Video Gamers Podcast - TWIG: Breaking Down January’s Biggest Game Releases - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: January 6, 2026

Gaming hosts Josh, Ryan, and Ace are back for TWIG (This Week in Gaming), breaking down January’s hottest releases and surprises. From potential breakout hits to early contenders, we dive into what���s worth your time, what’s overhyped, and how these launches shape the gaming landscape heading into the year. Are any of these titles instant classics, or just another flash in the pan? We check first impressions across multiple video games, while also touching on industry buzz that every fan should know. It’s a fast-paced TWIG episode packed with opinions, debates, and must-know takes for anyone who loves games and can’t stop talking about video games. Don’t miss this essential start-of-the-year episode of the Video Gamers Podcast!   Thanks to our MYTHIC Supporters: Redletter, Disratory, Ol’ Jake, Gaius, Jigglepuf, Phelps and NorwegianGreaser, and Dettmarp   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/SKQvqrbT 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. There's been an awful lot going on in the video game world, and we know with the busyness of the holidays and the new year, you might have missed out on some gaming news. Well, we're here to catch you up on what's been happening, what's releasing in January you should know about and maybe get you hype for some great gaming rumors but first some introductions are in order

I am your host Josh and joining me he's the savior of my dog the running man himself it's Ryan if you're if you're not a Patreon supporter you should be because we told you should be a very very good story this

this preamble and it was amazing. So sign up and check it out because it was good. But yes, I am the savior of dogs, the master of their domain, and I'm here to record once again. Yeah. Also, just listen, if you've ever wanted to pay $5 for a great story, now is the time for that.

There's a link in the episode description. It is well worth it. Trust me. This is the episode. Yeah. so people are like dog what i don't i don't get it but yes trust us trust us on this one and joining us he spent hours rearranging his figurines and his display shelves so you can so you better appreciate the hard work that he put in all for the love of fire emblem it's ace it was like

maybe an hour and just because i forgot to eat doesn't mean i put all of my house sure i was also editing so you know there's that but show us your shelves ace i mean they do look mighty organized so honestly yes yeah i do have them organized now we've got firem them on the back shelf here because firemum fortunes weave is slated for this year and i'm going to represent baby because that yeah i got to prove you guys wrong on just how good fireman's going to be they ace i would just i just want you to notice that i noticed the organization and the changing of the shelves and how good everything looks.

I changed my shelves. You can see. Yeah. Ryan re-ranged his hats. New hats. Yeah, yeah. That like white hat used to be in a different spot. Yeah, it actually did.

A couple of them fell, so they moved a little bit. Oh, man. I mean, hey, if we're talking about backgrounds now, there is Hornet that Aces's spouse made for us. I also got a Govi Gaming Pixel, like little monitor that does like pixel art that i can uh like cycle through and do and stuff like that you can't see it on camera because a little blurry but it's actually really freaking cool my wife got that for me for christmas so like we're all all of us getting upgrades man yeah actual background

yeah you know we try we try for our video people out there you know we want we want you to have good stuff to look at since it's not us obviously yeah all right well listen welcome back it is good to be back we you know we had our very famous annual draft where we drafted our most anticipated games for 2026 uh to kick off the new year but we are back at it it's time to catch up on some gaming news guys we've got some really interesting stories kind of a couple sad stories too to talk about that uh give me a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of nostalgia hit or just some sadness on some games that could have been great and what we like to do do anytime we start off a new month is talk about some of the games that are coming out this month

because let's be honest man it's been busy there's some there's some games coming out you may not have been aware of uh and so while we do have a big list of games we kind of pulled out some of the ones that we think are you know at least that we're most excited for as well or that we think you should be excited about also um we are going to start off with cairn uh you two are are so excited about this game. This is the climbing game from, I don't remember the studio. You know, we did interview the voice actress for this game. It's a very stylized, beautifully artistic climbing game. I was very excited about this until I realized I don't like climbing games. So if Pete had anything good at all, it taught me that climbing games are not for me.

