Most Anticipated Games For The Rest of 2025 - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Summary

Kinda Funny Gamescast: Most Anticipated Games For The Rest of 2025 – Detailed Summary

Release Date: July 21, 2025

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Introduction

In this lively episode of the Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast, hosts Greg Miller, Snow Bike Mike, Andy Cortez, and Blessing Adeoye Jr. delve into the most anticipated video game releases for the remainder of 2025. The discussion spans a variety of genres and platforms, highlighting both blockbuster titles and promising indie projects. The episode offers insightful analysis, personal experiences, and engages with listener input to provide a comprehensive overview for gaming enthusiasts.

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Hosts' Top Anticipated Games

Blessing Adeoye Jr.

Blessing kicks off the discussion by sharing his excitement for three major titles:

1. Outer Worlds 2
2. Ninja Gaiden 4
3. Ghost of Yotei

He emphasizes his anticipation for Outer Worlds 2, describing it as “a better experience [than its predecessor] thanks to its focused, tailored RPG elements” [10:07]. Blessing appreciates the game's thematic focus on challenging societal structures, stating, “I'm down for a world to just dunk on capitalism and all the systems that exist within it” [15:07].

Andy Cortez

Andy presents his top picks with enthusiasm:

1. Baby Steps
2. Jurassic World Evolution 3
3. Silent Hill FF (Friendship Finale)

He highlights Baby Steps for its blend of challenging gameplay and heartfelt storytelling, mentioning, “It's gonna have a little heart, a little charm, a fun story to keep you going” [37:06]. Andy also expresses his fondness for park simulators with Jurassic World Evolution 3, noting his love for building and managing dinosaur parks [37:16].

Tony Hawk

Tony shares his excitement for several titles, including:

1. Hollow Knight: Silksong
2. Borderlands 4
3. Hot Shots Golf

He is particularly enthusiastic about Hollow Knight: Silksong, saying, “I'm super stoked for Hollow Knight: Silksong if that's the one that comes out this year” [39:07]. Tony also looks forward to the next installment in the Borderlands series, anticipating extended gameplay and engaging progression systems [40:07].

Snow Bike Mike

Mike offers his insights and top picks:

1. Outer Worlds 2
2. Pokemon Legends
3. Metal Gear Solid Delta

He echoes Blessing’s excitement for Outer Worlds 2, emphasizing its potential to deliver an “incredible” RPG experience [16:27]. Mike also mentions his anticipation for Pokemon Legends, expressing enthusiasm for reviewing it as the lead reviewer [51:07]. Additionally, he looks forward to Metal Gear Solid Delta, hoping it captures the essence of the beloved series while introducing fresh elements [54:07].

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In-Depth Discussion on Key Titles

Outer Worlds 2

Both Blessing and Mike place Outer Worlds 2 at the top of their lists, praising its enhanced RPG mechanics and focused narrative. Blessing appreciates the game's depth in character traits and its critique of capitalism, while Mike anticipates robust world-building and player choice that could rival its predecessor. Greg Miller reinforces this enthusiasm, describing it as “Obsidian's best RPG” [14:13].

Ghost of Yotei

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to Ghost of Yotei, a sequel to the acclaimed Ghost of Tsushima. Blessing discusses the game’s release dates:

• Ghost of Yotei: October 2nd
• Outer Worlds 2: October 29th
• Ninja Gaiden 4: October 21st

Blessing describes Ghost of Yotei as “bringing back the feeling” of its predecessor, craving a traditional open-world action game that offers rich storytelling and beautiful environments [11:27]. Tony adds his perspective on the game’s mechanics, hoping for refined combat systems and seamless integration of narrative and gameplay [16:57].

Ninja Gaiden 4

Ninja Gaiden fans, including Blessing and Tony, are eagerly awaiting the fourth installment. Blessing praises the remastered version released earlier in the year and looks forward to the new Ninja Gaiden 4 for its fast-paced action and challenging combos [11:02]. Tony highlights the game’s modernization and cyberpunk elements, expressing excitement for its vibrant visual style and combat mechanics [21:00].

Dispatch

Andy introduces Dispatch, an indie title that blends management simulation with superhero themes. He shares his enthusiasm after playing the demo, noting the engaging decision-making and character interactions that resemble “Invincible on an Amazon streaming service” [22:54]. Blessing appreciates the game’s depth in hero management and narrative, despite uncertainties about its indie development status [22:41].

Other Notable Games

• Arc Raiders: An extraction shooter releasing on October 30th, praised for its engaging multiplayer experience and unique gameplay mechanics [29:00].
• Baby Steps: A challenging adventure game set amidst a civil war, combining exploration with introspective storytelling [37:06].
• Jurassic World Evolution 3: Continues the beloved park-building simulation series with the latest advancements in dinosaur management [37:16].
• Silent Hill FF: Anticipated for its compelling horror elements and intricate storytelling [39:24].

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Community and Listener Engagement

Throughout the episode, the hosts interact with their audience, addressing listener comments and shout-outs. For instance, Rabbit of Carol praises Andy for his hosting skills, and Mad Rocks shares his anticipation for 2xko, expecting an upcoming release update [56:08]. The hosts encourage listeners to engage via memberships and super chats, fostering a community-centric atmosphere.

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Interview with Sucker Punch – Nate Fox and Jason Connell

In a segment towards the end, hosts Greg and Mike interview Nate Fox and Jason Connell, co-creative directors from Sucker Punch, discussing the development of Ghost of Yotei.

Key Highlights from the Interview:

• Weapon Mechanics: Nate explains the intricate weapon systems, highlighting the transition from stances to versatile melee weapons that offer strategic depth in combat. “If you're surrounded, if you've got a spear, you can use it to knock enemies backwards in space” [61:23].

• Art and World Design: Jason emphasizes the challenge of evolving the game’s art style from Ghost of Tsushima to maintain freshness without abandoning the original’s aesthetic. “We kept the lethal precision in combat and Samurai Cinema film-inspired stylization” [63:03].

• Game Design Choices: The team discusses their approach to mini-games and side missions, ensuring variety and avoiding repetitive gameplay. “We created a whole host of new mini-games and sort of experiences” [73:07].

• Character Customization and Storytelling: Nate clarifies that while the game includes customization, it doesn’t qualify as a traditional RPG. The focus remains on a defined narrative arc, evolving the protagonist’s journey [68:54].

• Audience Expectations: The directors express their hope that Ghost of Yotei meets fan expectations by delivering both stunning visuals and engaging gameplay, ensuring it stands strong alongside its predecessor [73:23].

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Conclusion

The episode wraps up with the anticipation of the upcoming Ghost of Yotei interview and a reminder of various channels where listeners can access the podcast. The hosts reiterate their excitement for the forthcoming games, promising in-depth reviews and coverage in future episodes.

Notable Quotes:

• Blessing Adeoye Jr.: “Ghost of Tsushima... bringing back the feeling” [11:27].
• Greg Miller: “Obsidian's best RPG” [14:13].
• Snow Bike Mike: “I’m super down to play this video game with you, Greg” [41:05].
• Nate Fox: “You absolutely do not need to switch weapons to play through the game in the same way that you didn't need to switch stances” [63:20].

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This comprehensive discussion ensures listeners are well-informed about the most exciting and highly anticipated games set to release in the latter half of 2025, offering valuable insights and a glimpse into the creative processes behind major titles.

Transcript

[Tony Hawk]

Rated T for teen.

[Greg Miller]

Each year, thousands of adults lose their shred. It's an epidemic simply known as shred loss. But it doesn't have to be this way. Because rekindling your shred is as easy as playing the new Tony hawk's Pro Skater 3 and 4. With new parks, cross platform multiplayer and sick new game modes, we can put an end to shred loss everywhere. Hit the new Tony hawk's Pro Skater 3 and 4 and show the world that the shred's not dead. Get Tony hawk's Pro Skater 3 and 4 available now.

[Snow Bike Mike]

What's up, everybody? Welcome to the Kind of Funny Games cast for Monday, July 21, 2025. I'm one of your hosts, Greg Miller, alongside the master of Hype, Snow Bike, Mike.

[Andy Cortez]

Good morning, Greg. Happy Monday to all. Thank you so much for tuning in. Very exciting episode today, Greg.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Excited to have you here, Mike. You're coming in hot off of a great games daily.

[Andy Cortez]

Yes. You know, we were turning it on. We were having some fun. Andy leading, talking about Pokemon with me. Battlefield 6. Is it titled Battlefield 6? We'll find out.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I think we found out.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That was the whole story.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, you think that's legit?

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Okay, yeah. Why would they send the pr? First of all, why'd you wink at me? Yeah, they sent the. They sent the PR package.

[Andy Cortez]

You got to read the embargo information.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, you got to read the embargo before you post it.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Sucks, man. You hate to see it.

[Tony Hawk]

Who do you think you are, Andy?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

What did you talk about on the show? That was the whole story.

[Tony Hawk]

We're speculating.

[Snow Bike Mike]

You know, when you get two best friends out there. Forbes 30 under 30, aka New York Game Awards nominated aka best haircut in the business. Blessing. Eddie Oye Jr.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Apparently they're calling me Hotkey Poppy now.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I know. I heard that right before that you. I won't lie. I didn't know the hotkey. They just started a link. Talk to me.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

If you're in Google Docs and you're trying to just make something a hot link, you just do control K before.

[Snow Bike Mike]

You like when it's highlighted or when.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You highlight, press Control K and then you just paste whatever link in there.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I like that a lot. Yeah, I like that a lot.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Saved me a lot of time prepping Cage.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I'm sure it does. Yeah. Of course. Rounding out our quartet is the Hispanic heartthrob Texas Street Latino Heat. Clicking heads and ripping them shreds. Globe shot and head. No, no, no. What? Fuck. What was the one we did of the. The most recent one, we added one, which was the no scoping.

[Tony Hawk]

I don't see people in chat say like, you shouldn't have groping.

[Snow Bike Mike]

No groping.

[Tony Hawk]

Yeah. You should not have groping in your.

[Snow Bike Mike]

That was. I mean, it pertained very much to that day's news.

[Tony Hawk]

Yeah.

[Snow Bike Mike]

That was why. So we won't do it again.

[Tony Hawk]

But I dominated Mike and Roger and Call of Duty.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Shot us up.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Nitro Rifle from Twitch tv. Andy Cortez, Hello. You also killed it on Games Daily. You've been doing a lot of Games Daily lately. I like.

[Tony Hawk]

Thank you. Thank you. I saw. I was telling Bless this, but the other day when I was hosting with Bless, somebody in chat was, you know, I had maybe not such a great segue, which I'm known for. And somebody was like, man, Andy sucks as a host.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Wow.

