Cronos: The New Dawn Review Round-Up - Kinda Funny Games Daily 09.03.25

Summary

Kinda Funny Games Daily – September 3, 2025

Episode Overview: “Cronos: The New Dawn Review Round-Up”

Hosts: Greg Miller, Roger Piccorni, Andy Cortez, Barrett, plus appearances from others
Main Theme:
The cast dives into reviews and discussion for the highly anticipated survival horror game Cronos: The New Dawn, examines recent news like the near-rescue of Perfect Dark, Sony’s odd PS5 digital downgrade in Europe, Saudi investment in EVO, and rounds it out with plenty of irreverent banter and gaming news. The Kinda Funny team also provides their own insights from early hands-on with Cronos, unpacking both technical hurdles and creative highs and lows of the latest Bloober Team release.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Cronos: The New Dawn Review Round-Up

(Starts ~12:13)

• General Consensus & Metacritic Score:

  • Cronos: The New Dawn debuts with a Metacritic score of 77 at time of recording.
  • Critics praise its premise and atmospheric world but criticize its generic combat and story momentum.

• Review Quotes:

  • Kyle Hilliard, Game Informer (7.75):
    “Cronos the new dawn has an excellent, thoughtful premise … but does a poor job of executing on its promising sci fi ideas … I was left shrugging my shoulders by the end. Thankfully, the gameplay … offered plenty to pull me through.” (13:00)
  • Tristan Ogilvie, IGN (7):
    “An intriguing mystery in a creepy sci fi hellscape … but its run of the mill combat system prevents it from stepping out of the shadows cast by survival horror heavyweights ... its oppressively bleak environments are rich with detail, but elsewhere, there's clear padding that trips up the story’s momentum ... like a traveler's corpse that's trapped inside a temporal apocalypse, Cronos contains the essence of survival horror, but not quite enough spark …” (14:00)
  • Mark Delaney, Gamespot (8):
    “Chronos the new dawn is Bloober Team cementing itself not just as a studio obsessed with horror … This is Bloober Team becoming a trusted voice in horror.” (19:11)

• Roger’s Hands-On Impressions:

  • Technical Hurdles: In his playthrough, Roger encountered a string of technical issues due to a mis-sent review build: missing SFX in cutscenes, broken AI, and had to restart due to patches and wipes.

    “...none of the enemies attacked me … it was a tough experience … I just wanted to mainline this game … but there’s just something wrong here.” (20:33)

  • Difficulty & Survival Mechanics:
    • No selectable difficulty, supplies are extremely tight.
    • The gameplay loop lacks variance, particularly in boss fights (“run around in circles, shoot red canisters”).

    “...the main loop of the fights is just the same thing over and over, specifically the boss fights … I want to feel like my exploration matters.” (23:24, 24:18)

  • Atmosphere and Presentation:
    • Praises its “timey wimey” (time-manipulation) narrative that expands past standard infection tropes.
    • Explores interesting uses of PS5 SSD and shifts perspectives, reminiscent of The Medium, Silent Hill 2, and Alan Wake.

    “...when it’s not just generic running around the Rosie with bosses, I’m able to enjoy the story… it gets timey wimey, it gets weird, it goes into a different direction that I really enjoy.” (24:21)

  • Summary Judgment:
    • Enjoyment peaks during narrative and exploratory moments, gameplay is competent but unremarkable.
    • Roger is at ~60% completion and would score it a 7/10:

      “This game is … a really hardcore survival horror game … There is like juice here for an IP and for a franchise if they really want to.” (26:42)

• Greg’s Perspective:

  • Hopeful that the game receives patches for difficulty, balance, and features.
  • Suggests waiting until after launch, as future updates may address current pain points.

  “I’m happy that I’m not here at launch playing it because I imagine this sounds like a patch.” (27:32)

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2. Perfect Dark’s Near-Rescue and Industry Layoffs

(Begins ~31:49)

• Bloomberg Report (Jason Schreier):

  • Crystal Dynamics cut staff and abandoned Perfect Dark after funding deals (notably with Take Two) failed over IP ownership.
  • Take Two nearly acquired the project and would have funded it.

• Panel Reaction:

  • Disbelief that Xbox would rather let the project die than lose the IP.
  • “At this point, just give the franchise away. If it means that this game can live … who cares?” (38:04, Roger)
  • Considers it a big failure for Xbox on a legacy IP.
  • Tangent about the declining iconic status of Perfect Dark and comparison to other old franchises.
  • Discussion of industry layoffs and ongoing market consolidation.

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3. Saudi Investment in EVO

(Starts ~40:48)

• News:

  • Saudi Arabia-backed Qiddiya acquires full ownership of EVO co-owner RTS, increasing Saudi influence over major gaming events.
  • Sony had just divested its stake.

• Perspectives:

  • Mixed feelings about the increasing presence of Saudi government money in gaming and eSports:

    “It sucks that … everything that I love is slowly becoming … Saudi pay per views … This is not the end of it. This is just continuously going to be something that happens throughout the entire gaming industry, movie industry. Everything you can imagine.” (43:44, Roger)

  • Panel notes similar dynamics in golf (PGA/LIV), wrestling, and other competitive industries forced to choose funding vs. closure.
  • Somber tone on the complexity of ethical financial choices for struggling companies.

---

4. PS5 Digital Edition Downgrade in Europe

(Begins ~46:51)

• Update:

  • The PS5 Digital Edition SSD in Europe is being reduced from 1TB to 825GB to offset increasing hardware prices due to tariffs and economic challenges.
  • The Disc edition will stay at 1TB.
  • This follows multiple price hikes in Europe, the UK, and Australia/NZ.

• Kinda Funny’s Take:

  • Odd that the reduction is such a specific size (825GB) – suspected it could be an inventory or labeling artifact rather than a real production cost cut.
  • Noted current-gen games (Call of Duty, Fortnite) quickly fill even a “full” 1TB.
  • General feeling: “We’re paying more for less, and the vibes are not great, bro.” (50:53, Andy)

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5. Nintendo Switch Online & N64 Leak Validation

(~51:28)

• Context:

  • Announcement of Forsaken 64 coming to NSO validates previous box art leaks hinting at further N64 classics (Donkey Kong 64, Glover, Smash Bros.).
  • The slow drip feed continues—some excitement, some fatigue with Nintendo’s pace.

• Panel Reactions:

  “Glover is just another one of those guys … like Bubsy, where it’s like, it’s a meme almost. I don’t know what you do.” (54:13, Andy/B)

  • Nostalgic riffs and commercials about Forsaken, jokes about ‘the future is forsaken.’
  • Speculation about Custom Robo vs. Chibi Robo.

---

6. Rapid-Fire News and Superchats

(Starts ~55:45)

• Wii News Channel segment:

  • Jotun Slayer reaches full release on consoles.
  • Servers for old 2K golf games going offline.
  • Super Mario Party Jamboree on Switch updated to output at 1080p, previously only supported 720p.

    “This is the – that we can’t let fly. This shouldn’t be in Wii News. I wanted this to be story number one!” (57:19, Roger)

  • Call of Duty’s storage requirement dropped by ~30GB.

• Superchat & Community:

  • Birthday shoutouts, PAX shoutouts, and inside jokes (“half mini Aussie”).
  • Humor about misread messages: “I thought it was a daughter—a small Australian person!” (58:46, Roger)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Bloober Team’s direction:

  “This is Bloober Team cementing itself ... as a trusted voice in horror.” (19:11, Mark Delaney, read by Greg)

• On difficulty transparency in game marketing:

  “My critique is … if I was them, I would market this game as a really hardcore survival horror game, because that’s what it is.” (22:52, Roger)

• On exploration in Cronos:

  “I want to feel like my exploration matters ... should I just not be exploring?” (24:18, Roger)

• On IP ownership and canceled games:

  “Just give the franchise away. If it means this game can live.” (38:04, Roger)

• On subscription fatigue and declining ownership:

  “Everything is a subscription. You don’t own anything.” (51:10, Andy & Roger)

• On the Switch 1080p update for Mario Party:

  “This is a suck. Like, Nintendo, what are we doing?” (57:19, Roger)

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Important Timestamps

| Segment | Time | Notes | |---------|------|-------| | Banter/Intro | 00:00 – 12:13 | Casual chat, sponsor plugs, Andy enters | | Cronos Review Round-Up | 12:13 – 29:26 | Guest reviews, Roger’s impressions | | Perfect Dark News | 31:49 – 40:16 | Bloomberg story, reaction | | EVO Acquisition | 40:48 – 46:47 | Saudi money in gaming, ethics | | PS5 SSD Downgrade | 46:51 – 51:24 | Sony’s storage cut, analysis | | N64 Leak Validated | 51:28 – 55:27 | NSO releases, leak speculation, retro talk | | Wii News Channel & Superchats | 55:45 – end | Quickfire news, chat, birthday wishes |

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Tone & Flow

The episode maintains Kinda Funny’s trademark blend of sincere analysis, industry-insider anecdotes, raw honesty, and rowdy, sometimes absurdist humor. Aside from gaming news, the hosts riff on personal injuries (recurring “thumb” saga, moles), self-deprecation, and industry in-jokes—all delivered with a sense of camaraderie and deep care for their audience.

