Baldur's Gate 3 Studio Responds to AI Backlash - Kinda Funny Games Daily 12.17.25

Summary

Kinda Funny Games Daily 12.17.25: “Baldur's Gate 3 Studio Responds to AI Backlash”

Date: December 19, 2025
Hosts: Tim Gettys, Andy Cortez

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Episode Overview

This episode, hosted by Tim Gettys and Andy Cortez, dives into the trending controversy over Larian Studios’ use of AI, studio leadership changes at Sucker Punch, an alarming slump in hardware sales, and more. The cast delivers opinions, analysis, and anecdotes in their signature mix of humor, candor, and deep gaming industry insight.

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Key Discussion Points

1. Larian Studios Responds to AI Backlash

[12:17–25:50]

• Background:
  Larian CEO Sven Winkle acknowledged (via Bloomberg) the studio uses generative AI at the early stages of game development—for brainstorming, presentations, placeholder text, and reference images—but insists there is no AI-generated art in shipped products and no jobs are being replaced.

• Backlash:
  The announcement triggered critical responses from the gaming community, players, and former devs over ethical and labor concerns regarding AI’s creeping role in creative industries.

• Sven Winkle’s Statement:

  “Holy guys, we’re not pushing hard for or replacing concept artists with AI. … The art they create is original and I'm very proud of what they do.”
  (Sven Winkle, cited at [12:45])

• Larian’s Position:

  • Claims use of AI is comparable to using Google or art books for inspiration at the concept stage.
  • 72 artists on the team; hiring more, not less.
  • No plans to release AI-influenced assets or reduce staff due to AI.

• Panel Reactions:

  • Andy Cortez: Skeptical that internal teams feel safe voicing dissent about AI adoption, noting job insecurity in the games industry.

    “How true is it when you are in a position of power…do my artists and people underneath me feel confident enough to speak out if they’re not cool or comfortable with something?” [14:17]

  • Both see slippery slopes and acknowledge an inevitability to some form of AI, but argue its use should be strictly limited, transparent, and, ideally, internally sourced from company-owned assets to avoid unlicensed scraping (“stealing”).
  • Tim Gettys: Points out that AI is now inextricably woven into modern workflows (Photoshop, editing, smart devices) and total abstinence from AI is likely unrealistic or even impossible.
  • Discussion highlights ethical distinctions between using AI for internal ref only (from owned assets) vs. externally scraping others’ work, and skepticism regarding pure management transparency.

    "Once you let the devil stick his little foot into that little doorway…you start to get tempted by the quick ease of use and replacing in case anything goes wrong at the studio."
    (Andy Cortez, [16:45])

  • Both express fatigue with the never-ending conversation around AI and concern about its impact on creative labor and culture.

2. Sucker Punch Studio Head Brian Fleming Exits After 28 Years

[26:36–31:28]

• Background:
  Sucker Punch co-founder Brian Fleming leaves the studio, leadership passing to Jason Connell & Adrian Bentley. Announced as a standard, planned succession—no drama implied.
• Industry Perspective:
  • Both hosts compare it to a sports star retiring at their peak; attribute Fleming’s exit to a desire for a new life chapter and confidence in the new leadership.

    “28 years is a long time…Sometimes you just want something new. …I achieved what I wanted to. I’m ready to move on.”
    (Andy Cortez, [28:22])

• Legacy:
  Sucker Punch praised for consistent output and growth (notably Ghost of Yote), held up alongside Insomniac and Guerrilla as core “pillar” PlayStation studios.
• Good Vibes:
  No scandal, just admiration and optimism for Sucker Punch’s future.

3. US Hardware Sales Hit Worst November in 30 Years

[38:11–45:24]

• Stats:
  • November 2025 hardware sales fell 27% year-over-year, the lowest since November 2005.
  • 1.6 million units sold, lowest since November 1995.
  • Prices for consoles at all-time highs (due to tariffs, costs).
  • PS5 tops November sales, Switch 2 second, Xbox third.
  • Call of Duty Black Ops 7 is #1 in software sales, but franchise is declining.
• Analysis:
  • Andy: Surprised Switch 2 didn’t dominate; attributes drop to price hikes and a tough economy.
  • Tim: Notes cyclical hardware lulls, economic and manufacturing shifts (RAM/GPU costs spiking due to enterprise/AI demand).

    “The PC gaming side of things…is dire…All of the major companies…shifting out of the gaming side…to the AI enterprise side…what that has done to the prices…It’s like triple the cost.”
    (Tim Gettys, [42:36])

  • Discussion about how these trends could soon impact console pricing/manufacturing.

4. Upcoming & Indie Game Highlights

[45:30–49:19]

• Mariachi Legends (Q2 2026, PC, Switch 2, Xbox, PlayStation):
  A Metroidvania inspired by Symphony of the Night, set in Mexico with pixel art and folklore influences. Both hosts are hyped by the visuals and "fluid, top-tier" animation.

5. Game Preservation: Lost Resident Evil GBC Port Found

[49:22–55:54]

• News:
  A nearly complete version (98%) of the canceled Game Boy Color port of the original Resident Evil was found and made playable for the first time.
• Nostalgia:
  • The hosts reminisce about GBC’s strange era of 3D-to-2D game ports.
  • They marvel at the technical achievement (turning a two-CD PS1 game into a 2MB cart).
  • Shoutout to “Games That Weren’t” for preserving lost builds.

    “It’s so crazy to me that lost media is capable of being dug up from six feet under and brought back to life.”
    (Andy Cortez, [53:10])

6. Quick News Bites (“WE News Town”)

[55:54–58:07]

• Highlights:
  • Dispatch is coming to Switch 1 & 2 (Jan 29, 2026)
  • Turn 10 ends Forza Motorsport content development after layoffs
  • Metal Hellsinger studio “not dead,” working on new project
  • Unrecord developer receives Tencent investment
  • Supervive (live service) ending in Feb; Ratatan getting major update
  • Soul Calibur 3 out now on PS4/PS5, Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties Direct airing soon

7. Listener Questions & Super Chat

[59:19–end]

• Advice for budget and premium PC controllers, latest Marvel/Sony movie trailer leaks, and more.
• Noted Correction for Next Episode:
  Reports of employee accusations (racism and harassment) at Larian; the hosts will verify and discuss on a future show.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On AI and Creative Jobs:

  “…when you let the devil stick his little foot into that little doorway, then eventually the full thing is going to come in and then you start to get the real repercussions.”
  (Andy Cortez, [16:45])

• On Sucker Punch’s Legacy:

  “Them along with Gorilla…really proved themselves…to be able to be like, wow, we are up there with the biggest dogs—the Naughty Dogs, the Sony Santa Monicas. Right? …Very cool to see.”
  (Tim Gettys, [29:58])

• On Hardware Struggles:

  “I love it. We only had like four years of comfortable spending…Because when NFTs and crypto mining…was just driving up GPU costs…And now RAM is the one being hit because of AI.”
  (Andy Cortez, [43:32])

• On Lost Game Preservation:

  “It’s so crazy to me that lost media is capable of being dug up from six feet under and being brought back to life. It’s so cool.”
  (Andy Cortez, [53:10])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Larian AI Backlash Discussion: [12:17–25:50]
• Sucker Punch Studio Head Departure: [26:36–31:28]
• US Hardware Sales Slump: [38:11–45:24]
• Mariachi Legends Trailer Reaction: [45:30–49:19]
• Resident Evil GBC Lost Port: [49:22–55:54]
• Quick News Rapid-Fire: [55:54–58:07]
• Listener Q&A: [59:19–end]

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Final Thoughts

This episode is a prime example of Kinda Funny’s balance: serious industry discourse with levity and approachable tangents. The AI segment is particularly timely, reflecting the anxieties, confusion, and debate regarding emerging technologies and creative labor. The show then pivots with deep respect for longtime developers, concern for industry economics, and sincere excitement for both big and indie games—a can’t-miss listen for any enthusiast who wants to stay informed, amused, and aware.

