Welcome to the Gamer's End Command. the chair next to the fire. It looks like you've had a long journey. I'm your host, Jocelyn, and joining me as always is my co-host, Ryan. Hello, Ryan. Hello, Jocelyn. Welcome back.
Thank you. Sorry for the short notice last week. And John, thank you so much for filling in. I completely forgot. I was away at training for work for multiple days and uh yeah trying on like monday and i was like um there's a thing i forgot i'm sorry good luck bye so yeah thanks for filling in guys that was that was awesome yeah well i do i was surprised how that you are back and this isn't a sonic thing oh god i was just gonna say is it
it's sonic i don't want to know if it's sonic it's not so whoever whoever had the uh two weeks in the ryan pre-orders uh actually pre-orders a nintendo switch 2 uh in the pool if you had that yeah uh you just won whatever you won i i you did you pre-ordered it you broke man that didn't take long it it didn't so here here's here's what happened i don't know if it's it's a good sign for the Nintendo Switch or not. It was always a matter of when, not if. We had talked about that.
Yeah, but I thought that it would be like a year or two from now when there were more Switch 2 games and exclusives and franchises that you cared about, not like two weeks and you just went... You do. Well, I... I don't think it was ever going to be a year or two. The odds on that one were probably like, I'm not a gambling person, but I wouldn't have taken that. I thought you were being a responsible adult. That was my mistake. Of course not. Everyone knows that I...
love Nintendo games, and I am a fan of Mario Kart. There's Mario Kart, there's Metroid. Look, I could go through the games, and you're right, there aren't enough to... I thought you said that you were going to be happy with- I'm sorry, I'm not letting this go. I thought you said that you were going to be happy with the Metroid on the Switch. Because it was going to be on both. It's true. Do you remember these conversations, Ryan? I do. I feel like you don't.
And I do remember those conversations. And then I was like, you know what? I'm just not going to work for it. I'm not going to like do the whole, oh, the website's crashing. Oh, you know. I can't get it into my cart. Do you remember when we talked about how much money it was going to be and how it seemed kind of ridiculous to pay The better part of $1,000 to play Mario Kart. Do you remember? I do remember. Do you remember? Do you remember that? And now it's all flooding back to me.
Ah, you know what I should do? I should pay you the better part of $1,000 to play Mario Kart. Play Mario Kart first, and then slowly work my way towards other games, like, uh, not Welcome Tour, I'm not gonna... Look, I can safely say that I am not going to play Welcome Tour. Okay, so then all you're doing is making the library of games available to yourself smaller, right? And I don't understand how you sold this to yourself.
The website didn't crash, and I didn't have to work for it, and I leisurely checked out. It was honestly the... Okay, so did you know what that says to me, Ryan? What's that say? No one is pre-ordering the Switch. Do you remember how hard it was to get?
those or the the playstation 5 or the xbox like everything was so freaking hard forever to get those consoles if you were just sent a link and you happened to click it and it wasn't sold out immediately I don't think that bodes well for the Switch 2 and I understand why because of all
things that we have talked about why did you do this ryan yeah well uh that's a great question uh basically whirlwind sending me a link when it was available and i guess it was uh available before uh it was posted out by the by our Canadian sort of, uh, Warrior 64 dude. and uh yeah no i i was thinking i was thinking about it and i did come around to it like okay like if i'm able to just like i don't think you thought about it
I think you might have thought about it in the time it took you to enter the whatever 16 digits of your credit card number is. It was pre-saved, but, you know, like... So you thought about it even less. for approximately three seconds. A pre-order can also be cancelled, which is also possible. Yeah, are you going to cancel it?
I don't think I'm going to cancel it. Let's be honest. You got a month, Ryan. You're going to cancel it? I feel like you just want to shut me down and stop me bitching at you. So you're like, I can always cancel it, but everyone knows you're not going to cancel it. No. Look, I look at the long term of all the Nintendo stuff that's going to come out. We bought the Nintendo Switch day one.
It did launch with The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild. But I look at that thing and having played all those games for eight years, the hardware lasted eight years. The way I looked at it, I was like, there's eventually going to be... a good chunk of games on this thing and it's going to cost that amount of money today it might not cost that amount of money uh you know in a year or two it might cost more
the way the world is working so that wasn't the main reason but it's it's certainly something that's been crashing around in my head but look do i wish there were more games that launch absolutely uh does mario kart look like a lot of fun for sure yes it does I'm gonna enjoy it. I'm gonna have a lot of fun. I 100% agree with you there. I think the Mario Kart looks really, really fun.
I'm excited to see other people play it because I just can't justify the cost of a console. And a console that's that expensive in Canadian dollars, it's ridiculous. I can't justify spending that kind of money just to play a thing. Like, I might revisit it when that From game comes out if I have actually grown the balls to play Elden Ring in the meantime and I enjoy it. Like, I'm not gonna invest in a console to play a From game if I'm terrible and hate it. So... Yeah.
yeah like it's gonna take like two three four titles for me to to think that the console is worth it and even then it's like okay then if i want to play those three four titles it's like what 115 bucks a pop For each of those games? Like, brah. It's not cheap. It's not cheap. But I mean, again. you know previewing the news uh it's not just nintendo titles that are going to cost that much so like avoiding One. third of video games is
is not the solution. It's going to be all games costing... It's the solution for my budget. Oh, 100%. I'm not saying people should all go out and buy Nintendo stuff. If you're not into the Nintendo... stuff, then why even have the conversation? But no, I know there will be enough for the system, and I'm... I'm willing to buy in day one. But I did not want to jump through hoops, and I didn't have to, which was really surprising. So I did have that reaction that you did, Jocelyn. I'm like...
how is this thing a loading and be, uh, like I've had, I've had amiibos, you know, go faster than this. So I was, uh, Well, yeah, Meebos don't cost $800. They don't. That is a good point, but Meebos also went up in price, too, which I did not buy Meebos. Of course they did. Of course they did. Everything did. So we'll see. We'll see how it goes. I guess, yeah, my overall point is just that I'm starting to get priced out of markets for things, and I'm much more likely...
