Triple Click - Zelda, Starfield, And The Year To Come

Episode Date: March 9, 2023

Zelda! Diablo! Baldur's Gate! Final Fantasy! Maddy, Jason, and Kirk pull out the calendar and get overwhelmed by the number of massive games that are coming in the next few months. They talk about what to expect from the rest of 2023, some of the news that has happened so far, and whether or not this new console generation has been a disappointment so far.One More Thing: Kirk: Slow HorsesMaddy: Total RecallJason: The Poppy War (R.F. Kuang)Links: Tell us why you like Triple Click! Email [e-mail] or leave us a message at [phone]. Triple Click LIVE IN BROOKLYN, May 18th: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/triple-click-live-tickets-513213584647Featuring excerpts from Yasunori Nishiki’s Octopath Traveler 2 score Support Triple Click: http://maximumfun.org/joinBuy Triple Click Merch: https://maxfunstore.com/search?q=triple+click&options%5Bprefix%5D=lastJoin the Triple Click Discord: http://discord.gg/tripleclickpodTriple Click Ethics Policy: https://maximumfun.org/triple-click-ethics-policy/ Happy MaxFunDrive! Right now is the best time to start a membership to support your favorite shows. Learn more and join at https://maximumfun.org/jointripleclick 🚀  SUPPORT TRIPLE CLICK:Join Maximum Fun | Buy TC Merch💬 JOIN THE TRIPLE CLICK DISCORD🎮 Triple Click Ethics Policy📱 SOCIALS | @tripleclickpodInstagram | YouTube | TikTok | Twitch

I mean, how many more video games could there be? But they're making another one. Oh, wait, I'm hearing it's more than one? Oh. Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you. This week, we talk about the upcoming video game release schedule, and by schedule, I mean, our personal calendars. Princess Zelda, I can fit you in sometime this August.

Wait, come back, I was kidding. I'm Maddie Myers. I'm Jason Schreier. And I'm Kirk Hamilton, and hello. Hello, my friends. How are you guys? I'm doing well. How are you both doing on this lovely week of March? Wonderful. It's pretty lovely, actually. It's kind of well. It's raining, but sunny here in Portland, and I'm doing quite well. I'm having a lovely week.

So, do you two remember last week on the show? I said that I wrote spring on my calendar. Yes. For March 20th. Do you know what else is happening on March 20th, just purely by coincidence? It actually is a coincidence as far as I know. What, Maddie? Why don't you, why don't you tell us? Max Fun Drive is happening. Isn't that cool? That is exciting. I think it's exciting. Can you explain what Max Fun Drive is? Yeah, I will.

So if you're a listener to the show, or if this is your first ever episode, you don't maybe know. But if you're a listener, you know every single week we're like, hey, you could become a supporter of Maximum Fun, the podcast network we're on. And you can get bonus episodes, monthly bonus episodes from us and also bonus episodes from all the other podcasts on Max Fun. But once a year we do something called Max Fun Drive, which is a pledge drive, where we really try to entice people who might be a little on the fence or maybe they've been putting it off or they just haven't been getting around to plop in the old credit card down. And those folks are going to be enticed. They're going to be enticed A.F. Yes. A lot of enticements coming.

And if you are somebody who would like to say. say that you support the show, support our show or support Max Fun, and you want to tell people how much you like that. We're doing member stories this year, which some other shows have done. We've never done it, though. So you can send in a little message, a little anecdote about why you're a Max Fun supporter. It could be about specifically why you support Triple Click, could be about the network, could be about, I don't know, your feelings. Just all your feelings and how much you support them. Or how much you like pins and cool stuff.

Yeah. I mean, maybe you're really just in it for the merch. And you're maybe not even listening to me talk right now. You're just in it for the merch. Bless you as well, I guess. Still making the show happen. Yeah, we appreciate you. We'll take it.

Even if you aren't listening. And, you know, I'm not done talking. I have so much more to say. I'm so, first of all, I was going to start out by saying I'm excited to talk about perfect dark next week because that is the video game that I've forced you both to play according to the terms of a very elaborate annual bet that we engage in. Indeed. And so anybody who wants to play along with us, regardless as to whether you know about the bet or not, doesn't matter.

You can play Perfect Dark. It's on Xbox Game Pass. And you can also just buy it for $7 on Xbox if you want to. That's what Kirk did because he doesn't have Game Pass for some reason. I bought all of Rare Replay for $7. So I got so many games for $7. Wow. Okay, there you go. So next week, we're going to talk about Perfect Dark. And we are going to spoil it. So, I mean, it does have a story. So there's that.

Third but not least, you know, while you got your calendar open, just circle May 18th because that's the triple click live show. Did I do it? Did I get all the things? You covered all the things. We have a lot going on. Jason's looking at me very intently. Jason, it's a lot of business. It's great. All the throat clearing. Jason, how did I do? care of it. All right, should we get on with the show then? We got all that out of the way. On with the show. So this week, we decided we're going to do something interesting. So we're about, about 25% of the way into 2023, which makes a good, a good time to kind of check out the landscape, to see what's going on, what's been happening in the world of video games, what's still to come in the world of video games for this year. And we're also in kind of like a really weird, interesting spot in the new game console cycle or the new, I mean, this generation of consoles and games and next gen or whatever you want to call it.

So we're going to talk about a few things today. We're going to talk about some of the games that are coming down the road, some of the big games we are interested in and are excited about. And then we're going to talk about some of the stuff that has happened this year, some of the news that we found interesting, some of the kind of incidents that reflect. the shape of the video game industry in 2023. We will not be talking about NFTs today. We'll be talking about cool video games. So guys, the next couple of months are like totally loaded to the point where I'm actually a little afraid about the

amount that we're all going to want to slash have to play and the time that it's going to take to do it. I just want to read a quick list of some of the games and then we can kind of talk about each of them or whichever ones we see fit that are just coming and this is just like that we know of and this is just some of the big ones and this is just like in the next three or four months. Star Wars Jedi Survivor, April 28th. That's the sequel to Star Wars Jedi Fall in Order. Red Fall May 2nd. That's the new game from Arcane, the makers of prey.