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End of summary.

Transcript

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[Andy Cortez]

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[Greg Miller]

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[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Episode is sponsored by Arc Raiders, where you and your squad can explore future Earth and brave killer robots to secure the best loot on the planet. Arc Raiders is available now for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X S, and PC.

[Tim Gettys]

Today's stories include Larian's boss, response to AI backlash, Sucker Punch's studio head is stepping down, and bad news about video game hardware sales. We'll have all this and more because this is is Kind of Funny Games Daily. What's up? And welcome to Kind of Funny Games daily for Wednesday, December 17, 2025. Three days remain before winter break 2025. Of course. I'm your host, Tim Gettys. I'm joined today by Andy Cortez, I'd.

[Andy Cortez]

Like to thank Aaron. Made you laugh for 100 months. Shout out to a subscription on.

[Tim Gettys]

That's so cool.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, Very, very nice. Hey, you know what?

[Tim Gettys]

I forgot to.

[Andy Cortez]

I forgot to make a little holiday set. Oh, we'll have to wait for next year.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, yeah, it'll come next year.

[Andy Cortez]

A lot of stuff. We worked on a lot of stuff.

[Tim Gettys]

What's your plans for the break? You looking forward to this?

[Andy Cortez]

I mean, I look forward to seeing family back home, but I don't look forward to the travel. I don't look forward to the time, you know, I won't have my gaming PC with me. I have. I have this laptop which, like, does decently enough, but I won't have my setup, you know?

[Tim Gettys]

Do you have your eyes on your heart? On one thing? Is there a game you're playing? Something you're gonna watch with your dad?

[Andy Cortez]

So. Okay. You know, sometimes some promises are made, some promises may be broken. Tim.

[Tim Gettys]

No promises left to keep.

[Andy Cortez]

This. This winter was meant to be like. All right. I'm actually gonna play Kingdom Come Deliverance too.

[Tim Gettys]

Okay.

[Andy Cortez]

We'll see if that happens while I'm back home. Yeah, I don't know, Tim. I. I just don't know. And also right now, we're deep in night rain. Had some really, really sad losses last night with Stonebank, Mike and Melissa with a Y. I think I have the solution. If they're out there listening. I do have a relic that gives me more attack power. Tim, whenever we beat an Ever Jail. Do you know how Ever Jail is spelled?

[Tim Gettys]

Ever Jail? I'm going to say E V, E, R J A, I, L. Good guess.

[Andy Cortez]

E, V, E, R, J, G, A, O, L. Okay. It's an old, like, sort of way to spelled we always.

[Tim Gettys]

You can't just call them potions.

[Andy Cortez]

No, no, they have to be flat. They have to be cerulean tears and crimson tears. So, like, we're getting. We're getting back into the flow. Got our ass whooped a lot last night. It was very. A lot of devastating losses. I haven't beaten an Ever Dark Boss yet. Tim. What's an Ever Dark Boss?

[Tim Gettys]

Good question.

[Andy Cortez]

There are the harder versions of bosses. That one spelled more D, O, Q, L. Dark. It's an old, like, Celtic thing. But, you know, we're. We're going after this Ever Dark Boss and the sentient pest. Of course.

[Tim Gettys]

Of course.

[Andy Cortez]

You know, you have Noster, you have.

[Tim Gettys]

Get the hell out of here with.

[Andy Cortez]

No fartis, no fortis or something like that. Fartus There are two bugs, but then a third bug pops up and it's just like this kind of like, Phoenix sort of like, bug. And it, like. It's just an awful fight. It's an awful fight, Tim. I'll just. It's been whooping my ass, dude. Yeah, but Night Rain was easily my number one most played game this year.

[Tim Gettys]

Hell, yeah. I mean, you were sending me clips over the. The last couple days that were so freaking sick. They were just the. Y' all locking in moments. Seeing the teamwork between the three of you was so cool. This guy's throwing towers at you, hiding behind the towers.

[Andy Cortez]

That boss is insane. That boss is ridiculous. Easily, like, one of the coolest fromsoftware bosses ever. We're talking about the Dreg Lord, but, yeah. Looking at my Steam recap, Tim, night rain number one with 158 hours.

[Tim Gettys]

Wow.

[Andy Cortez]

Mike looked at my thing. He goes, oh, 78 hours. Like, no, that's 78 play sessions.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh, my God.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, we're. We're pretty high up there. Silksong was number two. Dune Awakening number three.

[Tim Gettys]

Speaking of Silksong.

[Andy Cortez]

Hey.

[Tim Gettys]

I wasn't here whenever they announced the dlc. Was that yesterday? God.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, yeah, I think so.

[Tim Gettys]

Maybe the night before. But we talked about it yesterday. I missed out on this. Did you? I don't even know if you talked about it. What are your thoughts?

[Andy Cortez]

My first thought is, like, okay, don't put a year on it.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh, damn.

[Andy Cortez]

I mean, you know, that's just. How can you not feel that way about a product from Team Cherry?

[Tim Gettys]

You were a late comer to Hollow Knight. Yes, but were you. By the time you got on, was all the DLC already out?

[Andy Cortez]

Yes.

[Tim Gettys]

Okay. Okay.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah. Because I. I think I started it in 2021, so that was that. That was definitely past the point of. Everybody's waiting on Silksong to come out.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah. So obviously we should be excited because it's more content and. Yes, but, like, is this Sea of Sorrow thing. Is this about to be like, yo, Team Cherries, DLC are, like expansions to the game or is it just like you're getting a couple new modes? Maybe like a boss rush, maybe one new location or something?

[Andy Cortez]

That's where I'm definitely not the most educated. Because as I'm playing the game, it's hard for. When I'm playing through the game for the first time, it's hard for me. For me to even differentiate what is DLC and what's not. And I do remember some bosses and going, and you Know, chat saying, yeah, this is a DLC boss. This is the second dlc. This. You know, it's a lot harder for me to understand that though, because, you know, games like Hollow Knight and games like Dark Souls, you're not going into a menu and typing and going to the DLC bar like it is. It is all kind of integrated into the world. Right? And so it's a little. It was a little bit tougher for me to. To see. But I do know that not all DLCs from Team Cherry are, are created equal. And some fans feel very strongly about some of them being like, well, that one sucks. And that one didn't answer anything lore wise. But you know, obviously this is going to be very exciting.

[Tim Gettys]

I forgot to tell you this.

[Andy Cortez]

Tell me, Tim.

[Tim Gettys]

I was at, at. At Current's kid's birthday this weekend when James Burke was there. And James Burke showed me something that broke my heart. He recently got the platinum in Hades 1.

[Andy Cortez]

Right.

[Tim Gettys]

He then went on to get the platinum in Hollow Knight.

[Andy Cortez]

Okay.

[Tim Gettys]

Original. And then he went on to beat Silksong. Love Silk song. He's like, well, now I need to platinum it. I'm like, you don't need to do that, James.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

And he's like, I think I have to and to platinum that game. There's two things he has to do that are kind of insane. One, beat the game in under five hours.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, wow.

[Tim Gettys]

200 the game in less than 30 hours.

[Andy Cortez]

Okay.

[Tim Gettys]

Whoa. Right?

[Andy Cortez]

Whoa.

[Tim Gettys]

This motherfucker locks it and he goes, I'm doing it. So the night before he saw me, he played Hollow Knight Silksong to try to beat it in under five hours. He showed me a screenshot. Five hours, two minutes. No.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, the end. That like, that's almost two Lord of the Rings movies. You can't just like, well, start back up.

[Tim Gettys]

So what does he do? He starts back up. He does it. Whoa. Does it. So now his next. Next thing. Trying to 100 it in under 30 hours.

[Andy Cortez]

That's pretty mad.