So I'm going to let you guys talk about why people should be excited about. Cairn. I think people should be excited about Cairn, not only because there's a beautiful art style, it is a very unique kind of climbing game where it also throws in these survival elements where you'll climb the mountain during the day, use your petons to, you know, save your progress, basically, so you don't fall to your death. Because you can die in Cairn, you can die. But at night, you could either choose to continue climbing, which I don't recommend that. Or you could camp out and start gathering research. sources, you know, fill up on water, hydrate.

I guess you make food from the mountain because I don't know where else you get the food from. But it's just a very unique concept to me. And the story also sounds very interesting with this being the mountain in this story that nobody has ever summited and you'll be the first one. So, yeah. Wow. Yeah.

Riveting, riveting, right. Riving on 2026, muted once again. Look at it. Oh, my goodness. Look at this is this man is just, now he's like, I can't even defend it at this point. I can't know.

That was, that was real deal. Dang it. I don't even know what I did that. I muted. Like I must have been moving windows and I clicked it or I don't know. Anyway,

anyways, this game is the one thing that I remember about it most is it's beautiful. It is so breathtakingly beautiful. Like the world you explore when you walk through this and climb through this, it's second to none. It is well-developed. The climbing is climbing.

I mean, Josh hates it, but it was neat, and it was unique the way you were able to kind of set your posts and kind of move up these areas, and you really have to pick a correct path to make it make sense with your, you know, stamina and all that. stuff. So I think they did a good job setting this up. I'm excited for this one. We've been waiting for this for quite a long time. I am I am super soaked on us. Some people in our Discord are as well. So it's going to be it's going to be good. I'm excited. Yeah. I have to say like while the gameplay does not excite me, you know, it is an absolutely beautiful game. I will say that Sophia Lenny did a phenomenal job. We interviewed her on one of our episodes. So if you want to kind of

get a glimpse as to what it's like to be a voice actress for a game where you are the solo voice in the game and kind of having having to carry all that definitely check out that episode as well but yeah Karen looks phenomenal not my taste in a game but that is not to take away from the game you should absolutely be looking into this one all right another another indie ace keeps sneaking these indie games here's what it is man um this one i actually do think is up my alley and it is a game called I hate this place. I think this game looks super cool. We talked about this way back when and then I kind of forgot about it and then I watched a trailer for it and the trailer I kind of instantly went like, oh man, this game actually looks really good. This is a

kind of comic book style crafting survival. It comes across almost like a twin stick shooter, if that makes sense and kind of the way the gameplay looks? Does that... It's very similar to Project Zomboid if you've ever played that. It's where it's this top-down view of a survival, you know, horror, isometric game. But this game is based off of

a comic book series of the same name in which has this same... That's where the comic aesthetic obviously comes from. But all I can think about this is the joke where it's like girls at the slumber party summoning demons and that's exactly what the plot of this is. Yeah, that's... I mean, I'd

love this like because it's funny because it's like we were just messing around and then you hear this like dark voice being like but you called to him and he answered it's very stranger things honestly very strange it is yeah I there is a demo too on this one so the trailer was enough to get me interested in this I absolutely plan on checking out the demo for this as well it releases January 29th so at the end of this month I have a sneaking suspicion that this game is going to be better than the the fanfare leading up to it because like I said the game itself looks good. The art style looks good. The gameplay looks good. It's got like crafting elements where you have to like kind of scavenge and craft to try to survive and stuff like that as well.

