Triple Click - Starfield And What Makes a 'Bethesda Game'?

Episode Date: August 31, 2023

What's the deal with: Bethesda games? To prepare for Starfield, Jason, Maddy, and Kirk take a trip all the way back to the Elder Scrolls: Arena days and go through the storied company's long history, which of course involves more than forty thousand versions of Skyrim.One More Thing:Kirk: How To with John Wilson (Max)Maddy: Imbeciles by Adam CohenJason: Sea of StarsLINKS:Hbomberguy’s videos on: Fallout 3 & Fallout: New VegasSupport 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

Let's stop by the house for a second because I need to drop off a couple things. It's these three daggers and 723 goat cheese wheels. Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you. This week we talk about Bethesda Games, from the Elders' Arena to Starfield. What makes a Bethesda game a Bethesda game besides the wheels of cheese? I'm Maddie Myers. I'm Jason Schreier. And I'm Kirk Hamilton, and hello.

Hello. Hi, my fellow co-hosts. We did it again. We all got together again. By the time you hear this, Maddie Myers will be married. It's true. We're recording this in advance. This is a usual thing where we have to say we're recording this in advance.

If anything crazy happens, like if Todd Howard comes out and Starfield has a whole section that says Maddie will never get married. Congratulations to the version of you that exists when this episode is airing to the future. to future Maddie from past Kirk. Congratulations. To future married Maddie. To future Maddie. That's how I'm going to introduce myself. That's a tongue twister. Say that 10 times.

It's me. Married Maddie. It's hard to say. It's hard to say. It can't do it. Married Maddie Myers. But we're experts at talking. And that's how we became a part of the maximum fun network of podcasts.

Heard of it? Well, you probably have because it's a cool network of podcasts and we're a part of it. And also, it's how we are a listener supported show is because we're part of that network. And you can help support us and the rest of that cool co-op network that is MaxFun by going to maximum fund.org slash join and becoming a member. And if you do that, you get a sweet little gift from us once a month and a huge backlog of every previous gift we've ever given out once a month. And that is a bonus episode. That's true.

So this coming month, the bonus up is going to be a little late because I'm getting married. And also because Zelda, Tears of the Kingdom is a long game. But we are going to do a bonus episode about Tears of the Kingdom where we spoil the heck out of it. We spill the beans. We do a beans cast. Kirk, remind me what day that's going to come out? First week of September at some point. Yeah, the first week, a few couple days into September.

So just a little later than we usually do. We usually release them at the end of the month. This is August's bonus episode. It'll just be out a couple days into September. So keep an eye on your bonus feed and you'll see when it pops up and it'll be a lovely surprise for you. And regardless, there'll still be 12 bonus ups in the year. So just ignore the specific days that they came out and don't worry about it. There's 12 bonus apps a year, which is kind of like having one a month. Anyway, maximum fun.org slash join is the URL to go to. Please, please become a member and earn our undying love. And not mine though, because I wouldn't say it's undying.

I would say it's undying until you stop becoming a very conditional love. Yeah. I think we still love you. That's true. We do. But it is a little bit less. It burns a little brighter, if you can remember. It's just a little bit more powerful.

This is the stuff great parasycial relationships. Yeah. Is this working? Is this a healthy way to engage? I don't know. So, Kirk, what are we talking about today? We're talking about Bethesda. specifically, what's the deal with Bethesda role-playing games? We have got a brand-new

Bethesda universe on the horizon in Starfield, one of the most hyped games of 2023. It's coming out in just a few weeks. None of us have played it, and I don't know if any of us will play it in advance. But, you know, we haven't played it, but we have played a lot of Bethesda games over the years, and we've watched as the influence of these role-playing games has spread and gone far beyond any one game studio. So we have done episodes about the Fallout series, what's the deal with Fallout, and we did an episode about Skyrim,

one of the most successful Bethesda role-playing games. So those two episodes already exist, and none of us remember anything we said on either of them. So we're just going to repeat all the same things. They were huge open-world episodes, and there's just so much to keep track of. It's like replaying an open-world game where you do the same things,

but you don't remember that you did them, so it's just as fun as the first part. Or it's like playing a Bethesda game where the character repeats dialogue over and over. Well, we could play this like the evil way. Like we could just like make totally crazy choices this time when we record. We totally contradict all the points that we made last time around. Like, wow, we hate dragons. They're so not the coolest part of Skyron. I really hate when a game is open-ended and lets you make your own adventure.

So anyways, we have talked about these games quite a bit on the show. And we've also talked about games that were influenced by them. But it seemed like a good time to just take stock of the Bethesda Game Studios style role-playing game because Starfield is coming out. And Starfield feels like it's going to land in a slightly different world than the last BGS game. It's going to land in a lot of worlds, actually. Yeah, thousands of worlds. I guess the last BGS game was Fallout 76 in 2018.

But the last proper sort of single-player game was Fallout 4th. And that was in 2015, so coming up on 10 years ago. So it's been a long time since we've gotten one of these games. A lot has changed. Notably, Breath of the Wild came out, but there are a lot of other things that we'll get into. So I guess let's just start by talking a little bit, refreshing listeners on our overall relationship with these types of games, which ones we like, which ones we've liked less, what we think of them now versus what we thought of them when we first played them. Jason, why don't you kick us off?

Yeah, my first one was oblivion. which is kind of a bad first one because it left kind of a not so great impression. But then I got really into Fallout 3 and then really into Skyrim. Skyrim. I lived and breathed for a long time. I have fond memories of when I played that game. I actually reviewed it for Wired. And I did a fun.

I went to a preview event and everything. That was a very long time ago. But it was one of those. It was actually one of the best preview events I've ever been to because they didn't say anything. they didn't do anything. They'd just drop you in front of a computer and said, play this for three hours and you can do whatever you want. It was legit, like the best kind of preview for a game like this, that I should say.

And yeah, and then I was lukewarm on Fallout 4. I, like, didn't even play more than 10 hours of that game, which was disappointing because Fallout 3 and Skyrim, I both explored, like, most of the worlds of those games got really into them both. And so, yeah, I'm very curious to see where Starfield goes. I'm like not really a space exploration type person unless it's a very special type of game like Outer Wilds. So I don't even know if I'm going to play that much Starfield or care that much about Starfield. It does feel like in a post-Belder's Gate 3 world that the Bethesda formula is going to be interesting to address.

