Video Gamers Podcast - The Best and Worst of 2026 - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: October 19, 2026

Gaming hosts Josh, Ryan, and Ace are putting 2026 under the microscope as they debate the biggest Game of the Year contenders, surprise hits, standout indies, and biggest disappointments! Which video games blew us away, which ones completely missed the mark, and which underdogs deserve some serious recognition? We're breaking down the best, worst, and most unexpected moments in gaming this year. From massive AAA releases to indie gems, we're settling some gaming debates and deciding which video games truly deserve the love! All this and more on the Video Gamers Podcast!   Thanks to our MYTHIC Supporters: Redletter, Disratory, Ol’ Jake, Gaius, Jigglepuf, Phelps, Bobby S, NorwegianGreaser, Dettmarp, DingusKhaaan and NightWizard63   Thanks to our Legendary Supporters: Milkman, Drewsky, Jigglepuf and BadGam3rDad   Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: ⁠patreon.com/videogamerspod⁠ Join our Gaming Community: https://discord.gg/h2cHKAvSmu Follow us on Instagram:⁠ https://www.instagram.com/videogamerspod/⁠  Follow us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@videogamerspod Follow us on X:⁠ https://twitter.com/VideoGamersPod⁠  Subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@VideoGamersPod Visit us on the web:⁠https://videogamerspod.com/⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Let your morning change you. Discover coffee plus on espresso.com. Hello, fellow gamers, and welcome to the VideoGamers Podcast. Cast, 2026 has been a really solid year for gaming, but has it been a great year for it? With a lot of above-average releases, it seems like we've been swimming in quality games, but have there been any incredible standouts? What about huge disappointments or surprise hits? Well, on today's episode, we're going head-to-head to see what games standout, which fell short,

and more. Before we get to the competition, some introductions are in order. I am your host, Josh, and joining me in a sea of mediocrity, he's a true standout host and our best friend, it's Ryan. You ain't got a lie, Craig. You ain't got a lie. Okay, number one, it's true, but number two, like, I've always. surprised at like the shock value of like saying something nice to to Ryan or I'm not I just never expected man but as I I appreciate it man I love love much love

Ace is worrying because he's like oh my gosh if you said something about Ryan that's nice what does that mean for me well ace buckle up buddy uh oh because there's only one of only one person gets a nice intro yeah I figured it was coming and joining us every now and then and indie comes along that truly blows you away with how special it really is and he embodies those qualities to a T. It's ace. One in a million, baby. Our favorite Metroidvania, ace.

Everyone's favorite Metroidvania hand-drawn. I feel kind of gross. Atmospheric RPG. Atmospheric aesthetic. With rats. Losing an aesthetic. With rats, yeah. I was told I'm too mean to you guys in the intros

by somebody that does not understand our show at all. Oh, really? I didn't know that. That's pretty funny. I would feel weird. Tell me you've never watched our show or understood what we're. That would feel weird if you weren't mean. If we didn't rib each other in the intros, it wouldn't be true to ourselves.

It felt weird, right? Yeah, it feels weird. That was to prove a point that, listen, when we're overly nice to each other, then it's kind of like, okay, what's going on here? You've sown distrust. It feels little strengths. Wait a minute. What's happening? What's happening?

Yeah, what's you going to do to us now? What's he want from us? I'm on to you. I'll tell you what I want from you guys. I want some hype behind this announcement that we are about to announce to the world. Should we do, hold on. Ryan? Should we do a drum roll?

Are you going to do a drum roll? I'm too lazy to insert one. Ryan's going to mute himself. We know when he taps his desk that he mutes himself. The announcement is We are about to unveil our brand new website

The world Everybody And you're, okay, okay And I know people are like, wait, did you just say website? Yes, we said website. We have been working furiously on a website that is meant for gamers.

we sat down and we talked this over and we went guys we all use a bunch of gaming websites we get our news there we watch trailers there but what would we do if we could build a website as gamers as this podcast as these down to earth dudes that just love chatting games like what would we build and then we went you know what let's freaking build it boys and so we have been working with an incredible we're not taking we're not taking all the credit for this so i'm going to give a huge shout out Massive shout out to AKA Wallaby. He's in our community. People that know him. He is an absolute legend. Wallaby has gone so far above and beyond what our expectations were for this website. It is truly

mind-blowing. But when I say that we are so freaking excited for you all out there to see what we have been working on, it's unfathomable. Like we have unveiled this in small pieces to our supporters of the show and

And the feedback that we have gotten from people has been incredible. It's been kind of in beta testing. We have gotten a lot of feedback and suggestions from people. Every time somebody suggests something, we're like, oh, my gosh, that sounds amazing. And then somehow the wizard wallaby makes it happen. This website is built for you. Like, honestly, it is built for you as the listeners out there. It's got, it's going to have your news.