So again, that one is called I Hate This Place and it releases January 29th. It even has the fun little like when she's walking, the little words thud, thud, thud, pop up like whatever footsteps and stuff like that, you know? So again, very comic bookish. Yeah, yeah. If she's shooting bang, you know, you see that on the screen. Yeah, I love it. It's very, very clever. And it reminds me, too, of that, uh, that strong female lead of like, you know, uh, Ellen Ripley, uh, aliens or, or like Sarah Connor, Terminator, like, she's just, she's just a badass, you know, and she's, she's cruising through. So maybe she called the demons and all the monsters, but, you know, she's going to kick their butt. So I will say she, the, the lead,

character does a good job of like making you want to play the game exactly like yeah she does seem like a fun character like it's kind of like okay i want to i want to see where this goes this looks like a fun one she seems interesting she's got attitude and stuff like that again it's kind of like we were just messing around and now i got to deal with all this you know so um you know maybe one of the bigger games to come out this month code vein too um i'll be honest i never played the original code vein. I was joking around in our pre-show that it's like, oops, I forgot to watch this trailer. I joked around that this is a game that I know I will not pick up and play. But watching the trailer, like, it actually does look like a pretty good game. Anybody that played code

vein, I'm sure is excited for this one. Have any of us played the original codevane? I started codevane a very long time ago before I really got into Soulslikes. So it was a little too hard for my taste back then. I enjoyed what I played, though. It's a very solid Soulslike game, especially if you enjoy those anime aesthetics versus the, the realistic Eastern aesthetics. We were kind of talking about that, too,

where Ryan's like, I'm getting tired of this, man. Every freaking game is anime, you know? I blame Genshin Impact. Yeah, every single one of them. They're all the same dang anime look, which, I mean, I think it's, it's a lot of, I mean, anime has grown substantially in the last two decades I think you know from when I was a kid where you were an anime nerd to now it's like it's it's it's pretty mainstream so uh you know

if you're you're a lamo if you watch like the normal animas you got to get real deep into it have to have a deep cut yeah exactly so like I think it's it's getting pretty pretty consistent where they keep making these this this aesthetic it's not for me personally I'll I'll watch anime's, but like the gameplay of it just is not one that I would want. Yeah, as somebody that hasn't played the original code vein, like this game does not stand out enough to me in a genre that is flooded with these kind of looking games to go, ooh, this one really has it. Again, not trying to slain to the game, and I know there's codevane people out there that

are going like, are you guys crazy? Like, it's codevane too. And it's just like, I get it. But this is coming from people that don't have history with, you know, the original code vein and taking it kind of at face value there as well. So that one comes out January 30th at the end of the month. All these come out later this month, by the way, people. We'll do some quick fire ones for games that are coming out sooner. Ace, I was trolling you on this next one because I, like, I think I'm more excited for this game than you are. And that

absolutely baffles me as the guy that loves indie Metroidvania's with an amazing art style. I was trolling you because I'm like, Ace, what's a matter with you? Like, what's wrong with this game? Like, why don't you want to support it? Did the developers like, don't say it like that or something? Don't say like, oh, why don't you want to support this poor, lonely developer?

Um, but it is a game called Mio, uh, that's MIO memories in orbit. This releases January 22nd. And I, unlike Ace, think this game looks fantastic, dude. I think the game looks great, all right? It looks fantastic. I just have other Metroid fanias I'm interested in, all right? Better than this? Yeah, like which one in January are you more excited about it?

Because to me, I also will, I will tag along with Josh, too, because I watch this and I thought, okay. I'm playing Karen in January. This looks really good. This game looks really good. The gameplay, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, art. style. I love the aesthetics of it all. Like, the way the flowy arm tentacle things work as you like

climb up a wall. Floy arm tentacles. Yeah, floy arm tentacles. There's like the backdrop and the depth to the graphics. Like there's a lot there. And I'm just, I'm, you know, I'm a little surprised and concerned, honestly, Ace, that you're not higher on this one, man. Right. And that's not even talking about how smooth and amazing the animation in this game is too. Because for an indie developer, let's be honest, sometimes like really

good animation is tough and like meo memories in orbit not only is it just this beautiful artistic art style the animation's incredible the gameplay looks fun as anything and all we hear from ace is just yeah i totally get where my haters are coming from now looks like amazing combat having full platforming it's it's it's it's it seems like a just a just a tailor-made metroidsvania and ace just doesn't want to like i guess he just doesn't support these anymore i guess i don't support indy does not anymore total fake like what does it take to please this guy although I will I will say I hate that every Metroidvania just puts like a level of like a cave with just spiky stuff and you just got to

like around it showing off the platform it just trill it drives me nuts I'm like oh yeah I just can't touch anything here we go yeah I just feel like it looks prettier to look at than to play I don't know oh oh we'll see all right wow anyway That sounds like Ryan and I are really excited for this. This actually like. Oh, yeah? Oh. What?

