The Ringer-Verse - Switch 2, ‘Mario Kart World,’ and Summer Showcase Reactions | Button Mash

Episode Date: June 9, 2025

Ben and Matt put down their Pro Controllers long enough to react to a landmark weekend in gaming. First, they discuss the launch of Nintendo’s Switch 2, their at-home experiences with the system, and whether it's worth getting now. Then they share their thoughts on ‘Mario Kart World’—as a sequel to one of the bestselling games of all time, as a reinvention of the franchise, and as a Switch 2 launch title and system seller. Then they break down the top trends and announcements from gaming’s summer showcase season, including PlayStation’s State of Play, Summer Game Fest, the Xbox Games Showcase, and more. Intro (0:00)Reactions to the Switch 2 (2:23)First thoughts on ‘Mario Kart World’ (34:15)Highlights from summer showcase season (55:08)Outro (1:23:37) Host: Ben LindberghGuest: Matt JamesProducer: Devon RenaldoAdditional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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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. And welcome into the Ringerverse, your Nexus feed for all things fandom. I am Belmondburg, senior editor for the Ringer, button mash host, and Switch 2 owner. Joined by a fellow Switch 2 owner who couldn't join the pod,

until I typed in his friend code. Ringer Deputy Art Lead, Matt James. Hello, Matt. Hey, Ben. We're switching. We're switching. What will we talk about today? Has anything happened in gaming since the last time we talked?

No, it just seems like things. Slow Newsweek. Yeah, we'll figure out something to talk about here. It has been an eventful several days here. And we're going to talk about all of those events, our first weekend with Nintendo's Switch 2, with an emphasis on Mario Kart World, at least in my case, because that was what my emphasis was on.

And then we'll talk about the news from summer showcase season, not E3, RIP, but the PlayStation State of Play, Summer Game Fest, Xbox Game Show, Day of the Debs, the PC Gaming Show, the future games show, all the shows, all the announcements will run down some of the highlights and some of the trends. But let's start with the Switch. I don't want to make anyone envious here, but I guess we are talking about how envious people should be of people who have Nintendo Switch 2s if they do not yet have Switch 2s. I guess we can talk about the system itself, first and foremost.

What was your experience with the Switch over the weekend? How much did you play? What did you play? I played a lot. Like you, I played a lot of Mario Kart World. World credits on that, which is a funny thing to say. Mostly Mario Kart World. I checked out the Zelda updates for Switch 2.

too that make it run better. I've been playing Fantasy Life I, which has a Switch 2 version. I checked out the Welcome Tour. Yeah. And that is pretty much where I'm at. How about you? I played a lot of Mario Kart.

I played a lot of Welcome Tour. I'm almost embarrassed to admit. I've almost 100%ed Welcome Tour, which is not something that I normally do with games, but I actually got sort of sucked into what should have probably been a pack-in game for free, but probably. But still has its charms, has its merits. We will discuss that.

And then I also introduced my wife to the Wind Waker after all of these years. Yes, the GameCube stuff. I've been doing that as well. Yeah. Yes, downloaded the GameCube stuff, the N64 stuff, which was also available on Switch. But the GameCube stuff wasn't. And we waited ages and ages for Wind Waker to be easily playable. Sadly, it's not the HD port of Windwark.

Wiener that came out for Wii U, but not going to complain at this point. We have some form of Wind Waker on a current Nintendo console. I will take it. And my wife is happy because she never played it the first time. Let me ask you, one of the great things about the GameCube and N6Ford, all those like Nintendo Switch online functionality on Switch is that you can rebind controls. I had forgotten that in Winwaker, the camera controls are inverted left to right. Yes.

However, it's very easy to rebind that so that it's not super awkward. I'm not an inverted guy. No. Straight ahead. That's me. Just call it like I see it. I press the joystick one way. That's the way I want to turn.

It's not opposite day. What are we doing? What are you doing? Link is not a plane. Explain yourself to me anyway. Happy to finally have that here. And I guess the fact that there wasn't more to play, is certainly relevant to this launch.

And there wasn't all that much that we didn't just mention that I really wanted to play and haven't had a chance to check out other than maybe Delta Rune. But we can get into the software lineup or the lack thereof in a second. Let's talk about the system itself

because I had my hands on a switch under a controlled environment at Nintendo testing events prior to release, which we potted about previously. So people know or have the capacity need to know my initial reactions to getting my hands on the thing. But this was the first moment for you. This was your first intimate touch with the Switch 2.

So did it make a positive first impression? It did. I was surprised at how much it felt like a piece of technology. It's a good sign. I just compared to the Switch 1, the Switch 1 has more of a toy feel. As I feel like a lot of most Nintendo consoles going back through all the back to the Nintendo Entertainment

system, they look and they feel like toys. And this is a bit of a departure, I would say, for as similar as the form factor is, for as familiar as we are with the switch, the idea of the switch, holding it in your hands, it feels more

like a piece of technology. It has almost like a Sony or, I don't know, some Apple kind of feel to it. It feels significant. It feels pricey, And it is. It is.

Yeah, it feels like a premium device. And we paid $450 for it, so it should. Yes. But yeah, that was what kind of surprised me the most. It's just that premium feel to it. And I like that. It feels good. But I also lament a little bit that someone's first Nintendo system is going to feel way less like a toy.

You know? I don't know. Yeah. There's a kid like magic about a Nintendo system. that this feeling like a piece of significant technology doesn't really have, I guess. Yeah, it's too fancy. When you fire up Mario Kart, then I guess you get a taste of the Nintendo Magic regardless of what the system it's running on.

But yes, I know what you mean. It does feel like a higher tech device than we're accustomed to from Nintendo. And it is a significant leap relative to Switch, even if it is still being. behind some of the souped up higher-powered systems. And did you feel much new console excitement? I don't know whether at our advanced ages, cynical and jaded, as we are beaten down by the world, you still feel that night before Christmas console anticipation.

I didn't particularly this time, but I'm not sure whether that's because this is more of an iterative upgrade or because I'm just old. Well, I think it's two things. First of all, yeah, I did have some of that, for sure. Not as much as back in the day, I would say, that Christmas Day sort of excitement. But I definitely was excited for it. And I think the nightmare of trying to get one of these things through retail probably increased my hype levels for it.

Because I, much like many people, had quite a fiasco going on with Walmart pre-order that just, man. Was it canceled? It wasn't canceled. But also, I got to like 6 p.m. the night before Switch release, and it still hadn't updated to preparing, despite it continuing to assure me that it would be there the next day. So it's concerning.

I had a buddy of mine who happened to be in line at a retailer, Best Buy, who had the ability to grab another one. So if you're in line for Switch 2, stay in line. Yeah, shout out to my buddy, Matt. Another Matt, yes. Another Matt. The Matt's were all over it that day, who hooked me up with one, and I canceled my Walmart order.

But man, that whole, and there were tons of people who were having same issues with, you know, different retailers, Target, Best Buy. Like, the pre-orders were plentiful. It was like that Seinfeld bit of, like, you take the reservation. You can take it. You just can't hold it, right? Right. So that retail shenanigans kind of increased my high levels in some ways.

You fight for something? You end up wanting it more, I guess. Right. You get invested. Yeah. Yeah, I do know some people, including Jessica Clemens, who hadn't preordered successfully and just managed to pick one up in store. Yeah, way to do it.

Yeah. So it worked out for some people. It's always kind of a cluster with a console launch, at least one that is desirable to some extent that's a good sign if it's hard to get the thing, although you don't want artificial scarcity. But yeah, my anticipation was muted, maybe because I had tested it a bit first and sort of knew what to expect, but we all knew what to expect. And that's probably why I was a little less excited. I wrote about this for the ringer.com. What a great website last week, as you know, because you did the art for it. And I just wrote about, does this thing need to be exciting?

because I was casting my mind back to when the first switch came out. And that was exciting because that was a paradigm shift. And Breath of the Wild was out. And so we had Breath of the Wild. And that's the big difference is that there's no absolute killer app for that. And yet, Mario Kart World, which we'll get into, I don't think there are many people who would play that game and be like, I don't like this. Right. No.

