactic. You know, once we bestowed best game on Clear obscure, it was kind of downhill from there. But congrats to the other awards for also recognizing a great game. And we will, of course, do our Games of the Year draft coming up on Button Nash in a couple of weeks. Was there an award that you were upset about, another awards that you want to rant about? Yeah, just all the e-sports ones, just for being there. I just don't care.

Wow. That's it. Okay. I'm wrong. I'm happy for your e-sports and your content creators who don't have vowels in their name. It's fine. I'm more interested in the video games than all of them people, but you do you. You're not mad at the e-sports.

You're mad at the esports athletes and the streamers and such. I hope that all of the MENA RD fans weren't too upset over Chauvys win. I hope that meant something to you. Yeah. Well, my award that I was mad about sort of was best adaptation going to The Last of Us season two. which we covered here on Buttmash, but my winner of the heart would have been Twisted Metal Season 2,

which was not nominated in this category. And what was the nominee? I'm sorry, what were the other nominees? It definitely should have been. It was a Minecraft movie, which certainly won best money-making adaptation. Devil May Cry, Splinter Cell Death Watch, and Until Dawn.

Until Dawn. I didn't watch until dawn. I have heard it. I'm not upset about it, not winning. But yeah, in that group, I'm not mad about the last of us season two, but I'm extra mad because Twisted Metal was not even nominated. However, it was renewed for season three. So we will settle for that.

You know what, though, in the hall, when they said Minecraft, the audience reaction was absolutely crazy. I'm not surprised. And I looked around and I didn't see a single child. And I was like, that is fascinating. Yeah. How does it flow in the theater when you're sitting there? Because you're sitting on your couch at home by hour three.

Your eyes are glazing over. You can't actually distinguish between the ads and the trailers, which is probably by design. That is very easy in the theater. I'm sure. Right. All of the ads are on the side screens. I see. Yeah.

And all of the non-airns are on the main screen. Okay. See, at home, it's. It's essentially there's no distinction. And even the hashtag for the Game Awards, you just stays on screen the whole time. Yeah, you see anime character free to play games. And you're like, I think this is what I'm supposed to pay.

Right. Or if the ad stops rolling and QEE doesn't come on and say, wow or something at the end of it, then you know it was probably an ad. But it's tough to tell. I mean, everyone is paying for their airtime, whether it's an ad or not. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It was definitely harder to go to the bathroom.

there though because oh i'm sure the seats are very tight and not not all gamers are a good fit for the seats in the peacock theater and not all gamers are people who will get up to allow someone to easily pass by them oh i see so i was worried that you were going to say that there was some sort of still suit situation that just would not bother getting up at all but okay that's a little bit better Even if you're someone with a giant iron bladder, that show is very long. Italy is, yes. I find Jeff Kulis hand movements very distracting. His gesticulations, I would tell him to tone that down slightly, but he doesn't need notes for me.

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Okay, let's do our the game awards, awards, essentially. What we did here is each come up with a top 10 announcements, news items, trailers, something that was revealed at this show. And we will count down. And we have not compared notes. So you don't know what my top 10 is. I don't know what your top 10 is. I know what your top one is.

And you know what my top one is. And I'm positive of that. Yes, we will see how much overlap there is. And this was not that hype-filled a show, right, in the grand scheme of things. Tough act to follow last year with the 10th anniversary show when it was, I think, by popular acclaim and consensus, a really good show. And we said as much on our podcast about it. And there were just a lot of huge announcements. Yeah.

It was a little lighter this time around. Yeah, it was a good show. It wasn't one for the books. No. Sorry, Evanescence. You did great, but we were not at an next year level. Evanescence live. Yeah, but you know, I wanted to hear that other song, you know.

Wake me up, you. Anyway, there you go. Maybe next year. Okay. Give me your number 10. And if we have an overlap, then I will say where it was on my list. and vice versa. Okay, that sounds fun.

Okay, my number 10 is Gang of Dragon. Okay, I had this higher on my list. This was my number four weird thing. Okay, that's fair. Here's one thing I want to talk about before we jump into this. I noticed in particular this year that we have a little bit of a problem at the Game of Awards with our announcements. And I understand that you want to show off games that perhaps aren't ready to show gameplay.

but I feel like we're getting to a point where we need to show some more gameplay when we can. Too much cinematic. It's a lot of cinematics. Yes. A lot of cinematics, not a lot of watching actual video games in motion. Yes. Now, that being said, that's probably why I have this at 10 and not closer to 4 is because this is one of those games where we just got a cinematic trailer. And my God, was it cool?

