Triple Click - Sony Shows A Bunch of PS5 Games

Episode Date: June 12, 2020

Surprise! Time for a bonus episode, as Maddy, Jason and Kirk react to Sony's big PlayStation 5 video game showcase. There were some cars, some swords, a lot of graphics, and a kitty cat wearing a backpack. They also showed what the console will look like. Let's discuss. 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 | @tripleclickpod Instagram | YouTube | TikTok | Twitch

Welcome to Triple Click Surprise. It's a bonus episode. I'm Jason Shire. And I'm Maddie Myers. And I'm Kirk Hamilton. Hello, Kirk and Maddie. We are here. Second episode on the same day because we just watched the PlayStation 5 event and we figured we talk about it. All you people out there who are like, oh, triple click doesn't talk about the news. Well, guess what? Wait, Jason, what are they like? Oh, oh. Oh, oh. I like how wrong people always speak in that voice. Oh, like Demon Souls isn't a very good game. I haven't actually played Demon Souls. I'm excited for the remake for that reason.

It's a good game. Those people who speak like that are wrong. Yeah, I believe you. I believe people who say that. Way to skip to the end of this discussion and just talk about Demon Souls. We can do that if you want. First of all, I just want to say, by the way, we're all going to call Resident Evil 8, Resident Evil 8, but a press release just arrived in my inbox saying Capcom developing the next generation

of survival horror with Resident Evil Village. So apparently that really is the name. It's Resident Evil Village. I think it's both. I think it's village and Resident Evil eight, I guess. I don't know. Game titles are wild, mad. Well, they did the seven in the Resident Evil itself for Resident Evil seven, so maybe that was technically just called Resident Evil. Yeah, but is that guy going to say eight in a really low voice when you boot it up? Because that's all that truly matters. That's a good question. All right, we're jumping around. Let me do that for a second. So today, so this was the first real event, first real place. PlayStation 5 event before they just talked about it in magazine articles and also did that GDC thing with Mark Serney where he just gave us some ASMR technical specs and wanted photos of our ears.

Talk about ears. So this is our first look at actual games that are coming to the PlayStation 5. And so first of all, let's talk about big picture thoughts before we break it down and talk about some of the games they announce. So, Kirk, why don't you start us off? What did you think of the event overall? It was fun to watch something. I just have been so depressed and, you know, like, I don't know.

I'm sure you can both relate, that like just watching a thing that was pretty popcorny and dumb a lot of the time. It was just like the video game stuff of like get excited about this thing. It was just sort of nice. It was basically an E3 press conference. So I found that just sort of pleasant, if a little bit kind of jarring with how I'm feeling in general most of the time. But I did like just sort of watching it. And I appreciated how different a lot of the games looked. Like there was definitely some OMG graphics stuff.

but we're just kind of past that. I mean, a lot of these games just look the same way as PS4 games look to me. Like, they just look amazing. Like, some of the stuff looked incredible. A lot of stylized stuff. But that, I liked that. There were some things, just a couple of things where I didn't know what the game was. We'll get to them that I just really was like, ooh, that looks really nice.

And they announced Hitman 3, which is like, you know, that's going to be more hitman. I'm excited about that. So, you know, I had a good time watching it. I thought it was pretty fun. And I think I'll get into more specific stuff, I guess, as we get going. Yeah, we'll talk about specifics later. Maddie, any overall thoughts? general impressions? Sure. I'll just say that I really enjoyed this simply from the standpoint of

missing E3 a little bit this past week and thinking a lot about how like last year we were all hanging out with our peers and the industry and like seeing people in person. You become such a AAA gamer. You're like, oh, I'm Miss E3. Yeah, but I also kind of miss the vibe of covering E3 even from home and like getting excited about the announcements and like participating in an event along with my colleagues and having that experience again felt so much better than I was expecting it to because I was like, oh my God, finally, something I know how to do and like have some someone's in control over. But then also like what Kirk said, like feeling excited about video games that are coming out and being like, damn, these look really cool and just feeling

that way was a blessing for me after the past few weeks of our lives. Yeah, agreed. I was just, I was actually thinking like I was getting a little depressed, thinking. about how this week I should have been in Los Angeles and me not being there. This is the first E3 that I haven't gone to. Obviously, nobody went to it, but since like 2010. So like every single year, this week I would have been in L.A. like seeing old friends. I'm like meeting new people. Unrelated, by the way. Something I've been thinking about is like how this pandemic really prevents you from meeting anyone new, which is kind of a weird concept. Anyway, so yeah, my overall thoughts were I enjoyed it. I had a good time watching the thing. Some of the games

just did nothing for me, but others made me think, oh, huh, and then a couple of them got me really excited. The two that got me most excited, we will get to a little bit later, but Horizon 2 and Project Athea, but we'll talk about those as we go. So why don't we just go through all the announcements that we can kind of react to each of them? I'm surprised that you weren't as excited as I was about the very first reveal, which was thrilling. The very first was a real bombshell. Got to wonder what was the thought process behind this. It must have involved money somehow, because the first thing they showed was Grand Theft Out of Five, which came out in 2013. And the funny thing is...

Yeah, a new question mark game? Question mark? Yeah. I think it would have been, like, totally cool and impressive if they had shown it running on PS5, but they were very deliberate about saying this is PS4 footage of the game. So they couldn't even show next-gen footage of it. Hello, baby. They couldn't even show next-gen footage of the game, which is hilarious.

Yeah, she's pissed. My daughter is very upset about that But yeah They announced that it's coming to PS5 Remastered next year But didn't actually show us What it will be like on PS5 I was half expecting Skyrim to come after that

Yeah Skyrim is going to come out And also Skyrim I will say that I know a lot of people out there Especially a lot of like rabid GTA fans Probably skewing younger Have been upset because I said that GTA 6 was kind of early And was in early development

And we'll be out for another few years I think if GTA 5 coming out next year to B.S.5 isn't evidence of that, then, like, I don't know what else you'll believe. Because GTA 6 is a ways away. Like, I would not expect that game for, I mean, maybe like at the end of 22, 2020, I think is more realistic for a game like that. Anyway, so that was the uninteresting part. Then they came out with a bombshell right away with Spider-Man Miles Morales. And it's worth noting this is not Spider-Man too. I think this is going to be more like the uncharted, lost legacy of Spider-Man games, which makes a lot of sense based on the first story. And the first game's story, it would make sense that they do a bridge game based on Miles Morales. And then that leads into the plot of Spider-Man, too.