Like at worst, you're like, yeah, this is fun, right? Right. Like, yeah, Mario Kart, it's like, yeah, it's like a universal blood donor or something. No one's going to reject Mario Kart at least in limited doses. So, but that's kind of how I felt because this switch, it wasn't just Breath of the Wild, although that was the perfect launch title for that system because it was a game about going anywhere on a system that was about going anywhere. But just having that experience, obviously it wasn't the first handheld, but it was sort of

the first handheld handheld that enabled us to just sort of seamless. transfer from what we were playing docked at home on our TV and going anywhere, whether it was elsewhere in our dwellings, just lying in bed playing it, going to the bathroom, playing it, potentially too much information, but we all did it, or just not having to fight over the TV with a roommate or a significant other and just being able to play at handheld while someone else was using the TV. This was transformative. And so we knew that Switch 2 was not going to be transformative. And I don't know. think it has to be as exciting because if it delivers what we want, more of what we already know and love, which is kind of the goal here, then I'm happy. And for the most part, I am happy. I can't say I'm overwhelmed. I'm not underwhelmed. I'm overwhelmed at the very least. And it is just, it's a good build. It's just a good quality system. And just about every change that they've made, however minor I like. There isn't really anything that they did here

that I wish they had not done or wish we could go back to original Switch. Every change is an improvement, even if it's mostly a minor one here or there. Yeah, and I think the biggest innovation that I think it has, I guess, is the mouse mode, which there also isn't really a star,

you know, brand new first party game at launch to take advantage of it outside. of these very silly little games that you play in the Welcome Tour, where they introduce you to the revolutionary concept of using a mouse. There are like 20 different mouse minigames in Welcome Tour. It's like the most common kind of mini-game, as if they're extremely concerned that console gamers just will not know what to do with ourselves. I've never seen this.

What is this? We can slide it across a surface. What witchcraft is this? So they really emphasize that. Just here's how you move a mouse. In case you've had your Mario Paint mouse tucked away for 30 plus years. 1992. What are you in terms of your controller preferences for Switch?

Are you a JoyCon guy? Because I am not a JoyCon guy. Well, no, I'm not a JoyCon. No one, I mean, as a mouse, I've been using it just to kind of test the mouse mode. But I got the Switch to Pro Controller. Me too. Even though the old Switch Pro controller is compatible with this. One of my favorite controllers of all time.

Yeah, absolutely. And this is, again, I think, a little bit better than the old one. Yeah, it's one of the greatest controllers of all time has gotten an upgrade to be an even better, one of the greatest controllers of all time. I was playing Fantasy Life Eye, as I mentioned, with Switch 2 Pro Controller. And there's a little mini game in it where you have to just kind of of move the stick in a circle as fast as possible. And I think when I did that, I realized, oh, my God, this stick,

like I remember the days of like grinding an N64 controller to dust on Mario Party trying to rotate that stick. There is no resistance. Like there's no friction when you are spinning the stick at your most unhinged, like around in circles. It won't be anything but wildly smooth. Yes, and then it centers itself very effectively too. There's just, yeah, no complaints whatsoever.

It has back paddles, which a lot of people I know aren't into. But I feel like this is a really good entry point into that kind of thing, because they're really easy to bind those back pedals. You hold the home button, and the little side tray pops up. And right there, you can just click on what do you want this left one to be? What do you want this right one to be? press that button now, and it's very easy to understand. It's ingenious.

Yeah, you can set it at the user level or for specific games, and it's, again, no friction to that process either. Yeah, and for me, that's actually a pretty huge thing because when I play sort of 2D action platformer kind of things, anything where you need precise timing on jumps or parries or dodges or whatever, I love to put those on the back paddles where I can tap very quickly. And so this kind of opens up my Switch 2 experience to games that I otherwise might have played on PC. Yeah.

Where I have, you know, other controllers with back paddles and stuff like that. But yeah, that controller is just... It's the best. It's great. It's so comfortable. And I also feel like if we could somehow power the rest of human civilization using the same technology that the Switch Pro controller uses, we could end the climate crisis. Because that thing never needs a real. recharge. I haven't charged it yet.

No, you just never had to recharge it. And I didn't charge it when I got it out of the box either. No, I recharge my dual sense after every play session, essentially. And a switch, I could go weeks, months without recharging that thing. I don't know if it's like a minor miracle, you know? It does. What alchemy has Nintendo managed with this thing and the battery? I don't know if it's just that the rumble is not as strong, though that again is improved with the JoyCon.

and also with the pro controller, but the whole just the build quality of the controller, that also just feels fancier than it used to. And it's just, that's the ideal way to play. I think the JoyCon are also improved in various respects, but definitely. I could just go with the rest of my switch ownership, not needing to use them, essentially,

if I have a pro controller. I'm good. I mean, I'm curious to see if the mouse controls will be compelling enough that I will actually want to use them for Metroid Prime 4, let's say, or some future RTS, who knows. I definitely will want to. And I've seen plenty of people online who are playing

cyberpunk on Switch 2, it just came out for Switch 2. And I thought that that was a pretty fascinating control scenario because there are so many ways to play that on Switch 2 where you can play it traditional controller style, obviously. You can play it with gyro controls, where you can always have the gyro on to aim or you can have the gyro be a fine-tuning for your aim and then you can go into mouse mode as well

and obviously control your character with the left joycon and then use the right one as a mouse to completely aim like it's a PC. And at the same time you have a touchscreen. So a lot of people, you can tap the map in cyberpunk to bring the map up. So I thought this was a really interesting a case of like, you know,

we think of these ports coming to Switch 2 and like, oh, this has been out for whatever, however long in this platform, that platform. It's pretty interesting to see how Switch 2 can kind of open up new ways to control games that we're already accustomed to. So, yeah, Metroid Prime 4 will be one where I'm definitely

looking to use the mouse as I do like mouse aiming in first-person shooters and always have, but it's going to be fascinating to see what people gravitate towards on a console. If they, want to have that PC experience or if you buy a console to have a more console control experience. Yeah, we'll see.

It's funny. The system came. I unboxed it. And then I just swapped my Switch 2 into the same spot behind the TV where my Switch 1 had been gathering dust lately. Just put the HDMI cable from one port into another. And that was that. And now have just banished my original switch to a cabinet, just relegated. outside of the pride of place now. And that's that. It's almost just like seamless. We were waiting

for this thing for eight years or whatever. And here it is. And I just sort of put it in exactly the same place. And I'm just playing some of the same games, but better now, but meaningfully better. And even in some of the areas where the switch was just woefully behind. And so this is more about playing catch up. It is striking just to have 4K. To have a. to have fast frame rates. I mean, these shouldn't be something that we have to celebrate. Great, good job. There's not just immense slowdown everywhere and doesn't feel like I'm hooking up some last-gen

console to my TV every time I play switch. But it does make a difference because in other ways, it's almost unchanged. I mean, it's the same home screen. It's the same UI. And so you might almost not notice the difference, except for the fact that everything is sharper. Everything is brighter. Everything feels better. Yes, more durable, more stable. The textures are higher resolution. Yeah, exactly. And that is a meaningful difference. And it's not blow in my mind. I mean, I have a PS5. I have an Xbox Series X. I'm familiar with the concept of 4K. But just to

go from not 4K to 4K, we're not pushing the envelope forward here, but it creeps in there subconsciously. You know? Like your experience with playing a Nintendo console in the past, I don't know, four or five years, I guess, has sort of, there's sort of been an understanding in your brain of it being like a lower fidelity experience. And, you know, like we're playing those, we're playing Zelda echoes of wisdom or whatever. And the Link's Awakening remake. And you're just like, man, this frame rate is just like, I don't want to notice this because it's a Nintendo game. But I'm right. And of course,

Pokemon ran like absolute garbage on Switch 1. And apparently now it runs like it already should have. Yes. Right. So it's been a rewiring. Yeah. Of the brain of like, oh, this can this can be an experience that I don't have to like,

like tell myself to try to ignore a part of it that I don't like. Yeah. Or the e-shop works. Like you can vote it, which you'd. It doesn't feel like a DVD menu anymore. Exactly. Yeah.

