Triple Click - A Guide To Summer Games Fest 2024

Episode Date: June 6, 2024

It's time for not-E3 — aka Summer Games Fest — where the video game industry will once again convene on Los Angeles for a week full of game demos, trailers, and exciting reveals. Well... sort of. This week, the Triple Click gang talks about their hopes, expectations, and predictions for the weekend ahead. Plus: don't miss Triple Click live in Los Angeles!One More Thing:Kirk: Crow CountryMaddy: My inflatable kayakJason: The Ministry of Time by Kaliane BradleyLINKS:Oli Welsh on the death of console exclusives: https://www.polygon.com/24166647/aaa-exclusive-games-are-dead-playstation-xbox-multiplatformTriple Click LIVE in LA! Saturday, June 8, 6:30PM at the Teragram Ballroom: https://teragramballroom.com/tm-event/triple-click-podcast/Preorder Jason’s Book! https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/jason-schreier/play-nice/9781538725429/Support Triple Click: http://maximumfun.org/joinBuy Triple Click Merch: https://maxfunstore.com/search?q=triple+click&options%5Bprefix%5D=lastJoin the Triple Click Discord: http://discord.gg/tripleclickpodTriple Click Ethics Policy: https://maximumfun.org/triple-click-ethics-policy/ Happy MaxFunDrive! Right now is the best time to start a membership to support your favorite shows. Learn more and join at https://maximumfun.org/jointripleclick 🚀  SUPPORT TRIPLE CLICK:Join Maximum Fun | Buy TC Merch💬 JOIN THE TRIPLE CLICK DISCORD🎮 Triple Click Ethics Policy📱 SOCIALS | @tripleclickpodInstagram | YouTube | TikTok | Twitch

Once upon a time, there was a convention called E3, and we all loved E3, but then it died and now it's dead. Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you. Today we are talking about Summer Games Fest, which is not quite E3, but for now, I guess it'll do the trick. I'm Jason Shrier. I'm Kirk Hamilton. And I'm Maddie Myers. Hello. Hello.

Hello. Hello. Hello. As you are listening to this, we are all on our way, or shortly will be on our way to Southern California for Summer Games Fest. We're physical and summer game fest. Yeah, we won't do it. And the three of us are going to convene. We're going to hang out.

And we're doing a live show. That's wild. That's so much fun. I'm so looking forward to that. It's going to be great. So, hey, if you will be in Los Angeles this weekend, and you have not yet. bought tickets. What the heck are you waiting for? We're going to be at the Terragram Ballroom in downtown LA on Saturday night, June 8th at 6.30 p.m. You can get

tickets in the show notes, so go check it out. And hey, if you like us and going to our live shows and other assorted triple click related tasks, you should become a member of maximum fun. Yes, tasks, triple click tasks. Check them off the list, I always say. Yeah, triple, triple click side quests. Triple, triple click side quests. We are, of course, a member-funded podcast. We are funded entirely by listeners like you, so you should become a member and help us make this show possible. And not only do you get to make this show possible, you also get extra content from us,

extra monthly bonus episodes that we put out, including the one we just did, which was, of course, triple cook, a cooking extravagance that we cracked into. to our kitchens and just showed everybody what was inside and we're planning I guess I can say an extra special episode this coming month about the double fine

documentary, the documentary about the making of Psychonauts 2. It came out last year but we have all now almost Mani you've almost finished it so we will be talking about it going in depth on that game and really game development more broadly

because that that series is so good and so revealing and so interesting to talk about. We've recommended it a ton, but people should really watch it. Whether they're members or not, you should check it out. That's just on YouTube. You can just go watch it. It is free. It is free. It is free.

It is free. It is pretty cool. There aren't even ads. It's just like you go watch it and it's just there. Cool. So yeah, go to maximum fun.org. So, join, become a member today. So this week we are talking about the event formerly known as E3.

And things used to be simple in the gaming industry in early June. It used to be that you could just be like, hey, it's E3. Let's watch E3. Nowadays, you have to be like, oh, my God, what is going on? What are these? Dozen events. Yeah, when are they? And also, when I tell people now that I'm like going out to L.A. for a conference,

they're always like, oh, what conference in it used to be? I could be like, I'm going for E3. and most people have probably heard that name before, whereas now I have to be like, oh, well, it's called summer games fest. It's actually called Summer Game Fest, but I call it Summer Games Fest, and it used to be called E3 and blah, blah, blah, you have to give a whole preamble, which is a little annoying. What's the deal with it? Let's talk about it. Let's talk about how much we miss E3 and what to expect from this weekend's slash months summer games fest. I do.

I miss E3. I mean, one of the things, one of the things that E3 had going for it was that it was all just like a single location. It was all, there were a lot of people who just came. You would often just run into like industry people or you could get like, you could catch up with people you hadn't seen in years or meet new people. And this is a lot more limited. It does, it does have a few advantages that we can get into as we talk through it. But before we get into the kind of the nitty gritty, the specifics of summer games, Games Fest. I'm curious, we talked about E3 a few times on the show before. Do you two feel like

you miss it still? Have your thoughts changed as we've now gone like four years without E3, five years without E3? I mean, I don't know that Kirk misses it, but I kind of do, and I've realized I do in how excited I am to go to Summer Game Fest this weekend. Like, it really does feel like it felt many years ago when Jason and I went to E3 together for Kataku. I don't know if I'm going to feel that way afterward. We'll have to check back in and see, see how we feel about the event because this is my first time going to this. And I am going to be directly comparing it to the very last E3 that Jason and I went to and recorded some Swiss screen episodes at back in the day. And I'm remembering like, oh, there's so many fun things about it. Like you get to talk in person

with developers and get interviews and try to transcribe your interviews really, really quickly in your hotel room and like file stories and time for embargoes. And like I as an editor, I don't really have that many opportunities anymore, like getting back into my reporter mode. So that's going to be kind of fun for me. This is not really something Jason can relate to. He's in reporter mode 24-7. But for me, this is kind of like returning to something really fun that I don't often

get to do. And part of why I'm doing it is because we decided to do a triple-click live show. So in the end, I was like, well, I may as well just cover this event for Polygon, and so now I'm just doing the whole kitten caboodle. So I'm actually, I'm really excited for it, and I'm just kind of telling myself it's going to be as fun and as exciting and interesting as E3 was for me. But I guess that means my expectations are kind of high. But Kirk, how are you feeling about it? I'm looking forward to this quite a bit. I mean, I'm looking forward to going to L.A. to seeing some people I haven't seen it in a long time. I'm really excited for our live show.