Arcane Austin specifically makers of prey. Zelda, Tears of the Kingdom. That's the new game from a little company called Nintendo. You may have heard of them, a little playing card company. From the Hana Futa Cards? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Diablo 4,

the fourth devil. Finally, they're making a fourth devil. Three weren't enough. Maybe another one. Three were definitely not sufficient. This is in part four of the Bible includes the four.

June 6 is Diablo 4. Final Fantasy 16, June 26. 22nd, Baldersgate 3, August 31st, 20-something years in the making that one. And of course, Sarfield, which is TBD, but Microsoft and Bethesda have said are coming in the first half of this year. As far as I know, by the way, last I checked with people who are working on that game, they still don't have a release date yet either. So it might not be totally finalized, but still could arrive in the first half of this year. So we don't know about that one yet.

Kirk from the future here editing the episode and in the time since we recorded this, Bethesda has announced a new release date for Starfield, and that release date is September 6th. So that's when that game is coming out. Allegedly, I'll believe it when I see it. Okay, back to the show. Bing! Man, that's a lot of big games. It's a lot of video games.

It's going to be good. I think all of which I want to play. Yeah, I'll play all of these. Me too, me too. It's a lot of potential bangers. Yeah, I don't know. Are you guys? Do you guys have like strong thoughts on any of these games?

Is there anything on this list that you're like particularly excited about or interested in talking about? Man, I've already been feeling that that I'm playing too many games just from the beginning of this year. We're not even in the thick of it, but it just has this sense of there are so many different games I want to play. I've been playing more Octopath Traveler too because that game's really good as we talked about last week. But like I'm playing it and I'm aware that it's very, very long. and there are so many other things that I want to be playing in addition to Perfect Dark, which we're playing for next week. So I already kind of have that feeling of spinning plates

that I don't generally like. Like I do prefer it when I'm able to be in the mode of the person who plays one game to completion. So I guess when I look at this list of games, the ones I'm most excited about are the ones that I'm pretty confident that I will play from beginning to end. And that we didn't list it, but it's coming a little sooner as the Resident Evil 4 remake I'm very excited about.

That's a pretty long game, but I think that I'll play it all the way through. And Jedi Survivor. I didn't include a couple of remakes on here for what it's worth. There's also a System Shock remake that I mean. I mean, and that might be great. That seems really promising. So Jedi Survivor is the one on this list that for whatever reason,

I think I look at it and I can get my head around it. I'm like, this is going to be a Metroid-inspired, kind of soulsy. It's going to be like the first one. It'll probably have a cool story. I'm going to get to use lots of different kinds of lightsabers. Cool. Like I can get my head around it. When I look at Diablo 4.

Lots of different kinds of lightsabers. Not necessarily what I thought you were going to say. He's like got all these different lightsabers. There's stances and a lot of lightsabors. So anyways, I look at that and I kind of know what it's going to be where Diablo 4, I'm like, man, that game's going to go on forever. I want to play it. Baldersgate 3, that's going to be so long and so involved. And then also there were at least a definitive edition in a year that won't work with my safe.

Starfield, who knows, right? So Jedi Survivor is the one where I'm just like, I know what that's going to be. I'm excited to play it. So that's my thought. I agree. I felt similarly about the list. Zelda is so big that it's hard for me to even express my excitement and also fathom its importance. I am thinking about it in the back of my head at all times. Yeah. It's common. It's hard to get my head around that one. It's too much. It's too big. And so it's easier for me to be like, Star Wars Jedi Survivor. That's probably going to be a really fun, fun time. I'm going to learn a little bit more about that specific. microcosm of the Star Wars world, liked Fallen Order. I think we even did a beans cast, although maybe it was prior to the era that we called the beans cast. It was split screen. We talked

to it. We did a spoiler cast, which is a phrase that makes no sense. And I'm so I'm totally different genre of podcasts. Yeah. Very weird. Yeah, that was a really good game. Those folks respond. They know how to make games. I got to say that you guys, I think you guys are spot on. And I think something about Jedi Survivor feeling like it could be a game that you can finish in 20 hours, hopefully, 15 to 20 hours. That is really appealing among all these massive games because I think normal people, I mean, Maddie, me and you and Kirk to a lesser extent, you, like the three of us can have a little bit of leeway when it comes to playing games during the work day. But your average, like normal people, most of the people listening to the show are going to have to make like a lot of big decisions in. terms of where to spend their time with all of these games because like you said kirk i mean diablo four is going to take 400 hours Zelda's going to be a bazillion hours long um final fantasy

ballersgate actually i don't know final fantasy might actually be a little bit more manageable because i don't think that's an open world game there was actually i don't know if you guys follow there's a big string of previews um a couple weeks ago i saw them i didn't read closely and i saw yeah i haven't looked at them too closely either because i want to kind of play it for myself and not really know anything about it to the best of my belly. But I did see a story about how it's deliberately not an open world game. And so they're going for a more linear experience. That's fine with me. Absolutely fine. Again, yeah, it's, it's this interesting, we're at this interesting place. So, okay, so my theory, and I think it explains a lot, is that video games

take too long to make. And I think that fundamental problem has caused, a lot of kind of ripple effects throughout the industry, throughout what people are playing, throughout what people are interested in. And I think if you look at all these games, um, other than Star Wars, the bulk of these games that I just mentioned have taken at least five, six, seven years to develop. And that means that they've cost many, many tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars to develop. And that means that when they come out, they need to be humongous hits. And that means they need to be as appealing as possible to as as many people as possible.

They need to sell 10 million copies plus to recoup that investment, to recoup that investment. So you're looking at all these games and they kind of feel like they have to be a million hours long because that's what people seem to be playing and buying is games that are a million hours long. And they feel like they have to like follow all these other kinds of checklists. And we'll talk about Suicide Squad, which is another game I haven't even mentioned here in a little bit. But that is a game that really feels like it's just like, smack in the middle of that problem space where it's like, man, this game costs us a lot to make. We have to put everything possible in it that we'll get our money back out of this thing.

