Elden Ring Nightreign DOMINATES Sales Charts - Kinda Funny Games Daily 07.09.25

Summary

Kinda Funny Games Daily: Elden Ring Nightreign Dominates Sales Charts - July 9, 2025

Kinda Funny Games Daily is renowned as the world’s most popular daily video game news podcast, hosted by Greg “GameOverGreggy” Miller, Tim Gettys, and Blessing Adeoye Jr., alongside a seasoned cast of industry veterans and guests. In the episode released on July 9, 2025, titled "Elden Ring Nightreign DOMINATES Sales Charts", the hosts delve deep into the latest happenings in the gaming world, with a particular focus on the phenomenal success of Elden Ring Nightreign.

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1. Elden Ring Nightreign Tops U.S. Sales Charts

The primary highlight of this episode revolves around Elden Ring Nightreign securing the top spot in the U.S. sales charts for May 2025. According to Matt Piscatella, Circana Executive Director and Analyst, the game not only led the charts but also became one of the best-selling games in the U.S. for 2025 up to that point. It was followed by Doom: The Dark Ages in second place and Forza Horizon 5 in third, buoyed by its launch on the PS5 platform.

Andy [16:37] expressed his enthusiasm, stating:

"That's such good news. Yeah, I'm really, really happy about that."

Snowbike Mike [18:48] elaborated on the unexpected success:

"The power of Elden Ring, like the power that FromSoftware has as a developer with their IP, but then like Elden Ring Nightreign specifically being able to put out something that's weird, indifferent and like non-conventional and for it to come out and just absolutely smash because the fan base will show up."

2. Analyzing the Success of Elden Ring Nightreign

The hosts engaged in an in-depth discussion about the factors contributing to Elden Ring Nightreign's success. They pondered whether the game's appeal was solely due to the strong FromSoftware brand or if its unique blend of hardcore elements with accessible multiplayer features played a significant role.

Andy [20:44] remarked:

"I think it's a perfect recipe of a lot of things coming together at the right time... The replayability is there. It's that roguelite replayability of one more run."

Snowbike Mike [23:25] responded by highlighting the game's innovative mechanics:

"All of the assets except for like some of the new like the boss areas and like like a handful of things. But like most of those assets were old things."

They further discussed the potential lessons other developers could learn from Elden Ring Nightreign’s approach, emphasizing the balance between live service elements and standalone game integrity.

3. Cyberpunk Edgerunners 2 Announced

In addition to the dominating sales of Elden Ring Nightreign, the podcast covered exciting news for Cyberpunk 2077 fans. A standalone sequel series, Cyberpunk Edgerunners 2, was confirmed to be heading to Netflix. This sequel will feature a fresh story and a new director, Kai Ikarashi, taking over from Hiroyuki Imaishi. The collaboration between CD Projekt Red and Studio Trigger aims to expand the rich narrative of Night City, although details about returning characters or the specific timeline within the Cyberpunk universe remain under wraps.

Andy [32:52] shared his excitement:

"That's great news. That's fantastic. I'm pretty pumped for that because I really enjoyed Edge Runners..."

Snowbike Mike [33:17] added:

"Plus yeah, I fucking loved Edgerunners Season one. I'm very fascinated with this being a standalone thing..."

4. Other Noteworthy News Highlights

The episode also touched upon several other significant updates in the gaming industry:

• Steel Hunters Shutdown: Another live service shooter, Steel Hunters, announced that its servers would shut down on October 8th, just a few months post-launch [41:26].

• Soccer 2 for PS5: Fans of soccer games have something to look forward to as Soccer 2 is confirmed to be coming to the PS5 platform [41:37].

• Gaming Awards and Layoffs:

  • Dragon Age Veilguard clinched the Game of the Year at the Gaming Awards 2025 [41:43].
  • Ubisoft initiated layoffs, letting go of 19 employees at Red Storm [41:43].
  • NBA 2K’s cover athlete announcement saw Blessing stepping into the spotlight [41:43].

• PS Plus Extra Lineup for July: The lineup includes titles like Cyberpunk 2077, Abiotic Factor, Banishers, Ghost of New Eden, Planet Zoo, Risk of Rain 2, Tropico 6, New World Aeternum, with Twisted Metal 3 and 4 and War Groove 2 making appearances for PS Plus Premium subscribers [41:39].

5. Community Interaction and Technical Challenges

The hosts maintained an engaging dynamic with their audience through super chats and live interactions, sharing personal anecdotes and addressing technical issues during the live stream. For instance, technical glitches led to moments of humor and candid conversations about streaming challenges.

Snowbike Mike [36:45] humorously noted:

"We had another blue screen... It’s a really bad time."

Despite these interruptions, the hosts ensured that the discussion remained focused on delivering valuable gaming news and insights to their listeners.

Conclusion

In this episode of Kinda Funny Games Daily, the overwhelming success of Elden Ring Nightreign set the tone for an engaging and informative discussion. The hosts provided insightful analysis on game development trends, highlighted exciting upcoming releases, and kept the community connected through interactive segments. Their balanced approach of delivering hard-hitting news while maintaining an entertaining dialogue underscores why Kinda Funny Games Daily remains a staple for gaming enthusiasts worldwide.

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Note: Timestamps are approximate and correspond to the locations within the provided transcript.

Transcript

[Andy]

Rated T for teen.

[Blessing]

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[Andy]

Today's stories include Elden Ring Night Rain tops the sales charts. Big news for Cyberpunk 2077 fans. And another live service shooter is shutting down. A few months after launch, we'll have all this and more because this is kind of Funny Games Daily. Hello gamers. Welcome to Kinda Funny Games daily for Wednesday, July 9, 2020 25. I am Andy and I'm joined by Blessing. Good morning. Bless.

[Snowbike Mike]

Good morning, Andy. How's it going?