And so these sounds like basics. These sound like table stakes. I get that. If you're not a switch owner or player, you're probably pitying people who are listening to us rave about how, wow, it's not primitive anymore. I can spend my money faster. Yes, exactly.

Even if there's not that much I want to spend it on at this point. But the only thing that I haven't really had a chance to evaluate in depth is the battery real life of the switch itself. I haven't played that much mobile. I continue to think that you're a doctor guy. I'm mostly a docked guy because I'm a homebody. And so I'm not taking it with me that much. But it doesn't fit in my switch case.

I'm going to have to get a bigger case because it's got a bigger screen. And the screen, by the way, it's significantly larger. It is bright. It is pretty compared to the original switch screen. I had to switch OLED, so I'm sorry that it's not OLED, and obviously they will upsell us an OLED edition at some point in the future. But for being an LCD screen, it looks really good. I think it is still just a little large to comfortably play on the go and you can't put it in your pocket.

It's just if you're holding it out for a long amount of time, you're going to feel it. It's a little cumbersome. But, you know, that's the price we pay. I mean, that's the price you pay with a Steam Deck. If you want console power while you're not at home, then you're going to have to deal with that. I think that the one thing design-wise that I wanted out of the Switch to that we didn't get is I wanted the JoyConns to become more ergonomic.

I wanted them to have that thick feel to the Joycons that you get on a Steam Deck, right? Steam Deck, everyone regards that as one of the most comfortable portable gaming devices is because you can put your hands on it, and it feels comfortable. And the original switch, everyone realized this is kind of flat. A lot of people would get JoyCon replacements that were a bit beefier,

so it was more comfortable to hold for longer. And I think that with the Switch 2, if you felt like the Switch 1 was uncomfortable, I think it's going to be a little bit worse for you now, even because it's heavier and it is just as flat as it ever was. and for me, I can't really do long sessions with the Switch 2.

I've run the battery out on it in handheld mode, which I think was about two and a half hours or so, which is, I would say, acceptable, but not stellar, obviously. But when do you ever get a handheld that you're thrilled with the battery life of it, I guess? It's not... Better than terrible.

I'll take it. Better than game gear. I don't need six double A batteries. You're whatever double A's every two minutes. Yes. Yeah. And I also think that little things about it that are new features that just aren't for me so much, they'll be for someone. But game chat is just not really something I'm particularly interested in.

Just seeing a little face, seeing grainy someone else I'm playing with, which I haven't really experimented that much with. have played a lot online in Mario Kart, but not so much with friends or people I would want to see. And frankly, I don't want to see most of my friends while they're playing games. Well, I don't know anyone who bought the camera because we all immediately realized that we will use this to make sure it works. And then you can use existing USB cameras. But I'm just, I'm not all that interested in it, especially once they start charging for it, if they do go ahead with that plan. I'm sure they will. Yeah.

Something like the game share ability is cool. It's really cool. Yeah, it'll be useful for some people, just probably not so much for me. But if you are in the market for that, if you have other switches or switch twos around and you want to play a local copy of a game on those other systems, it's great that you can do that. I think it's great. I hope they integrate it into more games. I did not ceremoniously retire my Switch 1 and tuck it into it.

to a cabinet never to be seen again, I decided to give mine to my wife. And so we were trying out the game share feature where I loaded up Toad's treasure tracker on the Switch 2 and started up GameShare. And she was nearby with the Switch 1. And it seamlessly broadcast the game onto her system without it being installed.

And we didn't notice any latency at all. And she was to, just second screen playing a game. It was really, I think it could be a really great feature for a particular audience. Yeah. I didn't tell my wife, she couldn't have my Switch to be clear. She's welcome to my Switch, but she wants to play the Wind Waker, so she can't, she can't play it on Switch. So I think for now, if you haven't gotten a Switch to, if you haven't been able to, if you're on the fence, I think it's okay to stay on the fence.

for now. I wouldn't feel that much fomo. I think that if you're a switch only player, if a switch is the only system that you game on, or if you never had a switch, for whatever reason, then I think you would be thrilled to get this thing. Because

it will absolutely seem futuristic. If you're going from switch to switch two with no intermediate steps, and you're just thinking, what is this 4K wizardry? I've never seen so many pixels. What resolution? My eyes? then you will be blown away by this thing.

And also the backwards compatibility, if anything, they seemingly undersold that because while we were all sort of thinking, oh, they're charging us, they have us over a barrel here because they want us to buy special Switch two editions of Zelda and a few other games, you can play most Switch games

and they will just be upgraded without having any kind of extra fee, just better loading times, and better frame rates and all the rest. It seems like even more so than expected. Perhaps that has turned out to be the case. And so this is the definitive way to play a lot of Switch games. And the Switch was around forever and has thousands of games and a great library.

So if you're just getting on board, then this is a great time to. And if you've been waiting for a Switch sequel to upgrade from your Switch, then you're in luck because suddenly all the ports that were too demanding to actually run on a Switch 1, now the world is your oyster and you can play Cyberpunk and you can play split fiction and you can play a bunch of other great games that I had no particular interest in because

we've already played them or we have them for some other system but if you don't then that whole world was just unlocked for you and that's huge it is I think the price is a little hard to justify for most people yeah $500

for this feels steep if you have a switch already. It feels like that's a lot of money for what you're getting. I think if it were closer to 400, I think that would be a much easier sell. It does feel overpriced a little bit right now. But obviously, we know there's a whole lot of stuff going on in the world right now. That's impacting this price. Yeah, you can't necessarily bank on waiting and having the prices come down because we're seeing Xbox and PlayStation prices go up several years into those lif cycles.

So who knows. Who knows? What happens with tariffs in the economy? I mean, a PS5 Pro is still very expensive. Yeah. But there isn't as much space between that and Switch 2 as, you know, you might imagine. I think that the Switch 2 is without a killer app on it, without this generation's Breath of the Wild, right? I don't think the price is justified for most people right now.

Metroid Prime 2 comes out, and it's an all-timer if Donkey Kong Bonanza is a can't-miss title. And that's coming out soon. Maybe we will get to a place where that feels like a more justifiable price. But I'm certainly not complaining about my experience with Switch 2, even if I do feel like it should have been cheaper. but I definitely don't think that this is going to come out the gate with sales numbers that are at the higher end of expectations based on what you're getting for the price. Yeah, I think they'll have no trouble selling out their stock initially and maybe for the first year because there's just a lot of pent up demand for this thing after how many years we've been waiting. And there's just such a big built-in install base for the switch that even if a small fraction of current switch, owners say, yeah, I want to switch too, then that's more than enough to sell the 15 million or

however many of these things they actually made. But it's still, it's a much bigger market than the Steam Deck market. The kind of high-end PC handheld Xbox just showed off its Xbox-branded ROG-Alli device in partnership with AIS. And these things, you know, we talk a lot about the steam deck, but estimates vary, but it seems like on the high end, maybe four million steam decks have been sold, and Switch 2 is going to sell that in a couple weeks, most likely, right? So it's still a fairly niche. At almost the same price point. Yeah, it's a niche product and a great product, but it's more for the hardcore than

Switch, which is ostensibly for anyone. And I do wonder whether Nintendo's future is just increasingly powerful switches forever, just gradual. But, you know, that model of, hey, it works at home and you can take it with you and there are great Nintendo games on it. That's a successful model that you can probably rinse and repeat. And I will be curious to see if any fatigue does set in, whether that relative lack of excitement that our inner N64 kids just screaming about a new system, not showing up so much for this thing, but I think it does what it needs to do. And I think no need to feel FOMO for this year, really, barring some surprise drop, some big holiday season announcement.

