¶ Until Dawn Movie
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, Jocelyn. Just give me one minute here. I gotta whip through our awards ceremony. Best game played on a computer goes to Frostpunk 2. Thank you. Best game played on Steam Deck. Hades 2. Thank you. Best game played on a phone.
uh hearthstone thank you okay uh best amiibo of 2025 um look around my off i don't have any uh metroid dread no metroid prime 4 sorry okay and that's our award sorry everybody that's all the time we have oh man that took so long compared to the actual game awards look i try my best but i'm no keely i can't go that fast
Oh, man. Yeah, we are going to talk about the Game Awards in the news section this week. But yeah, before we get there, we did actually play some stuff, though. I mean, and I will admit I was inspired by the nominations for the Game Awards. i mean you guys know that i i played expedition 33 just because it got so many nods and i was curious to see like i thought that the trailers were really cool anyways and i always wanted to play it but then you know the turn-based combat i was kind of like
But anyways, in that vein, I saw in the adaptations that the Until Dawn movie was also nominated in adaptations. So I was like, okay. I wanted to watch this anyway. I'm going to watch this before the Game Awards. And I am not surprised that this did not win. Yeah. Honestly, like, I will say.
It was a half-decent horror movie. It was, like, it was not as trash garbage as it could have potentially been. There were some, like, it was kind of like... a kind of a fun ride horror movie there were a lot of like super gruesome like almost like final destination type like at some points it was so gory it was goofy moments Um, because like the whole premise of the movie is that they like get to this place and they reset every night, like every night they have to try to escape.
but they reset and they die again and again and again. So if you're going to have a premise where you die again and again and again and again, there's going to be a lot of really gross, disgusting deaths. So it definitely... It hit that mark, I guess. But in terms of an actual adaptation of Until Dawn, it was, it did not know what it was doing. Like it had nothing to do. Well, not nothing to do with the game. And I will say my recollection of Until Dawn, I played it over 10 years ago.
Because I played it in 2015. And it would have been spring-ish 2015 when I played it. So it definitely is a while back now. But it did have like... a shared villain character who also played a very similar like psychiatrist gone too far role from what I remember. And the like overarching thread of the like main monster was the same as in Until Dawn. But.
outside of those kind of like almost felt more like easter eggs really than tie-ins until like right at the very very very end they like hint that maybe this was actually a prequel to the video game. And I was like, wait, what? Because like the universe had like totally different rules. And it was just so weird. I was like, you actually don't know if you're adapting the video game, if you're making your own story in the universe, or if you are a prequel to the events at the launch.
what's happening so it was kind of wild from an adaptation standpoint but it was it was an okay horror movie like i i would recommend it to people who like horror movies and just like yeah are down with like a final destination level of writing it's weird because last episode i talked about five nights at freddy's and i'm getting a similar vibe uh here whereas if you don't know anything about the video games it's an okay horror film
that has its, you know, uh, it's, it's good and bad sides until Don seems to be closer to the, um, it doesn't have like five nights at Freddy's like intro to horror genre. But Until Dawn is like more of a traditional horror film that should be watched by people of appropriate ages, I'm guessing. It's probably pretty gruesome. It is, yeah.
yeah it's definitely like uh it's it's high on the violence there is like no sexy times it is high on the violence end low on the sex end so you know use that as your gauge of you know well because i mean really and truly horror can go both ways right so like yeah this is definitely like a hundred percent in the violence camp and zero percent in the sexy time camp so but it was like
Yeah, like I say, it was a half-decent horror movie. I enjoyed it just straight up as a horror movie. I think the story was half-decent. There were a couple of scenes that triggered kind of like... until dawn memories i was like oh i think i've seen that before like there was this one scene where one of them is like sitting in a chair in an abandoned asylum with a monster like chain to the wall and i'm like
I don't know if I've seen this in like Until Dawn or if I've seen this in some other horror, but I'm like, I am sure like this is ringing all the bells. And then there was another scene where you were in like the main character was like navigating a tight corridor and the light was kind of like flashing on and off and she was being stalked by.
one of the like big bad guys and like there were moments where because you know in like the until dawn game where there's like the don't breathe and the don't move moments yeah And you have to like match the heartbeat and stuff. Yeah. So like those moments were in the movie as well. So like I say, it felt like Easter eggs and kind of winks and nods to a video game.
until like i say at the end where it was like oh just joking we're actually a prequel what's happening like is there an until dawn 2 that's actually going to be until dawn game movie like what even is happening so yeah adaptation wise total shit straight up movie not bad
Half decent. I give it a solid like 7 out of 10. It was entertaining. Yeah. Well, I think that's the cool part about specific genres of movies in that it doesn't need to be... oscar worthy to have a fun time and i think that's why you know the marvel movies and the dc movies get a bad rap because it's like it's like oh well yeah it's not like It's not a... It's not absolute cinema.
yeah but they're fun and yes there yeah there are bad i'm not gonna sit here and say like all comic book movies are good there are bad ones and marvel makes bad ones dc makes a lot of bad ones but like there are good ones too. And they're a lot of fun and they may not, you know, make, you know, the Roger Ebert, what I know they're both dead, but like their website go, you know, two thumbs up, but. They are both dead. It's true, but someone still runs their website and they have critics.
I wasn't going to make a joke about them coming back to life to say, yeah, I really like this Captain America five. It's really good. But anyways, I'm just saying that it's okay to, to have fun with a, with a horror movie. That's, you know, not.
winning best adaptation of the game awards it's okay yeah it's honestly if they had literally like marketed this and just called it like the hourglass or something I feel like it would have done better because like I say, it was a half decent horror movie, but I think that like video game fans. are going to be really disappointed in their interpretation of Until Dawn.
And mainstream horror people are probably going to be turned off because it's a video game adaptation, air quotes. Like, I think if they had just stayed away from that until Don Branding, the movie itself actually probably would have done a lot better. Yeah, probably. I mean, we talked about this when the trailer came out. We were concerned it was just they had the trademark and they were cashing in on it. Yeah, exactly. And that kind of does feel like.
It's not quite that bad there. Like I say, there are nods to the original IP, but it like it just didn't know what it was doing as far as an adaptation goes. And it was not a straight up retelling of the Until Dawn story. Which is basically what the game is, right? It's a narrative experience. So if you're then not going to use that narrative, that's kind of fucked up to even call that an adaptation. Yeah, I agree. I think...
