Video Gamers Podcast - Most Anticipated Games of 2023 - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: January 16, 2023

Gaming hosts Paul, Michael and Josh are celebrating the beginning of 2023 with our annual Most Anticipated Games episode. We’ve got a lot of hopes for gaming this year and we’re each breaking down our top most anticipated video games in a can’t miss episode from your favorite gaming podcast. Thanks to our LEGENDARY supporters: Toro, Scrump, Gaius, Remi, MarbleMadness, Dr. Catatonic, Blackstar (DQ), Glapsuidir, Phelps, Michele B, Redletter, Nevo, Waynerman, TFolls, AceofShame, Jake, RangerMiller, and Ad Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/multiplayerpodcast Join our Gaming 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

hello fellow squad mates and welcome to 2023 we are fully back from our two-week christmas break and we are so excited to have these new episodes for you all again please make sure to follow our podcast to make sure you get all of our episodes and also make sure to follow our podcast to make sure you get all of our episodes, and also make sure to rate our show five stars and leave a written review in Apple Podcasts. You can also help support our show on Patreon if you like what we do and want bonus content. If you sign up, starting at five bucks a month, you will unlock the Squadcast, which is a feed of 45-minute bonus episodes that release twice a month. All right, we've got a killer's row of games releasing this year. Let's not dilly-dally any more than we need to and get to some introductions.

I am your host, Paul. And joining me, he just won't stop talking about how much he wants to play Skull & Bones, and he's predicted that it'll win Game of the Year in 2023. It's Josh. Lock it in, baby. Book it It's Josh. Lock it in, baby. Book it. Book it. Lock it in.

Skull and bones. Surprise hit of 2023. And joining us, his most anticipated game of 2023 is just to keep replaying 1993's Mist once again. It's Michael. You stole my joke i was legitimately gonna say for my first game i'm gonna i'm gonna bring up whatever new version of mist is coming out this year as my most anticipated game but no it's not the wind out of my sails probably just like skull and bones that came over too all right there we go brought them all together there oh boy all right so we do have a

little bit of housekeeping here before we jump on in. Guys, what's my favorite thing to do on this podcast? Oh, announce legendary members. Legendary and rare members. Yeah. We did get a couple of new Patreon supporters here that we need to give a shout out to. We want to say thank you so much to Brian Joven, who signed up with rare status. And we also want to thank Toro, who signed up with rare status and we also want to thank toro who signed

up for legendary status with the bull and scrump who upgraded from rare to legendary holy thank you so much to the three of you merry christmas and happy new year's to us boys christmas miracle i love it nice thanks guys we were able to actually eat on Christmas, which was nice. Yeah. No, seriously, thank you very much. It's pretty cool, man. We've got more lurkers out there than I think we realize sometimes. And it was cool because Scrump upped her pledge to Legendary. Picked a game I'm actually very interested in to play, which is really neat. But I got to chat with her just a little bit. Our listeners are freaking awesome, man. Toro's been super active in the Discord. Really, really cool guy. It is really awesome to see the support from the community,

to be able to engage with the community and all of these awesome people out there. So thank you, Scrum. Thank you, Toro. Thank you, Brian, for the support and everybody else that helped support the show as well. Yeah. And one thing to let you all know out there is that we did shift around our schedule a little bit here at the beginning of the year. We actually did end up with multiple people signing up for Legendary and choosing a game for us to deep dive. So we ended up releasing High on Life last week. And then after today, we're actually going to do two deep dives in a row. So we're going to be knocking out Dungeon Defenders and also Ib and Ob.

So in case you guys are wondering out there, it'll be a little bit different. We're going to front load a couple extra deep dives here this year because we've got to knock out some Legendaries. And as we all know, or if you don't, you'll know here by the end of the episode, we've got to knock out some legendaries and as we all know or if you don't you'll know here by the end of the episode we've got plenty to look forward to thankfully yes those those games back to back sound sound like an 80s hair metal song you know i don't know why that's just it's just that just got in my head and it's like, how are we naming these things? What is an Ib and Ob?

Well, we're going to find out. We'll find out when it releases on January 30th. It's coming. Yeah. All right. So if anyone doesn't know, we did release a breakdown of 2022 at the end of the year. We gave out a couple of awards. So if you guys want, you can always swing back and listen to that episode.

We did talk about how 2022 was very top heavy. We talked about how Elden Ring, God of War Ragnarok, and Horizon Forbidden West were really the heavy hitters. But guys, as we look forward to 2023, before we start breaking down individual games, do you still think we're in store for a better year? Yes. We have to be. we have to be we have to be it can't get much worse we had two incredible games in 2022 now there there were a lot of better games out there i mean i definitely didn't feel i didn't feel starved for games in 2022 but we are never gonna look back like we have done on this show at certain years and gone man guys 2022 is where it was at for gaming right well you know it's funny

to prep for this episode i listened to last year's episode on most anticipated games from 2022 because i wasn't part of the show yet i think I'd done like two guest appearances at the time and I listened to it and both of you guys, man, I was dying. I almost had to pull the car over because you're both like, yeah, 2021, not a great year. Can't wait for 2022. And I'm like looking back and I'm like,

I hope that everything we're about to say doesn't fall flat, but there's no way we can have three mediocre years in a row. Don't you put that juju on us, Michael. Don't you put that evil on me, Ricky Bobby. I should knock on wood. I gotta do it. All right. Well, let's go ahead and start bringing up some specific games that we are highly anticipating. I think all three of us had kind of the same philosophy. We're going to be

bringing up many of the popular AAA titles. I have no doubt we're going to talk about stuff like Starfield and Diablo 4, but I know that we also grabbed a couple of more obscure titles that we're really excited about. So that way we're sharing information that's kind of like across the board. Hopefully we'll bring up at least a couple of games that you might not know about, even if you have been following gaming news closely. So, Michael, I think you had volunteered to actually go first. That is totally fine with me. You want to bring up our first most anticipated game of 2023? Yes, our first anticipated game is also the most anticipated game, or at least mine. I i don't know i can't read your guys's faces right now because you were a voice podcast i can't see you i don't know what you blink twice

if you can hear me josh shoot i can't see him see anyways without further ado we're gonna go into sequel land of course the sequel to a little game from i don't know, 2019? 2018? Called Jedi Fallen Order? There's a game coming out, much like a Beyoncé song. I'm a survivor, I'm a survivor, I will survive, yeah keep on surviving. Those are the actual words, by the way. We don't get enough Beyoncé in here. Anyways, I'm super excited because we get more

Cal Kestis. He's gruffy. He's got a beard on. He's gonna do this, by the way, on March 17th, 2023. That's the drop date for this game, and I guarantee we're going to play it. We're absolutely going to deep dive this one because it's super awesome. And I think a few of the cool things about this game is not only are we getting this same universe, we get more Calcastas, but we're getting more. In the last game, there was two stances. If you remember playing that, guys, you had the two-handed stance where he holds the sword like a two-hander. Then you got your little

one-handed stance. I know stances and all kinds of dancing stuff, but this time we get to double it up, which is super cool, because you got a little tease of a dual wield in the first game. But okay, let me just tell you how it's going to be. This is my excitement level two, okay? First game, one lightsaber. Sounds like this.

