Welcome to the Gamers Inn. Come on in, pull up a 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. How's it going? It's going pretty good. I've been playing a lot more Tainted Grail. I'm still, I'm really enjoying it. Good. I thought you were going to say Blueprints.
That's still kind of going in the background, though I've taken a bit of a break on that one. I don't think that I've played it in about a week since I've picked up Tainted Grail. Yeah, I like I'm spending a lot of my gaming time in it. It's been really fun. I think it also helps that I'm not enjoying the Fortnite Star Wars season very much. So like that frees up a lot of game time, not having something that, you know. we kind of default to every night.
um yeah i've been uh i took a bit of a break from from blueprints to uh to check out tainted grail and the further i get i actually i made a new character and started over because i hadn't gotten too too far on my first character And the archery didn't feel that great. So I switched over to a magic character, which was always going to like that was kind of like my I was trying to choose between the two. And magic is like.
super fun i don't necessarily want to comment too much on like the combat of it all because again i'm playing on that like very low story first difficulty level um because again like i don't have that much gaming time so i need to like get through stuff um but i i found this one spell because it definitely gives you the like explore all the corners, explore all the paths, go in every like cave type of an Elder Scrolls feeling.
So I found a really super I was going like glass cannon type build and just like pumping all of my stats every time I leveled up into. like basically intellect it's not called that it might be called uh spirituality or something maybe but anyways it's the thing that like buffs your magic so there's just like points into that points into that points into that and then i found this like lightning spell that was like i think i needed
eight or nine spirituality. And I was like, easy i've already got 10 and i'm just one-shotting everything with this crazy spell that i found in the back of a cave and i was like i don't think i'm supposed to have this yet
But yeah, but the effects are really good. The spellcasting feels really good. And yeah, I think I'm borderline thinking I should... really up the difficulty because the combat is basically non-existent now that i've found this spell so i'm having a lot of fun i think i'm through basically act one now So I'm just about to like move into the new area and I was hoping to get a little bit further before we talk tonight. I think I've played probably like 10 or 12 hours.
And so I was trying to get a little bit further before we spoke tonight, just because I've seen a lot of the comments and reviews. A lot of people really like this game, but this was the part that was available in early access. So a lot of people are saying like, it feels a lot more finished. It feels a lot like fuller. There's a lot of content here.
It's really well thought out, but then as soon as you kind of move into the later portions of the game, then that's not the stuff that they kind of had available for playtesting. I've seen reviews and stuff saying that it kind of drops off a little bit after the first act. So I was hoping to get a little bit further, but you guys are just going to have to deal with me talking about it again next week to let you know if it drops off or not.
Oh, that's fair. I mean, next week, there's nothing going on. It'll be very quiet. Oh, yeah, nothing at all. Yeah, yeah. Nothing, nothing releasing. No big announcements. No, like, yeah, no talk. Oh, yeah, you're right. oh i thought you were being sarcastic i was being sarcastic the whole time saying nothing was happening next week but i was i was talking about the nintendo switch too oh
And then you were leaning into the bit, and I'm like, oh, that's right. No, I completely forgot. It's the Ghost of E3. Well, yeah, it's not E3 anymore, but yeah. We affectionately call it the Ghost of E3, because I do all the titles. I will call it the Ghost of E3 2025. You've got State of Play, Xbox, Keeley talking about Death Stranding 2 for an hour and a half. I'll probably announce a couple other things too, so...
Yes, there's lots of stuff to talk about next week. So I promise I will keep my update short and sweet next week. But yeah, I'm still really enjoying it. And I know a couple of people in the Discord have been talking about picking it up too. yeah it's uh i'm enjoying it a lot and they're like it's pretty dark in some places and they're they're they're taking the lore and and going in different directions and like
Yeah, it's interesting. I'm really, really liking the storytelling in this game in a way that like... i wasn't expecting so this is another one like blueprints this year and now tainted grail i'm kind of like man these games just keep coming out of nowhere and i think it's just because there's like
so many games like we've talked about this for the past few years like there's so many games coming out between like all the indie stuff and everything else like it just there's so many there's so many games coming out all the time that we go through these big like lists of things coming out in the next year. We have all these showcases and everything else and we get so excited about stuff and it totally falls off the radar.
And then as soon as it comes out, I'm like, oh man, yeah, this thing. I was super excited about that. That did sound cool. I forgot that they told me about this like three years ago. So yeah, these things keep like... coming out of quote-unquote nowhere for me but it's just that my memory sucks now i guess well there's just so much going on these days in in the medium you know that that we are
Often distracted by what's currently happening in the case that there is like something new that is catching people's eyes every week. Yeah. It's not surprising that we'll like, I think the biggest thing for me is I'm always reminded like Mass Effect, the next Mass Effect was announced like five years ago. And it's like, what are we doing? What? In any other world, it would have been out and in our hands by now. That was announced five years ago. So time flies when you're distracted.
That's fair. The other thing that's been distracting me over this last week is getting all caught up on Last of Us Season 2. So we are going to spoil... season two the tv show but uh ryan ryan's the only one of the two of us who's actually played the game so you're gonna keep your your thoughts about the game still
as spoiler free as possible while talking about the tv show which we are going to fully spoil and obviously is inspired by the game so like yeah there are going to be last of us part two um Game spoilers as well, but only insofar as the content that's covered in the TV show in season two. So with that, I guess, spoiler tag in mind. You got to say the obvious, right?
I don't even really know how to start this conversation because I just feel like I'm going to piss off so many people. All right, let me butter them up then first. Okay, okay, yeah. Maybe you go for it. No, no, because then I'm going to be the buzzkill. Oh, sorry. Spoilers, guys. I didn't like it. Oh, that's too bad. I just, I found that...
Well, I had a few different kind of like issues with it, but the bigger overarching one was... I found the five minute like recap trailer thing for last season more interesting and compelling than the entirety of season two. I just, I got kind of bored and I wasn't invested in Ellie as a character. Like I just couldn't get into it. I found that like.
She never sold me on the whole vengeance thing. She never seemed to be on a crusade. She seemed like she was passive and kind of along for the ride. I don't know. I wasn't a huge, huge fan of the writing of her character, I think. I don't know. It just seemed like the show kept telling me it was five years later, but she didn't seem like she'd had five years worth of growth, I guess is the best way to put it. And then... Knowing Abby's motivation immediately.