It was. Gang of Dragon, the Toshiro Nagashi new game. He's been responsible for some really awesome stuff in the past, some Yaku's game, Super Monkey Bowl, F-Zero. This is the first game from his studio, Negoshi Studio. And there's a badass guy, and he's real badass. And I don't know what else to say. He gets impaled by a sword at the beginning or a knife or something.

Yeah, and he just at the beginning of the trailer. And then appears unfazed by that for the rest of the trailer in which he's kicking everyone's asses. And I wasn't clear on whether that was all happening sequentially, chronologically, was he stabbed and grabbing the sword and pulling it out of himself prior to all the subsequent heads bashing that he was doing? I don't know. I don't know. He seems capable of doing that. Man, I instantly, upon seeing that trailer, that, I don't know what that character's name is,

but man, I am all in for that character. that game of it too. Even without seeing any gameplay, I want to see more of that guy. That game looks super, super fun. Yep. What did you have as you are 10? Yeah, it's funny,

not only were there a lot of cinematics and lots of little tiny fine print at the bottom saying that it wasn't in game or whatever, right? Small print. This is complete bullshit. This has nothing to do with the game. This might never actually come out.

And if it does, you will have forgotten that it was even announced here. Small print at the bottom. away. Don't get too excited. This is just another season of Diablo 4. Right. Yeah, exactly. I was like, whoa, is this a new Blizzard game? No, it's not. It's just more content for Diablo 4, which is fine, but, you know, yeah. And I guess it's a product of the fact that game development takes forever these days. And so if you want to announce something, it's inevitably going to be years out. Another right I had, though, was that not only was some stuff just cinematic only, but some of it

was not revealing at all. I would get to the end of the trailer. and feel like I had no sense of what the game was or what it was supposed to be. And I feel like you had one job at the reveal, which is just to give me some sense of what this thing is and why I should be excited about it. And a shockingly high percentage of the reveals did not do that. I think that there are about three space-based games

that you and I should be hell into that we can't remember which one is which right now. Yes, yes. It's like last year everything. was a souls like, and this year everything was sort of a sci-fi space opera, which is not complaining, right up my alley, but tough to tell them apart. Okay, my number 10, sort of a surprise pick for me, maybe, was on toast. There you go. There's one of our space ones. Yes, it was. This is from fractional games published by Kepler, and this is a horror game, so that's why it's a weird

pick for me to make. It's from the team that made Soma, which I actually play. I actually play. partly because Soma had a mode that you could put on. It was called Cowards Mode or something. I do not know about this. Okay. Yeah, you could play the game and nothing could hurt you. Ben and it was still sort of Lindberg mode, huh? Yes, exactly.

It was made for me and I played through it like that. And I was still scared, but not completely reduced to a quivering mass. And so I managed to play through that game and enjoyed it, very atmospheric. And they hooked me with my man, Luton Rail. Stellan Scarsgarde is voicing this thing. And immediately right off the bat, I'm in. I mean, you've got Stellan Scarsgar, you've got Werner Herzog. We've got all the old iconic voices showing up at the show.

And it's sort of a spiritual successor to Soma, whatever that means. It's like on the moon takes place at an old hotel there. I'm in, I think, provided that they're left. Coward mode again. I had this just outside my list. It looks very cool. I agree with you. Okay.

What's your number nine? My number nine is no law. Ah, okay. Which, if you watch the Game Awards, you'll recall as being like, is this just cyberpunk? Yeah. I think it's made by the team that made the Ascent, if I'm not mistaken. And you know what, Ben, I really like cyberpunk.

And it's kind of looked like that. And I, it's not really, I mean, it's not like we saw gameplay. So it doesn't really go much deeper than that. I like the world they presented. I hope that it's good. Yeah, it didn't make my list, but I was intrigued. It had a little bit of that inception city blocks going in different directions kind of look. So it was a little derivative, perhaps visually, but derivative in a way that reminded me of

other things that I like, so I'll allow it. Okay. All right. my number nine was actually the grand reveal at the end of the show. And that's High Guard. Yeah, which, I don't know, if they're saving the best for last, there was not the best, in my opinion. But it looked interesting.

So Highguard is a new shooter by Wild Light, which is a studio started by X respawn people who worked on Apex Legends and Titanfall. And you can see some Titanfall in there. this maybe in the sense that a lot of it. Well, yeah, certainly. But there's a lot of beast riding in this. A lot of being on. Yeah.