But yeah, to answer your original question, really into Skyrim, really into Fallout 3. The feeling of just kind of like wandering in Skyrim in any different direction. just finding something interesting that was so, I don't know if it was the first game to do something like that. It certainly, actually, it wasn't definitively can say it wasn't the first game to do something like that, but it really kind of mastered that formula of exploration and just environmental storytelling and narrative design through like finding this weird little outpost somewhere and learning that it's actually full of cannibals.

I guess that was Fallout 3. But learning that they're vampires There are probably some cannibals in Skyrim. Yeah, they're vampires in Skyrim. Vampires in the basement or something. And just kind of like telling these little stories through exploration, I was always really impressed and really enjoyed that sort of thing. You know, vampires are kind of fantasy cannibals.

I never thought about it before. I never drew that comparison until Jason did just now. If you think about it, a cannibal is like a vampire that just like solid food. Mm-hmm. And is sexy. Sexier than most cannibals. Yeah. There were cannibals.

I remember there's a house of cannibals in Fallout 3, and then Fallout New Vegas had like a cult of cannibals, that white glove, like family thing. Oh, yeah, right. Right? Or were they vampires? I don't remember the specifics, but I do remember enjoying that.

I think they were eating each. I think there were cannibals. There were no vampires in Fallout lore, so I think they were... No, there are ghouls and there are cannibals, but I don't think they were vampires. Well, the ghouls are totally different. Yeah, no, they were cannibals. Well, but ghouls live a really long time like vampires. True.

Goals are this means. Should we do a video game monster etymology on the show at some point? Oh, that'd be fun for an episode. I mean, I do feel like I've been in a lot of goblin camps this past year. We don't even get into it, but there have been a lot of goblin camps. I'm writing down types of video game monsters in our documents for a future. Is Starfield going to have cannibals or vampires? I mean, are there going to be camps of enemies that we need to destroy?

Because that is a core part of an open world game. Also, would a cannibal vampire, would that be a vampire that eats other vampires? Does that make you a cannibal vampire? Cannibal vampire would be the most hardcore heavy metal band you've ever seen. That's true. You heard a cannibal corpse. Get ready for cannibal vampire. Exactly.

Exactly. What is happening? Maddie, what is your relationship with Bethesda Games Studios role-playing games? Well, I'm sure I said this on the fallout episode, but forget all that. I'm going to say it again, folks. That's what we're doing today. Back in the 2000s, I had a roommate who played Elder Scrolls Oblivion, and that was my first interaction with Elder Scrolls. And I was like, this doesn't look fun to me at all because the roommate was grinding and just like killing rats over and over.

And I was like, man, I have the same exact experience all the way down to the roommate. Where you just fight the same enemies over and over and watch a number seven big and very slowly. Like, this seems like the least fun thing I've ever seen. And it's like everything I hate about fantasy role playing games. But then said roommate started playing the Fallout games, and I had a much better time watching those along. I guess Fallout 3 would have been the next one, according to this timeline that Kirk made. And I remember weighing in on choices and character creation and all of that and being like, all right, this is pretty cool. And then I was working for the Phoenix by this point, and I reviewed Skyroom for the Phoenix.

Dot it was great. Was very overwhelmed by open world games at that time, though. I don't think open world games really clicked for me emotionally until Breath of the Wilds. I mean, I played them, but I was always like, there's so much to do. I don't know. These aren't my favorite kind of games. I'm not sure if this is for me. And Skyrim was something that I thought was really impressive and beautiful, but maybe just not for me.

And then circling back to it again on this show in my post Breath of the Wild brain, I actually enjoyed it way more, which I'm sure I said on our Skyrim episode in some form or other. And now heading into Starfield, I'm like, not sure how to feel. Because I like Jason, I'm not necessarily looking at Starfield and being intrigued by the story per se. It's not to say I don't like space games. I do. I'm a Metroid fan after all. That's not what's pushing me away.

It's more just that I've played so many different RPGs this year. And so I'm wondering how Starfield is going to stand out. But I also feel like overall I've had kind of a slow falling in love with Bethesda games and understanding them and seeing what makes them so. special between Skyrim and the later Fallout games. So I'm cautiously optimistic, but not sure what to expect, since it's the first in a new IP. Yeah, they're very, as they have very excitedly told us many times.

Yeah. Yeah, so my history with these games actually goes all the way back to the very first Elder Scrolls game. I played the Elder Scrolls arena. Not in 1994 when it came out, because I don't think I had a PC that could play a game. then, but maybe 96 or 97. I found it in, I think it was a software, et cetera, which is the name of the game store in my mall. Cool.

And I remember, I think I bought it just purely based on the advertisement on the back of the box. This had, this famously had a scantily clad lady along with, she's like a barbarian fighter along with these other characters on the cover. But I remember looking at the back and seeing the 3D graphics and something about, you know, hundreds of miles to explore and sort of an endless adventure that you can. can go on and thinking, well, that sounds really cool. It could be I'd read a review in a magazine or something that pointed me that way, but my memory is that I just found it on the shelf and bought it. So that was the very first game that they made. The story behind that game is

funny. It was supposed to be like a gladiator arena battle game. That's why it's called the Elder Scrolls Arena. And I remember as a kid or as I guess a teenager having that same question being like, why is this called Arena? It's just an open world that you walk around. There aren't any aren't any arenas that I can find. There's just dungeons full of rats that you hit with your sword. So I like that one a lot at the time just because I think I saw the potential for what it could be. It felt like an infinite game in a way that nothing else that I'd ever played had felt, at least at that time. So then, fast forward a few years, I skipped the Elder Scrolls to Daggerfall, which I think was even bigger.

Like, they were procedurally generating huge maps. They were just the same thing over and over and over. And you can just walk for like hours and hours in any direction and never really see anything unique or interesting. It just goes on forever. It looks kind of just copy-pasted. So Daegraful, I think, was particularly that way, and I never played it. So then in, I think in college, I guess, I played The Elder Scrolls three, Moro Wind, which is one that I, it's a game that holds a special place in the heart. I think of a lot of people who like these games.

because it was so unusual and kind of specific. It takes place in Moro Wind, which is one of the districts in the Elder Scrolls. There's like this continent called Tamriel. I think I'm going to remember this all right. And then each sort of, there are these different districts, and each district is sort of where one group of people lives. The high elves live here. The wood elves live here.