[Andy]

I'm doing okay. I'm doing well. You know, I had a good little rehab session this morning with the trainer. Kind of like just looking at the ligaments in my wrist and my fingers. A lot of rematch.

[Snowbike Mike]

Oh, a lot of rematch.

[Andy]

A lot of rematch.

[Snowbike Mike]

I saw. So you were on late because I, we were just talking about this as I signed off of rematch at around. I want to say I hopped off at like 9 or something like that. I saw you pop on.

[Andy]

I was hoping to get one or two in because I, you know, I was, I was busy, you know, doing some renovations on my base in, in Arrakis. And I saw the text go out. Yeah, like, oh man, I really got to get in there. But I'm so close to this and that. And as soon as I was about to hop in, you were already peaceing out.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, I mean, I was on for a while. I was on for, for quite a bit. I played some games with Gary Whita. Gary would have showed up. I was playing with some of the, with some of the friend Eric and it was a problem. We needed like one or two more people. We needed, we needed an Adam. We needed a Snowback. Mike. We actually sent, I was streaming, I sent my chat. I was like, hey, you know Mike, he was playing Mario Odyssey, but he's probably done by now. Go check. Go tell Mike that he should come through placement rematch with me. And then my chat reported back. They were like, Mike said that he'd hop on if Andy's there. And I was like, fuck Mike. Fuck that guy. I'm tired of his ass. What is this hyper fixation with you?

[Andy]

It's about time. It's about.

[Snowbike Mike]

He does this every time. Oh, man. We're playing softball. We're in the car driving. Oh, man. Be great if Andy, Nick were here. It's like, you're here with people.

[Andy]

Yeah, I'm here. Yeah, but. But the grass is always greener. That's. That's the way I'm tired. I. Yeah, I hopped in last night and I was like, ah, dang bless. Just got off. You know, everybody, Nobody's online. I might as well shut this down. But I just had the itch. I hopped into three competitive games, and I went one and two, stole bronze one. Getting our asses whooped out there in some circumstances.

[Snowbike Mike]

We. So we talked about this in the stream yesterday, where you get to. To level up, to rank up to the next division, you have to do, like, these three place matches. You had to win two out of three of them. If you don't win two out of three, then get knocked back down. When we ended the stream, I was on the placement matches. I had. I, like, hit the thing where it's like, all right, I need to win the next two out of three matches. And so I boot up rematch when I get home and hit up Gary. Gary's online. I joined Gary's game or whatever, and, like, I'm trying to, like, get my friend Eric into, but before I even have the chance to do it, I see, like, the game starting. I'm like, oh, you know, Gary's starting a game, and I see that it's 5v5. I'm like, Gary is this ranked? And he's like, yeah. And I'm like, oh, no, no, I'm not ready. We only have two of us. Like, I'm barely warmed up right now. Like, I. I wish I had some kind of warning. We could have gone with a full squad.

[Andy]

And.

[Snowbike Mike]

And when I tell you I didn't hit those three matches, I. We. We. I. We won one out of three, sadly.

[Andy]

Oh, okay.

[Snowbike Mike]

The third one, we. We. We lost. I.

[Andy]

Well, so what happens now? What happens with your rank?

[Snowbike Mike]

I just got to get back up there. I just got to win a few more and then try the. The placement matches again.

[Gary Whitta]

So.

[Andy]

Okay, all right. So anytime you get closer again, when you try the three placement matches, you fail. You have to win all three.

[Snowbike Mike]

You have to win two out of three. Oh, yeah, I know it's tough.

[Andy]

Oh, okay. So you because we are, we were, we were informed yesterday by Adam that once you hit silver, you're stuck in silver.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah. You don't go, you don't go back.

[Andy]

So the three placement matches are like, no, this is your proving ground right here.

[Snowbike Mike]

Can you hand, can you hang? And so. Okay, I got knocked back down to bronze. Belong here. It's a cool system. It's just one of those things where like, like, I just don't belong here. I belong in silver.

[Andy]

Yeah. No, I belong in gold. You do.

[Snowbike Mike]

I'm just, I'm stuck in bronze.

[Andy]

So the three placement matches happen. You got to win two out of three.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yes.

[Andy]

But since you didn't, now you get another chance, how quickly will it give you that chance again?

[Snowbike Mike]

I just need to level up. I haven't, I didn't check to see like where exactly put me in bronze. But like, I'm pretty sure it just like knocks you back down. Like maybe just a few RP or whatever. Like if I win one or two more matches, I'm sure it'll put me.

[Andy]

Back into the pop up again. Yeah, placement matches.

[Snowbike Mike]

He's gotta fill that bar.

[Andy]

Okay, gotcha, gotcha. Yeah, Gary would have sent us a link last night. We have some gaming needs to get to chat, but you know, this is definitely takes priority right now. Yeah, yeah. Gary would have sent us a text yesterday about a website called Rematch Tracker.

[Snowbike Mike]

He did. Yes.

[Andy]

And with Rematch Tracker you type in your username and it gives you a kind of a nice little analytical look at how you are as a player. And unfortunately some truths are also some hard truths are given to you.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, I understand exactly what you're talking about.

[Andy]

Because I open up the Rematch tracker, I was like, well, you know, what's it going to tell me about, about Kevin? Can you look up like Madden or. I'm trying to think of what the term is, but it's the term Kevin. I'm sure anybody who's seen it bless know exactly what I'm talking about as well. Where it's. Maybe it's a circle graph, right. And you got like, I don't know the, all the stats. Like when you're creating a player, Madden, you'll. You'll have like power and speed or agility, whatever. And based on how your player is like the graphs will go out to those points and if they're bad, they'll be really low. But if they're really good in agility, they'll be way out there or whatever. I'm not sure what those graphs are called. But yes, yes, exactly. Exactly like this. Kevin. Thank you so much. So rematch tracker gives you a sort of graph similar to this. And when I tell you I didn't think how low the goalkeeper could be for me. Yeah, that.