[Tony Hawk]

And I almost read it to be like, I know. I don't know why they asked me.

[Snow Bike Mike]

To do it, Andy.

[Tony Hawk]

I don't know why they asked me to do it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You know, I read all the Spotify comments, which is funny because I don't read the YouTube comments, but I did see one Spotify comment being mean to you. And I almost replied, but I was like, it's fine. No one's going to see this. It's a Spotify comment.

[Tony Hawk]

Sessions are part of your charm as a host. You know, I look forward to them. Today's, you know, was a little too good. It was a little too good. I was going to say. I was like, I need them to be bad and stumble.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Gotcha, gotcha. Just, you know, do your own thing out there. And it's jazz. You have to follow the document. Exactly. Mike doesn't even read the stories he's talking about.

[Andy Cortez]

I'm trying to get down because a lot of people comment. Why do you always read them verbatim? Why? I already know what's going on. And so there's some parts of me that's like, what if I gave you the Cliff Notes? Would you really be ready for that? And sometimes I try to get them to like that, and they're not ready for that.

[Tony Hawk]

Thank you.

[Andy Cortez]

They want me just to read it out word for word to them, feed it up like a little baby.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You have my permission, you know, because I'm the one that puts in the news stories. If you want to, like, shorten the news story, you can.

[Andy Cortez]

I'd be doing that. That's why Greg said that. But he meant it more in a mean way, like, Mike just be fumbling the bag all the time.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Whenever he read it. Sounds like you're just.

[Snow Bike Mike]

No, no, no, no. I meant in the way the battlefield story. You know what? It was about two seconds ago. You were on the show when you discussed speculation.

[Andy Cortez]

I don't go until EA actually tells me the title.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Fair enough.

[Andy Cortez]

Doomsday. I don't know who the hell dooms98 is.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yeah, I don't know who the hell dooms98 is. I don't know. I'm sure we'll get to that eventually. Because this is the Kind of Funny Games cast each and every weekday on a variety of platforms. We run you through the biggest topics in video Games live on YouTube.com kindafunnygames, Twitch TV, kind of funny games, podcast services around the globe. If you like that, we'd love you to pick up a Kind of Funny membership. Of course, $10 gets you all of our shows ad free. That's more than 80amonth. And it gets you your daily dose of me, Greg Miller, in a series we call Greg Way. Of course you also get good karma for supporting a small independent business. But maybe just want the content. I don't know. If you have no bucks, toss away. No big deal. Like subscribe, share, follow. If you have Twitch prime, you of course. Or no, if you have Amazon prime, you have Twitch Prime. And of course, remember you could super chat live on YouTube.com/kind of funny games right now to be part of the show. Remember, this is our most anticipated games the rest of the year. So you need to pop off with what you're anticipating and why right now. Rabbit of Carol says Andy is great for many reasons, but especially since he's a San Antonio spurs fan.

[Tony Hawk]

Go spurs, go.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I saw John Cena the other day and one of his final the time is now. Goodbye shirts. And it was spurs themed. It looked real good, man.

[Tony Hawk]

I'll tell you what, dude. Like, this season's going to be special. The roster is stacked, dude.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Hawk]

WWE Raw, Wemby, he's back. No more deep vein thrombosis.

[Snow Bike Mike]

You don't want no deep vein when.

[Tony Hawk]

You'Re 7 foot 6. You got to be careful with deep vein thrombosis. But Wemby's looking good. Victor Wembanyama was all in the off season doing with monks doing like training and shit. And we're like, oh man, we're fucking winning it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

All this like Dr.

[Tony Hawk]

Strange.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yes.

[Tony Hawk]

Yeah, he shaved his head and he's just out there with like staffs doing fighting and stuff. I was like, oh man, this Season is going to be another level. Can't wait, dude. Pretty cool fucking way.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Remember an 11 person small business all about live talk shows. So far you already got KFG which was our Pokemon presents predictions, remember? Of course tomorrow is a Pokemon presents. It will be happening while we are asleep. So we will all stay off of the Internet. We will come into work and you will get the games cast before kind of funny games daily. So if you're a usual live watcher, 10am will be Gamescast, 11am will be Games daily. We will live react and do all that stuff to this here Pokemon presents. Of course after this right now you can get the kind of funny podcast which Blessing is joining us for. I'm excited.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I'm excited too.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Good. I went to that Korean supermarket too. We should talk about that.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh yeah, I'm down to talk about it.

[Snow Bike Mike]

A great place.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, Daily city staple right there.

[Snow Bike Mike]

And the stream of course is going to be Robocop, Rogue City, Unfinished Business with Mike and Nick.

[Andy Cortez]

Very excited about this one.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Standalone.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, one of your most anticipated for.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Nick if you're kind of funny member today's Greg way is nearly 20 minutes on Greg, that's me, Ben in Poe's weekend with Donkey Kong Bonanza and some light funeral planning for me. Thank you to our Patreon producers Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster and Delaney the Psalm Twining. Today we're brought to you by Mood and Factor but we'll tell you about that later. For now let's begin the show with what is and forever will be the topic of the show. Gentlemen, believe it or not, we are on the precipice of August.

[Tony Hawk]

Gross.

[Snow Bike Mike]

This year is flying by. It is almost over. August of course means Madden and the kickoff to almost September, which of course is review season. And all the big games come out. As we run up to Black Friday we got to worry about getting our Game of the Year nominations in to Jeff Keighley for the game awards. And of course we got to get ready to react to the game awards. Then of course we got our own stuff going on with the Smileys and our own game of the year. We got to do all that stuff. Then it's Christmas break, then it's this then 11th anniversary. Kind of funny. But before we get to 2026, there's still a ton of games coming out in 2025. So now with Donkey Kong Bonanza out. Game of the summer and what a fucking game.

[Tony Hawk]

Pretty good game. What a last night.

[Andy Cortez]

Wow.

[Tony Hawk]

They got some good.

[Snow Bike Mike]

They got. Who would have known this Nintendo Might go places.

[Tony Hawk]

Seen that. I mean, seeing this recent tweet is like it. I saw a recent tweet that I could not have echoed more of being like bonanza Kirby in the forgotten land. Mario, you better show the up your next.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I know. Yeah.

[Tony Hawk]

You're about to be sitting on the bench.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You're gonna get lapped.

[Tony Hawk]

You're about to be in the back of the poster with everybody else there. You know what I mean?

[Snow Bike Mike]

With mere months left in the year, we are just inundated now with great games. It would seem so without timely to come in and talk about what our most anticipated games for the rest of the year are. Blessing. I want to start with you.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I asked you all to come in with a list of three ranked, rated, whatever you want to call it. Tell me your most anticipated game for the rest of the year.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, are we supposed to rank this three?

[Snow Bike Mike]

I mean, you have three down. I figure.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I don't know, because that makes it tougher. I just wrote the three games.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Hey, you know what? Yeah. This is jazz.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Okay.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Do whatever you want.

[Greg Miller]

Freestyle.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Because I'm looking at the doc right now, and Mike has 100 games written down.

[Tony Hawk]

Yeah, I have a.

[Andy Cortez]

Well, I did a lot of homework.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I did a lot of homework as he writes it in the doc right now. You did homework starting 10 minutes ago.

[Tony Hawk]

What you think I did? Why you retyping?

[Andy Cortez]

Mike's out there in the rain fixing the gate.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You just wipe it down.

[Tony Hawk]

He was fixing it.

[Andy Cortez]

We couldn't get in.

[Tony Hawk]

Yeah, we couldn't get in.

[Andy Cortez]

I got to get out of the car. I got to wipe up with my GEX T shirt.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

As somebody who's often first to this office, let me tell you, that is the case half the time where the gate doesn't work and you had to get the paper towels and I wipe it down.

[Andy Cortez]

Notes on my phone. Last night, I had a great time going through all the big releases coming up, and I talked about them, and I'm excited to share them with you.

[Tony Hawk]

I have way too many, but mainly because I don't want to just shout out the obvious ones.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You guys didn't want to make choices.

[Andy Cortez]

The obvious ones. You know what I mean?

[Tony Hawk]

We know the obvious.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for having the best list.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Here.

[Andy Cortez]

Give us your 3.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I'm sorry for having good taste and knowing what games are going to be the bangers for the rest of the year because I'm looking at Greg's list.

[Andy Cortez]

And I'm like, you're trying to Put people on.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I'm lying to you.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You're 1000% lying on your list? Yes.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Fucking come with me. What does that mean?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You're fucking not. You're not more excited for Poke Pokemon Legends than you are for Outer Worlds too.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I forgot I saw it on your list. You had already written in Outer Worlds. I missed it when I was recapping.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And I saw that, and I did see Auto Worlds too. And I'm like, oh, Greg's just saying things.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I, I, I had four down there and I didn't want to do the mic thing where I got a million games. So I had four down and I was like, I gotta do it. And I eliminated one of them. And then you wrote your three and I was like. The first one you wrote, I was like, yeah, Outer Worlds 2 is my most anticipated probably.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

So I'm, I'm, I'm gonna spit my three games out at one go, right?

[Andy Cortez]

Really?

[Tony Hawk]

Just, Just like that.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Because I'll talk about them all. Because we got a lot, we had a lot of games to talk about here. Yeah, right. Outer Worlds 2, Ninja Gaiden 4, Ghost of Yote. Those are the games I'm most excited for for the rest of the year.

[Andy Cortez]

Thanks for picking the most.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You're welcome.

[Andy Cortez]

Biggest games. Yeah, we already know about.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I'm sorry for telling it like it is. Sorry.

[Snow Bike Mike]

What indie is he? Were you about to pull out?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, you're that excited for Directive 80 20?

[Andy Cortez]

I want to talk about 80 20, but it's.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

What's your top.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Three games? You listed four and then you have a section called Outside Looking in.

[Tony Hawk]

I didn't know this is a competition.

[Andy Cortez]

Thank you, Andy.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Can we just enjoy games? Wow.

[Andy Cortez]

Anticipated such a great game.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Most anticipated games for the rest of 2025. I'm telling you like it is. All right. Honestly, Starting off with Ghost of Yote, of course.

[Tony Hawk]

Come on, come on, come on.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

We're coming off of Ghost of Tsushima. It's been like, it's been five years since Ghost of Tsushima. A game that came through was in that, I would say legendary run of PlayStation in the late 2010s of having these new IPs that would come through and they would wow us and surprise us. You had Horizon, you have Ghosts, and just name two games. You have Ghost of Yotei coming through.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Right.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And bringing back the feeling. I've had this thing this year of not really having a traditional open world action game that I'm like, oh, this is the one, Andy. We talked about it.

