The Ringer-Verse - Summer Gaming Showcase Hype Rankings | Button Mash

Episode Date: June 11, 2024

Ben, Jessica Clemons, and Justin Charity react to a slew of big gaming news by ranking their big-picture takeaways and top 10 most exciting announcements, trailers, and reveals from Summer Game Fest, the Xbox Games Showcase, Ubisoft Forward, Sony State of Play, and other recent presentations. Host: Ben Lindbergh Guests: Jessica Clemons and Justin Charity Producer: Devon Renaldo  Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, football fans, we know that the NFL offseason can seem long and dark, but the Ringer NFL show is here to shine a light on all the big training camp developments and front office news around the league. Join me, Shield Capadia, and a rotating cast of Ringer favorites that includes Nora Preciati, Stephen Ruiz, Austin, Gail, and Lindsay Jones throughout the summer months, and stay up to date on what your favorite team is cooking up for the 2024 season. Subscribe to the Ringer NFL show on Spotify for wherever you get your podcast and follow Ringer NFL on Instagram and TikTok and at Ringer NFL on X and YouTube. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters.

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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. Services not available in all areas. Hello and welcome into the ringerverse, your Nexus podcast feed for all things fandom. I am Ben Lindberg, a senior editor at The Ringer and your host here at Button Nash.

With me today are two friends and colleagues I'm always delighted to introduce. Deuce. First, former co-host, new rock star, and runaway winner of last episodes build the best video game remake roster draft, Jessica Clemens. Hi, it was all on the guitar hero. Who would have thought? Yeah. Perhaps that controversial cotor pick paid off. Who could say, you know? It was not controversial. Only for you. This is a real deaf jam bandetta. Oh my God. Sometimes you want to win, you got to bend the rules.

Not break them. Just bend them a bit. Oh, my God. It wasn't broken. Your system's broken. Your rules are broken. You win. I'm just a sore loser over here.

Also, with us is a man who probably thinks the biggest gaming news of the week is that Shin-Megami Tensei 5 Vengeance comes out on Friday. Senior staff writer, Justin Charity. Dog, you got me dead to rights. That's right. Braising some beef while we record, you let me know. Absolutely. Rick Ross.

I'm on some Rick Ross stuff today. I can smell it from here. I wish that I could join you after we record with that meal, but I'll just have to imagine it. Sometimes we start, not by talking about brazing beef, but by breaking down news and announcements before getting to our main topic. Today, our main topic is news and announcements, because there have been a bunch of them. E3, RIP, is dead and gone. But gaming summer showcase season is alive and well.

You know how instead of having a cable bundle with all the channels you now, subscribe to several separate streaming services. Well, instead of having one Los Angeles-based event where all the game makers hawk their wares, we now have several separate LA events, all within a week or so of each other, where each individual game maker hawks its wares. So sort of the same, but maybe less efficient. Anyway, we had Sony's state of play. We had Summer Game Fest.

We had the Xbox Game Showcase. We had Ubisoft Forward. We had the PC Gaming Show and Day of the Devs and IGN Live. The list goes on. We got glorified hype reels from just about all the big companies other than Nintendo, which is supposed to have its own presentation sometime this month. Nintendo is going to do its own thing on its own timeline. So what we're going to do is run down our respective top 10 lists of the things that caught

our eyes and got us hyped. Trailers, reveals, release dates, you name it. Or I guess we will name it. So something like 600 game trailers and teasers have been released since late last week. And we're raking them all. The countdown starts at 600. No, we're not doing that. But we've watched a lot of them. So to start, what was one big picture takeaway for each of you from the past 10 days? Maybe a certain trend you noticed or an event you thought took the cake or a genre that was everywhere or something you were surprised not to see more of. Charity, anything stand out to you?

I think the, okay, my main big picture discourse level takeaway, right, is I do think that this past weekend stopped a sort of bleeding and agonizing, I want to say, in the gamer consciousness. Like, if you think back three months ago where Phil Spencer would say something to like a random podcast host and there'd be another round of our consoles dead. Is the Xbox washed up? You know what I mean? The mood for the first half of 2024 in gaming has been very dire. It's been very pessimistic about the outlook of just consoles as a platform. And certainly on the outlook of the Xbox, right, competitively. I feel like on the other side of this weekend, yeah, it's sort of you remember why it's like good to be a gamer.

And there's a lot of, I think, interesting stuff in the console space going on now. And I don't know. I feel like this is, I feel like there's been a. There's a sort of reset that I think was successfully pulled off over the weekend with all of this stuff that we'll get into. Yeah. It pressed pause on some of the doom and gloom. Not that anything fundamentally changed. If you were laid off or your studio was closed prior to this weekend,

your stay laid off. Your studio is still closed, even though Jeff Keeley said something banal about how companies should treat their employees well or something along those lines. But, yeah, that was maybe my main takeaway specific to. Xbox from this weekend because the Xbox event kind of carried the weekend or the week, really, right? Because there were not a lot of new reveals. Games we had no inkling existed. There were a lot of games we had heard of that we knew were in the works and now we got gameplay trailers or we got details or we got release dates. There were only so many surprise announcements of big games. And we will get to some of those later. So there were some exceptions.

but they were pretty heavily concentrated in the Xbox Gaming Showcase. And Microsoft needed that because you're right, the narrative was not good. And they at least temporarily changed that narrative. No one was talking about Xbox consoles not selling and Tango GameWorks closing. And is anything even exclusive to Xbox anymore? They brought out the big guns. And people have been wondering, where are the Xbox games? You bought Bethesda, you bought Activision.

When are we going to see the fruits, the spoils of those days? deals and now we are starting to see them. Jess, what stood out to you? I think what stood out for me was definitely Blumhouse creating, like, their own little circuit for video games now. I'm not saying it's going to be great games, but I love horror movies and I love their horror movies. So I think going to horror video games is really fun.

I think that was mainly that. Mainly that. There's a lot of remakes, lots of expansions, lots of things I've already heard of, things that I've already seen trailers of. And I was like, oh, this is really fun. But I was also at IGN Live. So the only, I was getting more of my updates there. And then what I'd get online, I was like, yeah, I expected this.

Yeah. And Kiwi kind of warned us to set expectations for Summer Game Fest. He was like, you know, you're going to know these games. You've seen some of these games before. But there was still enough that I don't think it was a dud or a big letdown. There was a lot of exciting news announced. And you're right. I thought, look, there were a lot of rogue likes and a lot of Metroidvamias.

but there was a lot of horror, which is great news for you, not as great for me, maybe. Well, we'll be on my top 10, spoiler, so I do think that was really interesting news, but it wasn't just that. It was the Silent Hill 2 remake getting dated October 8th, right? Silent Hill's creator is making a new game called Slitterhead. There's a new alien game that looks kind of terrifying. There's no more room in hell too. there's Alan Wake 2, D.L.C. Night Springs, which is available now, already dropped.

Seemingly not quite as scary as the main game, but probably still sort of scary. So horror was everywhere, really, which means a lot of games that I'm probably not going to play, but still admired from afar from the safety of my computer screen watching a trailer or some sample of gameplay. So I did think that was a big note from this weekend. What we will get into much more, that was just to sort of set the game. scene, as is this, because what is summer showcase season, if not a way for the entire industry to provide programming reminders in that same spirit? Here's what you have to be hyped for on the Ringerverse and House of R. This episode marks the start of a stacked seven-episode

week as Hot Nerd June fully gets going. We've got back-to-back midnight boys, on Wednesday and Thursday covering the Ackleight episode three and the three-part premiere of the boys, respectively, followed by Jess, joining Jomey and Steve for a mint edition on the latest Pixar sequel Inside Out 2 on Friday. Everyone super psyched that Pixar making many more sequels. We love it. Kind of looking forward to seeing this movie. Looking forward to hearing you talk about it, Jess.

Have you already seen the film? No, I haven't yet. All right. Well, we'll all be in suspense to wait to hear how it was. Over on House of Ar, Mal and Joe will be giving you a podcast primer for House of the Dragon Season 2 on Tuesday, followed by their Ackleite Episode 3 Deep Dive on Friday. I may just drop by for a little lore segment on that one. And of course, you can read my Ackleite recaps every Wednesday at the ringer.com.