The nords of Skyrim live in Skyrim. The Red Guards live over in like Hammerfell, I think it's called. And then Moroind is where the basically, the drow that dark elves live on this continent. And it's a really unusual place. It's like very swampy. There's really weird plants everywhere. Everything looks really cool. And I

remember playing it and thinking, this just feels like this alien environment. It's almost like being on another planet. And that was the thing that made the game so exciting. Turns out you were playing Starfield all along. Yeah. What if you're on a thousand other planets? Is that what you were thinking even? One of the planets in Starfield is the

drought. I'm sure. I'm sure it is. That would be amazing. Or the Dunmer, actually. I think I guess maybe they're called the Dunmer in this universe. The Elder Scrolls is funny because I think they kind of made it up as they went. I don't even think they really knew what the Elder Scrolls were when they first created these things. And it's very much just Tolkien. Don't worry about it. It's like Tolkien fantasy.

There's Wood elves and High Elves and there's Dark Elves and there's trolls and there's got orcs and whatever. Like it's all the same stuff from Tolkien. It's just like in this different universe where there's occasionally interesting ideas. Like there's cat people. Well, this is also, there was this giant, like, profligation of, like, might and magic. And Ultima was really the series that started all of this stuff. But, like, there were a lot of these kind of first-person style, either dungeon crawlers or RPGs. And it was, they all kind of look the same.

Like, they have the big character cards at the bottom of the screen with the faces on them. And then on the right side of the screen, you have all the actions you could do, like a sword. And, like, a walking, a guy walking for moving. And, like, like, all that sort of thing was a very big. trope in the 90s of computer RPGs. Yeah, and you know, not so I could keep telling my story, but actually to stay on this, I think something that struck me as notable about the Elder Scrolls Arena even from the beginning was that it was a real-time game with real-time combat.

So you would kind of dodge in and out of fights, and you'd be pressing, I think, the control button at the time to swing your sword, and it wasn't like a turn-based battle the way that some of those dungeon crawlers worked. It had more of an arcade-y feel to it, which was notable even at the time and has remained kind of one of the most identifiable things about these games over the years is that they are real-time first-person

games. The fallout games obviously you're shooting guns. They're not very good first-person shooters, but they are first-person shooters. And in the Elder Scrolls games, you're mostly swinging a sword or a club or you're shooting magic spells or arrows, but it's all kind of in real time, which is definitely

still feels unusual. When you go play Skyrim, it's like, oh, wow, okay. I have to run up to people and hit them with my sword and then hold up my shield before they swing and kind of master this weird first person melee combat. Always, yeah, the weakest parts of these games, I would say. Yeah. It's the comment, especially in Skyrim where you're just fighting endless jogger, which are the

skeleton dudes. Yeah. Doesn't feel as good as picking up herbs and plants. That's the best part. That's true. Yeah. Or looking for vampires. Right.

No, it is, it's one place where the VR version of Skyrim, which is, you know, it's one place where the VR version of Skyrim, which I've played a little bit of, is actually pretty cool, because it really is VR first-person melee combat. And melee combat works pretty well in VR because you're holding the two little controllers, that's your shield and your sword, and then you're swinging the sword around, and it actually moves one-to-one with your hand. So as long as the game is fairly well designed in terms of collision detection, you actually sort of feel like you're holding your shield up to block the attacks

and then you're hitting the guy. Like that actually tends to feel a little better to me than you pressing the triggers on my controller. It's just kind of exhausting because you do it for half an hour and then you're like, oh my God, like I can't just keep swinging a sword. I'm not in good enough shape for me. Imagine if you were actually carrying a real sword in shields. I know. Yeah, I know. I'm sure there are people right who attach a sword, like a shield and the sword to their VR controllers and then get really, really buff playing these games.

So anyways, I really liked a blitz. I really liked Morowind and then took a five or six years off from gaming. And when I came back to it, I got an Xbox 360. The two games that I bought were Grand Theft Auto, San Andreas, and the Elder Scrolls, Oblivion. Wow. So you had a lot of time on your hands? I was going for bang for my buck. I wanted the longest, biggest games possible.

And also, I'd never played a GTA game and I really wanted to. And I remember loving Morwin. So I was like, all right, I'm going to get oblivion. And I remember having a similar feeling about Oblivion. I played a lot of it. I might have finished it. But it wasn't time well spent. I remember thinking this is so repetitive.

And just there were these portals in Oblivion that opened and you run through them and you have to like fight a boss or like steal a gem or something and then go back through them. Because the premise of Oblivion is you're in Cyradil, which is the most boring district in the whole of Tamriel because it's the capital district. So it's kind of just like boring medieval England looking like green hills. It's not like Moro Wind was cool and weird Skyrim is cool because it's like the Arctic North and there's mountains and dragons and stuff. Serodil is just kind of some feels like it's really not

very interesting looking. And then the plot is like there's a bunch of portals to oblivion which is the kind of hell dimension or just opening up randomly. Hell mouths are opening up. They're basically hell mouths, yeah. And you have to run into them and then it's always the same thing like they're very copy-pasted and there's a billion of them

you can just play it forever. And I remember just kind of mindlessly playing it and being like, okay, this is really getting old after a while. So I didn't love that game, but I did play quite a bit of it. And then I, you know, enjoyed Fallout 3. Didn't think too much about it at the time. Like I've since come to have a better appreciation for all the narrative problems that that game had, especially at launch.

It really is a pretty sloppily told story. But it had its moments when you go into the black and white Pleasantville simulation. Yeah, that was real. What are the narrative problems? I enjoy the story in that game. Liam Neeson kicked out. Well, you're really just following, it's that you're really just following your dad the whole time, and you're not really able to impact the narrative in any way. Like, you're just kind of wandering around following a guy who's off on his own adventure. That's just the main story. The main story is in these games. I mean, I guess this leads to actually an interesting Bethesda trope, which is that the main stories are never particularly interesting. Even Skyrim, which I think a lot of people would consider the peak Bethesda game, a lot of, uh, that, that's a, people think it's their best game yet. The main story of that is like the dryest, most boring thing.

Like you're a superhero and you kill a big dragon. It's the side stories and the exploration and the adventures you have along the way that matter. So that's why I enjoyed Fallout 3 because like not a lot of games give you an opportunity, like put you in front of a town with a nuclear bomb in the middle and giving the option to detonate it if you so choose. I feel like that's still one of the most memorable quests ever. Like it's still like often people's go-to example. jokingly or not, of like, a choice that matters in a video game.

