SnowBikeMike played Elden Ring Nightreign at 3AM - Kinda Funny Games Daily 02.14.25

Summary

Kinda Funny Games Daily: Video Games News Podcast

Episode: SnowBikeMike played Elden Ring Nightreign at 3AM Release Date: February 14, 2025

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1. DICE Awards Highlights

Timestamp: 36:14

The hosts kicked off the episode by celebrating the recent 28th Annual DICE Awards, where Astrobot emerged as a standout, clinching Game of the Year along with multiple other accolades such as Outstanding Achievement in Animation and Family Game of the Year. Helldivers 2 also made a significant impact, securing four awards including Action Game of the Year and Online Game of the Year. Additionally, Balatro and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle each took home three awards.

Snow Bike Mike praised the production quality and the engaging festivities of the awards show:

"[...] the whole production team over at the DICE Awards. Fantastic. Big claps." [02:22]

Tim Gettys extended hearty congratulations to all winners, emphasizing the broad appeal and creative excellence demonstrated:

"Congratulations to all the winners. Astrobot, absolutely destroying the award circuit and you love to see it." [38:36]

The episode also honored industry veterans Don James of Nintendo and Ted Price of Insomniac Games, recognizing their lifelong contributions and leadership within the gaming community.

2. Elden Ring Night Reign Network Test and Gameplay Experience

Timestamp: 11:47

The discussion shifted to Elden Ring Night Reign, focusing on the issues encountered during its first network test. FromSoftware faced significant server congestion, particularly affecting PlayStation users, leading to delays and an official apology.

Snow Bike Mike provided insights from his personal experience:

"I could happily say that I played for three and a half hours with zero issues. I had a fantastic time." [15:35]

Despite the initial setbacks, the hosts remained optimistic about the game's potential. Tim Gettys highlighted that such tests are crucial for refining the network stability ahead of the official launch:

"It's about testing the network." [13:31]

Snow Bike Mike elaborated on the unique gameplay dynamics introduced in this beta version, likening it to a hybrid of Battle Royale and traditional Elden Ring mechanics. He praised the frantic pace and the necessity for constant movement, which diverges from the more measured approach typically associated with the series.

3. Upcoming DLC and Content for Elden Ring Night Reign

Timestamp: 24:20

The conversation delved into future expansions for Elden Ring Night Reign. A recently deleted Steam page hinted at upcoming DLC bosses and characters, suggesting that FromSoftware plans to enrich the game with additional content. Snow Bike Mike speculated on the integration of iconic bosses from previous FromSoftware titles, enhancing the game's appeal to long-time fans.

Tim Gettys expressed confidence in the game's direction, anticipating a steady stream of content that could sustain player engagement:

"I do believe this will happen." [27:06]

The hosts also discussed potential monetization strategies, such as offering cosmetic skins and a battle pass system, while maintaining that core gameplay elements like new bosses and characters would remain free to ensure accessibility.

4. Okami 2: Direct Sequel Confirmed

Timestamp: 42:06

In exciting news for Okami fans, Snow Bike Mike and Tim Gettys confirmed that Okami 2 is indeed a direct sequel to the original game. Despite limited details, Capcom producer Yoshiaki Hirabayashi affirmed the continuation of the story, assuring fans that the sequel remains true to the beloved narrative and artistic style.

Snow Bike Mike emphasized the anticipation surrounding the sequel, acknowledging the challenges in meeting fan expectations:

"I truly believe that is the right move. I wouldn't even be surprised if we see a limited time mode where they do add in." [29:35]

Tim Gettys shared his enthusiasm while cautiously managing expectations regarding the release timeline:

"It's going to take many years. We are going to hear about this thing every once in a while." [54:08]

5. Ubisoft's Strategic Shift Towards Open World and Live Service Games

Timestamp: 46:16

The hosts analyzed Ubisoft's recent strategic focus on developing open world action-adventure and live service titles. CEO Eve's Gilmont outlined the company's commitment to these genres, citing upcoming releases like Assassin's Creed Shadows and ongoing support for titles such as Rainbow Six Siege and The Crew Motor Fest.

Tim Gettys expressed mixed feelings about Ubisoft's direction, voicing concerns over potential missteps despite acknowledging the quality of certain titles:

"I have faith that they're going to push the boundaries but kind of keep people happy." [32:10]

Snow Bike Mike hoped that Ubisoft would maintain high standards and deliver compelling experiences within their chosen genres:

"The teams better feel confident. They better know that they have their jobs year after year." [50:55]

6. Final Fantasy Remakes in Development

Timestamp: 52:10

Jordan Midler from VGC reported that two highly anticipated Final Fantasy remakes are actively in development: Final Fantasy 9 Remake and a remake of Final Fantasy Tactics. Industry insider Nate the Hate confirmed that both projects are progressing, with Final Fantasy 9 Remake slated for a 2026 release.

Tim Gettys compared the expected scope of these remakes to previous projects, noting that while Final Fantasy 7 Remake was a significant reimagining, Final Fantasy 9 Remake is expected to be more of a comprehensive remaster:

"I think Final Fantasy 9 is going to be a one skew and it's done more than a remaster, but not quite a reimagining like I think it is." [55:08]

Snow Bike Mike and Tim Gettys discussed the potential impact of these remakes on the gaming community, emphasizing the importance of high-quality execution and broad platform support to ensure commercial and fanbase success.

7. Additional News Highlights

Timestamp: 57:10

The hosts briefly touched on other noteworthy updates, including:

• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles collaboration with Call of Duty, hinting at crossover content that fans are eager to see.
• Dynasty Warriors Origins achieving over one million copies sold worldwide, marking a successful return for the franchise.
• System Shock 2 Enhanced Edition announcement, set for release at the Future Game Show Spring Showcase 2025 on March 20th.
• Infinity Nikki expansion to various platforms, with a release date of May 22nd.

8. Community Engagement and Super Chats

Throughout the episode, the hosts interacted with their audience through Super Chats, addressing fan messages and incorporating humorous and heartfelt responses. Highlights include birthday wishes, support for SnowBikeMike's unique fashion choices, and encouragement for listeners to spread positivity.

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Notable Quotes:

• Snow Bike Mike on making others smile:

  "Isn't it the best to make someone smile? How easy it is to make somebody smile." [18:54]

• Tim Gettys expressing frustration with Ubisoft:

  "Give me the one. Fuck you, Ubisoft. You. I hate this." [49:36]

• Snow Bike Mike on the significance of Okami's sequel:

  "I love celebrating that if the team is excited about it, let them go have some fun." [45:24]

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Conclusion:

The episode provided an in-depth look at recent developments in the gaming industry, from award highlights and upcoming game releases to strategic shifts by major publishers. The hosts' engaging banter and personal anecdotes offered listeners both information and entertainment, making the podcast a valuable resource for gaming enthusiasts eager to stay updated on the latest news and trends.

Transcript

[Snow Bike Mike]

Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile with a message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop with Mint.

[Tim Gettys]

You can get premium wireless for just $15 a month.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Of course, if you enjoy overpaying. No judgments. But that's weird. Okay, one judgment anyway.

[Tim Gettys]

Give it a try.

[Snow Bike Mike]

@Mintmobile.Com Switch upfront payment of $45 for 3 month plan equivalent to $15 per month. Required intro rate first 3 months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See full [e-mail] I played the Elden Ring Night Ring beta at 3am so you didn't have to. All this and more here on Kind of Funny Games Daily. Yo, what the heck is going on, everybody? Welcome to Kind of Funny Games daily for Friday, February 14, 2025. I'm one of your show hosts, Snow Bike Mike. And today I am joined by. By the master of hype, my main man, my dude, Mr. Tim Gettys. Tim, Happy Friday.

[Tim Gettys]

Happy Valentine's Day, Mike. Look at us. I love it. You're looking good, Tim. I got.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I got a vest. Check.

[Tim Gettys]

You do have a vest.

[Snow Bike Mike]

You.

[Tim Gettys]

You came in, obviously, it's Mike. Good spirits. Super hyped. It's not like you were starting a game at 3am last night and here you are and we all saw the thumbnail. But you walk in and you're like, it's Work Wear Fridays. Which is not something I've heard before. You then proceed to say, it's because we got to go to work, Tim.