If you want big-picture industry breakdowns, firsthand review impressions, and plenty of fun tangents, this episode brings it all.

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For Next Time

• Look forward to Andy’s Hollow Knight Silksong marathon stream starting at 7am tomorrow (Andy to do lore breakdown beforehand).
• Upcoming Greg Way episodes and pack stories teased for next show.

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For more, catch the full episode and follow along with Kinda Funny Games Daily across your favorite podcast and video platforms.

Transcript

[A]

Today in the nerdy news, you need to know about our thoughts in the reviews for Kronos. The new dawn. Perfect Dark was almost saved and the PS5 is getting downgraded in Europe. We'll evolve this and more because this is Kinda Funny Games Daily. What's up everybody? Welcome to Kinda Funny Games daily for Wednesday, September 3, 2025. I'm one of your hosts, Greg Miller, alongside the taste maker, Roger Piccorni.

[B]

Hi, Greggy, how you doing?

[A]

I'm great, Roger. How are you?

[B]

I'm doing good, man. I just cracked my thumb and now it hurts. You know what I mean? Like, I might have broken my thumb.

[A]

Just now, but a lot of thumb injuries happening out there. What, Jen? Well, I. We. Ben was sleeping in the car on Sunday. We drove into Whole Foods. I went in to get something came out of the. It was just like dinner stuff. Like maybe we need some asparagus and a steak. I forget what it was.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

I came out though, and they weren't in the car anymore. I was like, oh, bathroom. And they came out. I was like, ben had to go to the bathroom. She's like, yeah. And she's like, but I pushed. Like the diaper thing was open. He doesn't need the diaper table anymore. But she's like, I pushed it up and it didn't latch and it came down and slammed on my thumb. And it's like. She's like, it almost broke my thumb. I was like, damn. And then this morning or yesterday morning, I was at the. We have one of the glass mason jars with the pop tops, you know.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I popped the top off for the coffee and it swing back and hit my thumb really hard. I was like, damn, they coming for the thumbs out here.

[B]

You think about if your thumb's out of commission, you're out of commission 100%. You're not playing no games. You're PC gaming.

[A]

As you first off, never. All right, stop your fucking.

[B]

That's the good thing about PC gaming. You can just kind of go all over the button.

[A]

Exactly. That's the great thing about PC gaming. No, no. As you know as the same way you worship at the altar of Greg Miller and you can't believe you're here talking to me. I changed your life. I did all this, all the advice I ever gave through the years in the show. That's how I was obviously with Dan Shu from egm. And I remember one editor's letter for any. Maybe it was even a one up blog. But I remember Shu talking about how he had broken his. His thumb, hand, whatever, and was in a cast for, like, snowboarding. And I remember being, like, horrified that, like, Dan Shu couldn't play video games for however many weeks. It was that.

[B]

But that's good content, though, at least for us.

[A]

Like, yeah, for a magazine guy.

[B]

Yeah, it's great. Like, Greg tries to figure out all these different peripherals to play video games. Playing games with two switch controllers and one.

[A]

So as you know, over the years, I've discovered that I'm not like other people. You know, not everybody's mind works like Greg Miller's minds work. You know what I mean?

[B]

You don't say.

[A]

Do you ever run, like, Batman contingency style plans of that? Because I've had that thought of, like, man, like, what if I had a catastrophic injury and I couldn't play games anymore? I'm like, well, I could still review movies and everybody be excited for me to gear up to become the movie guy.

[B]

That's the only way that I counter. Counteract my anxiety is I go through the entire way of like, oh, if this person. If this happens and this person dies in this thing, like, what is the end scenario of this? That actually helps me, actually. It's actually a good thing that my therapist taught me. Yeah. Catastrophizing. Just going all the way down. It's like, oh, it's not that bad.

[A]

Just like Batman.

[B]

Yeah, just like that, man. Just like that, man. Jeff, on last night, what did I do last night?

[A]

I don't know.

[B]

Oh, okay, okay. I was like, does he know something I did last night that I don't know? Yeah, I had a good time last night. Played more of Kronos. The New Donalds we'll talk about in a little bit. A little bit. About halfway through that game. So, yeah, just a. Just a chill night. I'm eating a lot. Too many sweets, Greg.

[A]

Too many sweets.

[B]

Yeah, I made a bunch of cookies and I was like, I'll bring this to the office.

[A]

Nah, they never made it.

[B]

Yeah, now we're at it. We're eating three cookies a night. It's a bad time. How about you?

[A]

Well, for me, what I do is I like cookie dough so much more than cookies.

[B]

Oh, really?

[A]

And it's that thing that finally everybody got hip to it and they started making cookie dough. You can just eat. Cause that used to be like, you have to search for it now it's everywhere. And so I get the little pint and I have that. And like, if I'm in a sweet mood, which doesn't happen a lot. Just a spoonful of the cookie dough and I walk away. Wow.

[B]

You have self restraint.

[A]

That's all it is. Yeah, yeah.

[C]

Holy shit.

[A]

Yeah, Yeah.

[B]

I don't sit down and think, what's it like?

[A]

It's awesome.

[B]

Yeah. Just having self restraint.

[A]

You have this great body.

[C]

You know what I mean?

[A]

Clearly built my restraint. Clearly built my restraint all the time. I restrain myself from working out, I.

[B]

Restrain myself from eating because if you work out too much, you get too swole. And I don't want that.

[A]

Want to listen to me. I want to be a real gamer. Last night I had a great time.

[B]

Yeah, Tell me.

[A]

I took myself on a little date. Oh. Because I had to. And I went and saw Conjuring Last Rights and they gave me a bunch of stuff.

[C]

Oh, wow.

[A]

I got this little poster. You like that? I got a little poster for the conjuring thing. Look at, they had, they had Annabelle sleep masks.

[B]

Oh, that's pretty cool.

[C]

Oh, okay.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Reversible too.

[A]

Yeah, I know. This is the conjuring. They had T shirts too. And I picked it up and it was just like the conjuring last try. It's out in theater. I'm like, I'm not wearing this billboard. That sucks. And then they had little St. Michael prayer cards so you can fight off the evil in your house. You know what I mean?

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

Read it to lands and see what happens.

[B]

Oh, these are actual prayer cards.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

Real things.

[A]

It's a real prayer put on a card. Yeah.

[B]

That's crazy. I'm excited to hear about those, Greg.

[A]

Dude, I am so bummed. That interview is far away. Interviews for. This is Monday. Yeah, Monday. Okay, so because Nick's out of town, we need to line it all up. Da da.

[B]

No spoilers. But also spoiler, is this the Conjurings endgame? Because the trailers, I look at them like this looks like this is their big finale and this is going to come in apparently.

[A]

I like, here's the thing. When Tim was like, yo, the cuckoo in review is back. I was like, it is. I, I, I, that's how little I pay attention to movies. And he's like, yeah, we got to go watch the Last Rites the next month. I was like, really? And so like I had seen nothing somehow about this movie. So, like, I don't know how the trailers are, but it has been, I guess, advertised as the case that ended it all and this being the end. And so they are it. It is. Yeah. Their end game. Yeah.

[B]

That's awesome.

[A]

I mean, it's not like, you know, Ed and Lorraine are like, we need Annabelle. And a portal opens up and she's like, I'll fight the demon for you. We've been cool for a while like that, but it is there again. I'm very excited to talk about you by yourself.

[B]

Yeah, that's nice. That's cute.

[A]

Well, it's that depressing. Jen would have loved to have gone. Jen would have loved to have gone. But it's like, but it's nice to go to see babysitters. I mean, get away from her, get away from Ben. Yeah, it's corre a great rush. No, it's sucks. But it was that thing like, you know, family around. It's like, all right, Lucy, she, she's been in and out of town. Babysitters are in and out of town.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like, how much, how, how far do we want to go down this.

[B]

You know, I thought you would be like a guy that wants to see a movie alone. Because like that, that's who I am. I love watching movies alone.

[A]

Well, it's that thing where it's like, I love the conjuring movies. I love horror movies. And so that would, that was, it was the. There's plenty of times I'm at the movies for interview. I'm like, why the am I here?

[B]

I've been next to you during goddamn.

[A]

Games I have to review right now. Jurassic Park.

[B]

I will never forget le being like, man, the energy off Greg was so bad during Shazam 2. Like, he was in such a stank ass mood. Like the entire time, anytime anybody else was laughing in our row, I would just look over. You'd be like.