[Snowbike Mike]

You know what?

[Andy]

I could see that the goalkeeper. I get it. I totally get it now. The playing style analysis, it's. It calls me the finisher. Clinical shot accuracy.

[Snowbike Mike]

I've heard that about you.

[Andy]

Very clinical shot.

[Snowbike Mike]

I've heard that about you.

[Andy]

Yeah, yeah. We finish, we get the job done. It's called a Stargate. Okay. I want to show what it was called.

[Snowbike Mike]

I.

[Andy]

Did you check your stats?

[Snowbike Mike]

I did check my stats. I was aggressively average. It was one of those ones where I was like, damn. I thought. Not that I'm, like, trying to big myself up or anything like that. Right. But I think I viewed myself as a star player. But I will say I think I've gotten worse as time has gone on. I think, like, maybe I came in at a higher level because I've, like, I've played so much FIFA and, like, my brain is more, I think, tuned to how ball movement, like, should go in soccer or whatever.

[Andy]

Right.

[Snowbike Mike]

But, like, as people skill has leveled up now that the game has been out longer, I think I've just leveled out with it right, where it's like, oh, damn. All right, now. Now everybody's caught up. Now everybody's kind of playing on the same level, and now I'm running into, like, more tryhards. It's also the thing of, like, you know, I'm. I've been hopping in with different groups, and so I think there's a chemistry thing as well, where you have to adjust gel with the people that you're playing with and get a flow. So, like, even yesterday, we're playing, but it's, you know, I'm bringing in Asen, who I usually play with, but, like, Asen hasn't played with maybe Gary or Adam or. Yeah, yeah. And so, like. And then, like, you know, I'm bringing Adam, Gary to play with y', all, and, like, it's a lot of just team chemistry that has to gel and we have to figure out. But I think once we get there, we can get our stats back up to where we need to be, and I can get back to where I'm supposed to be, which is not in bronze.

[Andy]

Now, Kevin, I didn't appreciate you putting out my.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, I strongly. I strongly regretted my bad.

[Andy]

My very personal information out there, which was my stats to everybody. Yeah, those are your stats.

[Snowbike Mike]

I Didn't I didn't know blessings handle.

[Andy]

So I couldn't get it now can now that was very offensive for you to do. Can we look up Snowbike Mike on the on the Valor or in that rematch tracker please Kevin because is his.

[Snowbike Mike]

Steam account just snow bike? Yeah.

[Andy]

Snowbike Mike. Maybe it's on Mike Mike 2. Who knows how many. It should just be Snowbike Mike I'm pretty sure but I would love to see that. No, it's not that I was getting docs it's just you know it's a very vulnerable thing for me. Oh, his goalkeeper's lower than me.

[Snowbike Mike]

What's that? Is that flanking his impact.

[Andy]

Look at his impact though.

[Snowbike Mike]

His impact is huge.

[Andy]

Look at these stats. Mike.

[Snowbike Mike]

That on the bottom right.

[Andy]

On the bottom right. That's finishing.

[Snowbike Mike]

Finishing.

[Andy]

He's the finisher just like me.

[Snowbike Mike]

Maybe I need glasses.

[Andy]

We both finish in the clutch.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yes. Finish.

[Gary Whitta]

Mango's got game. You know it's so great to talk about what is this game called again? Rivals rematch. You guys. You guys have been so good. It's impressive to see how great you guys have gotten. Andy, your defense is really elevated. I you know you went from being a striker in the beta to just being a a full midfieldman who can do a offense and defense. I'm very impressed. Blessing you in particular. You really pick up the energy and you can play all roles. I mean G W wasn't lying. He's like this guy Blessing can do it all and I'm really impressed by that. And if we could clone you five times we would just make one team.

[Snowbike Mike]

Of blessings myself five times.

[Gary Whitta]

I'll never hear now shenanigans of course has just been a ton of fun playing with you guys. The issue is we're playing ranked modes 5 stacks so like we really got to get on the same page of not playing unless all five of us together unless we're going to lead to another DD situation where me and Adam talk trash to our teammates.

[Andy]

Yeah, well you know it all depends on just getting the getting the squad together at the same time we coordinating finding out who the 5 stack is but you know I also that that's the nature of the game. Sometimes you're going to have a fifth that you don't know make a new friend. We had a lot. We had a lot of fifth last night. Bless that were sometimes really good.

[Snowbike Mike]

Sometimes oh yeah like some of the fist that will come through during the stream like they'd be fantastic Delta but then you have that one person who's the person that. That they started off as goalie and just did not want to play goalie. We didn't realize until it was too late and we look back and the goal was just empty.

[Andy]

Yeah, I think that was maybe killer or something. Yeah. There was somebody, Mike, that, you know, all of a sudden I'm in the midfield defending, and suddenly it says your goalkeeper. And I was like, what the. Turn around the goal scorers. Our dude just ran out there. He was like, I belong out here.

[Snowbike Mike]

Wasn't that the fanny guy? That was a different.

[Andy]

Oh no, that was a different.

[Gary Whitta]

You guys streaming? I like the new move that Gary does of like goal check and just immediately kick it at the goal to see if they're AFK or not. Great idea. Have you guys. Have you guys heard about this new game though? Like rematch, old news. Have you heard about my new arc? My trainer arc?

[Snowbike Mike]

Of course.

[Gary Whitta]

I'm out there and I'm accepted to the greatest newest academy. It's all about horse girl racing. Okay. Pretty derby. Have y' all heard about this game yet? But bless, it's a gotcha game with anime waifus. I don't like run around a track as horses. Okay. This game right here is gotcha boy Snow. Mike. Mike in a chokehold. Andy. I can't stop thinking about it. I can't run.

[Andy]

Let me. Andy.

