RUMOR: Half-Life 3 is Finalized

<v Speaker 1>You'll go be beer.
<v Speaker 2>It's the Internet. You're busy. Let's do this for February
<v Speaker 2>twenty eighth, twenty twenty five. For the next hour or so,
<v Speaker 2>let me help you sort through the world of gaming
<v Speaker 2>on Game Mess Mornings Live with Me Jeff Grub. Today,
<v Speaker 2>Monster Hunter Wilds is off to a roaring start, despite
<v Speaker 2>numerous complaints about its performance on PC. But first, please
<v Speaker 2>join me and welcoming today's co host to Gay Mess Mornings.
<v Speaker 1>It's lex a lot of everybody, LEXI, how are you doing?
<v Speaker 3>Not too bad? Grub?
<v Speaker 4>This being an hour later is really fucking with me.
<v Speaker 4>It's now five pm for me, and yeah, so I'm like,
<v Speaker 4>I'm finishing up for the day and here I am
<v Speaker 4>talking with you chuckleheads like it's the fucking morning.
<v Speaker 1>That's right.
<v Speaker 4>So I'm pretty sure last week Tom mentioned that that
<v Speaker 4>he wanted you to try to get Jordan on.
<v Speaker 1>I didn't even try.
<v Speaker 4>I wanted to tell the entire giant Barmb audience Jordan
<v Speaker 4>Middler will not appear on this podcast until he takes
<v Speaker 4>me on one on one at what's the name of
<v Speaker 4>the wrestling event.
<v Speaker 1>You go, the let's see fast Lane.
<v Speaker 4>At w w E Fast Lane, get fucked. Middler, You're
<v Speaker 4>not You're you're not even Middler.
<v Speaker 3>You're minor.
<v Speaker 4>Get get fucked, and I'm major. And if you divide
<v Speaker 4>that by two, then you I don't know the rest
<v Speaker 4>of it.
<v Speaker 2>No, that was you're cutting a promo. It works, that's uh,
<v Speaker 2>that's perfect. Yeah, Jordan Midler a coward and we all
<v Speaker 2>know it. Lexie, how are you doing otherwise?
<v Speaker 3>I'm doing pretty okay.
<v Speaker 4>I just got back from visiting grandparents today, so that
<v Speaker 4>was like done. I've been trying to digitize all family tapes,
<v Speaker 4>which boy analog signals, they're wonderful to work with Powell
<v Speaker 4>version of analog signals even more.
<v Speaker 2>I didn't think about that. That's that's got to be
<v Speaker 2>a fun challenge. I don't blame analog. I blame digital.
<v Speaker 2>I think digital did not respect analog enough. And uh
<v Speaker 2>and it's so I put full, full blame on that
<v Speaker 2>side of the equation there. But yeah, it's you know,
<v Speaker 2>I've been plugging in sixty four into various things recently
<v Speaker 2>and that's been, uh, that's.
<v Speaker 1>Been wilde Like oh, what makes the start and what doesn't.
<v Speaker 4>The nice thing of this is like, yeah, I'm like
<v Speaker 4>recording all this like family footage or whatever from camcorders.
<v Speaker 4>But actually what I'm doing is getting a setup for
<v Speaker 4>like recording my PS two.
<v Speaker 3>That's what I'm actually doing.
<v Speaker 2>You once you're done with the VCR, you could just
<v Speaker 2>plug in the PS two and you're good to go.
<v Speaker 1>There. Yeah, that's definitely.
<v Speaker 2>I've been spend a lot more time thinking about plugging
<v Speaker 2>in old consoles and stuff like that.
<v Speaker 1>I don't want to. I'm not going to become a collector.
<v Speaker 2>I like like Dan Record's basement, but I don't need
<v Speaker 2>my basement to be filled with games. I just want
<v Speaker 2>the old consoles to have like the ever drive on
<v Speaker 2>it and stuff.
<v Speaker 1>And that's That's been a fun process getting off.
<v Speaker 4>I wish I was the same way. But I'm looking
<v Speaker 4>at an Amazon basket with Babylon's.
<v Speaker 3>Falling it right now, and I'm like, I should own that.
<v Speaker 2>Well, okay, owning games for a bit, I like a lot.
<v Speaker 2>I do have multiple copies of Balance Wonderworld, and I
<v Speaker 2>don't know who to blame for.
<v Speaker 1>You're welcome, you'll well, yep, then I do know who
<v Speaker 1>to blame. Yeah, one of them, Oh yeah, at least one.
<v Speaker 1>I think I might have. I might have bought the
<v Speaker 1>other one. I don't know. I'm trying to think, did
<v Speaker 1>you give me this switch one too? At some point?
<v Speaker 4>Yes, I gave you the switch one at Summer Games first,
<v Speaker 4>you know, so you can play it on the go.
<v Speaker 2>And I must have bought the Xbox one myself. They're
<v Speaker 2>both up there on the wall. I should get that
<v Speaker 2>back in frame.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, you playing anything big right now.
<v Speaker 4>I had just reviewed Like a Dragon Pilot Yakuza in Hawaii,
<v Speaker 4>which I super liked. I reviewed it the Game of Guides,
<v Speaker 4>gave it eighty eighth and guessed on the entail end
<v Speaker 4>of that stream. I know you've been enjoying that game.
<v Speaker 4>It's just a real good time. I put like fifty
<v Speaker 4>hours into it. Round a platinumingsh and yeah, it's kind
<v Speaker 4>of It's kind of what I needed. I'll take one
<v Speaker 4>of these a year. If they want to keep doing
<v Speaker 4>one of these a year, I'll play through one of
<v Speaker 4>these a year. And I just in solved Monster Hunter.
<v Speaker 4>Got a code just today, so I'm going to play
<v Speaker 4>that this evening. I'm playing a thing that's embargoed but
<v Speaker 4>I think is fucking awesome. And I also played a
<v Speaker 4>bunch of Ninja five oh, yesterday. You find that it's good.
<v Speaker 4>It's a yeah, it's not like a fancy port or anything.
<v Speaker 4>There's a bit of like artwork and you know, small
<v Speaker 4>things like that, but like it's very solid. It's like
<v Speaker 4>a step down from the Castlevania collections and stuff like
<v Speaker 4>that when it comes to like the stuff that has
<v Speaker 4>in it. But it has a nice rewind feature, It
<v Speaker 4>has trophy support and achievements and everything. And it has
<v Speaker 4>both Ninja five oh and Ninja cop Honish, so both regions.
<v Speaker 4>And yeah, that game is fun. Of shit, that game
<v Speaker 4>is still really fun.
<v Speaker 1>Yep.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's been a long time hitting Jim on the
<v Speaker 2>game Boy advance to the point where the physical copies
<v Speaker 2>that you know, they didn't print a ton of those
<v Speaker 2>very expensive, so you know, north of one hundred dollars
<v Speaker 2>I think a lot of time. So yeah, being able
<v Speaker 2>to just buy this game for twenty five bucks pretty
<v Speaker 2>good deal. All right, let's explain what we do here
<v Speaker 2>most weekdays, I Jeff Grub, will help piece your gaming
<v Speaker 2>life back together. That includes breaking news and maybe even
<v Speaker 2>some of our own original reporting. For all these topics,
<v Speaker 2>I'll get the input of a bona fide expert who
<v Speaker 2>will make me look smart. If you are watching live
<v Speaker 2>on Twitch welcome. You can always listen to the show
<v Speaker 2>later on podcast feeds by searching for game Mes Mornings,
<v Speaker 2>or find the rsso giant bomb dot com. You can
<v Speaker 2>also catch the show later with chapters and timestamps on YouTube.
<v Speaker 1>Hello YouTube.
<v Speaker 2>All right, we have a lot to get into, so
<v Speaker 2>let's start the morning mess with Monster Hunter Wilde surpasses
<v Speaker 2>one point three million concurrent players on Steam. This is
<v Speaker 2>from Ben Lyons at Game Reactor. It looks like we'll
<v Speaker 2>be hearing about Montar hundred wilds smashing some crazy sales
<v Speaker 2>milestones in the coming hours or perhaps at the latest days.
<v Speaker 2>We say this because on Steam alone, the game almost
<v Speaker 2>just surpassed one million concurrent players.
<v Speaker 1>This is the earlier version of the story. They will
<v Speaker 1>update it here at the end.
<v Speaker 2>And this is all ahead of its opening weekend, which
<v Speaker 2>will no doubt see this peak rise and rise and rise.
<v Speaker 2>That's usually how it works with these games. They hit
<v Speaker 2>their peak in the first weekend a.
<v Speaker 1>Lot of times.
<v Speaker 2>Although this is a you know, a game that could
<v Speaker 2>continue to grow over the next couple of weeks as
<v Speaker 2>word of mouth spreads, although maybe that won't be so positive.
<v Speaker 1>We'll talk about that as well.