[A]

I hate Shazam too. Fucking God damn it. Let's talk about video games and how cool they are because this is kind of funny Games. Daily, each and every weekday on a variety of platforms, we run you through the nerdy video game news. Need to talk about, learned about, know about. If you like that. Yeah, there's no way I was trying. This about thing was brand new, so I was trying like usually, you know, if you love that, we'd like you. But if you're about that, I gotta get another bout. And if you're about that, you should pick up a kind offunny membership. YouTube.com kindafunnygames patreon.com Kinda funny Apple or Spotify. $10 a month gets you all of our content ad free. That's more than 80 episodes a month. And of course, your daily dose of me, Greg Miller In a 15 to 20 minute series we call Greg Way, which adds up to four hours of exclusive podcasting each and every month. However, if you have no bucks, toss away. No big deal. Watch us record the Show Live. Twitch TV Kinda FunnyGames YouTube.com Kinda FunnyGames podcast services around the globe of course, like Comment Share tell your friends. If you got Twitch prime, you got Amazon Prime Reverse that give us your free 30 day subscription. Have a great time. And if you are watching live on YouTube.com kindafunnygames you can be part of the show with your super chats by super chatting on YouTube.com kindafunnygames just like Adrian did. Who says kf I just wanted to say how much I appreciate you. We appreciate you Adrian. It's Chidori said. Proud to officially announce the reviewer for Pokemon Legend Za will be the one and only Greg Miller.

[B]

Wow. Congratulations.

[A]

Official Speak now or forever hold your peace. Tim.

[B]

Hans Zimmer's coming to town soon. I'm gonna eat a graham cracker.

[A]

There it is. Housekeeping for you. We're 11 person small business all about live talk shows and tomorrow is a humongous live day. Silksong is finally out and Andy is ready to play it for as long as you want him to. That's right. It's an impromptu marathon stream that we decided to do yesterday. Starting tomorrow at 7am Pacific, Andy is playing Hollow Knight Silksong for the first time and the more you support, the longer he'll be streaming. Will he go to midnight, 24 hours? The whole weekend? Find out tomorrow 7am twitch tv slash kind of Funny Games the deal there is that Twitch TV kind of funny games Tomorrow will be all Andy all the time. We will still do games daily at 10am on YouTube but it won't be on Twitch. Andy will play through games daily. We will do that. We have canceled the Gamescast tomorrow. We are throwing everything out the window including like in review. I didn't say this, I said in Greg Way earlier today. Alien Romulus in review will now be Tuesday of next week. So you'll get two in reviews conjuring and then Alien Romulus. So it'll be great.

[B]

Which is good because Nick can be on that one. Then great we missed him.

[A]

I really wonder what pants he'll buy during this episode. Today after Kind of Funny Games Daily, you'll get our live reaction to the 007 first light state of play and a Gamescast post show. Which is why eagle eyed jatters were alive 30 minutes earlier than usual. Started playing Paramore.

[B]

What?

[C]

Why? Why would it do that.

[B]

You could play music on your thing.

[A]

Yeah, it's the Meta Ray bands. Yeah, they're into my phone. So I came out of the car. I spot that's what I was listening there. I can just tap it and be gone. There you go. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to stage Andy Cortez.

[B]

Wow. Andy's here. He's got toys.

[A]

What do you got?

[C]

Some preparation.

[A]

He said that. Like I should know what this means. Oh. Oh, Chibi figures. Are these all Hell Hollow Knights?

[C]

Yes.

[A]

Did you buy these for the stream or did they give these you for a while?

[C]

No, these are from Fan Gamer and I've had mine in doroids.

[B]

Oh, and mint. Mint condition. This is crazy.

[C]

Yeah, mint on card. Oh my God. PSA graded 9.7.

[B]

I'm gonna steal all these.

[C]

Oh, remember the. The Hornet one that I dropped?

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Did you throw that away?

[B]

No. I think you did.

[C]

Really? I thought you said you're gonna glue it together.

[B]

Oh, I think we like tried and it didn't work out and we threw it out together like as a family.

[A]

How are you feeling energy wise? Are you pumped? A 7am wake up call is actually what, a 6am wake up call for you, right?

[C]

I plan on being here at 6:30 doing a full lore breakdown as best as I can. Roger will hopefully be here with me.

[B]

I will be.

[D]

I'm planning on coming in with you as well.

[A]

Oh, and he's really making sacrifices all by himself for this company.

[C]

I also want to, you know, shout out to everybody for, you know, being patient with me and my. And my shortcomings with, you know, partying a little late last night because of my golf win and possibly leaving the hair straightener on. But Roger, if, if, if I left it on, the house would have burned. The dog would have died.

[B]

Like the record.

[A]

The audience doesn't know what you're talking about. We didn't even bother talking about it.

[C]

On your hands, Roger. The blood would have been on your hands.

[A]

Ladies, gentlemen and enbies, the ass that's supposed to be in this chair is Andy Cortez's. All right, But I got a call on the way to work. That was Greg. I feel stupid, but I think I left the hair straightened around. I got to turn around and I'm like, I'll start.

[B]

It was on.

[C]

It was on. Oh, thank God.

[A]

No, no, I mean, I've been.

[D]

Thank you for making sure we didn't burn the house down.

[C]

Yeah, I text. I texted Greg. Hold on. I said confirm. The hair strainer was on. A house was saved. And a dog was too.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

We can do the first story or whatever. Come. You can come take over whenever you want. You leave all your toys but like. Or keep putting.

[B]

Yeah, he's gonna be.

[A]

If you're kind of. Oh, sorry. So yeah, 007 stay to play. That's why we're early. It'll be right after this. We're gonna go live 10:45 for the 11:00 clock start of that and then after that is going to be the one, the only Snowbike mic playing Kronos.

[D]

The New Dawn Trails in the sky first chapter demo.

[A]

It's one of those classics where it's got this or that on the sheet.

[B]

I'm like. And then it ends up.

[A]

I hate them. I hate them with them all my back on fire. If you're a kind of funny member, today's Greg Way is about playing video games with your partner and all the kind of funny shows that have never come to be. Oh, thank you to our Patreon producers, Carl Jacobson, Omega Buster and Delaney the Psalm Twining. Today we're brought to you by xreal, but we'll tell you about that later. For now, let's begin the show with what is and forever will be the Roper Report. Time for some new six items on the Roper Report. Katie, look at me. Got his ass. I still got it. Don't worry about it. Everybody, number one on the Rope Report, we have your Kronos the New dawn review so far and review roundup of course, if you have been living under a rock. This is from developer publisher Team Bloober Team the Steam description reads, a whole new breed of survival horror emerges with Kronos the New Dawn. Survive the brutal wastelands of the future, fight nightmarish merging creatures and jump back in time to harvest souls as you seek to uncover the origins of the apocalypse that wiped out humanity. Comes out officially this Friday, but as we said, review embargo is up Today Metacritic at a 77 as of 7:10am When I put this together over at Game Informer Kyle Hilliard gave it a 7.75. Kronos the new dawn has an excellent, thoughtful premise that feels dark and dangerous, but does a poor job of executing on its promising sci fi ideas. A questionable religion born from trying to save the world in the face of a rampaging disease with clear parallels to the global pandemic we all recently experienced is great fodder for a story, but I was left shrugging my shoulders by the end. Thankfully, the gameplay, though Familiar offered plenty to pull me through the approximately 12 hour long experience to see the end. Tristan Ogilvie over at IGN gave it a seven. The New dawn presents an intriguing mystery to unravel in a creepy sci fi hellscape to explore. But its run of the mill combat system prevents it from stepping out of the shadows cast by survival horror heavyweights like Dead Space and Resident Evil 4. Its oppressively bleak environments are rich with interesting details to pore over, and a handful of its boss fights provoke a real level of desperation that make them genuinely thrilling to survive. But elsewhere, there's clear padding that trips up the story's momentum for considerable stretches at a time. And it's predict shock tactics are a step down from silent to Hill 2's genuine scares. Like a traveler's corpse that's trapped inside a temporal apocalypse Cronus, the New dawn contains the essence of survival horror, but there's not quite enough spark in it to really bring it to life.

[B]

Don't.

[A]

Don't look at the chat, okay?

[B]

Look at me. Look at me.

[A]

Oh, sorry.

[B]

Barrett, can you go into Assets? Can you pull up Blue Sky?

[A]

Did something happen? Is. Something's happening. Look away. Is it Jay?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

I'm happy you're here, Supergirl.

[B]

I'm so happy.

[C]

Is it Lobo?

[B]

I'm not saying anything.

[A]

Is it Momoa?

[B]

Pull it up. Up. We're gonna pull it up and you're gonna.

[A]

I saw. I saw a car with a license plate Lobo today. Made me think of Lobo.

[B]

No, I mean, I don't know. I don't know. Greg, you can now look at the screen.

[A]

It's a lot. No, no, keep it up. Please keep it up. Please keep it up.

[B]

It's a lot. It's a lot to break down.

[C]

This is a new art from Jim.

[B]

Lee, it seems like.

[C]

Right?

[B]

This is for the.

[A]

Yeah, no, no, the thing. Jim Lee. This is Jim Lee. Jim Lee. Man of Tomorrow theater. We're getting a Superman movie that fucking fast every year.

[B]

We're getting super.

[A]

Fucking believe it.

[B]

I love the dcu.

[A]

You fucking believe it, everyone. All we had to do was for a decade, eat broken glass in the Snyderverse to get here, to have everything finally go our way. Did you see this? Is it confirmed or is it just a rumor? They're moving up the Supergirl release date.