What a great website. On Sunday, tune in to Talk the Thrones as Mal Joe and Chris Ryan recap the hot D season premiere. And then on Monday, the Midnight Boys will be back with their Dragon reactions. And then the cycle starts anew. Plus, we've got a super secret announcement and trailer. of our own dropping this week. So check at Ring Reverse on the various socials on Tuesday for a sneak peek at something cool coming down the pike,

a new way you can consume our content, as if there wasn't already enough of it out there. And don't worry, we may be busy covering all the culture, but more button mash is coming too. We're less than two weeks away from Eldon Rings DLC, Shadow of the Earth Tree, or Nerdtree, as we dubbed it last time. And at the midpoint of 2024, we're also planning to discuss the games of the first half.

of the year. So not a goady pod, but a goat foote pod, I guess. That's what we'll call it. I don't know if that'll catch on. And remember, we welcome your emails at ringerverse gaming at gmail.com. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and making a mess. You don't need WeatherTech floor liners in the summer unless you hit the beach or go camping. Then you'd want a cargo liner or road trip goes sideways, ketchup goes rogue, ice cream drips. Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those weather tech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer. You don't need weather tech unless you plan on doing summer.

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Learn more at clinickids.com. slash 100 KK. That's Clinic Kids is a registered 5-1.1c3 nonprofit. That was a lot of programming, reminders, a lot of programming coming, which means it is top 10 time. We have each brought our lists. There will probably be some overlap on the list. Though, who knows, we're different people, different tastes and games. We're going to take turns, so we'll share our number 10s, and then we'll share our number 9s on down to the top picks. And if one of us picks something, I don't know, ninth that someone else has sixth, that's okay. We can just share each of our personal placements the first time it comes up.

And then we can talk about it together and skip over that spot on the other person's list when we get to it. And I will try to record our selections and recap what we picked at the end. So starting at the bottom, still hyped, but a little less hyped than we will be for our later selections, are number 10 on our top. tens of things that we were most hyped about over the gaming showcase season. Charity, you want to start this off? Yes. I'm most hyped for your breeze beef personally, but. Okay, number 10.

Easily, it's the Lego Horizon Adventures. You know what? That's my number 10. Interesting. You know what it is? I remember a long time ago when I first saw Ashley Birch. Ashley Birch is the voice actor for Ailoit. And I remember I saw her sort of like YouTube comedy highlights.

And then you watch the trailer for Lego Horizon Adventures and you're like, it's kind of like, why aren't the Horizon games this? Like, you know what I mean? They should just be this actually. She's very good at selling this, whatever the Lego thing, the Lego Twist on Horizon is. Yeah. It almost has like a better. And I like Horizon.

I like Horizon. Me too. I'm glad you're with because I feel like there's been a Horizon backlash. Yeah, for real. I don't get it. I really like Horizon. It's not only a Horizon backlash, like waves of it, like first during the first game, then the second game. It's been multiple waves of Horizon backlash.

I like Horizon. And yet, I do think that there's something about the Lego Horizon thing that has a superior vibe to this sort of base game that it is a twist on. Yeah. Was this on your list somewhere, Jess, or are you? Are you interested in this game? No, I'm not into Horizon, but I also not into the Lego games. I played one Lego game that I genuinely really did like when I was in high school,

and I just never turned back. So the Lego game, unfortunately, didn't make it onto my list. That's okay. It's well represented, apparently. I knew exactly what you were. Yeah, you guys were very high. I can't believe you had that 10 too. Wow.

Yeah, this was, the expression, I didn't have this on my bingo card, is kind of overused, but I definitely did not have this on my bingo card. This crossover, Lego meets Horizon. I like both of these things individually. I like Lego games. I like Horizon. I think I am excited that they're going to meet here. And also, this is coming out this winter, right?

So I like a game reveal that we don't have to wait a long time to get our hands on the thing. And it's coming out for PS5 PC and Switch. So this is, of course, a Sony character flagship franchise guerrilla games. And it's coming out for multiple platforms, including a quote-unquote, right away, as opposed to the staggered release we've seen. So that's a mini trend that we've seen in gaming at large this year, and also to some extent at the showcases that you're not going to have to wait for a port or have a console exclusive.

And really, the Lego look looks great with the robot dinosaurs. It really does sort of suit the world of Horizon. Except I really like Horizon for the actual futuristic kind of bat-shit sci-fi story, which I know is like a little extra for some people, but I really like it. And this game probably will not have so much of that. It has like base building and dance parties and stuff, which is kind of cool too, you know,

different spin on the franchise. So I'm psyched. Lego Horizon Adventures. Okay. Well, that was two top tens. Jess, what was your number 10? My number 10. Mine, I can already tell I can be so wild.

I can be able to you guys. My number 10 is never. I saw this, the trailer for it. It's very beautiful. It's a 2D platformer. It's also a puzzle game. God forbid, but I'm going to watch it. I'm going to watch someone else probably play it because it looks so gorgeous and the music is stunning and everything about it is great.

It's about a young girl. They get a bond with a magnificent wolf and they have to like go through this dying world together and survive. And it looks very beautiful and I'm very in love with it. Yeah. Yeah. It does. were a lot of indie games that kind of get lost in the big showcases, but they had their own showcases and we should not neglect them. I guess I had a hard time not selecting known quantities

for my top 10 because you get psyched about the sequels. And that doesn't mean that the sequels or the spinoffs or the prequels will be good. It's just that we kind of know what they are or think we might know what they are. And we have some history with those franchises. Whereas if it's a brand new indie game, it might look cool, but there's just only so much we know, right? So my hype is sort of limited, restricted. I don't want to get my hopes up too high, but you're right. I took number 10 as like number 10. Like my number one is completely opposite of my number 10. My number 10 is ones that I'm very curious into playing. I'm interested in. It's beautiful. It's different than what I do. So that's why I was like, number 10? Is this?

Kind of a wild card. Yeah. Sneak it on there, except Lego Horizon Adventures. I'm actually very excited about it. It's a safe space for Horizon lovers on this pod. What do you think it is, Charity? Do you think it's just the fact that a better game comes out immediately before or after every Horizon game? And so you immediately play Breast of the Wild or you play Alden Ring and you're like, oh, maybe this is actually better than that. I don't think it's better.

It's not that it's better. It's that it comes out and it's the lanes of the respective games are too close. And I think for whatever reason, it's like the people make Horizon. out to be the sort of punching bag for every frustration they've ever had with like big budget open world yeah yeah big budget open world even though i think it is like like it would make sense if people talked about far cry the way they talk about horizon you know what i mean people talk about horizon like it's far cry despite the fact that it is very much not far cry agreed yeah it's a little more conventional than the more emergent breath of the wild elden ring just wander around and

run into adventures kind of thing, but it's not like a rote checkoff quests and just do busy work. It's a really fun franchise. Maybe people will realize that when they play it in Lego form. Okay. Our number nine's charity, don't say my number nine pick, that would be weird. Is it Hyperlight breaker? Now, no, it's like a legamy. It's not.

That does look kind of cool. Yeah. No, Harvard Light Breaker's been, I think, I don't know, that's one of those games that's been on my Steam. wish list for 10 years at this point. And finally getting more footage from that. And, you know, I love Hyperlight Drifter. This is like a very different style of game, right?

Like a Hyperlight Drifter, for one, is like a 2D game. But yeah, I'm like super down the clown for a sequel to that. And I like the footage that I saw over the weekend. So yeah, number nine. All right. Jess, what you got at number nine? Number nine is Dune Awakening. Oh, okay.

Nice. You give me an MMO. I'm going to play that shit for a week straight. I'm going to play that shit for a week straight. No one will hear from me. And then I'll get out of it. But MMOs, oh, the reason it's at nine, though, is because do I necessarily need a Dune? MMO?

Because I'm like, unless I can play the worm, I don't really give a, like, I don't really care. But I do love Dune so much that I am excited to see what adventures I can do in that world and how far I can go. I want to see how creatively they have taken it. Yes. I'm very excited. Yeah. Apparently you can't ride the sandworms at launch. Okay. Take it out.

Look, take it out. It's not my top 10 anymore. It's dropped now. Maybe this will be like when Star Wars galaxies came out and it was really hard to become a Jedi initially and then arguably it got too easy to become a Jedi. It's like everyone wants to ride shy hollude. Yeah. Maybe it should be hard.

You should have to wait. You should have to earn it unless you're. Paul Trades, right? And then you just hop right on there. Yeah, how do you randomly get called to be Paul Trades in the game? Is that possible? Well, yeah. You don't have to play as Timothy Shalmay. And you can do your own way of experiencing the Dune narrative. And look, I know he didn't hop right on the back of that where there was some passage of time that was not completely clear. But yeah, I'm sort of excited for this too. It's been quite a while since I've gotten into an MMO.

But I'm tempted. It's the year of Dune. We got Dune 2. We got Dune Prophecy coming. Dune Awakening is part of that. It's been quite a while since we've got a good Dune game. So the time seems right, I guess. What do you want to do in a Dune game other than Ride the Worm?

Is there like a faction you want to play as? I want to join a faction. You want to be a Harkening. Baron Jess. Absolutely not. After Dune 2, I'm good. I am fine. Yeah.