But yeah, you guys, you guys excited about that one? I'm super excited about it. And I'm also pretty excited that our pal Evan Narciss, who was just on this week's episode of the show, is working on it. Is working on the game because Evan's great. And I love reading his comics and I love his takes. So I'm very excited specifically about an Evan Narciss Spider-Man game. Yeah, he just told me he was consulting on it, not writing it. Still pretty cool, though.

Still very exciting. Anybody who trusts Evans take, I'm definitely interested in the game that they're going to make. The really cool thing about this is that it is coming this holiday. So this is a launch game essentially, or like an around-launch game, which is really cool. I don't think anyone expected a Spider-Man game at launch. Yeah, I didn't expect a game at launch that I was actually really interested in, because I feel I think usually launch games are the ones that are kind of not. Yeah, yeah.

So I know trying to pin down particulars here is always a little tricky, but is this also going to be on PS4 this game? Yeah, that's a good question. I would surprise me if it weren't, given that Spider-Man looks amazing, and runs already on PS4 and it didn't get an expansion. So this maybe isn't a like PS5 launch game, but also, who knows, I am excited about it as well. I feel like since I'm trying to remember when exactly Spider-Verse came out,

but Miles Morales really had a moment with that movie, even though a lot of people knew who he was and everyone was talking about him. And I know Evan has really liked Miles as a character for a long time, which is one reason it's cool he's involved with this. But, you know, since the first Spider-Man came out, then Spider-Verse came out and it was like, oh, it's a lot cooler, actually, when Miles Morales is the protagonist of a Spider-Man game, particularly given the way that Spider-Man has that whole cop thing,

like we were talking about on that episode. But they could probably maybe do some more interesting stuff with that with this game. So I'll be curious to see it. Yes, definitely looking forward. Yeah, I've been trying to. I've been looking up to see if they've said that it's coming to PS4 also, but so far I haven't seen anything. Yeah, we'll see. But yeah, it would be kind of weird if they made people buy another console for this if it's kind of like continuing where the first one left off.

But who knows? I don't know. So what else? They announced Grand Tourismo 7, a new car game. I mean, I don't know if that excites either. It's got cars. Car games don't excite me. This one cracked me up only because it looked good.

The cars always look real in these games, but they have since literally the PlayStation 2 or something. I feel like every time you're like, ooh, that looks like a real car, I guess. And this still looked like a real car. And so this was an interesting one to put so early on because, yeah, GTA 5, that was like its own reasons and also like the most popular game in the world or whatever.

And Spider-Man was like a huge Sony game and that was just like an exciting reveal. and then like the next game Ratchet and Clank, which I know what we're about to talk about, that would have been a good third game because that felt a little more to me. Like these are some cool things we can do with the PlayStation 5 where Grand Theresa's Mo, I was just kind of like, oh, yeah, it's like a car. I'm sure this is fun. Like this is a car game, but it didn't do a lot for me only because, you know, I'm not usually in the car games. Well, the whole order of it all just felt very random to me.

I don't know how much what their thought process was or if they just kind of pick names out of a hat, but a lot of it felt pretty random. They just put their YouTube channel on shuffle. They're like, just go, we'll let the algorithm figure it out. just fine. Yeah, that's fine. Whatever, yeah. In our Bloomberg Slack, someone was like, this is kind of like a random order.

And I was like, yeah, this is just how video game events are. Because you're watching three. It's just there's no structure whatsoever. It's funny because people who are used to covering tech events, like see a certain, like Apple events always have a certain structure to them. But this is just totally random. So yeah, so there was a new retchen and clank, which looked amazing, like super really slick graphics and cool effects and particles and just looked really good.

Yeah, those games always look good and are always very fun. And at this point, especially since that movie came out, like they just look like movies, basically. And the thing this game has going for it that I will be curious to hear more about was it was the first time my ears perked up, or I guess my eyes perked up. And I was like, oh, I feel like now I'm maybe seeing something that I couldn't have seen on a PS4, which is that dimensional warping. Because that's when you, like, the way people talk about that stuff of like,

you can load the entire game at once and you can just go between two places. I'm picturing things like that Titanfall 2 time travel level or the dishonored 2 level where you're traveling in time. And like two levels exist and have loaded in on top of one another so you can instantaneously move between them. And watching that video anyways, who knows if this will actually work? But when you see them go from like, you know, this like verdant fantasy world to like a cyberpunk city in one second or not even a second, just instantly in the middle of a fight, I'm thinking of like that fight scene at the end of Thor, The Dark World, which I randomly rewatched now. where they're punching each other and they keep flying into alternate dimensions and it's really fun. That seems potentially cool.

Definitely. And there are multiple games in this list that have a similar mechanic where a character like jumps into another place. So it's interesting if that turns out to be like a hallmark of PS5 games. Right. Like a new thing that's a mechanic that designers can take more advantage of it. Yeah, that is just like all this data we have loaded. Yeah, I was thinking the one thing I was thinking is that like a game like Horizon or any sort of open World Game. They could have all the interiors loaded and so you could be like seamlessly moving.

Because right now when you go into an open world game. No more doorways. No more long door opening animation. Or like Spider-Man. Spider-Man is a perfect example. Like yeah, like what if they have more different, more realistic like apartments in New York when you're climbing around the city? That seems to me like Spider-Man 2 will have that. I feel like this is going to be running on the same game they already made. But you know, at some point. Yeah. Next up was Project Athea, a new IP from luminous productions, which is one of Square Enix's development studios. We didn't see a lot of this. We just saw kind of like a woman main character, like summoning elements and stuff.

It looks cool. So I'm laughing because we're reading along with my notes. Can I say, Maddie, to echo the thing you said at the beginning that making notes for this? Like I was just like, I'm going to make notes. And it was a comforting feeling of just this is something I used to do all the time, is make roundups of these things. So I was like, whatever. But my notes say, project Athea, what is this?

And then quote, designed exclusively for the PS5. What does that mean, L.O.L. I don't have no answer for you. So it's funny. It's funny you said that because I just opened up the press release and it says PS5 and PC.