[Tim Gettys]

He's insane.

[Andy Cortez]

That's ridiculous.

[Tim Gettys]

Insane. But oh, man, I would give up gaming forever if I saw that. Five hours and two minutes.

[Andy Cortez]

But the thing is like, it's all. You always had that thing in your mind of like, I can. I can do it this next time. Yeah, I could. I see the spots of opportunity where maybe some time was wasted here or there. Whatever. The one thing I am super stoked about for this sort of all the Hollow Knight news with Sea of Sorrow.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Is them kind of revisiting Hollow Knight.

[Tim Gettys]

What A. I love the way they phrase it too. I forget what it was called. It wasn't revisited.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, but.

[Tim Gettys]

But it's also. That's not in the name of the game. They're just doing it.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah. It's more of like the project name.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Where we're going to give you 21:9 aspect ratio. We're gonna give you obviously better visuals on Switch and a Switch, a free Switch 2 version. Not requiring you to pay to upgrade to get the game to look and run better.

[Tim Gettys]

Super cool. Refreshed.

[Andy Cortez]

Refreshed.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah. I love it. Yeah. All those little things like that's so great because guess what? I want to play Hollow Night one. And that's the perfect timing for it. But enough about all of that. Everyone. This is Kind of Funny Games Daily. Each and every weekday we run you through all the video game news you need to know about live on YouTube, Twitch and podcast services around the globe. If you love what we do, support us with the kind of funny membership on Patreon, YouTube, Spotify or Apple podcast to get all of our shows ad free in a daily exclusive show. For a chance to be part of this show, submit your thoughts and opinions as YouTube super chats as we go. Just like Violet's archive said. Just did. Saying belated birthday tax. Happy birthday. Turned 46 on the 14th. Sorry it's so late. Anxiety is a cruel mistress. And not the good kind of cruel mistress. Andy, no. Oh.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh yeah. Know all about that.

[Tim Gettys]

Little housekeeping for you. Celebrate the end of my hero academia with Mike and Barrett as they watch the entire final season live for the first time this Saturday at 5pm Pacific Live only on Twitch TV. Kind of funny games. Go hang out with the boys they're watching dubbed for all the episodes because that's what Mike likes. But the final episode will not be out dubbed, it'll be out subbed. So that's how that's going to end. And it's going to be hype and fun for everybody. Remember, we're an 11 person business. All about live talk shows Today after Games Daily you're going to get Gamescast, which is a fallout season premiere review after Gamescast is the highly requested follow up stream. Nick plays Dispatch Part three. That's not true. Nick. Yeah, Nick is out now on jury duty.

[Andy Cortez]

Nick got called in for jury duty. Unfortunately they don't want to watch him succeed. Yeah, it's really unfortunate.

[Tim Gettys]

I can't believe he didn't get called in two days in a row. And then they called him in on the third day.

[Andy Cortez]

The justice.

[Tim Gettys]

I've never heard that happen. The justice system needs Nick.

[Andy Cortez]

They really do.

[Tim Gettys]

God damn if you're kind of funny. Member Today's Greg Ways 20 plus minutes about how much Greg hates story mode difficulty. Interesting. I want to hear that. I wonder why. Thank you to our Patreon producers Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster and Delaney. The Psalm Twining for now, let's begin with what is and forever will be the Roper Report. It's time for some news. We have six stories today. Oh, Kevin got cut off for y', all, but he kept going.

[Andy Cortez]

We heard him over there.

[Tim Gettys]

Story number one Holy Guys, We're Not Replacing Artists Quotes from Larry and Boss this is in response to the AI backlash. This comes from Andy Robinson at vgc. Larian CEO Sven Winkle has been forced to respond to online backlash following confirmation that the studio is using generative AI to explore some early game ideas. Speaking of Bloomberg, following its Big Game Awards reveal of Divinity, Vink confirmed the studio was using AI to explore ideas, flesh out PowerPoint presentations, develop concept art, and write placeholder text, but insisted that no AI generated art will make it into the final game, and that everyone at the company is more or less okay with the way that we're using it. The comments drew criticism from players and former developers on social media, prompting Vink to follow to post a follow up statement of his own. Quote holy guys, we're not pushing hard for or replacing concept artists with AI. We have a team of 72 artists, of which 23 are concept artists, and we're hiring more. The art they create is original and I'm very proud of what they do. I was asked explicitly about concept art and our use of generative AI. I answered that we use it to explore things. I didn't say we use it to develop concept art. The artists do that and they are indeed worldclass artists. We use AI tools to explore references, just like we use Google and art books at the very early ideation stage. We use it as a rough outline for composition, which we replaced with original concept art. There was no comparison. We've hired creatives for their talent, not for their ability to do what a machine suggests, but they can experiment with these tools to make their lives easier. In a separate statement to ign, BIG said Laran is neither releasing a game with any AI components, nor are we looking at trimming down teams to replace them with AI. He adds, while I understand it's a subject that involves that invokes a lot of emotion, it's something we are constantly discussing internally through the lens of making everyone's working day better, not worse. And then as a follow up to this, Jason Schreier posted the full transcript of this section of the conversation that he had, which is the source of all of this stuff, just so people can read it, the words themselves, to kind of decide what they think about all of this. Andy, what do you think about all of this?

[Andy Cortez]

I have. I just wanted to have fun talking about video games too. We got it. I know we got to talk about this bullshit. The. Okay, so the first takeaway that I have from it is, you know, the, the mentioning of all of our artists seem to be okay with this. But I would ask, like, how true do you actually believe that is? How true is it when you are in a position of power and you are the boss in a, you know, in a workplace? And I guess in a, you know, with the video games industry being so unstable, you have a certain amount of power and maybe people are a little bit more worried to speak out about stuff because it's like, well, this is my only job, and I don't really know what the next job could be if maybe I get out of line or whatever. But I would, I would seriously ask yourself, do my artists and people underneath me feel confident enough to speak out if they're not cool or comfortable with something? And if that is the case, then I can't really be too mad about these artists saying, hey, we're artists, we do this shit.

[Tim Gettys]

We're.

[Andy Cortez]

We're okay with this use of it or whatever.

[Tim Gettys]

To that point though, isn't. Doesn't. Isn't what he's saying that the artists are the ones that get to choose. Then what you're saying is like, it's then some artists opinions on other people, other artists.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, I guess I would say like, you know, when he's asking his artists, everybody okay with this? And everybody's like, yeah, but it's like, are they really okay with actually with any of it, or are they just maybe a little bit too afraid to speak out? Or maybe they're just. Maybe some of them are newbies and maybe some of them are. It's like, well, shit, you know, we got to use this because this is the job or whatever. I can't really fault any artist who says, like, no, we're. What we're using is totally fine, and it's fine for us to, you know, we're going to be. End up replacing all the content anyway, so it doesn't really matter. I can't really be too mad at that. Except for that slippery slope thing where it's like, well, once you invite a little bit of in, once you let the devil stick his little foot into that little doorway, then eventually the full thing is going to come in and then you start to get the real repercussions. Then you start to get tempted by the quick ease of use and replacing in case anything goes wrong and you know, at the studio.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

And then you start to go, oh, well, you know, Katie and Jonathan, you know, maybe aren't acting so. Or maybe, you know, they're. The last couple of. Of meetings we had with him didn't go great. And that one program is able to do this now. Then you start to kind of get tempted by all of that. And that's where the silvery soap it is, man.