I felt like she was a sympathetic character and I was rooting for her and not Ellie. And I don't think that's what I was supposed to be doing. I don't know. Like, it was just so weird. I wish that they had just like... come in on this like group of people doing this horrible, awful thing.
killing this character that we loved and just have them like knock ellie out and have the viewer have exactly the same amount of information that she does because i feel like knowing like who abby was and we didn't get a huge amount of backstory but we got enough backstory that we're like oh okay like we know why she did the thing i feel like they just shouldn't have told us that and then maybe i would have like
that would have been enough of a driver like i would have been along for the ride with ellie to be like why the hell did you do this thing i'm gonna kill you for it like i already knew so i was like meh does that make sense I think it makes perfect sense. There were some choices made for season two in terms of the pacing of part two, the video game. There are several key revelations that... occur in the later parts of the video game that they bring forward in the show. And I think...
you know, listening to, I'll recommend for folks who have watched season two. And I think I talked about it when we talked about season one is there's a great companion podcast that HBO puts out. with Craig Mazin, Neil Druckmann, hosted by Troy Baker, voice of Joel from the video games. And it's this companion podcast that breaks down the episode and...
It's really interesting. They go into all the details of how they change things and why they change things. And specific to these moments of dropping in Abby's backstory, which is not present in the video game. This is a stranger. As a player, you know nothing about her. and her backstory and the characters that surround her. And you're left with this, you know, very violent death of a main character that you and Ellie both love. And that...
kicks off the adventure of, of this quest for vengeance. But in the show, they give us the context right away as to why Abby and her group hate Joel and why they want him dead. Uh, you don't get that you in the video game. It's very much a mystery as to why... I mean, in the back of your... And this is the thing that's really good about the video game. As a player, in the back of your mind, you can probably guess why these people...
hate and want to kill Joel. But at the same time, like in the show, they were like, OK, not only is Abby tied to that group. But also, this is her very personal connection to that very specific event, right? Like, they just lay it all out for you in episode two. And I was like... I kind of really wish that like once I got to the end of the season, I'm like, I really wish that they hadn't.
because like then i feel like i would have had the same sort of feelings of like wanting revenge wanting but i didn't get that because i was like oh no i see where abby's coming from she's the sympathetic character here not Joel, not Ellie. And I thought that was a really weird headspace to put the viewer in right off the bat. And they... I don't know. I felt like of all of the characters, like Ellie was the most developed, obviously. They didn't really give me too much to care about with the...
Dina character, I was starting to care about the character whose name I can't even remember off the top of my head now.
uh and then they like immediately jesse they immediately killed him off and once he was starting to get interesting well in episode seven at the end of the season yeah at the end of the well at the end of season but he was gone for like there was a stretch of a few episodes where he just wasn't even there yeah or like yeah it was off screen yeah but you know what i mean like you really start to get his stuff like his um his feelings his story like um it's walking dead syndrome
But like kind of, but even then, like I felt like I had more time because Walking Dead came to mind a whole bunch of times for a whole bunch of reasons as I was watching Last of Us. And I think there was obviously. Over all of the seasons of Walking Dead, there were plenty of stumbles. But I think there were some things that they did really well in Walking Dead is like... Everyone always seemed very aware of the danger of not only the zombies, but also the people.
Ellie seems completely oblivious to all of the danger around her all of the time and makes really shitty choices for no fucking reason. And like they also made things feel. very like gritty, dirty, and dark. And I felt like the kind of set piece of Seattle and the traversal to get there through like... The mountains and the forest and all that. It was all too bright and pretty. It didn't feel gritty. Like a proper apocalypse should, I guess.
Yeah. Well, it's post-apocalyptic, right? So like a lot of stuff has grown in and nature is sort of reclaimed. But yeah, once you get to Seattle, it's very overgrown. It's very... And Seattle's supposed to be, as much as I've gathered from season two, a war zone. Yes. But it doesn't look like that. Yeah. I mean, Seattle's a big I don't know. Seattle, I assume, is a big town. And and really, there's not a lot of.
humanity left but definitely between the uh the wlf and and the the scars uh there are quite quite a few of them but you're right like there are moments in the show that sort of allude to and showcase large-scale battles being fought and and um yeah it's not it i think it's a hard thing to portray yeah and and see this is the thing too is like I feel like if you removed a lot of stuff about Abby, if you removed the stuff about the WLF and the Scars...
And you just told Ellie like that would have just left you with more time in a very short season. It's only seven episodes, which was another thing is I was like, is Ellie's story that crappy that you only need seven episodes to tell it like. Come on. And there just seemed like, again, to go back to that like recap of season one, there were so many characters introduced in season one as they were doing their cross-country trek. that were well developed.
interesting and i cared more about in like some of those characters were there for one maybe two episodes before joel and ellie moved on whether you know the characters like died or were left behind or whatever. They had a lot of characters that were kind of like in and out of the story. And I cared about each and every one of those so much more than these characters that are supposed to be the most important people in Ellie's life now.
I just seemed to not know a ton about them. They didn't spend a lot of time on them. They were, you know, introduced pretty quickly. And then, yeah, just... i don't know i i was a little bit disappointed in the kind of i guess development of the supporting cast this season i don't know like I don't want to I don't want to go into Dina too much, but right. I think Dina is is a character that I loved in the video game. And I think that's where I come back to.
with the video game you you immediately uh you know get this product that is going to be 20 plus hours you get to experience the whole thing in one one you know i want to say one sitting but I'm not sitting there playing the last of us part two for 20 hours straight, but you get to play at your own pace and you don't have to wait for HBO to green light a season three or four. Um, and I think having the complete story and having more of these moments.
It really feels like The Last of Us Season 1 was a really, really good adaptation of The Last of Us, which is a story about point A to point B. They were able to summarize that in one nine-episode season. They did a fantastic job. But The Last of Us Part II, as a story, is disjointed on purpose, gives you a lot of time with these new characters, and it's five years later, so there are a lot of new characters that are introduced.
promptly ripped away from you uh but i almost feel like as an adaptation the show has turned into sort of a more of a companion piece to the video game than the first season was The first season I felt like was really good as a standalone. You could watch this and not care about the video game. But as I'm watching season two, it's like, oh, this feels very for the video game players.