Yeah, that was the thing that hooked me here. There were two things I liked. One was that it's actually coming out soon, which is nice to like that. Yeah. As you said, everything was 2027 or unspecified. January 20th. In this game, I think, January 26th. Yeah, it's free to play.

So, you know, free to play online, multi-pacized. player shooter, not exactly in my wheelhouse, but I liked the fantasy fusion that it had going on. I like the Titanfall DNA. I like the launching oneself off of your mount and attacking people and firing from the back of your mount with machine guns. I don't know. It was an interesting looking mashup of genres and settings. Yeah, this didn't make my list because I honestly couldn't care less about

team-based online hero shooters that are free to place. However, I did think that it looked pretty cool. The riding on beasts or horses or whatever, and the action looked good, some of the abilities looked interesting. And also, I think you have to consider

the placement in the show. A lot of times Jeff Keely will be in with developers playing some of these high-profile games before they get revealed at the game awards. and I don't think that he would have put this game in that slot if he wasn't damn sure that this had the sauce. Yes.

Now, of course, it could be wrong, but I feel like that's a real high profile slot when people are wondering if Half-Life 3 is going to be there for you to say, hey, trust me on this one, guys. So I think he's going to be right about that. We'll know pretty soon as well, which is nice. Yeah, he did mention Half-Live. having played it and enjoyed it.

I was faked out a couple times, like, Forest Three was shown, and I saw three, and I was like, this is it. No, that was. I was looking for threes all night. Yeah. The first five seconds of every trailer. Yeah.

Okay, that's my number nine. What is next for you? Are we up to your number eight? Let's see, yeah, my number eight. Okay, what you got? My number eight was the new trailer for, Phantom Blade Zero. Phantom Blade Zero, we've seen plenty of times before.

A lot of people have gotten hands on this game at various events in the past year. The new trailer, I thought, was exceptional. I would be shocked if this game was anything less than stellar. It looks like a can't miss for anyone who has even a remote interest in sort of that soul's-like formula that perhaps many of you are over. overloaded on very fairly. But it does look like... This looked like something out of last year's game awards, but...

It does look like if you're going to pick one in the year to come, this looks like it might be the one. Yes. And now we know when in the year to come, because the release day was announced September 9th. Yes. Not as soon as I would have liked, but such as life. Okay. My number eight is Coven of the Chicken Foot.

Ah, just off my list. That looked really cool. It did. Yeah, so this is a game from the Last of Us co-director, Bruce Straeli, and we haven't heard from him a lot lately. This was the game that we saw. It's got an old woman protagonist, an old witch, which you don't see every day. Yes, a witch who is aging and losing her powers. And it had a little bit of a last guardian look to it because you're kind of guiding a NPC companion.

And I wasn't that hyped off the trailer, but then I read Polygon's coverage, my guest on the last episode of Button Mashed. Yes, I also, I also read that while I was in the seat of the theater during some sort of anime drivel on the side screen. He talked to Bruce Ralee who doesn't do interviews, really. And that gave me a better sense of what this game is than the trailer actually did. So that kind of elevated it onto my level. list. And it sounds like it's going to be very adaptive and the NPC has all sorts of interesting intelligence and will sort of map itself onto what you're doing and mimic you and learn as you go on. And it's sort of a slow exploration, education kind of game. It sounds unusual.

And evidently, the narrative has something to do. Bruce Straley was trying to keep the lid on what this game is actually about and then just blurted out something about who resurrects Gannendorf when he dies in Zelda games and how does he come back? It seems to have something to do with sympathizing, empathizing with the baddies, basically bringing back the baddies, making you feel bad about mowing down baddies and NPC enemies in video games. So it sounds kind of clever. Yeah, this is one of the game. There are a lot of games where I saw the trailer, and I thought to myself, all right, I get that.

Cool. This is one of the few trailers the entire night where I was like, I need to know more about this. This is really interesting. I think this could go in a lot of different directions. And there wasn't a lot tonight that I didn't feel like I knew exactly

where we were going with it. So I very much appreciated that. And I'm looking forward to learning more about that game and hopefully playing it soon. Was there a release date on that? No, I don't think so. Because I'm excited for that. All right.

Number seven for you. Number seven for me, there was a shadow drop of the demo for Pragmatta, which I will be playing as soon as we're done here. That is the new Capcom game that we've seen a number of times over the past couple years. Right. The little girl in the blue coat, Diana, I believe, and her dude in a space suit. that there are tiny little rumblings that it might be connected to Mega Man that are probably not true, but it is Capcom game and she is wearing a lot of blue.