[Snow Bike Mike]

We got the word. You know that, Tim, you can't enjoy the weekend without putting in the work. And man, I got a couple of big highlights for you too.

[Tim Gettys]

I need to. Before you even get to your highlights, I need to know, because you're right. Now you're telling me we got Overall Mondays.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Overall Mondays, Mondays.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh, okay.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yeah. That's the gist. It's like, you know, I'm not Overall Mondays because I love Mondays.

[Tim Gettys]

You try team player.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Overall Mondays. Because we're Overall Mondays.

[Tim Gettys]

Okay, Then we got the. The Workwear Friday.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Work where Fridays is right? Because you've been putting in work all week. Let's put in one more day, get to the weekend in between that.

[Tim Gettys]

Is there anything? Because right before the show started, you introduced to me, you. You got really excited about some blazers and hoodies.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Tim, I don't know if you know, but of course. Last night with the 28th annual DICE Awards 1, Greg Miller hosted for his ninth time in a row, shout out to Stella, who did a fantastic job as well.

[Tim Gettys]

Killing the game. Both of them.

[Snow Bike Mike]

The whole production team over at the DICE Awards. Fantastic. Big claps. I lied.

[Tim Gettys]

Wake up the audience, though, y'all. I'll pay for it next year.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Smiling. They were having fun. They were smiling them up.

[Tim Gettys]

So it doesn't feel so awkward when they make the jokes and people are laughing, but we don't hear them laugh.

[Snow Bike Mike]

That's true. That's true. My one complaint here's the catch, Tim, is it was a fantastic, fantastic production. We're going to talk about some big winners. We're also going to be talking about some incredible speeches. We're going to be talking about some incredible human beings who were honored at the show, who talked about teamwork, who talked about putting in the work and saying yes to adventure. Fantastic stuff. But I gotta give a big call out.

[Tim Gettys]

You gotta.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Mr. Fashion himself, Todd Howard showed up in a blazer hoodie. It's not a blazer. It's a blazer hoodie. Okay. It's a blazer, but with a hoodie inside of the blazer. It's not two different items. It's one item. Tim.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Okay.

[Tim Gettys]

And he's the Mr. B special, some call it.

[Snow Bike Mike]

It was fire, Tim. I texted Greg Miller. I said, go up to Todd Howard. Ask him where he got that blazer hoodie combo.

[Tim Gettys]

Did you say then?

[Snow Bike Mike]

Of course. Greg Miller. As. As dad would it all up. He goes, where'd you get your outfit?

[Tim Gettys]

Do you have this asset?

[Snow Bike Mike]

It's. I'm pulling it right now. Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

Thank you. Thank you.

[Snow Bike Mike]

You know, I.

[Tim Gettys]

Don't even say it. We needed to show.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Thank you, dad. You know what I mean, for trying. Thank you, Dad.

[Tim Gettys]

I love you so much.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I love it, man. So it was so Todd Howard to the te. The hoodie was dope on top of the blazer machine games, winning a bunch of awards for Indiana Jones we'll talk about later. I loved it. Did we find it? Yes. Is it $1,200? Yes.

[Tim Gettys]

Shut up.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Am I gonna buy one? Of course.

[Tim Gettys]

Here we go. Todd Howard. Snowbake Mike asked me to ask you where you get the vest and this.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Where.

[Tim Gettys]

Where'd the whole outfit come from? The mall.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I don't know the mall. Oh, that's the worst thing. It's very hard to find. Find clothes that fit me.

[Tim Gettys]

If it fits, I buy it.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Get out of here now. Thanks, dad. Kind of it up. Okay. There's a little more style, too, A little more swag that you got to bring into that. Hey, Todd Howard. Where'd you get that blazer hoodie combo? Big Dog? Snow Mike. Mike needs to know.

[Tim Gettys]

Is that what you would have said? That's like word for word up to Todd Howard.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I would have done that.

[Tim Gettys]

One of the most legendary game creators of all time.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Todd knows I want to bring that energy.

[Tim Gettys]

And you're gonna call him Big Dog. I love it.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Hey, Big Dog. Where'd you get that, Steve? That style, that fashion man showing up in case with sneakers, jeans. I mean, the guy's doing it.

[Tim Gettys]

He's living. He's living life, everybody.

[Snow Bike Mike]

So the. The we got the Dice Awards was fantastic. Shout out to Greg and the team. I had so much fun watching that. Then of course, I'm riding the high of the fun and it's like, oh, this, you know, the dice ward starts at like 8:00. It's kind of wild. It's like 10:30.

[Tim Gettys]

What are we doing?

[Snow Bike Mike]

And so you're adding it up. It's like it's Vegas 1030. Let's just call that 11. If the night ra beta starts at 3am, I might as well ride this. So why not, right? Order myself up a little pizza.

[Tim Gettys]

You know the plan to get to 3am because that doesn't sound like a good plan.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I knew I was going to get to 3am because you're not going to miss out on Elden Ring.

[Tim Gettys]

And by the way, getting to 3am just means getting there to hope that it was ready and actually going to work. And then how long did you get.

[Snow Bike Mike]

To play till 6:30 in the morning. Three and a half hours uninterrupted, Tim. Okay, we're going to start off with story number one in just a couple of moments because of course this is is the Kind of Funny Games daily podcast. Each and every weekday we bring you the nerdy news you need to know about live on twitch and on YouTube and of course on podcast services around the globe. If you love what we do here at Kind of Funny, consider supporting us with that brand new Kind of Funny membership available on YouTube and on Patreon. To get the very best of Kind of Funny. You get your daily dose of Greg Miller and his Greg Way vlog series. I took over Greg Way last. Last night. I don't know if you saw the.

[Tim Gettys]

Magic the Gathering game.

[Snow Bike Mike]

No, no, of course. We are prepping for Magicon. So me and Bless two days ago did Magic the Gathering at the desk. We had some fun playing a full game, but yesterday I talked about somebody ruining my birthday and I asked the question out there. To the best friends. What do you do if you ruin somebody's birthday? How do you make it back up to them? And so I just. I'm going to give it to you like that. Someone who ruined my birthday. And I'm waiting for the love back.

[Tim Gettys]

Now here's the thing, Mike. I saw this. I don't want to spoil who it was. I saw it. I want. I didn't watch it yet. I just saw the headline. I was like, I need to check this out. I need to see what. What this is all about. What Mike's about to bring to the world right now. But I. It made me think, first and foremost, did I miss your birthday?

[Snow Bike Mike]

No. No. Well, every day is my birthday, Tim. So you're never missing my birthday. I get to spend it with you. Every day's my birthday. Bring presents. Bring more presents.

[Tim Gettys]

Wait, when is your birthday?

[Snow Bike Mike]

April 7th? May?

[Tim Gettys]

May. Okay.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Along with Kevin. Well, Kevin, but we gotta flow together. Somebody on my birthday. Somebody on my birthday handed me a chicken tender. I won't say from what restaurant, but they handed me a chicken tender. Chicken tender. Snapped my tooth in half. Ruined my birthday.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Snow Bike Mike]

And I'm still mad about that person.

[Tim Gettys]

Tender. Snapped his.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Snapped it. Snapped it. A chicken tender.

[Tim Gettys]

Tender is in its name.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Something is wrong with your chicken. Rubber banded. You could. You bit into it. Snap. Rubber band. Two in half gone. I still blame him to this day for ruining my birthday.

[Tim Gettys]

But incredibly white though. Thank you. I'm sure that tooth popped out. People like that. Can't be a tooth that's too white.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I'm going to go get some. People are saying the lack of enamel.

[Tim Gettys]

From all the whitening caused the tooth to break. That's a theory. That's a theory.

[Snow Bike Mike]

We'll have to talk to the professor.

[Tim Gettys]

There's only science to back that up.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Of course, to be a part of the show you can let me know and Tim know and the world know how your Elden ring night rain experience went. For test number one. You can tell us if you're gearing up and getting excited for test number two later this evening. If you're here with us on the west coast. And most importantly, you can tell us your thoughts, feelings and opinions about any of the news stories that we cover with those YouTube super chats. But of course some housekeeping news for you. We are an 11 person small business all about live talk shows today after kind of funny games daily you get a games cast on what we've been playing.

