Greg Miller Apologizes to PC Gamers, Reviews Steam - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Summary

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Kinda Funny Gamescast: "Greg Miller Apologizes to PC Gamers, Reviews Steam"

Episode Date: October 16, 2025

Hosts: Tim Gettys, Greg “GameOverGreggy” Miller, Blessing Adeoye Jr., Andy Cortez, SnowBikeMike, others

Episode Overview

This episode centers on a milestone moment: Greg Miller’s public apology to PC gamers after years of being staunchly anti-PC. The cast explores Greg’s turning point with PC gaming, largely brought on by recent advances in handhelds like the Steam Deck, ROG Ally, and ROG Ally X, and how these devices flipped his perspective on convenience and accessibility. The group also dives deep into a comprehensive, highly positive "Greg Miller Review" of Steam as a platform. The latter half of the episode shifts into a sponsored interview with Virgil Watkins, Design Director for Arc Raiders, discussing the upcoming extraction shooter, its approach to accessibility, PvP/PvE balance, and game design philosophy.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Brutally Honest Reactions to “Cuff Bust” and Party Games

• [01:14] Andy shares disappointment with Cuff Bust, a new party game resembling “gummy bears escaping prison”—calling it “terrible, horrible” after high hype.
• Cast discusses the cycle of indie party game hype and reality:
  • Blessing: “For every ‘peak,’ there’s a thousand Cuff Busts. But then, in all this, we get one ‘peak’ where we’re like, oh man, that was fire.” (02:53)
• Light banter about the harsh realities of hyped indie reveals.

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2. Housekeeping & Pixar Re-Rank Tease

• [03:17] Quick mention of new merch, recent Pokémon ZA review, and upcoming “Great Pixar Re-Rank”—with debate about the best Pixar film.
• Greg and team joke about family anecdotes related to movie quotes, emphasizing the show’s casual, fun tone.

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3. Greg Miller Apologizes to PC Gamers: A Change of Heart

Timestamp: [05:43]–[21:50]

Apology Moment

• Greg (06:02): “I’m sorry. PC gamers. PC gaming is good.”
  • Tim: “Character growth everybody.” (06:08)

Story of Conversion

• Greg explains decades-long PlayStation/console loyalty, rooted in financial and practical hurdles to PC gaming during his time at IGN.
• “It’s always been met with the wink of the nod and the under the breath sentence that well, of course PC gaming is probably the best place to play, but it’s like hard. I feel like we’ve turned a corner.” (08:18)

Handhelds Change Everything

• Devices like Steam Deck, ROG Ally, ROG Ally X eliminated friction:
  • “PC gaming for me, Greg Miller, has finally turned that corner where it almost, if not does just work.” (09:18)
  • “PC gaming has somehow stolen the convenience bullet point. Which is why I went with console for the longest time, right?…Now the convenience is flip flop for me.” (12:30)
• Save syncing in the Xbox ecosystem and Steam praised: “When I’m off doing something, I’m playing on the ROG, I’m playing on the PC or whatever, I come home, my save just goes to the Xbox Series X badda bing, bada boom.” (11:38)
• Greg finds himself using laptops (Razer Blade 16), handhelds, cloud services interchangeably—remarking on newfound mobility and seamlessness.

Pain Points Remain—But Not Dealbreakers

• Minor complaints: shader compilation, having to ask Andy for graphics settings help, minor clunky windows (11:58, 09:57).
• “But…now, like, this is a normal sized laptop that I can take and have those experiences.”

The Future

• Speculates on possibly building a PC but jokes, “Am I gonna build one? Fuck no. I got a life.” (12:02)
• Tim and others predict next step for Greg is building his own PC, teasing a collaborative stream ("build and sip"). (15:13)

Notable Quotes

• Greg (09:18): “PC gaming for me…has finally turned that corner where it almost, if not does just work.”
• Greg (12:30): “PC gaming has somehow stolen the convenience bullet point. Which is why I went with console for the longest time.”
• Tim (15:40): “If you could build a Lego set, you can build a PC.”

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4. Tech & Handheld Reviews: ROG Ally X Initial Impressions

[17:06]–[21:39]

• Greg gives first impressions of the ROG Ally X, noting substantial improvements in comfort and performance: “I was able to play Skate on it for three hours on the couch comfortably…It ran Skate far better than my original ROG Ally.” (17:58)
• Praises Windows integration, touch responsiveness, and the potential for the device to become his “daily driver.” (21:10)
• Recognizes there are still unique challenges switching between Xbox and Steam on these handhelds (i.e., window management, battery consumption).

Convenience Factor

• Greg explains how and why PC gaming is now more convenient than console for him, particularly as someone who is constantly traveling, switching devices, or sharing space at home.
• “Above fidelity...above trophies...now it’s just about playing the game I want to play and I don’t have time for the bullshit.”

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5. The “Greg Miller Review” of Steam

[26:00]–[32:25]

Unified Experience & User Interface

• Praises Steam’s seamlessness:
  • “What a user experience…opening up Steam on my phone, on the computer, on the Mac…redeem a code, boom, it’s in the library. Be able to install it, be able to stream, it’s flawless, it’s snappy, it’s quick, it’s great.” (26:00)
• Criticizes PlayStation and Xbox for still lagging behind in ease-of-use.

Cloud Saves & Store Functions

• “No one makes it easier to wishlist your games than Steam…whether you’re on your phone, you’re on the portal, you’re in the app.” (31:23)
• Steam’s store pages, demo availability, modding, sales, and account-wide convenience are all called out for excellence.
• Compares Steam’s “just about the games” ethos to what PlayStation 4 got right at launch, lamenting modern console “noise.” (29:35)

Notable Quotes

• Greg (26:00): “What a user experience…opening up Steam on my phone, on the computer, on the Mac…flawless, snappy, quick, great.”
• Blessing (27:30): “It is my favorite ecosystem currently to exist in because for me it just does it all and has it all.”
• “Steam is great because of course it was doing this already…I just wasn’t in that ecosystem because I didn’t have a way to engage with it.” (29:35)

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6. Trophy Hunting & Life Changes

[23:48]–[33:15]

• Greg, formerly a notorious “trophy whore,” now only chases trophies for games he actually cares about:
  • “I don’t care about trophy whoring anymore. Where…at the end of the night…I’d just play 30 minutes of this trash game to get [a Platinum]—that’s gone.”
  • Last Platinum: AstroBot (January 2025)

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7. Community Q&A & Further Reflections on “PC Just Works”

[33:20]–[36:08]

• Discussion on how console complexity has increased—“consoles have gotten just more PC like and complicated...PCs have gotten more accessible and easier to use.” (22:00, summarized)
• DualSense and Xbox controller PC compatibility, Bluetooth issues/solutions, and Steam’s dominance in indie game access discussed.
• Blessing: “Not having to pay for playing games online…feels so user friendly.” (32:25)

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Sponsored Segment: Arc Raiders Interview with Design Director Virgil Watkins

[40:07]–[67:48]

Game Overview

• Arc Raiders is described as an “extraction adventure”—third-person, with influences from Escape from Tarkov and The Cycle but intended to be much more approachable.
  • “We have like an RPG style skill tree, a lot of storylines, quests…you go into a session, scavenge and scrounge and fight, and to succeed you need to make it out alive.” (44:10)

Key Goals & Features

• Intentional effort to make extraction shooters less punishing:
  • “We took a lot of steps to try to make it more approachable so people who don’t want that barrier of entry can still have those high tension moments. The risk-reward, the stories…” (45:45)
  • Safety nets like randomized free loadouts and a character (“Scrappy the Rooster”) giving economic baseline to players to avoid the “knife run” rut common in the genre. (46:02)

Development Journey & Pivot

• Game pivoted from PvE co-op “looter shooter” to extraction model with PvP, to increase meta-game depth.
  • “Part of the reason we pivoted is there was no metagame. The game just wasn’t fun. As soon as we added PvP…more features…we had the baseline covered for approachability.” (48:50)

Design Philosophy

• Balance between casual approachability and hardcore depth:
  • “Initially we probably did pull too far back and really softened up the experience…as we started adding…to be a bit harder at the high end…you could see a split in some attitudes” (48:50)

PvE & PvP Flexibility

• Ability for stealthy, PvE-first playstyles: “There’s definitely a couple players…who whenever they possibly can, don’t PvP at all…they bring silenced weapons…they’ve gotten pretty adept at avoiding other players and being a ghost.” (55:41)
• Tons of interconnected quests and questlines.

Quality of Life & Systems

• Small details like on-screen inventory overlays, contextually unlocking map areas, detailed audio/verticality praised.
  • “It comes back to the whole thing of approachability. It makes sense to take the player’s attention during gameplay, but to obfuscate simple information isn’t really super necessary.” (65:23)
• Switched from free-to-play to premium ($39.99/$59.99 Deluxe); this allowed devs to design progression systems “that feel right” instead of endless padding.

Emergent Gameplay/Organic Fun

• Andy shares anecdotes of emergent player moments (“We befriended another squad…then Mike’s like ‘we’re gonna kill them…’”).
• Proximity chat noted for organic alliances and betrayals. (58:01)

Development Challenges

• Arc Raiders has been in development for 6 years (Virgil, 4 years personally). Balancing lessons from other genre entries.

Notable Quotes & Moments

• Virgil Watkins (Arc Raiders, 43:53): “Arc Raiders is a third person…‘extraction adventure’…RPG skill tree, a lot of storylines, quests…to succeed you need to make it out alive.”
• Greg (61:26): “A little nerve wracking to see all these titles come out and try some stuff and we’re like, oh, we were thinking about that but maybe not now.”
• Multiple user superchats voicing strong praise for the Arc Raiders tech test and anticipation for launch. (Mando Delgado, 61:43)

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Memorable Quotes & Banter

• Greg (06:02): “I’m sorry. PC gamers. PC gaming is good.”
• Tim (06:08): “Character growth everybody.”
• Greg (09:18): “PC gaming for me…has finally turned that corner where it almost, if not does just work.”
• Greg (12:30): “PC gaming has somehow stolen the convenience bullet point.”
• Blessing (27:30): “It is my favorite ecosystem currently to exist in because for me it just does it all and has it all.”
• Greg (26:00): “What a user experience…flawless, snappy, quick, great [on Steam].”
• Virgil Watkins (Arc Raiders, 43:53): “Extraction adventure…to succeed you need to make it out alive.”

