# The Duskbloods Preview, Plus The Sinking City 2

An episode of [The Game Informer Show](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/335246945), 22 Aug 2026, 1 h 42 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/74489737/781_audio.mp3

It's a new week on The Game Informer Show, and we've got a new FromSoftware game to sink our teeth into. The Duskbloods is a new multiplayer Switch 2 exclusive from the makers of the Souls series, and Marcus has some hands-on impressions to share on its elaborate multi-phase multiplayer mayhem. Then, we dig into The Sinking City 2, another Lovecraftian mystery from Frogwares, and check in with Fields of Mistria's 1.0 launch. Then, the trio answer some of our listeners' most burning and pertinent questions. Grab a beverage and settle in. The Game Informer Show is a weekly podcast covering the video game industry. Join us every Friday for chats about video game reviews, news, and exclusive reveals alongside Game Informer staff and special guests from around the industry. Support the show by subscribing to our physical video game magazine! Jump ahead using the following timestamps: • 00:00 - Intro • 03:53 - The Duskbloods • 53:30 - The Sinking City 2 • 1:09:42 - Fields of Mistria • 1:22:57 - Listener Questions

## Transcript

[0:07] Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Game Informer Show.
[0:08] Speaker 2: Everyone.
[0:09] Speaker 1: This is a weekly podcast covering the video game industry.
[0:13] Speaker 1: Join us every Friday for a discussion about the latest
[0:15] Speaker 1: gaming news, reviews, and exclusive reveals, alongside Game and Former
[0:19] Speaker 1: staff and special guests from around the industry. I'm one
[0:22] Speaker 1: of your hosts today, Alex van Aiken, and today I'm
[0:25] Speaker 1: joined by Marcus Stewart. Hey, Marcus, Hey.
[0:29] Speaker 3: I'm back and I've been traveling around the world a
[0:32] Speaker 3: lot lately. I'm happy to kind of just sit down
[0:34] Speaker 3: and be in one place for a while.
[0:37] Speaker 1: Yeah, Marcus went out to visit from Software. We're gonna
[0:40] Speaker 1: be talking all about that shortly. Rounding us out today,
[0:45] Speaker 1: Charles Hart, how are you.
[0:47] Speaker 4: I'm also good. I've been traveling all around the city
[0:51] Speaker 4: of Dayton.
[0:52] Speaker 2: Ohio, where I live.
[0:53] Speaker 4: It's kind of doing errands, kind of normal routine travel
[0:57] Speaker 4: for me.
[0:59] Speaker 1: I hope you guys well. I'm sorry I missed last week.
[1:03] Speaker 1: Good to be back ahead of games Com. I do
[1:06] Speaker 1: want to say at the top, if you're going to
[1:07] Speaker 1: games Com, Game Informer will be there. We'll have a
[1:11] Speaker 1: booth there in the consumer area. We'll also have a
[1:14] Speaker 1: booth there in the business area. Although that doesn't matter
[1:18] Speaker 1: for I think probably ninety percent of you listening, But yeah,
[1:22] Speaker 1: stop by, say hello. We're going to be you know,
[1:26] Speaker 1: we'll be covering the show properly from like an editorial perspective.
[1:30] Speaker 1: But I'm sure you'll see some of us at at
[1:33] Speaker 1: our booth and such during some of our big giveaways
[1:36] Speaker 1: and that kind of thing you.
[1:37] Speaker 3: Wanted to say, most of us. In fact, these people
[1:41] Speaker 3: you won't see are Charles and funny enough.
[1:44] Speaker 1: Yes, everyone else will be at games Com, so please
[1:48] Speaker 1: stay tuned for that. Also, next week we're going to
[1:51] Speaker 1: be showing off our new cover story. We'll be revealing that.
[1:56] Speaker 1: But in the meantime, I just want to say, if
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[3:02] Speaker 1: famous show.
[3:03] Speaker 3: Yeah, most famous destination.
[3:06] Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, but yeah, thank you for being here, thank
[3:11] Speaker 1: you for listening, Thanks for picking up a copy of
[3:13] Speaker 1: Game Informer. Guys, It's gonna be a fun episode. We're
[3:17] Speaker 1: gonna be getting into the Dusk bloods here in just
[3:20] Speaker 1: a moment. We're also gonna be talking about the Sinking
[3:23] Speaker 1: City too, which I'm very interested in because that first
[3:26] Speaker 1: one I felt like was a very like I had
[3:31] Speaker 1: a lot of ideas, I think, and and I'm curious
[3:34] Speaker 1: to see how those have expanded and if the execution
[3:37] Speaker 1: is any better in the second one. And then we're
[3:39] Speaker 1: gonna check him with Charles and here and see an
[3:43] Speaker 1: update on his fields of Mystery of Farm. And then
[3:47] Speaker 1: at the end of the show, we'll be getting into
[3:48] Speaker 1: a lot of listener questions. Okay, guys, Marcus, particularly I
[3:54] Speaker 1: want to know about the Dusk Bloods. This is, of
[3:56] Speaker 1: course From Software's new switch to exclusive game. It is
[4:01] Speaker 1: pvpve uh and that's about all I knew before before
[4:08] Speaker 1: you came back and had had some more details on
[4:11] Speaker 1: the Dust Bloods, but obviously hugely anticipated. This is developed
[4:16] Speaker 1: directly from from Soft. I think night Rain was a
[4:21] Speaker 1: very interesting experience experiment for that studio in terms of
[4:25] Speaker 1: like producing a multiplayer souls like and having really enjoyed
[4:30] Speaker 1: that myself and kind of wanting more of a PvP slant.
[4:34] Speaker 1: I'm even more excited for the Dust Bloods Now. But
[4:37] Speaker 1: please spare no detail. Tell us all about it, Marcus.
[4:41] Speaker 3: Okay, you said spare no detail. There's a lot to
[4:43] Speaker 3: talk about this game, because I hope you're ready for
[4:45] Speaker 3: the next two hours. There was so much to talk about,
[4:49] Speaker 3: which is one of my biggest takeaways. So kind of
[4:50] Speaker 3: like what you said about how really not just you
[4:53] Speaker 3: but everyone. All we knew about this game for the
[4:56] Speaker 3: longest time since it was announced last year was that
[4:58] Speaker 3: it is a competitive moultiplayer game that also has PV
[5:02] Speaker 3: element PvE elements, which is you know, confusing, and it's
[5:07] Speaker 3: also it's not completely unlike From and not just because
[5:13] Speaker 3: of night rate existing, but like when you think about it,
[5:15] Speaker 3: all most of their single player Souls games have a
[5:18] Speaker 3: multiplayer component, like you could always play with other players
[5:23] Speaker 3: summoning them into their game.
[5:24] Speaker 1: And there is PvP. You know, people will fight each other.
[5:28] Speaker 1: There's so many items that let you go into invading,
[5:30] Speaker 1: like that's a whole mechanic. I don't mean to say
[5:32] Speaker 1: that that hasn't existed, but I wouldn't say that's the
[5:35] Speaker 1: main focus of the game up until now.
[5:38] Speaker 3: No, but it does. It sort of lays the runway
[5:42] Speaker 3: for the Dust Bloods because this game has been in
[5:45] Speaker 3: development since twenty twenty one. We learned that during our
[5:49] Speaker 3: preview trips. So so, like you mentioned before, I went
[5:53] Speaker 3: to From Software for about two days. As part of
[5:56] Speaker 3: that preview beat on top of Plane a game, we
[5:58] Speaker 3: got to do a group interview with head Taka Miyazaki,
[6:02] Speaker 3: who is the game director of the Dust Blazz and
[6:05] Speaker 3: also just is the head of From Software, Like he's
[6:08] Speaker 3: he's kind of the face of the company, we'll say,
[6:10] Speaker 3: the public face of From Software. And he mentioned that
[6:15] Speaker 3: this game was not made to sort of either piggyback
[6:19] Speaker 3: off elden Ring's success or to follow up on the
[6:25] Speaker 3: multiplayer momentum that night Rain sort of started, Like they
[6:29] Speaker 3: started this game while they were making elden Ring. So
[6:32] Speaker 3: I know some people, yeah, so I know some people
[6:35] Speaker 3: are like, oh, they just this is kind of a
[6:38] Speaker 3: cash grap that they just kind of farted out because
[6:40] Speaker 3: of night Rain, and it's like, no, it's just they
[6:42] Speaker 3: they were worked. They were making this game more or
[6:45] Speaker 3: less as it was conceptually alongside elder Ring, just because,
[6:48] Speaker 3: according to Yazaki, it was just it was just an
[6:50] Speaker 3: idea that he had and he wanted to find a
[6:52] Speaker 3: way to sort of take all of the multiplayer mechanics
[6:56] Speaker 3: that they have toyed with in their other Soul's games
[6:59] Speaker 3: and them and he's that he realized that the only
[7:02] Speaker 3: way to really expand and flesh him out was to
[7:04] Speaker 3: put it in a dedicated game that centered around it,
[7:08] Speaker 3: and then of course that over time that evolved into
[7:10] Speaker 3: The Dust Bloods. At some point along the way, Nintendo
[7:14] Speaker 3: got involved and they pitched this game to Nintendo. Originally,
[7:17] Speaker 3: this game was apparently going to be a Switch one game,
[7:20] Speaker 3: and then, according to Miyazaki, they all breathe a sigh
[7:25] Speaker 3: of relief when it switched to.
[7:26] Speaker 1: Was I am sure?
[7:28] Speaker 3: I am sure, because apparently whatever that switch one version
[7:32] Speaker 3: of the game was was going to be dramatically compromised,
[7:35] Speaker 3: and they said, want to switch to? And when we
[7:37] Speaker 3: got our hands on the switch to, we realized we
[7:38] Speaker 3: did not have to cut corners. We could pretty much
[7:40] Speaker 3: do what we wanted to do. So what is this game?
[7:45] Speaker 3: That's kind of been the thing that we've all been
[7:47] Speaker 3: trying to figure out how to describe this game as
[7:48] Speaker 3: shorthand when I was playing it with other journalists and
[7:51] Speaker 3: influencers over in Japan, and I think we all kind
[7:53] Speaker 3: of like more or less boiled down it to like
[7:55] Speaker 3: it is a Battle Royal at its core, but with
[8:01] Speaker 3: significantly less players, because it's eight players all fighting each
[8:04] Speaker 3: other in a giant map. If you but it's a
[8:08] Speaker 3: Battle Royal if there was also AI enemies roaming everywhere,
[8:11] Speaker 3: It's almost like if you took Fortnite and eliminated ninety
[8:16] Speaker 3: two of the other players, so you just had eight left,
[8:18] Speaker 3: and then you replace those ninety two slots with just
[8:21] Speaker 3: AI controlled enemies roaming the map. That kind of gets
[8:25] Speaker 3: you there.
[8:26] Speaker 1: And it's not really like an extraction game, right, Like
[8:29] Speaker 1: it's not you couldn't call like it. Yeah, because I know,
[8:32] Speaker 1: like PVPVE people often think, oh, extraction shooter, like I'm
[8:36] Speaker 1: gonna go in, I'm gonna get some stuff, I'm risking
[8:38] Speaker 1: my load out and I'm leaving. But it seems like
[8:41] Speaker 1: it's more like more so just like an asymmetrical multiplayer
[8:45] Speaker 1: competitive game that eventually merges into more of a PvP
[8:51] Speaker 1: at the very if you survived till the.
[8:52] Speaker 3: End, is that right? Sure? And when were you gonna
[8:55] Speaker 3: ask Charles.
[8:56] Speaker 4: Well, I was gonna say, one, I haven't. I did
[9:00] Speaker 4: an editing pass. In your preview one of the things
[9:01] Speaker 4: that stood out to me was you were just talking
[9:04] Speaker 4: about how there's not a you said there's no penalty
[9:07] Speaker 4: for dying. I don't know if there's literally none or
[9:09] Speaker 4: there's like little penalty, but I was just also, that's
[9:11] Speaker 4: like a big thing of extraction games, right is you're like,
[9:13] Speaker 4: I don't want to die because I want to keep
[9:14] Speaker 4: my stuff, And in this one, it's I just think
[9:16] Speaker 4: it's interesting very much in the from software philosophy of
[9:20] Speaker 4: like you're going to die a lot, get used to it.
[9:22] Speaker 4: It's not that end of the world, and I was
[9:24] Speaker 4: just curious, how.
[9:25] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, like and you mentioned like even from normal games, obviously,
[9:28] Speaker 3: I have big penalties for death, like you lose your
[9:30] Speaker 3: experience points, you have to go collect them. That is
[9:32] Speaker 3: not President of dust Bloods. When you're playing a match,
[9:34] Speaker 3: if you get killed, you just respawn because there is
[9:38] Speaker 3: a greater form of I guess, like death or elimination,
[9:41] Speaker 3: because like I mentioned before, it's a battle royale, so
[9:44] Speaker 3: you are gradually being eliminated as a match progresses. So
[9:49] Speaker 3: right at the top this game, you get to choose
[9:51] Speaker 3: one of at least in the closed network tests, which
[9:55] Speaker 3: is essentially what we played while we were in Tokyo.
[9:58] Speaker 3: So at the time you're listening to this, I believe
[10:01] Speaker 3: the closed network test will be live, so you will
[10:04] Speaker 3: get to play basically everything that I got to see.
[10:08] Speaker 3: But the closed network test has six playable characters called
[10:11] Speaker 3: blood Sworn. The full game will apparently have around ten,
[10:15] Speaker 3: and they're basically these vampires more or less like basically
[10:20] Speaker 3: vampires that come in all kinds of different shapes and sizes.
[10:24] Speaker 3: They all have their own unique abilities and sort of
[10:26] Speaker 3: like play styles, but they all share common trace. They
[10:29] Speaker 3: each have a melee weapon and a range weapon. Like Albert,
[10:33] Speaker 3: for example, who's kind of the like white haired guy
[10:36] Speaker 3: if you've watched any of the trailers. He's got his
[10:38] Speaker 3: melee weapons are these dual kind of sabers, but then
[10:41] Speaker 3: he also has an smng like machine gun that's like
[10:44] Speaker 3: good for like mid range damage. But then his special
[10:47] Speaker 3: ability he can like summon like arcs of blood and
[10:50] Speaker 3: like throw them at you, kind of almost like I
[10:53] Speaker 3: don't know.
[10:53] Speaker 1: It's like a more blood build or something.
[10:55] Speaker 3: Yeah, I kind of yeah, actually that's a good I
[10:57] Speaker 3: was gonna almost say Mortal Kombat scarlet, but actually a
[11:00] Speaker 3: building from software game that's a that works better. Where's
[11:03] Speaker 3: this other guy named Zork who's kind of like this
[11:06] Speaker 3: this tanky guy. He's like in a metal suit. Yeah,
[11:09] Speaker 3: Blessing Junior over at kind of funny. Really got good
[11:12] Speaker 3: with Zork, much to my chagrin as someone that died
[11:15] Speaker 3: to him a lot. Yeah, he can like like he
[11:19] Speaker 3: rolls heavy and he's slower, but he hits really hard.
[11:22] Speaker 3: He can shoot rockets from his back. He has this
[11:24] Speaker 3: very funny move where he can like rocket himself headfirst
[11:28] Speaker 3: into people. It's like really tricky to line up and aim,
[11:31] Speaker 3: but if you hit someone with it, it just knocks
[11:33] Speaker 3: them on the ground and stuns them for a bit,
[11:34] Speaker 3: and you can kind of roll up on them and
[11:37] Speaker 3: wail on them blots. Woren also have all the shared
[11:41] Speaker 3: ability that they can suck blood from enemies. So there's
[11:45] Speaker 3: this parry move that you have where if it's like
[11:47] Speaker 3: a howl or like a shout, where if you do
[11:50] Speaker 3: it right before someone hits you, it'll stun them for
[11:53] Speaker 3: a second. And if they're a common enemy, like one
[11:55] Speaker 3: of the fodder foes, you'll suck their blood, which replenishes
[11:58] Speaker 3: a portion of health, but it also turns them into
[12:01] Speaker 3: an ally. And you can do this repeatedly, so if
[12:04] Speaker 3: you wanted to, you could turn several AI enemies and
[12:08] Speaker 3: just roll up on people with like a little gang
[12:11] Speaker 3: behind you.
[12:12] Speaker 1: And also they'll follow you as well, not just like
[12:15] Speaker 1: turn friendly to you.
[12:16] Speaker 3: Yeah, some of them will follow you. I did it
[12:18] Speaker 3: to some of the bigger ones and they would follow
[12:20] Speaker 3: me for a bit. Sometimes they would just stick around,
[12:22] Speaker 3: And there were times where I would I would be
[12:24] Speaker 3: alone and just run into someone else's AI enemy that
[12:26] Speaker 3: was just chilling out and then get attacked by them.
[12:28] Speaker 3: So I think it just depends on the enemy type,
[12:30] Speaker 3: at least the kind of like weird shambling zombie guys.
[12:32] Speaker 3: They'll just run alongside you. Ah, that's cool. So yeah,
[12:36] Speaker 3: you got these blood Sworn and you're dropped into these
[12:39] Speaker 3: matches called Dusk Battles, And the way they're format it
[12:42] Speaker 3: is that they're divided into four phases and at the
[12:45] Speaker 3: end of each phase, with the exception of the first phase,
[12:49] Speaker 3: a few players are eliminated. And the way that you
[12:53] Speaker 3: stay alive in a match is that you got to
[12:55] Speaker 3: earn a resource called virtue, and virtue comes in like
[12:58] Speaker 3: a bunch of different category but they all boil down
[13:01] Speaker 3: to either earning virtue through combat somehow or earning virtue
[13:05] Speaker 3: through exploration. And that last part is kind of a
[13:10] Speaker 3: It's maybe more important for someone like me in terms
[13:13] Speaker 3: of really solidifying what I find so appealing about the
[13:17] Speaker 3: Dust Bloods is that this is a game despite that
[13:19] Speaker 3: it is PvP, and even from Software told us at
[13:23] Speaker 3: the event that they kind of regret leading that is
[13:26] Speaker 3: PVPVE when they first revealed it because they say it
[13:30] Speaker 3: gives us somewhat inaccurate representation on what it's going for.
