Metaphor: ReFantazio Review Round Up

<v Speaker 1>He'll be gon't be bad. It's the Internet. You're busy.
<v Speaker 1>Let's do this for October seventh, twenty twenty four. For
<v Speaker 1>the next hour or so, let me help you sort
<v Speaker 1>through the world of gaming on Game Mess Mornings Live
<v Speaker 1>with Me Jeff Grub. Today, Halo still has a future
<v Speaker 1>and metaphor refund Paszio reviews are in, but first please
<v Speaker 1>join me and welcoming today's co host to Game Mess Mornings.
<v Speaker 1>It's Jan Oh Joah Dan. How are you doing.
<v Speaker 2>I'm doing great for once Grub All right, Jed, it's
<v Speaker 2>a new John.
<v Speaker 3>It's a new day.
<v Speaker 1>It's a new day, New John. You were you were
<v Speaker 1>down at that Emma Fife's John right.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, once again.
<v Speaker 2>Congratulations to Emma's her new husband, Gabe.
<v Speaker 3>Well done, Yeah, husband Gabe. Lovely wedding. Congratulations. Uh Grub.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know how much time you've spent talking to
<v Speaker 2>Emma's now husband, Gabe, but it's it's very interesting to
<v Speaker 2>see two genuinely good people that seem like, oh, y'all
<v Speaker 2>just like fit and like that's inspiring and I love that.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, it was. I've always I've always had that feeling
<v Speaker 1>about them, very destined to be together all that stuff
<v Speaker 1>they do have, the they match each other's vibes very well.
<v Speaker 2>I there was a moment where I used the my
<v Speaker 2>moisturizers getting in my eyes thing that genuinely does happen
<v Speaker 2>to me when I was tearing up a bit.
<v Speaker 1>During Oh there you go.
<v Speaker 3>Oh.
<v Speaker 2>And the best thing is we were near where we
<v Speaker 2>were in Los Angeles. We were near a train station
<v Speaker 2>or train tracks, and it was Emma's turn to deliver
<v Speaker 2>her vat and I was starting to feel a little
<v Speaker 2>bit worried. The producer and me was starting to feel
<v Speaker 2>worried of like, oh, I really don't want Emma to
<v Speaker 2>have to pause during her vow if this train comes by,
<v Speaker 2>to like just let the train go, and then she
<v Speaker 2>goes to her vows, ends it perfectly. The next second
<v Speaker 2>grub the train passes by.
<v Speaker 1>Incredible, incredible. She knew too, She always she always knows.
<v Speaker 1>That's the thinking count I am before. How was the
<v Speaker 1>slumber party?
<v Speaker 2>Uh grab, I don't know how updated you've been on
<v Speaker 2>the newest current giant bomb lore. But there there's my
<v Speaker 2>Audi or my dear scumbag friend ban Bo Shoa and
<v Speaker 2>made an appearance. There was one point where I was
<v Speaker 2>like two three am in the morning. I was laying
<v Speaker 2>flat still in my suit, writhing around, rolling around Nikky
<v Speaker 2>Grayson's floor. Sure, and I think I was. I was
<v Speaker 2>yelling about something and Profusie apologizing and Nikki was like,
<v Speaker 2>shut up, we're going to get food.
<v Speaker 3>Give me your face. They grabbed my phone to unlock
<v Speaker 3>my phone.
<v Speaker 2>Then we we have had burgers and Barley Ate tried
<v Speaker 2>to eat some chili cheese fries.
<v Speaker 1>Barley I did bambo choa. Want to feed Barley the
<v Speaker 1>chili cheese fries.
<v Speaker 3>Never I know how much of a struggle for NICKI
<v Speaker 3>that'd be.
<v Speaker 2>Afterwards, there was a oh god, yeah, yeah yeah, there
<v Speaker 2>was yeah, yeah, somehow there was like fur net involved
<v Speaker 2>an hour before that, and then yeah yeah yeah yeah.
<v Speaker 3>It was fun times.
<v Speaker 1>Sounds yeah, it sounds like a good time. But you're
<v Speaker 1>back home feeling recharge, ready to.
<v Speaker 3>Go, absolutely not.
<v Speaker 2>But a certain video game is reaching it's it's metaphors
<v Speaker 2>right inside of me grub.
<v Speaker 1>Hell yeah, all right, well well let's get to talking
<v Speaker 1>about that. But first let's explain what we do here
<v Speaker 1>mohsweek days. I Jeff Garb will help piece your gaming
<v Speaker 1>life back together. That includes breaking news and maybe even
<v Speaker 1>some of our own original reporting. For all these topics,
<v Speaker 1>I'll get the input by bona fide expert who will
<v Speaker 1>make me look smart. If you were watching live on
<v Speaker 1>twitch welcome, you could always listen to the show later
<v Speaker 1>on podcast feeds by searching for Game Best Mornings, or
<v Speaker 1>find the RSS on giant bomb dot com. You can
<v Speaker 1>also catch the show later with chapters and timestamps on YouTube.
<v Speaker 1>Hello YouTube. All right, we have a lot to get into,
<v Speaker 1>so let's start the morning mess with Metaphor Refundtasio. Reviews.
<v Speaker 1>They are in. It is kind of bouncing between ninety
<v Speaker 1>one and ninety two on Open Critic. I think it's
<v Speaker 1>in that same range for on PlayStation on Metacritic where
<v Speaker 1>it has a lot of reviews, and then on PC
<v Speaker 1>it's got a handful more. But yes, it's doing very well.
<v Speaker 1>Reviews are in, starting here with PC Gamer reviewer Lewis Parker,
<v Speaker 1>who gave it a ninety five out of one hundred
<v Speaker 1>and says it is a beautiful one hundred long, one
<v Speaker 1>hundred hour long journey from beginning to end. Metaphor Refoundasio
<v Speaker 1>takes the best elements of Persona five and somehow improves
<v Speaker 1>on them. Vgc's Giordaan mid Lure gave it five stars.
<v Speaker 1>Metaphor Refundasio could have so easily been Persona with the
<v Speaker 1>names filed off, but it's so so much more than that.
<v Speaker 1>It matches fun, expansive combat with an excellent cast of
<v Speaker 1>characters that make the near one hundred hour journey an
<v Speaker 1>unforgettable one. And then Digital Spies Jess Lee gave it
<v Speaker 1>three point five stars, says Metaphor borrows defining features of Persona,
<v Speaker 1>yet executes these ideas in a less meaningful way, and
<v Speaker 1>in taking much from the beloved series, it takes a
<v Speaker 1>long time for Atlas's latest to carve out its own identity. Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>I think most importantly in the game mess open critic
<v Speaker 1>guessing game. I guess ninety two, my guest ninety three.
<v Speaker 1>It's at ninety two right now, So I'm gonna get
<v Speaker 1>double points for that. That's what really matters here. But
<v Speaker 1>I guess you've also been playing this. How are you
<v Speaker 1>finding this?
<v Speaker 2>I do want to mention to folks that I have
<v Speaker 2>not completed this because this is, uh, this is an
<v Speaker 2>Atlas ass game.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah it sounds like the full one hundred hours.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, you were going to be in for a ride,
<v Speaker 2>but I'm happy to tell you that it it is.
<v Speaker 2>You also got to check out the ride that you
<v Speaker 2>do get in this game, because it is absolutely wild.
<v Speaker 2>Initially I was a little bit worried grub because it
<v Speaker 2>is set in that fantasy setting and that's not normally
<v Speaker 2>my bag at all, right, but I was I wanted.
<v Speaker 2>I was hooked from the jump because this game. If
<v Speaker 2>you if y'all thought that Persona was dripping in style
<v Speaker 2>and swag goo from the music and to the look,
<v Speaker 2>this blows it out of the water, which I thought
<v Speaker 2>was an impossible task. And on top of that, this
<v Speaker 2>delivers on everything that Atlas is already good at where
<v Speaker 2>I agree with Jordan. You could have filed off like
<v Speaker 2>the the name Metaphor or Fantasio and would have assumed
<v Speaker 2>that this is a Persona, right, and I think it
<v Speaker 2>would have one hundred percent fit with that, because it
<v Speaker 2>does have the calendar system, the social links system where
<v Speaker 2>you do have to kind of negotiate with your days
<v Speaker 2>and make sure that they matter, and then your social links.
<v Speaker 2>But sure, there are moments in the Persona games where
<v Speaker 2>I feel like some of the social links aren't the
<v Speaker 2>strongest grub in my time with the game. I've enjoyed
<v Speaker 2>every single aspect of it. And for folks that are
<v Speaker 2>curious about the story.
<v Speaker 3>Holy shit. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>In the same ways that the Persona series has really challenged,
<v Speaker 2>you know, uh, virtually everything, relationships with society, societal relationships,
<v Speaker 2>interpersonal relationships, religious concepts, this game is going for it,
<v Speaker 2>and for the most part, I think it sticks to
<v Speaker 2>landing grub by swinging for the fences and trying to
<v Speaker 2>make those gigantic leaps when it is talking about when
<v Speaker 2>it is talking about religion and race, and it's talking
<v Speaker 2>about self perception as well, and then that relationship of
<v Speaker 2>that shared experience just being a living being in the world,
<v Speaker 2>and it really really nails that so well.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it seems like when I do kind of glance
<v Speaker 1>at some more reviews and was kind of trying to
<v Speaker 1>capture a few for the news this morning, and also
<v Speaker 1>kind of glanced at a Jessie Now Jessica Cogswell over
<v Speaker 1>at GameSpot. She gave it a ten. And one of
<v Speaker 1>the the emphasis a lot of people who are making
<v Speaker 1>is on excellent storytelling, excellent characters, really good pacing on
<v Speaker 1>that side of things is that is that carrying most
<v Speaker 1>of the game for you? How how are you also
<v Speaker 1>finding the tactics.