Why don't we just talk about Suicide Squad? I mean, we might as well. Yeah, we can. It's an interesting thesis, and I do think that game fits interestingly into it. Yeah, well, so that game, you look at the history of Rocksteady, the developer in the UK that is making Suicide God, previously, of course, known for the Arkham series, that kind of revolutionized superhero games. games back in the mid-2000s. So Rock City. Late 2000s. Late 2000s, yeah.

Rock City has been working on this game for a long time. Their last game, Arkham Night, was 2015, and then they did a VR, Arkham, in 2016. And then they were working on this game that they eventually canceled. I believe it was some sort of new thing. And then they started working on this, let's call it 2017 or so. And I don't know when, how much. of their time in development was like pre-production versus like actually like heads down working the game but still that's six years ago um and 2017 as you guys will remember was the year destiny

two came out it was the year that uh games as a service were taking over the world pub g had just come out fortnight was about to turn into a battle royale so like the decision was made at that point hey let's make this a service game and then along the way it uh it became this thing that we saw um a couple of weeks ago and got a lot of negative backlash, a lot of negative reactions because it looks like kind of a service game. And I think one of the big problems there is that like, because it took so long to make, I mean, in addition to what I was talking about before, where you have to be kind of conservative as a game publisher to try to recoup your investment, you also have the problem of like the decisions, the creative decisions and management and business decisions that were made six years ago

might suddenly seem a lot less appealing, a lot less interesting today. And also everybody instantly, including me, compared it to Marvel's Avengers, which we talked about a lot on this show, as the obvious comparison where it is a similar game as a service, also based on a massively popular superhero franchise, but feels a little different than the movies everybody's familiar with. So there's that uncanny, jarring aspect to it, but then also just the experience that we even had when the three of us tried to play it on our Twitch stream of getting everybody. as individual superheroes and working together in a mission. I mean, even leaving aside the technical issues that we experienced and trying to play it, it's also not that fun because it just feels like a very disjointed experience where some superheroes were more fun than others. Some felt like they had been developed more carefully than others,

probably just due to the time management issues that would come up if you're trying to develop multiple very different feeling superpowers in a game. And watching that Suicide Squad trailer really took me back to Marvel's Avengers and also I'll give a little bonus shout out to Gotham Knights, which is not quite the same thing. It's not a co-op multiplayer experience, but also had those huge menus full of upgradable loot and just also felt like a real slog to play.

Also, two game developers, just like Rocksteady, that were entirely single player and then turned into pivoted to making a multiplayer game. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that Suicide Squad trailer bummed me out as well, I suppose it wasn't a trailer, like a gameplay demo. There was a kind of flattening that seemed to have happened where everybody was just using a gun,

which struck me anyways watching it. Like, I'm not super familiar with each of those characters. I really liked the Suicide Squad movie, but I don't really remember King Shark, like, using a machine gun, and he's kind of running around with a gun. So then it really made everyone seem the same, and it kind of just looked like I was watching Fortnite skins of lesser-known DC characters.

And that was notable, given that the Avengers game at least tried to have, you know, was different or they fought differently and kind of in the way that they do in the comics. So that was just another thing that made it feel like, oh, okay, so this is just a service co-op shooter.

And let me say, we joked about this last week, but I played a little bit of Destiny 2 Lightfall of the new expansion, just the opening mission. I loaded it up to play it. Jason's shaking his head. I know. Kirk and I were texting. Kirk, are you okay?

Yes. Kirk, do you need an intervention? I just tried a little bit and it's fine. I can quit anytime I want. Okay. No, I really did. I was almost physically repelled by the game while playing it because I started out and I was like, oh yeah, Destiny is pretty fun.

And it looked sick, you know, on my ultra-wide-screen monitor, I'm like, yeah, it looks really cool. Like, yeah, HDR is on. This is great. I'm shooting people. And then I start, first it dawns on me that I'm shooting people with Ace of Spades and like, I don't remember the same heavy gun that I've been using for like four years or something at Destiny 2. So it's the same enemies. I'm shooting Kabal.

So it's the exact same experience. That to me is, that's the most like. Yeah, I know that's your... War never changes, et cetera. So there's that feeling of, okay, this is the thing I've done a million times. But then I start picking up armor. This happens pretty quickly. And in a new expansion in that game, they reset your level.

So the blue crappy armor you're getting is going to raise your level. And you go through this initial period where you just get whatever armor. Then you get your level up and then you get high enough to do it. Everyone knows how this works. Everyone's played this game. And I just, the first blue helmet I picked up that was a higher level. level than all my other stuff. I was like, I want to stop playing this game and never

play it again. Like, it was this really visceral feeling because I've been through that process and dedicated so much time in the past to that grind. Watching Suicide Squad, it's the same feeling. I can see all that stuff in the game. Even if you can't see it, you know it's like, you know,

you can't see it. You can't see your levels. They showed up your levels. So much loot, you guys. Right. I mean, like, whatever particulars you can't see, you know it's kind of simmering under the surface. There's all this stuff that's designed to hook you in and keep you playing. And I just recoil at that stuff at this point. And I can't be alone.

So there's on top of everything else, the time commitment issue that you outlined, which I think is super true for people more than ever, just the financial commitment. Do I really want to buy this game? On top of all of that stuff, there's just this visceral almost. Sorry, Jason. There's this deep and... No, that's good. You're using the word correctly.

I actually feel like it was a bombastic presentation. No. So there is a visceral feeling of just, no, I can't do that anymore among, I think a lot of people who have, who dedicated a lot of time to those kinds of games throughout the 2010s and now are really pushed away by them. So I think that all kind of feeds into a perfect storm of dislike for that game. Yeah. Although there are still plenty of people out there who are still running on that treadmill. Kirk to your point earlier about the guns, a cynic might say that they all use guns because it's easy to put skins on guns so that you can then sell as part of a battle pass or

like a microtransaction store. Right. And even less cynically, it's just easier probably to design for a game where everyone has some form of projectile weapon instead of like Hulk and Ironman and, you know, whoever else. Yeah, that's also part of it. Although, yeah, Avengers felt more like a brawler as a result of that as opposed to a shooter. but yeah. Yeah, and it's a shame.