<v Speaker 2>The crazy thing about this number is it's all but
<v Speaker 2>affirms that a million copies of the game have been
<v Speaker 2>shifted on PC alone. So usually with like you know,
<v Speaker 2>when you look at the concurrent numbers, and so as
<v Speaker 2>a reminder, that is people playing the game at the
<v Speaker 2>same time right now online on Steam. That's that's where
<v Speaker 2>we get these numbers from. Usually it's probably safe to
<v Speaker 2>assume that it's like usually sold about double that, right,
<v Speaker 2>because there's gonna be people in that and the Awake regions,
<v Speaker 2>places in the world where it's daylight, where people are
<v Speaker 2>still playing games that aren't playing the game in that moment.
<v Speaker 1>And then there's the whole other half of the world.
<v Speaker 2>That might be sleeping in that moment who also probably
<v Speaker 2>have bought quite a few copies of that game. So yeah,
<v Speaker 2>this is probably racing to two three million copies sold
<v Speaker 2>on Steam instantly. That is really really impressive. This franchise
<v Speaker 2>has officially broken through, right, I Mean, I've been huge
<v Speaker 2>for a long time, but it feels like it is
<v Speaker 2>caught on in a major way with this release.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, I'd be super curious to see these numbers compared
<v Speaker 4>to World and Ice Born and to see like how
<v Speaker 4>big those were on seam when they first launched. I
<v Speaker 4>know they launched later on Seam and that was like
<v Speaker 4>a big problem that those games came out later on
<v Speaker 4>Steam than on consoles. But yeah, without even factoring in
<v Speaker 4>console sales, which like in regions like Japan, a lot
<v Speaker 4>of these sales are going to be on PS fives
<v Speaker 4>set of on PC. Yeah, that's a it's a wild number.
<v Speaker 3>It's huge. It's like games.
<v Speaker 4>Just don't sell like that at the moment for the
<v Speaker 4>most part, Like even games that sell well don't sell
<v Speaker 4>that well unless they're Call of Duty right now.
<v Speaker 2>Yep, it's a yeah, one point three million concurrence on Steam.
<v Speaker 1>One million, one million, three.
<v Speaker 2>Hundred and seven and seventy six is what it hit
<v Speaker 2>earlier today, kind of yes, earlier today, which makes it
<v Speaker 2>the sixth most concurrently played game at one time ever
<v Speaker 2>on Steam already. And again it's going to probably have
<v Speaker 2>more people playing this weekend than this, so, I.
<v Speaker 4>Mean, it puts it right up there with Blackmith Wukong.
<v Speaker 4>And when you consider what a cultural moment that was
<v Speaker 4>for the most populous country on the planet, like the
<v Speaker 4>cultural penetration worldwide for this is really impressive, and so yeah,
<v Speaker 4>it's it's super interesting.
<v Speaker 1>Yep.
<v Speaker 2>I mean you mentioned it releasing on Steam at the
<v Speaker 2>same time as the consoles obviously helped, but you wouldn't
<v Speaker 2>expect like the jump from World. Sambo Nis and Chat
<v Speaker 2>reminds us that World had an all time peak Cup
<v Speaker 2>three hundred and thirty thousand, and then Rise had an
<v Speaker 2>all time peak Cup two hundred and thirty one thousand US.
<v Speaker 1>So yeah, you could see already that it's like.
<v Speaker 2>Grown significantly more than three more than tripled, you know,
<v Speaker 2>honestly kind of quadrupled. So yeah, that this is the
<v Speaker 2>game catching on, breaking through finding that massive wide appeal audience,
<v Speaker 2>and you know, it's what Capcom wanted to do with
<v Speaker 2>this game. So Mission accomplished in a lot of ways.
<v Speaker 2>Now there is the other half of this, at least
<v Speaker 2>on on Steam on PC, and that is while the
<v Speaker 2>numbers for Concurrent players off the charts, the reviews on Steam,
<v Speaker 2>the user reviews much more middling. They are I think
<v Speaker 2>it's you know, below fifty percent positive reviews or something
<v Speaker 2>like that, in the forty percent range for you know,
<v Speaker 2>thumbs up or thumbs down. The majority of giving it
<v Speaker 2>a thumbs down because of performance problems.
<v Speaker 1>It is. I watched a little bit of the Digital.
<v Speaker 2>Foundry thing and it's like, if you have a GPU
<v Speaker 2>with eight gigabytes of RAM, and Nvidia still loves selling
<v Speaker 2>GPUs with only eight gigabytes of v RAM, this game
<v Speaker 2>is really rough to the point where you have to
<v Speaker 2>turn textures down to their lowest and this is a
<v Speaker 2>game where textures they call it medium, but the medium
<v Speaker 2>texture option.
<v Speaker 1>It makes the game look really bad.
<v Speaker 2>And then even then you're still going to get quite
<v Speaker 2>a bit of stuttering, and so it they like just
<v Speaker 2>the the across the board recommendation in this moment is
<v Speaker 2>don't buy this game on PC unless you.
<v Speaker 1>Can route force your way to performance.
<v Speaker 2>That is not hurting the game in this moment, LEXI,
<v Speaker 2>do you think that is something that could slow it down?
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, I mean it's definitely like Team of Views Last Forever,
<v Speaker 4>and that's something that a lot of smaller developers have
<v Speaker 4>been finding for a long time.
<v Speaker 3>You know.
<v Speaker 4>I think No Man's Sky they basically like threw a
<v Speaker 4>party in the office when they ticked over to from
<v Speaker 4>mixed to mostly positive or whatever and then took.
<v Speaker 1>Eight years, nine years or something. Crazy.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, So yeah, like it's it is something that lingers
<v Speaker 4>around the game, and it's a hard number to change
<v Speaker 4>because how many people go back and change a review
<v Speaker 4>after if things get fixed. That is to say, like
<v Speaker 4>if Capcom do fix it. I know they put in
<v Speaker 4>a bunch of work to Dragonsagma two and that runs
<v Speaker 4>a fair bit better now both on like base hardware,
<v Speaker 4>PS five pro and PC.
<v Speaker 3>So hopefully they do support.
<v Speaker 4>It, and like you imagine that when it comes to
<v Speaker 4>just good will in the community, they kind of have to.
<v Speaker 4>Now that's so much of their playerbase is there.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, you know, I think they will make improvements over time,
<v Speaker 2>but you get the sense that they were using some
<v Speaker 2>crutches on PC. That the fact that it starts with
<v Speaker 2>a dialogue box suggesting that you turn on in Nvidia
<v Speaker 2>DLSS frame generation it was worrisome to the guys over
<v Speaker 2>at Digital Foundry, and it's something I haven't seen in
<v Speaker 2>a game before.
<v Speaker 1>That is usually an option that is unchecked by.
<v Speaker 2>Default, and you go in there turn it on if
<v Speaker 2>you have the performance to plug those frame generation frames
<v Speaker 2>on top of decent performance. The trouble is if you
<v Speaker 2>have stuttering and performance that maybe drops to the thirty
<v Speaker 2>forty frames per second. Range frame generation basically doesn't function
<v Speaker 2>the way you need it to get a good, good
<v Speaker 2>looking game. So it was weird that they're like, no,
<v Speaker 2>just turn this on. This is what we expect you
<v Speaker 2>to do, so just take it and run. It's a
<v Speaker 2>sign that maybe they are hoping they can put a
<v Speaker 2>band aid on there with brute force methods and it's okay.
<v Speaker 2>You definitely came in with it came in hot, at
<v Speaker 2>least for the PC version. Now PlayStation five, Xbox haven't
<v Speaker 2>heard similar complaints. Seems like it's running pretty well on
<v Speaker 2>those platforms. Definitely PlayStation.
<v Speaker 4>It is one of those things where like, this is
<v Speaker 4>a genuinely big issue that probably just doesn't crop up
<v Speaker 4>in a lot of reviews because you think the people
<v Speaker 4>who are asking for a PC code when Monster Hunter
<v Speaker 4>comes in, they have a good PC. They have looked
<v Speaker 4>at what that game is like and they're like, yeah, no,
<v Speaker 4>I'd rather play this on PC than on my console.
<v Speaker 3>So it's just something that probably hasn't.
<v Speaker 4>Come up in a lot of reviews up until it
<v Speaker 4>gets in the hands of people who have more mid
<v Speaker 4>end PCs and this is their only way to play games.
<v Speaker 4>This is the only platform to play games on, and
<v Speaker 4>then it's a huge problem.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's it's an issue. There's also you know, we'll
<v Speaker 1>get back to the performance here in a second, because
<v Speaker 1>Capcom Dead respond to that, but let's kind of go
<v Speaker 1>through some of the other criticisms here. They did.