So there's your answer. It means they're trying to say exclusive but not. Because my notes I had written PS5 exclusive. Then I was like, that is not what it says. And they're always so specific with that kind of wording. So I bet, okay. Interesting. 100%.

They're just trying to fool people. It's such like blatant, like lying. And it's amazing how game. mirrors are just like eating up. I remember an article I wrote forever ago at a Microsoft press conference that was like all of the things the word exclusive can mean now because they would be like exclusive before every game and it would be like exclusive on Xbox for one month. Exclusive console on Xbox but also on PC for like there's so many different meanings.

So anyways that's I guess what designed exclusively for the PS5 means. It means nothing. Let me read to you the this is kind of like the logo or like the info underneath the The big key art. Can I guess? Can I guess? It's her destiny. A choice.

Close. Consequences. Her power. Her power. You guys ready? I'm going to read you the whole thing. It's a few months. In a world, not her own.

Where resolve will be tested. Truths will be questioned. And devotions will be doubted. She will rise. Wow. There's a lot of passive voice. I know it's a lot of passive voice in a lot of these. Yeah.

Interesting. Okay. She will rise. They're taking after all those cowardly headlines about people. about police violence. Using passive voice. Let's move on. Although I am excited for that because it's Square Inix making a new thing and that always

excites me. Oh yeah. Just like JRP action action JRPG. And it looked beautiful. I mean, sure. It gave me a little, you know, I will say actually, it gave me a little bit of a deep down vibe. Remember deep down? It was kind of the same thing where it's like...

Deep down was announced that the PS4 reveal of it. Right. And then it like just never comes out. Like people will be maybe joking about Project Athea in like eight years. They'll be like, remember Project Athea? And then they like, never was anything. So could maybe be that. No, but that is legit, I will say.

Luminous Productions. It's like, it's a studio. They started, like, specifically to make new stuff. I'm going to remember you said that in 2030 when it's still bought out. Anyway, I'm excited for that. Next up was Stray, which is a game about sad cats. Yes. Sad robots. Really, the robots were very sad.

The cats, the cat was kind of helpful. I just said, Kirk, Kirk, you're correcting your own notes. Your notes say sad cats. It does. Oh, you're right. here. That's a really good point. You're right. Sad robots. But a game where you get to play as a cat, pretty exciting. I'm not sure if that's what it is.

I'm bad you're correcting the notes after. I've added it now says sad robots in parentheses with a cat. With a cat. Are you the robots? Are you the cat? Are you both of them? I'm intrigued. I'm interested in playing more games for a cat. There's a lot to get through. So let's crank through a couple of these. This was a big cat. This was a big cat year though, I'm going to say. Sometimes it's dogs. This was cats. A lot more cats are back. Um, housemark, housemark, which is a pretty, uh, good developer that makes a lot of arcade games, is making returnal, which is, uh, I think it's a rogue like. And that's why it, it had that premise of like, attack, die, attack, die, because it's a rogue. It's a rogue. It's a, it's always funny

when a video game makes that the premise. They're like, I die and then I wake up again and I do it against like, yeah, you're the main character of a video game. Like, welcome to hell. This is your life. That's true. Yeah. It's edge of tomorrow, basically. Mm-hmm. That looked cool. I mean, Housemark makes good games. I thought the setup was like a lot of rope to let out for what then looked to me basically like an over-the-shoulder third-person shooter. I do want to say, I know we moved on from stray, but I actually loved the aesthetic of that game with the cyber robots and the cat, and I like super want to play that. So I do want to throw that out there so we don't gloss over it too fast. That was

a highlight for me. Cool. New sackboy adventure game, which looked great. I did it. I mean, so this is a sackboy adventure that I'm guessing is not a little big planet game. So having played a lot of those games. Little Big Planet spin-off. Right, so it's just a platformer. What I mean by that, though, sorry, is that it is not going to be able to make stuff in it. Right. Yes, it is not a user-generated content-oriented game, which would always be fine with me

because I never made stuff in Little Big Planet, and I do like the vibe and the music of Little Big Planet, but I've never loved the platforming in those games, because it's physics-based and a little bit weird, and I could never get my head around it, so actually, I don't know. I mean... It might be competing. If both that and Retchard and Clank came out

at launch, they might be kind of competing with one another. So it'll be interesting to see what happens. Well, Ratchet and Clank is more of like a shooter. That's more of a like third person shooter. It's platform-me. And it's cute. And so they're the same game. Right. They are both cute.

Kirk, you wrote here, some destruction game. No, some driving game. Important clarification. No, but the real name is destruction all-stars. That's why I said destruction. I feel bad for the people making that game because I did not write down the name.

That was like the one name that I missed. Yeah. It looked fine. It looked like one of those. I mean, it's the kind of thing where maybe every time I dismiss a game like that, I then think about. It ends up like taking the world by storm and being the next fortnight or something. Yeah. Yeah, I always think of Rocket League and I'm like, well, that I would have maybe dismissed that. I'd be like this looks silly and then it wound up being this massive thing. So who knows, it might be really cool. Yeah, it's like a car destruction multiplayer game. I mean, we also, we also all dismiss Grand Turismo and those games are huge and have like, like, the tons of people who are into driving games. Oh, yeah. Right. And I guess. Right. It's just being like that doesn't totally look like my thing, but I'm sure some people...

Let's go through a couple more. Kina Bridge of Spirits. This game looked really cool. It was, yeah, very cameo. I thought of that, too. Cameo. Elements of power, yeah. Or cameo? Cameo, I think, is it. Camayo? Which is not a great game. It reminded me of Zelda. It looked like, you know, Studio Ghibli, and it looked like Oriente in the Blind Forest. Like, it had that just kind of, there's a ton of graphics in this, and the threes look really beautiful. This is a pretty adventure game that is going to like make you cry a little bit and also make you feel warm inside. It looks neat. I would play that. Oh yeah, beautiful looking. A furry game called goodbye volcano high.

That reminded me of Bojack Horseman as I was watching that trailer. I was like, wow, this is BoJack. I can see that. Yeah. And so this is really, and I wrote furry though, I believe it is dinosaurs. So it is more, I think, which aren't. Right. They're not particularly, they're not fur covered.

Goodbye volcano. Right. Because they're saying goodbye. Right. But that looked really cute. I thought it looked nice. It did look really cute. Fun art style for that game.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And this was kind of where, because Kina, Bridge of Spirits was so, like, graphics mega blowout that then following it with like a clearly stylized, not. Like 2D drawn animations and stuff like that. Yeah. Very different look was kind of fun.