It'll be fun just to see the two of you in person. and get to hang out. So all of that is great. And that was always what I liked about any video game event when I was still working in games media. You know, yeah, I never really, like, loved E3. So I think every time you've asked me that question, Jason, I've said, eh, I don't really miss E3. But then there are certainly things that I miss about it.

And I miss, I do miss how it was this giant confluence of announcements and information. Even before I was writing about games for my job, I just really liked that there would be this week. I mean, I still remember this before I even really knew what E3 was, just the feeling of, oh, right, it's that week where everything happens. And I didn't even know what that meant. I just knew that every, I would go to like GameSpot and IGN basically only. Yeah.

And just look at those sites. And there would just be like tons and tons of trailers and announcements. And it was just kind of cool to sift through it. And there was something for everyone. And I could always find something to that was interesting or exciting. So I liked that. I liked the feeling of everything happening at once just because that's exciting,

the feeling of like sifting through informational rubble and finding exciting bits of treasure. That's pretty cool. And I don't know whether this SGF will be like that, or I guess I haven't really had that experience from Summer Game Fest. But then again, I don't really experience game announcements that way anymore to begin with.

I just feel like nowadays just games, they keep showing up, and they're all really good, and I wasn't aware of any of them. My experience this year has just been like smallish game after smallish game, all of which are really, really fun and none of which I was aware of until I like heard Russ talk about them on the besties, or one of the two of you told me about them, and then suddenly I'm like, oh, well, this is one of the best games I've played.

So I don't know my whole relationship with game announcements has just kind of changed. Yeah, so let's kind of break this down a little bit. So E3 traditionally had two main components. component one was the press conference portion that was usually in the beginning of the week. Like it would start Saturday or Sunday and go through Tuesday and it would be all the heavy hitters, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, EA and Ubisoft would have them. Square Inix had them once in a while. And they would all do their big game announcements.

And then the second component was the in-person component. And that's something where like maybe your average listener might not have had the chance to like get as much out of. But for reporters, it was a huge opportunity because not only could you go and see some of those big games and talk to the people behind them, you could also go and find kind of little corners of the convention center where maybe there were some smaller gems to discover. At E3 2019, well, really at every E3, I've always found like one or two little games that were then on my radar and had I been before.

E3 2019, I found a game that was definitely on my radar called Hollow Night Silk Song and played a bunch of it, like on a demo, like in the Nintendo section, which is cool. And so now with Summer Games Fest, the second component of that, the part where we play hands-on games actually does still exist. And I'll get to that in a second. The first component has just become a total mess of like, it's just a disaster. So like, for example, PlayStation had a showcase last week, but it was like compared to an E3 showcase, it was nothing.

It was all just like the small, like most insignificant announcements you could possibly imagine, other than like a new Astrobot game, which I'm sure people are very excited for. And I'm pretty excited for. I mean, I'll play that for sure. 3D platformer, hell yeah. I look forward to playing two or three hours of that and not finishing it, but thinking that it was great. I'm sure, yes. But typically a Sony show at E3 would be a lot bigger.

The stakes would be a lot higher. It might have an addition to like the big new horizon and God of War or whatever else. It would also have a bunch of third party announcements. there was a big showcase from Destiny. There was a big, the Final Fantasy 7 remake was announced at one of those. Final Fantasy 15 was announced at one of those. That sort of stuff would happen at a Sony showcase. That is no more.

Like, that did not happen. Nintendo, who knows? They said they're doing something in June. We have no idea when. As of right now, they haven't announced shit, so we have no clue. And we know that it won't have the Switch 2 at it because they went ahead and told us. We do know that. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

But point being that suddenly things are a lot. more scatter shot. What we do know is that I'm going to, I want to kind of walk through exactly what we're going to see over the coming days. We do know that there's, there's a ton of, I'm going to kind of go through the major stuff because there's a ton of like smaller showcases and video streams that people have put together, which, I mean, props to them, but like, you can safely wait until you see a roundup or see like trailers pop up on, on gaming sites to see what's cool from those. You don't need to be tuning into every little indie developer stream that is happening this weekend. But the big ones start with the Jeff Keely event, which is Friday at 2 p.m.

Pacific. This is like his big keynote full of his trailer, announcement, world premiere, whatever, basically the same as the Game Awards except without awards. This is from what I remember last year, it was very underwhelming and loud and full of violence. It was very great. It was very great. It was like, I had a lot of, I remember vividly. There were a lot of horror games too, as I heard of. Well, I remember the Mortal Kombat stuff just being really, really hard to, hard to get through. Yeah, yeah. And then Xbox is still doing their thing.

Xbox is the one company that has been consistent. They're still doing their thing on the same day. They've always done it Sunday of this, like, first Sunday in June or second Sunday in June or whatever. That's true. Xbox always was Sunday morning. And they're doing the same thing. And they're probably going to have a bunch of big stuff. We can talk about what we expect and want to see from them in a second.

And then Yuvosov will be on Monday. They typically did Monday in the past as well, so they're still going to have their thing. And then there's a bunch of stuff sprinkled around in there. And then Nintendo, who knows? Question mark. EA, maybe we'll show some of their stuff throughout these events. But, like, really, the kind of the, it's a lot more darts kind of scattered around as far as, like, what's going to go, where, what you're going to see, when. But then the kind of the good part for press is that the other component of summer game says is what's called SGF play days.

Summer game says play days, which is tucked away in downtown L.A. There's this area that is like a campus where press can go in and kind of see in a low-key setting a lot of these games. And there will be a lot of the games that we're expected to see and hands-on time with a ton of indie games. And unlike E3, there won't be a ton of lines or massive crowds. crowds, at least based on last year, because it's very much intended for press only. So the downside of that is you won't get to like see funny things and like run into fans or like see Hideo Koshima roaming around or Shigar Miyamoto like playing Astrobot or whatever. But the upside for us, for the three of us, and we'll all get to experience this.

And we can talk about this at the live show once we have is that we actually get to sit and play some games. So that'll be that'll be a nice experience, I think. and might make up for some of the downsides of E3 that we've had in the past. Yeah, I'm really excited about that, even though I know that some of the games that we play, we won't be allowed to talk about on the live show, so people will have to wait a week, I guess,

for us to be allowed to talk about some of them, but we'll talk about what we can that Saturday night, and that'll be fun. We'll see. So when I look at this lineup of press conferences and potential announcements, I'm struck by how different it feels from how E3 used to feel and how a lot of that difference I think is tied to just ways that the video game industry has changed. And specifically the way that the console universe has changed

and the sort of decline of console exclusivity. There used to be these kind of pillars that held up E3, the Sony night, the Xbox night, Nintendo morning. There was always that later morning where all the Nintendo stuff happened. And then filling in the cracks, there were the third party. publishers, EA and Ubisoft, sort of chief among them, but like Konami, I think, would have a weird press conference sometimes, or you'd hear from Capcom. Yeah, sometimes Capcom.