It looks good to me. However, my number nine is a game that I was not expecting to emerge from these showcases as intrigued by as I am. Perfect dark. Perfect dark is back. I know blast from the past, but we got gameplay footage here that makes this game look pretty far along. There's no release date, but we saw minutes of what appeared to be pretty playable action here. And it didn't really look that perfect darky, like rare, perfect dark. Yeah.

Yet there wasn't any humor in the trailer. And, you know, it's just one trailer. Maybe that's in there. And it just wasn't what they decided to showcase initially. And so it felt like some other futuristic franchise. And maybe that would be a negative. And yet it felt like also kind of cool other futuristic franchises. It was kind of like Deus X meets Mirror's Edge almost with some cyberpunk thrown in there.

There's like a lot of parkour, you know? I'm kind of into it, potentially. You sound skeptical, Cherry. Well, I was going to say, if we have something deeper in our list, should we, should I hold my powder to talk about it later? No, no, if you have that on there. Yeah. Yeah. Perfect Dark I had at number one just because like a lot of people, I don't think.

that the reveal even was Perfect Dark. We knew that a remake was like in the works. Yeah. It's more like wait, Perfect Dark is an immersive sim. Right. You know, I mean, you're right. It's like, yeah, the tone of, that's a

game that I remember play. It's like a fugue state of having played it so much back in the day. And then also the more hours than I want to admit of like speed running content I've watched about Perfect Dark over the years. Yeah.

And yeah, definitely the tone of that game for anyone old enough to remember it is very different from what you see in that trailer. Where was Elvis the Alien? Yeah, where's Elvis? I was going to say, I don't know how you put Elvis in this game. But it's like, yeah, I don't know. I think part of me is rooting as much for Perfect Dark as I am rooting for a new good immersive sim that everyone is going to pay attention to, hopefully. Right. And hopefully is good.

I feel like it's the immersive sim aspect where I'm like, now you have my attention. Yeah. And this is coming from the initiative and Crystal Dynamics. So there's some pedigree. There's some track record there. But it could be a very different perfect arc. And maybe that's okay. Because look, it's been a long time since Perfect Dark.

You know, if you're our age, you probably remember Perfect Dark fondly aside from the sometimes single digit frame rates. Especially if you didn't have an N64 expansion pack, you're screwed. But for other people, this will probably be their first exposure to perfect arc. And so it doesn't really matter if it's a faithful remake or reboot or whatever we're calling it. Right. So when a franchise has been idle this long, other than I guess the Xbox 360 perfect arc, even that is pretty old at this point. So you might as well reinvent it, I guess.

but, you know, I was seeing Daniel Carrington and Data Dine, and it was bringing me back. So I did not anticipate anyone else would have this on their list, let alone number one. So I'm excited that you are excited, Charity, even more excited than me. This is great. What then is your number eight? So Slitterhead. We got to watch Slitterhead. Oh, my God.

Slitterhead looks like a horror game set in the world tour mode of, Street Fighter 6. Yeah. I don't know what it is when that's a fire concept to me. I think Capcoms used to do that too. I can. I can't.

I can't. You know like a horror month in World Tour mode or the Battle Hub or something. It looks wild. It looks wild as hell. I watched that trailer. I was like, wait, what the hell is this? It looks, I don't, I didn't put it on this because it's so wild.

Let's go. I love it. I love that. I love that. bad shit. It's weird. Yeah, I had forgotten that this game existed because we didn't know much about it. It was revealed at the Game Awards in 2021. And again, this is coming from creators of Silent Hill, et cetera, right?

And so it's got that kind of off-kilter sensibility to it. I hadn't heard anything about this game since it was announced. I don't know if I'm just missing things, but suddenly we get not only is it still alive, but it's coming out November 8th, and we got a gameplay trailer. So I like that. I like the surprise drop more than anything. Like we're announcing and also releasing this game at the same time. But I also like game keeping a low profile to the point where you're wondering if this is vapor wears,

this even still in the works. And then suddenly like, yeah, here it is. Here's gameplay. And also it's coming out in a few months. So that's exciting. How would you describe the trailer for people who haven't seen it or what this game or gameplay looks like? you're asking me i don't even i can't summarize it like it's hard i don't know how to explain it that you turn until like not you but you're fighting off these monsters that are weird and then

the trailer you see one that specifically has like a long head and neck getting split into it i don't know what the hell's going on i don't know what else goes like it looks like a game it's like a horror game that's simulating what it's like when you get in a slap fight at the pool with somebody with like a pool noodle, I don't know. It does feel like like someone was like, ooh, I'm going to make a horror game, but then it's a weird simulation of a

horror game. It feels... It's bum fights. It's like... It's so weird. I didn't even... You put that as your number eight? I mean... I should put it at one. I'm sorry. Charity.

Charity. Did you have to rank, Jess? Or was this too weird for you to rank? It was too weird for me to rank. And I was trying to put the horror things in there, but some of the horror games they were showcasing, and I was like, this actually isn't like my type of horror. But my number eighth spot, oh, is not a horror game. No, my number seven spot is the first horror game.

Well, sometimes the most intriguing trailers are the ones that you can't completely decipher. It's like, that looks interesting. I don't know what that will actually be or what it'll play like, but I'm intrigued. So we're all intrigued by slitterhead, even if we don't exactly know what to expect. just what is your number eight? My number eight is a game that I watched the trailer for and I said this is insane because I only knew

him as the PlayStation mascot. And number eight is Astrobot. My number one. It's the most video game looking video game. It looks like it's so much fun gameplay. It looks like what you would,

like in a movie when you walk past child like in a living room playing a video game it would be that on the screen like it feels like oh my gosh this is different generations of video games like this is a video game i'm just excited for it's very cute it's so sweet like i was i had to stop the trailer because my ovaries were like god take it over as your child it's it looks so much fun i wish i would have put it higher but i'm just too excited about other things i got us covered at number one astrobat yeah no i'm not so much i'm So excited for this. This is one of my favorite franchises. And again, this was a surprise reveal. Did not know there was another Astrobat game in the works and that it's coming soon,

September 6th. So one week after Star Wars Outlaws, which we will probably mention sometime soon, that's going to be just Nirvana for me that week. I am so psyched because the previous two Astrobot games are just two of the purest, most pleasurable playing experiences of the past several years for me. So Astrobrot Rescue Mission, which is a PSVR game, maybe the best PSVR game I played one of the first also, and it just completely sold me on VR. I don't care what anyone says, like, this is the future of gaming. I don't care how much it costs or what you have to wear on your heads. I just want more of this. And then Astro's Playroom, which was kind of a pack-in game for PS5 and delighted everyone. And both of those games were pretty short, and they kind of doubled as

tech demos almost. It was like, here's a platformer, but here's what you can do with a platformer in VR. Or here's what you can do on PS5 with this immersive sound and the dual sense controllers and everything, right? And this isn't that. I don't know what the hook is here exactly. It's not like there's a new system that this is debuting with. It's just a game.

It's just a bigger game than the previous, like just a full-fledged, full-length astrobot platformer. And I just could not be more in the target market for that. I am so excited. Like I started up by saying, yeah, Xbox sort of stole the show here. And yet PS5's state of play, Sony's just, you know, 14 games. Just we don't have any big first-party franchises this year. And then they bust out Astrobot after lowering our expectations because no God of War and no less of us or whatever else.

I'm more excited for Astrobot. I don't care. Just give me more Astrobot. Astrobot is very Bencoded. Like, it is again. I knew it would have been high on your list when I saw it. I was like, it's not going to scare me.

I'm not going to have to like look through my fingers as I play Astropot, play with the lights on and someone sitting next to me. This is great. And it's also, as you said, it's like a throwback. It's very video gamey. It's SponCon and yet it's completely charming, right? Like Astrobot's whole thing is like we're just going to put PS5 previous PlayStation merch and mascots and characters in these games,

and yet it doesn't read as just like SponCon. It's just, yeah, I'll walk through Memory Lane with my favorite PlayStation characters and accessories. And it's just like so grim, so many new modern Sony mascots, or, you know, it's Cretos and it's Ellie, and it's just like grim, dark kind of. And I love those series and those characters, too,

but not enough like Parappa and Ratchet and Clank Jack and Dick. Axter and Sly Cooper, some of those characters show up in the Astorbot because you can kind of curvy yourself into other Sony characters seemingly or at least intersect with them. So as you can tell, I'm sort of excited for this. You're very excited. And I guess I got to talk about my number eight now, too. And my number eight, I guess it's kind of related to Astrobot because number eight is VR.