And there's a few, anyway, anyone who's gotten hands on Pragmatah has been very impressed on it, on the gameplay. And I thought the trailer that they showed, it's the strongest one I've seen even yet. So that is pretty exciting to me. And Capcom is absolutely on fire. It is crazy. And we'll continue to talk about that in the next 20 minutes, I'm sure. Yeah, Capcom, yeah, kind of killing it lately. Not even lately for a while now.

Yeah, those new franchises, but also especially bringing back old ones and really revitalizing them. It's kind of a model for other studios, developers, publishers to follow. Okay. I'm going to go. Yeah, my seven, I don't know if I'm too low here, but I'll go with Control Resonant. You're two looks. Yeah, okay. Where was this on your list?

Third. Okay. Yeah, it had to be there. This is the new remedy game. And you could instantly tell that it's a new remedy game, which is something you have to appreciate about remedy. There's just, there's a look. There's a distinctive design philosophy and sensibility. No choreographed dances, but aside from that, unfortunately not.

No, unfortunately not. You know? Maybe next year. Yeah. I liked how Keeley referred to Alan Wake as Remedies last game, neatly skipping over FBC Firebreak, as everyone did. Curious. Because nobody played FBC Fire Break.

But that did happen. That's FBC Fire Break erasure. But control, aside from FBC Firebreak, generally doesn't miss. And we haven't had a control game since, what, 2019 was it, that the original came out? It's been a while. And this is coming in 2020. So we don't have to wait that long either. So tell me why it should have been even higher.

Well, I think for one, Remedy's track record outside of its BC firebreak. And if you're like me and you've gone deep into the Remedyverse and you've played through Alan Wake and Alan Wake too and control, you're just itching for more, man. This universe is really fun. And control in particular is one that the fans, want to see more of because that gameplay was a little bit more action forward than Alan Wake been.

And coming off of Alan Wake too, I'm sure that they have a little bit more of a budget to work with for this next control game. And the excitement level for me is just through the roof on this one. Can't wait to see more of this.

I can't wait to play that game and stumble into Ahid. Ate. Is it Atee? The janitor, who's in every game. Oh, right. Yeah. I love, I love him. I love him.

Can't wait to see more of him. Number three for me. Yeah. Okay. Then what is your number six? Mega man dual override. Capcom again. Capcom again.

And I will say, people lost their minds when Mega Man hit the screen. And then people lost their minds just a notch less when they saw it was another 2D Mega Man. Yeah. I'm hyped for a Mega Man game, a new Mega Man game. 2.5D, maybe. 2.5D, sure.

Yeah. There was nothing in the brief. What would you want Mega Man to be? You don't want it to go back to the roots, the classics? It's been so long. It's been, what, 10 years or something? Has it been that long since we've had a 2-game Mega-Man? I feel like I've played.

Maybe I just was overdue in playing one in the past five years. I forget exactly. But look, if they make a great 2D, like, look, Mario Wonder, Well, my New Jersey came out there. You can relate. Mario Wonder was, it's one of my favorite 2D marios of all time now. Metroid Dredd is one of my favorite

Metroids of all time. So look, there could be a 2D Mega Man that absolutely knocks it out of the park. And that's what we're all hoping for. I think ideally that's what we would want. But there have been, in the past few attempts, a bunch of Mega Man games that are good and not great. And I think that what at least would be more exciting

would be sort of like or maybe a return to the Mega Man Legends series, which I love so much. That would have got me even more excited. So I will say, just seeing another 2.5D Mega Man, we're going to find out it could end up being the best thing. It wouldn't surprise me, Capcom, like I said, is on fire. But part of me really just, I guess I didn't realize until in the moment,

I really want to see like a 3D Mega Man. And that's out of character for me because I so value when these old franchises return to their roots. When we get the Link's Awakening, Zelda remake, when we get, you know, all of those retro style games. I'm excited. I'm excited. I'm going to try not to sound like I'm not excited because I'm excited. How do you feel seeing a two and a half D Mega Man? Yeah, I guess it's only been seven years maybe since Mega Man 11.

