Video Gamers Podcast - Dying Light 2, God of War PC thoughts and I Did it All For the Snorlax - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: January 20, 2022

Gaming hosts Josh and Paul are back with another incredible This Week in Gaming. Josh’s Kratos love knows no bounds, Paul lives in the Half Life Alyx universe for a bit, we cover another February gaming release and chat Dying Light 2 and more in this action packed, video game filled episode! Thanks to our LEGENDARY supporters: Waynerman, TFolls, AceofShame, Jake, RangerMiller, and Ad  Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/multiplayerpodcast Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/Dsx2rgEEbz Follow us on Instagram: instagram.com/multiplayerpod/ Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/MultiplayerPod Subscribe to us on YouTube: youtube.com/channel/UCU12YOMnAQwqFZEdfXv9c3Q Visit us on the web: multiplayerpodcast.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Before you jump ahead to the episode, we have a super quick announcement for you all. Spotify has added the ability to rate podcasts on a scale from one to five stars, and we are asking that all of you take just a few seconds to find us on Spotify and rate us five stars. Almost all of our listeners come from the world of Apple, so adding a rating on Spotify is a great way to help the show grow. That way we can continue releasing two episodes every single week. Just make sure that you have the latest version of Spotify, listen to at least 30 seconds of one episode, and then they will allow you to leave a rating. Thank you so much to all of you for listening and supporting the show. Let's get into this episode. Shazam! Hello everybody! Welcome back to another episode of the Multiplayer Gaming Podcast.

We are always excited to bring to you all two episodes weekly about video games, and to those of you who choose to support the show through Apple subscriptions or Patreon, which you can see through MultiplayerSquad.com, you get a total of four episodes every week. Every Thursday, we like to break down This Week in Gaming, where we talk about recent gaming news and also what we have been spending our game time on. I am your host, Paul. And then joining me, I don't know why, but his beard just looks a little bit more epic. He's looking a little bit more swole. I hope he doesn't start calling me boy during the episode.

It's Josh. Good intro, boy. You know, I know this was going to be one of the very first things we brought up in the episode. Let's just jump straight into it. You're playing God of War on PC. Oh, am I ever, Paul. All right. I'm just going to come out and say it. I think I am enjoying it more the second time around than I did the first time around. The only thing is I know the spoilers. I know what's coming up. But the entire experience for me so far has been better than the first time I played the game. And know what's coming up. But the entire experience for me so far has been better

than the first time I played the game. And I don't know if it's just because I'm comfortable in my chair and I'm playing this game on my monitor in 4K, or I'm playing with mouse and keyboard, which is different. Something is just jiving, buddy. And I am loving it. Well, when we both played through on PS4, didn't you borrow our friend's PlayStation? So you also had a little bit of that internal clock, I got to get this system back, and it probably impeded a little bit of your ability

to just sit back and enjoy the ride. It did 100%. I've been doing much more of the side questing and exploring and trying to find things. There is a lot of content that I missed out the first time. Because yes, I had borrowed his PS4 and he was kind enough to lend it to me. But he also did the, I think I want to play it again. So if you could hurry up, that'd be great. And I just went like, okay. And so I beelined it through the main story and one or two side quests.

I remember coming across a Valkyrie for the first time and getting my butt just stomped into the ground. And that, to me, is like a beacon that's just shining in the night that's like, come beat this fight. And I didn't have time to do that. So this time around, I'm going to make sure I get all that stuff done. But this is hands down the best PC port I have ever seen in a video game, to be honest with you. I have not encountered any bugs. I have not encountered any issues whatsoever. It is absolutely glorious, man. And everybody knows that I love God of War. So yes, I am a little bit biased. But I think that if you have not played God of War, this PC port is absolutely flawless and is worth every

penny of your hard-earned money because it's a video game experience like no other, in my opinion. It's kind of funny that you mentioned playing with keyboard and mouse because in my head, it's so ingrained as a console series, having gone through all four entries. It's very hard for me to imagine playing that way. I think I would still stick with controller. I did not pick it up on PC, although I got to say, it's nice to see that it's only,

you know, quote only 50 bucks. So at least you don't have to pay full price, but I did hear it's a really good port. So I'm glad to hear that you've been enjoying it. I don't really have any plans to pick it up. I'm just going to wait until Ragnarok comes out. Yeah. Well, you have a PS five also. So I'm glad to hear that you've been enjoying it. I don't really have any plans to pick it up. I'm just going to wait until Ragnarok comes out. Yeah, well, you have a PS5 also.