So you'd see these third-party announcements. But there was like this sense that there were these big hardware manufacturers who were releasing these exciting games and kind of battling with one another. And while the console wars were always pretty exhausting and never something I think any of the three of us cared about, that sense of competition between these. big names did land a kind of an excitement to the proceedings and also led to like the announcement of these big games that were kind of pitted against each other. And without that now, like you really like the Sony event had very little in terms of exclusivity and Sony is kind of the one console

maker that's still pursuing that. Xbox it's becoming increasingly hazy, what kind of exclusivity they're even interested in and whether they're just going to become a multi-platform company. I mean, Sony even looks like they're going that way. So, you know, basically looking at all these games, there's just the sense that, okay, these are a bunch of games that might come out, but it's lacking that underlying structure. I'm honestly not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing, because like I said, like I've never found the console wars interesting or fun. And I actually think it'd be really cool if every game certainly came out on PC. But if every game came out on every system and everyone could just play everything as easily as possible, that seems like a great outcome. But it really changes the energy of an event like this.

And I'm curious what the two of you think of that. Yeah, it's especially noteworthy that the one console titan that is doing like an SGF weekend event is Xbox. And Xbox, the rumor is that Xbox plans to announce a bunch of stuff that is then going to be revealed to be coming to PlayStation on day one, such as a new Doom game, a new Gears of War game, etc. So that is a total paradigm shift. And, yeah, speaks to your point and speaks to the evolving nature of the industry. and Nintendo is that that's the real lack. That's the real, there's a big void here left by Nintendo not being there because Nintendo was always the one where like you knew you were going to see some sort of delightful

surprise. And unlike the other console makers, when Nintendo revealed something, chances were pretty high, not always, but chances were pretty high that not only would you play it in the next year, but it would live up to the kind of the expectations that people had. It was rare for Nintendo to miss with one of its big, big franchises and big reveals. Yeah. Just to circle back to what you said about Xbox for a second, I think it's pretty telling that Call of Duty is the game that they chose for the second half of their showcase

because that is a notably multi-platform release. And it just is an echo of what Kirk was talking about just now, which is that a lot of these major games are multi-platform now. And some of that is because in order to pay for a AAA game or justify the cost of a AAA game, you do in fact have to be on multiple platforms. I know Jason and I talked about this a little bit in the episode where you weren't here, Kirk, where we were talking about Hell Divers 2 and like Sony seemingly being weirdly protective of it and like kind of not duking it out with the PC part of it,

but like there is some weird tension there. And I've been thinking about that a lot since then, especially in light of just how Xbox is handling its own position in whatever is left of the console war now, which is, is Xbox still a hardware manufacturer, or are they just really leaning on software as their brand? And also is that software just as equally on PlayStation? And if that's the case, then what does the word Xbox even mean? It's interesting. I don't think we'll have an answer to this. Yeah, I know. I know. It's interesting. Yeah, it seems like on Sunday, I think they're going to, they're going to come out. They're going to have some

sort of weird shit. And then afterwards, Phil Spencer is actually, he's appearing on IGN Live, which I haven't even talked about. That's like a whole other competing event that we really have no idea what to make of that's happening at the same time as Summer Games Fest. But anyway, Phil Spencer's appearing on IGN Live on Sunday shortly after a few hours after the Xbox showcase. And presumably he's going to make some news there by talking about like the future of Xbox, the Xbox strategy, multi-platform. It would be pretty funny if you just came out and said, you know, I'm stepping down. But I don't expect that to happen. Probably not.

Yeah, let's break it down a little bit and talk a little bit about what we hope to see, what we expect to see. Because, yeah, personally, I mean, I have a whole list full of appointments and the stuff I'm most excited for might be like the small indie stuff because that's just what's been so impressive to me this year is like games that come out of nowhere. Like, I have an appointment to see this game called Arranger that's like an RPG type like grid-based puzzle thing. Yeah, I know about that too. Yeah, you've seen it. I'm excited to see that more than like latest AAA, whatever. But anyway, let's break it down. So let's start with the Keeley keynote, the Keeley note.

Let's, I think that he's come out and done a whole list of like what's not going to be there. He tried to like tamper people's expectations a little bit. But I do expect there to be some cool stuff at that show. In fact, I expected to be a little bit better than last year's just based on the buzz and what we've kind of seen floating around. Some stuff we know will be there include, like, metaphor re-Fantazio, which is the new persona fantasy game. That's going to be pretty cool.

I think that they've said that Monster Under Wilds is going to be there. There's been word 2K, I believe, said they're planning on revealing. I think they said the next. game in a beloved franchise. I think they said, I don't remember if they said it'll be out this show or just what's that been to be? In general. Yeah, I mean,

Bioshock. Yeah, Bioshock is what I was thinking. It is not Bioshock. Is it not Bioshock? It could be Mafia. I mean... What are other 2K series? Yeah, what are other beloved 2K series? Yeah, mafia is an option.

Borderlands is an option. I'm keeping an eye on XCOM. We haven't seen a new X-Com game in a while. And Fraxus has been quiet for a couple years now. But yeah, I mean,

lots of potential options there. I think, yeah, I don't know what else he said. He said that like Silk Song is not going to be there. I know. I was going to bring that up. I mean, it is funny that he just came right out and said that. I kind of respect Jeff for just being like, listen, I've got

to set expectations right now. I have not heard from Team Cherry. No one has heard from them. We do not know what is going on. We're all getting a little worried. Yeah, I mean, I would not be surprised if we saw Silk Song at Xbox this Sunday. I would not be super shocked.