[Tim Gettys]

And there has to be a line. I feel like there isn't a one size fits all line. The line has to be decided. If you're a creative group, it has to come from that group. They need to make their decision on what the rules are within the team that they have. And it. This is something that exists. It's existed for a very long time. Like the concept of AI, it's not one thing. It's so many different things. And it's like when I asked my Apple homepod to change a song when I'm in the shower. It's using AI right when I ask it to like help me do a task. If I were to ask it to just do simple math or whatever, that's all okay. But the moment you're asking it to generate something, it's a problem. But what's the difference for the concept art of asking it to make something that you want to see compared to just Googling a bunch of images and putting them on a lookbook to decide? Like, this is kind of the concept art we want. It's the same thing. There's the ethics of how much it's destroying the environment. That's a different conversation. You know what I mean? And I just feel like this is just such a lightning rod hot topic that it. It. There's no right answer, except we're simply not using it at all, which is a lie. Like, I don't think there's any team out there that is not using AI because of how prevalent it is everywhere now. And you would have to go out of your way to not do that in any way, shape or form if you use Photoshop. Like, how hard is it to use Photoshop these days without some form of AI in your Way in your face. Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Like. Oh, I mean, even Premiere popping up and saying all of. Like, we can extend the music artificially. I'm like, what? Like, I don't even. I can't even concept what the. That is. But the. I would say that the. Only if you were to ask me what is an okay solution for you, Andy, it'd be all right. An okay solution for me. And I think something that maybe could be agreed upon by a lot of people who are worried about this taking jobs and taking over is whatever art is made here in our studio, all of that is put into a library that we can use a program to say, use all of our owned art, everything made here at the studio for like, scraping or whatever. Because when we talk about generative AI, you are scraping off the Internet from people's works that are not getting credit and they're just out there.

[Tim Gettys]

I mean, well, that's thing. Are you. Because that's the problem is it's like gender Vi. If it is scraping from whatever you're giving it, and if you own all that stuff, it's still generative AI. That's the problem is, like all these terms just that get bucketed and we're having these big broad conversations about stuff. No, I. I think that they have an art. They own a. A concept art, like, where there's just a bunch of art, like stock image stuff.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, Yeah. I think the biggest image is when you are generating and scraping from that you don't own.

[Tim Gettys]

Stealing.

[Andy Cortez]

Stealing. That's the biggest issue, straight up. If you are. If you are, you know, if I tell it make lava volcano fortress or whatever, and then it knows to look for things that are in our library based on things that have been drawn in our past, things that are in our own library. That's one thing, I think when you are out there and suddenly a castle piece pops in and then people are able to go, hey, that's the castle piece from Elden Ring. That's not what. Like, I recognize that little part. That's where you start to get into trouble. That's where things start to get really worrisome. Yeah, I. I hate talking about this shit. There's no. There's no. The. The. The right answer is completely stop using it. I am slowly and slowly losing that sort of battle. I feel like mentally I'm. I'm so just drained by the everyday discussion of everything else happening in the world that, like, I'm just getting so tired of this one discussion and it's going to keep on happening. For the next several years.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

And. And it really does start to feel like the, in a way that the death of art, when we talk about people's jobs being taken away and these machines should be coming up with other things to do and we should be using them for other purposes instead of taken away. The last jobs that feel like can actually be done by humans. When we talk about, like, you know, automation was always a thing. It was, it was going to go for, but the stuff that makes a human a human is also being taken away, you know.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah. And that's the, that's the problem is the like automation and this generative stuff. It's like, what are they talking about here? That's not automation, like specifically with this Larian stuff. Right. They're talking about PowerPoints. Right?

[Andy Cortez]

Right. Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

You know, they're talking about like artists being able to create concept art, like vision boards.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

So it's like, I don't know, man. It's just. I understand. I want to make sure that I'm clear. I'm like, my stance on this. I understand why this is such a big deal and that like this is. Has to be such a headline and such a conversation. But it's just like, it just seems so ridiculous that it feels like I'm going to say it a witch hunt to kind of like poke out every single person and like turn it into this giant story where it's just like the story should just be, hey, people shouldn't be using generative AI and here's why. And explaining all that stuff as opposed to like, I don't know, this just all feels super icky to me in every single way. And this happens all the time with, with news stories like this. And like, it is what it is. Yeah. Like, we need to talk about it or else people won't know because Joe Schmoes don't know about this. Joe Schmoes don't give a fuck.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

They might see the AI and they either don't know it's fake or don't care. Right.

[Andy Cortez]

I think it. I think it does hit closer to home when it is a studio like Larian.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

I think that's what makes. That's what makes it. Yeah. Studios like Larian and Sandfall that have. I would say more. I would say more so with Larian where, you know, sandfall just had Exposition 33 come out. But Larian is a studio that for many, many years has seemingly done right by, by artists and by creators and for the CEOs fen to go up on the game award stage and say, hey, you know, next year's game will be won by a studio that doesn't have corporate overlords and is treating its workers right and all of that. And we go, yeah, you know, yeah, Larry. And you're doing it right. This kind of feels like a slap to the face and where you're like, oh, no, not you guys. I expect this from ea. I expect this from everybody with the corporate overlords in the. In the C suite area, you know, fucking buildings that are just trying to profit, profit, profit investors, all that. I don't expect it from Larian. And that's what kind of sucks.

[Tim Gettys]

It does. But at the same time, I feel like so much of that is just speculation to the point of, like, let's see, maybe I'm wrong about this, but 72 artists, 23 are concept artists. Let's see in three years what that looks like for Larry. I don't think it's going to be less. I think it's going to be more. I think that they believe in artists. They believe, I hope this stuff. Right. It's like they're saying that, and it's like we're taking things from what they're saying and coming up with bad scenarios. But it's like they're literally doing the thing that we want them to do, which is have 23 concept artists.

[Andy Cortez]

But I also think if the reaction is not as vitriolic as it is, then you start to give the. You start to kind of moves up. And maybe I'm not true, and maybe that's not, you know, maybe Larry is just that different and maybe I. I should expect more from them and. And, you know, maybe it shouldn't be doom and gloom with them. But I think if the reaction is a bit more tepid, then you start to go, okay, well, you know what, what else can we kind of push for? What else? You know, what other grounds can we sort of start to go cover? And that's where it starts to get a bit more worrisome.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, absolutely. I hate it. Don't use the. It's that goddamn. Let's move on. Actually, no, we got a couple super chats here, Foxy. Steve says Ben should have read the room better. You know how much of an issue generative AI is? If you're going to mention the use of it, then make sure you give a detailed explanation or not use it at all. Yeah, I mean, I think even like saying the words is. Is the lightning bolt. Like you. You bring it all on You. There's no amount of explaining that's going to please people that are upset about it. Sheffield says, regarding AI, I'm an artist at a big VFX studio in la and my take is that people need to accept that this is the future. It isn't a one click done machine. That Coke, I add, took like 10 times more hours than CG. That sucks.

[Andy Cortez]

Do we know that?

[Tim Gettys]

I mean, I don't know about that.

[Andy Cortez]

But that ad, 10 times more hours.

[Tim Gettys]

Why then why'd you do it?

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, but like, okay, 10 times more hours. But how many less artists were working on it? Why are we doing this?

[Tim Gettys]

What are we doing?

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, like I, I just. Just feels so. It feels so backwards, man.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah. Did you see that ad? The Coke ad?

[Andy Cortez]

Not the most recent one.

[Tim Gettys]

I was at a restaurant and it played on tv. I was like, I can't believe this is the world we live in. Yeah, like it's, it's just, it's. It's AI and then there's the McDonald's one. That was even more egregious because that was like a live action, like, oh.

[Andy Cortez]

My Lord, dude, I cannot watch TV or listen to podcasts without every ad sounding like it's AI without every voice being just this computerized voice and not like definitely several generations prior to where it's just like, man, this is ultra fake. This sounds like what this is just stinks. Story number two, Mickey Diesel is just so ass. It's anthro metal.