Like, did you blow up the town or not? Yeah, to the point where I've, I mean, some of my criticisms of Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 are based on H. Bomber guys' videos. He's made these incredible videos critiquing both of those games that are more thorough and well thought out than anything I could come up with right now. But I will link him in the show notes. If you want to watch, like, some very smart good criticisms of those two games, and actually, he also did a video about Fallout New Vegas and how great that

canes, notably the one of these types of games that was not made by Bethesda Game Studios. And those are all really fun to watch. He points out, like, well, he talks some about that choice, that, what's the town called? Megaton. Yeah, it's Megaton, of course. The Megaton choice. And how that is, like, yes, that is a really impactful decision, but it's almost comical in how totally overwrought the decision is.

It's the first thing that you do. And you can either blow up all these innocent people or you can choose not to. and of course, like, most people are going to choose not to. The blowing up just exists to prove that the choice is possible. Sure. And then, like, there are things, like, in the end of that game, you have to go into an irradiated room to, like, save the water supply. And it was a binary choice.

Like, either you could sacrifice yourself nobly, or you could make the Brotherhood of Steel Lady to it, and then that was seen as a bad thing no matter your reasoning. Even though one of your companions is a super mutant, theoretically you could say to him you're resistant to radiation couldn't you just go into the room and press the button for me but he won't like you won't do it you have

to do it and then eventually they like changed the ending and made it so you didn't have to die but there are a lot of things like that where the promise like the open ended promise of the world and of the way that the game seems to work are completely thrown out the window especially narrative and I think

that for a long time now that's been the biggest problem that Bethesda Game Studios games tend to run into is there's this amazing promise to the open world, but then the story, and specifically the mainline story, totally fails to live up to those open-ended promises, the way that you feel when you first look, you know, at the open world. I guess I don't, I'm trying to remember if I, if I felt that disappointed about Fallout 3. I don't know that I ever did, but I agree looking back on it, especially in a Baldersgate 3 universe that we're all living in now where we're like,

oh my God, there's so many choices. You can completely ruin your game. And that was a big topic of conversation for us on that most recent Baldur's Gate episode. And I've been thinking about it a lot since then as I keep playing and Googling what I should and shouldn't do. I don't think I ever had that experience in a Bethesda game. But I don't know if that's a bad thing. Like, I don't, I don't know if I agree that that promise had to be lived up to if that makes sense. Like, I agree with you that the stories aren't strong, but I'm okay with it if there's just one thing to do. Does that make sense? Like, it's okay if there isn't a whole lot of variety there. It does. I guess Baldur's Gate does put it into relief because Baldur's Gate is so good at telling

you, yes. Obviously, it doesn't make anything possible, but it is very good at rewarding you for thinking creatively. For example, in that game, if you had a character that was resistant to radiation, if that was a thing in Baldur's Gate, you would absolutely be able to send them in. You absolutely could send them into the room and they would be resistant and they'd be able to do the thing and they would have accounted for that and written an outcome. There'd probably even be some lines of dialogue about it. So I think I understand feeling disappointed every time a Bethesda game railroads you into something, which they do kind of a lot, especially those older ones, in the mainline narrative, because they just need you to get to a certain outcome at certain fulcrum points in the story.

So what I found more disappointing about Fallout 4 specifically is that isn't that like on the macro level, you couldn't make different story choices. Because actually in Fallivore, you could, like, choose to decide through with, although I don't remember if that actually amounted to anything. I do remember there was some big war thing, and you do have to, like, one. Yeah, those different factions were all going to play with the faction. You just see different parts of the story, I would say. It's kind of how that changed out.

What was more disappointing for me was on a micro level, and Baldur's Gate 3 really puts that in perspective, because in Baldur's Gate 3, there's so many fights where you can talk your way out of them or you can find some way to sneak around or you've got some object that will end a fight for you. Whereas in Fallout 4, everything just leads to a fight and there's no way out of it. And the dialogue options have been so simplified because they added a voice to your main character. And so they were limited in the number of dialogue options they could choose. And also you, you don't actually get to choose your dialogue options, just kind of like the tone behind them in Mass Effect style. And a lot of them just lead to the same outcome. You're just kind of making super. You're just kind of making

superficial choices and you can't hack your way into a situation or talk your way out of combat or do a lot of the things that I think fallout New Vegas a few years earlier was five years earlier, I believe, was very good at giving you a lot of those options. So to me, it's less about, like, I don't care as much if there's only one ending or something or it funnels you through major story moments in the same way. It's more the moment to moment stuff, which again speaks to what I was talking about earlier, where I care much more about the individual. finding a cool complex and exploring it and spending an hour just doing things in it, that I'll be way more disappointed if that funnels me in a single direction than if like the main story funnels me in a single direction.

Yeah, I think that there's, I think that's very true and that some of it is just down to the quality of the writing in these games, which honestly just like isn't very high. When I think about New Vegas, there are some scenes in New Vegas. These are scenes that I'm not even sure I ever saw playing them, but saw them in H-bomber guys' videos. like where he's talking about them, showing some of the different outcomes. There are these amazing sequences in that game where you'll engage in a like philosophical, political conversation with the leader of one of the factions. And you really have to kind of talk him into seeing that the way he's been doing things is wrong, which this is a classic fallout thing.

This is something that happened all the time in fallouts one and two. And then he actually will agree with you if you can be persuasive enough, not just by passing skill checks, but by choosing the right arguments and like role-playing. it yourself, which is so cool. And it comes down to the way the game is designed, but it's also just good writing. Like the dialogue is good. It was written by people who are thinking deeply about the characters that they're writing. And there is a sense in some of these games that most of the characters are pretty shallow. That's definitely something that's true in Skyrim, where most of the Yarls that you meet, they have like one thing that they care about, and they

just don't really seem like fleshed out people. And I think over time, as more and more games have started to borrow ideas from these types of games and improve on them in some ways, it's become more and more glaring the narrative in writing shortcomings that these games have. Yeah, that's the thing I wonder about Sarfield. I wonder how that game is going to handle writing in general. I wonder how that game is going to handle storytelling and choice. Yeah, it's probably my biggest source of trepidation about the game, not just because of Baldur's Gate, but also because there are just so many well-written games

that I've played. and also games that just feel like Bethesda games, but give me a little bit more of a coherent narrative or like a coherent sense of the world. Breath of the Wild is an obvious example. That game was heavily influenced by Skyrim. But now that I'm playing Tears of the Kingdom, I mean, it goes so far beyond the kinds of things

that you can do in Skyrim. I would be hard pressed to go back and play Skyrim and enjoy myself as much. I mean, to be fair, Tears of the Kingdom, it goes far beyond the things you can do in any game. Yeah, including Broadway. Yeah, but it's a lot of those that, freedom, that open-ended, like, go see what's over the next hill type of.