Well, I don't know. I mean, we shouldn't judge this game too much until it actually comes out and we can actually play it, but it is a shame. Right. I'll definitely never discount Rocksteady. They have made amazing games.

Like, I really have really liked all of their games. Which you could also say that about Crystal Dynamics. So it's an interesting, or BioWare within them. Like a lot of these companies have followed the same route. And it's not just a publisher decision. Sometimes it's a developer decision as well as it was with BioWare. But like they're just following the,

the just chasing that that idea of just like the fantasy of everybody playing together. Yeah, Crystal Dynamics feels like a particularly good comparison. Yeah, it's very, very similar kind of stories. Yeah, and it shows how hard it is to make a game like that succeed, like a multiplayer co-op competitive shooter that actually feels good for every character type. I mean, it makes me realize how good something like Apex Legends is where it was like just shadow dropped and it's still a hit today and people love it and the character. characters feel different. I mean, it's a lot lower impact. And it's free. Of course. But I just mean

it's interesting to see the games that have succeeded in this arena compared to the ones that have not. And you're right. Maybe the free part is a more key aspect. Can't be discounted at least. Yeah. Free is important. But I also think with Apex, I mean, you could spend 20 minutes a day playing Apex and have a great time. You can't spend 20 minutes a day playing Destiny. Like, you need, it's a way bigger time sync than that. I mean, I guess you could, but you would say. suck at it. I was thinking about Diablo 4, which I actually am pretty excited about. I just think it looks cool. Same. I do want to play some Diablo. Yeah, we'll play together. Pretty low impact, probably, in terms of just how it feels to play Diablo, enjoyably low impact, I should say.

The feeling of it is good. Well, so I was thinking about Diablo in comparison to Suicide Squad and other games as a service. And I think what's interesting about Diablo, and I don't know what four will be like. I'm actually going to check out the beta next week, so I'll be able to talk a little bit more about that on the show at some point. But with Diablo, traditionally, there's no, like, real gear score. The gear that you're constantly chasing affects you in other ways in very specific ways. Like, you might get a plus 5% to fire resistance or whatever. And a lot of it doesn't really feel special standalone until it's an aggregate or until you're in the later game where you're getting more interesting, unique pieces of gear. And instead, you're kind of

chasing, I mean, first of all, you have an irregular experience level, like your character just gains levels over time. But really, what you're focusing on a little bit more is kind of the skill tree and where you're going to customize your character. Diablo 4 seems to do that in a really cool way. They have a huge skill tree that's kind of like Path of Exile style. And I think that'll be really interesting to play around with. And so when I think about, okay, is there an online game that I might want to spend a couple hours a day or an hour a day or whatever, a few hours on the weekend, actually sinking into, I could see myself doing that with Diablo 4 a lot more just because I find that the decisions might be a lot more interesting if you're making, if you're choosing

how to build a character and kind of what kind of gear to use as opposed to just watching a number go up on top of your, on top of your inventory screen. Like, I can't. ever imagined doing that grind again for the foreseeable future. Yeah, it will be interesting. I'm excited for the social aspect. Like, we'll play together. I've got other friends who want to play. I think that part has always been the draw for me for that.

Yeah, I mean, so yeah, Zelda is like, that's the big elephant in the room for everybody. Baldur's Gate 3, I'm actually particularly excited for, I think maybe most excited for out of anything here. Just because Larian Studios, the company behind it, so knocked it out of the park with Divinity Original Sin 2, to the point where I was saying a few years ago when I played that, that like, hey, this is Baldersgate, this is like a spiritual successor to Valder's Gate 2.

This feels like the next great computer RPG after Valtersgate 2. And the idea of them doing an actual Baldersgate 3 is pretty cool. From what I played, I actually played the Early Access version for a little bit when it came out in 2020. It was pretty cool. It seemed pretty deep and interesting. And one of the cool things about the way Larian makes games is the way they give you all these tools and let you play with systems, sort of like Zelda, or any other sort of like immersive sim or systemic game. But it's also got that kind of like humongous, overwhelming, kind of rich, complicated systems full of stats and gear

and just roleplaying to sink into. So I'm pretty damn excited for that one, I've got to say. Kirk, I know you are too, although you've been burned by the whole special edition before, complete edition. Yeah, but I mean, look at me. I play the games anyways because they're so good. So, yeah, I'm extremely excited for that game. Okay, cool. Why don't we talk a little bit about some of the stuff that has happened this year so far?

Talk a little bit about the news. I think it's worth noting a couple of things. I mean, first of all, if 2022 was like a boom year, at least at the beginning in terms of like acquisitions and stocks and everybody riding high. I think towards the end of last year and then now at the beginning of this year we've seen kind of the on the chart from like fuck around to find out. We're in the find out portion. On a down swing.

And that's been true of a lot of tech stocks. It's been true of the markets broadly. And it is true of video game companies, which were really booming for a while, but had a pretty bad last year for a number of reasons. post-pandemic woes and game delays and all sorts of stuff. So this year there have been some layoffs, Microsoft, Take 2, EA. We saw 343, the makers of Halo, get a total overhaul and get a bunch of their people got laid off at least 100 or so.

We saw EA cancel an Apex Legends mobile game and also this kind of Titanfall, R&D project that they were working on. So we've seen a lot of rough stuff in the games industry this year so far. And it's not the end of it. As we're recording, this take two has just laid off some people as well. So, yeah, it's been a tough one. Has anything stood out for you two as we're almost 25% of the way into the year? Yeah.

I mean, just speaking of games as a service, it feels like the Halo Infinite Gamble just didn't pay off. and to the people who enjoyed it. I know they're a relative minority, but... There are dozens of us. There are dozens of them. And I know that it's disappointing for them to see three, four, three people getting laid off and that game just getting hard pivoted into the background, essentially, and not being what it was promised.

I mean, they delayed the co-op announcement, and now it's like, just don't even think about Halo Infinite anymore. Just forget it ever happened. Yeah, well, So it is still getting multiplayer content. It's worth noting they just launched season three of the game, I believe. It's just that the idea that most people had in their heads that there was going to be this like trickle of new campaign stuff and single player. That it would be infinite for example?

