¶ Intro
Hello, everybody, Welcome back to the Game Informer Show, a weekly podcast covering the video game industry. Join us every Friday for a discussion about the latest gaming news, reviews, and exclusive reveals. Along it's a Game Informer staff and special guests from around the industry. I'm one of your hosts today, Alex van Aiken. Today I'm joined by Marcus Stewart. How are you?
I'm doing good?
How are you?
I missed you.
I know it's been a busy it's been a busy month so far. But happy to be back on the show. Thanks for holding it down, you know, how are you? How's January? Good? All good?
Ah, you know it's all good down here. It's cold here in Florida. I know that's like you guys.
Yeah, man, let's pull out my at my weather app man.
I don't know if you guys know what cold is, but down here in Florida, it's been a chilly fifty four degrees nice.
It's supposed to be minus twenty three on Friday, but Eric, it's.
Been windy, which makes it feel like it's thirty degrees.
No, no, you don't get to pull that, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Our windshill on Friday is supposed to be like in the minus forties or something. Yeah, Marcus, you're lucky that you're lucky. We're on a podcast right now that's somewhat family friendly. All right. We're also joined by Eric Van Allen. How you doing, Eric?
I thought I previously understood what cold was, and I think I had a frame of reference for what the word cold entailed. And then I went for a little walk to a local taco shop here little to get her, yeah, to get some food, and I experienced what actual cold feels like when a giant wind gust of minus thirty wind chill comes through and blasts you right in the face. And now I think Elsa is lying when she said the cold never bothered her anywhere anyways. I'd like her
to move up to Minneapolis and repeat that sentiment. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think she's just like cushy in her castle life. She doesn't get it. Well. We got a pretty big show this week. Big news from UB Software being diving into the cancelation of multiple projects and reductions in staff and strategic changes that have been outlined in a recent call Investor's Call. We got all those details coming after a break later and before we get into that we're going to be talking about MIO, which is Memories in Orbit, I believe is what it stands for. Ye, and it's
a new Metroidvania as well as t R forty nine. No, that's not a new calculator. That is a new puzzle game that Eric really really enjoys. So guys, so let's get into it, shall we. I just want to say before we do, head over to gamingform dot com slash subscribe and pick up a magazine. It's the best way to support us. If you're looking at store shelves at Barnes and Noble Books a million or international newsstands, you can find our World of Warcraft issue on store shelves
in the US. It's eleven ninety nine. And if you are a subscriber, good news. We've just announced our next issue that is coming as double O seven First Light. That's our cover story. And Eric, you flew out to where do you? Where did you go?
Copenhagen went cop Yeah, yeah, it.
Was just across the water from Malmo.
It was really really nice out there, lovely, lovely place. If you stay tuned to the GI YouTube TikTok, Instagram and stuff like that. We'll be putting up some behind the scenes of our trip out there, what it's like out there on the ground where the folks at Io make all their games, including the Hitman trilogy and the upcoming Double seven First Light. We've got some cool behind the scenes and just general like putting you.
In the place.
That's something we're trying to do a little bit more of with some of our kind of story trips. Is like, let you see the sites and sounds and places where people make these games, because I think that does carry a lot of story into how the games are made. So look for that. There'll be some cool stuff there.
Yeah, and that issue launches early. The early Digital Access goes live next week, so next episode we'll be diving into our impressions of the game, what we saw on our cover trip, and then a couple of weeks later those issues will be hitting mailboxes and news stands at their normal time. Digital is always kind of like an early version early access, and you get that with a subscription.
Go to GameInformer dot com slash subscribe. We usually have discounts running and it is cheaper to get a subscription than it is to buy issues from the news stand every time. So if that is an option for you, if you're in the States, I recommend it. But yeah, let's get into the show. Guys. Marcus, tell me about
¶ MIO: Memories In Orbit
this new Metroid Vana Mio.
Yeah, it's it's it's so funny because this game I almost want to say, hey, do you like Hollo Nite, because this is what this game reminds me of the most, And I.
Know haven't haven't had a Hollow Night experience in a while. Yeah, it's been a minute.
It's it's and it sounds productive, but it really is a cut from a similar cloth. So Meo Memory is in orbit. It's out now as of this week. It is like a sort of like sci fi uh, very very beautifully rendered uh Metroid Veana. It's got a really nice sort of like watercolor art direction that I really like. And you play as this little robot named Meo who
wakes up in this mysterious world. And as far as I can gather, I have not finished this game, but you are sort of tasked with exploring this sort of like abandoned almost kind of like derelict. I don't even know if it's like a space station or if it's a planet, I don't know where you are. It's just a bunch of different biomes and you're kind of collecting
or you're reactivating. I think these kind of like these nose that all make up part of like a seemingly like a larger consciousness, like like they're each sort of like biome contains like sort of the these like wall of mcguffins for the sake of the conversation. Yeah, like a mcguffin named after like a body part of like this area has the eye, this area is the spy, this one's the heart. And you don't know why you're doing this, and this kind of like you don't know
totally why you're doing a lot of things. It's one of those games that's this.
Sounds like there's not much exposition then.
No, at least not yet, but it is one of those games that's sort of a bit it's a little bit cryptic in his story telling, like you're finding Audiologus along the way from seemingly a either a civilization that was once around that is no longer present or some of the other robotic life forms that you'll meet along the way, Like you'll come across these other robots that are either having like their own little problems, you can do a little quest for them, or you're coming across
the robots that are just dead, like you'll just see like robots buried on the rubble and they'll have a little word prompt that'll just be like, Nah, this guy, he's too far gone. You can't fix him. And you're like, oh, that's kind of sad. But I bring up the Hollo of Night comparison, because like that game, it is a very challenging game. Mainly it does the holl of Night thing where you cannot see the map for a lot
of the game. In the beginning, you're just sort of like flying blind until you eventually unlock the ability to see the map. And it all also has a similar sort of like progression system where you are collecting sort of like abilities, but you can only equip certain abilities at a time, and each one spends a like limited resource that you have, so you're constantly going to your sort of like safe station to swap out the ability
to collect based on how much bandwidth you have. So, like one of the abilities gives you the the power to see the enemy's health bars or another one allows you to see your own status, So if which is that's an interesting one where like if you don't equip that, you have no idea what your health is, but you might want to equip it just to make you know room for something else that you might think is more important, Like I have one that makes your combo attack stronger,
and then I got one recently where there's like some that like takes take away your bandwidth and exchange for an ability.
Uh, Like I got one.
It was like, oh, here's minus five off of my life, like currently, like my cap is thirty five. Like nodes, I guess we'll call them. But some of them can take like ten or right if like two that takes twenty where it's like I don't know, I would have to pretty much unequipped everything to use this one. But yeah, some of them are like, hey, you lose overall bandwidth,
but you get this useful ability. So it's a lot of juggling around with those and sort of like switch switching them in and out depending on the situation, whether it's like a specific platforming segment or like a really hard boss. But I was like it thankfully it plays really well, like I think the combat like it's basically kind of like three hit combos, but it feels pretty nice. You've got kind of like a like a floaty or
jump than maybe in something like Hall Night. But it does allow for a lot of sort of like like air combos on your part, or if you play your cards right, you can kind of like jump in the air like maybe a flying enemy and then just like hit a combo, then double jump, then kind of reset your jump and just keep hitting in the air and just kind of keep doing that and just kind of maintain your like airborne assault and while also dodging in
the air. Like right now, I unlocked it ability where I can shoot sort of like a wire that can use kind of like a grapple hook and can also pull you towards enemies. That's been really useful. And then I also have like like a teleporting dodge. They see like he almost goes like or she almost goes like Nightcrawler just kind of disappears in a poof of smoke to like evade damage and then come back. So like those have kind of added some nice depth to what
are often pretty challenging combat encounters. The regular enemies can take you down if you're not on your game. But the boss fights like Hollow Night are really sort of dependent on like reading enemy patterns and like you know, like trying to find out like what's my window here, like how many how much damage can I audition before I need to back off, And a lot of like maneuverability to sort of like try to stay behind enemies or just trying to trying to target their weak points.