[Gary Whitta]

This game is high, okay? It's got a whole story. It's got career modes. Get this. So you train up an anime horse girl, okay, to run the track. You train her up, she ends her career and you're like, oh snap. What is she going to do? No, no. She becomes part of your training crew. So her stats then go to your next student that you train. So then I have these legacy characters who are helping out my newest classmate that I'm training and teaching. This game is lit, bro. And it's got a full ass story and stuff where you can like follow the anime beats. The one girl I was training was the co student council president. She had a lot on her mind. She was pretty hard at the beginning, but then she softened up and I helped show her the ways of being the ultimate horse girl racing competitor. Great game this game.

[Snowbike Mike]

Great game game.

[Gary Whitta]

You better get ready. Watch out. This game could take over.

[Andy]

I mean, yeah, it's definitely very, very popular on social.

[Snowbike Mike]

I've not seen this.

[Andy]

Really? Really?

[Snowbike Mike]

I didn't know about this until Mike started talking about it.

[Andy]

Oh, right. Or today.

[Snowbike Mike]

Today. Yeah.

[Andy]

Oh, okay. Gotcha. Yeah. This has been. It's been blowing up On Twitch. People have been kind of hopping in.

[Snowbike Mike]

It'll be UMass. Is that what it's called?

[Andy]

It'll be a monster of the week sort of game, you know. But yeah, Mike's really into it right now. And for Mike asking me, you know, I don't know if you've heard about this, Andy. Yes, I did because about, you know, 300 people popped into my chat to let me know he was playing it. The amount of people every second popping in, letting me know that Mike Uma Musume.

[Snowbike Mike]

Pretty derby.

[Andy]

Yeah, we were. You know, we'll forget all about this in August. It'll just be a little blip on the radar. Bless.

[Snowbike Mike]

You know, I mean Mike's. This will end up in Mike's top 10.

[Andy]

Yeah. Oh, for sure.

[Snowbike Mike]

Mike's not gonna forget number.

[Andy]

Number eight or nine. Number eight or nine. Hey everybody, remember this is a kind of funny games daily. Each and every weekday we run you through the nerd news you need to know about live on YouTube, Twitch and on podcast services around the globe. If you love what we do, support us with the kind of funny membership on Patreon, YouTube and now Spotify and Apple podcast to get all of our shows ad free. Watch us record them live and get a daily exclusive show for a chance to be part of the show. Submit your thoughts and opinions as YouTube super chats as we go. Get your super chats in. Let us know how you feel about horse girl horse racing, Musume Derby, pretty derby. And also let us know what your let us know what your rematch tracker is.

[Snowbike Mike]

What's your finishing ability?

[Andy]

Are you finisher? Are you finishing playmaker, impact player? It's cool to see those stats. Here's one thing I was surprised about, you know, as we keep on boring the audience with more rematch news, I thought I'd be. I feel like I do a lot of passing but it's like no you don't or you're not getting assists rather. But man, like the amount of times in a match I'm like that was a sick ass pass.

[Snowbike Mike]

I think the hard truth, one of the hard truths we need to face, right? Because we keep going for the off the wall like past awful.

[Andy]

Oh yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

I think we need to reel that back a little bit. Like we. That I think that works. There's a balance to it because we should be doing that but also we shouldn't be doing that every single time.

[Andy]

The off the wall should be used as a as play action. Let me tell you a little bit about American football. Yeah, play action. Bless. What you do is with, with play action, you're running the ball a lot, right?

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy]

Quarterback hands the ball off to the running back. Hands the ball to the running back, does it several plays in a row. Several plays in a row, right. Which causes the defense to start to collapse and they know, oh, they're going to be running the ball. We've seen this formation. Everybody start to kind of collapse. So all the people who are maybe in the back to defend the receivers, they come in and they're like, no, we need all these bodies up front. And then you bust out the play action. You set up the play action with a lot of running because it's a fake handoff pass. So our wall technique could be used as like let's we get that in their mind and then we catch them off guard with spoiler cast and after games, cast blessing and Joey streaming some games. I don't know what y' all are streaming.

[Snowbike Mike]

So I think right now the plan is for me to stream Tony Hawk and for Tony for. I was gonna say for Tony to Tony's coming by. Joey's gonna stream some animal crossing.

[Andy]

Cool. If you're kind of funny, remember today's Greg Way is 19 minutes on Greg's second viewing of Superman. He saw it last night in IMAX and he got that popcorn.

[Snowbike Mike]

19 minutes about a second viewing. He did like 25 minutes.

[Andy]

You gotta talk about the building and the ambiance and the room noise, you know, all that stuff.

[Snowbike Mike]

Good for him.

[Andy]

Thank you to our Patreon producers, Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster and delaying the Psalm Twining today. We're brought to you by Shady Rays. But we'll tell you all about that later. For now, let's begin with what is and forever will be the Roper report. It's time for some new. We have five stories today.

[Snowbike Mike]

Bakers does it.

[Andy]

Story number one, Elden Ring Night Rain topped the U. S sales charts for May 2025 while Star Wars Battlefront 2 rocketed into the top 15. This is from David Carcassel at WCCF Tech and and we got some Matt Piscatella posting as well who will likely add more context to the story. Circana executive director and analyst Matt Piscatella has published the Sales charts for US video game sales in May 2025 showing a similarity to Newsoo's global report in that Elden Ring Night Rain was one of the month's best selling games and in the US Specifically, it was the best selling game. Elden Ring Night Rain topped the US Sales charts for premium games across all platforms, followed by Doom the Dark ages in second place and Forza Horizon 5 in third, driven by Forza Horizon 5's launch on PS5. That's such good news. Yeah, I'm really, really happy about that. Bethesda's Oblivion Remastered was pushed into fourth place after being the top selling game in the US for April 2025, while Call of Duty Black Ops 6 stated fifth place. The other notable entry in the top 20 best selling premium games for May 2025 in the US was Star Wars Battlefront 2, which jumped all the way from 135th on the monthly charts and to the number 12 spot, just behind Assassin's Creed Shadows in 11 and just in front of Split Fiction at 13. Elden Ring Night Rain Surge to the top spot for May 2025 also made it one of the bestselling games in the US of for 2025 so far, though it wasn't enough to crack the top 10 since it had since it only made the list at 11, Doom the Dark Ages was even further behind at 16. The most significant change in the top selling Games in the US in 2025 so far was Elder Scrolls Oblivion Remastered, jumping ahead of Assassin's Creed shadows to take second place while Shadows now sits at third. Monster Wild is still the bestselling game of 2025 so far in the US a lot of great numbers here from Matt Piscatella. A lot of great context added by David over at WCCF Tech. Bless yes you you continue to eat on this story with El Ring With Elden Ring.