Until there is some extraordinarily compelling reason, I'm much more likely to just stick with PC or, you know, the consoles that I've already got. Like, there's nothing wrong with my PlayStation 5, there's nothing wrong with my Xbox, my PC is great. Three out of four ain't bad. Yeah, no, that's totally fine too. Besides, I can steal yours. That's true. Problem solved. You can totally, totally play the Nintendo Switch 2 here and play some Mario Kart and get it.
get your fill of mario kart that way like exactly I figured it out. I've unlocked it, chat. This is how we do it. Yeah, of course. Everybody just come over and play Mario Kart. This is the Nintendo Switch 2 experience. It's happening here. Which is really funny because this is the first console where they've been like, play with your friends virtually. We figured out the online thing. You don't have to be in person anymore. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, no. I mean, it is expensive. It is an expensive investment, but I feel like it'll be... I didn't buy the OLED Switch. I was not at all swayed by anything that had come hardware-wise.
after the original switch it served me well i i like all the tech all the hardware stuff about the nintendo switch 2 like i'm good with that i'm fine i don't need a no led screen it's docked most of the time um yeah i think folks who do want like better tech in the hardware shouldn't be complaining about the price of the console because it's going to be a then it'll be actually a thousand bucks you put an OLED screen thing
But I think by the end of the year, we'll have a good chunk of titles. I am still wary across the board. of what it means to buy video games for $100 to $110 pre-tax Canadian. That still concerns me. And with some of the news we've seen recently, it looks like it's going to be like that across the board.
um 2026 is going to be expensive why don't we just talk about that right now since we're already talking about it and then we don't have to revisit in the news because uh xbox just announced as of may 1st that everything is going up so they are basically Matching Nintendo, they're going up to $80 for new games, not existing titles. They did specify new titles coming out from now on.
And then they also said it's everything. It's their hardware. It's their consoles themselves. They're all getting price boost bumps up because famously, you know, you make something and then... years later you bring the price up you know who's whoever has sales anymore that's just crazy talk so uh yeah consoles are going up uh controllers are going up uh headsets are going up in us and canada only for some reason but
Yay us! We got a special mention. We didn't get our own PDF, but we got a special mention. And sets here are going up too. So yeah, like Ryan was saying, Nintendo's The first, because they had the new console coming out at this time, but yeah, the Xbox cited market conditions, which could be Nintendo raising their prices. Could be global economic instability, who knows.
they didn't specify they didn't go into any more detail than that and they also said um the just general increasing cost of game dev so very very very general reasoning basically we're raising our prices because we said so and so again like
I'm just going to start getting priced out of shit, and I'm sure a lot of people are, and budgets are tight, everything's more expensive, so people are going to have to be more discerning with what they actually spend their money on in the gaming space, and yeah, it's just... i think it's because like i a lot of people have said That like when you factor in like inflation and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever over time. And these price increases are like.
expected slash on par slash things are cheaper now when you compare prices versus like buying power of your dollar and everything to like the 90s and early 2000s it's like okay but Also, my groceries cost $300 a week now. Not quite that much. But my point is absolutely everything is more expensive. Houses are more expensive. Gas is more expensive. Insurance is more expensive. Everything is expensive. And so in that... context the budget people have the amount of money they have to spend on
Gaming and recreation is just going to be less and there's going to be a lot of decisions that have to get made at the household level. I can't see how it wouldn't impact the bottom line. of these companies, even with the price increases, right? Like you charge $10 more, but what if, you know, 15% of your audience can't buy your game anymore? Like you're gonna have to sell a lot more units to make up that money. So anyways.
Yeah. That's my pricing rant. No, I think it's fair. And when I look at What we have. coming in the next, you know, let's say three to four years. I'm always going to choose the experiences I enjoy the most, which are Nintendo titles. I think people who love the Xbox ecosystem and are looking at these price increases, the hardware stuff is really... is really frustrating because as you said hardware usually goes down in price they usually do price cuts
obviously the world we're living in right now is different from from those generations we often talk about like oh the early gamers in days we had like one big game a month and now we have one big game every every week uh it really depends on your on your interest levels but It's interesting that Xbox has stated some of their first-party gains will go up to $80 US starting this holiday season. At the end of the day...
That probably means Call of Duty is an $80 game, but it's also coming to Game Pass Day 1. So I'm surprised Xbox kind of... It's weird. I think, like, everyone was playing Chicken, and you're right. Nintendo had to, like, go first because they wanted to unveil their new console, and they needed to confirm pricing of video games, and they...
Look, Microsoft made some PDFs. That's very Microsoft, and I appreciate that. Nintendo, we had to go back and forth with them for weeks. Just last week, we finally got... Sort of everything sorted out pricing-wise. um but like sony is gonna do the exact same thing they've got one big title uh that they're pushing right now which is goes to yotai for 2025 that's been confirmed to be 80 dollars
They're probably going to follow suit with their games being $80. Or sorry, $80. I keep bouncing back and forth. Ghost of Yotai is normal price. But I feel like in the holidays, they're going to go to $80 US. And come 2026, that is going to be the standard pricing for AAA games.
I was going to say, I don't know why they would announce a price increase before they have a significant number of games. I think they can get a lot of... goodwill air quotes if they like keep things the same while xbox and nintendo are raising prices
even though they don't have any, like, big major titles other than, like I said, Ghost of Yachty is coming out. But, like, If they don't charge extra on that one, if they just leave 2025 the same and then increase in the next like year, I'm assuming they'll have more first party exclusive type things than like.
you know, take the hit then when everybody's already used to it because Xbox and Nintendo had to do it earlier, right? Like, I think you can get a lot of good press goodwill deserved or not but like they don't have anything coming out if they had three or four titles coming out this year you would absolutely see them raise prices but they don't so why would you like take that PR hit just like
Make people like you, Sony. Just keep it low and it's not really going to impact you anyways. And then raise it next year when... Your two competitors have already had, you know, 6, 8, 12 months, whatever, in this new pricing model. Like, you'll look like the good guys. Rolls eyes. I know, and that's the thing. I really do feel... And I've had this conversation with a few people. Like, I feel like it's a matter of time. Like, I'm surprised that Xbox blinked first. But, I mean...
