Video Gamers Podcast - [TWIG] Assassins Creed Black Flag Resynced, Xbox News, Steam Controller And More! – Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: April 30, 2026

Gaming hosts Josh, Ryan and Ace are back with This Week In Gaming (TWIG), breaking down the biggest stories shaking up the gaming world. From the buzz around Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced to the surprising Game Pass Ultimate price drop, we cover what it all means and why it matters. Plus, we dive into the hype surrounding the Elden Ring movie and what it could mean for video games making the jump to Hollywood. If you love staying on top of gaming news, this episode delivers fast, fun insights into the latest headlines shaping video games right now. We keep it tight, hit the biggest talking points, and give you our honest takes on where gaming is headed next. Don’t miss this TWIG episode from the Video Gamers Podcast!   Thanks to our MYTHIC Supporters: Redletter, Disratory, Ol’ Jake, Gaius, Jigglepuf, Phelps and NorwegianGreaser, Dettmarp and Night Wizard63   Thanks to our Legendary Supporters: HypnoticPyro, PeopleWonder, Bobby S.   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 X:⁠ https://twitter.com/VideoGamersPod⁠  Subscribe to us on YouTube:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@VideoGamersPod?sub_confirmation=1⁠    Visit us on the web:⁠https://videogamerspod.com/⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, fellow gamers, and welcome to the Video Gamers podcast. Black Flag Resynced looks incredible, especially for someone like me that never played the original. But Ubisoft has a reputation for botching things, so will this be a treasure or a sinking ship? The Steam Controller Price gets leaked, Eldon Ring is getting a movie, and a whole lot more on this awesome episode of This Week in Gaming. Before we get to the fun, some introductions are in order. I am your host, Josh, and joining me, we will do a co-op Eldon Ring run in the coming months so he can experience one of the best games ever. It's Ryan.

Say less, fam. I'm in. Yes. I'm in. It's going to be fun. Night rain sold me for sure. I'm in. Dude, that's the thing.

Like, you love Night Rain. Eldon Ring is so much better, dude. like so much better. Say less. And joining us, he's already done like 14 co-op Eldon Ring Runs, so he's not invited to this one. Because he'll be that know-it-all guy that belines it to everything, and we all know how annoying that guy can be.

It's Ace. All right, I will say, like, most of the time when I play them, I also play them on a randomizer, so I don't know where anything is. Okay. Ace, you're not that guy. you're not that guy. You're not that guy. You're not that guy, bro.

But I will say, we all know that guy in our gaming group where it's like you hop in in to play a game with somebody and they're like, just, just follow me, follow me, blow past all this stuff. And you're like, bro, I want to like play the game, man. Like, what do you talk? No, no, no, no, no. Just come this way. Just come this way.

That's Alexi. That's Alexi 100%. Oh, see. Okay. That's the annoying friend, man. That's the kind of person. I don't want to play a game. Or Lexi.

Oh, I'm clipping that and sending that to her. If it's your first, like, Ryan, like, I'm just saying, right? Like, Ryan's playing an Eldon Ring with us. You know the way I would play Eldon Ring with Ryan? You lead the way. Oh, 100%. Go wherever your heart desires. And I'll follow.

I'll follow you. Let you discover the game and we're there to back you up. Unless I know there's a trap coming up that I want to lead him into. No. You die. Oh, okay. If you want to lead it into a trap, that's fine. Yes, that's fine.

You died. Exactly. But we. All right, Ryan, you're not leading anymore. I was like, hey, Ryan, that guy. on the horse over there. He called your mom horrible things. You should go talk to him.

It's like the friend that wants to skip all the cutscenes when you're playing a multiplayer game. And you're like the kind of guy that it's like, I want to watch the cutscene because I want to know what's going on. But you see where it's like, you know, they show a little icon of who's skipped. And you're like the one dude that has. But then you always feel bad. You're always like, I don't want to skip this, but now I feel guilty because I know they're just sitting there waiting for me. That's why it was good when we played Diablo with Andy. because like I knew you weren't skipping it.

I didn't want to name names with that. Oh, I'm naming names. I'm naming names. He's like, skip, skip, skip. He's like, I don't have time for this. I'm like, dude, this is, it's Blizzard. This is some of the best cinematic you'll ever see. Like, I'm going to watch this. And he's like, are you guys watching that?