[Snowbike Mike]

Oh my God, I've never been more wrong about anything in my life and I like, I think for me the biggest thing power of Elden Ring like the power that FromSoftware has as a developer with their IP but then like Elden Ring specifically being able to put out something that's weird, indifferent and like non conventional and for it to come out and just absolutely smash because the fan base will show up. It's funny because I my my I didn't have doubts that it would sell well but like for it to sell this well I think was where my main doubt was basically for the Venn diagram of like all right, is the crowd that's into Elden Ring, are they gonna be into a party up with my friends, drop down into a procedurally generated thing, collect the resources and race to fight the boss sort of experience. Right? Like you're kind of combining the hardcore nature of an Elden Ring with like something like a pubg or Fortnite or whatever as far as like the pacing of it, which shouldn't make sense, but they made it make sense and I think there is something to learn here. Me this goes back to the conversation I was having with Greg a bit yesterday where we went kind of back and forth in circles a little bit about like live service versus like a one and done drop and what's viable in multiplayer and what's like what's going to make you money. And like my argument was about Ghost of Sushima Legends and how I think you could come back and do another Ghost of Tsushima Legend situation, but you should drop it standalone, like charge $30 for it. Don't make it a live service thing, just drop it as as it is. And I think that could do very successful as long as you scale it and scope it in the right way and don't like go overboard with it. For me, I look at Elden Ring Night Reign is a possible like a possible route as far as hey, there is an audience for this. We can do an outriders, we can do a hey this isn't meant to live forever kind of thing, but it's a multiplayer thing that you play play with friends. I Do you think I'm putting too much sauce on that? Or do you like, do you think this is successful because it's Elden Ring or do you think there's like a thing to read into here as far as the kind of game that it is?

[Andy]

I think it's a perfect recipe of a lot of things coming together at the right time. I think that not only were a lot of the Elden Ring fans, a lot of the new fans to the FromSoftware universe with 25 million plus being sold on Elden Ring and holy shit, what a massive success this was. And people who played those games also likely wanted to play with their friends and realize how difficult that was and realized that it wasn't the most easily drop in, drop out sort of plug and play situation. And then they hop into this video game which is all of the stimuli on crack. It's none of the running around and you know it's you are getting the. I think somebody in the in the YouTube chat at 1 point called it the NFL Red Zone experience for Elden Ring, where the red zone experience only shows you when teams are about to score and it cuts to every game whenever a team is about to score. So you're only getting the action of everything. This is that kind of condensed into that win or lose scenario and you know that that loses some players. Some players love the exploration and love that sort of meditative experience. But I don't think you're wrong at all about this. I think that the coolest thing about Elden Ring Night Rain is the, the, the, the scope of it because it still does some. Oh, did we lose again? Oh, we're back, we're back, we're back. It, it still does have a, an amount of. It still has a lot of surprises. Still has some cool stuff that you didn't think you were going to see. Has some. Obviously the software bosses, obviously the new bosses. These sort of explorable new areas that pop up depending on whether you've beaten the boss or not. And I love those surprises. And it still feels, I think because it is using the Elden Ring assets, using a lot of the same enemies, you are able to save a lot on the development and production of things and still being able to breathe life into this, into this game with a brand new experience brings in a lot of people. And the replayability is there. It's that roguelite replayability of one more run. Oh, I got this new thing. I'm stronger now. I. Oh, shit. Oh, now that boss, I, I actually can fight him now because I have my starting weapon uses Holy. Or whatever. It has all those hooks that, that more and more people saw these sort of addictive hooks that a roguelite would have. It has all those hooks in addition to. We were so close to being that boss. And multiplayer is way easier this time around. It was kind of a perfect storm, I think.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah. Good for them, right? For me that gives more juice to excitement toward. Is it Duskbloods, the Dust Bloods. Right. That's going to be another from software multiplayer thing coming out exclusively for Switch 2, which is a whole other. That adds another layer of like, okay, it's exclusive. How's it going to do all that stuff? Right. But I want to see from software get weird more now even with multiplayer. Right. The fact that they've done historically have kind of been, I think, kind of weird with multiplayer the entire time. Right. I'm gonna put down this ringing bell to get my friend to be able to come in and help me fight a boss type situation right now. All right. You got a Roguelite three person run around a procedurally generated open space. We got, you know, the momentary unique environments that'll pop up that have their own kind of hidden secret stuff going on. Like I think I, I know we've already, we've already glazed from Software from, like from, from everywhere. Right.

[Andy]

We've already like, I don't think we've done it enough.

[Snowbike Mike]

We've glazed the out of FromSoft. I like the fact that they are able to do this with Elden Ring Night Reign and have people take to it and have it be like an even more unique thing than they've already been doing and it still is. Ends up successful. It still hits for people. Like, yeah, we might, we might not be glazing them enough. I mean they're just doing everything. They're doing everything. Make a sport, make a soccer game.