But don't be surprised if it takes you probably at least and the bosses that I fay at least like three to maybe six or seven attempts to get past something, and the runbacks can be pretty lengthy until you unlock shortcuts, as you do in these kind of games. Okay, I do think does Matt actually pose this question? Matt Miller or editor and chief who reviewed this game, and you
can read his review now on the website. He was kind of asking if he thought this game was harder than Hollow nighte Silk Song, and he brought up an interesting point that might put it over the edge, in the sense that me and mio you can't heal yourself at will, so when you begin the game, you only have two health pips whatever you want to call them, Like, essentially, you can get hit twice or three times before you go down, and there's no way to heal yourself, unlike
an Hollow Night, where you can. The only way to replenish your health is that you have to reach these kind of like designated little checkpoints where you have to
spin currency to replenish each pip individually. So one pip might cost like ten of this resource, and then the second we'll jacket up to fifteen, And so you kind of have to decide like, oh, do I want to spend money to heal right now or do I want to save this because I found like a shop keep that has an upgrade, I'm kind of you know, saving up for So what's the move here, especially because I got this like tough platforming gautlet ahead of me, and
that has made the game, I think, at least for me, Like as someone that likes Hollow Night, I think this does make it a little bit more difficult in that sense of like you have two hits and you are not replenishing this until you can hopefully find a place where you can, you know, like the safe station, and then you gotta hope do you have enough money, which thankfully it's not super expensive, but when you're dying over and over again having to replenish it, run through your
your wallet pretty quickly. Like I've had times where it's like I'm stuck on this little platforming segment and every time I take a hit, I double back to like replenish that hit, and then it's like.
Oh, I'm out of money.
Well, like it's going to work what I have, and then if I die, I'm going all the way back to the last checkpoint, which for a long time in this game, the first check point in the game was the only checkpoint I had. Jez, Yeah, it took me a while to find like the next real checkpoint that you can kind of fast travel between. Otherwise you're just kind of unlocking a bunch of shortcuts that just lead you back to the sort of like the initial checkpoint.
This probably all sounds like, like I think, if you will know if you like this game, like if you enjoy kind of like challenging action platformers, well like A Holid Night or even like A because I think the other game this reminds me of a little bit is orient the Blind Force, at least on the platforming side and orient in the whist and it's like it's not just the combat that's tough, but there's stretches where it's like, Okay, now we're gonna have to really master your like double
jump and your little grapple hook because you're going to go through this crazy series of like platforming challenges, and again with such limited health, where like I can get hit twice and then I'm out.
Do you think it comes close to kind of hitting the same highs as something like an or not quite?
I think I think because ORI's platforming I think is better. But also Ari is a lot more of a platforming focus game. Like I look at Ori, especially the sequel, it's like that is a platforming first and combat second game, whereas Hollow Nite is kind of the opposite, at least to me. Even though I think Hollow NIGHTE has like some good platforming sequence, I look at that game more
as an action game than a platformer. I think Mio is in that camp, like closer to the Holomax kind of things, even though there are some like genuine like Okay, this is a pure platforming challenge here, this is this is the challenge is going to teach me to get good but the grapple hook.
And also like.
There's like like I got to this area and it's kind of like almost this really beautiful kind of like greenhouse area where it had like these flowers that you can hit, and when you hit the flower, it replenishes your double jump and your ability to use the grapple hook, because those are like very quick cool downs, but enough of a cool down to where if you don't touch the ground, you will just and you need to use a grapple hook, you just won't and then it will
just fall into a pit and die. So it kind of like hitting those flowers kind of replenishes that resource in mid air. So I was in one little area where it's like, okay, I got to get through this. Like it's like I'm surrounded by this weird foliage that kills you if you touch it, and there's nothing but grapple points and those little bounce flowers that replenish your thing.
I need to like just get through this and in mid air, hit those flowers, get my grapple back, and keep grappling across while also hitting those flowers and never touching the ground because if I touch the ground, it's death, it's that is it's all really fun. Like I'm enjoying
the game so far. I couldn't tell you confidently what is happening in the story, but it's it's more like the lore and some of the at least the implication of the Lord that I find marg thing than the actual plot is just like, oh, this is just like a it's got a fun, mysterious vibe. I think some of the robots are kind of funny or like cute.
The enemy seemed pretty cool, Like there's like they're all just they almost remind me a little bit of like Makeing X enemies because some of them are just like weird robot animals, like like there's these like chamellions in one area that can turn invisible and shoot their tongues at you, and you're like, oh, that's a cool enemy
like stuff like that. I do think though, that the like I said, the run backs and sort of the the health restrictions are pretty rough, and I still don't know if I if I think the game needs that to be enjoyable, you know of like maybe it's like if I could heal in any time, would it really detract from the experience, which is why I recommend. I believe there are some like difficulty assist options in the maybe that you can turn on. I haven't really delved
into them yet. I'm kind of like, I don't know, stubborn game or guy, I just feel like, yeah, I don't. I mean not that I think it's bad, I just I just typically don't. I just don't use those often enough. I should go in there sometime and just see what's what's actually available in there. But I know they're there, which is nice for those that want to if they can make the experience easier for them. But yeah, I'm enjoying it so far though.
Overall.
Have you guys started at all?
No? Unfortunately, No. It has been on my list to get to this and of the next game we're gonna be talking about TR forty nine. Both of those are on my playlist for this month. I think I just felt like I needed a little bit of a break from a Metroidpinion because I sunk a lot of time into Silksong yeah, and got pretty burnt out, honestly, and the thought of doing that again isn't as appealing right now as maybe it will be with a few more weeks time or or even you know, next month or something.
But yeah, I think it was Charles Charles Hard that made this jog where he's saying like, I wonder how much the MEO devs were so confident that Silk Song wasn't coming out that they were like, we can make a holidnight. Some songs never coming out and came not too long before there, it's like, oh crap, Okay.
Yeah, I hope that's not the case because that's unfortunate. But speaking of TR forty nine, Eric would love to
¶ TR-49
hear about that game from you. This is from Inkle right, Yeah, to Inkle is a dev tool, but they also publish their own games.
Yeah, Inkle makes Ink the game development tool also has made overboard Highland song, the one that I never remember the name of the school, No, Heaven's Gate, Yeah that too, I was trying to think of the school one I think it's expelled is what?
Oh yeah, the one last year? Yeah. Yeah.
A lot of really interesting narrative focused games in a lot of different directions, and this one kind of fits that bill where this is I think the top level, the least spoilery version of this that I can do, and I will endeavor to not disclose any amount of like substantial spoilers. But this is a game that's a puzzle box where like the unfolding of it is part of the enjoyment of it. So take that, you know,
with what you will. It is very much Ankle doing a Sam Barlow or Inkle doing a like a Root
Trees Are Dead Return of the Oberdin type game. They even cite those games as big influences for TR forty nine, which is you wake up in a damp, dark basement with a machine in front of you, and your only inputs are to input things on the machine, which takes two letters and two numbers and then finds an entry first said combination, and from there, guided by a handler who's coming in over the voice intercom the radio intercom, you kind of just have to figure out what's going
on and why you're here, what you're doing, what this machine does, why the thing you're doing is importan, and who the handler is. It's a mystery box game in a lot of ways.
I think.