[13:33] Speaker 3: Where like yes, fighting people is the core of the experience,
[13:36] Speaker 3: but it's also a lot of just exploring on your
[13:39] Speaker 3: own and almost playing it like a single player game
[13:43] Speaker 3: in order to beat other players. So the map that
[13:49] Speaker 3: I played was called Luarno City. It's one of three
[13:52] Speaker 3: maps that are going to be available at launch. And
[13:55] Speaker 3: this map is huge in a way that I was
[13:57] Speaker 3: kind of shocked by, Like it's it's almost like a
[14:02] Speaker 3: miniature like Lands Between cause it's like not only kind
[14:06] Speaker 3: of wide, but it's also very It's kind of got
[14:09] Speaker 3: like a layer design, and the way that the map
[14:12] Speaker 3: and Shadow of the Er Tree was kind of design
[14:13] Speaker 3: whereas like, oh, there's a top level, there's like a
[14:16] Speaker 3: middle level, and there's like a bottom level. So it's
[14:19] Speaker 3: got a lot of verticality to it, and it's a
[14:21] Speaker 3: lot of space for like the eight players all drop
[14:24] Speaker 3: in and then you just go run around and it's
[14:27] Speaker 3: actually it's pretty easy to play a lot of a
[14:30] Speaker 3: match and not see another player, and instead you can
[14:33] Speaker 3: go around and kill the like dozens of AI enemies
[14:38] Speaker 3: to get stronger, and the first phase of a match
[14:41] Speaker 3: that's kind of what you need to do because phase
[14:43] Speaker 3: one does not have eliminations at the end. So it's
[14:46] Speaker 3: the idea is like you need to go around kill
[14:48] Speaker 3: a bunch of enemies, maybe kill another player if you
[14:51] Speaker 3: think you need to or want to, but you just
[14:54] Speaker 3: kind of want to gather your strength.
[14:57] Speaker 1: As you kill people. Ye is your strength related to
[15:01] Speaker 1: the uh yeah, to the what is it valor what
[15:05] Speaker 1: were you collecting?
[15:06] Speaker 2: Again?
[15:06] Speaker 3: It's called virtue and it's not virtue. Your your physical
[15:09] Speaker 3: strength is not tied to your virtue. There is like
[15:12] Speaker 3: normal XP that you get for killing enemies, and that
[15:15] Speaker 3: causes your character to level up in the traditional sense.
[15:19] Speaker 1: Okay, And when I'm leveling up, am I assigning points
[15:23] Speaker 1: or anything? Or is it since this is a pre
[15:25] Speaker 1: selected character, they kind of have their own path that
[15:28] Speaker 1: you're naturally you know, unlocking things that sort of thing
[15:32] Speaker 1: as you go or is it more so just like
[15:34] Speaker 1: your number is just gonna go up, but your abilities
[15:36] Speaker 1: remain the same.
[15:38] Speaker 3: Your numbers just go up. There's no assigning points. This
[15:40] Speaker 3: is a very streamline level up, like you just see,
[15:43] Speaker 3: I'm level two now and I hit hard very Arcadie,
[15:47] Speaker 3: very much so, especially because these phases you're on a
[15:50] Speaker 3: time limit, so you don't have time to go into
[15:51] Speaker 3: a menu and be like, where am I gonna put
[15:53] Speaker 3: these points? So instead they do it for you. But
[15:56] Speaker 3: the same is also true in that you do evolve
[15:59] Speaker 3: your abilities stronger you get, so your special moves, like
[16:02] Speaker 3: the blood thing I told you before, that is a
[16:04] Speaker 3: level gated ability, So if you want to access your
[16:07] Speaker 3: most powerful moves, you need to hit certain level thresholds.
[16:11] Speaker 3: So that also encourages you to like get out there
[16:13] Speaker 3: and just kill Thase as quickly as possible so that
[16:17] Speaker 3: you have access to your full suite of abilities. The
[16:21] Speaker 3: other thing that's important to do early on in this
[16:23] Speaker 3: phase is to find a summon called Ken and so
[16:28] Speaker 3: Ken are basically an evolved version of Spear and Ashes
[16:31] Speaker 3: from Elden Ring. There are these Ai sidekicks that you
[16:34] Speaker 3: can find, and on the map you find them by
[16:37] Speaker 3: there's these golden portals that are just scattered all over
[16:40] Speaker 3: the place, and when you interact with one, you just
[16:43] Speaker 3: summon a can randomly. You don't know what you're going
[16:45] Speaker 3: to get until you get it. There's I believe in
[16:48] Speaker 3: a build that I played, there's like eight to choose from.
[16:51] Speaker 3: I don't know if that's all of them for the
[16:53] Speaker 3: final game or if there's still some that haven't been
[16:55] Speaker 3: announced yet, but they each have their own quirks and abilities,
[17:00] Speaker 3: and some of them compliment other blood sworn the main
[17:04] Speaker 3: characters better than others. Like there's one that I really
[17:08] Speaker 3: love named Baritone who looks like Frankenstein's Monster who His
[17:12] Speaker 3: thing is that he sings kind of true to his
[17:16] Speaker 3: name Baritone. He just sings a lot, and he has
[17:19] Speaker 3: kit this beautiful singing voice. And what it does is
[17:21] Speaker 3: that it puts like a stat buff around you. As
[17:24] Speaker 3: well as any AI characters that you've turned with your
[17:28] Speaker 3: blood sucking, you get like the stat buff. It's very
[17:33] Speaker 3: easy to find him because if you hear him doing
[17:35] Speaker 3: his song, you're like, all right, somebody's around here with baritone.
[17:39] Speaker 3: And then offensively, when he's attacking people, he literally just
[17:41] Speaker 3: grabs them and does like wrestling supplexes. So if you
[17:46] Speaker 3: know me, I like my wrestling, So I was like, well,
[17:47] Speaker 3: this guy's yeah, he's just like a singing.
[17:49] Speaker 4: I could be a WWE wrestler who sings and supplexes
[17:53] Speaker 4: people like, it's not that that off.
[17:55] Speaker 3: I mean, there's a guy in w B now named
[17:57] Speaker 3: Joe Hendry who literally sings and does concert and plays
[18:00] Speaker 3: guitar and he does suplexes.
[18:02] Speaker 2: So there you go.
[18:03] Speaker 3: There we go, the Joe Hendry of dust Bloods.
[18:06] Speaker 4: Everybody say, why was this the header of your article?
[18:09] Speaker 4: This is the most important if you want to know about.
[18:13] Speaker 3: There's another can called what was his name? Valentino who's
[18:18] Speaker 3: like this really big guy. He kind of reminds me
[18:20] Speaker 3: of the duke from a residentval village, where he's like
[18:23] Speaker 3: this really big dude. He's in like a weird kind
[18:25] Speaker 3: of wheelchair looking thing and he just rolls around and
[18:28] Speaker 3: he has like this whip that he just whips the
[18:30] Speaker 3: crap out of people, so he can attack people from
[18:32] Speaker 3: afar with that. But then if he gets close to you,
[18:34] Speaker 3: he just picks people up and bear hugs them, and
[18:36] Speaker 3: so he can hold people and then you can just
[18:39] Speaker 3: kind of camp out and then like the moment he
[18:41] Speaker 3: lets them go, just like wail on them because they're
[18:43] Speaker 3: gonna they need a second to recover from it. He
[18:45] Speaker 3: was an annoying Ken to deal with, and so ken
[18:48] Speaker 3: can they stick with you throughout the duration of a match.
[18:50] Speaker 3: They have their own life bar, but they never permanently
[18:53] Speaker 3: die if you kill them, they just become unavailable for
[18:56] Speaker 3: a period, kind of like on a cool down and
[18:58] Speaker 3: they and the more battle that they see, the stronger
[19:01] Speaker 3: they get, so they level up alongside you, and they
[19:04] Speaker 3: also improve their abilities. So it's like the sooner you
[19:08] Speaker 3: can get one and stick with one, the better because
[19:11] Speaker 3: if you manage to get to the last round, not
[19:13] Speaker 3: only will you be pretty like leveled up, but you'll
[19:16] Speaker 3: have a kin that's as strong as you are. You
[19:18] Speaker 3: can switch kin out anytime. But like, strategically, it might
[19:23] Speaker 3: not be the best idea because if you decide like, oh,
[19:26] Speaker 3: I got this can, it's not really the one I wanted,
[19:28] Speaker 3: but you know, I guess I'll roll with it. But
[19:30] Speaker 3: then I get the phase three and it's like, oh,
[19:32] Speaker 3: I found into the portal. I can change this out.
[19:34] Speaker 3: If you get a new kind, they're going to start
[19:35] Speaker 3: from level one. So even if it's one that you
[19:37] Speaker 3: like better, it's like, do I want one at level one?
[19:40] Speaker 3: At this point, I don't know. It's up to you,
[19:41] Speaker 3: you know, do what you think strategically.
[19:43] Speaker 4: It helps, is it like when you because summoning a
[19:47] Speaker 4: kin is random, right.
[19:49] Speaker 3: Yeah, you don't know what you're getting until they pop out.
[19:51] Speaker 4: So if you're like swapping yours out when you go
[19:54] Speaker 4: to a new portal. Does it just like do you
[19:57] Speaker 4: get to choose if you want to keep the new
[19:59] Speaker 4: one or the old one? Or is it just like
[20:00] Speaker 4: once you've summoned one year, old one goes away.
[20:03] Speaker 3: Yeah, once you've summoned one, the old one goes away.
[20:05] Speaker 2: That's tough.
[20:06] Speaker 3: Yeah, so you really got to think about, like I
[20:08] Speaker 3: do not like this can I would love another one,
[20:10] Speaker 3: but I don't know what I'm gonna get, and you know,
[20:13] Speaker 3: so you know it's up to you, you know, take
[20:15] Speaker 3: the risk. So yeah, phase one, you're going around finding stuff.
[20:20] Speaker 3: The other way you can earn virtue in terms in
[20:22] Speaker 3: non combat are these kind of like places called Flame Virtue,
[20:27] Speaker 3: and they're basically these little corpses that sit on a throne.
[20:30] Speaker 3: They got like a ring of fire that kind of
[20:32] Speaker 3: gives them a purple glow. And these are like one
[20:35] Speaker 3: time use collectibles. So if you walk up to one
[20:39] Speaker 3: and you activate it, you get free virtue, but you'll
[20:43] Speaker 3: be the only one to get it from that specific
[20:45] Speaker 3: one because it's first come, first served. And so it
[20:48] Speaker 3: also emphasizes just running around as much as possible to
[20:51] Speaker 3: try to find these things because there's a bunch of
[20:53] Speaker 3: them and they're all hitting all over the map. And
[20:54] Speaker 3: also every time you play a match, it shuffles where
[20:57] Speaker 3: things are, so they're never nothing in this game is
[20:59] Speaker 3: ever we're in the same spot, even if the map
[21:01] Speaker 3: itself is static, which is good because it prevents people
[21:04] Speaker 3: from camping and learning the map and be like, well,
[21:06] Speaker 3: I know where all the good stuff is, and so
[21:09] Speaker 3: it's I like that because it adds a bit of
[21:11] Speaker 3: urgency to exploration. And also there's just a fun sort
[21:14] Speaker 3: of like when like when you find one that no
[21:16] Speaker 3: one has to found, it feels genuinely like hell yeah.
[21:19] Speaker 3: And then when you find one that's someone activated, you're
[21:21] Speaker 3: just like damn it, Like I ran over here for nothing.
[21:26] Speaker 3: So you have those you can you can get virtue
[21:29] Speaker 3: from the like there's one called commendation virtue that kind
[21:32] Speaker 3: of just gives you virtue for just doing things like
[21:34] Speaker 3: basic things like, hey, you killed a bunch of fodder enemies,
[21:37] Speaker 3: here's some virtue. Or hey, you've been picking up a
[21:39] Speaker 3: lot of items, here's some virtue. It's just kind of
[21:41] Speaker 3: like just playing the game gives you virtue. But if
[21:44] Speaker 3: you want like the big amounts of virtue, you gotta
[21:47] Speaker 3: either kill human enemies or kill bigger bosses. So there's
[21:51] Speaker 3: like different tiers of bosses that you'll find. There's like
[21:54] Speaker 3: mid tier bosses, and then the bigger ones are called truspassers,
[21:57] Speaker 3: and those are the ones that are just likeper Souls
[22:01] Speaker 3: bosses where they got tactics you got to learn. They're
[22:05] Speaker 3: hard as hell. They're really difficult to take on by yourself,
[22:09] Speaker 3: especially if you're under leveled, and you have the option
[22:12] Speaker 3: of summoning or sending out a request to have other
[22:15] Speaker 3: players join you to fight this trust bash, which will
[22:18] Speaker 3: kind of activate like a temporary truce where it's like, hey, listen,
[22:22] Speaker 3: we're in this fight together if you choose to join
[22:25] Speaker 3: this battle, because when someone sends that notification, you'll see
[22:27] Speaker 3: it pop up on your screen like, hey, someone needs
[22:30] Speaker 3: help for this fight. Do you want to join? And
[22:32] Speaker 3: once you opt in, you can't hurt each other and
[22:35] Speaker 3: you can only fight the boss, and if you kill
[22:37] Speaker 3: the boss, everyone gets to share in the virtue rewards,
[22:41] Speaker 3: and then from there you know you can go your
[22:42] Speaker 3: separate ways. Once Phase two goes live, that's when eliminations happen,
[22:49] Speaker 3: and you get eliminated when you don't hit a certain
[22:52] Speaker 3: virtue quota at the end of the round, and you
[22:54] Speaker 3: can always tell where your racks. You can check your
[22:56] Speaker 3: everyone's virtue level at anytime, and if your virtue is
[22:59] Speaker 3: highlighted read it means that you are going to be
[23:02] Speaker 3: cut if you do not raise it. Yeah, and on
[23:05] Speaker 3: top of it just being the lowest numerical value too, you.
[23:09] Speaker 4: Know, yeah, what are these what are these numbers? Like
[23:13] Speaker 4: is it like, oh, I got ten thousand virtue from
[23:15] Speaker 4: doing this, or is it like, oh I got.
[23:16] Speaker 2: Seven virtue from doing this? That's a lot?
[23:18] Speaker 3: Like how big are these ballooning definitely double ditches, Like
[23:21] Speaker 3: I think in our session only a couple people ever
[23:24] Speaker 3: got over one hundred, Like it's really hard. Like if
[23:27] Speaker 3: you get like fifty, that's like considered a lot, And
[23:32] Speaker 3: if you get like ninety or above, then you're doing
[23:34] Speaker 3: really well or you're just getting really lucky. It's a
[23:38] Speaker 3: mix of both. Sometimes you just drop in a map
[23:40] Speaker 3: where there just happens to be a lot of like
[23:41] Speaker 3: virtue around, whether it's like oh, here's a boss here
[23:44] Speaker 3: I can kill, here's one of these flame guys, just
[23:47] Speaker 3: other things that you just you just happen to be
[23:50] Speaker 3: in a proximity of and then nobody's around to stop
[23:52] Speaker 3: you from getting it. So some of it is like
[23:54] Speaker 3: a roll of the dice, but yeah, Phase two goes live.
[23:58] Speaker 3: It also opens up these areas called virtue sites towards
[24:01] Speaker 3: the end of the phase, and they're basically these designated
[24:05] Speaker 3: zones that give you the opportunity to earn a ton
[24:08] Speaker 3: of virtue really quickly. And there's two ways to do it,
[24:11] Speaker 3: and again they come down to either do you want
[24:14] Speaker 3: to fight another player or do you want to do
[24:16] Speaker 3: something that isn't inherently combat focused, but it can be.
[24:22] Speaker 3: It just de pends. So the first one is this
[24:24] Speaker 3: kind of like red It's like a red tinted area,
[24:28] Speaker 3: but basically it's PvP paddles. So if you go to
[24:30] Speaker 3: the virtue site and you see other players, if you
[24:32] Speaker 3: kill them while you're within that zone, you're going to
[24:35] Speaker 3: get a ton of virtue. I believe it's called sword virtue.
[24:37] Speaker 3: So if you're someone that's pretty confident in your PvP
[24:41] Speaker 3: skills and you've leveled yourself up and you've got a
[24:43] Speaker 3: good kin that's leveled up, you're like, yeah, I can
[24:45] Speaker 3: roll up on people and kill some folks, especially if
[24:47] Speaker 3: I need to gain ground because I'm in last place
[24:49] Speaker 3: right now. But if you don't want to fight people,
[24:52] Speaker 3: you can go after Pledge Virtue virt are these scattered
[24:56] Speaker 3: golden crosses that you have to walk up to and activate,
[25:00] Speaker 3: and they kind of are like kind of like capture
[25:03] Speaker 3: zones and like other multiplayer games where it's like, oh,
[25:05] Speaker 3: I've captured this zone, it's mine now I get the
[25:09] Speaker 3: virtue from it. However, someone can take it. If someone
[25:13] Speaker 3: else rolls on your activated pledge and activates it themselves,
[25:17] Speaker 3: then it takes it away from you and they have
[25:19] Speaker 3: it there, so there can be some combat that happens here. However,
[25:23] Speaker 3: the virtue or the pledge virtues are typically hidden really
[25:26] Speaker 3: well to where if you find it before anyone else,
[25:29] Speaker 3: it's probably gonna be yours. Like there was one match
[25:33] Speaker 3: where I found I went to like this underground ruin
[25:36] Speaker 3: where nobody was and there was two pledge virtues right
[25:39] Speaker 3: next to each other, and I was like, oh my god,
[25:41] Speaker 3: I'm gonna get so much virtue from me, and I
[25:43] Speaker 3: activated both and then just sort of chilled out, like
[25:46] Speaker 3: when the virtue when the retro ritual sites were live,
[25:51] Speaker 3: because when you go live, this is kind of almost
[25:53] Speaker 3: meant to draw everyone together, Like if you've been scattered
[25:56] Speaker 3: around the map doing your own thing, everyone's going to
[25:58] Speaker 3: converge on these points to try to either get a
[26:00] Speaker 3: bunch of virtue to get a lead, or to maintain
[26:03] Speaker 3: an existing lead and maybe prevent other people from getting
[26:07] Speaker 3: these the rewards from these sites. And I decided to
[26:10] Speaker 3: just chill where I was like I had enough virtue
[26:12] Speaker 3: where I kind of did the math and was like
[26:13] Speaker 3: I think I have enough on a head. I don't
[26:16] Speaker 3: need to go up there. I'm just gonna make sure
[26:17] Speaker 3: nobody comes down here, and I'm just gonna chill out.