<v Speaker 2>One hundred percent grub like the it It is like
<v Speaker 2>a slight twist on Persona five combat system. Like if
<v Speaker 2>you were to look at screens of it, you would
<v Speaker 2>just assume that the world of Metaphor is a different
<v Speaker 2>dungeon in a Persona game, specifically Persona five. And I
<v Speaker 2>think it uses the utilizes all of that, uh and
<v Speaker 2>and and and still manage manages to pull it off
<v Speaker 2>well and make it its own in a certain way.
<v Speaker 2>Then that differentiates it enough from Persona and I just
<v Speaker 2>love it.
<v Speaker 3>Grubb it.
<v Speaker 2>It feels like we are so fucking back with turn
<v Speaker 2>based Uh.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, they seem to be on top of the genre
<v Speaker 1>in a lot of ways. And part of that I
<v Speaker 1>think is, you know, Final Fantasy kind of you know,
<v Speaker 1>beefing in a tiny bit with its real time action
<v Speaker 1>based combat for Final Fantasy sixteen, which I thought was
<v Speaker 1>pretty good, but it's not so good that it should
<v Speaker 1>be the standard for the genre going forward. Whereas obviously
<v Speaker 1>Bouldersgate and this on kind of both sides of that coin,
<v Speaker 1>and a lot of the games as well. Clearly clearly
<v Speaker 1>crushing it for turn based combat. Yeah. So okay, So
<v Speaker 1>if a persona fan is coming into here, what like
<v Speaker 1>do you have like a pointer for them to like
<v Speaker 1>some tips to like make sure that they can hit
<v Speaker 1>the ground running or they just kind of is going
<v Speaker 1>to be sort of seamless.
<v Speaker 2>I think it'll be seamless if you already have experience
<v Speaker 2>with I think any story heavy JRPG, I think you'll
<v Speaker 2>not maybe not immediately click with it. Sean and Chat
<v Speaker 2>is saying that the gameplay itself is not necessarily clicking
<v Speaker 2>with him. Don't want to put words in Sean's mouth,
<v Speaker 2>but I can perhaps see where Seawan is coming from there.
<v Speaker 2>I think, just be mindful and don't put too much
<v Speaker 2>pressure on yourself and get the choice paralysis of like
<v Speaker 2>which social links to perhaps max out. Just play the
<v Speaker 2>game as you would want to play out, and whichever
<v Speaker 2>characters are speaking to you in that moment, just explore
<v Speaker 2>those relationships as you naturally would. And you know, I
<v Speaker 2>know that we live in a world where people are
<v Speaker 2>spoiling games left and right, spoiling TV shows left and right,
<v Speaker 2>But just take your time with it and really let
<v Speaker 2>the messages resonate with you. I know, people joked around
<v Speaker 2>that Final Fantasy fifteen was a road trip.
<v Speaker 3>Game with the boys. Yep, this is definitely that.
<v Speaker 2>This is let's take a cross country road trip to
<v Speaker 2>not only destabilize the country's racist systems, but also let's
<v Speaker 2>just see some cool shit with some homies.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, it's I mean, it sounds very promising. I think
<v Speaker 1>a lot of people probably aren't gonna especially with glowing
<v Speaker 1>reviews like this. Even people among the Persona fans might
<v Speaker 1>have been like, well, you know, I want Persona. I
<v Speaker 1>think they'll probably pop in for this now. That's exciting. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>I guess any other big takeaways from the game, any
<v Speaker 1>other things that you wish people would know before they
<v Speaker 1>hop in.
<v Speaker 2>I think I appreciate the the CEO Jones on that
<v Speaker 2>list when it comes to trying to tell these heavy
<v Speaker 2>handed messages because not a lot of people can, not
<v Speaker 2>a lot of studios, not a lot of developers.
<v Speaker 3>It's funny.
<v Speaker 2>I feel like like indie dev's are very good at
<v Speaker 2>tackling very specific messages, and sometimes with Triple A studios
<v Speaker 2>it just falls flat and crumbles on the own weight
<v Speaker 2>of such a big game. But time and time again,
<v Speaker 2>I feel like the people at Atlas do such a
<v Speaker 2>good job at handling very serious issues in a way
<v Speaker 2>that is palatable and manageable.
<v Speaker 3>That being said, I do wish.
<v Speaker 2>Grub because I know that this is such this is
<v Speaker 2>gonna be such a time investment. I read Jess's review
<v Speaker 2>and she said that she spent eighty hours on this game.
<v Speaker 2>Eighty hours is a lot for any Yeah, anyone.
<v Speaker 1>Honestly, kind of like the scuttle butt when we were
<v Speaker 1>all in the review process and I haven't touched the game,
<v Speaker 1>but it was like I was thinking about it. I
<v Speaker 1>had a code in front of me, and I give
<v Speaker 1>it to someone else when I when I heard Jessica say,
<v Speaker 1>uh yeah, fifty hours for it to really click for me,
<v Speaker 1>I'm like, ah, okay, I'm too busy for that. You
<v Speaker 1>all have fun. I bet it's gonna click for most people,
<v Speaker 1>but I personally can't spend fifty hours. I bet it's
<v Speaker 1>not gonna take fifty hours for most people, but I
<v Speaker 1>think it'll take some time and some people might actually
<v Speaker 1>end up playing it and it might not click with them.
<v Speaker 1>So I've heard I've seen that a couple for a
<v Speaker 1>couple of people as well.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, so my idea was and get ready to cut the.
<v Speaker 1>Check please, Okay, here we go.
<v Speaker 2>I get I understand that we will do a re
<v Speaker 2>release of a Persona game like a couple of years
<v Speaker 2>down the line, like Persona five Royal. What if instead
<v Speaker 2>of that we just have metaphor Refantasio Turbo where we
<v Speaker 2>just we just cut some of the.
<v Speaker 1>Fat speed three minute matches.
<v Speaker 2>That's it, Like grub, I am dead set that there
<v Speaker 2>are a lot of people that would enjoy more of
<v Speaker 2>Persona if it was not eighty to one hundred hours.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I mean, I guess when I think of RPG's
<v Speaker 1>this day to these days, I do think that they
<v Speaker 1>are like eighty hours. That's the number I think of.
<v Speaker 1>But it's like I was, you know, I'm kind of
<v Speaker 1>like reading old magazines these days, and it's like, oh no,
<v Speaker 1>the RPG's back then were you know, the big ones
<v Speaker 1>were thirty hours. Those were the massive ones. So uh, clearly,
<v Speaker 1>you know, there's always going to be that arms race
<v Speaker 1>that causes both sides to you know, all sides everyone
<v Speaker 1>in that genre to be like, well, ours even bigger,
<v Speaker 1>has even more stuff, and they always feel like I
<v Speaker 1>got to have something bigger than their last game, so
<v Speaker 1>I get how we get here. I wouldn't hate for
<v Speaker 1>them to take all of their stylings, all of their
<v Speaker 1>gameplay prowess, and apply it to something that is a
<v Speaker 1>turboized version of what they've made before. That'd be cool,
<v Speaker 1>all right, quick breaking news, Actually, let me just write
<v Speaker 1>the headline in here for you. Alien Isolation sequel confirmed.
<v Speaker 1>This comes from Tom Ivan at VGC, who just kind
<v Speaker 1>of got the news for us. Sega has announced an
<v Speaker 1>Alien Isolation sequel. The game is in early development at
<v Speaker 1>Creative Assembly. The announcement on Monday came out to coincide
<v Speaker 1>with the tenth anniversary of the original game today. I'm
<v Speaker 1>delighted to confirm on behalf of the team that a
<v Speaker 1>sequel to Alien Isolation is in early development, said al Hope,
<v Speaker 1>almost said Ai Hope. Al Hope, a creative director at
<v Speaker 1>developer Creative Assembly. We look forward to sharing more details
<v Speaker 1>with you when we're ready, And then the Sega count tweeted,
<v Speaker 1>we are so back, So there you go. I think
<v Speaker 1>this is a great idea. I think this is one
<v Speaker 1>of those games that at the time it reviews a
<v Speaker 1>very specific way because the reviewers are like I have
<v Speaker 1>to think about this holistically, there is this really great
<v Speaker 1>mechanic here of you trapped on a spaceship with an
<v Speaker 1>alien and all that stuff is great, and the game
<v Speaker 1>is too long and that drags it down. Therefore, this
<v Speaker 1>game is a blank and it's whatever number that is
<v Speaker 1>lower than maybe they would have given it just based
<v Speaker 1>on how good the mechanics are. Now, it's it's really
<v Speaker 1>grown an estimation over time, and in a lot of
<v Speaker 1>fans eyes it's it's got a cult following. It's only
<v Speaker 1>you know, it grows in like players around this time
<v Speaker 1>of year every year. I think you take what you
<v Speaker 1>learned last time, and you really focus in on what
<v Speaker 1>worked and don't feel like you need to make a
<v Speaker 1>thirty hour game this time. I think when this game
<v Speaker 1>came out ten years ago, there was definitely this real
<v Speaker 1>strong need to be like, we need to be able
<v Speaker 1>to justify this game being the price it is, and
<v Speaker 1>we need to, you know, to take up room on
<v Speaker 1>store shelves and all this stuff. So it's got to
<v Speaker 1>feel like it has a ton of content. I think
<v Speaker 1>people are a little bit more willing these days to
<v Speaker 1>be like, if you give us all the gameplay mechanics,
<v Speaker 1>we want just make the game until it stops being
<v Speaker 1>good then end it. And I think that people be
<v Speaker 1>more open to that these days. I'm excited about this,
<v Speaker 1>how about you.