At this stage, it is going to be the entire industry. And you're right, it is going to price people out. Like we've talked before, I've already stopped. buying certain games that i probably would have got day one and it's part time it's part money um i feel like hardware is different because it's got a longer tail than video games like the software but looking at like call of duty like call of duty is a great example because like When those games were coming out back in the 2010s,
I would rent it to play the single player and then return it to Blockbuster because I didn't do the multiplayer, right? So it was already pricing me out because it's like I was playing a small portion of the game and that's it. And now it's like, well, definitely not going to buy a new Call of Duty for $80 US.
I'll play it on Game Pass. I think Microsoft has this unique opportunity to rip the Band-Aid off, say, hey, we are going to be increasing prices this holiday. You've got Ghost of E3 coming up in a month. Sony is likely to just is likely to be as quiet on the subject of pricing until they absolutely have to announce changes, which likely won't be until 2026.
I think that they're definitely not going to do it during their big push in June if they do have a showcase. And Xbox does have a showcase in early June, so they had to kind of... announce this now, let it settle, and then start to talk about their holiday lineup. Because that's the thing, we don't have a good idea of what the holiday lineup looks like. for any of the platform holders. We have some games that are targeting 2025, but don't have a date, or winter 2025, or whatever.
We don't know exactly what's coming out post-June, like the second half for Xbox and for PlayStation. We just have Ghost of Yotai. It is really unfortunate when games go up in price, but I really feel like, okay, if you're doing this, then you're accepting the fact that uh more more folks are gonna have to decide like like again hardware is one thing but software is another like it really comes down to is this Do I see enough value?
personally as the person that's going to play the game like not review it or not do like an aggregate is this game good but just like you as a person playing the game it's that value has to match it especially if you are on a budget for video games which
you know i think most of us are because like we don't i think there's just so much video games coming out now you literally can't buy and play everything so you're always making those decisions um so yeah i think it's just for me at least it used to be like major first party stuff was basically a given like you know there's there's some franchises that obviously i didn't play we're going to talk about a couple actually in the news but like
There's a few franchises that I don't necessarily touch, but a lot of the pillars of those companies are things that I would always go and buy, and I'm just not anymore. You know, I don't know. I can't be alone. But anyways, let's move on because I feel like we've talked about money enough. I'm done. Let's talk about Fortnite where nobody ever spends any money because it's a free-to-play game. Lol. Yeah, definitely. I don't think I've bought anything in Fortnite. I don't think.
I think I bought you snowman chicken. You did, yeah. So I've definitely been handed some cool Fortnite stuff. to sort of fit in with the crowd for our holiday season. but then jokingly like while we did a For May 4th, we did a Star Wars Extra Life event with Nevermore. and Manny.
And famously, I did not have any Star Wars stuff. I think I was Godzilla for most of it, I believe. You were Godzilla, and then that made me feel better about also not playing as a Star Wars character because I only had default Fortnite Star Wars character. right and uh yeah i played as her for a couple rounds and i was like i hate this i need my my glittery high pink ponytail ariana grande back please i mean that is the that is the draw of fortnite is to be like
Just have the most random team. Whoever you want to be. Yeah, I love it. I love seeing just the random IPs just like... fighting it out and uh mashed up together yeah yeah although what was i'm trying to remember there was something that happened during the stream where you and you said This is why Nintendo will never let Mario be in Fortnite and I can't remember what it was.
Someone did some emote, and I can't remember what it was, and you were just like, no, Nintendo would never let this happen to Mario. It was Han Solo doing some dance with... Like, I mean... i i almost want it is interesting on one hand it's like i'm sure harrison ford like if he was shown that he would be very grumpy about it but he has famously also been asked about like You know, are you worried that your green screen footage of you being the Red Hulk will...
will be embarrassing and he says that's what the money's for so i don't think he's too worried about it but it is very interesting seeing amazing it's an actual quote and it's it is he is he is a hilarious man He always gives, I mean, what's that show he's in? shrinking yeah that's him that's his that's his character he is that person just just the way he delivers lines but yeah no it was han solo dancing some ridiculous dance and then as soon as i saw it like the only character i could see
Nintendo, like, sort of offering up. It would have to be one that fits within the Fortnite sort of, like, Guns and grenades and fighting battle royale. Maybe Star Fox, maybe Metroid, but never Mario, never Zelda, maybe Donkey Kong. But then as soon as you realize how ridiculous that sounds, it has to fit.
so well but nintendo just would never do it because they i think they said like no it's got to be exclusive to our consoles like can't be accessed by any or seen by anyone else and like that's how the minecraft Video game does it on the Nintendo Switch. It's a Nintendo version. You can build a world with a Nintendo template, but no one can join it. It's single player only. It's locked down. It's only for Nintendo stuff.
So that's not Fortnite and Epic's Jam. They're very about, like, openness and everybody can sort of be a part of it. But this... This season is like way more Star Wars than I thought it was going to be like very Star Wars. Yeah, there's, I mean, and I'm not a big fan of Star Wars, you guys know that, but yeah, it's just Star Wars threw up everywhere.
There's a ton of Star Wars characters. There are lightsabers that you have to get by talking to or defeating certain NPCs, which include Vader and... The guy with the lightning hands and, um... Darsidious. Before we get emails. Maybe. I don't know. The guy with lightning hands. Come on. He got a big hood. That guy. Is it Darcy? Now I'm questioning myself. I don't know. You're the one who's screwing knowledge out there like you knew something. I'm not gonna correct you.
But now I'm pretty sure it's... oh man i don't know i'm gonna google lightning like wait wait lightning hands star wars let's see if google knows what i'm talking force lightning yeah i know it's force lightning what kind of noob doesn't know that Raise his hand. Count Dooku. No, that's not him. That's definitely not him. Pretty sure. But Darth Sidious sounds like the guy who was...
I don't know, it's like a bad guy. It is a bad guy, but what's the guy's name? It's like a main bad guy. Emperor Palpatine. There you go. That sounds like the guy. Okay. So anyways, lightning hands is in this. Yeah, there's lightsabers. There are good guy lightsabers and bad guy lightsabers. And all of the guns are... I'm assuming from the Star Wars universe. I have a big, big, big gripe with the Star Wars universe. Apparently, every gun just has a number in its name.