That was, yeah, that was nothing special, right? It was good. But maybe we need a new Mega Man X. I wanted great. It's been like a man. It's been a long time. Yeah, I don't know. I'm not that much of a Mega Man myself, so I can't speak from all that much

Mega Man experience. But I'm happy for you. It didn't make my list. but I know that the mega men out there are very excited. I think that's fair. You got to be a sicker like me. The kids, the Wuthering Waves fans, it did nothing for them. Well, I'll tell you what did make my list at number six.

I don't know if this is kind of a cheat, but I'm taking the Tomb Raider Toofer. We had back-to-back Tomb Raider announcements. We have Tomb Raider Legacy of Atlantis, which is coming in 2026. And this is, I believe Jeff Keeley described it as a reimagining of the original Tomb Raider. So 30 years on from the first Tomb Raider, we're getting an unreal remake, legacy of Atlantis. And in 27, we're getting Tomb Raider Catalyst, a whole new adventure. So I don't know. We've talked a lot about the attempted revitalization of Tomb Raider.

You've got the animated show. You've got the live action show in the works. and I'd like to see another great Tomb Raider game. And, you know, there have been a whole lot of remasters and re-releases of the old games. A complete from the ground up remake, probably without the tank controls. Probably. Yeah, I'm interested. Imagine if they did an Unreal Engine 5 remake of the first Team Raider and it's still tank controls.

Yeah, but I'm into this, I guess. I hope that we get back to peak Tomb Raider again. Yeah, so this didn't make my list. For me, I played Tomb Raider back in the day. I thought it was a very important title in the action platforming landscape and the history of all of that. I kind of don't particularly think that it's much of a rich text to pull from. I've enjoyed one of the,

Tomb Raider games the past decade or so, I think. It's sort of like, it's guilty until proven innocent for me. I don't doubt that you can make a good game out of this. I am not expecting absolute greatness. Because I think that, you know, what is Tomb Raider, right? It's what Lara Croft looks like and two guns and jumping and platforming and tombs and maybe some wolves.

And the rest, you got to fill with story and narrative and characters and new gameplay innovations. And the framework just doesn't necessarily guarantee anything for me of what Tomb Raider is, you know? So, If it's good, I'm gonna play it. Yeah. I like going in tombs.

Like Indiana Jones is super fun to me, you know? Sure. I like raiding a tomb. It's always fun, but it's not always fun when it's a Tomb Raider game. And that's, I hope we get back to that. And I'm excited to see what Phoebe Waller Bridge and Sophie Turner and Sigourney Weaver, evidently, can do with the live action show. So I'm doing this. This is an aspirational pick, really.

I'm not saying that I have complete confidence that either or both of these games will be great. But I want to live in a world where we can be confident that a Tomb Raider will be good again. And we can be unreservedly excited about Tomb Raider. If that first one delivers, then I'll definitely be hyped for the next one. Okay. Mega Man dual override, by the way, is coming out in 2027. I know. It's so far away.

We're announced. It's terrible. Okay. We're up to your number five. Is that right? Yeah. I feel like if this isn't your number five, This has got to be your number four, three, at least.

Maybe two. I already, I spoiled that Gang of Dragon was my number four. Oh, right. All right. We're running out of slots then. All right. So is your number five Star Wars Galactic Racer? No, that's too low.

What are you to number five? What are you talking about? Okay, that's too low for you. What a fool? Yeah. So you say Subalba and there, Ben Lindberg is. Yours is Galactic Racer? Yeah.

Of course. Yeah. Okay. You know, I had episode. one Pod racer? Oh, who didn't? That game was great. I love Pod Racing.

Yep. I'm not like obsessed with pod racing, but I'm ready to get back in. How often does a racing game get me super excited? Not too often. No, me either. You know, you got Star Wars and you got Pod Racing and Subbo was in that trailer, right? Was I imagining that? Bobo was there.

Yeah, he had a cameo. As long as we don't go too hard on the Wado, I feel like we're going to do great on this game. Yeah, and this seems to be a post-imperial setting, so I'm glad to see that Sibulba is still kicking around, still in racing shape. And the pedigree here is good, because this is coming from Fuse Games. So this is a studio that has a lot of X burnout and need for speed people. So that seems to bode well. And, you know, you mentioned pod racing and we see Sibulba, but what excites me is that this is not solely a pod racing game. You know, you had racer and racer's revenge, but this just appears to be a racing game, not specifically pod racing.

I don't know that we even saw Pod Racers in this trailer. We saw a pod racer's Ebola, but mostly it was Speeders and Swifts. It's legit, right? It's not the kind they just let a child do, right? Right. The chosen one, to be fair, but still. But we haven't seen much just kind of racing games in the Star Wars universe that are not specific. pod racing beyond, I don't know, Super Bomb Bad racing.