Everybody wants gaming news. It's got your trailers that play right on the site. But we are able to curate some of the trailers. so we can say, oh my goodness, guys, these are the trailers that you need to be checking out. So when we talk about them on a show, guess what? You're going to be able to watch them on the website.

We have the hottest games of the month. So every month we're going to be able to curate the games that are coming out that month that you need to know about. It looks incredible. It acts incredible. Every game you click has a game card that pops up. It lets you hype it. It lets you, you know, see what the game is about.

The genre, whether it's multiplayer, that kind of stuff. It's got a game's database of where we're like, 9,000 games on there. It's got, you know, a community tab where you can actually create a profile and rate your games. It'll import your Steam library. You can set games to your backlog, your wish list and things like that. You can rate games.

And not only that, but you can see all the other games that people rate, top 10 lists that you can create. This website was made for you. Like, you're going to have to just check it out to understand how incredible it really is. the one the one caveat is that it's not ready just yet but listen

I know that we can talk about it all day I know that we can talk about it all day but sometimes seeing it is what really helps so we have put together this little trailer for you so that you can get a glimpse of what it's going to look like so check this out dude every time I see that

I'm hyped again I can't believe this is real huh Hold on, I'm signing up. I'm signing back up. Yeah. So this, our goal is to release this soon. And soon does not mean three months from now. It means hopefully later this week.

We will absolutely make an announcement when it is live for you, but we cannot wait to share this with you. There's so many features. This is going to bring gamers together. One of the really incredible features on this is the let's play function where you can select a game as let's play. and then you can come to our Discord server and you can actually ping people

that want to play that game with you and then people can set their let's play times when they're available, what games they're available to play with other people. We're really trying to highlight the community that we have and bring that community together and that's one of the major focuses of this website along with like I said,

awesome news, awesome trailers, hottest games, everything you could want from a gaming website and more. So we're hoping later this week, we've got some bug fixes to do and stuff like that, but it is, it is almost ready. We could not wait to share that with you. So we're, we're teasing it now because we just couldn't wait any longer. Start getting hyped now because you'll have it soon. Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. Like I said, that trailer, if that doesn't do it for you, I, there's so many more features that they're on there. We just,

we didn't want to make like an eight minute hype trailer. Yeah. We'll announce when it's ready. Keep an eye on social media in our Discord server and we'll announce it on the next episode if it's live as well. But we can't wait. And we've done this for you out there. Like I said, there's no ads on this site. This is not like a, you know, you're going to get bombarded with a bunch of ads or anything like that. This was built for you all out there. And we hope that you enjoy it. We hope that you get a lot of use out of it. We had a ton of fun trying to come up with everything on this. So, all right, boys. We got a great show on top of all of this. We are going to be covering the games from 2026 that we think are.

We're going to draft. We're going up against each other here. Oh, baby. This isn't going to work quite like our other drafts where we're like fully competing. We're more just putting a list together, but we can't pick the same games kind of thing. So we're not going in like any special snake order like we do some of these drafts. We're just going to kind of say we're picking games for these categories more than anything. But we are going to be picking the game of the year.

Whether that's released or not, is Ryan going to pick GTA6? not if I pick it first. And then we are picking the game that surprised us the most. So a game that came out or that we played this year that really caught us off guard. So the surprise hit, we're going to pick our favorite indie game of the year. We're also going to pick the most disappointing game of the year for us. And then we will also pick a game that we have the most FOMO on, which is a game that we have not played personally that we feel like we're probably missing out on. so I'll tell you what

let's just dive in boys well after Ryan reads us a review because one thing we love on this show is when you all let us know how we're doing we love reading reviews they are very important to us so Ryan what do you have for us today I have an awesome review

from actually why did you make me look at this name Master of the D Yeah, we'll just say that. We're just going to read it that way. Master of the D. D.I. D as and D IH.

Five star review titled, These guys are awesome. And it reads as follows, I have come from Spotify to rate the pod and let me tell you it is peak. They are fun, or they are funny, kind of kind read the comments very rare

and have awesome community follow them give them five stars use Spotify it's Oscar by the way sorry but the name never never thought I would use this app worded a little interesting but thank you so much Oscar love it love it love it love it

Oscar are our legendary master of the D yes there we go. Thank you for Listen, number one, honestly, people that rate us on Spotify and then come to Apple to leave us a review there, that means the world to us. If you listen on Apple, you can write us review. That's that extra mile, man.