[Tim Gettys]

Very excited for that. It's going to be a Fun one. Today's going to be a fun day in the studio. We got a lot of cool stuff going on. I don't want to say some things because they may or may not happen because you know how things go.

[Snow Bike Mike]

You never know.

[Tim Gettys]

But I do know what is going to happen today is Blessing is going to play Dark Souls for the very first time with two of his best friends in the entire world, Snow Mike. Mike and Andy Cortez, the Dark Souls bros. It's Andy Cortez's birthday weekend. He's kicking it off, right.

[Snow Bike Mike]

He's got a big birthday weekend. We're all very excited about that. We're happy to celebrate it with. Blessing is very excited to give his all into Dark Souls, so keep an eye out for that one. We also have Game Showdown going down this afternoon as well. So you get a games cast of what we've been playing. And Tim, I'm not on that, but the next time we have one, I need you to know I've been playing a lot. Did I finish Bioshock Remastered for the first ever time? Have I played two? And Infinite? Of course. Have I played one? Not till now. Yeah, that's my Bioshock journey. I'll show you that later on.

[Tim Gettys]

Join us if you. You have a big day. So I'm not saying it's about if you wanted to. It's just the three of us.

[Snow Bike Mike]

If things happen out there and excitement levels rise, I'm not coming in here.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, I get it.

[Snow Bike Mike]

That's what I'll say. But I could be.

[Tim Gettys]

I don't think they will timing wise.

[Snow Bike Mike]

But you never know. You never know.

[Tim Gettys]

We'll figure that out. Sorry. No, we're already going long. There's two things that I feel the need to say. We're in housekeeping. So one of them is shout out to all you for supporting on Spotify. I've been saying this the last couple days. We've been getting a lot of really, really, really cool behind the scenes props for y'all showing up on and watching video on Spotify. And we have some of the biggest podcasts in the world. The Tom Segura is the Bert Kreischners. The, you know, a bunch, a bunch of these guys, right? And they're being talked about and in the same breath is kind of funny because of y'all showing up and supporting so hard since we launched video on Spotify. And it's making me feel real good that I'm like, we're doing something.

[Snow Bike Mike]

You know what I mean?

[Tim Gettys]

Like we're freaking here. Our numbers are insanely low compared to theirs. But we're. We're. People are like, who the fuck are those guys? You know what I mean? So let's keep it going. I thank you so much. That's awesome. And second off, I know we already talked about the work wear and all that.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yeah, workwear.

[Tim Gettys]

I'm a big vest fan. I haven't worn vests since middle school. I used to rock them all the time. The big puffy vest. I love that. Mike, you're doing God's work. Bring them back, Tim.

[Snow Bike Mike]

It's workwear Fridays. Tim, you and I can go to Shoe Depot. We'll go buy a bunch of workwear together.

[Tim Gettys]

Okay?

[Snow Bike Mike]

It's the new look. It's a new vibe, Tim. All right. Get you some Timberlands. Next thing you know, you might be cutting it up. Okay.

[Tim Gettys]

Funny you didn't say anything.

[Snow Bike Mike]

When? Last year, when I did my vest movement. Hey, Diddy. Out of vest movement, Tim, I don't know if you know, it was my vest year.

[Tim Gettys]

I wasn't invested in it.

[Snow Bike Mike]

It was my best year.

[Tim Gettys]

We're in tandem this year.

[Snow Bike Mike]

We're doing a lot of it is right. Of course, if you're a kind of funny member, you will get today's Greg Way, which is blessing taking over. So keep an eye out for that one. And of course, we want to give a big thank you to those who support us over on Patreon, like our Patreon producers for the month, Delaney Twining, Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster, and Karen Lindener. Thank you so much for your support. Also, big thank you to today's sponsors, Rocket Money, Shad Rays, and Better help. But I will tell you all about them later. Tim, let's get in to what is and forever will be the Roper report. It's time for some new. We have seven stories today. Story number one kicks off with a big one.

[Tim Gettys]

Big one.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Elden Ring Night Rain's first network test plagued by server issues from software issues apology. This coming from Wesley Yinpool at ign. The story reads, elden Ring Night reigns first network test suffered from significant server issues that prevented many from playing. IGN staff with access to the test reported server problems so extreme they were unable to access the game for the test's first hour. The issues were bad enough that FromSoftware from software issued a statement on social media confirming that players were struggling to find a match due to server congestion. The developers apologized, but encouraged players to try matchmaking again after a while. It appears the PlayStation servers were in particular having the problems and indeed were brought down for maintenance From Software has said it's considering an additional Elden Ring Night Rain network tests session in response to the server problems that affected the first session that ran today. Quote, this first session of the Elden Ring Night Rain network test has ended. The developers tweeted at the conclusion of the Elden Ring Night Rain's first test. We apologize for the inconvenience caused by the game server issues. Work is currently ongoing to improve the stability of the network test. An additional network text session is being considered, end quote.

[Tim Gettys]

Here's the thing. I think overall this is all good news because when you really break this down, this is just from software showing that they care and of course really care about the community and fan base and they're apologizing for something that they truly do not need to apologize for. It is a network test.

[Snow Bike Mike]

That's what it's all about.

[Tim Gettys]

It's about testing the network.

[Snow Bike Mike]

We're trying to break this network.

[Tim Gettys]

You saw that. Let's break this. And yeah. Is it a good sign that it broke so easily? No, but it's a network test, right? Like hey, this is, they're trying to learn, they're trying to figure out like what to do going forward. I think that if this results in a it won't be flawless but as close to flawless as possible launch, that's what this is all for. Right. The 3am time is interesting to me because why would you do a test at 3:00am Pacific? You know that's 6:00am you know what it is though? Well, but that's the thing is I just don't know, I don't know where, I don't know. Yeah, but where is that relevant for? I, I, I'm just bringing this being like chat, let me know what audience is this hitting. Yeah, because I understand, I fully understand just to be clear but I just, I don't know what, where it's for. You get him saying, I mean that's probably kind of targeting there.

[Snow Bike Mike]

If we're eight hours ahead. That's, that's Europe waking up in the morning. Slash, that's probably Eastern Europe, that is Japan and everything in between. So yeah, you got a lot going on.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah. I just wonder what their, their, their main player base is like. I wonder what the strategy between behind doing a, a network test that's this big. Like is was their biggest audience there at that time or was this them trying to avoid their biggest audience getting ready for tonight to you get what I'm saying? Like I don't know. So it is interesting though that it had some issues, but Mike, did you have issues, Tim?

[Snow Bike Mike]

I can now. I know a lot of people can get mad. I could happily say that I played for three and a half hours with zero issues. I had a fantastic time. Mind you, there was one game where one kid was pinging all over the map because he was flying all over the place. But other than that, it ran flawlessly for me. It was an impressive test, had a lot of fun. It was a really good time. Now I played on Xbox. We'll see what happens tonight. But like you said, right, this is a goal, this is a test for the network and most importantly, this is a team that's known for single player experience. Not really a multiplayer side. Of course, Stone, Mike. Mike plays a lot of multiplayer in this and I push those limits. But, like, really and honestly, this isn't a team that's known for this. So it is interesting to see how they come at this. How do they combat it, how do they get ready for the big launch, Right. I always come into these betas as like, we're going to break this, it's going to have server issues, it's going to melt. It's not day one, it's not month three. We got to get to that and see where they're at right here.

[Tim Gettys]

So all the. The network st aside, because I feel like we get it, we're aligned, we understand what this is. And again, them apologizing and all that, it's just above and beyond this is just them like being really, really, really supportive, I think is the right word, gameplay wise. You know, we just had Mike talked or sorry, Andy talk all about his experience with this game on a Gamescast a couple days ago that y'all should check out, if you haven't already. But Mike, what are your thoughts?