You never know? I think people would freak out. Yeah, that's a good point. Like, just because something isn't a Jeff's kickoff, yeah, doesn't mean it's not going to be at the other event. Silk Song, yeah, well, exactly. And actually, I was surprised that Jeff spoke so strongly about that given

maybe he doesn't know exactly he might not know yeah so silk song was the last time we saw it I believe was that Xbox's show last June and before that show Xbox was like every game we show will be out in the next 12 months clearly that was not the case of Silksong and in fact Silk Song they did a statement about it yeah they put out a statement they said actually we're not going to make it in that

time frame we had to delay it a little bit but I think that I think There's a good shot. If I were a betting man, which I am, I would bet on Silk Song appearing Sunday with a release date for, like, later in the year. That would be my bet. Wow, I love the optimism. I am not going to bet on that. I just, I just read Chef's statement. I was like, I'm just not going to see it. I'm just going to assume it's not happening. I don't know. See, I already bet that Silk Song would come out in May, and we are recording this on. That's right. We have an actual bet. My computer says it's June 4th, so I'm not going to bet on Silk Song. Interesting. Interesting.

The other big thing that we know we're going to see this weekend is Dragon Age 4. So EA has said that they will be showing Dragon Age over the summer. I expect it'll be one of those things where it's like we're doing a full blowout. We're going to talk about this game. And then we're going to release it really soon. Like I expect Dragon Age 4 to be out like this fall, probably in the earlier end of the fall would be my kind of educated speculation there. So that'll be cool. That'll be really cool to see.

I know all three of us are excited about that. We are. I mean, that was something that I also became so negative about that I made a triple-click predictions bet that it would be canceled. Right. We haven't seen it in so long. But now I have already, prior to this show even happening, I've been proven wrong. Apparently the game does exist.

But I had lost hope. They've been taking appointments, but for your appointment, you're just going to walk into an empty room with just like a middle finger drawn on the wall. And they'll be like, the good news is you won your predictions bet, Maddie. This game is a lie. It never existed. Yeah. No, it actually does seem like it exists, but it does. I am still really curious what it is going to be.

I think every Dragon Age fan is. And every kind of general BioWare fan is given just the state of that studio in the year since the last one. Specifically, the fact that they've lost so many of the writers, including David Gator, who wrote and made the Dragon Age game so great. And it really is an open question, whether. they're going to be able to make that magic happen again with new people. I hope that they will because I do like those earlier games, but I guess we'll see. Yeah, it's always interesting when a franchise lasts this long, which it's now, what, 15 years old at this point? Because the people who are working on the 2009, so 15 years.

People are working on the newest one are fans of the older ones inevitably. Like maybe they grew up, maybe they're younger, they grew up playing the older one. I saw a meme on Reddit last year when Balders Gate 3 came out. That was like the Ratatooie, the critic of Ratatooie, like eating Baldur's Gate 3. And then he has the flashback and it's like, Dragon Age Origins. And I was like, man, I have never felt so old as I did well seeing that meme. Something else we're going to see, by the way. I don't know if you guys know this, but we're going to see the next Batman Arkham game at SGF this.

Oh, that's cool. This Friday. Yeah. Who's developing that? Batman Arkham VR. How dare you, Jason? How dare you do this? So this is another Arkham VR after the first one, made by Rocksteady?

By Camouflage is making an Arkhammed. Camouflage. Oh, the one with a, that ends with a J? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Camouflage made that one VR game. What's it called? Iron Man. It was pretty good.

Iron Man. They made something before that. I'm going to look it up. They made, it was an original, an original. It was fun watching. Maddie's eyes light up. Repub Batman. I was like, but all those

Rocksteady developers left and they made their own studio. What could Jason be talking about? Oh, he's just messing with me. So Rock City did make a Batman VR game that was pretty good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The game that I'm talking about, the camouflage made was called Repub League, which is a pretty cool it was, I think originally an iPad game

and then I believe there's also a VR version of it. But it was a neat, like, fixed camera point stealth game that was pretty clever. So actually you joke and, you know, and I get it like a new Arkham game that's like an actual third-person game would be cool. But Batman Arkham VR was a pretty cool little VR game, the one that was made by Rocksteady. It was very weird how much talent was brought to bear on that game, given that it was like a PSVR game that I don't know how many people played.

And camouflage has some very talented developers. So that's actually cool. I didn't know that they were working on that. A couple more things. So what I'm really excited about, like I said before, is just the indie games that come out of nowhere. And actually, Keeley has already confirmed that a couple of indie games will be there. including the next game from Cappy, the makers of swords and sorcery

and a lot of other cool games below. Yes, which I think was kind of underwhelming compared to all the hype, but still some people like that game. It was an interesting game for sure. It'll be really cool to see what they have coming next. And yeah, there's also, I think we're going to see some stuff from Derek Yu's

studio Mossmouth. I don't remember if that's, that might be the day of the devs indie presentation that is after the Keeley thing. But yeah, but I expect that like there will be at least one game that we all see this weekend that we're just like super jazzed about that we just had no idea that was coming and that's always the stuff that's that's most exciting yeah that's so

fun and then xbox thing on sunday that i think i think they they're going to have some cool stuff um or at least stuff that people are excited about um i think some of the big heavy hitters will include avowed the new RPG from obsidian that's coming out later this year we haven't seen in a little bit we haven't seen it in a little bit they announced that it was coming out this year unless it slips, which I mean, it's a game industry. Remind me, avowed is the somewhat skyrim-looking first-person spellcasting RPG fantasy game? Yeah, exactly. It's their first person. It's set in the same universe as Pillars of Eternity. That's right. That's their Skyrim. Yeah, it looks cool. I mean, I know that game has been through

some development troubles. They switch directors, but I'm pretty jazz to see it. I mean, a Pissidia makes good games. Jason, did you play Pillars of Eternity 2? You did, right? I did. I didn't finish it. It's like a pirate game, right? Is that game good? It looks awesome. I don't remember where I saw it. I saw someone talking about it and was like, this kind of looks amazing. It's really interesting. I think that they added this kind of turn-based combat mode post-release that I think made the game much better. But yeah, I mean, it was under, it was like, it was sales-wise, it disappointed compared to the first game. And it definitely had some issues. I don't know.

I never finished it. So I guess I wasn't that grip by it, the first one I finished. By the way, I was thinking about what I said earlier with Faraxis. I hadn't realized they announced a new civilization, like on Twitter. So what if it's that? What if it's just them revealing Civilization 7? So another possibility. Civilization's cool.

Yeah. I was thinking about like what would the new TK franchise be civilization actually seems more likely than XCOM to me. So maybe maybe that's a good guess. I just don't think I, Bioschuk is not going to happen. No, it was the first thing that came to mind. Yeah, it's not, not going to happen. Borderlands 4, it seems a little too soon for and Mafia 4.

That's the other possibility. I would say if I were a betting man, which I am, I would bet. Jason's placing so many vets on STF. Yeah, man. If only my bookie would take these best. I know. Yeah, it's either Mafia 4 or Civ 7, I think, would be a good guess there. Xbox also has Indiana Jones coming later this year.