Wow, wow. Okay, two lightsabers is more like this. Cocaine is a hell of a drug. And that's what you're getting from this game, I think. It's going to be a huge hit. I'm super excited. I can't wait to play more of the Calcastus series because it also had a kick-butt amazing ending.

And you guys can go now because my excitement levels are through the roof. I can't contain it. So many sound effects for Michael. I was going to say Michael's... Songs, sound effects. Get it all. Michael coming in hot in 2023.

Jedi Survivor. I'm not going to say Jedi Fallen Order. Jedi Survivor is way up there for me. I actually went back after the announcement for Jedi Survivor and started playing Jedi Fallen Order again and realized how amazing that game is all over again. And there are a lot of improvements that we're seeing in Jedi Survivor. It's also not that far away, which is great. This is not end of 2023.

This is just a few short months away. I am very, very pumped for this one. Now, Paul, you played Fallen Order, but if I remember right, you didn't beat it. Is that correct? Yeah, I didn't beat it. I liked it. I thought it was fine. It was good.

I will say that I'm a little more excited to play Survivor this time around because we're setting time aside to play it as a deep dive i tried playing it at the same time we were deep diving other games and it was very hard for me to have the time to invest to get fully sucked in i will say respawn entertainment is one of my favorite developers out there they definitely have my trust you look at the titanfall games you look at apex legends you look at star wars Legends, you look at Star Wars Jedi, and this one I'm pretty confident in being pretty good. I would say this one's a pretty

safe bet. It's going to be highly playable, probably very good, maybe even great. I think this one's very safe on the most anticipated list. Super excited. I just can't wait to see a more mature Cal Kestis to see where his path has taken him, because the game's five years later, which means we get five more years of awesomeness in between what we saw before

and what's happening now all right josh you want to tell us your first pick here um i mean let's let's just get the heavy hitters out of the way on this one um starfield i i mean i the more i see i know starfield released their gameplay demo or their little trailer that they had. And people kind of went, this looks a little janky, man. Like, I'm not so sure about what we're seeing. The gunplay looked a little weird. There was some stuttering and everything just didn't look super polished. But then we've kind of learned more and more about Starfield.

I have said many times that Bethesda makes great video games. They don't make super polished video games. I am not expecting that they are going to somehow miraculously change their ways and this is going to be the first bug-free Bethesda game, right? No, that's not what I'm expecting. All I am expecting is a vast world or worlds in this case to be able to explore a lot of fun to be had. I love the Bethesda games. You can really just get lost in them for hundreds of hours at a time. I love space. What an awesome setting. So that really gets me excited. So unless this releases in an initial Cyberpunk 2077 state where it's nigh unplayable, that would be the only thing that would really, I think,

crush my dreams for what Starfield is going to be. It's going to have bugs. I'm fine with that. Is it going to have buttery smooth 120 frames a second? No. Is it going to have memory leaks and stuff like that? Probably. Am I going to care? Probably not. And I hate to say that because we don't like these trends that developers are doing, but that's just Bethesda. But what they're going to give us, I think, is going to be incredible. Yeah, I will say I really love the minimal UI that we've seen in the videos. I love that that's a new trend that a lot of games are doing. Instead of cluttering the screen with a lot of crap, it's just give me my health and my ammo

in the very bottom right. Give me a little marker that I can do and just let me see the world. And Starfield looks beautiful. I will say we haven't seen too much about gameplay, so I'm still a little, I really don't know what exactly they're gonna give us. This is still supposed to come out the first half of 2023.

So we're not that far away from Starfield either. And I'm really curious to see how this one shapes up. I just don't see it flopping. You know, I'm sorry, Michael, I didn't mean to cut you off. But that's the thing. Like, I don't see Starfield coming in and being Fallout 76. No, I mean, Fallout 76 was a different beast, too. You know, like, it was their first time trying to do an online play and most of the things wrong with that game was they were trying to make an online

game when their forte was making really awesome single-player adventures i think that was one of their biggest things and like there was no story in 76 people didn't like it the the multiplayer was broken and so forth i think this i've got confidence on this one and i think they were smart too because one of the things that a lot of people had a problem with was like okay a few months ago they announced that you can't seamlessly go from space to planet well they came out and said you know there wasn't a way for us to really make that without like spending another year on the game make it seamless and make it work so instead of just focusing on that we're gonna say let's not focus on that let's make the game work and let's make it playable. What I'm excited about, though, is the $250,000 lines of dialogue and also the new dialogue system.

Like, it's going to be a lot of all Bethesda games are pretty heavy in your character choices. But I think this one's going to really be a bit more of a choose your own adventure. All on maybe a little bit more of Oblivion where the world kind of reacts around you because there's so many different lines of dialogue. You can't get through 250,000 lines of dialogue in one video game. You really can't, which means I think there's going to be lots of different paths. I hope you're right. And if memory serves, it's their first new IP in 25 years. So talk about anticipation. I mean, it couldn't be any higher for this one. Yeah. All right. Well, let's go ahead and we'll bring up the first one here on

my list i'm gonna bring up a game that i don't think was on either of your short lists to bring up for today um but that's all right i'm talking about a game that's got characters by the names of dallas chains wolf and hoxton i'm talking about payday 3 guys i cannot wait for payday 3 payday 2 is going to be 10 years old this year so that's how long we've been waiting for a sequel and i checked steam charts right before recording there was still a peak of over 77 000 players just this month. And we're talking about a game that is so bloated and so old. I mean, there are still people where the only game they play is payday two. And I'm not one of those people. I loved it at release. We tried doing a deep dive, not that long ago, Josh. And it's just impossible to try to play the game for the first time now,

but give me all the heist, Any game that has a heist, I will absolutely play it. A high chance that I'm going to love it. I love nothing more than pulling off heists. I want to yell at hostages. I want to put zip ties on them. I want to fight off the police. Stay down. We want to hurt no one. We're here for the bank's money, not your money. Your money is insured by the federal government. You're not going to lose a dime. Think of your families. Don't risk your your life don't try and be a hero uh the one thing that i do hope they do a little differently in this payday i hope that it's a little bit more strategic and not so much just arcade shoot 4 000 cops maybe make the cops a little bit harder to kill make them a little smarter make me play a little bit harder to kill, make them a little smarter, make me play a

little bit more stealthy. And this game is going to be 100% up my alley. Dude, they need to buy the bots from DMZ in Warzone 2. Those are the smartest, most tactical bots, man. I'm with you, Paul. I really had fun with the Payday series. You and I actually played it together a lot. I would like to see some sort of iteration for Payday 3. Like you said, make it a little bit more strategic, make it a little bit slower paced, take some of the arcadiness out of it. Enhance the heists to more prep or something. I don't know. I don't want Payday 2, but with slightly better graphics. No, I don't want that either.