<v Speaker 2>I never checked out the original Alien Isolation, but I
<v Speaker 2>do remember seeing like a positive upswell over like the
<v Speaker 2>past couple of years, scrub every time that anything Alien related. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>whether it's the movies or the games get talked about
<v Speaker 2>of like what if you just did that one again?
<v Speaker 2>So yeah, I hope that they take what they learned
<v Speaker 2>from the first one and make this one dope.
<v Speaker 3>Maybe we should play it on the website.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I think that'd be fun. That'd be a good time. Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Alien is one of those franchises has a million games,
<v Speaker 1>a million entry, it's million movies now, and it hasn't
<v Speaker 1>really lost its appeal for me. Even though I'm not
<v Speaker 1>like checking out everything, when something does look good, I'm
<v Speaker 1>still there and I'm like, this is such a cool world.
<v Speaker 1>They do such a good job with that and this
<v Speaker 1>The original game definitely was like, hey, we are going
<v Speaker 1>to have the CRTs and all this stuff's just gonna
<v Speaker 1>look like Alien and Aliens, and it's I always appreciated that.
<v Speaker 1>Do you think that there's a chance that they kind
<v Speaker 1>of try to go the alien aliens route here, and
<v Speaker 1>it's like, well, maybe more space Marini, more aliens were
<v Speaker 1>action y.
<v Speaker 2>It seems like a lot of people really jived with
<v Speaker 2>the fact that you're kind of like a regular, decular person.
<v Speaker 2>I think so the original alien isolation and I think
<v Speaker 2>adding more of a hoorah space marine vibe to it
<v Speaker 2>will kind of shift the tone in a dramatic way.
<v Speaker 3>So perhaps they maybe you're a baby this time.
<v Speaker 1>There you go, the most helpless of all. That'd be ideal,
<v Speaker 1>but and yet somehow just crawling around in ducks and
<v Speaker 1>the aliens can't get to it, just like, yeah, just.
<v Speaker 3>Put them in the mech suit. Yeah, a little babby there,
<v Speaker 3>a little baby mech suit.
<v Speaker 1>No timeline on that, they said, it's an early development,
<v Speaker 1>probably still years away, but cool to get a sign
<v Speaker 1>of life from this from this series and see it
<v Speaker 1>coming back. It feels like this is one that was
<v Speaker 1>well earned. And next up we'll get Randy Pitchford's Space
<v Speaker 1>Marine two Colonial Space Marine two. There you go.
<v Speaker 3>Cool?
<v Speaker 1>All right? The future of Halo is coming and it
<v Speaker 1>includes multiple games. This is from Ethan Gotchi Kotaku. Ever
<v Speaker 1>since Mass layoffs at Halo Maker three four three Industries,
<v Speaker 1>which it's not called that anymore. Fans have wondered what
<v Speaker 1>the future will hold for for the famed sci fi shooter.
<v Speaker 1>It turns out Microsoft still has big plans for master Chief,
<v Speaker 1>and they involve multiple upcoming projects as well as the
<v Speaker 1>franchise making the jump to Epic Games. Is Unreal Engine,
<v Speaker 1>the tech that powers Fortnite and a host of other
<v Speaker 1>Xbox first party games. Three four three Industries revealed the
<v Speaker 1>news during the twenty twenty four Halo World Championship, including
<v Speaker 1>that the studio will be called Halo Studios going forward.
<v Speaker 1>Instead of continuing to use its current slip Space Engine,
<v Speaker 1>which was created from the ground up for Halo Infinite,
<v Speaker 1>the franchise will abandon it for Unreal Engine five. An
<v Speaker 1>effort called Project Foundry is also currently underway to build
<v Speaker 1>a foundation for training and best practices for developing Halo
<v Speaker 1>within the new tech. So yeah, those are like the
<v Speaker 1>basics here. They say that there's more games coming, uh
<v Speaker 1>and and also Halo Infinite. Meanwhile, we'll continue to get updates,
<v Speaker 1>but it sounds like it's kind of on the ooh,
<v Speaker 1>should we deemphasize this more and more and more, or
<v Speaker 1>kind of try to keep it going a little bit
<v Speaker 1>longer while we work on this other stuff that is
<v Speaker 1>to be determined.
<v Speaker 3>Uh.
<v Speaker 1>What really matters here is I think people will see
<v Speaker 1>this Jen and uh, you know, I think the jumped
<v Speaker 1>conclusion from people who you know, they aren't in the
<v Speaker 1>weeds with this stuff, and I think that's completely fair.
<v Speaker 1>Mostly the Mike Minauds of the world will be like, oh,
<v Speaker 1>they're switching to Unreal Engine because it's uh, they want
<v Speaker 1>better graphics. And I'm throwing him under the bus there
<v Speaker 1>he knew what he was talking about. When it really
<v Speaker 1>why they're switching is Unreal Engine is the most used
<v Speaker 1>engine among the Triple Triple A developers, and it makes
<v Speaker 1>it easier one to hire people, but two Like, really
<v Speaker 1>what it is is the tools are there to just
<v Speaker 1>get a lot of content out fast. That was the
<v Speaker 1>problem with Slipstream. It made a game that looked pretty.
<v Speaker 1>It's it was an engine that even once you got
<v Speaker 1>like these people or smart people, they can learn how
<v Speaker 1>to use new tools. That's fine. In fact, this project Boundry,
<v Speaker 1>what that's saying is we're gonna be building our own
<v Speaker 1>tools to use Unreal Engine. So what it really is,
<v Speaker 1>how capable are those tools? How malleable are they Can
<v Speaker 1>you take them and be like, we have an idea,
<v Speaker 1>let's execute on that idea and a reasonable amount of
<v Speaker 1>time with a reasonable reasonable amount of money and resources.
<v Speaker 1>And the answer for slipstream was clearly over time they
<v Speaker 1>could not do that. I think that's why we ended
<v Speaker 1>up with the single biome that they had in a
<v Speaker 1>Halo Infinite didn't bother me too much of soone playing
<v Speaker 1>the game, but clearly they're like, we just got to
<v Speaker 1>keep working with the resources we have. Just take that
<v Speaker 1>tree and use it one hundred and fifty thousand times
<v Speaker 1>throughout this world. So that will solve a lot of
<v Speaker 1>the problems I think for the next Halo. Do you
<v Speaker 1>feel like this is going to solve enough of the problems?
<v Speaker 3>I am not one hundred percent sure, Grub, mostly because
<v Speaker 3>there are just parts of Halo Infinite Infinite that I
<v Speaker 3>did like, just I don't think was able to sustain
<v Speaker 3>me in the long run, And maybe that was just
<v Speaker 3>due to like the problematic lead up of the game
<v Speaker 3>getting delayed and then wondering, okay, when is the game
<v Speaker 3>fully out?
<v Speaker 1>Out?
<v Speaker 2>Okay, co op isn't here yet, but now it is
<v Speaker 2>a couple months later and then just thankfully the multiplayer
<v Speaker 2>was never felt like it was a mess.
<v Speaker 3>Now it was just just a fun It was always fun.
<v Speaker 2>It just went in waves of popularity, like with like
<v Speaker 2>my friend group and even on site we played it
<v Speaker 2>a couple of times and we circled back a couple
<v Speaker 2>of months later. My hope is with the pivot to
<v Speaker 2>Unreal Engine five, that yes, they are able to produce
<v Speaker 2>content faster and maybe adapt faster to trends. I just
<v Speaker 2>hope that it isn't let's throw everything at the wall
<v Speaker 2>approach and see what winds up sticking. Oh, definitely, because
<v Speaker 2>ultimately I feel like I don't know if the Halo
<v Speaker 2>franchise isn't healthy of a place to sustain itself with
<v Speaker 2>that method of of development, right, because sure we could
<v Speaker 2>get a couple of Halo games in the next couple
<v Speaker 2>of years, but what does that ultimately do to the
<v Speaker 2>name Halo that is kind of already I don't want
<v Speaker 2>to say damage, but it isn't as popular as it was.