Oh, there's a new 3D Mario. There's a new smash. There's a new Animal Crossing, whatever it may be. Even Metroid Prime is a Switch game. And it may very well run way better on Switch 2. Better. Let me tell you it better. Yes, what would hope?

But is that alone worth the $450 bucks just to get better performance? Maybe not. So you could probably wait until there is actually the killer app, the system seller. And so the closest thing that we have to that here is Mario Kart World. So let's talk about that with apologies to Switch Welcome Tour, which I quite enjoyed. Did you? I did actually. I'm doing the whole thing.

Part of it is you just read stuff about the Switch, which sounds like it would be boring. And then you do quizzes about it, which is like, you know, after you do some sort of, harassment seminar at work and then they test to make sure that you actually watch the things. Sounds incredible. But there are a lot of great mini games and it did give me this

deeper appreciation for these tiny design decisions. Every little rubber nubbin on the switch or a controller is there for some reason or like every down to the 0.02 millimeter design decision they made to

make the dock more stable or minimize the reverber from the Rumble or whatever it is. That stuff was kind of cool. Like my inner engineering nerd likes that. And also, there are some fun mini games. But yes, it's not a must-have. I can't believe you're like saying that you like it.

And then in the same sense, comparing it to a corporate seminar. I know. You nailed it. That's what the vibe is. The vibe is absolutely like the quiz at the end of the harassment training. That's only part of it, though. There's some good parts, too. Okay, all right.

The videos you watch before the quiz on the harassment training, that's the good part. You know what? I think I'm just so salty that they are charging for this that I don't think I was going to be able to have like an objective take on this anyway. It's 10 bucks, but it should have been an Astrobot playroom sort of situation. Absolutely. Then we could have celebrated it. But the main event, the highlight, is Mario Kart world. So what's your relationship with Mario Kart, historically speaking?

what's your level of anticipation for a new Mario Kart sequel? Because this is the first truly new mainline Mario Kart installment in 11 years, dating back to the original Mario Kart 8 on Wii U, which of course no one played because it was on Wii U. But still, were you... There are dozens of us. I know. Were you psyched about this?

And it was more like, well, this isn't the number one main attraction. It feels like a sidekick. It feels like a best supporter. system launch game and there just isn't that lead that I really wanted. Yeah, it's funny because Mario Card is

at Deluxe. The latest one was one of the best-selling, if not the best-selling game of the whole time? Yes. Yeah, or best-selling game on Switch or Nintendo. So you understand

why they decided to launch a console. Yeah. My Mario Card experience goes all the way back to N64. I didn't have a Super Nintendo. Me too. And I didn't happen to have a friend at the time who had

the original Mario Kart on Super Nintendo. Although I went back and played it obviously since then. But Mario Kart has been a part of my gaming life since almost all the way back, man. And every iteration of it I've played, including on the handhelds. And I like Mario Kart, but I have to admit,

I wasn't super hyped for it because I feel much like the Switch itself. I feel like we've explored pretty much all of the new territory there is to explore with the design of a Switch and a Mario Kart. I think that when they revealed that it was Mario Kart World, that it would be a huge landmass where all of the courses were connected. And you had free roam mode to just explore the entire map. That changed my excitement level greatly. That got me actually excited.

It went from me being like, of course I'm going to play a new Mario Kart. I was going to buy a new Mario Kart no matter what, but that increased my hype levels significantly. And although in actual execution, I find the free-room mode to be a little sparse and underdeveloped, it isn't quite the Forsa Horizon experience that I wanted of driving around

and finding tons of things to do. There are a number of things to do, but I feel like it isn't quite at the level of density that I was hoping for. Yeah. But I am absolutely loving Mario Kart World. I like the interconnected courses thing. I like the new knockout mode that they have,

where you start with 24 players, and at every checkpoint, you know, you have to be in a higher and higher place in order to keep going. That's really cool. The battle mode, which I think is usually a real throw-in and nod to the past in a lot of Mario games, I actually think that it's got a lot of new life in it this time around with the number of players and the course designs that they have in battle mode.

Overall, I'm really happy with my Mario Kart World experience. Are you finding that too, Ben, or is it just feel like the same old, same old for you? No, it's definitely, it's new and old, obviously. still Mario Kart. There's only so much. It's going to feel different from Mario Kart, which is the same kind of standard cart racer we've all been playing for decades at this point. But I think it's a really good Mario Kart. I think it's worth the weight. It's Christopher Dring, who writes the game business substack. He said that Mario Kart is everyone's second game, which I thought was a good way to put it. It's not number one for most people. Even second is

probably a bit of an exaggeration for me. But that's what I was getting at with just, hey, this is a good supporting piece to the launch lineup that I really want, the ideal dream launch lineup. But it does largely deliver, I think, on the idea that this is next gen Mario Kart that you've been waiting a decade for brand new Mario Kart that wasn't just an enhanced port. And there's a lot of games in this thing. There's a ton of stuff to do. There are so many modes. First of all, the fact that the multiplayer online just by Nintendo standards works well. And yes, you still have to enter friend codes if you want to connect to someone you know.

But you can just jump into a multiplayer match and it's seamless. And I expect to have to jump through all sorts of hoops with Nintendo and the internet. but it's not so much that. I love the knockout tour mode, which I played for the first time at that Nintendo event when everyone who was in the knockout tour was like standing next to each other and everyone was yelling. Yeah, that's, I think, the ideal way to do this.

If you somehow set up some land situation or you have a whole team to play this with, then that would definitely enhance it. But it's very different from, say, Eldon Ring Night Rade. which we talked about last week, where you can just jump in to any mode, including knockout tour, by yourself, and just have fun immediately.

Like, you're going to have a good time. And one thing that I'm curious about with this game is just what the skill ceiling will turn out to be because it is so chaotic because they're 24 racers and they're all getting items and they're all running you over. And so there is an element of randomness to the races

just because it's so crowded, that you can very easily, you know, you're cruising along, and then suddenly you're in last place, which is, that's part of the Mario Kart experience, the rubber banding and all. But I think probably more so than ever here, just because there's so much that can go wrong, which initially made me think,

oh, this will lower the skill ceiling somewhat just by injecting all of this randomness. And you can customize some of those things, but just in the default mode, whereas Mario Kart 8, that was a game that you could really like, you know, fun to play at first, but then a ton of depth and strategy and people who were just ridiculously good at that game. And so I wondered at first whether that kind of hardcore commitment to world would be rewarded. But the more I play, the more I think that actually, yes, it will be because there really is a lot of depth to the gameplay here.

There are a lot of like little tips and tricks. In fact, there's no tutorial really. And so I would recommend that everyone read the manual just from the start menu because it tells you all these moves that I did not realize I could do until I read the manual. And suddenly I'm like, wait, I can rewind time. I can do a little jump. Oh, here's how I jump onto a wall and do a little wall ride. And so it is weird that they don't have that tutorialization. Yeah.

I guess the free roam mode is meant to be that where you can just kind of tool around an experiment. But even Elden Ring Night Rain, which is, as you mentioned, a very different game, has tutorialization of the controls right at the Joe. You never want to be even less handholdy than from software. But that's what Nintendo has accomplished here. But when you read about that stuff, it all is pretty intuitive. And it's, you know, it's your usual techniques to turn faster without slowing down and get little boosts and everything.

