We Played Saros! - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Summary

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Kinda Funny Gamescast: "We Played Saros!" (March 26, 2026)

Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into Saros (often mispronounced as "Soros"), the highly anticipated follow-up title from Housemarque — the studio behind 2021's critically acclaimed Returnal. Hosts Blessing Adeoye Jr., Andy Cortez, and Roger Piccorni break down their hands-on impressions following preview events in San Mateo and Helsinki, providing listeners with a thorough assessment of the game's gameplay, story direction, technical innovations, and overall vibe. Their nuanced discussion covers everything from Saros' bullet ballet combat to its layered narrative, accessibility, and technical polish.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Housemarque Delivers Again: Immediate Impressions

• Excitement Levels: Both Andy and Roger came into their previews as Returnal fans, with Andy traveling to Helsinki and Roger to San Mateo for their hands-on sessions.
• Roger: “I have never been more locked into a video game in my entire life. I was leaning forward. I was so locked into everything that they had here… this is my most anticipated game of the year.” (07:45)
• Andy: “Game is going to kick a lot of ass. This game rocks. It’s an evolution to their formula. They are pushing what Returnal did even further.” (08:46, 10:04)
• Blessing: Returnal was his game of the year in 2021; he's hyped for Saros after seeing their reactions.

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2. Setting, Story, & Characters

• Premise: You play as Arjun Devraj (voiced by Rahul Kohli), an enforcer investigating the fate of missing expeditions on the shape-shifting world of Carcosa, rife with secrets and cosmic horror undertones.
• Story Focus: Unlike Returnal’s “vibe-heavy” snippets, Saros pushes a more explicit narrative, unfolding through cutscenes and organic world-building.
• Roger: “This is very much like in your face, especially when you get to that home base of like this is a story. We’re building something, a narrative here. It is not like vibes that you can kind of ignore.” (10:35)
• Key Themes: Corporate greed (“Soltari,” a mega-corporation exploiting “lucinite”—the game's version of "unobtainium"), personal loss, time anomalies, unreliable reality, NPC subplots.
• NPC Interactivity: After each run, the player’s home base (spaceship/hub) updates with new dialogue and mysteries, adding a layer of investment similar to Hades.
• Memorable Moment: Collecting an audio log where someone reflects on their “birthday on this planet… vibes fucking suck.” (27:51)

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3. Gameplay: Evolution Not Reinvention

Controls, Movement, & Accessibility

• Core Feel: Maintains the tight, fast-paced, roguelike controls of Returnal—dash, jump, and weapon variety.
• Andy: “Movement. You have your dash, the way different guns work... it is a lot of what you would expect from the next game to follow up Returnal.” (13:20)
• Accessibility Emphasis: More permanent upgrades, approachability tweaks, and session-friendly improvements.

“Comeback Stronger” & Upgrade Pathways

• Revival Mechanic: Second Chance feature (akin to Returnal's Astronaut)—you can buy a resurrection in your skill tree.
• Permanent Progression: Uses lucinite (XP) for upgrading health, shields, weapons, etc. Upgrades are more generous early on, making the game less punishing and more accessible. (16:14–17:58)
• Skill Trees: Upgrades are broken into Command (shield/power), Drive (exp gain and proficiency), and Resilience (armor/health). (21:32–22:23)

New Systems: Shields & Combat Flow

• New Mechanic: Deployable shield absorbs projectiles (blue for safe, yellow/“corrupted” for risk-reward tradeoffs). Holding R1 triggers shield; can take practice due to input overlap with melee.
• Power Weapons: Power up by absorbing projectiles; reminiscent of Black Panther’s suit. (18:49–20:59)

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4. World Design: Dynamic & Atmospheric

• Visual Style: Futurist, "80s/Alien-inspired" sci-fi; an evolving, mutable alien world.
• Technical Achievements: Stable 60FPS on PS5, promise of even greater visuals on PS5 Pro. Housemarque’s custom “graphite” visual foundation. (57:51)
• Environmental Shifts: The “Eclipse” phase dynamically alters levels—harder enemies/projectiles, increased corruption, aesthetic changes, and more tension. World becomes more dangerous after the "Eclipse" triggers at each level’s midpoint. (39:01–44:15)

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5. Roguelite Structure & Hub World Dynamics

• Run Structure: Each run divided into two main sections; first “normal,” then post-Eclipse (hard mode), followed by boss-fight. Shortcuts unlock after each boss for faster future attempts.
• Hub World: Heavily inspired by Hades; after each death/run, players return home to discover new dialog, events, and lore with NPCs.
• Customization: Limited observed so far, though more may become evident later.

