The Ringer-Verse - The Immensity of ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ and a Breakthrough Year for Video Game Adaptations | Button Mash

Episode Date: August 7, 2023

Press play on the latest episode of ‘Button Mash’ where Ben Lindbergh and Jess Clemons discuss Jess’s early, spoiler-free impressions of RPG sensation ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ and examine the upsides and downsides of gigantic games (0:48). Later on, they review the TV series ‘Twisted Metal’ (26:20) and examine how video game adaptations went wrong for so long—and why, in the year of ‘The Last of Us,’ ‘The Super Mario Bros. Movie,’ ‘Twisted Metal,’ and more, TV- and moviemakers have finally figured out how to strike gold with games. Hosts: Ben Lindbergh and Jessica Clemons Producer: Devon Renaldo Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For decades, the Vietnam War has been a Hollywood obsession. Apocalypse Now, platoon, full metal jacket, first blood. These were blockbuster films, embraced by audiences and critics alike. And for decades, they've helped us understand a painful war and understand each other. From Spotify and the Ringer podcast network, I'm Brian Raftery. And this is Do We Get to Win this time, how Hollywood made the Vietnam War. Listen on the big picture feed. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters.

Tramphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tramphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject trumphia, proper training is required. Tramphia is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis. Serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis.

Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tramphia today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit Trimfairadio.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 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. You don't need weather tech unless you plan on doing summer. Visit weathertech.com today. Hello and welcome into the ringerverse, your nexus podcast feed for all things fandom. More specifically, welcome to ButtonMash, your home for ringerverse video game coverage. I'm Ben Lindberg, a senior editor for The Ringer, and with me as always, is the person I would most want with me on a twisted metal style delivery run across post-apocalyptic America.

Jessica Clemens, Jessica, how good a driver are you? I live in Los Angeles, California. I'm a perfect driver. And when I say perfect, I mean insane. I merge without my blinkers, but I think that makes us better for twisted metal time when we're secluded outside of major cities. That is perfect practice for being a milkman in the world of twisted metal. I would be such a good. And I think, okay, so everyone has watched a twisted metal that is probably watching this by now.

And I would love to be a milkman in that universe. that seems so much fun. I want to be a milkman. I wanted to be me. I'm obsessed with it. Whereas I'm in New York. I grew up here. I don't have a driver's license.

And the quality of my driving in video games suggests that I should not have a driver's license. They should not give me one. So if we're ever in a car together, I will gladly let you take the wheel. I think that will be best for both of us. So our listeners may have noticed that not only do we have our own podcast name now, we also have our own podcast art. Very fancy and official. We also have the same podcast email address,

ringaverse gaming at gmail.com. And you will have a lot to email us about today, potentially because today we will begin with Jessica's spoiler-free impressions of the latest RPG sensation, Baldersgate 3. And then we will use that new peacock series, Twisted Metal, to talk about 2023 as a breakthrough year for VALDG.

video game adaptations. The year we've all been waiting for for decades. The Last of Us, the Super Mario Brothers movie, Twist and Metal, Grand Turismo, coming soon. It's all happening. But first, I've got to give you some ring-a-verse programming reminders. So on Wednesday, the Midnight Boys will ask and answer eight burning questions about the state of the MCU. I assume they will answer them. I know they will ask them at least. And speaking of the MCU, check out Jessica's Loki Season 2 trailer breakdown from a few days ago. Just when I thought I was out after Secret Invasion, they pulled me back in, which I guess was part of the strategy, right?

So let's just drop this trailer right now and change the subject very quickly here. Well, okay, let me tell you one thing. It worked. It worked. And the trailer does not feel like it's like it's in the MCU. We know it's clearly in the MCU, but it feels like it's like, let's take a break from the MCU really quick and go back to outside time and space. for a minute. And I'm like, okay, maybe I need this. This is my little reset.

Yeah, very much like Guardians just kind of, it's off in its own corner doing its own self-contained thing. Maybe we need that right now. There's no house of our episode this week, but here's some consolation on Friday. Joanna Robinson and I will be discussing the second season of a show that is near and dear to our hearts. Star Trek, Strange New Worlds. Oh, it's so good. Oh, it's the best. If a house of our Midnight Boys crossover episode is a house of midnight, then I guess a house of our button mash crossover is house of mash. I don't know.

I like that. We'll work on that. I like that. Whatever you call it, you can find it on the feed Friday morning after you watch the Strange New World season finale on Thursday. So let's get to some games. Let's begin with our Baldersgate 3 check-in. Before we get to Star Trek, we will boldly go to Baldersgate,

which came out on PC and Steam last week. The PS5 version doesn't come out until September 6th, and then the Xbox and Mac versions, who knows when they will come out. But it's a big hit on Steam. Already reached top 10 all time for concurrent Steam players. Most of the reviews are not out yet. We can't give you a full review yet, but we are planning to discuss Baldersgate 3 and Starfield fully next month,

just a double RPG blowout episode. So we're going to try to divide and conquer, I think. You will specialize in Baldur's Gate. I will play Starfield because there's no way for both of us to play both of those games. 100% gigantic. So I have not played Baldur's Gate yet. I'm waiting for the console version, but you have gotten right into it. And you're going to tell me what you think of it so far.

And just to set the scene here, of course, people probably know the Orr's, origins of Balders Gate started out as a BioWare RPG, the original 1998, the sequel 2000. It's based on Dungeons and Dragons and that rule set. This is the first new proper Baldersgate game since Baldersgate 2 Throne of Ball, the expansion in 2001. That was a while ago. It's been a while since the last Baldersgate. Many developers have wanted or tried to make a new Baldersgate game in the interim.

It didn't happen until now when Larian Studios, which is a Belgian developer best known for the Divinity games, finally got to take a crack at it. And neither of us has played a Baldersgate game previous. I played like Baldersgate Dark Alliance. I haven't played Baldersgate proper. I have not played a Larian game either, right? So we're new to this. We're giving you a fresh take on these games. This one was in development for six years.

it was in Early Access for three years. Side note, do you play a lot of Early Access games? I don't know whether you play this one in Early Access. Do you ever? Not really. Yeah. I play a lot of the demo. Right.

Yeah. That's basically it. Yeah. I don't play Early Access either. I know a lot of people do I understand why and there are some upsides to it. Partly it's just that I'm more of a console gamer these days. But also it's just like I always have my hands full with so many games. and so many games that come out now still feel like they're in early access when they're officially released.

So I'm not really in a hurry to play them even earlier than that. Like regular access, that will suffice for me. It's fine. I think that's how I feel too. I'm like not only just being busy, but I'm like, oh, I can just wait. Also because it's like a lot of my friends are also playing at a different time. So I'm genuinely like, I want to wait until my friends also have it. But I mean, now that we're in the business of talking, talking about it.

Yeah. Yeah, we got to get in early. Now we're getting in early. Yeah. Yeah, I see the appeal, right, because, I mean, it has some financial benefits for the developer, especially if it's a smaller developer. They get to get paid before the game is done. And maybe that enables them to finish the game.

The downside sometimes is that maybe a developer will kind of take that for granted. Like, we can just put this thing out in early access, and then we can drag our heels a little bit until we actually release the full game. But I get why if you're really invested in the, the game and you're excited for it, then you want to see it while it's still in progress and you get to shape it and give feedback and feel some ownership of it, right? So this game being in early access for so long, I think people are able to help improve the game. And then you get to watch it evolve. It's just, yeah, for me, I guess I want to play it when it's done and I don't

need to say it before then. But I'm glad that so many other people enjoy the early access situation. Are you also, I wanted to ask, after Tears of the Kingdom and Diablo and Final Fantasy, and I know you've been watching The Witcher, are you feeling any fantasy fatigue? Or are you like, yes, I want to get right back into a fantasy setting here? That is so funny because that's a great question and absolutely not. As soon as I started playing Boulder's Gate, I was listening to the stories and I was like, damn, I can't wait to go back to the Renfair. I have a million corsets in my closet, a million costumes, fantasy.

will never leave my role and I just like love getting more and more of it. It's a genre I think I will never get tired of which is very I can every day for the rest of my life if I was on an island but I only had a library of only fantasy I'd be like I'm good to go. I'm good to go. So I am not but I that is a good question because I'm sure there's people that aren't maybe that into or keen to fantasy and they're probably like there's been only fantasy this entire year. And I'm like I'm I love I'm eating it up. I devour this world. I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. of it. I also have a high tolerance for fantasy, but I've got to say I'm also sort of looking for it to Starfield just because, okay, another giant game, another giant RPG, but at least

it's a sci-fi setting. It's a little bit different, right? So I'm ready for a change, I guess. And so that's why I was not super sad that this game has not come out for console. Yeah, gave me an excuse to wait a little while to play it. And then, of course, I can't play it immediately when it comes out because I'll be busy with Starfield. So I get to wait just a little while. That's the problem. Every note that I've been getting or any person has been talking about it is like, I'm addicted to this game. Yeah. And it is very addicting.