There's a degree to which the unfolding of that mystery is important. And I say that because normally, with like say, say a Sam Barlow game is an easy example her story. You go into it with an idea that because the framework around you, you're watching what is obviously a police interview on an old computer, you can kind of start to elicit some Okay, there's like something that happened here, there was an event that I am searching for. There, there's a reason why this story is being told me
through this medium. Telling lies is the same way where you're looking through somebody else's laptop and you're like, oh, this is very probing. This is you're investigating, but like in a way that you're not supposed to be, Like you would be worried if you got caught sort of thing. So telling lies like builds that and immortality gives you
the sort of film archive presentation. So you're going, okay, this is about scanning through things, but like the edges that other people didn't get to see because they got to see the finished film but not you know, what happens before and after the snap.
Bar and all that.
So all that being said, what you kind of draw out of TR forty nine is you have this very mechanical machine, this very like it is built for a task, and so you don't really have a lot of emotion to build around it. You don't have a lot of intent to build around it. And discovering the intent of the machine is part of the game. Like even the person who's speaking to you like really obfuscates for a while, like he implies that he knows what it does, but
that you don't need to know what it does. You just need to keep operating it, keep doing what you're doing. So what you end up doing, and that's a very long obfuscated way of saying, you're putting stuff in and you're seeing what comes out. You're trying to elicit meaning from it. So maybe if you discover that, I'm going to make up some examples so that way I don't spoil any actual solutions, but just dis cover that a
certain author is in this machine. Maybe you figured out taxonomically what like how to find more works by them in the machine. This is actually something you should figure out while playing the game. So but maybe you start to understand better like, Okay, there are authors in here, there are books, what kind of books? What are the
books saying? How are they relating to each other? And then as you dig in, some information will start to be offfiscated and you'll have to clear it up by uncovering more information from footnotes, from people who built the machine, people who have operated the machine in the past, and that's how you start to uncover everything about what TR forty nine actually is.
Eric, Is it a someone I've been playing this game too? Is it a spoiler to say, like mechanically how you interact with this machine?
Because I feel like, yes, like I said you, I mean, so I've played it with I played it with a mouse, and they have said that it's steam Deck Optimize, like built for steam Deck, even though it's not verified just yet. It just came out today as of this recording, so
it's it is like steam Deck built. But the idea is that you can use touch screen or a controller or a mouse or whatever, but you kind of move these wheels around and punch in like two letters two numbers, and that is your like functional input into this machine. There's also a speaker button for talking to your handler, but broadly that is kind of how you're inputting.
Is that kind of what you're getting at?
Well, yeah, because I was it was going to lead into my point of sort of my annoyance.
With this game.
So I've put a couple of hours into this too. And this is a game that is very much up my alley. It's someone that loves you know, her story, root trees, that kind of stuff. But I think, like I'm having a hard time still wrapping my head around
how this game works. A lot of it comes from what you mentioned, Eric of the Handler, sort of like intentional only sort of like offuscating your true purpose here, which to me, actually it kind of gets annoying just from a narrative standpoint where it's like like so your protagonist will constantly kind of ask like, hey, what are we doing or why are we doing this? And then he'll every now and then it'll be like it's because of Blake, Blake Blake, but it'll give like he'll give
like the veguus answer possible. But this is also a person that you can freely call any time, kind of like almost like metal gear Codec style.
Uh.
And I just never understood why. I was like why she kind of like put up with it where I'm just like, can you just tell me what we're doing places, or at least just tell me explain like the base premise for me, because this the characters don't kind of like players surrogate of like, hey, what even is this weird machine?
Like this doesn't look like why why am I here? Like like why did I wake up down here?
Yeah? Yeah, and it's like where am I?
And I think for me the player looking at this machine, I was, I'm still having I still haven't fully grass how this machine works. This isn't like any machine I've ever seen before. And I think where it's kind of lose me. Is that unlike something like root Trees or like her Story where it's like, oh, it's you're just it's a search engine. I understand that. I know how that works. I just need to understand what I'm what I'm trying to find, But I know functionally how this
thing works. Where I look at this, I'm like, I don't even know what I'm Like when I was first of all like the numbers and stuff like what am I even supposed to do with this? And I'm waiting for like the TATORI to pop up like okay, give me the basic like what do these numbers mean? Like
what am I even? And then it doesn't really do that, so you do have to kind of stump, like really just stumble and wait for kind of like conversations to pop up where they might illuminate like this is what you're supposed to do, but it's also I don't know, I don't know if it's dependent on like you have to find enough things before they start saying, hey, here's
how this, here's an important thing. You should know about how this works, so that you're not just punching numbers in and letters blindly and just going, I don't know what this is gonna do. I guess this is what I'm doing.
The game does eventually start to basically tell you what the thing is that you're looking for and what the task is that you are trying to accomplish, which that being said at that point, yeah, yeah, that being said, I think the biggest hurdle for this, again speaking back to what I was saying about the Barlow stuff and what you were just talking about, is that those games told mysteries within familiar implementations, whereas here we are trying
to understand how to operate the machine while we are trying to discover what the purpose of the machine is. And I think you do eventually get a sense of like like an early thing you have to solve is just what is in this machine? Like what does this machine ultimately collect? What does it have within itself? And what am I searching through when I do that? And I think you get that answer within probably about the first thirty minutes or so.
I get it feels like it feels like learning how to drive. And I'm like in like I'm riding on an instructor and I'm like, I've never seen a car. I don't know how the car works. Can you show me how to car works? And they're like, don't worry about it, just start driving. You're like, well, maybe I need to know how to turn the car. You need
to tell me how the car work. And you're being like a weirdly vague about like, well, you know the wheel makes the car move, like you told me that like five minutes after I've was telling you have this even like where these buttons Like I don't. It's just like, can you just tell me, just like give me the basic thing, like how do I make this go? And then we can get into like where we're going and what I should be a.
Well, yeah, so you want to talk about the car analogy? Okay, so you understand functionally how the machine operates right, Like, you know how to input and receive an output with the machine that means.
The fare's minimum. I think, I think I do.
So you understand how to drive the car, because to drive a car, all you have to do is you have to understand what the inputs are and what the expected result is. Sure, Yeah, the interesting thing and I think where this is hitting some friction. I've talked to other people who've played this early. There are a lot of hot reviews out there. I'm also one of the
hot reviews. I would say this is a pretty pretty fascinating game, especially if like you're hearing me talk about this, and the idea of what if you could hide a mystery inside a library card catalog like just perks your ears up like that. You should probably check this game out. Yeah,
you understand how the car works. What you don't know yet is the destination or even if you're on a road right now, like what the format of the thing is, what the implied intended end goal destination is, and how to get from point A to point B, like what the markers are along the way, And that is kind of the interesting thing to try and decipher through the lens of this machine is to say, how do I get this information out of there? And how do I
make it make sense to me? Like how do I interpret it as something that will be useful for me to solve further mysteries? And I think to your point, I also I think if I was going to put knocks against this game, I do think the narration is part of it, because I think the narration is very well done. It's very good. It's moody, it's tense, it happens a lot. It kind of constantly tries to just build up the same beats over and over again. There's
mystery in here. You need to discover something. What am I supposed to do that's not for you to know? Just keep doing it. It like kind of builds up the first few times it works while you're like, oh, this machine has things in it that maybe I'm not supposed to uncover or maybe the person on the other side of the phone doesn't want me to uncover it. But then you have that conversation again and again and again and again, and it's like it loses impact the further
it goes. I know a few times I would be in the middle of like trying to suss something out or figure something out, or I'd have my pen and paper out and I'd be trying to do actual literal math equations to figure some stuff out, and then the intercom would be lighting up, like I'm here to talk to you about why you're doing something important, but I can't tell you what it is. And I'm like, Okay, I get it, I get it. Let me focus please.
They have a bad habit of also it'll be like one conversation that's broken up.
Over multiple calls.