But also, you can just jump. You can do tricks. It makes you faster. You can rewind time. You can turn on a dot. You can go on rails and grind on rails and then hop from rails to the wall and back again. More pro skater feel in Mario Kart is not a bad thing. I don't think it's a bad thing either.

And so I'm not great at some of that stuff yet, but people are going to get great at that. And the fact that you can just ride around and just joyride and explore the whole world, I would think will probably lead to a lot of people knowing these courses like the back of their hands and just knowing all the secret roots, which is really interesting because usually with Mario Kart, you're kind of constrained there because you only have so much time to explore alternate pass through the level because you're trying to win the race. And here, you can just explore at your leisure and you can figure out all the secret pathways if you want to.

And so that probably puts even more of an emphasis on sort of locations. scouting, you know, just like knowing the territory before you jump into the race. Yeah, absolutely. I think a lot of people are going to vibe with that free roam mode. Yeah. Just being able to putter around on your own time is going to resonate with people in a way that that the speed of Mario Kart, you know, might not. You can just free roam it, chill out on your couch, put some music or a podcast on, stumble into some surprises here or there, some challenges. It is, I said sparse, but there are some surprises to be found in there that have been pretty fun, which only makes me want it to be, you know, more filled out even more, to be honest.

Yeah, right. Yeah, that's the thing. No one knew quite how in-depth it was going to be, how dense it was going to be. And if you are expecting Forza but make it Mario Kart, then you'll probably be disappointed. Yes. So you're riding around, and part of it is just, exploring and you're in this kind of Mario world with all of these themed areas and just a lot of variety in the terrain. And so it's a pleasant place to just drive around and it's just always fun to

drive in Mario Kart. But there's not much to do except for the P-switches, the POW buttons essentially. And those are, I guess you could kind of comp them to shrines in Zelda where they're just little little challenges scattered around the world that sort of tutorialize you, just in the sense that they're usually like, you know, make this jump, go here, collect all of these blue coins, and to do that, you have to figure out some of the more advanced techniques. So it sort of teaches you how to play a little bit. And it is kind of fun just to ride around and see those things. But there's no real progression. Like, unless you are really excited about stickers like my three-year-old daughter is, then that's... Yes, you can put the stickers on your cart. Yeah. So, you know,

and you can get coins and stuff and unlock characters and different carts. And that's nice. But in terms of exploring the world and doing all of these challenges, they're mostly just for fun. And I don't love how they don't really give you any... sense of how many there are? Like if you go to the map screen, it will tell you how many of those things you've completed or how many secrets you've found, but it won't tell you how many there are. And it won't tell you where they were either. Like there's no little icon that comes on the map and says, hey, you crossed off this one.

It's just if you drive by it again, it's gray instead of blue. But other than that, there's no way to sort of systematically find things, which I guess kind of encourages exploration, but I found it frustratingly directionless. Yes, exactly. Now, luckily, the course designs are so good

that it doesn't really sour your experience too much. And I think that the track designs are outstanding in this game. And in fact, when I got to the final track of the game, which I won't spoil,

that was when I had my really, like, oh, this is switch to the experience moment where I felt like this is the next gen switch that I've been waiting for. It wasn't until that very last track that it felt like

we're here, baby. Yeah. I kind of had that feeling actually because it lets you enter free roam from the startup menu, you can just press a button and it's like showing a character riding around and then suddenly you're in control of that character wherever they

That's cool. That's seamless, like, hop into that. That felt almost like when PS5 came out and it had the solid state drive and there was just no loading and you could just in ratchet and clank or whatever, just, you know, jump from one universe to another. It's not quite the same, but for Nintendo, for Switch, it felt pretty. It's like there's no loading time. I can just jump right in and ride around. That felt next gen, or at least current gen, I guess, really. It didn't feel last gen. It was a progression.

So I think there's just so much to do, so many modes. You can play by yourself. You can play online. It is extremely kid friendly. So I was playing with my daughter. And Free Rome was just a godsend for that because I could just plop her down in there, didn't have to worry about her getting frustrated or like failing a race or screwing up any progression or anything. She could just ride around.

And it was great. It's like Minecraft. They love it. The kids love it. Exactly. Wander around. That's all they want. Yeah.

And so I also got the like little steering wheel attachment that you put a joycon in, which is fairly useless because I just even now in 2025 motion controls just mostly don't do it for me. Like the precision of a joystick or a mouse is always going to win out. So even like rotating that wheel as if I was. driving doesn't give me the level of control that I want. But for her, it was super fun because she got to feel like she was driving. And that was great. And I could just leave her to do that while I was doing something else in the room and not have to monitor or, you know, like help her when she got stuck or anything.

So that was fun. There's no split screen local free roam, which is sort of disappointing. I was helping for that as well. Yeah. I wish that I could go around and cross stuff off the list while she was just riding around aimlessly and running into walls. That would be great. And I get why they don't have it because you could get very far away. And then the system is really processing two entirely different areas at the same time.

But it did immediately. I wanted to free room with a friend. Yeah. Yeah. There were a lot of little things like that. I'm sure that they will update this thing and they will build on it. not just release DLC, as they've done for Mario Card 8, but maybe allow some customization options like Knockout Tour is great. It's just, you know, you're playing all of the courses

one after another, and it's just an elimination mode where you're trying to be in the top 20, in the top 16, in the top 12, and you just get knocked off if you're not there. It'd be cool if you could customize that and say, I only want to be on these courses, maybe, or if you could do, there are some ways you can do it, but it's kind of hard to do like just the classic three-lap races in this game that you're accustomed to for Mario Card instead of just jumping around from course to course and driving between them, which is a cool new thing. That's part of the selling point of this game. But if you wanted to be able to just ride the same course over and over like you could in most Mario Carts, it's just, it's kind of

tough to do that. So things like that or there's no 200cc mode in this game, which like, you know, I'm not enough of a Mario Kart expert to care about that particularly, but if they want this game to have a long lifespan, then I wonder whether they will add some things like that down the road potentially. Yeah, well, we'll see what they do at that. I'm sure their intricate course design, you know, might not allow for that if they haven't included it already. But You know, I'm sure people want that. 50 feels so slow in this game. It's extremely so, yeah.

So it's not quite, I was hoping that it would be, you know, Mario Kart World is to Mario Kart, what Breath of the Wild was to the Legend of Zelda. And it's not quite that. It doesn't feel totally revolutionary, but it is more than a cosmetic change. Like, it is a, it's a serious improvement. and it does something really different, which I think it had to go in a different direction after how long everyone has been playing Mario Kart 8

in various forms. And it feels like it's its own thing, and it feels like it's something that would not have run at more than 10 frames per second on Switch. So in that sense, I think it is a good launch title. It's just that it's the launch title. And so if this were part of a package, If there were other games I was as intrigued by, other originals,

then this would be just a great 1A to go with the 1. And there's just, there's no one yet. Nope. Soon, hopefully. Hopefully. For some people, I think it probably will be that. I mean, for major Mario Cardheads who have sunk hundreds of hours into Mario Card 8. And, you know, it's a different enough game that I don't know that you could just retire Mario Kart 8.

It's going to sort of scratch a different itch and give you a different form of fix for Mario Card gameplay. But it is an excellent game. So kudos Nintendo, well done. Just we want more where that came from. We're greedy. What can we say? We waited for this thing for a long time.