So, you know, that makes sense. But it's been, I played it back in 2018. So it's been three years. So I, you know, there's been enough time that I forget some of the littler moments. I remember the big like plot spoilery moments, but it's, I've just been absolutely cracking out on it. Like I have not been in a long time with a game. And it's just beautiful, man.

I can't think of another game. I said this in the Discord the other day. Witcher 3, to me, has always been one of the most beautiful video games ever made. Just with the sunsets and the scenery and the storms that roll through and how the trees blow and all that stuff. God of War on PC, I think, is the best looking video game I've ever seen. Wow. That's pretty neat. I mean, I remember being pretty shocked at Red Dead 2, which I thought was a really good

port to PC. But yeah, I did see a screenshot that you posted on Discord, and it does look pretty amazing. That one's trash. You should see the one that our buddy Steve posted. He's got an ultra wide and I don't know what he did in the photo mode, but it was funny because people were like, wait, is that real? Because it's hard to tell the mountains apart from reality in some of this stuff. It's absolutely stunning. My kids come in while I'm playing and it's like, normally they could care less,

but they'll actually stand there and watch me play for a minute or two just because of how good this game looks. Nice. Yeah. Yeah, I have not been playing God of War, although I have been dabbling back into Half-Life Alyx, which I think I teased a little bit in the last episode where I said I wanted to get back into it. Yeah. I know you and I have talked about this, but we definitely go through phases with VR. For me, it's like if it's charging in another room and my kids have been using it, for me, it's kind of like out of sight, out of mind. And I have to be in the VR mode and then I'll use it every day. So I reinstalled Half-Life Alyx. And this time I'm playing it a little bit different because you are a long-term VR user.

I was not. I picked up my Oculus Quest 2 during the pandemic. And that was when I started playing. And Half-Life Alyx was like, I think the second game that I ever played. I played, what was that game where everything freezes when you freeze, but when you move... Super Hot. Super Hot. There you go. That was my first one. And Half-Life Alyx is so different. Oh, yes. It's vastly different. Half-Life Alyx ruins VR. And I mean that in the best way possible.

But when you play Half-Life Alyx, you wish that every other VR game could be more like it. And when they aren't, you kind of go, well, this feels gimmicky now, I guess, versus that AAA VR experience that you want everything to be. So did you reinstall it and start playing from the beginning? I did, because it had been such a long time. Now, I did look up, because in my head, I was thinking this was like a pretty long game but i read that it's only on average a 12 hour game well i had 15 hours in my save and i've almost caught up to where i was there and i've only played for five hours oh so i was just so engrossed by playing vr for the first time that i was looking at everything, really taking my time. It's still

really satisfying to have the gravity gloves and I just grab every glass bottle I can and immediately smash it at my feet. It's just so satisfying. Dude, I love the... This is going to sound so stupid, but one of my things in Half-Life Alex is anytime there's a bucket or like a bin to pick it up and actually look down inside of it, like spin it around to see all the reflections. And it's like, how is this magic possible? I have my head inside a bucket in this VR game. It's like, there's no point whatsoever. You know, like, why am I doing that? Or I'll crouch down and look at like a plant that's in corner, because it's just so mesmerizing to move my body and crouch down and look at something and have it

be so 3D. But I famously never finished Half-Life Alyx the first time I played it. I feel like I'm three quarters of the way through it, but I remember nothing about the plot at this point. So I think I'm with you, and then I'm going to have to just start all over again. Yeah. But I was playing it back when you had to have the physical cable to connect to your PC. Same with me. Now with the Air Link, it's completely different.

My office is perfect to just throw the headset on, pop on the Air Link so I don't have any wires or anything, and I think it'll be even more enjoyable for me to play through again. But yeah, I'm dedicated to finish that game at some point. But I think I'm like you, I'm going to have to start all over. Yeah, the Air Link is such a game changer because my office is just like a small 10 by 10 room. And right next to that is a family room that's loaded with furniture. But now I can just go on the back patio, clear a little bit of room, and that's where I play my VR. Now, when I did Half-Life Alyx, you in particular, well, actually all of

my friends who have played VR all deal with some motion sickness with any kind of continuous movement. And all of you guys told me go for the movement style where you just press and hold a button and then it immediately teleports you there yeah it's the only way i can play so i was so afraid of motion sickness that's how i played the first go around this go around i was like you know what i'm just gonna because i played sinuous sacrifice you know the first half and I did continuous movement for that, and it did not make me sick at all. You're a beast. Really? Some people, it doesn't affect, man. Zero. It does not at all affect me at all. I don't feel nauseous. So playing Half-Life Alyx with the continuous movement is even better. Oh, see, I wish I could play that way.