I'm not sure that we've really seen that. And maybe some mini games in other games, it is an extremely deep cut. So I think, and that was 25 years ago. So I think we're ready for just a Star Wars racing game that hopefully won't be kind of kid oriented the way that Super Bomb Bad Racing was. It'll just be like a legitimate racing game just set in Star Wars. I'm there for that, even as not really a racing game guy. So let me upgrade my ship and buy new parts.

Exactly. Yeah. This was my number two. I don't know why I thought it would be. I like what I like. What are you going to? I'm predictable. Sorry.

So what was your number five? My number five was divinity, which will probably be higher for some people, potentially. Yes. But this is the new Larian game, the follow up to Baldersgate 3, but not Balderscape 4. they're out of the Baldur's Gate business and they're making divinity. So this was what that viral, mysterious Hellgate thing that Jeff Kee constructed.

I mean, not personally, but had commissions and promoted. I mean, you don't know. Very talented guy. Maybe. But this is obviously big just because it's the follow up to a game of the year and is said to be even bigger somehow than Balders Gate there. I'm not sure if that's a good thing. A lot of people expected that. there would be a divinity announcement of some sort.

And Larian seemed to cast some cold water on that by saying that it would not be Divinity Original Sin 3. And I guess they were telling the truth. It's not Divinity Origins Sin 3. It's just divinity. Whatever that means. This was another cinematic only. And I bumped it down as Slaughter 2 on my list

because it was definitely the grossest trailer that we saw at the Game Wars. And it had some stiff competition in that category. but this one featured some sort of being vomiting and then the vomit being eaten by some other kind of creature. And then there was a guy being burned at the steak, and then various boils arose from his body, and then all sorts of hellspon emerged from a big bubble of burning on his back. And it was pretty gross on the whole.

So, yeah, slight demerits for that, maybe. But I assume that the game will be good. I would say it was beyond pretty gross. I found it borderline disturbing, to be honest. Anyway, I put this number three on my list, despite being wildly turned off by the visceral nature and tone of this thing. It made Diablo feel like a kid's cartoon by comparison. And to some degree, it felt like that.

when you're outside the show and Diablo 4 had a booth for fresh meat and they were giving away hot dogs, which I don't think you'd want a hot dog after looking at that divinity trailer. I'd pass that up. Yeah. So it's only number three because it's Larian and it's their next game. Yep. And that's good enough for me. I hope parts of the game don't feel like that.

Yeah. But if it does, I'll play it anyway. Okay, well, my number four was Gang of Dragon. So what was yours? Divinity was my fourth. Okay. Control was my three. Control was your three, right.

Okay. So then we're up to my three. Yeah, which I know, which is my two. I'm assuming. We'll see. I wouldn't assume that. Okay. This might be kind of an out of left field pick for me.

I'm picking Ace Combat 8. Okay, that is not my pick. Yeah, I didn't think it would be. You know what? Wings of Thieve? How could you not want wings of thief? What better wings could there be than thief? What?

Look, what is that? I don't know what that means. I don't know. I don't know what a thief is. We'll find out, but. Is this just like a pilot with a lisp who has like a friend named Steve? Is that what this is? I had to look up what it was, how this was spelled.

Because that was not my first or second guess. It's no. I thought it was wings of thief. And then I was, should it be thieves? Is this like an aeronautical term that we just don't know? As in Steve with a TH, we'll find out more about thief, I'm sure. But all I need to know is Ace Combat 8. Look, I'm a sucker for sort of Arcadey flight sims.

I like Ace Combat games. They're all essentially the same. That's okay. Because I like that. I like that genre. I will always play an Ace Combat. It looked really cool. I'm not going to lie.

It looked like they had a lot cooking in this game. That's not just when you're up in the airplane. Yeah, I'm not sure that that's a good thing. But all the other stuff I was worried about. But the actual air combat, I'm sure, will be good. If you don't make personal connections with these pilots outside of the plane, how are you going to be impacted in the story when your wingman suddenly gets shot down? I know.

I know. I need to know about the thief. in order to get invested in the wings. But it's coming in 2026. So we'll find out what Wings of Thieve means. I guess these Wings of Thieve like the pilot, like the legendary ace. Look, I don't know.

But it's said in 2029. It comes out in 26. It's been quite a while since the last day. When was Ace Combat 7? That was, gosh, at 2019. Yeah. So it's a high time that we have another Ace combat and that's why it's my number three. I'm sure I'm the high man on this one probably.