[Tony Hawk]

Right.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Me and you were like, kind of excited for Assassin's Creed Shadows.

[Tony Hawk]

Really thought I was gonna be one.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

But I also think we're trying to speak.

[Snow Bike Mike]

How far did you get?

[Tony Hawk]

It still might be the one. We don't know yet.

[Andy Cortez]

If I go back to it, how.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Many hours you get in Shadows?

[Tony Hawk]

Well, not far, because I was playing other. Yeah. It's not. It's no fault of Shadows. What I played, I enjoyed. Game was gorgeous as all hell. And I. I distinctly remember during my stream, the getting to a part early on where it gets digitized and the animus pops up. I was like, this dude.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Hawk]

Just let me exist back there. So, like, no, I didn't get very far. Maybe a couple hours.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I played the prologue and then it started doing like a tutorial thing where I was being trained and I was like, I'm good. I never played the game after that.

[Tony Hawk]

Called it with beautiful video games.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Hawk]

Barrett, you still may be wrong. I may get into.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

No, yeah, we still got. We had a lot of time left.

[Snow Bike Mike]

It's gonna be one of those things where he plays it in two years. Like, we gotta go back to the game of. That's really game of the year 2025.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

But, like, I've tried, tried that. I even tried Avowed, right? Like, I feel like the traditional action rpg, slash, open world action adventure game. Right. Like, I've not had one that's really stuck with me this year, aside from Death Stranding 2, which is a very particular kind of game and doesn't really satiate the hunger I have for a Ghost of Yotei type type of game, of course. And so coming off of the state of play that we saw last week, right? Like, it's got everything that I want. Give me a traditional quest system, give me cool characters, give me all of like the checklisty open world bullshit, right? And give me a beautiful world that looks like the world that I got out of Ghost of Tsushima.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Right.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

A game that I really liked as well. You know, I'm all the way here for Ghost of Yotei in that regard. Moving on.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Oh, real quick. I just want to call out for all of our viewers and listeners right now. I have good news for you. If you're excited for Ghost of Yotei, we have like a 15 minute interview we're going to put at the end of this episode with co creative directors Nate Fox and Jason Connell from Sucker Punch. They got to pop in. And I only made fun of Goldfarb for about five minutes of the the.

[Tony Hawk]

Time I had first Berserker Kazan is what I was playing.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I'll do it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Same. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, moving on from Ghost of the ot, right. In the way that Assassin's Creed Shadows didn't give me the feel I was looking for. Avowed also didn't give me the feel I was looking for with that game. And The Outer Worlds 2 is going to give me fingers crossed, the field I'm looking for. Right.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Greg Miller's already calling it Obsidian's best rpg.

[Andy Cortez]

Wow.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You did say that during the preview.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I did say that, and I am incredibly excited about it, to the point that I just forgot about it. I am really excited about it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

So, yeah, this is one that I think we're all in agreeance on of being excited for. Outer Worlds one I really liked, but it was also one of those ones where you obviously they don't have, like, the scope in the scale of a Fallout of a Bethesda or whatever. But also I think in a lot of ways that makes this. Makes this a better experience. Right. Of it being more focused, it being more tailored, it being more of a get in, get out sort of RPG kind of thing. Outer Worlds 2, seeing the presentation they did during the Xbox showcase, where they were talking about all the systems, where they were talking about the perks and like, the weird things of, like, the character traits that are unique for each player, I think those look cool. I just want to get back into this world as well. Right. Like, I don't think there's a time more than now that I'm down for a world to just dunk on capitalism and all the systems that exist within it.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Right.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And like Outer Worlds, that's one of the ongoing themes of it. And also I'm just down for an rpg, for an RPG from Obsidian. Right. Like, it is the Fallout Elder Scrolls thing for me, where I'm always going to lean towards a fallout over an Elder Scrolls. And I think Outer Worlds 2 is that with me, with that versus avowed. Where avowed. I know many people love it. I tried it, but I just wanted to play Outer Worlds. And so I'm excited that's coming out this year.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yeah. I think for me, with somebody who, you know, played through Avowed and enjoyed Avowed and reviewed Avowed, but didn't think it set the world on fire, even going back to Outer Worlds one, I think there's, you know, less meat on the bone than Avowed, but I think the world building was cooler. I think it was. It gave you a more varied Landscape. And so coming off the preview here of what I got at SGF with Outer Worlds two, like, I stand by. I think this is gonna knock people's socks off if you're in this world. And I think into this kind of game and I really say it because I think they're gonna give you so much choice that it really is going to be. I hope we sit down for that review that spoiler cast and bless you have such a different experience because of the perks you picked because of the cons you picked. I forget flaws because of the flaws you picked. And again, I toy with the idea all the time when I get excited and think about Outer Worlds 2 rolling two different characters at the same time and doing that as I review right where I'm doing an hour with one, an hour with another, get to big story beats and then make the other opposite choice or finish it all because again, it is a smaller RPG and roll a new thing to run back through. I'm pretty. I can't wait for this one. I think it's gonna be incredible.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Hawk]

I mean even thinking about how much I was enjoying Outer Worlds one when I was playing it earlier in the year, like the biggest drawback was all of the mechanics and the systems and combat and how just not tight that they felt. Dude. If you were to put a vowed combat and movement and everything about the way that game feels mechanically into even Outer Worlds one with what that story was doing with the decisions that you're making there. Outer Worlds to I hope is about to be a banger.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I think it's gonna. I think it. I think it's going to be about.

[Tony Hawk]

Was so much fun to play.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I would bet the house on it. And I would be destroyed if it's not.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Based on how what I played and what they were talking about and the way they talk about it and what they're saying, I'm stoked for it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Something to note as well, right? Go out of Worlds 2 and Ghost of Yote both come out in October. Outer Worlds 2 comes out October 29th. Ghost of Yote comes out October 2nd. My third game here. Ninja Gaiden 4 comes out October 21st. And so it's gonna be a pretty active October for me. Ninja Gaiden 4, this is one that I. I was between this and Dispatch. And I'll talk about dispatch a little bit in a second. Right.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Of one of your outside looking ins.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That's one of my outside looking ins. Right? That's my little honorable mention.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Smile, Mike. Smile, Mike.

[Andy Cortez]

Hey, I'm listening. I like it out of Worlds too. I like that. Give me some more lives.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. So like Ninja Gaiden 4. I decided to have it as the proper my top three after just rewatching the trailer and going, well, this is a blessing ass video game, right? Like, you know, the Ninja Gaiden to Black Sigma, whatever. It was the remaster of it. The remaster of it came out earlier this year and we played it a little bit, right? And like Ninja Gun's always been that one of those franchises that's, you know, escaped me, even though I know it's my kind of shit, specifically the 3D action ones. And playing the remaster that came out, I was like, oh, I dig this. Like, I want more of this. And I'm going to get a brand new one of these, a modernized one of these from Platinum Games later in the year. Like, let's fucking go. And it's crazy that we're only a few months away from it. And when I watch the trailer, I'm like, well, it looks, it looks like everything I want fast action, crazy combos, you know, the difficulty that you want out of, out of one of these games. And like, I just hope the only thing I'm like, I'm kind of waiting on is story narrative. Is there going to be a story there that I care about? Sure, who knows? But either way, right, I'm here for the style. I need a little bit of it. Yeah, I need something to pull me along. If it is straight up, like great action without a story that I care about, then we're talking about a stellar blade again. And I like a stellar blade, right? But I want some substance to hold on to. Even if it's, even if it is like, it doesn't have to be a deep story, even if it is dumb shit, but it's like cool dumb shit, dumb hype, anime shit I'm in for. Just give me something that I can attach to, to be it goes back to the KFC conversation me and Andy were having where gameplay will have me in the moment, story will have me in the long term. You know what I mean? I'm going to remember a story, I'm going to remember those cool moments and all that shit. And so I need you to deliver on both fronts to some extent.

[Andy Cortez]

I'm glad that you put that one on the list. I did not put that on my list because I just found number two to be too difficult. The remaster of two was just that level of difficulty that I couldn't get over now. I have played Devil May Cry reawakening over the past couple of months. So maybe I'm a different man heading into four, but of course, I'm very excited for four. I think it looks really awesome. But there was a difficulty spike there that I could not get behind into. What was it?

[Snow Bike Mike]

Cortez.

[Tony Hawk]

Thank you, Greg Miller. What was it about the difficulty, Mike? Because we've seen you dominate Sekiro. We've seen you play all the Souls games. Is this just like a different flavor of flavor?

[Andy Cortez]

It's Devil May Cry flavor the combos of what you need to do. It doesn't feel like it is a sit there and parry like a Sekiro. It doesn't feel like I just constantly dodge. Like you're playing in Dark Souls.

[Tony Hawk]

More action rpg.

[Andy Cortez]

It is more of like, you got to know your combos, you got to work those combos. And I learned that in Devil May Cry. Right. To be that next level, you have to understand all the movesets that they give you, the different weapons and the tools that you can use. And so maybe I'll be better. But yeah, it just was not good at the time when it first dropped in February. Right.

[Tony Hawk]

I'm mainly stoked about this one because it's a more modern take on. On, you know, and I say modern take meaning with the knowledge of all of the past action games that have. Have that have happened in the past going into this one and saying, what does a Ninja Gaiden game look like in the year 2025? As opposed to ninja gun black, which was 2012. 20. When was ninja Garden black?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I forget, like, the first Ninja Gun in black or like. Oh, I don't know. I. I would have said late 2000s.

[Tony Hawk]

Oh, I guess it was a 360 game. Right.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yeah, I remember. I remember Hill and Brudvig playing that at the old IGN office. That's post. That's 2010 or earlier.

[Tony Hawk]

Okay.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Hawk]

Yeah. So I'm just. I'm stoked to see both of these teams working in tandem and trying to say, all right, it's the year 2025. We've seen a lot of really awesome action games come out. We've seen a lot of awesome Souls likes come out with different massive teams and even small teams. How do we take all the knowledge gained from what makes all of those games good and apply it here? But I'm mainly just stoked to see Ninja game mixed in a cyberpunk world. I want to see those sections because I've played A lot of period pieces where you are back in some, like the Edo period or something in samurai worlds. And I. I've seen a lot of games like that. I'm stoked to see this sort of cyberpunk, bright colors area of this video game.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And we're talking about. You're talking about, like, it being modernized, right? And taking in all those lessons. I think it being developed by Platinum Games is such an interesting, fascinating thing because I feel like a lot of the established modernized, like, elements about action games today have been established by Platinum.