We're like, yes. I want to know what's going on. Just skip it, man. You guys can watch it later. It's part of the game. What are you talking about? Yeah, we've all got those friends. We've all got those friends.

Ace, you're not that friend. You're awesome to play games with. but also Alexi, shame on you because that friend sucks. I hate that that's like the worst. You know, like let me experience this game, people. Well, welcome in everybody to the video gamers podcast. We got a lot of news to talk about.

I mean, some big news, some cool stuff like the Steam Controller Price getting leaked. So we'll be talking about that. We've got a release date for Galactic Racer, which I am super excited for. We just got breaking news of the alien isolation. two teaser. So we're going to get into all of that. But guys, before we do that, we do have somebody to thank.

We have a new, awesome supporter of the show. So a huge shout out to Ciblam! Cblam! For signing up for rare status and supporting the podcast. Thank you. Cbliam! Ryan, what was that? For supporting the show.

That was so half-hearted. Do it again. Thank you. Cblam! Glam! Wham! Put your neck into it. Oh, man.

Yeah, you got to get into it, man. I can't just say, what am I? Thanks, Cablam. You know, that sounds so. No, you got to have, Cblam! Thanks, Coblam! Yeah, good job.

Thanks, Cibblam. I really appreciate your support. He did a real good job, Cablam. Thanks, thanks for joining us. I read it my 10 subscriber, YouTube channel. Cablam figured out of the game.

Ace is way too good at that. I think, I think, is that his natural voice? No. Thank God. All the rest of time, he's like, Hello, I'm Ace of Shame. My natural voice is sultry and deep. No, no, no, no. I don't like it when you guys try to do the sultry voice.

There's something weird about that for me. It makes Josh a little uncomfortable. Why? It makes you feel feelings you're not used to? Maybe. I don't know. It's just not what I think people want to hear. So you know what people do want to hear about boys? Well, let's hear it. Black flag. Yes, they think they want to hear about black flag. Okay.

Now, around these parts, we love trolling Ubisoft or Ubisoft for those weirdos that want to pronounce it the right way, I guess. Ace is our hurt one too many times resident Ubisoft fanboy. Oh. Oh, no. Hold on. Don't even even. Don't even say you're not a fan boy. You are 100%. We would have let that go.

you are the biggest fan. Yeah, look. You have, it's all over your wall. Like, you are the biggest fanboy, so don't even. I'm actively looking at my wall scroll from Assassin's Green Shadows, which is a game I don't even like. Yeah. So, Ace, what are the chances that Ubisoft's going to hurt you again?

Hopefully since, a lot lower. I'm really hoping a lot lower this time. You know, based off what I saw. It looks like it's going to be a lot lower. This seems to be a, not even a crappy rebaster. This is a from the ground up remake of the best selling Assassin's Creed of all time. Assassin's Creed Black Flag.

I mean, what's better than Assassins and Pirates, man? That's good. Remastered Assassins and remade Assassins and Pirates. It's made from the ground up with new story. And they cut out the modern day story. Okay, wait. It's re-sync. Do you actually believe it's completely?

completely remained from the ground. It's remade an entire new engine. Fanboy. It's made in the Anvil engine, which is like, get ready to get hurt again, Ace. I didn't actually. I will say, the only reason I'm not getting $200 hurt is because I missed the pre-order.

Ace, let me ask you, if, like, just, let's just try to, we got to gauge this, you know. If Ubisoft came out and said, hey, this is the first quadruple A title, would you believe them? No. No, I would. So if Ubisoft came out and said this game's remade from the ground up.

I'll tell you, if they told me that this was using the same engine as skull and bones, I would be out immediately. I look, I'm freaking excited, guys. And I don't say that about Ubisoft games that aren't named the division. But like, dude, I never play Blackflag. Dude, I can't wait. It cannot wait for me. Edward Kenway. as a character.

And you've never played it either, Ryan? No, I didn't, no. Oh my gosh, I'm in a room full of nobs. What the hell? You are. You are? But you know why? Because I noped out on Ubisoft a long time ago, man.

You didn't see the reviews for Assassin's Creed Black Flag or like, oh, I got to play a Assassin's Creed black flag. I played the first two and that's it. Yeah. That's me. I played Assassin's Creed wanted to actually, no, I played one other. And I played Odyssey. And that's when I was like, oh, yeah.