You are for sure. Yeah. Well, I'll reveal my number two that. Please do. It looked incredible while you were obviously covering your eyes and hiding for dear life because my number two is the new trailer for Resident Evil Requiem. Yeah. Which every time we see this game, it looks better and better. obviously tonight they revealed somewhat unsurprisingly because of some leaks that Leon Kennedy is indeed in this game as a playable character and man that trailer looked incredible. Leon aside, it looked amazing. I am and have always been a Resident Evil fan and boy, this one looks like it's going to be very cool then. It's coming in February.

I think you have enough time. Sike yourself up because I think you're going to have to end up playing this one. I probably will for podcast purposes. Look, I played a Silent Hill game this year. I'll play whatever I'm required to play to bring everyone the podcast content. So sure, I'll jump in here. But as people know, I'm not really a survival horror guy at heart. So no.

But you're doing great. That's why it's not on my list. But I agree that if you're into that sort of thing, you know what? I'm not either. Can I just say I'm not either. I only... But that's how good it looks that it was still number two.

I only play survival horror games that are either in a series I know and love, such as Silent Hill or Resident Evil, or have a lot of buzz around them. I'm not trying it. I don't watch horror movies. I typically don't like horror. I don't love being scared or uncomfortable. But I do love a good... Survival Heart game.

I'm not trying everyone on the market. Yeah. All right, well, let's talk about... The suspense is killing everyone. What could be our mutual number one here? What could possibly be our number one?

My number two, again, was Star Wars Galactic Racer. Right. So my number one is Exodus. No. Imagine if this would Galactic Racer was the only Star Wars game on my list. But no, it's fate of the Old Republic.

Yeah, I assume it is on your list as well. Let's go. This was the highlight. And unfortunately, it came quite early in the show. And so it was really all downhill from there. Yeah. This should have been the closing grand reveal slot. End on a high note, leave me buzzing.

Instead, I'm thinking, how can you top fate of the old republic? And then they didn't. And then they're not for us old. I don't know. No. No. Look, this is from Arcanott Studios. You might not know that name because it's about six months old.

It was founded in July. But you might know the name Casey Hudson because he started that studio and also is the person who directed the old original Cotor. And lots of other bioware classics and Mass Effect games, et cetera. but fate of the old Republic, this was another one where we only got a cinematic and a brief cinematic to boot. So we don't really know anything about the game,

except that it's set in the old Republic era of Star Wars. It's not a direct sequel or continuation of the Cotor series. It was also described as a spiritual successor. But all I need to know is that it's a Star Wars game in the Old Republic era. Yeah. From Casey Hudson. I'm sold.

In the room when that was playing, and everyone was just like, is this, is this, where's, is this going to be Calcestis? Are we going to see Calcestis? Right. And then you got to the end of the trailer and the word fate comes up on screen first. Yes. I thought the game was just called fate at first because it was just a giant fate. And then of the old republic. And then when old Republic dropped on the screen, it was the most madness of the entire.

More so than that one guy for Donkey Kong Bonanza or for the Minecraft's movie, the Old Republic text dropping on the screen was the biggest moment of the night by my ears, at least. Yeah. And we have had some rumors that there was a Cotor 1 remake in development and then rumors that maybe it wasn't. And then we have heard some buzz that maybe two was going to happen. And then maybe it's something entirely different in the Old Republic. It turns out that last one was true. And we now have at some point in the future a new old Republic game to look forward to,

which is even more exciting to me than a remake of two games that are still good. Some distant point in the future, presumably, because this was described as being in early development. And given the development cycle of a typical big budget game these days, don't hold your breath. It'll be less time than Metroid Prime 4 took. So hopefully. Yeah.

I guess the question is, will it come out before Star Wars Eclipse, which was announced at the Game Awards in 2021 and has hardly been heard from since? I forgot about that entirely. Yeah. Or will it come out before the Knights of the Old Republic remake, which was announced in September 2021. Neither of those has surfaced or been seen lately.