And that was the vibe I got a little bit. Yeah. And I felt like just the way the order that they gave us information to was just really, really weird. There was that episode probably six. Maybe it was five. Maybe it was six. It was the one with all the flashbacks. Yes. And I'm just like, you could have spread those flashbacks out over the course of the season. And then you like you could have made Ellie more ruthless. But then.
spread out all of those flashbacks to kind of bring us back to being sympathetic to her after she loses this like father figure. I think that would have been so much more impactful. And don't even get me started about who the fuck is Eugene and why do I care? Because honestly.
Oh, my God. The number of times I heard Eugene, Eugene, Eugene, Eugene in the first few episodes. And then we never got any information till the very end of the season. I was like, this is so bad. But anyway, that's a video. That's a video game thing. It's it's so weird that they. I think they did. They got really lucky with season one. And look, I'm not saying I enjoyed season two, but I played the video game and enjoyed the video game. So I feel like that's where I feel like that connection.
helps with my with my sort of opinion on season two but but that felt like the first season they were like okay we're gonna do it this way and it's gonna be very close to the video game and it was it was you know beat for beat like they followed it all including the placement of the dlc and and how they slot that into the story uh in season one and then season two they they take that flashback
sequence which is a flashback in sequence with ellie's story after she has this big moment uh taking on nora uh although they do cut um They do cut a big scene that doesn't play out in season one or season two, but they've talked about possibly having it be revisited in future seasons. But... That flashback is in the video game, but it's more focused on on the museum sequence. Like it's all about the museum and Ellie discovering a hint that.
The Fireflies are no more. And actually in the video game, they, you know, it does the very Game of Thrones fast travel where Ellie travels back to Utah. to the hospital discovers the murder scene that's been left there slash somewhat picked up and and then she and then she fast travels back And confronts Joel. Whereas I thought in the show, they did a much better job of like Ellie always knew how to had this hint that that what Joel did and what Joel said did not line up.
and over the course i mean you could see that at the cliffhanger of sure of the first season right is like you know you could see that there were seeds of doubt then when she was what 14 sure like yeah it was definitely believable that she didn't like she wasn't necessarily on board with joel's version of events but i think like what did it for me is like
The flashback was so late in the season and it was information that we could have gotten like episode to episode as Ellie's like becoming this like. kind of evil character like because that's the whole point right she's basically like a villain arc she kills a pregnant woman like although yeah i'll talk about that in a minute but
Like, basically, like, I have so many feelings. But basically, like, they're taking her from this, like... happy-go-lucky or as happy as you can be in an apocalypse i guess it's kind of like a happy-go-lucky character in this like safe air quotes area in uh jackson Right. And then they they take away her father figure and she.
goes on this whole character arc to the point that she's like torturing people for information and killing pregnant women right so obviously villain arc right like no one's gonna argue with me there so i feel like you could have made her more because I felt like she and I think I can't remember if I said this already in the episode or if I was it's when we were texting earlier but like
Yeah, we pre-planned this whole conversation through the course of the day. We're just reading her. I was just ranting, yeah. But yeah, I think that they made her feel very incompetent, like she was just along for the ride, as opposed to... this like um rage and vengeance driven character which i feel like she should have been again having never played the games i have no idea but like she should have been this like
running after abby out the gate like and i know she was obviously also very injured and had to recover and whatever but like she should have been much more um singularly focused and driven by vengeance, in my opinion. And she should have been like ruthless and brutal and calculated.
And I felt like she wasn't any of those things. It always felt like... just very kind of along for the ride like dina's the one who knows how to actually figure shit out and tell her where to go and like you know she gets saved by um jesse and tommy jesse jesse and tommy like it just seemed like time after time after time it was like
Not what I would have expected out of, like, a main character, I guess. And you could have made her vengeance-driven and brutal and calculated and cold. And then, like... superimpose that with like five years ago this is the cake scene right and then the next episode you get some other brutal act and then you superimpose that with the museum and then you like so you kind of are showing
Like, yes, she's cold. Yes, she's calculated. Yes, she's brutal. But look how she was and look what she's lost. You know, I just felt like it was so it was just such a weird decision because you don't. have to follow the video game beat for beat we're not playing these characters You can mess with the timelines. You could mess with the information. You can change things. You're a TV show. Like, come on. Well, it's interesting to hear you share this feedback because it's...
In the video game, Ellie very much is this, you know, laser focused on finding Abby and dealing out justice. And I think the show. The show takes that and tries to soften it because Ellie is this beloved character. And I feel like they do really try to soften the whole vengeance piece in the show. Like. Because, you know, in the game, she is very focused on... And because it's all gameplay, you know, in the video game, there's a lot of gameplay mechanics to the action sequences. You are as...
You are as badass as your capabilities allow you to be as a game player, but the tools are there to really support your ability because it's an action game. You have to... You have to have that built in. But with the show, I think they took this approach of like, OK, let's play this a little more.
like a little less you know predator action rambo style type thing and i think everyone's gonna have a different reaction because i i think i really do feel like the showrunners took this opportunity to be like okay let's rethink this Let's soften it up a bit. Um, but you know, and, and I feel that too. You're telling me that maybe I would enjoy the video game version better. I feel like the video game really leans. Look, it's still a villain arc.
Ellie still, you know, does some shit that is captured in in the show. It's actually like more brutal, I would say, in the video game. And they shy away. Not the scene with, I can't remember, Owen and the other... The other lady. Oh, I hated that so much. I have no idea what their names are, which is another big problem, right? I feel like that was supposed to be a like.
monumental scene they're all very generic first names like owen yeah no offense abby but and you might you might literally hear them like other than abby because she's this is like I'm pretty sure she had to memorize three lines for this entire season because all she says is, where's Abby? Where's Abby? Where's Abby? Where's Abby? Oh, it was Mel. Mel and Owen.
oh okay yeah but like i that's part of the problem is like a lack of character development and attachment to these people and i know that we're going to get more of that um next season when we get abby's point of view i'm assuming um But that specific scene pissed me off so much.