Yeah. I mean, none of that has come to fruition. And as as Bloomberg reported earlier this year, there was no campaign DLC in the works. Like even last year, like that just wasn't happening in the first place. So yeah. there's been a lot of talk that we don't need to go super in depth on about 343 and it's kind of treatment of the Halo series over the years. This feels like kind of, it's so sad because when the game came out, it was reviewed pretty well. Like people were into it. It's just like

the post-launch support was pretty rocky and people seemed to kind of like just, I don't know, become more detached from it over time. Maddie, did you notice like, have you been paying close tabs on the, the Halo community? community. Yeah, just a little bit. I wouldn't say it's closed tabs, but just speaking of my coworkers and pals, like, yeah, there was definitely a lot of excitement about the grappling hook. Everybody I knew installed Halo for those first two weeks as the multi was free and everybody played it. And then I think it was either a lack of content that interested people or just the magic was gone. I don't know. There was just something about it that didn't quite land. And the campaign,

had fun moments, but just didn't really, it certainly wasn't one of my favorites of that year. But yeah, looking back on it now, I'm just like, RAP to a great grappling hook. It does feel a little bit like, we're in a phase, maybe a transitional phase. There's all this stuff that's about to come out, things that have been teased or talked about or hyped up for a very long time. And after that, it's not totally clear what things. look like? Do you get the sense that this is sort of like a deep breath or a belt tightening or sort of a reset of like, okay, now we're going to have to figure out what comes next,

you know, for our studio or for our publisher after this? Since I just, it kind of feels like like Sony doesn't have a lot to talk about past, you know, Spider-Man 2. You know, Microsoft is kind of, they have a ton of studios, but it's not totally clear like what's actually coming, like what to be excited about. Even Nintendo, it's like, do they have a new switch coming out, I don't know. There's this Zelda game. Just talk about the Zelda game. Maybe you should replay Metroid Prime. Don't worry about it. Is Metro

Prime 4 ever coming out? Who knows? Don't worry about it. So I guess it's like as stacked as this year feels as the next few months feel. It feels a little like the area past this very exciting neon wall right in front of us is kind of like foggy darkness. And we're not really sure what there is. Yeah, it's interesting. I feel like, Kirk, to your point, I feel like Sony and Microsoft are in the polar opposite positions because Microsoft has like a dozen different big games they've announced, but they announced those like three years ago,

and they just have totally disappeared from like fable to ever wild to a vow. Okay, sure. To perfect dark, speaking of perfect dark. Yeah, perfect dark. I could go on and on with all these names of games that have been announced and just never came out. And who knows how many of them are still coming, what they look like, what kind of shape they're in. Whereas Sony announced a bunch of games and has released them all. And now we don't know what's on the horizon for them.

other than Spider-Man too. We know that they have like a bunch of different studios all working on whatever stuff. And at some point, they're going to have to come out and be like, hey, here's what our roadmap for the next couple of years looks like. But yeah, and both companies, I think, have kind of suffered from a lack of big budget third-party blockbuster, quote-unquote next-gen games. And also to your point, I feel like we're in that weird kind of transition mode. this is definitely the like the longest it's taken a console generation that I can remember to really like go enter full steam into like the big games that feel like launching during a pandemic right sure yeah launching during a pandemic hurt I think I think another part of it is just that like there's only so much you can really do from here if you compare some of the games that we're playing now to some of the games that were out five or six years ago I mean the graphical fidelity hasn't really gotten that's that much better. Red Dead Redemption 2 is still probably the best looking game that I've played, like,

and that came out in 2018. So I don't know that, like, there really needs to feel like, quote-unquote, next-gen games or what that would even look like. I mean, the one thing that really has felt next-gen, and this was kind of the promise of next-gen, is the lack of loading times on console. And I'm still blown away when I, like, pick up my Xbox and it boots up in two seconds or, like, jump into a PlayStation game.

and like the loading screens for whatever are just non-existent. So that I think is pretty cool. But yeah, it is a weird time for the video game industry. Maddie, what's your take? Oh, I just, I completely agree. And I also feel like the hardware shortages have really affected things. Like it's weird to still have switched to rumors be trending every other day. And yet there's no announcement.

It's like people just have some anxiety. So they're Googling it every morning just to see. Nintendo is going to give them a switch too. And that combined with Tears of the Kingdom and the fact that Metroid Prime 4 has been MIA forever and we don't have anything else to point to, feels very weird. Also, just as sort of a Sony fan, Jason, do you, not a Sony fan, you're such a Sony fan boy. As a Final Fantasy fan, do you feel like Final Fantasy 16 is like a big mid-consul tent pole? Because I don't feel like that's the narrative around that game. for whatever reason, but I'm a little outside of that fandom.

Yeah, I don't know. That's a good question. I mean, the game looks cool. It looks very different from previous Final Fantasy games, which I think is a good thing. Like, this is a series that has always reinvented itself. It's hard to know until I pick it up and play it and get a feel for it, really. But shouldn't that be the one that we would look to and be like, well, that's the mid-consul generation, big exciting example of something that everyone. Well, okay, I guess it depends

what you're using as like a baseline for that. Like are you talking graphically? Are you talking like innovations in how a game is played or how it feels to play or like the capability of these open worlds? I feel like one of the problems and one of the reasons there's been a little bit of malaise, at least until we get into this like intense period of 2023, is, is that like there aren't really boundaries being pushed anymore. Like we're not seeing some big open world that blows our minds because we've already seen a bazillion different open worlds. Like it's not really exciting to imagine a game where you can explore every inch of the horizon because we've had a million of those. So I don't know, maybe there just hasn't been enough innovation. Kirk,

what's your thought? Yeah, the horizon that I sense will be pushed or that could be pushed just based on things that have been happening over the last few months is the horizon of artificial intelligence. And that's a much bigger topic that I think we'll probably get into in depth at some point because it's pretty complicated and pretty interesting. But it does seem as though one can imagine that being something that actually feels groundbreaking and different. Because like you said, Jason, there's diminishing returns with visuals. Like rate tracing has really kind of turned out to be this major letdown in PC gaming. I'd say it's a thing that you still just don't turn in.