If you're going to even like allude to it, you need to have something that attaches you to it. And this kind of feels like what you're describing closer to the adaptations we got when we were... when we were kids of video games where it's like, it's a name only, maybe some little bit of like homages here and there, like the super Mario brothers, uh, uh, movie.
sounds is exactly that where it's like it's super mario brothers in name uh and a little bit of look but other than that they're just they were trying to do their own thing with an ip they didn't own uh to make some money so uh we're past that point now where we're getting like good mortal combat films although maybe this is a good opportunity to talk about that street fighter trailer in the game awards
I mean, I was less put off by the Street Fighter trailer and more put off by the 25 cast members that they paraded out onto stage who were then talking over each other and couldn't. present one of the three fucking stage awards that we got in through the course of the night like yeah that was so bad i that's it was a gimmick 100 to just bring everybody out there and yeah
Not impressed by that. And the trailer, that's it. Look, that's a situation where you are clearly trying too hard to be like the video game. And I don't know. How that's going to play. As a movie. It looks absolutely ridiculous. And I'm worried. I'm not worried. Because I don't care. But I am. I'm worried because I don't care.
oh my god i don't right you're just banger after banger tonight i don't care about a street fighter movie like i have more of a like i can't remember what it was i was listening to a podcast where they threw mortal combat under the bus but like i've i was more of a Mortal Kombat.
person than street fighter i liked the mortal combat movie again it was just fun like and i haven't seen there's an is there a new one coming out or is it already out i can't remember next year yeah they delayed it okay yeah i was like there yeah there is a new one coming soon but yeah
But it just I'm I guess for the lack of a better word, I'm worried that it is going to just be an absolute flop. And again, a video game adaptation where they like they went the opposite way and they tried way too hard. I could be wrong.
It's by Legendary, which have been a pretty top-notch production company, and they've done good work with the Legendary Monster franchises with King Kong and Godzilla, and those are... absolutely over the top films so it's just which i love yeah it's like i love the godzilla film like the the recent like
I guess the most recent set of Godzilla and Kong stuff that they've done in the last probably 10 years. Really, really enjoy it. They're all really good. I have not watched the Apple TV series, although I... I do need to catch up because I think the second season's coming out soon. It's really good. Really, really good. Yeah, well, Apple TV doesn't...
And it doesn't miss very often. I, I was, I thought maybe they did with Pluribus, but I was, I, I watched a couple more episodes. I'm like, okay, Ashley definitely will hate this show, but I think I'm in. She's like, nothing's happening. Like, where's the Breaking Bad stuff? And it's like, no, it's not. Just because it's Vince Gilligan doesn't mean people are in here making blue crystal meth or whatever they were making in that show. I don't know.
yeah so until dawn terrible adaptation decent horror movie go give it a watch yep yeah go play the game yeah go play honestly like that is probably the biggest takeaway that i had from this because until dawn also just came out with a remaster recently right so yeah i think if you haven't played until dawn before my takeaway was
Man, I miss Until Dawn. And I think it's probably been long enough that I remember what the big reveal is, but I don't think that's enough for me to say... it's not worth playing the game like it was a really really good story it is one of my favorites in that kind of narrative genre uh it has a lot of good jump scares and uh yeah like
it's probably more worth going back and playing until dawn again or for the first time if you haven't already play the remake um yeah overall until dawn the game was fantastic the movie is the movie is not until dawn the game it's not an adaptation i've said that 18 times let's move on what are you playing
¶ Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
yes well you know we're getting to the end of the year and uh i would i think and this is our last episode before game of the year so this is our sort of last it is you know traditional uh gamers in of 2025.
and you'd think oh ryan's going to talk about metroid prime 4 because that came out he's been playing it for two weeks must have been because he does not stop talking about it for the last 18 years because that's how long it's been since metroid prime 3 uh on the wii uh but no i have not played it yet i have it here shrink wrapped in the case i have not even opened it uh wow i've got amiibos behind me it's still in in the box
that haven't been opened, because I started playing Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, which I kept saying I would play at some point. And finally started that. And that point is now. Yeah, yeah. For some reason. Yeah, I'm quite a bit in. I'm 30 hours in. I'd say I'm over the halfway point. It is a large game.
uh i think i still stand by my like reasoning for for waiting on it because when it came out it was it was full price it was like a 90 game and it was billed as this like huge experience i think like you know they talked about how the first game being um which was sort of billed as a remake of of final fantasy 7 opening area in midgar was this like focused experience and i really did enjoy that one
The sequel, Rebirth, which launched in 2024, was a much bigger experience, like a lot more open worlds, lots of extra stuff to do. lots of side quests, lots of things to like interact with in the world to like check a box and fill a bar and you know, all that stuff. And I think at the time it was like, man, I just really don't have time for that or want to do it. And I kind of wrote it off.
uh which like is is is something i i wanted to do because honestly like any 100 hour rpg is is tough for me to stick with something like that so that's kind of why it got shelved not even shelved just didn't even buy it just kind of like i'll wait for a sale um and since then you know you got a lot of people championing it it did very well
critically and like no it's really good it's really good and i don't have like a huge um attachment to final fantasy 7 like i never played it um the closest thing i had to it was a friend i went to his house and he had a playstation one and he showed me the discs and there was like four of them or whatever and played a little bit of it and i was like oh can i play it on nintendo and he's like no i was like well
I'm leaving. Goodbye. How dare you show me something that is not Nintendo. We are no longer friends. Yeah. No, it wasn't that bad, but I, it was like. It was at a point where I was like, well, if it's not on a system I don't own, then it's fine. I didn't really worry about the other consoles because I had the Nintendo stuff, that's where I was.
But I was very aware of seven because it feels like the final fantasy version that has kind of escaped its initial game. And it got movies and TV shows and animations and, and, um,
spinoffs, I guess. And I, again, hadn't played those. I think I watched the movie. It's like Advent Children or whatever. So I had that connection. But then when it came to... to these remakes i'm like okay this is an opportunity to jump in and play it you know in a modern sort of you know setting and uh anyways all that to be said i got rebirth for christmas last year
And sat on it for another nine months just to be like, you know, just to upset people in the Discord, I guess. But I did start playing it and I've been having a blast with it. I think how I've been able to sort of focus in on it is that, so for folks that are unaware, like the first game was very like area to area, my preferred.
sort of method of playing a game where it's like you are engaging in the story there's side quests here and there but really you're on like a track you know it's not open world it's not go where you want it's here's an area explore it continue the story so on uh rebirth sort of expands upon that and then builds these like huge open area maps that you explore and i think there's like five in total and
It's a continuation of the story of Remake, obviously, but again, I don't have an understanding of the original story, but from what I've been told, it plays close to the next... sort of section of the game like they are still remaking this ps1 game that came out in the 90s in chunks it is kind of weird and baffling to think about of like i'm surprised more people haven't like
gotten up in arms about them taking this remake idea and splitting it into three games but they've rebirth is essentially a hundred hour rpg so i guess that's they're getting a lot of mileage out of it Well, yeah, I mean, like, if you're going to be remaking a game and each of the, what, three pieces is 100 hours each, like... You're talking about a hundred hour RPG being a little daunting. You want to tell players, by the way, it's going to take you 300 hours to complete this game.
That's a little much. You need to give a little more bite-sized chunks along the way, I would think. They obviously have a lot of ideas, a lot of modernizations, a lot more tech to work with, so they're expanding.
what they had already done, you can't expect that all at one time. I wouldn't want that all at one time. No. No. And I think the way they've split it up works really well. And with Remake, the way they kind of end it, they... they try to like flip the script a little bit to to say like wow oh is it really a remake you know and and they play with that idea of it continuing into rebirth as well
Um, so essentially like the story kicks right off from where you left at the end of remake. And the big differences is these open area maps, like these big open worlds.
where you are sort of they call them regions and you have your main quest which is the blue marker you have i think i've seen like five to six side quests per region that sort of have you going around and and doing you're still getting fully voiced fully cinematic sort of um storylines there but they are clearly side quests of like oh i need help finding my clones or i need help uh you know uh my chocobo is lost where did i put those clones well i mean yes essentially that's the dialogue um and
And then there's these orange markers, which is Chadley's bullshit, where you're having to go around climbing towers and revealing icons on the map and scanning things and doing combat challenges. all that kind of stuff. And that's the kind of stuff that is there if you want to do it. Completely avoidable stuff if you're not feeling it. And that's kind of how I've gone about it.