Yeah, next level. It really is. So shout out to Oscar for doing that for us. So all right, boys. Here's how this is going to work. I called it a draft. It's really not a draft, although again, if somebody picks a game, you're not allowed to pick it. That's kind of the one rule. But what we wanted to do was kind of just take a look

at 2026 as a whole so far. We're getting into the latter quarter of the year. You know, September and October were the giant release months for this year so far where everything in the world was coming out. Yes, we have Okrean of Time remake and yes, we have GTA6 still to come. But we're kind of tapering off now, right? Unless we get some announcements we don't know about. So we kind of have an idea of what 2026 has looked like as a whole.

And we thought it would be fun to kind of categorize a few games. And what we're going to do is we have put together a kind of like a master list for each of these categories just to jog your memory for some of the games that have come out this year, some of the surprise hits, some of the disappointments and things like that. So unlike some of our other drafts, we're going to spoil things a little bit up front for each other because we want you to realize what 2026 has been for gaming so far and to kind of remind you about some of these games that maybe we forgot about. maybe you haven't thought about in a little while and to kind of talk about some of the better games out there. So let's just kick it off right away with our game of the year. Okay. Oh, man. All right. We didn't determine any kind of order here. So I'll tell you what, just I'm in a good mood. I was nice to you guys in the intro. I will volunteer to go last on this one.

All right. So Ace, why don't we start with you? We'll go Ace, Ryan, me in that order for picking things. Oh, how does that work out? I don't know. All right, Ace, ready? Rock paper scissors for it? I'm not taking it, Ryan. Let's go.

No, Ace is like he said I could go first. I still want to beat you, though. Let's go. All right. It's going to be the way. Ready? Ready? Ready?

Yeah, it's going to be the way. Rock. Okay, ready. Rock paper, scissors, shoot. Hey. Oh, I lost. Ace one. Okay, there it is.

It was fate. It was fate, people. Crazy. All right, A, starting off with game of the year. And again, this can be a game that hasn't released yet. It can be your personal. It's kind of up to you. We've had a lot of good games.

So before you make a pick, I put together some of the games that were standouts for this year. And this is no means exhaustive. There's going to be somebody out there that's like, but this game should be game of the year. And hey, that's great. We're glad you feel that way. But this is just what we came up with, you know. So, okay, so here's some of the game of the year contenders. GTA 6, probably a frontrunner, Resident Evil Requiem.

Also a front runner. Fire emblem, fortunes weave. If you like Fire Emblem, this is probably a frontrunner for you. Big Walk. E? Forst,

Hold on. You made this list. How are you going to end your own list? I'm trying to be a man of the people. I'm trying to be a man of the people, Ryan. All right. I mean,

I can't raise. I can't. Forza Horizon 6. The Legend of Zelda, Ocrean of Time remake. Not out yet, but man, I know a lot of people are excited for that.

Mina the hollower. Yeah. In a lot of people's conversation for gaming. My eyes. Josh got a lady fired, by the way. She left because she realized. Okay. Pokemon.

Dang it, Ryan. That's really bad on you now. Without any explanation. I'm never going to live that down. I'm never going to live that down. I like to think that maybe, that maybe she's in a, like a, I don't say a better place. She's dead. Maybe she's just had a better opportunity, guys.

Maybe where she's at is more visually pleasing. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Okay. All right. Sorry new listeners to the podcast. We're not normally this ridiculous. I mean, let's be honest.

This is a little bit. That's a lie. Pokemon Pocopia. That was a big one. That was a game that came out of nowhere. Five million units sold. Yeah, Pragmata. We still hear people in our community saying progmata caught them completely off

guard. Onamusha, way of the sword, ace. Man, for me and you, that might be a strong contender. Yeah, blood of Dawn Walker, Crimson Desert, 007 first light, control resonant, Nio3, Wolverine, Mugenics, mixtape,

Saros, and Phantom Blade Zero. Those are your big standout games for the year. These are kind of your general, if you were going to make a list of, you know, 20-some-odd games that you think might be in contention. That probably covers most of them. Ace, which one are you picking

for your game of the year? Oh, man. There are so many good ones on here. that like so many stand out but I'm obviously I'm not going to take GTA I don't think it's nah

I mean it's not taking it no uh Phantom Blade Zero I thought you might do it Phantom Blade Zero is looking to be Wait you're taking Phantom Blade Zero? I am I think

you're freaking jerk I was gonna do that to screw you guys over dang it dude this is what I get for giving you the first pick Phantom Blade Zero legitimately looks like it could be the best game we have this year

I don't like you anymore Who never liked me It's fine I don't know I don't know Some ding dong That's for sure Yeah

I'm taking That's my game of the year Even though I said Onamush is my current game of the year I think Phantom Blade Zero is gonna usurp it I have been diving deep Into the preview event I know you're addicted

And I This game looks so insane So you would say Like Ace You would say that obviously Phantomslaid Zero is what you're looking forward to, but like Anamusha you love, would you say Onomusha is more than Resident Evil for you? This year, yeah.