on 90% of the time because it ruins performance. And there's all this talk about how it's going to be so realistic looking, but honestly, like, even in cyberpunk, I play that game with everything turned on now. Yeah, it looks nice, but it looks great without that stuff turned on. Like, it doesn't really, that wasn't a mind-blowing thing because the visuals are just incredible no matter what. But when I imagine a game, like, I've actually been replaying some Red Dead too. And the thing that strikes me about that game is it's so high touch, like it's so high

effort. Everything about that game that's so impressive and also kind of leads me to conflicted feelings. I talked about this in my review of that game five years ago. But if you imagine a version of that game that is like being written in real time by an artificial intelligence and performed in real time by an artificial intelligence actor, those things are not out of the realm of possibility at all. And suddenly you're thinking about something that just your imagination starts to run wild and I don't know what's possible and what's not. But the minute you're there, it's like, oh, we're talking about a totally different kind of video game that could be something

genuinely groundbreaking and wild and exciting and, you know, just crazy. That's the sort of thing that feels like it's missing when it's even looking at this list of games. Like, okay, it'll have an even better looking open world, but we basically know what it'll be. You know, oh, it'll have a slightly tweaked combat system, but we basically know how it's going to play. Like, they all feel like there is kind of a malaise there maybe when you think about everything. Like we basically know what we're getting with all of these games. It's not always bad, but we know. Yeah, so, yeah, I mean, that's why I get so excited about.

stuff like Case of the Golden Idol, all of us do I think, because it just feels so new. Something's actually different. Yeah. Kirk, to your point, I think that like what AI might bring to the table, and yes, we'll definitely talk about this more down the road because it's like one of the hottest topics in anything anywhere right now. And like a genuinely interesting topic too, I would say. And it's fascinating. Yeah, I'm like, it's funny. Last year was the year of like crypto and NFTs and shit. And it was hard to even muster any interest. But AI is super, fascinating for like lots of reasons.

And you ask someone like, why do NFTs matter? And they're like, they just do, trust me. Or with AI, it's like, just use chat GPT for five minutes. And you're like, holy shit. Like this is crazy. By the way, I don't know if you guys saw. There's like, so pretty much everybody, as we've discussed, pretty much every gaming company has been like, screw this.

We're out. NFTs like clearly nobody wants these things to care about them. But Dr. Disrespect, the internet personality. He started a game studio and he's out here still in 2020. in March of 2020, he's out there defending, putting NFTs in his game, which is hilarious to see. All right.

Anyway, it's actually retro now to do that. So what I think is, what I think AI will be able to do is allow the player to kind of like have an improvising, like an improv session with the game to the point where like the player, whether it's in a conversation or whether it's even like creating things. I mean,

I think that's the stuff that'll be really interesting. It'll be interesting for a lot of reasons. One is like if a, if a game is suddenly taking. from like the internet's collective art and ideas and writing and storytelling, then like, does that cause all sorts of legal and ethical issues? But also just like it's fascinating to imagine a game that uses AI to generate stuff in a way that we've never seen before.

So yeah, that's a super interesting topic that I think we should discuss down the road. Yeah, just a couple more news items real quick. Nintendo Direct, there was a big Nintendo Direct that we haven't really dug super deep into obviously we talked about the Metroid Prime remake. I was extremely excited that they announced a new Professor Layton game because I thought that series was dead. I think we're all excited about Ghost Trick coming to Switch and modern consoles. I'm very excited about Fantasy Life too

because the first game I really enjoyed, which again, something we can talk about closer to that game's release. And also, Maddie, I know you're excited about this one. Game Boy and Game Boy Advance games have come to the Switch. We can now all play Minish Cap, Zelda, finish cap and Metroid Fusion. Original Link's Awakening as well, along with the remake. And Metroid Fusion is coming.

We'll be out by the time this episode is out, but it's not yet out as we record this. But Metroid 2, the Game Boy game that became Samus Returns, is available now. If people are familiar with the Mercury Steam version, Samus Returns, which is a great game. That's the one that I'm still waiting on, where I'm like, okay, cool. Put Metroid 2 from the Game Boy on the Switch. that's great. People can play that. But get Samus returns on there. I just need to collect them all.

I need intended to just put all the metric games on one console and then I can just die happy, I guess. There's really no worlds left to conquer for me at that point. I will have achieved everything. By the way, Russ Freshdick was telling me the other,

Russ Freshick and I were talking the other day about the next switch and what that might look like, or Nintendo's next console. And my prediction, I'm going to zag where everyone else is digging on this one. My prediction is that Nintendo's next console will not be backwards compatible. Maybe that'll be an official 2024 prediction. Just because like everybody wants it, it makes perfect sense and Nintendo has never in their entire history done something that everybody wants and makes perfect sense. It's not a bad basis for a prediction on the

I mean, yeah, it's just going to be something totally I don't expect it. This might actually be, if there's no new console announced this year, this might actually be my prediction for next year. So we'll see. Yeah, but you saying that reminded me of this just because the idea we're all thinking like, oh, this great collection of Game Boy games will carry on to the next console. But guys, remember the virtual console?

That would make no sense at all. They've beefed up Nintendo online. They've made it so awesome and so appealing as a purchase point. And they're like, yeah, we're just going to make that not matter at all. I mean, that's exactly what they did with virtual. console. They did that exactly. One more piece of news real quick, we should dive

into before we take a break, which is that Eldon Ring DLC was announced. So we all knew this was coming, but still it was cool to see from software just put up this image called Eldon Ring Shadow of the

Urd Tree. And I said it was in development. And I watched a 20-minute lore video about that image. Did you really? That's so funny. Because that's who I am. It's clearly, was it Vadi Vidiya? We got to link that. Yeah, it was Vati Vida.