There's been a lull in first-party releases. And so if you had, if there were a 3D Mario right now, then I think I would bow down and just hand it to Nintendo and say, yeah, you totally nailed this launch. It's everything that I would have wanted it to be. It's just a little short of that when Mario Kart is carrying that weight. Yep, and we're not entirely sure

if Bonanza, Donkey Kong Bonanza, is going to fully deliver. I know you had some reservations about it when you got your hands-on time with it. Yeah, wasn't wowed by my first few minutes, but maybe that wasn't really representative. We will know soon enough and probably cover it here on Button Mash,

but that also, I don't know that Donkey Kong is most people's idea of like the flagship Nintendo franchise. I mean, if you were doing a Nintendo tier list, I don't know where it would be, but you're probably putting Mario, Super Mario, Mario Kart, Animal Crossing, Smash, Zelda, Metroid, all of those are going to be above. I don't know about Metroid. I think maybe Donkey Kong could rank ahead of Metroid just because Donkey Kong country and the S&S era. was so massive that I think if you had a Super Nintendo at that time, which I didn't,

you must have a ton more nostalgia for Donkey Kong than every other generation of Nintendo player. Yeah. Okay. We will have much more Switch coverage to come. Glad that it's finally here. We've waited long enough. So let's talk about some things you won't have to wait very long for our programming teasers for this podcast and our sister podcast at House of Ar.

on Wednesday, the Midnight Boys, Pugh, will give you their take on John Wick spin-off ballerina and Mint Edition will cover how to train your dragon and predator killer of killers. And over on House of R, Mal and Joe will also cover ballerina and do their John Wick rankings and then they'll give you their summer hype meter. And here's something I haven't said in a while,

Buttmash will be off next week, barring any gaming emergencies. We haven't had an off week on Buttmash since mid-March. Before Assassin's Creed Shadows came out, we've been so busy with The Last of Us and I assume we're taking the time off so you can finally play through Assassin's Creed Shadows. Actually, so I can start playing Death Stranding 2, which will be the subject of the next, but MASH later is this month. So we'll get a bit of a breather, but we do have a ton of fun pods planned for the next few months, starting with Death Stranding 2 reactions the week after next.

And as always, you can contact us at Ring Reverse Gaming at G-Mexam. 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 a 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.

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Now streaming on Paramount Plus. Speaking of other coming attractions, we got to look at a load of them over this past week because everyone does their gaming showcases at the same time. You'd think maybe we could stagger these, spread them out a little bit. No, all the hype is concentrated in the span of a few days. So we got a Sony PlayStation showcase, we got an Xbox showcase,

we got some of our games fest, we got many more. So any big trends or takeaways stand out to you from this deluge of reveals and details and release dates and trailers, any common themes or anything? Well, I think there are two things that kind of stuck out to me as headlines throughout the weekend and the past week. One is that I was pretty surprised at the number of new IP revealed in game trailers this past week. I think a lot of people have gone over the game announcements, and there are just so many that it's kind of hard to process things that aren't a sequel, that aren't like an iteration of a known quantity.

I think a lot of people were reacting to the Xbox showcase as kind of whelmed. And I think there's a chance that we end up looking back on that in a year or two as like, oh, wow, this was actually absolutely stacked. but we were being blasted with so many new game announcements that we didn't have time to really process enough of these new games, these new IP. And I think that that might surprise people. I was pleasantly surprised at, you know,

of course there were plenty of sequels announced. Hell yeah, Resident Evil. But people are making new games, and it's exciting to me. And I watched pretty much everything. And it all feels like a soup in my brain. I can't retain that many games announcements at once. And I think most people can't. So over the next few months, as we get updates and new trailers for things,

I think we'll be able to more accurately process the info we've learned. So that was one thing. And the other thing that stuck with me from this past week is not the announcement of the ROG Ally X, Fox handhelds, which is exciting to me. But I think the bigger news out of that is that they are actually making a Windows experience for handheld. That is not going to boot into desktop windows. It's going to boot into a gaming-focused form of Windows. And that is something that has the potential to be momentous.

So that is what I'm keeping my eye on for sure. How about you? Yeah. This is not the Microsoft manufactured system that has been rumored and teased at various points. This is a partnered, branded alternative to that. But yes, it runs a strip down Windows and also gives you the full Xbox experience plus Steam and any other game store you want. So again, it's more of a niche market, but you're in it. So I understand. understand why you're excited. I don't know. Maybe there's potential for this to break out and be more of a mainstream thing. But I don't know. It's definitely, there's a lot of utility to it if you are a PC gamer who wants access to Xbox stuff and wants to game on the go with a pretty powerful system. I think what stood up to me, yes, you make a good point. There wasn't a ton of huge news involving established properties and known quantities. And even Summer Game, I think was a little underwhelming. It just, it was like, that's it, you know? Because it wasn't quite a the game awards level of like, whoa, that thing's coming.

There weren't that many just moments where my jaw dropped because of something that I knew, like some, some known IP. And so that's inherently going to be less exciting just because a new, unproven unknown commodity. We just, we don't know what to expect, right? Like, it's, it could be good. If you have the biggest game announcement you could possibly have, it's going to be something with an established franchise.

Yeah, right, exactly. And yet, maybe you're right that it's even more exciting that it was not that. That it was a bunch of new stuff where we don't know what to expect and some of it will be good. And then we'll look back and say, yeah, we didn't even know what was coming here. Another thing that stood out to me is that the space. on the calendar that was vacated by Grand Theft Auto6 after the delay, it just got kind of crowded. So maybe that would have happened anyway because that's only a few months away. It's June now.

But also it felt a little bit like a lot of these companies were holding things in reserve just to see where the chips fell. And when they fell, this game is coming out next May. Suddenly late September, October, early November, that. presumed GTA 6 window. Yeah, it's kind of cluttered. Yeah, we've got Outer Worlds 2. We've got Ninja Guide and 4. We've got Jurassic World Evolution 3,

Ark Raiders, Mina the Hollower, Cairn, Keeper. I could go on just a lot of big games from established companies, just saying, hey, suddenly we don't have to compete with the behemoth here. And then another trend, which is not a new trend, but we'll never die evidently.

So many soulslikes, just lots and lots and lots of soulslikes. I think maybe we're reaching soulslike oversaturation potentially. I don't know how many variations on the soulslike. And I say that even though they keep pumping them out and many of them are good. But I think there were at least six Soulslikes at Summer Games Fest alone. It's just a lot of Soulslikes. It just... Soulslikes, rogue likes.

Yeah, there's just, there's a lot of trend chasing and, hey, you like this game? Here's one that kind of looks a lot like it. I'll take the oversaturation of Soulslikes over the oversaturation of Battle Royals, though. So we're in a better place. I guess that's true. So I thought we could maybe just highlight a few games in each broad category that kind of caught our eye and starting with sequels, maybe. And I jotted down just a little list of sequels here. Not comprehensive, but you mentioned Resident Evil 9, Requiem, Silent Hill F coming in September.

Team Ninja has Neo3, Outer Worlds 2, which will be the first $80 Xbox game coming in October. Well, free on Game Pass. Well, of course, the next call of duty is Black Op 7 and is still coming to last-gen consoles. somehow. This is the weirdest console generation when it comes to just not turning the page. Like, we're going to just be releasing flagship games for PS4 forever, evidently, because so many people own it. What else? High on Life 2. Resonants of Plagetail Legacy, Scott Pilgrim E.X, a new brawler, Thief VR, legacy of Shadow. There's a new Forza coming next year. No details, but Phil Spencer teased it along with Fable and Gears of War. E-Day, which we knew about.

Super Meat Boy 3D. Luminous, arise, bloodstained, the scarlet engagement, grounded two, coming soon, Planet of Lana, two, Mortal Shell, two, Codevane, 2, Atomic Hearts 2, Jurassic World Evolution 3. I probably left a few out, but any sequels that are especially exciting to you? Well, I've always been a Resident Evil person, so that is just inherently going to be exciting to me. that's definitely my standout of all of the sequels next February just in time for the franchise's 30th anniversary and I guess we're going back to Raccoon City looks like it yeah right that was the standout sequel to me I suppose what about you yeah I mean I'm not as much of a survival horror guy but but that was the headliner since it's been about five years since Resident Evil Village or it will have been by the time this thing comes out. I don't know.