Well, you really skipped a few, huh? I did skip a few. I know. Well, apparently I didn't miss much, Ace. So I got to say, man, I'm excited for this. I've watched the eight-minute gameplay trailer. I was picking on the cinematic trailer because I was like, wait a minute. Is this what we got?

All this hype and the announcements for an announcement. We got a freaking cinematic trailer, but then thankfully they released the gameplay trailer. The game looks great. It looks like it runs great. I mean, I hear people glaze black flag more than any other Ubisoft games. So that gets me really excited. I love pirates.

I love sailing. I love pirate naval battles. Like, I'm trying to not get overly excited about this because it is Ubisoft. But at the same time, like, dude, I'm pretty excited for this game. And we're getting it fairly soon.

Yeah, we are. It's very soon. I will. Is it July? What is it? July 7th? It's July 7th, yeah. Yeah. I think you're going to feel a lot of the same vibes in Black Flag that are in like Red Dead 2 where it's the end of an era for these characters and they're very much in denial of that. Oh.

So you're in the end of the era. Let's see. Instead of the end of the West. People in denial do a lot of crazy things that I like. So like Robin Trains or Banks. Yeah. Well, you could, you know, hijack someone's ship, man. Like, literally board their ship, kill all their crew, and decide if you're going to take their captain alive for a bounty or, you know, just tear down the ship and leave them all to drown.

It's my ship. Straight to Joe. My ship. Yeah. Yeah. And it looks like based off what I saw, the combat's been totally redone too. Because if you know in the original Assassin's Creed's, if you didn't pull off the stealth, you ended up doing what is basically like counterkill combat. Yeah.

Where you just had to wait for your chance to counter the enemy, basically. and then you could strike. Or sometimes if they had ammunition from afar, you would grab someone and use them as a human shield and let them get filled full of bullets and drop them on the ground. But at this time, it seems like it's a much more aggressive combat style, which works for pirates, in my opinion.

They focused on that. They said the combat's been revamped completely. You could see they even said this is much more action-oriented for the combat. As somebody that never played the original Black Flag, I know that they said, hey, there's a bunch of quality of life, changes. You know, when you fail stealth now, it doesn't just shut down and you have to redo it all. So it seems like they knew what people wanted. It seems like they're giving it to them.

You know, we could troll Ubisoft and say they don't know how to make a new game. So they're going back to the only successful game that they had in the last like 15 years. And it's like, okay, well, that's fine too. But I'm going to admit, I'm excited for this. I really can't wait to get my hands on this one. As much as it pains me, I think they probably, did it right. I mean, we'll see. If they don't fill this with micro transactions in a dumb store, it'll be fine. They said they're not. It'll be fine.

They said they're not. That's the thing. They said no micro transactions, no DLC. If you leave this as a single player experience that is true to what Assassin's Creed was, you're on the right track again. If you have a store filled with crappy cosmetics

for things you only see once, you've missed the point. So they said, hold on, hold on. Oh, go ahead. Go ahead. No, you go. I was going to say, so you're saying that there's going to be no micro transactions. None.

They said that this is a standalone game with no micro transactions, no deal. I'll make a lunch. The closest you gets the pre-order bonus, apparently. I'll make a lunch bet with either one of you that that doesn't hold up for six months. I ain't no fool, Ryan, because this game's going to sell a million copies and then they're going to be like, wow. Who wants armor for their pirate ship now? Exactly. That's what I'm saying. There's no way. They're like, hey, I have an idea.

Let's launch it without micro transactions. If they're intelligent. And then add them in later. If they're even slightly intelligent and they want to keep the integrity of this game and the goodwill that this game should bring forth, they won't touch it after launch unless it just bug fixes. If this game is as good as it looks and Ubisoft actually hits this out of the park, I can't wait. for Far Cry 3 remastered, Far Cry 4 remastered, Far Cry 5 remastered,

Far Cry 6 remastered. You know, like, I can, 100% Ubisoft is just going to be like, we're a remaster studio now. Okay, but I'm like 100% on a Far Cry 3 remake, like genuinely. That's fair.

If they bring back the original voice actor for Voss, especially, I'm in. Yeah, that's fair. He was awesome. I mean, I would, I joke, but I would, I would play that. I would 100% play that. All right, all right.