[Andy Cortez]

Right.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Like, we're talking about Platinum and FromSoftware as being probably like the biggest ones as far as studios that have really pushed action games forward. And so for a studio where we've gotten, you know, Banana three, we got near. We got. I mean, Mike, you said you played Vanquish recently, right?

[Andy Cortez]

I did play Vanquish. That's a fun time.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Again, these are all Platinum.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Platinum knows what they're doing. And also I think Platinum needs more wins under their belt because they've had some losses in recent years. When I talk about A Babylon's Fall or like, games like that. And so really looking forward to this one, but also want to shout out Dispatch, which doesn't have a solid release date, but is coming out in 2025, or at least announced to come out in 2025.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Do you believe it?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I mean. Oh, do I believe it's coming out?

[Snow Bike Mike]

I don't know these indies.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I don't know.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Ad hoc. What are you doing?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And, like, if it gets delayed, it gets delayed, right?

[Snow Bike Mike]

I'm not, of course I want it to be awesome.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I'm not in a rush to play it, but I am excited for it. After playing the demo and seeing how quality the animation and presentation is, how, how into the writing I am write these characters, it feels like I'm watching Invincible on an Amazon streaming service. Right? This doesn't feel. It sometimes doesn't feel like I'm playing a game. And then you get those dialogue choices and you're like, wow, I'm playing this. And then, like, all of that added in with this management strategy simulator where I'm dispatching these different heroes to take out or to take care of different problems around the city. When I first played the demo, I was definitely put off by it a little bit. And then I replayed the demo and I was like, wait a second. This is actually pretty fun. I love that I have to think about these heroes skills and their abilities and their temperaments and all these Things to be like, all right, you're going to go save this, these people from a burning building and you're going to help this kid get his balloon out of a tree. Like having to make those decisions in a superhero setting I think is really fascinating and really fun and I want to see how that evolves over the course of the game. And so I'm really excited for this one.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Over in the live chat, what a guy says the dispatch devs just posted in the discord today doubling down on a 2025 date. So there you go.

[Tony Hawk]

Visual quality looks so Alex, it just looks like a Netflix TV show.

[Snow Bike Mike]

It doesn't look like an engine percent Michael.

[Andy Cortez]

Hello, Greg.

[Snow Bike Mike]

A lot of talk there about cyberpunk, which of course makes me think your new cyberpunk switch back together.

[Andy Cortez]

It'll be delivered eventually.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yeah, well, I gotta remember, did I.

[Andy Cortez]

Put down the wrong address? I don't know. Who knows?

[Snow Bike Mike]

That's always trouble. It's gonna show up at the liquor store across the street. Michael, talk to me about what you're anticipating for the rest of 2025.

[Andy Cortez]

Greg, I got a big thing three but I got a couple outside looking. I want to give a couple of shout outs here, but I do want to first off give an honorable mention. Greg, I know it's not really your game, but the world has been taken by storm, by peak, a really fun multiplayer experience where you climb of all.

[Snow Bike Mike]

The games for you throw a stray at me. I enjoyed peak when we played.

[Andy Cortez]

Well good. We're going to play it again.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I went around, I did the trumpet, the nick the whole time.

[Andy Cortez]

I got a better game for you now that I want you to be aware of. It's not coming out this year, but it's coming out in 2026 from House House, the team that made Untitled Goose games. This is called a big walk. I want you just to make sure you're aware of this and put it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

On like you know the title of this episode.

[Andy Cortez]

I always want people to be put on. And if you like peak, he did.

[Tony Hawk]

A lot of homework.

[Snow Bike Mike]

We talked about this. It's jazz. It's jazz Mike wants.

[Andy Cortez]

This is my honorable mention. It's not even outside looking in. It's just the one to put on your map because the house house team has something special coming up with a big walk that you and your friends can go on. And I think you gotta, you gotta keep this on your radar because the game looks and sounds like a really fun time with your friends. We'll have full proximity chat. You're gonna go out on a big adventure with your friends.

[Snow Bike Mike]

What am I doing?

[Andy Cortez]

It'll be puzzles along the walk. Okay, you're walking and talking.

[Tony Hawk]

You're walking.

[Andy Cortez]

There's only two. There's only two parts of this game. Walking and talking. That's all they want you to do.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Did anyone lose a loved one? Like, why am I walking? I don't know. I'm just doing puzzles now.

[Andy Cortez]

Let's go to the outside looking in. Okay, there's three outside.

[Snow Bike Mike]

What does that mean?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Looking?

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, these are snow bike mics, big three. But these are three that you need to know about.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Okay.

[Andy Cortez]

And we're going to hit you with the double super massive block six written down. The question is, can Supermassive deliver on two games here. Directive 8020 from Supermassive. Here's a team that made until dawn, of course, the quarry. And then we kind of got lost in the sauce with some of the Dark pictures anthology games. Now up to space, and the question is, is, does this team have the juice once again, will I get until dawn? Will I get a quarry or will I get an Ashley Tisdale?

[Snow Bike Mike]

First off, that was a great one. That was. That was great.

[Andy Cortez]

One of the better ones out of the group. Yes.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That was a. That was a good one overall.

[Andy Cortez]

That was good.

[Tony Hawk]

Yeah, that was the one that we played Mike, that we streamed with Nick that one time.

[Andy Cortez]

That was the one where it was the saw murder mystery. The Devil Inside Me.

[Tony Hawk]

Yes, that one. That one was rough.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That was rough.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Man of Medan was the worst and it started the whole anthology.

[Andy Cortez]

Little Hope and the Devil Inside Me are the bottom three out of the five that they released lineup.

[Snow Bike Mike]

So I played this one at SGF2. I think, you know, they're taking their time with this one. Remember, the Dark Pictures anthology was annual for a while, which was crazy. This one's got a really nice UI to it. It's got the same stuff in it. You're. It's more single player jumping just between perspectives without the big like, boom. Now you are Ashley Tinsdale. Whatever. It's just like making decisions and go, I. I love these games already for what they are. This one seems like it's like off of the, you know, 30 minutes I played. Could be on the better side of them.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, I mean, I'm in the same boat as far as, like, even when you have a mid one of these, I'm all the way in just because I love these games. Overall, I think Devil in Me was the only one where I was like, damn, this is a waste of time. I really didn't like that. But also when I played it, I just had a lot of bugs and stuff. Like, it felt like it was rushed, which is part of why I'm excited for this one. Because it's taken a little bit longer for them to put this out. They have been, or they had been annualized as far as what they were doing with Dark Pictures. This had a little bit more time. And also they've changed it from. I believe it was called, like a dark pictures anthology. Colon. Whatever the game was. This is Directive 8020, a Dark Pictures game or whatever the fuck.

[Snow Bike Mike]

It's not part of the anthology. They're not trying to do the whole thing anymore.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. And so this feels like a redefinition for what they're trying to do is.

[Snow Bike Mike]

We lose the man. That fucking rocker intro of walking through the hallway and having the curator, I think we're getting away from, but I.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Think we need somebody right. Like, they know. Did Quarry have a storyteller or, like a person to do like, the right.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Benefit to make it not feel like until dawn. To make it not feel like. Yeah, man, fortune teller, you're right. Yeah. Yeah, you did have a fortune like that. Yeah, you're right.

[Andy Cortez]

So now we leave out the question of, like, will this deliver on October 2nd? Because seven days from then, they hit us with Little Nightmares 3. This team at Supermassive is now taking over the IP of Little Nightmares 3, which was originally a different team that is now going to make Reanimal, if you remember that. Both very similar art styles, very similar looks of the two little characters kind of walking like an inside look. Now, can you take Little Nightmares 3 and make it a really good experience being not the main devs of this? So little super massive double block for you to keep in mind.

[Snow Bike Mike]

But these are just outside looking ins.

[Andy Cortez]

These are outside looking in. I just want you to be.

[Snow Bike Mike]

So these are ones you're not going to play, but you. You.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, no, these will be games that I play. I love a good horror game. Outside looking in. It's like, these are games I'm excited for. But these aren't the big. They're.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

They're not.

[Tony Hawk]

They're outside of the top three. Looking into the top three.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Got it.

[Andy Cortez]

But I want you to be mindful that Supermassive now has two horror games coming out in October and one of them is not their IP that they're known for. So it's going to be very exciting to see if they can deliver a little Nightmares game here.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yeah.

[Tony Hawk]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

I'm very excited about that.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I predict they won't.

[Tony Hawk]

You think it's going to come out and be super middle?

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Okay.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I agree.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Cool.

[Tony Hawk]

Six out of ten.

[Andy Cortez]

I like that.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yeah.

[Tony Hawk]

I'm gonna go on the opposite.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Nice.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Wow.

[Tony Hawk]

I think it's gonna be a 9.5.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Wow. If you're so bullish about it, pick it up for fantasy credit.

[Andy Cortez]

Pick it up on your.

[Tony Hawk]

Yeah, I think my team's full.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Maybe I'm gonna drop one of your games.

[Andy Cortez]

And the final outside looking in. Let's talk Arc Raiders, baby. Of course. ARC Raiders October 30th is finally getting a release date of this one. It killed Bungees Marathon. It outdid them in the game of the demo summer. And of course people are excited for our creators. This is a multiplayer experience with the extraction shooter setting that people seem to really be gravitating towards. I'm surprised that so many people liked this. A genre that is so small, tough to get into when you think of a games games like Escape from Tarkov and more that somehow Arc Raiders really appealed to to a larger audience. I don't know if it was the setting, I don't know if it was the gameplay, but something in the mix of all of this, they have found themselves at the forefront of soon to be extraction shooter releases that seem to be the one that people want to play. So I want to give a big shout out to Arc Raiders finally getting release date. You've probably played it over the summer. You know what's going on. But it is time to finally play this on October 30th.

[Tony Hawk]

We had a lot of fun with this one, man. I, I, I'm excited to hop in. I don't think I'm gonna in any way know life this unless just sort of catches us the way that the cycle did for that week or two or whatever it was. But yeah, this was a really, really fun time. And it looks and controls like the division and it was sort of scratching that itch. But then just, you know, Mike getting shot up by a random team and me and Maddock on proximity chat being like, all right, we're gonna go separate ways. We're cool. And then we end up killing them. And it was a good time. Really, really good.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

How many players can party up in this?

[Tony Hawk]

I think only three.

[Andy Cortez]

Three.

[Tony Hawk]

Remember we partied up or we made friends with that one squad.

[Andy Cortez]

Yep, yep.

[Tony Hawk]

And then, you know, we made friends with a squad as we were like taking on another team. And this was like another team that you could have. We could have tried to kill. And at one point, Mike is on prox. Chad be like my homie Zandy hopping in his. His computer crash or whatever.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

His.