I think Resident Evil record. Oh, wow. Yeah, being a new IP for me and a whole new gameplay style that I haven't really experienced with Onomusha versus, you know, Resident Evil is just another Resident Evil. Yeah, yeah. But it had a great story. It brought back Leon and all the great stuff like that, but you have to have a connection to the franchise to enjoy it. I feel you. Cool.

All right, Ryan. Tell the people why you're picking GTA 6. Oh, because it's going to be not only the best game of the year. It's going to be the best game in the last maybe, I don't know. When did red did come out? Whenever right after Red Dead came out. 2018. It will not be as good as those games in my opinion, probably.

But it will be something that we've never seen before, in my opinion. I think that it's going to be next level. there's going to be more than you could ever imagine. Ace, I know you're not a big GTA fan from what you've played. I'm sorry, I'm not a pervert. This is, go. That full frontal nudity. Well, that's one, one, that's not true.

One, that's not true. Ace said that with a straight face. One, that's not true. Two, again, that's not true. Also, just in case anybody's wondering for the website, when you import your Steam library, it will not import all of your games who don't have to worry.

And we know that because Ace asked. Ace asked if it was going to import everything. We're like, no, there is like an age filter. Are I like like like 18 plus games going to like come into this too? Like is that no? All right, cool. Okay. Nobody thinks too hard about that.

Listen, Wallaby had to code for this, man. Just for you, Ace. Just for you. Oh, man. That's what I get for bringing up the full frontal nudity in GTA6. Yeah, you can't try to throw shade a GTA 6 ace. I'm going GTA, man. That is your pick.

Yeah, that's my pick. I think, I think there's just, I mean, there's, there's too much involved in this for it not to be success. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, sucks. And it'd be one of the biggest catastrophes in all of games. The biggest disaster in game. Yeah, in all of gaming, like billion dollar catastrophe. So hopefully that's not the case. I want all games to be good, including this one.

So that's what I'm going to root for. So, I mean, I'm left with the dregs of games like Onamusha, Resident Evil Requiem. I will say, we've been seeing a ton of chatter from people about Control Resonant that are saying, like, this is my game of the year. We have not played it. We can't play every game. You know, Remedy is well, highly regarded, but those games either kind of hit or miss for a lot of people. Mad respect to Remedy, but we just don't know about Control Resonant. I'm just going to go with my personal one on this one.

And Ace, I'm with you. So I'm taking Onamusha on this one. This like, onamusha came out of nowhere for us. It is absolutely incredible. I mean, we talked about it in our deep dive. If you haven't listened to that one, you can go hear our full thoughts on Onomusha and why it stood out to us. But what's funny is since the deep dive, we have had people in our community that have gone

like, well, you guys got me to buy this because you hyped it up so much. And then we are hearing left and right from people that, are going like, oh my gosh, dude. Everyone loves Onomusha, man. This game might be one of my game of the year. And then we're like, yeah, we told you. I want to play it so bad, but I also like don't want to because I know I'll just lose 40 hours of my life. Oh, yeah, no, it's like that.

All your life just instantly. So I'm taking Onamusha. I was going to pick Phantom Blade Zero just from the hype. But for a game that I've actually played and I can speak to Onamushia is my pick. Resident Evil Reckman, I think Onamush is better. Like, Capcom is cooking. Cooking, man. They're cooking, dude.

Like, two games in contention for game of the year. I mean, plus, I mean, what else they released this year? I mean, Capcom's on fire, dude. Well, they dropped the Monster Hunter Stories 3, which is also another really highly rated game. And then the Dragons Dogma DLC, which is also rating like 10s and 9. Yeah, which is getting a lot of hype around that one too. So, wasn't Pragata? Capcom?

Pragymodus? Capcom as well. Yeah, okay, I was going to say, I feel like that was Capcom also. Yeah, Pragomano was awesome. Capcom might be the best we have right now for as far as like game devs go.

Yeah, honestly they might. So, all right, listen, we're going to take a quick break. Then we're going to come back with the surprise hit. This is the game that shocked us the most, caught us off guard that we enjoyed the most. We'll come back and talk about that right after this break. At Capital One, we don't just use technology. We architect it.