[Snow Bike Mike]

Tim, first off, Andy did an incredible job over on our gamescast giving the big preview of what he experienced. All the rundown that he got. Please go check that out. I will say this, Tim from Software is cooking something. They. They got something here, Tim. They got something real special and really, really fun. At the core of it is, is a boss rust mode mixed with a randomizer and it is just jammed together and it equals pure Elden Ring from Software. Fun. You and three friends jump in. You are running around this map. It feels like you're playing a battle royale in Fortnite of like the hecticness of we need to go this way, we need to go that way. Oh, my gosh, the fire Circle is closing in. We need to move forward. I need to level up. I need to pick up new gear. I need to upgrade these items. There's so many decisions being made in a game where it very much is of like you are so accustomed to being. It's just my world. I can take it slow. I can take a deep breath and like fight these people at my own place. I can stop and read a menu. I can go back to the hold and upgrade. None of that applies here it is, your foot is on the pedal and you need to be moving. There was many times where I'd be playing with someone and one person will stop to start reading their gear, which is great. You have opportunities to kind of like organize your stuff and rearrange your weapons, but you need to be moving. And so the other person would just start running as fast as they could. And it's like, okay, well you're going to get left behind and like we're going to go here. Which now puts us at a disadvantage. We're going to die. You're going to be back there. Now we're under leveled and it's just this drive of mayhem that makes chaotic fun that you don't experience in this kind of game. And it's awesome. I really loved it.

[Tim Gettys]

So do you have any feelings towards the. The. The movement speed being different and kind of like. Does the gameplay still feel like Elden Ring to you?

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yes, the gameplay at its core very much still feels like Elden Ring. Not maybe cranked up just a little bit on the speed side of things because you are rushing a lot of these fights, there isn't much time of like settle in, figure out their move sets, try to perfect parry or nail that perfect dodge. It is very much of like, you see those guys, you rush right into battle, we bang into them, we keep it moving, which is really cool. But like the no Torrent is no big deal because you now have a double sprint where you are moving as fast as Torrent. Torrent's big jump that will get you upside of Cliffsides. They have that with some sort of geyser that you can jump and fly three stories up and then glide around. So they have all the movement that you would need to keep the pace moving while also still matching what you would see in Elden Ring and what you would know about in your three.

[Tim Gettys]

And a half hours. Yeah, I'm sure a delusional three and a half hours also. I can't believe you're. You're this hyped right now.

[Snow Bike Mike]

And this up right now.

[Tim Gettys]

But you're. You're good. And also no chai. I notice water, no chai.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I took a nice, beautiful morning walk. And Tim, let me tell you, just a little quick off. One for you. Come on. Isn't it the best? Isn't it the best to make someone smile? How easy it to. Is it to make somebody smile? There's me on the trail, walking. I lock eyes with this gentleman. He's walking his dog. I take a step to the side, give them space. He looks at me, I smile, say, good morning, my man. Happy Friday. He's laughing, the dog doing its thing. Then we come back, right? I'm in the parking lot. Does this jabroni have the same forerunner as I do? Of course. Does he look at me? I look at him, I go, oh, snap. Now I'm into this conversation. We're talking about his wife, we're talking about his kids, we're talking about Valentine's Day. And I'm just looking at him smiling, like, man, the world is so great. You know what I mean? There's a lot of beauty in this world. There's a lot of bad chat. I understand. But, man, to make someone smile and how easy it is. It's just so much fun and it feels rewarding. So please go do that. It was an awesome feeling. So I'm feeling great, Tim.

[Tim Gettys]

Good.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I'm feeling great. Good. Little Austin.

[Tim Gettys]

What am I supposed to do? Here I am just smiling because it was beautiful.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Tim, I can't lie to you. I love you. I do have a couple small critiques.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, that's what I was going to get to. Is there. What do you not like so far about your experience?

[Snow Bike Mike]

So right now, the only thing that I truly don't like right now, personally, is the mage build. You have four possible builds that you play. It is very different from your normal Dark Souls, where you kind of mix and match your own stats and you go your own way. You kind of have player builds that you can still mix and match with with weapons and stuff, but you kind of are picking a lane when you pick one of the characters. 1. One is more of the tanker build. One is the stealth assassin, one is the generic warrior, and one is a mage. But this mage is a little bit different because instead of having two different flasks, one for mana, one for health, this one now only has one, just health. And so your mana consumption is kind of just like. At this, like, tough blend of. I've used up all my mana. I'm not getting Enough back. And so now I'm not casting spells and. And there's this difficult dance that I couldn't master in my first three hours where I was like, ooh, that wasn't a fun experience as a spellcaster and sorry, forget this.

[Tim Gettys]

Are you typically a mage?

[Snow Bike Mike]

I am, I am usually. I think most people I would probably go as far to say is like, I bet you 80% of all dark Souls and Eldering people are not spellcasters, right? I. I think spellcasters are a very small subset subsect of like the gameplay itself. So I don't think it's a big class that people are like dying for. But there is a lot of people who are probably like me who enjoy that. Right. You get kind of a little bit away from the battle. You get your chance to kind of see things on the battlefield, dodge and move. And so this one is a different blend because it's not just the traditional, hey, here's two different potions. Drink as you like. It is very much of you have to be spell casting, but then also using this ability that is your ultimate. So it kind of takes some time to get it back. And so you use it. And like Andy described in the games cast, I encourage you to check that out. It will mark targets and every target then is marked. And anybody that hits them that you hit will bring you back health and mana. Which is great except for when you're on a one on one fight with the boss. And then it's a little bit tougher to really bring it back. So you feel at a disadvantage here of not being able to help your teammates. Being stuck using a bow that does like 14 damage and like, oh, I wish I could help y'all. I'm really behind on this. And so there's a guy who sells stuff. They have a shopkeep out there, but he only sold me two, like kind of mana regens. So it was like. It just doesn't feel quite right right here. But it is fun how they kind of played with it all. Like everybody has these two abilities, right? One is kind of a faster, we'll call that ability one faster respawn kind of your minor ability and then your major super ability. And everybody has something different. It is cool to see them all blend. When you play with randoms, it is very much a game of chance of is this team ready to move? Who will be the leader? Because you need to move at all times and you need to be seeing the field. When you play with friends, I think you'll Have a great time of like someone will say, hey, we're going here next. Let's go here next. Hey, I need to stop. Let's do this. When you play with randoms, there's none of that and it's all chance.

[Tim Gettys]

Semi loaded question here. Yeah, but I know you very well. I know Andy very well. I don't know most people on the team very well. Not everybody. I know that you and Andy, y'all the boys. When it comes to the, the Souls games and all that stuff in terms of the co op and teaming up, I know Nick's a part of it.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yes.

[Tim Gettys]

But like I also know Nick's like more just the, the, the comic relief.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yes, of course.

[Tim Gettys]

Who would be the third? It doesn't need to be kind of fun necessarily.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Oh, the third. I mean the first selection would be blessing in the office. That would really vibe with this.

[Tim Gettys]

So bless Andy. You.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

Playing this game.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

Does it have the potential to not just be, oh, one of the best games of the year, an all fucking timer experience for y'all, or is this just a nifty mode for fans of Souls games?

[Snow Bike Mike]

That's gonna be up to from software And I think that's the fun one of this story number two that we're gonna get into. And that's what I want to talk about is what's next for this game and how do you capitalize on this? Because I think we've seen a couple of games that are live service, you know what I mean? Some say they don't want to be live service, they don't want that title. But they kind of are of like you're going to provide players more content down the road and you're going to try to keep them. That's what this game is going to have a battle doing.

[Tim Gettys]

But like I don't want to speculate though about what might happen next for this game. I feel like, you know, we do that a lot. You just played stuff I don't want. I want to know what's actually happening with this game.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Let's go to story number two.

[Tim Gettys]

Let's go to story number two.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Elden Ring Night Rain will get DLC bosses and characters according to Steam Page slip Up. Eric Van Allen writes at Ignorance. Elden Ring Night Rain's first big network test is underway. But eagle eyed observers have already spotted that the survival royale has more on the way. A now deleted Steam page mentioned additional DLC seemingly confirming Elden Ring Night Rain will get additional bosses and characters as DLC per PC Gamer A line on the Elden Ring Night Rain Steam page read quote, additional dlc, additional playable characters and bosses, end quote. It's since been removed and there's always a slim chance this was an added in air but it more likely that it more than likely confirms that Elden Ring Night Rain will be getting more content down the line. Since this particular version of Elden Ring is a bit more online and a live service, it's not a surprising note. Elden Ring Night Rain is a standalone game and developers from software have has been pretty consistent on producing DLC in previous games. If more bosses are in the works, hopes would presume to be high for returning fights from previous games. Elden Ring Night Rain already has a few enemies from previous from software games like the Nameless King. Why not more so. Tim, let's talk about that real quick.