That's their other big kind of fall slash winter game. And that game looked rad from what we saw of it last time, right? I was super jazz. No release date yet, though. So I figure they'll maybe actually tell us one of those. That's the main thing. Yeah, probably both. I'm guessing like a vowed like November and Indiana Jones,

December or something like that. Yeah, I mean, this is the fun thing about June. I get to find out what all the games are I'm playing in the second half of the year. Like, I just literally would like to know the release dates, please, so that I could organize the rest of my year.

They just don't tell us until June. It would be helpful to know. Yeah, it's really annoying. I'm like planning out a book tour for October and I'm like, I wish I knew when the big games are coming out so I could like act accordingly. It is a little annoying.

Like, know which ones will run on Steam Deck and you can take them with you and you're traveling. Is this year a little bit, is it more pronounced this year, that feeling that there is just a huge black box in the second half of the year? Or is it always this way in June? It's always this way. I always have that same feeling, though, every year where I'm like, is it just this year

where I don't know anything that's happening? And then the June press conferences unfolded. I'm like, right, it's just like this. Our entire lives are defined by December announcements and June announcements. I don't know why. but they are. I guess the difference this year is that the sort of February to May period was unusually fallow. And so as a result, there is no tiers of the kingdom or some of the massive thing.

There was really just FF7 rebirth, which as much as we loved it wasn't really quite on the same level as those. That's right. And then there were like Pal World and Hell Divers 2, which kind of like came out of nowhere and were like weird examples. It was more flukes than like massive hiss. And so as a result, it just feels like it's been a long time without. the kinds of big games that typically come out in the fall and that will still come out this fall. So maybe that's kind of coloring my idea. I think that's a big part of it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, yeah, Xbox, the rumors also suggest there will be a new Doom game, a New Gears of War game, maybe a Gears compilation. It might be one of those kind of rapid fire announcements showcases. I don't know if people are still feeling, like, really pissed about Xbox, like, abruptly shutting down Arcane Austin and Tango. I guess we'll see what reactions are like. That'll be a subtext for sure, right?

I think so. People feel pretty betrayed and upset with, I mean, I'm assuming people still feel that way. It was only a couple weeks ago. And I assume they're going to have probably a couple Blizzard announcements to sprinkle in. And maybe other people have forgotten about how many people they let go in Blizzard, but I haven't. I'm still thinking about it. So even that part of it is going to be kind of weird and interesting to watch to just be like, oh, right, you own all these.

now and there are fewer people at almost all of them. Great. Diablo 4 expansion will get a release date for sure that I'll be this fall. The fact that they are facing this backlash from all the harm that they caused and laying all these people off and the fact that they're facing backlash from the Xbox Army over the fact that they're releasing more and more games and other consoles. Like if they announce Indiana Jones and they're like, yeah, and it's also coming to PS5. I mean, that, again, I think that would be great. They should probably do that.

But there are a lot of people, more people, like, fans of theirs that will be upset about that, I think. Or we'll just be like, why are you running your business this way? Like, it doesn't make sense to do that. But I think it's truly because console exclusives don't make financial sense if you're going to spend that much freaking money on a video game. I mean, I think that's a huge part of it. Yeah, it seems that way. I liked, I liked Ollie Walsh's article. Yeah, this is clearly informing my take is a polygat.com article.

Well, and you have to just imagine someone. at Sony looking at helldivers making like $70 billion or whatever because they released it on PC as well and being like, okay, wait a minute. Yeah, was that maybe good? What's the benefit of having a console exclusive? Yeah, I mean, keeping in mind, guys, like Xbox hasn't been exclusive to Xbox in years. Like they've been releasing all their games on PC for five, six years now. So, I mean, which is the main reason that the Xbox sales are so low is because there's no

reason to get an Xbox if you have a PC. So like that, they're ready pretty much. much multi-platform. I mean, PlayStation, I think the reason people are so emotional about that is because all these Xbox fans who used to have the Scorpios and their Twitter handles, these things are so emotionally invested in taking down PlayStation. And to them, it's a big betrayal, but it's not like Xbox has been exclusive for a long time. That's why we're in the situation. Right. And you can see PlayStation is kind of maybe one step behind Xbox, but both companies are moving along the same trajectory toward eventually just being like, well, screw it. We need to

recoup our budgets. Let's just release our games everywhere that we can. 100%. It's kind of, it's an antiquated notion, this idea of console exclusivity, and we'll see how long Nintendo even sticks with it. I guess theirs is the only model that has worked because they're so big and they make so many good games that they can get away with it, I suppose. You know, Ali also pointed out, his theory was just that a lot of Nintendo games are a lot cheaper to make, which I hadn't really thought of it, but thought about, but makes sense. That Nintendo doesn't release a lot of like the types of AAA experiences, like a Spider-Man two or a god of war, like a game that requires

that many people to make it aside from Zelda. Most of the games are kind of smaller teams and are a little bit less expensive, which I thought it totally makes sense to me, at least, as a theory. Yeah, which they can get away with because even their smaller games are selling like a million plus

units. And also, because they're only releasing stuff on their own store, they don't have to take, they don't have to give away a 30% cut to platform holders. So, which has traditionally been the reason that Sony and Xbox are so into exclusives is not having to pay that 30% cut. But anyway, this is a whole another conversation.

And maybe we'll see them address it in some way. What I think it'll be hilarious is if they have to like mention PlayStation in their conference or maybe they just mentioned it in a press release later. I don't know. It'd be weird. I mean, either way. That's largely how PlayStation handled it in their own version of it. Like they did an announcement that Marvel rivals, which has only been in beta on PC so far as

coming to PlayStation. And the whole trailer was like PlayStation, PlayStation, PlayStation. and like I was writing up that news and I was like the rumor said that it was coming to PlayStation and Xbox but this trailer is obviously focusing on PlayStation I'm watching a PlayStation event and I had to like Google it after the fact as I was writing up the news to find out that it was also going to be on Xbox Series X

and like write my post to be like it's a full console release Sony is just going to only highlight the PlayStation 5 in this trailer and I would expect Xbox to do something similar which is like that's kind of the OldsGar console wars thing I hate that. Small friend, also it's on the other console. Please don't pay attention to this. So the last, like, big press conference by a big publisher this weekend is going to be Ubisoft on Monday. We know, because they've said, they're going to talk about the new Assassin's Creed, which I'm very stoked about.