It is easily addicting. I'm going to try giving my review without. I'm not spoiling anything, but it's more so I'm not also trying to give like a full review because we can't. Right. In all games where you can build your character, I'm always going to be a fighter. So of course, like this game, like Diablo, I am a fighter. I chose the class that I think has. the best fighting abilities, which is the dwarfs. But it's so intimidating. And I think a lot of

people will feel this way coming at, this is for a first timer, very intimidating. I love playing tabletop RPGs. So this was like, oh, I understand a lot of what's going on. I know that I'm trying to explore outside of the world that I'm currently in. I'm trying to not only do the missions that are given to me, but like actually build and blow out the world. But I know when I first started playing tabletop RPGs, I didn't do that. And so I'm afraid that people playing it explore as much as you can because I want you to go find a lot of the things that are hidden within the world and you have time to do the story. You get a group of a million companions that are beautiful. And I'll tell you right now, I've been playing for hours and I didn't get my first companion until now because I've been skipping exploring the world.

I've heard that the character creator is quite extensive. How does it compare to Diablo and Street Fighter for instance? never played a game with such a detailed i thought the new street fighter was extremely detailed because it has you literally every muscle in your body it's like a scale one to 100 how many veins do you want pop in like what how many freckles hair arm hair i was like this is insane there's like 98 hair styles in this game yeah i will say there's so much room for freedom even uh people are talking about like when it comes to their sex like you're there's like 20 different ways How many bears have you had sex with so far?

It's so wild and I love that. But then I will say the female body type is only two. Yes, I've heard that. It has made me upset as someone that always chooses the biggest. I like who I am and who I want to be. I want to be the biggest, strongest human being in the game. And I made my character as a woman because women always have the best clothing in these games. And I was like, oh, there's only two body types.

and it's not giant muscular. So I was like, for having such a giant, expansive directory of, like, other things, I was like, this is weird to be tight on. Yeah. But I spent, I spent like a good hour in that creating my character, building it out. But I was also researching, again, because I wanted to be a fighter, what would make the best fighter, what skills, how to modify, do as much as I could. How many hours have you spent on this thing in total so far?

Okay, well, a lot. A lot. I can hear you doing the mental mass there. I mean, it's only been out for, we didn't get early access other than early access, early access. But it sounds like you've been spending a lot of your time since it came out playing this game. I did. I had a wedding to go to on Saturday. And I remember up until the last minute for me to, it took me an hour to get to this venue.

I was like, okay, I have like eight hours to play this game. So I've been playing a lot. It's really, the storyline is. so fun and someone that since the pandemic, I haven't really been in any tabletop RPGs or doing any of that stuff. I've just been like alone and I can't play it by myself. This was my, this was my fix. This was my fix. This is great, great for someone that's like, I don't have a team yet, but I also am just getting into D&D. It's like this, play this then. This will get you there. I'm intrigued. I am also intimidated, maybe even more than you were by just the wealth of D&D style

player choice that appears to be in the game from what I've heard, you can kill anyone, you can do basically everything, the game just lets you do that and then compensates somehow, which is fascinating. That's always what I think I want in a game. Just let me do anything. Let me choose my own adventure. And then sometimes when a game actually does that or comes as close to doing that as video games can, then I'm like, maybe just tell me what to do or just limit me here because otherwise it will be overwhelming. So there is part of me that's sort of scared to dive in.

Well, yeah, just explore. It's still a game, so it's not like you can run everywhere. There's limitations to where you can go. But I would just say, and I think this is what takes all the time is exploring it because you don't, I miss so much the first time.

I restarted the game because I was like, I miss so much. And I don't know if I can go back and get it. And I'm reading that other people got these things. So I restarted it. And then I was like, okay, here I go. I'm exploring everything. I'm getting more money.

I'm doing all these things just because I'm like opening chest or digging in the ground. Yeah. The other thing about early access, I guess, is that if you've sunk a ton of time into the game and then the official release comes out, you have to start over. Right. And that's a little bit different from a demo when we play the Pikmin demo. or the Final Fantasy demo, you put a few hours into that, and then you just pick up from where you left off when the game comes out, whereas early access,

the official release comes out, you're wiping the slate clean. Yeah. And maybe it's different enough that you don't mind. But I would be sad to lose all my progress of my character, I guess, especially in a game of this size and length and scope, which is another thing that sort of scares me, but also fascinates me because Larian has bragged about how many more races and classes and spells.

and talents Baldersgate 3 has then their last game to the original sin 2 the size of the studio tripled

while they were building this game and Fritz that's their blog posts about this says Balders Gate 3 has more cinematic dialogue than

three times all three Lord of the Rings novels combined. It has 174 hours of cinematics making it

more than twice the length of every season of Game of Thrones combined. 17,000 ending variations. Obviously,

no one person sees all of that or probably even a fraction of that. It's very impressive. It is also sort of scary and it's interesting that in this year, which has been defined by these gigantic games, Tears the Kingdom and Diablo and Baldersgate and Starfield soon, there's still kind of this growing fatigue about the length of games, right? Like, remember when Dying Light 2 was coming out and the developer was like, there's 500 hours. of content in this game. And everyone was like, no, thank you.

I don't have 500 hours to play this game. And then they walked it back and they're like, actually, you can beat it in 20 hours. It's just that there's lots of extra stuff there. Or for instance, now Ubisoft is sort of advertising the next Assassin's Creed as it's the shortest and smallest Assassin's Creed in a while. That's like the selling point now. I know.

I'm like, oh, I'm going to play it. I'm back in. Yeah, like I've been out on Assassin's Creed for a while. Now they're like, there's a lot less game in this game. and I'm like, oh, okay, tell me more, right? Or tell me less, please. And that's interesting, I think, because it used to be that games and game makers would always advertise, like, here's how much bang for your buck you're getting, right?

But I think as games have gotten bigger, as the technology has allowed them to get gigantic and for the maps to be just enormous, I think it got to the point where it was too much. And also, I think there's a difference between fulfilling, play time and just empty hours tacked on, like in a Ubisoft map game where it's like, yeah, I guess there's a hundred hours of stuff I could do, but do I actually want to do any of it? And then you have some gamers like me who are getting old. And then we see that something is 500 hours and we're like, well, I don't have 500 hours. I don't have 500 hours.

I'm not going to be able to play this the way that I could have when I was a kid. So you're seeing, I think at one hand, you're seeing lots of game makers that, no, this is like a smaller, more curated experience. And I respond to that. But then we're getting these gigantic games this year. And I think if it's Tears of the Kingdom, if it's Diablo, if it's Baldur's Gate, maybe, hopefully, if it's Starfield, then it works, right? But if it's some other games where the same amount of care doesn't go into it, and it's just

like tacking on hours that you don't actually want to spend playing the game, then that leads to people saying, no, thank you. 100%. It also seems like, I mean, I benefited from the like more bang for your buck situation because I was a little sister. So it was more so like my mom was like, okay, you can hand it down to your sister when you're done with it. But now it is just like intimidating even if. And I get what they're saying when they're like, there's X amount of hours of cinematic experience.

To be fair, and this isn't a spoiler. To be fair, I talk to every animal and every animal gets a little screen time. And it's then it doesn't speak. It's a rat. So it literally squeaks. It gets like a good camera zoom. These are not sex scenes. Just me talking to rats.

Hey, let me. Once I got one, I up my ability of like, I want to be one with nature. I was like, I'm going to talk to everything in nature just to make sure that I'm not missing something. But I'm not having sex with rats. I'm not. Okay. That's really sure. I am trying to hook up with one of my companions.