I need some sort of iteration to make that something that gets me really hyped. I'm excited about this game having never played the first two. And I know, I didn't play them because I was wrong and I was dumb. And I'm sorry to everyone out there that I can't offer good feedback on this. But I do know that Payday 2 took place in Washington, DC, if I'm not mistaken, from some of the stuff stuff i looked at payday 3 is taking place in the greatest city known to man ever in the entire world sorry international audience but that's the city of new york and so i'm just excited to have heists in new york city in the 2020s i'm playing this game i know the characters are supposed to be unforgettable i may have to go back and brush up on payday 2 payday 1 is probably

too old but this is kind of my you're right it wasn't on my short list but it's not like i'm not looking forward to it i am mostly because you said i am and i'm excited now yeah this is a game that i don't think we're gonna have until very late in 2023 i think it would have been really neat to release it this summer which would coincide with the 10 year anniversary of payday 2. But they released a teaser trailer, I want to say like three weeks ago, and it shows nothing. You see some fireworks and you see like the Brooklyn Bridge and you know it's New York and that's all that they show. I think if it were going to come out sooner, we'd probably already have some gameplay,

but I'm really hoping this will come out later this fall or winter. And even though I know games as a service is kind of a dirty word around here, but Payday 2, they gave us so much content, so much DLC that that's why so many people still play it. And so Payday 3 is going to give us a ton of content to get through the next couple of years. And I really can't wait for that one all right michael swinging back around to you what's your next game oh shoot i'm not saying zelda tears of the kingdom because i didn't like the last one so you guys can have that one heresy you know i i gotta say because i don't think this show gives enough love to the horizon series i know that it's a playstation exclusive josh just committed a cardinal sin he

said we had two great games in 2022 which i'm assuming he was referring to elden ring and he was referring to uh god of war ragnarok but it was let us let us not you got it right michael horizon horizon forbidden west was incredible josh didn't play you can't slight this game it was incredible is it is it good i don't know you know what because i don't have ps5 i know right it's terrible but no it's incredible i would say that it's better than the first one which is not a bold statement most people call them both like 1a 1b and a lot of people say that they're both different ways so i'm really excited about the next entry in the series which unfortunately i'm not excited about the same time because i had to do a 600 friggin dollar pre-order to get this game because it is a virtual reality game called

horizon call the mountain and it launches simultaneously with the psvr2 now i did do a pre-order it's 600 i got the psvr2 don't tell my wife and you must be the monopoly guy hey thanks for the free parking and i got um the game with it and so that'll be at my house you know maybe the day before but um i'm really excited about it because you're not you're getting more lore you're not playing as aloy you do get to play with aloy in the universe she's a side character this game you're playing as a character named reyes who's a male character who's a shadow karja warrior who kind of left his tribe or however it goes we don't know a whole lot about it but i think it's really cool because we're going to get another perspective on the horizon universe

we're going to get more lore because they're kind of promising us that like a different perspective of what happens with the machines maybe you'll get to do a little hero worship. You can go and maybe at the same time watch something Aylor did in a different game, and you're like, oh, look at her, she's Aylor. Kind of like what they did in the Hawkeye series, where, what's her name, the Haley Steinfeld character is watching Hawkeye from afar and kind of hero worshipping.

It's kind of cool. I like that. I'm not excited to spend $600, though, because it's rumored the game is only going to be about six to seven hours long. It's typical for a VR game somewhat to be shorter, but that's a little too short for me. However, I'm still going to get it. I'm still super excited about it. And I just can't wait to get more of that universe. Cause I think it's an absolutely incredible game franchise. Forget what Josh doesn't say because he hasn't played it. So anything he does say is what he doesn't say. And just go with me on this, guys. It's going to be awesome.

Josh, are you going to drop $1,100 to go pick up a PS5 and a VR? Yeah, no. No. I mean, VR is fun. I'll be honest. I haven't looked into the PSVR 2. I know it's coming out. I don't know how great it's supposed to be. I don't really know that much. So I'll just go to Michael's house and try it out at that point. So thanks, Michael, for footing the bill on that. I gotcha. Yeah, PSVR 2 is supposed to be like a next-gen. PSVR 1 was entry-level. PSVR 2 is supposed to be like next-gen. That's the big difference from what I can understand. I think it'll be pretty good. I was going to say, you both do a lot more VR than me. Michael,

you're probably the one who does it the most. Is there anything in particular about Horizon that you're really excited to do in VR? I'm actually kind of worried about it, honestly, because I know the combat in Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West is one of the best things about the game. The combat is very well polished. It's very well done. I don't know how it's going to work in a vr setting to be honest with you because it's going to be interesting trying to pull in a bow and arrow uh one of the things i'm more excited about is there's supposed to be more puzzles in this one and i do love vr puzzles so i think that's going to be really nice you know i think that's what i'm really excited about and also josh up your or paul up your alley tons of color in the Horizon worlds.

Tons of color. Yeah, but you know I hate that retro-futuristic aesthetic that Horizon has. That's the only bummer. You don't like post-post-apocalyptic worlds like a thousand years after the bombs hit. Yeah. Exactly. I like Fallout when you're in the middle of it. Right. But I don't like when you've got tech and you've also got people running around acting like people who lived thousands of years ago.

Paul wants the despair and bleakness, not the hope that civilization is going to make it after all. Paul's just pure dystopian. Give me the despair. I'm only happy when it rains. All right, Josh, you want to bring that one? Yeah, sing it for us, Michael. Put on your best Shirley Manson. I'm only happy when it rains.

No, don't. I'm only happy when it rains. One song per show, Michael. All right, Josh, what you got coming up next? All right, so this one, people that have been listening know I am super excited about this game this is i don't know that this is a triple a game um but it's balder's gate 3 um i might be the most hyped for balder's gate 3 other than one other game that i'm sure one of you fellas is going to bring up here very soon um because it is from larian studios who made Divinity Original Sin 2,

which is one of my all-time favorite RPGs. They nailed everything that I love about RPGs and combat. I mean, I could not think of a game that fits my style better. And so they are taking over the Baldur's Gate series. They've been making Baldur's Gate 3 for many, many years now. It's been in early access for, I feel like, three years. Yeah, honestly, forever. And they have finally said, listen, we're ready to release this game.