Our teams have true end-to-end product ownership, shipping distributed systems that handle high concurrency at scale. No single-server bottlenecks, engineered beyond legacy downtime, and operating right here in downtown Toronto. That's technology at Capital One. Search Technology at Capital One, Canada. Right, we're back. I'm going to lead us off on this one, boys. Oh, I see how it is. I know. Snake draft. Snake draft, bro. Yeah, snake draft days. It's okay because I can guarantee you that either one we're going to pick this. So here's some surprise hits, guys.

So just again, we said we're going to refresh your memory. And so here are some of the more common games that were surprise hits this year. Mecca chameleon broke the world. How to Fish. Mugenics. I mean, that one, you know, a lot of people didn't know how good it was going to be, weird cat game. Denshetak. That one really came out and took the world by storm.

orbitals, esoteric ebb, Order of the Sinking Star, Titanium Court, Schrodinger's Call, Opus, Prism Peak, The Road to Vostock, Far Far West, Mouse P.I., vampire crawlers, and replaced. A lot of indie games. Yeah, you know which one I'm not picking, that's for sure. So that's just some of them. Now, there is some personal stuff. These are games that we personally thought were surprised hits of the year. I have said Mortal Shell 2

for me was a game that came out and I really, really was caught off guard by how much I enjoyed that. I'm not picking it. It was kind of overshadowed by Onamusha. Since I already picked Onamusha, I can't pick it again. I'm picking Marathon, guys. And I know that's going to shock a lot of people and they're going to go, what?

But I put over 100 hours into Marathon. And I know that the game took some flack and it kind of fell under the radar for a lot of people. A lot of people do stupid things. Just let everybody know. I'm just saying, for people that played Marathon, Marathon was the surprise hit to me because it can't pick Onomush.

I would pick Onamo if I could. Okay. But I'm just saying that for me, Marathon is way better of a video game than I think it gets credit for. It was extremely polished. It had a visual style unlike any other. I think it was held back by the fact that it came after Ark Raiders and people had the fatigue of,

the extraction shooter PV EVP thing. And honestly, I think that's what really hurt Marathon more than anything is it was just automatically compared to Arc Raiders. Arc Raiders came out first. And it just, it couldn't hold up. Cope. Cope. Yeah.

You play whatever, Ryan. You've literally paid Marathon and you've. Wait until you see what I pick later. You're going to, you're going to. Oh, man. One of our later category. Well, it's back to you, Ryan. So what's your surprise hit so I can make fun of you?

Oh, this one, this one's difficult for me, but I think I'm going to go with one that I, I'm going to go with mecha chameleon. Really? What a loser! What a loser! 20 million. And even though you don't like friend slop, 20 million copies were sold of this game. That's so many games. We had so much fun playing this on community nights, and it's just one of those dumb fun games.

just did not expect, like, who thought that this would happen this year? Like, you didn't think of something like a game where you... I can't believe you pick Galactic Racer as a surprise hit. I think he expected it was there. I expected it was going to be good. You literally just got done glazing Galactic Racer. Yeah, but it wasn't going to be a surprise to me. It wasn't going to be a surprise.

Pragmata also, I played the demo. I liked Pragata, so I wasn't like... That's true. You kind of liked Prigmata. Yeah, I wasn't. I knew I was going to kind of like it. I wasn't totally sure, but like Mecha chameleon. came out of nowhere. All of a sudden, everybody gets all the reels. Everybody sees what's going on.

It's just hitting on everywhere you look on TikTok and YouTube and everything. It just took over. That's why they sold 20 million copies. Like every streamer, every big streamer, you know, switch over to it for a little bit. And they all played it. So that thing just took over the planet for, you know, a month or whatever it is. And that's honestly, I mean, when you sell 20 million copies at $8, like that's a lot of money.

So like that's all you need. You know, one month is all you need. So that's that's the one that caught me off guard because obviously none of us were expected. That is probably the popular answer in all honesty. Mecha Chameleon was the game that broke the world this year for the, you know, for being the friend slop game that came out and really took over the internet like we saw with lethal company. You know, that's up there. So I get it.

How many times have you played it since the community night, Ryan? zero zero but I tell you what I got my $7 we did get our money I got my $7 I had fun

it was a blast and if somebody if we were to set something up I'd instantly play with them again like for sure it was a cool game it was fun all right Ace

what about you what's your surprise hit this year I mean I feel like it's obvious it's Onomusha Anamusha is the surprise you can't pick it but I can't pick it I know but it's like

that is the one that was the one there's just like, he just wants to say it. Didn't expect it. I didn't expect it to hit so well. Like, it was perfect. How often is it that as this podcast, we go into a game completely blind? It doesn't happen.