You son of a guy. I said, I said that sounds like his most anticipated draft team. Oh. Pretty, prettier to look at than to play. Oh, man. Shots fire. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see.

We'll see at the end of the year, bro. Yeah, we'll see at the end of the year when your games don't come out and Resident Evil sweeps everyone. That's a possibility. But you know what? Yeah. so check this one out people this might be the game i am actually most excited for for this month whereas it's like i i think this might be like one of the better games to come out this month

that's meo memories in orbit january 22nd uh we mentioned genchin earlier ruining everything um arknight's endfield this is the new gotcha game that is coming out january 22nd um i'll be honest these games all kind of look the same to me arknight's endfield looks visually impressive. I watched, you know, probably 10 minutes plus of gameplay on this one. Like, it looks like a fun game. It is a gotcha game. I feel like if you want to play a gotcha game, aren't you going to play Genshin or weathering waves or hunk-eye star rail or any of these other really popular big ones? It's like, I don't know what sets this apart. This is the new one, Josh. It's a new one. I mean, that might be it. And again, I'm not trying to take away from the game because

the game itself looks really good but gotcha games just aren't my style um so if it sounds up your alley check it out like you know it looks like it has good redeeming qualities to it it's just not for me but it'll definitely be for someone that's for sure oh absolutely so are they too indie for you ace they too indie no you're too gotcha I was going to say yeah they're too gotcha on this one. Gotcha. And look, at the risk of the internet saying I'm an idiot and I'm a loser, I am excited for this next game, guys, and I know a lot of people are not, and I know that this genre is very hard to break into, but we do have High Guard releasing this month, January 26th. Highguard was the last game that was shown during the game awards. This is

the hero shooter, free to play. I think it looks interesting. enough that I will absolutely download it and try it. People hate this game. What's that? People hate this game. It's not even out yet and people hate this game. I think so.

I think they also expected Titanfall 3 with that trailer. Well, okay. I mean, look, you can be disappointed that we didn't get the Half Life 3 announcement or the Titanfall 3 announcement or anything like that. But I is somebody that likes hero shooters. You know, and let's be honest, the only ones you really have now are, what, Valorant, Overwatch 2, and Marvel rivals? That's it. I think is this the failure of, oh, my, I'm drawing a blank.

It starts with a C. What's the Concord? Concord, you know, is this because of the recent failure of Concord where people just went, yeah, well, Concord failed spectacularly. So that means this game's going to fail spectacularly. I don't know. But it's coming out this month, and I plan on trying it. I'll try it. I think it looks pretty good.

I'll try it. Yeah. um it's one of those it's most likely going to be decent it's whether or not it's going to be great you know like it looks like it'll be good it'll be a hero shooter there's already a template and a formula and a map for anyone to make anything if they have the right people to like design something

so it's it's what are you going to do to separate yourself from the others to keep people playing i don't i don't know what this will do but i'm i'm willing to give it a shot like it looks cool like so all you know we'll all play it together i know ace he's still a rivals junkie because he's yeah i can't see this pulling ace way from right like yeah i'll say this i remember when rivals was coming out and we went ooh like okay cool like you know marvel heroes this looks really neat but we didn't know until i said it looks stupid i was like this is dumb and now i have like a hundred hours in it like i mean you know like as gamers we all want good games man if this is a good

hero shooter that can give me a different you know kind of breather from Overwatch or rivals or something like that like I'm all about it so anyway it does come out January 26 so keep your eyes on that it will be free to play that's a good sign in my opinion I agree

I don't think you should have to pay for hero shooters that the game will be will be fun for people and that they'll make money off of the fact that people actually want to play the game all right what are we Josh what are we set in the line real quick for skins purchased by ace we said in like Oh, and Higard?