[Tony Hawk]

His game crash. He's hopping back in though. So if you see him, don't kill him. And we're all just like, we're all just homies with these dudes or whatever. And then my off Mike goes, all right, we're going to fucking kill them. And we ended up not killing them because they extracted a little bit too quicker or too quicker than we did. But it, you know, these games are so much fun for those emergent random gaming moments. But we'll see if it has the legs to bring in an audience that maybe Marathon was looking to go get.

[Andy Cortez]

This game will either die in six months or live for two years and be a success. That's how these games kind of go. It'll either just immediately fall off the planet or it will have the staying power that will succeed. And out of the ones that we've played, this is the one.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

How do I get my name on the short list for. To be on like the first stream for this one?

[Andy Cortez]

Okay.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Because I feel like I keep missing. I always miss a very busy man. Well, I mean like that's why. That's what I'm trying to get ahead of it.

[Andy Cortez]

Okay.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That way we can think about it for the future.

[Andy Cortez]

October 30th.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

This is what I've been wanting to play and I never got around to.

[Tony Hawk]

I would rather have either. Thank you, Nick Scorpino. Who?

[Snow Bike Mike]

Damn.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Well, that's why I asked how many players? Because when she said three, I was like, you're on.

[Snow Bike Mike]

You're orth copter, bro.

[Tony Hawk]

Oh man, this weekend me.

[Snow Bike Mike]

And they came in with a box the size of a refrigerator today and immediately was like, Andy, I saw this.

[Tony Hawk]

We're doing so much work, dude. We have so much aluminum. We.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I'm excited to hear about what's no longer outside looking, but what's actually in Mike's top three most anticipated games. But first, I'll remind you that we are an 11 person small business all about live talk shows. If you love what we do, do it. Kinda funny. We couldn't do without your support. Pick up a membership on patreon.com kindafunny YouTube.com kindafunnygames, Apple or Spotify to get all of our shows ad free. But you're not using them. So as Christopher 21 in the chat says, I can't Wait till Chat sees Tim Tim's hair during the ads. So here's our sponsor.

[Tim Gettys]

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[Snow Bike Mike]

It looks like Tim's trying to hide the groundhog From Caddyshack under his hat. You know what I mean? That there's some kind of varmint that Tim has underneath that hat. Nick Scarpino, king of comedy. Is it a wig? I don't know. Of course. Wiggin Alice Scarpino. What is going on with the hair?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I don't know but we have to kill.

[Tim Gettys]

Has to be killed.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I don't like this.

[Tony Hawk]

I don't like what we're doing today.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, this is bowling.

[Andy Cortez]

It's gonna come for us.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Listen, if it gets any bigger, it's gonna come for us. Listen, Andy Blessing, I understand that it seems like bullying, but if you ever watch in review, he's not very nice to me and Nick. So this is.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

He's got so ever. Tim is like a forest. Occasionally there needs to be a fire.

[Andy Cortez]

You got to play. You bring it back.

[Snow Bike Mike]

If we let him go and check they know how important he is to the company, then he fucking have us over a barrel. Mike, give me your three.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, let's go. Quick. Over two and three. Baby steps September 8th. Keep an eye out. Very, very excited about Baby Steps. One of those super difficult games where you climb up a hill. But this one's got a little heart, a little charm, a fun story to keep you going. I think people are really going to be put onto this one.

[Tony Hawk]

Really goofy, a lot of fun dialogue.

[Andy Cortez]

Up next, Jurassic World Evolution 3. I'm a sucker for a park sim game. I love building games. And you know what the kids want?

[Snow Bike Mike]

What do they want?

[Andy Cortez]

Dinosaur.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Look at the box office. This Jurassic World movie. A complete dog. But it's people are buying it.

[Andy Cortez]

They're one of the people yearn for.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

What's that?

[Andy Cortez]

Dinos. Andy, what do people love?

[Tony Hawk]

Dinos.

[Andy Cortez]

Dinos. The idea that I get to build a theme park with dinos. This is the third version. Have really liked the.

[Tony Hawk]

We're streaming this Mike.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Have you gotten super deep into the other ones?

[Andy Cortez]

No, never. I've bought them, I've played a little bit of them. But this is the one where I really want to commit to and dive deep on. But I'm excited for this one. It's been about four years since the last one, so we're kind of on a cycle with this. It's very interesting.

[Tony Hawk]

Do we know if the AI stuff got taken out of this game or not? I remember the STEAM community was all up in arms about all the AI stuff. Stuff that they had to like disclose or whatever.

[Andy Cortez]

Barry, you school me on that one. I have no idea. Big dog, lay it on me. Okay, number one, we'll keep it quick and short. September 24th Silent Hill F F is for friendship. This latest trailer from this game looks really good. I think this game might deliver. Yeah, we're riding high off of Silent Hill 2 Remake. Bluebird Team did a really good job on that one, but this is a different team. Looking at this trailer, I'm like, well, like, wow. This has got the visuals, it's got the horror, it's got the moments. But I'm really into the friendship themes because you know Andy out there, betrayal, greed. On account of four hours, you know what I mean? A lot of thoughts, a lot of whispers. I'm very excited to see how you dive in and make friendship scary because I like that there could be some really good moments here and some good story plot.

[Tony Hawk]

I mean, I could tell them all about everything. Yeah, yeah. Friendship is very.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Chad is calling out that AI is. Is gone in Jurassic park, whatever that is. The scientist portraits are going to be AI but they fixed it says Credence the base.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, good. There you go. And so yeah, keep an eye out for Silent Hill. Those are my three most anticipated. Silent Hill F, Jurassic World, Evolution, and Baby Steps.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Hell yeah. Andy, what do you got?

[Tony Hawk]

Well, I, I like Mike also typed in a bunch of. Because I didn't again. You know, I'm excited for a Hollow Knight Silk song. That's number one. Duh. If that happens this year.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Hey, apparently launch day of the Xbox Rog Ally X. But maybe not be launching with it, but on launch day for one of them. Either when the game launches the X will be out or when the X launches the game will be out either way.

[Tony Hawk]

And it'll also be playable next month in Australia, which Mike knows a lot about. Do you think they'll ban it before then? Oh, for violence. Yeah, possibly violence against bugs. So yeah, obviously I'm super stoked for Hollow Knight Silk song if that's the one that comes out this year. But really high up on my list are two games that I've just kind of been missing this, the gameplay loop of. And they are Borderlands 4 and Hot Shots. Golf. Everybody's golf. Borderlands 4 I'm stoked for. Of course it previewed really, really well. Sure did everything that we saw gameplay wise, looks like okay, this is going to be a nice big upgrade to what we experienced with three. But I also just haven't. I haven't played Borderlands 3 since it came out and it's been a long ass time and I love shooters like this and I love the progression of it and once you get your hooks in me, you're gonna have me for guaranteed 30, 40 hours and then I'll move on to the next thing.

[Snow Bike Mike]

100 borderlands. Obviously I loved three. Played the bejesus out of it was on the Borderlands show obviously and even Borderlands pre sequel Borderlands too. Like I've been through with Borderlands 4. There's something interesting where I'm just not hungry for it and so I'm hoping I sit down on sticks and it immediately is just Borderlands and clicks and it's like got the. You know they've talked a lot about the writing and how they're trying to do it. This time around it's got the game and I hope. I hope I connect with my vault hunter right away and I'm just off to the races. But right now it's like one of those like I assume I'm going to like it but I'm not sitting around going I can't wait to play like I was with three.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

My bold prediction. I think this will be On Kind of Funny's top 10 game of the year.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I hope so.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Somewhere in the 5 to 10 range. But I think it'll be on there.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Let's play together.

[Tony Hawk]

I like that a whole lot. I'm super down to play this video game with you, Greg.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Thank you. I like that.

[Tony Hawk]

I. You know as somebody who's been begging blessing Greg to play the division with me but play on PC so I can play keyboard like PC. Part of the hurts, you know. I thought you said recently you just said you were a PC gamer. Whatever.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

But like my save is on PlayStation.

[Tony Hawk]

But you start a new character, you don't know that character. That guy's a stranger to you.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, but do I have to do like all the museum again?

[Snow Bike Mike]

No, no.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Although I like the museum.

[Tony Hawk]

Start off at level 50 and you're just like bamboo. You're ready to rock.

[Snow Bike Mike]

We have the codes where that's that stream keeps getting put on the thing. But then. Yeah, scrub for something.

[Tony Hawk]

Five hour experience.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I'm down.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I want to do it. Joey want to do it too.

[Tony Hawk]

PC. So yeah, that's Borderlands for super stoked for that.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Sure.

[Tony Hawk]

What else is on the. Well, everybody's golf.

[Snow Bike Mike]

We need to talk about everybody's golf.

[Tony Hawk]

Hot shots again. This is not by clap hands.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yep.

[Tony Hawk]

So kind of maybe a weird one. I don't know how I feel internally about that.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Great.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yeah.

[Tony Hawk]

Kind of, you know, makes my. Makes my heart not feel super great. That Clap Hands is no longer in charge of this Bandai Namco. I don't know what dev it is, but Bandai Namco is publishing.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yep.

[Tony Hawk]

It. It's still Everybody's Golf though. And it's probably gonna perform super similarly gameplay wise.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I don't love Everybody's Golf. I love Everybody's Golf too. I just think this is going to be bare bones. I don't think we're getting the Everybody's Go. I think, you know, we had everybody's golf PlayStation 4. Right. That was like just fantastic. I just. Yeah. Oh God. The funniest shit of all time. Right? I just think that. And this is when we've gone back and forth on of like wait, is this a remaster? Is it this Is it that like even, you know, the website's weird about like what they're calling it. Like, I think it's not gonna be fleshed out enough. I think you're gonna jump in and we're in a really immediately hit up and just be. Oh no. But we'll see.

[Tony Hawk]

Because I want a sick ass character creator.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yeah.

[Tony Hawk]

I want to buy a cool visor. I'm a visor guy.

[Snow Bike Mike]

We should just play four again.

[Tony Hawk]

You know, I'm a visor guy out of the link. But yeah, I don't know. I'm still. I'm still excited to see what it is.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Okay.

[Tony Hawk]

And if it comes out, it disappoints me. Oh well, there'll probably be a lot of stuff to play anyway. But I'm just stoked for, you know, not playing. Oh gosh, I forget. The mobile version that came out a couple years ago during the pandemic, which was also on Switch, I believe.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yeah. Something about Clap Hands Golf or whatever.

[Tony Hawk]

Something about Hole or something.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Hole, Yeah.

[Tony Hawk]

A couple of other games that are, you know, maybe Oli. Maybe they're not official. Demon X Machina.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Okay.