[Andy]

Now they've been making the right decisions and yeah, I mean I don't think you're, I don't think you were wrong in thinking that this was a possible divisive addition to their, to their library. I think it wasn't the easiest sell for a lot of people, especially somebody like me who is always kind of number one doubter even as like such a FromSoftware die hard. I, you know, I was like, I don't know if that'll really work for me. You're taking away the magic. You're taking away that, that sort of, you know, the moments that you have with discovery and exploration that make the moments, you know, feel so important. You're taking a lot of that away. But, but they found other ways to kind of bring that magic forth anyway. Like the amount of times that weird on this awesome excursion, you see some crazy thing, you're just like, whoa, dude, that's. They're, they can, they're the only ones that can do this sort of shit. So I think you're right in that the, for everybody wanting to make the live service forever game, like we keep on throwing back to outriders saying we never intended for this to be a destiny. Like this is something that has replayability, but this is something you can play with your friends and when you're done, you're done with the experience. I think a lot of IP and a lot, I think a lot of IP can be helped by something like this to maybe keep that cash flow coming in for the next thing that people are making. But I think a lot of devs and publishers are hopefully taking note and seeing because immediately my mind goes to Horizon. Like everybody, like, I don't love Horizon as a story. I've never like loved Aloy, but the loop of, oh shit, if they made a Monster Hunter style game in Horizon and maybe it doesn't need to be this forever game, but maybe it is just like Elden Ring go after this boss. Now you're going after this boss. Get those pieces off. Make yourself better as you come back to the place and it not needing to be this. You have to live here. You have to, you know, this will be a full time job.

[Snowbike Mike]

I think about so many games. I think about a lot of the PlayStation first party stuff, right? Like you talking about Horizon. I look at the, the like canceled slash leaked Spider man multiplayer game that like a trailer dropped for where you had like the multiversal different Spiderman hanging out and I'm like, I don't know. Obviously we don't know the details on that. Right. But like that's something that if you put that out and didn't put it out in a live service, hey, this is a thing that's. We're going to update for a year with content but then after the year we're done. Like we're not. This isn't a thing that's going to live forever. I think that could have done well. We talked about Last of Us Online. I loved Last of Us factions in the first Last of Us and that wasn't a live service. That was just a. We're tacking on this multiplayer mode that's fun to play and like you know, we have M transactions in it but it's not like crazy. Except for that shotgun that was overpowered and I hated that shotgun, but that's all I wanted. And for Last of Us, the online thing, right, it got canceled because Bungie came in and they did the consultation thing and they're like, hey, we don't know if you got the stuff to keep this thing going. And Naughty Dog was like, oh yeah, we can't. We don't want to be able to support this game. We don't want to have to support this game forever. And so we're canceling it. What if it was something that you didn't have to support forever though?

[Andy]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

Why can't we just make multiplayer games that you don't have to support forever? Like I. There is an audience for it. There is. I'm not even asking for like so many new assets. Elden Ring Night Reign took so many existing assets and remix them and did interesting things with them. And all the bosses were previous bosses. Right.

[Andy]

And like, I mean it was like all of the assets.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, yeah, it was like all the assets except for like some of the new like the boss areas and like the new bosses and like like a handful of things. But like most of those assets were old things. Go to Sushi my legends did it right. Like, right there is, I think there is a demand for that shit. And of course it's not going to sell. It's not going to make you Destiny revenue. And I know that's what you want, but there is still a demand for that stuff. That I think, hey, if you go for that year and you see these fucking numbers that are, that people are showing up and like loving this and like the numbers are astronomical. Guess what? Then you turn the, then you turn that switch. Then you go, fuck. Okay, maybe we should expand and keep this thing going more. Yeah, don't force it. You can't force it.

[Andy]

It reminds me so much of when we first saw Night Rain pop up. And my first thought was, wow, this seems like the highest budget mod out there because there are so many mods in, in gaming that kind of give you similar experiences with randomizers. And now we're doing a randomizer in Dark Souls and holy shit, there are Elden Ring and oh my God, there's Millennia is the first boss. What is going on here? Like, there are those moments of surprise. And I, I think that a lot of, you know, if you have a smaller team of 20 people in the off time of your game or whatever and you're working on the next thing, if these smaller projects can be made, I mean, we just read that report a couple days ago about Nintendo wanting to make smaller projects as well. I, I hope that this is the, maybe the start of, of a change where developers say, hey, we can have these smaller experiences and still have them be meaningful and impactful and fun in super short bursts. Now, on the flip side of that, I know something like FBC Firebreak, not doing great with players. Right. I, I still had a lot of fun with that, but there's just a lot of congestion out there right now, you know, in the industry.

[Snowbike Mike]

Another thing I want to point out with the story is we're talking about that top 10 for me, numbers two through like six. If we go through them right, it is Doom. The Dark ages, Forza Horizon 5, Bethesda's Oblivion remaster. Yeah, Black Ops 6. So all, all Xbox games on like, all Xbox shit that's also dropping on PlayStation, right? And you want to talk about the, like, why they do this, why they release their stuff across all platforms, why they've had such a strong shift in strategy. The numbers are speaking, right? We talked about this. I think me and Tim talked about this. When Forza Horizon 5 was announced for coming to PlayStation, I was like, yo, that shit is going to sell so fucking well. And you see that it's selling so well.

[Andy]

Like that makes me so happy because I wasn't sure what the response was going to be on PlayStation. To see the numbers being this high. Really encouraging for a game like Forza Horizon, which I, I fell in love with with four and five was an even more enjoyable experience to see that there's still a thirst for this style of game. Yeah, really, really awesome. And I mean shout out to Xbox for those high sales because that, I mean the more sales you got, more stability and less layoffs.

[Snowbike Mike]

Exactly.

[Andy]

That's awesome.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah. You're not going to close any of your videos.