It was like, oh, right. There's a bunch of different stuff in this presentation. That was fun. I had that kind of night in the woods look with like, you know, we're kind of misfit animals when we're making a band. like the same sort of idea. I'm always down for that. Give me some Mr. Animals in a band.

Anytime. For sure. And I believe that former Ketaku contributor, Kate Gray, is the lead writer of this narrative director of this game. Oh, nice. That's awesome. Cool. Let's keep going.

A new odd world game, Odd World Soulstorm, looks like an odd world game. It's an odd world game. It was Lemmings-ish. It looked pretty hardcore to me. I don't know. I've played like. Abe's Odyssey, I guess. And those games are always very dark because it's like, my memory is basically, you know, like a genetically engineered slave race that just you die over and over and

over and over again. And it's just a very bleak world where you're just this like almost sentient like product that came to life and is trying to get out of this horrible factory. And this looked like that too with even more like done up, you know, cut scenes and like emotions and A like cutting his, the lip ties open. I was like, okay. Hey, like, for the mood I'm in right now, no, this isn't doing it for me. Like, I'd rather just play a Mario game. I hear that. But, you know, like, those games are always really well designed and clever, and so, like, maybe by the time it comes out, I will be more into it.

And then we got to see a new Bethesda game, Ghost Wire Tokyo, which was announced last year. I mean, a new Bethesda published game. This is the Tango game. This is from the makers of evil within. Sorry, I think of Bethesza, the publisher, because, like, it was announced at the Bethesza Conference. Anyway, we got to see that. It looks cool. Yeah, I was surprised this wasn't a VR game.

It seemed like a VR game to me. It was so this like, like, what's the word? Like a kind of a puree of evil within stuff, which itself is like a puree of horror game things. Like the hairy lady and the weird faceless schoolgirl and the, like, it's just all these things that you've seen in Silent Hill before. And then the gameplay to me just, it looked odd. I wasn't sure. They make good games. I really liked Evil Within 2.

It looked interesting. I don't know. I don't really know what to make of it. Right. It just, it looked like a VR game. Every time they cut to the actual gameplay, it's always like, what is this game exactly? So I'll be curious to know more about that.

Then a new Super Brothers game. Super Brothers are the makers of sword and sorcery. And what else have they, have they done anything since then? No, Cappy has. Cappy made below, but they worked with, I think this is a similar thing where Super Brothers is working with pine-scented, which I don't actually know what that is.

but I'm assuming is maybe another developer, because Cappy and Superbrothers work together on Sword and Sorcery, which I love that game. And this game, I thought, looked awesome. Obviously, I don't know what it is. It's like a... What's it called? The Far Shore. It's like space exploration,

but the trailer was super just evocative and vague and just made it seem like it was going to be about space exploration, but not a ton beyond that. I just want to say, by the way, so like up until this point, there haven't been a lot of guns, there haven't been a lot of, like it, at least at this point in the show, like, it was just like, yeah, very noticeable that it was just like a whole variety of genres and different types of gameplay. And that is extremely cool and admirable for Sony to be doing this as like their big launch event is like, here's a bunch of interesting stuff, including like this furry narrative game and like other things that you would never see it.

And like a bunch of exploration games and like, yeah. Well, it's just such a contrast from like E3 conferences of even a couple of years ago and how like game companies have really branched out. It's cool to see. Yeah, and I mean, there was no really EA, like battlefield stuff and there was no call-up duty. So, like, the big war games just kind of weren't there. So you also didn't have the five minutes where it's people talking on the radio while, like, machine guns kill people. And I agree. That was nice.

And I just want to say the far short, if I hope they get Jim Guthrie to do the music. He did the music to Sword and Sorcery, and is a big part of why I love that game so much. And it sounded like him. The music did sound like his music. And it just reminded me of interstellar, but in a good way, because, like, I, don't love that movie, but I do like, like, the first part of that movie. And just the idea of... And the themes are good, you know?

Yeah, like, of like a doomed world and setting out from it to find a new place. And then they just cut to these, like, beautiful, you know, tantalizing, like, landscapes of these alien planets. And I was like, okay, but then they're also showing the faces of actual characters. And it isn't going to be some, you know, super zoomed out game. Like, there's going to be actual characters in it. I was like, okay. So it's not no man's guy.

Right. Right. I'm down for this. If it's got, like, kind of an outer wide. vibes, I'd be fine with me. And this one I thought looked really nice. Moving on. So next time they showed Godfall, which is a game that had been announced in the past. It's published by Gearbox.

It's like kind of... I didn't think it was like that great. This is actually one of the least impressive games, I thought. You can master breathtaking weapons, though. Yeah. It's funny. It's like a bear wolf character that, like, is wearing a bunch of armor and, like, swings the sword around. Yeah. So this is the point where, so I tweeted, right after the Superbrother game, I tweeted, You can tell it's on an E3 press conference

because there's no guns and dubstep and then they immediately announce this game with guns and dubstep which is just very gearbox. Next up is a game from the makers of hyperlight drifter which I think will sell a lot of people. Solar ash I believe it was called. It looked really interesting and cool.

It looked awesome. It looked just as cool as Hyperlite drifter looks. Yeah. Yeah, very much like a conceptual tease where it just sort of really briefly showed what the actual game is, so who knows what the game is. but it's probably good because hyperlidus goes. Like a lot of primary colors and like big shapes and just sort of minimalist design in the visuals,

which is distinctive and cool looking. Next up we had to check if Kirk was still breathing because they announced Hitman 3. It was a coolest shit trailer and I don't even play these games. I was thinking of you, man. I was like, yeah, no, it looked great. I mean, and it's like I mainly am excited because I know exactly what it will be. It will be more Hitman. It will be good.

I.O. Interactive has gotten very good at making these games. It's just, yeah, it's incredible how short it is from, because they announced it for January, and that's only like two and a half years after, no, less than two half years after they're in a good thing going because they release new locations at later points to, so I'm sure it'll launch with like five or six new locations. And then each location, you get like 40 hours out of it if you want.