[Tim Gettys]

Just looking at the chat, from what I'm getting here, it sounds like we knew DLC was happening already. They said that, but it sounds like some of the details might be like the actual. Oh, it's going to be more bosses. Yeah, like that. That's the. The potential slip up here.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yes. Okay. Yeah, we knew if you listen to Andy's of course, gamescast, I'll keep promoting that. He talked about having eight playable characters right now in the network test, you will only see four. He also talked about more bosses being in there. We're only seeing a select few bosses in this and so you would expect. If you look at this and you clearly can see it, you know what's going to happen here, right? This should catch major success when this releases. What I think Andy said like late fall, right. Or late on May. Late May. And so this should catch fire into the summer which then if you were on the business side of things, you would look at that team and say, okay, this is red hot and you have something. What do we need to do to keep the player base in. And of course you have a wealth of former bosses and enemy types that you can add. You can of course make new bosses and enemy types if you need to. You can make new classes. Right. So I do expect that they will do that. This to me, if you're looking at this, this is a live service product. This will be running through the summer into fall and they would hope that this catches fire with more and more content coming your way. I have ideas of what I would like to see, but I do believe this will happen.

[Tim Gettys]

Mike, I'm very happy I'm asking you this question. I imagine this game is going to.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Be very successful, real success.

[Tim Gettys]

I imagine they're going to make a lot of money from people like you, people like Andy, you know, maybe people like bless the.

[Snow Bike Mike]

From software fans.

[Tim Gettys]

Those bosses out there, they're going to want them. You're going to like this is. This sounds like it could really work from a business perspective and a fan perspective of giving them what they want. Do you think, Mike, that this game is successful enough that it has all the bosses from Dark Souls 1 and Dark Souls 2 and Dark Souls 3? And I don't know if they're allowed to have bloodborne. Probably not, but maybe they hinted at her spiritual version or whatever, blah blah. Do you think we get to the point that we jump the shark, okay. And we start collabing and they're like, you know what? This game's not about the Elden Ring lore. This isn't about getting things right. This ain't canon. Okay. You're fighting a monster from Monster Hunter, a Rafalos or whatever. You're fighting damn Nicki Minaj who's in Call of Duty. You know what I mean?

[Snow Bike Mike]

Damn, Tim, that's crazy. I thought you would do like a God of war. A Monster Hunter is a great pull. I do not believe they will do that. I think they will stay in their lane if they want to keep this legit. I think you will lose players if you start doing the crazy Nicki minaj. The soap McTavishes. Now, does a Monster Hunter boss kind of fit the mold of most of these characters? Yeah. You could probably put a Monster Hunter boss in this world and I bet you 80% of the players be like, oh yeah, that's a. That's an elder Ring character. I've never seen it.

[Tim Gettys]

I'm telling you right now, end of this game. Rain. Yeah, we will fight. I won't. You will fight a Rafalos and I don't even know if that's his name.

[Snow Bike Mike]

That's good. I Tim, I love that poll and so yeah, that's what gets me excited is you can see the framework right now and what they have going on. Andy has talked about it in the games cast. Go check it out again. That it is a. Every evolving map. It is always going to be procedurally generated. Right now during the network test it is a set map that you fly into you land. You can see the known landmarks and you move with that every time. It will change whenever you play. You can already tell they will probably build a second map to. This would be the smart move here. You can already tell that they will add all of the bosses From Dark Souls 1 all the way to Elden Ring and everything in between. If they can get from software with bloodborne bosses, they will do that. Right? So you can see the framework of that and I truly believe that is the right move. I wouldn't even be surprised if we see a limited time mode where they do add in.

[Tim Gettys]

Will you drop on the Rebirth island?

[Snow Bike Mike]

Stop it. Verdansk is coming. Get ready. We'll talk about that another day. But I. I would be. I would not be surprised if they tested out a limited time mode where two other teams drop with you. So there is three teams on the map that are moving and can either collide with each other on day one or they can wait until the end and compete at the end. The issue with from software and these multiplayer games is the dueling has never been perfect with the latency. So it is always something kind of funky and weird. But you can see the framework of like season one, we add more bosses. Season two, we add this. Season three, we do this right. Or you can break it down into quarters, months, whatever you want to call it. But there will probably be a day, one day where it's like, hey, we have three teams jumping into this for a limited time mode. Here's the fun. Good luck. Right. And so I. I do believe that that will be what will happen because there is a dedicated community that likes PvP in the dark Souls in Elden Ring world. And I do see you're looking at it. It is built for something like that, for a limited time mode. It's not going to be the bread and butter, but it will be an attempt that they will try. Wow. Let's see if we have any super chats coming in. Of course. Benny B. Good writes in with the two dollar super chat. Says, birthday gift for Mike. You're the best, homie. Of course, don't forget, every day is my birthday. You know what I mean? So treat that person, especially on a special day like today. Yeah, Tim, you might not be in love. Viewer out there, you might not have that special someone, but you have a support community around you. Reach out to somebody you care about. Let them know that you care. Let them know that you think about them.

[Tim Gettys]

Look at the mirror, a nice little smile.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Alex Frazier writes in and says contributing to Mike's hoodie Blazer combo fund. Put five on it, Tim.

[Tim Gettys]

There we go. Thanks.

[Snow Bike Mike]

1195 is what I need.

[Tim Gettys]

Now we inch it towards it.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Of course, that is the talk for Elden Ring Night Reign Tim, Any further stuff on that? I'm very excited. I do believe Tim, if this is a live service product, you know you can call whatever you want but like the money hats will look at and go, how do I add in skins to this? How do we figure out a battle pass for this? I don't think you will ever pay for bosses. I don't think you'll pay for new characters. But I do. You can see it clear as day. It's like they will charge you for a cool battle hawk skin because one of the characters is straight up Falcon on that.

[Tim Gettys]

I I am incredibly interested on the trajectory of this game. I expect very big things and I am just very interested in how they navigate getting things right, getting things wrong and adapting with the audience. Yeah, I have faith that they're going to push the boundaries but kind of keep people happy.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

Which is a good place to be.

[Snow Bike Mike]

That's where you want to be. That's where you want to be.

[Tim Gettys]

You know, we want to be and.

[Snow Bike Mike]

We want to be here with you. But of course we will be back with you just after a word from our sponsors.

[Tim Gettys]

This episode's brought to you by Rocket Money. Missing out on a show that everyone's talking about isn't an option for people like me. So many of us are constantly signing up for this streaming service or that streaming service, and then a few months later realize that we're still paying for the service long after after we finish the show. Rocket Money has helped multiple members of Kinda Funny learn that they were still paying for things that they totally didn't even realize. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel all of your unwanted subscriptions. It monitors your spending and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. You can see all of your subscriptions in one place and know exactly where your money is going from ones you don't want any more. Rocket Money can help you cancel them. Rocket Money has over 5 million users and has saved a total of 500 million in canceled subscriptions, saving members up to $740 a year when using all of the app's premium features. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to rocket money.com kind of funny today. That's rocket money.com kind of funny. Rocket money.com kind of funny this episode is brought to you by Shady Rays. Get ready for the season ahead with quality shades built to last. Our friends at Shady Rays have you covered with premium polarized shades that won't break the bank Shady Rays is an independent sunglasses company offering a world class product rated five stars by over 300,000 people. Their shades have durable frames and crystal clear optics, making them the perfect choice for all outdoor adventures. Plus, if your shades ever go missing or take an unexpected hit, don't sweat it. They have the most insane protection in all of eyewear. Every pair is backed by lost or broken replacements. Y'all know I've been outside in the sun a lot playing Pokemon Go and it is such a great experience wearing Shady Rays when I'm out and about looking all dope. Exclusively for you. Shady Rays is giving out their best deal. Head to shadyrays.com and use code funny for 35% off polarized sunglasses. Try for yourself the Shadow rated five stars by over 300,000 people. Again, go to shadyrays.com use code funny to get 35% off polarized sunglasses. Shadyrays.com promo code funny this episode's brought to you by BetterHelp. When you are having serious conversations with the people in your life, we often hear them talk about red flags that we should avoid. But what if we focus more on looking for green flags in friends and partners? If you're not sure what they look like, therapy can help you identify green flags. Actively practice them in your relationships and embody the green flag. Energy yourself. Some of my best friends use Better Help and love how helpful it can be for learning positive coping skills and how to set boundaries. It empowers you to be the best version of yourself and it isn't just for those who've experienced major trauma. If you're thinking of starting therapy, give Better help a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible and suited to your schedule, and it serves over 5 million people worldwide. Discover your relationship green flags with better help. Visit betterhelp.com kind of funny to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp h E-L-P.com kind of funny betterhelp.com kind of funny welcome back everyone.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Tim, It's Friday and I want to promote one more Kind of Funny content. One more piece of Kind of Funny content. Today we have in review for Captain America. Brave New World has just hit so you go check that out. Listen to Nick, Andy and Tim talking about their thoughts on the movie where it will rank in the big Marvel.