Because it was like, again, it's like she was totally incompetent. She didn't know what she was doing. She accidentally kills them both. Are you kidding me? You're supposed to be seeking vengeance. You want them dead. This is just like, you should have walked into that room. being like,
You killed Joel. You were a part of it. I want you dead, but not before you tell me what I need to know. And that was not the attitude at all. It was like she walked in there and she was like, where's Abby? Where's Abby? Where's Abby? Where's Abby? And then like.
accidentally kills them like it was just so it was so stupid and then she's so like shaken by it and I'm like again no this was your goal like keep going i don't know it just she wasn't like ruthless enough for me she wasn't driven enough for me and that made her feel like this like flip floppy nothing of a character to the point that i'm rooting for abby like actively
Yeah, well, you have more information. Well, yeah, like, again, I don't think we should have known Abby's motivations. I think... if we had no idea who abby was and then she comes in right at the very end and there's that gunshot to black you know um cliffhanger after she obviously like kills Jesse overpowers Tommy like has um Ellie at gunpoint that would have been like so much more impactful if we knew nothing about her because then she's still this like
enigma terrifying figure which I feel like she's just not when we know everything about her like we are not everything everything but like we know her motivations from the beginning of this season so she's not this like big black unknown of terror, you know, like I just feel like there were so many opportunities that were kind of missed in this season and I think softening it.
is really good terminology because that's how it felt is it felt like it felt it felt soft it felt over explained it felt shaky it felt a lot of things i was just like i don't understand why Like, I don't want to say people think this is a good story because like you say, it sounds like the video game.
um is like not too different but maybe harsher and i think that's what i felt was missing from this season was that harshness like it should have been raw it should have been harsh like that death scene was brutal like brutal and then it just like they didn't take that brutality and like give it to ellie and continue it on and i think they really should have to have a more impactful story
Yeah, well, I mean, this is this is part part of the story. I think the complete and I think that, you know, the next season. which is set up at the end as resetting the timeline and showcasing from Abby's point of view after the death of Joel. This is the other thing. The show, season two, really... showcases a lot more about the whole other story that's taking place in the background. The video game very much leaves that out of you.
um there's little hints you can pick up if you you know replay the game be like oh that's that's like there's literally a scene where um in the video game ellie's looking for abby and as the player you know that at that exact moment where Abby is in the background, because you can see the set piece in the background. Okay. So there's interesting stuff like that. The video game very much segments those two parts. Like you have Ellie's story.
It still ends. Um, actually the show, uh, this was the other thing, like, I hate how shows do like, I agree with you on, you know, some, you know, a good portion of these points because the show has. I think a lot of people are going to be frustrated by this season one, complete story, amazing ending with the whole, like, swear to me. Yes, I swear. Okay. Cut to black like that.
in my mind, is a cliffhanger ending knowing there's more story, but in the moment is a perfect beginning, middle, end for that story. The ending of this is such TV trope bullshit of like shot, fired. Right? Gun pointed at the main character, cut to black, you know, ringing ears. And again, I was listening to. the HBO podcast where they're talking about it and they're like praising this choice. And I'm like, okay, this is the one moment where I'm like, guys, you cannot think this is.
like they they praise it and then they set it up as like yeah it's tv trope bullshit of like what's gonna happen next and of course ellie's gonna duck to the side and they're gonna have like you know a video game boss battle probably or something like Folks, don't think that this is the end of the story for...
Yeah, like they're not I think that's like they're not fooling anybody. No, that cut. Right. Like, but it's such stupid Game of Thrones, Walking Dead bullshit. End of season. What's going to happen next? Like, I think we're out of that phase. Because they didn't even I almost feel like it would have been better if they just ended with that gunshot. But then we had that scene of Abby after and it was like Seattle day one. And I was like, oh.
But that's how that's what happens in the video game. You know, like they there's more to the game in that moment where and maybe they decide to cut it because like that moment ends with, you know. stealth boss battle, basically, where Abby is hunting Ellie. Whether they adapt that in the show, I have no idea. Or whether they... It's going to be really interesting to see because like the game is sort of split into three stories. And.
Right now with season three, we are heading into the second part, which is Abby's side of events, which is going to have some. I got to say, like, if you like flashbacks, you're going to have another really great flashback for Abby to feel more sympathetic to her sort of cause. Which again, like, I feel like...
They should have kept that under their belt, I guess. And they should have given that to us as a flashback in season three, because I feel like as a viewer, that would have been a much more like. oh my god that's amazing moment is if they didn't tell me anything because this is the thing too is like we still haven't seen any scenes of like abby and her dad right like nothing
We've just been told, and this is the, like, I feel like the show this season did a lot of this, where they're telling, not showing. We are just told that her dad is the doctor. And, you know, like, we see the graves and they're burying their dead.
whatever and in salt lake city and then we get the exposition when she's beating joel to death like They just, they tell, tell, tell where I feel like if they hadn't given us any of that information, if we did not have those scenes, if we just had this group of people show up and brutally murder Joel. And then in season three, all of a sudden we get a flashback to Abby talking to a doctor at that hospital. And then we go, oh, wait, is that the hospital? And then, wait a minute, is that her dad?
Like, because everyone remembers the doctor because that was a big decision moment for Joel in the show, right? Like, there was, like... pain in his face there was the moment where he was like do i do this do i not do this and then that resolve like that was a powerful moment from season one so like that character
could be remembered and then abby has a flashback to that doctor in season three so two seasons later now we're getting her motivation that's powerful television that's an oh my god moment they took that all away from from us from people who don't know what's going on yeah and now it's just like that was my dad it's so blah there was no impact they give a bit more context of like you're right the impact is is is gone because they reveal you know that uh in the second episode and and you know
Sometimes I wonder, like, do they do that because they know the game is out, but then, like, they don't do it for other adaptations. Like, you had to wait for... all the game of thrones stuff even though wait for the red wedding oh my god and then it happens in the book people are like see we told you like 10 years ago when George RR Martin wrote stuff, we knew. And I feel like Last of Us was an adaptation, sure, but very popular with people who...
hadn't necessarily played the game. I feel like Fallout was very similar. They pulled in a lot of people who played Fallout aren't the only people who watched that Fallout TV show. Same with people who got really into Last of Us aren't people who necessarily played the video game. So you have to consider... You're like, I guess the part of your audience that is not familiar with your source material, you have to consider them too. And you have to make not just a good adaptation.
But you also have to tell a good story, right? Like you have to consider people who don't know what's going on and maybe like craft a good narrative for them as well. Yeah.