Yeah. So, I mean, this leads me to my pet peever or my greatest gaming wish, which is that I want games to tell me how long they are. I don't know if it's just me, but this is just for years now, it's unlike any other form of entertainment that we sit down to play a video game. And in many cases, we just do not know what we're in for. And I guess that could be exciting. Like, if I sit down to play Tears the Kingdom, I don't care how long. I hope it's really long, right? I play 90 hours of that game and I want to continue, right? None of it feels old or like it's just a filler. But a lot of games are. And just imagine,

sitting down to watch a TV show and having no idea how long the episodes are or how many episodes there are in the season. Like you're watching, you press pause, it doesn't tell you how long is left. It's just a mystery. Like everything else we do, this is my rant. I love it. I'm here for it. Albums or movies or most sporting events, you know exactly or approximately how long it's going to take, how long you have to set aside in your schedule. And those things, it's probably not going to be more than one to three hours, let's say, whereas a game could be anywhere from two to 200, but nothing in the game itself, in most cases, says, hey, you can beat this in a single sitting. Or, hey, this will consume the rest of your year, right? Like, I get why it's difficult to do that, because games are

uniquely interactive. You can't perfectly anticipate how anyone will play. That's one of the best things about them. But a ton of testing gets done before games come out. It's not like the developer has no idea how long the game will typically take. I am just asking for an estimate. Just give me a ballpark figure. Like, can we have a civilization? Am I asking too much here? I don't think you're asking too much, but I think there's two things. If they did have like a developer or someone on the team that's like, here's the average time. It's also like, well, the average time for you, someone that plays games a lot. So maybe it doesn't add to this. But also, I wonder if they know marketing wise, it's like, well, we put too much stuff in it. If we say how long it is, people won't buy it.

Right. It could be that. Or the opposite, I guess, would have been the fear in the past if we don't exaggerate how long it is. People won't buy it. Right. Yeah. It's a double-edged sword. Yeah. It's so funny because my way of doing this, I realize, you saying it out loud made me realize, like, oh, yeah, they don't actually advertise how long it is. I just go and see who does. the fastest play-through. And then I add like 10 hours onto that for myself. And I go, okay, so that's how long it'll take me. We have to do our own research, right?

There are ways you can get a sense. Like, okay, even if it doesn't say on the box or the digital storefront, this game will take you 80 to 100 hours for the main campaign or 200 hours for a completion of playthrough. If it's part of a series, you can make an educated guess. If it's Baldersgate 3, well, based on Baldersgate 1 and 2, you're probably not going to beat it in one weekend. Balthursgate, the original, was five discs, which was one way.

You used to be able to tell how big a game is, or reviewers might mention it, or you can look at the website, how long to beat, which I look at constantly. Yeah, I think that's what I do. I think genuinely, every game, I'm like, let me look at how long you take this person to do it. But reviewers aren't always representative of a typical player because they're professional game players and they're trying to rush to review the game. And neither is how long to beat when a game first comes out, then the people who've entered their playtimes or the people who finished it fastest, right?

So you have to hope that the developer will tell you and be honest about it, which they do sometimes. Like Larian, I think, has estimated 75 to 100 hours for Baldur's Gate 3, just like a typical playtime without doing all the extra stuff, which might be double that or more. That is insane. 70 hours without the, okay, that's wild. Right. Sometimes you might not want to know.

That's why, you know, they move up the release date probably for multisainting. multiple reasons, but partly to steer clear of Starfield, because how can you possibly play both of those games at once? It's a month apart. It's not fair. It's not enough time. There's not enough time. Seventy hours?

And Larian has said they want to work on a smaller game next, which I don't blame them. It took so long to make this one, even though it's been a big success. But I'm just saying, just give me some sense. And there are games that will give you a completion percentage sometimes in the menu, although you don't always know what that means exactly, right? So how do we still tolerate this? Everything else we do, people listening to this podcast right now, they know how much longer we're going to talk.

If they don't have time to listen to us, talk, they can pause, they can stop, they can make an informed decision. Do I want to listen to Ben and Jess talk about Bollarskate 3 and video game adaptations for however long? Yes or no. Ben, it's okay.

I need some control over my life. From just this conversation, you in the actual game are going to become a lunatic. You're going to lose your mind, and I'm going to have to check in on you, but it's okay. Okay. You don't have to do this. Maybe it's for the best that I haven't started yet, but I will at some point, and I'm glad

you're enjoying it, and we will return to this and talk about it when you and maybe both of us have spent enough time with it to actually give you a review. But that makes me want to ask the audience and listeners right now, how would you like us to cover new games? Please email us at ringerversegaming at gmail.com, tweeted us, let us know what would be the most useful way for us to talk about new games because the Ring ofverse podcast has had this model of instant reaction pods and then deep dive pods. And those will come out the week of a new episode or a new movie or a new trailer, right? Because everyone can watch those things at the

same time. And maybe they're an hour or two hours and we're all on the same page. It doesn't really work that way for video games, right? Because there are still people who are finishing Zelda, right? I mean, there are people who haven't started it yet, but some of these games can take years or months. And sometimes we will get early access, by which I mean, we will get a review code early. Sometimes we won't. Even if we do, I assume people don't want us to talk about the game fully in depth

on the day it comes out when they haven't had a chance to play it yet. So do you prefer that we do sort of check in early impressions? We're playing it along with you. Here's how we're feeling so far. then maybe return to it down the road. Would you rather wait for us to see the whole thing and for the audience to have had time to see the whole thing and then talk about it in depth?

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Beth and Rip are back in a new series, Dutton Ranch. Kelly Riley and Cole has a return, and this time they're taking on Texas. As Beth and Rip build a future together, peace will have to wait as they face corruption, danger, and a ruthless rival ranch willing to protected secrets

at all costs. Legacy is beautiful thing, but only if it survives. Dutton Ranch starring Colehauser, Kelly Riley. Annette Benning and Ed Harris, now streaming on Paramount Plus. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tramphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tramphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can

self-inject Tramphia, proper training is required. Tremfaya is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis. Serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them, and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tramfaya today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit Trimfairadio.com. Now, here's the good thing about video game adaptations. We don't have to worry about when to cover them because they're TV and movies, just like everything else. And we don't have to worry about how long they are because they tell us exactly how long they are. Isn't that nice? But historically, we have had to worry about whether they would be good.

Actually, we could be pretty confident that they would be bad, beginning with some of the late 80s cartoons continuing into live action with the 1993 Mario movie that set the tone for bad video game adaptations or at least weird video game adaptations for decades to come. And this is the year, I think, when we can finally retire and kill the source. so-called curse of video game adaptations. So we want to talk about why and how that happened, that we can finally put that to rest. So the challenge has always been translating video games and interactive art form medium into a visual non-interactive medium. What's the point of making a cinematic game into actual cinema? That comes up with games that kind of take their cue from movies and TVs. then you're taking a game that's already modeling itself on those media and then turning it back into those media.

That doesn't always work so well. But also, hey, if we already played the game, you've got to give us a reason to want to watch some version of the game. And you have to figure out how to do it without porting over the essential thing that we play games for, which is that we get to control them, right? And that can be tricky in any other ways because you might have Nathan Drake slaughtering. hundreds of people along the way as you're playing an uncharted game. Well, how do you translate that to a movie? How do you root for at Ethan Drake that you're not controlling if he's killing everyone? And then early on in video game history, the interactivity was the hook. Story wasn't such a

big part of things. The technology typically didn't allow it. So maybe the raw material wasn't there. So up until recently, right, there was a terrible reputation for video game adaptations. And it was well-earned, I would say. I agree. It was a weird time. It was a weird time. It was weird to continue. And then I might...

It was such a weird situation. It was a weird time that endured for decades. Yeah. So, I mean, really, from like early 90s to mid-2010s, there were some video game adaptations that were less bad than others and some that were kind of quirky and amusing. and some that maybe you look back and with the benefit of nostalgia, you liked it because you saw it at a formative time in your life.