I'll do it if it's on the critical path. It feels weird to be like, hold on a second. I know we're running to this reactor because there's some strange noises. I just got to go over here and scan this bullshit. There's a little bit of that. And I know, Jocelyn, you hate the fact that the game is allowing me to do this, probably just describing it. Don't worry.
I'll get to rescuing you. I just got to go deal with this combat simulation so I can... you know get some chadley points uh but it's it's stuff you don't have to do and it wasn't until the third region where i actually had to engage with it to progress um a side quest And, and even then it wasn't like all of it. It was like very specifically, like you have to go do these specific things so that you can complete the side quest. And it wasn't that bad. So I was fine with that.
Uh, but Chad Lee is, uh, he's constantly calling you. He's like, I just, can I put it on? Do not disturb. Just send me a text, bud. You don't need to do a video chat every time I scan a thing and say, Oh, did you know? And I was like, no. that's what wikipedia is for i do i didn't know and i did not want to know and like cloud doesn't you know deal with people's you know bullshit very well he will tell them to like you know just be quiet
But for some reason, he puts up with Chadley and I don't get it. Maybe. I don't know. He must have something on cloud. That's all I can. He knows some shit. Yeah, back from his soldier days. All caps, soldier days. Probably. Yeah, that's the only valid explanation. That's the only explanation. Yeah. But but that being said, like the story and sort of the main quest stuff and a lot of the side quests have been a lot of fun and I'm enjoying it. And the combat is very snappy.
um it's it's action focused similar to final fantasy 16 but the difference there is that you can control all your different characters and the cast uh of of your party you know you have everybody from the previous game and they and they've added a few more as well at the end of remake you you you get a late addition to the party so that person is there throughout the game here in rebro so far but
like you're given and it's it's one of those traditional sequels you know how we used to get mass effect where you get like one two three every two years in this one like it doesn't skip a beat it's like Your characters are leveling from whereabouts you would have left off at remake. The, you know, Aerith controls like Aerith. Tifa's moveset is like very similar. I'm sure they've added additional moves, but...
Like if you went from remake to rebirth, you would think they just haven't missed a beat in this in this series. So I don't know if a lot of people might see that as a good thing, but like. I think it's an interesting sort of approach where they're like, no, we're just going to continue the story. We've expanded Chadley's bullshit and all these region maps and stuff. But like Tifa still has like her, her moveset cloud.
You know, he has his operator slash Punisher mode and it all kind of came back to me as I was playing and I'm starting to hit my groove with the combat and having a great time and dying much less, which is always fun.
So, yeah, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is, as people have said, very good. I'm probably got another 30 hours to go, so I'm sorry, Metroid. I was hoping Metroid would be my... holiday game and it still might be it might be you might find that you get to a point where you where you're ready for something different if you've already been playing for 30 hours yeah i do want to
see the story through. And I think I accidentally, I didn't realize this, but I accidentally moved into another region. So the story has been progressing. I think the struggle I have with rebirth right now, story-wise is that it's hard to. understand the reason like what are we doing in the story you know like I think it is very clear that it's like okay
Shinra is a bad company and we're trying to take them down and Sephiroth is a bad dude who supposedly died a decade ago but is back, I guess. And that's kind of like... literally there was a line it's like oh and we have to kill sephiroth and say wait that guy's been dead for a decade and and he's like no he's he's back somehow and i'm like oh that character's like wow this is very interesting i'm like i agree with you
I mean, he's back and that's bad and we're going to take care of it. But, uh, like the story is, um, it's not, and that kind of works, right? Like we mentioned all the open world stuff and the side quests, like the fact that the story isn't like. Oh my God, if we don't progress this, you know, this sequence, Sephiroth is going to end the world. It's like, no, he's just kind of moving in a direction for some reason. And we're like trying to catch up with them.
it's not it's not the it's not like an apocalypse scenario so we can go scan some shit for the annoying robot kid yeah so i and it's fun so you know i don't need every story to be like If you don't do this, the world's going to end. I'm fine with just a fun story. It's good. You know what else is good? Played up. Yeah, it's really good.
¶ PlateUp! + Extra Life
Especially when you're sick and got cold medicine and you're trying to... oh my god yeah we like we didn't want to say anything but it got a lot easier after ryan went i don't blame you i think that game uh look there was moments where we were the four of us were playing myself, you, Travis, and Nevermore, there were moments where Travis and I were just kind of like...
double doubling up our jobs and i was and we were kind of like hands up i don't know what i'm doing but johnson and nevermore like and i i think travis to an extent but yeah like by the end of it i think i was like oh i kind of want to do one more map And then after we did that one more, I'm like, OK, I should go to bed. Clearly, I am holding us back with this salad bar restaurant idea that we're doing. We did. Yeah, we did another two or maybe three after.
went to bed i stayed up way too late uh but it was it very much had the just one more just one more just one more because the fail state is so picky that you like you cannot so if you're not if you're not aware played up uh came out in 2022 but i had never played it before and ryan i don't think you had played it before either um it's very much like
overcooked except that you have to actually do like the restaurant service side of it as well so like you don't just have everybody in the kitchen and you you know put the the meals out on this conveyor and it goes where it's supposed to go. Like you have to manage taking people's order on time. And then if there's a table of more than one person.
You have to make sure that you're delivering all of their meals at roughly the same time. So there's like a restaurant management part as well as the kitchen management part. So it was kind of it was super fun to play. But the size of kitchen or the size of restaurant, I guess, that we had was quite small for four people. I think it does get bigger over time if you're able to like not.
die yeah that would be good I think that that was the struggle I had when we were starting out is that it felt some of the layouts were quite compact and the rolls being dished out weren't, was tough. Like we were getting stuck a lot in corners and trying to wash dishes and whatnot, but a lot of fun. And I do wish the game was a little more forgiving with its, you know, try one more time. I get that's the point is you're supposed to fail and restart. It's basically a roguelike. Yeah.
It's like you get over time, you get access to more recipes, you get access to more things, you can start to bring things in with you once you unlock them and bring them into your next run. So and the other thing that I really enjoyed about this versus Overcooked was just the Twitch interaction. Like people in the chat could say like exclamation mark visit and then they would come in and visit your restaurant. So we could like.
make up whole stories about community members and stuff. And we were like, oh, Hachiken was here now. Like, what's he going to order? And it was really, really fun to have that extra layer of interaction. But yeah, the recipes were definitely... I was glad Nevermore was in the kitchen because I was like, I could never keep up with any of this stuff. I don't understand what's happening.