Yeah, and it's a little more immersive, too, because I actually have to literally duck down and get on the ground to go through tunnels and stuff like that. It's such a great game. It's still the gold standard for VR. I'm still waiting for that second game that rises to the same level. It's fantastic.

I have heard of a couple games that come close. There's a game called Boneworks that's supposed to be really, really good. It's one of those top tier VR games. But it is continual movement, a lot of jumping from a ledge and then falling and landing on something, those sorts of things. And in my brain, I want to play this so bad. But I know that after 15 minutes... I can handle about 15 minutes. And then after that, I am just like, oh, oh, get me out of this thing. And then, of course, for the next hour, I feel queasy after that.

So I'm a little jealous. Some people, it does not affect at all. But for me, I can teleport no problem. My brain just is okay with that. But you give me any kind of smooth locomotion. I tried it once. I was like, I want to try this smooth motion. And I remember pushing the stick to move forward and I turned my head to look sideways.

And my body just instantly was like, I was like, OK, well, that ain't gonna happen. See, that's how I am with any kind of like teacups ride at Disney. To me, the idea, the idea of riding that for even just five seconds makes me feel physically ill yeah and i just assumed vr would be similar but there must be just something a little bit different i cannot do the spinning the vr is fine so i might have to still poke around maybe check out boneworks and a couple other things there but yeah half-life alex is just such a perfect vr game i can't wait to finish it i think since i know what i'm doing this time around, I'm able to buzz around super quickly. I think I'm already about two-thirds of the way through.

So I definitely need to finish it up here in the next couple of days. All right. So as far as news stories go, I think the biggest news story that we kind of need to talk about is dying light 2 is set for release on february 4th right around the corner wow that's coming up and we have not talked about it very much on the show i mentioned it in passing as one of the games that is set for release this year when we did our preview but we've not talked about it in any kind of detail. But it really seems to be gaining more and more steam as more and more news is coming out about it. And as we're getting really close to release, is Dying Light 2 a game that you're thinking about picking up? Are you excited

at all? What are your thoughts on this one? No and no. And I feel like that's a crime, to be honest. It's just one of those. I never played the first one. It just looked like a... Basically, to me, this is completely an uneducated statement, right? But as an average gamer looking at Dying Light 2, I just go, this looks like Far Cry, but with zombies and some parkour running, like something along those lines. There's towers and there's these

settlements and I feel like I have to go climb up something and then there's people around and now they like me and then there's zombies. And that's literally what my brain defaults to is this is just Far Cry with zombies. And so I never played the first one. And then you and I were chatting the other day and we kind of went, are we criminally under-interested in Dying Light 2? Because this game's starting to get a decent bit of hype. And if you watch some of the gameplay trailers, it looks very well done. The parkour movement seems super cool. There's all these fantastical weapon combinations that you can put together. There's melee combat in it. There's different kinds of zombies. Apparently, nighttime cycle happens, and then the world becomes weapon combinations that you can put together. There's melee combat in it. There's different

kinds of zombies. Apparently, nighttime cycle happens, and then the world becomes super dangerous. So there's this really high-risk reward thing for going out at night. And we have heard people getting hyped for it. And you and I both kind of went, are we just... Should we talk about this? Because it looks like it's going to be a really good game. Well, I'll tell you why I'm not terribly hyped about it. And I think I'm maybe a little bit in the minority here, but I have my own reasoning. Okay. So, growing up, did you like zombie movies? I mean, I don't dislike them, but I'm not... I mean, I watched a lot of The Walking Dead until it just got terrible. So I saw 28 Days Later. I've seen a lot of zombie movies. I'm not a

zombie fanatic, I guess. Okay. See, I hated zombie movies. I did not like the first couple of Resident Evil games. None of it interested me at all. And then 28 Days Later came out, and I know that technically they're not zombies. It's a rage virus, but whatever. It's a zombie movie. And the zombies were fast and aggressive. It was equal parts action with terror.