<v Speaker 2>They did the kind of an all nasty trick, that
<v Speaker 2>one that I'm not a fan of and I have
<v Speaker 2>always really despised when publishers do this move during the
<v Speaker 2>review period. There was no clean of this thing that
<v Speaker 2>has now already reared its head now that the game
<v Speaker 2>is live, to change your to change your appearance, you
<v Speaker 2>get like one free time to change your character's appearance
<v Speaker 2>in certain ways, like I think you can like change
<v Speaker 2>your hair at any time for free. But if you
<v Speaker 2>want to go in there and make more drastic changes,
<v Speaker 2>it is you quickly get into a micro transaction store
<v Speaker 2>and you have to pay some money, and it's oh, okay, wait,
<v Speaker 2>where where did this come from? And you know, you know,
<v Speaker 2>I get why they don't have these stores sometimes running
<v Speaker 2>when when it's in a review period, I suppose, but
<v Speaker 2>it's like that that is part of the game. It
<v Speaker 2>should be there for reviewers to assess and decide how
<v Speaker 2>it affects things, and so to turn it on once
<v Speaker 2>it's live. I very much disliked that, but I'd like
<v Speaker 2>that that's a Capcom move recently.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, and that's the kind of thing that like, That's
<v Speaker 4>why review guides are there. Review guides are there to
<v Speaker 4>let you know about things that may not be fully
<v Speaker 4>working purely because it's a not out to the public
<v Speaker 4>version of the game, or you know, you don't have
<v Speaker 4>all the additional information that you have once a game
<v Speaker 4>is publicly available, and that stuff that should be upfront
<v Speaker 4>and told to the viewers. And it's super shitty that
<v Speaker 4>it's not. Like I've only found out about that today
<v Speaker 4>browsing through Blue Sky, and I was like, man, that sucks,
<v Speaker 4>because tonight I kind of just wanted to load up
<v Speaker 4>and play a bit of the game and check it
<v Speaker 4>out and then go back and change my character later.
<v Speaker 4>But now I'm going to be like, oh, I have
<v Speaker 4>to get my character fucking right. So I'm going to
<v Speaker 4>be in there for fucking two hours making sure my.
<v Speaker 3>Character looks right.
<v Speaker 4>And it's also worth noting that, like pretty much all
<v Speaker 4>the reviewers that do get these games get the Deluxe edition,
<v Speaker 4>which have made.
<v Speaker 1>And maybe that's what happened here. Yeah, good point.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, which have extra cosmetics and things like that, and
<v Speaker 4>so you're kind of like you're going into it with
<v Speaker 4>the mindset are like, oh, this game like has a
<v Speaker 4>bunch of cosmetics from the go, and even though you
<v Speaker 4>know maybe a third of them or half half of
<v Speaker 4>them were stuff that you got because you got the
<v Speaker 4>deluxe version, and you know, you just don't pay that
<v Speaker 4>much attention to each and every cosmetic item that came
<v Speaker 4>in the version of the game that pure sent to you,
<v Speaker 4>and you just stop playing the games for all review.
<v Speaker 4>So yeah, I think that's like super shitty and fucking
<v Speaker 4>don't do that.
<v Speaker 1>Yep. Yeah, it's it's it's annoying. It's a definitely a
<v Speaker 1>black mark on the way Capcom is operated. Recently.
<v Speaker 2>They have done similar sort of micro transactions in their
<v Speaker 2>games a lot recently. I think people pointing out in
<v Speaker 2>chat worlds had similar stuff. Dragon's Dogma two had similar
<v Speaker 2>micro transactions.
<v Speaker 4>So I mean, like, even weirdly enough, the Resident Evil games,
<v Speaker 4>you look at their staw pages, they are shock full
<v Speaker 4>of bullshit and you look at it and you're like,
<v Speaker 4>I don't want any of this because it ruins the
<v Speaker 4>balancing of the game, Like why would I ever want
<v Speaker 4>to engage with any of this stuff?
<v Speaker 2>And maybe there's something to be said for the reason
<v Speaker 2>people don't complain is a lot of the stuff is
<v Speaker 2>easy to ignore. But being able to change the way
<v Speaker 2>your character like just looks at a base level charging
<v Speaker 2>for that feels weird.
<v Speaker 4>Especially when like when such a big point to this
<v Speaker 4>game was then being like yeah, was then being like, oh,
<v Speaker 4>transmog is something that we've worked with from the beginning,
<v Speaker 4>and we want you to be able to customize your
<v Speaker 4>character and look how you want to look, and then
<v Speaker 4>to take the maybe most personalized part of that and
<v Speaker 4>like coordinate off as something that you may have to
<v Speaker 4>pay extra for if you want to go in deep
<v Speaker 4>and sucks. I remember I hadn't played Destiny to four years,
<v Speaker 4>but they reintroduced the option to read to change your character,
<v Speaker 4>and like, I put in three thousand hours into Destiny one,
<v Speaker 4>Like I loved my character, but when I went back
<v Speaker 4>to play it, every time I went back to play it,
<v Speaker 4>I was like, Oh, it's a man.
<v Speaker 3>That's not cool.
<v Speaker 4>And then I went back in and they were like, oh, yeah,
<v Speaker 4>you can just change your character's holders now and you
<v Speaker 4>can change your agenda and you can change whatever. And
<v Speaker 4>I was like, oh, it's nice. This is changed literally
<v Speaker 4>nothing for anyone else if they don't want it to.
<v Speaker 4>But this is a nice addition, and it's something that
<v Speaker 4>I can go back to change my character. And now
<v Speaker 4>suddenly I feel way more inclined to play Destiny to
<v Speaker 4>again because there's one less thing that I look at
<v Speaker 4>when I load up, and I'm like, hmm, And that's like, ultimately,
<v Speaker 4>what all these things are is whether it's a thing
<v Speaker 4>that like is personal in my case, or if it's
<v Speaker 4>a microtransaction that are like these tiny hang ups. And
<v Speaker 4>you'd think that those are the tiny hang ups that
<v Speaker 4>game developers and the publishers are trying to like stay
<v Speaker 4>away from right now because it's so hard to people
<v Speaker 4>to even get in the door and play their games.
<v Speaker 4>And like news stories like this, we've seen them snowball
<v Speaker 4>out of proportion because people take them at their worst
<v Speaker 4>and read way too much into them. So it's a
<v Speaker 4>weird thing that they've kind of allowed to slip by.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and uh, you know, Capcom has mostly gotten away
<v Speaker 2>with it the most part, and people point out, like
<v Speaker 2>there was definitely references to this is the way it
<v Speaker 2>would work in the beta and during the review period.
<v Speaker 2>It's just God, I've read a couple of reviews and
<v Speaker 2>no one mentioned anything like this, And I guess it's
<v Speaker 2>easy to if you don't interact with this stuff, or
<v Speaker 2>you've got the character you wanted to when you start,
<v Speaker 2>it'd be easy to miss this sort of thing. So
<v Speaker 2>I could see that that's probably what happened here as well.
<v Speaker 2>Either way, It's like the fundamental criticism here, of course,
<v Speaker 2>is this is a weird thing to charge people for.
<v Speaker 2>It feels Nickel and Dimi for products that are already
<v Speaker 2>very expensive things to purchase.
<v Speaker 4>And yeah, like I went looking at that deluxe edition.
<v Speaker 4>It's like one hundred and thirty euro. It is expensive.
<v Speaker 2>Yep, absolutely all right, So back to the performance issues.
<v Speaker 2>Capcom has responded for the PC issues.
<v Speaker 1>This is from Jordan Miller at VGC.
<v Speaker 2>Capcom has responded to performance Jordan Midler I responded and
<v Speaker 2>they said, let's see here. Mons Around Wilds was released
<v Speaker 2>on Friday, and almost as soon as the PC version
<v Speaker 2>was in the public's hands, players reported issues with optimization, performance,
<v Speaker 2>and more. The game, which has received praise from fans.
<v Speaker 2>Outside of the performance issues, hits hit almost one million
<v Speaker 2>concurrent players.
<v Speaker 1>Blah blah, blah blah. Now.
<v Speaker 2>Capcom has responded to the issues and has provided some
<v Speaker 2>suggestions to fans as to how to fix their performance problems.
<v Speaker 2>A post on Monster Hunter Status the franchise's official support
<v Speaker 2>account reads, if you're experiencing experiencing any initial issues with
<v Speaker 2>Monster Hunter Wilds on Steam, please try try updating your
<v Speaker 2>graphics driver, turning off compatibility mode, and then require readjust
<v Speaker 2>your settings. In the linked post on the Monster Hunter
<v Speaker 2>support website, Capcom has suggested several steps that could fix
<v Speaker 2>the issues, including that driver update, adding the games folders
<v Speaker 2>and files to it, to the players anti virus exception list,
<v Speaker 2>and more. Yeah, this is uh, this is a bit
<v Speaker 2>much too, because it's like I get, like, Okay, these
<v Speaker 2>things might be able to help one or two percent,
<v Speaker 2>but none of these things are going to actually fix
<v Speaker 2>the fundamental issues.
<v Speaker 4>It kind of like it puts the onus on the
<v Speaker 4>consumer for some that you.
<v Speaker 2>Know, yes, and you know, I think fair enough, but
<v Speaker 2>like you go into the game and I think there's
<v Speaker 2>a reason to have some hope. They're like, Okay, look
<v Speaker 2>at all these graphics options these things, like it actually
<v Speaker 2>presents itself as very helpful, where each setting has a
<v Speaker 2>like a rating for how much it affects the different
<v Speaker 2>components on your PC. So it's like, this is affecting
<v Speaker 2>your CPO CPU the most, or it's kind of affecting
<v Speaker 2>your CPU, but it's actually affecting your GPU way more.