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6. Weapons, "Bullet Ballet," and Combat

• Weapon Variety: Pistols, machine guns, shotguns (with various modifications—chain lightning, searing rounds, favorite target, etc.).
• Bullet Ballet: Emphasizes spectacle, not pure precision—incoming projectiles create chaotic, balletic patterns to weave through.
• Active Reload: Mechanic returns; adaptive triggers impact gameplay as in Returnal.
• Blessing: “Two words that I like hearing together in a video game: Bullet Ballet.” (32:41)
• Notable Critique: Some weapon perks/terms could use clearer UI explanations; otherwise, variety and feel are exceptional. (37:28–38:49)

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7. Difficulty, Scaling, & Accessibility Options

• Corrupted Perks: Like Returnal’s malignancy, picking up certain items grants boons with a curse (e.g., more shield but lower health while stationary). (44:56–46:15)
• Adjustable Modifiers: Carcosian dial—lets you make the game harder or slightly easier, within limits (a la Hades’ “heat” system, Halo skulls). (52:38–53:56)
• OP Potential: Early upgrades give strong power feelings, but the game purposefully limits progress so you can't be overpowered too soon.

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8. Technical Details: DualSense, Sound, and Performance

• DualSense: Haptics and adaptive triggers are deeply integrated, enhancing immersion (“The DualSense is incredible, man.” – 49:40)
• Sound Design: Impactful (borderline too loud in preview events), but marred by PlayStation Pulse headphones' comfort and sound issues.
• PC Release: “Here to talk about Saros on the PS5 right now…” —no confirmations on PC yet. (50:38)

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9. Bosses & Verticality

• Boss Encounters: Each run culminates in a boss fight (two bosses faced in previews). Mini-bosses exist in challenge rooms.
• Verticality: Some levels feature jump pads/vertical movement, but not as dramatically as some Returnal sections—yet possibly more to come.

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10. Standout Quotes & Moments

On Story & World:

“It feels like what we experience, Roger, is like the first episode of an HBO show that we know nothing about. And that, the episode, we’re like, whoa, this is really cool.” – Andy (58:59)

“Did not expect…how smart [Housemarque] got it like that. I knew they had the vibes. I didn’t realize that they would have something that I’m actually interested in from like a Sony first party perspective of storytelling.” – Roger (56:30)

On Gameplay Evolution:

“If they try to evolve the formula too much, don’t add weird fruits and vegetables to my pizza. I love my pizza the way it is.” – Andy (12:19)

On Accessibility:

“A lot of things that will get the maybe like to talk about dipped out on returnal. Maybe this could be the one that we're like, all right, they care about me who has a kid that I need to pause during a run or whatever.” – Andy (28:36)

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11. Roses, Thorns, and Buds (Final Impressions)

• Roger:
  • Rose (Most Loved): Story focus and engaging, big-budget world-building.
  • Thorn (Least Loved): Gameplay terminology/corruption system can be confusing at first.
  • Bud (Eager to See): Whether narrative pays off and sustains intrigue throughout.
• Andy:
  • Rose: Visuals/technical polish (“Graphite” engine, smooth performance).
  • Thorn: Sound mixing could be overwhelming (likely preview build/gear).
  • Bud: Anticipating how good it will look on PS5 Pro and story developments.