I'm back in just when I thought I was out. they've kind of tentatively pulled me back in because there were a number of VR reveals here that look kind of cool. There's Batman Arkham Shadow. I saw that. That's for MetaQuest. Then there's Alien Rogue Incursion for PSVR 2, which again looks too terrifying for me to play, especially in VR, but looks like it could be good. Behemoth, a new VR game was shown off and looked kind of cool. And I think most importantly, there was an announcement that had been.

reported or rumored before that there would be some sort of support for PC on PSVR2, and they announced what that would be. There's going to be a not super expensive adapter so that you can connect your PSVR2 to your PC and use it there. And that has kind of flipped me over from even though I want to love this, I'm not going to get a PSVR2 to, you know what? You have my attention now. Maybe I will get this thing. Apple is the Vision Quest. You can't play the games on the PlayStation. Anytime I see anything that says VR first, I kind of zone out because I'm not going to buy a VR headset. It is tight on my head and I have glasses.

And I'm not putting on contacts and I'm not giving them my prescription. But you can't play like those games on the PlayStation one. It's true. Yeah. And that has really restricted the appeal to me. I had a PSVR. I really liked it. But PSVR 2 is not backwards compatible.

You can't play Half-Life Alex, you can't play PSVR games. I get why, like, technologically, it's a big leap from PSVR. It would be difficult to port those games over there. But the price tag, even as someone with a PS5, just not enough games that I have to play to get that thing. But now, if I can plug it into a PC and I can play Half-Life Alex, and I know I could just get a Meta-Quest or something, but I'm sort of in the PlayStation ecosystem and I don't have a great gaming PC right now. and even though some of the features will be specific to PlayStation, it's enough of an extra value added that I'm seriously tempted now.

Jesse. Jesse's not going to do it. Ben, you sound like a man who needs to yolo his expense report or something. You got to figure it out. You got Dr. Daniel, talk to Bill.

We'll figure it up. Yeah, that would be a bold move for me to expense a PSVR2. Not sure. Hey, I've a host a gaming podcast. I got to have. All the platforms.

I mean, this is purely for work purposes. Apple sent us the Vision Quest so we could do the new Marvel game on it. And I immediately dropped it into my like soda. Oh my God. And more reason for me not to ever get one of these things. You're talking about new rock stars to be clear. No, just, just, just, just, just. We don't have to say any company's names.

We need to say any company's names because I cleaned it off and I sent it back. sending a PSVR 2. I will not drop it into any beverages, I promise. It fell off the top of my head. I took it off, balanced it. That was my fault. I'm telling you, Astrobot rescue mission, it's worth putting in the contacts. You've got a lawyer up, Jess.

That's all I'm saying. It's good. Astrobot is for everyone. You don't need to wear glasses or contacts or put anything on your head. I'm not paying. I'm not a sponsor of this game. This game might be SponCon, but I am not sponsored. I am just someone who loves Astrobat and I'm declaring that love on this podcast.

All right. Number seven, Charity. Look, I'm old. I'm out of touch. It's hard to keep up with stuff. I didn't know X-Defiant exists. So imagine my surprise when I saw this trailer and Blitz and Yeager are in this game from UB. I haven't played Siege in like three years at this point.

And I'm like, why is clubhouse? Why is the clubhouse level in this game? What is X-Difiant? I guess it was like soft launch, whatever. You're adding GSK, you know, from Rainbow Six. So I guess this is like the season one reveal trailer. And I'm counting seasons, and this will become important later. But I guess X-Dify at season one, I'm excited to, honestly, the moment we finish recording this podcast,

I'm still going to have another hour raising the beef, the aforementioned beef, short ribs. I'm about to boot up X-Dify it and see what's podcast. Yeah. Yeah. Jess, have you seen this game? Are you intrigued? No. Free to play?

Free to play. I'm just free to play, shooter, you know? Unlike VR, which is expensive to play. Yeah, I'm interested. There's just, it's a crowded genre right now, you know, the arena shooter. There have been some other new ones announced. I mean, we just saw Concord was one of the big games at the PS5, state of play. play. And I think there was a lot of fatigue. People saying another one, another five on five,

four on four, moba elements, valves working on one that looks a lot like Overwatch too, right? Deadlock and just a lot of games that look like that and play like that potentially. And so what's the hook? How does it stand out? How does it differentiate itself? I do think X-Divant has the benefit of not doing the thing that every other game is doing where it's doing the combination Overwatch and Marvel like super quippy Zernery. Yeah, I do think that's where

Ubi has kind of carved out its own specific style. And if you don't want to deal with like, this character has a million quips and you're going to hear them a million times. Like that's kind of why I'm more excited for X to find it, which is already out than I am

to other games that are kind of, you know, still on the horizon. Yeah. Concor also, no offense to people are very excited. It looks difficult as The gameplay or footage that they showed, I was like, oh, I can't snipe someone in the air mid-jump. How is that, how's that play for me?

How am I going to play this game and be good at it? But I can't talk too much shit about shooters right now because my number one is a shooter. Oh, intriguing. No, don't be intrigued. X-defined out now, PS5, Windows, Xbox, Series X-S. Okay, Jess, what is your number seven? My number seven is Blumhouse's Fearless Spotlight. I fear that spotlight.

This is the upset of all upsets. I had this higher on my list than you. This is my number five. This is probably better than a draft for us because we're also now understanding what everyone's one to ten means. Because I genuinely was like, I put my top five as ones that are like

big picture, like big. And then I put my other five as ones that I'm like, oh, these are new and I'm excited for them. And I'm like, I probably should have put this higher because I love horror games. And this is like, it looks like it's a PlayStation one game. It looks like this one game I played called

VHS something. It's just like all pixelated looks bad but like in a good way and it looks scary. It looks like things are going to jump out and I'm going to be mad. Fear the spotlight is the one you're talking about, right? Yes, yes. The first Sponhouse game that's coming out later this year. Yeah. Yeah, because they did a whole

presentation at the Xbox Game Showcase and they rolled out several games, right? There was a trailer for a whole handful of games that are coming from them. That's the first one that's coming out this year. And you're right, it does look like this kind of Crow Country-esque PS1. It's something I think we talked about in the remake draft, right, where sometimes games of that era had an extra creep factor and an atmosphere just because they were so low-poly

or everything was kind of like short draw distance and kind of muddy-looking and you couldn't really see what was going on. And so now games are consciously implausely implicated. employing that aesthetic. So that does look really cool. And I thought they announced also a kind of like a cozy game, farming sim called Grave Seasons. I guess it's been announced before, but now it's being published by Blumhouse.

It's like Harvest Moon meets a serial killer, essentially. So it's like you're in the Stardu Town, but someone is murdering people and you have to figure out who it is and there's a new murderer every season. I'm into this. I'm going to play that 24-7. Did you see they're also doing, I think the game is called, in my notes I think I put Project C, and it comes from David Cronenberg's son. Yes, and San Barlow, yeah. I was like, oh, I don't think I'm going to play that.

It's going to be so gross and I'm going to hate it. Yeah. No, I'm pretty psyched just for the entry into gaming. Like, it seems like they're doing it right. Like they're finding weird-looking original indie games and they're backing them. And obviously they have quite a track record and they're coming off the Five Nights at Freddy's. success and Jess, I'm sure you appreciated the announced that the sequel is moving along. They're working on the movie. And I'm going to be watching it. Yeah, you know, we've seen so many

people like try to come into games from other realms, from tech or whatever, and then they realize, oh, this is different. It's hard to make games, but it seems like they're doing this right. And it was a pretty impressive slate. And we've seen like Anna Perna come along with its track record of financing and making good indie movies. And then that has translated to games. If Blumhouse makes that happened to. That's kind of cool, even as someone who's not a big horror head. That's why I had this high on my list. I think it's a pretty significant development. All right. Do I go now? Yeah, my number seven, right? So my number seven is game adaptation related. And I guess it was not necessarily announced at one of these showcases, but it was announced during showcase season.

And that's that we learned something about the future seasons of The Last of Us, the HBO show. we got a roadmap for season two, which is slightly shorter than season one, only seven episodes, but they have a season three in the works that is quote unquote significantly larger and maybe bigger in scope. And apparently there may also be a season four in the works. So they don't have an official renewal beyond season two, but it sounds like they got a lot of runway left. And that makes me wonder what they're doing here, how they're handling. The Last of Us part two, I think people were worried, are they going to rush this? Are they going to try to cram all that happens in that game into a single season of TV?