I had trouble. The first one we did was a steak restaurant and I couldn't even remember the words for like rare, medium and well done. I was like, I don't know. Pink one, red one, brown one. I don't like I need steak.
yikes yeah so it was like it was definitely a learning curve and it was hard to communicate but i think um it definitely was fun but we lost like before the pity level quite a few times at the beginning while we were learning what to do um because you basically it doesn't kick you out and make you restart unless you get past level three or day three and we weren't even getting that far so
Yeah, I think it was it was a really fun stream is a really fun game. And I hope it was a really entertaining watch. We definitely had a lot of fun. And we are doing more. Twitch.tv slash Joss Plays. That's going to be this Friday, December 19th at 8.30 p.m. until approximately 11 p.m. Eastern. We're going to be doing more fundraising for Extra Life, which is why we did the Played Up stream. So that is tiny.cc slash TGI Extra Life if you would like to go and donate.
So again, this coming Friday, December 19th, we are going to be playing actually Repo, which I'm excited for. I think it's going to be really, really fun because I have very much enjoyed my time in Repo. I think some of our best extra life. outtakes and anecdotes came from when we were playing repo and i know on our actual extra life game day that's when the time really flew by for me so i'm looking forward to playing it on friday yeah me too i
I think I feel like repo has really been the surprise of 2025 for me because I was very skeptical. And I think we were pretty clear on that when it came up in the game night. suggestions i'm like i don't know guys scary game looks a little rough around the edges but having played it it is just so much fun and so many antics that can come up and we're gonna have a
I think a full six person party for our TGI holiday extra life party. So that'll be a lot of fun. And I, I, I know I usually have a rule, you know, Santa hats. I have not looked into it, but I don't care.
There's no Santa hats in repo. That's fine. I'll give it a pass. I'm not, I'm, uh, but maybe there are Santa hats. I don't know. I don't know. I have no idea. I haven't looked into it either. I just know that we had a. a bunch of fun playing and not only that but like having a few extra spots because it's a six person game instead of usually it's four so just having a six person game for like our
Extra Life finale is always fun for our holiday party. So yeah, come and check that out again. That is Friday, December 19th.
¶ The Game Awards + News
And if you do enjoy what Ryan and I do here, head on over to patreon.com slash thegamersin like our December patron, Aries8. Thank you so much for supporting the show. Ryan has his December special coming out. He said before the holidays, you're committing to that, eh? I am. I meant to record it last week, but then I was sick and I didn't want to add another. yeah i know how that is yeah so uh i'm i really would like to get it out before the holidays but uh it will it will be out um
It'll be out before the end of the month. And it's all written. And the concept is all fleshed out. It's going to be a got to get back to it review. So I've got some fun stuff planned there.
take final fantasy off of that list right so that's something yeah yeah i mean this if anything that whole segment was a preview i took it you're right i took it off the backlog i put it into my current games list and active rotation yeah so uh you won't have to hear about final fantasy 7 rebirth on that patreon special but uh
Yeah, I'm hoping to record this week and try to get out before the holidays so I don't have to. So I can focus on game of the year, you know, because that'll be coming up very soon. That is. And speaking of Game of the Year, we had the Game Awards this past Thursday. And I mean, so I'm not going to get too far into this. I am not going to get ranty, but...
I think this is my last year of actually watching it because I was really disappointed. And I know that it has been very ad heavy in previous years. But I felt like there was a lot of stuff that was rushed through, as we kind of alluded to off the top of the show. There was a lot of stuff that was really like blink and you miss it.
And I don't think if you're giving someone an award, it should be blink and you miss it. So there were moments where they were giving away best either audio design or soundtrack. I can't remember what the category was called. But it was one of the big ones, like right at the end of the show. And they didn't even play like 10 seconds worth of the audio for the audio category.
And I was like, you didn't even give the hook of the song half the time. And it's supposed to be a showcase of the best of the best of the year. And I was just very, very, very disappointed in the format this year. I'm not sure why I was watching my mom for the first time. So there is a very good chance that like...
I was, you know, more sensitive to it because I didn't just have it on in the background or like I was trying to show her because I talk about gaming all the time, but she doesn't follow it or have any concept of it. So I was like, OK.
2025 was an amazing year in gaming. Like, come watch the awards show. And it was just... gotcha garbage a lot of times and she was just like she was like when is the award show happening and i was like well this is it she's like well what are the awards and it was like you know once every 20 minutes jeff keighley would come on do five awards in 45 seconds and then put the ads back on and i was like okay this is not what i was envisioning like i really was hoping she would see some of what was
like what the awards were for like what the what was being honored and i definitely really didn't get that this year it felt like even more so than normal. So, I mean, there were some good speeches, but it felt like they had almost no one actually coming and accepting things on stage. And, yeah.
I don't know. I was really I won't be watching again. But it has nothing to do with the nominations or who won the awards. So I think we should just kind of get into it. Unless, Ryan, you have any more thoughts before we get into the winners. Well, I'll just say that. Yes, the winner. I haven't watched in a while. I am always tempted to watch, but it is always on a Thursday, which is usually a podcast recording evening for me.
And when I look at the calendar, I'm like, oh, I'm going to miss the Game Awards. And then my brain immediately goes like, yeah, you're going to miss the Game Awards. And it's a good thing because it has been this format for a while. We've shared these feedback. many times and i think i've gotten to the point where i'm like i can tell by the youtube uh videos that they set up on the game awards channel sort of the sort of the percentage of awards to announcements
Well, and half the time it didn't even feel like announcements. It just felt like garbage. Like, it didn't even feel like, you know, Keely didn't even bother to step in and give any sort of like... context it was just like add into add into add into add and then he'd be like oh and also
tomb raider did a thing and then it's like you would get the tomb raider stuff and then add add add add add and then he'd pop in and be like and these five awards happened and then add add add add add and it's like if if your stuff is so inconsequential that the host of the awards can't even be bothered to intro you that's not an announcement
It's not. It's a paid advertisement is what it is. Yeah, exactly. Let's be honest. And I don't know, like, I mean, it has, like, this is not new to the Game Awards. It just, to me this year, it felt really obscene. Like, I couldn't even tell the difference between some of the games at some point. I was like, are we still in the same game or have we changed? Like, what's happening here? So, yeah, I won't be watching again. But like I say.
It has nothing to do with the nominations. It has nothing to do with the winners. It is very much just the format that I really like balked at this year.
and uh yeah the the winners i think like the awards in general i thought there were a lot of like basically i think when we do game of the year at gamers in we essentially do nominations like we do things that we think are noteworthy worth talking about and that's basically what how i see nominations is like these are all the games that were taken like that came out through the year
and are worth recognizing. You don't have to win to be recognized. The nominations are recognition in and of themselves. As they always joke at the Oscars, it's an honor just to be nominated. So, like, I really have no problem with Claire Obscure Expedition 33 winning as many as it did. It won. a record i think uh nine wins at the game awards it tied baldur's gate at the golden joysticks And like, honestly, the acceptance speeches from the team, I think, really highlight.
what we want to see in gaming which is probably why i don't have a problem with this at all a lot of the internet is very divided a lot of people say they never even heard of this before the game awards and then all of a sudden it comes out of nowhere and like obviously it's fixed it's like no it's just a really fantastic beautifully done game so yeah i have no problem with it winning as many things as they did i know
you know there are some categories like best indie that i wish had gone a different way but still definitely deserved in my opinion yeah and i think you know before we move into all the other stuff. Like I, we talked about this pre-show and I, This year, and I'm stating it here so that the Discord can help us remember in February, this year we're going to watch the Dice Awards because I feel like last year we talked about the Game Awards. There is an award show.
that exists that we're all asking for it's called the dice awards it's by game developers for game developers and yes clear obscure will likely win a lot of awards there too that's not our issue as jocelyn had said i think I've always struggled with the fact that they speed run some of this stuff when there are people in the audience that could come up and accept in person and give their speech. That's always, I love the announcements.