[Tony Hawk]

Titanic Scion.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I forgot about that.

[Tony Hawk]

A lot of words, right?

[Snow Bike Mike]

Is that Damon?

[Tony Hawk]

Damon maybe.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, I would say Damon.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Damon Hatfield X Machina.

[Tony Hawk]

Yeah, yeah. What is it? But this is a mech game that was shown. There's a sequel to the first version that came out only on Switch, I believe. I don't think the first one ever came out everywhere, but this one is going to be multi platform. Oh, maybe it did come out everywhere. Holy.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh yeah, Steam.

[Tony Hawk]

I thought this.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Well, it originally was a Switch exclusive.

[Tony Hawk]

Okay. And after kind of the disappointment of Mecha Break being really, really stoked about Mecha Break. As somebody who loves customizing and making my own Mech dude, Mecha Break. Being this own, this PvP only situation. Watching this trailer really did make me miss not only the hype for Armored Core 6, which was such a phenomenal experience, but also it reminded me a lot of Nintendo Switch exclusive Platinum games. Oh, Astral Astral Chain. So I mean, maybe we missed Astral.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Chain Day, by the way.

[Tony Hawk]

Oh no, I think.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I'm pretty sure we made it Astral Chain. I think that might have been yesterday.

[Tony Hawk]

It was. It was a weird day over the weekend and I think someone. Happy belated Astral Chain Day, everybody. But yeah, something about the visual quality here. Maybe because this was the trailer on the from Switch, so you're seeing some lower textures and things like that. But something about the visual quality did remind me of just the. The feelings that I had playing Astral Train. But I. I really love sort of a mech fast action, cool game with awesome anime hype moments. And hopefully we get that with this video game. I'm actually pretty stoked that the first one was on Steam Deck or on Steam. I had no idea that it did go multi platform, so maybe that's something that I hop into.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Did you ever. You'd never tried the first one?

[Tony Hawk]

No, I think I played a demo because they released a demo way back in the day.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I played the demo and the demo unsold me on it. But I'm. My main thing was just that it felt slow playing the game, playing the demo. And so like if this one feels faster, if people are evangelizing it, then this is one that I'm definitely also wanting to hop into. Because yeah, like no game does mechs like Armored Core and I'm forever chasing that high. I'm right there with you. Like Mecha Break came out and I. It just totally missed me. I don't even think I realized it was out.

[Tony Hawk]

Well, it being PvP just really it being a. An overwatch like follow the payload type game or a Capture the Hill, you know, Hardpoint, whatever you want to call it. That's the stuff that I'm like, I just don't want this out of this experience. And that game has some of the coolest customization, which I love, but just not super into that game loop. And since Hollow Knight Silksong was not an official one, I'll give you number four, even though you asked for three. Lost. Lost Soul aside, we'll see if that game comes out solo. Dev. This game's been development for about seven or eight years, but Lost Soul aside was shown at a state of Play. It's a action souls. Like one of these games. Another one of these games. You're like, oh, another one of these. It's a bit more far future looking visually. But it being. I think it's just one dude if not a very, very small team. I'm sure the. When the credits come out people will roast me and be like Andy, there's a bunch of contractors, 33 people. Yeah. But this game just looks really, really sick and kind of, you know, very near Automata action. Very.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It's like what If Final Fantasy 13 met near Automata?

[Tony Hawk]

Yes. Yes. And I think it just looks super stunning and so not 13.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

13 verses.

[Tony Hawk]

13 verses. Yeah. And this game ever comes out. It looks to be an absolute blast.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I just was supposed to come out the same day as Elden Ring Night Rain.

[Tony Hawk]

That's right.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And it got delayed.

[Tony Hawk]

That's right. Did get delayed. So probably never going to. Probably we'll see in 2026 maybe. But hopefully it does come out this year.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Well, it does have. It has a release date.

[Tony Hawk]

Yeah, I know.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

But no, you don't think they're going to hit it.

[Tony Hawk]

I just don't know if it gets delayed again.

[Snow Bike Mike]

What are they saying on Discord today Chat.

[Tony Hawk]

Yeah, what's the Discord?

[Snow Bike Mike]

You know, I mean got to subscribe all these goddamn discourse to figure out what's going on.

[Tony Hawk]

And. And the other. Oh, I was Crimson Desert. Which we already know that. I'm excited for that.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I still think that's this year.

[Tony Hawk]

You think it's good. Gets delayed.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I think I guess delayed. Yeah. I mean I think it's a really big, really ambitious, cool looking game again as I talk about it from sgf. Right. I thought it was. I was underwater when I started because it's so convoluted in buttons but by the end of it I was. I was vibing now again, am I going to. Would that be a vibe to a 6.5 or an 8.5? Who knows? You know what I mean? Like I want to obviously put real time into it but I think there's so much going on with that game and they have so many eyes on it that. Take your time.

[Tony Hawk]

Yeah, we'll see. What are your list?

[Snow Bike Mike]

Thank you.

[Tony Hawk]

What are your listings?

[Snow Bike Mike]

Of course my number one isn't on my list. It's Outer Worlds too. I forgot until I saw Blessing. But what I wrote down then and I think it's because of the imminency of it is hell is us. September 4th I came back from seeing this in Montreal Rogue Factor Right. The developer and really was floored with it. Especially coming off of at the time playing outer worlds where jumping in and having a very Fallout open world Western RPG presentation of conversations. But then having it be the. You got to pay attention. Where are you going? What. What clues did they give you on how to go do the mission you need to actually set off and do. I really love that emergent gameplay that okay, let's go figure it out. So to have it in a crazy ass civil war with these weird monsters going around, you know, it's a game that I think is going to test me in terms of gameplay as I try to learn to parry it correctly as I try to, you know, try to do these souls things that I usually avoid from not vibing. I had what, three hours with this game and only got more excited the more I played. And so this is one of those that I sit there going like all right, when? All right, September 4th. So we should get code two weeks before which we like. I'm that kind of like obsessive about it. Let alone the Kojima layer on top of it of this goofy ass story of what's going on with the big old fat man smoking a cigarette interrogating you. I can't wait. I'm really stoked about this one. Andy. I know you played the demo but it cut off before you got to the open world stuff, right?

[Tony Hawk]

Correct. Yeah. And I, I enjoyed my time with it. I just was lower on what I thought it was going to be where I was thinking man, this could possibly, if it hits it could be a game of the year type video game that catches everybody by surprise. And I was not amazingly sold in but still looking forward to it very, you know, very much so. I think the. Maybe the combat kind of felt off here and there. It's going for the, you know, has some neat things about it where you hit that one button to heal after.

[Snow Bike Mike]

You kill everybody but sucking the white stuff.

[Tony Hawk]

But it being this very 5050 explorative and investigative video game mixed with action souls like elements. It should absolutely be my. And I hope it is because I. I did really find fascinating Talking to these NPCs and trying to complete their quests and being and. And really, really kind of knowing that I, you know with a lot of games we can just skip a cutscene here and there. We can skip through dialogue. You know that's just kind of the way that, that we are tuned to play games nowadays. Especially something when you're playing like Destiny with Friends and you're just all blabbering and talking anyway. So it's like, yeah, whatever's happening with the story, we'll figure it out later. But this one, getting in that mindset of, I'm really going to focus hard on this, Take down notes, talk to this people, hearing them mention about this one area over here, and then when you get there, you go, oh, that's what that lady was talking about. It's a different experience that I am. I'm super compelled with.

[Snow Bike Mike]

And that's. Yeah, I'm stoked for a game that demands my attention. Yeah. I mean, the amount of times I sit in my life all day long on a show talking to you people offset whenever I have to talk to my family. And I'm just like, I just want to play games. I just want to play games. And then I get to play games at night and I find myself looking at my phone while something happens and I'm like, why? What the. Like, I'm actively trying to put my stuff away and focus more on what I'm doing and what I'm playing. And so for this game to kind of demand your attention, I'm stoked about.

[Tony Hawk]

Yeah.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Then I have number two for me. Pokemon Legends are October 16th. As you all probably know, I am reviewing it for kind of funny. Lead reviewer. Lead reviewer. I keep jumping in there. I'll be with the one code we get from Nintendo. I'm sure I can wrestle away from Tim Gettys. You know, I, I don't like that.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I'm not including that, by the way.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I'm sorry.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I would also like to.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I've never reviewed a Pokemon before. You know what I mean?

[Tony Hawk]

Yeah, but you don't have a Wii.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Listen.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, but you guys, you guys got so many.

[Snow Bike Mike]

You got so many more years.

[Tony Hawk]

You got so many more years.

[Snow Bike Mike]

You can get the next one.

[Andy Cortez]

You know what I mean?

[Snow Bike Mike]

Who knows when I'm going to retire.

[Tony Hawk]

Already reviewed one. Tim always does it. You know, we got Johnny KO over here. Just heard of a goddamn.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I don't think you want Greg Miller's Pokemon Review, right?

[Snow Bike Mike]

I mean, the headlines say when we put Greg Miller with the title usually, what's.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

What's a Mega Evolution?

[Snow Bike Mike]

What? I mean, it's when you evolve them all the way and then you go to the last one. Bam.

[Tony Hawk]

I mean, Mike, I mean, he's not wrong.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

My God, I don't know what Mega Evolution.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Like, I was like, so I was. I'm playing Violet, right? And like, I was, I was, you know, I came Back Switch two. But I'm compelled by all these different things on switch to. But when I was throwing myself at it before I had to give Tim my switch for Donkey Kong, I was like, okay. I was like, I'm at the final four. I should just go do it. And like, I survived that Final Four.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Final Four.

[Snow Bike Mike]

The fucking shock when they were like, there's one more on the other side.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Damn it. I didn't prepare for this.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I didn't prepare for this.

[Tony Hawk]

Mike asked me what a nidoking is, what type it is.

[Andy Cortez]

What type is that?

[Tony Hawk]

Ground and poison. You know, like, come on, we're talking about.

[Snow Bike Mike]

We gotta give it a minute again for you. I got the tabs open on my. My phone. Oh, my God. Looking at these champions. Oh, my God. God, what is this thing? This thing? And of course, I've renamed all my guys, so I'm like, I'll send out Pork Chop. He looks like a pig. Jesus.

[Tony Hawk]

We don't know if Ratat is a ground type.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I love this game. We have no idea.

[Tony Hawk]

It's on the ground.