Well, moving on. on to some other good news. Guys, I love when we have a bunch of good news instead of a bunch of crappy. Like so many people got laid off in the studio shutting down and this game failed and all that stuff. Yeah. Well, you know, we had a little bit of hesitation. I'm not going to lie with

the new Xbox CEO when she came in and she was talking about some of the changes in the AI stuff and all that. However, lo and behold, guess what just happened, boys? The price of Xbox GamePazes, GamePass Ultimate and PC GamePass is going down?

Oh, my goodness. What? What? Price is going down, but what could be the cost? Yeah, well, the cost is you're not getting Call of Duty on release. Oh, no, big loss. Sorry, oh, wait, sorry, call. I mean, no.

Oh, dang it. Oh, they give us and they take us away. Stupid Microsoft. Hold on, real quick, like, think of how. ridiculous that would have sounded in like 2012. Oh yeah, no, no, no, no, absolutely. Like, look at what Call of Duty has come to. So where we're like, oh, gosh.

Well, in 2012, we wouldn't be dunking on Ubisoft near as much either. We'd be like, oh, man, can't wait for the next big Ubisoft game. What's the most recent color? Is it BlackOft 6? What's the most recent? I thought it was 100, 180. I think we're on 7. No, I'm pretty sure it's Black Op.

sold in 24 oh no maybe it is I don't know we're not Call of Duty people but all I know is Call of Duty

still going to sell a gazillion copies like a gazillion copies it was seven um was it Black Ops 7 yeah okay

well he doesn't even play it any new it's an annual release that's all I know but you're not getting it on game past people it's like Madden it is Madden dude we were getting

annual release pieces. Yeah. I mean, throw together. It's so smart, though, as like a developer, like make a whatever garbage, uh, can't campaign, quote unquote, and then just do a couple little weird upgrades and then people will buy it. Like all the call of duty, all the streamers,

all the people watching the streamers will then go by. Like, it's just, it's like an easy way to print money. I can't wait for the call of duty hero shooter next year. Yeah, that ain't going to happen. That ain't going to happen. I can tell you that. So, well, the good news is.

So GamePass Ultimate for Xbox is going down by $7, guys. That's a nice little decrease. So it was $29.99. That's dropping to $2.99. And PC Game Pass, which I'll be honest is a phenomenal deal for PC gamers, dude. I mean, you know, that's going down to $13.99, down from, I think it was $1999. That's a good drop. That's a good drop.

I mean, that's a nice decrease. And, you know, the CEO, she came out. she said, listen, we've priced ourselves out of the market here. We're going to fix that. So it's like, thank you for being smart about this. The caveat to this is that Call of Duty titles no longer launch directly on GamePass, which is fine for me. I don't need that.

Now, I know that they're still doing the, you know, one of the things that they restructured is the day one releases, so like Expedition 33, you ain't getting that on the base level. But this is the ultimate pricing. And for the ultimate pricing, you do get those day one release. So $23 a month to play games the day that they release that are really good, big releases, that's a pretty freaking good deal, man. She'd also mention something like that games would start being more focused towards Xbox instead of Xbox and PC at the same time. So we might see the return of Xbox exclusives as well. But I hope not.

The give and take, man. To me, that's dumb because you hate exclusive so much, dude. He does. He doesn't want to buy consoles. I don't want to buy another console Because the exclusives are dumb We don't live in a world of exclusives anymore Do you know how much data is showing the PC gaming Is overtaking like console gaming?

What do you mean we don't live in a world of exclusives Go get a Big Mac at Wendy's? Like you can't Like all right All right, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, we're calling fast food burgers exclusives now Well, that's, I mean, that's what it is If you want what they offer You have to get it from them

Like that's what it is that's what an exclusive is. That's why they pair up with these. Good food and it's cheaper in, yeah. Trust me, I don't eat McDonald's for sure. It's a point. Don't you bad mouth, Wendy's,

since we're on this topic, have you ever seen somebody join the master race and then gone, I wish I hadn't done that. No. No. The answer is no, because people like gaming on a PC.