Yeah, which I'm a little annoyed by where there'll start like a sentence about like, hey, this is where we're gonna get eco week for lunch. This is an example, like what do you want for lunch? I'm gonna get a hamburger you know a place, and then they'll stop talking and you're like, oh, I guess that's the end of it. And then I'll be like call again, and then they'll be like, I know a place called mcdennick, McDonald's or whatever. You're like, why isn't it just one call?
Why don't calling you back to continue this line of thought? Like it should just be one continuous things. I kind of want to just focus on the thing, but I keep thinking it's got this is like a new information you're gonna give me.
I also noticed at least one instance, and granted I might have gotten into some information before I should have, but I got into at least one instance of a character remarking upon a revelation to something that I should have already known by information that I'd already seen. And maybe then there's just a disconnect between player and player character where player character is assumed to have not inferred that information but as the player have, Like there's always
that that sort of possible disconnect. But that's why usually in other mystery games, you're usually like disambiguated from from being an actual like character character and a lot of the stuff, or or at least like you don't have a present role in the mystery. If that, I know, I'm getting into like a lot of weird, heady philosophical
stuff with this. But like when you play her story, I know, right, so when we play her story, which is like, again, the easiest comparison to this game, I think this is the most like one to one of similar game style is her story. Yeah, you are a character, and that is important at some point, But you being a character does not mean that you are having voice conversations with other people or having to project character into the space. You being a character ends up just kind
of being background for what ultimately ends up happening. Same with the other two games that the Barlow's done, or like Root Trees or Over a Din. You have a character, but that character doesn't exactly have to like take the
stage at all. And so that's that's like a weird wrinkle in TR forty nine that does alter the way some of the mysteries and discoveries play out, where the character being present and having these speaking lines back and forth and having internal character development throughout the course of the game does then shift how those revelations feel like they play out a little bit, and sometimes for the better,
and sometimes they do hit those hitches. So yeah, I think I need to I was thinking about when or if I'll go back to it. I think if I do go back, I think I have to start over. So I think I got to the point I would not start out. I promise you you don't want to start over because you're just gonna because I would essentially say starting over is what you'd be doing no matter what, because you're still going back with largely the same knowledge that you have.
And so if you go back in right now, I.
Just feel like I'm so far in, like I've gotten down so many rabbit holes, but I don't know how I got there.
So yeah, so I'd say just go.
Back and start revisiting the information that way.
I don't know, no, because I don't know what notes to take. I don't know what matters yet, you know what I mean. I just found it, and I'm like, I don't even you know, It's like I solve the problem, but I don't know how I did it. So I feel like I don't haven't learned enough about it, you know. So it's a little frustrating, and I'm like, I don't. I guess I found that is this important? Which I'm
fine with, like I don't know if it's important. Like I said, I like Sam Barlow stuff, but like, I don't know something about this one.
It's like annoying me.
Because I guess because I'm still feel like I'm trying to grasps just like the sort of like foundationally what am I doing? And like when I look at the little book when it's like you need to match the things with the things.
I'm like, oh yeah, Yet we should probably mention that that is a core mechanic that is not immediately apparent but does become apparent, is that you start like matching the names of things with catalog in tries, and that becomes a pretty important part as you go deeper in. And that is sort of the Obradin mechanic in there is that you are you will do that and then if you get it. It does not have the same thing as root trees or Obradin where you have to
get a certain number right. So that way like it can kind of you can kind of brute force some stuff in this game if you ultimately need to, where if you're like I think I know what this is, but I don't know for sure, you can kind of just run through a bunch of different options and brute force your way there, and the game will be like you got it, good job, and you won't have to do the get three right the way that Obradin or
root trees did. That sort of obfuscates and gets around the sort of player brute force method, which I personally was kind of back and forth on because I did brute Force a few entries that I was like, I've got a rough idea, but I'm not one hundred percent sure, so I'm just going to run through like the four that I think might be right. And then when I got to the third one, it was like, oh, that's
the right one. Okay, that's and now I have context for where that fits, and I can all the other three.
I guess I was saying start over is my understanding and my it is so messy and sort of scattered brain that I almost want to just like clean slight, go in, reframe, and then just more see if I can more intentionally create a thread back to that stuff. But at least I feel like I have a better understanding of how the roots two things work instead of just instead of just purely finding my chance and not understanding how I got there in the first place.
Does that make sense? Oh?
I mean, like literally, I still have not gotten the true ending of this game, because there's stuff that I have not discovered. I've only seen two different because there's different endings. I've seen two different credit roles, but I still haven't found what I would consider the golden end or whatever you.
Want to call it. Do you know what the is like?
Do you I have a mild hint of what it might entail, but I'm trying to figure out the method in which i can access that, is what I will say.
I'm just wondering if it would like, if it's a thing we'll like, you'll know it if you see it.
A little bit.
I mean, there's a point in this game where, once you have learned what the most critical information is to see an ending, like your character will outright tell you. We'll just say like, I've got everything I need, I can finish this now, and they will say that aloud, And so you have that as a barometer at least, But otherwise it's I find it really fascinating TR forty nine as a narrative experiment into what these sorts of
games can be. And I do think it's a little bit more obfuscated and weird to move around in compared to some other games of its ilk, but I find I really like that, and it does some really clever things with some of those things. So I would say, if you get stuck, for you, Marcus, or for the folks at home, examine your information. Look at the details of what you have examine, especially how they are being
defined by the machine. That will help. That will do a lot to get you somewhere, because even just understanding the taxonomy of the machine does so much for you in this game. But also, as I some good advice I once got when I was getting started in this industry was that all stories have people at the center, and I find that often applies to solving mysteries as well.
Is that ultimately understanding the people and how they relate to each other will then ultimately lead to truth, will lead to what the thing is that you're trying to do. So the people will help, will be your guiding north stars and all this. So going back examining who are these people, who is involved, who is doing what, when are they doing what? That sort of thing will help a lot. Will will kind of paint the broader picture
for you. And take notes, take notes. This is I love a game that gets me to pull out pen and paper and start writing crazy like a I was looking for just a moment ago. I have a Pepe Sylvia noteboard that just looks like scribblings of letters and numbers all over it. That makes sense to me, makes sense to nobody else. I showed it to somebody who was thinking about playing this game because they're like, what do your notes look like? And they were like, does
that make sense to you? And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, it makes sense to me. It probably doesn't make sense to you, but but it will. You'll understand it better once you're playing. So take notes, take it slow. This is a very cozy game. It's cold outside for those of us in the colder climates. Uh, this is Get some tea.
Yeah yeah yeah down previously yeah yeah, yeah.
We're the same.
Get some tea, some coffee, a warm drink, sit by the fire. Pull this up on your Steam deck. I think you'll have a good time if you enjoy a good puzzle.
Okay, yeah, that's a good pitch.
I'll go back to I'm gonna back. I want to like it, and yeah, I just have to. And I admit that some of the friction is probably like on my end, but there are some of that's the game too. But I do, like I said, I love these kind of games and it does tick what that part of my brand. It's like ooh, looking for things in a machine like this mystery, So yeah, I want to give it another shots. It's there's something there, but man, it's just from the beginning, I was like, what what is this?
What am I even doing right now? Well? Cool, Well that's going to do it for what we've been playing this week. We're going to take a quick break and then come back and talk through all this ub Soft news. We've got a lot to get into, our thoughts on the company as a whole and as it pertains to this really big story. So we'll see you on the
¶ Ubisoft discussion
other side. Welcome back to the Game Informer show. We're going to be diving into all of the ub Soft news that dropped earlier this week. We're going to be getting into what you be Soft has announced is a quote major organizational, operational and portfolio reset to reclaim creative leadership and restore sustain growth end quote. Marcus, you have been, you know, working on this story for us this week, covering the news. I know, I think we're all pretty
on top of what's happening. It's a big it's a big story. It's kind of the continuation of, you know, a larger effort by Ubisoft to kind of find its footing. And yeah, there's there are huge changes here. I guess before we get into the meat and potatoes of it, Eric, what do you think? What do you think about all this stuff that's kind of happening here.