And I loved that movie so much. I remember seeing a midnight showing with three of my friends, and then we went to Waffle House in the middle of the night after. Oh, that sounds like a good time. Awesome, awesome night. And then I think that really changed the future of zombie games, because you had only a year or two later that Resident Evil 4 came out, which is my favorite Resident Evil. It went with the more aggressive zombies that are affected by fungal spores or whatever. It wasn't traditional

zombies. And we got so many good zombie games over a period of 10 years. And so I remember playing the Dead Rising games. Enormously fun. There was Left 4 Dead. You had even games like Plants vs. Zombies, which was like the first must-have mobile game, had zombies built into it. And then there was a game that was developed by Techland tech land called dead island that came out in 2011 and this game was so hyped at the time with the improvised weapons and you fight the fast zombies and i bought it on 360 and i was really disappointed in that game it wasn't it wasn't bad but i think it hit me like five hours into that game. I think I just hit zombie overload at some point here over the last like eight years. And I think I'm just kind of done with zombie games. And so I didn't play any.

And then I did buy Dying Light 1. I rented it through Redbox on PS4 because i was like you know what those guys seemed like maybe that was the build-up maybe dying light will be the really good one i liked the i liked games like mirror's edge and the parkour mix it with zombies i thought maybe it would be something new and different and i played it for maybe four or five hours and i just kind of feel like all zombie games are kind of the same. It, they chase you,

you shoot it in the head, you run, you hide. I kind of feel like it's just all the same. I watched a, I don't know. It was like a 15 minute, uh, trailer for this game.

Somebody was playing it. They were talking about the movement and the mechanics and some of this stuff. And I like, I just went, this looks so bland to me. They say there's a story and the parkour movement seems neat and there's combat in it, but nothing really stood out to me that made me go, I want to play this game. These games look so different that I want that experience. And that's, I think, where it's missing completely

for me, is everything seems routine. with the exception of the parkour movement. And that does seem like a neat aspect. But I don't know that being able to run around and parkour from rooftop to rooftop is enough to sell me on this game. Yeah. And so it might be great. It's just one of those ones that I know it's been under our radar. If you're a Dying Light fan, I'm sorry. But it's not that we're against it. I don't know. I've not played these. But like I said, I'm getting very, very tired of the Ubisoft formula with the liberate this outpost, climb up this windmill, and then you get to unlock a bigger area of the map. And if you liberate this, people will move in and stuff like that. I'm really getting fatigued on that. And there's so many games that

have used that formula. Even Halo Infinite followed that. They copied that formula a little bit, right? Oh, yeah, for sure. And it's like, oh, I could overlook that because it was Halo? And they had the cool boss monsters that you could go fight and stuff like that. But I want something different. And Dying Light 2 does not seem like it gives me anything different that I haven't seen already. Yeah. Ultimately, I just don't find zombies to really be compelling villains because they're brainless. Like, 28 Days Later is really interesting because the most dangerous people are the people running the military outpost that are, like, kidnapping

women and things of that nature. And as society dies, like, that's more interesting to me. The zombies are like, all right. But, like, even games like Red Dead Redemption had a zombie mode. Call of Duty had a zombie mode. I don't know if I just need 10 years to rehab from zombies and then maybe I would care again. So this one's just not one that I really care about. I do think that Dying Light 1, and maybe I'm remembering this wrong, but I think there was something like you were coming in as an undercover agent. So it was like the city had this big infestation that was creating the zombies and there were people running that town and you were actually

from normal civilization and you were infiltrating it and that was kind of like a neat angle story wise but ultimately shooting zombies in the head over and over and over i don't know just gets a little repetitious. But if everyone ends up loving this game, and the reviews come out and talk about how it is revolutionary and different, then I'm more than willing to jump in and try. I just have zero inclination to buy it at release. I'm with you completely. I know nothing about this game. If it releases and everybody starts raving about it, it's definitely going to be on my radar at that point. It's like, oh, what am I missing out on? Apparently, people are really loving this. It's just one of those where I think if there weren't other

big name games releasing in February, that maybe we'd be a little bit more interested in it. But it's just part of its timing. Part of it is that, again, for me, there's just nothing that seems unique about it. So if it winds up coming out and getting rave reviews, at that point, we'll probably talk about it a little bit more and look into playing it maybe. But I'm just so much more excited about other games that are coming out soon. Yeah, because we've already played and love Lost Ark. Elden Ring is a must play for both of us. So this one might just kind of get lost in