Just because people know what's coming doesn't mean you should sacrifice your... narrative to i don't know cater to them to the i don't know like i don't even i really there are some there are some things in this game that are in this tv show that i'm like i really don't know why you made that decision and if that's the way it played out in the game i don't understand why people say this is a good story the sequence of events in the show are are not faithful
well, yeah, they're not, they're not faithful to the video game. And the video game is very, from what I remember is very Ellie focused Abby mystery. Then. The controversy at the time was, oh my gosh, now you're playing as Abby, who is the killer of Joel, and showing her side of the story. And I think what...
What the show does is it tries to take the entirety of the video game and telegraph... a lot of stuff and there are these moments that feel very you know very tropey of uh like specifically the moment where and i was really confused as to what was happening ellie's on a boat
And there's this big operation they're talking about. Oh, this big operation. It's happening tonight. And then she gets swept away in the boat and lands on the island where the Seraphites are based, who are the Scars, the WLF call them the Scars. They're at battle. And she's there and she gets sort of kidnapped and she's about to be sort of killed in a ritual. And then the battle starts in the background and she...
Gets to escape. She gets away. Yeah. And there was no point to any of that. It does not exist in the video game. And again, like, I think where this show struggles is, as you said, it worries too much about. what could potentially be spoiled. But at the end of the day, the second The Last of Us Season 1 launched, people could learn what was in Season 2, 3, and most likely 4.
And I really do think that it would have benefited from removing those those telegraphs because there's another moment in season two where we get the apology scene, not the apology scene, but the well, the apology scene and the. you know, what's the line? Like, I don't know if I can forgive you, but I'm going to try. That's the end of the video game. And they put it in season two to kind of like tie together.
The five years and why Ellie is like, no, I I know what Joel did and you're still going to be punished for it for killing him, you know, and they kind of throw everything into the to the second season. to try to explain where Ellie's head's at while also... explaining what where abby's head's at and then set them on a collision again i yeah i feel like there is there's like too much um explanation maybe maybe that's the thing is like
They've they've given us they've given us too much so that there's no interest. And so I basically to kind of to wrap the conversation up, I basically.
walked out of last of us season two with a totally different feeling than i did coming out of fallout when i came out of the fallout tv show i was like i want to go play fallout i don't know anything about fallout but i want to go and play like let's try their most recent game let's try new vegas let's try like i want to try all the fallout things because
this show was so good last of us season two made me go i don't want to touch this series with a 10-foot pole like i don't want to play this game i have no interest in this like There's just no, yeah, there's nothing that pulled me from the TV show to the game. Whereas I felt the opposite after the first season, because I felt like I really wanted to play the original Last of Us.
i was like oh this was really compelling this is interesting this had a lot of cool characters this went places you know you had to make hard decisions i i want to do that like that was it was really good storytelling and made me interested in the game season two made me not want to ever play last of us part two well i'll say this um
you're you're it sounds like you're gonna enjoy season three which very much uh focuses probably because i'm rooting for abby yeah focuses on abby's story when the gunshot went off at the end of season two i was like I kind of actually hope she got Ellie. She's fine. Spoiler. Well, I know she's fine, but, like, also... anybody who writes in is like i can't believe you spoiled that ellie survives at the end of the last of us season two i'm not i'm come on
I think you'll enjoy season three. You will absolutely hate season four. If they adapt straight to the video game, you'll be like... You will. I'm not even going to make you watch it. I think you should stop at season three, because honestly, like I the whole point of the video game and it's it's the first video game is such an is.
quote-unquote an easy adaptation because it's such a great story like a lot of people said like yeah just make the game in a movie and adapt it that way and they did it and it was successful and it worked while then while making it its own thing with
you know, different bottle episodes and expanding on different characters. But the point of part two, the video game, is about how far do people go for revenge and... revenge as an addiction and um you know what what is on the other end of of that revenge you know with abby's story and how she is coping with it Yeah, I don't feel like any of those themes were really explored very well in season two. They do it in the video game, I think, a lot better. I think season two felt very short.
It's very contracted, like a lot of little things happen in the seven episodes that feel almost too busy. I wonder if they'll.
how they'll approach the next season and, and, and probably season four, they do say they'll need four seasons total to finish the story. But I also understand why Naughty Dog and Neil Druckmann have said like, Yeah, don't hold your breath for The Last of Us Part 3, because these are very specifically crafted video games that, I mean, to revisit this world and try to build a story on top of what you've already done here is like...
I can totally understand wanting to walk away from it because it is it's yeah, there's a lot going on and it's by no means there are some happy moments, but usually surrounded by death and destruction, which. Yeah. is not a fun place to be. So I don't know. I enjoyed season two, but I think it's primarily propped up by the fact that I played and enjoyed the video game. And I kind of understand, you know, what.
what is coming next and and beyond but uh i also definitely agree with you in that like some of the choices they made to sprinkle in Not even hints, but just straight up position, like just straight up exposition. Exactly. My name is Abby and I am killing Joel because he killed my dad.
Okay, thanks, Abby. And Isaac, there's a lot of stuff with Isaac. Like Isaac is very much, you know, it's interesting because when they were coming out with The Last of Us Part II, they were like, Isaac is going to be played by Jeffrey Wright, big actor. you know, huge name and he's not in the first 15 hours of the video game. And you're like, when's this guy going to show up? Keep hearing about Isaac. And, and they don't, they do the opposite in the show. Like he's very present.
He has a lot of these... Again, I wish he hadn't have been. I really like... yeah i like i say i i wish that they had taken out a lot of the abbey parts a lot of the um like all of the seattle war like basically anything that's not ellie's perspective sure i don't think belonged in season two i think it should have just been her perspective. I think we as the audience should have learned things as she learned things.
We should have been along for the vengeance ride. We should have been really pissed in episode two with what happened to Joel. And we should have wanted to see Abby's head on a platter. And I never had that feeling because I knew exactly why she did what she did. and like do i even need to watch season three like it feels like right now no because like like you say there's there's a lot of stuff from um later on in the video game that they just spelled out in season two
And yeah, like wherever it goes, like I don't see it necessarily. The only thing that's still kind of interesting to me is that the wolf. Gars war thing that's going on like that, I think, is still compelling and interesting. But I almost wish that they just like that would have been a good cliffhanger. is like if you just had like nothing about them whatsoever. And then all of a sudden you see like if they wanted to do the Seattle day one or whatever thing with Abby.