Star Wars Outlaws is another one. So those are some of the other big fall games, Assassin's Creed in November. Star Wars in August, actually, so summer game. And Ubisoft also always shows like some smaller stuff and they always have like a big one more thing at the end that's been their style for many years now. So chances are they'll they'll tease at something like Division 3 or some other big big Uvassoft games with lots of towers to come out in the future. So that'll be exciting. What I'm very curious about is Assessence Creed Red or Shadows now it's called. I can't wait to see that in action.

and I'm also very curious to see how the Assassin's Creed Infinity platform plays into that. That is, of course, their live service platform. Yeah, I'm curious if they're going to trot that back out again and be like, we still care about Assassin's Creed Infinity. I feel like we haven't heard those words in a bit. And a lot of games that have had Infinite or Infinity in the title have not necessarily ended up being the live service dreams come true. Yeah, so just to explain this. So Assassin's Street Infinity is their hub.

It's essentially going to be like their version of the animus or whatever. So that's where you're going to access shadows. And then also the next game after that, which is codename hex. And so you're going to be able to play within that stuff. You're also going to have like the Desmond stuff, whatever, animus, modern day stuff in there. And microtransactions. It's going to be like a service game, essentially. And the question is what that's going to look like, how angry it's going to make people, how intrusive it's going to be, how predatory it's going to be.

Those are some big questions. I don't know if they'll address it this weekend, but Assassin's Creed Infinity has not gone away. It is an integral part of these games, and, like, Ubisoft sees it as their future, their version of GTA online or whatever. The way you're describing it, it sounds kind of fortnighty, and I don't necessarily mean that as a bad thing,

but I mean the way that when you load up Fortnite, you can pick all of these different game modes, and it looks like the front page of Netflix, and you're, like, looking at all these different squares where you're like, do I want to play Lego Fortnite? Do I want to play the, like, rock band version of Harmonics? This is their version of that. It's like that, but instead you're like clicking on different

Assassin's Creed stuff, which is a way to do it. That's what's missing for me is like, what do you actually do here? Like in Fortnite, you play Fortnite to begin with. There is a game where if Infinity is not actually its own game, you know, then what is it? But I guess we'll find out if they actually show what it is. It's just one of those animus computers that you're just navigating

with like an old Windows UI. You're just clicking on file folders and then you like food up the game. great plan of so many Assassin's Creed games is that they build these capsules around the game where you're walking around in a game dev studio in Montreal, you know, like an Assassin's Creed 4. Right, right. Why not have it be that? That works. Maybe it will be that. And then the question is what they're going to do to monetize this thing, because that's ultimately their big. Yeah. And Fortnite is a good comparison for that because they've done a really good job at that. I just don't know if Ubisoft is. I think just going to nail it. The idea, imagining monetization is impossible for me without understanding what you're actually doing. It is. It's very hard before the horse. You can monetize Fortnite because I understand what Fortnite is as a game

and why someone would want to buy skins for it. But I don't know what this is. So I don't know. But this is like, are we going to have like Etsio doing like cool TikTok dances and we like purchase those? Like is that going to be part of it? In what? In what context is he doing those dances? I don't know.

I don't know. I hope we find out more soon. But yeah. So that's that's essentially the weekend. And then we've got some appointments that we all have lined up. I think we're going to get to play metaphor, which I'm really, that I'm really excited for. Yeah, very curious about that came. I think a lot of the stuff, so a key difference between this and E3 and other key difference

is that a lot of the stuff we're seeing will be embargoed, like you mentioned, Maddie. So we won't be able to talk about it until the following week. Yeah, I mean, that kind of is a big change from E3 where typically there were no embargoes because a lot of the stuff you were seeing just thousands of people on the show floor were saying. I actually remember going to a press conference, I think at my first E3. I believe it was for Beyond Two Souls. And I like wrote up the demonstration super fast because I was in like, let's be a professional writer and go fast mode.

And I like ran it and then got an email from PR being like, that was embargoed until like 8 p.m. tonight. Because I was like, what? There's an embargoed on the score at E3. So sometimes things were embargoed at E3. They forgave me. It was okay in the end. That's hilarious.

Rarely, though. I would say rarely as opposed to this. Yeah, it was the exception. Because this Playdays event is really. only press, they're going to be there. So, like, they can embargo it as opposed to when fans are there or other industry professionals are there and they can, they're not going to stick to embargoes, right? So, yeah, that'll be interesting to see. I'm very curious about what that experience is like this, this year, because that's also very different from what I remember

last year. Most of it was not embargoed. So, yeah, we'll see. We'll see how things go and how things shake out. But, yeah, it should be a fun weekend, even if it's not quite the E3 that we all I don't know, no and love. It will still be fun. You know what? We never did a triple click live show at E3. So I think this is going to be better than E3 ever was. That's true.

So this is actually way cooler. Well, that's because triple click didn't exist when E3 exists. That's right. Details, whatever. Anyways, pointed. Well, we didn't do a split screen one or either, so whatever. We could have called it triple three triple click. Oh, see, that would have been so good.

Like that three right in the title, we could have been punning it up. I mean, this is why E3 needs to come back. We'll do that. We'll do that at the next D3. Yeah. The next, yeah, whenever that happens. Maybe if we buy the brand, we can bring it back and do a key league competitor. Triple three.

Before we go, are you guys, do you guys have like a single game you're most excited to see or play or check out or hope gets an ounce or anything like that? I mean, I'm really excited about a lot of stuff we talked about, like Assassin's Creed, Dragon Age. But I also, I'm the person on this show who's played every Gears of War video game and really likes it. So I am unironically excited for them to announce a Gear Six. I don't know if it's going to happen. I have no inside information about this whatsoever. I actually thought Gears 5 was a really good video game. People can go dig up and review if I did a bit at Katakku.