Trailers are great. You know, we'll never get the E3 of old back, but we have the Keelys twice a year. It's great. However, like what I really do enjoy is, is hearing. The acceptance speeches and the intros that aren't written by Keeley's team, but some of the best stuff from last year was when the Larian CEO was up speaking before announcing the game of the year.
winner and that was a really good speech and what he said came true like the winners of the winner of the Game Awards was an independent studio uh, Claire Obscure. I mean, they had financial backing from a publisher and all that, but still like this is not a 200 person team stretched across multiple continents. It was, it was a, I think a team of under 30 people. Yeah. Yeah. With a composer they found on SoundCloud. Yeah. Such a cool story. I mean, it's crazy. Yeah.
It is a very cool story. And I wanted to hear, I think, more about it. And if anything, it made me want to go and find out more about the game. But I just really, really wish that we had more. opportunities. And this year, again, kind of a bad example because Expedition 33 won so many awards, it would have been the same person coming up to talk over and over and over and over again. But in a normal year...
you would have a variety of teams that you would hear from. And I think so. I think, yeah, like you say, we're going to watch and cover the Dice Awards. And yeah, I think that's maybe. more along the lines of what i want to to see but uh yeah so to get to the game awards and and who won what expedition 33 like we said won nine different awards It won some kind of controversial categories. So best independent game, best debut independent game. It won best RPG.
I think those are the big ones that I've seen people like push back on. So like saying that it doesn't qualify as an indie and it should be double A because of the, you know, calibers of actors and the, like you mentioned, the financial backing and. that it shouldn't be considered an independent. You know, I'm going to leave that argument for the internet to have. But I think the like the big categories where it won were best performance. which was Jennifer English for Mayel.
It won best score in music, which I think I talked about last week or the week before is that like the soundtrack of this game is so good that I am like literally listening to it as like my background music when I'm working.
in my office like it is so good i have never paid attention to a game soundtrack before and like this one i'm actively listening to outside like skyrim might be the last one maybe it's been a long time since i've cared about game music so i can see this uh it also won uh narrative art direction game direction and game of the year like those are kind of like the big six with the other three
genre categories it also won but like the big ones game direction narrative sound art game of the year um yeah so and i think in all cases like deserved narrative amazing art direction amazing my qualms with the graphics and the cut scenes aside but like that's not the the graphics does not equal the art direction right like the art direction was
fantastic that game made me feel things just looking at it um so yeah i think there's everything that they won was deserved i would have loved to see and we said this like months ago 2025 was shaping up to be a very, very competitive year. And there are things on this list. Hades 2, Silksong, Blueprints. that were amazing experiences this year that did get nominated but did not win. Or sorry, I think Silksong did win. Action Adventure, maybe? I think it won its category.
Oh, Hades 2 won Best Action and Hollow Knight Silksong won Best Action Adventure. Again, these kind of categories are the ones that were totally skipped over. But yeah, so each Silksong and Hades 2. did both get nods in their respective games um unfortunately blueprints did not get an odd because the only category that they were in was uh indie game which player obscure one so sad face
Actually, it was in both Best Independent and Best Debut Independent. And lost both to Claire Obscure. It did get two nominations. Yeah. I mean, and that's kind of crazy because they had 13 nominations because they had multiple nominations within the Best Actor Award, I think. Yes. They did. I think, yeah, they had three. It was the only category that people thought they might lose because they had to lose because they had three of the six nominations. Yeah, 50% chance. I had no idea.
that gustav was played by charlie cox of daredevil fame oh really did not clock that at all thought 100 it was robert pattinson just because the gustav character looks like robert pattinson yep He does. A lot of people. They claim that he was not modeled after Robert Pattinson. And I'm like, you are fucking lying. And we all know it. He might have a case. I don't know. He should get a good lawyer. Right? A hell of a lawyer. But yeah, I had no idea that Charlie Cox was the voice actor for Gustav.
Yeah. And it's funny because his he was nominated. Charlie Cox was nominated. And he had said, look, if I win, I won't be accepting it. It should go to, you know, the motion capture. actor who i think also voices the french version of gustav and he had said like he's had this weird like he's not he's very happy for the project and he's he's very appreciative of his time with it he's not played it
If there's anybody out there that has a spare PS5, find a way to send it to Charlie Cox so he can play Clare Obscure. But he's been pretty vocal in that, like, look, I did a short session and I was in there and I was in and out. And it was it was my first video game and it was a lot of fun and it was great. But he doesn't like the way the game was made. It was made so quickly that he was like and I think Ben Starr was talking about this on.
podcast i was listening to where he was saying like a lot of games aren't made this way where you know it comes together so fast and releases like usually you're doing your your your vo and your motion capture and then you're waiting years for the game to come out And in this case, I think it was like a sort of a one to three year sort of completion timeline. And and he was very surprised by that, having just come off of Final Fantasy 16. So it's it's interesting, you know.
the sort of path this game took. And I'm not surprised that it sweeped the awards. I feel like if you take the gaming industry and have a panel of journalists and game devs decide.
what is the best of the best across these categories. If you take an aggregate, I think it makes sense that this game wins a lot of these categories. It sucks for other great games that... likely uh should have gotten some recognition but at the end of the day like i mean we haven't had a game like this come out in a while Yeah, and a lot of these in any other year probably would have 100% gotten anywhere from three to five awards. It was just that Clear Obscure checked.
all of the boxes or all of the major boxes and then kind of almost like had to win there which i've talked about before how like it really sucks when you have a category for a very specific genre that has a game of the year nominee in it because it feels like you have to give the category nod to the game of the year nominee otherwise why isn't the one that won the category the game of the year nod right so like i mean it would have been nice to see some of these other
games blueprints getting more nods i've heard a lot of people say kingdom come deliverance 2 should have won best role-playing game um but i think you could make an argument for any of them like in any other year And I'm not just talking about clear obscure. Like there are so many amazing experiences in 2025 that like in any other year they would have been award winners 100%. It's just this year was so stacked.
someone great was going to lose um but i mean absolutely nothing is going to top and i don't know ryan if you've seen this but it's been like gift to high heaven on the internet this week uh kojima's reaction to death stranding 2 not winning slash clear obscure winning for the ninth time
I thought I saw the clip, but I didn't register what I think people were laying down. So, yeah. Yeah, the biggest, like... i roll like are you kidding me not again it's like um that's my bff keely who runs this show you're telling me that death stranding 2 won nothing like reaction it was
Quite funny. Yeah. And it's so unfortunate. Look, I wouldn't put it past Kojima to actually react that way, but I also... like award shows are weird because especially ones like a big production like this where like the camera person camera camera people are looking for the reactions Well, they had like they had all the nominees. They did the same thing that the yeah, they did the same thing the Oscars do.