[Andy Cortez]

If you ever want to continue your Pokemon fun, if you enjoy battling Greg, I do want to get better at your types. Yeah, Play Poke Rogue. Great experience from last year. Whole lot of fun.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Here's the thing. I needed to be IP based. I can't. I gotta take one of these knockoffs. Okay. But anyways, all jokes aside about the review, like, 100%, like, I was talking to Nintendo about this recently over drinks, just hanging out, right? Of, like, Ben's passion for Pokemon has, like, gave me a different window and it gave me my first actual angle. Like, oh, I can. That's why I went back to Violet after we watched the cartoon. I was like, oh, okay. I understand this in a different way than just the game, which wasn't working for me, but the game paired with the world and the cartoon and the spirit of it, I'm like, so anyways to be super excited for a Pokemon and a brand new one in Switch two. And again, La Petit, you know what I mean? And cool outfits. And I'm like, hopefully it runs better out of the gate than Violet did. Like, I'm excited even if I don't get to review it, to be there right away and be jumping into it during game daily.

[Tony Hawk]

Bless. He kept on looking at me and going, petty, petty. And I was like, I thought he was just calling me petty. And he went, petty. And I was like, petty suck.

[Snow Bike Mike]

And then my final one on my list is Metal Gear Solid Delta. No surprise there I'm a big Metal Gear Solid fan and I have not touched this one yet. And I am excited to go back. I, you know, Poe was just in town. I tinkered with the idea of starting, you know, back in the day, him and I played every Metal Gear together. And so it was like, should we do three? And we said, no, we'll just wait. I'm not going to do it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I'm not going to do it. I'm, like, excited for this one, but also I feel weird about it. Like, there's something about what we've seen where I'm like, I don't. Like, I'm looking at Ocelot here, right. And like, there's something that doesn't feel as alive and as like, aligned with like, the art style of the PS2 MGS3. And like, I, like, I'm sure once I play it, it'll probably be fine. And I'll probably be like, okay, cool. No, this is fine. Like, this is exactly what it is. But there's something about when I look at it, it feels like it's. They took all the assets, put it in. Unreal.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yeah. There's no soul to it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. Like, yeah, I definitely can vibe with.

[Snow Bike Mike]

That, looking at it. And that's my thing where it's like Momo's dissipated because I love Metal Gear, but also because I'm interested to see how this comes together and what they're able to do with it. As somebody who, you know, appreciates twin snakes, like, I'm just stoked to get more Metal Gear, even if it isn't true Metal Gear, if that makes sense.

[Tony Hawk]

You could turn the piss filter on. Plus, whenever you play these old. The thinking back to like, PS1 and even PS2, like, the metal Gear games are so. They were so like, all right, we're. We're going to have little trails behind every characters as they're walking. Like, this was weird amount of motion blur that Kojima loves, like, cinematically along with like, LED light trails. Like, you throw those in the game, get a little PC mod blast, you'll feel right at home. Feel right at home.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Feel right at home.

[Tony Hawk]

Maybe because everything just looks so clean and smooth.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Everything just. It looks too clean. Yeah, but that's always.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I mean, like, as somebody who loves Peace Walker, right. Whenever they do the HD versions of Peace Walker, I was like, oh, not much going on in this game. When you take it off of the PSP and toss it on my 80 inch TV, it's clean and smooth.

[Tony Hawk]

With. With that being Paired with the older animations.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yeah, of course. We asked the top of the show for super chats with the games you're looking forward to. Mad Rocks wrote in and said 2xko is my most anticipated game this year. Tomorrow there will be an update at 8am hopefully it announces a release date. I will no longer hold out hope for Silksong coming out this year.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

See, I'm the reverse. I think Silksong comes out this year. 2xko, I think it's delayed next year.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Okay, fair enough.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I hope it comes out this year. Even if it's an early access form or something. I'm totally down for it. Their website says 2025 and so. Like websites. Yeah, websites.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Right.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I'm going off of vibes. Like something about this doesn't feel like it's coming out this year.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Understandable. Mike, what's your read on it?

[Andy Cortez]

This is one of my most anticipated. I'm in. I'm into this. I really hope it does drop this year because I really want to get down on a fighting game with you. Bless. This is going to be the one for me. That will probably bring me in the vibe though. This is Riot Games. We're talking about League of Legends. We're talking about Valorant. Right. Like, I know there's a prestige to it. There's a certain level, but also we see a lot of these games come in and they're not a 1.0.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Right.

[Andy Cortez]

It can be early access. It can just be out and live and kind of grow. And I think with the Riot name, you could drop this tomorrow and it would be massive even with six or eight fighters. Right. And so I think. I think it will drop this year.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Okay.

[Andy Cortez]

End of the year.

[Tony Hawk]

Nice.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Then we had Gerardo is Cool tube write in and say no date yet. But if Phantom Blade Zero is this year, it's the year of the Ninja Slash Samurai Games with Ghost of Yotai, Ninja Gaidens and Shinobi Wheat and Good, y'.

[Andy Cortez]

All.

[Tony Hawk]

It's not this year. Yeah, I think we. We know that's 2026, right? Yeah.

[Snow Bike Mike]

This year's dead.

[Tony Hawk]

It's no longer played it at gdc and they said this year will be the year that they announced the announcement year. Oh, we will be announcing the year it comes out out sometime this year.

[Snow Bike Mike]

And then our final super chat of the show comes from CJ splits on who says Ghost of Yotai and hey, that dude again. Yeah, sorry. Get the. Get this spreadsheet out or whatever.

[Tony Hawk]

The whiteboard woke up from a fog.

[Snow Bike Mike]

And Then Marvel Cosmic Invasion. Marvel Cosmic Invasion from of course our friends at tribute. Can't wait for that one. That is a when I am highly anticipating. And they're in this week to stream with us and show our game off. And of course Tim is hosting their Comic Con panel this week. That's cool stuff. Look forward to that everybody. This episode is far from over. Like I said, you are about to get a Ghost of Yotei. I'm back on track, everybody. Interview with co creative directors Nate Fox and Jason Connell to close out this episode of the Gamescast. Because each and every weekday. Yeah, weekday, we run you through the topics we need to talk about. Whether they be reviews, previews or just things we need to say. That's what the kind of funny Gamescast is all about. Remember, you can get it each and every weekday on YouTube.com kindafunnygames podcast services around the globe, Twitch TV, kindafunnygames as well. Tomorrow will be at a special time. We are kicking off your programming day with our reaction to the Pokemon presents deal. So we won't know what's going on. We'll watch it for the first time and it'll be great. Like subscribe, share. Ring the bell if you can pick up a kind of funding membership. Patreon.com kindafunnyk and then YouTube.com kindafunnygames Apple and Spotify to get all of our shows ad free and support a small independent business. For now, we kick it over to me because this show's all about me as I talk to my friends Nate and Jason as I live and breathe. Sucker punches. Nate and Jason. Hello, gentlemen. How are you?

[Nate Fox]

Hey, Greg. How's it going, man?

[Snow Bike Mike]

It's good to see you. I'm glad to see you could take the time to come down to San Francisco. After everything we've been through, Nate, after all the.

[Greg Miller]

Absolutely.

[Nate Fox]

And I'm glad that you made time between your many watchings of the Superman movie to talk to us. I know that that is a real imposition for you.

[Snow Bike Mike]

It's kind of rude that you'd ask to be here when I should be seeing it again. You know what I mean? For the sixth or seventh time at this point. How many times have you seen it, Nate?

[Nate Fox]

I have not seen it once yet, but you've convinced me I need to see it at least three times.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Jason, how many times have you seen Superman?

[Greg Miller]

I am not adding to this number at all.

[Snow Bike Mike]

This interview is over. All right, gentlemen, I understand Ghost of Yote is coming up. October, you're in the finish you're doing, you guys stay to place. You got a moon. You could have gone seeing Superman. But I'll. I'll stop that. Jason, are you well?

[Greg Miller]

Doing all right, man. Doing great. Thanks for having us here.

[Snow Bike Mike]

No, thanks for coming through. I know how busy you are, and I know there's a lot going on, and that's, I guess, where I want to start. And it's going to be for both of you, but I'll put Nate on the spot first. Nate, we're just coming off of state of play, obviously. There's been so many blog posts. There's so much footage out there now. We know so much about this. What is the one thing you see people not getting? What is the one thing we're not asking about? What is the one thing you see misconceptions about? When it comes to Ghost of Yotei.

[Nate Fox]

Think people don't understand yet how cool all of the weapons are. In the last game, we had a stance system that we looked, and what we did with Ghost of Yote is we kept it just as it is, except for that we switched out from four stances to five. And instead of it being how to position the katana, it is, in fact, new melee weapons.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Okay.

[Nate Fox]

That functions just like the stance system, except it's plus plus. So, for instance, if you have the kasura gama, you can spin it around your head to do an area effect attack. If you're surrounded, if you've got a spear, you can use it to knock enemies backwards in space. So if you're near a cliff, you can send them to your death. There's a lot of depth inside of the weapons themselves that, frankly, Greg, I'm here to admit I should have talked about in greater detail. In that state of play, they're pretty cool, and they deserve more time.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Was that really up to you? I've always wondered about that state of play. Does PlayStation show up? Does Herman knock on the door? He's like, all right, I need 25 minutes tight from you guys. Or is it you come in and get to do whatever you want, somebody else edits? How do you. How does the state of play actually get built, Nate?

[Nate Fox]

But we get to choose, you know, what we think is, you know, exciting to talk about. In the case of showing off how you can use a spear to knock somebody off a bridge, I just should have put that in there. It's a really cool thing. It would have looked great, but I didn't, and I live with regret about that.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Well, I think you're doing just fine. It seems like sentiment's pretty positive about Ghost of Yote so far.

[Nate Fox]

I'm happy to hear it.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Good. One question before we jump. I want. Because I want Jason's answer, but, Nate, while we're here talking about all the different weapons rather than stances, am I ever going to get to a point in the game where I've leveled up my katana to a certain degree that I don't need to switch around weapons? One of the things, you know, we've talked so much about in one of the previews for the State of Play was talking about how you customize your experience, what your ATSU is going to be. I was wondering, obviously, if this enemy's weak to this kind of weapon and having to switch to that, if it's ever going to open up eventually, be like, well, you know what? You're just powerful enough with the weapon you love the most. You can take on anybody.

[Nate Fox]

You absolutely do not need to switch weapons to play through the game in the same way that you didn't need to switch stances to play through Ghost of Sushima.

[Snow Bike Mike]

All right, but we all know that was the right way to play. We all know that was the right way to play. To play.

[Nate Fox]

Well, I mean, maybe. Maybe for you, actually, I should say for me, I love using the dual katanas.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Hell, yeah.

[Tony Hawk]

You. You.