But hard to say that there were any genuinely legitimately good ones for decades. And I think it's just in the past several years that that has changed. I think Castlevania, the Netflix adaptation, which came out in 2017, that was the Trailblazer, I think, because that was the first video game adaptation that was certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, which is not that high a bar. It doesn't mean you had to love it. It just means you thought it was decent. You thought it was pretty good. You thought it was more good than bad. And most people thought that. And none of them cleared that bar until 2017, when you had this animated, anime style adaptation of Castlevania that touched on the games and the universe and the characters, but was not a direct adaptation. And then, The floodgates slowly opened. I don't know if floodgates can slowly open,

but that has happened over the past few years, where 2019 you had Detective Pikachu, right? That was a big one. I love Detective Pikachu. Me too, at least partially live action. You had the Angry Birds movie too, which was fairly well reviewed by video game adaptation standards. 2020, you had Sonic the Hedgehog.

That was huge, right? Because I don't think people had high expectations for that. Sonic, even as a game franchise, had gone through a rough patch that had lasted for quite a while. And then Dragon's Dogma was another animated adaptation, not a well-known game like Sonic. Then 2021, you had Arcane. Oh, my God. Yes. Now, you're more of a league person than I am.

I love Arcane, too. But tell me about Arcane. When that came out, did that exceed your expectations? Yes. And why do you think that works so well? 100%. This is also coming from, okay, this is, I love League of Legends. I love League of Legends.

I don't expect a lot from League of Legends because over the time, over the years, we're in the business of raving about any media. And I think a lot of the league fans made me scared of what the Arcane would have been. Because it's a weird balance of bringing in new audiences, but also still being there for the fan, like the built audience that has already. made the game so big. So I was so nervous. And then watching it, I was like,

not only do they incorporate, yeah, a lot of the storylines from the actual lore of League of Legends, but they're also getting into places that we don't really get into in League of Legends. The locations we just see. We don't really actually get into it. So it's like, oh, we're actually seeing it.

The people building this are so passionate about the storyline and the lore of League of Legends that they're like, I know that you probably had questions about this. Let's actually venture into it into the series and incorporate it in a way that it works. So I ate it up. Not only was it just like gorgeous, it was beautiful, but the like the storyline. And I don't even like jinks in League of Legends.

I don't like Jinks. I don't play as her sister. And so I was literally like, this is so fun and so good. And the passion behind is seen. And I cannot wait for a second one. Yeah. The creators were involved in adapting it and fleshing out that world. And again, it's like league has a lot of lore.

But not a traditional campaign exactly that would directly lend itself to being adapted. So Arcane comes out, gets rave reviews, wins awards. That felt like a milestone too. That same year, 2021, Werewolves Within came out. Mortal Kombat came out. And then last year, also a big year, you had the Sonic the Hedgehog sequel. You had cyberpunk edge runners, another Netflix show that got a lot of acclaim. You had Halo.

you had Sonic Prime and you had Uncharted, which didn't get great views, didn't love it personally, but it did really well at the box office, right? It did so well. It made 400 million or whatever it was. And that coupled with Detective Pikachu and Sonic the Hedgehog, it was like, all right, even if these aren't masterpieces, they're going to make money. People will come out and see these things. And naturally that caused everyone who makes movies and TV to double down and say, hey, wow, there's a whole treasure trove of video game IP waiting here. People will actually come out to the theaters, not even if we make some amazing movie,

the citizen cane of video game adaptations, but just like a competent movie, a well-made movie, people will come and purchase tickets to that. So this year, I think we've got popular and critical acclaim in live action and animation. This feels like a watershed because we had The Last of Us. right, which was second to Succession in Emmy nominations and had roughly triple the audience of succession. You know, as much as people in our orbit talk about succession as big as it is online, it's not as

huge offline as some other series. And The Last of Us was enormous. It was on par with House of the Dragon in terms of how many people were watching it. And then you had the Super Mario Brothers movie, which as we speak still leads. in the domestic and global box office until Barbie, I think, inevitably overtakes it. But that feels like a huge development too. And the last of us, especially being an award-nominated show, being as critically revered as it was, that just felt like video game adaptations Dark Night trilogy moment, right?

Where you went from, oh, video, are they ever going to make a good video game movie? I mean, of course, there was Superman, but it had been decades since Superman. It's just like maybe some of these are fun and maybe it's a good time at the movies, but is it serious? Is it real art? Yeah. And then the Dark Night Trilogy comes out and you get David Goyer and you get Christopher Nolan, these esteemed creators, guys who grew up on Batman, which I think is key to

them interpreting that character and that world. And you're drawing by then on some of the 80s and 90s Batman stories, the darker, the more mature Batman, right? So by that time, I think all the conditions were there. The ingredients were ready for you to make great comic book movies, right? Great superhero movies. I think that's where we are now, finally, with video game adaptations. So you had that one-to punch of The Last of Us and the Super Mario Brothers movie.

Then you had twisted metal last month. You have Grant Rizmo coming later this month that was moved from August 11th to August 25th, so we have not seen it yet, but there's been good buzz. People who saw screenings, you can't always trust the initial buzz after screenings, but people seem to be liking it. And then I guess you've got The Witcher. Now, you're much more of an expert on The Witcher games and show and books than I am. I love a witcher.

Do you consider The Witcher a video game adaptation, partial video game adaptation? How would you classify it? I guess I'd say partial. They even acknowledge this behind the scenes that they're like, we're pulling from the books. Right, right. We don't pull from the games. If it's in the games, it was also in the books. But they, the showrunner Lauren has spoken with the creator of the books and works

closely with him that she's, or not closely like they did with the last of us, getting the co-president of Nottie Dog. But I think they were like, we are pulling from the book. So it's an adaptation from the books more than it is the video games. Yeah, that's my impression too. So I don't think we can we can chalk that as a win or, or I guess a loss if you don't love the latest season. But that's, it's adjacent, right?

I mean, obviously people who played the games may be more likely to check out the show. And it's, you know, led to more people buying and playing the game. And the game success has led to more people watching the show. So it's connected. But I don't think we can quite count it. I think it also in the most respectful way, because I will always watch the Witcher. I will always watch the Richer. But in the most respectful way, I think it might fall under what some people call

like the video game curse of like you, The Witcher is doing a lot of fan service, which is nice, which is sweet. You guys are going really, or like I'm talking to Netflix, they're staying very close to what the books are in the storylines, but I think they're staying so close that it doesn't really welcome any new audience members.

So like anybody that's interested in watching The Witcher are just so confused about what's going on because there's a million things happening. And I think that like, I think a lot of that also coincides with some video game adaptations to, film. They're like, oh, we lean more for the fans than we do for new audiences. And I'm like, well, the middle ground for that makes it simpler for both parties and makes it more easier to understand. I play a lot of games I've been turned into movies or TV. And I'm like, I get this, but I know my mom will not. My mom loves this stuff. My mom loves the last of us. My mom

did play the games. She just like zombie movies. So she was like, oh, I heard about this video game show. I think I'm going to watch it. And then she was watching it ahead of me. So it's like, I need that balance so my mom can also watch it. Right. Yeah. Is it primarily like a delivery system for Easter eggs? Yeah. Right. I mean, not to disparage Easter eggs. You make great Easter eggs videos. I literally signed and I make this. That's my job. That's my job. I feel like that's also how I feel about with Easter eggs, how I feel about video game adaptations when it's going to feel or like a movie. I'm like, oh, it's going to be like the character. They're going to grab the character from the game and a little bit of Easter eggs. If it's a movie, if it's a series, they're going to get a little bit more into it.

A lot of it is a lot on time. They have eight episodes to venture into this. They have an hour and 30 minutes or three hours to do the movie. This is my fear with Five Nights of Fridays. I will say it out loud. Please, five nights and Fridays, you don't need to be three hours. There's bullet points. There's mediums in the floor you can grab from. Right. So yes, a few more video game adaptations on the way the rest of this year. Even after Grand Turismo, Castlevania, Nocturn is coming out, September 28th, Five Nights of Freddy's, as you mentioned, October 27th. I'm so excited. I know you are.

I am not a horror game person. But the lore is so addictive. I will play it for you and for podcast purposes. We will talk about it later this year. And then there's a Knuckles series as well coming out sometime late this year. So let's talk about Twisted Metal for a minute. Last episode, I recommended Twisted Metal. I had seen the whole thing.