<v Speaker 1>It's definitely a little wit, right, Yeah, absolutely, yeah, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>I think they have to kind of continue to treat
<v Speaker 1>the next games as big, huge and important, and and
<v Speaker 1>that means yeah, not being too just like you said,
<v Speaker 1>throwing stuff at the wall. That's a good point. And
<v Speaker 1>I think what they probably should do here is establish
<v Speaker 1>this very strong foundation and uh and build something out
<v Speaker 1>that like feels like, Okay, this is the next big
<v Speaker 1>Halo thing. And then at that point, once it's live,
<v Speaker 1>once once you have some some momentum there, then you
<v Speaker 1>have the tools and be like, Okay, now we can
<v Speaker 1>sort of respond to what the community wants. We can
<v Speaker 1>work with them. We can give them, you know, the
<v Speaker 1>player the in game foundry where they can make their
<v Speaker 1>own stuff and build unreal engine to to be able
<v Speaker 1>to handle that. And then once that stuff is popping off,
<v Speaker 1>maybe we can take some of those ideas and expand
<v Speaker 1>on them very very quickly because now the tools will
<v Speaker 1>simplify that process. That's I think it's the hope. And
<v Speaker 1>then you know, at that point they can they can
<v Speaker 1>try to throw a little bit more at the wall
<v Speaker 1>because they have the strong foundation of this is what
<v Speaker 1>Halo is. People are happy with it. We can continue
<v Speaker 1>telling stories in this world and having cool multiplayer stuff
<v Speaker 1>and now and now we're not afraid to try things
<v Speaker 1>all that said, it's you know, Halo's problems are they
<v Speaker 1>do come down to can they get enough attention? Can
<v Speaker 1>they get enough popularity? Can they get people to care
<v Speaker 1>about the game? And I think that like clearly with
<v Speaker 1>Halo Infinite Multiplayer, I think one of the biggest issues
<v Speaker 1>was the lack of content. That seemed to be the
<v Speaker 1>thing that everyone pointed to. But I always wonder if
<v Speaker 1>it's like that, is that something people say and what
<v Speaker 1>they really feel is something deeper and harder to express,
<v Speaker 1>And it comes down to maybe they just don't care
<v Speaker 1>about Halo the way they once did. And I wonder
<v Speaker 1>if those problems will remain while they all of all
<v Speaker 1>these other technical and development problems.
<v Speaker 3>I'm it's it's tough to say grub right because.
<v Speaker 2>For some people, some of that stink is going to
<v Speaker 2>remain no matter how good the gamelinds up being right. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>ultimately across the board, I think Infinite wound up reviewing
<v Speaker 2>pretty well.
<v Speaker 3>But that perception of.
<v Speaker 2>Grub what what I guess what would you call it if,
<v Speaker 2>like Doom and Quake are a boomer shooter and Halo
<v Speaker 2>occupies kind of that mental game space for me before
<v Speaker 2>like modern Warfare two.
<v Speaker 1>Master Chief of the Millennium because he came out like
<v Speaker 1>right in two thousand, right, so uh, I don't know. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>Boomer Shooter and the boom son of Boomer Shooter, I
<v Speaker 1>don't know, Like that's probably none of Boomery son of Boomer.
<v Speaker 3>It's an yeah, yeah, poor sob.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I think that there will be always be your right.
<v Speaker 1>It's like churning back of Oh, I really missed that
<v Speaker 1>we've had enough of Fortnite. Let's try something else, you
<v Speaker 1>know what. That's maybe that something else should be nostalgic
<v Speaker 1>and and Halo could jump back in at that time.
<v Speaker 2>So we've seen a couple of indie games blow up,
<v Speaker 2>battle Bit remastered, Yeah, the battlefield formula. I'm kind of
<v Speaker 2>surprised that we haven't seen too many games try and
<v Speaker 2>indie games or indie shooter games try and recreate a
<v Speaker 2>Halo to some degree. So maybe it's just gonna be
<v Speaker 2>the Halo team or the Halo studio moving forward that
<v Speaker 2>just tries to recapture that nostalgia and reframes it for
<v Speaker 2>a newer audience.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, just make go DST again.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, did you see the recent update t Halo emfit
<v Speaker 1>It where they're they're adding a third person cameras to
<v Speaker 1>the to the action.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I don't know if I need that.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I think I was like, that's fine. I think
<v Speaker 1>I was a little surprised by like how many people
<v Speaker 1>responding to the tweet about it. We're like super excited,
<v Speaker 1>like this is the thing that they've been waiting for
<v Speaker 1>and Halo and I'm like kind of doing that the
<v Speaker 1>Clint Eastwood me like, get off my lawn, like, kids, Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>you can't handle first person. Come on, what's wrong with you?
<v Speaker 1>It looks cool though, it does look cool. Yeah, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>well maybe we could check that. I still like Halo Infinite.
<v Speaker 1>Maybe the most exciting part for me of all this
<v Speaker 1>news is this means that we can get to the
<v Speaker 1>point where people are no longer like judging Halo Infinite
<v Speaker 1>on how much it is, you know, hitting their pleasure
<v Speaker 1>receptors in that moment, and they could just assess it
<v Speaker 1>as was it fun to play, and we're gonna be
<v Speaker 1>in the Halo Infinite was good zone here very quickly.
<v Speaker 1>I think, so looking forward to that as someone who's
<v Speaker 1>always enjoyed that game and would love to play it
<v Speaker 1>at any time. Halo Infinite just a fun, good, solid
<v Speaker 1>multiplayer game.
<v Speaker 2>I think they should definitely try and push the marketing
<v Speaker 2>again and just have like another relaunch style thing where
<v Speaker 2>just reminding folks like, hey, this game's around and it's good,
<v Speaker 2>check it out. We don't just buy bags of doritos
<v Speaker 2>and you'll be better at the game than everyone else.
<v Speaker 3>My grub.
<v Speaker 2>My other speculation is, with the switch to Unreal Engine five,
<v Speaker 2>do you think Halo is going to join the rest
<v Speaker 2>of modern day first person shooters multiplayer first person shooters
<v Speaker 2>and have skins and guest characters.
<v Speaker 1>They'll definitely have, you know, the skins, clearly, yes they will,
<v Speaker 1>but like guest characters, I don't know. I feel like
<v Speaker 1>what this might open them up to is make it
<v Speaker 1>a little bit easier to borrow characters from other Microsoft games.
<v Speaker 1>Like if the guy some Gears of War showed up
<v Speaker 1>in the Halo multiplayer thing, I feel like that wouldn't
<v Speaker 1>be too out of place or too strange. I guess
<v Speaker 1>the way that they started moving around floaty that would
<v Speaker 1>look weird. I don't know, it's hard. Yeah, because you
<v Speaker 1>add in Harrison Ford is Indiana Jones. Can he just
<v Speaker 1>go running around and jump like and looking like that.
<v Speaker 1>It looks weird, so I think I think it'd be
<v Speaker 1>difficult to pull off. But but who knows. Maybe they
<v Speaker 1>could try a bunch of different modes where it makes
<v Speaker 1>more sense, so or something along those lines. I think
<v Speaker 1>they probably just try to play around in here's a
<v Speaker 1>skin for your master Chief character.
<v Speaker 3>Here's Optimus Prime in Halo.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, well that would be cool. He's aren'ty already locked
<v Speaker 1>down to Overwatch? Well one of those games got Transformers Watch?
<v Speaker 1>Come on, I don't know anymore. You know. That does
<v Speaker 1>speak to a point though, that this is now the
<v Speaker 1>latest Microsoft studio to fully embrace Unreal Engine, just like
<v Speaker 1>many of the other studios have. Clearly the the the
<v Speaker 1>the Gears of War team, not the initiative. I can't
<v Speaker 1>ever remember the name of it. They they they are
<v Speaker 1>masters of unreal Engine. They've been working with that for
<v Speaker 1>a very long time. Uh. And they are like the Coalition,
<v Speaker 1>thank you, CHET, and they like are such experts that
<v Speaker 1>they like come in and help other teams work on
<v Speaker 1>unreal Engine. Now they could do that and help out
<v Speaker 1>the Halo team, and all these teams can work together
<v Speaker 1>to build these best practices. As they're talking about undead labs,
<v Speaker 1>I think, use this unreal engine. There's a whole bunch
<v Speaker 1>of that now at Microsoft, it makes sense long term
<v Speaker 1>because they have all this expertise, and now that expertise
<v Speaker 1>can't like I think, you know, the Coalition did help
<v Speaker 1>on Halo to a certain extent, but they would have
<v Speaker 1>been able to do a lot more if it was
<v Speaker 1>an unreal engine, and now they're going to be able
<v Speaker 1>to execute on that.
<v Speaker 2>Speaking about long term for Halo as a franchise moving
<v Speaker 2>forward and Halo Infinite, do you think we might actually
<v Speaker 2>see a Halo game come out on the PS five
<v Speaker 2>as well as an Xbox and PC. Maybe not at launch,
<v Speaker 2>but maybe like a couple months down the line over time.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I mean probably probably it's uh, you know, maybe
<v Speaker 1>not the next one, but in like ten years, what
<v Speaker 1>is any of these we're already of these boxs is
<v Speaker 1>going to be that It's just the audience that they're
<v Speaker 1>going to be aiming for with these games is going
<v Speaker 1>to be so big and so much bigger than just
<v Speaker 1>any one console that I just don't think that they
<v Speaker 1>are even like they've emphasized the importance of the consoles
<v Speaker 1>today and it doesn't seem like that decision is going
<v Speaker 1>to get revert reversed. It's only getting They're only more
<v Speaker 1>and more leaning in that direction. So eventually they have
<v Speaker 1>leaned so far that it would be weird if Halo
<v Speaker 1>wasn't released on everything. Now we're not there yet, but
<v Speaker 1>I feel like I feel like they are walking in
<v Speaker 1>that direction and steadily we'll get to that point. And
<v Speaker 1>that point could come before the next Halo game.