It's super rare. Like, legitimately, it's super rare. Super rare that we don't know what we're getting into at least a little bit on something. And I'll be honest, part of what was so refreshing with Onamusha was the fact that neither one of us had any clue. Yep. Like what to expect. No. I was sitting on the outside playing Wolverine, watching you guys play Oni Musha and like chat about it.

Like, it was cool to see like real time. It was like discovering. It was cool. It was like it was interesting to see you guys talk about this and that and like unlocking these things and then using different abilities and how you navigate the world and all that stuff. And it was it was so cool to see you discover this amazing all time game. Like you guys would rate it all time or like it. And it was in real time. So it was a neat thing to, like, observe from the kind of, like, the outside.

Yeah. Yeah. It's not something we get to do. And we were being so cagey about it, too, because we didn't want to give away our thoughts. We were just like, yeah, I know. We were dancing around. Yeah, like you didn't freaking love it. Yeah.

It's mouse PI for me. I expected mouse PI to be good. Okay. I expected to do as well as it did for other people. I expected it was going to be an ace game and it ended up being an everyone game. Yeah. That makes sense. It really did get really good reviews.

It got great. It plays great. It's a really fun boomer shooter. Like, genuinely, it's just a, it's just really long. What? It's not a Metroidvania. It's a black and white boomer shooter, baby. Hand-drawn art.

With a rubber hose aesthetic. And a rubber hose aesthetic. I was waiting for him to say it. Thank you, Josh. I know. I had to save him, man. All right, mouse PI for surprise hit. All right, let's move on to the next one.

So, Indies. And just, gee, we're back to Ace. on this one, coincidentally. So, Ace, you're the indie guy. What's the best indie this year? The best indie this year is Karen. Karen is the best indie that's come out this year so far. Arguably for the, you know, everyone else is probably Big Walk.

Everyone's been playing Big Walk. It's either Big Walk or Mecha Camillion is the two you'd probably pick from if you're a Normie. Normie. Oh, we got names now. Oh, we're getting labels. Hey, listen. We've been labeled, Ryan. But it's Karen for me.

But I was very surprised how well Mina the Hollower was received. I was very happy to see that. And I was very well happy to see it. The reviews were spectacular. Yeah, it was insane. So let me do this. And this is helping Ryan just a little bit too because I didn't do this before your pick, but I knew you wouldn't need the help.

So here's some indies this year, just like I said, we gave the list for the other ones. Some of these are repeats. But Big Walk, Mina the Hollower, Mecha Chameleon, Muggenics, Text tape, Denshtack, How to Fish, Esoteric Ebb, Titanium Court, Order of the Sinking Star, Cairn, Valhine, Mouse P.I., Opus Prism Peak, Vampire, Rompirez, Re-Anamil, Fields of Mistria, Rhythm Doctor, and So, those were the kind of big name Indies this year that were kind of considered some of the standout indie. So, Ace, I knew you were Ryan was going to go with Cairn. So Ryan, now that he's taking Cairn, what are you picking? Well, I'm going to take yours because they sit mine. So I'm going, So I'm not being nice anymore. You as a normally,

you as a normie are going to have to dig deep and find out something else, but I'm going to go with mixtape. Yeah. Dang. All right. It is, it is, it is an amazing game at a great setting.

Whether you want to call it a game or not, you know, whatever, get bent. It was awesome. It was a fun, it was a fun time. and it was worth every penny.

It was an experience. And you don't get that too often with the game. And that's what I love so much about it. So for me, like the best indie was mixtape. I'm going to say this because look, I get mixed tape is very divisive for a lot of people. You know, you either hate it or you love it. For me, mixtape is,

I actually think about mixtape. Like we talk about games that kind of stay in your memory. And like I legitimately, if I think about a game in 2026, I tend to think about my experience with mixtape almost more than any other game. You know, it hit right for us. I get that it doesn't hit right for other people. I got goosebumps now, dude.

Thinking about it. I know. I know. And that's why. And it's like the playlist of just like the songs from the game. And it's okay. Like, you know, we have people, you know, one of the things that you can do on our website

for our community members is you can write a review. And we just had Patrick write a review for mixtape where he gave it a four out of 10, spoiler. And I sent him a DM and I was like, I don't like you very much right now. You know, and he was like, you know, we were just kind of picking on each other. And that's what people do. It's okay that Patrick has that opinion.