So, yeah, and also speaking of writing, I mean, the writing, I guess it depends when you say the writing is generally weak in Bethesda's games. It depends if you're talking about on a, like, grand storytelling level versus minutia, like individual lines making you laugh. That's kind of, I'm more talking about individual lines. Oh, you are talking about the individual lines. Tears of the Kingdom, the writing is phenomenal on a micro level. Every single person has something funny and interesting.

and surprisingly moving to say. There's just a lot of good writing and a lot of silly puns too, but including from our favorite reporter Penn, who has some great lines. But yeah, but that's a game that like I think if even Zelda, I guess Zelda games, especially recently, have had pretty good writing, so we shouldn't be dismissive of that. But like if games that aren't trying to be narrative-focused

can still master the writing, then I think the bar is pretty high in general for the level of writing you want to see from some of these games. Yeah. So I wanted to circle back to something you said, Kirk, which was it feels like a Bethesda game. And I just wanted to challenge you to explain what you mean when you say something feels like a Bethesda game. That's a great question. For starters, it has bad writing. No, God.

No, I think that the world of a Bethesda game is a pretty distinct video game environment. and it does feel a certain way. So when I say that, I mean, there is, you're presented with a pretty open space to move through. The space itself gives you at least one or two things in your field of vision that you can go to and explore. That's been true of these games for a long time. You see that mountain you can climb it, et cetera. Or really like, if you think of a Fallout game, if you're playing Fallout 3, if you look around, you can always just kind of see some weird look and build over there. And you just are like, that's something for sure. And you kind of are trained by these

games to know if I head in that direction, I'm going to find a side quest, I'm going to find something. Occasionally you're going to stumble into a story mission that you weren't supposed to go to yet, but usually it's some kind of side things. So that's part of it. A big thing for me is that Bethesda don't have a mini map. And I know that Zelda typically does that you can turn it off. I'm kind of back and forth between having an off and on, by the way, in Tears of the Kingdom. We'll probably talk about that in the beans cap. It's pretty minimal. and chooses the kingdom. It is, it's pretty minimal.

It's definitely not as intrusive as in some other games. But when I play, say the Witcher 3, I like to mod that game so that I have a compass, which is what they typically have in a Bethesda game. At the top of your screen,

there's a compass, like in Horizon Zero Dawn also has this. Modern Ubisoft games, like the most recent Ubisoft games do as well. I'm a big fan of that compared to a mini-map. This is, I'm sure a lot of listeners know that I don't like minimaps

I used to write about it at Kataku. But I think that they just distract your eye to the corner of this screen. Bethesda Games, for a long time to their credit, instead just have this compass that can be kind of confusing. But I like that because it doesn't give you too much information. So your eyes are not as distracted. So you're really, that's the feel of a Bethesda Game is you're kind of looking around at the horizon. You're looking for things to do.

And then you're just going that way. And then as you walk that way, you find some other stuff that you might do. So that's one part of it. And another part that I'll just mention is there's an element of simulation. Like in Bethesda games, there, like, objects have material properties. Wood can maybe catch fire or it'll float. Like water moves a certain way.

You can blow something up or carry a certain amount of weight. You know, there's like a simulated quality to the world and also to the social simulation of the towns and all the people. So you can make guards mad or you can pickpocket people and take things out of their pockets that they needed and then, you know, sell them back to them or whatever. There's kind of this simulated sandbox. quality to the world that lets you manipulate it. So that's, I think, another big part. And there are

always, I mean, extrapolating on that, they're always extrapolating from that, there are always superfluous objects, objects that you can just pick up and throw around and just have no value, have no purpose other than just being there. And I think that's something, Balder's Gay-3, has a lot of that, too. I think that's something that goes all the way back to Ultima underworld, which many people consider one of the first immersive sins. I don't remember, it might have been in previous on Ultimate games too but that one really strikes me

that really comes to mind as a game that just like is full of objects you can interact with that only exist to make the game feel, the world feel more lived in and real

and that I always found to be really an interesting property of these games as opposed to there's some open world games where like deliberately everything, I mean, Horizon is a good example

where everything you find and it has a purpose and you're not going to find just like random random garbage that you can't do anything with that just exists to be there. Yeah. Yeah.

That's a huge drawback of the Horizon games. You should be able to collect sandwiches. Yeah, more ashtray, more broken teddy bears. Well, also, you should be able to mod 10,000 wheels of cheese into the house so that you open the door and the cheese all explodes out of the doors. I think modding is another really important part of Bethesda Game Studios games that still really makes their games stand apart. I mean, a huge part of Skyrim's longevity.

was the fact that there was this really vibrant modding scene. And, I mean, I was at Kotaku during the heyday of Skyrim. I was there when it launched in 2011, or I guess, no, right when it launched. Yeah, end of 2011. And then... 11, 11, 11. All the way through its reign as the kind of most popular and successful role-playing game ever. And a lot of that was because mods, people would make these amazing mods.

They would make mods that made it look beautiful. So, you know, whatever, these sort of shader mods or mods that would change the lighting, realistic water, they would make mods that would kind of change the way the simulation worked so that you would get hungry and have to, you know, take care of your survival needs and turn it more into a survival game. People made whole new missions where they would add new voice acting and characters, new companions that would follow you around. There are people who are trying to build versions of morrow wind in the Skyrim engine. That one's called Skywind. There are, I'm sure, there will be people who try to build Morowind. in whatever, the Starfield engine. Like, people are always trying to build Morrowind in every single

single game that Bethes releases. So that's a big part of the longevity of these games. And I think they've been pretty smart over the years about always allowing modders to have a lot of room to work. And I guess Fallout 76, being an always-online multiplayer game, is the exception to that. And kind of

the exception in a lot of ways, in a lot of unfortunate ways, I think. And is the game that most people would cite as something that doesn't feel like a Bethesda game? And yet is also the most recent significant Bethesda game before Starfield. And is why I think Starfield is coming out in such a weird spot for Bethesda games. I mean, I guess maybe that's why we're having this conversation. It's because it kind of felt for a bit like Bethesda lost their way,

did a little bit of wacky stuff, made an MMO that just didn't properly emulate the things about a Bethesda world that feel good because other people role playing, can't quite mimic the weird NPC interactions and sense of discovery and exploration that can happen in a more designed world. But that's part of why I'm like, I don't know what Starfield's going to be. I don't know if it's going to feel like a Bethesda game at all. It's an interesting question what Starfield is going to be like. This is kind of a fun time to talk about it since none of us has played it. That's about to change.