[26:22] Speaker 3: And so phase three is the same thing pretty much.
[26:26] Speaker 3: The other thing that can happen in a dust battle
[26:28] Speaker 3: are these randomized stipulations called events that I really love.
[26:33] Speaker 3: And so certain matches will start where it'll add a
[26:36] Speaker 3: modifier to the matches and it'll it'll do something that
[26:40] Speaker 3: just affects the map. Like one of them is like, hey,
[26:42] Speaker 3: there's a blimp that's gonna fly over the map and
[26:45] Speaker 3: it's just gonna rain fire down on the entire playing field.
[26:49] Speaker 3: So you gotta watch out for that because it just
[26:50] Speaker 3: shoots in discriminately. Or the one that kind of made
[26:54] Speaker 3: everyone laugh and also was the most infuriating. Was one
[26:56] Speaker 3: where it's like this lightning storm where it strikes everyone
[27:02] Speaker 3: with this unavoidable lightning, but instead of doing damage, it
[27:05] Speaker 3: teleports you to a random spot on the map. And
[27:08] Speaker 3: so it is like chaotic because there were times where
[27:11] Speaker 3: I was like fighting a boss and I was like
[27:13] Speaker 3: on the verge of killing them, and I'm like, oh,
[27:15] Speaker 3: I'm gonna get so much virtue, and then I see
[27:17] Speaker 3: the lightning building up of like no no, no, no, no no,
[27:19] Speaker 3: and then I get zapped away from the fight and
[27:21] Speaker 3: I'm like damn. Or one time I got zapped in
[27:24] Speaker 3: front of a boss that I was not ready for
[27:26] Speaker 3: and it just immediately murdered me. So it's just switching
[27:30] Speaker 3: people around a map constantly. There's another one where some
[27:34] Speaker 3: of them will kind of like be little side quest.
[27:36] Speaker 3: Like one is like, hey, there's a bell tower here.
[27:39] Speaker 3: If you run up to this bell tower and climbate and
[27:42] Speaker 3: ring the bell, you'll get virtue. And this is one
[27:44] Speaker 3: where everyone can do it, like it's not just the
[27:46] Speaker 3: first one that does it. It's just like, hey, if
[27:48] Speaker 3: you haven't done it yet, it's still there. If you
[27:50] Speaker 3: think it's worth the virtue to go maybe on the
[27:53] Speaker 3: other side of the map and do it. It's free
[27:55] Speaker 3: virtue pretty much unless someone's there to stop you for
[27:58] Speaker 3: whatever reason. So those can add a fun wrinkle to matches.
[28:02] Speaker 3: And then another way you can earn virtue is that
[28:05] Speaker 3: each character has a thing called a sigil, and a
[28:08] Speaker 3: sigil is basically a character specifics quest that you don't
[28:13] Speaker 3: have to do. In fact, you can toggle it to
[28:15] Speaker 3: be deactivated at the start of matches. But for Albert,
[28:20] Speaker 3: for example, his sigil is that if he goes into
[28:23] Speaker 3: a match, it will mark one specific player as a target,
[28:27] Speaker 3: and if you kill that player, you'll get bonus virtue.
[28:30] Speaker 3: So it's almost like a bounty thing.
[28:33] Speaker 2: Why would you deactivate it?
[28:35] Speaker 3: I think for maybe people that just don't want to
[28:38] Speaker 3: deal with it, especially or maybe you're like I don't
[28:41] Speaker 3: want to be hunted by someone specifically, Like maybe I'm
[28:45] Speaker 3: not sure, Like I think.
[28:47] Speaker 4: It's just as an individual or is it like you
[28:49] Speaker 4: would if you said you don't want it, you would
[28:51] Speaker 4: spawn into a map where there's no siguls. Yeah, Like
[28:55] Speaker 4: it's yeah, like if every I think it's also like
[28:59] Speaker 4: if one I want to say, if one person deactivated
[29:02] Speaker 4: for their character, then everyone else can't. But I actually
[29:04] Speaker 4: don't know.
[29:04] Speaker 3: I actually that might be wrong if I think even
[29:07] Speaker 3: if you turn yours off, if someone wants to keep
[29:09] Speaker 3: THEIRS on, they can still use THEIRS because you don't
[29:12] Speaker 3: have to do it, like it's it's just like an
[29:14] Speaker 3: optional task basically.
[29:16] Speaker 4: I guess I don't understand what the benefit to not
[29:18] Speaker 4: having it as an option is.
[29:20] Speaker 3: Yeah, it is.
[29:21] Speaker 4: If you don't have to do it, then you might
[29:23] Speaker 4: as well just always leave it on. But maybe there's
[29:26] Speaker 4: complications of some of them that like make your life
[29:28] Speaker 4: harder if it is on.
[29:30] Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe, And it could be something that if there
[29:32] Speaker 3: is a consequence it wasn't activated in our build because
[29:35] Speaker 3: there were things that were disabled and or will be
[29:37] Speaker 3: disabled in the closed network test, So I'm not totally sure.
[29:42] Speaker 3: The weirdest sigil is one where you have to propose
[29:44] Speaker 3: marriage to someone.
[29:46] Speaker 1: Yeah, that one sounds wild.
[29:49] Speaker 2: Whose is that? Do you remember?
[29:51] Speaker 3: I think it's the HM. Actually I think I actually
[29:55] Speaker 3: straight up half a screenshot that has it. I can
[29:58] Speaker 3: literally pull it up right now.
[30:00] Speaker 4: Any games of the Blood Sworn, by the way, are
[30:02] Speaker 4: so funny to me because there's it's like like Gore,
[30:08] Speaker 4: son of Blong, like it's some like name with the subtitle,
[30:11] Speaker 4: and then it's just Albert Albert to blood hand Jan
[30:18] Speaker 4: Yeah exactly.
[30:20] Speaker 3: And then one the robot guy or not even robot
[30:23] Speaker 3: suit metal suitman is named Zork and he's next to
[30:26] Speaker 3: a guy named Senator Samir Patrice.
[30:30] Speaker 4: Yeah, you've got three names, and he only gets Albert.
[30:34] Speaker 3: Speaking of the good Senator, he is the one that
[30:36] Speaker 3: has the marriage proposal. It's called Sigil Love Ephemeral. And
[30:40] Speaker 3: what it is that you literally there's a character that
[30:43] Speaker 3: gets another player gets marked, is like, that's who you
[30:45] Speaker 3: need to propose to. You gotta find this person. You
[30:48] Speaker 3: have to do an emo where they take the knee
[30:51] Speaker 3: and propose marriage and the other player has to accept it,
[30:55] Speaker 3: and then if they do, you earn virtue for doing this.
[30:59] Speaker 3: I don't know if the other player, like the one
[31:01] Speaker 3: that is agreeing to the marriage, gets anything out of this,
[31:04] Speaker 3: I would imagine, because then why would you ever say
[31:06] Speaker 3: yes to it instead of just killing them on the spot. Yeah,
[31:10] Speaker 3: but no one was able to do this while we
[31:12] Speaker 3: were playing. Uh so I never got seen it in action,
[31:15] Speaker 3: but I love it because it's just weird and it's
[31:18] Speaker 3: weird in that from software away. You know, Yeah, any
[31:23] Speaker 3: questions real quick about this game before I continue explaining
[31:27] Speaker 3: the other things that this thing is doing.
[31:30] Speaker 1: Oh there was a few from the start.
[31:33] Speaker 2: I remember.
[31:33] Speaker 1: I remember when you were first describing this in this episode,
[31:36] Speaker 1: you were talking about it being more of like a
[31:39] Speaker 1: battle reality. Is there a circle that's shrinking or now? No,
[31:42] Speaker 1: the virtue like looking for that purely the that's the
[31:46] Speaker 1: thing that's clamping down in you. Is that that one
[31:49] Speaker 1: rule of like you have to have more virtue than
[31:51] Speaker 1: other players to keep going. I kind of like the pressure.
[31:56] Speaker 4: Yeah, because in Fortnite, if you hang out one spot
[31:58] Speaker 4: the whole time, then the circle makes you move. But
[32:00] Speaker 4: in this one, it's like, well if you just did
[32:02] Speaker 4: once by the whole time, you won't get any virtue.
[32:04] Speaker 4: So you have to go find stuff.
[32:05] Speaker 3: Yeah, Like you need to engage with the game, even
[32:07] Speaker 3: if it's not necessarily fighting other players. You need to
[32:10] Speaker 3: be doing something and.
[32:11] Speaker 1: You're not like picking up weapons, right like, you just
[32:14] Speaker 1: have what you have.
[32:15] Speaker 3: You have what you have, you can improve your weapons.
[32:17] Speaker 3: There are these these hidden chests or not hit in,
[32:21] Speaker 3: but like scattered chess all over the map that if
[32:24] Speaker 3: you interact with them, they enhance your weapon with like
[32:26] Speaker 3: a random attribute, so like oh this chess put fire
[32:29] Speaker 3: on my weapon or lightning or poison or just made
[32:32] Speaker 3: it stronger. And yeah, I mean there's We've got a
[32:36] Speaker 3: few listener questions as well from our discord asking about
[32:41] Speaker 3: the dust Blood specifically. Yeah, that I'll address real quick,
[32:44] Speaker 3: because they were asking, I think Grant was asking just
[32:47] Speaker 3: what to what extent is it multiplayer focused? And it's
[32:51] Speaker 3: it's entirely multiplayer focused, but it is solo minded, like
[32:55] Speaker 3: you don't have to It's not like Night Rain, where
[32:57] Speaker 3: this is a cooperative game where you need to work
[32:59] Speaker 3: with someone to play this game. You are on your
[33:01] Speaker 3: own in this game. It is a competitive game. It's
[33:04] Speaker 3: like a battle Royale, like you just you can just
[33:06] Speaker 3: play by yourself and you'll just play against random people.
[33:09] Speaker 3: You can do private parties, like I asked the Azaki
[33:12] Speaker 3: this during our group interview, and you confirm that if
[33:15] Speaker 3: you want to do private lobbies you can, which is great,
[33:17] Speaker 3: Like I think that's awesome.
[33:19] Speaker 2: I love that would be a great stream.
[33:20] Speaker 3: Yeah, like yeah, get eight eight people that you know
[33:24] Speaker 3: to do like a dust Blood to night I mean
[33:25] Speaker 3: playing in a room with people that I you know,
[33:28] Speaker 3: either know or was like met during that trip and
[33:32] Speaker 3: just getting their reactions from real time is like, Oh,
[33:34] Speaker 3: we're rolling up on each other and we're having we're
[33:36] Speaker 3: having a fight here, like like that is fun, you know,
[33:39] Speaker 3: like that that's just that's just undeniably fun. So but yeah,
[33:42] Speaker 3: it is multiplayer focus. Like there is no way as
[33:45] Speaker 3: far as I know, unless they are withholding something. There's
[33:48] Speaker 3: no way to play this without like there's no like
[33:51] Speaker 3: true single player mode in this game, you.
[33:54] Speaker 1: Know, Okay, that makes sense.
[33:57] Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll actually you jump to pratibles question who ask
[34:01] Speaker 3: uh they read my preview which you can read right
[34:04] Speaker 3: now in Gameformer dot com. It's it's quite lengthy. It's
[34:06] Speaker 3: basically a cover story. I encourage you to check it out,
[34:10] Speaker 3: asking that I stated that you only I only played
[34:12] Speaker 3: one map in the build, which was called Larno City,
[34:16] Speaker 3: and asking how many of basically how many maps are
[34:19] Speaker 3: in the game and are they uniquely crafted or are
[34:22] Speaker 3: they partially transformed similar to Night Rain. So apparently in
[34:26] Speaker 3: the full game there will be three maps at launch.
[34:30] Speaker 3: I don't know what their post content plans are like.
[34:35] Speaker 3: That was a question that Miyazaki was asked in the interview,
[34:37] Speaker 3: and he declined to answer. But I would imagine, I
[34:40] Speaker 3: would imagine it gets a similar level of support as
[34:43] Speaker 3: Night Rain, did you know, so probably new characters, new maps,
[34:47] Speaker 3: maybe some new abilities. We'll see, does the map change.
[34:51] Speaker 3: It seems like that's what they were asking if it's
[34:53] Speaker 3: uniquely crafted, Like it is uniquely crafted, I think, because
[34:56] Speaker 3: guys correct me if I'm wrong. I think you guys
[34:58] Speaker 3: both played night Rain, but night used a lot of
[35:00] Speaker 3: assets from elden Ring.
[35:02] Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, yeah, I mean for the most part, there
[35:06] Speaker 1: was a lot of similar enemies that you would find.
[35:09] Speaker 1: I think there was definitely some like new assets of course, sure,
[35:12] Speaker 1: but yeah, it was like there there were a lot
[35:16] Speaker 1: of it was it was smart. I don't know if
[35:19] Speaker 1: it was if there was ever like a one to
[35:22] Speaker 1: one like oh this is just that building from elden Ring,
[35:25] Speaker 1: but it was very clearly like, oh, these are like
[35:27] Speaker 1: the same asset libraries.
[35:29] Speaker 2: You know what I mean. Yeah, Like they have the.
[35:31] Speaker 1: Same building blocks.
[35:32] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[35:33] Speaker 1: Yeah, and the levels of course were kind of designed,
[35:36] Speaker 1: you know, to be uh, to make sense within.
[35:43] Speaker 3: Night Ring, within night Rain. Yeah. Okay, Well that's all
[35:46] Speaker 3: to say that as far as I can Tell everything
[35:47] Speaker 3: and Dust Bloods is original like Loreno City. Everything I saw,
[35:52] Speaker 3: I was like, yeah, this all looks new. This isn't
[35:54] Speaker 3: from like elden Ring or any other existing game. Like
[35:57] Speaker 3: like aesthetically, it's got their vibe. It's if you wanted
[36:01] Speaker 3: to pin it down to like what games it feels
[36:04] Speaker 3: the most like, it feels like a blend of elden
[36:07] Speaker 3: Ring and Bloodborn like artistically okay, but other than that,
[36:12] Speaker 3: these these all feel like you like these are this
[36:14] Speaker 3: is a unique city and characters and and enemies to
[36:18] Speaker 3: this world as far as I could tell. They also
[36:22] Speaker 3: mentioned and this is something I haven't touched on yet,
[36:24] Speaker 3: but they asked about the duo's mode that I mentioned
[36:27] Speaker 3: in my articles. So you can play this game solo
[36:30] Speaker 3: on your own against uh, you know, everyone, Manford himself,
[36:32] Speaker 3: but you can also play a duo's mode, which pairs
[36:35] Speaker 3: the eight players into teams of two. So that's four
[36:38] Speaker 3: teams against each other. And instead of the way eliminations
[36:43] Speaker 3: work is that one team is eliminated at the end
[36:45] Speaker 3: of each phase and so the final phase, phase four,
[36:47] Speaker 3: comes down to two teams that is, uh, yeah, those
[36:52] Speaker 3: they're asking if those are the only two modes at
[36:54] Speaker 3: those two modes that we saw. I don't know if
[36:57] Speaker 3: there will be other types of modes in the games,
[36:59] Speaker 3: but those are the ones that we got to play.
[37:01] Speaker 3: And the duos mode it works a lot like I
[37:04] Speaker 3: mentioned before, like the alliances where you can fight against bosses.
[37:07] Speaker 3: It's just a more formal alliance and there actually two
[37:11] Speaker 3: different mechanics. So duo's mode is like a game mode
[37:13] Speaker 3: where everyone is on a team by default, and you
[37:15] Speaker 3: share virtue and you can't hurt each other, and you
[37:18] Speaker 3: are like you are just like joined at the hip
[37:20] Speaker 3: and you're just fighting other teams. Alliances are packs that
[37:25] Speaker 3: you make in the regular Dusk battles, where at any
[37:28] Speaker 3: time during a match except for Phase four, you can
[37:32] Speaker 3: offer someone an alliance and if they accept, you become
[37:35] Speaker 3: a team for the rest of the match. And it's
[37:38] Speaker 3: the same thing where you guys share virtue and you
[37:40] Speaker 3: can't hurt each other, but it can be a strategic
[37:42] Speaker 3: way to like probably the best way to use it is, hey,
[37:46] Speaker 3: we're both the two bottom ranked players. If we make
[37:49] Speaker 3: an alliance, we might have a better chance of like
[37:51] Speaker 3: raising you know, climbing the ladder together. And you know,
[37:54] Speaker 3: once we get to the final phase because the final
[37:56] Speaker 3: phase it dissolves all alliances because now you got to
[37:59] Speaker 3: fight each other, like, let's just work together to get
[38:01] Speaker 3: to the end, Like, let's just increase our odds here.
[38:04] Speaker 3: Apparently if there's a penalty where like if you start
[38:06] Speaker 3: an alliance with someone and you decide to end the
[38:09] Speaker 3: alliance early, you have to compensate the player, the other player,
[38:13] Speaker 3: your partner, with a portion of your virtue and I
[38:16] Speaker 3: think maybe even other resources. I'm not clear on what
[38:19] Speaker 3: it was. Like, I literally saw it in like a
[38:22] Speaker 3: tooltip when it's like, here's what happens if you do
[38:24] Speaker 3: decide to just it's almost like a weird like exit
[38:28] Speaker 3: clause from like a lease.