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [05:43] – Greg’s PC Apology & Change of Heart
• [09:18] – How Handhelds & Cloud Gaming Flipped Greg’s Perspective
• [15:40] – Discussion: Tim predicts Greg will build a PC
• [17:06] – ROG Ally X Early Impressions
• [21:48] – Deep-dive: Why Convenience Has Flipped for PC
• [26:00] – Greg Miller Review of Steam
• [29:35] – Steam’s Philosophy vs Consoles (“Just About Games”)
• [40:07] – Arc Raiders Interview Begins (w/ Virgil Watkins)
• [44:10] – Arc Raiders “Extraction Adventure” Concept
• [45:45] – Accessibility and Approachability (Safety Nets)
• [48:50] – Game Design: Hardcore vs Casual, PvE to PvP Pivot
• [55:41] – PvE Playstyles Described
• [61:26] – The Development Challenge in a Crowded Genre
• [67:48] – Arc Raiders Interview Ends

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Episode Tone and Style

The conversation is consistently candid, playful, and self-referential, characteristic of Kinda Funny’s brand. Jokes, roasts, and inside references abound, but the team’s genuine excitement about PC advancements, Steam, and Arc Raiders is clear and contagious. Greg’s exaggerated former anti-PC character is deconstructed, yielding real, useful tech opinions—grounded in his everyday needs as a gamer, reviewer, and dad.

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In Summary

This episode stands as a landmark in the Kinda Funny Gamescast’s history, documenting Greg Miller’s sincere embrace of PC gaming and the modern Steam ecosystem—heralding a new era for both his gaming habits and the conversation around accessibility in hardcore and mainstream spaces. Combined with a meaty, informative Arc Raiders interview, it’s a must-listen for anyone interested in how the landscape is shifting for console/PC gamers, Steam devotees, and extraction shooter fans alike.

Transcript

[A]

Ugh.

[B]

You said you were over him, but his hoodie's still in your rotation. It's time. Grab your phone, snap a few pics and sell it on Depop. Listed in minutes with no selling fees. And just like that, a guy 500 miles away just paid full price for your closure. And right on cue.

[C]

Hey, still got my hoodie?

[B]

Nope. But I've got tonight's dinner paid for. Start selling on Depop, where taste recognizes taste list. Now with no selling fees, payment processing fees and boosting fees still apply. See website for details.

[D]

Foreign. What's up? And welcome back to the Kind of Funny Games class for October 16, 2025. Today we're brought to you by Solo Leveling a Rise Overdrive, the action RPG based on the popular solo leveling franchise launching on November 17th. Open now for pre order and wish listing on Steam and Xbox PC. But folks at TwitchCon can experience an exclusive demo at the Solo leveling Arise Overdrive Booth and Shady Rays. But we'll tell you all about that later. I'm Tim Geddes. This is Blessing Adioia junior.

[A]

Good day, Tim.

[D]

Good day. Bless. Hello, Michael. Tim.

[E]

It's terrible.

[D]

It's terrible.

[E]

It's terrible.

[C]

Ernie.

[E]

Cuff Bust. I played last night with my boys. I was really looking forward to Cuff Bus. This is like one of my most anticipated games. One of those fun party mode games with your friends. And we played for about an hour and I will probably never play it again.

[A]

Can we start more honest when we see these trailers?

[E]

That's cute as hell. Blessing.

[D]

What is Cuff Bust?

[E]

Cuff Bust was the cute Gummy Bear escape from prison game where you and

[D]

up to 10 friends are locked up

[E]

Gummy bears and you have to escape from a super colorful, vibrant prison in all sorts of ways. Maybe you take a helicopter, maybe you take a boat, maybe you steal the warden's car, right? There's different ways to get out of just panned out to be terrible, terrible, horrible.

[D]

And rounding out the group today we have Greg Miller.

[C]

It's that thing when you look at a trailer like this. Bless you think of like you and I do, video game critics. You know what I mean? What would we want to play? What will expand our mind? When Mike looks at this, he thinks of fucking farts McGee getting 1 million people to watch him on Twitch do it. You know what I mean? He's like, oh, this is a dumb fucking game.

[A]

You show me this trailer. I understand that, like, you know when they. When they announced this at Summer Game Fest 2024, we're all like, oh wow. This looks like it's, you know, fun. I look at this and I'm like, we gotta be. We gotta start being real. We gotta start being honest with ourselves in these trailers.

[E]

Well, when killer.

[A]

Of course.

[E]

This is trash 2027.

[A]

Killer beat is gonna be bad.

[E]

GTA like you. You can't play. I'm just saying like bless.

[F]

In an alternate timeline, this could have been the peak of the year, you know, but then peak became the peak.

[A]

But peak was also lucky that it became peak. Like peak is. Peak is an exception to the rule.

[E]

Peak had the sauce. Peak was good.

[A]

Peak had the sauce.

[E]

But what about Repo?

[A]

Which one is that?

[E]

Repo had the sauce too.

[D]

Different world.

[A]

For every peak, there's a thousand cuff bus. But then in that, in all this, we get one peak where we're like, oh man, that was fire.

[E]

Pretty close. Pretty good. Yeah, pretty good right there.

[D]

I don't like the name Cuff. It sounds very nasty.

[C]

Well, it's cuffing season. You're going to bust.

[D]

I. That's. That's what I think about. Yeah, but what's that to do with gummy bears? I don't know. Hey everybody. Housekeeping for you. What?

[C]

You can eat it all.

[D]

Oh. Happy ZA launch day. Our new poke Smiley crewnecks are now available in two colorways. Perfect for catching mon as the weather gets cold. You can grab them [e-mail] store. Of course you could also check out our Pokemon ZA review on the kind of funny games cast. A couple days ago Games Daily was blessed and Mike talking about Quantic Dreams new multiplayer game. In this episode we're doing a sponsored Arc Raiders interview with Virgil, the design director for Arc Raiders. So after the ad break here we're going to switch out. It's going to be Greg and Andy, I think Andy.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

Very, very cool. So stay tuned after this show we're doing the great Pixar re rank on in review, me, Joey, Andy and Nick are gonna quote right the wrongs of our past. I'm sure no one is going to be upset about the list that we come up with either individually or as a whole. We do not know the list. We will find it out live as you do with us. And it's going to be a disaster. 29 movies being ranked blessed. Nothing can go wrong.

[A]

What's the best one?

[D]

There's so many good ones and I don't agree.

[E]

I want to know best one.

[D]

Toy Story 3 or Coco 3 or

[A]

it's a movie that's Incredibles is one of them.

[C]

Incredible.

[A]

It's incredibles. Yeah.

[D]

Or it's. There's a lot.

[A]

Guys, incredibles is the answer.

[D]

Stay tuned.

[C]

Incredible.

[F]

What was the one where they're fish boys and they're also Italian?

[D]

Luca.

[F]

Luca.

[C]

I don't know why it fix roads lousy. Yeah, it will be 3:30 in a car. We haven't talked about cars in a week and Ben will say that Good. You drive like you fix roads lousy. Ben just has a constant. He's just like his dad. He's got movies playing in there the whole fucking time.

[A]

What was the 2020 movie? Where there are brothers Onward. I like that movie a lot now. One of the best. But yeah, it's a good movie.

[C]

Kung Fu Painting. Remember Light Year, Pixar Legacy?

[D]

You know, I hate you so much. And also it's really good, Greg. I didn't watch it until last year when we did Kung Fu Panda review.

[C]

Yeah, no, it's good Po. I know incredible stuff. If you put a character named Poe in they watch it then after that.

[D]

Andy and Greg are doing a sponsor stream showing off Nvidia GeForce now if you're kind of funny member Today's Greg Ways 20 minutes about how Greg prepares for an interview. Very apt for what's happening today.

[C]

Exactly. And what happened yesterday which you can only find out about in the Greg way.

[D]

Wow. Thank you to our Patreon producers Karl Jacobs, Omega Buster and Delaney the Psalm twining for now let's start with topic of the show.

[C]

Tots tots, tots tots tots tots.

[D]

Greg?

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

You have something to say?

[C]

I'm sorry. PC gamers. PC games. Pretty good.

[D]

I don't think the mic picked that up.

[C]

I didn't hear the gate the game. I'm sorry, are you sorry. I'm sorry. PC I'm sorry. PC gamers.

[D]

I'm gonna need you to say that last.

[C]

I'm sorry. PC gamers. PC gaming is good.

[E]

That's pretty dope.

[D]

Character growth everybody.

[A]

That's huge.

[D]

What a season of kind of funny it has been. We're finally getting here. Greg, I would like for you to expound.

[C]

Hi Tim.

[D]

Are there any tricks here? Are there any plays?

[C]

No, no, no. I mean it's, it's. No, I saw. It's funny to see people in the chat who didn't know we were talking about this. We were going live. We're like what's happening? Why they haven't kept up on the saga of this? No. You know I have been anti PC gaming a long time and that has developed into quite a character of then me just screaming and being mean and bringing up all the erotic fiction on Steam and all these things.

[D]

Are you gonna stop doing that?

[C]

Well, I gotta start choosing my words more carefully about the PC gamers I'm talking to because I think over the past year, right, you've seen me really go around the bend on PC gaming via the handhelds. Of course I'm holding up right now our Rog Ally X that Andy broke that of course Andy had. Oh, I'll pour Mountain Dew on the Y button. Oh, it doesn't work. Barrett, wake me at 4pm so I can stream, you know what I mean?