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Important Timestamps

• 01:28: Show proper begins, introductions
• 06:41: Saros overview, setting the tone, PlayStation Store description
• 07:45: Roger’s initial impressions (“Never been more locked into a video game in my life…”)
• 08:46–10:04: Andy’s initial impressions – “Game is going to kick a lot of ass…”
• 13:20: Movement, gameplay comparison with Returnal
• 15:24–17:58: Permanent progression, accessibility, Comeback Stronger feature
• 21:32–22:23: Skill trees explained
• 32:41–34:27: "Bullet Ballet," weapons, and combat style
• 39:01–44:15: The Eclipse mechanic and impact on gameplay
• 46:22–47:39: Boss battles and corruption mechanics
• 49:40–50:14: DualSense impressions, immersion, and sound design
• 52:38–53:56: Carcosian dial/modifier system
• 56:30–58:59: Rose/Thorn/Bud reflections, closing thoughts on story and visuals

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Tone & Style

• Fun, approachable, conversational: The panel’s chemistry and inside jokes (“bagging groceries,” “third-string quarterback,” “they do stuff different in San Mateo”) keep the discussion lively and accessible while still providing meaty insights.
• Candid expertise: Both Andy and Roger offer articulate, granular breakdowns of mechanics, often looping in comparisons to Returnal and other roguelites like Hades and Demon's Souls for clarity.
• Genuine excitement balanced with healthy skepticism: Both are candid about concerns with early balancing/UI, but overall, their enthusiasm is contagious and well-founded.

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Summary for New Listeners

If you’ve never played Returnal or Housemarque's previous games, Saros promises a high-octane, sci-fi roguelite adventure with tight controls, meaningful persistent upgrades, and a far more foregrounded narrative. The game is described as a spiritual next step rather than a revolution—Housemarque is “tweaking the pizza, not changing the recipe.” With accessible design (autosave at launch, session-friendly runs) and technical/artistic flare, Saros is shaping up to be a must-play for fans of sci-fi action, roguelites, and immersive worldbuilding, with much of the mystery and depth reserved for its final release this April.

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Episode Notables:

• [07:45] – Roger: “Never been more locked into a video game in my entire life…”
• [10:35] – Roger: “This is a story. We’re building something… not like vibes you can ignore.”
• [13:20] – Andy: “Movement. You have your dash… what you would expect from the next game.”
• [28:36] – Andy: “They care about me who has a kid… need to pause during a run…”
• [32:41] – Blessing: “Bullet Ballet, two words I love hearing together in a video game.”
• [39:01–44:15] – Eclipse effect explained, world transformation, risk/reward mechanics.
• [56:30–58:59] – Roses/Thorns/Buds: honest preview verdicts on what excites and concerns.

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Release Date: April 30, 2026

Final Take: Saros is one of the most anticipated games of the year, setting itself apart with its narrative strength, refined mechanics, and technical prowess—promising to both satisfy Returnal veterans and entice newcomers to the Housemarque universe.

Transcript

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And participating in those Taco Bell locations

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for a limited time and while supplies last. Yo, what's up? Welcome to Kind of Funny Gamescast for Thursday, March 26, 2026. I'm one of your host blessing Addie Oye Jr. Joining me is the tastemaker, Roger Porny.

[A]

It's SOS everybody. Not Soros.

[B]

Who called it Soros?

[A]

You? I was in kind of Soros in Kind of Funy. I was afraid that some people might not know, you know, they might put Sora. You know what I mean?

[B]

Rip Rip by Blue Sky I posted on Blue sky that if Sora had a physical grave, I'd spit on it. And so many people thought I was talking about the Kingdom Hearts character.

[C]

Oh, that's tough.

[A]

The Kingdom Hearts.

[B]

The Kingdom Hearts fans were coming after me. I'm like, no, guys, not that.

[C]

Another cancellation this year.

[B]

I can't keep doing that voice you hear is the voice of the one and only Nitro Rifle, AKA Andy Cortez.

[C]

Hello gamers. I'm so excited to talk about Soros. Not so Rose.

[A]

Not Soros.

[B]

I'm excited to talk to you guys About Soros, because I originally was going to go with Roger. I guess we can talk about it. Originally it was going to be Greg, I think.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And then Greg had another thing and then I had another thing and then Roger ended up going. And so now I'm envious.

[A]

Just third, third quarterback, third string quarterback. But I'll take it.

[B]

You know what I mean?

[A]

It was a fun experience.

[C]

You got a ten day contract. Yeah. You were bagging groceries a couple days ago. Now you're on the big stage.

[B]

So it's an interesting one because Roger got to play Sorrows, Andy got to play Sorrows. But Roger didn't go to the same event as Andy.

[C]

No.