So don't get too excited about when it will actually come out. But I believe that this one will at some point. And I could not be more excited for it. I guess it's sort of a sign of how far BioWare has fallen and the brain drain at BioWare that they're handing an Old Republic game to an upstart studio from an ex-biaware person. I mean, most people are ex-bi-aware people at this point. The studio has just been dramatically downside. and is basically working on a new Mass Effect game

and hardly has the bandwidth to develop a new Old Republic. But that's sort of sad, I guess, but we can remember the good times at BioWare and the best of times, at least in my mind, we're Cotor, which I replayed recently for the podcast, for an anniversary, and yeah, it's still great. It's still amazing. So if they can capture that and modernize it in interesting ways,

then I'm extremely excited. That's why it was number one for both of us and probably for just about everyone. So great reveal. Was there anything else that we should even mention? I guess we're both snubbing the new Jonathan Blow game, Order of the Sinking Stars, which has been in the works for 10 years and bragged about having a thousand puzzles, although Jeff Keeley then said it has more than 1,400 puzzles, which actually turned me off more. Yeah, I know.

That's too many puzzles. I don't need 1400 puzzles. It's like the witness had enough puzzles. 1,400 puzzles. Too many for me. So off the list. I would break Professor Leighton. 1400.

Are you kidding me? There was Total War Warhammer 40K. Which people are excited about that. I know that these are two distinct IPs, Ben. I know that they're very protective of their brand. But man, you can't just name it Total Warhammer. We got to do the double war in the title of Total War Warhammer. Annoying.

Annoying. Anyway, the game, hopefully they showed what looks like gameplay, but I think might have just been like a fake UI slapped on some, I don't know. We'll see. Yeah, we'll tell. And then there was Exodus, which is coming in 2027 from Archetype and Wizards of the Coast. This was one of the space games, one of the Mass Effect likes. So, I mean, that could be good, I guess, but who the heck knows?

Yeah, there was Orbitals, which was a co-op switch two game with a very cool animated style to it in space. Yeah, what sort of split fictiony gameplay-wise? Yeah, four loop, which JJ Abrams and Mike Booth came out to show off. kind of interesting-looking alien invasion game. We'll see if that's anything. And then Warlock Dungeons and Dragons had an interesting trailer, or maybe they just put Tool in their trailer and it seemed cool to me. I don't know.

Yeah. That was the Trisha Helford game. Right. Yeah. Look, we love gaming. It's odd how when you want the star power, that's the biggest night in gaming, you bring out the Hollywood folks, that's just always the way it's been.

It's like the gaming industry doesn't create stars the way that TV and movies do, understandably, because a lot of people who make video games are behind the scenes and then everything is animated. And so the star power tends to come from Hollywood types

who show up to promote a game. Milo Jovovich, you know, it's always that. There are only so many gaming-only celebrities. But I guess we're getting there. I mean, you know, Ben Starr defeated a, I mean, Jennifer English defeated a real-life Hollywood actor in Best Performings. Yes. And also, yeah, the lines blur and merge, and you get Hollywood people being game people, and you get Jeffrey Wright and et cetera, right?

So, yeah. Randy Pitchford wasn't there, but what a star, you know? Yeah, right. We always want to hear from that guy. Okay, well, not a great show, but a good show. Yeah, good show. Yeah, enough to talk about some stuff to get excited about. Congrats to Clare Obscure Times 9.

You know what amused me is that Claire Obscure beat a bunch of the games that it was up against four Game of the Year in other categories first. Yeah. Not as if there would be much suspense about whether Claire Obscure was going to be Game of the Year, but it beat Kingdom Come Deliverance to in Best RPG. So it's not going to lose, it's not going to win best RPG and then lose Game of the Year to the same game.

It beat Hades 2 and Silk Song Head to Head in Best Indy game. Yeah, I know. So most of the field that it was up against in Game of the Year, it had already defeated head to head in best genre. As soon as you saw that Wuthering Ways wasn't nominated for Goody,

he knew it was a lock for Claremskier. Exactly. Yeah. Okay. Well, thanks for burning the midnight oil for me. I mean, for me, it was for you. You're on the West Coast. It's early yet. You can go play demos to your heart's content. Thank you for joining me and rushing back from Peacock Theater for the main event, which was the Button Mesh After Show. Thanks to Devin Lado for staying up even

later to edit and produce and publish this podcast ASAP. And thanks to our junior Ramgapal for agreeing to add this thing to the schedule. And the next podcast on the feed and on But Mesh will be Fallout Season 2 premiere reactions coming next week. Van and I will be tag teaming that. We might have some special guests, but we will be covering Fallout Season 2 weekly, and it will be released weekly on Button Mesh. So look forward to that. And you can contact us at Ringiverse Gaming at gmail.com. And in case you haven't heard it enough tonight, I will leave you with. Beautiful.

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