[D]

I wasn't with you until,

[C]

you know, he's always doing it, you know, Ric Flair. But no. So as long as the Internet has known Greg Miller, which has probably been near 20 years now, I've been a PlayStation guy, right? Because at IGN I was hired to write about PlayStation. It was my beat and so I knew that really well. But even before then, I'd always been a console person because I'd always had so many hurdles to PC gaming of some pop up some problem not having a powerful enough rig, yada yada yada. And that continued at IGN because I was so broke I couldn't afford stuff. So I would get like Anthony Gallez's third hand me down PC. Maybe Charles on yet would give me a scrap some part just to play Diablo, just to play SimCity, just to do whatever and those wouldn't run that well. But I was able to commit to PlayStation as time has always gone on and the character has evolved to be so anti PC gaming. It's always been met with the wink of the nod and the under the breath sentence that well, of course PC gaming is probably the best place to pay play, but it's like hard. I feel like we've turned a corner and it's interesting here on the Precipice slash the day after the Rog Ally X review from y' all of like PC gaming for me, Greg Miller has finally turned that corner where it almost, if not does just work where it is the idea, you know, if you're an audio listener. Right now I have in front, in front of me the razor blade 16 that they sent me after I reviewed the Razer blade 18, right. I have the Rog Ally X here. I have a million other ways. You know, we're doing the Nvidia GeForce now stream after this, Tim. Right, Which I've been using on both my Rog at home on my Mac, on. You know what I mean? Like, we've gotten to a point now where it can still be confusing, but it's not so confusing or so annoying that I walk away with my hands up in the air. I still don't understand why we have to generate shaders every time I start a game. I don't understand what that means. We start up Borderlands 4. I've played this game on this PC already. I got to sit here for 10 minutes while you generate shaders. People say, okay, that only happens when there's an update. Fine. Playing on the other game, redacted. Why am I generating shaders right now? I've already turned this game on. Now, granted, maybe they're pushing updates for redacted. I. I don't know. I think I'm an idiot, but that's my. There's those little things, and then there's the occasional thing where I ask Andy to come to my desk and set the settings for me. Do I want to learn about vvr, vrr, sst, the ussr? No. You know what I mean? I don't want to learn about that. So Andy just comes and clicks the buttons and then he walks away. Now, with a few games lately, one redacted, a couple I've been playing, I have learned it on my own. I've gone in there, I've got the settings, I've turned, I've turned down the screen tearing. I've got it to where it needs to be. I'm doing the thing, Wes, you know what I mean?

[A]

I mean, that's more than what I do.

[C]

And again, coming off of Steam Deck, going to Rog Ally and then Rog Ally X. I've only played skate on. It's a whole thing we can get into of why Andy joined the review and yada, yada, yada, I definitely want

[D]

your initial thoughts on this thing later.

[C]

But even there, it has been that, okay, this doesn't look good. Let's go in and tweak this. Do that, fix this. Okay, this looks good enough and works good enough. Awesome. Like, again, PC gaming out of the box, off the shelf is to a point that it works for me and is doing what I need it to. I will be fascinated in two, three years what these devices, if that's still the case, if there's so much progress in what's going on here. You know the Razer Blade 16 that I'm using and absolutely fucking adore? I mean, like, I put up images on my Instagram from this trip on Tuesday, right? But like airport lounge, cocktail there, fucking review game on. This thing with me and an Xbox controller, just chilling. I'm like, that's pretty nice. Playing on the plane last night, first class. Who could have.

[D]

Who could have possibly thought.

[F]

Jesus.

[C]

But what, that it would be good?

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

What? PC gaming or take another go? Because again. Well, no, because the Alienwares used to be a gigantic fucking.

[D]

Like, here's this massive in 2003.

[C]

Sure. Okay. Yeah, I guess I'm featured. We are. That's the whole thing. We. And that's the whole thing is we are in the future where now, like, this is a normal sized laptop that I can take and have those experiences. And more importantly, again, to like, you know, I'm not saying you've always had it, right? PC gamers, I'm not saved. But like, the fact that like I'm playing games on. I've been a big fan of this Xbox Xbox ecosystem, right? Great. I can play it on the rock. I can play it on the razor blade 16. I can play it on the Xbox. And so when I'm off doing something, I'm playing on the Raw, I'm playing on the PC or whatever, I come home, my save just goes, the Xbox series X, badda bing, bada boom. We're. We're in the money, we're doing a thing.

[D]

I love this.

[C]

The fact that now. No, no, you don't.

[F]

You.

[C]

You're gonna love it even more. You're gonna love it even more. The fact that now I do the Xbox play anywhere and I throw it on the Xbox series X. I'm like, oh, this looks like dog. I plug the razor blade 16 into the HDMI port.

[E]

Wow.

[C]

They're fucking winning.

[A]

Beyond where I thought we were gonna.

[C]

So then you gotta wonder, am I gonna buy a tower? Oh my God, am I gonna build one? Fuck no. I got a life. But like the. Again, right now with the razor blade 16. This is not sponsored by Razer, by the way. They're just. This is an awes. The ability just to go and plug it in and do the thing is enough. And I had a crazy one the other day with a game this blew my mind, motherfuckers. Where I was doing another redacted. It's not the redacted you're thinking about. I bet. Where it's probably just a me thing or whatever, but I was trying to get it to run off the razor blade 16 into the thing. Just wouldn't load. Just wouldn't load. I'm doing troubleshooting. I'm talking to devs again, unreleased software, whatever. Rog ally Xbox, Rog Ally X guess what? No problem. Plug that guy in the USB C dock I got that had all the things I'm just playing on the fucking thing there. And did it look as good as this? Of course not. But I was playing the goddamn game. And that's the thing. This is what's fucking crazy, Mike, lay it out. All right, this is what's fucking crazy is that PC gaming has somehow stolen the convenience bullet point. Which is why I went with console for the longest time, right? It's like this is so convenient. I turn on the PlayStation, I turn on the Xbox, I turn on the switch and I just go in and play the game. Yeah, maybe an update hearty har har. But it's that now the convenience is flip flop for me. And I know as much as I talk about handhelds, as much as I talk about my rog ally as much as I talk about the razor blade. Like not everybody is mo and traveling and taking their games as many places as I am, but I fucking am. Especially with my job being let's bring the games from work to home and back and forth and all that jazz. And so the fact that that communities bullet point that I've always talked about and what drew me to Vita, what drew me to psp, what drew me to Switch, right? Of like that and what made Switch a runaway success of having your hands docking it and be done with it, right? That PCs are doing that now in a way that you don't need to sacrifice. Well, I'm going on the road, so I'll play a lesser game or I can't play my triple A game that I was playing at home on that. It's a pretty nice age. It's pretty good place.

[A]

We're T minus one year from Greg, streaming from home. Write it down. Greg's going to have a Twitch channel in a year.

[C]

Whoa, whoa. You fucking short sighted motherfucker. The only reason you have a job right now is because I stream from home. All right? I was streaming before you were on.

[A]

You're going to have the overlays like you're.

[C]

I had all that. I still have that at home. I mean you're going to be doing it again now though, when Ben's old enough. Yeah, like when Ben's old enough where I'm not like only getting an hour and a half with Jen. Yeah, I'd love to. I, I, I, I desperately miss streaming and there are plenty of times I'm Like. Like Starfield. When I was obsessed with Starfield and just playing that day after day, I was like, these would be fun streams, except that I'm fucking exhausted. I'm a husk of a person. After talking all day and being a dad, I don't want. I don't want you getting this twisted that I. I didn't have overlays. I have ice overlays.

[A]

You have the gaming chair, I do believe. The headphones, the ears.

[D]

Ears. He's getting the ears. You're gonna have already.

[C]

All of that, Roger. The Gengar headset with the ears. And it's. She's using the streaming setup that I used to stream from for. Kind of funny. What are you talking about?

[D]

We're gonna see it.

[A]

We're gonna see it.

[D]

See, I'm taking it a step further, though. I think that within a year, we see Greg build a PC. I know right now you're like, no, it's too far. No, because everything you're saying right now, like, you need to understand, Greg, the. You are now through the door. The steps you need to take to understanding the things. So you don't need Andy to be the one to help you.

[C]

But I like talking to you.

[A]

And.

[D]

And I say that I still, like, I understand this stuff. I still ask Andy to help me. I still ask Roger to help me. You know what I mean?

[C]

I never asked.

[D]

There's still, like, levels to this shit. But it's like the basic understanding. You're. You're right there.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

Like, the moment you realize this thing, does that thing, you're like, okay, you get the theory of it all.

[C]

I'll tell you what. You got this deal. You click the Nvidia guy, he pops up and he can, hey, do you want me to optimize your games? And I'm like, yes, I do, Mr. Nvidia. Thank you. Do that.

[D]

But in the same way that everything you talking about, the convenience and all that stuff, it's never been easier to build a PC. Like, it is the most. Like, if you could build a Lego set, you can build a PC. And just the sheer understanding of it, I think does go a long way. You don't need to do it. I just think it's going to happen. I think that we're going to get there.

[E]

What if we did a really fun stream where we all did a little build and sip?

[A]

Everybody's cooking right now.

[F]

These men go to double fine once again.

[A]

Mike cooking. Right.

[E]

We get next.

[D]

We're all there.

[E]

Everybody's got their own desk and we build PCs together.

[D]

Yeah, I mean, I need to build. No, I need to build a PC because I run, I'm T minus less than 100 days out before a child enters my life. Bless.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

And I told you, I'm like, I, I need a new PC before this because I just set. Because I'm not gonna have time to do that later. So I am going to be building one. Maybe Greg can watch. Maybe Greg can help.

[A]

We do that.