And at the same time, he's okay the fact that I think it's a masterpiece. You know what I mean? And that's okay, people. If it doesn't land, it doesn't land for you. If it does land, I think it lands phenomenally, as Ryan just showed, because I would have picked that as well. I am going to cheat just a little bit on this one. And I'm taking Slay the Spire, too. I get that it's not fully

A good. An early access If you could put a hundred hours into a game in early access, well then guess what? Well, I didn't see Dead is Disco on this list, but here we. Well, that's your fault. I'm actually surprised. I would take Deas Disco over Karen, but Dead is very good. Neither would a lot of people.

I would have taken mixtape, but Slay the Spire 2 is phenomenal. It was really kind of what we wanted from the evolution of Slay the Spire. buyer, I've put a ton of time into that game. The multiplayer component of Slay the Spire 2 is a blast with friends as well. And I'm going to bend the rules a little bit since I went last and got hosed twice. So there you go. Since you're bending the rules, I have a quick question. I heard a description that Slay the Spire and the early Star Wars is like the Galactic Racer

for the roguelike aspects of it. No. In the early Star Wars. Like the episode one, the pod racer game. So like Slay the Spire and the early Pod racer is what is what the Galactic Racer is. No. No. No.

Slay the Spire is a card game where you fight. Well, I know that, but like the roguelike elements of it. All right. Well, moving on to most disappointing is Ryan's take on us. I'm saying, there should be pod racers and Slid Spire. Ryan's just like, I don't know. You need to get off those websites, Ryan. know where you heard that but don't be going there those people are crazy oh good thing we have a

better gaming site for you to get your research from most disappointing um it's my turn on this one it is and this one is easy for me easy for me before i make my pick let me go through some of the games that people found to be disappointing this you know listen this doesn't mean that we think that every one of these games is disappointing these are just games that people kind of spoke out about or that there was a lot of hubbub about and people said yo this isn't the game I wanted it to be. Okay. So Crimson Desert, Wolverine, High Guard, Gears of War, Ede, God of War, Sons of Sparta, Halo Campaign Evolved, Samson, a Tindleston story, Aphelion, Directive 8020, and Thick as Thieves. Those are some games that were kind of mentioned as being disappointing to people.

My answer for this is very easy. It is replaced. Broke my heart. I was so hyped for this game. It was just my hype level was through the roof. Replaced is a fine video game. It's not that it's a bad game. I think it just expected or hoped for something different. It kind of tried to do too many things at once and really just didn't wind up doing anything great other than the pixel art, which is beautiful.

But when I talk about a game that really kind of let me down, unfortunately replaced was it for me. Oof. Yeah. I'm the only one that played replaced here too. No, I tried to play it. I played seven hours, eight hours. and just fell off it.

Yeah. Well, there you go. So that tells you that's not just me then at least. So Ryan, what's your most disappointing game for 2026? You're never going to believe this, dude. Is it marathon? It's marathon. You can't pick marathon because I already picked it.

Oh, no, I can't pick marathon. Yeah, Edith. I knew this whole time. I knew this whole time that you were thinking you were going to pick marathon. I was totally going to make a marathon. He doesn't remember he can't pick it. Quick, pick Wolverine, Ryan. No, Ryan liked Wolverine.

I can't. I love Wolverine. Dang it. That like throws everything off now that I didn't even think about that. I could have told you, but I didn't because I knew you'd be floundering right now and I wanted to see it. What were the games that we were talking about again? Oh, man. Let's forget Mugenics, Ryan. You hated Mugenics. That wasn't really a disappointment though, like overall. I don't. I'm somewhat professionally. Okay, come on.

Okay. Fair enough. Take thickest thieves and steal it from Ace, Ryan. Ace's beautiful lips. Do it. Do it. Look, Ace's shaking said already. I'm going to go with, you know, a game that I, that I've really, I really was looking for for such a long time. And it was, it was something that genuinely meant something to me.

And you were so hyped for this game, dude. I remember you messaging me. I was telling you, I was telling you meant, I cannot wait for thickest thieves. And so. I'm going to have to go. I'm going to have to go with things. Well, we're pretty thin thieves over here. That's all I'd say.

If you turn on you like that, you turn coat. Ryan, that's a great pick, by the way. It wouldn't be, it wouldn't be thievery unless I stole it from your own. So there we go. Unpopular opinion. Crimson Desert is my least. Yo, that was too easy. he just tries to shim me that out real quick he's like yeah whatever

crimson desert i didn't like crimson desert it was too directly really i have it on my list i had a short list of replaced crimson desert and thick as thieves and i'm with you ace yeah crimson desert was my blueprints of this year that's just wild to me like everyone loved it and i didn't it's it's fine for a while but it wasn't like i thought we were getting like witcher three type levels of like you know it's just like there was nothing that drew me to want to keep going. The story wasn't interesting. The characters weren't interesting.