You basically like have to hold it and or do the polite golf clap when somebody beats you at least for 10 seconds or so until you know that they're filming everybody walking up the carpet and then you can flip the table, but you can't flip the table. No, exactly. Death Stranding got a ton of nominations. It got six nominations that I can see off the top of my scroll. No, seven. Sorry, seven.
Because it was also nominated down for Best Action Adventure that lost to Silksong. So yeah, it very much was... nominated a lot of times, but it just lost almost every award it was nominated for in, yeah, Expedition 33. Oh, man. And honestly, so like I was so curious because obviously I didn't play the first Death Stranding. And but then I saw Death Stranding to get all these nods. And so I looked up just like, what? Just tell me the plot of.
Death Stranding. Not even Death Stranding 2. Just tell me, what is Death Stranding about? And I read the plot and I was like... jesus christ there's artistic and then there's like what the fuck is happening um yeah i mean that's the kojima way what the fuck is happening you know which also coincidentally is exactly what the ceo of sandfall said when they accepted their game of the year golden joystick award literally got up and that was the start of his speech just what the fuck
is happening and i'm like that endears you to me so much more just the fact that they have made this like record-setting artistic narrative piece of absolute cinema of a game and they still can't believe they're being recognized as much as they are and that they are winning as much as they are it just it makes me so happy to see someone
be genuinely like happy and excited as opposed to like we're a triple a loot box the palooza and we are entitled to this win because we spent 70 billion dollars making this game you know like It's just really nice to see someone who legitimately made a game. that they love in a story that they wanted to tell and share with the world and get that kind of recognition and be so humble about it i just yeah like the game was amazing seeing the devs like
Talk about it and seeing that humble surprise is just like making this sweep so much better for me. Yeah, I'm I'm. All of the speeches that I watched afterwards, a lot of them were the clear obscure folks and everything they had to say was... was really good and really fun to listen to and interesting. So, um, yeah, I had no issue and I had no issue watching those acceptance speeches on the game words channel and they had.
sort of clipped everything out and obviously they have every single you know announcement trailer but then they have like i think maybe 10 tops you know sort of awards acceptance speeches and and i watched all the clear obscure ones and they were all fantastic and Just to see how excited they were. Like Jennifer English's acceptance speech was fantastic and she was very happy to be there. I don't know if she won for Shadowheart the year of Baldur's Gate 3, but.
uh she definitely definitely uh deserved it with this win and it was it was a from what i saw it was a very like i i condensed a four-hour show into 30 minutes which I'm sure Jocelyn wishes she had done the same, but... 100%. More than anything, I wish that I had... And let's talk about some announcements.
More than anything, I wish I had not watched this with my mother because there was, and again, this might just be me not paying enough attention or misremembering, but the trailers... slash ads this year seemed a lot more 18 plus. very violent in a lot of cases and uh i mean in the case of the divinity announcement um it had i was talking earlier on about until dawn and the you know the violence to sex ratio and
Divinity just went, oh, let's have 100% of both, please. So, yeah, that was something else. I'm really glad that we tuned in shortly after that trailer because I would not have wanted to try to explain that to my mother. Yeah, I knew... So because I watched it after the announcements, after the Game Awards...
That one specifically stuck out because it was like, oh, Larian announced a new game. It's set in their Divinity world, which is an owned IP. And I didn't even watch the trailer. I was like, that sounds great. That sounds fantastic. I really loved what I played. of Baldur's Gate 3 and I'm sure Divinity is going to be great whatever they do next is going to be fantastic I don't even need to see the trailer but like I better watch it for the for the show and I watched it I'm like
If I knew nothing about Larian or Divinity or any of, you know, the pedigree of that developer, I'd be like, no way am I playing that game. It is disgusting. Like, why would I want to actively engage with children?
cheering for exploding flesh yeah if the point is to stop that i mean you know make that the main quest and let's let's speed run this thing because i don't want to see that ever again but yeah i mean as a it kind of kind of felt like they were going for shock value there sort of what diablo 4 had done with their trailers and i'm just like guys it's like that's not like it's cool you figured out a way to render blood 60 different ways but
that's what it felt like is everyone wanted to show their blood tech that is definitely what it felt like and i was just like okay guys like enough enough and i'm not squeamish i'm not squeamish but like it just seemed like it got repetitive it was like i was desensitized because every trailer just seemed to have at least some amount of violence in it and i was like okay can we just not be that
in your face about it or if we are let's just mix it up like where's pokemon like let's get cutesy with it for a minute but not in a japanese way with all of the anime boobs because that was felt like it was like blood blood blood anime boobs blood blood blood anime boobs and i'm like mom this isn't This isn't what I do. Look, if there's going to be any, any, any trend for 2026 for Jocelyn's games, it's going to be blood one week and anime boobs the next week. And then if we're lucky.
Both at the same time, I guess. I don't know. Who knows? Anything's possible. the year i did say i need to be open to new gaming experiences if that if 2025 has taught me anything i need to be open to new things so you need to expand your horizons to you've done blood yeah now you need to do The other thing you talked about. Oh, many boobs. Yeah. I didn't see those because I don't think I like the list I have here is pretty much what.
what i watched the trailers of there were a lot of great announcements but it's something we were talking pre-show is that this isn't like e3 even summer games fest is the same way opening night live the idea behind um The announcements here, which are ads, they're paid advertising. It's a subset of video games. It is a portion of it. Nintendo is not present.
PlayStation through Kealia Bone with Saros, which does look fantastic. And I know Jocelyn was like, it's like, Mom, look, it's Raul Cooley. He's here. He's going to talk about a game that we're both going to play.
And it's going to be great. The sad thing is I watched the gameplay and I'm like, I cannot play this. This is not like... yeah this is this is i know i will not have fun playing this though therefore i will not but just get matt to call you in with the cut scenes and exactly that's all i need i just need to yeah i just need to see him i don't need to see the
so i think you're right i'll just get matt to like have a text alert to me every time that there's a cut scene and that'll be that'll be all i need to experience of the game I'm sure there will probably be a super cut on YouTube I can watch as well. But there was some stuff that seemed cool, like the new Tomb Raider that's coming out. I think they said 2026 for the remake and then 2027 for the new.
the new game that looked pretty decent I think that that's something I'm going to play the new announcement of the control sequel which I think we all kind of new is coming but uh the control sequel you're doesn't look like you're going to at least the gameplay they've showed so far you're not playing as jesse again which is a kind of sucks but at the same time like
I guess maybe I understand how Hades players might have felt when, you know, Hades 2 was announced and you didn't, you weren't playing as, um, oh crap, what's his name? First Hades guy. Zagreus yeah you weren't playing as him like I kind of get those vibes I guess or I can understand those feelings like it's probably still going to be a great game and I'm going to play it but little bummed that my main character is not going to be the main character in the second one it looks like.