[C]

Put me in the cuck chair for

[A]

the end of the year then.

[D]

I love that PC build. Cock chair.

[F]

I love it.

[E]

It's gonna micro center sponsorship right away. And let's get this thing.

[D]

Let's get it going, man. They just opened one. Let' right away. All right, Greg, before we move on to a separate part of this that I want to get to. Yeah, I want to stay on the Xbox side just for a little bit longer because that seems to be where you're mainly staying when it comes to the PC gaming stuff. I know you're, you're now big on the Ally. Overall, I do want your initial thoughts on this new device that we reviewed yesterday.

[C]

Yeah, the Xbox Rog Ally X. You guys reviewed yesterday. You did a great job. I slacked you all during the drive home of how great this episode was. The fact that there's the, the different. Well, first off, the hosting from Mike, but then the different perspectives and the way you all broke down your thoughts, you, Andy and Paris, I thought was all very excellent and really great stuff. And it was one of those where it's like I was bummed not to be on it, but then listening to it, I was like, oh, man, like you're talking about it in a way that I don't talk about my experience with the ally.

[D]

So I want to hear your experience though, because I think it was missed.

[C]

I appreciate that. Yeah. As everybody knows. Again, the whole reason you're getting an apology right now, PC gamers of which again, I'm sorry for some of the things I said. I do think a lot of you still need to learn what soap is. All right, get the Mr. Pibb off your goddamn countertop. Clean it up a bit. Open up the shades. All right, you disgusting fuckos.

[A]

I was waiting for it.

[C]

No, the rock out, I had incredibly limited time with. I basically had two nights with it. The first night, as it was alluded to on the show. There's so many updates. It's pre, pre release hardware. There's a million things in the back end. We had to go do as we Talked about the day I came in. It wasn't doing what it should have been doing. And then we got it to do what it was. I had one day of it doing what it was supposed to do in terms of the full screen Xbox experience and me playing a game on it. What I can tell you in my limited first hand experience, which is about to get much more fleshed out next week when you see some reviews, it was that I last week when we got. It was in between redacted. So I was able just to play skate on it. And what I said to you, Tim, is that I was able to play skate on it for three hours on the couch comfortably where my hands didn't feel like I'm holding up a weird hand. I love these handles on it. They actually felt like a controller and that made it super simple. And it ran Skate far better than my Rog Ally X. Like the new chipset in here or whatever. Like, don't get me wrong, the old. The other. My old Rog would run it for sure. But it didn't look great. This one, this one. Jumping up whatever the notches are, we jumped up tech wise here. Skate actually looked good enough where I was like, oh, the story goes, Mike, that when I booted Skate the first time on my original Rog Ally X, I was like, oh, you know what? No, this isn't good enough. Busted out the portal and just played PlayStation Portal version of it. This one I played over Portal and I would continue to do when I want to play handheld skate, I'll do this. And so I'm very excited to jump into a few of the redacted I have and some of the other stuff we've been playing and tinkering with and wanting to go back to and go with it. But yeah, my initial thoughts before Andy broke my Y button for some reason, even though look works for me, he would.

[E]

He was holding it down too.

[C]

He's holding. Yeah, he was.

[E]

Come on, what are we caveman in this? Like, be gentle with it. It's a delicate piece of machine.

[D]

It's a thousand dollars, Mike.

[C]

It should be treated like that, you know?

[E]

Exactly.

[C]

This is why you don't deserve a new PC. All right? You don't respect the hardware. All right? I'm the. I'm the voice of the new PC generation. Okay?

[D]

God.

[C]

Yeah. So I like that. I like all that. Again, you know, a lot of conversation about power and tech and would you upgrade to it and that this, that the other. My thing about it is I love my Ally X so much already. And I thought it did a great job of handling a Windows format in there. And again, I've always thought it super responsive to the touch, Easy enough to get around and stuff, easy to get into Steam and all that jazz. I agree with what Paris is saying here where it's like, and you I'll be interested in six months, nine months a year because it is that idea of like, cool, I'm in the Xbox thing and I open up Steam and then it is another clunky window on top of the other one. It's like, all right, well, how much power am I really saving here? Based on what I was already doing on my Ally again firsthand with Skate, it runs things better. I know that. Again, using this one to boot. Redacted the other day when I couldn't get it to work on the real PC and I plugged it into this thing. It did everything I'm expecting and wanting a one of my handheld PCs to do. So I'm excited to get a lot more time with it and it is going to move in place of my raw ally.

[D]

So you expect this is going to be one of your daily driver pieces of tech.

[C]

Yeah, 100%. Like, I like these handles enough. I do want that extra power to see differences in games like skate or whatever I may be reviewing or playing for fun. And yeah, that was the thing of like, as I love the razor blade 16, but being on the plane the past two days and playing redacted on the plane, it was that idea like, okay, cool, sitting there and I'm like, I'm burning so much time on the tarmac. If I had the Xbox Ally with me right now, I could just bust that out and go. And yeah, I would sacrifice graphical fidelity, but I'd have that convenience factor that I love so much.

[D]

So speaking of that, actually a great segue here. Jeff Bloom in the chat says I don't understand how the convenience factor has flipped still. But okay, do you want to explain that a little? I think you did. But like, just to make it a

[C]

little bit more clear, I am going nonstop all the time, whether that is going physically somewhere in a plane or going from my beautiful giant TV in the basement to the couch next to Jen to Ben's playing Switch on the TV and I'm playing next my games right now. When the Xbox does this whole things take your games with you, you know, play anywhere. That's me, that's my life. I want my games to come with me. And that of course means also coming Here and doing stuff here where it's like being able to toss this or that into my bag every day and like at my desk, plug this in, boom, the games are there and I'm going in the best fidelity and it comes home and does it. Rather than, hey, I need a PC at work and a PC at home and I can need to do that or yeah, we have 30 minutes between a gamescast, pop open the rock and sit here and do that thing or do it on a couch and stuff like that. Like for me, above fidelity and all that stuff and above trophies, which again I was already been put an end to because I don't. I. I saw. This is an interesting thing I had seen on one of the Reddits in a conversation about it, right? Of like, does Greg still care about trophies and people coming in? And I felt like their takes were like 90, 80% there, but missing key factors of like, well, no, he just does. It's. He doesn't have time or this, that and the other. And it's like, I don't care about trophy whoring anymore. Where, hey, I'm gonna play ZJ the ball and get a platinum. I'm gonna play Platty Bird and get a platinum. I don't have the. I used to have multiple hours at the end of the night where it's like, I've played what I wanted to play for review. Now I just want to get a platinum trophy. So I'm gonna play 30 minutes of this trash game to get it. That's gone. I still make time for games and I make time to get the trophies in the games I care about. But it's like now it's just about playing the game I want to play and I don't have time for the bullshit. Like I used to have time for the bullshit. And that's why I think again, the convenience of having it with me on every device, on a streaming screen, on a handheld, on this thing, on Nvidia, GeForce now, like all the ways I'm using games I want, I want one unified library. And that's what PC gaming is giving me, whether it be the Xbox ecosystem or the Steam ecosystem. Wow, crazy.

[D]

How's this make you feel?

[E]

I got a smile on my face, Tim. I think it's a lot of growth. I still think that he gets the best of both worlds. Being able to still play on his PlayStation 4 games, be able to jump over there. I think I've had this a couple years prior, you know, Andy and I really pushed me into the PC gaming world. And I kind of fell in love with that. And I have Steam as such a daily driver for me and having Xbox, the team that I love have their games come day one to Steam or Xbox Game Pass PC. It's like my world has kind of morphed into now I'm on the PC and having these Steam cloud saves where all of a sudden you end the game and you see it goes uploading to the cloud and within seconds it says it's in there, right? And I know I can be comfortably moving from hey, over onto my Steam deck or down over here at work. I know I have that save ready to rock. It's a big deal.

[C]

And I think, you know, that's something again that Steam, because there's both me apologizing to PC gamers for being wrong about some things, even though I always admitted you were right. But then also the fact that like seems just does all this so much better than everybody else because it is that idea of like, yes, the Steam cloud save sync and it's like flawless of like in on the couch, just moving it back and forth. Whereas sometimes still with this Xbox playing where I get the. I turn off a game here at work and I'm like, I think it did it. And I get home and it's like, oh man, it's taking a while to upload the save. I'm like, what the fuck are you talking about? It's been 45 minutes, been three hours, you know, I mean, it's plenty of time to upload a small save. But still better than I think what PlayStation does where sometimes as somebody who moves around on PlayStations and this is a very 1% problem, not in terms of wealth, but in terms of user cases, right? Where we move sometimes between the PlayStation work, the PlayStation home, the two PlayStations at home because I need it, sometimes there I'll get the one of, oh, you're moving too fast. Like, hold on. Restore your licenses. Yeah, you're trying to pull a fast one. I mean, Mark Cerny wags his finger at me on the thing, right? And again back to then what seemed us so well, I think is the polished interfaces across the board. Like I would give Steam a nine out of 10. All right, there's an amazing.

[D]

So I do want to actually jump over to that. Like that was it. That was the other side is. Is the Craig Miller review Steam portion of this. So like jump into this. Greg. Give me the Greg Miller Steam review.

[C]

What a user experience, you know what I mean? And again, this Is something you guys mentioned yesterday, talking about where Xbox is now and where they'll go with their handheld and full screen experiences. But what a unified experience across the board of whether I'm opening up Steam on my phone, I'm opening it up on the computer, I'm opening up on the blog, I'm opening up on my Mac. The amount of like having these things up and running and then being able to redeem a code, boom, it's in the library. Be able to install it, be able to stream, be able to do this, it's flawless, it's snappy, it's quick, it's great. I don't like some of the pop ups. Like when I redeem a code in the pop up and it's got like the little robot man that's been there for like a decade. I'm like, well, we can make this look better. That's why it's not a 10. But it's the idea of like all these different things.