Like there's like an endless amount of stuff to do, and they're so good now at iterating it. The sense I get anyways is that they are? Yeah. I think if you're, yeah, if you're a game developer and you can make a map that generates like so much content out of the one map,

that's like paradise for games. makers. Yeah, especially for single-player game. Like, so a lot of multiplayer games get that. But for a single-player game for the kind of person, like, a person like me who, like, simulated games, it's great. And then it showed 47, like, doing the Mission Impossible thing and, like, climbing up a skyscraper in Dubai to, like, murder some rich asshole.

And I'm like, yes, I'll play this. Sounds great. Yeah, it would be cool to see, by the way, just, like, riffing on that a little bit. It would be cool to see, like, a dishonored style game that took that Hitman's style and just, like, had maps. But, like, instead of just running around and putting on uniforms and sneaking, you could actually use powers and stuff, like to accomplish different things across these maps? I don't know.

Just a thought. Yeah, I'd love the Hitman approach to, like, be applied to more games. It's like a great way to make a game because you can get so much more out of it. Yeah, it's cheaper. Yeah, it's easier on people. Yeah. And especially a series like Dishonored, which is not like Disanor 2 didn't sell well. And so it seemed like they put the series on ice because Arcane is doing something else.

So we'll talk about it in a sec. But yeah, it would be cool to see that sort of thing. Next up, there was an Astrobot game that doesn't. do anything for me. I don't know about you guys. Though I will say, Astrobat Rescue Mission, maybe the best PSVR game or one of them really well-made game. So that could be super fun if the same people designed it.

Another indie game called Little Devil Inside, which looks pretty cool. Pretty cool. This was like the most amazing looking thing to me anyway. It's like that trailer was incredible. If people listening to this didn't want to watch the whole thing, if you just want to see one totally baller trailer,

I was like the whole time, I was like, what the fuck am I watching? This game looks like inside, which is funny that it's called Little Devil Inside, because it has a similar kind of, kind of, what's the word? It's like kind of gauzy art style. It reminds me of that game with a time travel. What was that game called with like the masks and the time travel? Oh, you're talking about sexy Brutale. The sexy Brutale. Yeah, it reminded me of that like graphically. But also very Pixarish. Right, but gameplay wise, it was totally wild. So I think the idea is that you're playing a little guy who goes inside of this old man and then

inside the old man there's like a fantasy dimension and then the stuff the guy was doing it just kept going it was like fighting a dragon climbing on a crazy cliff like in it it looks like the amount of stuff that we saw on the horizon two trailer later only in this really cool art style with all these like funny visual gags and this really charming like handmade like sculpture look I was like what is this this looks so cool and maybe it won't be but just the breadth of things that were in that trailer I like almost want to watch it again that too I was like what is happening like I want to play this, whatever it is. So that looked really good. Yeah, it was really fun to have the trailers mix it up so much with the art style. I mean, that's part of why I would almost recommend watching

the whole show if you haven't yet, because you get that experience. You won't get that experience from just watching one trailer or another trailer, but like that roller coaster being like, oh, like each of these things is standing out in a weird way was part of what made this so fun. I'm sure most people watch the whole show. It had like millions of viewers on YouTube. Unlike anything I've seen. Yeah, no. The listener, who maybe hasn't seen it. That's true. Next up was NBA 2K21, which was the funniest trailer because it didn't show any actual basketball games, which is kind of fitting because there are no actual basketball games being played. And that's actually what the game's going to be about.

You shoot hoops by yourself. Just a guy playing by himself in a gym, like sweating. Right, you try to manage your sweat flow. Yeah, Zion Williamson is pretty incredible, though, I've got to say. Next up was bug snacks, a game from the makers of Octodad that looked hysterical. Yeah, it looked very fun. That was like, so Octodad to anybody who didn't play it, you should play it.

It's great and really ridiculous. That's like a fumblecore game, so it's a game where you're an octopus pretending to be a man, and you have to, like, get through situations. Where people will definitely figure out that you're an octopus and not a man, but it's just funny to imagine an octopus trying. I think I reviewed this game for Kataku. It's very, very funny,

because it's funny that no one realizes this extremely clear octopus as an octopus, but also it's funny because you're constantly fucking up. And this game initially, I was like, what is this? But then it's clearly like it's like not procedurally generated exactly, but it's like a really chaotic thing where you're eating things all the time and then becoming them and then weird hybrid

monsters of different things and it's like some type of experience like that and I'll play it just because I really like Dr. Dad and this looked cool. Next up, this was definitely a highlight. This had been rumored for a long time. For a long time Blue Point which is a pretty good remaking company. They made the Shadow of Colossus

remake a couple years ago. People have been wondering what their next project was they've been teasing it. Turns out it's Demon Souls, as has been rumored. I think I might have put a little bit of fuel on that fire. But yes, Demon Souls is their big remake that's coming to PS5. Really exciting because I think that a lot of people who are like into the From Software games started with Dark Souls and didn't get a chance because Demon Souls was only on PS3.

Some people have like gotten PS3 emulators just to play Demon Souls. But it's very smart that like they're remaking this game of all games because a lot of lot of new players will want to check it out, myself included. I am right there with you. I played a fair amount of Demon Souls when it first came out because all the smart critics were like, this is the best game ever. And I played it and it was too hard. I didn't fully get into the groove. And it is hard is the thing. Like it's a lot harder, I would say, than any of the the Dark Souls games. And very punishing. Well, you got to wonder if they're, if they're creating new options for a remake. I wonder. And if they're, and they'll just like run better. It had a lot of

serious performance problems, like comically bad. Even, I know the first Dark Souls did too, but Demon Souls, like, there are areas of that game that are just a total slideshow and are almost unplayable. So I'm sure that stuff will be ironed out. And I bet it'll just be like more playable. It'll be like a Souls game. It looked sick as hell. I mean, I was watching that.

I was like, oh, this is some from shit. I was like, oh, okay, it's definitely Demon Souls. I don't think they put a release date on that. So not clear if it'll be out at launch or like close to launch. Not sure yet. I noticed there are a lot of games, like, didn't have release dates, and I imagine the biggest reason for that is COVID, because nobody's really clear on, like, when they're going to hit their milestones.

But we shall see. Next, arcane's game, Death Loop, which they also announced last year. This is Arcane Leon, so these are the people who made Dishonor 2, as opposed to Arcane Austin, which made Prey. Death Loop, I thought, was like one of my highlights of E3 last year. I don't know if you guys remember it. That's when it was announced. Yeah, same.