You could just have her like walk out and then turn the corner and see him. And then everyone goes, oh, there he is. Cliffhanger. I don't know. Yeah. I think so. There's a big there's a big storyline that is not at all addressed in season two that will be a major thread for season three and Abby's side of the journey. So.
And I guess it's hinted at a little bit in the Owen and Mel scene where they're talking about, you know, what Abby's doing and how they're supporting her. But there is a there is a. There's a storyline there that is not touched on that that I think will be. Oh, well, she's like obviously helping the scars, not the wolves. Right. Like that's the thing is like. That was very obvious. You're better at this than I am. I'm like, oh man. She'll never guess this.
Three lines. It took me like three lines of dialogue to figure that out. Like she's disappeared on the night of a giant battle, even though she's supposed to be his second in command or some whatever. Her friends are talking about where she is and what she's like. Yeah. like three lines of dialogue to be like oh well clearly she's like abandoning the wolves and helping the scars and that's like another thing that makes her even more sympathetic you're not
But you're not completely right. And let the record show that I was not the one that was spoiling the video game. but but no that that i'm just joking i feel like if it's if it's in the tv show and if it's that obvious to me as someone who's ever played the video game then i feel like because again They relied a lot on tropes. All of this was so, all of that was so tropey. All of it. I think there's a little, it is along those lines. It's not exactly that, but it is along those lines.
We'll definitely see what that brings in season three. I think that the shift in player, the protagonist in the video game is a much more jarring thing because you have no information. You're just, you know.
you're there's a major scene and it throws to abby yeah i think it should be jarring in in my opinion it's gonna take years for us to get to season three oh yeah and i'll watch it and it's gonna be really interesting because um to get because it you know for zombies ate my podcast we're talking about this show as well lou has never played the game but is also a fan of zombies and i know you're a fan of zombies as well
But it'll be interesting to get it. And that's fair. I am also hit and miss on the genre because like it is a very hit and miss genre. But it'll be really interesting to see. I have no idea what his thoughts are as well. Just like. I did not know your thoughts until we had spoke about it today. So, yeah, I think I enjoyed it more because I had the game and the, you know, the.
It would be almost like the first five seasons. If the first five seasons of Game of Thrones were bad, but you read the books, you might be able to like prop it up a little bit by reading the books. But then because we don't have the last two or three books of Game of Thrones, it's really hard to prop up the really bad seasons of Game of Thrones. That's fair. That's fair. I don't know. I think hopefully they...
take some of the lessons that people are sharing and reviews because the last of a season two has definitely not reviewed as well as the first season. And hopefully they take that feedback to heart and, uh, try to address it for, cause there's still.
There's room for improvement with season three and likely season four. I don't know. I don't know how they... fix it where they already let the cat out of the bag in a lot of cases i will we'll see um but i do think that they um like i said they they told not showed and i think things would have been more powerful and impactful if they had
just shown us and differently at different times so basically if they made a different tv show it would have been better fair that's fair too right good criticism scrap it put in the bin look there might be like a machete you know cut of this where people like take out all the abby stuff yeah and i think that that could be like actually really good because i think like the scenes in and of themselves
weren't bad like the acting good the set pieces for the most part good although like i said i think they could have been a little grittier darker it was very bright in a lot of cases but like yeah i think um There there is a lot of good content here. I just don't necessarily think it was presented in the best like order necessarily. And I do know that, like, I did know that jumping between Ellie and Abby was a thing that happened in the game.
So I was prepared for like a little bit of disjointedness, but I think they could have like made a different choice given that it was the TV show, right? Like you don't have to do a shot for shot. remake of last of us part two in order to make a good tv show so anyways we've already talked about this for way longer than i thought we were going to and i haven't even made like
There's a few glaring points that I haven't even made, but I'm just, I'm going to stop us here because this has been very long. And if anyone else is curious and wants to continue the conversation about Last of Us Season 2, maybe we'll make a... spoiler post or something in the discord where we can where you guys can hear all my other criticisms i go off about pregnant women in media But anyways, we're going to stop this now because I think we've hit our main points.
So if you do like the conversation that we've had here and you do want to support Ryan and I, you can head on over to patreon.com slash the gamers in like Benjamin did. Thank you so much for supporting us again over at patreon.com slash the gamers in. We have made some changes to the Patreon page. We were trying to give you guys a little bit more value.
And so we're doing that by doing monthly host specials. So Ryan's is first. He's going to be posting something in June. Ryan, did you want to give a sneak peek or are we keeping it under wraps? We can do a sneak peek. So my host special is going to be about, and I think we talked about this last week, the history of Nintendo games and my history specifically.
uh with nintendo games i can never remember what we what we talk about like sure in our tech chats and in our pre and post show chats versus what we've actually said on air it's bad i need to pay more attention no it's all good i i think that uh
I think we had, when we talked about the Patreon changes, we had mentioned, and now I'm second guessing myself. Maybe it was in Discord, but not on the show. But hey, if you're hearing this for the first time. Anyways, what are you doing? Yeah. Yeah. I am going to be talking about my history of Nintendo.
games starting way back in the NES and Super NES days all the way up to the Switch and that was the joke is that Jocelyn you had said that oh this is in regards to the Switch 2 launching that's really timely and I'm like yeah
Yeah, definitely. That's why I chose this. That was on purpose. Mainly it was like, I just, I wanted to kick us off with a softball. And I figured like talking about nostalgia and Nintendo was... an easy one uh for me that is an easy one for you for sure and if it justifies the nintendo switch 2's existence in this household so be it uh and um it's led me down some interesting rabbit holes like remembering
specific moments from my childhood and then having to look up what the Super Nintendo world was called at Ontario Place here in Toronto and finding out it was... uh something very not super nintendo world it was it was a very 90s uh canada nintendo stuff so uh you'll have to subscribe to our patreon and i will definitely let everybody know when that's live likely the next week or two so june that's the plan
Awesome. We are also going back to having monthly game nights. We are doing the third Friday of every month and we are starting June 20th. So that's a couple weeks from now. Yeah, we're going to get the patrons to vote on the games and then you guys can join us for some multiplayer shenanigans. Yeah, so the other thing that we have going on is Game Club. So we have to figure out what the next game is that we're doing because Twilight Princess is done.