<v Speaker 2>So maybe turn that down. I kind of see if
<v Speaker 2>that helps. Here's something that's like just blasting your RAM.
<v Speaker 2>Maybe that's the issue. Because there's a RAM meter as
<v Speaker 2>well that you see in a lot of games, and
<v Speaker 2>in that Digital Foundry video he demonstrates that, like he
<v Speaker 2>goes to settings.
<v Speaker 1>That are well below the like yellow.
<v Speaker 2>Line, not even the red line, but the yellow line
<v Speaker 2>for performance for v RAM on the forty sixty, and
<v Speaker 2>even in that case, there is a ton of stuttering,
<v Speaker 2>especially when just turning the camera at the beginning of
<v Speaker 2>the game. And that all that is after a six
<v Speaker 2>minute shader compiling period when you first start up the game.
<v Speaker 2>So it's just like, Okay, it feels like this should
<v Speaker 2>be running a lot better, and I don't know if.
<v Speaker 4>The worst all this, Yeah, Greg Miller is going to
<v Speaker 4>be so insulfable about this. I can't imagine why he's
<v Speaker 4>gonna get people so mad about it.
<v Speaker 2>Yep, Yeah, they played a bunch yesterday. I'm sure they
<v Speaker 2>were all on PS five for the most part.
<v Speaker 1>But yeah, it's uh, it is annoying because, yeah, I
<v Speaker 1>get it.
<v Speaker 2>This game clearly can run better, it is better optimized
<v Speaker 2>on PS five, although some people in chat mentioned that
<v Speaker 2>some people didn't weren't happy with the PS five pro version.
<v Speaker 2>I have not been able to keep up with that,
<v Speaker 2>so I don't know. Yeah, and Sean saying it's not
<v Speaker 2>good on PS five either, So okay, there you go. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>I think this is goes back to what I was
<v Speaker 2>about to get to next, which is Capcom switching the
<v Speaker 2>Resident Evil or the RI engine reach for the Moon
<v Speaker 2>Engine to open world and kind of seeing a lot
<v Speaker 2>of what happened with Dragon's Dogma two repeated here. They
<v Speaker 2>just have not been able to sort of optimize this
<v Speaker 2>thing for the open world games they are now making
<v Speaker 2>with that thing. And it's a bit of a shame
<v Speaker 2>because the storyline of our E engine up to this
<v Speaker 2>point was, Hey, this thing is powerful, it's optimized, runs great.
<v Speaker 2>Our engine games can scale down to the switch pretty
<v Speaker 2>easily because it is so well optimized and a capcom
<v Speaker 2>knows how to use it, and then they're like, well,
<v Speaker 2>let's make it for open world games now, and that
<v Speaker 2>instantly kind of just changed everything. And you know, it
<v Speaker 2>comes down to what the problem seems to be is
<v Speaker 2>streaming in assets into RAM and that process just really
<v Speaker 2>crushing most processors on most devices, and like it's yeah, it's.
<v Speaker 4>Kind of the problem with computers as a whole, and
<v Speaker 4>it's something that is very easy for us to armchair criticize,
<v Speaker 4>like a computer program runs grash until it doesn't. Yeah,
<v Speaker 4>and like they we looked at the OE engine and
<v Speaker 4>we're like, oh, Resident Evil Village looks incredible in all
<v Speaker 4>of this, but like we didn't know that that was
<v Speaker 4>maybe the ORE engine running ninety nine.
<v Speaker 3>Percent flat oush.
<v Speaker 4>And then they push it a little bit harder and
<v Speaker 4>suddenly it's just like, ah, man, it really was at
<v Speaker 4>its limit already and we didn't realize.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, And it's like the reality here is there are
<v Speaker 2>no modern engines that are just perfect at open world
<v Speaker 2>games where you have to stream in a lot of assets.
<v Speaker 2>UI five it struggles with that, and that that engine
<v Speaker 2>was made to be the open world engine, so uh.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, Danil's told me exactly.
<v Speaker 2>He called me his best friend said you're you're wonderful
<v Speaker 2>or whatever the at least said during that thing. Okay, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>so performance issues, but the game is popping off. Capcom
<v Speaker 2>will have a chance to make some improvements here. But
<v Speaker 2>Reside Eval nine up next rumored to be more open
<v Speaker 2>world because it's part of this initiative from Capcom with
<v Speaker 2>there engine any concerns about that, LEXI.
<v Speaker 4>I mean from a a franchise perspective, I think it's
<v Speaker 4>a really good direction for like the franchise because Resident
<v Speaker 4>Evil has always been a series that loves to come
<v Speaker 4>back to Raccoon City, So actually exploring an open world
<v Speaker 4>Racoon City sounds really exciting as a fan of the series.
<v Speaker 3>From a performance side.
<v Speaker 4>I understand where people would be very hesitant of it.
<v Speaker 4>I do think that when you were in something like
<v Speaker 4>a city environment compared to something like Monster Hunter Wilds,
<v Speaker 4>which is a lot of big, open, wide spaces with
<v Speaker 4>very long field of distance and like long views out
<v Speaker 4>into the distance.
<v Speaker 2>And we would have to stream in and be ready
<v Speaker 2>to stream in in case the player goes in any direction.
<v Speaker 4>M I think they kind of have a little leg
<v Speaker 4>up by just having buildings as something that they can
<v Speaker 4>rely on to slow people down. Like we're going to
<v Speaker 4>talk about Half Life in a second, but like it's
<v Speaker 4>been a thing since Half Life of create a long haul,
<v Speaker 4>you know, create a long haul so that we can
<v Speaker 4>load things in front of the player and delete things
<v Speaker 4>behind them. And ultimately it's not still that simple, but
<v Speaker 4>like that's still kind of the name.
<v Speaker 3>Of the game.
<v Speaker 2>Yep, absolutely, Oh yeah, mechanized And I'm sorry Max lastras
<v Speaker 2>and Chad points out the god what is it called?
<v Speaker 2>I just had it in my head, but the Horizon engine. Yesimah, yes,
<v Speaker 2>that has been pretty good for open world games so far,
<v Speaker 2>although I'm sure they'll push that to the limit as well.
<v Speaker 2>All right, let's actually take a quick break. We come back,
<v Speaker 2>let's talk about it half Life three. Right after this, everybody,
<v Speaker 2>all right? Half Life three almost fully finalized, according to
<v Speaker 2>the latest rumors. This is from Marcus Person at Game Reactor.
<v Speaker 2>The rumors surrounding Half Life three continue unabated, and according
<v Speaker 2>to a new report from Tyler McVicar, the game may
<v Speaker 2>be close to completion, a conclusion reached by now and
<v Speaker 2>analyzing recently updated code from several of Valve's games. These
<v Speaker 2>include Dota two, where references to HLX or Half Life
<v Speaker 2>X were found, findings that would indicate that the game
<v Speaker 2>is in an optimization phase, in other words, the end
<v Speaker 2>of its development process and includes, among other things, improvements
<v Speaker 2>to AI AI opponents excuse me, and the implementation of
<v Speaker 2>FSR three. Based on his analysis of the code, McVicar
<v Speaker 2>predicts several features in the upcoming game, Advanced physics engines
<v Speaker 2>the advanced physics engine. The game could have a physics
<v Speaker 2>engine similar to that of Half Life two, with detailed
<v Speaker 2>simulations of fluids, buoyancy, and how objects are affected by fire.
<v Speaker 2>Intelligent AI computer control characters are expected to react dynamically
<v Speaker 2>to sound, site and even smell, and adapt to changes
<v Speaker 2>in the environment. Dynamic gameplay elements such as enemies, health,
<v Speaker 2>and weapons can be placed randomly like the AI director
<v Speaker 2>in Left for Left fo Dead series, and advanced vehicle
<v Speaker 2>simulation Half Life three can be as detailed as the
<v Speaker 2>most advanced simular.
<v Speaker 1>So yeah, listen, it's not I think people will hear
<v Speaker 1>this and be like, Okay, someone's looking at games that
<v Speaker 1>are released.
<v Speaker 2>Look, they're diving into the code and they're finding stuff
<v Speaker 2>about half Life three that sounds unlikely. Rumors about Half
<v Speaker 2>Life three being late in development are are coming from
<v Speaker 2>more places than just this. There are reasons to believe
<v Speaker 2>that this actually is at least in development. Whether it
<v Speaker 2>actually comes out, that's a whole other thing. Who knows
<v Speaker 2>with valven steam, but it does seem likely. There were
<v Speaker 2>reasons that people were like actually predicting we would see
<v Speaker 2>Half Life three at the Game Awards, And it's because.
<v Speaker 1>That word is going around. So LEXI, what do you
<v Speaker 1>think is happening here?
<v Speaker 4>I think it's like at this point and it sounds
<v Speaker 4>about As someone whose job it is to care about
<v Speaker 4>this self, I'm just like, just call me when it happens.