It's going to come out soon in the world will have played it. Yeah, I think the embargo might lift. like right around when this episode comes out. So we'll read reviews right around under this episode. Yeah, so we'll be reading reviews and I'll be very curious because, yeah, I don't know what it even means for a game to be a Bethesda Game

Studios game now. So Todd Howard, who was game director on Morowin, I think his first gig as project lead for them was for Redguard, which is a kind of ill-fated spinoff of Daggerfall in the 90s. But he was the lead on Morowin, and he has been like the prime creative

force at Bethesda Game Studios for this whole time for like 20 years. And he is still out there talking about Starfield. But at the same time, a lot of people have left Bethesda Gabe Studios. It's a very different place than it was, whatever, 12 years ago, or even longer than that, when they were, ago when they were making Skyrim. So it's a really different place now. And the bloom is off the rows in a lot of ways. I mean, people have been very critical of Fallout 4, which, again, was so long ago. Then there was this feeling that they were kind of coasting, or they're re-releasing Skyrim over and over and over on every platform possible.

They're making VR versions of these games. Fallout 76 was pretty disappointing to a lot of people. I do gather they've fixed it or they've made it better. There are some people who like the game, but it was never going to be what people wanted. And now comes Starfield. So, yeah, I'm kind of curious what that game is going to be. Yeah, the thing that's most striking to me

is that Bethesda Game Studios now is hundreds of people, I think close to 500, 400 or 500 people. Wow, really? I actually didn't know they'd gotten that big. Across 4. different studios. They have studios, their original one, which is in Rockville, Maryland, and then they also have a studio in Montreal, a studio in Dallas, and a studio in Austin, Texas. So they are way bigger, and you might hear them and think, oh, cool, that means they can make

lots and lots more stuff, and their games are going to be bigger and better. And that, I mean, to some extent, that's true. I mean, Larian went from 140 people to 450, like I mentioned the other day for Baldersgate 3, but also it creates some problems. Sky. was made with a hundred people, and one of the reasons, there are two reasons that was possible. One is extreme brutal crunch, and the other is a group of people who have this chemistry and can all be in a room together and, like, just jamming stuff and, like, people being empowered to go and do their own things and create their own things. And when you add hundreds of people to the equation, you also have to put in layers of middle management. And it kind of can change the way you get in office politics. It really changes the way against. Game Studio works in both positive and negative ways. So I think Starfield will be really the first

kind of example of this new age, Bethesda, this way bigger Bethesda Game Studios, this way different Bethesda game studios. One thing I have heard, and I've been hearing this since this is not from like reviewers or anything. It's something I heard from game devs is that this will be the least buggy game Bethesda has made. And we didn't mention bugs at all, but that's another characteristic of Bethesda. It's true. It's true. It's true. But that is something that I've heard pretty definitively from people who worked on this thing, that they are really proud of it being the least buggy game, Bethes is me. Something else that I consider a Bethesda quality is having a really specific aesthetic.

Like I always feel like Moro and Oblivion, Skyrim, they all feel like they're part of the same series. You can just look at it and know it's not just any fantasy game either. Like, yeah, okay, it looks like D&D. There's certainly some Tolkien in there. Like, it's not like the most original thing that's ever been invented. That's not what I'm trying to say. I just mean, like, the colors, design, and visual aesthetic overall look like a specific thing. And the same goes for Fallout.

Even for games that aren't necessarily developed by Bethesda, you can tell what a fallout game looks and feels like the music is a certain way. The props are a certain way. It just looks like a Fallout game. And I think that's a really good thing, not just from a branding and licensing. perspective, but just from a narrative perspective, even though we've been kind of hard on the writing, like, part of being into a specific series of books or movies or anything else is being like, I like spending time in this world. I like this specific designed world. And not to just

constantly harp on Starfield, but once again, I don't totally get what that aesthetic is. Yeah. Another game worth mentioning related to Starfield is No Man's Sky, because I think that No Man Sky has a pretty similar aesthetic and is a similar kind of game. And I've played a lot of No Man Sky. It's been fascinating watching No Man Sky become what it is. Again, that's still being expanded upon all these years later. But No Man Sky exists and a lot of people have played it. And there is now that question of, well, what is Starfield going to do that No Man Sky doesn't?

Where I wasn't asking that question about Skyrim. There was no other game that was doing what Skyrim is doing. I wasn't asking that question about Fallout 3 either. Yeah. But Starfield, it doesn't even look that different. I don't know. I hope I'm proven. Well, yeah, I'm curious to see what it's like.

I don't know how much I'm going to play, but we'll definitely talk about it. We'll all play it and talk about it, I'm sure. I'll take a little Baldur's Gatebreak. Yeah, a little Baldur's Gate Break to play some Starfield. Yes, we will, I'm sure, be back to talk about Starfield once it's out and we've had a chance to play it. In the meantime, how about we take a break and then come back for one more thing. The greatest generation. Maximum funds irreverent.

Pottymouth Star Trek podcast is a big deal. How big? It's the only Star Trek podcast big enough to have our very own live show tour. And we're inviting all Star Trek fan max funsters everywhere. We're calling it the Share Your Embarrassment Tour. And this year we're going to celebrate and roast Star Trek 5, the final frontier. We're going to go to a bunch of cities. And GreatestgenTour.com has all the info.

That's greatestgen tour.com for dates and tigestion. info for the Share Your Embarrassment Tour. Share your embarrassment and grow stronger from the sharing. Hi, I'm Travis McElroy. And I'm Teresa McElroy. And we're the host of Schmaners. We don't believe that etiquette should be used to judge other people. No, on Schmanters, we see etiquette as a way to navigate social situations with confidence.

So if that sounds like something you're into, join us every Friday on maximum fun, wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. for one more thing. Maddie, how about you kick us off? What's your one more thing? My one more thing is a book I'm reading. I'm not done yet because it's pretty long. It's called imbeciles, and it's by Adam Cohen. Here's the full title. It's a real long title. You guys ready for it? I love a long title book. You can tell this is an academic book. You guys are going to be impressed. All right. imbeciles, the Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the sterilization of Carrie Book. So this is like a truly harrowing title.