I was still at Kataku back then. And I really loved it. I think Gears 4 was pretty mid. And I think a lot of people kind of fell off after that because they were like, oh, Cliffy B's gone, the magic's gone, whatever. But I felt like Gears 5 was really cool. and they like did some neat stuff with the locust storyline and those characters that was interesting and what I had always wanted those first three games to do with just the whole premise of like humans

settling on a world that it was already inhabited just like as a cool sci-fi premise and like commentary, social commentary in there. So I'm kind of like, yeah, I'm ready for them to do another story about those same characters. And it's been years because I work in a different publication now. So I don't know. I would like to know what's going on with that franchise. So I hope we get something about that. But I haven't even heard leaks about that. So I don't know if they're going to do that or not. That's my hope. Yeah, I like gears too. I actually played them all as well and that'd be cool. I'm most looking forward to seeing Monster Hunter Wilds because I've become a monster hunter sick. Valid. That game does look very cool. Yeah. And that game looks cool as hell. And it's kind of

the same team that made Monster Hunter World. I've seen people say that they like that so much more than RISE. I've loved Rise, but I liked World too. So I'll be happy no matter what. I watch the trailer. It looked cool. I want to see more of it. So that's the one I've got my eye on. Do you think Monster Underworld and Monster Under Wilds is going to be like Outer World and Outer Wilds? They're very different, but people mix up the names all the time. All right, cool. Well, we are all looking forward to it and we hope we see many of you fine listeners out at our live show on Saturday night. All right. And on that note, let's take a break and we'll be back with one more thing. I'm Sequoia Holmes, pop cultureist, and host of the Black People Love Parenthood.

podcast. Contrary to the title, it is not a podcast about the band Paramore. Each episode, I, along with a special guest co-host, dissect one pop culture topic that mainstream media doesn't associate with black people, but we know that we like. Tune in every Thursday to the podcast that's dedicated to helping black people feel more seen here on Maximum Fun. I'm Yucky Jessica. I'm Chuck Crudsworth. And this is terrible. A podcast where we talk about. A podcast where we about things we hate that are awful. Today we're discussing wonderful, a podcast on the Maximum Fun Network? Host Rachel and Griffin McElroy, a real-life married couple.

Yuck! Discuss a wide range of topics, music, video games, poetry, snacks. But I hate all that stuff. I know you do yucky Jessica. It comes out every Wednesday, the worst day of the week, wherever you download your podcasts. For our next topic, we're talking Fiona. The Yoda, the baby hippo from the Cincinnati Zoo. I hate this little hippo.

And we are back. It is time for our One More Thing press conference of Summer Games Fest, where we will all be revealing our world premieres of our One More Things. I'll go first. I got a quick one. I read a new book called The Ministry of Time by Kayleanne Bradley. Pretty interesting book. I didn't love it, but I liked it.

And I think it's one that a lot of people will be into. So the concept of this book is that there's this government agency in the UK called the Ministry of Time, and it is responsible for going back in time and taking, plucking people from situations in which they were facing near death and bringing them into the future and seeing how they react to modern world. And the main character of this book is a unnamed lady who is who is the kind of the handler for a what they are called expats in the book. So this kind of time travel to this guy, this shipman from the 1800s who is now living in the modern world. And so it is about the handler and the shipment and their relationship over time. And what I didn't expect was that this was going to turn into like a full on like romance novel, which which I didn't like not my personal taste. Romance novels are not generally my thing.

And so there was a lot of kind of like description of sex that I'm sure a lot of readers would be really into. But I was just like this is not doing anything. You thought you were reading a cool sci-fi book. Yeah. It was like I didn't even. I thought it was going to be like a little more on the side of, I don't know, interesting thought-provoking comedy and. and kind of, so I still liked it, and it's a cool story, and it's fun, and it's got some cool thriller aspects, too, but a lot of it is about romance, which I just was not into. And again,

as I've said before, I'm really into, like, romance in general when it's done as part of, like, some of these stories, it's just this one didn't really work for me for various, various reasons. But I did get a kick out of the fact that the author of this book said in an interview that she essentially was inspired to write the book by seeing a portrait. of this guy in the 1800s, and he just was strikingly handsome. And that's what made her want to write the book. That's hilarious. Amazing and hilarious.

So yeah, it's called the Ministry of Time. Who hasn't been inspired by a hot person? Exactly. The most inspiring thing you can see. You know, if you didn't like the Ministry of Time, maybe you should read the ministry for the future. Just another ministry of the time-related ministry that you might like a little bit more. Different ministry.

This one's a lot shorter. But yeah, people, by the way, people might notice that I, My one more things in recent weeks have been books, and that's because I finally finished my books. So I have time to read books, which is nice. I've been on a fiction kick recently, which has been fun. All right, Maddie, what's your one more thing? All right. So I couldn't talk about Eldon Ring or Master Chef again, even though those are the only two things I've been engaging with for the past several weeks.

And it is what it is. But I don't think I've ever talked about the fact that Dean and I own an inflatable kayak on the show before. And it's finally nice enough for us to use it. And I just really recommend this as a date activity for really anyone who lives near water of any kind. Rivers, streams, lakes. Anyway, it fits in the back of the car. And every time we take it out, other people stop and they watch us inflate it. And we convince them to buy one.

And that's just like a regular conversation we have with strangers once a week. Because once it's nice out, we just go every single week. And it's the best. And it's how I've learned about so many different kinds of birds and plant lives. Because it's important to just leave the house. And Dina is a bird knower, right? Yeah, Tina's a big bird knower. So I, over the course of our relationship, I've learned a lot more about birds.

But mostly it's just really nice to get away from screens at least once a week because almost everything else I do revolves around screens. So getting an inflatable kayak was really, really good for that. Maddie, let me ask you something. Sure. Have you ever felt a little nervous about the fact that you were on the water, like on this thing that you've blown up with your mouth? No, because it doesn't, it's very durable feeling. Like, it is made out of the same kind of material as like a whitewater rafting raft if you've ever touched one of those, like that extremely thick rubber.

The only way that it could really be pierced, you'd have to try extremely hard. You'd have to like take a knife to it, which no one has. yet done. I feel like the only time we ever really got nervous about it was one time we saw really big snapping turtle like a really big guy. And we were like, that guy could probably take us out if he wanted to. But mostly it was just a cool thing to see. Yeah, I don't think. I don't know much about snapping turtles, but I can't imagine they're randomly going for inflatable kayaks. Yeah, not really, no. But it could potentially leak. I mean, we certainly have like had things happen over time where we've been like, oh, these knobs need to be replaced.

But like, it's made by advanced elements. That's the name of the brand, advanced elements. And they have a lot of like really easily replaceable parts of the kayak. So it's like very easy to keep it, you know, floating. I don't know. Seaworthy. Yeah, seaworthy. That's the word I'm looking for.

Sure. Yeah. So it's not a danger. Nice. We use inflatable paddle boards. Oh, there you go. which are very similar. And it's similarly durable.

Like when you've inflated one of those suckers, you don't think twice about it. It's like a surfboard. No, it doesn't even feel inflated anymore. It's just an object. Like an inflatable raft that you may be picturing with like pillow-y sides. No, no.