[38:30] Speaker 4: Like, oh, you want to answer this as much to
[38:32] Speaker 4: break your contract?
[38:33] Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, Like, well, you need to compensate your your
[38:36] Speaker 3: partner because they didn't get to say in this, So
[38:38] Speaker 3: you know how badly do you want to be back
[38:40] Speaker 3: on your own It's up to you. Yeah, I guess
[38:44] Speaker 3: phase four I haven't touched on yet. So phase four
[38:46] Speaker 3: to final round. I said, once the last three players,
[38:49] Speaker 3: the last three top players get warped to this combat arena,
[38:53] Speaker 3: so you're away from the main map. It's a much
[38:55] Speaker 3: much smaller zone because the only thing you do here
[38:58] Speaker 3: is a big PvP triple threat match, and those are
[39:03] Speaker 3: so exciting and hyped because they're kind of like it's
[39:07] Speaker 3: got real fighting game energy, because it's just like the
[39:09] Speaker 3: three best players and whatever ken that they've been rolling with,
[39:13] Speaker 3: like they're a little Pokemon basically, and you're just having
[39:16] Speaker 3: this just this three way throwdown where people are shooting
[39:19] Speaker 3: magic and doing their special abilities. Like the Senator guy.
[39:23] Speaker 3: You guys have probably seen him in videos. He's the
[39:25] Speaker 3: one that can turn into a dinosaur for some reason.
[39:28] Speaker 1: Yes, yes, I have seen him.
[39:30] Speaker 3: Yeah. Shout out to Vody VideA, who is a YouTuber
[39:34] Speaker 3: that was there. Lovely gentleman, but I hate him because
[39:38] Speaker 3: he got he got too good with the Senator and
[39:42] Speaker 3: that dinosaur thing where I feel like I feel victim
[39:45] Speaker 3: to that attack more than anyone else because there were
[39:47] Speaker 3: so many times where we would cross pads in the
[39:49] Speaker 3: map and I don't know what it is about Vody,
[39:52] Speaker 3: but he could not just let me glean and he
[39:55] Speaker 3: would turn it to his dinosaur and that dinosaur. That
[39:58] Speaker 3: dinosaur might be the all he's something like you might
[40:01] Speaker 3: have the patch this thing, I don't know because it
[40:04] Speaker 3: charges at you, so what it is that it charges
[40:06] Speaker 3: at you and a relative straight lines, So it is
[40:08] Speaker 3: a little bit tricky to aim, but it's got some
[40:11] Speaker 3: crazy range. Like one moment that we had that we
[40:13] Speaker 3: laughed about later was that we passed each other. I
[40:17] Speaker 3: try to run away because I'm not ready to fight him,
[40:19] Speaker 3: and at this point I know how good he is.
[40:21] Speaker 3: Body's like absolutely not turns into a dinosaur, rushes me.
[40:25] Speaker 3: I back up enough because I'm thinking, like, surely this
[40:28] Speaker 3: thing is gonna expire, Like I'm pretty far back. Like
[40:30] Speaker 3: my plan is like he'll lose his transformation like right
[40:33] Speaker 3: in front of me, and then I'll just go in
[40:35] Speaker 3: and whale at him and I jump just to get
[40:38] Speaker 3: extra insurance. Like just again, I'm to jump once because
[40:40] Speaker 3: then he can't grab me. And not only did he
[40:42] Speaker 3: reach me, he snatched me out of the air with
[40:46] Speaker 3: his jaws, and when he grabs it, he kind of
[40:49] Speaker 3: just like chews you up like a dollg like just
[40:51] Speaker 3: and then just tosses you. And then if you're on
[40:53] Speaker 3: the edge of the map, he can just get tossed
[40:55] Speaker 3: off the map, which in me in phase four, there
[40:58] Speaker 3: are certain arenas that you can just straight up do
[41:01] Speaker 3: like smash Brothers style ring outs, because there's no like barrier.
[41:04] Speaker 3: And there were multiple times. There was one one of
[41:07] Speaker 3: the times I made it to the final round with Body,
[41:09] Speaker 3: who I'm pretty sure won the majority of the dust
[41:13] Speaker 3: Bloods match. It's like he was if he didn't win,
[41:15] Speaker 3: he was always in the finals, Like he's really good.
[41:18] Speaker 3: I got thrown off the stage so many times by
[41:21] Speaker 3: him in that dumb dinosaur thing and leave me alone.
[41:25] Speaker 1: Shouldn't he be recording lore videos?
[41:28] Speaker 3: I was like, what's the lower implications of you? Yeah?
[41:35] Speaker 1: Yeah, but what is the the big boy.
[41:38] Speaker 3: On wheels that I've seen that you know, Yeah, that's
[41:41] Speaker 3: the one with the win that does the bear hugs
[41:43] Speaker 3: I mentioned before.
[41:44] Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that's he's a kin Okay, Yeah, yeah.
[41:49] Speaker 1: Yeah, he's he sucks.
[41:52] Speaker 3: And I mean that in a good way, like he's
[41:54] Speaker 3: he's great if you have him, but if someone else has,
[41:56] Speaker 3: God help you. And it's kind of crazy how powerful
[42:01] Speaker 3: can can be too, Like they really do change the
[42:04] Speaker 3: tide of battle, and you can you can recall them
[42:06] Speaker 3: like you can literally treat them like Pokemon, where like
[42:08] Speaker 3: if you don't want them out to preserve them health.
[42:10] Speaker 3: You can like suck them back in or wherever they
[42:13] Speaker 3: hang out when they're not in the battlefield. But honestly,
[42:15] Speaker 3: because they get stronger all the time. I never saw
[42:18] Speaker 3: another player that didn't just have it out because it
[42:20] Speaker 3: was kind of like, well, why wouldn't I, because yeah,
[42:23] Speaker 3: if they die, they'll they'll respawn eventually. Maybe the timer.
[42:26] Speaker 3: I didn't time how long the cool down was for them.
[42:28] Speaker 3: Maybe it's just long enough to where you don't want
[42:30] Speaker 3: to deal with it. But in general, it was like, no,
[42:32] Speaker 3: I'm just gonna leave it out because who knows, I
[42:34] Speaker 3: might come across something that it can kill and get
[42:36] Speaker 3: stronger with. But yeah, Phase four was fun like watching
[42:41] Speaker 3: other watching other players that were still in the game,
[42:44] Speaker 3: Like we would always walk around to like huddle in
[42:47] Speaker 3: front of the monitors of like the remaining players and
[42:49] Speaker 3: just you know be like, oh man, oh they almost
[42:52] Speaker 3: got you. Oh that was close, and just like it
[42:55] Speaker 3: really does have like a fun energy behind it.
[42:57] Speaker 4: Can you not like spectate on your own system?
[43:00] Speaker 3: Not into closed network test? But Miyazaki did say spectator
[43:04] Speaker 3: mode would be in the final launch.
[43:06] Speaker 2: Gotcha, gool gool, Yeah, gotcha.
[43:08] Speaker 3: That'll be nice. Uh, yeah, I guess I don't god
[43:13] Speaker 3: this game.
[43:14] Speaker 4: Two other questions for the record go for Charles. One
[43:18] Speaker 4: of them is how do you spawn into a match?
[43:22] Speaker 4: I assume it's not like a battle bus, but are
[43:25] Speaker 4: you like, are you picking where you're going on the
[43:28] Speaker 4: map or is it just random?
[43:30] Speaker 3: Uh? So it's not a battle bus. You don't like
[43:32] Speaker 3: your skydive into the map, but you do pick where
[43:34] Speaker 3: you're gonna land. So when a match is queuing up,
[43:37] Speaker 3: you get the map of the map of the map.
[43:41] Speaker 3: I don't want to say that, but you see the
[43:43] Speaker 3: map and you can pick where you want to gland.
[43:46] Speaker 3: The game it does have a systems where if too
[43:49] Speaker 3: many people try to go to the same zone, it
[43:51] Speaker 3: will say like, hey, this area is overcrowded, and if
[43:54] Speaker 3: not enough people move, the game will randomly assign people
[43:59] Speaker 3: elsewhere just to prevent too many people concentrating in one spot.
[44:03] Speaker 3: In Loarno City, there were four different kind of like
[44:05] Speaker 3: spawn points, and when you die you can choose a
[44:10] Speaker 3: different spawn point to respond to. There's also like fast
[44:14] Speaker 3: travel points on the map, so you can fast travel
[44:17] Speaker 3: mostly anytime. There were some instances where the fast travel
[44:20] Speaker 3: was cut off, but generally if you just need to
[44:22] Speaker 3: get across the map really quickly. You can just fast travel,
[44:24] Speaker 3: which is useful, especially when ritual sites open up and
[44:27] Speaker 3: you're like I need to get over there right now.
[44:31] Speaker 3: But yeah, and what was your other question, Jolls.
[44:34] Speaker 4: My other one was I was curious about, because you
[44:36] Speaker 4: level up over time, when you were getting to those
[44:38] Speaker 4: phase fours, did you find that generally people were around
[44:42] Speaker 4: the same level or was there like a big disparity
[44:44] Speaker 4: there in terms of, like I'm curious about how much
[44:48] Speaker 4: the skill versus the leveling seems to affect the final
[44:52] Speaker 4: final rounds there.
[44:53] Speaker 3: I want to say for the times that I got
[44:56] Speaker 3: to phase four, which is like a handful of times,
[44:58] Speaker 3: I never won one, I got third place, which means
[45:01] Speaker 3: I was the first one out of the three. It
[45:04] Speaker 3: seemed like we were on the same playing field and
[45:07] Speaker 3: it came down to who was better with their character.
[45:10] Speaker 3: So like the first day, I and probably most everyone,
[45:14] Speaker 3: we were all kind of jumping around character because you're
[45:17] Speaker 3: trying to get a feel for everyone one to write
[45:19] Speaker 3: the preview, but also kind of see like who do
[45:21] Speaker 3: I joe with? Who kind of fits my play style?
[45:24] Speaker 3: And then day two was when people started picking the
[45:26] Speaker 3: same character and generally sticking with him last, when A
[45:29] Speaker 3: Blessing was pretty much exclusively Zork the entire day and
[45:34] Speaker 3: had an infinitely better record, like he was getting in
[45:38] Speaker 3: the final spots constantly and won a few matches. Body
[45:42] Speaker 3: had already settled into like Senator Dinosaur Man is my guy,
[45:47] Speaker 3: so I'm just gonna be I pretty much the Phase
[45:50] Speaker 3: four may as well have just been named after him,
[45:53] Speaker 3: and then everyone else.
[45:54] Speaker 4: Was lucky to be there sponsored by him.
[45:57] Speaker 3: Basically he was like he was always there. So yeah,
[46:01] Speaker 3: I think it's a mix of both. But I think
[46:04] Speaker 3: Phase four kind of shows like, Okay, you you could
[46:06] Speaker 3: have number crunched your way to get here, but now
[46:08] Speaker 3: that you're fighting other people, you need to actually know
[46:11] Speaker 3: how to play the game and know how to play
[46:13] Speaker 3: your character. Yeah yeah, so yeah, uh cool. That's all
[46:19] Speaker 3: to say. I had fun. I had more fun than
[46:21] Speaker 3: I thought I would. I'm I'm a single player guy.
[46:24] Speaker 3: You notice about me, Alex. I like my single player
[46:26] Speaker 3: games and soft from software games, especially, like I have
[46:30] Speaker 3: never summoned a human companion in a from software game ever,
[46:33] Speaker 3: because I I don't I don't want that. I just
[46:36] Speaker 3: I wanted I just wanted to be me against the
[46:38] Speaker 3: game AI companions, that's fine, but I just don't want
[46:41] Speaker 3: too a person in my game. It's like I don't know,
[46:43] Speaker 3: I leave me alone. Basically, when I played from Software
[46:46] Speaker 3: Games and I played Night Rain, and I liked it enough,
[46:50] Speaker 3: but I did fall off of it just because of
[46:52] Speaker 3: the just the hassle of like okay, I got a
[46:54] Speaker 3: lineup schedules, when I got to call my friend and
[46:56] Speaker 3: see if he's free, he's got a kid, that's tricky.
[47:00] Speaker 3: And then also, like I that is not a game
[47:03] Speaker 3: you can play by yourself, and it's not really a
[47:04] Speaker 3: game you want to play with randoms just because of
[47:06] Speaker 3: the coordination involved, Like you kind of really should be
[47:08] Speaker 3: playing with people you know. And that's that just for
[47:12] Speaker 3: some people, that's just not as feasible at least with
[47:15] Speaker 3: this game, like a like every other Battle Royaley, you
[47:17] Speaker 3: can play by yourself. But what I like about it
[47:19] Speaker 3: is that because there's so few other there's so there
[47:23] Speaker 3: are just so few other competitors that you can almost
[47:26] Speaker 3: treat this like a single player game. But playing it
[47:28] Speaker 3: like a single player game helps you beat everybody else
[47:31] Speaker 3: if you don't want to just fight them. And I
[47:33] Speaker 3: think that's like really cool and it's fun. There's enough
[47:36] Speaker 3: like modifiers and things to play over. The matches all
[47:38] Speaker 3: felt different and unpredictable and like it could go like
[47:42] Speaker 3: any other way. There were some rounds where I had
[47:44] Speaker 3: like I was rolling in virtue, and there were some
[47:46] Speaker 3: where I barely found any and Guy eliminated it immediately.
[47:51] Speaker 3: But there's enough variance there. And also just like mysteries,
[47:53] Speaker 3: like there's a whole narrative here that apparently you can
[47:56] Speaker 3: uncover by playing that. You know, it wasn't evident in
[47:59] Speaker 3: our build, but Miyazaki kind of said, like, yeah, you know, narrative.
[48:02] Speaker 3: There's a narrative here, and you'll you know, it'll become
[48:05] Speaker 3: apparent in the full game because apparently the main narrative
[48:08] Speaker 3: device is not active in the close network tests. Like
[48:11] Speaker 3: a character that makes sense.
[48:12] Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like I mean, there was like a there
[48:14] Speaker 1: was a narrative in Night Rain as well through like
[48:16] Speaker 1: what in like the roundtable hold.
[48:20] Speaker 3: Yeah, it's kind of like that, Like there's a character
[48:22] Speaker 3: in the main hub that apparently you go back to
[48:23] Speaker 3: and talk to and I don't know, I guess they
[48:26] Speaker 3: they progress the story somehow. That's cool, but it's fun.
[48:30] Speaker 1: I hope that character progression or like unlocking new characters.
[48:36] Speaker 1: I really liked how it worked in Night Rain. I
[48:37] Speaker 1: thought it was really fun to kind of tackle some
[48:40] Speaker 1: of the challenges to unlocking all the characters. I'm curious
[48:43] Speaker 1: if they'll do something different in this or if it'll
[48:45] Speaker 1: just be you have everyone, you know. I am curious,
[48:49] Speaker 1: Marcus is like a final My final question is do
[48:55] Speaker 1: you think this game is going to hit six or
[48:59] Speaker 1: is this like a ways out?
[49:02] Speaker 3: I so officially it's supposed to be this year. Yeah,
[49:06] Speaker 3: but I don't see why it couldn't. Like what I played,
[49:12] Speaker 3: and again, this is basically what the closed network test is,
[49:16] Speaker 3: it seemed pretty completely like it seemed like you could
[49:18] Speaker 3: put this out today. Now, granted there are other maps
[49:20] Speaker 3: that are gonna be in a game, so that could
[49:21] Speaker 3: be the thing that delays it. But like you know,
[49:24] Speaker 3: it's so hard to say, but like there wasn't anything
[49:26] Speaker 3: that gave me an immediate impression of like, man, this
[49:29] Speaker 3: seems like they got a lot of work to do.
[49:30] Speaker 3: They're gonna have to push this, Like I kind I
[49:32] Speaker 3: for now I believe that this can't come out this year.
[49:38] Speaker 4: I went to a Nintendo event like much earlier than
[49:41] Speaker 4: the year, like January or February. And I remember they
[49:45] Speaker 4: had a sizzle reel for all their games for twenty
[49:47] Speaker 4: twenty six, and the Dust Bloods was like on there,
[49:49] Speaker 4: and I was like, oh, they're like confident, like there
[49:52] Speaker 4: there was other games that were coming out of twenty
[49:54] Speaker 4: twenty six that was one. From the beginning, They're like, well, yes,
[49:56] Speaker 4: this will be on our lineup, which kind of surprised me.
[49:58] Speaker 4: So I kept saying it was gonna come out like
[50:02] Speaker 4: I think, like one of our SGF predictions. I was like,
[50:05] Speaker 4: I think, I think we're gonna get Dust Bloods really soon,
[50:07] Speaker 4: and that wasn't the case.
[50:08] Speaker 1: But I feel like, member is gonna be that Barbie
[50:10] Speaker 1: game GTA and then the dust Floods.
[50:13] Speaker 4: I bet it's like a December seventh or something like that.
[50:19] Speaker 2: What's a Friday in December.
[50:21] Speaker 3: I was gonna say yesterday that Pearl Harbor happens. So
[50:23] Speaker 3: I guess this.
[50:26] Speaker 4: It's gonna be like our Pearl Harbor December fourth, I think,
[50:30] Speaker 4: is what my guess is going to be for dust Bloods. Well,
[50:33] Speaker 4: from literally no information, Just for the record, I have
[50:36] Speaker 4: no inside sources before really going off of vibes.
[50:39] Speaker 2: That's what I'm guessing.
[50:40] Speaker 1: Is I'm I'm skeptical that I mean, I wanted to
[50:43] Speaker 1: come out this year. Don't get me wrong, I just
[50:46] Speaker 1: like I feel like we I don't know, maybe we'll
[50:49] Speaker 1: hear more after this closed network test and maybe they
[50:52] Speaker 1: get the feedback they need to be a little more
[50:55] Speaker 1: confident with like a roadmap. But yeah, regardless, I I
[51:00] Speaker 1: really want to play this. I can't wait. Thank you
[51:03] Speaker 1: for kind of diving really deep into this, Marcus, I
[51:05] Speaker 1: know it was a lot.