I did not know really anything about this topic, but I was reading a Jamel Bowie column in New York Times because I'm becoming my mother, I guess. I don't know. I read the same column, so I'm also becoming your mother. Yeah, and he linked to this book on Google Reads. And I was really taken by the title, especially the, the last part. I don't know who Carrie Buck is. She's just this unknowable woman from hundreds, a hundred years ago who was part of a Supreme Court case about sterilizing supposed feeble-minded

people in America. And she was deemed feeble-minded. So just something about the sterilization of a hyper-specific person's name kind of creeped me out as like a book title. And also just the idea of imbecils being like a genetic category that we assigned to people. in a period of American history was really horrifying to me, but in a way where I was curious and I wanted to know more. So I bothered to click on the Google Books link, and I started reading the book. And I was immediately hooked by the first chapter. It's very well laid out by the author, Adam Cohen. A lot of the rest of the book is less punchy than that first chapter and a lot more academic

and just a real straight up history book about every single person in this time period who contributed. to American eugenics, like actual pre-World War II eugenics arguments that the Nazis cited and that Hitler cited in his own writings in terms of arguing in favor of eugenics in Nazi Germany. And I think that's a part of American history that we basically never talk about. And Adam Cohen lays that out really well in that opening chapter. I would say if folks just want to read the opening on Google Reads, I recommend that. I'm really enjoying the whole book. I like history books, but it's definitely dense. And the other thing that the book gets into that I think is fascinating is intelligence tests, which I think all the three of us know are based in racism and bigotry, like at their core. Like the every, the IQ test, like eugenics were heavily involved in the development of those tests. And many of them don't measure jack shit. I mean, I don't know how to put this. Adam Cohen puts it better than I just did. But. That's pretty straightforward.

Basically, he lays out that intelligence tests are bunk and they measure almost nothing other than how well you can remember the answers to a test. And they're often used to discredit either disabled people, people of color, or really anybody who you need to discredit, you can make a test to discredit them. To prevent them from voting, for example, that's a big part of the book is the way that, for a while, literacy tests were used to disallow certain people from voting. Anyway, lots of very fascinating historical information here. and about a period of time before World War II in American history that I think nowadays

no one thinks about at all. Because no one in America these days even imagines that eugenics would have been a part of laws in our land. At least I never hear about it. So, yeah, it's a fascinating book. It's called Imbecils, and it's by Adam Cohen. And I recommend it. Yeah, I've heard of this book.

It sounds very interesting. Always fun to realize that America has even more sins than we even know about it and think about it. Oh, yeah. It's wild. how much stuff we just act like it never happened at all. We're just like, that's fine. I have gotten the sense that this era is getting a little bit more attention, but it might just be because I read the same Jamel Bowie column.

And he's always talking about interesting historical stuff like that. Yeah, I mean, Jamel Bowie's out here talking about things that nobody else talks about. I mean, the other horrifying thing is that this particular Supreme Court decision hasn't been overturned. And Adam Cohen really has like, this is his hill that he's fighting on, you know, where he's like, it's crazy that this is the game. and you read the book and you're like, yeah, it is crazy. What the heck? I mean, it's good if you're going to choose a hill to die on.

Yeah, why not. Nobody else is fighting on, right? That's cool. That sounds like an interesting book. Jason, what is your one more thing? My one more thing is a new video game that just came out this week. I've been playing an early copy provided by the publisher called Sea of Stars. And this is a game by Sabotage Studios, best known, well, only known for the previous release.

The Messenger, which you guys might remember, came out of the show. years ago is that kind of ninja guidance style platformer that then turned into a Metroidvania super cool game this game is totally different it's a JRP uh inspired very heavily by crono trigger and also Mario RPG slash paper Mario and so the way it works is it's this turn-based RPG and you are this group of adventures and you go explore this kind of really wild interesting universe and uh well not universe i guess planet with like a bunch of islands and stuff. And it's really interesting and got cool music and other great JRP stuff. It's got turn-based combat that has kind of rhythm timing moves straight out of Paper Mario where you have to,

you can do extra damage by pressing the button at the right time, which keeps you engaged in the combat. But other than that, it feels very Chrono Trigger, like the battles unfold in the same way as Chrono Trigger, where the enemies are on screen. And when you run into them, they jump into position. and then all your guys are fighting on the same battlefield. And it's really cool. There's a lot to like about it. The animations are really cool. The story is kind of interesting.

The combat is fun. Characters are interesting. But there are two fatal flaws. It's really one fatal flaw and then one kind of caveat. I'll start with a caveat. The caveat is that with the first game, the messenger, people discovered that there was like a Jordan Peterson quote hidden in it. And people are like, oh, man.

are the developers here inspired by Jordan Peterson. And actually, I got a message, kind of unsolicited message from this guy, Terry, who's the designer and director and writer of the game. And he sent me a message in 2021. I had actually met him at an event like previewing the messengers. I knew him. And he sent me an email, a note saying, hey, I just wanted to reach out regarding these Peterson comments. that are inevitable. I hadn't said anything about it. It was just kind of like a preemptive thing.

And he was like, the gist of it is that this specific bit I wrote about this problematic man was sarcasm written in a second language which has missed the mark with part of the audience. I lived and learned, but happy to address further if you want. So he is kind of whatever he might have intended at the time, he has walked it back. So make that what you will if you are considering by the game. But I thought it was worth. And I've even, I've seen people talking about this in our Discord and the triple click Discord. So I thought it was worth sharing those comments I got a couple years ago from the developer. But that leads to the actual fatal flaw of this game, which is that is very clearly written by someone who English is his second language. And I don't think there's like, obviously

there's nothing wrong with making a game in English if English is your second language. But as an English reader, it can be a little tough to get through when the English is not. really there and the writing is not really there. And as you read it, it feels very clunky. The dialogue is very, there are a lot of comma splices. Pretty much every sentence has a comma splice, which always has been a bugbear for me. And it's tough to get through. It is. Because they're used a lot in games writing too. I always hated them with headlines especially. And it's tough to get through in a JRP. And this was very noticeable in the messenger that English was not, was clearly not the first language of the writers. But it was fine because it wasn't

a dialogue-heavy game. It was a platformer. In a JRP where there's dialogue everywhere, it's a little bit of a tougher hang. And it's very noticeable if you are a native English speaker, speecher. Yeah, there we go. There's my native English coming out. Especially

if you're a writer. So that's just, that's been a real tough. It's made it tougher to be like, wow, this is a really cool new JRPG that if you're into Chrono Trigger, you should check this out because that's such a big hiccup for me. And it's really stopped me from enjoying quite as much this game that I would otherwise really be enjoying

is the English in it. So that's unfortunate and I wish that they had gotten a couple of maybe gotten a grammar pass on it from some editors or something like that. But I guess maybe one day they can patch it or something. But yeah, that's a tough part. But otherwise, yeah, see if stars, it's a cool game. I'm enjoying it. I'll play some more. I'll be I'll be playing through it until I get something else, I guess. But yeah, see you stars. That's my one more thing. Cool.