I mean, it's it's difficult to to really like put it all into perspective because today feels like another step up the ladder of what's been happening for a while with Ubisoft. There have been headlines for a while. I mean even last week they were there were layoffs announced
incoming from Massive Entertainment and Ubisoft Stockholm. And that's just like one segment of a broader series of Ubisoft pushing things back, layoffs, restructurings, and I feel like Ubisoft has always kind of been fighting with the giants in a lot of ways. I often think back to the days of the Vivendi possible takeover and things like that. But this really seems pretty dire in a lot of ways, especially for the people on the ground at different studios
who you know, we're all thinking about here today. It's never easy to be in that position, but it's really it's a pretty big shake up to say that was six games are being outright canceled, seven are being delayed. It makes you wonder what the roadmap ahead that they're talking about even looks like when they say that they've rethought their next three year roadmap, what do the next three years look like if thirteen total games are affected by this massive shit?
Yeah, it's interesting because, uh the press release uh that that you'd be seff put out says you know that that it's canceled six discontinued, six games that do not meet uh like their their quality standards. And that includes the Prince of Persia, the Stands of Time remake, as well as four unannounced titles, including three new ips and I think the I think the wording is a little funny. And then it says ani mobile title. I'm not sure
where we're getting six. They've only listed five they listened Prince of Persia and then four unannounced titles, but they say there are six discontinued.
I was wondering that too. I almost wonder like, is the that six to one and announced the game that they just did it name and that doesn't fall in a sprier or they're just weird math. But yeah, I don't know, but we'll say five to six games are no longer it's it's six, and then there's probably at least something in there that was not announced, was not formalized, was just something that was somewhere and they said, no,
never mind, cut it. This is not the first time Ubisoft has done that where they announced that they had been working on something by canceling.
It, it has happened. But I do want to highlight this from a statement that went out as part of this their press release, in two paragraphs, they say, against this backdrop, today's announcement introduces a radically new value creation model colon a more gamer centric organization structured around creative genres, relying on integrated business units, with faster, decentralized decision making and a greater ability to quickly adapt to players expectations.
This transformation will be supported by a right sized and more agile organization delivering improved structural efficiencies over time. We'll talk about what that means in the second because this does also mean a large structural change for what Ubisoft looks like. The second paragraph is probably the more important one to note for the folks at home. The new operating model will further empower the execution of the group's strategy centered on open world adventures and GaAs native experiences.
That's games as a service, native experiences supported by targeted investments, deeper specialization and cutting edge technology, including accelerated investments behind player facing generative AI. So this is Ubisoft saying this is what our way forward is. We are looking at open world adventure games, open world adventures, whatever that may mean, games as a service, and they are putting some chips down on jen AI. So that is the statement coming out of this camp, which.
Is not new news.
Like they've they've been pretty front facing with supporting AI, and even if they weren't, like this, it plays in say, there's sort of like their strategy, like Ubisoft is all been a we will put our hands into anything and see what sticks, like like whether it's we will be day one on every console launch regardless of the platform, or hey, NFTs are taking off, let's try.
That, like they will.
They are rarely picky about the businesses that they decide to kind of like wade into. So like hearing them be like, yeah, we're doing AI, it's like, oh, yeah, of course you would. You guys kind of do everything anything that pops up.
Yeah, it kind of gives desperation for me a little bit, but yeah, we can get into that they've kind of denoted like five creative houses that a lot of this is kind of getting wrapped into. You you mentioned the gamer centric approach eric that they they're talking about, and in the press release we get a little more detail. I'll quote quote Each creative house will be organized around a distinct creative genre and designed to concentrate deep expertise
and specific types of player experiences. Each creative house will be responsible for fully owning the gamer relationship, developing must play experiences for specific audiences, and engaging player communities earlier and constantly throughout the development process. It goes on to say that Creative House one is Vantage Studios, focused on scaling and extending Ubisoft's largest and established franchises to turn them into annual billionaire brands. Yeah.
For those that don't know, Dvantage is that new subsidiary that they formed last year. Like they basically form a company within a company and a sort of it's now managing the Assassin's Creed, Rainbow six and Farcry franchise.
Yes it is.
It is also a cross venture with a heavy investment from ten cents.
Uh.
Yeah, that's kind of where a lot of that direction came from. Was they spun out. They said, we're going to make Vantage Studios, We're going to put Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, Rainbow six kind of the Golden Geese, I think Mini would say of Ubisoft, and then also ten Cent is going to get heavily invested to it. I'm
looking for the exact amount. It looks like three point eight billion heroes from a November twenty first, twenty twenty five press release, I want to say was you know, you can quote me if you want in the original thought, but I think it was like ten percent of the company ten sent is invested in. Yeah, no, I'm sorry. That was that was the enterprise value of it. The cash investment from Tencent was one point one six billion, So yeah, that's a lot of money.
And I think that.
Is already an interesting thing when you consider the previous statement about the focus on open world adventures and games of service, those are kind of the the banner bearers for those things, right. Assassin's Creed is what you would think of when you think of an open world adventure game, especially from Moviesoft, and then Rainbow six uh is obviously probably their most dominant games as a service title at
this point with Siege. Yeah, they have a new mobile game coming out next month, like Rainbow six Mobile gets a global launch like early February.
I think it's the fifth. Muh. Creative House two is dedicated to competitive and cooperative shooter experiences, including brands like The Division, Ghost, Recon, and splinter Cell. Creative House three.
Design that's the shoot shooting studio. These other four don't have names, which is not ironic for the creative studios that they have the least creative names.
It does mirror.
I mean you look at Square and they have like Creative Business Unit, Yeah, something like that.
Nintendo R and.
D Coom similarly has some internal stuff like that. Yeah. Uh. CH three is designed to operate a roster of select sharp live experiences brands including for Honor the Crew, Writers, Republic, Brawlhalla, Skull and Bones. No's they this is this actually Riders Republic. I bought that recently on Steam after I'd played it on console when it first came out. Ye form. You know the downhill biking in that game really solid.
Former Best Dorks winners from that game.
Yeah.
Yeah, this is a studio that's had to handle a lot of I think scrutiny from from the outside our our own statements included. And and that's because Skull and Bones took years to come out. Brawhalla. By all accounts, bra Hala is still running and going, and weirdly enough, I've seen like a weird resurgence in for honor, like on shorts and tiktoks and stuff recently, which is weirding me out. I think, like the the crowd is coming
around and for honor. But yeah, it's this is kind of the live service games that aren't Tom Clancy games, is how I would define this.
Yeah, not Tom Clancy's presents. Creative House four is dedicated to immersive fantasy worlds and narrative driven universes, brands including Anno, Might and Magic ray Man, Prince of Persia, and Beyond Good and Evil.
Beyond Beyond Good and Evil Too, by the way, survived the cancelation spree, which I found very interesting.
Dude, do we have confirmation that was one of the games that survived it because they haven't named it yet, right, No, it's it's been known as Beyond Good and Evil Too officially for no no, No, I mean I mean like within because they have said that the Prince of Persia remake was part of the cancelations, but they haven't said whether Beyond Good and Evil too was part of either one of the buckets, right, I assume not because they said the other ones were unannounced. Okay, So I was like, okay,
so Beyond Good and Evil two would be exempt. Sorry, y'all, this this news is literally like hot off the presses. So we are working with with what we're learning right now.
Yeah, but I just found that so fast, like man, Prince could not It did not pass the did not pass the test. But I guess Beyond Good and Evil to still talking a lot somewhere.
Yeah, you're right.
Uh yeah, they do say discontinued six games. These include Prince of Persia, the Sands of Time remake, as well as four unannounced titles.
There.