the shuffle. For me last year, that was the new Hitman game. I really wanted to play it and it just got drowned out by everything else at the time. And I kind of feel like Dying Light 2 is sort of in that same category. Yeah. Hitman 3, right? Because that's the Hitman that came out last year? Whichever one in the series. Yeah. There's so many and the names are weird, like Absolution. I don't even know. But that's that's one where i mean that game was nominated for a lot of game of the year awards and stuff like that and yet we never talked about it it's just odd there's always these games or these franchises that release and maybe again maybe it's the timing maybe it's just that you know if you're not into a certain series you don't really pay attention

to that series or something like that but i feel feel like that's another one, like you said, that just completely flew under the radar. And from everything I hear, it's a phenomenal game. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Time for our next story. Josh, I have a question for you. Okay. Have you ever been known to play a game during work hours? I don't know if any of my co-workers listen to this show, so my answer is absolutely not, Paul. And Josh is currently winking at me. No, no, you've got no proof of that.

You know, I think we've all dabbled a little bit, right? Maybe you have like a gap between appointments or something. I know when I worked with you at Progressive, I definitely played a lot of mobile games when I had little gaps in my schedule. But at what point would you say playing a game during work hours becomes an issue? Only if it's impeding the safety of people around you. If you're a city bus driver, you probably shouldn't be playing mobile games while you're driving the bus. Probably not. I don't know, a police officer responding to a robbery call.

Sure. That's probably not an ideal time. If you're a firefighter and you're at a house fire, that's probably not the best time to pull out your phone and start playing something probably not but like that would that would never happen right josh like no no police officer getting a robbery call would ever ignore it to just play mobile games i mean i don't know dude if there's like if there's like a blast noise around or something like there are certain moments where i think it's forgivable oh oh my goodness what what a crazy story there was a story that i ran across this week now this happened a few years ago but the details were just recently published there were two officers for the lapd which is the los angeles police department for those of you who uh may be

outside the u.s they quote reportedly forgot to respond to a nearby crime and they were both fired because their dash cam recorded their conversations discussing whether or not they should answer the call when they were being called to a robbery scene. And instead, they started talking about a Snorlax that just popped up in Pokemon Go and they were more concerned about Pokemon Go than responding to a robbery and I think they

were deservedly let go they tried to appeal and it got dismissed uh yeah what a wild story man how how do you ignore a robbery call to play Pokemon Go? I mean, was Snorlax super rare at the time? Relatively. I played Pokemon Go hardcore for like three weeks, and I had a Snorlax. So I don't feel like they were that, that rare. I'll say this. Number one, there's no excuse for that. So I'm not defending this at all as much as I like to poke fun at it. But this happened back in 2017. Now, the story just came out because the court documents were released on this, I guess, recently. But in 2017, this was the height of the Pokemon Go craze. I mean, everybody at a park,

if a suspicious car pulled up out front of your house, there was a year and a half where you just went, ah, it's probably somebody just playing Pokemon Go. Instead of like, who's that? Are they going to rob us? Why are these people out front of our house? Everybody just went, ah, yeah, they're playing Pokemon Go. So it's like, I get the hype. I get that it was at the height of everything. Now, you're a police officer, man.

Your job is to respond. And I'm pretty sure that this was a robbery in progress, not like a reported robbery. This is like people legit getting robbed right now. And the cops are like, I mean, dude, do we go help these people or do we go catch the Snorlax? And the guys were like, let's go catch the Snorlax and then we'll go check it. Yeah. and then we'll go check it yeah well i also especially loved that their when i read the details of their appeal the appeal wasn't even like oh they got the details wrong like you would think maybe it would be no that's not true we didn't do that their appeal was the dash cam is

not supposed to record private conversations yes that, it was that. That's their argument. Oh, it was the stupidest appeal I've ever seen. And they were saying like, oh no, we didn't go catch it. We didn't leave to go catch it. It showed up on a tracking app that goes along with these, and we were just talking about it. And forgot about the robbery we were being called to. The appeal was the worst appeal ever, man. But this story, as tragically funny as it is,

it did make me laugh really hard. And then when I saw the date that this actually happened, I did at least understand a little bit better at that point. There were many people that I knew personally that were completely absorbed with Pokemon Go. And it was kind of like, I mean, cops are people too. We tend to think like hey they're cops but you know they're gamers as well and and you know maybe they don't make the best decisions

sometimes like ignoring a robbery and call pro a robbery in progress call that's the one where if i was a cop i think i would want to get there as quickly as possible to like try to see if i could catch these guys in the act but nope that's our lax was uh too exciting man good old snorlax what a story all right and then i think the last big news of the week is that pub g which is now several years old for a long time i think it was what a 20 game maybe 30 i think $20. I don't remember what we spent on PUBG. It was not AAA pricing, but I feel like it was not close to being cheap either. So I want to say maybe $40? $30 or $40, somewhere around there.