And I have no idea what the hell any of them do because we have infinity ammo because they're blasters so they just like overheat. Which is super cool, because everyone's pew pew pewing lasers around, but... That's how I used to tell what gun was what, is what ammo it took. So, like, the sniper rifles take the big stuff, then the assault rifles take the medium stuff, and then the SMGs and the pistols take the little stuff.
And shotguns are shotguns, obviously. But there are no ammo types in this season. So I'm like, everything is... Like, letter, number, number, number, blaster, blah. I don't know what any of the guns are. And even some things that I think, oh, this thing looks like it would be a sniper rifle. And then all of a sudden it's like a shotgun or an assault rifle. And I'm like, I... Star Wars! Yeah. And speaking of Star Wars, again, before we get emails, Darth Sidious is Emperor Palpatine.
that's why there you go so you were you were right then right from the right from the jump there you go but i i questioned myself as soon as i said i was like oh that sounds like some other character. You can also fly X-Wings, which are the only things that naming convention-wise makes sense to me because they have wings in the shape of an X, so I'm like, nailed it. Way to go, franchise. The Y-wing looks like a Y.
It's not in Fortnite, but... There's a Y-Way... Okay. Yes. And then there's the other ones that have, like, the satellite dishes on the side. The TIE Fighter. Yeah. Sounds like elephants screaming as it flies. Yes.
Yeah, so there's all kinds of stuff that you can do. There's also four new locations and stuff that you can go and visit that are all themed either... for the rebels or the empire so yeah it's uh it's star wars yeah i feel like okay so manny who i play with like probably five or six nights a week um He's a very big Star Wars fan, or at least was a very big Star Wars fan. I don't know how he feels about the new stuff. I should probably listen more when he talks.
But yeah, Star Wars, he is loving this Fortnite season. Every time he comes around a corner, there's some new like Easter egg that he gets really excited about. So for people who love Star Wars. I am very glad that this exists because it seemed like they did a very good job of bringing Star Wars into Fortnite without it being too goofy and losing the cool factor. of star wars so yeah i think overall
This is a successful season. Minus the naming conventions of the guns because I'm not the only person that that really bothers. Yeah. I was, I mean, if you want to go watch the VOD folks at home, the first hour is just me complaining that I don't know what gun does which. And then also getting in trouble for picking up the same gun.
Thinking it was different, like putting one down and picking another one up. Yeah, there was There was one game that I got like booted from the lobby so I had to spectate. I was watching Ryan and I was like, you have five slots. and... two guns, but all five of your slots are full. The pictures are the same, Ryan. They are the same, but you're in combat.
and it's like i'm stressed and this is the problem with me coming back to games i haven't played especially games that change so frequently it's like it's like dead by daylight like playing once or twice a year you get in there it's like i have no idea what's going on everything's changed and this specifically fortnite while while season to season doesn't normally change like this much but this is this really feels like one of those um
It is a mini-season, but one of those mini-seasons that are heralded as, oh man, this one's really special. It's about a specific IP. They've changed a lot about how the gameplay works. And I missed a lot of those. I believe one of the Marvel ones was a big one. Yeah, I think the Marvel one is the one when I started and I really enjoyed it. It was probably the best introduction I could have had because it wasn't like...
random original IP Fortnite stuff. It was like, here's a really cool branded thing on top that you already know and understand and enjoy. Yeah, I think that was just a really good time for me to enter into the Fortnite space. Yeah, it's... I think they've done a really, really good job. And I don't want to, I mean, I know we talk about Fortnite all the time, so I don't want to like...
Nothing that much has changed in this season. It's still Fortnite no-build, all that kind of stuff. It just has a Star Wars skin over top of it now, and Star Wars fans seem to be very happy with it. That exists now. And as Ryan also mentioned off the top of this Fortnite chat, we did play on Twitch with QuotedNevermore. That is her Twitch name.
Channel so you should go if you want to check out the VOD that's where it is twitch.tv slash QuotedNevermore but also she has started her extra life campaign I think Ryan your page is up as well I am lazy and haven't done mine yet because I normally don't do it till the fall, but I guess I need to get on board with this whole like 12 month, everybody's raising money for extra life all the time thing. So I'll get my page up. But yeah, so we were...
We did do an Extra Life stream and did have a couple donations, so thank you guys so much for supporting us and for supporting Nevermore. We will have the gamers and pages and teams up for Extra Life shortly. Other than that, I've just kind of been poking around in blueprints still. I think I'm closing in on the 75-80 hour range, which, man, this game is... It's like...
It's extensive and complex, and every time I think I'm coming to what feels like the end, I'm like, okay, I only have a couple more puzzles to solve. And then I'll solve a puzzle, and it'll open up five more puzzles, and I'm like, oh, for fuck's sakes.
and i'm like i'm happy because i want to know more about the universe and i want to like solve it like i want to complete it but um yeah and the whole uh and another reason why like i could just leave it right now and probably be totally satisfied because i have a pretty good idea now of of
what happened and how and why. There's just a couple of narrative question marks I still have. But because it's a roguelike, it just is so... frustrating when like you know you have a specific thing that you want to do you know how to do it but you have all these random mechanics that have to line up perfectly like i think i'm on day like 65 now
And some of those were stretches of like five or ten days in a row where I was just trying to do one freaking thing and I couldn't get all the pieces in a run until I had to start over again. And, like, it does get easier, you know, like, there are mechanics that kind of, like, build on each other and give you kind of permanent bonuses and unlocks and stuff but man it's it's a tricky tricky game complex good well thought out good narrative like it is still up there with like
will be on my game of the year list. But, yeah, trying to, like, tick all those boxes and finish all those achievements, oof, sometimes feels like a bit of a slog. Yeah. Wow, Rolex old. do that, right? Especially if you... Yeah, yeah. Having played a good chunk of Blueprints, you hit walls, literally. Yeah, literally. I'm actually quite impressed with myself for sticking with it as long as I have.
Given that it's a roguelike and normally I bounce off of those so hard. So the fact that I have this many hours in and I'm still plugging away, I'm very impressed with myself. My Google Doc is at... Almost 400 pages now. Yeah. You're going to have to upgrade your Google One subscription and all that.