[Tim Gettys]

So my God. Story number two. Sucker Punch co founder Brian Fleming is leaving after 28 years. This comes from Vicki Blake at GamesIndustry Biz. Sucker Punch co founder Brian Fleming's leaving the studio after 28 years. Fleming will be passing Sucker Punch studio leadership on to a new generation with Jason Connell and Adrian Bentley taking over as co studio heads on January 1, 2026. Sucker Punch has been part of the PlayStation family of studios since 2000. In a statement, Sony said. Over the past year, Brian has worked closely with PlayStation Studios to ensure that Sucker Punch was in the best hands moving forward with a strong foundation for the studio's continued success. Brian's vision and leadership have shaped the studio's culture of creativity and collaboration and established a foundation that Jason, Adrian and the entire team will build on as they look to the future. Fleming will stay at Sucker Punch until April to aid the transition, after which he wants to spend some time traveling with his family. He also hopes to explore more opportunities. Some industries, some tech, some entertainment, and some advocacy slash politics stuff are all Part of the space I'm thinking about.

[Andy Cortez]

Is that what you and Greg plan on doing with Mike and Roger, like, when you leave? Kind of funny. Like, do you plan on, like, it's Mike and Roger, we're going to slowly warm you into the new roles so.

[Tim Gettys]

That Greg and I can go off for advocacy and politics stuff.

[Andy Cortez]

Yes.

[Tim Gettys]

That's, that's 100%.

[Andy Cortez]

Travel the world.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah. This is obviously an interesting story. Anytime we hear about these retirements at top levels at big studios, the gut reaction recently is just like, all right, who fucked up and what happened? Right. But we need to remember that that's not the way of the world always. And that sometimes and how things used to be, you just do a good job for a long time, and then it's time to move on and just retire. And my read on this is that's probably one of the scenarios here, right?

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, a thousand percent. Yeah. I don't even, my brain didn't even possibly go there when I, I, I think maybe, I think that if it's a, a young, a much younger person in the role or if it's somebody who's only been there for a certain amount of time, you go, okay, was this like a force, a forced sort of move or. But I mean, yeah, 28 years is a long time to be doing the same thing. And sometimes you just want something new. Sometimes you go back and you, you look and you go, man, I've kind of achieved a whole lot already. You know, there's a very, very popular and successful former defensive lineman named Aaron Donald. He's only, like 33 years old. He could still play with any team and give him, like, five to six really, really good, productive years of sacking the quarterback. Getting in there, just disrupting. Man's a, the dude's a monster. He's like, see, he was so damn good. And they're like, don't you feel like you could still be, like, at, you'd be at the top of the. And he's like, I won this. I did this. I won a Super Bowl. I'm good. Yeah, I, I, I achieved what I wanted to. I'm ready to move on. And this is exactly what this kind of just sounds like. And when you have, when you have really good, competent, you know, employees working underneath you, people that have been there for a long time as well, people like Jason Connell, who the, the art director for Sucker Punch, and Adrian Bentley, who I, I checked in was a technical artist, I believe, or, or technical engineer. I'm kind of not Quite sure on it what the exact role is, but clearly there's a lot of trust there. And this sounds great. I'm stoked for the new leadership. I'm excited to see what the future holds for Sucker Punch.

[Tim Gettys]

Exactly, man. And yeah, you talk about 28 years at Sucker Punch. It's like wild. Like, we're talking about one of the studios that has been there from the beginning almost with PlayStation and seeing the kind of rise of the different types of games being made to ending up now with like game awards nominee Ghost of Yote. Right. Like, it's just they've done so much and have had so much growth that I do think it's a great time to go out on top and be able to have a new generation come up and kind of see, like, what energy that brings. But yeah, shout out to Sucker Punch, man. They. They've been really kind of just like killing it. And I feel like they. Them along with gorilla. Right. Kind of. And insomniac to an extent as well. Like, really proved themselves the last console generation or so to be able to be like, wow, we are up there with the biggest dogs, the Naughty dog. Sony Santa Monica's. Right. It's just very cool to see.

[Andy Cortez]

It's also one of those situations where you see yourself in this role. You've been in this role for so long, almost three decades, and with the turnaround time that there is now required to make games, you go, do I really got another four to five to six years in me? I'm totally gonna leave on this chapter with the. With the success in Ghost of Yote and, you know, you don't want to be three years into the job for the next game and going like, oh, man, I really should have retired. Like, I. This is going to be another couple years and I just don't know if I got that in me right now.

[Tim Gettys]

Yep. Well, congratulations to you, Brian Fleming. I hope that your retirement goes well and I hope that you get to do a little bit of all the things you want to do with all those opportunities out there. We will be right back, everybody, with more stories after a word from our sponsors.

[Greg Miller]

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[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

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[Tim Gettys]

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[Andy Cortez]

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[Andy Cortez]

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[Tim Gettys]

And we're back with story number three. Hardware sales in the US just had their worst month in 30 years. This comes from Eddie over at Gamespot. Circana released its monthly sales report for November today, shining a light on how the North American video game business is performing. Hardware sales had a particularly difficult month, with sales falling 27% from 949 million in November 2024 to 695 million in November 2025. November 25th represented the lowest hardware spending total for November month since 2005, which was 455 million. Which is interesting because wasn't no, we was. The following year, 2005 was Xbox 360 in 2006 was PS3 and Wii. I'm pretty sure. A total of 1.6 million game hardware units were sold in North America for November 25, and that's the lowest since November. 95. 1.4 million units while total unit sales dropped, the average price paid for a new game console reached a new record high for a November month, rising to 439 million, up 11% compared to November 24. The higher average selling prices connected the price increase increases that companies like Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft and others have implemented this year due to tariffs and other factors. For November 25, Sony's PS5 ranked number one for both unit sales and dollar sales, the first time the PS5 is back on top since the Switch 2 came out in June. The Switch 2, meanwhile, landed at number two for unit and dollar sales in November, with the next playground coming in third.

[Andy Cortez]

This goddamn little thing, man.

[Tim Gettys]

We're hardware Units sold. Xbox Series X and S ranked number three for dollar sales in November. In terms of software sales, Call of Duty Black Ops 7 ranked number one for the month, extending Call of Duty streak to 18 years in a row where the franchise debuted in the top spot for its release month. However, franchise sales experienced double digit declines for 2025 so far. Battlefield 6 is still the year's best selling game in North America.

[Andy Cortez]

I'm pretty surprised that PS5 kind of like I just expected Nintendo Switch 2 to still be selling gangbusters. And you know, I'm shocked especially with the price increases that that has happened. Like what are your main takeaways from this?

[Tim Gettys]

I mean it's interesting that November, right. Like trying to think about what's going on around that time. Pokemon was October. Right. So November was a little quieter on the Nintendo front because wasn't it? Kirby Air Riders. That was November.

[Andy Cortez]

I just think of like Black Friday totally. Like not even that they go on.

[Tim Gettys]

Sale, but yeah, just people buying stuff around that time. Yeah, I, it is, I am interested in the numbers being this low, but again the tariffs and the price increases and all that stuff. Like that's very, very real. So it's not like these numbers are like that much lower than what they used to be. But it is crazy with how much kind of juice is going on with these game releases. I mean even Ghost of Yote coming out around There, a major PlayStation game. Like I wouldn't think this would be the lowest November ever, right? Like, that doesn't add up to me. I would have lost a bet.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, I mean a lot of that just has to do with not only the, the price increases, but just it'd be one thing if only the price ring, the, the prices were increasing in game consoles and that's it. But everything else in the world was going merrily and I think, yeah, you know, we're just seeing a lot tighter wallets nowadays because of the, this unstable job market with everything and the amount of jobs being lost not just in the games industry, but all across the world in every field. Yeah, I, I guess I, I shouldn't be too surprised thinking about just how in the toilet things are for a lot of families out there. And that's primarily who would be making a lot of these purchases. People buying gifts for Christmas and kind of preparing for the holiday season.