Nice. Well, my one more thing is a show that I've been watching called How To With John Wilson. Have either of the two of you watched this show? I know of it. No. I've seen parts of it. It seems like an acquired taste. I feel like I don't understand it.

But tell me more. Okay. So you haven't really watched it. No. So neither of you have really watched it. This show is incredible. So I'm going to give it a wholehearted recommendation. This show is totally great, and the two of you would love it.

I feel pretty safe saying that. And I'm going to tell listeners about it because I only just started watching it. The show is currently in its third season, which I think is going to be its last. I just have watched the first four episodes of the first season. The show is on Max, formerly HBO. We have to call it Max. Somehow called Max now. But this show was made for HBO.

Twitter is X, so... No, no, it's not. A lot of people are killing a lot of very well-known brand names for some reason right now. It's really just, yeah. Bizarre. Anyways, so this is made by a documentary named John Wilson. It is executive produced by Nathan Fielder, which maybe put some of it into context. It is an unusual show about reality that tends to go down strange rabbit holes and wind up in profound and beautiful places.

So this guy, John Wilson, approaches each episode with a question, or how do I do this? So how do you make small talk with people? The very first episode, how to make small talk. The second episode is How to Build Scaffolding? How do you build scaffolding around a building? The third one is how to improve your memory. So it starts with a question like that. And it's this very extemporaneous sounding narration over a lot of footage of mostly New York City.

So John Wilson lives in New York. He always has his camera with him everywhere he goes. He films basically everything he's ever seen, as far as I can tell, based on the footage that he uses in the show. And then he mostly just narrates. He's almost never on camera except in reflections. So it's just him kind of talking. He's a very funny way of talking. There's a lot of ums and us.

Yeah, he speaks very slowly and gently. Very, yeah, he has a very, I think, a very appealing voice. Yeah. But it's just a strange way of talking. And it almost sounds like he's making up the script in the booth as he's going. but it's also kind of an affect, but it never is distracting, or at least I find it very funny usually. I'm also not sure it is an affect for what it's worth.

I will never know, I guess. Yeah, having listened to it, you can just see how they could record it as the first take and be like, okay, now can you do it again and not pause forever and trail off? But they go with it. Like, they want that energy. I suppose an affect isn't the way to describe it, but like it is on purpose. I know what you mean that. Part of the show's energy is that this guy is kind of faking it.

it kind of talking off the top of his head, even while the show itself is this immaculately put together presentation. So he starts with something like, for example, in that first episode, How to Make Small Talk, and he starts talking about how it works, different techniques you might try for making small talk. But pretty soon he's just talking to people on the street. Then he's like gone to Cancun for spring break because he thinks if you're on a trip, you can talk to people. And then he winds up just having this really kind of meaningful, surprisingly meaningful conversation. with this dude who's down there because MTV Spring Break is being filmed at the same time right next to them. So the topic, like the subject matter tends to lead to a lot of really interesting digressions.

And that's part of the joy of the show. The second episode is actually probably my favorite that I've seen, how to build scaffolding, because it starts being a really interesting look at just the scaffolding industry and the fact that there's scaffolding under like every single building in New York City, which is something that you see but then stop seeing really quickly. And when someone points it out, you realize like, holy crap, this whole city is just covered in this stuff. And why is that? So he explains why it is.

He gets a little into how they build it. But then it becomes a very different kind of discussion. The episode winds up being about how the impermanent things in our life become permanent. And he starts being like, well, you know, braces are scaffolding for your teeth. And a cast is scaffolding for your body. And then maybe you're scaffolding other parts of your life in other ways. And it starts to become really beautiful. So that's the way that the subject of a given episode works.

What makes the show true genius, I think, is the way that he juxtaposes what he's saying with the B-roll that he's showing you. He has so much footage of New York. And there are so many times where he'll just say a sentence. Like, I guess in the end, some things just aren't really supposed to be preserved for a long time. But while he's saying that, he's showing like a lot of. a taxidermied animal that he saw in a store somewhere, and the camera is just lingering on it. So then you're mine, you just have to draw the connection between some things not supposed to last forever and just this random taxidermied animal that you're looking at.

And the whole show is like that. So the visual humor of it, the way that he uses these incredible shots, like this stuff that he shoots all the time, just everyday occurrences, people on the street. It's so interesting. Like it's just the stuff of everyday life. And then he finds clever ways to weave his script into and out of it. it's really remarkable. I mean, I at least, I'm so blown away by the intricacy of every episode and just how funny and delightful and often profound and beautiful it can be. I really can't recommend it enough.

I can't believe I hadn't watched it until now. And I think it's just like it's a remarkable feat of like documentary filmmaking and of writing. So it's really good. And this is produced by Nathan Fielder, right? It is. Apparently Fielder saw an earlier documentary that John Wilson made. He was kind of making his way up as a documentary, and Fielder Sawton was like, you're good, I want to work with you.

And so he's been producing it. It feels like any time there's some sort of like kind of weird documentary hybrid thing that Nathan Fielder has to be involved. Yeah, and it doesn't have the sort of surreal or it's not mean, but the manipulative streak that Fielder tends to have, that kind of Andy Kaufman thing. It's not really doing that. It's a much more introspective, introverted kind of work.

So if that puts people off about some fielder work, like it makes them too uncomfortable. So far, this doesn't make me uncomfortable. I just find it delightful and informative and cool. So it's pretty different, but it does have a little bit of that fielder DNA for sure. Cool. So anyways, yeah, it's amazing. I hope the two of you watch it. I think you'd both really like it and would love to know what you think if you do.

Yeah, you've convinced me. Yeah, I would like to watch. That's how-to with John Wilson. It's on Max, and it's a very cool show. Great. And that's it. That's another episode of Triple Click. We did it again.

Yeah, we did it again. Just three married people making our show. Three married people. That should be our new name. We're going to change our brand. Our successful brand should look like we're renamed. We need to at least put rings onto the hands in our logo. Just to let everybody know that we're taken.

Yeah. We managed to get women to marry us. So we aren't losers. It's true. It's true. All lowercase G gamers can find hope in that. All right. Well, this has been fun. I will see the two of you next week. See you 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. 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 Maximum Fun. Find us on Twitter at triple click pod. 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.