[Tim Gettys]

Re ranking 63 movies. Now where does it fall?

[Snow Bike Mike]

I want y'all to watch that because of course they talk about the in theater experience and a lot of shenanigans.

[Tim Gettys]

Which includes Snowbike Mike. I'm not gonna say what he did or didn't do, but shouldn't have done it.

[Snow Bike Mike]

He told me to do it, so it was a lot of fun. Yeah, he told me to do it.

[Tim Gettys]

Mix involved story number three or bad thing.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Up to award winners coming from Adam Bankhurst at IGN. The 28th DICE Awards have arrived and have celebrated the best of the best in the world of video games from 2024. While there were a lot of winners across 23 categories, Astrobot. I've lost myself. One sec, one sec. Astrobot won the night by taking home Game of the Year alongside Outstanding Achievement in Animation, Outstanding Technical Achievement, Family Game of the Year, and Outstanding Achievement in Game Design. Congratulations, team.

[Tim Gettys]

Hell yeah.

[Snow Bike Mike]

There were a few other games that won multiple categories and Helldivers 2 came in second with four wins for outstanding Achievement in Original Music Composition, Outstanding Achievement in Audio design, Action Game of the Year, and Online Game of the Year. Balatro and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle also brought home three wins for themselves. In addition to honoring the best games of 24. 2024. This year's DICE Awards also celebrated two individuals who both made a great impact on the video game industry. First up was Don James, former executive vice president of operations for Nintendo of America, was awarded the lifetime achievement award, first time with the company in his support for the Starlight Children's Foundation. Next Insomniac Games founder and president Ted Price, who recently announced his retirement from the studio, was given the hall of Fame award for all that he has done for game development and quote, leading Insomniac games for three decades and advocating for video game creators first amendment rights, end quote.

[Tim Gettys]

Very, very cool, man. Congratulations.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Congratulations.

[Tim Gettys]

Congratulations to all the winners. Astrobot, absolutely destroying the award circuit and you love to see it. It's rare that we get a game that kind of sweeps it, you know, like when we look at game awards and DICE Awards, I feel like the last couple years they haven't been the same game. Remember, like, if I remember correctly, like, Untitled Goose game won DICE Awards a couple of years back. So to see Astrobot, like, to me that really says that it's a game that speaks to everyone and it has that, like, yeah, it is AAA and It is a PlayStation Studios game.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

But there's, there's something to it that it could be picked up by anybody and enjoyed by anybody and there's a creativity that we want to support there and I think that that's amazing. On the other side, Indiana Jones, right. It's getting a whole Bunch of wins and a lot of, a lot of support from the industry, right? And this is like these are the people making the games, these are the developers themselves. So really great stuff.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yeah. Congratulations to Indiana Jones who took home three. Troy Baker was awarded as well for his performance. Very, very cool to see. Hell divers 2 getting a whole lot of love was fantastic, man. Helldivers had us in the headlock during that year. It was a great time. And you know, I want to point out a couple of things here. One, the team over at Astrobot talking about trying to bring that family game back to PlayStation, how important that was to go for that audience and make a game like that, that brings the fun, delivers on that, right? We talk about when you think of PlayStation in recent years, you think of that third person action adventure, narrative driven game that's usually a little bit on the mature side, right? And like PlayStation way back in the day, was that family friendly? Hey, we got the mascots. We want you to have the fun. And we've kind of moved with the progression of the world of, you know, getting the dopest graphics, the most intense stories. And it was really cool to hear them say, hey, we focused on what we wanted to do and we were so happy that the audience was there to resonate with. That was great.

[Tim Gettys]

Let's do something for the ugly little guy. You know what I mean?

[Snow Bike Mike]

Mean? Also, of course, celebrating Ted Price was really, really great. There was a fantastic speech from one of Ted's other co workers who gave an impassioned speech all about Ted. Ted got up there, talked about the team. It was never about him, it was always about the people around him. Uplifting those voices, sharing these moments and working together. It was a incredible one. And then just real quick, I do.

[Tim Gettys]

Want to just say I've said this a couple times recently but like shout out to Insomniac games like what an amazing group of people. I I' many developers and publishers and just industry industry people over the years and there is not a single company that every single person I've ever met, there is a 10 out of 10. And insomniac is like every. And I've now met a couple handfuls of people there and they are wonderful. They care so much, they're passionate about what they do, they care about each other so much. Great stuff. And yeah, I think that obviously the, the games speak for themselves, but I do think it's so valuable to award people like Ted for that hard work and such amazing stuff. It was congrat instead like the retirement.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Let'S go enjoy retirement. It was a beautiful thing to talk about teamwork. And then on the other side, getting in with Don James was employee number four at Nintendo. This guy has an incredible story, Tim, of his career in the video games industry. And something that really stuck out to me was him doing more, taking on extra stuff and going out and helping communities. Just like they talked about with Starlight Children's Foundation. This guy, when they talk about his career, he was doing things that just wasn't his normal job title. He was getting involved in other communities, other support systems that he could do. It was really cool, Tim. I was like, man, this guy, he had a cool one. He had a fun time and he did some really great stuff. So congratulations to both of them getting those awards and being shined a light on and most importantly, all the word winners. That was a really good dice Awards. You should go check it out. It is about two and a half hours. I don't think it was too long. It felt a little long, but like it was like one of those, like you knew what you came here for. Great speeches, awesome awards. Greg and Stella having fun, telling some great jokes. Great job. Everybody was good.

[Tim Gettys]

Mic them up next time.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Number four. Okami 2 confirmed to be a direct sequel still early in development. This coming from Rebecca Valentine at ign. The announcement of a sequel to beloved adventure game Okami at the Game Awards last year was met with plenty of fan celebration, but we still know very, very little about what exactly the game entails. In a recent interview with Project Leads, IGN was able to confirm a few crumbs, including that yes, the Okami sequel is in fact a direct sequel to the events of the first game. Speaking to IGN Capcom producer Give me a moment. I worked really hard on these. Yoshiaki Hirabayashi confirmed that Okami sequel is quote, continuation of the story that we saw in the original game. We asked as a follow up if the team could confirm that in fact the great God Amatera Sue. In the trailer we saw TGAs while the director Hideki Kamiya Kamiya, thank you. Cryptically responded with I wonder. Hirabayashi responded moments later that it was. While the news probably doesn't come as a shock to fans, there what? There has been a significant speculation about how Okami sequel would be handled. A successorship from Okami. Technically there's already. Or there. Technically there's already a Okami Okami Den a Nintendo DS game starring Amaterasu's child and features a number of characters from the original game. However, Okami Den was met with mixed feedback both for its release on the DS rather than one console, and for its creation without key original team members such as Kamiya. Unfortunately, we are not going to get that much more detail for this for a while. In the same interview, the team confirmed that Okami sequel was very, very early in development, with the team announcing it so early simply because they were excited and wanted to. Sadly, the team also says we might have taken a little bit of time before we might talk again.

[Tim Gettys]

I ain't mad at that at all. Like, I. I think that I've said this for as long as I've been speaking into a mic about video games. I am a fan of the unicorn game. I am the fan of the. Holy crap. I can't believe this is actually happening. And it's going to take many years. We are going to hear about this thing every once in a while. Then we're just gonna go for a big dry spell of not hearing about it and then eventually we're gonna hear about it again. I don't want every game to be that way, but we are. We get thousands of games a year at this point. I want to have a couple that were like the big dogs. And the fact that I'm talking about a big dog about Okami 2, you know what I mean? A cult classic game, like, that's where I want to be. Get this one right. It's not important for this to to come out and like just happen. It needs to be good if you're gonna do this. Because Okami is very special. Like Mike, if you don't know, Okami is a game that came out during the PS2 generation at a time when and GameCube generation at a time that people were like, hey, this is better than the Zeldas right now.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Wow.