[Nate Fox]

You look really cool. You feel really cool. And you can get through the game playing with just dual katanas if you want, because it's, you know, the game allows you to do these things. It's slightly more efficient to switch off, but it's about role playing at the end of the day. And if that's where you feel like, hey, this is who I am and version of Feudal Japan, then we absolutely support you doing that.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I love that. Jason, I know you. I've known you a long, long time. I know you consume everything online about your games. You've seen all these reactions, you've seen people pouring over the trailers. The state of play. What is the thing you see people not getting?

[Greg Miller]

I think that the thing that I would. I wish for everyone to be able to see is. Is, you know, Tsushima, we spent an immense amount of time trying to bring this stylization of the world to life, and it took a long time to find the right art style for that game. And it was, you know, I'm very proud of it. I know the team's very proud of it. And I think the really hard thing is when you go to make a sequel how do you make that fresh again? How do you not abandon that and just go for the photorealism button? Like, how do you, you know, make sure that you're really celebrating that style but adding some extra bits to it? And I'm really proud of what the team has been on. Pull off. It is hard to one up a game that looked as good as the last game is. Again, I'm super proud of the whole art team for really pulling it together. And I really feel like, as much as the state of play, I'm very proud of how beautiful it is and how vast the landscapes feel. Playing it and being in it and riding around on your horse is a totally other thing, right? You feel everything is moving. There's more particles. The sight lines are much further than they were in the last game. And I really feel like the art team and the rendering team has really just completely outdone themselves bringing Ezo to life. The mounds are just towering. It's just incredible team. I'm just really proud that they've been able to pull that off. Can't wait for people to see it.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Heck, yeah. You know, Jason, you're talking about this game. You're talking about following up Tsushima, a game that was so beloved. You know, Japan as a country celebrated, y'. All. Was it a foregone conclusion that this would be the next game from Sucker Punch, or did you all go to the drawing board and really kick around a bunch of ideas, or was it straight to work on Yotei?

[Greg Miller]

Nate and I kicked around ideas, but really, all of it really starts with us breaking down what we felt was the core essential bits from Tsushima that we just can't walk away from. That lethal precision in combat. Samurai Cinema film inspired magnificent stylization of art and beautiful, vibrant colors. Respecting quiet moments as well as the sort of visceral moments. All that you really got to carry forward, that was really important for us. And I feel like the team have been able to really pull that off. And. And once we sort of felt like we had those aspects that we knew we were going to chart forward on, we could start asking ourselves, okay, where do we want to go? Pretty quickly when we look at Hokkaido and back then it was called Eizo in 1603, and we saw how vast it was, and the landscapes are just stunning and beautiful. I was like, wow, what a perfect fit for a ghost game. The beautiful, vibrant, massive biomes, lots of variation and sort of wilderness. And then we went there and all of our feelings about that place Were, I think, triple, triple. You know, we triple down on them. They were just. It's just an immensely vastly beautiful place. So felt like that big open landscape in the northern edge of Japan matched with a vengeance tale where you're hunting down people, where we can open up the game design just a little bit. Felt like a great, great match. We got. We kind of got. As soon as we felt like we had that part of the pitch, we went hard at that direction.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Nate, doubling back to something you said a second ago. You talked about, you know, the weapons and how you're role playing here. Do you consider Ghost of Yote a role playing game? Is it an rpg?

[Nate Fox]

Oh, I don't think it's an rpg. Like, these kind of big. Choose your character class, pick how big, you know, want your nose to be, or, you know, it's not like that.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Noses are what define RPGs. Everyone knows that.

[Greg Miller]

You know, like, there's a lot of.

[Nate Fox]

Yeah, there's a lot of.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Of.

[Tony Hawk]

Of.

[Nate Fox]

Of choice in those.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Customization. Sure.

[Nate Fox]

Yeah, customization. And while Ghost of Yote has customization, you get to pick what kind of armor you want. You can do charms that you like and change the color of your weapons. It and upgrade them and get skills. It's very much a story that has a defined beginning, middle and end. That is the story we want to tell about Atsu transforming from this lonely, kind of broken lone wolf to surrounding herself with a pack and changing who she is. So that story that we want to tell is really the center of the experience as you move through this vast world this way. It's not like some of these sprawling RPGs where there are a lot of choice options and different endings and whatnot.

[Snow Bike Mike]

So then, with that in mind, talk to me a little bit about this clue system we saw. This interrogation during State of Play looked awesome. And it really does seem, from the way it was presented and the way I'm interpreting it is, okay, what do you want to do in this game? There's these, like, three choices. They open up different weapons, they open up different areas. And it seems like, okay, do the stealth, do the attack, do the duel kind of thing. First off, where does that idea come from? Second off, how does that influence the design? And then third, am I going to get to a point in that game where I've exhausted the other two options on everything and I'm just getting bottlenecked into one?

[Greg Miller]

So first of all, the idea, it really kind of came from a couple spots where one, we love making diegetic Game design decisions and meaning. We're trying to keep the game in the world or in the story of the world where the things like the wind come from. And a lot of it, the clue system is sort of. Because it kind of translates into actually these cards that you can collect. It's our way of saying, hey, this is ATU drawing these cards, trying to keep track of things that you might have learned about. And we don't have a traditional journal where there's just like an endless sort of thing to read of all the things you could do that you're doing.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Right now, which I love.

[Tony Hawk]

So.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Amazing. The way that looks is awesome.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. And it's like. And so those cards are sort of a way to sort of help with that now when it comes to collecting them, you know, the more you adventure through the world and, and meet people and you'll hear rumors about things, you'll have these cards and, and it's sort of our way of kind of, you know, like people play our games in a lot of different ways. You have people that rabbit run through the gp, you have people that just do, you know, open world exploration stuff. And it's our way of saying, hey, we're going to give you a couple things and you can kind of choose. And this one might be a weapon Sensei. And this one might be a piece of, you know, challenge content or something like that. And this one might be a gp. And we allow you to choose when it comes to the actual choice moments where you're, you know that screen where you're picking between those two or three options, eventually you will do them all. If you're, if you're, if you're going through the main story. But, but the cool thing about them is if you pick one and you go up there and you want to go do the other one, you can do the other one. You can bop back and forth. It's not like you have to pick that one and then you're stuck doing that full story. If you don't like it, you want to go somewhere else. Our goal is to try to give you as many options as possible. So if you're interested in snowy ninja stuff, that one might be really appealing to you where you might learn some ninja skills. If you're interested in going to this place full of fire and castle and cool samurai like abilities, you might head over there and you might bop back and forth in between them too.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Excellent. Okay, that makes more sense. And I feel like, you know, Jason, I keep quoting the article you had or the interview where you were talking about the fact of like, you know this, you don't want to be the same things over and over again for side missions and side activities in an open world game. How hard has that been to keep what people loved about Tsushima, but then make it also not that I'm doing the same thing over and over again.

[Greg Miller]

I mean, it's probably one of the biggest challenges in making large open games, especially Sucker Punch. We're not, you know, you know, massive thousand person teams. You know, we're, we're.

[Tony Hawk]

We're.

[Greg Miller]

We're trying to be as artistic and efficient and impactful as possible. So first of all, there are a number of mini games and pieces of content that people really enjoyed from Tsushima. As we kind of carry some of those forward and sort of change them up a little bit so that they might be a little bit more interesting or kind of throw an extra little challenge to them. But then we also created a whole host of new mini games and sort of experiences to try to that might be more either personable to Atsu, like Shamisen minigame songs, or might be more connected to this location. Like there's these like wolf chases as well as like a gambling coin flicking minigame. We showed it very, very briefly and yeah. And so, and so we're adding a bunch of new things in and we've been. We've definitely invested in smaller stories in the world, like little tiny morsels when you get to a place that instead of it being empty or instead of it being a repeat of something else, it's a small, bespoke, unique story. We've invested a lot in that because we find that our players just love to explore outside of the main golden path. We want as much variety there as we possibly can have.

[Snow Bike Mike]

And then Nate, we love celebrating friends of the show. And Kevin, I'm not sure if this is just my confidence monitor, but I'm behind Nate now. We love celebrating our friends of the show. Why Erika Ishii? We've known Erika a long, long time. We love her. Why did Erica stand out as. That's atsu. Atsu.

[Nate Fox]

Oh, we auditioned a number of people for the role of Atsu. Erika came in, read for the part after reading a description of who Atsu was and just was the best. She brought the character into such crisp definition to life. She just had the best audition, hands down. And so she got the role.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Okay. Easy peasy. I like that answer. And then I know I only have you for a couple more seconds. Here we like, celebrating our friends. Like, Erica, we love mocking our friends more. So, Jason, what's your most embarrassing Andrew Goldfarb story? What has he done at Sucker Puncher? He's like, I can't believe this man works here.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, man. There was this one time where I was going to go on an interview with this really cool guy that we know really, really well, and we're mutual friends with him, and. And turns out they wanted to use Discord.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

And he didn't. He didn't set us up appropriately. And. And. And I get to. I get to really ring that in on him later. Later today.

[Snow Bike Mike]

So he.

[Greg Miller]

That's my. That's my. That's my biggest one.

[Snow Bike Mike]

He's.

[Greg Miller]

He's let. He's let me down in that one.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I appreciate you, Nate. This is a safe spot. How is Andrew Goldfarb let you down?

[Nate Fox]

Oh, I was having lunch with him the other day, and he. He excused himself to go floss and brush, and he does this all the time. The guy's got the best teeth in America.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Chompers.

[Nate Fox]

They're amazing. And I watched him come back, and I said, where did you go? And he's like, oh, you know, I floss and brush after every meal. And he looks at me with an accusing stare that I've never seen before. He dental shamed me.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yeah, he'll do that. He'll do that. I'm sorry you had to go through that. I'm sorry you had to feel that pain.

[Nate Fox]

Yeah, well, it hurts.

[Snow Bike Mike]

It does.

[Nate Fox]

And I've since changed my habits. I'm flossing more often. Thank you, Golden Fart.

[Snow Bike Mike]

I'll see in the end, it worked. Okay, like we said, bullying works. I like that. Of course. Ghost of yote is out October 2nd, gentlemen. I can't wait. It is one of our most anticipated games of the year. Are very kind of funny. So thank you. Can you go finish it early? Can we play it early?

[Nate Fox]

I would have to talk to the BR department.

[Snow Bike Mike]

That's not gonna happen. My ROM will never let that happen. Gentlemen, thank you so much.

[Greg Miller]

Thank you, man. Appreciate it. Thank you so much.

[Snow Bike Mike]

Yeah, thanks.

[Nate Fox]

Thanks a lot for the time between your viewings of Superman. It's a hell of a week.

[Snow Bike Mike]

It is. It is. All right, cool. Get this one out and then get working on the next infamous game. Okay, thanks, guys.