Was that your expectations or was that just the game? I was expecting just like, at my expectations. What is one of, okay. I'll say that for sure. Give me, give me a biggest memory from Crimson Desert from your playtime with Crimson Desert. Can you think of anything that stood out?

Flying like a crazy crow dude, like off the, off of a canyon. That's falling. You're not really flying. You can, my only memory from Crimson Desert was how much. much thieving I did where I just snuck around and stole stuff. You were at kleptomani. I was.

I was like, I can't steal without a bandit mask. What's this? Other than the graphics and the beauty of Crimson Desert, like, that's kind of my thinking is like, I don't have any like standout memories from that game. It's a good video game. It's just like it was, it's kind of like Starfield. It's not a bad game, but you just kind of expected more, you know?

Like that to me is. Oh, dang it. That's a good comparison. Yeah, that's a good comparison. Dang it. Oh, Josh, I got to make sense. I try not to too often. And then real quick, this was just a throw-in last minute.

I kind of just threw it out to Ryan and A, so we won't compete on this one. But knowing the games that we've talked about with Game of the Year contenders, the Indies, the surprise hits and all that, is there a game that you have FOMO on? You know, one of the things with this podcast is we play games, but we miss out on a lot of games, too. You know, we can't play everything. And is there a game? Ryan, I have a feeling I know what yours is, but what is it? Onimusha. I want to play this so bad, but I know that I don't have time, but I know that if I get into it, I won't play anything else at all.

And we obviously have podcast obligations. So like, I have to specifically play certain things. But if I can find time, I'm so jealous that you guys have got to play this game. And I want to check it out. He wants that shared experience. I do. For me, believe it or not, it's between like control resonant

because I've been hearing so many good things from our community. Yeah. Yep. And Mortal Shell too. Because you like hyped. Oh yeah. Josh loved it.

So much. It looked so good. You would really like it. I know I would love it. It's still have time for it. I really want to play it. It's different enough from Onamusha also. Like that's kind of the thing is it's got a different enough vibe

and a style and stuff that it's like. Which is why you should support the show so we can have time to play all these games. Yeah. Yeah, honestly. I'm kind of, I'm with you A's Control Resonant. I remedy games, I appreciate what they do, but they don't really land for me a whole, whole lot. And so, but I see everybody just glazing this game right now. And it does make me go like, what am I missing out on, man?

It looks so good, too. It looks so good. It looks fantastic. I'm kind of like where I am with you guys with Cairn. Like, dude, I know I don't like the gameplay of Cairn, but you guys just talk about the story and the impact that that game had on you. and it's like, I want that. I want to have that too. You know, I know.

Yeah. No joke. If you got, I'm telling you, Josh, okay, if it's like a rainy day, we've been getting all this, like, overflow from like the super monsoon or whatever, if it's a rainy,

nice kind of stormy day, kick on Karen, sit back and just climb the mountain and like you'll have the best time ever. It's going to be such a cool vibe. I legit have a lot of fomo with Karen, because I see a lot of people talking about it. You two talk about it.

And then I kind of just go like, it's like you with Onomusha where I'm kind of like, well, dang it, man. I want to know. I want to be able to talk about Cairn. I want to be in this club. So, all right. Well, listen, there you go, everybody.

That is kind of 2026 in a nutshell. You know, we're not done yet, obviously. Phantom Blade Zero, GTA6, Okreena of Time remake. Those are probably the three biggest releases coming. up. Sometimes we're surprised though, man. You know, sometimes a game comes out and it's like, hey, releasing December. And then we're like, what? Like, oh my gosh. So there is still a lot to look forward to. We want to know what you think. So, you know, leave us a comment on Spotify. You know, we see all the

comments that are made there. Honestly, the comments section on Spotify is popping off. So shout out to everybody that does leave comments there. We see every single one of them. You all are active as anything. And we love it so much. Spooner Man. Spooner Man's always first. Yeah. He's not first. We see you there. But we really do love hearing your opinion and seeing what you all think out there. So let us know what your game of the year contenders are, your surprise hits are, and what your most disappointed games are.

We value your opinion. We love the input from you as well. We're gamers just like you all out there. And we love you guys jumping in and having this conversation with us. So leave us a comment on Spotify and let us know what you think. If you love what we do and you want to support the show. You know, this website that we are super duper excited for and we cannot wait for you to see. This website was made possible because of the support of our listeners.

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All right, that's going to do it for this episode. Everybody, thanks for hanging out with us. Until next time, happy gaming. See ya. Peace out.