<v Speaker 3>We'll see all right, Yeah, one last thing, please God.
<v Speaker 2>It feels so weird that we could potentially in two
<v Speaker 2>three years time have a mobile Halo game that, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>that could pop off in a way that cod Mobile has.
<v Speaker 1>Right, And I do wonder about that too, with like
<v Speaker 1>a you know, Unreal Engine very malleable for you can.
<v Speaker 1>I remember early on with Unreal Engine for one of
<v Speaker 1>the big things, it's like, hey, we developed this game
<v Speaker 1>and it's on PC and it looks really great, but
<v Speaker 1>we could scale it down and run on switch because
<v Speaker 1>they were kind of thinking, we want to have something
<v Speaker 1>that could be scaled all the way down to mobile.
<v Speaker 1>And then those games, those games started appearing on mobile.
<v Speaker 1>Unreal Engined five carries forth a lot of that stuff,
<v Speaker 1>and so it is an engine that you could very
<v Speaker 1>easily take the game you're making for PC and for
<v Speaker 1>console and scale it down and put it on phones
<v Speaker 1>and it wouldn't like and like scale it down enough
<v Speaker 1>so that you're not like destroying the battery and all
<v Speaker 1>that stuff. I do wonder if they do that, or
<v Speaker 1>do they do what the Call of Duty did and
<v Speaker 1>build the bespoke mobile version. That's probably still the move, right,
<v Speaker 1>but they could they could do.
<v Speaker 2>This, yeah, if you create I feel like the problem
<v Speaker 2>with trying to poort a triple A game onto a
<v Speaker 2>phone is that that is not the experience that people
<v Speaker 2>are used to on a phone. They just want to
<v Speaker 2>play a quick round of something, and you already have
<v Speaker 2>people in that hamster wheel with cod mobile.
<v Speaker 3>I would say, just try it.
<v Speaker 2>You could definitely adapt Halo to fit that, I don't
<v Speaker 2>want to say weird but specific live service game mobile
<v Speaker 2>format yep.
<v Speaker 1>Future of Halo very I'm still very curious about it.
<v Speaker 1>They have had a lot of turnover there, I mean,
<v Speaker 1>the Infinite Its failures definitely caused Microsoft to look at
<v Speaker 1>that studio and I think they basically basically fired a
<v Speaker 1>lot of the leadership there. I know a lot of
<v Speaker 1>the leadership left and and you know, we're caught up
<v Speaker 1>in various layoffs, but most of the leadership were just like, hey, please,
<v Speaker 1>you're done, you can resign, get out of here, and
<v Speaker 1>that means there should be a fresh new crop in
<v Speaker 1>there kind of overseeing things going forward. This is their
<v Speaker 1>chance to really sort of write the ship, because you know,
<v Speaker 1>for as much as people love Halo and the reason
<v Speaker 1>and then as far as it's fallen, it does feel
<v Speaker 1>like it's fallen due to missteps more than anything else.
<v Speaker 1>For as much as it's easy to be like, well,
<v Speaker 1>maybe people don't like those games anymore, I think the
<v Speaker 1>biggest problems have been that people didn't love four's a multiplayer,
<v Speaker 1>and they didn't love five's story. I camera one or
<v Speaker 1>the other might be might be mixing that up. And
<v Speaker 1>then Infinite Yeah, and then Infinite was like a lot
<v Speaker 1>of this stuff is good, give us more of it,
<v Speaker 1>and they're like, well, we can't. This is it would
<v Speaker 1>take too long to make more of this game, and
<v Speaker 1>that now here we are. So I think if they
<v Speaker 1>can address those problems first and then just put out
<v Speaker 1>a good Halo, the rest of it might take care
<v Speaker 1>of itself in terms of getting people to care about
<v Speaker 1>this character. Again.
<v Speaker 3>Part of me now thinks that maybe they made the
<v Speaker 3>switch to have it be called Halo Infinite versus another
<v Speaker 3>proper Halo numbered title, just to avoid the stink that
<v Speaker 3>had developed from four and five.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, And do you know what, Grub, I played an
<v Speaker 2>obscene amount of Halo three on the Xbox three sixty yep,
<v Speaker 2>and that muscle memory is stored inside of me, and
<v Speaker 2>the couple times that we've played Halo Infinite on this website,
<v Speaker 2>it has come out and now we kind of got
<v Speaker 2>the itch again.
<v Speaker 3>Grub, thanks a lot.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Well, hey, I'm always look forward to playing some Infidite.
<v Speaker 1>Let's do it. We can play some master Chief collection too,
<v Speaker 1>It would be fun.
<v Speaker 3>Uh.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, let's see here. Let's take a break. Let's take
<v Speaker 1>a break when we come back. Is Saudia Arabia taking
<v Speaker 1>over Nintendo? We'll talk about it right after this. All right,
<v Speaker 1>we're back, let's hit this. Saudi Arabia is considering a
<v Speaker 1>larger steak in Nintendo. This is from Jordan Miller at BGC.
<v Speaker 1>Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund is considering a move to
<v Speaker 1>increase its stake in Nintendo. That's according to a new
<v Speaker 1>interview in which the firm discussed that the Saudi Arabia
<v Speaker 1>Public Investment funds the PIFF plans for growth. Prince faizel
<v Speaker 1>Bin Ban Dauer Bin Sultan al Saud, the group's vice chairs,
<v Speaker 1>set in an interview with Kyoto Kyodo News that's with
<v Speaker 1>a d out of t that there are always opportunities
<v Speaker 1>for further investment investment. It's important to keep the communication
<v Speaker 1>going so you get there in the right way. He said,
<v Speaker 1>we don't want to rush into anything.
<v Speaker 2>Uh.
<v Speaker 1>They have an eight point five percent in a stake
<v Speaker 1>in Nintendo right now that that has grown over time,
<v Speaker 1>and they're thinking about growing some more in buying more Nintendo. Now.
<v Speaker 1>This has caused a lot of people to be like,
<v Speaker 1>what's going on here? Are they going to like try
<v Speaker 1>to take over the board of directors and stuff like that?
<v Speaker 1>And I would probably hesitate towards worrying about that too much. Clearly, Hey,
<v Speaker 1>Saudi Arabia a lot of problems. They killed a journalist.
<v Speaker 1>That's that's just a bad country. And with leadership that
<v Speaker 1>is directly responsible for that. It's a publicly traded company, Nintendo,
<v Speaker 1>you can't stop them from from investing as far as
<v Speaker 1>I'm aware, it would be very difficult. In fact, Nintendo
<v Speaker 1>didn't know about like most of these investments from Saudi
<v Speaker 1>Arabia until it happened was in the news, because that's
<v Speaker 1>just how public training works. Like those shares are out there,
<v Speaker 1>they went out and bought it from someone else. Nintendo
<v Speaker 1>wasn't involved in the transaction at all, But eight point
<v Speaker 1>five percent is a lot, and if they do buy more,
<v Speaker 1>it would like be something that they would have to communicate. Well,
<v Speaker 1>it wouldn't have to, but they've said themselves like we
<v Speaker 1>would communicate to let them know and let them know
<v Speaker 1>what we're trying to do here. The point of investing,
<v Speaker 1>for the most part is to make money from other
<v Speaker 1>people's work, and that's not going to be not true
<v Speaker 1>of Saudi Arabia. What they're doing here is they see
<v Speaker 1>an opportunity to invest in the video game space. Of
<v Speaker 1>obviously they own all of U SNK, they invested in
<v Speaker 1>a ton of other video game companies, but they see
<v Speaker 1>clearly Nintendo has a chance to grow, especially with switch
<v Speaker 1>to coming out, and they want to make money from
<v Speaker 1>that just like anything else, and be well positioned to
<v Speaker 1>leverage that stuff in the future as they try to
<v Speaker 1>do more with games in Saudi Arabia, they're trying to
<v Speaker 1>diversified their economy very much, you know, I guess get
<v Speaker 1>gas station in the world that right now, they're trying
<v Speaker 1>to be more than that. But that does not mean
<v Speaker 1>like buying Nintendo and transplant in it, transplant into Saudi
<v Speaker 1>Arabia or something like that.
<v Speaker 2>Right right, I definitely hope not. God that is so,
<v Speaker 2>I guess I've never thought about it that way, Grub.
<v Speaker 2>But where a public, publicly traded company is just so
<v Speaker 2>public that even the people internally at said company, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>aren't in control despite the company being theirs.
<v Speaker 1>Wow, yep, I mean those those shares are just they
<v Speaker 1>belong to someone else. So yeah, and if some epison
<v Speaker 1>wants to sell it to Saudi Arabia, they don't have
<v Speaker 1>to tell you and then they know and they don't
<v Speaker 1>have to loop you in in any way.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's weird.
<v Speaker 3>It's uh.
<v Speaker 2>The further this goes along, it's going to be an
<v Speaker 2>interesting road to navigate, you know, using your wallet to
<v Speaker 2>vote in a sense, right Grub of who you choose
<v Speaker 2>to support, and that being already very calm implicated to navigate,
<v Speaker 2>but that being especially challenging to perhaps navigate as Saudis
<v Speaker 2>share in Nintendo continues to grow. Yes, they are definitely
<v Speaker 2>trying to diversify not only the public perception of them, but.