No, definitely not. And I won't spoil anything, but it makes you think, how are they going to break this up? Are they going to break it up the way that the game broke it up or in a different way? Or will there be a bunch more backstory? It sounds like there might be more original content here. So I'm sort of intrigued. And the mention of maybe there's a season four coming, that makes me think, is there another game in the works that we don't know about, right? Because like, are they going to tell

more original story and extend the lore of The Last of Us just in a scripted way on HBO? Or do they know that The Last of Us part three is going to be out by the time we get to season four of HBO and then they'll just adapt that. So pretty intriguing announcements, I would say. Any thoughts on the future of The Last Abust show? Man, like, I just think so much. about how the response to the second game was like the worst gaming discourse of the past decade. And part of me is like, oh, man, okay, now a new audience of people in a new medium get to sort of relitigate. Relitigate a lot of that stuff in a totally different context, but also, I don't know. I'm not looking forward to like the discourse about the show, but I also don't like framing, I guess,

stuff in terms of the conversation about the thing, right? As opposed to the thing itself. I am excited to see what they do with this show. You know what I mean? I won't be deterred by the discourse. I guess is what I'm saying. Yeah. Well, hopefully it's a new discourse.

Yeah. We've been through it already. Like our shells are hardened. We've waited through this discourse already. We're not nobs when it comes to the last of those season two parts of discourse. I said with a sense of like, of like, I still to this day don't really know. totally what I think about. I don't have a settled opinion about

The Last of Us, too. Yeah, it's the same way, actually. Yeah, it's like this sense of, so I do look forward to the opportunity to watch this show and have a different angle and on it, you know? Like, I don't feel like I'm going into it as like a culture warrior one way or the other.

Yeah. I guess is what I'm saying. In different circumstances, the way that game leaked, and then it comes out in the depths of the pandemic, you know, like maybe it'll, bit a little difference when we're watching in 2025 or maybe not maybe that's over-optimistic of me but I am very curious about the plans here because it sounds like there are a lot of plans and I wonder

what that means okay number six charity phantom blade zero so like we got to talk about this you know this past weekend I was playing nine souls which is like a metro avania but also that's like a game people talk about it's like secaro there's a lot of pairing and I know secaro didn't invent pairing but I am trying to scratch the edge. I feel like more games are coming out. Video games invented parrying either. Yeah. That was a thing in real life.

That's a fair way. That's a sword fighters invented. But you get what I'm saying, right? I feel like games that are coming out that you already have the souls like description of games. And I do think a subset is becoming the Sekiro-like. And there are a couple games we might talk about in this episode that are kind of gunning for that.

inheritance. I don't think it's like a one-to-one comparison. I think Seckerra is just such a specific thing. But Phantom Blade Zero feel like has the makings. Like that gameplay trailer looks like it had, like it had a lot of sort of offense, but it also had a lot of like, it's not evasive. It is instead kind of like Perry and defensive oriented in a way that I thought was kind of, I don't know, the style of combat that I saw in that gameplay trailer looked potentially quite gratifying and interesting. Jesse made a sound there that made me think you were going to pick this or you're at least interested? It's my number three.

Fantasy Blazers is my number three. Yeah, it looks fun combat-wise. Respectfully, I've seen a lot of combat that kind of looks like that, but it's still, I was like, this looks really fun. I'm very interested in it. And I'm actually listening to everyone say how, like, taking everyone's notes, recommendations. And they're like, really excited for it. It reminds me of Sakura. and I'm like, okay, I'm going to buy this game.

I know I'm going to play this game. So I put it on number three. This is a broad question, but how translatable do you think watching a game is to playing it? Yeah. That is when you watch a game, because I think both of you probably watch more like let's plays and stuff than I do. I do sometimes.

Yeah. Do you feel like when you watch someone playing a game that you have played it? Like, do you feel like you have had the same? level of almost tactile experience or is there something? Because I often feel like I can watch a game and yet until I get my hands on the controller and feel how it plays, I can't quite definitively say, do I like this? Would I like this? Is this good? Certainly like narratively, aesthetically, yes, but there's something about actually touching the joysticks and the triggers. If I'm watching, I can't always tell whether it's something that would appeal to me if I played it

at a different way. I personally, when I'm watching, because I will turn on just like people playing games while I'm working, it depends on what the game is for sure, because if it's a lot of combats, I watch to see how there, how many, like, they can do in one sitting. And I'm like, oh, okay, so this is how much I can do.

This is how big I can fight. I think that's the right word. But I watch it and I go, oh, okay, I didn't know I could do all this. If I'm playing a puzzle game, strictly for cheating. Strictly for cheating. But then also, like, I play a lot of shooter games. So watching other people play shooter games and watching the gameplay, it does help me know, like, oh, I can jump off of this.

I can shoot through this hole. I can shoot through these items. So it does help. But to the degree of, like, I always put myself in a box when I'm playing games, I don't know how big the world is and what I can do. So I like watching gameplays and know how far I can go. Yeah. Yeah, it really depends. It's like, it's not just genre, because a lot of it is genre, but even within genre, right?

Because I think, like, could you watch the last of us and kind of get the gist of, like, watch actual gameplay, not the show? Right. You watch someone play the last of us. You can, I think, but then Sekiro, to take an example, we were just talking about, like, you know, watching, watching someone play Sekaro and playing Zekro is just two different things, right? That game is such a rhythmic game that you really haven't played Sechro until you've played Sechro, even if you watch 100 hours of Sechro. Right. Yeah. Yeah, it is kind of a case by case.

case thing. There's sometimes I'll play a game and it's like I can feel my fingers twitching. You know, like I have the phantom limb muscle memory of a game that I haven't actually played phantom blade zero. All right. Jess, what is your number six? I'm going to say my number six. And we're going to quickly go on to your number six. My number six is Assassin's Creed Shadows. Whoa. And Ben, what is your number six? Well, no, I'm just, I didn't see this coming from you. I hate Assassin's Creed, but this isn't Assassin's Creed.

This isn't Assassin's Creed. They figured out what people are gunning for right now. And then they were like, hey, what if we made this person a samurai? Give it to Jessica Clemens. And I go, yeah, please. And I'm going to play it. That's exactly what they said. We know that she was talking shit the last game.

She was talking only shit the last game. All she did was talk nothing but shit. And now I'm like, damn, they got, they finally got me. They got me. Took them like, what? Over like 20 games. And they finally got me. They cracked the Clemens Coates with this one.

And every time I see different photos or videos of it, I'm like, God, I'm going to play this. November, I have it on my calendar. I literally have like November 15th on my calendar in my phone because I need to play the damn game. All right. Can't wait to bring you on to buttmash to discuss that game. I didn't think. I wasn't sure. Booking you for that episode.

But now we will be, I think. So Ubisoft showed off some gameplay on Monday. And I thought the thing that appealed to me, and maybe this appealed to you too, because I know your gaming proclivity is also when it comes to combat, you're a tank. I'm a tank too, right? Like stealth. Sometimes we're like, why are we messing around here? Let's just go in guns blazing, sword swinging.

And that's what this game lets you do. Like they're two playable protagonists. And apparently they play very differently. So one is more stealth, traditional. Assassin's Creed sneaking around, and the other is just, I'm going to go in and cut people's heads off. And that's what I saw. I saw the stealthy person immediately and I was like, I'm never going to play as that girl

or that person. I was like, I know I'm going to be running in there. And that's like my biggest. Yeah. And that was truly my only come play with Assassin's Creed, which is the thing they've never going to get away with is the stealth. I don't like stealth games. I like running in there and going crazy.

So it doesn't work in Assassin's Creed like that. I feel like you just like Rise of the Ronin so much. that you're just like, I want to stay in this setting. There is never, Rise the Ronan is the longest game in the entire world to play. You want to get everything 100% and I'm still going at it. Wow. I've never thought that there was a game in my life that I would want to achieve 100% in. Rites of the Rodin is the one?

I know, dude, I'm as confused as you are. I don't know what that game has, the crack that it's injected into my controller, into my fingertips, but it has done something to me. And all their friends will be like, what game are you playing? And I'm like, see, you don't even know. what the game is. Like, why am I so addicted to it? Wow.

You have shocked me here. This is an eye-opening selection. I said I wanted to move on. And you were the one to ask the question. No, I had so many questions. I still do, but I guess I'll move on now. I love this for you now that you finally found the Assassin's Creed that was designed for Jessica Clemens.

Well, my number six led off Ubisoft forward. And, yeah, you might expect me to pop this at number one. but I'm sorry, Astrobot had to be number one. My number six is Star Wars Outloss. Yeah. Is this on either, both of your list somewhere? No, actually. It's not online.

I kind of wanted to, but I wasn't, it wouldn't have been that high. Snubbed, okay. Well, it might be an upset that this is this low for me, and I guess it's not higher than six because I was already excited for this game. So I was kind of going with like my relative hype level. If I was already at a nine hype wise, and I went to 9.5 or something, then relatively speaking, it's not that large elite.