I was so excited it was back. Yeah, I've been. thinking like periodically like what's going on with death loop when we're going to see that again so i was like very pumped to see it yeah so it was really cool to see gameplay looks awesome i thought it looks really really cool um kind of like it looks kind of inspired by bioshoc and this but i guess that's in the same sense that all these immersive sims are just from the same same same tree um but it looks like a kind of we happy few look all the people in the party masks which is also very bioshic infinite people yeah but yeah no it looked really cool and i'm very curious to see like how

multiplayer is integrated because it seems like a single player game from the trailer. But I wonder if like another person... Well, apparently the other players could hop in and play as the other spy who's trying to kill you periodically. So it's like a journey, but like you're trying to kill each other instead of help each other. So like, it's a cat and mouse premise where like you're playing as a guy who's on the run from another spy and she's trying to kill you or maybe not a spy, I don't know, another assassin.

And like you're just trying to kill each other the whole time and you're a gas video game characters who can be endlessly regenerated, so like her trying to kill you doesn't matter. That's the theme of this showcase is like endless, endless regeneration. Yeah, it's super is. But the fact that like other people, like real people can hop in and be the person that's trying to kill you from time to time and you can do that to other people sounds like a thing that people who enjoy Dark Souls will find very fun. This game.

So this game, yeah, I'm extremely here for it. It looks like dishonored, but like, you know, more a little more gun-heavy. definitely the first trailer, I was like, ah, guns, there they are, they're shooting people. They're back. But then again, it was like, I don't know, still kind of handmade, weird-ass guns, and the whole premise just seems cool. And I like the idea of building the time loop into the game, like having some rogue elements, even if it's not a rogue-like, like, those elements can enhance other kinds of games. And yeah, I think having played, it was Splintercell conviction, that had co-op where you were like both spies, but then at the end, you kind of got

pitted against one another. And then there were, there were actually. like PVP modes where you'd be like sneaking around and trying to catch each other. I love that kind of multiplayer in general and the idea of like knowing suddenly that you're being hunted by a real person. I'm sure you can turn it off like I'm guessing you can play it offline. But having that on would probably be pretty cool. And yeah, that game looked dope. It's a it's a triple A version of Chris Hecker's spy party. Yeah, it's very similar. He kind of was designed that game before a bunch of like Ubisoft games basically used that same premise and like Assassin's Creed and Splinter saw all these like asynchronous sort of stealth-based multiplayer games.

Next up, Capcom announced Resident Evil Village, which is the only way I will be describing this game for now on. Not Resident Evil 8, Resident Evil 8, Village. Or Resident Evil 8-age, I feel like you could pronounce it that way if you want to. What do you guys think? I have no investment in Resident Evil, so... Resident Evil's gotten so freaking weird. I don't even know how to feel about that franchise anymore, honestly.

It's gotten so far off the rails in terms of like what that world. didn't you guys love, I know Kirk at least loved seven. I love Resident Evil 7. Well, I didn't, I liked it. It kind of eventually, like a lot of these games, it gets pretty ridiculous and kind of lost me. But I loved the first, I don't know, however many hours of that game, like a lot of it until you basically get to this ship. Oh, yeah, the beginning's really cool. From the perspective of knowing about the world of Resident Evil, I'm just like, what is actually happening anymore? And there is not really an answer. But maybe that's okay. It's almost like they got sick of their own premise. And they're like, let's just make a bunch of different weird games that are like also horror games or survival games and just say they're Resident Evil and put Chris Redfield in them and say it's fine. And that's okay, you know? Like be creative, Capcom. I'm all right with it. Because Chris Redfield got some DLC for Resident Evil 7, which I believe sort of is. is setting up what's happening in Resident Evil? I don't know about that second part. I know he had DLC and Resi 7.

That guy has had a crazy life. Chris Redfield. He's just some wild shit. I'm kind of the opposite where I've never played the early games. I don't really know the Resident Evil lore. Like I finally played Resident Evil too. No, but there is kind of a ton. It doesn't matter, but there is a lot.

Like when you start to really get into Wesker and whoever in these characters, it's like. It doesn't matter, but there is a lot. Yes. Words that can be said about a lot of video game lore. Right? So the trailer for this, it was like, sick-looking, like, gothic castle village. It looks like something out of blood-born and, like, three witches and, like, monsters and all the weird wolves and shit.

I was like, yes, like, gothic horror. Yeah, like, what is it happening? Yeah. European villa. And I was like, sweet. This looks great. Like, I'm going to play this shit out of this. I can see there's going to be puzzles everywhere.

There's, like, weird figures carved into the walls. And then at the end of the trailer, it's like, I'm Redfield. Chris Redfield. I'm like, I don't care. Like, maybe some people are like, yeah, Chris Redfield. I don't think anyone was. I think everyone was like Chris Redfield with a million question marks.

Right. And then Capcom announced another game that at first I thought was going to be a Kojima game because it looked exactly like Death Stranding. It had extreme Kojima energy. Very Death Stranding vibe, yeah. I gotta wonder if that's on like the same engine

that Gorilla Games, Decima Engine that just like makes all the characters looking for. The tech on that space suit was just so Death Stranding and it was so Horizon. Like it just had that. But also the face. The faces also looked exactly like Death Stranding faces. But yeah, this game is called Pragmata and we really know nothing about it other than it's a new game, new IP from Capcom, which itself is pretty cool, coming in 2022.

I think anytime a game was 22, that meant it'll be out in a long time. We basically aren't anywhere. I like it when publishers are a little bit honest about that as opposed to like in development now, like coming whenever. I like it when they're like this won't be out for a couple of years. Don't worry about it. It's also cool. I mean, it's really cool when a big publisher shows new IP. Although I would kind of, I'd rather have them announce Phoenix Wright 7 than a new IP. But like, whatever. I like new IP too. Yeah. I had a thought that I meant to share way earlier when we were talking about Ratchet and Clank and I'm going to share it now.