It has an August 2023 release date. They are staying insanely true to Dungeons & Dragons 5e rule set, which I think is phenomenal. I recently got back into Dungeons & Dragons. I used to love it as a kid, and I've been very much into that as well. And the fact that they're staying true to that rule set makes me very interested as well. And so you take a studio that I trust a lot because they made one of my favorite games. You give them a series that is the heart of role-playing games, and you give them Dungeons

and Dragons and say, here you go. And they have basically said, we will not release this game until we feel like we've got it right. And that's what they've been doing for years now. So I have a lot of faith that Baldur's Gate 3 is going to be absolutely incredible. I cannot wait to play it, man. It only been like 20 years since balder's gate 2 so we've been waiting long enough like to say this is the most anticipated game or second most anticipated game you have i cannot wait i love dungeons and dragons i love dnd-esque games um from what i've seen from this game so far a lot of people complain about the the release of act one because you just don't get enough from it like what's how far 20 hours right which is crazy they're saying they don't get

enough from it because it's 20 hours long how long is this game and that's why i want to play it so bad i love an epic long game give me i mean i was just talking about this in our discord chat earlier i am such a relic of the past give me a 60 or 100 hour game all day long i'll take it i'm excited about this game can't wait to play it yeah and larian hasn't failed us yet that's another studio that i really love really trust so yeah baseline it's gonna be at least playable if nothing else all right the next game that i'm gonna bring up here is one that we have talked about but it it's been a minute. I want to bring up Lies of P. Oh, I thought about Lies of P. And then I just I was like, man, I don't know where this game's at at this point. We've been excited every time we've seen it. Right. And then I was just like,

it just we haven't seen anything in a while. Like, where's it at? Well, here's the thing. If anyone out there is not aware of this game, it is a Souls-like game where you play as Pinocchio. And I remember when we first read that news, I thought it was a joke. I was like, there's no way. Why are we going to play as Pinocchio? Why is it going to be like a melee, hardcore combat game? But the more and more that we saw and the more we read and the more we heard about this game, the better it sounded and the better it looked. And I think the highest praise I can give Lies of P is they released over 31 straight minutes of gameplay that you can go watch. They gave it to IGN. They're not trying to cover up this game. It's not completely done yet. One of the best parts about that video is the voice lines of a boss are just some random dude in a studio as filler where he's like, hey, you don't belong here.

Get out of here. And like, that's how you hear the voice acting. But the combat looks really crisp. The whole idea of Pinocchio having this mechanism on his left hand that you're going to be able to swap out and change with different builds. You've got these skill trees. The sound and the atmosphere just seem fully realized. It seems to me like they just knew exactly what they wanted this world to look and feel like, and it really seems like they did it. So even though I'm not a huge Bloodborne, Sekiro, Souls kind of guy,

this one to me looks a little bit more accessible. I think it'll be like Elden Ring, only a little bit easier. And so I think it might appeal more to the masses. I think this one's going to be a little bit of a sleeper hit. I agree with you. In the past, we were very excited about Lies of Pi. it's kind of fallen off my radar which might be a good thing because it means i'm not super hyped for it and so then it can release and come out and be great um you know i it looks bananas it looks so good so bonkers no i i don't know what to think of this game we watched the preview for this game and i'm like this is pinocchio?

But it's a Souls game. The art style is incredible. It looks incredible. It looks amazing. The combat I'm terrified of, because I still have nightmares about Elden Ring. I'm not even going to lie. We were talking to somebody in Discord who finished it. Shoot, it was today, too.

I can't remember who it was. Luck. Luck had finished it in like 100 hours and i'm like man i was 51 hours in that game and i didn't even kill the first required boss i killed like three of the side bosses and that was enough for me the game was so hard i'm not gonna sit here and say it was too hard i i just had nightmares about it so i'm hoping liza p isn't to do that to me. But what a unique idea. I'm looking forward to it as well so much just because what a unique idea. Exactly what I just said.

What is bonkers. Bonkers idea. I want to play it. What is it that has Pinocchio in the air? Because we've got like Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio movie. We're getting this Lies of P game. I don't know why everyone decided to start making Pinocchio content. Yeah, I don't know. I kind of like the darker take. I'm't know i kind of like the darker for it though yeah i do like the darker

takes honestly that i think that's a neat way to go with a lot of these like fairy tale type things totally agree all right well we're going to take a short break and we'll be right back with more multiplayer gaming podcasts this is an ad from betterHelp Online Therapy. We always hear about the red flags to avoid in relationships, but it's just as important to focus on the green flags. If you're not quite sure what they look like, therapy can help you identify those qualities so you can embody the green flag energy and find it in others. BetterHelp offers therapy 100% online,

and sign-up only takes a few minutes. Visit BetterHelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp.com. Okay, Michael, swinging back around to you. What's the next game you want to bring up? Do you like action adventure role-playing games? I do. Do you like barbarians, druids, necromancers, sorcerers, and rogues?

I do. Tell me more. Tell me more, Michael. Do you like it when sometimes an old man says to you, Jacket Kane, you have no friends? Wait, he says his own name? Yeah.

He says his own name. Anyways, I'm talking about a little known release coming out called Diablo Eve or Diablo If. Diablo 4. What do we know about the previous three diablo games they all sucked they were all terrible get out of here with that garbage that's not true they're all incredible um and this one is probably going to be even more incredible

let's be honest it's an open world diablo game All the other Diablo games have been very linear. You go on your path. You go until you fight the big scary demon Diablo at the end, and then you go back and you do it again in a harder mode. But this time you get to bring friends. You get to do raid-esque things. You get to go wherever you want to go and still progress the story, which is absolutely bonkers and insane.

And I don't know. I can sit here. We can probably talk about this game and do a whole pre-deep dive on this game before we even do a deep dive on this game, just with what you know about it and what we know is going to be happening in this game as far as the exciting parts of it. But let's just be honest, it's Diablo 4. Everybody's been waiting for it. I'm so happy, though, one thing, that Blizzard takes their time between these games because they are so polished. Aside from other blizzard i'm sorry blizzard yes aside from a few other missteps overall blizzard is really good at putting out games you know even if you don't like overwatch

2 versus overwatch 1 blizzard does a pretty good job with making games that are multiplayer making games that are fun and this is like their magnus opium of a story game that's outside of the warcraft world and i just i can't wait and i don't know i want you guys to come play with me and guess what you can i hear it will be almost as good as diablo immortal oh you get out of here you shut your face uh diablo 4 i i i was initially skeptical and i think a lot of that skepticism has gone away in what we've heard about Diablo 4 from people that have got their hands on it and been able to play it for a significant amount of time. This isn't like a, hey, I got 30 minutes in a predefined dungeon or something like that. It's looking like it's going to be amazing.