But this game just looks really good. You know, like I've had misgivings and reservations all along. Ubisoft, can Ubisoft be trusted with Star Wars with this license I love? And you know what? So far, it looks like, yeah. And this is a case where I'm going to need to play it. And I haven't played it yet. But we got 10 plus minutes of gameplay on Monday.

We got an overview trailer. We've seen a lot. lot. It's coming out fairly soon. And it looks like they're going to do this thing right. You know, people who have had hands-on previews have been pretty positive about it. I won't buy it fully until I play it myself, but it looks good. What's holding you back from putting this on your list? Is it just that you're not into the premise of Star Wars meets Ubisoft Open World? Or what, do you just not love Star Wars as much as me, which I guess is probably part of it? I didn't. Again, my like top five games are the games I'm very excited for.

And then I was like, oh, here's my top six that I'm very excited for. If I put Star Wars Outlaws, I would end up putting nails like 9 and 10. And I don't think it is a 9 or 10 game. And I shouldn't, so I just left it off the list. So you just left it off entirely. I don't want to hurt its feelings by putting it 9 or 10. So it's just not on the list at all. It looks fun, though.

I'm going to play it. It does look fun. And I am not really a big Star Wars person. So I was like, oh, yeah. Yeah. It looks good to me. And it looks pretty immersive. It looks, you know, look, you can get in the ship and you can take off and you can land.

And to be clear, it's not fully seamless, no man sky kind of thing. It is like you trigger a cinematic, like there is a landing sequence and a takeoff sequence, which I was slightly disappointed to see. It's more seamless than, say, Starfield unmodded was where you're just looking at a lot of loading screens. But it looks at least, they kind of meet it, look like you're. in the action and you're flying the ship the whole time. And there were other things that stood out to me some of the missions, some of the activities that you unlock, some of the people you encounter. I like that we got a glimpse of Cave S just killing someone in cold bloods because as I talked

to Van about on our fallout pod, I was like, I don't necessarily want like the redeeming kind of scoundrel who's just, you know, trying to get out of this life, which it seems like that's kind of the premise of the story. But what if I want to be a bad scoundrel? What if I want to be a bad scoundrel? What if I want to be an outlaw? This is Star Wars outlaws, after all. What if I don't want to go on the straight and narrow? And you kind of do have an option it looks like to just assassinate someone or to let them go. And I might actually play Dark Side on this one, even though there are no Jedi Sith force powers or anything.

But that's my lean here. So I'm excited. You know, I was going to be excited anyway. They just had to not fumble my interest and they haven't so far. All right. Number five, Charity. here we go we're getting serious now doom dark academia like doom doom in the order of the phoenix yeah this is my number three by the way i have a lot of thoughts about this because doom

2016 classic right like doom 2016 as as great of a reboot slash remake type situation like it's just great game and i remember in the beginning of doom 2016 they make that kind of joke in the cut scene where he punches the, Doom guy punches the robot, the talking robot assistant. And it's kind of this like, you know, Doom is not a series about exposition and handholding.

Like, we're just going to break out of these restraints and we're going to kill everything in sight. And then for whatever reason, Doom Eternal is like the most talky, Laura heavy game of all time. And I love Doom Eternal too, but it's like, yeah, there's a certain direction, Doom appears to be going in

where it is more lore and there's just a lot of talking and now there's a sort of stylistic shift in this trailer, the Doom Dark Ages trailer. One, there's something radical, right, about Doom guy having like this metal shield. Like having a shield. Like the shield is just something where I'm like, okay, that's actually a nice twist in terms of how I

imagine the FPS gameplay will feel in Doom Dark Ages. But it looks super different. It looks like yet another sort of like, okay, I don't, I'm not going to know how I feel about this direction until the game is in my head. You know what I mean? Like I was kind of like, I liked a lot of Doom Eternal, but there's definitely like a bit of shifting in that game that happens. And this game is like, I feel like might be another decision point for me where I'm like, maybe it pays off.

Maybe this is the kind of thing you can, you have to do stylistically to keep something like Doom, which at this point is like a 50 year old video. You know what I mean? Like you got to keep it fresh because otherwise the complaint's going to be. be like, man, they just keep remaking this shooter where you just shoot stuff. But, like, I don't know. There's a lot of interesting decisions I saw in that, that doomed arcages trailer. And I'll be happy to see.

You made me do some addition and subtraction there with your 50 years odds. Like, we're not bad. It's like 30. It's just a formative frame. Like, Wolfenstein and Doom. Right? Doom and Doom 2 on the old PCs with the printers, with the little holes. And I'm like, come on now.

Like, formative gaming experience. for me, Doom. And so I feel like I have a lot psychologically invested in this franchise. Yeah. I'm guessing it's going to play well. They start with the bones of Doom, Doom Eternal. And then it is a very different look. And you're right, like it could be leaning into the lore,

or it could be just super silly, almost like serious Sam style. Like Doom Guy, apparently, this is a prequel to Doom. And apparently before Doom Guy was going to Mars and fighting Hells He's in a fantasy setting with a pelt and a shield. The pelt looks fire. He got the fit off. For sure, he gets the fit off in that trailer. And in case you were worried, like, Doom with a Shield, I mean, the iconic cover of

original Doom, he's just got two guns in each other. He's not on defense, right? But this is not a defensive sort of shield. This is, like, a Riga-ass shields, like, throwing the shield at people. And I kind of like, it's very predator, almost, like, new. Predator reboot where it's just like, we'll just put Doom Guy, Doom Slayer in whatever setting. Who cares, right? Maybe it's a rejection of the lore heavy direction because it's like, okay, we're in a fantasy

setting now. Sure, whatever. We're just, you know, it's Doom gameplay with a different look. Hopefully that's kind of the ethos here. I like that. I like that outlook. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm an optimist. And also, even though a lot of the Xbox reveals, and this is, you know, Bethesda-owned id, of course, a lot of the Xbox reveals, focused on Xbox games, Xbox exclusives. This game coming out for Xbox PC and PS5. A piece offering. This is owned by Microsoft, now part of the Bethesda acquisition. So coming 2025, yes, Doom the Dark Ages.

Your number five. My number three. Jess, what's your number five? I didn't put Doom on my list either. And I regret it. I should have put it as my number five. It looks sick as hell. But instead, I stuck to my little heart and I put Monster Hunter Wilds as my number five.

I played Monster Hunter Rise not long ago. And I was like, this is very fun. And I liked it. And so I'm very excited for this. Also, the trailer just looks really real real. It did. Yeah. I have not been a Monster Hunter man, but I feel like I'm missing out on Monster Hunter.

This is just one of those franchises. This is just been a blind spot. for me. And this trailer looked really good. Like the atmospheric effects, everything else. It's kind of gorgeous. Was there any special feature or anything that stood out to you about this game, having played previous Monster Hunters?

Just the birds. The creatures in it, the creatures in it. I just like hunting in the game. I don't really... Yeah, it's Monster Hunter after off. Yeah, I was like, yeah, it's Monster Hunter. I was like, I just like to wander around beat things. I remember I kept falling asleep

when I was playing Monster Hunter Rise and then waking up and then being like, oh, I need to complain it. And so I'm just excited for it. It just looks really neat. But I'm also sounding sad about it because I wish I would have put Doom as my number five instead. It's okay.

We had it. It did not go neglected and ignored here. All right. Number five for me was Blumhouse Horror. So I already discussed that. Number four, Charity, what you got? What a thrill. This Konami remake of Metal Gear Solid tree snake eater.

And there's like levels to it. One, it's because everybody sort of Konami's name is in the dirt, man. Like Konami is just seen as this like deadbeat dad steward of the Metal Gear Solid and Silent Hill legacies. So it's like there's something about there's something. I think there's an ounce of dread. I think about the forthcoming snake eater, like that remake. But it's also for me personally, I love Metal Gear Solid. I will talk on this podcast or any podcast, really, about any of the Metal Gear Solid games all day.

I will say that MGS3 is a lot of people's favorite. I've never been a huge fan of that game. And so in a way, it's like a remake. of Snake Eater, I at least welcome as an opportunity to view that game in a new light, because I've always just had always been kind of annoyed. But the boss is sort of like the characters

and Snake Eater outside of like the boss, who's great. Obviously, the Final Boss fight of that game is great. But I just think a lot of stuff leading up to the best parts of Snake Eater are kind of like, eh, compared to Sons of Liberty in the first game. And so, yeah, this is a case where, like, I want a remake of a game because I like but don't love the original.

So, yeah. Yeah. It's for me. Sounds like there's some quality of life improvements, more modern control scheme options, and apparently also the injuries that you sustain over the course of the game. Like you get a cut, you get a scar. Like it stays on stake throughout the game. So you kind of wear this record of all the injuries you've sustained.

intriguing. Yeah, yeah. That's like, and even in the original MGS3, like that's the best stuff about it is kind of how they really lean into the survivalist aspect of that game. So yeah, it'll be interesting. Okay.