And that is that watching Ratchet and Clank where they're like teleporting stuff around and like switching dimensions. it struck me that I was watching gameplay that was in the like 2010 Bioshock Infinite fake demo where like Elizabeth is warping things in from parallel dimensions and songbird is there that then the game was nothing like that at all and it was all like completely kind of jinned up and it took 10 years but now we're actually watching a real video game that can do it so I didn't want to forget and not say that and then yeah pragmatta who the fuck knows it was like there was a point at which the sky broke and a huge satellite fell through it and then the spaceman and the little girl,

he opened a green net that, like, stopped the thing for a minute, and then he flew around it, and then he was on the moon with a little girl, and they were looking down at Earth. And that's what that game's going to be. That's, yeah, that's going to be weird and trippy. Sure. And then we got to what might be the most beautiful video game

I've ever seen in my life. You said the hype master over here. I don't know. I saw that. I was kind of blown away by that. trailer, especially if that's, like, really what the game is going to look like. Horizon 2, forbidden west. So I guess the first game was where, Utah or like Nevada or something like? Colorado, Utah.

Around there, right? And then it went north for the DLC. So she's going to cross the Rockies. And so this game is going to go to the West. And yeah, so they showed some San Francisco for sure. It's like a West Coast game. And so it's now set in the post-acopocalyptic America West Coast. Aloy's back. What's his name? The, uh, the, the Lanceretic character is back. Sylus, Cyrus or something like that. Yeah, that sounds right. Um, and you gotta go underwater and fight robot alligators? Yeah, fight robots underwater. Man, and it just looked incredible. And Horizon Zero Dawn is an excellent game. People who missed it will get to play it on PC pretty soon, I think. I'm excited to check it

on on PC again too. Um, and the thought of a sequel has me extremely excited. Yeah, I mean, I'm, you know, I've talked about this. I think with both of you, but not on the show, that I'm just like in the mood for a Ubisoft-style open-world game. Yeah. And that very much is that kind of game. No, right, I know, which is nice. That's a Tichima is like right up your alley and that's coming out of a month. Yep.

Yeah, I'm curious. And I guess I don't want to know more about the story of Horizon too, even though I'll be surprised if they can pull the story off the way they did in the first game again in a sequel, only because the sequel, the first game really... And it's going to be a trilogy, too. I don't know if you knew that, but they've agreed to do it. the three games. Well, maybe that'll let them kind of paste things out in a way that works.

Maddie, you have not played zero-d-right, right? That's right. But you're going to play it when it comes to PC. I guess I could play it. It's pretty cool game. Maybe we can all play it and we can talk about it and that'd be fun. But you two have already played it. Yeah, well, I'm definitely going to be playing it again on PC because that game is awesome.

And one of the faults that I had with it is that on the PS4, the text is so small, you have to like squint and get up close to read it. This is often the case. So playing it on a computer monitor. That's your complaint with most games, right, Jason? Most games have texts that are too small. I agree. It's not you,

it's the game. It's just funny that it's always that problem. So playing it on my computer monitor, I will very much enjoy. And yeah, I'm excited to play it again. I've been craving. I've been wanting to play that game again.

Yeah, the story, the thing that pleasantly surprised myself and a lot of other people is how good the story was in that game, in the original game. And also, I mean, yeah, Ashley Birch puts on this fantastic performance as A-Loy. Oh, yeah, she's always great.

Really, really good game. So, yeah, the thought of a sequel, coming soon, not entirely unexpected. I think most people could have guessed that that was going to be there, as opposed to like a New God of War or Spider-Man 2, which are both way further out, I think. But, yeah, Horizon 2, very exciting stuff. And that was all.

And then we ended with a whole bunch of developers talking about the console. That was interesting. And then a look at the PlayStation 5. And there was actually a pretty big piece of news in there, which is that there's going to be a digital-only, presumably cheaper version of the podcast. PlayStation 5. So I imagine if I had to guess, and I think this is a pretty safe guess,

the main thing, the normal thing will cost $500, and then the digital only version will cost $450, which is more appealing. If they can get that down to $400, that would be pretty game-changing, but I don't think they will. And yeah, what did you guys think of like the look of the thing? It looked pretty alien. Yeah. Yeah, what did you think, Maddie? I don't know. I didn't love it. It really looked like a console that I'm going to be kind of embarrassed to also have on my shelf, but that's true of a lot of items that I own. And being a gamer, you know, I'm sitting in my gaming chair. I've, I can't, I got to just embrace the gamer look of some of these items and just be like, all right, that's what that

looks like, I guess. You're, you're not even going to think about it. Like, when you actually have anything, you're just not going to think about it. Oh, I know, I know. It's going to look silly to me for like six days and then I'm not even going to notice it anymore. I'm curious if it'll they'll all be white. I don't want a big white console. Yeah, it's white. I think it might be the first white console since the Wii. Is that right? I don't know. I don't think. Usually they're black. Well, there have been different versions. Right. Oh, sure. But like the default one that they reveal. The default one. Yeah. Was the Xbox one the original one white?

The Xbox 360, I assume, is what you're. Oh, the Xbox 360 was, yes. I believe the original Xbox 360 was with the green button. It was like awesome. Yeah, I guess the original was that big gray. What if a console was just like a color? Like, what if a console was like green or something? It would be funny. Or like red, I don't know. It looked like one of those old MacBooks or IMAX. Totally 2007 style.

Yeah, that would really mess with people's heads. Yeah, I wonder if you can lay this on its side, I hope. Apparently you can. Like there's some pictures people in posting about that. It looks really weird when it's laying on its side, but it looks pretty weird either way. But again, like, who cares about it looks like. The main thing I want from this console is that it not sound like a jet engine,

like my PS4 and PS4 Pro, and that it doesn't... We'll see. Like, it doesn't literally heat the room that I'm in, like a space heater when it's running. If you're leaping around and ratchet and clank or whatever... That's true. There's a lot of processing going on. Things are moving in that box. Who knows what it's going to sound like?

That's very screw. Yeah, man, so pretty good event overall. I would say, and then so the next big thing will be Microsoft, well, there are a few different, like, indie events and, like, EA has a press conference and stuff, but the next big, next gen thing will be that Microsoft is going to hold their own big, like, first

party, presumably third party also game conference in July, where they're going to talk about all their first party games, and that'll also be very interesting to see. It'll be interesting to see what they have to kind of combat Sony's showing. Because Microsoft's, I mean,

they're big, Sony's big, kind of win in the PS4 era was that their first party lineup was a lot better than Microsoft's, but Microsoft has been buying up studios to try to change that, and they've been re-lining a whole bunch of things. So it'll be exciting. Cool to see what they do. I'm looking forward to that end to the Ubisoft thing, just because I want to see what the old Ubi has been up to.