[51:07] Speaker 3: Yeah, as I was writing the preview, I realized like,
[51:10] Speaker 3: oh god, this this really could be a cover story.
[51:12] Speaker 3: Like there's just I mean, we've moved from knowing nothing
[51:14] Speaker 3: about this game to knowing like damn near everything about
[51:16] Speaker 3: this game, and there's still a lot of stuff that
[51:18] Speaker 3: me as Aki said that you know, they're withholding until
[51:21] Speaker 3: the full release, so that's exciting.
[51:23] Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, Yeah, well cool. Well let's take a quick break.
[51:27] Speaker 1: We've got a word from our sponsor, and then we'll
[51:30] Speaker 1: come back to talk about the Sinking City Field of
[51:32] Speaker 1: Mystery and then answer a few more listener questions. We'll
[51:35] Speaker 1: be right back right after this. Look, we've all been
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[53:27] Speaker 1: is finally here. Welcome back to the Game Informer show.
[53:31] Speaker 1: We're gonna get into the Sinking City two as well
[53:35] Speaker 1: as our fields of mystery of update from Charles but Marcus.
[53:39] Speaker 1: Sinking City two. I remember the first one came out, man,
[53:43] Speaker 1: what like a long time ago, like seven eight years.
[53:48] Speaker 3: Ago, it feels like at this point.
[53:50] Speaker 1: Eighteen twenty eighteen, okay, yeah, yeah, And I remember. I
[53:56] Speaker 1: remember it was like you were playing like a detective
[54:00] Speaker 1: or something. Who I never played it, but I remember
[54:03] Speaker 1: like all the marketing beats and like people talking about
[54:05] Speaker 1: that first game and how it had some very interesting
[54:08] Speaker 1: ideas and like has like you were kind of dealing
[54:11] Speaker 1: with like this eldritch horror. And I don't remember it
[54:16] Speaker 1: coming out to like rave reviews, but I remember like
[54:19] Speaker 1: people liking it. What's the deal with the second one?
[54:22] Speaker 2: What do we need to know?
[54:24] Speaker 1: And importantly, have you played it? Did you enjoy it?
[54:29] Speaker 3: That sort of thing. Yeah, so I have not played
[54:32] Speaker 3: the first one either, and that's actually fine because what's
[54:35] Speaker 3: nice about the Sinking City too, is that it is
[54:37] Speaker 3: a standalone story. It is not connected to first game
[54:39] Speaker 3: as far as I can tell, or as far as
[54:41] Speaker 3: I've just been told. It is a different protagonist, which
[54:45] Speaker 3: I actually think is confusing because this game's protagonist shares
[54:49] Speaker 3: a lot of aesthetic similarities with the first games protagonists,
[54:53] Speaker 3: Like they both sure like these nineteen twenties like the
[54:56] Speaker 3: door wearing leather jacket looking detect guys to the point,
[55:01] Speaker 3: and you all you see them a lot from the back,
[55:03] Speaker 3: just because this is like a third person kind of
[55:05] Speaker 3: like Residue before style over the shoulder over the shoulder
[55:08] Speaker 3: style shooter. That I even when they were telling me
[55:10] Speaker 3: like this guy is a different name, I had to
[55:12] Speaker 3: like really looked like, are we sure this is not
[55:14] Speaker 3: the same guy as someone did not play the first game,
[55:16] Speaker 3: like there was any weird shenanigans in that game, But
[55:19] Speaker 3: I when I looked at the synopsis of the first game,
[55:21] Speaker 3: It's like, Nope, that's that's a whole other guy. That
[55:23] Speaker 3: guy's name was Charles and this guy's name. This guy's
[55:26] Speaker 3: name is Calvin.
[55:28] Speaker 4: Okay, I'm really hoping you'd say Kyle. I was really
[55:31] Speaker 4: hoping it'd be two different game.
[55:33] Speaker 2: And former guys.
[55:34] Speaker 3: No they did. It's just a different c name. Huh.
[55:38] Speaker 3: But if you're a Calvin looking to work a game informer,
[55:40] Speaker 3: we're always looking for one, so.
[55:42] Speaker 4: That we've been looking for Calvin's for years.
[55:46] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[55:47] Speaker 1: So this game is out now, by the way, for
[55:49] Speaker 1: people wondering at home, you can go and play this
[55:52] Speaker 1: game if if you're interested in it.
[55:55] Speaker 3: You can. I'm still working making my way through it. Admittedly,
[55:58] Speaker 3: like I am playing this for a review, but it
[56:00] Speaker 3: came out while I was in Japan for the Dust Bloods,
[56:03] Speaker 3: so I wasn't able to actually start the game until
[56:06] Speaker 3: I got back this week. And then I also I
[56:08] Speaker 3: had to get the preview together, so I just have
[56:10] Speaker 3: not played as much of this as I would like.
[56:12] Speaker 3: So I'm only a few hours in, like probably like
[56:14] Speaker 3: five hours or so. But it is seen. It is
[56:18] Speaker 3: very much in the van of that first game. It
[56:20] Speaker 3: is lovecrafty in as hell. It is set in US
[56:23] Speaker 3: flooded city. Uh. This time is the city of Arkham.
[56:26] Speaker 3: I'm gonna say upfront, I have never actually read any
[56:30] Speaker 3: Lovecraft stuff. Like Lovecraft's one of those He's like one
[56:34] Speaker 3: of those authors or creators where there has been so
[56:37] Speaker 3: much media inspired by him and like spun off from
[56:40] Speaker 3: his works, and I've consumed so much of it that
[56:43] Speaker 3: I feel like I've read everything he's ever done.
[56:46] Speaker 1: Yes, hey also famously is like a bad person.
[56:49] Speaker 3: Yeah, he's a terrible human being, like like a terrible
[56:51] Speaker 3: human being. Historically, you want to if you want to,
[56:55] Speaker 3: for many reasons, you can look up, yeah, read into
[56:58] Speaker 3: a Lovecraft person and maybe just read his work and
[57:02] Speaker 3: maybe nothing else.
[57:03] Speaker 1: Don't yeah or don't you know you can you can.
[57:07] Speaker 1: You can just maybe play the things that are inspired
[57:11] Speaker 1: by his works without reading his works. Yeah, it's okay.
[57:14] Speaker 3: It's weird being a black guy and being like Lovecraft's cool.
[57:17] Speaker 1: Let's just say, let's just say that.
[57:20] Speaker 3: Yeah. But yes, so like heavily steeped in Lovecraft lore.
[57:26] Speaker 3: The story of this game is that Calvin is trying
[57:29] Speaker 3: to find a way to revive his his wife, slash lover.
[57:34] Speaker 3: I'm not sure if they're married or not, I don't remember,
[57:37] Speaker 3: but basically The game begins with her in a coma
[57:40] Speaker 3: like this supernatural coma, and he is trying to find
[57:43] Speaker 3: a way to get her out of it. So he
[57:44] Speaker 3: goes on his quest that takes him on like a
[57:46] Speaker 3: little motor boat, because that's the way you get around
[57:48] Speaker 3: this like somewhat open world or like really open hubs
[57:52] Speaker 3: will say, because you're cruising from down the flooded streets
[57:58] Speaker 3: to get to these different parts of the city and
[58:00] Speaker 3: just try to work your way to solving the mystery
[58:03] Speaker 3: behind your wife's sort of her state. The big thing
[58:08] Speaker 3: about the first game is that it's a lot of
[58:10] Speaker 3: puzzle solving and a lot of investigations, and that is
[58:13] Speaker 3: true in this game, where they actually ask you up
[58:16] Speaker 3: top when you begin, what puzzle difficulty do you want?
[58:20] Speaker 3: I think there's only two. There's either Breezy, which is
[58:25] Speaker 3: just like, hey, we'll highlight the important things and all
[58:27] Speaker 3: the documents and just well just kind of nudge you
[58:31] Speaker 3: towards solutions more than we normally would. Or you can
[58:34] Speaker 3: play what I'm playing on, which is Brainy, where it's
[58:37] Speaker 3: basically we don't highlight anything. You just got to really
[58:40] Speaker 3: read stuff and really connect the dots on your own
[58:43] Speaker 3: there's like a part of a section of the menu
[58:45] Speaker 3: that's like your investigation board, where when you find important clues,
[58:50] Speaker 3: you can kind of lay them out, and then if
[58:51] Speaker 3: you find related clues, you can like connect them, and
[58:55] Speaker 3: then you get rewarded if you find all the clues
[58:58] Speaker 3: within a particular mystery and connect them. The puzzles I've
[59:03] Speaker 3: done so far have been like like good, Like you know,
[59:06] Speaker 3: like it's like, okay, like I have to put some
[59:09] Speaker 3: thought into this, Like there haven't really been any that
[59:11] Speaker 3: have like blown my mind necessarily, but I haven't yet
[59:14] Speaker 3: found one that I thought was like actively bad either.
[59:17] Speaker 3: It's just like, oh, this is just like a neat
[59:19] Speaker 3: little exercise over here. I got. I found this weird
[59:22] Speaker 3: pillar with symbols on it, and I gotta know how
[59:24] Speaker 3: to turn the symbols based on these documents I read.
[59:27] Speaker 3: All right, I need to find some missing items because
[59:31] Speaker 3: as a survival horror game, very much in the vein
[59:34] Speaker 3: of a resident evil or silent hill, you're finding all
[59:36] Speaker 3: these weird little trinkets. You have limited inventory space. You
[59:40] Speaker 3: can a lock more inventory space, but it's a lot
[59:42] Speaker 3: of juggling, Like, Okay, I might need to leave some
[59:45] Speaker 3: stuff behind at the safe room in the trunk so
[59:48] Speaker 3: that I can have room for this shotgun I just found,
[59:50] Speaker 3: or this weird little mechanism that probably goes with something
[59:53] Speaker 3: I might run into soon. My biggest, I guess, my
[59:58] Speaker 3: biggest compliment that I'll give the game so is like vibes,
[1:00:01] Speaker 3: and I think that's kind of what everyone liked them
[1:00:03] Speaker 3: about the first game too. It's like it is like
[1:00:05] Speaker 3: a really atmospheric, it's got like a creepy vibe. I
[1:00:08] Speaker 3: think the art direction is generally pretty strong, Like I
[1:00:11] Speaker 3: like looking at just like the interiors I've been in,
[1:00:14] Speaker 3: like it has got that like nineteen twenties kind of
[1:00:16] Speaker 3: like our deco kind of style going for it, Like
[1:00:19] Speaker 3: it looks neat on top, kind of layered with like
[1:00:21] Speaker 3: the love crafty and stuff of just like weird creatures
[1:00:24] Speaker 3: you're going you're finding, or just weird like growth that
[1:00:27] Speaker 3: has like overtaken these like flooded buildings and whatnot. Like
[1:00:31] Speaker 3: it's like a neat space that occupy and just like
[1:00:34] Speaker 3: decently creepy. My biggest complaints so far is the actual
[1:00:40] Speaker 3: like gun play. I don't think it's like particularly great.
[1:00:43] Speaker 3: It's like serviceable at best, but like the bar for shooting.
[1:00:50] Speaker 3: They're not zombies but like like in everything, but nay,
[1:00:54] Speaker 3: they are zombies. Got you know, there's shambling corpses that
[1:00:59] Speaker 3: have been re animated by Lovecraft magic, we'll say, and
[1:01:03] Speaker 3: they are coming at you, and you can do the
[1:01:05] Speaker 3: resion evil thing where you can shoot them in the head,
[1:01:07] Speaker 3: you can shoot them in the legs so that they
[1:01:08] Speaker 3: take a knee, and then you can kind of finish
[1:01:10] Speaker 3: them off with like a stomp. You got like a
[1:01:12] Speaker 3: dead space kind of like Isaac Clark stomp that you
[1:01:14] Speaker 3: can use the finish off people. Or you can throw
[1:01:18] Speaker 3: hands like I haven't found like a melee weapon. I
[1:01:20] Speaker 3: don't know if there is any, but you can't just
[1:01:22] Speaker 3: like throw fist. But actually shooting people just feels kind
[1:01:26] Speaker 3: of like, eh, you know, it's just it's just eh,
[1:01:29] Speaker 3: it doesn't feel great, Like I don't get excited to
[1:01:31] Speaker 3: shoot things because it doesn't have the impact of something
[1:01:34] Speaker 3: like a resonant evil where it's like, not only does
[1:01:37] Speaker 3: it feel good to shoot, but it just feels like
[1:01:38] Speaker 3: it feels like I have more control over the weapons,
[1:01:41] Speaker 3: even the ones that are supposed to be a little unwieldy,
[1:01:43] Speaker 3: where it feels like in this game, even shooting like
[1:01:45] Speaker 3: the basic handgun, there's just like it. There's just like
[1:01:49] Speaker 3: a step or two below on the like ladder of
[1:01:52] Speaker 3: Polish or. I never feel like fully confident I'm gonna
[1:01:56] Speaker 3: be able to hit something, and then when I do
[1:01:57] Speaker 3: feel something, it just doesn't feel as great. The monsters
[1:02:01] Speaker 3: in this game are also like weirdly bullet sponge in
[1:02:04] Speaker 3: a way that like makes this game pretty hard. So
[1:02:08] Speaker 3: I'm playing on a normal difficulty, and I know this
[1:02:12] Speaker 3: is the part where you know games media guy complains
[1:02:16] Speaker 3: about a game being hard, it must mean they suck.
[1:02:20] Speaker 3: I will say up front, I feel I should have
[1:02:23] Speaker 3: to validate myself, but I'm a survival horror fan. Like
[1:02:26] Speaker 3: I love me some Resident Evil, I love me some
[1:02:28] Speaker 3: Silent Hill. I love these games. I am all about
[1:02:32] Speaker 3: having to manage resources and pick my battles, and like, man,
[1:02:35] Speaker 3: I might just have to run away from this guy
[1:02:37] Speaker 3: because I got three bullets. I will say. The enemies
[1:02:40] Speaker 3: in this game, they take so much resources to take
[1:02:44] Speaker 3: down in a way that just does not feel right
[1:02:48] Speaker 3: for the difficulty that I'm playing. It feels like I'm
[1:02:50] Speaker 3: playing on like a hard difficulty instead of a normal
[1:02:52] Speaker 3: difficulty because a multiple times where I've rolled up on
[1:02:55] Speaker 3: like just a standard zombie guy, and they also have
[1:02:58] Speaker 3: these like glowing weak points, like they almost like a
[1:03:00] Speaker 3: Lost Planet style where it's like, hey, if you talk
[1:03:02] Speaker 3: with those, yeah you'll deal more damage. So it's like, well, yeah,
[1:03:05] Speaker 3: I'm gonna go for those. It'll kill them faster. And
[1:03:08] Speaker 3: like there's times where like I've shot like two of
[1:03:10] Speaker 3: those things and then have to put like five more
[1:03:12] Speaker 3: bullets into them to take them down, and I'm just
[1:03:15] Speaker 3: like Jesus, that seems like a lot, especially because I
[1:03:18] Speaker 3: went for the weak points and now I have no bullets.
[1:03:21] Speaker 3: Like there have been multiple occasis where like and now
[1:03:24] Speaker 3: I have nothing and I gotta go down in this
[1:03:26] Speaker 3: corridor full of enemies. This game is it is like mean,
[1:03:30] Speaker 3: the way that it throws enemies at you when it
[1:03:32] Speaker 3: knows that you have nothing, Like there'll be like rooms
[1:03:35] Speaker 3: of enemies all just come to life, and then you
[1:03:38] Speaker 3: have to deal with like four or five of them
[1:03:40] Speaker 3: at once. You got like a little dodge that you
[1:03:42] Speaker 3: can use to kind of like get by them, but
[1:03:44] Speaker 3: if they grab you, there's like this canned animation where
[1:03:46] Speaker 3: they try to like like kind of the thing that
[1:03:48] Speaker 3: reanimates them or these weird eels, so like their eels
[1:03:51] Speaker 3: will come out of their mouth and like give you
[1:03:54] Speaker 3: a nice French kiss it.
[1:03:57] Speaker 2: Els there.
[1:03:58] Speaker 3: Oh, there's so many eels in this or worms whatever
[1:04:01] Speaker 3: they are, but yeah, there are. It sounds like ARI four,
[1:04:07] Speaker 3: I mean yeah, I mean sure, I mean like one
[1:04:10] Speaker 3: hundred percent in terms of like, yeah, mechanically it is
[1:04:12] Speaker 3: of that of that vein or which ARI is.
[1:04:15] Speaker 1: It the one where the heads shoot out? Oh that's kids?
[1:04:18] Speaker 3: Like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No one's head has exploded
[1:04:23] Speaker 3: into like a tentacle monster yet, but they have like
[1:04:25] Speaker 3: open their mouths and had tentacles come out, and they're like,
[1:04:29] Speaker 3: I feel like it's in there.
[1:04:30] Speaker 1: It's within their brain, it's within their upper register of
[1:04:34] Speaker 1: their body.
[1:04:35] Speaker 3: Oh, it's in their body. Like sometimes you'll go into
[1:04:37] Speaker 3: a room, it'll be a dead corpse, but then uh,
[1:04:40] Speaker 3: some worms or eels will slither into their body and
[1:04:43] Speaker 3: that's how they come to lives here. Like, oh, it's
[1:04:45] Speaker 3: like the eels that are hijacked this corpse and they're
[1:04:47] Speaker 3: they're running the show in there. Okay. This game also
[1:04:51] Speaker 3: really likes the blind side you in a way that
[1:04:54] Speaker 3: is pretty cheap. Again, like there's nothing wrong with it's
[1:04:59] Speaker 3: being surprised by an enemy. Like that's part of the
[1:05:03] Speaker 3: genre of like, oh if I turn a corner and
[1:05:05] Speaker 3: there's a guy there, okay, But there have been multiple
[1:05:09] Speaker 3: instances where I will get attacked from behind without warning
[1:05:13] Speaker 3: and in situations where they clearly want me to focus
[1:05:17] Speaker 3: on what's in front of me, And then it's like,
[1:05:18] Speaker 3: psych you got hit from behind, and it's like, well,
[1:05:20] Speaker 3: why would I think anyone thing was gonna happen. I
[1:05:22] Speaker 3: thought you wanted me to look at this thing and
[1:05:24] Speaker 3: I didn't hear anything coming. Like there was one point
[1:05:26] Speaker 3: where I died multiple times where I had to unlock
[1:05:29] Speaker 3: a gate so that I could take my boat through,
[1:05:31] Speaker 3: and there was a guy sitting and sitting in a
[1:05:34] Speaker 3: chair like a dead body sitting in a chair nearby.