[B]

Oh, I don't know about that.

[A]

There was a thing yesterday, two days ago, where there was makeup, the rounds, where it was like we had a new date in 2026, like March or something.

[B]

I'll Keep on looking on that.

[A]

Oh my God.

[B]

Great. Man of Tomorrow. What is, Is that a connection to a comic book thing? Something?

[A]

Well, yeah, I mean, you know, Superman's been called many things. Superman of Tomorrow. That's, you know, this, that. The other I, Lex is also called himself man of Tomorrow as well. You see him in the power armor. You assume this is going to be a team up story, obviously, as they go there.

[C]

Oh my.

[A]

My initial read on this is that Lex is in the battle armor and Supes has got the screwdriver. So Brainiac has come to town, we need to stop him. So we're working together on that. That's. That's what I read into it as I go.

[B]

It's like that Crash Bandicoot game.

[D]

Yes, Twinsanity.

[B]

Yes, yes. So what's the screwdriver? What's the screwdriver? What's the deal with the screwdriver?

[A]

I think it's that he's got a. Superman's helping. I think Superman is helping Lex make the suit.

[B]

I thought it was like a sonic screwdriver or something special that was going on there. No, no, no.

[A]

I don't think that's it at all.

[B]

That's insane.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. So again, I'm rusty on my animated movie stuff. I've seen this 2020, there was Superman, man of Tomorrow, which has a similar vibe here, right. Of Lex. Clark and Lobo devise a plan to lure the Parasite into Metropolis's power. So like they're working together there where it's again like just the, the different thing where Lex is still a piece of shit obviously, but he's got it this time. They have to work together. And so him having a happy like.

[B]

This just makes me so happy.

[A]

Just look at Jim Lee getting to draw a smile in Superman.

[B]

Yeah, dude.

[A]

You know, I mean, you don't see that enough.

[B]

That's awesome, man.

[A]

I got a question for you, Roger. We're already off the rails.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Shows just whatever it is. What do you think's going on here? Do you. Cuz I'll tell you what, as a child I had two moles there that were shaved off and were gone for years. And now I think they're back. What's going on on my forehead? Is it. Are these moles coming back? What's going on? Yeah, touch them. You know, I don't think it's just regular ass.

[B]

Yeah, they do feel like they, they were ripped off. Moles that have now come.

[A]

But I mean like my moles were shaved down. I was, I was Seven, maybe six. What do you.

[B]

So what do you mean shaved down? Like you went to the doctor and then they.

[A]

Yeah, like a dermatologist. Like shaved them off your hand, but almost. And I want to say they were very close to that. When Andy takes back over the show, I'll go find photos of me. Okay.

[B]

Yeah, bring it up. For sure. Do you think they could just be pimples?

[A]

Yeah, they could be. They could be.

[B]

If you tried popping it.

[A]

Well, no, because, I mean, there's no head to them. Right? I don't know what's going on there.

[B]

There might be some.

[A]

And then finally, Gamespot. Mark Delaney gives Kronos an 8. There are aspects of Kronos the team would be wise to improve upon when it's next with its next horror game. Particularly knowing when not to challenge me with combat, but instead at leaving me with a guttural sense of dread. Could go a long way for making future projects from Bloober Team as being on the level of its landmark remake project. Still, that's not to say what the team has done here is less than great in its own right. Chronos the new dawn is Bloober Team cementing itself not just as a studio obsessed with horror. It's been that for over a decade already. This is Bloober Team becoming a trusted voice in horror. Roger.

[B]

Hi.

[A]

Tastemaker, but corny. You, of course, went to Oakland and played this with Mike.

[B]

I did.

[A]

Y' all came back to the games cast with me where you said very similar things, but got me hyped for it because I'm down for that kind of experience. Yeah, you. While I've been on Hell Is Us and now redacted, you've been playing this. How far are you? Where are you lining up with these reviews?

[B]

Okay, so I am probably about seven hours into the game, maybe eight. My game clock is fucked because I think we need to talk about the preamble of this whole situation where I got the code maybe like two, three weeks now. It was a while before the actual embargo, so I was like, oh, hell yeah. I'm excited to get in there. And I was playing on and off for about a week. And I. For context, the preview was the first two hours, hour and a half of the game.

[C]

Right.

[B]

So I replayed the first hour and a half of the game after the preview on the actual review copy. And then after that, I just started realizing some little. And then it just became bigger things that were wrong with the. With the build of the game where the game just had no sound effects in any of the cutscenes. That's. That's tough. And then also any of the cutscenes, like, the lighting was all screwed up. Okay, so then I message pr. And then they're like, hey, there's an update coming. And then it was revealed like, hey, we actually sent out the wrong build. Which I was like, ah, that sucks. That sucks for sure. So then they had to wipe the save, and then I had to restart. And then I restart. I played the first two hours again. And then that. The first, like, maybe five hours of the game, none of the enemies attacked me. They were all broken and bugged. And I was like, yeah, it was. It was a. It was a tough experience because I wanted to just mainline this game and just play it the entire weekend. But I was just hurdle, hurdle. I was just like, I would just be demoralized every single play session of, like, man, I just want to continue to play this game. I want to enjoy this game. But there's just something wrong here. After the. The first, like, main section, it fixes itself and the game was totally fine. So for the first. For the last, like, four hours of my experience, I've had a good time and the game has worked. But my issue with, like, the main game itself is I. I enjoy the story. I enjoy what they're doing there. I think it. It definitely opens up and it becomes a more interesting story past what you see right here, which is kind of not by the numbers, but exactly what you expect of, like, oh, there's a pandemic. There's something that's turning these people. It's kind of Last of Us. It's any of these infection horror video games or stories that you've seen. It gets a little timey wimey. It gets a little weird. It goes into a different direction that I really enjoy. The bigger issue is the gameplay itself. I will say this game is. I don't think they're doing a good job marketing it, because I think if I was them, I would market this game as, like, a really hardcore survival horror game, because that's what it is. There is no easy mode. There is no hard mode. It is just one singular experience that is kind of brutal when it comes to. When you compare it to, like, a Resident Evil, where Resident Evil and a lot of these other survival horror games have these dynamic loot systems where if you are low on pistol ammo ammo, you go over here, you pick up a crate. Oh, now there's magically pistol Ammo it kind of adapts to wherever you're at. This game, from what I can tell, does not do that at all. It gives you a very specific amount of ammo. It is very tight. There is almost every single encounter that I have is based upon, like, I am down to my last bullet, and I'm hoping for my life that I can figure this situation out or I'm just going to die. So it's a tough video game, and that's not necessarily my critique. My critique is the main loop of the fights is just the same thing over and over. Specifically the boss fights. We talked about it in the preview.

[A]

The rope a dope. Yeah, you guys did some.

[B]

Exactly. We talked about that in the first boss, where you are literally just. There's an enemy coming at you, and then you run around in a circle, and then there's a bunch of red canisters that you're shooting to blow them up. And then that was it. And we're like, oh, man, that's. That was kind of generic. We hope that that expands so far.

[A]

We hope that that.

[B]

We hope that expands. We hope that that becomes a little bit more interesting. So far, halfway through the game, that does not. It's. It's the same thing over and over where they know how tough it is to have such limited ammo. So then they do the thing where, hey, here's the red canisters all around. And that inherently destroys a lot of the boss fights because it's like, okay, I'm not scared of this big guy, because I know exactly what to do. I just run around in circles. I shoot things.

[A]

And it doesn't like you're enjoying running.

[B]

Around a certain shot. I mean, I. I mean, I enjoy it because it's like, I get to kill the enemy and I get to progress the story. Right. But I'm not enjoying the actual gameplay or the fight. And it also makes the game less scary because you see through the cracks. You see what you have to do.

[A]

There when you see the strings of the puppet.

[B]

Exactly. The. The loot system, again, I want to harp back on because I don't think. I'm not negative on it because it's hard. Right. Like, I. I want to make that abundantly clear. I'm totally down for a hardcore video game survival horror experience. The biggest issue is that the game is like, hey, you should explore. You need to explore to get. To make sure that you're stronger. When I explore, I'm not finding anything that's useful. I'm finding credits. Credits that you then go to your house or your safe house and then you upgrade yourself. But it takes a lot of these credits to upgrade stuff. So I'm getting. I'm like, oh, man, I really. I killed like three enemies. I found the secret hideaway. I'm so excited. I just need pistol ammo. Give me five bullets. That's all I need. I would be so happy. I pick it up. 50 credits. You need 7,000 credits. Like, you know, I mean, like, by the time you get past the first thing, it's like, man, this is just such a drop in the bucket where I want to feel like my exploration matters. And there was a point in the middle of the review, I was like, man, like, I just. Should I just not be exploring? Because they give you enough ammo to survive if you just go through the main game, of course they have to. They have to give you, you know, five bullets that will then three of those bullets kill the main enemy in front of you. So I was like, man, maybe I shouldn't be exploring. And that, That's. That's what's tough because I. I like this world and I like what they have in front of me. Because the story, again, as I said, it gets timey wimey, it gets weird. They start doing some really cool stuff. When it comes to the SSD of the PlayStation 5, where things are popping up, things are glitching, it becomes. It becomes really Silent Hill 2 Alan Wake. And that's the best thing I can say about it in terms of the way that the presentation and. And especially the way that they start to explore the exploration of the map. I don't want to get too spoilery, but, yeah, you start to. You start to look at the world in different perspectives and it is. It is kind of reminiscent of the medium and a lot of the stuff that Bloober has done even before Silent Hill 2. So I am about halfway through. I would give this game so far a 7 out of 10. I am really enjoying my time when the game is not just the generic running around the Rosie with bosses. And I'm able to enjoy the story because the story is weird, it's bizarre. And I'm playing this, and I don't mean this in like a derogatory term because I think we sometimes do that with games that we're playing. We're like, man, this should have been a movie. This should have been a TV show. I want to see a TV show based upon this property because it is so cool. It is so interesting. There is like juice here for an IP and for a franchise if they really want to. But I'm enjoying, I'm enjoying my time right now. But I wish that I could have finished it.