Yeah. See, I don't, I don't, he's got to get into the game first. So it's like, if we play and Aces like, okay, cool. Like, I think this game's decent. I'm going to say three skins in the first month. I was going to set it at three and a half. I was going to say three and a half. Yeah, that's what I was going to set the line at three and a half.

Oh, that's good. Yeah. I'll take the under. I'll take the under on that one. Yeah. We got, he's got to like it. So. All right.

Okay. And then real quick, quick fire games here, guys. We've got Pathologic three coming out. January 9th, we have a game called Big Hops, January 12th, Animal Crossing, New Horizons, the Nintendo Switch 2 edition, guys, greedy Nintendo there. Loads 2% faster. Wasn't the Switch 2 supposed to be backwards compatible? Why would I not be able to play my Animal Crossing on the Switch 2?

These are like graphically enhanced versions. Oh, because you're really enhancing the graphics or enhanced versions. Usually not with any kind of extra content or anything. Yeah. To my knowledge. I can't say for sure. Anyway, anyway. Yeah.

Anyway, moving on before I agree with. The Legend of Heroes Trails Bought beyond the horizon January 15th. Wow, that's a mouthful. Yeah. Like, guys, we can't decide on a name, so we're just going to go with the top three names that our employees nominated.

Match them all in one of those. It reminds me when people are like, all right, now time to look at the young adult novels of the year. And it's just all the same titles over and over. happens when this game releases a DLC and then it's the Legend of Heroes Trails Beyond the Horizon the next chapter of

the horizon into the void of the final chapter. The world's longest game name. Oh man. All right, we've got perfect tied station to station January 22nd. The Seven Deadly Sins origin actually looked into this one because I think anything

relating to the Seven Deadly Sins gets my attention. But then this is an anime style. It's basically based on it. I will say again, looks pretty good. Don't know anything about it other than it looks like that. But it is an anime style, which Ryan is already like, so. And then, and then finally, don't stop, girly pop. Don't stop, girly pop. I saw someone in the comments call this, uh, doom pink ages. Pink ages. Doom pink ages. Yeah, that's pretty good. That's, yeah, that's pretty solid. All right. Well, there you go. There's your. games for January everybody listen we're going to take a quick break and then we are going to come back and talk about the very little time that anthem has left what happened to split gates to relaunch because it happened uh and we might just be getting a john wick game and a saw game from a triple a studio say what we'll be right back after this break

all right guys we're back look you know we've talked about anthem over the years i know anthem has taken a ton of flack this was the failed project that e a headed up if i remember right this was bioware also right didn't bioware come up with anthem and then it was uh founded by ea think um i could be wrong or maybe it was ex bioware does maybe one of you guys can can check on that I can make a check for me so I don't sound stupid. But, you know, Anthem. Anthem famously, I loved Anthem, dude. Like, I absolutely, I know I'm one of the few because if you go anywhere online and look at people talking about Anthem, it's like, oh, this game sucks.

They ruined it. It's terrible. Blah, blah, blah. Like, maybe. But I'd love the heck out of this game for, like, the first probably 15 hours or so. Like, we hit the end game content and we were rating. And then that's when it kind of went, okay, well, yeah, it's kind of. of falling off. But man, there is very little games out there that impressed me like Anthem did

in the beginning. The flying around in the different suits, the different classes of suits that you could get, the combat, the loot, you know, the progression, all that stuff was absolutely fantastic and fun for me. Yeah, it looks like it was developed by BioWare and published by EA. How about that? I'm not an idiot after all. Well, there's a first time for everything. this time I mean did you guys play anthem I did not play anthem I did not play at them