I think that having the open world nature is going to kind of affect it kind of like Elden Ring did with having its open world nature. Now, it's not completely open world. They did say, hey, you can't just go anywhere you want from the beginning of the game, but it is much more open world than any other Diablo game has been. I am super pumped to be able to hop in with friends and play Diablo again. That is such a good time. If you have not played any of the Diablo games, this is your chance to find some friends to play with and have an absolute blast playing what looks to be a phenomenal video game.

Yeah, much more fun with friends, though. I gotta say, Diablo 3, Diablo 2, all of them are much better. I mean, Diablo 2, shoot, it wasn't even online. You had to do a LAN party to play it. Well well when it first launched and it was the best time ever yeah no diablo 2 is definitely on the short list of like my favorite memories of gaming as a teenager and diablo 3 was still really good i think it was the weakest out of the three diablos at least you know from when they came out. Yeah, which is great. And everyone keeps saying this one is a little bit more like Diablo 2, which I think

was by far the best. So it really seems like they know what the people wanted. Diablo Immortal aside, that's a separate project. It seems like with Diablo 4, they knew what people wanted. It seems like that's what they're giving us. I cannot wait to jump in there, knock out the campaign

restart it again on a higher difficulty try to work your way through nightmare go on those runs with other people that are overpowered helping you level that's all part of the diablo experience i can't wait for it it's going to be an absolute blast i also think it's worth mentioning because i think we all forgot to uh the date on that is june 6th yeah yeah thank you michael yep that one's coming out this summer so we already know a date and uh hopefully they'll be able to stick with that one i'm taking the week off work i was gonna say i need to i just that reminded me i need to ask off for work but not the first day because servers servers are gonna get hammered so i'm gonna ask off for like june 7th and 8th instead last time you requested time off work josh it didn't

go so well how many times did you request work off for cyberpunk oh don't like four four rounds i think it was four different times man honestly where i kept going like no hey you know you know how i was on vacation those i don't need those days off and they're like oh great and i'm like but i need these days off and they're like uh okay oh man too funny all right yeah double four should be a great one all right josh what do you want to bring up i'm gonna bring up again because i think i'm way higher on my hype level for this game than the two of you are i think you both are fairly skeptical of this one but it's atomic heart Atomic Heart comes out February 21st, so it is not far away at all. And I remember seeing the very first video for Atomic Heart and instantly falling in love with the art style. It

is this weird, sterile, super bright, but yet ultra realistic graphics. In a Soviet setting. Yeah. In a soviet setting it was very it just it really jumped out at me and i remember thinking like well this is a cut scene or a pre-rendered thing and it was gameplay and then i remember going like yeah there's no way and then they kind of went dark for a little while they came back with another video and then they went dark for a little while and then there was there was some news that released that said hey there's a lot of development trouble going on with Atomic Heart, which is never good news.

But then, I don't know if they just got their act together or what happened, but they started releasing more gameplay videos on a regular basis. They allowed some people to play the game a little bit. They showed us some boss fights. They just recently, I think it was a couple of weeks ago by the time this episode airs, but they released a 4K trailer for actual gameplay footage. This game looks phenomenal, man. It has Half-Life vibes. It has Bioshock vibes. It has what looks to be very good gunplay. I'm very excited about it. I am trying to stay cautious because Atomic Heart could flop. It could be nothing like what the videos show us. But if it is anything like what we are actually seeing in what we have seen,

and there's been a dozen videos now at this point, this game looks pretty amazing to me. I don't know how much of the game will go into story and lore and so forth. But what excites me about this game is I spent a lot of time in college as a history and anthropology major, and I love Star Trek. One of the things I love a lot is alternate realities, right? This game takes place in 1955 in a universe where Soviet Russia in the 1930s eradicated the Nazi German threat with robots. And Neff said, I want to play this game. Paul, your turn. Yeah, I remember following this one closely over the years. And after reading about all the development issues, I kind of just wrote it off.

And I was like, you know what? This is one of those games. They're promising the world. It's, it's either not going to come out or it's going to be completely different. And as more footage has come out, I've really tried to keep back my expectations.

I, I do think this is going to be boom or bust. Like I don't see this game. Yeah. I don't see it being a 7 out of 10. This game is going to come out and be one of the best games of the year, or it's just going to be so weird that people are going to find it off-putting, and it'll be like a 5 out of 10. So it's going to go one way or the other.

I'm with you on that. I'm optimistic that it's going to be the boom it very well might be the bust and i acknowledge that but i really hope not and we do have atomic heart already on the calendar this is the first time that we've planned ahead because there are so many games to play we realized we can't fly by the seat of our pants we gotta plan at least the first half of the year have you guys seen february like yuck yeah like yeah well so much except for atomic heart well and and well one thing too this is not on the list right but like i mentioned february 22nd the psvr 2 comes out what's launching it

also with it is resident evil village in pia in vr exclusive to playstation 5 so like i i'm gonna have to quit the show for a little bit and just play those two games in vr you to playstation 5 so like i i'm gonna have to quit the show for a little bit and just play those two games in vr you want even you have to go in that universe to get me if you need me go into the thousand years from now dystopian future very nice all right the next game that i'm going to bring up here this one's going to be a little bit more obscure but i think people who have played the first one are big fans one of of my more anticipated games is The Wolf Among Us 2. Oh, yeah. Now, this is one that I actually did not know very much about the first game,

but as I was doing research, I looked up a couple articles, you know, what are the most anticipated games? And on two of them, I saw where one of the top comments was, for me, it's The Wolf Among Us 2. And so I went into Steam, I typed in the name, saw that it had a 97% rating, and it was like $3. And I saw it was a Telltale game. And I was like, oh, I played Batman, I played Walking Dead, I played a couple other Telltales. I didn't even know about this one. Totally slipped by me. And I'm still in the middle of playing it right now. I'm halfway through the five episodes. I think that the first game is incredible. I absolutely love it.

So the idea of having a sequel now is totally up my alley. Do you guys know anything about The Wolf Among Us? I have heard it's phenomenal. I've never played it. I've heard it's one of the best telltale games. So if you loved Walking Dead series, you will absolutely love The Wolf Among Us. I've just never played it, but I've only ever heard great things about it. Ironically enough, I own it in Steam. I own it on PlayStation as well

because my buddy QuiteATool, it's his username in Discord, he always says, you got to play this game. You got to play this game. It's up your alley. I started it and played it for like an hour, loved it. And then just, I don't know what happened. I think I was moving at the time and I just didn't play it. And I'm like, why have I not played this? So I need to play it while Paul is doing it so we can talk about it. I didn't even know why it was called The Wolf Among Us. And so I hop in and you're in this like really seedy world where right off the bat, you're intervening because a lady of the night is getting beat up by another guy. And I was like, oh, this is a little darker, a little more mature than I thought it would be.