And yeah, it was super fun. So we'll have to get some votes up and see if we have anyone who's interested in leading the next game club. So again, if you do like all of that kind of stuff, if that sounds really cool, head on over to patreon.com slash thegamersin. And you can also join the conversation over in our Discord at tiny.cc slash TGI Discord. That brings us to the news this week.
Discord is going to pay us to interact with ads using their own proprietary currency. So don't get excited that this might be a good side hustle. You're basically going to be able to earn currency you can use towards like your Nitro subscription, I guess. And yeah, but I do not want to do this because I do not want to reward them in any way.
Yeah. Can we just be thankful that it's not an NFT and like it's still a premium currency? Like and there are many reward systems across the board, but anytime you encourage people to interact with ads.
uh this felt like it encourages them to put ads in more places and i don't want ads in more places and yeah i just i don't know i kind of hope this just flops like you want to push people towards nitro fine but i don't know i understand that they like they provide a service they got really big so they have to have a lot of servers they have to use a lot of bandwidth and
you know a lot of people were recording on discord right now like a lot of people switched over to their platform so like i get it i get it i know they need to make money but um yeah I don't like this. Well, there's not a lot. There's not a lot to like here. I thought that the quest system was an interesting way of implementing.
You know, advertising, because yes, it's a free service. A lot of people use it for free. I understand that, you know, the subset of users that subscribe to Nitro is likely not paying the bills.
And I know they've had injections of cash from major platform holders like Xbox and PlayStation. But I thought the Quest system was an interesting way to, you know, do some sponsored content from... specifically video games and i thought that was a really neat touch it was very it was very like clever because it was like and i never really interacted with it
Other than the ones that I got kind of by accident. So I think there was there were a couple Warcraft ones and definitely a couple of Fortnite ones that those were games I was playing anyway. So I kind of just like passively completed the quest. But the point is, like, I was I was completing quests because I was using Discord while I was playing those games. And so, you know, like, how are they to know I've like I didn't.
play fortnight because their ad told me to right like i don't know to them on their side of you know data analysis it should look like that ad worked i they asked me to play fortnight i played fortnight like go ads so i yeah i think that was the it was like inobtrusive but the thing that i hated about the quest system
is like the Fortnite one that I completed was like, I think I got butterflies around my avatar or something. Don't ask me why. I don't know. But the point that I, the thing that I really hated about it was that it went away after two months. It's a digital thing that I earned. Why are you deleting it after two months? Like that just made me really, really jaded about the whole thing because I was like, if I've. Done the thing you asked me to. You got money from someone because I did the thing.
Let me keep the thing that I earned you money for. You know what I mean? Like, ah, it just like soured me so much. It's like, this doesn't cost you anything except for, again, probably bandwidth. Animating those butterflies around my face all day. I don't know. I think I also got something. I think I clicked on there was a Doom the Dark Ages quest. I think I just had to like accept the reward. And now I.
will likely have a doom shield rotating my icon forever until I like actively go turn it off. But I probably won't. No, they'll delete it in six weeks. Don't worry. Oh, is that how that works? I only get it for a limited time. I thought I get to keep it. Well, that, I mean, that's how my Fortnite one worked. I have no idea about that specific, but that's what I'm saying. Like I had butterflies around my profile and then Discord deleted it and I no longer have access to that reward. I see.
Well, yeah, it was like a limited time reward. And I was like, this is really, really dumb. Yeah. Like, I think with this orb system. They try to give their set a story and that they want to implement it so that advertisers are able to opt in for Discord advertising. without having to provide like their own unique digital rewards. So in this case, rather than a random butterfly frame or a doom shield, you know.
Any video game can sort of sign up to advertise with Discord and just reward orbs for engaging with the ad. I think that Discord currently offers, you know, the ability to like, I think I had an ad. I can't remember what it was. I think it was a Warhammer free to play game on Android. And I just there's tap of a button. told it to go away, has not come back. So Discord does have like those settings built in to like allow you to, I think you can even turn quests off completely.
If you want. Yeah, I've done that now. I've turned I've turned Quest off. Yeah. So, you know, we talk about the institution of the Internet and services and there there does. I don't think it's happening yet with Discord, but our brains have been trained with so many services that we're anticipating it. And I think this story can...
Maybe feel like the beginning of the end to some folks. I definitely got that vibe when I saw this and had to put it into discord so that we remembered to put it into our notes. And. we use discord for everything. And I, I just, I guess I just can't imagine a world where we have to find something else to use. I've kind of like defaulted to discord being like the best place.
for everything that we do from a social aspect. Like I don't like, I can't do Facebook. I can't do X. Blue sky has been really nice, but in terms of a community feel like this discord has been. not only a great tool for recording podcasts and in playing video games, but also just hanging out with friends and chatting. So, uh, if this is what they need to do to take, to keep the lights on, um, hopefully they can.
strike that balance this is still in beta uh you have to be invited to test it out um but yeah nitro is still there i think nitro is like two tiers now so of course it is Yeah, hopefully with with Nitro, if they do sort of continue down the path of like in shitification, maybe a subscription will allow us to kind of like disable all that crap.
I'm fingers crossed, right? Well, that's what's going to happen, right? Is they're going to make it such an awful experience if you're a free user that you have to. There's a Black Mirror episode about this. There's a Black Mirror episode about everything now. What, they have like seven seasons? There's a lot of seasons, yeah. But yeah, anyways, oof. Yeah.
Good news story, though. Elder Scrolls Fallout and Doom QA workers, they have a tentative contract with Microsoft now. So we've been kind of tangentially covering this with little bits of news. news over the last few years but uh yeah they've been in negotiations for almost two years and they finally have again a tentative contract i think they probably have to vote on it yeah yeah and uh
For those who may not have been part of a union and thinking like, oh, two years to reach a contract, this is pretty standard. Sometimes you'll go years without a contract. Yeah, it's not terrible. No, this is actually pretty good considering Microsoft has been, you know.
um taking a softer stance on on unions uh well since they tried to buy activision and were successful and i i hope they just keep going down that road of of being you know supportive of of unions and they i think they have like a clause where they automatically recognize them when they are formed Well, yeah. So that's the difference is like recognizing union is different than negotiating a contract with the union, like saying.