I saw some game play when it was when it was popular this was my destiny I was I was gone from like 2017 on any multiplayer game for like a while yeah the gameplay always looked like you were flying around like Iron Man so I was like oh that looks fun you were you were flying around like Iron Man

and it was awesome dude it was a beautiful world you had this fun thing where it's like if you you would overheat your suit so you couldn't fly forever but if you went like if you coasted along like a river and went close enough to the surface the water spray would cool your suit down

so you could fly longer and stuff that's cool and the verticality in this game like jumping off the platform and then just falling and then igniting the suit and flying around oh I mean I don't know how

what killed this game they absolutely killed this game they released it too soon and they did not put the effort into what this game could have been and a lot of gamers are saddened by this

they stopped development on it for those that don't know then they came back and said listen we do believe that Anthem has a future we're gonna redo it we're gonna redo it we're on to something here we're redeveloping Anthem

they did this for about six to eight months if I remember right and then they came back and they said yeah no we're scrapping it we're just scrapping it man actually as of this recording anthem servers shut down in four days boys oh that's terrible it is the end of a game that could have possibly been one of the best games that people have played in a really long time dude

it makes me sad that's because i i haven't played it but i remember seeing videos and stuff and there there's something to the verticality within a game where you can create a world that's not only kind of linear straightforward where you can fight that way but up and down and it just it opens up this whole new level of availability like within the map and so man that's like why why not like why couldn't that work you know and like you said it just may have been too early in development they just you know didn't get everything right it's just a bummer you know you never want to see these things shut down especially something that's maybe beloved or something that people liked that that maybe had potential you

know so yeah there's just there's so much money in all of this stuff nowadays to where it's almost like you see in sports where like somebody who's a really good player like Aaron Rogers sat behind Brett far for like what three four years like you can do that these days like if you're if you're not starting immediately you're a bus so like with these games if they don't hit like that like it's it's a bust and there's just so much money tied into it like it's it's in this weird zone where where what are we going to do with these games that have a good premise have a good idea and it could be great but maybe didn't hit the mark on the first go around like you know i don't know it's just it's it's crazy to think about it's just but it's

sad i hate i hate seeing seeing these things kind of uh tank like that it's it's especially tough when you get a glimpse of greatness yeah like that's the thing with anthem like honestly and i am not saying that anthem didn't have flaws because i know there's people out there that have been like this guy doesn't know what are you talking about bro like i mean yes it absolutely had flaws is like there were there were loading screens within loading screens and menus within menus and you know it was dumb like it was very fragmented and there were annoying things about the game but the problem is is that the gameplay portion was unlike just about anything else out there and like I said I haven't played anthem in a decade or however long it's been out but I still

remember that feeling of flying around in your suit and playing with your friends and you know one suit was heavy and couldn't fly as long but it was very tanky and another suit was agile and things like that and could go scout and you know it was co-op gameplay it was difficult

like it had mechanics like everything you would want it had it was just kind of overshadowed and ruined by some very bad design choices and then EA really just dropping the ball on this big time

so it makes me sad because it's that like dang there was something magical here yeah just give me that you know like and they just couldn't and instead like you said Ryan money came into play and they just went it's not worth it

It's not worth the risk to try to turn this into a great game. We're just going to abandon it instead. I think it's just a bummer in general when we lose games, like at all. Just completely unplayable games pulled from shelves, pulled from digital stores. It's not often that there's some, there's like this magical element to a game where you go, oh my gosh, this feels amazing. And then it's like, yeah, but. Should have sold it to Nettys. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, man. All right, guys. well another sad story here splitgate the original split gate came out fantastic dude i mean i remember paul and i playing the heck out of split gate back in the day this was your halo oh not halo i'll say uh let's say quake or unreal tournament style arena shooter but with portals and i mean straight up the portals from portal you had two of them you you plop one you plop another and you can walk between them the shooting was good split gate came out this was a college i think

they're a master's or like PhD project from a guy that was going to college, develop this as his like main thesis or whatever you call it. You did it all solo, right? Yeah, I think it was maybe two guys. It was him and one other guy or maybe solo, but it was like, that's it. Yeah. They released this game. It caught fire.