And I'm not saying the consoles shouldn't, I love consoles, dude. Like couch gaming is awesome, but I'm just pointing. out that PC gaming is a massive part of the market. And if you are not releasing your games on PC, then you're, you're just losing money at that point. Oh, fair enough. Yeah, big time. All right. Let's move on. So good news there. More good news. Uh, depending on how this comes out, we're getting an Eldon Ring movie. Dude, there's going to be safe. So number one, that means Ryan has to

play Eldon Ring with us beforehand. Number two, bro, if they do this the right way, I this could be so good man have you guys seen the like leaked pictures of the set no I haven't I just saw that the kit the the main guy is going to be kit somebody or another I had to Google who that was I think I've seen that guy before but yeah no there was leaked images of the set of them of like a crowd of peasants throwing things at the loathsome dung eater on the on the gallows not the dung eater on the gallows yeah I mean he has loathsome so it was it was pretty cool bro pit conner like a jacked yeah yeah but also how do you play tarnish like do you have any voice lines is he just going to be mute the whole movie i don't know what they're

going to do with this movie all i know is i want to see it and i'm super excited about it and the thing that makes me happy now i know some of this is just PR speaks so take it with a great assault but it says that this will be created under the guidance of miazaki so he's going to have input that's Sometimes that kind of like George R.R. Martin had input where he just named like the bosses, I guess. So it's like you take that with a little bit of skepticism. But they are claiming that Miyazaki is going to be involved in this as well. So I will 100% go see the Lder Ring movie. I don't care how cheesy it looks. I don't care. You can show me the trailer and the CGI can be unfinished. And I'll still be like, yeah. I played that game. We got to take a quick break. And then we're going to come back and talk about the state. controller for a minute because we got some news about that. We finally got a price for this thing. And we'll talk about that right after this break.

Welcome aboard via rail. Please sit and enjoy. Please sit and stretch. Steep. Flip. Or that and enjoy. Via rail. Love the way.

All right. So, you know, we just got done talking about we're all PC gamers. We love consoles. not a console war thing. I just prefer to play on my PC. One of the things I need to do that is a controller. I have a wireless Xbox controller. It dies on me freaking every year and I got to buy a new one. I don't know why. It's like, you know, because these stupid stick drift on these things, but it's fine, right? But I think this wireless Xbox controller is like $60, right? It's a nice controller. It's nothing, there's nothing wrong with it. I at one point sprung for the elite,

the what was that like a $180 elite controller I think it was and then I was like I really regretted my purchase because I was like I don't play that many games and as nice as this thing is it's kind of hard to justify three controllers worth so and you know we all are fans of the PlayStation you know the dual sense controller that thing rocks

I don't think anybody's got anything negative to say about that but the Steam controller got announced when we got information about the Steam Frame which is the VR headset and the Steam machine, which is the PC console that they apparently can't release now due to RAM issues. So, you know, hopefully that's still coming.

However, somebody done leaked the business with the Steam controller. They weren't supposed to. It got pulled down within a few minutes, but the internet is forever, and somebody saved the video, and here we go. The price of the Steam controller is going to be $99, according to this leak.

This seems like an official, leak because like I said, they got in trouble, they pulled the video down right away and nobody is disputing this at this point. Do you guys know anything about the steam controller? No. I know that it's too expensive. Yeah, I know it doesn't do enough to be $100. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, like the good little host I am, I did my research on the steam controller today and I watched a full like 20 minute review trailer digging into all this stuff for the steam controller. Nerd. And I got to say, guys, I am a nerd. But hey, I do this for the people. Hold on. If you are about to say that it's worth $100, we're going to have an issue.

How much is your PlayStation Dual Sense controller, Ryan? It's like 70 bucks. Well, hold on. Nah, I'm just asking a question. I may have bought a little bit eccentric dual sense controller, and it may have been a little more than $100. Oh, my gosh. I've never spent 100. You don't say. but this is like a specific like nice one. What is a hell diverting? It's a nice one. How much? Ryan, we won't even ask which controller.

Just how much was it? I honestly don't remember. I think it was like one. You don't remember. Ryan, I don't want to say, all right. We won't put you on the spot. We won't put you on the spot. The elite controller is $171 at Best Buy right now.

Oh my gosh. So that just goes to show you the Elite Series 2. The PlayStation just the standard dual sense is right at like $68, I think you can get it at Walmart or Amazon or whatever. Here's the thing with the Steam Controller. This thing has everything you could possibly want on a controller. I don't play a whole lot of games with controller.