[Tim Gettys]

And these things are more expensive than ever. And yeah, really, really, really scary to think about how these, how high these prices are. I don't even know if we've talked about this yet. Andy. But like the PC gaming side of things, how dire the situation is because of all of the major companies, whether it's RAM or graphics cards, kind of shifting out of the gaming side of like consumer computing and more to the AI enterprise side of things and what that has done to the prices of computer parts. I've been building my new computer and I made. I lucked out in most ways. I got so hard with ram.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

That it's like triple the cost. Triple?

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, triple. Close to quadruple the cost.

[Tim Gettys]

And I think at this point, yeah, like since I bought. And I bought it on Black Friday and it was crazy because I was. I went to Micro center down in San Jose. Andy, we need to do a group trip.

[Andy Cortez]

Why? Why?

[Tim Gettys]

It's fucking Candyland.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, really? Okay.

[Tim Gettys]

It's amazing. Like, it's. Have you ever been to Fries?

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, so long ago in Austin.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, it's kind of like fries, but not themed. And it just was wonderful, man. Like, honestly, like me, you, Kevin and Roger just need to go.

[Andy Cortez]

I love it.

[Tim Gettys]

I just. Get lost.

[Andy Cortez]

I love it.

[Tim Gettys]

Like, they have an entire, like, wing of this giant building is just for 3D printing and they just have a ton of different.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh my God, that's cool.

[Tim Gettys]

It was magical. Anyways, I'm buying this RAM and the guy looks at me, goes, man, as I'm checking out, he's like, I'm so sorry, dude. He's like, I literally got that for a third of the price three months ago. He's like, but you get at the right time, it's only going to go up. And I'm like, fuck, man.

[Andy Cortez]

Man. We only had like four years of comfortable spending. I mean, less than that, honestly. Because when NFTs and crypto mining and all that stuff was just driving up GPU costs.

[Tim Gettys]

Yep.

[Andy Cortez]

And then we finally got relief from that. Once people realize what a fucking failure of an industry that is and what a dud, all, you know, all of that is. The amount of times that I go, I'm on Facebook Marketplace for, you know, just looking for, you know, either apartments or guitar, whatever. Stupid. Yeah, I. The amount of times I see, especially here in the Bay Area, crypto GPU rigs where it's like five little slots to slot in GPUs. It's like, it's so funny the amount of those that are on sale because of everybody just being like, well, this is useless now. Let me get out of this. The, like, just having the relief from the GPU prices finally drop and go back to normal. And now RAM is the one being hit because of the, because of AI and like Kevin mentioning crucial sort of stepping out and being like, hey, we're not even doing consumer shit. Like I, I don't know what, I don't know how severe and how dire this is. That directive is for crucial.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

But just because I just don't know all the details there. But like that's such an insane thing.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh, it's insane. No, I mean, and how severe this is to video games. The reason I bring this up now in context of the story, this is going to affect Nintendo switches. This is going to affect PlayStation 5. Like this is going to affect console hardware sooner than later at this point because there's no going back. Like this is going to continue happening and all these parts are not going to gaming. They're going to go to other places and we are going to have to see the hits in our wallets. Like it's going to be really crazy. I wonder what November 2026 looks like.

[Andy Cortez]

Luckily the job market is super stable.

[Tim Gettys]

Everything's going to be great.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, people will have money to spend on stuff.

[Tim Gettys]

Let's get to some good news, Andy. I put this in the doc for us to watch specifically because I saw this on Twitter a couple days ago. It's a symphony of the night inspired 2D action exploration game called Mariachi Legends. Yeah, it gets a new trailer coming to PC, switch to Switch 1PS, Xbox. Can you pause it, Kev? The Steam description is Mariachi Legends is a brutal pixel art combat oriented Metroidvania set in the heart of Mexico. You play as Pablo Cruz, a detective who's agreed to a deal with Death herself. She's given Pablo the ability to transform into the mighty La Sombra, allowing him to fight back against evil. I saw this pop up and I'm like, before I even clicked it, I was like, I think I'm going to like this. And watching the trail, like I need to watch this with Eddie. Have you seen this?

[Andy Cortez]

I haven't seen the most recent stuff, but I have been keeping up with. So you already knew about it because I, I to. I believe I'm pretty sure I got to sort of announce or introduce this at the the Latam Cool Game Game Awards like two or three years ago or something.

[Tim Gettys]

Sick.

[Andy Cortez]

I'm pretty sure I. Because I definitely said the word Mariachi. I don't know if it was Mariachi Legends or not, but I'm pretty sure it was and have been keeping up with this. Like many other awesome looking games on Twitter because there's always a lot of amazing devs putting out their work. And so I've seen the quality of it. I was mainly struck by the pixel art and how much it reminds me of the game Kitchen and their success with the Blasphemous and how amazing their art style is.

[Tim Gettys]

And that's the thing. Before you even hit play there, Kev, the Symphony of the night inspired 2D action. It's like you're not saying Metroidvania, you're saying Symphony of the Night. And that means something very specific visually that I feel like many have tried and failed to emulate. I don't think I've ever fully seen it. Like, oh, man, they're getting this right. And you're right. I think that Blasphemous is the closest that we've gotten. And even that is its own thing. Even that, I think is like trying to do something different. This, it's like, oh, y' all are nailing it.

[Andy Cortez]

It's not just the quality of pixel art. It's the. The smoothness, fluid animation.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, it's Alucard, like, doing his little. Yeah, back and forth, but. All right, Kev, let's check this out.

[Andy Cortez]

Mariachi Legends. I saw some reference to Light La Llorona as well. So cool. Damn, dude. Fantastic. Key art.

[Tim Gettys]

Come on, dude.

[Andy Cortez]

Holy. Friday, listeners, a shadow skull came out of the ground and ate some art Direction's so, so top tier.

[Tim Gettys]

God, look at the back.

[Andy Cortez]

Whoa, dude. That horse spin. Anime. Oh, man, all that looked fantastic.

[Tim Gettys]

So sick.

[Andy Cortez]

Wow. Holy. That's fire. Got a combo meet in the top left too.

[Tim Gettys]

So sick. Yeah, so sick, man.

[Andy Cortez]

Wish list that.

[Tim Gettys]

Please do keep your eyes on it. It looks awesome.

[Andy Cortez]

Q2, 2026.

[Tim Gettys]

Zeke speak says yes. Yes, yes. I've had Mariachi on my list for years. Very, very cool. Let's get to story number five. Okay. A 98 complete version of the canceled Game Boy color Resident Evil port has been shared online. This comes from Chris Scullion at vgc. Did you see any of this yet?

[Andy Cortez]

No, I have not.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh, man, it's. I'm gonna read the. The thing in a second, but just to say something to you that's interesting. Game Boy color. How much of your life was that?

[Andy Cortez]

I mean, a lot of Mario Golf, a lot of Mario Tennis, Pokemon.

[Tim Gettys]

So you had a Gameboy color.

[Andy Cortez]

You.

[Tim Gettys]

You were, like, buying games.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

So do you remember that there was, like, this interesting push towards games, either being like, you know, top down adventure games, looking like a Zelda or Something like that. Like when we got Metal Gear Solid, Ghost Battle. Right. But then there was also a like fuck it, we ball approach of like, let's just translate 3D games onto the Game Boy Color. So we got things like Alone in the Dark that just looked insane. And it's like kind of a mess to look at, but like they really, really tried. That's what this is. Because there was a Resident Evil game, Resident Evil Gaiden that ended up coming out. That was a more what you kind of would think about a Game Boy Color Resident Evil looking Like a lot.

[Andy Cortez]

Of that probably stems from the disappointment of people like me going, holy shit, I'm going to be able to get that one 3D game on game. And then you look at it and you look at the box art that you turn the box around at Walmart and you're like, oh, that doesn't look like what I'm used to playing on.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Or seeing on 10 of 64 PS1 or whatever.