Somewhere in that range. The player base had stayed consistent for a long time, so they decided to take PUBG and make it free-to-play. We have seen this model with other games like Rocket League, right? You charge for it initially, a couple years later, make it go free to play. And the PUBG player base doubled overnight. Now, I was kind of shocked, but PUBG has sold 70 million copies? That's a lot of copies of a game.

That's a lot. So you've already made a ton of money on it if no one new is buying the game why not make it free to play the new players might buy cosmetics and the keys to unlock the loot boxes and all that kind of stuff so that makes perfect sense to me i have always been shocked at the continued popularity of pub g every time I check Steam charts, it's always been in the top five. The top five games are still CSGO, Dota 2, PUBG, Apex, and Rust. And Apex is pretty new, I guess, relatively speaking, but those are pretty old games. That kind of tells me we need a new staple classic that we really need at the

top of Steam. Yeah. I mean, a lot of these are free-to-play games, which I think helps a lot. And they're infinitely replayable because of the competitive aspect of them. I think that's what really draws a lot of people to these. You know, it's funny. When you think about the PUBG heyday, when we were all playing PUBG every single day and we had, you know, our group of friends that we would roll around with in our four man groups, that is a very fond memory. Oh yeah. Right. When it comes to gaming, like it's actually up there. Like when you take a step back and you say, Hey, what gaming times do I remember, you know, throughout life or periods and stuff like that.

The pub G days are one of those that are in the top 10 easily, you know? And so it's just, it's interesting because there's a part of me that misses that, but there's also the part of me that knows that if we tried to get back into pub G, we would be miserable. And especially with all the free-to-play people,

free-to-play to me just means more hackers. Because what do they have to lose at this point? Yeah. You just make a new account and you keep going. Because they're not going to ban your IP. They're just going to ban your account and you just make a new one. And this is what led to the downfall of PUBG, to be honest. We loved that game, dude. But the more and more hackers that we came across... In a game like PUBG, where it's. We loved that game, dude. But the more and more hackers that we came across in a game like PUBG, where it's a battle royale, where when you're done, you're done and you're out, any level of cheating is so drastically unfair that it just absolutely ruins the game. It's not like Halo, right? I think I have come across a couple people hacking in Halo,

either that or they're just insanely good. So either way, I'm going to call them a hacker, right? Like any good gamer you know right yes exactly so but but you know what if there's a hacker in a match of Halo okay maybe this guy has you know a good kill death ratio but it's not my game is not over because that guy is hacking in PUBG a hacker instantly ruins the entire round and I just feel like this problem is just going to be accentuated even more now. It's just a little too late, I think. Yeah, I kind of had the same reaction. My immediate gut shot reaction was, let's get into PUBG, because now half the players don't know what they're doing. We're going to clean up. I want to own some people, right?

Yeah. But then my immediate second thought was uh they're all gonna be cheating like there's literally no downside now it's not like anyone's hanging on to cosmetics that they want to keep at this point you're just gonna want to win and uh yeah i think pub g might just be dead dead for us i have said many times i think it's the game I have played the most in my life other than Overwatch. I put in so many hours, like PUBG for a solid year. Like, that was just the go-to game every day. I played multiple matches. And sometimes those matches would go on for a good 35, 40 minutes if you made it to the final circle.

Yeah. But I kind of thought, maybe in my head, I thought Halo Infinite was a lot bigger on PC. Now, I know that Halo traditionally has been a console game. I looked it up on Steam charts, and Halo Infinite is number 55. Wow, really? On Steam. And I'm going to tell you a couple of games that it's behind. You ready for this?