Did the trailer make it out to look like Jesse was... Evil, maybe. At one point, I think it said, like, your sister's gone too far or something. And I was like, excuse me, I've done what now? Yeah. yeah it's like she's gone rogue but i mean oh rogue yeah that might have been it rogue yeah it was it was an interesting trailer because it also looks like they're mixing up the gameplay rather than a shooter it's going to be more of a third person melee action
Yeah. They're obviously focusing more on the powers. You're going to have those right off the get-go, and it's going to be more of a melee adventure game. I wonder if like, because they said, cause yeah, like, like I got it wrong saying too far. You're right with the word rogue. I wonder if like, you're going to play.
a certain amount into the game and then discover that like whatever Jesse is doing is like actually right and you're going to team up and then be given the choice of who to play maybe that's my copium being like I just don't really want to play with her again um but yeah like i wonder if it's more that kind of a story as opposed to like we need to stop her i don't know we'll see um but either way i'm interested because i like the universe and i'm
really sad that I bounced off of Alan Wake 2 so quickly, just because of some of the creative choices. Not narrative choices, creative choices that they made. Yeah, yeah. No, I mean... I was surprised that it wasn't Control 2. And I think this is what they were billing internally as Control 2, right? Like this isn't like a spinoff. This is a continuation of... The story they set up in Control and Alan Wake 2, right? Which is funny that it's Alan Wake 2, but Control, new subtitle.
Yeah, I like I don't I don't mind it. I think it sets an expectation that like with the change of player perspective and and Alan Wake to had the dual characters, too. So maybe this is what they're doing here. Well, and I just wonder if it's maybe they're not billing it as a sequel just because of how crazy and like mind bendy, time bendy control was.
Maybe this isn't like a continuation as much as like maybe a happening at the same time sort of thing or like, who knows? It's control. Control is wild. So I wonder if that's why it's not necessarily being billed as Control 2 because it's not like happening after. potentially i don't know i'm i'm just throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks i don't know um but yeah it it's it was definitely interesting and i was i was happy to see an announcement for it
But other than that, was there anything else that really stood out to you from what we could decide were announcements? Yeah. There was two Star Wars projects that... uh looked really interesting i mean no mention of the old republic knights of the old republic remake that's been sort of stuck in development hell but we did get star wars fate of the old republic which is a new
action rpg from uh casey hudson who is x bioware and i mean the trailer looked cool the idea that casey hudson is back making And directing a game is interesting. But like his projects, his last game that released was Anthem. And it did not do that. Not a great. Which, you know, like. It's always hard when you point to stuff like that, especially given that EA is so fresh in my mind because of the special I just did. But like, yeah.
It's really hard to say how much of that is the talent versus the corporate direction, right? Yes. Was that a terrible game because of him or was that a terrible game because of EA? And I know which way I'm leaning. So yeah, I think it's fair for the people who are.
hesitant i can see that from the people who are excited i can see that too so i mean i definitely see both sides of this um like kind of dev announcement yeah and and i'm a i'm a wait and see kind of person i i think uh you know casey hudson with his own studio able to you know build a game that he wants to make and with an ip that he's familiar with because he was involved with the old republic games
back in the day, I think it has potential to be very good. And both these Star Wars games are kind of interesting because they're being made by ex-EA employees because you have Fate of the Old Republic as a new studio.
in Edmonton and, um, uh, I think Vancouver, uh, that are working on this, this new fate of the old Republic game. Uh, but also star Wars galactic racers is being made by X criterion. Uh, uh developers who worked on burnout and this is essentially a star wars racing game sort of set with uh with the burnout sort of motif where like you have these big bombastic crashes and takedowns and stuff and uh you know pod racing they they teased it yeah it's pod racing
people seem really stoked about this honestly this galactic racers like there seem to be quite a lot of legitimate hype over this game yeah i think out of all the trailers in terms of like a new unannounced, you know, first look type thing. That's the trailer for me that I was like, okay, I I'm, I'm most excited about this one. I love the burnout franchise. Uh, I love, uh,
what Criterion did back in the day when they were allowed to make video games. And I think, you know, it's funny because Caden's been playing the older Burnout games. I had them on the Steam Deck and... I told him I shouldn't have. I shouldn't have done this because it's like right before bed and it popped into my brain because I was thinking about the show. I'm like, oh, Caden, you've been playing these burnout games. They're making a Star Wars burnout game and it's by the ex.
you know, developers who worked on that franchise. Like, Oh man, can I watch this trailer? I'm like, I mean, it's bedtime, but we can definitely watch it tomorrow. Oh my God, Ryan. Why would you do like, Sometimes I'm like, oh, poor Ryan. And sometimes I'm like, you did this to your own fucking self, bud. And look, like...
fair enough. If he had like fought me on it and he's like, no, no, no, let's watch it now. Let's watch it now. I would have been like, yeah, this is on me. We'll watch it now. It's a two minute trailer. But like, as soon as I said it, cause it was fresh in my mind, I was thinking about it and I said it and I wasn't. Again, I wasn't thinking. And luckily, Caden is like, well, we got to watch it first thing in the morning. I'm like, absolutely.
That is the least I can do. I will queue it up. After what I just did. So sorry, Caden, but we're going to watch that tomorrow and I'm sure he'll be stoked because he loves Burnout and Star Wars. But yeah, as you said, the Tomb Raider stuff, I love the Tomb Raider games, especially the recent trilogy they did. And I'm glad it's finally coming back. I never played the first one so this remake will be really cool to see. The trailer looked really good.
So I'm excited about them coming back with Tomb Raider. It'll be interesting to have them back to back and the fact that Remake will be out next year. Next year, yeah. It's really cool. Yeah, they didn't give us a date. I would say probably fall because I feel like if it was coming in like that kind of February, March release window, that's kind of become popular that.
they would have said that, right? They wouldn't have said 2026. They would have said imminently, right? So that makes me think it's coming in the fall. Yeah. Yeah, the fact that they just gave 2026, as you said, probably fall. I don't think they push it to holiday, but maybe even late summer. I think Tomb Raider works really well as a franchise in a sort of late summer slot.
But, yeah, the new entry, I think, will be probably a fall 2027 as well. Yeah. I think the other one that popped out to me was Resident Evil Requiem. They confirmed that Leon was going to be a playable protagonist. So that's a worst kept secret on the Internet. He's old now, but like not like old, old, but like. he's grown yeah i read an article today that seems to be a fan of his redesign they call him hot uncle yeah which is kind of weird like
Actually, yeah. Can we not have thought of any other way to put that? Yeah, that's true. Move past that. Yeah. but yes i i think the the character aging up and redesign of uh leon has been well received yeah yeah for sure i i i mean i never played uh i did actually just pick up village um because i'm going to try to play it uh because i've not played the first person resident evil games i'm not a i'm not a huge fan of the perspective with that with the with that genre
But Requiem is going to have sort of two sides. You'll have Leon being the action focused and then Grace being more of like the horror side of it. And you will be able to play either first or third person view. So you do have that option. The game is going to be returning to the Raccoon City storyline. So it kind of the, you know, biohazard and village were sort of like.
out there unconnected whereas uh requiem should bring us back to um the the roots of the franchise which i'm excited about because i i do want to see that story sort of conclude What I was going to say is I do think it's very interesting that you can't just like switch perspectives with no consequences. Like I think that it's very interesting that the game is going to.
act differently depending on if you're in first person or third person because there's i guess like sequences where like you have to run away from things so like things will like catch you faster if you're like will run faster or like you're punished more for slipping in third person versus first person so i think that's a really cool kind of addition to the game is like if you're willing to play in first person and kind of like amp up that fear factor it's a little more forgiving
on some of those like gameplay mechanics versus like if you're in third person and maybe trying to like remove yourself from the fear a little bit
it's going to be more punishing on the gameplay side of things. So I think that they've made some interesting choices and I want to see how it plays out. Obviously, vicariously through Ryan. I'm also very interested to see just from watching like gameplay of... village i'm interested to see because i think the mostly the first part of village i think was kind of like cramped corridor kind of style when you're like in the mansion
But it seemed to kind of open up after that. There are a couple of underground places I remember from watching people streaming it that might have been a little bit like kind of scary and claustrophobic. But for the most part, I feel like Village felt like a much more open game than I would have.
expected out of a Resident Evil. So I don't know if you're going to have as many struggles playing through Village as you might have, especially in first person in Requiem. So I hope you do play it because I would like to hear your perspective.