[Tim Gettys]

So this shit's crazy. Kev. If you could bring up the gameplay while I talk about it. A near complete version of the canceled Game Boy Color port of Resident Evil has been preserved and shared online. In 1999, London based studio Hot Gen was given the intimidating task of porting the PS1 and Saturn game to Nintendo's handheld, somehow turning a 32 bit console game that came on two CDs into an 8 bit handheld game on a 2 megabyte cartridge. Wow. Despite appearing impossible, Hagen managed an impressive job of downgrading Resident Evil for the Game Boy color. And the game was actually nearing completion when it was canceled in mid 2000. Now games that weren't has preserved and shared a build of the game in its most complete, stable, incomplete state possible. Taken at the point it was canceled. And it's believed this version may finally be playable from start to finish. I didn't even know what games that weren't dot com was, but that's super, super cool that it exists.

[Andy Cortez]

Is it just a library and kind of catalog?

[Tim Gettys]

I'm sure that it's just like a, like lost media archivers, right? Like people trying to get, get to the bottom of like canceled projects. But this is wild.

[Andy Cortez]

Like this is crazy. I wanna, I really want to see how this would look in the game engine view. Are you able to spin the camera? Is it.

[Tim Gettys]

No, this is it.

[Andy Cortez]

But like, no, I know you can't spin the camera in the game but like, oh, is it a fixed 3D camera or is it, you know, Doom style where it's you know, the. The sprite just gets smaller. As we know that that's further away.

[Tim Gettys]

I'm pretty sure it's that. I'm pretty sure that this is all, you know, kind of pre rendered background, right. The characters just walking around. But yeah, this being on Game Boy color is absolutely wild. And it's funny, I was watching the clip and it's like it sounds like a goddamn mess, but that's just Game Boy sometimes.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

Where it's like they. I think they made a bad call having like there's drums on this track. And then also his footsteps have the. They're the exact same sound effect. So it's just kind of a mess. But yeah. Moment like it's the game now. What's interesting about this 98 complete version, the. It sounds so close to just being the finished game. The things missing are Barry and Wesker have the same sprite.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, that's funny.

[Tim Gettys]

So things like that, right?

[Andy Cortez]

Just placeholder types.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah. But man, this is so cool. Now. I remember reading about this, but it's. I never would have thought I'd ever actually see it.

[Andy Cortez]

Like, like, I don't even know how this, how that process begins of like the whole discovery of it all. Like, it's so. It's so crazy to me that like media lost media is capable of being, you know, dug up from, you know, six feet under and being brought back to life. It's so cool.

[Tim Gettys]

I was reading the VGC article too and the original sprite artist was like, oh shit, that's my stuff.

[Andy Cortez]

That's.

[Tim Gettys]

And I was like. I mean like, man, the project was kind of a bitch to work on, but like, definitely have fond memories of, you know, some aspects of it. Kev, can you YouTube alone in the Dark Game Boy color?

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, because you're not rendering stuff in a 3D space. So you have to have drawn versions of every sprite from far distances and close up distances. What an. That sucks. You talk about having a jaw sprites and then rotate in different angles so you're like, all right, we gotta count for when they're facing left or whatever. Alone in the dark Game Boy color. No, you're fine. And in this case you're saying, you know, well, when this character is closer to that wall way over there, we got to make him way smaller. So I had like, wow, that's wild. That's so crazy.

[Tim Gettys]

If that's how it works. Yeah, that is. That is nuts. But this Alone in the Dark game, I. I went through a night where I was Like, I'm just gonna play through or at least boot up every single game on Nintendo Switch Online in the Game Boy app. Just be like, I wonder what it would look like. And I never played this. And I was freaking shocked at how this game looks.

[Andy Cortez]

Whoa. What the hell?

[Tim Gettys]

Isn't that.

[Andy Cortez]

Whoa.

[Tim Gettys]

Crazy.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, it's on that. So right now, this def. It kind of reminds me of out of this world. The way the character is moving and look. The character looks very rotoscope. Like they use like real human kind of movement to trace over.

[Tim Gettys]

This is Game Boy color. Holy crazy stuff, man. DJ Kanto says, Tim, please boot up this rom of Resident Evil on the analog pocket and stream it. Also, the Metal Gear Solid game on GBC is actually really good. Yeah, MGS is really good. Yeah, I might boot this up on analog. That'd be. That'd be fun just to. To see. I. I feel like I'd get very upset with it. Like, there's something about the idea of playing these games that's like nails on the chalkboard to me. You know what I mean? Where I'm just like, I want it to feel differently. I know it's going to, but I still think it's very cool, man. If they were to somehow take like a bloodborne. Oh, and d make it and make it look like that, that would be big news handy. That would be huge, huge, huge news. But if I would know about something much smaller, where would I look?

[Andy Cortez]

You'd go to our last story, the WE News ch, where we cover all the small news items you need to know about.

[Tim Gettys]

It's true. It's W.E. newstown, baby. Dispatch is coming. Nintendo Switch 1 and 2 on January 29, 2026. Very, very cool. From IGN. Forza Motorsport developer Turn 10 Studios has confirmed the end of new content development for the game following layoffs at the company this summer. That is a bummer. From gamesindustry biz, the Outsiders. Metal Hellsinger co founder David Goldfarb has confirmed that the team is not dead after Funcom killed the studio back in October, and he's working on something for the 2.0 version of the studio.

[Andy Cortez]

Good, good.

[Tim Gettys]

There we go.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

You loved metal. Love Metal Hellsinger from vgc. Drama Studios, developer of the viral body cam shooter Unrecord, has announced it's received investment from Tencent to accelerate development and expand its team.

[Andy Cortez]

I love the amount of takes on this game and games like. Well, I think the quote tweet I saw was there's another style of game called Body cam that looks very similar to this. And it just felt like the. Like the worst, most realistic live leak video you've ever seen in your life. Like, it just. It looks a little too real and it's kind of unsettling.

[Tim Gettys]

I mean, I remember seeing the unrecorded stuff and being blown away by how real it looks, but it's like, yeah, there's something about this. Yeah, too real. I don't want that. Noble says Three Fields Entertainment launched a Patreon to support the development of Recreation after putting its entire staff on redundancy. Interesting.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, Recreation is a burnout team, right? I believe Recreation was the game that was made by like former Burnout devs, I'm pretty sure because that game came out to a whimper. That game came out and we didn't even know that it was coming out. That was like. Like a. Whoa. They're doing what? Yeah. When?

[Tim Gettys]

Supervive Live service is ending in February. Ratatan will receive a major update in December titled Descent of the Dark. Ratatan. Of course, Soul Caliber 3 is out today on PS4 and PS5. What the hell?

[Andy Cortez]

Huh?

[Tim Gettys]

That was like an out of nowhere announcement. Very, very cool. Three was never my favorite, but I know a lot of people really love it.

[Andy Cortez]

I only ever played them at arcades.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh, yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

And it was always at the Movie Theater in McAllen, Texas. Hollywood. The Hollywood movie movie theater.

[Tim Gettys]

Soul Caliber. I. I know. I remember one in arcades. I. I don't know that I have ever played a Soul Caliber in an arcade. Besides that, though.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, man.

[Tim Gettys]

A new Yakuza Kiwami 3 and Dark Ties direct will air on Monday, December 22nd at 5pm Pacific. This direct will do deep dive on the upcoming 2 in 1 title releasing February 12, including new features, experiences and gameplay from both Kiwami 3 and Dark Ties. Did the arcade version have a unique character?

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, no, I don't think so.

[Tim Gettys]

That'd be fun.

[Andy Cortez]

This was a long time ago. Like this. Yeah.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

I was probably maybe 10 or something this. But it must have been like late 90s.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh, there was so calendar one.

[Andy Cortez]

Okay. Probably. Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah. Soul Cowboy 1 was a freaking game changer, man. Like when that came out on Dreamcast, it was like that was the killer app of the Dreamcast. Which is crazy to think that video games have changed so much that like a fighting game was the, like must buy the reason you bought a system. But it was crazy times. That's it for WE news.