[A]

My biggest question is, are you going to finish it?

[B]

Last night I had a frustrating one with the checkpoints. Like that's, that's one thing I want to bring up is that there's checkpointing in this game and of course there's regular saves. But like the checkpointing system is pretty bad in my opinion where it is inconsistent. And I had this one opportunity, this one situation where I go, I, I go to this area, it checkpoints but it checkpoints right as an enemy is there and then I just am stuck in hell where I'm just getting killed. Like it just feels like an afterthought. So there is like those soul crushing moments with the checkpoints. So, so I will say I think I'm going to finish it because I'm so, I'm close. I, I would say past the halfway point, about 60. I would say, okay, so I'm already there. I'm gonna finish it and the story is good enough. I, I do personally this is not a knocking. I wish there was an easy mode. I wish I could just drop it down and just barrel through it.

[A]

See my thought on everything you're saying about it. I'm happy that I'm not here at launch playing it because I imagine this sounds like a patch. Yeah, this sounds like, hey, we're adding a difficulty and we're putting more bullets in and we're changing the in game stuff for how it is going to be. I mean maybe I'm completely wrong, but I assume the other reviews are going to echo that as well.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. Even the preview that I was at, there was, there was some people that were having a lot of trouble with it. So I could see them eventually doing the hey, here's the easy mode patch. Right. But I don't know, I, I, I'm not, again, I'm not against this. I just think that it's maybe a marketing issue of just, just say it. Just tell me what, what this game is ahead of time and like make that net known. But yeah, I'm having a good time. It's, it's not going to blow anybody's socks off. But I could see this game being scratching that itch of the Resident Evil of a de somebody that wants to have that this year. So I'm excited to finish it and I'll let you guys know what I.

[A]

Think after that what does this do for your anticipation of Silent Hill?

[B]

F oh, I'm very excited for Silent Hill.

[A]

I know you are.

[B]

Yeah, I'm very excited. I think it increases October.

[A]

No, it's this month. It's September.

[B]

Yeah. Which is crazy.

[A]

See, I think that's the hardest part where I look at this and I'm going to miss this because of the reviews and then by the time I would get to it, it's gonna be so close to Silent Hill.

[B]

Yeah, I think those games seem different enough, especially with the gameplay and what they're trying to do. It doesn't change anything. If anything, I'm maybe a little bit more on the left now because it is going to be like that palate cleanser hopefully. Unless I'm just fucking up against the wall with both these games and they're hard as hell. We'll see.

[A]

We will see. We'll find out and we'll keep you posted here on Kind of Funny because of course you're supporting us and we couldn't do it without you. If you love the content you get here, whether it be my moles or me scaring Andy or maybe the game stuff we talk about, why not pick up a kind of funny membership? Maybe I'll need it to get these moles shaved back off. Patreon.com kindafunny YouTube.com kind of funny games Apple and Spotify I've been saying moles a lot Mobile however, right now you're not using your benefits, so here's a word from our sponsors.

[E]

This episode's brought to you by Xreal. As of August 25th, Xreal One Pro is finally available on Amazon and BestBuy.com+. It's back in stock now on Xreal.com a few months ago my life changed forever when I brought a pair of xreal One Pro AR glasses on a incredibly long flight to New York City. I legit could not believe how easy it was to use and how high quality my experience was playing games with my Steam deck and watching movies with my phone on the plane on a theater sized OLED screen right in front of my eyes without too much extra stuff or a giant goofy headset involved. No joke, this is my favorite new piece of tech in years and it has earned a permanent spot in my travel bag. It's only hard to believe it works as well as I'm saying, until you try xreal AR Glad glasses for yourself and then you will see that the tech is here. Connect Xrel one Pro glasses to whatever you're playing like a handheld console, PC phone or home console and get a massive 150 inch virtual screen anywhere, anytime for any game gaming on the go like a long flight, you need Xreal One. Next starting to hurt from staring down at your handheld. You need Xreal 1. It's plug and play with all your devices via usb. C built in audio with sound by Bose anchoring your screen literally anywhere. It's in space. 1080p full HD and you can make it bigger, smaller, farther, closer, ultra wide or regular widescreen, horizontal, vertical, even 3D if you have a 3D movie. It's all built in and can be controlled by pressing a few buttons on the glasses. These are what make Xreal One Pro a must have. Xreal One Pro is now available on Amazon and Best Buy.com and from August 25th through September 1st you can get $50 off if you bundled Xreal One Pro with the Xreal Beam Pro AR mobile device on Amazon or Xreal.com there is nothing better than when a sponsor of Kinda funny is something we are legitimately obsessed with. So get yours [e-mail] xreal that's kindafunny.com xreal nuts.

[C]

I also have a mole.

[B]

Where?

[C]

Right here. Beauty mark. Is it right here? Right here. I forget if you get too close to the acne gets crazy. So be careful. Everybody, it's me, Andy. I'm back. I saved the house, Barrett. So you know, you can thank me.

[B]

Later if you want metal around you.

[D]

Thank you for not killing my dog.

[C]

Yeah, no problem. No problem. Story number two. Perfect Dark was almost saved. This comes from Jason Schreier at Bloomberg. Long running game studio Crystal Dynamics, a division of Embracer Group AB was forced to cut staff and fully abandoned the game Perfect Dark last week after failing to find a new funding partner following the game's cancellation in July, Embracer had come close to striking a deal in which the video game publisher Take Two Interactive Software would purchase the game from Microsoft Corp's Xbox, which owned the rights. Take Two would then fund and publish the game. But the deal collapsed, at least in part because the companies involved were unable to come to terms over long term ownership of the Perfect Dark franchise, said the people who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about sensitive negotiations. They should have done the. The. The voice changer. Yeah, I'm not here to talk about it. You know.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Join a Dark. That was. That was that bit worth it. You let me know in the comments.

[B]

Everybody comment down below.

[C]

Let us know I don't think it was. Everybody's missing Greg right now. In July, as part of a mass layoff, the Xbox shut down the initiative and said publicly that it was canceling Perfect Dark. The developers and the game were then given the opportunity to find funding elsewhere. Leadership at the initiative and Crystal Dynamics spent the following take or spent the following two months hunting for a publisher and wound up in negotiations with multiple parties. Take two, the conglomerate behind the 2K and Rockstar labels, was interested in funding the game, but the deal fell through as a result, last week. As a result, last week, Crystal Dynamics said it was laying off an unspl an unspecified number of stats staff, although the company didn't explain why. Last year, Xbox announced plans to shut down the Japanese studio Tango gameworks, maker of hi Fi Rush, but wound up instead making a deal with the publisher Krafton to salvage the company and purchase the franchise. A lot of things to unpack here.

[B]

Yeah, a lot of things to unpack there. Specifically, the idea that they kind of. It kind of broke down because of who owns Perfect Dark afterwards was interesting to me. I initially, when I saw this story, my assumption was that it broke down because this game probably needs a lot of money to be finished and completed. You know, tens of millions of dollars, you would assume.

[C]

It's like trading for a really expensive sports player. Like you are getting in that gigantic contract as well. There's probably a lot of money owed in a lot of different places. And is the juice worth the squeeze at this point for Perfect Dark? And I think that's kind of what it all comes down to, dude. Will. Will it be worth the investment to say we're bringing old Joey Dark, we're bringing her back. You know what I mean?

[B]

She's back.

[C]

And I don't think. I don't really necessarily think that it's worth it, Roger. Oh, also, the saying the deal fell through. I always thought that was a good thing.

[A]

You're an idiot. How would that be a good thing?

[C]

I always thought that, like, the thing fell through the hole. That's good.

[B]

Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. Like, it's like.

[C]

It's a. I also recently learned, well, like a year or so ago that the term bullish was a good, aggressive thing.

[B]

I get that one.

[A]

I.

[C]

To me, it always just sounds like. It always sounded like a weird word, Greg, where it's like. It felt like. Like I'm being timid, like I'm a little bullish on this right now. I don't know. And it's just the sound of it.

[B]

I get it, I get it.

[C]

I know that the term is bull and it's aggressive, but I don't even see the. I don't see the bull.