I sold you in our audience. on it. I gave it a high recommendation. Now you have watched it. Did I oversell it? No. Are you with me on the Twisted Trail trade? 30 minute episodes. Less than 30 minutes, you guys. 10 episodes? It was 10 episodes. So fun. And honestly, I think my biggest thing, and you said this, Anthony Mackey is having so much fun. It's a comedy role. And I haven't seen him do it. Right. I was like, I've never seen him say such silly things in my entire life. life. And it was so nice to see that. And I love that exploring. I love the little cameos of different celebrities. Chloe Feynman from S&L makes a very fun appearance. It's so fun. It's just fun.

It's really great. Yeah. Yeah. Mackie, like he's done comedic parts or he's been the comic relief at times. Like there are jokes in Marvel movies, you know? But like he's never been, it's been years if ever that he's done a comic relief. comedic role like this. And he's just, it's a natural. It's like we've been missing Mackie doing comedy because he's really funny. And apparently he played a part in shaping the humor and the character and the show. So kudos to him seeing a different side of him. And yeah, it's just, I really enjoyed it. I like the world building. I like the characters. I feel like the tone. They just nailed it. Maybe it doesn't work for for everyone. But it's just it doesn't take itself

too seriously. It's like somewhat satirical. It's like, this kind of weird, you know, post-apocalyptic, like Mad Max sort of world, right? But it's from the creators of like zombie land and Deadpool. And it has that kind of aesthetic to it. Right. Yeah. It feels like it totally works for me. Right now it has a 70% critic score on Rotten Thanos.

And it's nothing to see that, right? Because 70% would have been higher than any video game adaptation prior to 2017 or any live action video game adaptation prior to 2021. So if this had been a few years ago, that would have blown everyone out of the water. People might have been saying, oh, wow, twisted metal has ended the video game adaptation curse. Now we're sort of spoiled. And it's like, oh, here's just another one. 70% I think is really good.

Especially if you're just like, like us that had only watched like a little bit of the trailer and just saw some promotional material before actually watching it. I was like, this is going to be too crazy for me. And 70, I'm like, this was perfectly good for me. Yeah, that's part of, I think, why I'm just so pleasantly surprised by it is that I had zero expectations for it. I mean, when I heard there was a twisted metal adaptation, I thought, really? Okay. Who's the market for that? And then when I saw that first clip, I was like, what?

Where are they going with this? What are they going for? And then the first trailer came out and I started to see, okay, there might be something here. And then I watched and I was just totally hooked. So right now, there's a 94% audience score. Good job. You know, I don't always side with the people over the critics. Sometimes I am a critic.

I feel like in this case, though, got to go with the audience. I think the voice of the people, the wisdom of crowds here, has nailed this. And I don't know whether some people were watching it and thinking, oh, it's a Sony show. It's a post-apocalyptic show about traveling across America. Like, it's coming on the heels of The Last of Us. This is a very different tone and sort of show. Maybe people weren't ready for this kind of show or didn't. wanted to be this kind of show. I had no attachment to Twisted Metal, the property, really.

I mean, I played a little twisted metal back in the day, but not enough to have any great attachment to it, let alone the story of it. So again, my roommate's a huge fan of Twisted Metal. And he was like, the Easter eggs are like subtly in there. There's like fun things that he was like, oh, this is when they're actually doing this part. This part is actually happening here. And he was very excited, but he was genuinely like, I think this is more lean to new audiences than it is the can wise and it worked really well. There's some references I picked up on. I probably miss most of them,

but there's a time where he's driving through a mall and the old disc of Twist Metal, the box just flies across his windshield. Or there's like a cheat code that's referenced at one point, but it's not really heavy-handed because, again, yeah, I don't think they're assuming that everyone who watches the show are twisted metal diehards, right? So in a way, I mean, the Last of Us and Mario,

are both outliers, I think. The Last of Us, because it's so well-suited to adaptation. It was just ready-made. And Mario, because it's so beloved and so famous, right? So you kind of had a sense that a faithful The Last of Us adaptation would be good or should be good. Again, like, when I was prepping for it, I went back and just watched the cut scenes and the cinematic playthrough of the original game. And it's like, oh, this is already good.

Like, this is an HBO show, basically. they just need to remake it with great actors and special effects and everything. I know it's harder than that. But, you know, the raw materials were there. Yeah, it feels like when you're asking yourself what makes a good adaptation, that is one of the top three is like choosing a product that's actually already very good and well-known. That's what's grabbing the people that don't really.

I think that was the pull with Uncharted. It was like, oh, I play these games. I love these games. They're popular. I'm going to go see the movie. Then when you see the movie, you're like, this isn't like games. Right. Right. But I think that was the pull with The Last of Us. But also, again, getting Neil Druckman.

Yes. Yes. Really. Really. That played a big part. But then you have something like Mario and Mario. I mean, it's the most famous and storied video game franchise. Really just make a competent Mario movie. I don't even think the Mario movie is great. Like, it was fun, you know? It was fast. It moved quickly. It was bright and colorful. You know, I'm sure kids really enjoyed it. It was sort of. in on a plot level. I mean, it's Mario. There's only so much to work with there. I didn't think it, like, took any great risks or anything. You know, it was an illumination movie. It wasn't like Lord and Miller do Mario. I don't think Nintendo would allow that to happen much as I'd like that. That'd be great. That'd be perfect. Yeah, I mean, Nintendo, you know, famously protective of its properties and then burned by the original Mario movie so that it took 30 years for another one to come out, which, in retrospect, is unbelievable, right? They're sitting on this gold mine of, Mario and the Mushroom Kingdom, and then it comes out and it makes a billion plus dollars without

even being a classic or anything, you know, it's fine, it's fun. It makes a ton of money and now there might be a Nintendo cinematic universe in the mix, right? But it's amazing in retrospect that it took so long to take another crack in a Mari movie. And that's just the stain, I guess, of the original, which, you know, was at least going for it, was certainly trying to do something in a way that maybe the new Mario movie is playing it safer. But because that backfired and became so notorious, Nintendo was like, you know what, we'll wait a few decades. We're going to hold out.

And also maybe that was the realization of like, we need to switch up the audience. We need to switch up the audience. Being illumination, perfect, go with illumination. You are going to get those kids. Universal is going to be making money. It's going to make a fourth park only to this. Right.

Such a good idea, especially because, yeah, there's not that much plot to, like, we don't really know too much about Mario's family. I mean, we don't really get into it in the movie as well. But it's like you just got to go with like the Easter eggs. You got to go with like the cinematic experience for a child of being like, I'm going to blow out this world. We're going to go everywhere.

Everything's going to be big and pink and rainbow colored and everyone's got to remember this. And that's why it's like knowing your audience and switching it up from what we got in the 90s Mario movie. This is only for children. Adults can also like it, but this is going to be for children. Yeah, make a Mario movie that's actually a little bit like the Mario Games. That would be an interesting thing to try. They were like, we made a mistake.

Also, to be fair, it was very of its time. Yes. The Mario movie was very hokey. The costumes were ridiculous. Yes, they were. Yeah, I mean, special effects and design wise, it certainly has a look and a feel to it. So, again, they were going for it. They were going for it.

But that's why I'm saying that these two properties, if the last of us hadn't hit and Mario hadn't hit, then it would be, what are we doing here? Because these are served up on a platter, huge built-in audiences, story ready to go. And in that sense, twisted metal is not that, right? There is not much of a story. I mean, I know there's a story to some of the twisted metal games. It's not known for its story. And there hasn't been a new twist and metal game since 2012, right? So it's not like there's an active franchise here and a ton of people who are huge fans of

Twisted Metal except in a sort of nostalgic, you know, I used to play that sense. And so the fact that twisted metal is as good as it is, that makes me in a way more optimistic about other adaptations than The Last of Us did because The Last of Us, it's like, hey, this is sort of a singular thing. It's great that they delivered and they nailed it. But that doesn't necessarily mean that you can make another The Last of Us because there are only so many The Last of Us is out there. But if you can make twisted metal into a show that's as fun as this, then that gives me hope about, hey, maybe anything could be a good adaptation.