<v Speaker 3>You know, they're not doing a great job.
<v Speaker 2>But also just in the terms of industry they're trying
<v Speaker 2>to enter. Perhaps they were trying to create a competitive
<v Speaker 2>Jengle league. They tried to draft me.
<v Speaker 1>And maybe maybe they're out there trying to get that
<v Speaker 1>jam for their for their for the Jingle League of
<v Speaker 1>the j L. Yeah. I think that Saudi Arabia is
<v Speaker 1>not going to be going away in video games or
<v Speaker 1>a lot of these a lot of these up marketplaces
<v Speaker 1>that they keep getting involved in. Uh, And what can
<v Speaker 1>you do about it? I mean, I don't know. At
<v Speaker 1>a certain point, for as vile as the government has been,
<v Speaker 1>I'd kind of like take their money, just take their
<v Speaker 1>money away from them and go use it for something good.
<v Speaker 1>I guess.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that's mentality that I have too, of like all right,
<v Speaker 2>just give us your money and we're gonna keep doing
<v Speaker 2>our thing that you know.
<v Speaker 3>Disrupts your perception of yourself.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, because I mean it's not you know, if
<v Speaker 1>you don't take it, someone else will. I don't know.
<v Speaker 1>Saudi Arabia's never offered me any money. I don't know.
<v Speaker 1>I wouldn't like want to be like seen cheerleading in
<v Speaker 1>that country. Uh, I'm not I'm listening. I don only
<v Speaker 1>speak for myself. I can't say that same sentence. Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>I think in a situation like this, where it's like
<v Speaker 1>it's publicly trade in, they're just like investing in your company. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>you kind of can't stop that. But I it's like
<v Speaker 1>they show up your door with a with a check.
<v Speaker 1>It's a little bit stranger. So I don't know, but
<v Speaker 1>I think the bottom line here is people worried about
<v Speaker 1>like the video game industry at at large and Nintendo specifically,
<v Speaker 1>not nothing's gonna relate change here. It doesn't seem like
<v Speaker 1>it's gonna change. I don't I doubt even that Saudi
<v Speaker 1>Arabia would want a place on Nintendo's board they could
<v Speaker 1>demand it. Though they could demand it, it just seems
<v Speaker 1>like that to what end they want the money. They
<v Speaker 1>don't like necessarily want to control what Nintendo's outputting. I
<v Speaker 1>think they do want to have some influence in that industry,
<v Speaker 1>but they are able to get that with said money.
<v Speaker 1>So I don't think much would change here.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, unless they demand that Nintendo comes to Saudi, the
<v Speaker 2>Kingdom of Saudi Arabia three four times throughout the year
<v Speaker 2>it makes a game specifically for the crown prints right.
<v Speaker 1>Exactly, and who knows that could happen. Yes, that's right,
<v Speaker 1>grub has heat with the Saudis there you go? Cool?
<v Speaker 2>Uh?
<v Speaker 3>All right?
<v Speaker 1>Moving on here. Ubisoft response to rumors about an acquisition
<v Speaker 1>from ten Cent. Meanwhile, it's the other one that's always
<v Speaker 1>investing in video games. This is from Javier Escorbano at
<v Speaker 1>Game Reactor. Following last week's rumors about a potential acquisition
<v Speaker 1>of Ubisoft by ten Cent, a spokesperson from Ubisoft has
<v Speaker 1>tried to slow speculate by claiming the company is reviewing
<v Speaker 1>all of its strategic options but remaining focused on its strategy.
<v Speaker 1>Ubisoft has noted recent press speculation regarding potential interest around
<v Speaker 1>the company. Ubisoft said to BGC it regularly regularly reviews
<v Speaker 1>all its strategic options in the interest of stakeholders and
<v Speaker 1>will inform the market if and when appropriate. Ubisoft also
<v Speaker 1>reiterates the management is currently focused on executing its strategy
<v Speaker 1>centered on two core verticals, open world adventures and games
<v Speaker 1>as a service in native experiences. That's got to be
<v Speaker 1>thrilling to investors and just kind of oh, the same
<v Speaker 1>thing as always. Huh. Yeah. The thing here is like
<v Speaker 1>tencent does seem to be like one of the only
<v Speaker 1>options that Ubisoft might have if and by Ubisoft I
<v Speaker 1>mean the Gimel family, Yeves Gamo, if he wants to
<v Speaker 1>stay in charge, because the publishers in a bad way,
<v Speaker 1>they are kind of one more bad game, one more
<v Speaker 1>bad launch away from being to be in free fall
<v Speaker 1>in terms of the stock price, and if that happens,
<v Speaker 1>even with all the Gemos on the board of directors,
<v Speaker 1>it could be very challenging for them to stand in
<v Speaker 1>the way of a bunch of people are saying, hey,
<v Speaker 1>we should consider some other options, like maybe letting Vivindi
<v Speaker 1>come back here and take over or something along those lines.
<v Speaker 1>If if the Gimo family wants to have control over
<v Speaker 1>what happens next, it might require them to partner up
<v Speaker 1>with a handful of companies that out there that could
<v Speaker 1>actually have actually could make that happen. And really the
<v Speaker 1>only option on the table seems to be ten cents,
<v Speaker 1>So I get that they're saying that, hey, we're considering everything.
<v Speaker 1>I don't know what else think. I mean, I've heard
<v Speaker 1>in the best I've said like maybe they went to
<v Speaker 1>go talk to like EA or something and said, hey,
<v Speaker 1>we should team up, and I was like, what the
<v Speaker 1>fuck are you talking about? No way. So I just
<v Speaker 1>don't know who else would be willing to buy. You'd
<v Speaker 1>be soft and take on tens of thousands of people
<v Speaker 1>on payroll. It would be very.
<v Speaker 3>Awkward, incredibly awkward. And also.
<v Speaker 2>Knowing that the Gaumont family still wants to be on
<v Speaker 2>that board and have a gigantic say, I don't necessarily
<v Speaker 2>know that if getting acquired by ten Cent is gonna
<v Speaker 2>fix the ship at all. It's just gonna be like
<v Speaker 2>patching the hole in the boat that is already slowly
<v Speaker 2>sinking grub, you know, instead of like repairing the hole
<v Speaker 2>and getting rid of the rotting wood, We're just gonna
<v Speaker 2>let that rot spread with more money.
<v Speaker 1>Now. Yeah, it's it seems right like this is not
<v Speaker 1>going to actually solve much. But I think that's a
<v Speaker 1>good point because that's the perspective that we're actually talking
<v Speaker 1>about here. Again, it's like the Gemos don't necessarily not
<v Speaker 1>necessarily thinking about the future of Ubisoft. They are thinking
<v Speaker 1>about the future of their power within that infrastructure. And yeah,
<v Speaker 1>I think they could team up with ten Cent and
<v Speaker 1>be like, Okay, we get some of your money and
<v Speaker 1>we'll do the work to control the company and you
<v Speaker 1>fund it and we'll take it private again and private
<v Speaker 1>between Tencent and ourselves. But then the the goal then
<v Speaker 1>would be to take it public again one day, I
<v Speaker 1>would imagine, And it's it's it just seems very rocky
<v Speaker 1>in terms of a pathboard for the company. But that's
<v Speaker 1>where they are. They've they've they've been in this situation
<v Speaker 1>a bunch of times, have sort of skated by and
<v Speaker 1>been able to dodge some bullets, and feels like that
<v Speaker 1>luck has run out and the the final destination of
<v Speaker 1>where this company was always headed is finally about to
<v Speaker 1>take it.
<v Speaker 2>It just feels like such a bummer grub because I,
<v Speaker 2>due to your recommendation, I have spent a little bit
<v Speaker 2>more time in Star Wars Outlaws and it is starting
<v Speaker 2>to grab me. I think I am finally turning on
<v Speaker 2>it in a positive way, and it just thinks that
<v Speaker 2>it feels like you be soft is hanging the game
<v Speaker 2>out to dry, despite you know, the game being continually
<v Speaker 2>worked on and developers promising like, hey, we're going to
<v Speaker 2>make this game even better than it already is. It
<v Speaker 2>just feels like you be soft as the publisher and
<v Speaker 2>the company is just like blaming it for all of
<v Speaker 2>the problems that have been building up, not just this year,
<v Speaker 2>but over the past couple of years. Yeah, remember Stolen
<v Speaker 2>Bones came out?
<v Speaker 1>No, I don't. Actually, yeah, that's that's wild. I think
<v Speaker 1>that it's indicative of like all the problems we've heard
<v Speaker 1>that Assassin's Cruise shadows. One of the big reasons it
<v Speaker 1>was delayed is all the people working on it were
<v Speaker 1>being like, hey, we should delay this, and you know,
<v Speaker 1>the same thing was true of Star Wars Outlaws, but
<v Speaker 1>they probably got to a point where, like they knew,
<v Speaker 1>they weren't going to be able to get to ask
<v Speaker 1>for another delay, so they did the best they could
<v Speaker 1>with that game, and as we're seeing it continue to
<v Speaker 1>get updates and get very significant changes to the quality
<v Speaker 1>of that game. With some of these updates, it's like
<v Speaker 1>in a matter of months they were able to make
<v Speaker 1>something that feels much better already. Had it had another year,
<v Speaker 1>it probably would have been in a much better place now.