[Tim Gettys]

Because it's a Zelda like game.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Okay.

[Tim Gettys]

And I think that over time, you know, people have kind of like really warmed up to Wind Waker, but Okami's still in that conversation. It's a very special game if you haven't played it. The HD version's out now. You can check it out. But yeah, take your time. Get this right. And also shout out to Capcom, man, they have turned the ship around from the early 2010s and in recent years they've just been putting out banger after banger, trying new weird things with exoprimal and Curry Konitsugami. That's what it is. Yes. Like trying new ip, trying new things, but then also banger ass remakes of Resident Evils New great new Resident Evils. Oh, Animus is coming back. They did devil may cry 5 a decade ago at this point. But like they've had win after win after hit. So yeah man, I trust them. Take your time, get the talent right.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I also like when the team is so excited. They're like, we gotta announce this. We gotta share it with the world. We got to get the hype there and let them know, hey, it's gonna take us some time. We'll be back a little bit later. But I I love celebrating that. If the team is excited about it, let them go have some fun. Let's talk about story number five. Ubisoft CEO says the plan is to focus on open world and live service games year after year. This coming from Chris Scullion at vgc. The CEO of Ubisoft says the publisher is focusing mainly on open world action adventure games and live service games in the coming years. During a Q A following a presentation on the company's financial results for Q3 of its 2024, 2025 financial year, one caller asked if the executives on the panel could shed more light on their development pipeline going forwards. Of course, CEO Eve's Gilmont replied with the focus was mainly going to be on open world adventures like the Assassin's Creed games and live service games like Rainbow six Siege or the Crew Motor Fest for the foreseeable future. Quote we have been investing significantly for a big pipeline of products for the coming years along our two verticals, these being open world action adventures as well as games as a service narrative experiences, gilmont said. And that that's what we want to deliver year after year, going on to discuss games already confirmed, he added. As you know, we are preparing for a big launch for Assassin's Creed Shadows in the very short term next year we'll have big plans that will benefit benefit Rainbow six across all platforms. That's focusing. That's focusing well and that's a key milestone in the gross plan for the company. We've announced that Anno1 1 or Anno1 117 Pax Romana will also come out next year as well as the division resurgence on mobile. This is, this is all coming along the way. We haven't provided more color for FY26, but we will have more to share by the time of May. And I've just said we have a strong platform for the future years across these two verticals. During the presentation, Gilmont also claimed that Assassin's Creed Shadows pre orders were in line with those of Assassin's Creed Odyssey, which went on to be the second most successful entry in terms of unit sales. Tim. I mean, no, right? Like, of course they're focusing on those two. That's what they've been focusing on. Tim.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah. Nothing's new here. Here's what sucks, Mike, Me and you sit here. We're so lucky. We get to be at this desk in front of this video wall with Kevin Coelho running the goddamn stream. What a great Friday. What a great time. We have freaking smoke machines. Everything's awesome.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

We have a responsibility to, you know, have fun. It's in the name. Kind of funny.

[Snow Bike Mike]

We're here for trying our best, celebrating.

[Tim Gettys]

We'Re trying to top up games, but we also, you know, try to be critical in a productive way. We. We try to be fanboys responsibly, because if we love something, we just want to share that love. I know me and you very much share that experience. Right. And it's kind of easy sometimes to get upset and just start, like, throwing around words that really don't mean anything when you're mad at something or whatever. But, like, sometimes you just need to. So I just.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Kevin, let's take a moment. Tim, give us it, please.

[Tim Gettys]

Give me the one. Fuck you, Ubisoft. You. I hate this. Maybe I'm petty as hell right now, coming off. And I know that this is not professional. This is irresponsible. I don't give a man what y'all did to Ubisoft. Bond Pillier for Prince of Persia. Lost crown that man. My favorite game last year. It's gonna be one of my favorite games of all time. And you did that team so dirty after it won a bunch of awards. I just was looking at the dice thing. It was nominated for multiple awards. Might not have won. Nominated. You know what doesn't. What wasn't your live service game. Games. God damn it. I hate this. And also, this isn't gonna happen anyways. They're gonna fail all my friends there. Get that out. Find a new place.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Get on the lifeboard. Him. Take a deep breath. Great stuff. Tim. Tim, I think you're speaking for a lot of people who feel out there for sure, of course. So I. I love what you're putting down there. Tim is right, of course. As I said. No, it feels like that has been the way of this company for quite some time. It seems like they try different things and they find wins in Prince of Persia type games or, you know, others, and they just kind of. They're like, no, that wasn't our thing, we're back to this, right? And so if you're going to focus on the two, then you better deliver on the two. These better be the best of the best moving forward. The teams better feel confident. They better know that they have their jobs year after year. Because you're bringing in a lot of money.

[Tim Gettys]

I mean, you're buying a lot of money. I've never been more confident in the Crew Motor Festival.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yeah. Yes. Yeah, yeah, Tell me about it. Tell me about that.

[Tim Gettys]

That's all I have to say.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Okay, okay.

[Tim Gettys]

No, no, Again, again, I. I am coming off as a hater and I am very legitimately mad about this because I care. Because I do care about these things. But like all the shade aside, it's like there's so many talented people here working on these games. Like, I don't even want to on the crew Motor Fest, like, the. The little that I've played about that game, it is stunning. It is so fun to play.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

There's the people working on that game truly, deeply care about making a good game. But Ubisoft needs to set them up to be able to succeed and they need to be able to, I don't know, just create a better environment culturally within video games so that, like, we don't hear Ubisoft and immediately, like, have our blood start boiling. And like, you know, maybe again, I'm. I'm on the way more hyped up mad side of this. But, like, I do think that there was a time when we would be waiting for E3, and the Ubisoft press conference was one of the ones I was looking forward to the most.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Of course, you know, I think there's a lot of times for that as well.

[Tim Gettys]

Now I'm at a point that I am begging and praying that they don't do a Ubisoft forward. Just don't. So that the next time you do, you actually have things to say.

[Snow Bike Mike]

We will see this summer what they announced for the future. It seems like they have their eyes set on a plan. Of course. Assassin's Creed Shadows right around the corner. It was delayed. Let's see how this lands, how this is received. This is a setting that fans have wanted Assassin's Creed to hit for a long, long time. Hopefully they nail it like all the fans I think want and deserve. Of course, you have a game that is still continuing to fire on all cylinders. It might have its ups and downs, but you have a strong product in Rainbow six Siege. You have other games that you can add to this. Games As a service lineup, you have open world games like Far Cry that you can go to Watchdogs when you're ready. So, like they have the titles but you have to nail it. And you haven't inspired any of the audience for the past couple of years here. So it'll be very interesting to see where we go. Let's go to our final story of the day here, Tim. Story number six. Two big Final Fantasy remakes are reportedly still active development or inactive development. Jordan Midler at VGC reports a Final Fantasy 9 remake is reportedly still in development alongside a remake of Final Fantasy Tactics. This according to noted industry insider Nate.

[Tim Gettys]

The Hate, AKA the number one man in games industry bullshit. Right now that I hear his name and I'm like, yo, everything's riding on you. If you say something, I believe it. And the moment he's wrong, we're all.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Gonna turn on you.

[Tim Gettys]

Positively. Respectfully, but no right now, dude. Nah, nothing but trust, okay?

[Snow Bike Mike]

Nothing but trust for Nate the eight right now from Tim, who has a record of revealing information about video games ahead of their official reveal. Both titles, which have been rumored for several years, are still on the way. Replying to a user on X who asked about the status of both games, Nate the Hate stead quote, both remain in active development. Final Fantasy 9 Remake isn't expected to see release in 2025. Maybe we'll see it launch in 2026, end quote.

[Tim Gettys]

I know we're going a little long on the show, but I want to talk about this for a sec because this is important to talk about, exciting to talk about. There's a lot, a lot of different things here. One is, these are some of the last remaining games from the Nvidia leak.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Oh, okay. Very interesting.