It's got the two dual touch pads, the track pads, so you can actually use it like that. The joysticks, guess what kind of joysticks they are, guys. They're the magnetic ones. So they don't ever get stick drift. Oh my gosh. Like, you know, any controller made in modern era should be so that you don't have to buy them over and over again. It's got four buttons on the back like the elite controllers do, plus your standard trigger and shoulder buttons and all that stuff.

This thing looks freaking awesome. Like, if you're a controller person, I get that $99 is a lot of money, but I feel like the $99 what you're getting is a lot for this. And if you're willing to spend $75 for a PlayStation controller, $25 more for a controller that will inherently work with. steam and has all the features it has seems like it's at least like the right price point for me if it works the way that you're saying it will and it won't you know be an impermanent controller i could see the hundred dollars being worth it but controllers are so volatile and easily you know malleable yeah uh you have to replace them quite often so that's true that's true but most of the at least my last three controllers i've had to replace because of the stick trip

Like no other reason. Nothing else. It wasn't battery life. It wasn't any. No. Okay. No. So, you know, take that for what you will.

People, like I said, I personally feel like it for what you get, it's worth the price point compared to other things. Also, fully customizable buttons. You can make the buttons be whatever you want. So that's a feature that I personally like because I rebind everything. So it's like if I want the bottom button under the triggers to be my slide button, at least I can customize that button to be what I want. So there you go. I don't know that I play enough like games with a controller to need that though.

I play so much with mouse and keyboard, man. I agree. That explains a lot. Yeah. I mean, I use a controller. More shots to me, buddy. I don't want to hear it. Look at how insane.

Oh, man. All right. So let's, we don't have a release date yet for this. I will say this. When my Xbox controller inevitably dies, which it will, based on history, I will probably end up with a Steam controller just because I play everything through Steam. This controller natively works with Steam. You don't have those issues where Steam doesn't want to recognize your controller or the

buttons aren't mapped properly or any of that stuff. So it seems like if you have a PC and you use a controller, it seems like it will be worth the price tag at least. So, all right. More good news, guys. It's like a good news episode. I love it. It's the good news slash things got leaked to early episode.

We benefit. A game that I am wildly excited for, Galactic Racer. This is the spiritual successor to PodRacer, and it looks phenomenal, dude. I could not be more excited about this game. As a huge fan of Pod Racer back in the day, I want this game so bad. Well, we're getting it this year, and it is coming out October 6th. So it will release in October, early October. This got leaked as well.

I mean, that's the news. Dude, I can't wait. I'm so excited. I genuinely do enjoy, like, racing games, and I like to play them, but I usually don't have anyone to play with and stuff. But if we can play, like, a legit, sick, pod racing game and we could play together and verse each other and talk crap to each other and run each other off to the side and make each other blow up and stuff and then when you when you blow up one engine and then you just start spinning out and stuff i i dude i'm so stoked i'm

i played more than you can imagine a pod racer on n64 like so yeah i'm beyond excited yep i can't wait for this i also can't wait for i really really hope that we get like up to 16 like player like matches and stuff so we can do like community racing nights and stuff man like that would be so much fun oh my goodness old school arcade style with like shortcuts and everything oh i know oh yeah just yeah anyway if you haven't seen the trailer for galactic racer number one you should watch that so you can understand why we're getting hyped we also got confirmation for zero company so this is the turn base tactics star Wars game that got revealed. That is coming out in 2026 as well, but we didn't get a date for that

one. I've seen speculation for people saying, well, wait, we thought that was going to come out in fall. So either they're going to release these games close to each other, or we're going to get zero company potentially over the summer or maybe closer to holidays of 2026, but it is confirmed coming out 2026 as well. I'm also really excited for that one because I love Star Wars and I love turn-based tactics. And that game looks great also. You don't know it's crazy. Pod Racer came out before Ace was born. Oh my gosh.

Are you serious? I swear. I was going to ask AISC. It came out in 99. Did you ever even play Pod Racer Ace? No, that's why he got the Lego levels. That's why he's laughing at it. He was so quiet and he's like, these idiots.