There is a floating there is a floating and tree in there.
They have one floating manna that.
Man floating how many cards in hand?
Be soft? I think they just couldn't let Jason Gordon leve it down. What's the name, Joseph Gordon Levinseph? Jason? I called him, Wow, great joke. Creative House five is focused on reclaiming position and casual and family friendly games. Brands include Just Dance, Idle, Minor, Tycoon, Catch App, Hungry Shark, Invincible, Guarding the Globe, and has Bro.
You Can't Kill.
I was about to say you just don't probably the biggest money maker there, but uno a real close second. I'm not even being facetious.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, who knows?
Huge, huge, got it got a bunch of wrestlers through the pandemics.
I think you knows.
Still really a big anchor.
Yeah. The press release goes on to say, quote. In addition, there are four new ips currently in development, including March of Giants. Ubisoft will communicate on their respective creative home at a later stage. Each creative benefit.
Oh oh, I'm sorry, real quick, March of Giants. I had to look this up and I was like, what is March of Giants? Have known about this? Apparently this was a mobia that was originally being developed by Amazon Games until last month when Ubi Salt announce it had acquired the game from Amazon. So now they're going to finish it. But it is like this upcoming, like just this Mobia that has a Steam page and everything. I
was like, I have not heard of this ever. I was wondering, you guys have ever heard of March of Giants?
I am a MOBI boy and I had not really heard of March of Giants. I probably wrote it off in my head because it had Amazon attached to it.
But uh, I don't.
Know if like, like it's the Moba Iron's kind of cold, Isn't it like like there's that that genre solidified a while ago, Like everybody went into one of two buckets and that is where they have remained.
Remember what I said before about Ubisoft trying everything. Have they tried a Moba yet? Is this their first one?
Oh?
They probably have? Hold on, I'm going to look this up because now I'm curious.
I was going to say, like, have they ever have they tried their own mobi and were like, ah, we should just buy this one that's over.
Here, there's March of Giants.
I don't know a lot of this does not feel you know, obviously, it's it's the forward facing pr is going to try to be like we're trying to position our creative houses for the best possible success moving forward. I think for everybody reading this from the outside, it's really hard. Did not see this as pretty dire news coming out of Ubisoft to not see this as I don't think a healthy company has to this like like significantly shift itself if something is not worrisome somewhere in the pipeline.
I mean, they've had some high profile kind of like underperforming Triple A releases, like like Star Wars Outlaws apparently didn't hit the mark. I think Avatar two from what I remember, Avatar front sas of Pandora, I think maybe some. I think Assassin's creat Shadows did pretty well for them. It felt like that was like the first kind of like I don't hit I guess in a while for them.
But I mean this is a company that a year year and a half ago there were like very heavy rumors that they were going to go private because of just the state of things, and I think even the Gymo family had to like make a statement about that or they like either go private or just be purchased by someone like that. Those are like it seemed like that was like kind of like the riding on the wall for Ruby Saw for like the last almost two
years now. But yeah, they've been kind of in the middle of this giant restructurings over the last year at least, and has resulted in some studio layoffs, like we mentioned before. And I just don't I don't know if they're like like in their wording they're trying to like simplify sort of their their like work pipeline because they have so many studios all over the place working on everything at
all times. Uh, And it just I don't know, maybe they're like they're trying to like because of all the kind of like the misses with some of their Triple A stuff, at least financially, it seems like they're like they're trying to bet or like trying to find more sure bets and kind of like doubling down on like you know, the franchise that they know will make the money and then sort of like you know, like they say Games of Service and then I guess using AI
to try to you know, saved some money here and here and maybe like streamline the pipeline even more. Yeah, I I don't know. It's it's they're in a weird place right now.
Yeah, it's uh, I mean they've just I think Assassin's Creed Shadows was you know, uh, it was a fine game. You know, I think it you know that came out last year, but last February almost a year ago. Yeah, yeah, sold, well yeah, yeah sold, fine, Yeah, I don't know, it's you know, I'm trying to think of other other releases that have done well for them recently.
Uh yeah, I'm trying to think. It almost feels like their output hasn't been as frequent as it normally is because what else, like outside of their annual stuff like Assassin's Creed and there was just the last.
Year, what else?
I mean there was Star Wars Outlaws was a big one years and and and aforementioned like Frontiers of Pandora.
Which they've done big expansions for both of those games in the last year or so. Yeah, uh do this.
You know they need to put out a new Trials game. They need to publish a new Trials game.
Well that's that studio was also hit else, if I remember correctly.
I was going to say, like, I feel there's enough studios and properties here that maybe what ends up happening doesn't look too dissimilar from when Square Knicks was divesting of its Western studios. Sure, when it started, you know, dumping things like you know what ultimately led to Io breaking off and going independent, what ultimately led to Crystal Dynamics being split off and several other companies that went
under the umbrella of Embracer. I I personally feel like that could be eat something here, especially because they're identifying certain properties in their list but not other ones. I feel like track Mania is still under them, right, It's is that under.
Or I'm still under them? I know I don't keep up with track.
Mania, but I like track Media. Track Media was crazy.
I would just love the note, like in terms of like if you take inventory real quick, do you guys remember what else they have in the pipeline that they've announced, just to get an idea of what's coming in the next few years, because we know they have.
Somewhere I believe, I don't know. I'm sorry, that's crazy. I'm not sure how public like all of this has been stated. I'm pretty sure they've they've publicly commented on it. But like, I think there's some like division stuff happening.
There's division that was announced. Yeah, then there's also the division Resurgence, which is like a separate thing. I forget the scale of that one. Is it a mobile thing or it's like a it's another division game that it's a Yeah.
So I pulled up a list of the currently announced but unreleased Ubisoft games, and the list stands at Heroes of Mighten Magic Olden Era that's supposed to do an early access this year, as well as Maiden Magic Fates, which is a mobile version. We have several Assassin's Creed projects there. There's the code name Hex and code name Invictus, as well as Assassin's Creed Jade, which that one was a mobile title, I believe, Yeah, obviously, like you said, Yeah, by the way.
That's the one I'm excited about that's supposed to be a kind of like Slavic, kind of like Witchcraft one that it's if they keep up with the annual thing, that's probably gonna come out this year or at least get a full reveal this year, because I think that's the next one on docket.
Yeah, obviously, like you said, Beyond Good and Evil two, which has been in ovens since time immemorial, March of Giants, which just recently came under the umbrella Morbid Metal. I don't know what that one is, no clue, no idea what that is.
Zero.
I'll do some research here in a second and the Division three in the Splinter Cell remake. So that's still like you think about what they were talking about earlier, especially with the Vantage Studios, they're big properties. That's several Tom Clancy games, that's several Assassin's Cree games. Right, nothing really on the docket for far Cry. I feel like Farcre has been fairly quiet for a few years now.
We're due for a Far Cry announcement like that. Feels like that has to happen this year.
But also just a lot of focus on a few franchises and then seemingly just kind of tossing one up out of the earth every now and then just to kind of see like, hey, this still doing all right. I mean, they also have other stuff that's been cooking as well. A new ono came out last year. I know the Strategy heads do enjoy a good ano. Just dance continues to persist through through the eons, through the eras.
But then otherwise a lot of their stuff is here's here's X Defiant, Here's Skull and Bones, which took forever to come out. Here's a couple of Prince of Persia games. They had they had lost Crown and Rogue Prince of Persia,
the latter one being developed by Evil Empire. Uh, there's there's just a lot of stuff hitting the fan and seeing the sticks to the wall, and maybe this is the illustrative moment of Ubisoft has been trying to figure out what works for it and what doesn't, which is a bummer too because I remember Lost Crown was really good. A lot of people came out of it really liking that game.