[B]

Bull, yeah.

[C]

I'll take the bull for the horns.

[A]

Bear, throw it up. So you. It can't be coincidence that, like I had those two moles?

[B]

Those are like very. Like a parrot moles.

[A]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[C]

Audio listeners were looking. Wow.

[A]

These are the exact same place, right?

[C]

Audio lists. We're looking at a young photo of Greg Miller.

[B]

Oh, wow. It's the same place. They're coming back. Come back for a vengeance.

[A]

Crazy. I gotta call my mom. When did they shave these things off?

[B]

People were saying they freeze it off. Off?

[A]

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I was a child. Everybody, I don't.

[C]

You freeze off moles.

[B]

That's what people are saying.

[A]

You can cut them off too. I. I had recently had one shaved off on. Shaved down.

[C]

I. I always thought that once you do that, you automatically get cancer. Damn, bar, you're killing it.

[A]

You're killing it right now.

[C]

Holy.

[A]

Come back to. So it's not the. Well, I guess my skin has changed. Right. Cuz, like, I'm not going off the part I'm going off. I'm going off the eyebrow. Right.

[C]

Because.

[A]

Go back. Go back to the kid.

[B]

Kid.

[A]

So he's like. His eyes. So. But I guess. Yeah, your skin texture just moves around. Oh, Jesus says Greg. You're redder now. Thank you. Yeah. No one was arguing that.

[C]

Yeah. I mean, you've definitely seen a lot of questions.

[B]

Would you welcome it back?

[A]

No, I probably shave them off again.

[C]

I always thought that once you cut them off, you get cancer or something. I thought it was a real bad.

[B]

You have a lot of things going on.

[C]

Whenever I wanted to cut off a mole, I'd be like a little bullish about it. Like, I don't know if I want to do this.

[A]

This. Yeah, right here. I just had one shaved off. Not too long.

[B]

Oh, God. You shaved it off so pale. It's insane.

[C]

Usually maybe you have this association because.

[D]

Usually you cut off moles when they become cancerous.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Wait, how do you shave it off? Like with just a rate.

[A]

Yeah, they got like a razor. They going.

[C]

I mean, they have like, I imagine a nail filer.

[A]

It's similar. Yeah, I think they have one like that. Yeah.

[C]

That's gross.

[A]

All right, I'll keep you posted.

[B]

Let me know.

[C]

A little bit bullish on this. I don't know, I thought he's coming.

[B]

In with like Superman News news.

[C]

Yeah, me too.

[A]

Yeah, I got excited for the Superman news. There's different art up on Nicholas Holt and David Corn Sweats thing. There are. And they're different artists, but. So Corn Sweats is also Superman. Alex looking buddy buddy. And then Nicholas Holtz is them fighting.

[B]

That's fun. God, I love the dc.

[C]

I'm glad the DC is having deals that are falling through. That's good, that's good for them.

[B]

That's pretty solid.

[C]

Falling through the hole, fell through the hoop. Things are going well for them.

[B]

Yeah, Yeah. I don't know. I, it's, to me, it's, it's, it's interesting that Xbox presumably would want to keep the perfect dark name and franchise. I understand it, it is IP technically, but this is a, a massive failure on their part of, to make this, this game happen. And I, at this point, I'm like, man, just give, just give the franchise away. If it means that this game can live. If that's the thing that was holding it back, just give it to fucking 2K. Who cares?

[D]

Because at this point, like, when are.

[C]

You going to go back to try.

[B]

To be 30 years from now? And then, yeah, it's going to be a smaller title and it's not going to, it's going fine. It's like, well, who cares?

[C]

It's going to be 30 years from now. You know, consoles are going to be 9, $9,000 and yeah, none of us are going to be housed. Like, it's not going to be every.

[B]

Every video game is going to be made for an elite rich person, like singular. Every video game is going to be targeted towards them.

[C]

You wonder if it was, if it's being held for some sort of nostalgia bait in the future or like, I just don't.

[B]

Or maybe the rereleases of the original game. I don't know, maybe that's what this is all connected to.

[C]

I'll be real with you. As somebody who never messed with the 360 version of perfect Dark, I was always just like, I played it on 64 a decent amount with, you know, one of the first multiplayer games you could play against bots. And that was like really cool to me, not needing, you know, a squad of people to play a game against. But when all of the remaster, remake, whatever you want to call it news was kind of buzzing about three, four years ago, whatever. I personally never got it. I, I was like, I don't, don't, you know, not to, not to, you know, throw shade at Tim Gettys. It was the way I would give him about Twisted Metal, the TV show.

[B]

Sure.

[C]

I'm like, why this? I. I don't fully understand. I don't think that this franchise or IP has that sort of juice necessarily. I think just because, you know, it's. It's an older title. I just don't know if it's that iconic necessarily compared to something obviously like Goldeneye or whatever. But I personally never got it. It. But that demo that was being shown, that was, I guess, you know, later on we had some of the people that worked on it tweeting out like, no, it was real. Like there was some stuff that was faking there, but it was a functional demo. Pretty big bummer. I don't know. Like this hasn't happened in a while where a game like that, that ends a show ends up getting canceled. Right? Like a game that is like that large of a. Of a showcase.

[B]

Yeah. They're actually showing gameplay and everything.

[C]

There was such an emphasis on it. This wasn't just a throwaway trailer in the middle of a showcase. This was like holy. The thing that we've all been hearing about for so long. Here it is. And then yeah, they have it get canceled. Just kind of a bummer.

[D]

What was the Xbox Dragon game from way back.

[C]

Scale bound.

[D]

Scale bound. Was that like a show ender? I forget because I feel like that's probably the last one that's closest to this.

[B]

I missed it.

[C]

Yeah, possibly. But I mean that's when I, you know, here I am just completely going against my. My earlier point. But this was also an IP that we knew about and like that's true. And this was one that been rumored as well. Right. AAA big example. You know, Scalebon had the guy that looked like from some 41 right in the trailer.

[B]

Yeah. The headphones on.

[C]

Yeah, he was rocking. He was rocking them Dragons rock the Dragon Dragon. Ballsy story number three Saudi firm acquires co ownership of EVO Fighting Game tournaments It's so over everybody. This comes from Andy Robinson at VGC News. A Saudi Arabia backed firm has become the co owner of Evolution Championship Series or evo, the popular fighting game event. Rts. The co owner of EVO has been acquired by Qiddiya. It's announced on Tuesday. QIDDIYA is planned Riyadh Megaproject supported by the Saudi Arabian government's public investment fund. Excited to share that or quote excited to share the kiddie has acquired full ownership of rts. A strategic step that will further strengthen our esports business and unlock new opportunities across the broader gaming ecosystem, wrote Chief strategy officer Muhannad al Dawood on LinkedIn. Quote and more importantly, this will enable kiddie to keep fueling the continued growth of Evolution Championship Championship Series or Evo, the world's largest fighting game event since 1996 with unlimited potential. Quote the milestone paves the way for setting new heights in the evolution of evo. Ah, that's a little pun right there. The evolution of EVO toward achieving the aspirations of the fighting game community. This news close quote this news comes weeks after Sony Interactive Entertainment sold its stake in EVO to esports group Nod Wing or N O D W I N. I don't know how you pronounce that. Ending a four year period as co owner Notwin co owns the event alongside RTs stretching back to 1996. The Evolution Championship Series is the world's largest and longest running fighting game tournament regularly held in Las Vegas and Tokyo. In October, a European version will take place in Nice, France. Not great, Rog.

[B]

No, not great.

[C]

Everything we love is being slowly taken over.

[B]

It's. It sucks that. Yeah, literally everything that I love is slowly becoming. I mean WWE man. Like I just, I. The amount of Saudi pay per views and everything that has just creeped in the fucking middle of the ring and everything. It's. They are clearly going to. I mean they were writing with the wall in terms of like their interest in fighting games. Was a King of Fighters or what was the fighting game that they, they bought snk I believe. And then they were. They've been doing these massive fucking advertisements on WWE and now like fucking boxing for King of Fighters. A game that really not that many people are playing whatsoever but they're making these huge moments for it. So yeah, it's, it's. It makes sense that they are clearly going towards the fighting game sub genre and that is their big focus. They want events. That's. That's the thing that the Saudis want. They want these massive events that they can have on their home home turf and to really show the capabilities and what Saudi Arabia can do. Yeah, it sucks. Fucking sucks. But it's. This is not the, this is not the end of it. This is just continuously going to be something that happens throughout the entire gaming industry, movie industry. Everything you can imagine going to be.

[C]

Harder and harder to sort of grapple with a lot of the things that you love when eventually these, your interests are you know, being kind of massively funded by even like what was it?

[B]

Golf and everything. I was watching that Pablo Torre.

[C]

Oh yeah, they've been like that for live golf. Yeah, it's.