So I think Twisted Metal sort of illustrates some of the reasons why video game adaptations have found their footing finally. And recently I interviewed two of the executive producers, Assad Kisselbash and Carter Swan, the president and senior producer, respectively, of PlayStation productions. So this is the company that has created Uncharted and The Last of Us and Twisted Metal and Grintorismo and is working on God of War and Horizon and Day is Gone and Ghost of Sushima and Gravy Rush. Yeah, so I talk to these guys and I'll share a couple of quotes from them that I think kind of illustrate why things are working better than they used to. So for instance, Kiselbash, here's one thing he told me. Some of the best writers, creators, directors, producers, producers, they've actually. grown up playing our games and they have a love and a passion for our games. I think then, because they're fans themselves, they know what best to adapt, what to take in, what to pull out,

having them passionately know the game really makes it high quality. And that doesn't just apply to PlayStation games. That applies to all these properties, I think, where if you can get someone who knows the game, I'm not saying it's a prerequisite, but I think it really helps. It helps. If you have some affection and some knowledge, like Twisted Metal, for instance, was developed by Ret Rees and Paul Wernick, who as I mentioned, they're the guys behind Zombie Land and Deadpool. And then it was written by Michael Jonathan Smith of Cobra Kai. So you've got some quality creators with pretty good track records here. And they're also of an age where they grew up with this game and games in general. Like Reese's favorite game, apparently, is Twisted Metal. He's 47 years old, I think. Now, video. video games have been around for a very long time, but they haven't been around that long to the point that they've been telling more mature and sophisticated stories that the technology has allowed them to tell. And so really, like, you look at the age of people who are the ones who are getting these projects greenlit, you know, we're talking late 30s and 40s and 50s.

Like, this is the generation that actually was weeded on these things, that grew up in these things, not just maybe, you know, button bashing in an arcade, but actually like having home consoles and being really attached to these things. And I don't think you can sell that short because for a while there, it was just kind of cash-ins. It was like, let's get anyone to just make a quickie movie of this. They've never played the thing. They don't know why it works. They have no love or affection for it or resolution to treat this with respect, right? So now you're getting people who know the appeal, understand the fan base, understand the property. I think in many cases, that makes all the difference. Oh, my God. I am listening. I'm consuming all of this information.

Like Craig Mason, for instance, who is involved in The Last of Us. As you mentioned, you have Neil Druckman involved there too, but Mason's a huge The Last of Us game. A fan thinks it's one of the best games of all time, like knew it intimately. So when someone like that is involved, I think, think that helps. And then when you get good creators involved, people who have a history of making good things, then it maybe makes it easier to get good talent on the other side of the camera, right, to get Anthony McHen and Stephanie Beatrice and Thomas Hayden Church and Samoa Joe, right? I mean, it's a great cast that brings us to life because there's a history now. Like there's some precedent. Oh, I can be in a video game movie. It's not going to kill my career. It could

actually make money and maybe you can win awards, right? So now, I'm not saying everyone would want to be in a video game adaptation, but I think many more people would want to be one. Oh, absolutely now. Yeah, right? Absolutely now. No one wants to be associated when it's just a curse, right? So now that the curse is lifted, it's like, yeah, sure, sign me up for a video game movie. I also think it's the same with like the superhero movies, how celebrities are like, never want to be in one. But once like Wanda Vision showed up, they were like, wait a minute, I didn't know we were doing like actual theater.

Right. But I think with the video games, I'm so glad. Nothing is more fulfilling than hearing someone be like, yeah, it's based off a video game. Oh my God. Like, just because it's like, I'm so happy how far it made it. And like The Last of Us with Craig Mason and like Neil Druckman, they get, when you're in love with the games, you can also choose, it's referred to as killing, killing your darlings, killing your babies.

You can choose what beats are really important from the storyline that you guys should hit and which ones you can leave for now. Yeah. And I think it's a hard that I could never do this. And this is why I'm not adapting anything that I love because I will force everything into it. But these people can choose what actually will help further the storylines and things that we don't really need. Yeah. I guess it could go the other way where you love something so much that you're afraid to change it at all.

Right. Well, this was kind of what happened in The Witcher. So they threw so much from the books that were like, I don't think we needed to get into this. Or we're missing something here because we didn't. go into this. But that is only my, again, you guys respectfully, I love the Witcher. And I will always love The Witcher. But it is sometimes situations where I'm like, when you're really passionate, sometimes it can lead to some destruction. But respectfully, respectfully, I go. The Witcher fans will come after you. And I can't stress it up. I will always watch it.

Unlike a lot of them, I will always keep watching. I will always keep watching The Witcher. That's another danger about video game adaptations, right? Because video game fans, they, They feel ownership of these franchises, right? And if you do stray too much from the original, there might be blowback about that. There might be some gatekeeping. There might be some constructive criticism, but there might also be some, this is not the thing I loved. So therefore, it's bad. Greta Gerwig, all love and support for you taking on Narnia, the Chronicles of Narnia.

I would be so scared of the fan base. Yeah. So that's factor one, maybe, that the people making these things have some intimate knowledge and familiarity and affection for them. Number two, this is Assad Kisselposh. And people with key decisions like PlayStation productions, of course, he's going to shout out his own company, are from the gaming side. And so they understand and respect and love games. And so that's another thing. As this has become a big business, you know, it used to be that the game maker would just sort of sign the rights away and say, here you go, here's the license,

go to town, right? Like Nintendo did, you know, with the original Mario movie. Now, that didn't go so well. And also they see that there's some money to be made now. So now you have a company like PlayStation Productions or other companies where they actually understand the games too. They have familiarity with them. They can bring in the creators. So Last of Us creative director, Neil Druckman, of course, is co-writing The Last of Us. But even like David Jaffe, the creator of Twisted Metal, he was consulted and involved

on this project, you know, not writing every episode, but just like being involved in the pitching process and saying, does this seem like Twisted. metal to you or not, right? Or giving feedback on the specifics. And that kind of thing can be valuable. Again, you could go too far with that and it could be too protective of your property. But if it's just like, hey, we're a resource. We're the people who made the game. We know the universe. We know the production. Like, use us as a sounding board, you know, use us as someone you can check in about the specifics of these things. And are we straying from the core of these series? That seems like it can only help. So that has become a bigger feature of these adaptations too. I commend them for that.

Again, another thing I can do. This is also why I'm not writing these things, but I commend them for that because it's kind of hard, especially if you're like someone that's like, I just did the games. I don't, and then giving them and being like, does it seem like it works? I'd be like, I think it does. So I commend them for being like, I don't really work on movies in television, but I can help you fix this or better this as someone that worked really hard on the game or created the game. It's totally different mediums and different types of storytelling and different skill sets. And sometimes it's tricky, not just because one is interactive and one is not, but also because if you're adapting a book or a short story or a podcast, like it's not a visual medium.

And so I think it's exciting just, hey, I get to see what this would look like. You know, I've seen it in my mind's eye. I have imagined it. But now I get to see it brought to life on the screen. This will be very different from the book or whatever it is that I know. whereas with a video game, you've seen it, right? It's already a visual medium. And so there's a little less excitement of like, oh, I finally get to see it on my screen.

It's already been on your screen, right? So maybe you haven't seen it with humans acting it out. Maybe it's just mocap. Maybe it's animated. Maybe it's polygons, right? But it's a little less of a leap, I would say. And so that can be kind of dangerous because it's just like, well, do I really need to see this in a slightly different form if I've already seen it and played it?

Now, I think Factor 3 is TV. So the rise of TV as a home for high quality, big budget storytelling. So here's a quote from Carter Swan. I think that was part of the problem you saw in the past was trying to force a game that has 80 or 90 hours of narrative into two hours can be problematic. So The Last of Us and Twisted Metal were originally movie projects and they ended up working really well as TV projects. or Kisselbosch said this. With theatrical, you can imagine really big, incredible set pieces that could be wonderful with big surround sound on the screen, whereas TV does a really good job of going deep in character

and exploring multiple characters that maybe you couldn't do in the game, and it allows you to do that. So it depends on the project, but I think in many cases, TV is a more natural fit for a video game than movies. So if you're not trying to shoehorn everything into this has to be a 90-minute or two-hour movie, then that allows you some leeway that I think really pays off with the world building and the character development. 100%. And I'd be willing to sacrifice that where he's mentioning like, when you're doing this movie, you have like on the big screen, you're doing everything big. You have the set pieces that are big. I'd be willing to sacrifice that for the storyline. Yeah. But that is also just me because the last of us and like twisted metal and anything that's like a TV series arcane, I'm emotionally pulled into it because I have more time with it. And like I said earlier, with movies, it feels like right now with adaptations that are movies, we're taking just the character and a little bit of Easter eggs and then putting them in the world

that we're creating for them versus like actually going hand in hand with like what we see in the games, like in The Last of Us and our game. And if you've got a great gaming home theater set up to it, it might not be that different, right? Oh, yeah, perfect. Good to go. So Twisted Metal's got a lot of great practical effects, I think. A lot of the car stuff. It's actually filmed, you know, with real cars, right?