[1:05:37] Speaker 3: Don't think anything of it, like I got I grabbed
[1:05:39] Speaker 3: a key off of them earlier. I go to open
[1:05:41] Speaker 3: this gate and I'm watching the gate go up because
[1:05:44] Speaker 3: I'm just like, okay, I'm just gonna, you know, just
[1:05:46] Speaker 3: watch this this animation go up. And then all of
[1:05:48] Speaker 3: a sudden, an arm because off screen hits me and
[1:05:50] Speaker 3: I die, and I'm like what the and it turns
[1:05:52] Speaker 3: out the guy in a chair woke up and there
[1:05:53] Speaker 3: was like no sound or anything, and he popped up
[1:05:56] Speaker 3: so quick, and it's just like like, of course I'm
[1:05:58] Speaker 3: gonna watch the gate. Would I think to turn around
[1:06:02] Speaker 3: and leave? And then when I went back the other times,
[1:06:05] Speaker 3: I was like, how quickly does he get up? Is
[1:06:06] Speaker 3: there any indication he's gonna come alive? And then so
[1:06:08] Speaker 3: when I turned it this time, I kept the camera
[1:06:11] Speaker 3: like focused on him, and he pops up so quick
[1:06:15] Speaker 3: that it's almost like if I if you just if
[1:06:18] Speaker 3: he just was not in frame, you're gonna get hit
[1:06:21] Speaker 3: because he just moves so fast. And there's like multiple
[1:06:23] Speaker 3: instances where that happens. Whether it's like my least favorite
[1:06:27] Speaker 3: an it means these like little like jumpy spider things
[1:06:30] Speaker 3: that are like so loaded to earth and they there
[1:06:33] Speaker 3: are so many times where, like, you know, I would
[1:06:35] Speaker 3: just walk down like a corridor and then one I
[1:06:38] Speaker 3: guess was hiding by the corner and it just jumps
[1:06:39] Speaker 3: out and hits you, and You're like, well, I was
[1:06:41] Speaker 3: supposed to know that was there, and now I'm.
[1:06:43] Speaker 4: Scare you, Like, does it does it feel like it's
[1:06:46] Speaker 4: it's succeeding in their goal of being like, ah, this
[1:06:49] Speaker 4: place is so dangerous or is it more just like
[1:06:51] Speaker 4: it's annoying that these things keep getting me and I
[1:06:53] Speaker 4: wasn't prepared.
[1:06:54] Speaker 3: I mean, it's both, but like it it devolves into
[1:06:57] Speaker 3: the second one after like repeated deaths, where it's like
[1:07:00] Speaker 3: how was I supposed to know that was there? It's
[1:07:01] Speaker 3: scary in the sense of if anything, it kind of
[1:07:04] Speaker 3: works its way back around where like because that happens
[1:07:06] Speaker 3: so often, I'm scared to go into areas because it's like, sure,
[1:07:10] Speaker 3: they're gonna keep doing this, probably right, Like there's gonna
[1:07:13] Speaker 3: be a weirdly intimidating amount of enemies and I don't
[1:07:19] Speaker 3: have I don't have enough resources to kill the four
[1:07:24] Speaker 3: dead bodies that are definitely going to come alive when
[1:07:27] Speaker 3: I finish what I'm doing in here, because again, they
[1:07:30] Speaker 3: take so much to put down, and you're almost like, well,
[1:07:32] Speaker 3: what do you want from me? Game on? You should?
[1:07:35] Speaker 3: I I can try to run away from them. That
[1:07:37] Speaker 3: works to a degree, but like even the little like
[1:07:39] Speaker 3: dodge thing doesn't get you past like a crowd of them.
[1:07:42] Speaker 3: Like there were times where like I would go into
[1:07:46] Speaker 3: a room and then be a dead end and then
[1:07:47] Speaker 3: they would all follow me and then like, uh, there's
[1:07:50] Speaker 3: one I said, we had a shotgun, and I like
[1:07:52] Speaker 3: unloaded a shotgun into like a crowd of these guys
[1:07:55] Speaker 3: and I'm thinking, like it's a shotgun, that thing's gonna
[1:07:57] Speaker 3: like tear them apart. Nope, after like two or three blasts,
[1:08:00] Speaker 3: they all got up, like none of them died, and
[1:08:02] Speaker 3: it's like, not, not one of you guys are dead
[1:08:04] Speaker 3: from this? Really okay? Yeah, so that's a problem. Otherwise,
[1:08:09] Speaker 3: like you know, combat complains aside like the actual running
[1:08:13] Speaker 3: around and like solving puzzles and taking into vine that's
[1:08:16] Speaker 3: been enjoyable. Like I don't know, I can't say much
[1:08:19] Speaker 3: about the story because it's still very much in progress
[1:08:21] Speaker 3: and I have a feeling I'm not even a feeling.
[1:08:23] Speaker 3: I am still like relatively early. So you know, TBA
[1:08:28] Speaker 3: on that Calvin himself isn't the most interesting guy. Like
[1:08:32] Speaker 3: he's he's a cipher. I don't know what else to say,
[1:08:36] Speaker 3: Like he talks, but sure, his whole character arc just
[1:08:39] Speaker 3: seems to be like man, I just gotta wake my
[1:08:42] Speaker 3: wife up.
[1:08:43] Speaker 4: That's just such a such a damning review of a character.
[1:08:47] Speaker 4: I mean, he talks, I supposed he has things to say.
[1:08:52] Speaker 4: He has the most detail you can get out of here.
[1:08:54] Speaker 3: It's like, I can't. I don't want to give the
[1:08:55] Speaker 3: impression that he's like some silent protagonists, like he's a
[1:08:58] Speaker 3: fully voiced character. There's it's not There is not much
[1:09:01] Speaker 3: the latch onto it, at least at this state of
[1:09:03] Speaker 3: the game. Maybe there's some reveals later he becomes more interesting,
[1:09:06] Speaker 3: but for now, he's just like, man, I got a
[1:09:08] Speaker 3: hat and I'm good at puzzles and my wife's asleep
[1:09:13] Speaker 3: fair enough, so yeah, I'm gonna play put some more
[1:09:19] Speaker 3: time into this now that dust Blood's coverage is out
[1:09:22] Speaker 3: the door. Hopefully it gets better, mainly on the combat end.
[1:09:27] Speaker 3: But yeah, it's like I'm having like a decent time
[1:09:29] Speaker 3: with it so far. That's kind of where I'm at,
[1:09:31] Speaker 3: Like I've got problems, but there are enough things that
[1:09:34] Speaker 3: I like, and it's like, Okay, I want to keep going.
[1:09:35] Speaker 3: We'll see how it goes.
[1:09:37] Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, well cool, Well taking us to a wildly
[1:09:43] Speaker 1: different tone in place. How many are Yeah, Charles, you
[1:09:49] Speaker 1: have put more time into fields of mystery. I know
[1:09:52] Speaker 1: you kind of chatted about your initial impressions, but I'm
[1:09:55] Speaker 1: curious now that you've had more time. You know, we
[1:09:56] Speaker 1: kind of talked about it before the show started, like
[1:09:59] Speaker 1: farming Sim's like it's the long game, right, like, you know,
[1:10:02] Speaker 1: so I'm curious how it's going so far. I'm excited
[1:10:07] Speaker 1: to show people in the video version some footage of
[1:10:10] Speaker 1: your farm. Yeah, what do you think is this?
[1:10:15] Speaker 3: Like?
[1:10:15] Speaker 1: As somebody who I love, you know, my style. I
[1:10:19] Speaker 1: love games that have like some kind of sim element.
[1:10:24] Speaker 1: I like life sims for the most part. I think
[1:10:27] Speaker 1: some of the ones that have kind of like sprung
[1:10:30] Speaker 1: up in the year since Starty Valley and such, there's
[1:10:33] Speaker 1: some really cool ones, and then there's a lot of
[1:10:34] Speaker 1: that kind of feel like really derivative and like just
[1:10:37] Speaker 1: kind of like I mean, it has become like a
[1:10:40] Speaker 1: cash grab for some companies because it is like a
[1:10:43] Speaker 1: very popular genre now, So, like, how does Fields of
[1:10:48] Speaker 1: Mystery stand out? Is this something I should keep my
[1:10:50] Speaker 1: eye on and like check out myself?
[1:10:54] Speaker 3: What's the deal? Yeah, Charles, how many fields have the mystery? It?
[1:11:00] Speaker 2: It's a great question.
[1:11:01] Speaker 4: I think the question is really more how many times
[1:11:05] Speaker 4: have I mysterid my field? Oh so, so, just to
[1:11:12] Speaker 4: go back to Alex's question, I really really like this game,
[1:11:17] Speaker 4: to the point that I'm I'm kind of mad it
[1:11:21] Speaker 4: came out when it did, because there's so many other
[1:11:24] Speaker 4: really big games on the horizon, and like we have
[1:11:27] Speaker 4: we have codes for other stuff that we're working on,
[1:11:30] Speaker 4: other content for for the coming weeks.
[1:11:31] Speaker 2: We've got games come around the corner.
[1:11:33] Speaker 4: It's a very busy time for me to be wanting
[1:11:36] Speaker 4: to be like I kind of just want to spend
[1:11:37] Speaker 4: one hundred hours playing this indie farm game. But I
[1:11:42] Speaker 4: really really like it. So last time I was talking
[1:11:45] Speaker 4: about how it's it's basically Starduo.
[1:11:47] Speaker 2: Valley with a bunch of added stuff.
[1:11:50] Speaker 3: And.
[1:11:52] Speaker 4: Alex was right that, like there's a lot of games
[1:11:54] Speaker 4: that are coming out that are trying to like be
[1:11:57] Speaker 4: like a Stardu Valley or like a Harvest Moon, like
[1:11:59] Speaker 4: trying to take the inspirations that STARTI was inspired by,
[1:12:02] Speaker 4: or just going right off of Starduy Valley to mix success.
[1:12:06] Speaker 4: A lot of the times it's like, yeah, I feel
[1:12:08] Speaker 4: like I've played this before. Fields of Mystery is like
[1:12:13] Speaker 4: almost feels like how someone might remember playing Starduo Valley
[1:12:18] Speaker 4: in that there's so much of like the kind of
[1:12:20] Speaker 4: annoying parts of Starduo Valley that they've sanded off that
[1:12:25] Speaker 4: I have the emotional experience of how it felt the
[1:12:28] Speaker 4: first time playing the original Stardy Valley, because it's as
[1:12:32] Speaker 4: good as I am, like, oh yeah, this is this
[1:12:34] Speaker 4: is all the great stuff I remember. And then I
[1:12:36] Speaker 4: look at a comparison between the two and I realized
[1:12:38] Speaker 4: there's so many things that I had, like slight pet
[1:12:40] Speaker 4: peeves of in Stardy Valley that have been like fixed here.
[1:12:43] Speaker 3: Yeah, it's kind of like you like Stardy Valley so
[1:12:45] Speaker 3: much that the pros outweigh the cons.
[1:12:48] Speaker 4: Yes, yes, it's reminds me of this game's on one
[1:12:53] Speaker 4: point zero yet, But Beastie Ball is a game that
[1:12:58] Speaker 4: the wonder song Greg Lebanov Ah, Yes, yeah, wish is unlimited.
[1:13:04] Speaker 2: That's the studio.
[1:13:05] Speaker 4: I think that's like a Pokemon, a take on Pokemon
[1:13:09] Speaker 4: where they're like, we're gonna take the stuff you like
[1:13:11] Speaker 4: about it and kind of twist it. That's another example
[1:13:13] Speaker 4: of a game where I'm like, gosh, you guys just
[1:13:15] Speaker 4: get what I've.
[1:13:16] Speaker 2: Wanted from this series.
[1:13:18] Speaker 4: It's like one of the beautiful things about indie developers,
[1:13:21] Speaker 4: and Stardo Valley is an indie game, granted, but just
[1:13:23] Speaker 4: a feeling of someone being like, we're gonna get really specific.
[1:13:26] Speaker 4: We understand the genre that we are iterating on, and
[1:13:30] Speaker 4: we're gonna spin it into a thing that is take
[1:13:32] Speaker 4: the important stuff and changes the stuff that we want
[1:13:35] Speaker 4: to take. So fields a mystery. I'm now like twenty
[1:13:38] Speaker 4: hours in. I'm at like the end of summer, so
[1:13:41] Speaker 4: I'm like two seasons into the game. I've got chickens
[1:13:45] Speaker 4: and cows.
[1:13:46] Speaker 2: I've got like much larger fields.
[1:13:50] Speaker 4: I've made friends with lots more villagers. And the thing
[1:13:53] Speaker 4: that I really got to taste stuff I didn't have
[1:13:54] Speaker 4: before is this game has like unlockable skills and magic
[1:13:59] Speaker 4: spin you can cast. And the secret about farming Sims
[1:14:07] Speaker 4: is it is relaxing. That's like always the thing people
[1:14:09] Speaker 4: they call it the cozy game. Yeah, it is cozy.
[1:14:11] Speaker 4: It is like fun to do that. But like the
[1:14:13] Speaker 4: secret sauce and I think, Alex, the thing that you
[1:14:15] Speaker 4: want from these types of games, just the way you
[1:14:17] Speaker 4: talk about like these sim type stuff, it is a
[1:14:19] Speaker 4: power fantasy. It is like I'm going to organize and
[1:14:23] Speaker 4: be so put together that I'm gonna have like a
[1:14:26] Speaker 4: perfect system where I'm gonna be like I'm gonna be
[1:14:29] Speaker 4: King of watermelons because I'm gonna have so many watermelons growing.
[1:14:33] Speaker 4: And just that day where you get to sell all
[1:14:34] Speaker 4: the watermelons feels so good. Yeah, and fields of mystery
[1:14:40] Speaker 4: adds in these elements of this like magical addition stuff
[1:14:44] Speaker 4: that makes it so awesome because, Uh, for example, whenever
[1:14:49] Speaker 4: I water a plant, there's a chance that I get
[1:14:52] Speaker 4: a seed for that plant. It just kind of like
[1:14:53] Speaker 4: spawns back at me, and now I don't have to
[1:14:55] Speaker 4: buy more seeds. I can just water all my stuff.
[1:14:59] Speaker 4: There's also stuff of when I've upgraded, so when I
[1:15:01] Speaker 4: water a plant, a food item that you can make
[1:15:05] Speaker 4: from that plant will spawn out, and I get that,
[1:15:07] Speaker 4: so now I have like free food. There's a lot
[1:15:09] Speaker 4: of systems that are like intertwined to reward you for
[1:15:12] Speaker 4: doing things in ways that like you wouldn't expect to
[1:15:14] Speaker 4: be rewarded, and I just really like them and you
[1:15:18] Speaker 4: get like, I can't remember what it's called, but there's
[1:15:20] Speaker 4: basically these experienced points where it's like when you're in
[1:15:23] Speaker 4: the mines breaking rocks, or when you're watering your plants
[1:15:25] Speaker 4: or when you're fishing, you're unlocking all these like these
[1:15:27] Speaker 4: points over time you can spend on all these different skills,
[1:15:31] Speaker 4: and then also as you progress through the mines scam
[1:15:33] Speaker 4: as minds like Started Valley, you unlock new spells from
[1:15:39] Speaker 4: these like ancient statues. The whole ideas, it's like it's
[1:15:41] Speaker 4: a fantasy world and there used to be these ancient
[1:15:44] Speaker 4: dragons and they kind of like died off, and you're
[1:15:46] Speaker 4: going through these ruins of the old dragons when you're
[1:15:49] Speaker 4: mining for oars and stuff. So I have a spell
[1:15:54] Speaker 4: that I can make it rain for like ten minutes,
[1:15:57] Speaker 4: and then I don't have to water any of my
[1:15:58] Speaker 4: crops like that alone, being like, oh, I don't have
[1:16:01] Speaker 4: to spend the time doing that. I don't have to
[1:16:03] Speaker 4: think about using all the stamina for that and managing that.
[1:16:06] Speaker 4: Just being able to summon rain at will is like
[1:16:08] Speaker 4: I just feel so powerful.
[1:16:10] Speaker 2: I have her spell it.
[1:16:12] Speaker 3: So it just reminds me of a conversation I had
[1:16:14] Speaker 3: my girlfriend recently. We were talking about Storm from X Men,
[1:16:17] Speaker 3: and we're like it she would solve so many practical
[1:16:21] Speaker 3: problems with her power set, like being able to make
[1:16:24] Speaker 3: it rain anytime, and like she would solve hunger crisises,
[1:16:29] Speaker 3: Like it sucks that she has to be so distracted
[1:16:31] Speaker 3: by like giant robots and general bigotry that she can't
[1:16:36] Speaker 3: just grow food for people.
[1:16:39] Speaker 1: She is.
[1:16:40] Speaker 4: Storm is a character that, like, as time goes on
[1:16:43] Speaker 4: because of climate change, like her stock has shot way
[1:16:47] Speaker 4: up and you're like, oh wow, yeah, it's way too
[1:16:49] Speaker 4: hot all the time I've had.
[1:16:50] Speaker 2: Storm could fix that for us.
[1:16:52] Speaker 3: Like just move a cloud over. It's just real quick,
[1:16:54] Speaker 3: and you do that.