[D]

That's why Steve

[C]

and they got stuff in there. I never need a fucking chat. Who am I going to chat with? I just send Andy inappropriate things. Nick sometimes inappropriate. He doesn't check though. It's upsetting. I think it's the, it's fun to be here after seeing the PlayStation app and the PlayStation.com and how much, how many games I've redeemed there and how many installs I've done from there and the way they've been chasing this and still haven't hit it, you know what I mean? In terms. And even Xbox, I would say the same thing. Like their apps have gotten way better and obviously full screen, yada, yada yada. I'm more versed in PlayStation, being a PlayStation guy and it's just a way of like, oh, clearly this is what you were trying to copy and you still haven't been able to catch up in terms of how snappy it is, how fast it is, the lag, the hoops I have to jump from of redeem code. Yes, redeem it again. Okay, go to my library. Okay. Downloaded this. Whereas like Steam's like, bam, bam, bam. What do you need? What do you want?

[D]

Bless. Do you have any thoughts on Steam?

[A]

I mean, I love Steam. It's fun hearing Greg come to this conclusion, right? Because I think Steam's been this for a while. For me, it was getting the Steam deck when that launched, right? That was the thing that really opened my eyes to, oh, I think this is going to become more and more of the main platform that I used to play games. And it's funny, I think the ecosystem part of it is such an important part that I, I think often even downplay. But really that is what it comes down to. Like I'd like to believe that I'm the person that I'm like. Like I'll play anything anywhere as long as there's a good game awaiting me there. But when I think about my history of playing games, right, I went from being a kid owning the an N64 to then hopping to PS2 and having like Nintendo consoles on the side or whatever or at least having a PS3 and then having my Wii on the side and then like PlayStation became my ecosystem because it was a thing of oh, I like this as a home base. I like having like my PlayStation and my Vita and the games are speaking to me and all that stuff, right. I think now we've gone to a place where it's mattered less and less and less. Especially because you have Xbox games coming to PC, you have PlayStation games coming to Steam. And I think for me the big factor of it is just the ease of or even the ease for me it's the benefit of all right, I have my, my PC tower at home that I know is going to give me the best fidelity I know is going to give me my ultra wide screen experience that I really enjoy and value. I know that if I want to even stream or do something that will be the easiest to do through being able to play the game on PC. But then my Steam deck really does change the game as far as being able to go on a plane, being able to be to this last weekend we were in LA for a wedding. Being able to be there and play games that I'm not going to say because they're redacted. For me that does so much, let alone the Steam sales, let alone like you know, I. There's just so much to it. The, the amount of demos even I'm like not. I'm not dove deep into the mod scene but I have lightly to do like you know, among us streams of people or Minecraft streams or whatever that like require being able to get into the weeds there and even just seeing the amount of options that are available to really tinker and do things with my games I would just wouldn't be able to do on console. Like you know, I won't give it a review score but I echo the fact that it is amazing. It is my favorite ecosystem currently to exist in because for me it just does it all and has it all.

[C]

Yeah, I think something nice about it that. And again, I know none of this is revolutionary to anybody who uses this. And again as we can, I keep mugging to the camera, doing stupid stuff. Remember the joke always was that I knew Steam was great. I just wasn't in that ecosystem because I didn't have a way to engage with it at home on the tv. Steam link wasn't for me. My towers were never powerful enough. The PlayStation was easy. Rather than jump through the hoops and you know, update something. It isn't. It's the fact here of I think this will sound stupid, but stick with me. Steam is great because of course it was doing this already. I'm not trying to say it stole this idea. Stick with me. But it is so much what PlayStation 4 got right at launch. We're all about games, games, games, games. Here you go. I turn on my PlayStation 5 right now, it drops me on that screen where the ha. You know, half of it is my controller's charging. But here's don't forget your play. And it's just noise. It's just fucking noise, right? And you open Steam and yeah, there's pop ups that can be noise and ads or whatever, but your drop down here is next festival. You know, here's this thing, hey, you wish list these games. We're notifying you that they're on sale because there's so many things, you know, I fuck up the second part of the story. But the first part I get, right, right? When Andy and I were watching the six one indie showcase, they showed a game that, that looked awesome. And I said, wow, that looks awesome. Andy's like, oh, it's from the folks who made Crosscode. You should play Crosscode. You'd really like it. It's actually up your Alley. It's from 2019. And so I was like, okay, cool. And I wish list it and forgot about it. And then there was a night after in between reviews where I was like, oh, you know what I should try that. Went in on my. My Rog ally. There it was. And it was. It happened to be on sale for the autumn sale. They were just running, not even next fest autumn. And I got it for like three bucks and it's fucking fantastic. And it's this little indie game and it's again like we talk on the six one indie stream, we talk on all the streams. We do wish list these games. No one makes it easier to wishlist your games than Steam, right? Again, whether you're on your phone, you're on the portal, you're in the app, right? And this is again where you see so many of the games you will go on to love. Start have that page where this thing that they can then go and talk to people about getting money for this game and get a publishing deal and look at the interest we have.

[A]

I think on top of that even the store pages on Steam are great. Like when I look at a game's page, everything is so uniform. They give me the like plenty of videos and screenshots and all that stuff. And every store does this, right? But the framing of it on the Steam store, for me it's just way easier to navigate.

[C]

So snappy again. It's like PlayStation like again. Think about how you've seen it in our reviews change where we now read the Steam description because it's way easier than going to Google and going to the page and get through all the bullshit on the marketing page or go to. I would Never go to PlayStation look for this because their search sucks. You go to Steam, you instantaneously have it. You know where to look, you know

[A]

what the release, you have the short bio on the right, you have the detailed bio. If you scroll down a little bit, you have all the genres there. You have the screen like it is organized so beautifully and everything's so uniform and you can add that to your. The wishlist button is right there for you. It's all organized so perfectly. And on top of that like gamer,

[C]

it's game developer first which I like a lot.

[A]

And I. I Steam also. You know, it's spoiling me in a way because I think there's also the added benefit of not having to pay for playing games online. If you want to play games online.

[G]

Right.

[A]

And like I don't know, it feels so user friendly compared to.

[C]

We should be that as console gamers wake up honestly.

[D]

So funny. I want to get to some super chats before we close out this section here. Nicholas Chamber says we got greg apologizing to PC gamers before GTA 6 and this is kind of in line with it. Alexander wants to know, Greg, what was the last platinum trophy you got and do you still care? Has handheld gaming completely taken over? Do you remember the last trophy you got?

[C]

My last platinum. No. I know it's been a while again that that stream was talking about it. Let me. I can go to Spider Man 2. No Astrobot.

[F]

Astrobot.

[C]

Astrobot might be it. Yeah. Yep. Astrobot was the last one.

[D]

There we go.

[C]

January 2025.

[D]

Wilfredo says growing up I made all the excuses about not playing on PC but at the end of the day I just couldn't afford it. Getting my first grown up job. I got my first PC and consoles are now just secondary. And to your point about the convenience and just like the changes that have happened in the quote unquote, it just works. I do think it's like I've said this a million times recently but it is a funny thing of like PCs have gotten more accessible and easier to use and consoles have gotten just more PC like and complicated in firmware and updates and stuff. So. So I think the education process has just kind of got us to this point. But on top of that the actual real talk it just works. Stuff that controllers connecting, Bluetooth working, you know, like all of that stuff. The fact that now we're at a point that PlayStation DualSense controllers have a PC app that allows you to update and do things, that's crazy. Xbox has been on that stuff for years and years and years. They weren't always but for the last 10 years they've been Xbox controllers just work flawlessly with PC. And we're at the point now that PlayStation controllers do like that's so impressive and I do think is all of that stuff adds up to like oh like any reason that I used to have of like oh, I want the higher fidelity of PC gaming but there's these things I just don't want to hoops, I don't want to jump through. Those hoops are gone.

[C]

Yeah, I think that's to the point. Sorry buster, but like to this thing of me, like the tower I've had at home that I've had, you know we're doing the quarry and they only have quarry codes on PC so I'm playing it, it's like for some reason that one drops Bluetooth connections all the time and I've got, I've run through the hoops that I want to run through for it and I can't. So I just fucking tether it with a USB and like what I, I

[D]

was having a ton of Bluetooth issues and I bought a $20 Bluetooth adapter and it has changed the game entirely. I have two of them though, so I can give you one and oh

[C]

well, no, because I mean now the razor blade 16 beats the living fuck out of this thing, you know, I mean again of like the convenience of having a one with what, a 5090 in it that's just like, hey, here we fucking go, let's go. And sometimes it sounds like A jet engine. But like that's when it's working on these crazy games, making something insane happen. And then I'm usually using it to play fucking kind words or whatever. Like some weird little. Weird little indie where I want to cry.

[A]

And to Tim's point, about like the clunkiness, right? Consoles getting a bit more clunkier as PCs become a bit more approachable. Even the console generation aspect of it.

[C]

Being able to go to Steam, I have feelings. That's the game where you type out messages, sorry, being able to go to

[A]

Steam and not have to worry about, am I playing a PS5 version or a PS4 version? Like we had it recently where we were playing Rainbow six Siege X and I just. I struggled on the console side of like, why won't my store page open me to the PS5 version when I'm playing PS5? Why does it keep downloading the PS4 version? And for it to be on Steam and be. And be like, cool. I don't have to worry about any of this shit, right? Like we've just gotten to a point where it's ironed out more and more and more. And like not even mention the fact that video games come out more on Steam. Like when we're talking about these indie titles, like Steam is the first place that these games are going to go because it's way more accessible. Be able to publish games on it.

[C]

If you're going to put out a Patapon spiritual successor named Rataton and you're only putting on PC, I'll follow you. I'll be there. I got to get it. Same thing with Moonlighter. Moonlighter two.