So it is a spectacle. It's not the greatest spectacle. Like, you've got to see this in theaters, right? But if you have a nice home theater, then that helps. And then I think the last major factor here is that you have more mature and sophisticated and layered and nuanced storytelling in games as time has gone on, which makes it riper for adaptation. You know, if you're trying to adapt Angry Birds or Tetris or whatever, right, then there may not be a story there. Maybe you can craft a story, but you're going to have to supply that story. Whereas if it's The Last of Us, well, that's a game that's already aiming for movie style, HBO style storytelling.

And there's more and more of that, not just in big budget AAA games, but also indie games, you know, like dealing with themes that in the past most games might not have wrestled with because you had eight bits, right? So I think there's just more and more material out there. and people who played games in the 80s and 90s and haven't played them since might be surprised. Like, oh, wow, this is a video game these days. But there's just so much out there now that can tell as complex and emotionally affecting a story as a book or a movie or whatever.

So I think part of it is just picking the right IP, finding the right source material that actually supports an adaptation. 100%. One hundred percent. You need something that stands up if you're not actually playing it, because sometimes we're just there for the gameplay,

which is great when we're playing, but not so great when we're not playing. So one last thing that Swan said, the three things to consider about the audience when you're making a video game adaptation, there's a tremendous fan base that cares passionally about these stories, and you really need to be respectful of the things that they want in that story. You don't want to change it too much to the point where they show up

and they say there's nothing in common with this version and the game that I love. We just talked about that. But he said, I think you also have to always be aware that a lot of people showing up to watch, hopefully are not aware of the game and have not played the game. The big third thing is you don't want to copy the game. Because if you just copy the game, then the fans have already played it. And as a viewing experience, there will be nothing new.

There will be nothing exciting. They'll know everything that's going to happen already, which is a big thing for me. Because it's like, if I played the game already, I might not be that excited for it because it's like, I played this game. It was a great game, but I don't need to see a game. exactly the same thing again. So you've got to give me something new, right? That maybe feels true to that original, but is a different spin on it, is expanding on it like the last of us did in some episodes, especially the third one, right? It just can't be just one for one or it's like what is

there for people like us to watch. Yeah, that's true. It's great if you haven't played. If you're not a gamer, okay, other people can get introduced to that. But your built-in audience has to have some reason to come back for more. Yeah. It was a funny with The Last of Us because I was kind of like, oh, okay, well, I know what's going to happen. I kept saying that. I was like, I know what it happens. It was also the speed of what she was happening. I forget the woman, the woman that was with them at first to die in the second episode, I was genuinely like, oh shit. I was like, I didn't know the same was happening. And then on the third episode with like my roommate, he's okay with spoilers. And he was like, you told me they

don't both die. You told me this. And I was like, I didn't think they were going to go and expand that much. And it's like those are the scene. I need, I need those. I do need those because I'm like, I don't want to expect everything. And after that third episode hit, I was like, I don't know. These are slight changes, but these slight changes can ripple over time and maybe it affects how the outcome will happen. I do think ultimately with The Last of Us, there is an end part that we're going to get to that is like the games. But I think there are going to be little hurdles and extra characters that are new that change that. And maybe it's that, just as small as that, just as tiny is that a little story expand upon it or just like put a little hurdle in there.

That's as much as we need. I know that it's so dangerous to cater to like fans, but also cater to a new audience and trying to find that balance. But I think you can find that balance with little subtle movements. Yeah. And I think each project lends itself to a different approach. So Uncharted was a prequel, which I didn't love how they actually implemented that. But I think the idea of making a prequel was fine or the last of us was pretty faithful

adaptation, Twisted Metal takes a ton of liberties, and Grand Turismo isn't even really an adaptation of the Grand Turismo games. It's more the people who got great at Grand Turismo and use that to become actual professional research, right? So I think one thing the PlayStation Productions, people said to me is, you know, they came up with this world and a way into the story that if the game didn't even exist, it still could have been a good show, which is something I felt as I was watching Twisted Metal. It's like, I don't even know what is coming from Twisted Metal. metal and what is not other than character names and Sweet Tooth the Clown. It's like, I would watch this show.

It doesn't have to be called Twisted Metal. It doesn't have to be based on Twisted Metal. It's just a good show, right? 100%. I think the fact that it's kind of this dormant franchise, they said, also gave them more flexibility and creative license. And the fact that there wasn't this great story already, it's like, okay, we have to supply something original here.

And then they could take some liberties, and that would be fine. So at the end of the season of Twisted Metal, it's been out for about 10 days now. it's a quick watch. I know not everyone has watched it yet. So just a little spoiler here. You can skip ahead briefly. But, you know, there's the John and Quiet have their enemies to lovers arc that Mal and Joe just talked about on the most recent edition of House of R. And then the interesting thing is that the first season sort of sets up the premise of twisted metal. When you think of twisted metal, you think, oh, it's a vehicular combat tournament. Everyone's entering and trying to survive. And that's not what season one of Twisted Metal is, much the way that the Mortal Kombat

movie doesn't actually have the Mortal Kombat tournament in it, you know, the new World Combat movie, but it sets that up for the sequel. And that's sort of the way they went with this, too. So Swan said there's a lot of really cool car carnage chaos, but what really excited Smith was this library of characters that we created and they thought there was so much you could do with them. I think before you start having them square off in arena combat and just pure action, we really wanted to establish a world and create a bunch of characters that you really cared about and you could really connect to and relate to. The plan was always, let's get to where the game goes. But I think if you look at the movie Gladiator, you couldn't just start off with them in the Coliseum

in the first act. You wouldn't care nearly as much. You've got to set up the stakes of these people that are actually participating in this. Our game plan was like, let's establish a world that's really cool and people feel like they're really grounded in. Let's establish some characters that we really start to dig into their backstories and we fill the stakes for them before we get there and start having them just do a lot of cool action battles. That is so cute and interesting to be like, yeah, we looked at Gladiator. Right. Yeah.

And also, I don't know. Maybe it's just me. That's a tough gamble. I genuinely am like, I'm scared to gamble that to gamble a first. You're pitching the pilot. It's a first season, which means they could drop off after a first season. They could not get a second season based off this first season. And they're like, we're not going to get into the actual game until the second season.

And I'm like, whoa, okay, go. And it worked. And then will it work in season two if you've expanded this big world? And then season two is just everyone crashing into each other's cars. Is that still satisfying? Can you build in a story and character development around that? Well, luckily making that world and feel, I'm rooting for Quiet and John. Like I'm, and I think a lot of us are.

But it's like, oh, now that they're separate and he wants to leave and he wants to be quiet, but we don't know how they're going to come back together with quiet now, intercepting all the milkman in the world. And he's still inside this place that's going to be a gladiator themed arena. And I'm genuinely like, oh, my God, how are they going to be in love still? So it's just like, that first season set up rooting for people. Yeah, that stuff worked for me too. I saw some reviews that were like, you know, it's kind of fun when it's being silly,

but it doesn't really land when it gets serious and emotional. And I got to say, it kind of worked for me. I'm not say it was like the Last of Us level emotional complexity, but when it got a little more serious and these people finding each other, that worked for me. It felt like also, I guess it was over time in The Last of Us, but I liked how they were like, we've been in this world for a long time. Like I was a slave earlier getting my finger chopped off and twisted metal.

And I would love to have the love story that is episode three of The Last of Us. I would love it to gradually just be like, we have become this. But I am not going to find a man or woman that has their own house in a neighborhood and can literally shelter ourselves in it. I think I would have found the love that Quiet and John had where it's like, we're the last people on this place right now that have the exact same situation, like support system going on. And I like, that resonated in me.

I was like, oh, yeah, this is how I would be finding love. And only a mistake. And only mistakes. And I love it. Beggars can't be choosers. I guess there aren't that many people out there who aren't trying to kill you. I mean, even they were trying to kill each other at first. Exactly.