[1:16:55] Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, but I can make it rain. I have
[1:16:59] Speaker 4: a spell that fully heals me and restores my stamina,
[1:17:03] Speaker 4: so it kind of it basically like doubles the time
[1:17:05] Speaker 4: I can spend in the mines or if I'm just
[1:17:07] Speaker 4: doing a lot of stuff in a day, it's really
[1:17:08] Speaker 4: cool I can do that. And I have a spell
[1:17:10] Speaker 4: where I can just grow crops in a three x
[1:17:12] Speaker 4: three square, So if there's stuff I want, just I'm like, you,
[1:17:16] Speaker 4: guys should be done. I don't want to waitny more
[1:17:17] Speaker 4: days for you and caso spells and you gain your
[1:17:20] Speaker 4: like manna for spells back pretty slowly.
[1:17:22] Speaker 2: You get like a.
[1:17:22] Speaker 4: Quarter of a spell point per day, so over time
[1:17:26] Speaker 4: you're like building them up. But it just feels really
[1:17:29] Speaker 4: nice that there are days in fields of Mystery where
[1:17:31] Speaker 4: it's like, Okay, I'm gonna summon the rain. Then I'm
[1:17:33] Speaker 4: gonna go to the mines. I would have run out
[1:17:35] Speaker 4: of stamina and health, but I can just heal myself
[1:17:38] Speaker 4: for free and do that. And then I come home
[1:17:39] Speaker 4: and I'm like, oh, I wanted to plant these crops.
[1:17:42] Speaker 4: I wanted to plant these tomato plants because they're gonna
[1:17:44] Speaker 4: yeld multiple tomatoes over time. I can just grow those
[1:17:47] Speaker 4: real quick. My last spell point and now I'm I'm
[1:17:49] Speaker 4: all set. They'll just keep producing stuff.
[1:17:52] Speaker 3: Is your character Like I don't know if you mentioned
[1:17:53] Speaker 3: this like today or last week, but are you like
[1:17:56] Speaker 3: a wizard or a witch? Like why do you know magic?
[1:17:59] Speaker 4: The the low implication or implication, the lower reason that
[1:18:03] Speaker 4: you're here is Mystery is a town and it's kind
[1:18:06] Speaker 4: of been uh there's an earthquake and so it's been
[1:18:08] Speaker 4: down on its luck. And they had an abandoned farm
[1:18:11] Speaker 4: at the south of the town and they put out
[1:18:13] Speaker 4: an ad there like, Hey, if you're an adventurer and
[1:18:16] Speaker 4: you want to move into this farm, all we ask
[1:18:18] Speaker 4: is that you help us like fix up the town
[1:18:20] Speaker 4: so you don't inherently have magic, but you find these
[1:18:23] Speaker 4: ancient dragon statues that have like been in the town forever,
[1:18:26] Speaker 4: and you start talking to them and then they're like, hey, you,
[1:18:28] Speaker 4: I've decided to give you a new spell.
[1:18:30] Speaker 3: You can make it right now. Go on in storm
[1:18:33] Speaker 3: so that no one else thinks to talk to these
[1:18:35] Speaker 3: dragons and get this power. Are you special?
[1:18:38] Speaker 2: Uh? The one that I found.
[1:18:40] Speaker 4: One is in the mines and it doesn't talk to you.
[1:18:44] Speaker 3: I want.
[1:18:46] Speaker 4: The other one is on the farm property and it's
[1:18:49] Speaker 4: like behind a tree, so you have to like chop down.
[1:18:51] Speaker 4: I don't think people knew it was there on the tree.
[1:18:58] Speaker 4: The other thing I was gonna say is in terms
[1:19:00] Speaker 4: of like things in STARTI Valley that always kind of
[1:19:02] Speaker 4: annoy me. One is like, it's really nice to be
[1:19:04] Speaker 4: able to control the weather if I just want to
[1:19:05] Speaker 4: make it rain. That just is like a huge timesaver.
[1:19:09] Speaker 4: You can change your name and appearance at any point
[1:19:11] Speaker 4: in the menu. You can always uh uh. Every shop
[1:19:17] Speaker 4: is open twenty four to seven. There's just like a
[1:19:19] Speaker 4: I thought maybe this was last time, and now confirmed.
[1:19:23] Speaker 4: If you ever want to buy something, you just go
[1:19:24] Speaker 4: in and you can just pay money for it. Just
[1:19:26] Speaker 4: look at the menu, and that frees up the characters
[1:19:29] Speaker 4: in the town to always be walking around and doing stuff.
[1:19:31] Speaker 4: So there's a lot of like really cool personalities. There's
[1:19:34] Speaker 4: one character, Selene, and I noticed it was her birthday,
[1:19:37] Speaker 4: and I completely on accident, I ran into her at
[1:19:40] Speaker 4: the museum because I was donating stuff. It's like an
[1:19:42] Speaker 4: animal crossing style museum. And she was there at the
[1:19:45] Speaker 4: museum with her mom and her little sister, like that
[1:19:47] Speaker 4: was her that was her birthday activity. It didn't like
[1:19:50] Speaker 4: tell me that was gonna happen. It was just kind
[1:19:51] Speaker 4: of like an organic So you'll just notice people have
[1:19:54] Speaker 4: like routines or special occasions and.
[1:19:58] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[1:19:58] Speaker 4: Also everyone has like these really nice kind of anime
[1:20:00] Speaker 4: style portraits and they change their outfits every season, so
[1:20:05] Speaker 4: and it's like the summer you get to see like, oh,
[1:20:07] Speaker 4: everyone's in their summer garb, and that's just how it is.
[1:20:09] Speaker 4: So it's just really nice. It's kind of the only
[1:20:13] Speaker 4: thing I've been wanting to do lately. I My fiance
[1:20:17] Speaker 4: has been watching me play it, and she's really mad
[1:20:19] Speaker 4: because we only have one steam deck and it's not
[1:20:21] Speaker 4: on switch and she almost bought like a rog ally
[1:20:27] Speaker 4: and but we're like about to get married.
[1:20:33] Speaker 3: A rag ally or go on a honeymoon. They're basically
[1:20:36] Speaker 3: the same.
[1:20:36] Speaker 4: Yeah, and she ended up just being like, I'll just
[1:20:41] Speaker 4: play on my computer with the controller, like we just
[1:20:43] Speaker 4: only have the one.
[1:20:44] Speaker 3: Yeah. Is there a co op in this game at all?
[1:20:46] Speaker 2: There's not. No, she just wanted to play in her own.
[1:20:48] Speaker 3: Oh okay.
[1:20:49] Speaker 4: It's the kind of game that, like, no one's told
[1:20:51] Speaker 4: me this, I have no inside information. I'm assuming that
[1:20:54] Speaker 4: at some point they'll want to bring it to switch,
[1:20:55] Speaker 4: and I'm assuming at one point they want to co op,
[1:20:57] Speaker 4: just because that's the sort of thing that's in these
[1:20:59] Speaker 4: games that I can see, like to get to the
[1:21:02] Speaker 4: one point, oh Steam Launch, You're like, those things are
[1:21:04] Speaker 4: out of scope.
[1:21:04] Speaker 2: We'll go to those later for you. We do well.
[1:21:08] Speaker 4: But yeah, all that to say, I've I've made more progress.
[1:21:11] Speaker 4: I like the game even more now I am thinking
[1:21:15] Speaker 4: about it most of the time, and uh, I love it.
[1:21:18] Speaker 2: It's great, great game.
[1:21:20] Speaker 4: Oh yeah, Happy birthday, Saline, Happy birthday Selene.
[1:21:24] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[1:21:25] Speaker 1: Well cool, I'm definitely gonna be trying to find some
[1:21:28] Speaker 1: time for that.
[1:21:29] Speaker 3: Same I have. I have it. Yeah, yeah, I got it.
[1:21:32] Speaker 1: I think like steam Deck is maybe where where yeah,
[1:21:37] Speaker 1: where I get that that time in especially because we're
[1:21:39] Speaker 1: going to games calm I need. I've only been playing
[1:21:43] Speaker 1: really Slay the Spire. I'm like, uh, I'm working on
[1:21:47] Speaker 1: my ascensions and I'm not very I love the game
[1:21:50] Speaker 1: to death. I mean I played the first one, put
[1:21:52] Speaker 1: so many hours into it, and I'm I'm still just
[1:21:55] Speaker 1: I feel like that game can be so unforg giving
[1:22:00] Speaker 1: at times. Uh and so like it like gives you,
[1:22:03] Speaker 1: it gives you everything you want, and then you're like,
[1:22:06] Speaker 1: oh my god, this is the run and then you
[1:22:09] Speaker 1: come across like just an enemy that just completely wrecks you,
[1:22:13] Speaker 1: and it's like, yeah, I thought I had this figured out.
[1:22:16] Speaker 3: Uh.
[1:22:16] Speaker 1: So I've just been like playing that like literally still daily,
[1:22:22] Speaker 1: and I kind of one of.
[1:22:22] Speaker 4: Those runs where it's like I can play one hundred
[1:22:25] Speaker 4: cards in a turn and then you find the boss
[1:22:26] Speaker 4: and he's like every card I give you one damage.
[1:22:29] Speaker 2: You're like no strategy.
[1:22:31] Speaker 1: Yeah, God, I hate the one dude who's like you
[1:22:36] Speaker 1: can either take seven damage at the end of your
[1:22:39] Speaker 1: turn or only play three cards, and it's like this sucks.
[1:22:43] Speaker 1: I man, Yeah, Ken, can't you just like have a
[1:22:48] Speaker 1: big health bar?
[1:22:51] Speaker 3: Shaking your fist at the screen.
[1:22:53] Speaker 1: Yeah, I've gotten really.
[1:22:54] Speaker 2: Used to that.
[1:22:56] Speaker 1: But yeah, well let's get into some listener questions before
[1:23:01] Speaker 1: we get out of here. I do just want to say,
[1:23:04] Speaker 1: if you want to be a part of the show,
[1:23:06] Speaker 1: please send us an email podcast at gammanformer dot com
[1:23:10] Speaker 1: uh and if you're in if you're in our discord,
[1:23:13] Speaker 1: you can submit your questions there. Marcus usually does like
[1:23:16] Speaker 1: a a weekly.
[1:23:18] Speaker 3: Sort of.
[1:23:20] Speaker 1: Round up in there when we when we're doing an
[1:23:22] Speaker 1: episode with with questions. We've answered a lot of them
[1:23:26] Speaker 1: today through our Dusk Blood segment, but we've got two
[1:23:28] Speaker 1: more that we're going to get into. One is from
[1:23:30] Speaker 1: Dova ken Groffels, who says, all right, so stay on
[1:23:35] Speaker 1: the train with me. I was listening to another podcast,
[1:23:38] Speaker 1: I know, the Betrayal Ted Talks Daily, and they were
[1:23:41] Speaker 1: talking about soil. Okay, I'm staying on the train with you, Groppols.
[1:23:47] Speaker 1: The important part is they were calling back to a
[1:23:50] Speaker 1: Dutch scientist named Anthony van Lewin lewin hook discovery of
[1:23:55] Speaker 1: micro organisms. He called them the wee beasties. I distinctly
[1:24:00] Speaker 1: remember in God of War twenty eighteen, one of the
[1:24:01] Speaker 1: doors Sindry was extremely germaphobic. Sen Sindriy directly referred to
[1:24:07] Speaker 1: germs and micro organisms as the wee beasties. So my
[1:24:11] Speaker 1: question is, have you actually been educated by a video
[1:24:13] Speaker 1: game only to find out later? I mean, I I
[1:24:17] Speaker 1: feel like I get. I remember when I was in
[1:24:20] Speaker 1: like high school reading a an article and this this
[1:24:25] Speaker 1: is before all that miss info. Everything on the internet
[1:24:27] Speaker 1: was true back then.
[1:24:30] Speaker 3: And I remember reading an.
[1:24:31] Speaker 1: Article about how a little sister saved her brother's life
[1:24:36] Speaker 1: because they had played Battlefield and she played as the
[1:24:41] Speaker 1: medic and like the animations in that particular Battlefield game,
[1:24:45] Speaker 1: you know, I guess taught her like how to how
[1:24:49] Speaker 1: to like save her brother's life when you got seriously injured.
[1:24:52] Speaker 4: What was like dressing a wound or like yeah, yeah, yeah,
[1:24:57] Speaker 4: I think it was like I don't remember, dude, this
[1:24:59] Speaker 4: was like I was an high school I remember, but
[1:25:01] Speaker 4: it was something that saved his life.
[1:25:04] Speaker 1: She yeah, that's fair. I mean I've learned a lot
[1:25:10] Speaker 1: of things through games like World of Warcraft. I remember
[1:25:13] Speaker 1: I learned so many words, and a lot of my words. Yeah,
[1:25:20] Speaker 1: like my vocab increased drastically. I mean, especially like Magic,
[1:25:25] Speaker 1: I know, not a video game. Well, I guess we'll
[1:25:26] Speaker 1: say Magic. The gathering arena that's the video game version.
[1:25:30] Speaker 1: But like I've learned so many words from like card names,
[1:25:32] Speaker 1: Like I've I've been saying like simulacrum a bunch lately
[1:25:36] Speaker 1: and that's you know, uh, that was from a card
[1:25:40] Speaker 1: and then I heard it in an interview. It's like
[1:25:43] Speaker 1: a like a something that's like trying to be genuine,
[1:25:48] Speaker 1: but there's like a fakeness to it. But yeah, it's
[1:25:50] Speaker 1: a copy, but it's like it's kind of failing to
[1:25:54] Speaker 1: do it doesn't feel right, you know what I mean?
[1:25:57] Speaker 1: Like yeah, yeah, yeah, So I feel like my vocabulary
[1:26:04] Speaker 1: gets expanded quite a lot.
[1:26:05] Speaker 3: Do you guys have a have an answer to this one?
[1:26:08] Speaker 3: Vocabulary is a good call that I don't think anyone
[1:26:10] Speaker 3: talks about because it's like video games, a lot of
[1:26:13] Speaker 3: them have a lot more reading than I think a
[1:26:15] Speaker 3: lot of us realize. Like you think about like dense
[1:26:19] Speaker 3: games like RPG's, like especially like your Skyrims or whatever
[1:26:22] Speaker 3: that not only just have a lot of text from characters,
[1:26:24] Speaker 3: but like they have like the notes and books that
[1:26:26] Speaker 3: you can read. So there's like, yeah, there's almost certainly
[1:26:29] Speaker 3: just like words I have learned just from like osmosis,
[1:26:33] Speaker 3: We're just like, oh, man and mean sometimes you don't
[1:26:35] Speaker 3: even realize you've like absorbed it until you write it
[1:26:37] Speaker 3: down and you're like, oh, I've never written this word,
[1:26:40] Speaker 3: but I guess it's just it's in my vernacular now.
[1:26:43] Speaker 3: I feel like, I mean got a basic example would
[1:26:46] Speaker 3: be like martial arts that I didn't know existed until
[1:26:50] Speaker 3: I played like fighting games as a kid, Like Techan's
[1:26:53] Speaker 3: a good one, where like, because the thing about tech
[1:26:55] Speaker 3: and is like every every character has like a real,
[1:26:58] Speaker 3: well for the most part, real life discipline. And because
[1:27:03] Speaker 3: there's so many techn games, so many characters, they get
[1:27:05] Speaker 3: like really like they get really granular and like more obscure,
[1:27:09] Speaker 3: where like once you get past this, like oh, taekwondo
[1:27:12] Speaker 3: and karate, like I like, oh, how many people learned
[1:27:16] Speaker 3: that capauera was a thing from like Eddie Gordo or
[1:27:20] Speaker 3: or Chris Christy or like I don't know, uh, Like
[1:27:26] Speaker 3: I'm I'm charged now I'm trying to pull up martial
[1:27:29] Speaker 3: arts from like the hundred tech of characters. But you
[1:27:32] Speaker 3: get what I'm saying, right, It's like and then you're like, oh,
[1:27:34] Speaker 3: is this like a made up thing? And then maybe
[1:27:36] Speaker 3: if you happen to catch it, like live on TV
[1:27:39] Speaker 3: or something like that, I got a tournament or like
[1:27:42] Speaker 3: or whatever. You're like, oh, they're doing the huaing shit, Like,
[1:27:46] Speaker 3: oh man, I watched this taekwondo tournament and that's the
[1:27:48] Speaker 3: that's the combo I used to use. Yeah, So like
[1:27:52] Speaker 3: maybe that's one off the top of my head.
[1:27:55] Speaker 1: Yeah, I keep seeing a look behind you, Charles at
[1:27:57] Speaker 1: your bookshelf. And what's really funny is this. You've got
[1:27:59] Speaker 1: a plack with your name on it. So to me,
[1:28:02] Speaker 1: you're just like, what's my what's my name?
[1:28:03] Speaker 3: Again?
[1:28:04] Speaker 1: You have to keep looking back to your mind yourself.
[1:28:07] Speaker 2: I'm looking back.
[1:28:08] Speaker 4: This is often my tactic on these sorts of questions
[1:28:11] Speaker 4: because I have most of the games I played as
[1:28:13] Speaker 4: a kid just on a bookshelf here, so I'm just
[1:28:15] Speaker 4: scanning to be like, what are the games I played?
[1:28:19] Speaker 2: I was gonna say, definitely.
[1:28:20] Speaker 4: Word. There's definitely words that I learned in a video
[1:28:22] Speaker 4: game and had never heard out loud. So like a
[1:28:26] Speaker 4: projectile is a word. I used to say project tile
[1:28:30] Speaker 4: because I had never heard out loud, the project tile.
[1:28:33] Speaker 4: It's a project tile.
[1:28:34] Speaker 1: And I used to say, I used to say homage. Yeah,
[1:28:39] Speaker 1: we see, but that's like a.
[1:28:42] Speaker 4: Yeah that's like a book word like projectile is a
[1:28:46] Speaker 4: word that is disproportionately used in video games.
[1:28:49] Speaker 3: I feel like you go back to fighting games. I
[1:28:52] Speaker 3: mean you're like, oh, yeah, what's that projectile movie used?
[1:28:55] Speaker 2: Or a consumable consumable yeah.