It did great. And then they went, hey, we're on to something here. And if you ever want an example of how to not develop a game, this is it because what do we always say dude when you develop a game with passion because you have the vision for the game this is you you generally make really good games I thought you're going to say don't listen to the fans because they're idiots well sometimes that's true too but what happened with split gate two is they went oh well the initial one that we made with passion and love caught on let's make the second one with business in

mind with making money in mind and again we don't begrudge anybody making money through their hard work but the problem is when you approach game development with the idea of how is this going to make me money it generally backfires man and that's the problem is like that's what happened with splitgate two so split gate two uh famously releases and it doesn't do good it completely flops you know And so it's like, okay, well, you know, the guys go, well, this didn't release very well. We're going to pull it back. We're going to redo this. And we'll relaunch it.

Yeah. Did you guys hear about a relaunch? No. I didn't hear a thing about this relaunch until I saw the article. I was like, splitgate two's relaunch has failed. I was like, oh, no. I didn't hear about a relaunch. I didn't hear a thing, man.

I didn't either. And then the big thing that I always. always throws me off. Thank you Battlefield 2042 is they said in their relaunch, it was a love letter. Yeah, red flag. Yeah, that's, that's...

Any time you hear love letter, I feel like that's just a... That you can never use that again. We need like a 10-year a hiatus on love letter for any video game. Like you can't use those terms for something like that. But yeah, man, it's a bummer. Once, you know, just like anything,

Once money gets involved, it kind of mixes up things. Yeah, I looked it up. The original split gate was developed by two people who ended up starting a studio to develop SplitGate 2 with over 200 developers. Oh, wow. Oh, my goodness. So maybe there's just too many cooks in the kitchen. Yeah. What a spectacular failure.

I hate that they're going to lose all their jobs. Yeah. I mean, honestly, you know, here's the other thing is like, you know, I didn't hear about a relaunch. So apparently this, the hopes that we were going to turn this game around, I don't know what happened because we are in the business, man. Like, we are looking up news all the time. I spend like my free time just surf in the internet looking at gaming websites and gaming news and stuff like that because this is our passion. I did not hear about Splake 8-2's relaunch. anywhere.

Not at all. So what happened, dude? Like, how is it that this came and went and none of us heard about this? It wasn't good. That failed as well. I mean, they renamed it too to Splitgate Arena Reloaded, didn't they? Yeah, which is stupid. Never call something reloaded, by the way.

That's another thing that it's like, that's a bad term. You just assume you're a remaster. Yeah. Letter to the fans and reloaded, it's like, no, this is not, these are not good terms for video games. so so rip splitgate split gate original was awesome I hate to see we hate to see these failures man for sure it's a bummer it really is

yeah all right well we're gonna close on this one we don't have a lot of information guys on this but you know let the hype let the hype meter start rising here because I'm ready I'm ready there has been an announcement that we are getting a triple A John Wick

game Oh, yes. Lionsgate Studio, okay, who owns the rights to the John Wick series, which honestly, the John Wick movies might be some of my favorite movies, like, of all time. Like, they are fantastic, dude. I freaking love John Wick. We're getting a game. Lionsgate Studios confirmed that they are looking into and planning triple A game opportunities for two of their biggest franchises. oh my goodness

put it in my veins give it to me like you know and then we are also getting a you know these aren't confirmed so again there's a little bit of rumor here but again the studio came out and said yes

we're absolutely looking into this and we have plans to make this happen a saw games yeah this is what Ace is even more interested in on this one we've gotten saw games in the past they're terrible really yes there are saw games There's two Saw games that came on on the Xbox 360.

There was Saw, and I think there's like, it's Saw 2, but it has a title, another subtitle. But they are both terrible. They're as bad as the movies. Oh, shut off as for more. The first movie's good. The Search for More Money. The Search for More Money. Oh, man.