<v Speaker 1>Ubisoft hasn't done that recently, even though they kept saying
<v Speaker 1>that they would, you know, really avoid ever being in
<v Speaker 1>the situation again after previous examples of them beefing it
<v Speaker 1>with by leasing games too early or underbaked, and they
<v Speaker 1>kind of it seems like they can't help themselves because
<v Speaker 1>they're just too big, too massive, too expensive. They can't
<v Speaker 1>go several quarters in a row without one of these
<v Speaker 1>big games releasing, and that seems like a problem, and
<v Speaker 1>that that problem seems unsolved as well.
<v Speaker 3>Do you think the problem Grub is that no one
<v Speaker 3>wants to dance anymore?
<v Speaker 1>No one wants to just dance. That Just Dance game
<v Speaker 1>is still coming out this holiday, right, there's a new one.
<v Speaker 3>Like Clockwork Grub every single year. Yep, every single platform.
<v Speaker 1>Yep. It'll be on everything except for PC, like always PC.
<v Speaker 1>You could just like watch the YouTube videos and pretend
<v Speaker 1>like that's what I h Yeah, yeah.
<v Speaker 2>That's It's surprising that the audience that buys Just Dance
<v Speaker 2>has not glommed onto that fast, right.
<v Speaker 1>A lot of the kids have They're like, I'll just
<v Speaker 1>watch the YouTube video and dance to this. This is great. Uh.
<v Speaker 1>And then the score is always like from someone doing
<v Speaker 1>it perfect, so you can pretend you did it perfect.
<v Speaker 1>It's wonderful.
<v Speaker 3>Uh.
<v Speaker 1>All right, let's keep moving here. Assassins Creed Black Flag
<v Speaker 1>remake is closer than you think.
<v Speaker 3>Oh.
<v Speaker 1>This is from Insider Gaming. We first got when of
<v Speaker 1>an Assassin's Creed Black Flag remake earlier this year, and
<v Speaker 1>informission sent to Insider Gaming suggests that the game could
<v Speaker 1>actually be coming sooner than you might think. When rumors
<v Speaker 1>of the Assassin's Creed Black Flag remake began to circulate
<v Speaker 1>on the Internet, many including ourselves, assumed that the game
<v Speaker 1>would be would still be some years away from releasing. However,
<v Speaker 1>new details and documentation on the game sent to Insider
<v Speaker 1>Gaming under the condition that it does not go public,
<v Speaker 1>so just that the game is well into development and
<v Speaker 1>could be released much sooner than we all thought. The
<v Speaker 1>timeline here apparently is it could come holiday of twenty
<v Speaker 1>twenty five, around November twenty twenty five.
<v Speaker 2>Uh.
<v Speaker 1>Now, I've not played Assassins Creed Black Flag since, you know,
<v Speaker 1>the year it came out, but my memory of that
<v Speaker 1>game is that's, you know, one of the first Xbox
<v Speaker 1>One and PlayStation four games, and it probably feels like
<v Speaker 1>it's still and there was like zero zero problems, like
<v Speaker 1>in terms of that game needs to be remade now.
<v Speaker 1>Maybe it's more data than I'm remembering, but I doubt it.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I think that game probably still plays completely fine, grub. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>I think a lot of well, you know, Sony would
<v Speaker 2>beg to differ, but a lot of games released on
<v Speaker 2>the PS.
<v Speaker 3>Four are still pretty good today, yep, grub.
<v Speaker 2>I hope that people listening have never found themselves in
<v Speaker 2>a toxic relationship where you know, we've clearly addressed a
<v Speaker 2>potential pain point in said relationship and then your significant
<v Speaker 2>other continues to be aware and cognizant of said issue,
<v Speaker 2>but continues to just do the thing that has been
<v Speaker 2>identified as a problem. And I feel like we can
<v Speaker 2>all agree that the Internet is not saying, in yelling,
<v Speaker 2>stop making Assassin's Creed games, but maybe slow down.
<v Speaker 1>Maybe slow Well, what this sounds like is they are
<v Speaker 1>speeding up because this comes out November twenty twenty five,
<v Speaker 1>apparently allegedly, and so does Assassin's Creed Invictus, I think
<v Speaker 1>is which is the multiplayer, multiplayer focused one I guess,
<v Speaker 1>so there'll be two Assassin's Creed games next year, and
<v Speaker 1>then immediately after that. I guess that the hex one,
<v Speaker 1>the Holy Roman Empire one it takes place in like
<v Speaker 1>the German Germanic region, that would probably come in twenty
<v Speaker 1>twenty six. And at that point, you know, if Invictus works,
<v Speaker 1>they'll be updating that as well. All alongside that, they
<v Speaker 1>and they've told us they have a lot of Assassin's
<v Speaker 1>Creed projects. Some of them are TV and movies, not
<v Speaker 1>like most of them are. Most of them are games.
<v Speaker 1>And the number that they keep throwing around is something
<v Speaker 1>north of ten, eleven, twelve, something like that, more and
<v Speaker 1>maybe more than that. Uh So there's a lot of
<v Speaker 1>Assassin's Creed coming, and uh, I don't know. It also
<v Speaker 1>feels like that is just speeding towards a brick wall
<v Speaker 1>of if you have one more another like unity situation,
<v Speaker 1>all that blows up in your face, and then you're
<v Speaker 1>talking to us again about how, oh, we're going to
<v Speaker 1>delay all those projects until we can get this right,
<v Speaker 1>just like you've done three times already, Greb.
<v Speaker 2>I forget what it's called when you start offering civilians
<v Speaker 2>in Assassin's Creed. And then is it destabilizing or desynchronizing
<v Speaker 2>desynchronizing yes, yeah, yeah, oh boy. I feel like the
<v Speaker 2>world has been yelling at Ubisoft like you're desynchronizing from
<v Speaker 2>the rest of us, and what we actually want fucking stop.
<v Speaker 1>Really, I've been thinking about it that now it's like
<v Speaker 1>a euphemism going on a decenchronization spree.
<v Speaker 3>That's the kind of boy, it's so bad, it's good.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, we're gonna take out un Alive from the vernacular.
<v Speaker 3>Thank you.
<v Speaker 1>De sink is in. Unlive is out? Everybody there you go,
<v Speaker 1>oh boy, uh yeah, hey, I don't need this, but
<v Speaker 1>I get why these companies do this. Assassin's Creed Black
<v Speaker 1>Flag probably the like the one that if you were
<v Speaker 1>to go ask fans, what's the one you like most
<v Speaker 1>want to play again? I guess it would be this.
<v Speaker 1>I think, you know. Assassin's Creed two also is one
<v Speaker 1>that I think a lot of people out with are
<v Speaker 1>very fond of. I prefer Brotherhood, but I think a
<v Speaker 1>lot of I think a lot more people played too
<v Speaker 1>or something like that. So getting to a point where
<v Speaker 1>it's like you are now supplementing your Assassin's Creed releases
<v Speaker 1>with some of these remakes and release re releases. It
<v Speaker 1>makes some sense, but it's just like for so many
<v Speaker 1>of many of them, they've repackaged and re released them
<v Speaker 1>already a couple of years ago. So that means this
<v Speaker 1>next remake will have to be something much bigger. And
<v Speaker 1>I guess I don't know. Maybe for a game from
<v Speaker 1>Xbox One, it's not that much work to make it
<v Speaker 1>feel like a remake. But I think that also speaks
<v Speaker 1>to how much demand is there going to actually be
<v Speaker 1>for this. And we're seeing Until Dawn, you know, not
<v Speaker 1>not a similar kind of game, but from the similar generation,
<v Speaker 1>and that game is getting just got released as a
<v Speaker 1>remake or remaster and it's on a PC and no
<v Speaker 1>one's playing it, no one, no one seems to care.
<v Speaker 1>So I think it's very easy to mess these up,
<v Speaker 1>or to put a lot of work into it and
<v Speaker 1>people being like, well, no, we don't want to replay that,
<v Speaker 1>we already bought it.
<v Speaker 2>I like, I've actually, now that I think about a grub,
<v Speaker 2>I've seen people streaming Assassin's Creed Black Flag on on
<v Speaker 2>TikTok of all places, and game surprisingly steel completely fine.
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, it's fine, And we're already in that position
<v Speaker 2>Grub where it feels a little silly to remaster a
<v Speaker 2>game that came out only five or so years ago,
<v Speaker 2>or whenever Black Flag came out, at least on the
<v Speaker 2>PS four console generation, because again, for a lot of people,
<v Speaker 2>a lot of people still haven't upgraded to newer consoles,
<v Speaker 2>so the PS four base experience is still their day
<v Speaker 2>to day and it is completely fine. Oh oh lordie, Grub.
<v Speaker 2>I feel for the people internally at Ubisoft me too.
<v Speaker 1>Well, you know, we'll see what they say that maybe
<v Speaker 1>this thing is mixed up or something we'll hear or
<v Speaker 1>maybe they present they'll be like, oh, okay, I get
<v Speaker 1>why they're remaking it. There's a chance for all that
<v Speaker 1>wait and see. Real quick here, let's just hit some
<v Speaker 1>of these highlights real quick. Monoliths Soft is busy developing
<v Speaker 1>its in house engine, building on Zeno Blade engine for
<v Speaker 1>future games. You're a Zeno boy, right, You're happy to
<v Speaker 1>hear this, Hey, reinvest in that technology, make more of
<v Speaker 1>your stuff, like because they also are partly responsible for
<v Speaker 1>like the world in the Zelda games with all their technologies.