[Tim Gettys]

Okay, so it's one of those things. I think it's one of the origin stories of the. Where there's smokes, there's fires. Conversation on Games Daily where one by one, all of those games announced on the Nvidia League have been announced, including things like Kingdom Hearts 4. That felt kind of like a. A wild thing.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

But anyways, here we are now. Both Final Fantasy 9 and Tactics with remakes coming. We've been expecting this. We've been predicting it. Oh, it's going to be a state of play. Oh, it's going to be Achilles event. Oh, it's gonna be here. And it hasn't. So that's surprising, these dates talking about it's not even gonna make 2025. I'm a little bewildered by that, Mike, because I Am kind of expecting Final Fantasy 9 to be very different from the Final Fantasy VII remake project.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Oh, okay.

[Tim Gettys]

Final Fantasy 7 more reimagining than anything. A three part freaking epic. I think Final Fantasy 9 is going to be a one skew.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Okay.

[Tim Gettys]

And it's done more than a remaster, but not quite a reimagining like I think it is.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Resident Evil 2 remake, like that kind of style. We're still closer to the ballpark. You're not bringing like you said with Final Fantasy 7. Yeah, yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

I think closer to RE2. Closer to RE2, but yeah, so that's cool. And then Tactics as well. Like I feel like that Tactics is one of the again, I think like cult classic Final Fantasy games and even then one of the highest rated PlayStation games of all time. Like it's still a big deal. But I do think Tactics kind of has the juice going into it that if it got a dope ass re release now, it's gonna hit very hard for people. Last thing I want to say, you combine both of these things, whether it's a delay or just kind of like timing of strategy of when they're putting this out, whether it's 2025, 2026. Because right now I think they're talking about fun fantasy 9 not being 2025. So maybe tactics is okay. I very much expect we can combine this information with what Square has been saying about really focusing on multi platform success. And I imagine that these games will launch day and date on PC, Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo Switch to okay big. And so I think that that is, that is very, very good and awesome and hopefully can kind of get a nice reset for Square to come up with realistic sales expectations and to have a better understanding of what they are capable of. We're talking about not spreading themselves too thin and focusing more on like the bigger hits. I think these two can be relatively big hits, like not the biggest successes that they've ever had. But I do think that especially you get these, the quality right, you get the marketing right, you put them on the all the consoles, you're gonna be in a good spot.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Tim, when you talk about Final Fantasy 7 and Final Fantasy as a whole, it's always so big, it's exciting. But if I need something a little bit smaller, where would I go?

[Tim Gettys]

You go to our last story, the Wii News Channel where we cover all the small news items that you need to know about.

[Snow Bike Mike]

First up on the Wii News Network, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are coming to Call of Duty. Can we see the small teaser Now, I don't wanna. I don't want to start saying things because it's just a generic city backdrop. But like Verdansk when you know what I mean? It's not for dance. It's not for dance. But like you put us downtown. You got that feeling. You know what I mean? Where's verdance? But the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are coming.

[Tim Gettys]

They're here.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Nothing better than just getting absolutely Doo doo Dawn by the Ninja Turtles.

[Tim Gettys]

They're everywhere, man.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I love it.

[Tim Gettys]

They'll do any collab freaking possible. They're gonna. I bet you. I bet you.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

That you're a little. From what am I talking about? Elden Ring in Night Range. You're gonna be up Michelangelo. One day.

[Snow Bike Mike]

One day. Dynasty warriors origins sold over 1 million copies worldwide. Yo, let's go. Dynasty warriors is back, baby. They never left with their back back. Also, that new game from the Dynasty Warriors. I bought it for 24 bucks. Had a blast.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Had a blast.

[Tim Gettys]

Hell yeah.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Can't wait. Maybe we'll talk about on what you've been playing.

[Tim Gettys]

Snow Mike.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Mike. You never know. From Gitu Night Drive Studios has announced that System Shock 2 Enhanced Edition is upcoming remastered. It's upcoming remastered version of the 1999 classic sci fi fiction horror action RPG has been renamed to System Shock 2 25th anniversary remaster and the release date will be announced at Future Game Show Spring Showcase 2025 on March 20th. Okay. Get down. Infinity Nikki is coming to Steam and Fantasy Life. The girl who steals the time is coming to Xbox Series XS, PS4, PS5, Switch and PC on May 22nd.

[Tim Gettys]

Cool.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I like that. I thought Blessing was kind of fooling with me on that one. Yeah, I was a little worried. I had to pause for a second. Take a deep breath on that one one. Tim, let's go through the super chats that I left here for you and I to round out the show with that. Of course. Alex J. Sandoval writes in and says, loving the matching burnt orange looks today, boys. Hey, Happy Valentine's Day to you as well. Let's keep it going right now. Norman says stayed up way too late to watch the DICE Awards here on the east coast. They were great. Way more of what I want from an award show than the TGAs. Hey, you get the best of both worlds. As Greg has always said, that's for the developers, by the developers. Right? You have the big blowout with Jeff Keighley. You got the Muppets there. You got awesome showcase games that get to be shown in like worldwide release, whatever. And then you have Greg having fun with the developers, giving great speeches. You get both of them. It's a great time to be alive. Shout out to dear Sixlet with the it's my birthday. Here's a birthday tax. As far as collabs go, imagine it a raid in Night Rain against the Dark side. Or from Kingdom Hearts. It's the Ba.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Or Final Fantasy.

[Tim Gettys]

Dark side from Kingdom Hearts. Bahamut from Final Fantasy. I mean, yeah, you can throw them in there.

[Snow Bike Mike]

You can throw them in there.

[Tim Gettys]

It's gonna happen, Tim.

[Snow Bike Mike]

You got them all cracked up on these.

[Tim Gettys]

I know.

[Snow Bike Mike]

JPlay says, why can't Ubisoft just make Splinter Cell? Yeah, unless Splinter Cell can be an open world action adventure game like they try to do with the division, then it's not coming back. It's right, man. Yell writes in and says, the Okami devs. Oh, we got some more super chats blowing up my. Blowing up my phone right now. Hold up, hold up, hold up. The Okami devs were too excited and blew their load early. Hashtag horny week. All the jokes aside, I'm glad the team is excited about making a sequel to a goat.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, man, that's great.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Ian says. Unrelated, but any word on when Cobra Kai in review continues? Tim, I'm back.

[Tim Gettys]

Yes. Real quick, I don't want to say too much about this. What I will say is Cobra Kai, the greatest karate saga of all time, concluded yesterday. The final five episodes dropped and me and Gia sat down as soon as I got home from work. We hit play and we never hit pause. Oh, it just kept going and going and going. And right in the middle of the finale, the fucking screen pops up and says, are you still watching?

[Snow Bike Mike]

Don't.

[Tim Gettys]

And I'm like, fuck you, you stupid motherfucker. Are you kidding me? Yes. I'm still watch. And we finish that and on next Monday in just a couple days, we're going to sit at this desk and talk all about Cobra freaking Kai on the kind of funny screencast.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I'm so excited.

[Tim Gettys]

Right after games daily 11am Pacific. That scared me for a second, Kevin. I thought the screen might have been on fire.

[Snow Bike Mike]

It's on fire. Final two right there. CJ writes in one more time, says, kf speed dating, question mark. If you have some lovely single person in your life that needs like Mike and Bless to come and take him out on a date, call us up. You know what I mean? I'm available. I'm available. EJ writes in and says, shout out to The Legend of Heroes trials through Daybreak 2 launching today. Very exciting news. Some cool games. Tim, let's end the show with you're wrong checking in on messing up if we messed up anything throughout today's show. And Tim, it is empty. Thank you to everyone who's tuned in on this lovely Friday with a whole lot of energy. This has been Kind of Funny Games Daily. Each and every weekday we run you through the nerdy news you need to know about live on YouTube. Twitch, of course on podcast services around the globe. Don't forget, if you love what we do here at Kind of Funny, consider supporting us with that kind of Funny membership available on YouTube and on Patreon to get all of our shows ad free. Watch them live as we record them and get your daily exclusive show. Please enjoy the games cast next and of course Game Showdown and the stream afterwards. It's going to be a big Fun Friday here on twitch and on YouTube. Of course you're here on Twitch. You don't got to go anywhere if you're on YouTube. Click that next link. Join us over there. We'll have some fun. Thank you so much for joining us. Have a wonderful weekend.