[B]

It's going to be something also for these corporations. Not corporations, but these companies that are going through tough times right now and they look around like, who's the funding? Where's the funding going to come from? Saudi Arabia comes knocking on the door, hey, here's more money than you've ever seen before. Fuck. Do we either close down or do we go with Saudi Arabia? Like, that's the, the level of conversation. You're going to start to see where these struggling businesses are going to come through and say, hey, do we, what do we do here? We either, you know, downsize or we go with Saudi Arabia. And it's, it's not an impossible situation, but it is, It's. It's a tough one. It's a tough place to be in.

[C]

Yeah. I always think about the golfer Rory McElroy, who was very much against all of this and turned down a gigantic bag of money and then PJ ended up just partnering with them anyway.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[C]

What the fuck, man? Come on. I could have just gotten the bag and people would have been mad for six weeks and then, you know, moved on to something else. But, yeah, yeah, quite the bummer. And yeah, you're, you're absolutely right about this, Roger. I think this, it, it. I don't want to say this is only the beginning because it's been going on for a while, but I don't think this is anywhere close to ending. I think we're going to continue to see this takeover with big money from places that you just don't super feel comfortable taking money from.

[D]

And it's only going to get. How do I word this? The propaganda is only going to start seeping in more and more and more as well with this government who, you know, was. It killed journalists and all this stuff. The Assassin's Creed, Mirage dlc, weirdly enough, that's coming out, is funded by Saudi Arabia and is about Saudi Arabia.

[B]

Oh, interesting.

[D]

And so that's like, like, is that it's only gonna get worse. But also, you know, it's. American empire also isn't great as well. So it's all just kind of.

[C]

Oh, of course, yeah. Everything's awful. I. I shout out to Ubisoft for just making deals with countries to just make. Like Skull and Bones was only because. What was it? Was it a Taiwanese company or forget.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Who were they?

[D]

No, it was not a company.

[C]

It was the government. The government.

[B]

The government of shit.

[D]

To make Skull and Bones. I forget who it was.

[C]

And it Was like, you're under contract. Singapore says chat like shout out to Ubisoft. Like just, you know, just making deals with. With the government being like, hey man, you know, shout out Australia. We'll make the next one there, man.

[B]

We got. You say the one that's training too happened.

[C]

You say story number four. PS5 digital edition gets downgraded in Europe.

[B]

So weird this comes from.

[C]

So weird this comes From Darren at GameSpot. Video game consoles typically become cheaper the longer they've been on the market, but the current generation has been the exception to the rule due to various factors. Over In Europe, prospective PS5 owners might have to settle for a Sony console that offers less as it has been reported that the internal SSD capacity is being shrunk so the Sony can avoid raising the price of the hardware yet again. According to leaker Bill Bilkun, the PS5 Digital Edition SSD will shrink from 1 TB to 825 gigabytes starting with the next console chassis e revision when it's available to purchase on September 13th. As Bibel Kuhn noted, PS5 Digital Edition consoles originally sold for 399 Euro when they launch in 2020, with the price increasing to 449 Euro and 499 Euro around, which is around $582 USD. The regular PS5 console with a disk drive is expected to retain its 1 TB SSD this year has been expensive for anyone looking to purchase a PS5 console. In April, Sony announced price increases for Digital and standard edition PS5 consoles across Europe, Europe, the UK, Australia and New Zealand. And in August, the price of every PS5 console system went up by $50 in the US at the time, Sony said it was continuing to, quote, navigate a challenging economic environment.

[B]

Interesting.

[C]

And it had to pass the cost onto consumers. Okay, so what you got for me?

[B]

I'm not trying to go against what this is saying at all, but I just, I was trying to do some research, right? Because I was like, how much does the, the os of the PS5 actually take up, right? Because I was like, okay, so 8:25 minus whatever amount of gigabytes, right? So then I was just seeing that some people were like estimating that the one terabyte version of a PS5 takes up about 100 something gigabytes. So it's like actually you get 825 gigabytes, right? Which is 825 here, right? So it's just like I was, I'm wondering like maybe that's what that Is. But either because it's just such a small amount to. To take off the topic, is that actually saving much money? Because we. If you look at the amount of money it takes to develop a hard drive, specifically ssd, like, it becomes minuscule when you start to get into the hundreds of gigabytes, especially for a company this big. I understand with tariffs and everything, but that's just a very specific number. There you go. Weird.

[C]

You would think 800 or 750.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

An even sort of cut. But I agree that that is a very, very odd sort of.

[B]

So that's why I'm like, maybe that that's the. The EU trying to crack down on like the fake numbers. Almost like. I don't know, because it's like a terabyte, but then you load up the thing and it's actually a 25. I don't know. That's just me speculating.

[C]

Everybody agreeing that you don't own this video game, you only own the license to it. Exactly.

[B]

Yeah. So I don't know. Yeah. But either way, I mean, that sucks if this is actually what's happening right here. Right. Because, I mean, a terabyte. We think it. Look, it felt like so much in the PS4 era. Now we're in the PS5 era and it's like Fortnite and Call of Duty takes up your entire hard drive drive. So 825 is a debilitating number. I would. That.

[A]

That.

[B]

That really sucks.

[C]

And yeah, Vander Ascent says that Mark Cerny said it was the perfect number. So after the OS, we're, you know, I would say conservatively estimating around 670, 700 or something like that. Not great. To continue on with the article, just the final part, analyst Daniel Ahmad noted that higher tariff rates on countries where the PS5 is produced. China is 30%, Japan 15%, Vietnam 20% and Malaysia 19% had forced its hand following the announcement of new tariffs by US President Donald Trump earlier this year. We're continuing to pay more and more for less.

[A]

Yep.

[C]

And that just kind of seems to be what. What the vibe is.

[B]

Vibes? Yeah. Rancid.

[C]

The vibes are not great, bro. Let's continue to. To keep on. You know, you'll never own a house. And the things that you want to own inside of your shitty little apartment are going to get worse and worse as.

[B]

And everything. Everything is a subscription. Everything is a.

[C]

You don't own anything.

[B]

You don't own anything.

[C]

What? Celebrating? Just the banana celebrating. Yeah.

[B]

I thought you said banana. And I Got scared. Yeah.

[C]

Yeah. Not a great time. Cyborg TV says you got to correct it. To convicted sex offender Donald Trump. That is true. That is true. That is true. Yeah. Not great. Things are. Are pretty bad. Let's move on to story number five, where things will just get worse for Barrett. FORSAKEN Coming to N64 Classics. This comes from Andy Robinson of VGC News. Nintendo's latest Switch Online game announcement might have just confirmed a potential leak of upcoming N64 games from earlier this summer. In July, many fans believe Nintendo accidentally revealed its slate of upcoming Nintendo 64 games planned for NSO after they dissected blurry box images featured in an official Nintendo video. The blurred box images appeared to. Look at that. Wow, they really did a lot of investigating. The blurred box images appeared to include cover art for Donkey Kong 64, Glover, Super Smash Bros, and Forsaken 64. The last game was officially announced for Switch Online on Wednesday, potentially adding credence to the theory that the aforementioned games are next on the release list for switches for Switch Online's N64 library. Forsaken 64 will be added to the Nintendo 64 library on Thursday, September 4th. Nintendo announced today Forsaken 64 will be the 40th Nintendo 64 game released on Switch Online in the West. There have been 42 released in total, but two of them, Custom Robo and Custom Robo V2, have only been made available in Japan. Barrett, how does this make you feel?

[D]

I feel, you know, I usually have my moment where I'm like, God damn.

[C]

It, where is it?

[D]

But with all the stuff that came out a couple months ago, these blurred images of. Of these psychopaths who were like, let's try to work backwards and figure out what these titles are. The fact that Forsaken has been announced gives this actual credence. So, you know, what if it's. If this image is real and they're guesstimating correctly here that these are the titles that they saw in this blurred background.

[C]

It's Fire.

[D]

Then really, all it is is I know it's coming. I know it's coming, and that makes me happy. And that's all I need.

[B]

Glover. Glover. Where's he? I'm playing Chibi RoboBo on the GameCube. I mean.

[C]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

Oh, is this. Oh, this is N64. Well, either way, I was playing Chibi Robo on the. On the.

[C]

Not Custom Robo.

[B]

What?

[C]

Not Custom Robo is.

[B]

What is Custom Robo? Is that Chibi Robo?

[C]

Custom Robo is not Chibi Robo. I know that the different Robo, custom Robo I was, the better Robo. Super pumped up about as a kid just because the art, the box art and everything rocks so hard. But Glover is one of those. Just another one of those guys. Similar to Bubsy where it's like.

[B]

It's a meme almost.

[C]

I don't know what you do.

[B]

Yeah. Do you have a job?

[C]

I don't know how you operate. Yeah, I always kind of got it mixed up with flubber.

[B]

Close.

[C]

And I'm like, where's Glover's movie? You know, put him in a movie.

[B]

Very bullish on him.

[C]

Danny Glover.

[B]

What is forsaken? Do we know what this is?

[A]

I.

[B]

Anyone?

[C]

All I remember about Forsaken was the damn commercial and Baird. If you could look up like the old school commercial where it's not what I was like on TV back in the 90s and it was like, the future is forsaken. The future is forsaken. It would just keep on saying it was crazy, dude.