Yeah, let's talk about Prince of Persia. Actually for a bit, the series has kind of been like like the remake is kind of like maybe the biggest news story like that getting canceled out of this this development, like like as a Prince of Persia fan, it was it's been like simultaneously exciting and like frustrating because you know, for the longest time that series was completely dormant, and then boom they start coming out with like really three new
game announcements between the Sands of Time remake, Lost Crown, and the Rogue Prince of Persia. You know, we get Lost Crown, phenomenal game like in my top ten that year, and then not terribly long after it comes out and gets this wave of praise they disband the studio that made it and just sort of like dispersed them to other projects within Ubisoft, but effectively mean I was like, Okay, I guess we're not getting a sequel to that game,
which is unfortunate, so okay. And then of course you get the rogue Prince of Persia, which is, like you mentioned, Eric, developed by a Death Cell's team. That game, you know, comes gets out an early axis, is kind of under the radar for a lot of its early access life, and then came out in one point zero last year, and even then was still kind of under the radar.
I'm really curious how that game has sold overall. I feel like if it did like Gangbusters, zoe Soft would have been out there and been on look at this, look at this Prince of Persia game doing really well. I just have no sense of like where that game even stands with Ubisoft, like if they're happy with it. It just seems like the redheaded step child of the Prince of Persia series, which is unfortunate because it's a really fun game. I really liked what I've played of it.
And then you get this remake that was announced around the time that Eric and I joined Game four or Eric, excuse me, Alex and I joined Game in Former.
Like it's we're two different people, Marcus every time. Every time, Hey, at least I did it the other way. I do. I do appreciate that I do. Yeah, Alex, we've worked together almost six years, Marcus.
We've been working together as long as that Prince of Persia remaker. We've outlasted it somehow.
Somehow we died at one point, we did. We died and came back and hey we were the time, you know, yeah ye.
But yeah, like they you know, that thing was announced and for those that know, like like the whole trajectory with that remake is is fascinating because it was announced in September twenty twenty and it was originally given to Ubisou's Indian studios, like it was like in Moon Mumbai and Pune. I'm not sure how you pronounced the city there, but they were at the time built as like new studios and it was this was like their first big project.
And then it's wild to think that the game was originally announced to come out the following year in twenty twenty one, because and at the time you were like, yeah, that makes sense. You know, it's a remake, They've probably been working it for a while. They have a template to work with, so it shouldn't probably shouldn't take that long to put together. And this is at the start of the new generation too. And I don't know if you guys remember, but they released that first trailer and
then a lot of fans poop poo dicks. They thought the graphics didn't look amazing or at least what they should be for a remake. So then I don't know
if they I think they explicitly said it. For that reason, they delayed it, and it was originally supposed to be like a brief delay, and then a few months later it got delayed indefinitely, so now had no release window, and then it went quiet for a while, and then it was in twenty twenty two that it would be Soft announced that they had taken development from Mumbai and transferred it to Ubisoft Montreal, which is kind of like the like like the big Ubisoft studio and also the
studio that originally developed The Sands of Time. So you're like, okay, maybe it's like a metrod Prime four situation, like we're giving it back to the team that made the old one to really get it back on track, and then it was just radio silence for the most part for another couple of years, and then it was Ubisoft four twenty twenty four that out of nowhere we got a new Prince of Persia remake teaser that announced the twenty
twenty six launch window. So, you know, still a long way, but it was like, Okay, at least this game seems to be happening. That's that's cool. And then I think, as far as I know, the last update was last summer June, when they, like Prince of Pergel twitter account just kind of put out a post just saying, hey, we're still working on it, you know, just we're excited for you to see it, but you know, it's still happening. It was just like like the slightest sign of life anywhere.
But and it's like, okay, great, And again, I just as a Sans of Time fan, I was so excited for this game. I'm not terribly surprised to hear it's canceled, because it was It's been on the verge of like cancellation it seems like forever. So my mind was already kind of in the space of like I'll believe this game when I see it, Like, if they canceled it today,
it would be disappointing but not surprising. So to see it finally happen it it it does sting a little bit more than if it had happened maybe a few years ago, just because that sign of life. It is just like I think this might this seems like it's teetering more towards a like this this might actually come out Okay, and then it's like, oh, just kidding, because it was supposed to come out this year, so I was like, okay, maybe around Summer Games first time we'll
get an update. I think I saw. I didn't check into this, but I apparently there's some There was some sort of rumor that they were gonna announce it or shadow drop it like sometime before March of this year.
Yeah, there were rumors going around for a bit, but I didn't really see too much substantiating them besides just what you would typically ascribe to, like the rumor mill of gaming that is just always humming in the background. But to illustrate your point, like the six year mark I think is really interesting because I think if we're gonna mark when Ubisoft started having these struggles. I do
think it's around the time of the pandemic. I think it's around the time that we moved into there's kind of a concurrent new generation pandemic where Ubisoft up through the three sixty, like PS four era was Ride and High, was doing pretty well. It had kind of become the dominant company you think about when it comes to Triple A games, especially the way that they're designed. I mean, I feel like we have Ubisoft to thank for watchtowerss forever.
But around that time, I do think there was a noticeable shift in the studio, in it's or in the studio, in the publisher and its output and how it's studios were handling things. Projects started getting shifted around, delayed, moved around. We had stuff that just started falling to the wayside, like Skull and Bones, like X Defiant, like The Prince
of Persia remake, like Beyond Good and Evil too. And this is kind of where we're standing at the bottom of the hill as the landside landslide has been coming down this whole time.
Yeah, I was gonna say, like, does all that like you mentioning all those games that were all in development concurrently and all had kind of like I don't know, maybe Less so X Divine, but certainly Prints Uh, Beyond Good and Evil and Skull and Bones all famously protracted
and troubled development cycles all at the same time. Like I wonder if, like maybe Ubi Sauces or Ubi Sauce, Ubi Sauce, would you like some Ubi soft on Obi Sauce in Newburger But like it seems like maybe their house just wasn't in order, Like maybe that is why
they they've kind of been restructured, like realized. Like our development pipelines, at least for some of our major pripe our studios and projects were kind of like ft, like we need to find a way to do this better because like we've had three big projects take forever.
To come out.
I think there was well, sorry to cut you off, it's just I think there's also a matter of there were a lot of projects coming out that just seemed to be staggered out and just trying things. We had Roller Champions was was in this this realm the roller der begin and and here's one that's going to really freak you out. Remember Hyperscape. I remember I played Royal hyper Escape, I played.
I played a little bit. Yeah, I got a yeah.
Yeah, neither of these games are around anymore.
I I same with I think it last that long.
No, A lot of a lot of them suffered pretty quick turnarounds from launch. I mean, look, that's not unique to Ubisoft. I mean, you can look at any other major publisher in the last three or four years and you'll find a similar graveyard of live service titles.
Like it just happens.
But I think for Ubisoft, if that stuff isn't working, if the blunderbuss of live service attempts is not working, and then also the Triple A titles maybe aren't succeeding at the level that they want them to, that this could also be a knee jerk reaction to that.
It is weird to hear them doubling down on them, yeah, because it's like, is like outside of Rainbow succeede what what I mean?
Yeah?
They have, But I mean besides that one, do they have another one that is genuinely doing well for them?
I think a lot of this So I'm gonna I'm gonna draw a parallel here because there there was a line that stuck out to me in what Van ay Con said earlier from the press release. Uh, and it's something that I'm going to pull from the slide here. Scaling and extending. This is vantage studios like Ideology laid out in a slide scaling and extending ubisof's largest and established franchises to turn them into annual billionaire brands. I that's that's a big number. That's a really big number.