[Andy]

Yeah. Yeah. Not yeah, 6,000, 5,000. Don't matter. They're not getting laid off. Everybody's safe. They're at Xbox. That's green. Story number two Cyberpunk Edge Runners 2 is a standalone sequel series coming to Netflix. This comes from Marcus Stewart at Game Informer. A standalone follow up to Netflix's 2022 acclaimed animated series Cyberpunk Edge Runners has been confirmed. Dubbed Simply Cyberpunk Edge Runners 2, the upcoming anime features a fresh story and a new director. Announced during a behind the scenes panel with Edgerunners creators and cast during Anime Expo in Los Angeles over the weekend, Cyberpunk Edgerunners 2 sees CD Projekt Red and Studio Trigger rekindle their partnership to bring the sequel series to Netflix. The original Edgerunners serves as a prequel to Cyberpunk 2077, though it is unclear when this follow up will occur and if it will feature any returning characters. The panel also revealed prolific animator kai Ikarashi as EdgeRunners2's director, taking the mantle from the previous series director Hiroyuki Imaishi. The show is currently in production but does not have a release window. Quote David's story might be over, but there's plenty more to discover in Night City, says Bartos Size Tabor. I probably butchered that. I'm so sorry. Cyberpunk Edgerunners 2 showrunner, story writer and producer in a press release.

[Snowbike Mike]

That's one of those names where like for you butchering it, you did. I think you did fine. If Greg Miller saw that name the way his Greg would, his name, his head would, would explode.

[Andy]

And it would have been. Yeah, there would have been a lot of noises like that. That's great news. That's fantastic. I'm. I'm pretty pumped for that because I really enjoyed Edge Runners as somebody who hopped in late to it. Are you stoked for this?

[Snowbike Mike]

Plus yeah, I fucking loved Edgerunners Season one. I'm very fascinated with this being a standalone thing because season one felt so definitive and felt. I didn't think they would call this edgerunners2. I thought that was just me. Called a different cyberpunk anime. I think you have to.

[Andy]

For branding.

[Snowbike Mike]

For branding. And the fact that it's still Studio Trigger, like, I thought. I didn't realize. I guess this probably was part of the new announcement. Right. That Studio Trigger is still working on this one, which I didn't realize was the case until obviously now that we're here, which is awesome because they absolutely killed it with the first one. So, yeah, like, I'm fascinated to see what more stories you have to tell. Is this still a prequel situation? Yeah. I don't really have much to say about this aside from, like, yeah, I can't wait. Yeah, I don't even know what I want. Edge Runners 1 was such a standalone, like, new, fresh story in that world, and I just want them to keep doing that. Just give me new, standalone, fresh stories.

[Andy]

Yeah. I think it's a rich enough environment that a lot of protagonists and antagonists can be created and you can fall in love and hate a lot new characters.

[Snowbike Mike]

I will tell. I will. I will say I'm so impressed by how much I've come around on the cyberpunk world because when they first announced it and like, we're. We're showing off cyberpunk, I was so excited for it. But then, like, as we approached cyberpunk and even my first game, my first playthrough of cyberpunk, I think I was kind of put off by, like, kind of the forced edginess in the Force. Like, oh, what's the word? They call each other tombs. Tombs. Yeah. It's like, oh, what's up, my tombs? And I'm like, okay, we're doing a lot here. I don't know if. I don't know if I love this. This feels a little bit. A little bit corny now that we're here and like, we're years past it and I've played like, the DLC and they've added Idris Elba and all this. I'm so in, like, I. I love this universe now. And so, yeah, I'm down for way more happening in the cyberpunk stuff. I want another game soon.

[Andy]

Oh, my God.

[Snowbike Mike]

I know it's not going to be.

[Andy]

Soon, but I mean, duh, yeah, I.

[Snowbike Mike]

Want another game absolutely.

[Andy]

I mean, if. If we don't. If we don't Get a game soon. I'm going to. I am probably going to Delta Tune because right now this, this fixer is acting like a real gunk. And I'll tell you what isn't gunk. Our sponsors. So let's hear a word from them right now.

[Kevin]

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[Andy]

We have a super chat from Vin Archiver who says bless Overture. Thanks. Let me tell you something right, should.

[Snowbike Mike]

Be back on YouTube now. Back on YouTube.

[Andy]

We're back on YouTube as well.

[Snowbike Mike]

For our audio and video listeners. We had another blue screen.

[Andy]

Yes.

[Snowbike Mike]

So Andy was going to tell me something about Liza P. And then everything shut down. It's probably a sign I probably, probably shouldn't play Overture. I. I feel like the universe is selling us.

[Andy]

I think right now is the. Is a bad time is what I was about to tell you.

[Snowbike Mike]

But for video games, well, yeah, it's.

[Andy]

Just a bad time.

[Snowbike Mike]

It's a really bad time.

[Andy]

Bad time everywhere. But what I will say is they put out an update recently to make it so that you didn't have to wait until chapter nine to get to the deal. So it's chapter five now.

[Snowbike Mike]

Okay.

[Andy]

And that takes like, okay maybe an hour or two to get to and you can also lower the difficulty to even get there. So you know what I mean?

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy]

Think about something about.

[Snowbike Mike]

I mean that does help.

[Andy]

It's freaking fantastic. It's freaking fantastic. And thank you, Vin Archiver. I'm just going to pretend VIN archiver is my like my alt account. Yeah, I'm just like going to be super chatting as him.

[Snowbike Mike]

I'll put this out there for you. Right?

[Andy]

Like put it out there for me.

[Snowbike Mike]

And this is more so a conversation between you, Michael.

[Andy]

Oh, only for new Game plus. Oh, shut up. Well, you start a new game plus.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, I got to the end of the game so I could start new Game plus. But like listen, if you ever want to force me to play a game, just be like, just look at Greg and be like, yo, take bless off of gamescast and KFC for this week straight and just have them stream Liza P. And stream.

[Andy]

We need to get back to Dark Souls.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, I was thinking about that.