<v Speaker 1>Yep.
<v Speaker 2>Oh no, I think a lot of people are in
<v Speaker 2>the boat with you thinking that exact same thing. That
<v Speaker 2>it's been so long now and people get so weird
<v Speaker 2>about this for so many years that what is the
<v Speaker 2>point of putting on the clown makeup? Well, just yeah,
<v Speaker 2>let's just talk about this thing when it's real.
<v Speaker 4>I do think, like the bigger thing that I'm curious
<v Speaker 4>about at this point is like I get that this
<v Speaker 4>would be a big deal, but as someone who wasn't
<v Speaker 4>alive when the first Half Life came out. Is it
<v Speaker 4>as big a deal?
<v Speaker 3>Sorry? Sorry about that?
<v Speaker 1>Really sorry?
<v Speaker 4>Is it as big a deal as like, let's say,
<v Speaker 4>the Valve News network might think it is, because you know,
<v Speaker 4>Michael mcvick, oh what's his name? Time, Yeah, like, this
<v Speaker 4>is his life and his livelihood and his personality, and
<v Speaker 4>I get that. But also, like, I know a lot
<v Speaker 4>of people who play video games pretty die hard who
<v Speaker 4>have never played a half Life and have never really
<v Speaker 4>understood why a half life is important, and they're not
<v Speaker 4>that much younger than me. And so even as someone
<v Speaker 4>who knows that, like, oh yeah, a new half Life
<v Speaker 4>is a big fucking deal, does that spread out to
<v Speaker 4>the younger generation of you know, has this game's meme
<v Speaker 4>dumb actually sped to the point that it will influence
<v Speaker 4>its still being relevant in twenty twenty five or twenty
<v Speaker 4>twenty six.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I think you're right to point out that it's
<v Speaker 2>definitely been a long time since we had one of these,
<v Speaker 2>since Half Life two essentially, yeah, half Life Alex, But
<v Speaker 2>that was VR. That's a different thing. Most people didn't
<v Speaker 2>play VR, haven't played VR games, and so like just
<v Speaker 2>wouldn't count that towards what we're talking about with this
<v Speaker 2>relevant scene.
<v Speaker 4>Now, a lot of young people haven't played VR games
<v Speaker 4>because they're all broke as shit.
<v Speaker 2>Right exactly. It's an expensive hobby within an expensive hobby.
<v Speaker 2>So the expectation that people would have played Alex it's
<v Speaker 2>just not there for me. But everyone has Steam and
<v Speaker 2>Half Life three being front and sand and are on Steam.
<v Speaker 2>We'll give it that you know, front running advantage there,
<v Speaker 2>and then on top of that, you know, describing here.
<v Speaker 2>Let let's just take all this stuff at face value.
<v Speaker 2>You know, detailed simulation, uh, physics, really smart ai. It
<v Speaker 2>doesn't sound like your typical triple A blockbuster video game
<v Speaker 2>from a major publisher. It sounds like, you know, the
<v Speaker 2>successor successor to the lineage of you know, classic PC
<v Speaker 2>games that we're trying to do ambitious things. So if
<v Speaker 2>they are going to do some interesting stuff here at
<v Speaker 2>this game feels like it has the chance to you know,
<v Speaker 2>build an audience on its own merit. And then on
<v Speaker 2>top of that, it is Half Life three and the
<v Speaker 2>memes have been there for a very long time, and
<v Speaker 2>even if you haven't played the games, you know, the
<v Speaker 2>joke is, oh, or are they going to announce Half
<v Speaker 2>Life three, everyone at least knows that joke.
<v Speaker 4>Jamie h and Chap makes a really good point that
<v Speaker 4>they should just market it as a skibby toilet prequel.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, and then we'll do great, you know.
<v Speaker 2>I mean the strong chance that there's a Skibbity toilet
<v Speaker 2>reference in the game, Yeah, for sure.
<v Speaker 4>How fuck would it be if we live in a
<v Speaker 4>world where there's a skibbty toilet reference in Half Life
<v Speaker 4>three but not in Borderlands four? Okay, yeah, that would
<v Speaker 4>be pretty like I imagine if the Borderlands four writers
<v Speaker 4>were more fucking like restrain themselves more.
<v Speaker 1>I listen.
<v Speaker 2>I think everyone involved with Half Life should be proud
<v Speaker 2>of Skibbity Toilet and claim ownership of it and take
<v Speaker 2>it within, bring it into the family that is, you know,
<v Speaker 2>the part again part of the lineage there.
<v Speaker 1>Uh yeah, you think this game could come out this year?
<v Speaker 4>Can anything could happen this year? Have you fucking seen
<v Speaker 4>what shit's like out there? Anything could happen too, Yeah. Yeah,
<v Speaker 4>like GJ six could be delayed until like twenty twenty
<v Speaker 4>age just for the hell of it.
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, fucking funny.
<v Speaker 4>Microsoft could like just pull out of the console market.
<v Speaker 4>Are entirely like, fucking none of these things are off
<v Speaker 4>the table at this point.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I uh, you know, I think if this game
<v Speaker 2>really is in the stage of getting FSR three and
<v Speaker 2>optimization and you know, sprucing up the AI and stuff
<v Speaker 2>like that, that's where they're at.
<v Speaker 1>It does sound like it could release this year, but
<v Speaker 1>who knows.
<v Speaker 2>Honestly, the black Box and Steam Valve Valve developers can
<v Speaker 2>take their time because they really are operating on their
<v Speaker 2>own timelines because Steam makes enough money.
<v Speaker 1>But go ahead, you were gonna say.
<v Speaker 4>I truly believe though, is not a video game I
<v Speaker 4>would rather view less than Half Life three because holy shit,
<v Speaker 4>can you imagine the reaction if you didn't like it?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, absolutely, it's uh that I feel
<v Speaker 2>like it would be another one of these cultural inflection points.
<v Speaker 1>Although you know, we could talk about this real quick.
<v Speaker 1>Let me do this real first.
<v Speaker 2>Shit, I wish I wouldn't have talked about this story
<v Speaker 2>because my plan was to get this in Fantasy Critic,
<v Speaker 2>and now Nicki is trying to do the same thing. Nicki,
<v Speaker 2>it's we're in the the bid finalization period, so you
<v Speaker 2>can only bid on things that other people have been on.
<v Speaker 2>On Monday, you'll be able to bid on this again,
<v Speaker 2>but I don't think you should.
<v Speaker 3>And Nicky really needs it right now.
<v Speaker 4>I looked at the Fantasy Critic the other day and
<v Speaker 4>they're on minus points already.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, we're all gonna get those minus points eventually,
<v Speaker 2>because there were not good options for the counterpick, and
<v Speaker 2>Nicky's just had to happen to come out first. But
<v Speaker 2>we'll see. Yeah, NICKI will need a little bit of help.
<v Speaker 2>But yeah, I was going what we're gonna I was
<v Speaker 2>talking about, So I was gonna bring something something, Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>something half Life three just that.
<v Speaker 1>Okay.
<v Speaker 2>Someone pointed out like steam os might like launch as
<v Speaker 2>a standalone thing later this year. They could tie it
<v Speaker 2>together with that, sure, but yeah, overall, I just think
<v Speaker 2>that they will take this and and be like, Okay,
<v Speaker 2>we are making games. There are people inside of Valve
<v Speaker 2>that want to make video games still, so despite steam success,
<v Speaker 2>we are going to be the company that does that.
<v Speaker 2>And I think this will be a may oh and
<v Speaker 2>this was the other POINTU it's gonna bring up. This
<v Speaker 2>will be a major inflection point for the industry. It
<v Speaker 2>does feel like gamers are beginning to get a little
<v Speaker 2>bit annoyed with the way the like YouTube and reactionary
<v Speaker 2>ecosystem has been using them to like crank through ad revenue.
<v Speaker 2>And I think it's been because of a vowed and
<v Speaker 2>handful of other games recently where it's like people have
<v Speaker 2>been told by their favorite YouTuber that these games are
<v Speaker 2>woke garbage made by people who hate them, and then
<v Speaker 2>they go and try them because it's on game Pass
<v Speaker 2>and wait, I think this game's just fun to play.
<v Speaker 1>What are you talking about?
<v Speaker 2>And there's nothing is annoying about it the way you're
<v Speaker 2>describing why you're freaking out, and the backlash is beginning
<v Speaker 2>to grow in the other direction. It feels like a
<v Speaker 2>little bit now, of course, so it just takes one
<v Speaker 2>Ubisoft game to come in and undo all that and
<v Speaker 2>put us right back to where we started. But I'm
<v Speaker 2>hoping some people are starting to like put two and
<v Speaker 2>two together and realizing that, God, you don't have to
<v Speaker 2>hate every game that comes out. It's okay to just
<v Speaker 2>ignore it if you don't want to play it and
<v Speaker 2>have my thream could make that super worse. Or maybe
<v Speaker 2>if people are like try to do that the Half
<v Speaker 2>Life three as well, it could be the thing that
<v Speaker 2>kind of breaks some of these YouTubers.