Number four for Jess. Is the Silent Hill to remake. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Easy. It's going to scare the shit out of me. It's going to be hard to play that game. Like, I, it's going to be hard for me to play it,

but I'm very excited for it. I love Silent Hill. That's the other game that everybody is kind of, like, there's a lot of people who are just like prepared to be disappointed by that remake. Are they? Yeah. I feel like a lot of people are like this, the tone of it and the gameplay style. Yeah. Like, I have to, I've given this to remember before.

I have never played any Silent Hill. So I just don't have the same expectations that like long time fans of Silent Hill are bringing to it. But yeah, whenever I see discourse about the same thing. Silent Hill 2 remake. Ever since there have been gameplay footage of it, people seem to feel a kind of way.

Oh, I should read it. I wonder if it's because it's just like, what I can see the beef being about is that it doesn't, I want to say it doesn't feel like Silent Hill, but it is, but it's not that it doesn't feel like Silent Hill, it's just what they've updated

probably doesn't reflect what we used to play, if that makes sense. Yeah, that was probably one of those. Like, you don't want to clean, it up too much because you want that like foggy, gritty PS2 era look. But it seems like they've got the original artists involved in composer to some extent. It's coming out October 8th, PS5 Windows. I look forward to you telling me how it was because that will be probably the extent of my engagement with this game.

There's also still a movie adaptation coming, right? Return to Silent Hill. Yeah. Yeah. They've made like a couple of Silent Hill. Yeah, like two or three. Yeah, but there's another one, the third installment, based on Silent Hill, too.

Well, speaking of game adaptations, that takes me to my number four, which, again, not specifically announced at a showcase, but during showcase season, Yakuza, like a dragon, there's a TV show coming to Amazon in October based on the Like a Dragon franchise. I mean, look, there were a lot of adaptation announcements

and updates that's not surprising. This is a big storyline in gaming and in entertainment and on button mesh. We're constantly talking about game-based shows and movies. And so we got Borderlands. We got a look at Borderlands, a clip that didn't really reassure me. Can't believe that Cape Lynch is in this movie. Yeah, that one of that. But that movie is real.

Maybe not spectacular, but it's coming August 9th. And then, of course, we got the very brief tease for Arcane. Season 2 coming to Netflix in November, which we will certainly be covering here at the Ring ofverse, and the Among Us TV show and Minecraft show and movie news and much more. Also, Tomb Raider, the legend of Lara Croft, the animated Tomb Raider coming October 10th, but the like a dragon TV show, which I had not heard of. I had no idea that this was coming. Just like in the wake of the fallout success for Prime Video, they're just like, yeah, we got like a dragon holstered here, a six-part. two-part drop six episodes released in two parts. This is huge. I haven't experienced as much of like a dragon as I would like to. I'm going to have to get up to speed before this series comes out,

but this seems really ripe for adaptation. And the fact that Fallout turned out so well makes me encouraged. So we're just now in the phase of the game adaptation craze, where we're just getting like shadow stealth drops and announcements of shows and movies, which Usually, like, we're aware that these things are coming for years, right, with borderlands. And they're like, yeah, you didn't even know that we've got a like a dragon series coming out here. Huge franchise getting the adaptation treatment. So I'm pretty excited for that. It seems like one of these games that maps on well to TV potentially.

Okay. Well, we're down to our top three here. Now, my top three, I've already gone, Doom the Dark Ages. Jess's number three was Phantom Blade Zero. So Charity, your number three is the only one. We don't know yet. Let's get the big reveal. Street Fighter Season 2.

Okay. Street Fighter 6, Season 2. That's another thing where I've seen Consternation about the character reveals. The character reveals for those interested are My and Terry weirdly. And then M. Bison, a revived M. Bison. Yeah. And Elena. Interesting character, Oster, because you obviously have like two guest characters.

People are less than happy about that, especially partisans of the character Monat introduced to Street Fighter 5. But I think less about the character reveals, honestly, and more about how I just think Capcom really aced Street Federer 6. Especially if you can compare it to like similar point in the lifespan of Street Fighter 5, a game where people were like quite unhappy with for a long time. There's just like a lot of good energy in Street Fighter 6 right now. And also they didn't Nerf DJ. You know, DJ beat the overpowered drive rush allegations. So I feel I feel very good about that. Yeah, I'm looking forward to playing more Street Fighter.

And maybe, maybe for the first time since like the late 90s playing M. Bison. Because of his character reveal, like his, his, the footage of him looks pretty like, Pretty dope. Yeah, I don't know, Street 5 or 6, number three. M. Bison is such a fun character to introduce. I love M. Bison. I also am going off of the movie. Wait, which one?

Ronald, you mean Ronald, I assume you mean Ronald Julia. I was also thinking of a Street Fighter or two animated movie, which I also, but of course, the live action one is. Canon. Well, two of our number one picks have already been revealed, but none of our number two picks has been revealed. Still a blank slate here. So, Charity, you just went,

but I guess you've got to go again. What's your number two? What did you guys think of the Where Wins Me? Trailer? That, to me, of like the original stuff? I was like, bro, this is beautiful. Like, the game just looks beautiful to me. That's my number two.

Where Wins be? Wow. Yeah. And, like, and again, I'm thinking, you know, at the top of the episode, when we were talking about, like, big picture stuff, one thing I was tempted to sort of interject, right, was like, remakes aren't going anywhere is like one big picture observation I had.

And so even just making a list of like things I was excited for, I was kind of self-conscious about the mix of excitement about things that are either reboots or remakes and then excitement about new stuff. And yeah, the Where Wyn's Meat trailer just seemed like the original idea where I was like, oh, I'm excited to see that launch. Yeah. Yeah, this was from the Sony state of play, right?

Sort of like a Wusha, open world, action adventure, RPG kind of game. So there are a lot of games that might meet that description on a high level. So what was it about where Wens meet that made you stand out? The style of it just looks super elegant. Like if I'm comparing it to, because the other like action oriented thing, right, would have been like Phantom Blade Zero, which is like more gritty and kind of, like I said, but the style of that is also quite different. But that's like more gritty and kind of grotesque and monstrous.

There was an elegance to the Where Wins Meat trailer that I thought was very arresting, honestly is all it was. Yeah. Well, good to me. Jess, what's your number two? My number two is Path of Exile. And what's funny to me is I am not going back to Diablo and no one can make me. I am done, stop trying to get me to do it.

I'm going to play a new game instead. And that's Path of Exile, too. It looks great. It looks like something I'm going to be addicted to again for another week and two. It's going to be great for me. I'm going to have the greatest experience in my life. And I can say that before even playing the game. I already know I am.

Yeah. Can you describe what this is for people who haven't seen it? I mean, this is not coming out until next year sometime, right? Maybe it's going to be a while potentially. There's early access, though, this fall. I can't remember what the interface part looks like for Diablo, but it kind of feels the same way. It's the same you're carrying a bunch of shit.

You're carrying a bunch of shit. Yeah. And that was the only part of the trailer, like, if it was the trailer of the gameplay, that's the only part that I was interested in when I was like, oh, this feels exactly like Diablo for. And it's just new. So I hope that answers your question and people listening.

Go look at it. I'm sure you guys have played the first one. I didn't. My roommate did. I just was like, I need another Diablo for that isn't Diablo for because I got bored of Diablo four pretty quickly. And then when they added more to it, I was like, ah-uh. You should have had this earlier.

And I refuse. I refuse. Yeah. If you want to hack slash and manage your inventory, this is for you. That's definitely for you. All right. My number two pick is Nix from Star Wars Outlaws. No, it's not really, but Nix almost deserves his own spot because.

The sidekicks in Outlaws, that's a big part of why I'm so excited for this game. And Nick's incredibly cute, great droid, great cute critter. But I've already spoken enough about Star Wars Outlaws, which was my number six. My number two game is Gears of War, E-Day. Yeah. We had a sense, we had an inkling that this was coming, that something was coming. We haven't heard about Gears War in quite a while. It's been five years since Gears 5.

And instead of getting Gear 6, which is not off the table, they've said they plan to pursue that storyline at some point. We're going back. It's a prequel, much like Doom the Dark Ages. We're going back to Eday, to the initial day when the locusts came out of the ground. We never got to play that day. And usually when you have a prequel and it's like, oh, we're going to go back to the thing that happened before the thing that happened in the first game, it sounds like it can't compare.