Yes, you guys are a union that exists is one thing, but then you have to come to an agreement with the company as to what that actually means and what do your union members get. And that's the contract piece. So that's now what they have tentatively come to an agreement on. Yeah. The first contract of its kind at a US video game studio, which is.
It's a big deal. That's pretty big. Yeah, it's huge. I think that this is, and I've said, I know we've said on the show previously, like anytime there's like...
Just with all these layoff conversations and studio closures, anytime there's a union story, we're going to talk about it because that's, I think, the best way for companies to recognize that that is the path forward to... respect their workers, and respect the fact that this is a multi-billion dollar industry that seems to reward shareholders over...
over the people who are actually making video games. So this is good. I mean, if Microsoft wants more goodwill, then the next news story needs to be Microsoft and Union Sign. contract yes so let's get to that please yes yes please um and then finally tonight we're going to talk about uh which are four did in a tech demo uh yesterday today today yeah today yeah this is the breaking as breaking news as we get
Considering that we record once a week. But yeah, it looks incredible. And I think the fact that they were running... um the 60 frames per second with ray tracing on the standard ps5 not the ps5 pro uh made this tech demo for me even more crazy like the stuff that they showed was incredible the like the trees and the oh my god the horse they've actually put all the muscles in the horse underneath the skin yeah
So that it moves more naturally. No more like feeling like you're driving a car when you're riding a horse. That was my problem with Red Dead Redemption. It felt like you were driving the horse? I felt like I was driving a car, not riding a horse. Oh, I thought the second one had a big deal about... the horse riding and how they tried to yeah it was terrible that's the only idea i never played the first one i only played the second one oh okay yeah the horse horseback riding was bad
Yeah, well, I think... I mean, although we have just finished Twilight Princess, so horseback riding could be worse. Oh, it could definitely be worse if you travel back in time 20 years. Red Dead Redemption 2 has no excuse. No, no, I think that this is interesting because they are very upfront about this is a tech tool showcase. Although they are using... Obviously, they're using like work that they've developed for Witcher 4. This is not like...
representative of what the game will look like or play like when it launches. However, it is sort of their benchmark they're aiming for, which is, as you said, 60 frames per second on base console hardware. And like these showcases for.
The Unreal Engine, it feels like you really only get that with Unreal. Unreal's the only one out there saying, this is our engine, and here to showcase it is this big, amazing... actual video game that's being worked on in the engine and it's it's such a great way to showcase these these tools uh and you know gone are the days of like here's unreal engine 4 and a video game
you know, slice that will never, you know, move past this point. It's just literally a tech demo. But it is neat that they've kind of taken The Witcher 4, which is using Unreal and using it to kind of showcase. I think it allows people to understand a little more about what this engine is capable of. And yeah, I just, I watching some of the, some of the, you know, the video that they showcased.
It just looks phenomenal. Crazy how good it looks. And the fact that it's running at that sort of speed on a base console really goes to show what can be done.
with this unreal engine uh five business so i'm excited yeah and they they said basically like too early to confirm exactly the specs that are going to be needed for all their platforms but that they were trying to basically aim for like this was the benchmark that they're aiming for in terms of performance So like the fact that they are developing for and aiming for the PS five, like I know they've said that it's not coming out in 2026, but if we're, we had a story a month ago.
that playstation was aiming for the ps6 in 2027 so if we kind of like reverse engineer that if they're looking to still support the base ps5 not even the pro the base ps5 I think maybe hopefully we can kind of cross our fingers for like early 2027 or potentially like depending on when the PlayStation 6 launches.
it's probably safe to say that The Witcher 4 is going to launch very close to that same time. Because otherwise, if you knew straight up you were just going to be on the PlayStation 6, I don't think you'd be that... concerned with the base ps5 i think you would be trying to make sure that it played well on the pro right like i don't think you would go that far back so
I think this is probably maybe closer than we think, or maybe they're hoping it's closer than we think. Otherwise, I don't think that they would care about the base console from the previous generation. I think they'd be looking at the half step. So I think this means they're probably aiming at a 2027 release would be my guess.
Yeah, I think that's fair. Also, video games are still tied to this weird like because consoles have generations. We're still tied to this very secret thing, even though you and I know that the PlayStation six and the Xbox. whatever is is happening yeah whatever it's gonna be how many s's and x's can we string together to make a ridiculous console name yeah you know what just mix it up and put a y or a z in there and i think that'd be yeah there you go
But like we know it's like an untold secret that these things are happening. But, you know, because they like to keep that a very close secret to keep sales up. They don't want to say when the PS6 is actually happening, so they do tie it to the current generation, even if they aren't looking to launch it there. But I do think, yeah, as you said, there's this like...
There is, because they're tying themselves to the base PS5, and that's their sort of target, and we're in that current generation, I think it's very likely this is at the very least a cross-generation game similar to, well. Hopefully it has a better time than Cyberpunk 2077 had. But I think, I hope they have learned their lesson and will not repeat that. Man, they had such a hard time.
and they bounced back but like it was a lot of work and it took a lot of time well yeah by all reports um cyberpunk 2077 is a phenomenal game yeah uh it just was not a phenomenal game day one but they've gotten it there now they just needed an extra whatever 18 months or something so yeah not great yeah I don't think they're going to do that again with The Witcher 4, but you never know. Well, yeah, you never know.
Well, I mean, we've already seen a lot of people saying like, I won't pre-order, I don't trust them, blah, blah, blah. If they did, if they cyberpunked Witcher. then I think they would just be done. They would have zero trust from the public if they launched Witcher 4 in the same sort of state as what Cyberpunk launched in.
I think that just for the sake of their company, they're not going to make that mistake again. Yeah, well, hopefully, hopefully. Yeah, knock on wood, fingers crossed. We'll see. But we will let you guys know if we hear any more news on that. And if you want to join the conversations in real time, head on over to tiny.cc slash TGI Discord. You can also visit us on the web at gamersinpodcast.com or follow us over on Blue Sky.
you can find me jocelyn at jossplays.com and ryan is at ryan murphy.ca also be sure to check out our tgi community starter pack which is at tiny.cc slash tgi starter pack thanks for staying at the gamers in and remember Tune in next week. Bye everybody. Bye everyone. The ghost of E3. You will be visited by the ghost of E3 very soon.