I was like, yeah. Star Wars racing game. You don't even know. You don't know. It's so good. You went at like Mock 5,000 in Pod Racer number one. It was so. fast and then you would crash or you'd see

your buddy just explode and then you were like yeah eat it sucker and then it's an arcade racer so like Ryan said there's shortcuts where you leap off something and then fly down some other way where you can take the little secret tunnel areas it was great dude I can't wait

I know yeah and then your ace is gonna I can't you know what I can't wait is to just smoke Ace in a race and then Ace is like this is why I don't know what it is a stupid game it's like no validate my feelings I crashed again. Validate them.

I crashed again, guys. This case sucks. Yeah. All right. Alien isolation too. Now, this just broke earlier today. Oh, boy. Compliments of Ace for letting us know.

Oh, yeah. I saw this. Oh, boy. This is great. Yeah. Fate, something was the name of the trailer. I don't have that in front of me. I will say this.

I played Alien isolation for about five hours. This was like two years ago. super late to the game. That game freaking sucks if you are scared. And I don't mean the game sucks. It sucks if you are a sclerty cat. Yes, the game is fantastic. False sense of security.

That's what the trailer is called. It's called false sense of security. Oh, false sense. That's right. Yeah, starts with an... Here's the thing, when it was only like a 30-second trailer, we really didn't see much people. No.

Here's the one thing we saw that gets me really excited is a door opens up and you see outside. You're like on the... colony. So like now you're not just in the cramped claustrophobic space station, but you get to go outside. That's huge. I like that. That's a game changer. I like that a lot, dude. I mean, Alien isolation, the first game, people often Harold is one of the scariest games of all time. Oh, yeah. So this sequel,

yes. It better live up to it, man. That's all I got to say. Yep. You got a reputation. I think it will. I feel like they know the reputation they have and they're going to make this like really good. So that's all we know about that. I'm sure we'll get more information in the coming days as the hype level is already high on this one. So I'm sure they'll start showing this off a little bit. All right. One other thing we got, we're just going to touch on this because, you know, sometimes we like to put games in front of people that maybe just announced or they're an early access or something like that. You know, but as gamers, we have been clamoring for Titanfall three forever in a day. You know, we thought we

We were maybe going to get the Titan Fall announcement. You know, we didn't get that. That didn't happen. Yeah, that didn't. Oh, man. So. Hi, what? There are some developers that said, hey, we're sick of it.

We're sick of waiting. We're just going to make it ourselves. Oh, my girl. And they can't call it Titanfall 3, but they are basically saying we're making Titanfall 3. And they're calling it Shatter Rush. And there is a demo, which I played this morning. and it is in according to them it is in pre pre pre alpha I can tell okay let's let's I get it people I get it I will say this

this is Titanfall 100% that even starts you off on the tutorial where you have to wall run and try to get to the end as fast as you can I did a match gunplay already feels really good to me I was able to aim I it might be that the aim assist is actually a little too strong but it does make you kind of feel feel like you're really good at this game at the same time. It's very, very early. But if they continue with this and they update it and they continue with the Titans and stuff like that, this might be what people were looking for because I played a couple matches and I left going,

I think these guys might be on to something here, fellas. like I said got a long way to go long way to go but if you want to try it it's an open alpha you can just you can search shadow rush in Steam it gives you instant access to the alpha I did matchmaking I found a match instantly so it seems like it's got a strong player base and it felt pretty fun did you here's my question go ahead Ryan no I was just going to say like is is this genre alive? Like, yeah. Where is the arena shooter?

I'm going to call it an arena shooter. You know what I mean? Like, yeah. Because the game when I played felt good. But like it's got a long way to go. But even if it goes a really, really long way, is the arena shooter like a survivable genre nowadays? I don't know.

I mean, are they hoping to make this a live service game? I mean, what is, I don't know. What is the goal with this game? I don't know. I mean, we don't know. we don't know. We don't know where this is going. It's a pre pre pre pre alpha, ace. To have fun.

That's the goal. Yeah. Well, they should, uh, they should pre pre pre pre alpha their graphics a little bit because they look like Lego. Oh, oh. I will say this. I didn't love the graphics, but I also feel like these are like your beginner like, hey, we could easily upgrade these later on, but let's get the gameplay and the core

mechanics and stuff down. Um, I don't know, man. Like, there's part of me that gets excited because like I said, every gamer in the world is like, like, Titanfall 3, when are we getting Titanfall 3? But then it's like if we actually got Titanfall 3, would it last, dude? I mean, Titanfall had a story though, right?