[Andy]

What are we doing?

[Snowbike Mike]

I was thinking about that. I think we just started at the wrong time, you know, because I was ready. But then you guys were also playing Pokemon and also there was just a whole bunch of other happening.

[Andy]

A whole lot of stuff.

[Snowbike Mike]

Just a whole lot of stuff. We should have waited until like right now.

[Andy]

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Samson l. With a $2 super chat says I feel weird flirting with the horses. Gotcha. Slop. Demon hacker. $2 super chat says is eldering mainstream, not like COD and sports.

[Snowbike Mike]

Oh yeah, well like mainstream as far as like it is not, not like cod.

[Andy]

It's not like COD or sports.

[Snowbike Mike]

It's like the tier under cod.

[Andy]

I would say it's where every gamer knows about it. But if you talk to like my.

[Snowbike Mike]

Mom doesn't know about it.

[Andy]

Yeah, if you talk to, you know, Jimmy in the street who plays Fortnite with his friends at night, like he probably doesn't know what Elden Ring is, you know, I mean, I don't know.

[Snowbike Mike]

Jim might know about it. I think Elden Ring is like I'm, I'm trying to think of once we get the Elden Ring movie, I think that's like it's Last of Us tier.

[Andy]

I mean, hey, I think right now.

[Snowbike Mike]

It'S already like knocking on that tier. But like once you get a TV show, like a big movie or TV show adaptation, then it's like boom. Especially coming from Garland. Yeah, that's going to be, it's going to be last list here for sure.

[Andy]

I mean, well, I mean you make a great point because looking at mat Matt Piscatella's list of the top selling games of May 2025, Last of Us Part 2 is on the list at number 17 and it was previously 13. So like. Oh yeah, that's crazy. That it's that, you know, that's what, you know, the media being put out in front of people. I would. I. I've been meaning to do a lot of like reply videos on Tick Tock because I'm so fascinated because. And this is definitely even more on topic, but this whole video is kind of. Anyway. Right. So thanks for, thanks for being with us, Chad. We'll get to more super chats here in a. But I saw a super chat that reminded me of my sis, my sister in law who was like, hey you or not a super chat. A Tick Tock video. Sorry. I saw a Tick Tock video that reminded me of my sister in law when I was playing God of War Ragnarok in front of the whole family. Because I said it out. I set up the PS5 and everybody's like watching me play. And my sister in law, who only ever sees my nephew and my nieces play Roblox or Fortnite or Call of Duty or Apex. My sister in law is like, I think we just experienced Atreus and the. The wolves that die, you know, his pet wolf. And it's like emotional. It's like, this is like really, really good shit. And she goes, so what do you do in this game?

[Snowbike Mike]

I was like, well, you happened again, everybody.

[Andy]

Now we're back on Twitch. We don't understand what's happening. We believe we're being hacked.

[Snowbike Mike]

We don't think we're being hacked.

[Andy]

Everybody's coming after us right now. We should be live on YouTube momentarily. And we'll be live on YouTube as well. But we also need to get the day going. And luckily this happened on one of the slowest news days, as you can tell. Yeah, as you could tell, that story number two was about an anime show.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, exactly.

[Andy]

One of the slower news days. It kind of, you know, luckily happened today. That's. That's the one.

[Snowbike Mike]

Looks like we're back on YouTube.

[Andy]

Looks like we're back on YouTube.

[Snowbike Mike]

So we blue screened again.

[Andy]

Yes.

[Snowbike Mike]

I'm gonna give you the quick hits. Of course, your story basically talking about like there was a girl or there was a person on. Basically somebody asking about video games.

[Andy]

People not understanding like, oh shit, that video games do that nowadays. Like I only know, you know, people that play Fortnite and stuff. So I don't really know what happens in the last four. So that's. Anyway, I'm going to, I'm going to.

[Snowbike Mike]

Quick hit these real quick. Story number three, essentially is another live service shooter that's shutting down a few months after its launch, that is Steel Hunters. They announced that the servers will shut down on October 8th. And then story number four is that soccer two is coming to PS5. Very exciting stuff.

[Andy]

Very, very neat.

[Snowbike Mike]

We news for you. We're not even going to do the whole Transition from Games Industry.com.

[Andy]

You don't know what will happen.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah. Dragon Age Veilguard has taken home Game of the Year at the Gaming Awards 2025. That's gaming with the G A Y. Ubisoft has laid off 19 employees at Red Storm. NBA's 2K's cover athlete is going to be shy Gilgis Bless.

[Andy]

And then Shay Gilders Alexander. Mvp.

[Snowbike Mike]

Mvp. Hell yeah.

[Andy]

Mvp. I did want to really quickly when I first saw the Red Storm story. I was like, damn you, stop laying off people at other studios. Studios that have nothing to do with them. They're just laying off people everywhere laid off, having insomnia. Kind of funny. You all are laid off. The PS plus extra lineup for July has been announced. Cyberpunk 2077, abiotic factor, banishers, Ghost of New Eden. Awesome game, awesome writing and kind of weak combat. Planet Zoo, Risk of Rain 2, Tropico 6, New World Aeternum. And PS Plus Premium for July is Twisted Metal 3 and 4. And War Groove 2 is coming to iOS. Blaze Blue, Entropy Effect is coming to iOS and Android on July 22nd. Everybody, we're sorry for the technical issues.

[Snowbike Mike]

Know your wrongs.

[Andy]

No, you're wrong. The only you're wrong is our computer. Yeah, it's kind of ruining everything for us. But thank you for the super chats. I. We're kind of trying to get through this fast because I don't know how.

[Snowbike Mike]

This shit's gonna crash again.

[Andy]

Yeah, I feel like it's gonna happen any second. Thank you all for watching and hanging out with us. It's been our pleasure to serve you. We did it.

[Snowbike Mike]

We made it.