And then all of a sudden you're talking to a frog man and you're talking to a person who looks like a pig and they're talking about you better get your glamour or we're gonna send you to the farm and i was like what and then all of a sudden there's characters who have names like ichabod crane and snow white and it turns out you're the big bad wolf you're literally the wolf among us and i was like what is this this is kind of bonkers, but it's dark. And then I found out it's based on a graphic novel or a graphic novel series. It's really cool, guys. And you get to make those hard decisions. Characters die based on whether you act or not. You have to choose, am I going to go here or there? So it's highly replayable.

I just love that Telltale is uh resurrected because you know we know that they went out of business and they kind of got chopped up and sold to a couple companies but the fact that we have more telltale games coming out like this also the expanse looks pretty awesome uh but wolf among us 2 is definitely on my short list it's i'm excited about that yeah all right so we're about three quarters of the way through the episode we got time to bring up Definitely on my short list. I'm excited about that. Yeah. All right. So we're about three quarters of the way through the episode. We got time to bring up a couple and then we'll list some honorable mentions. So, Michael, you might have time for one or two more.

So you're going to have to choose carefully. What do you want to bring up next? Oh, I got to go quick then. Okay. I can't talk for some reason. Like, literally nothing came out of my mouth. It's like when you tell Michael he's got to go quick, he just locks up.

He's like, what do I do? I saw the headlights. I'm a deer on a dark road. I don't know what's happening. Okay, so man, there's one that I really want to bring up, but we can't go without bringing up a game that I'm actually looking forward to quite a bit more than I thought I was, which is Hogwarts Legacy.

Okay, so here's why. I'll be real quick with this one because i want my second rules no the thing is is that i realized by looking at this game this game has everything i love i love open world i love um magical fantasy environments i love stuff like that i'm not a big fan of combat in games all the time like and so i'm like even though i'm not a huge harry potter fan the more i look at this game the more i'm, I just want to be in the world. And that's why I'm so drawn to it. The world looks fantastic and I want to be in it. It wasn't on my list, but I like that Michael is coming around to Hogwarts Legacy because

I feel like I'm coming around to Hogwarts Legacy. You know, the latest videos and gameplay that we saw have been impressive, whereas some of the earlier stuff was not. So again, just curated video and specific gameplay and stuff that they've been showing us. But I am excited for it. I just don't know it's one of my more anticipated games. I think it's become mine somehow on accident. Yeah. Which I like to see.

It's actually cool to see that they're winning you over. Right. And this is another one of those February releases right around the corner, February 10th. And we're going to deep dive that one too. So we've got a lot of work ahead of us. People are going to know whether it's good or not. That's for sure.

Yeah. We'll make sure to let you all know what we think. We'll try to knock that one out as soon as we can. Yeah. Hogwarts legacy. We talked about a lot. We talked about that one a lot recently. So,

you know, check out a couple of twig episodes back if you want to hear more thoughts about that one a lot recently so you know check out a couple twig episodes back if you want to hear more thoughts on that one all right josh what do you got coming up next i got two i want to talk about so i'm going to go quick but we have to bring up meet your maker paul you're the one that introduced this to me thanks a lot buddy because this game looks incredible and what i'd love to see is that whereas you did not see this game on any of the gaming websites, you're starting to see Meet Your Maker as one of... It's making their lists as one of the more anticipated games.

Comes out on April 4th. This is a game that we talked about recently. But you build a base to try to make it as difficult as possible to raid your base. And then you get to watch people attempt it. You don't lose anything if they succeed. And then you get to go and try to raid other people's bases and do the same thing. There's progression because you get more material and then you can build more traps for your base and stuff like that. You get to play co-op with a friend to try to go do raids. This checks a lot of boxes that I think we said this before, but I think this could be, if it works, the birth of a new genre. Yeah, I echo everything you say.

This is one of my most anticipated games that no one's ever heard of, and it looks incredible. Yeah, I think it looks really fun. The one thing I will say is it's probably a game that you want to play on day one. Because if you let too much time go by, I think this is the kind of game that people are going to develop expert skills very quickly, and it'll be hard to play later. And part of the fun here, I think, is that everybody's first base is going to really suck, and it's going to be easy to raid. And together, you're going to see the community start to build better and better, to raid bases and i think you're going to want to be there for it this is

one that i would not put off i think you can put off games like forespoken or uh final fantasy or you know well that one's not until june anyway but you could lay off some of the single player games this is a multiplayer game i think you're going to want to be part of from day one paul speak for yourself they're going to write books about my bases your first base everyone knows in rust the best base you ever built was the first one nobody ever raided it yeah who needs a door lock right all right let's see uh the next game that i'm gonna bring up here i'm gonna say man i hate bringing up remakes i'm gonna do it anyway guys resident evil 4 to this day if you just you know tapped me on the shoulder and i didn't think about it and you just said what's the scariest game you

ever played or what's the most memorable horror game without a doubt i would say resident evil 4 um i haven't played it in like 15 years. I loved it on the GameCube. I used to sit with my wife's cousins. My wife and I were still dating at the time, but I'd play with her cousins. We'd share the controller. And I just remember so many jump scenes of us yelling. I remember that game. You're so low on ammo at all times that you're kind of freaking out trying to find the next save point. I remember having so much fun mixing your herbs to do the healing potions and all that. This is not just a coat of new paint on Resident Evil 4.

They have redesigned parts of maps. They have redesigned entire buildings. This is one that I think a lot of people will love to get back into. And I think this game had that perfect mix where it was scary, but it had a lot of action. But it's not solely just a shooter. This one, to me, for me personally, found that sweet spot between horror and action. And it's like a perfect game other than maybe a couple of mechanics where you have to escort another character. But that aside, what a game. And Capcom's already done other great remakes. So I have a lot of confidence that Resident Evil 4 is going to be good. I think one of the big things here is, like you said, it's not just a fresh coat of paint. It's

not just a retexture. They're making it a game that would have come out today. And I think that's what I'm most excited about. From what I know, the game is not just a bunch of jump scares. It's actually a scary horror game that has good action. And that's why, since I have said it many times, I've never played a Resident Evil game, which is so bad because I should have played those games. And now I get to play one because it's going to come out this year as a game that came out this year, not just a fresh coat of paint. Yeah of paint yeah all right well michael we still have a little bit of time here last game

what do you want to bring up dude i'm going obscure i'm going 90s action this is a game that came straight out of the heart of the expendables universe it's a game called crime boss uh rock a city which is which is, which is just, I mean, okay. So I'm just going to tell you the cast of this game. Okay. And then you know enough about this game. Okay. It's got Michael Madsen, Kim Basinger, Danny Trejo, Danny Glover, Michael Rooker, Chuck

Norris, Vanilla Ice. Like those are some of the names that are in this game and our childhood. It's our childhood. And again, it's a game that I i i don't even know what it's about it's a bonkers crime game it's a first person shooter but these people are playing like they look like themselves in the game like it's a motion capture-esque game when you see chuck norris in this game it's not voiced by chuck norris you see chuck norris let me play this game i'll be quick on this whole thing i'm gonna drop the mic right now is one of my most anticipated

games because it's just my childhood coming back in a game it's probably gonna be terrible but i hope it's great either way i'm anticipating it big time 2023 i hate to say it i'm anticipating this one's gonna be pretty bad yeah you you can you can watch some gameplay and i don't think we actually talked about it on the show but i remember linking some gameplay footage and i got so excited because right off the bat they start setting up a bank heist guys you know i keep saying how much i love bank heists and all of a sudden i was like oh man this actually might be great but it really seemed like the combat and a lot of the movement mechanics were a little off in some areas it almost looked like a mobile game to me.