I'm so glad that I abandoned handwritten notes about 10 pages in because, oh, man. Yeah, how many trees to build up. Yeah, I would have had to go buy new notebooks. Plural. So, yeah, I'm still plugging away. Once I'm completely done and satisfied, I will do one more quick blueprints update and let you guys know what I think of it overall. Like, I don't think that there's anything at this point that could make me go, ah, it's terrible. So, yeah, it's game of the year. Let's go.
Although, I hear there's some competition from what you and John talked about last week, and Matt is also playing this, and I've downloaded and installed it. I haven't gotten into it yet, but Expedition 33 sounds really super cool. so amazing like every day it's very Final Fantasy in that way to me it's like it's one of those things that I watch
Matt play so many times and I'd be like, oh, that looks so cool. Oh, it's so pretty. What is that? Oh, it's Final Fantasy, of course. And now I'm looking every time I go into his room and looking over his shoulder, I'm like, Man, X Edition 33, so beautiful, so pretty, look at all those effects. It's a very, very pretty game, which really makes me want to play it, but I have also heard it's very difficult.
Yeah, the timings on the parry and the dodge and the other mechanics that are introduced for the, it's a turn-based game, but you do have the ability to sort of have actions during the opponent's turn. Yeah, South Park was like that. It's totally the same thing. South Park and Exhibition 33. It's funny. I've been trying to think of it. I've always called it action turn-based game.
Like, it's very Paper Mario, very Mario and Luigi. Oh, yeah, Paper Mario, actually. Yeah, that's another good example. I got really good at those timings. Well, those were Nintendo timings. Yeah, I know. Shut up, Ryan. No. I think that I'm right there with you. I deserve that. I'm really good with Nintendo timings. I've definitely hit some frustrating moments in Claire Obscure.
with the tighter windows. You can change the difficulty at any time. A lot of folks in Discord have talked about shifting the difficulty because there are moments where... Right now, I think I'm hitting one of those walls where it's a boss in Act 2.
It's two phases. And in order to stay alive, you either have to dodge or parry, there is an advantage to parrying, because you get more action points, and then if you hit all of the attacks in their chain, and you parry all of them, you get to do a counter, which is like big damage. So... There's incentive to parry. It's not a requirement, and the window for the dodge is much greater.
But if you're getting frustrated with those timings, like there is a lower difficulty for combat, which does widen those windows. And I do recommend, just based on the story the game's telling and the visuals and the mechanics, if you are hitting that wall. It is best to just turn down the difficulty. I think this is a conversation we've had multiple times about... like if you just enjoy the game don't worry about like turning difficulty down like don't worry about achievements
Don't worry about all that stuff. Just have fun. And if part of that fun is it's insanely difficult, guess what? You can turn the difficulty up. Part of that fun is to get every trophy in some games that maybe you shouldn't. Go for it. I feel like that was a jab. Look, I've been there. I had to get some in, but I think that I've been in the achievement game and I'm retired. I can't do it.
I used to do it a lot, and it's just too much. It's too much. But it is fun. I'm going to get that pop. feels good it's true it does i just i just got another one today in blueprints right before the show and i was like yes
yeah i'm doing it i just think of games that have like a thousand achievements like because steam has no limit like you can have as many achievements in a game as you want and it's just like why you're you're hurting people's brains doing that like people who need to get them all is just It's a struggle. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, quickly, before we get into the news, I just wanted to talk about our Patreon, patreon.com slash thegamersin. That was a terrible transition. What is wrong with my brain?
You know what? It's because Shatterproof and Benjamin totally broke my brain because we have two new patrons this week. So that's why I just don't even know how to do this transition when there's actually patrons that are new and need to be thanked. Shadowproof and Benjamin, thank you so much for supporting us.
over at patreon.com slash thegamersin. The Patreon allows us to do super cool things like TGI Game Club, which we are coming to the end of Twilight Princess, for better or for worse. I will say, like... Twilight Princess, I remember really liking back in the day. But now that I'm like looking, like playing it week to week and like looking at it with like a kind of critical eye and I'm like, oh, I like this. I didn't like this. And you know, like, I don't know, man.
overall there were a lot of things in Twilight Princess that I was like man this actually isn't so great and I'm wondering if it's like the difference between playing it when it originally came out versus playing it now with like all of the quality life changes that have happened in the last like 20 years like yeah big big differences i think but i'm still enjoying it overall
I still think it's a good entry in the Zelda franchise, but there are some things in that game. Yeah. I think the biggest thing that kind of hit me with the last couple of milestones is I understand... why Nintendo made the big shift to Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. When you look at those two products side by side, and they say they wanted to reinvent Zelda while keeping some of those core Zelda themes and characters.
It's kind of a pretty amazing shift. Not a lot of franchises are able to do that and succeed. I know we look back and we miss the Zelda of old, but... I think if you were to make that formula again, like with a modern Zelda,
i just i don't know there are moments like in zelda where you're like you finish a dungeon and it's like oh what do we do now it's like the twilight princess has that feel of like you finish a thing and you're like you walk back into the world and you're like oh But now what do we do?
Like, oh, maybe we go... I did hear about this one thing. You're always asking somebody, like, where do I go next? Like, you're... Yeah, there definitely are a couple of moments after... after dungeons where it's like hey midna um heard any rumors lately yeah what's going on because i don't know where to go look for this Fragment
It's always a fragment. It's always a piece. Something's broken, and we have to fix it. Look, there's a formula. I think we're in the... We just went through the... find all the triforce pieces uh wind waker uh moment oh yeah for twilight princess it's like i completely forgot that was in this game i was like oh man i i did not remember this whatsoever but it's coming back It's a lot of fun. It's great to revisit.
But I appreciate the Zeldas of old. I understand why the new Zeldas are popular. Are the way they are. Yeah. Yeah, and then they had Skyward Sword, which I don't think we'll do a game club for. No, no, absolutely not. But yeah, so again, we are finishing up Game Club, so all of our conversations are on our Discord. You can head to tiny.cc slash GGI Discord if you want to join in those conversations.
I think we'll also probably do our wrap-up in a couple weeks from now. I have to take a look at the calendar because we also have a long weekend coming up. So I want to make sure I don't schedule it on the long weekend because people usually have plans. Somewhere towards the end of May, we'll do our final wrap-up. We only have, I think, two more dungeons to do, so...