[B]

And I saw this game 2am you feel like you're freaking out, dude.

[C]

Like I. I still saw this game. So I would walk by it all the time at the. At the local. All hit video and never rented it. Of course. I ended up renting Running Wild. A little racing. It was like a car racer, but you were running on your feet.

[B]

I think I know this.

[C]

A bunch of animals running.

[B]

Running wild.

[C]

The future is forsaken. The future is forsaken.

[B]

The future is forsaken.

[C]

It kind of reminds me of Descent Chat, if you remember.

[B]

Yeah. So someone said that.

[C]

Dude. I remember. Oh, my gosh. I don't know how I had Descent destination Saturn on my PC back in the day. That's pretty sick because I didn't game on my PC at all. But like the game was there. I don't know how I acquired it, but it was. Was definitely there.

[B]

That's pretty sick.

[C]

Flying around in full 3D spaceship. I never really knew what to do in the video game. I don't think I ever progressed in it. We have some news. Is this the future is Forsaken? Dude, it was crazy.

[B]

I'm. I'll try this. I'll try for sake.

[C]

It was. I just. I just love that I was like in a little spaceship.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Very, very cool. I mean, that spaceship was pretty large. Roger. No, that was so big.

[B]

And you go to the other film.

[C]

But if I wanted something smaller, say the tiniest things I need to know about, where would I go?

[B]

You go to our last story The Wii News Channel where we cover all the small news items you need to know about. Then I zoom out. I like that.

[C]

Jotun Slayer Hordes of Hell. The critically acclaimed action Roguelite from Games Farm and Grindstone Publishing is out now. Following a divine early access, this tale of Norse Destruction now enters 1.0 on PC, PlayStation 5. 5 and Xbox XNS. Wow. The Portland Kevin with the $2 super chat says accurate for a second was like descent and it was fire. Okay, that's good to know. That's great to know. Portland Kevin Gamespot reports it's the end of the road for two 2K sports titles, at least for their online services. The publisher has announced that the service for two aging golf games. Two aging golf games just sounds that's funny every day. The Golf Club 2019 featuring PGA Tour and PGA Tour 20 or 2K and will go offline October 30, 2025. Get in while you still can, everybody.

[D]

Aren't we all aging?

[C]

Really? Yeah.

[B]

Aren't we all aging golf games?

[C]

Warrior 64 reports that Super Mario party jamboree has been updated. Jamboree will now out. Will now output in full HD 1080p on the Nintendo.

[B]

How the what the are we doing? What the Nintendo. What are we doing? People spent like $80 on this game. This game. This was at 720p. What are you doing?

[C]

Oh, man.

[A]

We.

[B]

This is the. That we can't let fly. This shouldn't be in Wii News. I wanted this to be story number one. This is. This is a suck like Nintendo. What are we doing?

[C]

This is.

[B]

We played that in 720B. Andy was putting the hand hand in the bag. What? Come on.

[C]

I'm going to update the back wall to have jamboree now in 1080p.

[B]

That's huge.

[C]

Now outscaling of 1080p. Let's get some super chat chats and your wrongs before we end the show. Remember, you can write into kind of funny.com you're wrong. So let us know what we got wrong. First. Super chats we have Tyson Lewis with a five dollar super chat says have you guys played I'm your beast? Come on.

[B]

We played the out of that.

[C]

Come on dog. Who? And you described it as it's super hot. John Wick and Max Payne narration. Absolutely. Yeah.

[B]

So good.

[C]

Melodic Quest with a five dollar super chat says hey guys, just sending in my birthday tax. Happy birthday. Melodic quest. You're turning 31 today. Shout out to the best crew and community on the Internet. Thanks for all the fun times. You're welcome. Thanks for being here with us.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Appreciate the love and support. Hope you have a lovely birthday. Goldfish boy. $10 super chat. Who says late birthday tax for my half mini Aussie. Oh my God. We need photos of this half mini Aussie. Why the aren't you taking.

[B]

Oh, it's a dog.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

I don't know. I was.

[C]

I didn't think it was a daughter.

[D]

Did you think that it was like a.

[C]

A small Australian person?

[B]

Absolutely.

[D]

There are sometimes that I think what.

[B]

A weird way to describe your daughter. That's so weird.

[C]

There's.

[D]

Sometimes I think that our company is like Hancock and like the. The closer we all get to each other, the dumber we get.

[B]

What? Hancock?

[D]

Yeah, because like when they get farther away, they get more.

[B]

I just had never heard that movie reference.

[C]

Really? I'll talk about Hancock. Really the time just like Mega Man X.

[B]

You.

[C]

You didn't know? I. I'm going to go to a.

[B]

Hancock concert next week.

[C]

Loved. God, I hate I'm going to a Dexter showcase.

[B]

God, the latest episode. Awful. But so good.

[C]

God, this episode so bad. Peter D is great.

[B]

He is man. God me and Bless will do a spoiler cast one day for two people. Sorry.

[C]

Thank you. Thank you, Goldfish boy. Happy birthday to your half Minasi child.

[B]

Love you.

[C]

She's about one foot tall. She's Australian resolute with a ten dollar super chat says shout out to all the KFBFs at PAX this weekend. And the Portland K for organizing the meetup. Was great to meet Blessing and Andy as well. Shout out to you, Spencer. Yeah, that was. It was a lot of fun. It was awesome. Unfortunately I gotta do the thing. I gotta become Snow Mike Mike right now where I'm like you're gonna make me wait a week to talk about stuff.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Because when Bless comes back, that's when we'll talk about our pack stories. But I got a lot of pack stories. Pack stories along with just like cool games we played. Like I played Crimson Dawn. Crimson Desert.

[B]

Crimson dawn. Should I traded it? Wow.

[C]

Robert Garrida with a two dollar super chat says y' all early. It's Chidori. Five dollar super chat says proud to officially announce a reviewer for Pokemon Legends. Z to A will be the one and only Greg Miller.

[B]

Yeah. Greg Miller celebrated the that super chat.

[C]

Wow about it.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Very, very nice. Did he read the one before that?

[B]

Yep.

[C]

Nice. Thank you Adrian Fernando for your super chat. Let's get to the your wrongs. Remember kind of funny.com you're wrong. But if you're just editorializing, throw it up your ass. All right. I'm so excited for for Soul Song. I couldn't sleep last night.

[B]

Really?

[C]

I woke up so many.

[B]

You have a marathon stream tomorrow.

[C]

I'm going to have to go to bed like at 8 in the. @ night.

[B]

Middle of the street stream.

[C]

Let's see. Bander says Andy said perfect dark end of the 2024 Xbox showcase and wasn't just a throwaway trailer in the middle years of war. E Day actually closed the show. It was shown in the middle showcase. Oh me.

[B]

That's a good one. That's a good.

[C]

That's a good one. That is a good one. Bander Essen.

[B]

That's a really good one.

[C]

I guess I was just more surprised like, oh, it's here. They're actually showing up. You know, it was like a. And it's gameplay.

[B]

Where's Gear Z Day, man? That's gonna be the greatest game of all time.

[C]

I can't wait to see how it looks. I just need. I need all developers to be like, hey, we're looking out at the landscape and we're seeing all of these Unreal Engine 5 titles coming out and they're not running or optimized. Super great. Just take an extra three months, man.

[A]

Yep.

[C]

It's on me to put it on my tab. You know what I mean?

[B]

Take it.

[C]

Shit, man. Tundra Boy says The advertisers at WrestleMania weren't for fatal Fury. Not King of fighters, though both IPs are owned by SNK and Brad says missed news. COD got a huge storage size reduction. That's great.

[B]

How much?

[C]

What are we talking, 10 gigs? I actually think it was like 30. I think it went from like 120 to like 90 or something like that. But let me know. Pretty sure I saw something about it on Twitter. People are really, really pumped up about it. That's gonna do it for us here. Gamers. Appreciate the love and support.

[B]

We love you.

[C]

Thanks for watching us here on Kind of Fun Games Daily. Thanks for dealing with me, you know, trying to save my house and. And Barrett's thought you're brave.

[B]

Honestly.

[D]

Honestly, yeah.

[B]

You saved that house, man.

[C]

I truly did. I truly did.

[D]

Thank you for not burning the house down or killing my dog.

[C]

Thank you. No problem. You can watch each and every weekday we run you through the nerdy using you know about. Wow, that sentence went real badly live on YouTube, Twitch and podcast services around the globe. If you love what we do, support us with the kinda funny membership on Patreon or YouTube to get all of our shows ad free, watch us record them live and get a daily exclusive show. Enjoy the gamescast next and the stream after. But until next time, it's been our pleasure to serve you.

[E]

Mike and Alyssa are always trying to outdo each other. When Alyssa got a small water bottle, Mike showed up with a 4 liter jug. When Mike started gardening, Alyssa started beekeeping.

[A]

Oh come on.

[E]

They called a truce for their holiday and used Expedia Trip Planner to collaborate on all the details of their trip. Once there, Mike still did more laps around the pool.

[A]

Whatever.

[E]

You were made to outdo your holidays. We were made to help organize the competition. Expedia made to travel.