[D]

Tom says, I can't wait for Greg to become a hot tub streamer.

[A]

Gonna happen.

[C]

I mean, no problem. You know what I mean?

[E]

Comfortable on a hot tub.

[C]

What's wrong with that?

[E]

Hang out with my friends.

[D]

Leaving Living Legend said Steam's even more amazing in full screen mode. And then Marty Pixelrod has the final Super Chat for now. Saying, speaking of Steam games, I've been making a game while watching you guys on my third screen. I literally pressed the release button an hour ago. Prototype Juan is a mini Metroidvania for $4.

[C]

What's it called?

[D]

Prototype Juan J Uan is a mini Metroidvania for $4.

[C]

Prototype 1 A tale of Marty's been banished to prototype versions of his game. He's gone from a colorful 16 bit hero to a tiny 1 bit homie. Help him platform his way in the narrative. Action platformer with Juan himself teaching you how to control and move through this mini Metroidvania. I'm buying it on sale 399 that's an easy one.

[D]

So yeah, that is Greg Miller's PC gaming revelation Steam Review we're here everybody. Took a while but it's a good time and it's going to be a long time I'm sure.

[C]

Thanks everybody for finally making devices that work easy. Yeah, you know what I mean.

[D]

We did it everyone. We will be right back with a interview with the Arc Raiders devs.

[E]

There's just one month left until the launch of Solo Leveling Arise Overdrive, the action RPG based on the popular Solo Leveling franchise. I adore solo leveling. I've seen every episode and this game cannot come at a more perfect time as I patiently wait for the next season and being able to experience this world solo or with up to three of my friends for some co op raids is right up my alley. Andy, if you're listening, we'll be playing this soon. In the game, players will work their way up as Sung Jinu, an E rank nobody that no one wants in a raiding party clawing their way up to becoming the powerful Monarch of Shadow. If you're at TwitchCon this weekend, you can play an exclusive demo at the PC gaming stations located at the Solo Leveling Arise Overdrive booth. Attendees will also be able to experience additional activities at the booth, including a themed photo booth for fans viewing events from home. Head to the official Solo Leveling Arise Overdrive Twitch channel which will be live streaming from the booth. Pre orders for Solo Leveling Arise Overdrive are live now, so add it it to your Steam or Xbox PC wish list to prepare for Jinu's next chapter.

[G]

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[B]

Spring is here, and there's a whole new way to chai at Starbucks that's made perfect for you. Choose your sweetness. Dial it up or keep things light. Add a touch of pistachio, a hint of strawberry or vanilla, or make it a spring classic with lavender. Because this season, there's endless ways to chai at Starbucks.

[C]

And we are back for a sponsored interview about arc Raiders. It's me, Greg Miller, alongside the man who broke my rog Ally Xbox X, poured his little mountain dew all over the Y button and then acts like he didn't do nothing to it. Andy Cortez.

[D]

I've. Look.

[F]

Go look at my Steam deck right now. As you know, try to.

[C]

Well, there's too much Cheeto dust on it, I'm sure. I can't look at it.

[F]

Feel those buttons. Is it sticking for you still?

[A]

No.

[C]

It's hilarious. Like, it's something about the way you hit it that makes it stick.

[F]

Been able to recreate. Everybody was able to read.

[C]

No, I mean, I remember when you. When you gave it to me initially and I did it, and then you're like holding push and I held and push. And that's. What is this? But I just don't do that. Just do it that way.

[F]

You know, when you play Hades, you're gonna have to.

[C]

But I won't put it doesn't make a special. And then we are, of course, joined by the one, the only, Virgil Watkins, the design director for arc Raiders. Hello, Virgil.

[H]

Hi.

[C]

How are you?

[D]

Good.

[H]

How are you guys doing?

[A]

Good.

[C]

How tired are you?

[H]

Extremely.

[A]

Because.

[C]

What. You know Arc Raiders developer that's just here on NorCal, right? You're not. You're right up the street.

[D]

Oh.

[C]

Where are you from?

[H]

Well, I'm from Michigan here in the US Originally. I just flew over from Stockholm, Sweden.

[C]

Stockholm, Sweden. Good lord.

[F]

Just for this.

[C]

Just for this. Just to ha out with us, Virgil, how are we feeling? Of course. Arc Raiders is upon us. October 30th, the release date. You are doing a server slam starting tomorrow and running through the 19th.

[H]

Yes.

[C]

Correct.

[H]

It's been a lot. Yeah. Getting the build together for the Server Slam while also getting the build ready for launch has been a fun endeavor, but really excited to have players get back into it. We saw a lot of excitement from TT2. So of course now this is an open test. You can just join and now everyone can get kind of in there who couldn't get a chance during the last one.

[C]

Yeah. This test is of course free on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Steam. Xbox Series X and S. Steam and the Epic Game Store this weekend. Get in.

[H]

Yes. And GeForce Now.

[C]

Oh, we love GeForce Now.

[A]

Hello.

[F]

Hello, Greg. So you mentioned TT2. I'm assuming that's code name for the second test that happened.

[H]

Correct. Sorry. Technical test.

[F]

Technical test too. And so this will be the third time that people will be able to hop into the world of Arc Raiders. And you're talking about this server Slam, which I know a lot of multiplayer studios do to try to like. Let's just try to break the server, see what we could withstand. Hopefully they don't break, but let's see if we're prepared for something really, really massive. What are the things that you are hoping to see the most from this Arc Raiders Server Slam weekend?

[H]

I mean, aside from seeing if the servers explode? Really just excited. We've made a lot of of changes, balance changes, additions, things to the game. Not all of that will be present in this service Slam, but enough will crop up that I'm hoping players that either saw a lot of the footage from TT2 or had hands on themselves can see the quality improvements we made, the passes we made on the systems they might have seen before. But also within the build we have a lot of like placeholders and teasers where you can see the features that will be in full launch so you can read a little bit about those things. And we've already obviously put out some blog posts and other things that explain some of those. So just kind of really excited to see how players feel about what they saw in TT2 and then what they can project for launch.

[C]

So here in the live chat, Deja BD says, Virgil, your game is very good. I think it will sell real good. Don't sweat it. Do you have that level of confidence in 2025?

[H]

Yeah, that's. That's a tough one, right?

[C]

Yeah.

[H]

I mean, certainly I'm extraordinarily proud of what the team has been able to put together with this game, especially after the history of pivoting to this new genre and things like that. But yeah, I'm hopeful, I'm confident and really it's just about resonating with as many players as we hope to.

[C]

So before we go any further, I see Langley Am Neely saying Server Sland sounds like a great indie band name. And then also, will this be the first multiplayer game I play? I think a lot of people who are joining us mid show here and coming to the interview might not know what Arc Raiders actually is.

[H]

Is.

[C]

So what is the elevator pitch for what we're getting?

[H]

So Arc Raiders is a third person. We call it an extraction adventure because we kind of wanted to break away from just the shooter element given that we've put in so many other elements. We have like an RPG style skill tree, a lot of like story lines, quests, things like that. And it does follow the like standard extraction loop where you go into a session, you scavenge and scrounge and fight, and to succeed you need to make it out alive. And that really ends up being the sort of core loop you go through. So if you're familiar with Escape from Tarkov or the Cycle Frontier or other games like that, then you kind of know the gist of it. And then we just sort of tried to put our own twist or our own flair on those mechanics or. Or additional mechanics that we've tried to add to that core loop.

[F]

Over the last week, Virgil, I've been seeing a lot of articles especially, you know, whenever I go to my Google News section, I see a lot of headlines, right? And I saw this one headline from Kotaku that really kind of stood out to me. It said, arc Raiders is trying to fix one of the most frustrating things about extraction shooters. Now if somebody who didn't read this article from Claire Jackson is sitting in front of you and asked you what,

[C]

you go to Google News, you don't read the articles. Usually the headline I read that, you

[F]

know, I saw it and, and, and made me wonder, like, obviously that is one very frustrating thing about playing an extraction shooter. For somebody who doesn't. Who can't. No life, the video game. Somebody who plays a lot of different things when playing other extraction shooters that have recently been cropping up here and there, that can always be a bummer. But that's also kind of the point of the game. What are you sort of trying to marry here? Where are you? Have you all been trying to really find like a happy medium with all of this?

[H]

In a way? Yeah. So after we made the pivot, one of the core tenets of the project was approachability and Certainly in my background, I play a lot of things like extraction suitors, Mil Sims, things like that.

[F]

I love the military simulator right there. Greg, thank you very much.

[H]

Thank you. Yeah, I like the experience as a four, but a lot of them are not approachable. I don't know if anyone's played arma or especially older arma games and other things where it's very fiddly, very detail oriented. And if you're in it for the experience, you can work your way through that and fight through the clunky UI or the pain of how you interact with stuff. And we took a lot of steps to try to make it it more approachable so people who don't really want that barrier of entry can still have those high tension moments. The risk reward, gameplay, the stories that come out of those. And then aside from that, we've tried to add what we find to be rational safety nets for people because very often in extraction games you can have a few bad rounds and you're down to nothing and you're running in with just your knife or, or really an empty inventory. And while that can be exciting, when you manage to like finally take someone down that way and get their kit of gear and you've made it out, that's one great story. But too often that ends up in a format where you're playing the game kind of not as intended, you can't even compete. So we've included a free loadout that doesn't have strings attached, but it is randomized so you don't get to know necessarily what it is. And if you're careful or clever, you can claw your way back up from that loadout. We also have Scrappy the Rooster, who tries to provide an economic baseline to players, so he gives you some materials on a regular cadence so you can build the weapons or the gear that you want. And we've tried to make that as kind as possible to players at the like if they're struggling or just having a difficult time or having a bad run. And then the higher end players can still let their own success and their own skill and everything else carry them higher and, and they can make use of that.