That would be me. I would love to find my Nick Offerman, but I wouldn't. And the zombie apocalypse, he would have been like, get out or I shoot you. And I've been like, you know what? I'm going to get out. I'm going to leave. This, I'm like, we're stuck together. Yes.

We're stuck together. Just a few final notes. So some of the makers of game adaptations that have heavily invested in these game adaptations are also investing in making games themselves, right? So Netflix and Amazon have, you know, game studios and also many game adaptations in the pipeline. So there's sort of a synergy there in theory. Also, Unreal Engine is used to make shows and movies now. I mean, the Mandalorian is a video game more or less. I mean, so many properties now are using video game technology to make video game adaptations or not even video game adaptations, just

non-video game related projects. So there's been kind of, of a blending and a crossover here. And also, I think one change is that the games industry is gigantic now compared to when people started making video game adaptation. So games industry revenue dwarfs movie industry revenue and is at least as big as TV industry revenue. So the balance of power among these mediums has shifted. You know, I mean, it can still be a big thing for Sony and Naughty Dogg if the last of us

gets watched by 30 or 40 million people on HBO, that's going to penetrate a market that you hadn't penetrated and it's going to prompt games to be bought. And obviously, we've seen Nintendo's earnings, how big the Mario movie is for them. But the gaming industry is behemist, too. And if anything, movies and TV shows now are desperate to have their characters cross over into Fortnite. It's like, it's working the other way now. So even though I think there's some part of me that's always going to be like, oh, this video game adaptation is good. Like, people accept that video games are art now. And I haven't been wasting my life devoting all these hours to video games.

It's like this inferiority complex that comes from just, you know, growing up when this was still not a niche occupation, but sort of a fringy outside the mainstream doesn't get the critical respect. And, you know, to some degree, that's still true today. But I think probably people who are just coming up now may not even have that. sense of needing to prove ourselves. Like, we need the video game adaptations to be good so that people who don't play video games will finally respect us.

Yes. Oh, God. I hope. Just keep making them. And we'll keep watching and we'll choose. We'll be the dissidents. Yeah. And look, some of them will be bad, you know?

Borderlands, for instance, which comes out next year, has been in development hell. And Craig Mason worked on that too, but he asked for his name to be removed from the credits, which doesn't seem like a great sign. And yeah, he's like, take my name off this thing. What? Yeah. And they've done reshoots. So who knows how that comes out, right? It's the blade of the video game universe. I mean, yeah, look, no one has a perfect record.

Some of these video game adaptations will be bad. But collectively, I feel like there's not a lot left to prove now. And when a bad video game adaptation comes out, I don't think it'll be like, here we go. You know, like the San Andreas meme, like, here we go again, right? Like, it'll just be, okay, well, that was bad. They make bad TV shows and movies all the time, but it doesn't mean anything. There's no curse, right?

So I hope that will be the case. And also, we've been singing the praises here of video game adaptations, but I really like a lot of shows and movies about games, about making games, about playing games, not adapted from games, but just the community surrounding games, you know, whether it's going back to the guild or things like, you know, wreck it Ralph or, or, you know, Reckit Ralph or Free Guy or Mythic Quest or players, you know, dead pixels. Like there are a lot of shows that are just about what it's like to be a game or what it's like to make games that also happen to be really good shows.

So I think that's kind of fertile territory too. All right. At the end here, which video game adaptation that is in the works are you most looking forward to? I think, give me one. I think we both know that it is five nights. at Freddy's. Oh, yeah.

It is my Barbie movie where, like, as soon as I knew Barbie was coming out, I went, okay, slow down. This is my world. Five Nights at Freddy's as a horror fiend, as that video game is so much fun, the video games. I love it. I'm so excited for it. I just want the best for it.

And I love the, I already like the casting that they did. I think grabbing those two, I call them my favorite white boys. And I can't remember their names right now. But grabbing them is fun. I'm so excited. Five Nights of Fridays. I think mine might be Horizon. I just, I really like the Horizon series.

You know, they have the misfortune or bad planning of always releasing their games immediately before some other gigantic blockbuster that overshadows it. But I really like that franchise. And I really like the world and the storytelling. So they're making an adaptation of that. And I am very curious to see it's going to be a Netflix series, I believe. But presumably live action. And I think there's a lot of narrating.

of ground there that could be explored. And I think there's some aspects of that story in that world that they could flesh out that maybe you just get a glimpse of an audio log in the game. We can build that up and see what it looks like. And maybe it can complement the game, not tell the same story, but just be part of the lore that you discover as you hunt down the robot dinosaurs, right? And then is there a not yet announced adaptation that you would want to be made? That you're like, why are they not on this yet?

If I were trying to license some video game IP here, this is what I would go for. I think they're actually planning on doing something for dead by daylight. And so that's why I'm going to, because I think just that horror as a horror movie, that's very fun. I think that's a great idea. Trying to think of one that's not horror. What's yours? I think I'd go with Hades, which I. Oh, my God.

Yes, please. Yeah, I can't believe there isn't one. It's hard for me to believe. Maybe it's in the works. Maybe it's just still underwax. or maybe I don't know why they wouldn't make that any shit. That's why. They're too scared.

They're too scared. That lore is so fun. They'd be like, then's going to blow off the shelves. We can't do this. We can't do this yet. Great characters, like super horny. Everyone would be horny for everyone.

Good to go. The game is like, you know, it's not like full motion video or cutscenes. It's like, you know, it's like art and text, right? So it would be sufficiently different. That just feels like, I mean, I don't know if it's like a super, Giant Games is reluctant to let someone else handle that or what. I mean, they are making a sequel to Hades, which they've resisted making sequels to their games before.

All their games are great. I'm sure someone wrote it and they're pitching it around. I think it's honestly, it's kind of intimidating. Because it's so popular. Hades is such a big deal. I would be afraid of like Hades like I would be afraid of Persona 5. I'd be like, oh, I don't know how I'm going to feel about a movie of this. Like written by, I don't know.

You have to work closely with the creators. is so good. That's a good pick. I would. Yeah, I think we all would sign up for that day one. All right. Well, I think we've cracked the case here. We've solved it. We know why there was a curse and why there's no longer a curse. I've been covering this for years, like since before Castlevania and just to see it happen, it felt inevitable, but it also felt like it might never happen. And now that it has happened in a big way, it's like, all right, the potential was always here. didn't have to take this long, but they have finally gotten the hang of it. And now you can actually look forward to a video game adaptation and not just feel pure dread when one is announced. So we will continue to cover this on Button Nash. And here's what we're doing next time.

We will tease our topic. We're doing a game swap. And we will let everyone know now so that they can play along if they want to, though they don't have to. But we are each going to play a game that we would never play. but you have recommended slash forced me to play Outlast, which is a 10-year-old horror game, survival horror. One of the scariest games I'm just diving into the deep end here,

and I'm playing Outlast. And I am recommending, encouraging, forcing you to play Braid, the 15-year-old Jonathan Blow indie classic puzzle game because I'm terrified of terrifying games, and you are daunted by tough puzzle games, right? And so we're confronting our fears. This is like exposure therapy. We're just going to immerse ourselves and see if we survive.

Your fears are actual fear, and mine is just being stupid. Mine is my fear of looking like an idiot. Yeah, mine is a rational fear of not going into a psychiatric hospital where a bunch of mutated people are trying to kill them. Understandable. That's just self-preservation. But I'm going to overcome all of my evolutionary instincts and play Outlasts. These games are available on basically every platformer system,

and they're like five hours average playtime, which I know not because they tell me, but because how long to beat told me that. So you could check them out before our next episode in a couple of weeks, and I think that will be fun. So in the meantime, stay tuned, of course, for an MCU update from The Midnight Boys and me and Joanna talking about Star Trek Strange New Worlds later this week. You can contact us via email at ringerverse gaming at gmail.com.

Please write us. We love getting your emails. Tell us how Baldur's Gate is going for you. Give us your thoughts on early access. Tell us how you want us to cover new games and tell us which video game adaptations you love or are looking forward to. Thank you to Devin Ronaldo for producing today. Thank you to Arjuna Ramqbal for giving us the green light to do this pod. And Jess, I hope that all your dice rolls go the way you want.

I hope you roll lots of 20s between now and the next time we talk. My first role when I was playing was a D20. And it was very great, but I didn't really need it. But it's fun. Perfect.