I think it's Saw, Flesh and Blood. I love you. Mel Brooks. Yeah, Saw 2, Flesh and Blood. That's what it was called. Flesh and blood. money because to be fair there was a john wick game called john wick hacks i actually remember this game i i don't think it caught on it got what what what john wicks what john wick john wick hicks

because he's you know baba there is a john wick game what it's on steam yeah yeah yeah so i don't think you can buy it anymore though i think they pulled the rights to it from whoever had the rights to it which is no longer available on steam yeah yeah also another indicator that they plan on actually making a game so they pulled the rights for that um oh this actually so so here's my question for you guys and then we'll get out of here because we're already running long but like yes how would you envision a john wick game and how would you envision a saw game working like for saw would you like we just recently streamed the outlast trials we've covered the outlast trials do you see like a triple a saw game working like outlast trials or how do you i could definitely see one like that word but it also

leans more into the escape room aspect of Atlas trials. So it's not just one trial. Or sacrificing your friends to survive. Yeah. The hard choices, you know. Yeah. So if you could do it to where it's like a, it's like a puzzle room to get out and you got to like solve these things. And then

maybe somebody has to just bite the bullet and they, you've got to, you don't get rid of players. Moral decisions would be crazy. That's the, this is the angle. You get the moral decision. We're all trapped. Ryan and I are in this mechanism. Ace is trying to find out a way to get us out but the clock is ticking Ryan and I are trying to get out

but it's like one of us can sacrifice the other and get out but now he's dead but we're running at a time and I'm going Ryan don't you do it we can do this do not kill me do not kill me but there's only three seconds left right so now Ryan's got to make the choice right and then he's like we got this we got and then I just kill Ryan because I'm like no I was going to say don't even act like you wouldn't just kill me you know I wouldn't kill you Real. Yeah, I'd be like, well, just take me. Just do it now. Yeah. Here we go. Yeah, the popular choice in Saw, like the movies is like, you know, giving up something of importance to keep living. So like, you know, losing a hand, losing an arm, a leg, an eye, a tongue, like all these things. And that could definitely like play into gameplay elements. Yeah. John Wick, I don't, I'll be honest, man. Like, I'm trying to think about like how you make a John Wick game just be awesome. You know, the in the in the in this kind of article somebody mentioned slap john wick skins on seafood i'd say seafood and then you're done dead by disco ace is a more recent one oh yeah that is disco style and

that is a lot of fun i you know there's a game called pistol whip and vr that i say is basically like john wick and vr that one's a lot of fun where you just truly feel like you were one bad dude with a pistol you know and you're wrecking people so i don't know like it's interesting to see i'll i'll be curious where they go with this they're already calling them triple a so Here for it, I love it. I'm excited. Even having like, you could have a wick mode and it'd be like super hot so then you like dodge bullets. Right. Yeah. That'd be cool. Yeah. There's there's got to, I mean, there's got to be a way.

Like there's enough game mechanics where you can use like gun jitsu, you know, and be able to do these things and. Yeah, use dictionary books to. Yeah. Slamming pencils into people. Yeah, yeah. Just, yeah. Pencil. Yeah.

With a pencil. With a pencil. Baba Yaga. I love the John Wickley University. I do too, dude. There's so good. Yeah. All right.

Well, listen, everybody, that's going to do it for this episode. Thanks for hanging out with us. There's your upcoming games for January. There's a couple sad stories about games that didn't work out and a couple games to get excited for. I feel like they're starting to figure out how to take these movies and stuff and turn them into video games. vice versa. You know, it used to be you couldn't do that, but I feel like people are actually

figuring that out now. So it gets me excited for the future of these like movie game franchises as well. So hey, listen, real quick, if you're not part of our Discord server, you are missing out, we're over 1,200 gamers strong there. It's active. It's family friendly. It's not toxic. Come join us. Chat video games, chat these episodes, chat news, get opinions on games and just, you know, crazy things like life advice and people are talking. you know, computer building and the prices of graphics cards and all this kind of stuff, too. It's an awesome place to be. There's a link in the episode description. And listen, we do a really awesome pre-show and post show for every episode. If you want access to that

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that will be coming to people we're going to keep mixing it up and doing everything in our power to make this podcast the absolute best it can be for everybody out there so thanks for hanging out with us make sure you tell a friend and until next time happy gaming see ya peace out Thank you.