It looked like all the money went to the actors and not to the gameplay. That's the worry. Maybe they put too much money for the actors. All the money went into actors that haven't done anything for 15 years? Vanilla Ice is in this. How much was his paycheck for this game?

At least Michael Rooker is still working. He's in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies. Danny Trejo, you know. Yeah, he's making tacos. I'm sure old Charles Doris is not cheap. Probably not, no. All right, Josh, what do you have for your last one? Remnant 2, boys.

Oh, my goodness. Remnant from the Ashes was one of the least known, really, really good games out there. Remnant 2 looks incredible to me. If you want Dark Souls with guns, incredible boss fights with co-op with your buddies, that's what Remnant 2 is going to be. That's what Remnant from the Ashes was. Remnant from the Ashes had some down moments and some levels that weren't so great, but the bones were phenomenal. The boss fights were phenomenal and the co-op was phenomenal. And I feel like with what I saw with Remnant 2, they went, look, we learned our lesson. We're going to make this thing bigger and better. And it looks fantastic. I love the co-op nature of it. And it's up to like three or four person

co-op now. It was three in the first one, but I think it's up to like three or four person co-op now. It was three in the first one, but I think it's... I don't know if it's three or four. Will it be up to three or four colors? Dude, if you watch the video, there's colors now. It's not just red and brown. It's not just red and brown. I know. But I am very, very hyped for this one because this is... The first one was great. I've played through it multiple times with different people, and I feel like they've brought it into the 21st century.

They've made it modern, and they fix the things that made the first one dull and kind of boring to some people. Go watch the video of it. But again, Dark Souls co-op shooter. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, I think if this one's up your alley, you're going to know just by watching a little bit of gameplay. Yeah. The last one that I'm going to bring up here, I was going to do Zelda tears of the kingdom, but there's just nothing to really talk about.

And everyone already knows that one's coming out. So I'll do a little bit of a more obscure pick here. I'm going to say under the waves looks really interesting to me. I am very interested in this one. I'm glad you brought it up. Okay. Cause this one's by Quantic Dream, the people who made Heavy Rain and Detroit Become Human.

And I'm not going to say too much about it. I'm just going to read a very short description of the game, and I think some people will be pretty interested in this. Under the Waves is a narrative-driven adventure game about the engulfing power of grief. Set in the depths of the North Sea is a techno-futuristic 1970s, professional diver Stan

is struggling to overcome a life-changing loss and embrace a new future. The isolation of the deep sea is a fitting manifestation of his state of mind, and as Stan retreads further into his self-imposed solitude, he starts to experience strange events far beneath the waves. Stuck between life and death, Stan will have to make the most significant choice of his existence. So, sounds really weird. It's narrative-driven. Probably no combat.

It's going to be like Heavy Rain and all the other games Quantic Dream has made. I think it's going to be highly emotional when you're diving into topics like grief so fully. I know I'm not huge into techno-futuristic, but I love Quantic Dream. I love the idea of this game. This is one I'll play regardless of whether or not we do it on the pod. No release date yet, just 2023. I really like the premise for this game. I got a little bit of Firewatch vibes from some of the graphics and some of the somberness and stuff like that from it. But this one is definitely on my radar as well because the premise and the way that Quantic Dreams can really punch you in the gut and make you feel emotion is second to none. And that interests me a lot because it's so

different than a lot of other games that are out there i don't have a lot of experience in looking into this game but i can say from what little i've seen if we had an award show for the most anticipated games of 2023 this is the most likely to make michael cry a lot yeah probably yeah it's gonna be a weighty game for them to flat out say hey we're making a game about grief and like a lot of gamers aren't gonna be hey sign me up right uh but i think for people who like story i think it'll be really interesting yep all right so let's run down just a couple of honorable mentions shockingly there's probably 40 other games that are coming out in 2023 that we could mention any other ones you would recommend people check out that we haven't mentioned yet

i'll fly through a couple real fast cities vr which is like city skyline is going to be releasing with psvr2 again more vr stuff um obviously cyberpunk phantom liberty which is an expansion but i still got to bring it up because that's kind of a big deal and then probably round it out with robocop rogue city which looks like it just belongs in that verhoeven universe and i just want to play it because it looks like robocop and also i mean let's be honest you could be robocop running around with all kinds of cool stuff going on it's like one step below lightsaber and the original actor peter weller is voicing robocop which is kind of neat. Thank you, Peter Weller. What about you, Josh? Oh man, I got so many. So, you know, Redfall, you know, I'm hopeful for that game. I'm not super excited. I'll kind of

wait to see what people are saying about it. Lord of the Rings, The Return to Moria, which is the survival exploration crafting game I thought looked really neat. That's on my list. A game called Forever Skies, which I think looks really, really neat. Again, survival exploration, but on blimps and post-apocalyptic world. I think that one looks really neat. The System Shock remake for the older gamers like me. They remember System Shock and how awesome that was. They've been working on this remake for a really long time. That one looks really good. Hollow Knight, Silk Song, I really liked Hollow Knight. I realized the other day, because I was gifted Ender Lilies by one of our listeners, that I really enjoy these atmospheric metroidvanias. So that should be coming out in 2023, before June in 2023.

And then Michael mentioned it, phantom liberty that's a huge one but i it's not confirmed for 2023 yet if i remember right it's just kind of expected in 2023 but we know how cd project red is they're not going to screw it up again that one i have a feeling may get delayed a little bit boom yeah don't delay it we want to know yeah delay it now although delay it if it's gonna be like the cyberpunk original launch delay it please yes exactly a couple honorable mentions i'll bring up alan wake to talk about the year of long-awaited sequels man there's like like uh homeworld 3 i think the last game came out like 18 years ago there's a lot of sequels this year that have been waited such a long time alan wake 2 looks great assassin's creed mirage seems to be a return to the old assassin's creed i love that it's

linear i like more games going back to a linear uh model not everything has to always be open world um it's interesting because i love that souls went open world and i love that diablo is going open world but i'm also really excited assassin's's Creed is reigning it in. That's pretty interesting. Dead Island 2, another long-awaited sequel. That one's up high on my list. And Star Trek Resurgence. Did anyone bring that one? I had that one on my list too, actually. Telltale Games type with Star Trek. Looks amazing. Which is so crazy because I am probably the biggest Star Trek fan on the planet. And I just, there just really haven't been a lot of good Star Trek games.