Yeah, we're coming to the end, but it's been super fun. So again, thank you to all our patrons for kind of supporting us while we do some of these extra things. alongside our main podcast that is again patreon.com slash the gamers in that brings us to the news this week uh grand theft auto has been delayed it's one of those things where it's like is anyone surprised is gta 6 ever gonna come out like maybe they had a pretty cool trailer
It looks impressive. Did they reach for the stars and they're just never going to actually release their game? I don't know. I mean, I I didn't think it was going to come out this year. I feel like we were too... They made a big deal about it coming out this year. They said 2025 in that trailer that was posted in late 2024, and then we heard nothing since.
You watch that trailer, and I don't know what kind of sorcery they're doing at Rockstar, but to... to have that running on a base ps5 like we talk about you know the the pro models the half steps we got Last year, or sorry, last generation, and then this generation, and they're showing it on a base PS5 and the way it's running, and it's like, wow, it looks incredible.
just from a graphics standpoint. I've never been a huge Grand Theft Auto fan, but I can appreciate that it's a very popular franchise. There's more of a focus on the story in this trailer. It very much looks like a GTA story, two playable characters, and yeah. So I have a question, because it's been a really long time. I did play, I've played a couple of entries in the Grand Theft Auto series. I feel like one was like super duper early on, like maybe the first one, possibly the second one.
And then I think I played five. which I'm totally blanking on when that came out, but I feel like it was a long, long time ago.
The trailer made me a little bit like... i don't know it was almost off-putting because it did look so realistic i'm like do i really want ultra realistic like beating people up and stealing cars and like I don't know, almost like the franchise and the story and the stuff that you do, like... when it was more or i guess less polygons you were kind of like separated from reality like it was a game the more realistic it gets the more i kind of go
This doesn't look great. I don't really want to do this. Am I really one that got that feeling? This is too realistic. I don't want to control a guy that's beating the shit out of somebody else. yeah money well there's that like i don't know what it's called it it's um It's uncanny valley, but it's almost like this uncomfortable realism. And you get it with films, right? You know, the effects are so well done and they're able to capture what is essentially a fake moment, but make it look real.
We're getting to that point with video games where, yeah, like... But you're controlling it. Like, that's the thing that always... Like, you can, you know, you watch a movie and their character's doing a thing, right? But when you play a game, and this is the same reason why I love horror films, and I really struggle with horror games,
is because I'm controlling the character. I do not want to walk down that hallway. I do not want to open that door. But if I'm watching a horror movie, they're going to walk down the hallway and open the door because... It's a movie. It's on rails. Like, you know, so...
Having to push the buttons and make the very realistic characters do the very realistic thing. Like, it's one thing to be, like, a wizard and, like, shoot pew pew lasers at somebody and, like, whatever. But it's a whole other thing to be, like... a you know like gang member and in a strip club and you know like all of the kind of stereotypical gta things It is such a hyper-realistic looking game.
like i i'm not opposed to like gta in general like you know that's your thing that's your thing but like i don't know there's something about the realism in this one that is just like off-putting to me it's like i wish you'd gone a little less realistic yeah i think it does help that the game they i don't think they showcase it very well in the trailer but gta is a very satirical look at sort of The, you know, cops and robbers style of gameplay, like it is very...
out there very far-fetched like not like aliens and and you know weird weird monsters but it the grand theft auto franchise does kind of you know have that like cartoon yeah like it's definitely um obviously like it's never taken itself too seriously i guess it's just like yeah um
It's partially some of the stuff that you also hear and especially see now that you know you've got Twitch and... you know social media tiktok like all of these and youtube all these like video based things where you can now put out content around like having a dude stand there on the corner and beat up a hooker like you can do that over and over and over again and make content about it and it's just like
it's one of those things where i'm like again i just wish it looked a little bit less realistic because like i know there's gonna be shitty people doing shitty things in that game and yeah it just the whole thing just makes me go up like where did my like top down view go where did my like Two poly people go. It's, it's, the themes are more, I don't know.
palatable to me when they're when they're more cartoony i guess yeah no i mean that's fair and i i agree with you watching the trailer it did have that vibe of like this is almost too realistic yeah i'm trying not to be a wuss and i'm not telling anybody what they should enjoy and people who are excited about gta 6 which is a lot of people that is fair i know people love this franchise i'm super excited for you
I don't know if I'm going to be able to play this. I'm going to wait for reviews because, yeah, it was just a little icky to me. Yeah, there's also a very, very strong chance that this is going to be a very expensive game. Like, that was the chatter.
before nintendo it was all gta 6 is going to cost like a hundred bucks or something like i i don't know i i think it'll it'll it's definitely going to sell for 80 us but i could see rockstar being like you know trying to increase that they put a lot of money into this game but they'll also get a lot of money back through the online portion i don't know if they've confirmed they'll be online or not
But that was a big moneymaker for them. GTA Online, GTA 5 Online. I can't remember what they called it. It was a big deal. I'm like, I know Whirlwind just posted. Something about the cost of something. Because I remember I responded to him, but... I'm literally, I searched for him in the Discord and there's over 125,000 results of chats from Whirlwind.
It's just him sending Walmart links to everybody. Yeah. I'm like, I know that he just posted something that was like a collector's edition of a pre-order of a game. Oh, it goes to Yotai. Yeah. 300 bucks okay i was like yeah and it was 300 bucks and i was like wow that is so many bucks and i i couldn't remember i'm like was that grand theft auto or yeah so that would but um yeah not if it's been delayed into next year they won't be doing
It's just the base game, $300. Like, this is the thing. Games have always been expensive. As long as I can remember. I remember when I was a... When I was a kid, I had a Toys R Us flyer, Super Mario RPG. It was like $90 Canadian. I had like a glass jar of Toonies for my allowance.
and i went downstairs like all right i'm ready to buy it my parents were like well you can't go to a store and just give give that to us and then we'll go buy it and we'll figure it out later the games have been expensive for for the entirety of video games. Sure, yeah. I thought it was Grand Theft Auto 6. But I mean, yeah, collector's editions, period, full stop, have always been super expensive. Although, I don't think I've ever seen a $300 one before. That was nuts.