Well, Assassin, we haven't seen Valhalla gameplay yet. That's exciting. Yeah, I've just wanted, I mean, it's going to be Assassin's Creed Vikings. I can picture it, but I still want to see it. Yeah, I was a fun story real quick before, and then I'll let you go, but fun story. I was just on the phone with a Ubisoft PR person a couple of weeks ago, like, because when I started at Bloomberg, I just wanted to reach out and say hi. And I was like, by the way, like, you might not know this, but the three of us on my Triple Click on my Triple Click on my podcast, Triple Click are like all obsessed of the Assassin's Creed Odyssey. I cannot wait for Assassin's Creed Valhalla.

It's true. It's just true. That's funny. So I guess the question I would have if our listener right now, and it is a question that I also have because I haven't been paying close attention is, when is Nintendo going to do something? or is Nintendo going to do something? It's a good question. To kind of match all these summer. Yeah, that is a good question.

There will be a direct, right, at some point maybe? A super direct? So I think they announced paper Mario out of the blue. That's the type of thing you would expect in like a summer direct. It might be, I think Nintendo is the type of company that will not announce something unless they are like 100% sure. It will be like, it can be out on that date because they hate flipping so much. Except for like the big franchises, the Zomachis is the Z. Zelda's and stuff, which they'll sometimes announce pretty far out.

Despite the Miyamoto quote. Yeah, no, but I think as far as their like public presentations, I think they're, I think, I wouldn't be surprised to see them just like wait until they're 100% sure that COVID stuff isn't delaying the biggest stuff. But yeah, remember there were rumors about like their whole big Super Mario compilations and all that stuff coming later this year. So I'm sure they'll announce it at some point. But yeah, I don't know if they like are going to do a direct or what, no idea.

I hope they do. Yeah, I like this. I like these games. announcements it's fun but yeah but the big so the big lingering question and i think maybe the most important question of like the holiday season is how much is this thing gonna cost and yeah it'll be interesting yeah looking at that when they're like check it out like two different issues and then they're like charging thing camera like remote i was like fuck i'm looking at like that's probably about nine hundred thousand dollars worth of shit there i don't this is going to get really

expensive so okay so here is where we get into kind of interesting strategy and i say this is someone who thinks, I think console wars are kind of nonsense in terms of like fans, but in terms of looking at what Sony and Microsoft are doing, there's some interesting stuff here because it's interesting to see both of them not want to reveal price until the other one reveals price. And it'll be really, really interesting to see like who goes first and then if the other one undercuts them, but like even a little bit. There are two people at a stop sign in Portland there. Really? Seriously. Like I think that the main reason Xbox One got a tanked compared to the PS4 is because the PS4 was $100 cheaper and

nobody wanted to like spend an extra $100 on Connect. It was certainly a big part of it. I think the story will be similar. I mean, or at least it'll, well, okay, the story will be interesting this fall because it'll be interesting to see if like PS5 has better games or more exclusive games but costs a little more than Xbox Series X. I'm very curious to see what happens. I expect that both will be like $500, but it'll be interesting to see if like Microsoft

is like, no, we're going to be $450 when you're $500 or something. Or if Microsoft like also just offers multiple. versions and it seems like they're leaning so much on backwards compatibility and like game pass stuff in their marketing so far and like even saying stuff like it's chill if you don't even upgrade this time around we're Microsoft and we're totally fine with it if you broke right now like that's a lot of their messaging right now which is kind of interesting given the time period we're in with COVID and everything so yeah yeah I think they're trying to frame themselves as the accessible console but we'll see we'll see how it plays out yeah but we'll talk more about

that later on when they announce all their stuff because it makes me wonder like... We're missing some crucial information. Totally. I just wonder why they're even doing this like series X when you can get all those same games on Xbox One or on PC. Like a lot of it doesn't really make sense to me, but that's something we can discuss when they actually announce those games and like talk more about their overall strategy. Yeah, maybe it'll make more sense.

Price is going to be the big question and we will see what they do there. I also think PlayStation still has some stuff left to announce. They haven't announced all their games. I don't know if they've announced all their games for launch. I'm sure a lot of that is like in flux. I mean, they haven't announced NAC 3. That's true. That is true.

Clearly they still have some tricks up their sleeve. But I imagine that like around September or August or like around entering the fall, I think we'll see another big event that is like price, full release lineup and like other nitty gritty stuff that you want to know about a console. We still haven't seen the OS and like what they're doing with that stuff. I've heard that they have some crazy things in the works. Although who knows how much of that will actually. make it in the console. I heard that like some some of it might not. Who knows? Um, but yeah,

it's a lot of questions remaining, but really cool showing, I think. Yeah, and it's good to lead with games. Like I'm into OS stuff, but they always demo a bunch of features that then nobody uses. And I'm like, does it have party chat? Can I play cool games on it? Okay. Yeah. That's all I need. Um, yes, agreed. Uh, although I don't know. I, I've thought about like, what, what kinds of, like, extraneous features, what I actually care about. And yeah, sometimes, sometimes the answer is just like, I guess the one thing is suspending multiple games and coming right back to them. Which I gather is probably going to be a thing. Does Netflix work on launch day?

The real question. That's a good question. It is, though. It is. And then, yeah, and then backwards compatibility and like, will you have to buy The Last of Us 2 again on your PS5 to play it on PSI? Like that's another big lingering question. Oh, that had better not be the case.

That seems as well. We'll see, I guess. Especially like cyberpunk games that are coming this fall that clearly will have next-gen version the Avengers. Like what are they going to do with that stuff? So yeah, lots of questions lingering, but yeah, cool stuff. All right. Yeah, fun show. That is it for this bonus episode.

We will see you all next week. Kirk, Maddie. Goodbye. All right. See you both next week. 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. Triple Click is a proud member of the Maximum Fun Podcast Network.

And if you like our show, we hope you'll head over to maximum fun.org slash join and consider becoming a member. Doing so help support us and gets you access to an exclusive triple click episode each month. Find us online at triple clickpodcast.com, on Twitter at triple clickpod and send email to triple click at maximum fun.org. Thanks for listening. See you next time. Maximumfund.org.

Comedy and culture. Artist owned, audience supported.