It's an image of Miquela from Eldon Ring. Mikala, Mikala. Mika La, sorry, Mikala from Elden Ring on Torrent, the horse, and the earth tree is there. And Kirk, what did you learn from that? Yeah, can you just quickly summarize 20 minutes of war? Boy, well, I learned, for starters, that Vati Vida has a lengthy Mikaela. Mikaela lore video that I haven't watched that I now really want to watch, because Mekola is a very interesting and mysterious character.

and I learned the theory of who first owned Torrent, which I believe now Vati Vidia thinks may be Mikala. And it's not clear if that is the herd tree or anard tree with another dark erd tree wrapped around it. There's a lot in that image. Interesting. There's a lot in that image. There is.

There is. I've seen some tree analysis, some people drawing little lines around the different branches and roots of the tree and analyzing which aspects of it could be an earth tree and might be some dark root, for example. capital D. Yeah, I'm so pumped for this. If we want to talk about the future games and what still makes us excited, it's really just Eldon Ring. They can just keep making those, you know? Is it just the same old thing? Yes, but it's still freaking great. So maybe they just make that forever.

I don't know. Don't forget the first time you played Breath of the Wild. That some of, that I think conjured some of the same sensations. So it would be shocking. If Tears of the Wild did the same thing, or Tears of the Wild. Breath of the Kingdom. That'd be a good name. Tears of the Kingdom did the same thing. But yes, of course, Manny.

I mean, Eldon Ring D.L.C. The one thing that actually was comforting for me was the fact that they're just kind of teasing it and not even like showing it with one image and not even showing a trailer or anything. It makes you think it's actually kind of far away, which I welcome because of all the billion hour games. Do not need Eldon Ring DLC in the middle of May or something.

Totally fine with that coming like, yeah, this fall or even like early next year, totally 100% fine. And by the way, if you're listening to this team cherry, feel free to just punt silk song down the road a little bit too. What? I never thought that I would feel that way, but I kind of agree as well. I just do not need it in the first half of

this year. Like there's too much already. Maybe like you could put that game in like, I don't know. Thanksgiving week. Yeah, October and November. I'd be totally fine with that. Yeah, we've got time then. I'll end on this note. One of you wrote in the show notes on our list

with these topics. Kirk, you wrote Remember Ubisoft, L-O-W. which is going to end this conversation. Anyway, let's take a break. We'll have a moment of silence for Ubisoft as we go to the break, and then we will be back to talk about one more thing. I hope they've got the bread bowl. Have you seen the bread bowl at this place?

Good evening. Welcome to Maximum Fun. Have you been here before? It's her first time. Very good. Might I recommend our special? Please. Can I interest you in the Max Fun Drive?

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All four episodes of Depodding You are out now. All right, Kirk, Maddie, RIP, Ubisoft. It's time for one more thing. Kirk, take us away. Sure, my one more thing is an Apple TV plus show that I've been watching called Slow Horses. That is a really enjoyable show. I like it a lot more than I thought it would. I kind of put it on kind of randomly.

Emily's out of town this weekend. And I was like, here's some spy shit that she probably wouldn't like. I'm going to watch this show. And it's really great. It is a really enjoyable kind of British spy drama with some levities, some sort of comedies. some sort of comedic elements, though. It's mostly hard-boiled spy stuff. So these are based on the Slough House series of books by an author named Mick Heron.

And it stars Gary Oldman as the main character, the head of this house. And, of course, Gary Oldman, well known for portraying, what was his name, Smiley. I forget his first name, but the famous John LeCherry spy in a Tinker-Taylor Soldier's spy. I thought you were going to say Commissioner Gordon. Well, he's also a very different kind of spy in this, this kind of, just really sloppy old washed up burnt out guy who's like always letting horrible farts rip and is super rude to everybody but of course is also a brilliant a brilliant spy and he's in charge of this what's called slawhouse is a sort of a place where people are posted as

punishment so it's kind of the doghouse of MI5 of british intelligence so if you screw up in some way or you're kind of useless or no one wants you around they send you to sloughhouse and you work for Jackson Lamb, who is the name of Gary Oldman's character. So this begins with introducing Slawhouse and quickly you get to know the various characters. They're all kind of, you know, they've messed up in various ways. You learn their backstories. But of course, there is a plot of foot and it involves a lot of sort of double dealing and spying on other spies and mischief within MI5 and people trying to get Slawhouse to take the fall for things. And it's all a very twisted web and very complicated. But really well told. And in the end, I found

it to be just a really enjoyable spy story. Plus it's six episodes, which is great because it's that nice sort of British series length, just six episodes in the first season. There is a second season out that's also six episodes. I think maybe each one is probably based on a book, if I had to guess. But anyways, it's like, it's just a fun show. I don't have a lot of deep thoughts on it or anything, but if you dig that kind of, you know, spy story, like the kind of things that Gary Oldman has been in or those La Cerey books,

it'll totally be up your street. And I really enjoy it. So yeah, it's called Slow Horses. It's on Apple TV Plus, and there are two seasons of it that you can watch. I just started season two. Cool. Cool. Sounds fun.

Maddie, what's your one more thing? So I watched Total Recall for the first time. Hell yeah, you did. The first time. Oh, my God. I love you. I know. It's crazy.

I'm so funny. Every one more thing from you in 2020. It's just a Paul Verhoven movie that I watched it. I am going to run out of Paul Verhoven movies, but we'll see how many more 80s sci-fi classics I can watch. for the first time, especially Total Recall. Technically not 80s, technically 1990. Although Arnold Schwarzenegger

looks so young in it. It's wacky. He looks like such a little baby Kendall. He looks perfect. Is this pre-terminator? Is this before Terminator? I think it's right before when to turn. Before Terminator 2. It's post-terminator 1 is like 84 or something.