So I always just kind of gloss over them. It's rare that they're good, admittedly. Right. So to close out our show, guys, I got just, you know,

three quick questions for you. What is your prediction for 2023 game of the year? That way we can go back and laugh at how stupid we were. I got one go ahead michael diablo 4 that's probably my pick too actually i just i think it's as much as i want it to be like would it blow your mind if it ended up being jedi survivor that the game is like god of war status good i'd be so excited but it's not gonna be let's be honest it's gonna be jedi survivor the sequel to jedi fallen order um which was a great game but uh it'll be diablo 4 uh that i just i think that's my prediction that's my safe bet

that's my prediction too yeah i think it's just it's a good bet like because let's be honest bethesda's gonna raise a broken game with starfield that's the next best choice i'm going with a safe bet but it's a different safe bet i'm gonna say zelda tears of the kingdom oh that's real safe that's too safe i feel like that's got a 50% chance, I'd say, if you had Vegas odds. I am 100% going to play that game. My wife and I actually were talking about that right before we started recording. I will play it. I'll love it.

We're going to deep dive it. I'm just not hyped about it. We're going to deep dive that game? Oh, it's on the schedule. Oh, we will absolutely deep dive it. It will release on Juneune 5th according to our current schedule pending uh game delays and whatnot but happy birthday michael boo all right what's your prediction for the biggest letdown of the year what's going to be the

calisto protocol of 2023 atomic heart i hate to say it that's it's boom or bust. And I'm optimistic it's boom, but it's probably going to be bust, man. Coin flip 50-50? Yeah, I know. That's my guess. Well, is this the biggest letdown or the biggest flop? Because I was looking at biggest flop. Yeah, either or. Either or.

Because the biggest letdown for me is probably going to be, I don't know, something like Hogwarts Legacy, where I finally got so excited about it. I can see that. But the biggest flop, I think, overall is going to be Skull don't know, something like Hogwarts Legacy, where I've finally gotten so excited about it, and it's just going to be boring. But the biggest flop, I think, overall, is going to be Skull and Bones. I know that it's... I still have friends who are like, oh, I can't wait to play it.

It's going to be Pirates. I'm like, you're going to be disappointed. It's going to be bad, and I think it's just going to sell like zero copies and be bad. Might be DOA, one of those games. It's going to be a flop. Yeah, it'll be DOA.

Yeah. Could be right. We did not mention the game the day before but that's the survivor uh like zombie like game i think that game is gonna be atrocious i think that game it looks so good because they delayed it to make it in unreal engine 5 but every single time they release footage this is the game josh where we talked about on twig where the guy was wearing the cowboy hat and he's in the grocery store and all the raiders come in and he's like backing out.

And you can tell his style too. Yeah, it's all scripted. We have not seen a whole lot of real gameplay. I think that or Redfall. I think Redfall might just be like back for blood. I don't know that it'll be that left for dead successor that a lot of people are hoping for. Those would be my two most likely. What about for biggest surprise hit of 2023? I believe the surprise hit is going to be Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League. I think it's going

to be mind-blowingly good. And everyone's looking... We didn't even mention on this show. Nobody's talking about it. Looks really good. Like, looks surprisingly good. It's made by the same people that made the Arkham series. I think it's going to be one of those that kind of comes out and it's just like, holy cow. Like, this game was really good and nobody really talked about it a whole lot. Looks good. Could be right.

What about you, Josh? I got to go with my game Flintlock. You know, no, I'm just kidding. Honestly, Remnant 2. I'd love to see Remnant 2 hit mainstream. I think they can do it. Honestly, I think that's going to be the big surprise hit. I think that game's going to come out and people are going to go, whoa, where has this game been? I'm going to say Lies of P, and I think a large part of that is because of what Elden Ring did. I think Elden Ring brought in so many more souls fans that they won't be intimidated when

they see lies of p and they're gonna snatch it up i think that might be like the sleeper hit what if they pick it up and it ends up being the biggest flop because they pick it up thinking it's gonna be like elden ring and it's nothing like it it's just a souls like game yeah it could very well could be yeah but i'd love i i'd love the confidence of just saying here's 30 minutes of footage even though it's not finished we're that confident i think that tells me they've got something special but we'll just have to wait and see uh half these games are going to get delayed to 2024 you know it's inevitable don't don't don't listen to our most anticipated of 2022 because you're going to hear hogwarts legacy you're going to hear lord of the Rings Gollum, which is still not out.

Yeah, a lot of this stuff will get delayed. What are you going to do? It's just the nature of gaming. We didn't even bring that game up on this, and this is like a big one. That was a big one before. Nobody cares. No. Okay, I want to change my biggest flop.

It's Gollum, which will come out in 2025. I think people already know it's not going to be that good. Okay, that's fine oh man all right well this was a lot of fun i i'm really just excited that we have a lot of games to look forward to even if half of them get delayed it's still a treasure trove of stuff to go through uh we're super excited for this year i can't wait to do it our first deep dives of this year after doing the first couple of legendary picks we're gonna do for spoken hogwarts legacy atomic heart steel rising star wars jedi survivor and meet your maker oh my god that's a killer's

right some good i started drooling right there guys i got a little bit of drool on my microphone oh so much look forward to as a reminder if you guys enjoyed this episode and like what we do please check out our patreon page at MultiplayerSquad.com. Come sign up and you'll get bonus episodes. Also, make sure to hit the follow button on our episode and rate our podcast five stars. Yeah, guys, you made it this far into the episode. If you haven't hit the follow button, what are you doing? You liked it.

What are you waiting for? You made it all the way through. Do it. Just do it. And yeah, come follow us on socials everywhere at multiplayer pod we'd love to have you follow us on there as well and i think that wraps up this episode any closing thoughts i am excited man yeah please don't let half of these games suck yeah i'm gonna go play some subpar game now for the rest of the night and be disappointed because i'm not playing half

the games we just listed and dragon age 4 fingers crossed outside chance i mean they're in alpha now i'm not i think it'll be 2024 it'll be 2024 i think you're probably right but that one we don't yet know so that's why we didn't bring it up in case you were wondering all right well we are all done with this episode thanks so much for listening we'll see you guys next time happy gaming cheers all all right see everybody