Yeah, I feel like the Horizon one, I think, was just shy of 200, the one that had the elephant statue in it for Forbidden West. I think it was like $189, I want to say. So like, I mean, they're definitely up there. But yeah, $300. That is an expensive collector's edition. yeah i i think yeah my point to that was i think gta 6 will be that much like
Not the base game, obviously, but any collector's edition they do will be like $300, $400, I bet, depending on what the extras are they throw in there. But yeah, they will get their money's worth, that is for sure. They'll be fine. Rockstar will make back their money. No one's worried about that. Yeah, so we should have probably done this up where we were talking about Fortnite, but Epic has told Apple that after a court ruling that they will bring Fortnite back to iOS. That's something.
yeah i don't know if you remember the ye old days of 2023 when we were talking about uh epics um uh lawsuit against apple it might have even been earlier than that oh yeah no i i definitely remember this yeah where uh Oh, it was 2020. Was it that far back? Oh my god. Yeah. I also just realized we're going to have to call this section Layoffs and Lawsuits again. Yeah, that's fair enough. Now we've entered the layoffs and lawsuits portion. Yeah, the unfun stuff. Yeah, there's a lot of unfun stuff.
But this is interesting because there's a lot going on here. Epic and Apple have been fighting. There was an injunction in 2021 that essentially stated that Apple had to allow external payment processors in-app. Apple did the Apple thing of basically saying, yeah, we'll do it, but we'll put a big giant warning that looks like a malware warning, and then still take 27%, which is 3% less than they would take if you use the in-app purchase system. So like,
Not in the spirit of being told not to do that thing. Yeah. So... fast forward four years later a judge has basically said hey you haven't been doing this and now you're in trouble and um apple has uh sort of versed in the u.s specifically
on certain apps. Patreon has come out saying that they are now going to allow um the old way of of uh subscribing to patreon and that as well the they've paused the procreation um phase out which was to happen in november of this year uh so it's it's i it's apple it's sorry it's u.s only but there have been a lot of rumblings that like When something like this happens in as big a market as the U.S.
It makes sense to do it everywhere. So we might see some larger changes across the Apple ecosystem and also affecting the Google Play system as well. But Fortnite's not back yet. Basically, Epic's saying, hey, if you do this across the board, we'll bring Fortnite back to the App Store. Nothing yet. I think that Epic's doing fine, but they have stated they're losing out on a billion dollars.
a year or something some crazy amount that they are looking at their numbers previously when they had the app store version up and it's It's a lot of money. It's a mind-boggling amount of money for a free-to-play game on only one platform of all the places. And... a phone platform of all things like i i just cannot believe that fortnite mobile is that big that it brings in a billion dollars a year on that one platform. Like that is just mind boggling to me. That's crazy.
yeah it's free to play guys it's free to play i'm free to play but is it free to look like han solo no it is not no it is not you gotta put some money behind uh behind those Those wants. I am not innocent here. I have definitely bought Fortnite skins. I spend money in the game. Sure. But yeah, I just didn't realize Fortnite Mobile was that huge.
Yeah, it's also interesting because Epic has stated that not only will they bring Fortnite back, but they'll drop all further litigation because they still have ongoing battles with it. this is just one portion of it and this is what epic's been fighting for is for there to be more options on these closed systems. So yes, if you want, you can use an in-app purchase system, but If you say you're Patreon and you want to offer the ability to just subscribe to certain, you know, Patreons, like...
That was something we had been doing for years, since Patreon's inception. And then they kind of got handed a letter by Apple. This is a big deal and will kind of get us back to what was normal just a couple years ago. It's kind of weird that... They kind of created this thing to take more money from creators and developers when they're already getting money from those developers.
It's weird, but I hope it clears up, because honestly, it's messy, and there's just a lot of stuff going on, and it'd just be nice if everyone just, you know, cut that shit out. Let's just make it easy again, please. Well, speaking of messy, Polygon has been sold to a company called Valnet, and they have laid off the majority of their staff, unfortunately. And this seemed to come out of totally nowhere.
based on the social media posts that I saw. Yeah, this was pretty sad. Polygon has been a... one of our our main sources uh for you know just video game news and and release information and and uh to see it kind of go i don't know of valnet but i know just based on the fact that they let off like a majority of of their staff is just kind of Like, what?
Polygon ceases to exist. It is the staff. It's just like when Game Informer went away, it was like, well, without the staff, you're just a name, right? Yeah, and I mean, like, apparently, according to the Video Games Chronicle article that we've got here, it says Valnet is the parent company of several media brands, and I haven't heard of any except, I think, Collider.
uh oh and screen rant that's the other one so two of the one two three four five six seven brands that they have i've actually heard of um the other ones not so much and i just like Yeah, I don't know. It makes me think that they just wanted Polygon for the name and now it's going to be full of a bunch of AI crap. That's my guess. It's like, who needs writers when we can just get ChatGPT to write game articles?
Why else do you lay off the entire staff, right? No, I mean, you're saying the quiet part out loud when you have a website that is, you know... written content and then get rid of the people writing the content and then you still have writing content it's like ah what are we doing here guys yeah so that's yeah that's my uh that's my two cents on that one anyways is
Probably don't read Polygon anymore because it's not written by people. Yeah. Or at least the same people that you've been going to Polygon for.
the majority of the names that i would have recognized from polygon are the names i recognize in the article we have here people saying they've been laid off so it's they've been laid off yeah it is very it's it's a it's a weird we're in a weird state for video game journalism like a lot of sites are you know being sold and being changed and and i know part of that is like
I mean, we're not the problem. Content creators are not the problem. It's not the reason these websites are shutting down. I think there's still a place for video game journalism. But it's very unfortunate that the corporate overlords are being like, well, you know, this is being done by so many people, so we don't need it anymore. And that's not the case. I think there's still very much room for like these big websites. And I think one of the biggest things was like...
You're going to gut your video game journalism website when some of the biggest titles are coming out. A follow-up to the most popular console ever is coming in June. You've got GTA 6 coming in 2026. You've got Xbox finally releasing video games. This is a big moment for video games, and now you're like, it's the biggest entertainment genre out there. It's kind of wild, to be honest.
Yeah, I mean, it's surprising, not surprising, given everything else that's been happening in the industry. Like, I mean, I'm just honestly expecting articles to start popping up from like... Sean Williams, totally not a robot. I am a real person. I like video games. Yeah, I like video games and have been playing them since my birth three hours ago. I mean... Yeah, I just, I don't know. Yeah. Not touching Polygon with a 10-foot pole anymore.