I mean, I guess with that and Silent Hill and all of the sort of throwback. That does look great. Silent Hill F looks very impressive. A lot of scary stuff, which is not really up my alley. You love that. So thank you, game developers. Yeah, I don't know. I would be excited for a new thief except VR.

So a little less excited now, even though I believe in VR long term. But yeah, I don't know. Outer Worlds too looks pretty good. You know, I just, I never played outer worlds. I didn't play the first one either. Yeah. And so aside from the price tag, unless you get it on Game Pass, this did. This feels like maybe it will be the game that they intended the original Outer Worlds to be.

And so maybe this will be a good time to get on board. So I guess, I guess I'd put that there. And Scott Pilgrim, that's nice. A lot of the original Scott Pilgrim. makers coming back together to make this one. Yeah. And you can see, like, you know, we're talking about sequels and we're a little bit struggling to find things that are super exciting to us. And I think that is, like I said, the big reason why a lot of people weren't sort of overwhelmed with any of the announcements

because you're always looking for those sequels. Right. So the next category, licensed games, this is something we talked about a week ago, which it seems like a long time ago. A lot has happened since we talked about Eldon Ring and talked about the cancellation of Black Panther and what that meant and which major media properties have been underserved by video games. Well, we got the Hitman Bond, which we knew was coming, but we got the reveal here from I.O. Makers of Hitman, 007 First Light. It's Young Bond. And we've got Lenny James in this thing.

We've got Nads Mickelson in this thing. So it seems intriguing. You know, just hitman meets Bond. Seems like a pretty good pitch. And it's, you know, it's been a while since the last Bond game. So it's about time. And it seems like it's based in part on more the Ian Fleming Bond and the origin story of Bond. So I'm into that.

And we were also talking about superhero games, whither the superhero game. What does it all mean for superhero games? Well, we got to. a lot of superhero games. We did. We got Marvel Token, Fighting Souls, which is a 4V4 fighting game from Arc System Works, makers of guilty gear and Dragon Ball Fighter Z. That was one of the bigger reveals in the PlayStation state of play.

That looks cool. Yeah. And we also got sort of a side-scrolling Marvel beat-em-up game, the name of which escapes me right now, but that looked really great. Yes. The Invincible has a fighting game. Yes. 3B3. Yeah. So people will probably say, you know, I don't know if people will rue not having like Marvel versus Capcom, but this seems like a different enough take on that with its own style that doesn't seem like it's going to be watered down to be marvelized. So I think, yeah. And these are also licensed games that aren't taking the biggest swing, right? They're not trying to be the big budget open world.

you know, Spider-Man experience, right? They, like, you have a side-scrolling 2D beat them up. You have a fight, you have fighting games. Like, these are, I think they're realizing that there are safer bets at lower budgets that you can do with these IP, uh, rather than risking it all with the, the biggest budget open world game you can possibly make. Yeah. And I guess also if you can sort of re-skin an established template and whether it's Marvel rivals, or it's fighting souls.

Hey, this works. We know other games like this. Now we'll just have Marvel heroes in them. And that seems to be a pretty proven formula. Also, speaking of VR games, we're getting a Daredevil VR game later this year with Neil Patrick Harris, evidently. So, I don't know.

Yeah, I guess. All right. More grist for the middle. We also saw a solo leveling game, a rise overdrive, which I'm sure will be of interest to some of our listeners. And relevant to one thing we were talking about last week, Game of Thrones, War for West. When we were talking about where's the Westeros RTS? Well, here it is.

I just said that Crusader Kings 3, the mod for that, was maybe the best Thrones game. And now we have an RTS with a fancy cinematic that probably didn't really reflect how the actual game will look. But still, it's like I manifested it. Yeah, I know. Which is weird because I sure do talk about a new Castlevania a lot on this show, and it hasn't happened. It's not here. Plenty of Metroids, though. That's true.

Oh, speaking of which, we forgot, a Hollow Night Silk Song made an appearance. Sort of. It was. There is a thumbnail visible on the new ROG ally Xbox things that we were assured that the game would come out this year. Yeah. So, nice. That was more of a taunt. than a tease, if anything.

But it was proof of life, I guess, maybe. Yeah. So some semblance of life. I saw on the Ringervverse subreddit that someone had commented on our last episode to say, Planet of the Apes, which was one I had considered for underserved media property. But this commenter said, like, open world, planet the Apes game set in the Chicago area. That's the dream game. And a couple people seconded that.

That's cool. an announcement of a Planet of the Apes game. There have been some, but not that exactly. So that did cross my mind as well. But happy to see that they're getting something out of the throne's license here. There's also of interest to me, a The Expans game, the Expans, Osiris reborn. I completely missed this. Yeah.

It's like the Expans meets Mass Effect, evidently, coming to many consoles. So I'm into that. Yeah. If we're not getting more expanse. books slash seasons, then this seems like kind of a continuation of that. So that was, that was intriguing. And one thing that maybe we should have mentioned last week, it's, it's not a new announcement, but it's a new game is do an awakening, which is out this week and seems to have found an audience already. It's an MMO, which sounds like people are still

making MMOs now. But yeah, it's an MMO slash survival game. And people are certainly making survival games. And so I have been enjoying just all the videos of people trying to make it across the sand before Shai Hulud consumes them. And I'm not sure if I have the appetite for a game in that genre. But it seems like it's meeting with some positive reception. I like the license. I like the world. And there were six figure people playing in early access, which seems like a positive sign. With the positive side? A little life in the movie game yet, sort of. All right. How about remakes slash remasters? Anything catch your eye in this category? A little game called Final Fantasy Tactics.

Oh, yeah. Remaster coming in September. How about that? Definitely not a remake, definitely a remaster. Yeah, it's a remaster. A light remaster. Yeah. But that's exciting.

That's a stone cold classic. That's one of the greatest. So, yeah, for that's a remake. persona for revival. That is a remake, so charity will be pleased. What else? I guess Phil Spencer

seemed to hint at slash kind of confirm a Halo Combat Evolved remaster coming next year, which I imagine will be in the Unreal Engine like the Oblivion remaster and maybe that will be

when Halo comes to PlayStation anyway. And, you know, we already have the Master Chief collection with a kind of HD version of that. But if that is a full-fledged remake more than a remaster, or if that's like really enhanced, then I could see that being exciting potentially.

Yeah, absolutely. Never Winter Nights 2 remaster coming from Aspire and something. All right. Okay. Not getting me too excited, but as you do you, you know? Final Fantasy Tactics takes the cake in this category. That's exciting. Okay.

How about originals then, since you're just saying the praises of how much new, fresh, hot IP we saw this past weekend. This is the fattest category by far. I mean, Mina the hollower, you mentioned, that is by the people who made Shevel Night. That demo is already out, and I played it. And it is super great. It's really exciting how much that sort of taps into that retro feel, while bringing very modern gameplay concepts to it. And I can't wait for that.

There's a Wu-Tang co-op, like hack and slash RPG that looks very cool. There's this game called Into the Unwell that looks like kind of like an old-school animation style. That's a co-op roguelite. Like a claymation stop motion, was that that one? Or was that the, no, there was a platformer. Yeah, it was a totally different one.

I forget. So many new games. Yeah. You know, we saw mixtape again, which looks even better now. Yeah, that's a Matt James game, if I've ever heard one. Yeah, that's from the people who made the artful escape, which was a favorite of yours. Definitely a favorite of mine. Yeah.

Out of words, I think was the one that I was thinking of. I think that's right. Stop motion platformer type game. Yeah. Yeah. Man, there are just so many, Aphelion, I think it was called. Yes. It's like a don't nod game.