This thing is like rocks. Or like an inner tube that you have in a pool or whatever. This is like way, way, way beyond the level. You can ride rapids in those things. Or maybe you can't anyways. But yeah, that's also a very fun way to go out. And it is, I agree that it's really nice to just like find a river or a lake and just take them out.

be out there and just be out on the water. Yeah, it's very fun. All right, Kirk's one more thing is inflatable paddle boards. All right. That's good for this. No, what's your one more thing, Kirk? My one more thing is a game that I played after hearing Griffin McElroy talk about it on the besties. And it was completely off my radar and then it dumped in my lap and I played it.

And it's great. It's called Crow Country. It's on consoles and PC. And I really love this game. When I heard him say the name, I figured it would be some adorable, I don't know, bird dating sim or something like that that would be funny it is not I think by the way I think it was off your raider because it came out the same

day as animal well so got a little little a little bit of oversaturation and it was like around the same time as laurelite like there were a lot of like cool indie games in that same bottleneck yeah I mean also I just don't pay as close attention I mean Lorelei I actually heard about that from Chris Plant like that even though it was a Simogo game that I should have

known about I just don't pay as close attention so these games kind of just bubble up and then I play them and feel very happy that they exist. So Crow Country is a throwbacky survival horror game. It looks very much like a PS1 era game. And man, it's cool. I love that this aesthetic is so popular now, by the way, that there's just so many PS1 era horror games like on the market now, usually any games. I agree. So cool. So I think this was last year. Was that when Signalis came out? I think that was a game from last year. So that was one of my top 10 games of that year. I loved Signallis.

That game doesn't really look like a PS1 game. It kind of has its own vibe, but it's another kind of, you know, isometric, silent hill-inspired. Yeah. With really stylized graphics and just it's super deep vibes. And Crow Country is very similar. Low-Polly, beautiful-looking and really strong vibes. I saw, I think it was a Steam Review described it as cozy survival horror, which is not totally inaccurate. You play as a special agent.

What's her name? Her name is Mara Forrest. And she is looking for Edward Crow, who is a rich guy who owns an amusement park. And the amusement park is called Crow Country. And so she goes to Crow Country. And it's this horrifying amusement park full of monsters, basically. But when she gets there, everything is clearly wrong. There's trash everywhere.

It's all messed up. And she kind of parks her car outside. And then you enter. And it totally, I mean, they just nail all the rhythms, all the, the, you know, UI sounds and the look of that era of survival horror. You can control the camera. You kind of rotate it with the thumbstick and you have a 360-degree view,

but you're always looking down asymmetrically. It's really slow to aim. You like aim with the left stick after aiming. There are two control options. You can do like old-fashioned, you know, aim and then shoot with like a face button, which just feels terrible because it feels like old metal gear, you know,

Resident Evil, yeah. You can also shoot with the trigger, which is slightly better, but it's really designed where you have to stay in place and you can't move while you're shooting and your monster will be slowly walking toward you. And I really just, I've probably played, I don't know how much, maybe a third or so of this game,

so I haven't finished it, but I'm definitely going to, I don't believe it's super long, it's probably like five to ten hours. The story's really cool. It's not exactly breaking new ground. You know, it's a haunted amusement park. There are secrets, and there's like a backstory of, tragedy and the kinds of things you would expect. But it is really well written and really well put together. I really liked most of the puzzles that I've solved. The enemies have been very surprising.

They start out kind of just these monsters, but then there are some really cool enemy designs that'll really surprise you. Like there are moments where you kind of get scared even though I'm playing on Steam Deck. And the whole game has this kind of diorama-like, really beautiful, hazy energy that feels cozy, it really does, even when you're in a kind of horrible, you know, overgrown or like moss-ridden blood-soaked room. So I really, really dig it. I highly recommend it to anybody who thinks that sounds good. I'm pretty sure there's a demo, or at least there's a demo on Steam, so you can kind of give it a taste, and I think you'll know if it's your vibe, and I think it will be a lot of people's vibes. And also, the last thing I'll say is,

the studio that made this is actually really interesting. They're S-FB games. They're a British game developer that was started by two brothers. in the early 2000s, it's a reference to their original name, SFB, which was Super Flash Bros. Or Super Flash Bros. They started on Newgrounds, making Flash games. Yeah, I was going to ask, do they make Flash games?

That sounds familiar. Yeah, so they've made a few really cool games. They made Snipper Clips, if you remember that game, which was this very clever puzzle game. And they made a few other ones, some narrative games that were on Apple Arcades. So they've been around this whole time, just making different kinds of games

and always, I think, displaying a lot of creativity. and it's cool that they're still just doing their thing. And then they made this really wonderful game that I am really enjoying. So yeah, great game. That's Crow Country. It's on consoles and PC. And I really recommend it. They made Tangle Tower.

Also, that was a cool game, too. Yeah, those are the ones. That's what I was talking about. I was forgetting the name. But yeah, I think that's kind of, there's a few of those. It's like one of, Tangle Tower is one game in a series of these mystery games. I never played any of them. But I think people like them in general.

Gotcha, gotcha. Cool. Awesome. All right. Well, that is it for this week's episode. We will see hopefully some of you soon in just a couple of days in Los Angeles. And then for those of you who cannot come to Los Angeles, we will be airing that episode as next week's episode. So next week's episode will be our live episode, live from Los Angeles. And one more thing I'll say, a little teaser for those of you who listen through all the way to the very end is that the three of us, while we're in Los Angeles, Angeles will also be working on a secret project that we cannot wait to share with you all. It's going to be good. I'll just say that. I'll leave it at that. It's a secret project.

We're very excited. A very tantalizing tease. I think it'll be one of the things that comes out later this year, right? That's the plan. And people are going to flip a shit when they're going to lose it. It's going to be a crazy world premiere that people are going to be tuned in for. It'll be better than any of the other reveals this week. Yep.

That's right. All right. See you both next time. See you next time. Bye. Triple Click is produced by Jason Schreier, Maddie Myers, and me, Kirk Hamilton. I edit and mix the show and also wrote our theme music.

Our show art is by Tom DJ. Some of the games and products we talked about on this episode may have been sent to us for free for review consideration. You can find a link to our ethics policy in the show notes. Triple Click is a proud member of the Maximum Fun Podcast Network, and if you like our show,

we hope you'll consider supporting us by becoming a member at maximumfund.org slash join. Find us on Twitter at triple-clickpod, send email the triple-click at maximum fun.org and find a link to our discord in the show notes. Thanks for listening. See you next time. Maximum Fun. A worker-owned network of artist-owned shows. Supported directly by you.