<v Speaker 1>I don't know, I do really.
<v Speaker 4>Hope that like at the end of the year, when
<v Speaker 4>some of those people are trying to like rally up
<v Speaker 4>what games were on their side in the culture war
<v Speaker 4>or whatever, like tally that up, they include Like a
<v Speaker 4>Dragon again, because that game literally has a whole sub
<v Speaker 4>story where a woman where you help a woman understand
<v Speaker 4>that sex work is we all work, and that she
<v Speaker 4>should write a book about it because sex is an
<v Speaker 4>important part of culture. And just like see if they
<v Speaker 4>like defend that as anti woke or something.
<v Speaker 2>Yep, it's it's incredible that the whole franchise now has
<v Speaker 2>become or at least maybe it's always been. But as
<v Speaker 2>far as I played the recent games, is hey, wouldn't
<v Speaker 2>it be awesome? For everyone? Was like super nice, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>and like was super empathetic to everyone around them, and
<v Speaker 2>it turned every enemy into a friend through the power
<v Speaker 2>of friendship and love.
<v Speaker 1>And empathy, yes, just empathy.
<v Speaker 2>And as a back of the box video game feature,
<v Speaker 2>like that is where Like a Dragon is at these days,
<v Speaker 2>and so yeah, of course it's just absurd for them
<v Speaker 2>to claim ownership of that. All right, let's keep moving here, EA,
<v Speaker 2>releases source code for Command and Conquer to moders.
<v Speaker 1>This is from Dean Takahashi at Gamespeed.
<v Speaker 2>EA has released the source code for several Command and
<v Speaker 2>Conquer games, including Command and Concker, Tiberian Dawn, Read Alert,
<v Speaker 2>Renegade Generals, plus its expansion Zero Hour under the GPL license.
<v Speaker 2>This move aims to empower the moding community, with EA
<v Speaker 2>acknowledging the community's dedication to keeping these games alive. The
<v Speaker 2>release includes the full source code, enabling deeper modifications and
<v Speaker 2>improvements by the community. EA has also enabled Steam Workshop
<v Speaker 2>support for several of the Command and Conquer titles, allowing
<v Speaker 2>users to easily upload and share custom maps and more. Additionally,
<v Speaker 2>EA released a CNC moding support pack with source files
<v Speaker 2>for the game using the Sage engine. These actions follow
<v Speaker 2>previous efforts by EA to support the C and C camemmunity,
<v Speaker 2>including the release of the Command and Conquer Ultimate Collection
<v Speaker 2>on Steam and the source code for the Command, Command
<v Speaker 2>and Conquer Remastered Collection dlll files. The Command of Conquer
<v Speaker 2>producer at EA, Jim Vicella, emphasized the company's ambition to
<v Speaker 2>deliver continued improvements to the franchise, and a longtime member
<v Speaker 2>of the C and C community spearhead of the initiative
<v Speaker 2>to restore the source code archives and facilitate these releases.
<v Speaker 2>So yeah, EA doing some cool stuff. That's weird but
<v Speaker 2>very welcome. I love this stuff. I am every day
<v Speaker 2>I wake up more and more like turning to open
<v Speaker 2>source as a savior for all of society's woes.
<v Speaker 1>And of course it's not that, but that's what I
<v Speaker 1>got these days.
<v Speaker 2>And whenever a corporation takes something that they own and
<v Speaker 2>says let's unleash it as an open source thing that
<v Speaker 2>people can claim ownership and do what they want with it,
<v Speaker 2>it is.
<v Speaker 1>A very nice thing to see.
<v Speaker 2>And I think this is only going to do very
<v Speaker 2>good things for Command and Conquers, to the point where
<v Speaker 2>EA goes on to make a new Command and Conquer.
<v Speaker 2>This act of goodwill will actually pay dividends. Do you
<v Speaker 2>think that's right?
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, that's like my very cynical analyst brain looking at it,
<v Speaker 4>going like, oh that's fair. This Yeah, this is like
<v Speaker 4>the one franchise that EA looked at that they have
<v Speaker 4>any interest in keeping alive or doing anything with, and
<v Speaker 4>they were like, which one of these games can we
<v Speaker 4>like get some goodwill out of, and how can we
<v Speaker 4>make sure that it doesn't affect any Michael transactions that
<v Speaker 4>are currently in the games that we want to sell
<v Speaker 4>Michael transactions in, or we want to sell four price
<v Speaker 4>products of. I think they looked at all these back
<v Speaker 4>catalog of Command and Conquer games that still get you know,
<v Speaker 4>not incredible numbers on scene, but still have a user
<v Speaker 4>base and a dedicated community, and they were like, yeah, like,
<v Speaker 4>it doesn't hurt us to release the source code for
<v Speaker 4>this because none of this source code affects any of
<v Speaker 4>our other games. It's not like it will help cheats
<v Speaker 4>with Apex Legends. It's not like it is going to
<v Speaker 4>influence how much people are spending on the sims. It's
<v Speaker 4>you know, totally siloed off. And it's a feel good
<v Speaker 4>news story for them for a franchise that they probably
<v Speaker 4>have interest in bringing back at some point, especially because
<v Speaker 4>like that Command and Conquer remake sold pretty.
<v Speaker 1>Well, did very well. Yeah, and they did a good
<v Speaker 1>job with it too. It was way better than what
<v Speaker 1>happened with Warcraft with it's remastered a camera what that
<v Speaker 1>was called. But yeah, Warcraft three, it was just people
<v Speaker 1>really were not happy with that. I I yes, you're right.
<v Speaker 1>You're right one. That's how how it always goes though.
<v Speaker 4>And it's interesting that EA have an active producer for
<v Speaker 4>Command and Conquer. There's someone whose job title is Command
<v Speaker 4>and Conquer producer just at EAISE.
<v Speaker 1>That didn't exist before that remaster. I bet they appointed
<v Speaker 1>someone after that because it did so well, so it
<v Speaker 1>made it make sense.
<v Speaker 2>But yeah, I think this is a an example how
<v Speaker 2>software should kind of always work though, where we know
<v Speaker 2>the motivations corporations, we know what their desires are, and
<v Speaker 2>instead of them always sort of trying to build a
<v Speaker 2>dam and a moat around themselves so that they can
<v Speaker 2>be protected from any sort of competition from open source,
<v Speaker 2>getting them to work hand in hand with it is
<v Speaker 2>the ideal scenario. Because I do not think we can
<v Speaker 2>make corporations into good things, good actors. All we can
<v Speaker 2>do is try to line up their interests with the
<v Speaker 2>rest of ours occasionally and then get something good out
<v Speaker 2>of it. And that this is an example of that.
<v Speaker 2>Because you're right, this is not magnanimous. This is not
<v Speaker 2>them being angels. It is I'm trying to set up
<v Speaker 2>something or you know, the individual work inside of the
<v Speaker 2>company that could be that could be someone that believes
<v Speaker 2>in open.
<v Speaker 4>Soorce, yes, that's for this to happen, someone has to
<v Speaker 4>lobby for it. Someone internally has to champion this as
<v Speaker 4>an idea and go to the money people and be like, hey, no,
<v Speaker 4>this is like something worth doing. So like not to
<v Speaker 4>take away from the hard work that's someone on several
<v Speaker 4>poll obviously did to gather sauce code for these old games,
<v Speaker 4>which oftentimes isn't easy to find and to locate, and
<v Speaker 4>so yeah, like shout outs to the people who worked
<v Speaker 4>on this, because it's a really fucking cool thing.
<v Speaker 1>Yep, absolutely all right.
<v Speaker 2>Metroid Dread dev's new game is Blades of Fire, releases
<v Speaker 2>in May. This is in Blair Marnell at game Spot.
<v Speaker 2>It's been a long time since Mercury Steam released an
<v Speaker 2>original game, but the studio behind Metroid Samus returns and
<v Speaker 2>Metroid Dread has finally revealed a first look at its
<v Speaker 2>upcoming dark fantasy action RPG, Blades of Fury, and the
<v Speaker 2>announcement trailer, players are introduced to Aaron de Leira as
<v Speaker 2>he prepares to face his destiny ahead on against some
<v Speaker 2>dangerous foes. Luckily, for around Aaron, I'm gonna say Aaron said.
<v Speaker 2>Luckily for Aaron, he's well armed with weapons of his
<v Speaker 2>own creation. In the game's backstory, Aarin is the firstborn
<v Speaker 2>of the King's Ward and he's forced to take this
<v Speaker 2>take a stand after the recently crowned Queen Narrea uses
<v Speaker 2>dark magic to solidify her power in the kingdom. Thanks
<v Speaker 2>to Naraea's spell, all steel on the Kingdom has been
<v Speaker 2>turned to stone, and only the evil creatures at her
<v Speaker 2>command have the Divine Metal that can oblate, obliterate any
<v Speaker 2>normal weapon used against them. That's why Aaron will have
<v Speaker 2>to forge his own weapons to counter the Divine Metal's power,
<v Speaker 2>and there are several different weapons that can be chosen. Yeah, a,
<v Speaker 2>this game not a Metroid Vanya at least, or not
<v Speaker 2>two D Metro Advanya. There could be Symmetro Avena elements
<v Speaker 2>to it. It honestly looks a lot like God of
<v Speaker 2>War twenty eighteen.