It looks like space, set in space. It kind of looked like. Yeah. Yeah, that looked fascinating. Of course, Clockwork Revolution, we saw a lengthy trailer of, and that looked very bio-shocky in the best way possible. Yeah. Yeah, I was into Aphelian, I think it is.

Yeah. Yeah, it's from Don't Nod, the makers of Jusant, which I liked a lot, that climbing game. And it's sort of a sci-fi adventure. made in partnership with the European Space Agency for the space very similar to it. So that'll tickle me as an astronomy nerd. And it looked like it had some of that kind of climbing and traversal of Chusanne, except like on a foreign world. So yeah, I was into that. What else?

Oh, did you see Ambrosia Sky, which was like a Metroid meets power wash simulator, which seems like that's right up your alley too? Very fascinating. And on the same, on the same token. going to, there are no ghosts at the Grand. Oh, yes. Where you seem to be using magical tools to renovate an old hotel. Yeah, kind of cozy.

And there was also a Square Enix, like Hotel Murder Mystery. Maybe it wasn't a hotel. I think it was just a mansion. There's like a murder mystery multiplayer game by Square Enix that the name escapes me, but that looked very cool as well. There's just so many games. Like I said, there were so many new game announcements that it's, impossible to process them all.

There was that Muppet boxing game. A boxing game that looks like entirely Muppets. Yeah, it's like Muppet. It's like punch out, but with much Muppets, and it looks fantastic. So yeah, I was pretty into that. I think number one for me was Keeper, which is the new double finds for a new double-fines since Psychonauts 2, which is coming out soon, October. And it's like you're a walking lighthouse.

who has a seabird sidekick, and it's kind of a narrative adventure slash puzzler with that kind of double-fine, weird world sort of aesthetic. I didn't know what to make of it, but it's double-fine, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. Yeah, exactly.

And speaking of climbing games, which there's another one to, Cairn coming in early November, which looks more in depth in terms of the climbing mechanics than Truissant was. It's like maybe more of a C-Royne. climbing game, but I like a game where I can just kind of be out in nature, you know, if it's like a pleasing depiction of free roam modes.

Yeah, it's free roam in a mountain. Yeah, there's this, there's this game coming out called Herdling that was also shown, which is just like you're herding a bunch of beasts along a mountain path. And it's just like very alpine and pretty. And my dog would love that. Yeah, it's just like herding simulator. basically. I'm there for that. Mouse PI for hire. Yeah. That was weird, but in a good, intriguing way, it's like Troy Baker plays, I guess,

the mouse PI for hire, and it's this classic cartoony look, like kind of a cuphead era. But it's an FPS also. Very interesting. Yeah. Yeah, interesting mashup of genres. Game Freak, the company best known for making Pokemon games. has a game coming out called Beast of Reincarnation that looks super impressive. Yet another Soulslike, I guess, but who knew Game Freak had that? Just in their bag, like, between Pokemon games.

Yeah, that was very exciting, that one. Yeah, man, it just goes on and on and on. It's gotten to the point where it's just too much. Even if you have a really exciting game and you're announcing it, maybe you don't announce it during this time. time anymore because some really great stuff has gotten just completely buried this week. I don't know that this is the best strategy moving forward for releasing or announcing a new IP. If you have a great sequel, maybe this is a good format for you. But yeah, I don't,

it's so hard to steal attention during this time. I know. I always think that about other mediums where there's a cutoff for some award eligibility. And so suddenly every show comes out because it's the Emmy qualification deadline or Grammys or Oscars or whatever it is. And everything comes out at the same time. And sure, it's nice to get awards and to be eligible for them. But you end up with just this pile up where no one can keep up with the content. That happens with TV every single year. We just went through it where Andor and the Last of Us and everything else came out all at once. It's hard to keep up. In gaming, I guess we don't have that so much because there's not as much prestige associated with any one game award show, which is good, I guess. But you used to have it maybe with the holiday season because the perception was if it doesn't come out close to the holidays, then you can't sell a game, which I think turned out to be too simplistic. But that was the way it worked for years where everything would come out at the same time. Now it's a little more staggered and spread out, which is good, but not so much the announcements. Everything gets announced at the same time.

And then it completely gets drowned out by everything else. It's really tough. Yeah. It is. And it's hard enough to have discoverability in an environment where thousands and thousands of games are coming out on Steam alone every year. Just I'm surprised you didn't mention this from the makers of like a dragon, the new Stranger than Heaven.

Which, formerly known as Project Century, I think. Yeah, it's like a World War II era gangster story. Yeah, that looks good. Oh, that's where Enix murder mystery game was Killer Inn, which makes sense. 24-player murder mystery kind of thing. That looks cool. Just a few more, the blood of Don Walker, which is an action RPG from X CD Project Red people, which looked like the Witcher,

but a little more action and a little less RPG. There was Kronos, the New Dawn from Blueber Team, which is the people who remade Silent Hill successfully, just more horror. A lot of horror. Hill was a horror game that looked just absolutely disgusting

in a good way, I guess. Tides of Tomorrow, which is like a PlayStation online game that I don't really understand, but it's like multiplayer elements shape the narratives. So like players who came before you changed the world in meaningful ways. And then the world is different when you encounter it than it was when they it was when they encountered it.

Which, yeah, it sounds very difficult to do well. But I wish that well if they actually pulled that off somehow. At Fate's End from the makers of Spirit Fairer, that looked kind of cool. Did we mention Blighton? No. From the developers of Guacammele, that, that's, It's a Metroidvania kind of isometric game that looked really good. Yep.

Sea of Remnants looked kind of cool. I'm just, you know, I'm always there for it. Oh, yeah, that was sort of a pirity game. Yeah, that did look impressive. Romeo is a dead man. It's another Suda 51 game. Suda 5-1 or 51 or however you. Capcom's Pragata was shown.

Again, yeah. Yeah. forgot about that game. Yep. And I forgot about it after that announcement, too. I just keep on forgetting about Pragmata. Yep. Well, people are probably forgetting the names that we're listening here.

We're just reading off proper nouns at this point. So we can probably wrap up. Yeah, but you can see what I'm saying. It's like, we could look back on this and be like, wow, we completely missed the gravity of how great these announcements were. Because there was just so much that is new to us this time. Which is honestly great to see. The more cynical part of me expected a lot more sequels that I either didn't really care about or was kind of whatever about, I guess. Yeah.

Yeah, the fact that we have more probably originals than we said certainly remakes and remasters and sequels that we're excited about, that's a good sign. I saw a lot of people who were just down on the industry and the future of gaming. And granted, like, the actual viewer experience of some of these things is not so hot, where it's just hours and hours of Jeff Keeley trying to hype you up about game after game and just ads for games interspersed with ads for other things. It's not ideal. But the actual games, yeah, a lot to be excited about. And we have a whole new console, a new system to dig into, a new Mario Kart.

It's all happening. So write to us at Ringverse Gaming. Gmail.com. Let us know what caught your eye at all of these showcases. Let us know what you make of Mario Kart. Let us know how you're feeling about the Switch or whether you are feeling FOMO if you haven't procured one yet. Matt, thank you, as always, for joining me for a very eventful episode. Thank you for having me. Yeah, there's so much going on right now. Yeah, we could have gone on for another four hours, I'm sure, but thankfully, we did not. And we can get back to our Switch towing. Yes, thankfully for the sake of our producer, Devin Milano, who probably appreciates that this is not a four-hour episode.

As does, I'm sure, Arjuna Ramgapal. This is not House of R after all. Email us, Ringversegaming at gmail.com. Stay tuned for much upcoming coverage of ballerina and the summer hype meter and much more, including Buttmash on Death Stranding in a couple weeks. Until then, look out for lightning. Beware of blue shells and don't forget to drift.