Oh, I don't know, man. I'm just going to assume that everybody's playing on console to make myself feel better about these numbers coming up. There are more people playing RimWorld. Okay. There are more people playing Fallout 4,

which is an old game by now. It's old, yeah. Good, but old. There are more people playing Payday 2 than Halo Infinite. No! What? So these are not even just free games.

These are games that you have to pay for. Halo Infinite is free. This is what happens when you go 20 years without making a sequel to something. Because you have a very young group of gamers that could care less about Halo. Yeah. Because they just went, I don't understand. Some old guys about Halo. Yeah. You know, because they just went,

I don't understand. Yeah. Like some old guys liked Halo and a Halo came out. So all these old guys are happy about it, you know? And, and I mean, it's a phenomenal game, but I think that you just genuinely missed a large portion of, you know, the history behind that and what made it so good to a lot of people. Yeah. I could not believe. Yeah, Payday 2 is number 35, and Halo Infinite is 55. So I don't know if we're kind of on our own island with how much we love Halo Infinite, but in our friend circles, it's still what everyone's playing. I was surprised it wasn't a little bit higher on PC. I think a lot of people out there are missing out. I get it that people have issues with the Battle Pass, but who cares?

It's a free game. Yeah, I don't get that, man. Yeah, play the matches. I think certain games just translate differently to different parts of the globe. I feel like a very large percentage of PUBG... I seem to remember tracking these numbers, and it stayed insanely popular in Asia, whereas it was losing a lot of popularity in the US and Europe and stuff like that. So I think that you do... I mean, we see this with Lost Ark that's coming up, right? That's a

Korean MMO, which generally don't translate very well to the Western gamers. Right. And so I think you see these cultural differences in some of these games where certain things catch on. And I feel like PUBG just stayed super, super popular, whereas in the US and Europe, it fell off a lot too. So I'd be curious to see what the breakdown is of those numbers globally. Last thing that I'll mention here since i still have steam

charts up and open so halo infinite right now has about 25 000 people playing right now there are 22 000 people so only a shade below it playing balloons tower defense 6 through steam now i heard that game's really fun so it's fantastic, but it's a mobile game first. I don't even know who's buying it and playing it on desktop, but even Bloons TD 6 has almost the same player base on Steam as Halo. Maybe it's

people playing through the Xbox app? Maybe they didn't get it through Steam? Game Pass. I bet you it's a lot. I'd like to see the total numbers on that. I know that we're Halo biased, but I'm willing to bet that there's an awful lot of people playing it via the Xbox Game Pass versus Steam. Oh, man. How crazy. Yeah. I would have thought the numbers would be higher for Halo. All right. Well, that's all that we got for this week in gaming. We are going to have our next bonus round episode on Monday.

That one, we believe, is going to be a draft and tournament where Michael Butler will be returning. I think that'll be his third appearance on the show. Return of the Butler. Return of the Butler. As long as we don't have any unforeseen circumstances, we will have three of us on Monday, which will be very exciting. And then the next deep dive will be Demio. So if you are interested in hopping into VR, that's the one we've been

getting into lately. And that's kind of just the upcoming schedule. So if you want to play the same games we are, that'll give you a chance to dabble a little bit into those. And then that's it. So we'll be back with that draft on Monday. I think it's going to be a draft of the best game set in space. Boy, that's an interesting category. I need to do some research and I need to find some current games so that anybody under the age of 30 will know what I'm talking about. And I also want to try to avoid just talking about Dead Space and Mass Effect. Yeah. So I'm going to try to pull some space games that are a little bit different. Yeah, there's a lot of really good ones out there. It's funny because the more I started thinking about it, the more my brain was going into the game file cabinet and pulling out these

old games. I even linked you guys a game that I think is phenomenal. I think I'm going to actually do a Quick Takes episode on that because it's so under the radar and it's such a good game. And then maybe I can make people know what some of these games I'm going to pick are as well. Very nice. So we'll have that for you guys on Monday. And then just as a reminder, we would love if you guys could leave us a review and also rate our podcast five stars, both in Apple and on Spotify. That'll go a long way in helping the show.

And if you do want to help financially support what we do, Apple subscriptions or Patreon at MultiplayerSquad.com. You can support us starting at $5 a month. You'll get those extra episodes. They will also be all ad-free, and you get access to the episodes a whole day early as well. So we would like to think that's well worth your money, and you get to help support what we do. And I think that's it. Thank you everyone for listening to this episode. We'll be back on Monday. All right. I'm off to play God of War. See everybody. Bye.