<v Speaker 3>Do you want?
<v Speaker 4>What it really reminds me of is if Mercury Steam
<v Speaker 4>made that Castlevania Lords a shadow game in twenty twenty five. Right,
<v Speaker 4>So I'm I had that guess on Blue Sky where
<v Speaker 4>it's like I'm calling my shot that Mercury Sima working
<v Speaker 4>on a Castlevania thing for Kuonami.
<v Speaker 3>That's superna.
<v Speaker 4>But this isn't a million miles off of where that
<v Speaker 4>would have gone if they had kept doing that. And
<v Speaker 4>this looks interesting. It's five oh five publishing, who obviously
<v Speaker 4>like do Control. I'm not sure if they're still publishing Control.
<v Speaker 1>They're not publishing Control too.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, I can't remember who even owned Yeah, I can't
<v Speaker 4>remember the last thing five or five put out.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I mean five or five days. A lot of
<v Speaker 2>B games and things like that. This, and honestly, you know,
<v Speaker 2>in terms of I don't know. When I look at this,
<v Speaker 2>I think I think be game, and not in a
<v Speaker 2>negative way. It looks like the B movie equivalent of
<v Speaker 2>God of War twenty eighteen or the Casavania games, as
<v Speaker 2>you pointed out. So yeah, I think this looks pretty cool,
<v Speaker 2>and Mercury Steam feels like they are ready to take
<v Speaker 2>a big step forward with a big original game.
<v Speaker 1>You know, good for them.
<v Speaker 2>I know there have been reports out of Mercury Steam
<v Speaker 2>that there were you know, some workplace toxicity, so of
<v Speaker 2>course you always hope that that stuff has been addressed
<v Speaker 2>and it's not a problem or as minimized and mitigated
<v Speaker 2>as much as possible, but as far as.
<v Speaker 1>This game goes, it looks I'm curious. I'm curious. I
<v Speaker 1>would like to see how it performs and how it
<v Speaker 1>does and how it plays. But yeah, good for them.
<v Speaker 2>I think the problem for me is, I God, I
<v Speaker 2>hope you know Nintendo found someone to make the next
<v Speaker 2>two D Metroid because apparently it's not Mercury Steam, or
<v Speaker 2>if it is, it's another team there. And now they
<v Speaker 2>seem like they must have been really busy making this game,
<v Speaker 2>because it looks like a very very big game. So
<v Speaker 2>you know, in my head, I was always fantasy booking, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>they would make the next new Metroid game after DREG
<v Speaker 2>because Drag was so so so good.
<v Speaker 1>Of course Nintendo would want to keep.
<v Speaker 2>Them on doing that, but maybe they weren't able to
<v Speaker 2>do that, and maybe Mercury seem's like, we don't even
<v Speaker 2>want to work with you because we have bigger ambitions
<v Speaker 2>for our own game.
<v Speaker 1>And again, good for them, but got a like I
<v Speaker 1>would like a new Metroid.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know, all right, forts the Horizon five on
<v Speaker 2>PS five pro even hass features the.
<v Speaker 1>Xbox version doesn't have. This is from alex co at
<v Speaker 1>Dual shockers.
<v Speaker 2>Last month, Microsoft surprise gamers by announcing that another Xbox
<v Speaker 2>exclusive game is headed to the PS five and that
<v Speaker 2>it's racing game for the Horizon five. It's not just
<v Speaker 2>a straight part as today, Playground Games has revealed that
<v Speaker 2>the PS five version will even have features not available
<v Speaker 2>on Xbox platforms. In a new blog post by Playground Games,
<v Speaker 2>the developer confirmed that the PS five Pro version of
<v Speaker 2>the game will feature in game ray tracing in gameplay
<v Speaker 2>and in the open world. The Xbox versions only has
<v Speaker 2>this feature available in garages. Well, this might seem like
<v Speaker 2>a small, detailed this is still odd to see given
<v Speaker 2>an x in Xbox first party game technically will look
<v Speaker 2>better on a competitor's console.
<v Speaker 1>Excuse me.
<v Speaker 2>At the very least, car reflections should look way better
<v Speaker 2>on the PS five Pro. Alongside that, Playground Games also
<v Speaker 2>announced the graphical modes players can expect for the PS
<v Speaker 2>five version of the game. There's a Performance mode at
<v Speaker 2>sixty frames per second, a Quality mode that runs to
<v Speaker 2>thirty frames per second. Playground Games added that on PS
<v Speaker 2>five Pro, the Performance mode receives increased visual fidelity, while
<v Speaker 2>Quality mode adds ray trace car reflections to races and
<v Speaker 2>free realm. Like, see, I'm not going to turn on
<v Speaker 2>ray trace reflections if it means I'm getting thirty frames
<v Speaker 2>per second in a racing game.
<v Speaker 1>But that's me still.
<v Speaker 2>You know, the story here is the game technically has
<v Speaker 2>features and looks better on a PlayStation than it does
<v Speaker 2>on an Xbox. Should people freak out about this? And
<v Speaker 2>to me, I don't know, this feels like a very
<v Speaker 2>normal thing these days. You're putting it on a new platform,
<v Speaker 2>selling it to more people. That's going to make the
<v Speaker 2>juice of this effort worth the squeeze in a lot
<v Speaker 2>a lot of ways. So it just doesn't shock me
<v Speaker 2>all that much.
<v Speaker 1>How about you.
<v Speaker 4>I feel like super bad for the people who were
<v Speaker 4>probably working on this version of the game, and at
<v Speaker 4>some point they had to go into a meeting with
<v Speaker 4>Microsoft giving updates on how development is going and explain like, hey,
<v Speaker 4>we want this game to be the best it can
<v Speaker 4>be on the platform that we are releasing. Yeah, of course,
<v Speaker 4>we like, we thank you for your support and you
<v Speaker 4>know you own us on all of this, but also
<v Speaker 4>we want it to be the best version of the
<v Speaker 4>game that people can play. Yeah, And the idea of
<v Speaker 4>like selling a version of Forts Horizon five that is
<v Speaker 4>like intentionally held back on PlayStation five.
<v Speaker 1>Pro also the more powerful platform.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, yeah, because that's kind of the exact thing that
<v Speaker 4>Microsoft was promising the courts that they wouldn't do was
<v Speaker 4>release subpower versions of Call of Jugi and things like
<v Speaker 4>that on a competitors console. So in a lot of ways,
<v Speaker 4>you know, the existence of the PS five Pro has
<v Speaker 4>put them in a very awkward position because it's a
<v Speaker 4>box which is better than their box on a fundamental
<v Speaker 4>power level, and they have to to like be seen
<v Speaker 4>as good sports, to be seen as good business partners,
<v Speaker 4>which you always want to be a good business partner, Like, Yeah,
<v Speaker 4>they just have.
<v Speaker 2>To work with that, and I think, you know, it's
<v Speaker 2>an awkward position for maybe the Xbox platform people within Microsoft,
<v Speaker 2>maybe if they even care. But at the very least
<v Speaker 2>it's not awkward for the developers because, as you said,
<v Speaker 2>they're job is to make the game run as good
<v Speaker 2>as it possibly can wherever they're putting the game out,
<v Speaker 2>and that is going to be their their their priority
<v Speaker 2>first and foremost. They're not going to hold it back
<v Speaker 2>because of some like implied or some perceived idea that
<v Speaker 2>they are favoring PlayStation over their home console. They are
<v Speaker 2>not going to be thinking about that. These are people
<v Speaker 2>who want to who are making a game, and they
<v Speaker 2>want their game to be as good as possible.
<v Speaker 4>So the people, the people who like I do genuinely
<v Speaker 4>feel bad for in this situation is the community managers
<v Speaker 4>and the public facing developers who are going to get
<v Speaker 4>shipped from like absolute assholes who will use.
<v Speaker 1>This as titled gamers.
<v Speaker 4>Yes, and it's like, man, these people are literally just
<v Speaker 4>doing their job in the very simplest the terms, like
<v Speaker 4>they have done nothing wrong here in this situation.
<v Speaker 1>Yep, all right, a couple more stories here.
<v Speaker 2>Pokemon Champions unintended switch to be digital only paid games,
<v Speaker 2>just kind of small details still coming out of that
<v Speaker 2>Pokemon Day Direct presentation that we had earlier this week.
<v Speaker 2>This is is one of the basically the only new
<v Speaker 2>new game that they announced, obviously Pokemon Legends z A.
<v Speaker 2>Pokemon Legends z A it hasn't come out yet, but
<v Speaker 2>this was a new announcement in Champions, which is the
<v Speaker 2>battle mode from a Pokemon Stadium game. Essentially, who ripped
<v Speaker 2>out of a game, ripped out of a game, put
<v Speaker 2>on iOS, Android and Switch and they are gonna sell
<v Speaker 2>it to people, so it's not gonna be like a
<v Speaker 2>free down load.