Yeah, I think I will. It's a late February. It's it's I'm planning to play it at launch. And, you know, I. I think when I think about Resident Evil characters across the board, Leon is probably my favorite just due to the fact of Resident Evil 4 being one of my favorite Resident Evil games. I know basically nothing about him other than he's in Dead by Daylight, so...
He's a big enough character from the franchise that they put him forward as a playable character for the DVD DLC. So that's all I basically know about Leon. yeah you also have a total war warhammer 40k on the list here and um I just wanted to make sure that we mentioned this and didn't move past it because I think it might be the only time that Crofton and I have been on the same wavelength about something. And yeah.
It should definitely have been Total War Hammer 40k and with the war being like the same color as the total part. So you're not saying war twice in a row. It is jarring and sounds bad and the marketing is shit. It should have been total Warhammer 40k. Crofton agrees. Case closed. There you go.
Case closed. Yeah. So that's all I wanted to mention about it. If you want to talk about the actual game, you go ahead. But I'm just saying their marketing could have been so much better. Yeah, no, I do agree. I think and there were three. Total War Warhammer games, which were set in the sort of the non, the more Warcraft side. I shouldn't even say that because I know Warhammer came before Warcraft, but...
you know, in this context, like it's, it's the easiest comparison for me. Sorry, Warhammer fans. But like the 40 K franchise is like, it's, it's more, it's one I'm more familiar with because I had played the space Marine games.
and uh seeing the the 40k stuff applied to like the warhammer scale of things kind of brings it closer to like i think and why warhammer kind of fits so well with total war because it's closer to like the tabletop experience where you're having these big epic battles and controlling um
uh, units and moving them across the map and stuff. So, but it's at a scale, like not necessarily an RTS, but it's, um, from what I remember of the Warhammer game or the, the total war games. And that's probably why they, they didn't combine them because they.
you would have tripped over your words like I had done, but the scale of it is like these, it's these big Epic battles, but it's more, um, I think it's less about like, controlling a bunch of little units and more having like these more interactive medium-sized units like the scale is a little different from like a traditional RTS so
And like, I'm excited for this one, not just because David Harbour was excited about it. He'll be in the game, but it looks cool. And I know we have a lot of Warhammer. 40k fans in the discord uh and they were very excited about it as well so and launching uh pc and console uh day and date which is which is interesting for this type of title i don't i don't believe
I don't believe the Total War games sort of do console versions. I don't know if the Warhammer ones are on console or not, but the fact that 40k will be on console... It's pretty cool. yes i guess maybe not for you maybe not for me but no like because i'm i'm not familiar with either like i mean we've talked about this before you've played warhammer games there is a new warhammer game every other month
I haven't played Warhammer games. I haven't played Total War. So I really have like the combination of the two. I'm like, okay. I have no history to add to this. No, no, no. That's fair. I think Warhammer, the Warhammer 3.1 was on Xbox just based on a quick search. So they have worked to bring those games to console, which is nice.
um but uh i mean it looks good it looks cool like the gameplay stuff that's at the end of the trailer does look really neat um it's like yeah like you say like not quite an rts there there seems to be a lot of like you know macro micro zoom in zoom out kind of stuff um but yeah i don't it looks really cool i'm happy for people that are excited about this
Yeah. And that's kind of where I'm at is like, I think that, you know, folks were really looking forward to them moving on from just Warhammer, Total War and going to the 40K version of it because it's because it would apply really well. I mean, it's funny, like I was going to joke and I didn't get a chance to do it in the discord, but like, was this the only Warhammer game announced at the game awards? So like.
I think it might have been. Maybe they're slowing their pace a little bit. Maybe they're not making a new one every couple months. Anime game, with the qualifier you used earlier in the show, every other trailer. But Warhammer games, only one. Yeah, they're slowing down on Warhammer, yeah. Gotta make room for that other stuff. 100%, 100%. So yeah, but just quickly before we go tonight, I did want to mention that staff at Doom have voted to unionize. So that is over at id Software.
Don't want to make light of that. Don't want to like miss it next week when we do our game of the year. Didn't think we were going to have time, but we've got a bit of time left. So yeah, did want to mention that we have another studio that is unionizing, which is really, really good. I am happy for these guys again. Voting to form a union is very, very far from having a collective agreement, but it is a good first step. A lot of developers, like we've seen...
lots and lots of layoffs in the last couple of years. And I think, you know, the developers, you've just got to do better work when you feel that little bit more protected and you're not constantly worried about your job every day. Obviously, layoffs can still happen when you're unionized, but I think that this is just a really good step forward. So yeah, wanted to make sure we mentioned it and it didn't get lost in all of the game of the year hype in these couple of weeks.
Yeah, for sure. And we do have a rule anytime a studio unionizes or starts down that path, we will mention it here because I think it's really important for the industry and the fact that... I think Microsoft has this, like, you know, they'll recognize any union that sort of comes forward. That's why we get a lot of the Microsoft studios. announcements of studios and why wouldn't you unionize if you're under Microsoft's banner considering shit that's gone on there but yeah this is good
Yeah, it was one of the things that I mentioned at the end of my EA story that's available to patrons over at patreon.com slash the gamers in was basically like, what do we do? And one of the things is bring visibility to companies who. are doing it right who are supporting unions who are you know supporting their developers who are not firing people as soon as they create an amazing record selling game or record winning game
So, yeah, I think it's just it's important to highlight the good when we see it. So, yeah, we do have unions again forming at id Software who make the Doom franchise. So go and support them. And that is pretty much that's it for us this week. Next week, we will be having our game of the year conversation. And as I said, we generally take a, you know, kind of.
top five honorable mentions approach. I don't even know if I'm going to be able to narrow it down to a top five this year because this year was so good, but looking forward to at least having those conversations. So check that out next week. If you'd like to continue the conversation about the Game Awards or about what your Game of the Year is, head on over to tiny.cc slash TGI Discord. We do want to hear from you every year. We do feature your choices for Game of the Year.
on our episode. So again, head on over to tiny.cc slash TGI Discord to let us know what your game of the year is and you will be featured on next week's episode. But that is going to do it for us tonight. You can visit us on the web at gamersinpodcast.com and follow us over on Blue Sky. You can find me, Jocelyn, at jossplays.com and Ryan is at ryanmurphy.ca.
You can 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, everyone.