[Andy Cortez]

Let's get to some super chats.

[Tim Gettys]

Tim, let's get to some super chats, Jay Miranda says, I know you always talk about this, but I'm now in the market for a new controller for PC. Could you offer a cheap and an expensive option? Andy CORTEZ.

[Andy Cortez]

Okay, well, I don't know what I'm assuming cheap is around the $50 to $60 range. So yeah, I probably look at either 8bitdo, so number 8bitdo, or GamesIR, which is G A M E S I R. And then for an expensive option, I would recommend the $80 GamesIR because that, that's my been my daily driver and I love it. Or I would look at the Scuff Valor Pro. Scuff generally makes really good anyway, but the Valor Pro is the one, the, like my secondary one that I have here at the studio that I'm always kind of moving between my PC and the lab to play and stream different stuff.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, I love the DualSense Edge so much that anytime I can use that as my controller like I do. So any, I have all the little adapters and shit, so I can use it on my Switch and Xbox PC and PlayStation 5, obviously. But I will say that the DualSense Edge does not just work with PC. No matter how much they say it does, no matter how many firmware updates they put out, no matter how many Bluetooth adapters I buy the Bluetooth stuff, there's always some issue, whether it's the vibrations not coming through right or it just disconnects in a weird way, like there's always something. So my solution, and this is not gonna be great for everybody, but if you hardwire it to your PC, it's the best experience of all time. You get all the haptic stuff, you get like no latency, nothing. And it's perfect. Do I have a 50 foot USB C cable for my computer to my home theater, like setup? Yeah, I do, but it's fine.

[Andy Cortez]

You have a 50 foot USB C.

[Tim Gettys]

It's not 50, it's like 30. Okay, but still, that's crazy.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, yeah, take that shit on an airplane.

[Tim Gettys]

Average Joe on air says. Tim, what are your thoughts on those alleged Marvel leaks? I haven't really had time to talk about any of the doomsday stuff and Brand New Day Spider Man, Brand New day stuff anywhere. But it's an interesting time we're in, man. Like going back to the AI conversation like it's hilarious how much bullshit's out there and how you see people fall for it and like one piece of real information gets out there and then all of a sudden there's 10 AI things that are using that one piece of information, you know what I mean? Like, like one of the trailers is already out. Like you can go to watch Avatar and see the first Doomsday trailer so people know officially 100% what is in that. And then people hear about what's in it and all of a sudden you're seeing, you're seeing the trailer and it looks kind of real, but if you're not a fucking moron, you know, it's not. Have you seen this?

[Andy Cortez]

No, I haven't.

[Tim Gettys]

It's, it's, it's ridiculous.

[Andy Cortez]

I've been kind of keeping, you know, I've been media blacked out on a lot of that stuff.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Kind of bummed out. We didn't get to like, we didn't get any trailers at our avatar.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, it's, I mean it's an interesting strategy that I know this is an unpopular opinion. I love it. I think it's super cool. We're a year out from this thing and like this all this conversation I think is fun. And I also plan to see Avatar again, so I'm not too concerned. But I also am at a point where I'm like, all right, from the content creator perspective, I wish they put out the trailer. I wish we could react to it and talk about it.

[Andy Cortez]

Right.

[Tim Gettys]

That stuff. But just as a fan, there's something that I do really love about watching 144p fucking cell phone footage. Like there's an excitement there that just reminds me of being an old man. Because I am an old man.

[Andy Cortez]

You rent or buy Crackdown, you get the Halo demo.

[Tim Gettys]

Exactly that type of get Zone of the Enders.

[Andy Cortez]

You get the MGs, man.

[Tim Gettys]

But I really liked the first trailer for Avengers Doomsday. And from what we're hearing about the Spider man stuff, which has not been confirmed yet, I'm not gonna spoil anything. I really like it if it is real. And I think it's real.

[Andy Cortez]

Okay.

[Tim Gettys]

So stay tuned for more. Secret Trail runner says 43rd birthday tax on the 30th. Be on a well deserved break. Greg, you're next. Love the content. Thanks for what you all do. Happy birthday, Secret Trail Runner. Happy birthday, Wolf Fox says did Tim watch the trailer already? Yes, I did. Yes, I did the first one.

[Andy Cortez]

Josh g. With a $5 super chat says just listen to Mike's Expedition 33 review. Have I have one question for all the KF crew. Who played the game? Simon. I have not fought Simon.

[Tim Gettys]

I have not fought Simon either.

[Andy Cortez]

I was ready to Move on from the game because. And I needed to play other stuff because if you all remember, I had. I played through Act 1, which was about eight or nine or 10 hours or whatever, and then I didn't record the rest of it, but I played through the rest of the game. And then when the game came out, I Streamed from Act 2 again all the way to the end while playing extra. So I essentially played the game, like, 1.8 times.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

And that was around probably 80 to 100 hours. And I was like, I gotta. I have to play other stuff. Like, I'm just. I've been in this world for way too long.

[Tim Gettys]

I really wish that I could just play it again, though. Like, oh, I keep thinking about it and, like, I've honestly played the prologue, like, three or four times, like, in the last couple months, just because I'm like, dude, you want to.

[Andy Cortez]

But you'll be blown away if you ever do replay it at all the stuff that they were just hinting at you.

[Tim Gettys]

Well, that's. I've watched so many streams. I've watched so much of your stream. I've so much ice cream. And. Yeah, that's the thing is, like, oh, it's so good. And I. I really didn't do much. Like, when I love a game like, you know this, I tend to. I don't care about Platinums, but I care about 100.

[Andy Cortez]

Right.

[Tim Gettys]

You know what I mean? So it's like, I. I want to do all the content in the game, and I. I tend to do that for most of them. And Expedition is one that I. I did. It might. It's definitely the game in 2025, but maybe even the last five years that I love the most that I did the least in.

[Andy Cortez]

Right.

[Tim Gettys]

You know?

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

So I want to change that at some point. I just don't know that's ever gonna happen.

[Andy Cortez]

The second time through I did because I wasn't kind of up against the gun. I felt a lot more free to go do all the extra bosses. That would have taken probably. You know, when you're just kind of doing the math and you're kind of reviewing a game, you go, all right, well, I've struggled with this boss. This one could take me a minimum of an hour and a half, and that's like an hour and a half that I could be putting into the story and, like, getting through that. So. So the second time through, I played a lot of extra shit, including my el's side quest, which, like, was awesome. It was really cool experiencing that for the first time.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah. DJ Canto says the Resident Evil 2 like on arcade has been in North America for a month. It's only a matter of time before it moves to the Bay Area. Will you go find it, play it and stream it once it's here? It's all it's hard to do streams like that. I would love to though. There's a Dave and Busters near here that like if they have it it that'd be cool because this game looks awesome.

[Andy Cortez]

I've never heard of it.

[Tim Gettys]

That could be fun. Let's see.

[Andy Cortez]

Zeke Speak says Peak Altered Alma for a cool Brazilian Metroidvania. Altered Alma is another one of those you another one of those Twitter games that keeps on popping up on my timeline. And it looks also very very cool.

[Tim Gettys]

We got in in. You're wrong Zeo. VGM says not a correction. It might be something to tackle tomorrow, but multiple employees are now coming forward with stories about working at Larry and including racism and sexual harassment. Yeah, that is something I'm going to drop in Games Daily to talk about tomorrow to verify and make sure it's real. But that is it everybody. After this we have Gamescast. It's The Fallout season 2 episode 1 review from I think Greg and Blessing Adioia Jr that should be a good time. Then after that it's a fun game stream with Snow Bike Mike. Thank you very much for hanging out with us today. Until next time, I love you all. Goodbye.

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[Tim Gettys]

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[Greg Miller]

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[Tim Gettys]

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