[C]

So I know I'm asking this question. When we're on the Precipice of launch October 30, it's right there to go way back. Was there a fight internally of how to where this sweet spot would be? Because you don't want to make the game too casual.

[D]

Right.

[C]

They're the hardcore player, like the Hispanic heartthrob Over here wouldn't be out there looting and shooting three point shooting. Like, yeah, you want to make it so hardcore that somebody who like me like that loves the. That that gives me division vibes and I love the division and I loved the dark side.

[F]

That's the thing I kept on pointing out to you that's like, you know, we, we get offered a lot of previews for a lot of games similar to Arc Raiders. A lot of games that are like, they look awesome on the surface and then maybe when you dive in you find out you're not so in love with them. But I was taking these preview events, I was like, Greg, like this. It gives me a lot of the division vibes. It is this third person shooter and it looks gorgeous and it runs fantastically. And like I. It's one of these things that we keep on going, maybe this is the one, maybe this is the one that really kind of the one gets us back into this genre.

[C]

We playing on Steam, Andy.

[D]

You know what I'm saying?

[F]

Come on, man. Steam guy right here. Big Steam guy.

[C]

Sorry. Virgil, back to you. Yeah, we're having a bromance.

[H]

Yeah, I appreciate it. No, I wouldn't say there were any fights internally, but it absolutely was a lot of back and forth about how to actually achieve this. So I think initially we probably did pull too far back and really softened up the experience because of course, as noted, the game started as a PvE co op game. I think a lot of people refer to it as a looter shooter. But part of the reason we pivoted is there was no metagame. We had nothing to. And I think recently we had that Edge article where Patrick and others talked about it because the game just wasn't fun. So as soon as we added PvP, I think so many of the elements in the game were geared toward PvE that it wasn't a compelling experience yet. And then as we built up the metagame and we built up more features, we had the baseline covered for approachability and, and people could get in and play. But then certainly as we started adding or tuning things to be a bit harder at the high end because that's where we needed players to stay entertained and feel like they progressed towards something. That's where you could definitely see a split in some attitudes about people finding, oh, this is too difficult or this is too unforgiving. And then, then it just became a game of how to make that gradient feel good. So when you did graduate out of the early game into the mid game and from Mid game to late game, you felt like you were standing on those plateaus correctly instead of just really being slingshotted around to different scenarios.

[F]

Now, do you plan on nerfing those sniper towers robot dudes?

[C]

Sounds like someone's been playing arc raiders.

[F]

Pains in the asses. Greg, let me tell you. Yeah, this was one of those that I. We talked about on the Gamescast recently is like going into this latter half of the year, or we've been in the latter half, but go into this final quarter with there's a lot of shooters around. And it was like, what. What are your rankings of what you're looking most forward to? And for me, it was like, I'm looking forward to arc raiders the most. And then Call of Duty and then Battlefield 6 and BE. And it was. It's a weird thing that I found with arc raiders where I was hopping in alone to games, not even trying to make content out of it, not even trying to stream it. Just like, I'm. I'm having fun enough with this progression and I want to level up this next bench and I want to see what that next, you know, armor type is or I'm getting a better. A better weapon after this once we kind of go out there and I've. I've found a lot of love with that rhythm and I. But again, these. These damn sniper towers, which is, you know, they. They train on you from so far away, Greg. And you know, pains in the asses. So maybe just delete them completely. That'd be.

[H]

I mean, we have. We have tuned the telegraph a little bit so maybe you can dodge a little more effectively, but they're doing their

[F]

job very, very good. Dodge roll.

[C]

This is to jump in. I mean, as much as you're goofing around. And I know again, this is a sponsored interview like we're talking about, but the excitement is so genuine here. And I was telling you, you know, know, we're not going to name names, but you guys had started one of your tests or betas. I know. And I heard tangentially the STREAM team had done it. Then they went and played something else the next day, and then they were going to play the something else again. And there was a hullabaloo from Nick of just like, but what if we played more arc raiders? And that was when I turned on like, wait, what is arc raiders like? What. What are you guys talking about? Because it was the other one you were more excited for. So it's cool that there's like a groundswell out there. Let Alone the community. I've seen a lot of people in our chat talking about how much they like it.

[F]

Yeah, the. There's something about the rhythm to it. I also think, like, kudos to the audio team. I like. I'm so impressed by a lot of things about this video game. I think the audio team, like, really, really shines. When you're playing this game and you're in a large, massive building and it's just you and your squad mates and from far away you hear just little pitter patter of footsteps. You're like, holy, there's somebody here in here with us. I don't know what floor they're on.

[H]

Yeah.

[F]

This game does so much impressive stuff with verticality. On the level design side. I would like to ask, what sort of inspirations were you all having while figuring out what these levels were going to be? Because Arc Raiders lets you hop into a couple different locations, correct?

[H]

Yeah, no, the levels themselves, a few, or rather two of them were inherited from the old game, essentially, which was the dam and spaceport. But obviously those were built for a very different game. So we had to retool them for the current day. And then the other one that would have been played in Tech Test 2 was Buried City. And that was the first one we built specifically for this game and a lot of the affordances that it needs. So, I mean, primarily the inspirations came from our concept team. They were the ones who came up with a lot of the, like, core inspiration for these locations. And then of course, we have the game itself based in Italy. So trying to take inspiration from the landscapes and the biomes there. And then of course.

[F]

Yeah, of course.

[H]

Well, there is pasta in the game. So trying to then, you know, mesh what our style and tone and what we like for the environments into those areas. And then on the level design side, it became a much bigger deal to create these intricate interiors that you can now explore and move through and have fights in. And that. That became kind of the core of creating these spaces where players could collide. So loot areas, activities, enemy placements. And all of that is done in such a way that players are constantly having to make decisions about whether or not they would draw attention or run into other players or go after the thing they need. And most of what we do when we lay out these levels is to cater to that. And then of course, you have your core things like where you spawn, where you extract, and then kind of of whatever we're able to do to make you on the outset, create a journey for yourself. Or maybe you're on a quest where it kind of, you know, it's an extrinsic motivator so you're going to go for your quest or whatever else. But that's really the core of how we put these together. And the verticality is just kind of a bonus because we inherited that from the old game and then stuck with it because it ended up being incredibly fun and creates a lot of very interesting dynamics in play.

[F]

So yeah, the maps can be very, very massive for the player out there. That, that says I'm not the biggest PvP fan. What is their PvE wise? Even though I'm still hopping into this knowing it's a PvP centric video game.

[C]

But I want to, I'll run objective, but I want to hang out, but

[F]

I do want to hang out with my friends, you know. Is there anything for the PvE enjoyer?

[H]

Absolutely. I mean, I don't know the exact number for launch, but it's something like 80 or 90 quests. They take you across multiple little storylines and they interconnect and have a lot of nice treatment in there with that. And then of course you can. It's trickier, of course, but you can play by avoiding PvP if you're clever enough. So you can go in, take note of where players are, observe the patterns of drones.

[C]

Okay.

[H]

I mean there's definitely a couple players we have internally on the team who whenever they possibly can, don't PvP at all. They. So they come in with stealthier kits, they bring silenced weapons, they're very careful. They bring like grenades and gadgets and things. They're making distractions or add mobility and things like that. So they've definitely gotten pretty adept at avoiding other players and really just being a ghost. And I've, I've done my own stints playing like that where I won't engage others, but I will fight back if engaged. And I think that's what I'm pretty happy with. How well it's worked out is we've given enough tools that if you want to go in heavy and have fights, you can do that. If you want to go after just fighting the drones and getting your loot, you can do that. If you want to never be seen, you can stand a good chance of doing that too.

[F]

The, the trailers you all have shown off have shown a decent amount of really cool looking robots and big awesome spider looking drones and things like that. Are there still some secrets that you all are kind of holding back? Like I can't wait for people to kind of discover this.

[H]

Yeah, I mean, we tell them now.

[C]

Ruin the secret.

[H]

No one's seen all the drones yet. And certainly we're. As with the old game, we had the giant drones or the giant. The barons and queens and kings that we showed off, those are still around and still part of our ambition. You saw the queen in Tech Test 2. And I think we'll have some surprises coming up shortly after launch that players can get into. But that's something we're continuously doing, is expanding the roster where we see fit and kind of filling the niches that are left in the game. So if there's an enemy that's better suited for wide open spaces or for tight interiors, then we start chasing down what those can be.

[F]

Now, Greg, every team needs a snow bike Mic. I think that's what every friend group needs.

[C]

Someone who just flakes on you and doesn't return phone calls.

[G]

Well, that too.

[F]

But the amount of fun that we had while we are out and there's all these drones kind of. It's a war zone. It is like an insane. It feels like I'm in a battle royale video game, and there's another team that's about to, like, we're about to clash with them, and Mike decides, like, we're gonna befriend them. So it's just a random team. And he's like, hey, guys. And my computer was kind of crashing in this moment, and he was like, hey, my homie.

[C]

He's. He's.

[F]

Oh, by the way, great that you can reconnect into a match. Oh, yeah. So I was able to reconnect. He's like, if you see a guy with a hat of this, you know, don't shoot him. He's our homie, or whatever. So. So we befriended another squad of, like, three people. And now it's like, all right, us three and the other random squad, let's shoot at the other enemies. So we, like, kind of. And then by the end of it, Michael's like, andy, we're gonna fucking kill them, you know? But they were able to extract before we could do anything nefairy. So we all kind of extracted. It was a successful run. And there's been other moments where I'm running in solo, alone, playing offline, and I have no gear, and I hear a little rustling in the woods in the forest. I see a dude shoot him. And of course, it's got proximity chat. So the guy goes, hey, hey, man, please don't. Don't shoot me, dude. I just got here. I have nothing. And I was like, all right. And so I just walked the other way and I just. And there was the. Like, there. There are so many cool little organic moments. We talk about, like, the emergent gameplay situations. I think this game is full of that. In addition to the really cool robots that you go, oh, I don't want to go anywhere near that right now because it's not. It's only going to bring a lot of attention to us, but it's going to ruin this run. Yeah, there's no way we could take it down. You have a stupid smg, you know, like, that's not going to do anything against this. So I think there will be a lot of cool moments that I'm hoping to get you in the party with us. And just.