[1:28:59] Speaker 3: Uh.
[1:29:00] Speaker 4: But then the other thing I was gonna say is
[1:29:02] Speaker 4: uh he answer is like Assassin's Creed games of just
[1:29:07] Speaker 4: casually learning history facts, or like playing Assassin's Creed three
[1:29:13] Speaker 4: before watching Hamilton being like, oh, Charles Lee, yeah, I
[1:29:17] Speaker 4: was starting feature in this. He's he's not as bad
[1:29:19] Speaker 4: in Hamilton as he is an Assassin's Creed three, but
[1:29:23] Speaker 4: still definitely a bad guy. And then uh, A lot
[1:29:27] Speaker 4: of games are set in New York City, so I
[1:29:31] Speaker 4: have a surprisingly solid grasp on the on the geography
[1:29:35] Speaker 4: of the island of Manhattan because I've played like Spider
[1:29:40] Speaker 4: Man games and other related stuff you can get when
[1:29:44] Speaker 4: I go to New York someone will say a neighborhood.
[1:29:46] Speaker 4: I'm like, I know where that is relative to where
[1:29:49] Speaker 4: we are there. Yes, that's I took a picture, especially
[1:29:55] Speaker 4: in the games.
[1:29:57] Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, I like that. That's a good answer. Last question,
[1:30:03] Speaker 1: Grant says question for the group with Insomniac's Wolverine on
[1:30:08] Speaker 1: the Horizon. That's funny timing. What are some of your
[1:30:11] Speaker 1: favorite superhero superpower games? Lego superhero games and games like
[1:30:16] Speaker 1: Prototype and Infamous. I'll say count as well. That's easy.
[1:30:21] Speaker 1: City of Heroes and MMO released in I believe what
[1:30:25] Speaker 1: two thousand, two thousand? It released before Wow?
[1:30:29] Speaker 3: So was it two.
[1:30:30] Speaker 1: Thousand and one there's no way City or two thousand
[1:30:33] Speaker 1: and four City of Heroes?
[1:30:34] Speaker 3: I'm here, I'm looking it up. It was two thousand
[1:30:36] Speaker 3: and four.
[1:30:38] Speaker 1: Oh so interesting. So it was only a year before
[1:30:40] Speaker 1: Wow like really came out and kind of blew everything up.
[1:30:45] Speaker 2: Wasn't City of Heros?
[1:30:46] Speaker 4: Yes?
[1:30:46] Speaker 1: It was a four?
[1:30:48] Speaker 3: Wow?
[1:30:49] Speaker 1: Was late O four? It was I believe November four.
[1:30:53] Speaker 1: I don't think I played it until like early twenty twenty, God,
[1:30:57] Speaker 1: early two thousand and five.
[1:30:59] Speaker 3: Yeah. City of hero Is April of four, so just
[1:31:02] Speaker 3: a few months apart.
[1:31:03] Speaker 1: Yeah, weird that it felt like years because I remember
[1:31:06] Speaker 1: we were I was playing City of Heroes in my supergroup,
[1:31:09] Speaker 1: which is like the guild system in that game, just
[1:31:14] Speaker 1: talking about Yeah, everyone was talking about how they were like,
[1:31:19] Speaker 1: Wow is gonna come out. We're all going we're all,
[1:31:20] Speaker 1: we're all gonna move over to Wow when it comes out.
[1:31:23] Speaker 1: And I remember it like coming, like the coming of
[1:31:25] Speaker 1: Galactus is like Wow is coming, and it felt so long.
[1:31:30] Speaker 1: I guess it was only like less than a year
[1:31:32] Speaker 1: between those two.
[1:31:34] Speaker 3: I'm trying to I'm on your Galactus analogy. I'm trying
[1:31:37] Speaker 3: to figure out, like who's the silver Surfer in that analogy,
[1:31:40] Speaker 3: like like the CEO of Blizzard is the Herald.
[1:31:44] Speaker 1: Yeah, but man City of Heroes was so cool it
[1:31:50] Speaker 1: had to this date. I think my favorite city or
[1:31:58] Speaker 1: not city builder character in terms of customization, and then
[1:32:04] Speaker 1: the way that you would like pick your poll of powers.
[1:32:07] Speaker 1: You would have like primary and secondary and you could
[1:32:10] Speaker 1: mix and matt you would have classes. But within those classes,
[1:32:13] Speaker 1: like I was a blaster that was my main dude,
[1:32:16] Speaker 1: and I was like a fire blaster, but you could
[1:32:20] Speaker 1: mix and match. You could do fire, you could do
[1:32:22] Speaker 1: fire as like your maiden pole, and you could do
[1:32:25] Speaker 1: earth or ice or like like Nebula I think was
[1:32:30] Speaker 1: one of them, or proton Plasma maybe it was. And
[1:32:35] Speaker 1: then there were like scrappers. There were brutes which were
[1:32:38] Speaker 1: like the tank dudes. There were you know, controllers who
[1:32:42] Speaker 1: could literally like mind control enemies and make them fight
[1:32:45] Speaker 1: for you, or you could like summon you could be
[1:32:48] Speaker 1: an Earth controller and like you're summoning all sorts of
[1:32:50] Speaker 1: like almost like Earth bending, And it was so fun
[1:32:55] Speaker 1: and just like such. I mean, it is my favorite
[1:33:00] Speaker 1: superhero game by far. You can still play it. There
[1:33:04] Speaker 1: is a private server, the Homecoming Server that has been
[1:33:08] Speaker 1: I believe, officially endorsed by NCSoft and like they're allowed
[1:33:15] Speaker 1: to keep working on the game, and like there's a
[1:33:18] Speaker 1: big server for it, so if you're interested, you can
[1:33:22] Speaker 1: go and play it for free. It's just like donation
[1:33:26] Speaker 1: supported and they have the blessing, so it's not gonna
[1:33:28] Speaker 1: get shut down.
[1:33:29] Speaker 3: Is that a replay episode? You go back to city?
[1:33:31] Speaker 3: Oh god, God, that'd be fun.
[1:33:37] Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh man, Yeah, okay, I'm writing down mine.
[1:33:45] Speaker 3: I've got a few. Since it's we can say more
[1:33:48] Speaker 3: than one. I mean, the first superhero game I ever
[1:33:50] Speaker 3: became like truly truly obsessed with as a kid that
[1:33:52] Speaker 3: grew up reading comics, especially Marvel was never Saft spider
[1:33:57] Speaker 3: Man from two thousand on PS one, huge Spider Man fan.
[1:34:01] Speaker 3: He's my favorite superhero has been since I was a kid,
[1:34:03] Speaker 3: and so like I played other Spider Man games growing up,
[1:34:06] Speaker 3: but that was the one that that was the first
[1:34:08] Speaker 3: one that I felt like truly realized Spider Man as
[1:34:13] Speaker 3: a character in video games at that point. He had
[1:34:16] Speaker 3: the web swinging, you had the like you had like
[1:34:19] Speaker 3: different web powers. You could wet ball, you could crawl walls,
[1:34:22] Speaker 3: you could stealth kill. Like a lot of like what
[1:34:25] Speaker 3: are now kind of like primordial versions of like what
[1:34:28] Speaker 3: have become standard Spider Man mechanics are in that game.
[1:34:33] Speaker 3: You can actually the last time I played it was
[1:34:35] Speaker 3: we did a super replay of that Spider Man Kyle
[1:34:38] Speaker 3: and I that you can watch in our YouTube channel
[1:34:40] Speaker 3: and find it on the website. Another one, I mean,
[1:34:44] Speaker 3: this is one everyone talks about, but like Batman, Arkham
[1:34:46] Speaker 3: Asylum in Arkham City, I would throw those two in there.
[1:34:49] Speaker 3: But like huge Batman fan, he's my second favorite superhero
[1:34:53] Speaker 3: and he's my favorite DC hero. But you know, growing
[1:34:56] Speaker 3: up in the era where Batman games were almost universally
[1:34:58] Speaker 3: bad most of the time. And then I remember actually
[1:35:01] Speaker 3: getting the game before a cover story for Arkham Asylum
[1:35:05] Speaker 3: and reading it and being so excited, but also just
[1:35:07] Speaker 3: I had been burned so many times, and it's just
[1:35:09] Speaker 3: like that cautious like don't give me hope, and then
[1:35:13] Speaker 3: getting the game and seeing the reviews and being like,
[1:35:15] Speaker 3: oh my god, they figured it out. They did it,
[1:35:19] Speaker 3: Like I don't even know if Like I don't know
[1:35:23] Speaker 3: who would get Batman at this point. Like it's kind
[1:35:26] Speaker 3: of been weirdly with rock Steady this whole time, Like
[1:35:29] Speaker 3: Gotham Knights is kind of the only like non Lego,
[1:35:34] Speaker 3: non rock Steady Batman game, and that one's kind of
[1:35:37] Speaker 3: funny because Batman's dead in that game, so in a
[1:35:40] Speaker 3: way it still doesn't count. But I don't even know
[1:35:43] Speaker 3: who can out rock Steady Batman at this point. And
[1:35:47] Speaker 3: they haven't made a Batman in a long time because
[1:35:50] Speaker 3: of how much they nailed those Arkham games, you know
[1:35:54] Speaker 3: what I mean. Like in the same way we've had
[1:35:56] Speaker 3: multiple Batman actors, there's there really hasn't been anyone else
[1:36:00] Speaker 3: since rock Steady took it.
[1:36:05] Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't and I don't know who I would
[1:36:06] Speaker 4: want to give it to. It's also one of those
[1:36:08] Speaker 4: things where like they did such a good version of
[1:36:12] Speaker 4: Batman that also inspired so much other like action adventure
[1:36:18] Speaker 4: style games. I can't even imagine like a different sort
[1:36:22] Speaker 4: of take on the character, you know.
[1:36:24] Speaker 3: Yeah, and if I could rattle off some quick ones,
[1:36:26] Speaker 3: I mean and saw the X spider Man games going
[1:36:27] Speaker 3: back to Spider Man being met, like those are the
[1:36:30] Speaker 3: best Spider Man games ever made. I was really big
[1:36:33] Speaker 3: into X Men Legends as a huge X Men fan,
[1:36:35] Speaker 3: like that that was the game that was like we
[1:36:37] Speaker 3: figured that out, some men, We've done it. And then
[1:36:39] Speaker 3: nose spun off into the Marvel Ultimate Alliance games, that
[1:36:42] Speaker 3: first one in particular, I love back then. Yeah, the
[1:36:46] Speaker 3: Injustice games kind of like to go in like fighting games.
[1:36:48] Speaker 3: I mean, Marvel's capcom and stuff. I don't know, I
[1:36:50] Speaker 3: know those are kind of different, but those were like
[1:36:52] Speaker 3: great games that involved superheroes.
[1:36:55] Speaker 4: So I think part of part of the superhero thing.
[1:36:58] Speaker 4: I think Injustice answers the question and so well love
[1:37:01] Speaker 4: and I guess the fighting game is just like obviously
[1:37:04] Speaker 4: Batman and Spider Man are like significant enough characters to
[1:37:08] Speaker 4: get like a really good like Triple A game where
[1:37:11] Speaker 4: you get their powers. But like when else are you
[1:37:14] Speaker 4: gonna get to play as atroc It is like you
[1:37:17] Speaker 4: get these like more obscure characters. It's just nice to
[1:37:20] Speaker 4: be like he's doing all of the all of the
[1:37:22] Speaker 4: things I would expect him to do, and I can
[1:37:24] Speaker 4: play as him, and like, I think fighting games are
[1:37:27] Speaker 4: really good, very compatible with like comic book rosters.
[1:37:31] Speaker 3: Yeah you say, I'm now with Marvel Token with some
[1:37:33] Speaker 3: of the character the roster choices. Than that, we're like, oh,
[1:37:35] Speaker 3: I've never gotten to play Green Goblin before. This is cool.
[1:37:39] Speaker 2: I was watching. Yeah, I've been.
[1:37:43] Speaker 4: Watching YouTube videos of Marvel tokon because I'm just not
[1:37:46] Speaker 4: good at fighting games, but I always enjoy watching them.
[1:37:48] Speaker 4: And just watching Sonic Fox play as Green Goblin. I've
[1:37:52] Speaker 4: just been like, actually, I'm glad I'm not playing this game.
[1:37:56] Speaker 4: They don't even make it look fun. They make it
[1:37:59] Speaker 4: look like green God, I'm just gonna melt you. I'm like,
[1:38:01] Speaker 4: that's crazy. It's like Sonic File is real life Norman Osborne. Honestly,
[1:38:06] Speaker 4: the ones I was gonna say are all the basically
[1:38:10] Speaker 4: all the stuff Marcus said, but I also throw in.
[1:38:13] Speaker 2: I have played.
[1:38:14] Speaker 4: The only Infamous game I played is Infamous Second Son
[1:38:16] Speaker 4: because it was one of the ones where like I
[1:38:18] Speaker 4: got a PS four and people were like, these are
[1:38:19] Speaker 4: the ones you should do, and I just really like
[1:38:21] Speaker 4: the super speed in that game.
[1:38:22] Speaker 2: That's always like a superpower.
[1:38:25] Speaker 4: I feel like people struggle to adapt into video games
[1:38:28] Speaker 4: is like going super fast and running up walls and
[1:38:30] Speaker 4: jumping from building to building.
[1:38:31] Speaker 3: That's always you know what game did it well is
[1:38:34] Speaker 3: a DC Universe Online the MMO, because you could become
[1:38:38] Speaker 3: a speeder. Like I played that game and at launch
[1:38:40] Speaker 3: and I made my character a speedster and it's still
[1:38:42] Speaker 3: the only game where being a speedster worked.
[1:38:46] Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that.
[1:38:48] Speaker 4: And the other one in that same vein is Lego
[1:38:50] Speaker 4: Batman two. I just really liked playing the Flash in
[1:38:54] Speaker 4: that open world, sure, because you can't really like there's
[1:38:59] Speaker 4: kind of there's kind of several open hub areas in
[1:39:01] Speaker 4: Lego Batman three. That's an other game you can play
[1:39:04] Speaker 4: as a Flash in. But Lego Batman two, just being
[1:39:06] Speaker 4: in the Flash and running around the streets just felt
[1:39:08] Speaker 4: felt really really.
[1:39:09] Speaker 3: It's crazy we've never gotten a flash game, right.
[1:39:14] Speaker 4: Yeah, I would even guess, like I don't know, I
[1:39:17] Speaker 4: think the super speed is probably just so hard to manage.
[1:39:20] Speaker 2: But the best like super speed quote unquote video.
[1:39:22] Speaker 4: Game is probably like Sonic the Hedgehog, like a three
[1:39:25] Speaker 4: D Sonic. Sure it doesn't it doesn't really hit the
[1:39:28] Speaker 4: same as what I want from playing as the Flash.
[1:39:31] Speaker 3: Yeah, have you guys ever seen that, uh that prototype
[1:39:34] Speaker 3: footage that leaked many years ago of like a flash
[1:39:36] Speaker 3: game that was apparently in development for like PS two.
[1:39:39] Speaker 3: I think it was.
[1:39:40] Speaker 2: I think so I have.
[1:39:42] Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like footage of like a Flash running around
[1:39:45] Speaker 3: a very blocky city, like you know, obviously just kind
[1:39:48] Speaker 3: of previ stuff, but it was like, oh, they were,
[1:39:50] Speaker 3: they were making this game, and then I guess just
[1:39:53] Speaker 3: just fell apart Good Shadow Infamous, because Infamous is a
[1:39:55] Speaker 3: great series. I miss it. Yeah, and specifically for second Son,
[1:39:59] Speaker 3: I recommend that standalone DLC they did the Fetch DLC,
[1:40:03] Speaker 3: the Neon character, the one I had the cool Neon powers. Yeah,
[1:40:08] Speaker 3: was it called first Light?
[1:40:10] Speaker 1: It was first Light?
[1:40:10] Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, yeah it's now first Light. I just think
[1:40:14] Speaker 3: a double O seven, it's yeah overwritten. Yeah yeah, but yeah,
[1:40:18] Speaker 3: I thought the Neon powers were the coolest powers in
[1:40:20] Speaker 3: that game, and I thought she was maybe the most
[1:40:22] Speaker 3: interesting character. So when they did the standalone thing with her,
[1:40:25] Speaker 3: I really liked that, uh that expansion. It's it was
[1:40:28] Speaker 3: almost like the Miles Morales of its day in terms
[1:40:31] Speaker 3: of like, yes, we took the best supporting character and
[1:40:33] Speaker 3: gave them their own like small standalone adventure. That's really good.
[1:40:37] Speaker 4: Yeah, I should play this, so I never I never have.
[1:40:40] Speaker 2: I was I was like that game.
[1:40:42] Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, I.
[1:40:43] Speaker 4: Think I got the platinum on Infamous Second Sons because
[1:40:46] Speaker 4: it was like so easy.
[1:40:47] Speaker 2: I was just like, oh, this will taking me like
[1:40:48] Speaker 2: another few hours. Yeah's not something I do.
[1:40:51] Speaker 3: That was a PS four launch title, right or it
[1:40:54] Speaker 3: was like close, because I remember I got it like
[1:40:56] Speaker 3: at launch, Like yeah, I remember it being like the
[1:40:58] Speaker 3: first game I got with my PS four when it
[1:41:00] Speaker 3: came out.
[1:41:01] Speaker 1: Yeah, well that's gonna do it for the show this week.
[1:41:06] Speaker 1: Thank you for writing in everybody, and thank you for
[1:41:09] Speaker 1: listening out there. Don't forget to pick up a copy
[1:41:12] Speaker 1: of Game Informer Magazine, head Togameformer dot Com, slash subscribe
[1:41:16] Speaker 1: follow the crew here. You can find Charles at Chuck
[1:41:19] Speaker 1: Duck three sixty five, follow Marcus at Marcus Stewart seven,
[1:41:22] Speaker 1: and you can find me at its van Aiken. Until
[1:41:26] Speaker 1: next week, we'll see you later. Have a good one. Goodbye,

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