<v Speaker 1>It's gonna sell it to you, but it's not gonna
<v Speaker 1>be a physical game.
<v Speaker 2>It'll just be a digital only thing, which makes sense
<v Speaker 2>because it's a phone app that they're also putting out
<v Speaker 2>on switch right.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, I was gonna say, I have like negashuv, I
<v Speaker 4>have no interest in any Pokemon self whatsoever.
<v Speaker 2>I'm pretty sure on your continent, Jordan Midler has sucked
<v Speaker 2>up all of that for himself, so no one else
<v Speaker 2>does either.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, all Irish people hate the whatever British people like.
<v Speaker 3>So I see Waldon like that. I'm like, well, gotta
<v Speaker 3>hate this. I'm curious.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, we didn't hear it. We didn't get to hear
<v Speaker 4>the reaction from them from one Joe who Yeah, okay,
<v Speaker 4>that's all I wanted to hear.
<v Speaker 1>Cool, that's all you need to know. Yeah, so, you know,
<v Speaker 1>I think they didn't give us an idea of like
<v Speaker 1>when this is coming, but it's probably or maybe they
<v Speaker 1>said like a general time frame, but either way, probably
<v Speaker 1>this year.
<v Speaker 4>Karachi in chat just said Ireland is a Digiman country,
<v Speaker 4>and boy, this this racism sweeping America has gotten out
<v Speaker 4>of hand.
<v Speaker 3>The anti Irish sentiment.
<v Speaker 1>Point not to lie, I don't see it all right.
<v Speaker 2>According to analysts, Avowed will be a bigger hit than
<v Speaker 2>Indiana Jones in the Great Circle in its first month.
<v Speaker 1>This is from Alberta Grito at Game Reactor.
<v Speaker 2>February has proved to be a tremendously busy month for
<v Speaker 2>video game releases like Kingdomcome, Deliverance to Civilization seven, Like
<v Speaker 2>a Dragon, Avowed, Monster Hunter, Wilds, and more. Uh and
<v Speaker 2>these are just the most important ones. You can check
<v Speaker 2>out the rest in it. They have an article and
<v Speaker 2>now that some of them have been on sale for
<v Speaker 2>a few weeks, we can extrapolate how they have performed
<v Speaker 2>or will perform in terms of sales and popularity. The
<v Speaker 2>game analytics agenda mind game Data has shared its projections
<v Speaker 2>for the first month on the market for Avowed, the
<v Speaker 2>recent RPG from Obsidian and Xbox Game Studios, and the
<v Speaker 2>data is quite surprising. According to the analyst firm, Avowed
<v Speaker 2>will reach four point nine million players in its first
<v Speaker 2>month on sale, including both game Pass subscribers who have
<v Speaker 2>played it there and those who have purchased a copy
<v Speaker 2>of the game digitally or physically. That figure alone is
<v Speaker 2>telling enough, and it seems we weren't the only ones
<v Speaker 2>to enjoy its colorful adventure. Blah Blah Blah points out
<v Speaker 2>that that is more so than the around four million
<v Speaker 2>that Indiana Jones managed in its first month. To me,
<v Speaker 2>the way I read this Lexi is that people are
<v Speaker 2>kind of feeling good about Microsoft's game output and a
<v Speaker 2>way that they were not for a while there. So
<v Speaker 2>it's like, actually, what's happening is a vout is building
<v Speaker 2>on the success of Indiana Jones, where people are more
<v Speaker 2>willing to be like, oh, let me get my Xbox out,
<v Speaker 2>let me get it connected again. I'm playing Indiana Jones
<v Speaker 2>and now a vouts here, and people who were maybe
<v Speaker 2>waiting on the sideline or like, well, now there's two
<v Speaker 2>good games, so that I have even more of a
<v Speaker 2>reason to go over there to either buy these games
<v Speaker 2>or subscribe to game Pass or I got game Pass
<v Speaker 2>because the Indiana Jones and now I'm playing a vout
<v Speaker 2>on top of that. So I think the sort of
<v Speaker 2>idea that Microsoft had behind acquiring all these studios and
<v Speaker 2>releasing all these games is starting to pay off. Fore,
<v Speaker 2>it is having a little bit of a network effect
<v Speaker 2>and one is doing better than the next, or one
<v Speaker 2>is doing better than the last.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, and that goes especially so for studio like Obsidian,
<v Speaker 4>who are one of the very few Microsoft studios right
<v Speaker 4>now who have multiple releases under their belt since they
<v Speaker 4>have been acquired by Microsoft.
<v Speaker 3>Like, it's one of the few studios.
<v Speaker 4>That you can look to and you can go you know,
<v Speaker 4>Outer Worlds, Pentiment and Grounded all have kind of been
<v Speaker 4>supported and came out under Microsoft's.
<v Speaker 1>Like Watch and all like kind of punched above their weight. Yeah, am, and.
<v Speaker 4>People generally like so like, people feel good about Obsidian
<v Speaker 4>games at the moment, and you know what.
<v Speaker 1>We can probably wrap up the show about is selling well?
<v Speaker 1>Good for it? It is?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I got I really enjoy that game. It is
<v Speaker 2>going to have long legs, It's gonna it's gonna do
<v Speaker 2>well over time. People are gonna be picking out that
<v Speaker 2>game up throughout this entire year.
<v Speaker 1>I think, all right, let's see here, pull question. If
<v Speaker 1>you're ready for it, Jan, I'm not so. There we go.
<v Speaker 1>Let's let me get it up over here. Do you
<v Speaker 1>have a handheld gaming PC? Let me refresh that and
<v Speaker 1>see if that is the uh right one? There we go.
<v Speaker 2>Nope, The right one is have you ever bought a
<v Speaker 2>controller from eight bit Dough? I have, In fact, I
<v Speaker 2>just bought one yesterday.
<v Speaker 1>And holy crap, forty eight percent of our respondents of
<v Speaker 1>the two point six thousand people that voted, have bought
<v Speaker 1>an eight bit dough controller. Man, that is quite quite
<v Speaker 1>a few of you.
<v Speaker 4>When I think of the Giant Bomb audience, that is
<v Speaker 4>maybe the most biased call that you have done in
<v Speaker 4>a long time. I mean, be inclined to buy an
<v Speaker 4>eight bito controller. It's people who watch Giant Bomb.
<v Speaker 2>And people who have been influenced by us not shutting
<v Speaker 2>up about it. Fifty two percent said no, uh yeah,
<v Speaker 2>that ultimate to control here should be here tomorrow and
<v Speaker 2>I'm looking forward to trying it out.
<v Speaker 1>So I got the purple one. I'm pretty excited about it.
<v Speaker 2>Oh excuse me, all right, you have a new poll
<v Speaker 2>question before we get to that, Lexie, why don't you
<v Speaker 2>tell peop where they can.
<v Speaker 1>Find you on the internet what you have going on
<v Speaker 1>all that good stuff.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, find me at basically Lexi on Blue Sky and
<v Speaker 4>the Stamman You podcast has recently come back. Second episode
<v Speaker 4>is going up on Monday. We have special guest Squidge
<v Speaker 4>rugby on, which, if you know anything about rugby, is
<v Speaker 4>very exciting. He is probably the best rugby analyst in
<v Speaker 4>the business, but also a big old fucking nerd on
<v Speaker 4>a He's glace. So we hung out with him and
<v Speaker 4>talked about the Pokemon presentation and what he's been playing
<v Speaker 4>on rug Be twenty five, which is a bad video game.
<v Speaker 1>Well then, jee, should we be doing this in a
<v Speaker 1>video Ninja baby? Okay? Cool? All right?
<v Speaker 2>Well, new pole question? Where are you playing Monster Hunter Wild's?
<v Speaker 2>Xbox PlayStation PC? And here's a little special one for
<v Speaker 2>you all out there.
<v Speaker 1>I'm not playing it. You can also vote for that
<v Speaker 1>if you're not playing it instead of just trying to
<v Speaker 1>see the results. We'll get the results of that, all right, everybody,
<v Speaker 1>we have, So we did a new poll question, where
<v Speaker 1>are you playing Monster hunder Wilds? Thank you Lexi so
<v Speaker 1>much for hanging out with me today and talking about
<v Speaker 1>video games. I really appreciate it.
<v Speaker 3>For talking glob This is the first time I've thanked you.
<v Speaker 2>Yep, that's right and first and only time you're ever
<v Speaker 2>gonna have to thank me. Thank you Jan for producing
<v Speaker 2>through this message. We kind of piece everything together and
<v Speaker 2>figure out what it's going to look like now. Thank
<v Speaker 2>you everybody for watching all week while we did some
<v Speaker 2>fun stuff on Giant Bomb, But most importantly, thank you
<v Speaker 2>for watching and listening this show.
<v Speaker 1>Until next time, have a good one, take care of yourself,
<v Speaker 1>and goodbye. I'm going to reach my hand over to
<v Speaker 1>Lexi's side of the window. Bye.