And the thing it immediately reminded me of was the way that EA had talked about Battlefield going into the latest Battlefield release, where they were saying, this is this is it. We're going to make this game, and it's that's going to be the game. It's going to make so much revenue, it's going to do so much. This is the metric that we have set. And there are a lot of jokes at times of companies want to make Fortnite right, because if you make Fortnite, do you
ever have to make another game again? Or can you just keep making stuff within Fortnite and around Fortnite. Now you've you've made the golden goose what the modern golden goose is at least, And so maybe that's the drive behind all this is to just start putting chips down on.
We're going to make the thing that becomes the modern service model, the modern Fortnite, the modern Roadblocks, the the third place online that everybody wants to go to and spend their time in and especially spend their money in. But can Ubisoft make that and what does it look like? That's those are big questions to answer.
It's sad because like, remember, it wasn't even that long ago, like a decade ago to Dubisoff had that kind of like I guess their version of like the was it the a originals, like their little Indian initiative sort of thing where they had like Child of Child of like Valiant Hearts, like those smaller like artsy games.
That were like I love yeah, yeah that one. Yeah.
Yeah. It's like they're so far away from that now, unfortunately, and it's I mean a lot of big publishers are now just focusing on a few core brands.
But it's it's.
Unfortunate because it really it was not that long ago that that was kind of like a key part of their business was those smaller games.
Yeah, you know, Siegees is kind of the outlier and their live service attempts. You know, it's made it ten years, right,
it's now Rainbow six Siege X as well. They kind of rebranded it kind of in celebration of that ten year marker, and it still has I mean, if you look right now in Steam charts, like on Steam alone, Rainbow six Siege has fifty thousand players playing right now, and you know that doesn't even factor in consoles where the game is actually very big on platforms like Xbox in particular, there's a lot of people who play there as well as PlayStation, and I wonder like if they're
just kind of trying to replicate that. But if you remember, you know, Rainbow six Siege had very had a very rough launch and was given a lot more charity I think from the company. Then most games get these days to kind of right the ship. I don't think you get a Rainbow six Siege in today's climate because companies instantly just if it's not hitting the numbers, you know, a month, then it's like, okay, we're we're sunsetting this.
Yeah, Siege was had the benefit of coming out on the time before kind of like everyone like like like the primary pillars of life service kind of had established themselves and everyone. It kind of picked. This is my live service game. I'm Destiny too for life. You can't pull me from this. I'm Fortnite for life. You can't pull me from this. Like it was still a little bit of the wild West back then. I mean Fortnite hadn't even come out yet, nor did PUBG. So it's
like it got it at a good time. Like like you said, if that, if that happened today, and that thing would have been dead in like a year if it was.
It was also like for for all defaults at launch. I remember playing Siege when it first came out and thinking, they've got the bones of something good here. And that's coming from somebody who, like my background is I love Rainbow six Vegas and Vegas two. Yeah last to me, and yeah, god what I love to see those brought
back in some way. Those games are excellent, But like Rainbow six, Siege had the foundation there, and there was a team that has clearly over the years believed in what they're doing, believed in the world that they've set up, believed in in their game type, their way of looking at what Rainbow six competitive looks like, and it's it's panned out and it's even survived its own spinoffs. I mean, Rainbow six Quarantine kind of came and went pretty fast, and.
I forgot about that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, this this is now a podcast segment titled Let's Remember some Ubi Soft Games.
Patriots was on the cover of Game Informer. Yeah, I remember reading that, and I mean that eventually, I think kind of got morphed into what Siege is. But but yeah, I mean, yeah, it's it's rough and.
It's really difficult, and I think we should reiterate again, this is going to have tangible effects not just on the video games that you at home get to play, but on the people who make those video games. I think everybody at an Ubisoft studio right now is definitely looking at this news and being a little bit concerned with good reason. And so, you know, like our thoughts
are with them because they make this stuff. They make the stuff that we enjoy and talk about and look at, and it sucks to see a lot of people and a lot of talent put into this position where their future gets murkier now. And like, I don't know, for me personally, I actually really like the Ubisoft era of like Xbox three sixty up through the PS four.
I it's weird.
Someone wants asked me or you an Assassin's Creed fan, and I was like, I'm not sure, but I sure have played just about all of them, and I'm yeah, yeah, which I think is the most natural answer to that question. But I like Assassin's Creed too on any given day, could be one of my favorite third person action games of all time. And and I love games like Black Flag. I was definitely intrigued by the rumors that were going around of a potential Black Flag rekindling of some kind.
Yeah, allegedly that is one of the uh that is one of the games that is rumored to have been part of the delay, the internal delay in the story, but that game has still not been officially announced or confirmed.
Yeah, but it's I really love those series. I love far Krai. Farkrai had like one through three, pretty much a lot of the early far Cries, Rainbow six, we already talked about like these, they they make games, even the Division, the Division game that I think was very ahead of its time in a lot of ways, like really laid the groundwork for what Tarkov and other games
would become with its dark Zone. So, like, I think there's a lot of talent and a lot of potential here, and I don't know what the road forward looks like now with this massive restructuring and commitment to principles that might not be conducive to the sorts of exciting ubisav things that we normally enjoy seeing from them.
So I'm excited for the live service ray Man game we're gonna get.
Oh God, listen, you want to fix eb Soft, bring back ray Man, bring back Trials, and give us a damn new ghost recon game. Get get the Mario and Rabbits team cooking again soon. Ex Rabbits, I'm telling you, did that team get split up too? A good question? Yeah, I don't know.
I feel like I don't know. Maybe I might, I might be confusing a different report, but yeah, I don't know. Yeah, like weird little things like that. I give me more of that, Ubisoft, and maybe we'll get another again. It's a Prince of Persia fan out of this remas gone. I'm like, man, when are we going to get another Prince game? Because we're not getting a Lost Ground sequel. It looks like that, So I have no idea what the future of at least of that franchise.
Is right now. I would not be surprised of that is put on ice.
The most recent news out of that team, which was Ubisoft Milan, is that they're hiring for some sort of triple A RAYMN game. That's that's from a report from VGC. It looks like they're kind of collaborating with Montpellier on the future of rain Man. Raymon almost had rain the rain Man. Yeah, the future of rain Man. Yeah, which, you know, RAYMN wasn't part of those Sparks of or Mario and Rabids games. I think at some point was DLC for Sparks of Hope. But uh yeah, I'd be
curious about that. I do like ray Man. But there's just so many incredible games that come out of Ubisoft over the years. Track Mania we talked about earlier. I love track Media, you know, I would hope that. Yeah, the pod listeners Van Aken is holding up ray Man. Is that Legends and Origins it is? Yeah, Yeah, their day. It's remember the Legends was a launch title for the p S four and Xbox One.
Man, that game was.
Incredible at games are great.
Yeah, Oh yeah, I I mean, I think they're kind of neck and neck. For me, they're both incredible platformers. I love those games so much. Yeah, well, anything else, guys, before we wrap up this topic and get out of here.
What's the over under on Ubisoft getting purchased at this point with this big kind of like slimming down and restructuring.
I don't know about the whole, the whole Wooly Mammoth, but I do think we can see themselves in my key.
Yeah, you think they would still IPD for.
Just being bought out, right, That's yeah, That's usually the way it goes is, you know, pieces get shorn off and and and sold off and moved around. The bigger question would be, in my opinion, like who's buying these days? Who would want to buy? Maybe some of the lesser.
Folks leave and start their own studio, buy back the the trials, IP give ghost recon to some, they keep respond they they keep all of Tom Clancy. Yeah, they keep all the time camp. They clutch on to Tom Clancy.
With the first Yeah, if GIF give a Prince of Persia to from software, give me a Prince of Persia.
So now we're talking, and now we're talking.
It makes the game easier when you can just rewind your mistakes.
Yeah, yeah, all right, well that's going to be the show for this week. Thank you all for listening. Of course, be sure to pick up a copy of Game infrom a magazine. We've got the Double O seven First Light issue coming to mailboxes soon coming to early digital access next week for subscribers. That's going to be a great book.
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