We do have some good news. EB Games is coming back to Canada. So somebody up here has bought EB Games or has bought, I guess, GameStop in Canada and is renaming it back to EB Games.
uh ab games was bought by gamestop a number of years ago and they uh yeah i know they haven't really been doing all that well up here so i guess they were for sale and somebody's bought them and so now they are a canadian company again which is very exciting And they have a kind of interesting, new, more kind of all-inclusive vision from the sounds of it where they want to...
you know, be a gaming space, not just a gaming store. So I'm looking forward to seeing what they actually do with the, I guess, the brand now. Yeah. Yeah, I have very fond memories of... EB Games and Electronic Boutique, as it was called before. I know that's what EB stands for, but it was a big deal. I remember when I was a kid. Um...
Like, I wanted to work there. And I think, like, I was too young to be working. I was definitely too young to be working. But I think my, like, mom called the store and, like, asked if there was openings. And, like... I was like, well, no, they won't employ you're too young, but you can definitely go there and buy video games, no problem. And I did have a friend who worked there, and it was very interesting to, you know, later on, going there and just hanging out and buying video games.
And it hasn't really changed. Outside of the wall of Funko Pops, there's more toys specifically. But it's still a place where you have these really... friendly folks uh i mean they might want to sell you like a disc protection or something but you know you can just say no to that it's fine you don't have to worry about that but uh this is very good news i'm excited that um that it's coming back because I know there was some
Some really unfortunate rumblings out of GameStop's parent company in the U.S. about wanting to offload. you know, the Canadian side of it for stupid reasons. And the fact that we do have like a French Canadian entrepreneur and. uh as as they put it here long time leader in the collectibles and entertainment space i don't know what that means but it's good news i think that there are They're their own thing again. They're back to EB games.
Like, this is positive. I mean, I can't remember the last time I went into an EB Games in Bada. bought a video game but uh oh my god ryan i just i feel like you and i are jinxing this so much well you think it's gonna be bad it's just gonna be funko pops well no no that like next week we're gonna come back and be like so eb games has closed
200 stores in Canada and laid off most of their staff. Now they will have flagship stores in Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, and Vancouver. Well, you put it out there. I guess I was just tempting fate and now you're like, It is interesting. I know there was... You were just being so positive about this. I'm like, this is giving me Microsoft acquires Blizzard flashbacks.
Yeah, well, the interesting part about GameStop here in Canada is like, there were three of them in Peterborough, and now there's only one. Yeah. So... They did a lot of downsizing under GameStop. Yeah, they've already liquidated a lot. No, I mean, it could happen. I mean, I hope it doesn't. I hope it doesn't. I hope that you and your positivity is 100% right. I can see us eating our words in next week's new section. Maybe.
Maybe. Look, that is always the concern when you have a new buyer come in and... And maybe I don't know anything about this new owner, whether they have the money to back up the network of stores that are still open here in Canada. But look. Canada is very resilient when it comes to keeping brands and stores, niche stores alive. Just look at Toys R Us. Died in a fiery death just south of the border and still lives strong here in Canada.
So, Jeffrey lives on, I think that was the guy's name, the giraffe. The giraffe. Yeah. 100%. See, I remember that. Darth Sidious. No luck. Jeffrey the Jam. Stuck in your head forever. Forever and ever. One final story tonight, Gears of War Reloaded is coming to Xbox, as well as Xbox PC, Cloud Gaming, PlayStation 5, and Steam this summer. So this is... I guess a remaster.
to 4K of Gears of War, but this is one of those titles we talked about a while back now that Microsoft had announced were coming into other ecosystems that had previously been Microsoft exclusives. We saw it with Sea of Thieves, I think was in the first wave, and that was a year ago? I think so. Give or take, yeah. So yeah, now we're seeing this summer we'll be getting Gears of War, which is like a... kind of tentpole xbox franchise so i guess some may consider sea of thieves the same but yeah
Definitely super popular on the Xbox side. Yeah. Gonna see how it does over on PlayStation. I think it'll be pretty popular. I mean, there was... Microsoft has been releasing more and more titles over to PlayStation, and PlayStation is obviously a big platform, and I think there was a news article posted in the Discord that their top... Three sellers are Microsoft titles.
And it just goes to show that there are still folks that buy one platform and want to... play the software that launches on that one platform and when new games come over like they might not be the entire series but you know you have the latest forza horizon now you're gonna have gears of war I mean, Gears of War was huge on a 360. That was like Xbox.
franchise you know like I wouldn't quite put it in the mario or zeldas of the of the locked to first party platforms but it's definitely like a i don't know what's a second tier nintendo sort of ip that like maybe metroid like it's kind of like if metroid came over to the playstation or xbox it kind of unheard of but to see it happen is like whoa this is pretty crazy but when halo arrives on playstation then it's like mario and zelda on other titles like this.
end of an exclusive era for Xbox properties, but... They'd have to release a new Halo game to kind of do that, although I guess this isn't new. This is a remake of a remake. I was going to say, yeah, can we count it as new? No, it's a remaster. I was going to say, it's not even a remake. I think like the original reloaded. was a remaster of Gears of War that came out around the time of Gears 4 when they kind of continued the franchise.
This is not a new game, but to have it sort of Remastered again for current hardware. And the first 4A. I mean, it's the perfect game to put out on PlayStation because it's the first in the franchise. And then I think there is the next proper Gears is a prequel to this game. So it kind of works in that way when that prequel comes out. and they put it out on PlayStation, you're not missing any of the story.
Yeah, so that is something for everyone to look forward to in summer 2025. You can also look forward to some of the awesome conversations that are happening over in our TGI Discord. You can go to tiny.cc slash TGI Discord. to join in over there. You can also visit us on the web at gamersinpodcast.com. Follow us over on Blue Sky. You can find me, Jocelyn, at jossplays.com, and Ryan is at ryanmurphy.ca. Also be sure to check out our TGI Community Starter Pack at tiny.cc slash TGI Starter Pack.
Thanks for staying at the Gamers Inn. And remember, tune in next week. Bye, everybody. Bye, everybody.