[C]

I was going to say, yeah, yeah. I'm very interested in streaming this with you guys.

[F]

Yeah, I know.

[C]

We have a bunch planned, so that's exciting.

[F]

Well, this week, that'll be this weekend thing. Server Slam.

[C]

Well, I'm doing a redacted review this weekend, but when the game comes out

[F]

on October 30th, you don't gotta play that.

[C]

What?

[F]

You don't gotta play the other ad.

[C]

But what about the gamescast? Virgil, how long have you been working on this game?

[H]

So I've been at Embark for four years. I joined as a senior technical designer right before the Pivot. So I worked on the old game, as it were, for about six months, and then the game itself started essentially when Embark did. So it's been about six years for some of our developers who've been working

[C]

on this game, what has that been like to be working on it? While you see so many other games, both in the genre or around the genre, come out, stumble, fail, fall, go back into beta, go away. Like, what was that like? Did you know or think you had something and this is gonna work out, or was there this? I hear from so many developers, when you work on the game, you get to that point, you're like. Like, I don't know if it's good or bad. I don't know what it is.

[H]

Yeah, I mean, it's definitely true. You're so close to the work that you can't really be 100% confident. I think so. I mean, yeah, it's seeing a lot of things that came out and tried to do what we're doing or tried to do similar things. I think the best you can really hope for there is to try to learn lessons from what they have chosen to do or not do and then adapt that if necessary to what you're doing. I mean there's a lot of mechanics or features that may work in one context and don't work in another, even if it's a similar game mode. So we had to be very deliberate about what we did. Take a lesson from. Because there are certain mechanics that may make sense in a game mode for extraction, but in the way we've wrapped the entire game don't make sense. So it's a little nerve wracking to see all these titles come out and try some stuff and we're like, oh, we were thinking about that but maybe not now. Or like we'll try to take a mechanic that seems proven.

[C]

Yeah.

[H]

And then put it in our context and it's not. And then rather than shoehorn it in there, we sure rip it back out and try something else.

[C]

So being able to pivot's gotta be great. Richie here says, I never play online games, but played the last tech test and it was amazing. Haven't stopped telling people about it. Can't wait for tomorrow.

[F]

Super chat from Mando Delgado says the atmosphere, the aesthetic, the tension, the entire design just everything feels professionally unique and different from what is currently out here or out there. Already Pre ordered the Deluxe Edition and that's. That is one discussion that I do remember hearing from you all is, you know, in those sort of first previews that I was joining and being a part of the mention of we were free to play and now we're switching to 40 and it's going to be 39.99, you know, whatever the. I'm not sure what the deluxe edition is.59.99 and the, a lot of the internal discussion saying, well when you make a free to play game, a lot of your work and assets being created usually go to things that are going to help the health of the business and you're usually creating stuff that are purchasable as opposed to creating things that are just gameplay focused. What are some things that you're excited about that maybe we don't have to always just make. We don't have to have the full team working on, you know, kitten ears or you know, jackets or whatever. Like now we can kind of focus more on gameplay.

[H]

Yeah, we'll never be the full team. There's at least one guy robots. Yeah. I mean what it I think helped with the most is we, we could back off on a lot of systems that were intended to retain players in a very like sticky way. Maybe it's a little too grindy. Maybe it takes a little too long to do something and then we could back off of that and make it just feel right for what the mechanic was. So certainly on our end in design, it made a lot of things much more straightforward. So I could just, you know, we could build a crafting mechanic that felt right for a crafting mechanic. We could build loot that felt right for loot. We could build progression that felt right for progression rather than needing to like, kind of keep yanking.

[C]

We want it to be this cool, but it can't be that cool out the gate. So you need to be doing this together.

[H]

Yeah, we're like wait 50 hours and then it's pretty cool and then wait 150 hours and that's really cool. So yeah, it just kind of removes a lot of those complications off the board where you. You no longer have to like, I won't say artificially extend gameplay, but you do have to like pad things out a little bit in, in the free to play area. And that's kind of the. The road we were looking down as we made the pivot and then we started implementing some of these systems and it was just not quite gelling. And then thankfully the decision came down that we'd flip to premium. So immediately we just, just set to work kind of adjusting a lot of this stuff or even removing entire things.

[F]

So one thing, one system I really, really love, and I know we're kind of winding down this interview, but it's such a nice little quality of life thing that not a whole lot of games have. But whenever. I don't know if I saw footage of it earlier, if we could bring up that trailer we were watching earlier, but when you loot something, you could just like open up your bag and add it or whatever. Or if you just pick it up, it'll show you just a quick little overlay over your body of there are now three kind of filled in squares out of the other empty squares in your inventory.

[C]

Just a quick little visual of what.

[F]

Yeah, and it's such a nice easy thing that doesn't require me to always

[H]

open up the bag.

[F]

What do I got to drop? And it's little things like that. I've just made the experience less like, like, you know, instead of pushing the player away with some systems and, you know, it is, it is nice to sometimes have that tension there to sort of. There are some systems you are. That are maybe gonna fight you, but that's rewarding. I'm glad that there are a lot of things that kind of help out the player in that way.

[C]

Very cool.

[H]

Yeah, we've. We're pretty happy with the amount of quality of life we've been able to put in and still have a lot more we'd like to do. But it comes back to the whole thing of approachability. I think it's. It makes sense to take the player's attention or time during gameplay to distract or, you know, make sure they're focusing on something. But to obfuscate, like, simple information isn't really super necessary, I don't think.

[F]

And real quick, one last thing. Will we still be. Will there'll still be maps that are sort of, you know, only accessible at certain times?

[H]

Oh, like the conditions that were. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Then we've extended. What's there. We've got. Well, we mentioned now that there's a fourth level that you haven't seen coming with the launch and that's got its own set of conditions that are unique to it as well as the shared ones. So, yeah, we've got plenty of those going around.

[F]

And just to kind of explain to Greg, you know, you can hop into the normal maps, but there will be some sections that are like, hey, that one map will be open in three hours.

[C]

Okay.

[F]

Or 30 minutes or whatever. That's when people will be hopping into that map. And you're expecting.

[C]

All right, funnel where the action is going to be.

[F]

Yeah. So this will be kind of a limited time that we can hop in here, but expect a lot of action. Yeah, exactly.

[H]

So I like. I think you guys played probably the Night Raid.

[C]

Yes.

[H]

Available. So that's one of those examples where you can see like, oh, yeah, in an hour it'll be nighttime on Spaceport. And you can go try that one where the scenario is a bit shifted.

[F]

Yeah.

[H]

For that type of.

[F]

A lot scarier. A lot scarier.

[H]

I think we were very happy with how those ones turned out in terms of the increase in tension. It was nice.

[C]

Well, hell yeah. I won't lie to you. I didn't expect to end this interview being like, I got to play our creators, but I'm going to play our creators. Of course you can as well. The server slam is this weekend, October 17th to 19th. Anyone can dive in. Arc Raiders on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, Steam and the Epic Games Store. It's free to play for the weekend. And then it's, of course, got a big release date, October 30th. Andy will be there streaming it.

[F]

Yes.

[C]

You're going to help me. You're going to teach me. Can we get a stream on the books that I can play with you guys or am I forced out? Is Nick going to be better than

[A]

me at this game?

[F]

Oh man, I got the division chops. He'll have a better shot than you. Maybe. But you know, having Nick on the squad is having another me on the squad. You don't want to really, really horrible ADHD humans like just not focusing on anything.

[C]

Virgil, congratulations on getting to the finish line. I know, I know you're like almost got more to do, but you're. You're there and I won't see you before October 30th.

[H]

Fair enough.

[C]

Thank you for making the time to come by too.

[H]

No, thank you guys.

[C]

And of course thank you ladies, gentlemen and enbies for watching this episode of the Kind of Funny Games Cast. Remember, each and every weekday we run you through the biggest topics in video games. Whether they be review previews, apologies or interviews. You can get them all here after Kinda Funny Games daily. But remember, we're a live talk show all about live programming, meaning that up next is the great Pixar in review re rank. And then it's me and the nitro rifle jumping into some Nvidia GeForce now sponsored streaming after that, of course. Get it all on YouTube.com kinda funnygames watch it live on twitch tv kindafunnygames and YouTube. Get it later on podcast services. But if you really like what we do, pick up a kinda funny membership patreon.com kinda funny YouTube.com kindafunnygames Apple and Spotify to get all of our shows ad free, support an 11 person small business and get your daily dose of me, Greg Miller in a series I call Greg Way. For now, the Gamescast is over. Until next time, it's been our pleasure to serve you.

[E]

Are you dreaming of the perfect prom?

[B]

That there's just one thing holding you back?

[C]

Speak English, Mom. Welcome to Ethnosync Ethnic.

[F]

What is this place?

[H]

We help you reach your true potential. How are you feeling?

[C]

It's good to be white.

[F]

Hey, new girl.

[C]

Hey.

[B]

Look at what you've done to yourself.

[F]

For a new plant to grow, the

[C]

seed has to die. Slanted Rated R Only in theaters March 13th.

[B]

Side effects may occur.

[I]

This episode is brought to you by Athletic Brewing Co. No matter how you do game day, on the couch, in the crowd, or manning the snack table, Athletic Brewing fits right in with a full lineup of non alcoholic beer styles. You can enjoy bold flavors all game long. No hangovers, no buzz, no subbing out for water in the second half. Stock the fridge for tip off with a variety of non alcoholic craft styles. Available at your local grocery store or online at athleticbrewing.com near Beer Fit for all times.