Got it. Who knows? It's all the same year to me. It's all 1989. It's right before Terminator 2. too. Anyway, Arnold, Arnold has a beautifully smooth face in this movie, and he is incredible. I recommended Robocop last week. I super triple recommend Total Recall. Love it. Maybe my favorite Verhoeven movie. Thought I knew what it was about. Didn't know what it was about. Didn't know all the twists, which was great, and which is why I'm not going to spoil them, because if you're like

me, you're like, oh, yeah, it's like a sci-fi movie. There's like a lady with three boobs in it. Like, there's a three-boop prosthetic. Weirdly, I know. a lot about that. Yeah, we kind of is the well-known thing, though. It kind of is. Yeah, well, I remember South Park parodying it. Of course, I mean, yeah, there's many parodies of it that I have seen. And, and also I knew that it was kind of like had a similar premise, well, conceit as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, whereby

there is a fictional sci-fi corporation in the, in the slight future that can alter people's memories and they pay for it. So I kind of knew, like, the total recall, the recall and the title had to do with sci-fi memory alteration. But I really didn't know that much more than that, which made it a wild experience to watch, really dug it, wasn't expecting it to be so political and so leftist and badass and also to have just great performances from everybody. Arnold really stretching his acting chops to the limit here. He's still Arnold Schwarzenegger, but he's really doing his damnedest. And Rachel Tocodin and Sharon Stone are freaking incredible.

Sharon Stone rules in that movie. Yeah, I mean, this period of Sharon Stunt, like, casino and like she's just amazing and everything. She's so, so good. But I really liked Rachel Dakota is like the badass action chick who kind of comes out of nowhere in like the second half of the movie. I ended up really digging her performance. So I super recommend it. If you haven't seen it, you have to watch it. Drop everything and watch Show Recall.

I feel like it's influenced every other sci-fi thing in every video game ever. And I can't believe I never saw it until now. that's absurd and I'm glad I finally watched it and I've been thinking about it all week and I'll probably think about it forever now. Thanks Paul Verhoven for making a great film. Also one of the great practical effects films. So many amazing prosthetics and costumes

and like painted backdrops in some of the scenes. It's definitely right before CG took over. Of course, in Terminator 2, a couple years later when Shoress were in that. That was like the rise of CG. Which Terminator 2 looks great, but Total Recall has so many unsettling weird. that you can tell are props, like real props.

Puppets and weird things. That scene where he takes his head off and he's like, oh, there's so many cool scenes. Yeah, it's great. It's great stuff. Cool. Okay, cool. So my one more thing is a book that I have been reading that I am really, really enjoying. It's a book called The Poppy War by R.F. Kwan.

And it is a fantasy book that is kind of based on the Sino-Japanese Second Sino-Japanese War. which was like the 30s or 40s or a mix of the 30s and 40s, China and Japan fighting each other. And it's really, really interesting. It's based on, it's got a lot of roots in China. And so like it said in this kind of like fantasy version of China, which is this big country on a landmass with a lot of just kind of provinces that are all squabbling but ultimately unifying under one emperor. And then there's this nation to the east, this island nation to the east that there's a lot of tension and historical war or a history of war with. And the book is, it kind of reminds me of that book, Grace of Kings that I was talking about

a little while ago. In that, it's like fantasy based on Chinese history. And it stars this girl named Rin, who is, who lives in this small little like Hick village. And she is, has this awful adopted family and is like betrothed to be engaged to someone that she does not want to marry or betrothed to someone who she does not want to marry, who was probably going to treat her like shit. And she finds an escape route from this horrible life that she has no way out of by testing into the military academy where she winds up going.

And so the first half of the book is kind of like a military academy Harry Potter, where this woman, this girl, Rinn, is taking classes and learning how to be a soldier. And then things take a big twist in the middle of the book. And the second half of the book from what I've gotten to so far, I haven't finished it yet, but appears to be about something else entirely. And so it's really good because the writing is fantastic. And it's really just kind of like fast-paced and just really easy to read. I compared it to Grace of Kings, a book I talked about it a couple of years ago.

That was much harder to read. It was much more like a big kind of epic history book. like it told a lot of anecdotes in that were kind of some of them were just loosely connected some of them were a little bit kind of tough to get into whereas this book it's it's probably the the most approachable fantasy book i've ever read because it doesn't like throw a bazillion proper nouns at you from the get-go it really just tells this grounded story about this girl who like within the first two pages you're ready in love with her as a protagonist because she's fantastic um as this like spunky 16 year old.

And it's really great. From what I've read so far, it's really fantastic. I mean, she gets to the school, and there's a lot of just fascinating characters there, and she discovers these powers in herself that, of course, every fantasy book protagonist has to have some powers. And it's just really just an easy, just a really excellent read from what I've gotten to so far. Nice.

I really enjoy it. I don't want to talk about more specifics of the story and the way of twist and turns. Is it a series or it's just one book? I believe it's a series because again, every fantasy book has to be part of the series these days. Sure. But it's pretty, again, just very approachable. Like it doesn't feel a lot of fantasy books are you really need to like take the time to like know that you're going to spend the first 100 pages not knowing what's going on. You'll probably have to reread the first few pages just to know.

Like it's there a lot more dense. This is not. This is like really character driven. a way that is really appealing to me at least because you just you start reading and you're immediately hooked you don't have to like let it it's not like one of those jrpg's that takes 10 hours to get good it's like it really just sinks it's seethin to you right away and i'm really enjoying it i mean i reserve the right to come back and be like man this book sucked once i actually finish it um because again i'm i'm probably like i don't know uh two thirds of the way through maybe so uh we'll see but i did

just kind of like i was so hooked on it that i barreled through a two 200 pages the first night I opened it. So yeah, really impressive book. Again, it's called The Poppy War by R.F. Kwan. Cool. And that is it for this week's episode. It sure is. Maddie.

I know we're sad about Ubisoft departing this earth, but hopefully we can make it to next week regardless. Together, we can all move on together. Somehow. It'll be fine. Yeah, so another reminder for everybody. We'll be playing perfect dark next week and spoiling it. and I'm looking forward to discussing that one.

Again, we're playing the 2010 version of the game that's on Xbox, Xbox 360, which is for you can get it on any Xbox now. And so, yeah, we'll see you next week. Yeah, 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 Maximumfund.org slash join. Find us on Twitter at triple clickpod. Send email the triple click at maximum fun.org and find a link to our Discord in the show notes. Thanks for listening. See you next time. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Audience. Audience supported.