Well, it had a story campaign. It was the multiplayer that kept the game a lot. I say people talk about the story a lot. One of the greatest, Titanfall 2's campaign is one of the greatest first person shooter campaigns that exists and probably makes it worth the price of entry alone. but the multiplayer for Titanfall was phenomenal. It just never caught on on like PC and it just petered out.

And the fact that Titanfall, as polished as it was, couldn't survive makes me, that's why I question is like, I worry about the future of this like genre if people are just going to get bored with it. Does it feel repetitive, you know? Yeah. And I don't know the answer, but I do know that it's like, it brings some hesitation because it's like, I don't know that anybody could make it work. Well, there's just so many. I mean, what a, you know, there's a billion options. You know, what's going to stand apart, you know, with this game, you know, from all the others.

So what are they going to do that's different? I grew up playing Quake and Unreal Tournament and these arena shooters and, I mean, the days of the rocket launcher and quake and all this stuff. And I freaking loved those games, dude. I mean, but at the same time, if you played Quake, today, I think you would have like a lot of fun for a couple hours. But then I, I, there's a part of me that goes would our brains that have been conditioned to these, you know, new genres and new features and stuff like that get bored because we're

like, this just feels a little too repetitive at this point. I don't know that I'm not saying it would, but it's, it's a question that makes me curious. Oh, that's almost a good like show topic. Like, you know, maybe on. I like that. You know? Because like the amount of, I don't know,

the amount of times I ran counterstrike and day of defeat and stuff back in the day, the same levels for hundreds of hours. Like, would that work today? You know? I don't know the answer. Well,

let us know what you think. Is there a future for the arena shooters? You know, is it something that's fun for a couple hours? Like, I mean, we just saw this with Splitgate 2, right? I mean,

yeah, Splitgate came out. Everybody loved it. It was, it was popular enough that they made Splitgate 2, which, failed wildly. Like it, like A2 was a massive

failure. It failed wildly three times. All right. Yes. I mean, yes. That's what I'm saying. Like, they couldn't even when they re-released it, it failed again. You know, which makes me sad. Like, we're not celebrating that failure. We never celebrate the failure of a game. But it begs the question, are there genres that you just,

that are just dying and you can't keep people's attention with nowadays? Not enough to support the. development cost and the time associated with making these kind of games. I hope, against all hope, that Shadow Rush winds up being incredible. Like I said, I tried it this morning. I left impressed. That's why we're mentioning it on this show. Try it yourself, see what you think.

But that's the question of the day is, is there a future for the genre or not? All right. Well, listen, there is your news for the week, people. Be excited for Black Flag Resinked with us. Dude, if Ubisoft burns me, if this game winds up not running well or stuttering or having performance, I'm telling you, Ace, I will never. If the performance isn't is the only issue I think you're going to ever have, because if they are faithful to what this game was when it was, you know, was what it was, you're going to love it. You're going to love it every second of it. You're going to love singing shanties on the boat with your crew. You're going to love crashing onto a desert island and scrounging your dead.

shipmates for clothing. It's going to be crazy. You're going to love it. Yeah. Oh, I can't wait. I can't wait. Well, we don't have to wait that long because July 7th people. So, all right, there you go.

Well, listen, if you enjoyed this episode, make sure that you follow the podcast. It's the follow button, the plus button in whatever podcast app you're using. If you haven't done so already, leave us a review. You can leave a written review on Apple. We read those on the show all the time. If you're listening on Spotify, make sure you tap that five-star rating for us. That helps everybody else out in the world. find this podcast.

If you have been a listener for a long time or even a short time and you love what we do and you're like, man, I love these guys. They make my commute better. They make my gym session better. They make my chores better or just anything, anything better at all. Hey, we could use your support. You know, we're a listener supported podcast. That's the reason that we're able to do this year over year.

So think about supporting this show. There's a link in the episode description. It takes you to Patreon. You can sign up there. Only takes a few minutes. It's five bucks is as is our lowest tier, but it goes a really long way. And we give you some awesome perks like our pre-show, Discord access, a thank you on the show and lots of goodies there as well. So take a second to consider that and be the hero that the world needs.

That's going to do it for this episode, everybody. Until next time, happy gaming. See ya. Peace out.