<v Speaker 1>So yeah, that sounds good to me too.
<v Speaker 2>Grubs as a someone that really really really loves Eno
<v Speaker 2>Blade Chronicles three.
<v Speaker 3>Give me more debt, Give me more flutes.
<v Speaker 1>More flutes. There you go, you heard them. Uh, the
<v Speaker 1>Nintendo switch mod chip Maker is going to fight Nintendo
<v Speaker 1>without a lawyer, apparently.
<v Speaker 3>Because it's Joker too.
<v Speaker 1>Hits Joker so well. I don't know, but there might
<v Speaker 1>be more singing and that's who knows. We'll have to
<v Speaker 1>wait to seem. Yeah, that's not that's a bad idea,
<v Speaker 1>but that apparently they're like, there's had a bunch of
<v Speaker 1>counts Nintendo, and they went through and like deny, deny, deny,
<v Speaker 1>and they still haven't got a lawyer. So uh, it
<v Speaker 1>sounds like they might try to go to court and
<v Speaker 1>fight Nintendo themselves. Good luck. I hope, I hope you.
<v Speaker 1>I hope they don't kill you. It's Nintendo and then yes,
<v Speaker 1>Until Down is one of the worst Sony releases on
<v Speaker 1>Steam in terms of players. It just feels like the
<v Speaker 1>game is not like, oh, that's an assessment of its quality.
<v Speaker 1>It's just like maybe people aren't even aware of this
<v Speaker 1>is happening, or like, didn't it wasn't already out, No,
<v Speaker 1>it's on PC now. It just feels it's missing some
<v Speaker 1>zeitgeist thing. I don't know.
<v Speaker 2>I think so, And it feels especially unfortunate because we
<v Speaker 2>are in the spooky season where yeah, maybe it'll pick up,
<v Speaker 2>maybe it'll pick up. I think there's also the perception, Grub,
<v Speaker 2>similar to the problems that Black Black Flag Remaster could
<v Speaker 2>have of like, isn't this already here? Don't I already
<v Speaker 2>have this?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah? I think that's probably a big part of it,
<v Speaker 1>you know, in that until Dawn movie just finish? Should
<v Speaker 1>finish film? Mean that one? Maybe when that comes out,
<v Speaker 1>this will pop up again. That could be fun. All right,
<v Speaker 1>poll question, let's do that real quick. I have the
<v Speaker 1>results here from last week. What do you prefer single
<v Speaker 1>player games or multiplayer games? Seven percent say they prefer
<v Speaker 1>multiplayer games and ninety three percent say they prefer single
<v Speaker 1>player games. That's on four thousand votes, and I think
<v Speaker 1>that's you know, obviously going to be the kind of
<v Speaker 1>audience we get on our stuff, without a doubt. It
<v Speaker 1>makes a lot of sense.
<v Speaker 3>That's astounding, though, Grub.
<v Speaker 1>I think it's yeah, I you know, I think multiplayer Listen,
<v Speaker 1>if you look at that way, you know, people spend
<v Speaker 1>money on games, multiplayer games make more, they just do.
<v Speaker 1>And then uh, and then when they were like when
<v Speaker 1>you were just looking at how many copies they would
<v Speaker 1>sell for years there they would sell way better than
<v Speaker 1>single player games. I think they are just more popular
<v Speaker 1>with a wider, more casual audience, and then single player
<v Speaker 1>games are a bit, just a tiny bit more niche,
<v Speaker 1>that's all, but that audience shows up for shows like this, uh,
<v Speaker 1>and clearly they do ninety three to seven percent.
<v Speaker 2>I am curious to see how many folks that are
<v Speaker 2>like big in a Final Fantasy fourteen and like that
<v Speaker 2>is an MMO that you can totally play solo dolo
<v Speaker 2>I've heard. I wonder if that blurs the lines for
<v Speaker 2>some players. I think it does, And I.
<v Speaker 1>Think I think, well, you know, when you say, hey,
<v Speaker 1>I for for single player games, you're probably also playing
<v Speaker 1>multiplayer games. It's just like, no, if I had to choose,
<v Speaker 1>I'll choose single player games now. I do wonder if
<v Speaker 1>if companies like feel sentiment and are like are like, hey,
<v Speaker 1>can we get back to investing more in single player games,
<v Speaker 1>or they're like looking at underlying data, or they're looking
<v Speaker 1>at some notable flops recently and being like, actually, this
<v Speaker 1>might might be dangerous to go this path because at
<v Speaker 1>least multiplayer games. Maybe it's actually a little bit less
<v Speaker 1>expensive to make it. Now these days it seems like
<v Speaker 1>it's just as expensive as anything else, like look at Concord.
<v Speaker 1>But maybe it's a little bit less expensive because don't
<v Speaker 1>have to build out this whole massive campaign. You can
<v Speaker 1>have a few maps, a bunch of characters, and then
<v Speaker 1>build on it from there and then if if it works,
<v Speaker 1>the ceiling board is astronomical when we can make more
<v Speaker 1>money than ever. So I think that's why they continue
<v Speaker 1>to lean towards multiplayer games. But clearly the single player
<v Speaker 1>game not going away, just like always. No, okay, new
<v Speaker 1>poll question. We'll get to that here in a second.
<v Speaker 1>First jam, what do we have happening on the website?
<v Speaker 1>What should people know about our week?
<v Speaker 2>We're going to go and decide what's happening this week
<v Speaker 2>immediately right after this Jeff grub. But I can tell
<v Speaker 2>folks at home to look forward two chef reactions on voicemail,
<v Speaker 2>dump truck and Yeah, we will definitely try and line
<v Speaker 2>up together a BCR that is metaphor refantasio centric. Uh,
<v Speaker 2>we'll get that focused focused up. Well, we'll develop a roster,
<v Speaker 2>go on a road trip to podcast. It's not divorce
<v Speaker 2>week everyone.
<v Speaker 1>It's not. No, no, it's not divorce week. It's it's
<v Speaker 1>spooky season. It's it's ah October. So we'll do uh,
<v Speaker 1>we'll do play some scare games here and there. We do.
<v Speaker 1>We do want to play until dawn. I just I'm
<v Speaker 1>gonna go to that baseball game with Mike. Actually, you
<v Speaker 1>got his tickets, so that's at four pm. So I'm
<v Speaker 1>not gonna be able to play until dawn today. But
<v Speaker 1>maybe we'll start it on Wednesday and try to finish
<v Speaker 1>it another day. Uh, but yeah, grubbed by goolies, I'll
<v Speaker 1>do that. Yeah. I want to play a variety of
<v Speaker 1>like actual scare games and then spooky fun.
<v Speaker 3>Games Alien Isolate.
<v Speaker 1>Jan Okay, yeah, I would like that a lot. That
<v Speaker 1>would be very good. Yeah, or Sean says, but what
<v Speaker 1>if we play without you? Yes, that'd be great too.
<v Speaker 1>If you guys want to do that.
<v Speaker 2>Absolutely, have you played until don though, I'm not see
<v Speaker 2>that's part of the kicker is I want to see you.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, but what if it's until Sean?
<v Speaker 3>No, no, no, that's Dave. Sean.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, you're right, you're right. Excuse me, I shouldn't overstep it.
<v Speaker 1>You're right, we gotta get him on day.
<v Speaker 2>Sean first throw Shawn's name into titles for shows and
<v Speaker 2>Sean is not allowed on the action.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I love it, perfect, wonderful. Hey, I can I
<v Speaker 1>can watch me and Michael just gonna go get lunch
<v Speaker 1>downtown near this, near the park, and I'll I could
<v Speaker 1>give my answers in chat about what we should do.
<v Speaker 1>We'll see you guys could decide I'm down for anything.
<v Speaker 1>Anything else, Jan that we should say. Yeah, like you mentioned,
<v Speaker 1>we'll have chef reactions. Get your calls in now, everybody,
<v Speaker 1>make that happen. Seven o seven exit flu all right,
<v Speaker 1>newpole question, what or do you want an Assassin's Creed
<v Speaker 1>Black Flag remake? Yes or no? Go ahead and give
<v Speaker 1>your response to that. That'll be up on YouTube dot
<v Speaker 1>com slash at Giant Bomb under the community tab. You
<v Speaker 1>can vote there. We'll get the results. We'll discuss it
<v Speaker 1>on the show on Wednesday, Tomorrow's the BombCast. Tune in
<v Speaker 1>for that. It'll be a great time as always. Other
<v Speaker 1>than that, Jan, I think we should get out of here.
<v Speaker 3>Man, Let's go and get out here. We got a meeting, got.
<v Speaker 1>A meeting, Jen, Thank you so much for hanging out
<v Speaker 1>with me today and talking about video games.
<v Speaker 3>I really appreciate it. That's my favorite way to start
<v Speaker 3>a Thursday.
<v Speaker 1>And thank you all for listening and watching. You're the
<v Speaker 1>best audience in gaming. Until next time, have a good one,
<v Speaker 1>take care of yourself. Goodbye. Wow