But Eday, that's pretty big. You know, we sort of skipped over that. that's not just sort of side content that they're making a game out of. We're going back to Dom and Marcus meeting and getting to know each other. And they say it's going to scare the shit out of you, which does scare the shit out of me just to hear that that's the case. But Gears is the kind of scary that I can tolerate and I can play. And it sounds like they're going traditional with this one. It's not Gears 5's kind of open world curious structure.

this is very linear and I'm fine with that you know just give me that urban setting give me a lot of locust to kill give me some cover to hide behind and give me great looking graphics and I'll be a happy man and I'm pretty sure that they're going to give me

all of those things so I'm glad that gears is back I am ready to don the massive armor once more either of you a gear said I'm not I feel like Ben I have memories vaguely of like sitting over your shoulder and watching you play gears if anything in college.

I never really got Sabrina gears though. That was during my dark years of gaming, right? Yes. Yes. Well, this is your chance. Here's worth. E-Day. Can't wait.

So we're down to our number ones. Now, charity we know already selected perfect dark as his number one source of hype here. For my number one, I'm going with Hollow Night Silk Song. We finally got it. No, I'm sorry. That was cruel. I'm just twisting the knife. We did not see Holo Night's Silk Song in any shape or form.

But we did get an update on Prince of Persia, the Sands of Time. No. It's totally coming out in 2026. Set your alerts for a couple of years from now. You can bank on that. So, you know, if we get a Prince of Persia Sands a Time update, maybe we'll get a Silk Song update. But not today. So my actual number one, I already revealed, is Astrobot.

and I stand by my head for that, which means that the only number one we have not revealed is Jessica Clemence's. What is your number one? Look, the reason that this is not, no one else's top ten is a very specific reason because this game looks mid to some people. But not to me.

But not to me. Some of it's a mid. Some of this. Not to me, the girl that plays Fortnite and a valorant like my life depends on it. Val are coming to consoles. I know, but it's not crossplay, so I can't play with half my friends with PCs.

So what's the point? Regardless, doing Marvel Rivals. Wow. Marvel Rivals has sucked me in. And I'm not the biggest, I'm not good at Overwatch because it's too many things going on at once. I'm like, my eyesight's not good enough to keep track of everything at once, really hard, but I'm willing to do it again through Marvel Rivals.

where I can understand everyone's power already jumping into the game. I am so, I'm ready to play with my friends. I love playing co-op shit. So as long as I can get a bunch of my friends to play with me, I'm going to enjoy this game. And that's what I'm going to do. And that's why Marvel Rivals is my number one. Yeah, I mean, look, if they use the license, well, we'll see.

But if the gameplay is good, it's sort of stripped down more simplified, like, classes, right? It's not hyper-complicated kind of specialized gameplay. That's the sense I'm getting. I was watching like one person play a little bit of it because they sent us a demo and it looks like a less complicated version of Overwatch. They keep saying like, oh, it's just Marvel's Overwatch. But I'm like, no, it's a lot easier to understand. But it is people have been playing dirty on it. I guess people that have had access to it.

And so there's ways to cheat and ways to win. And I'm very excited. Yeah. I have looked at that game. I've looked at Star Wars Hunters, which just came out and is also sort of a simple arcadey arena shooter, but just for Switch and mobile. And apparently it doesn't work very well on Switch. So that's been an impediment. But yeah, you never know.

Like if you just pair Marvel with good game, then you might get Marvel Sapp, right? You might get a sensation. You might get a game you can't put down. Or you might get a bad game that could easily happen and has happened too. Yeah. I thought Marvel Snap was going to be bad. I'll be honest. I thought it was.

And then every one of my friends is playing the hell out of this game. I'm not. Well, I hope rivals turns out to be more of the same. All right. Well, we've named a lot of things here. Let me recap our respective top tens. So I had Lego Horizon Adventures, perfect arc, VR in general, but specifically PSVR2 PC integration and also some new.

VR games that got announced. The Last of Us, HBO Roadmap, Star Wars Outlaws gameplay, Blumhouse Horror Games, like a dragon, Yakuza coming to Prime Video, surprisingly soon, doom the dark ages, Gears of War, E-Day, and finally, last but not least, in fact, first, Astrobot. Jess's top 10, Neva, Doan Awakening, Astrobot, Blumhouse Horror, Assassin's Creed, Shadow, Stop, you don't have to say it. You don't have to say it again. The surprise pick of the draft, if this was a draft,

Monster Hunter Wilds, Silent Hill 2, Phantom Blade Zero, Path of Exile 2, and Marvel rivals. And finally, Charities Top 10 started the same way as mine with Lego Horizon Adventures, Hyperlight Breaker, Slitterhead. I always feel like I'm going to say something terrible when I try to say slitterheads.

I just got to enunciate very clearly. I don't know what's going to happen there. Ex-defiant. Phantom Blade Zero, Doom the Dark Ages, Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater remake, Street Fighter 6 season 2, where winds meet, and perfect dark. All right, there's a lot that we couldn't get to, of course, very quickly. Anyone have anything that they considered placing on their top 10 feel bad that they didn't make room for? I just want to give a shout out to Fallout 76, Alan Wake 2, and for me not playing Street Fighter. I just don't need an expansion.

Not right now. Top 10s don't need an expansion, but I'm here for it. Yeah, no. I was excited to see Fallout 76. Finally, playable ghouls. Walt and Godgins made it happen. I'm going to go crazy in it, too. I'm going to be a weird.

I would have felt fraudulent putting alien rogue incursion just because I feel the same thing of like I always do, especially for horror watch, do VR, but I just never. Yeah. It's just the upfront cost of doing it, man. Like, I still want to go back and play the RE7, like, VR experience that everyone raved about. and it's just VR.

It's just too expensive, man. Man, what else did I? I mean, metaphor refantazio. Like, I love Atlas. There's something about the hype for this game that, like, I actually feel more disconnected from it, the closer you get to release with it. Because I just don't quite get what it is.

It just keeps looking like some anime RPG nonsense. And I wish it was a bit more coherent what the kind of actual promise of metaphor refantzio is. And then infinity. Mickey from that play state like that game is like what if a cute anime girl RPG had the Super Mario

Odyssey soundtrack? I was like okay that's something. The Breath of the Wilds world. Yeah. I was like quite a mashup. That felt just beyond number 10 for me. But I have my

on Infinity Mickey, whatever that that was. Yeah. And there's a lot of big news that just wasn't personally super exciting to us. but I'm happy for everyone else who's excited about it. I mean, look, there's a Power Rangers game coming that looks like throwback kind of retro brawler like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, recent releases.

That looks kind of cool. Of course, people are excited, cautiously excited for Indiana Jones, the Great Circle. As am I, I'm still not sold on Will This Game Be Good, but I sure hope so. There's something about the animation that looks weird to me, like the bodies, but the faces look good. Their Starfield DLC looks kind of creepy and dead spacey.

Call Duty Blackop 6 looks like it could be a return to form campaign-wise. Coming to GamePass Day 1, a flex for Microsoft. Also, they're bragging about something called Omni Movement, which I thought we could already do in video games move in every direction. But no, now you can dive and slide and sprint and turn around midair seamlessly, supposedly. Obviously, Civilization 7, big news for that to be announced after what eight years or something. So I'm not a Siv guy, but for all of you who are, congrats. And, you know, I guess Dragon Age, right?

Not Dragon Age Dead Wolf, but the Vail Guard, which as we record, we've only seen kind of an intro teaser. There's going to be game play on Tuesday. So maybe we'll be even war-hyped. It does come out later this year, which is exciting. Dynasty Warriors origins coming next year. It's been a while. I'm a Dinister Warriors fan. It's been too long.

And there were some originals that looked really good. to me too, like Cairn, which is like Jusant style mountain climbing, but even more hardcore. Jess, you're going to love it. I saw it. Absolutely not. Wonderstop is the new game from the Stanley Parable dev and south of midnight, which looks kind of like this beast of the southern wild, like fantasy swamp, giant alligators and fish kind of game, which was part of the Xbox showcase.

That looks really interesting, too. So no shortage of stuff to get excited here. And sorry for anything else we snubbed, but we couldn't mention every single game. Just assume that we're looking forward to it, too. So Jess, Charity, I'm sure all these games were hyped for will be great and come out exactly when they're slated to. I look forward to playing and discussing them with you.

Thanks for coming on. Thanks also to Devin Renato for producing and to Arjuna Remigpal for his senior podcast management. Enjoy your brazed beef charity. I hope it's as good as advertised. And for all of our listeners, keep refreshing your feeds. We cannot give you beef. Where's the beef?

It's a charity's house, but we can give you coverage of the Acolyte, The Boys, House of the Dragon, Inside Out 2, and much more. Check at Ringaverse on Tuesday for our very own trailer drop. And let us know which announcements made you most hyped at Ringiverse Gaming at June. email.com. We'll be back for more

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