[B]

Roger went to San Mateo.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Which is a 30 minute drive. Andy, where did you go?

[C]

I had the opportunity to also do that, but I said it's a once in a lifetime thing to go to Helsinki, Finland to go visit Housemarque Studios and, and play this game. And of course that is going to mold what my thoughts are of this game.

[B]

Yeah. Bison over there.

[C]

I'm so excited to like, you know, we get offered a lot of trips to like, hey, do you want to go preview this one game in some country that is a 14 hour flight. Yeah. And it's usually like, nah, not really. I don't care about that game that much. This is Soros. This is the follow up to Returnal. This is, it's. It's housemark making the next game after one of our favorites here to kind of punish. Like it's kind of. It was kind of a no brainer that like I got to do this. I'll regret not going if I don't do this and just go to San Mateo. San Mateo and play.

[B]

It's like going to San Mateo like Roger.

[C]

Yeah, exactly.

[A]

Make sure they put me up in a hotel room though. You know, beautiful out there.

[C]

The people, the sans, they do stuff differently there.

[A]

What did you say last time we were in Redwood City? Like they bow over here.

[C]

They had different customs. That's the funny.

[B]

Redwood City is different.

[A]

Different.

[B]

Redwood City does have a different vibe to it.

[C]

International town. Yeah.

[B]

But yes, I'm very excited because Andy, you mentioned it that we loved Returnal when that came out. Returnal was my 2021 game of the year when that came out. And so I'm like extra. I'm not actually envy is the wrong word because Sorrows is almost here. I'm honestly excited for the fact that like I get to go win fresh and not have that.

[A]

Like that's cope right there. Oh no, I'm not mad at all. I actually like waiting. I love waiting. No spoilers.

[B]

Gotta go to Bellevue and play Pokemon Champions.

[A]

Oh my life sucks.

[B]

Let's get into it. Of course, if you're watching live, you can be a part of the show by super chatting in over on YouTube.com kind of funny games. However, I will note we are not recording this live today. So we won't read your super chats. But if you super chat, other people will see your chats live. If they're watching live, they'll be highlighted.

[A]

Maybe one of us will be in the chat. Yeah, maybe.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Andy, will he be?

[C]

I will be.

[A]

Okay. Andy has made the commitment that he

[C]

will be in the chat if I kill it on the show. Yeah, if I have a bad show, I might be like, I don't want

[A]

to have a doctor's appointment during this.

[B]

And that's the reason why.

[C]

Damn, you're right. Damn.

[B]

The whole point of pre recording this is Andy does have a doctor appointment, but he will probably.

[C]

Well, it's at 10 though I might be done before then.

[B]

So I repeat, I mean he'll be in the Uber back.

[C]

You know, it's a weird.

[A]

Yeah, I know.

[C]

You know.

[A]

Yeah, I might be in there. I'll give you a strong 50%.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

So yeah, if you super chat in, Roger will reply maybe with your tier super chat and have a whole conversation about answering your questions about Soros because of course they got to play it. Remember we couldn't do this without our producers over on patreon.com kindafunny so thank you to Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster and Delaney the Psalm twining. For now, let's begin with topic of the show. It is our Sorrows preview. Roger played it. Andy played it. To set the tone, I've pulled the Soros description from the PlayStation Store page of Beneath the shadow of an ominous eclipse, Arjun Devraj, played by Rahul Kohli, star of the haunting of Bly Manor and Midnight Mass. Yep. Is a solitary enforcer who will stop at nothing to pursue answers on the shape shifting world of Carcosa, a planet filled with dark secrets and hostile inhabitants. I want to start off.

[A]

Hmm.

[B]

Who should I start off with? This is the funnest part of the show is I get to choose who. Who gets to set the tone. Roger Piccorni.

[C]

Whoa.

[B]

You got to go to San Mateo. Yes, tell me.

[A]

Wonderful. Beautiful.

[B]

Beautiful.

[A]

It was weird that I went to the PlayStation headquarters. That's right by us. Yeah. And before that I went to the PlayStation headquarters in Japan. So I was like, in the San Mateo one, I was like, where? Why do I. This look familiar? I'm like, oh, why? I went to the Japanese version of this before this. It's weird. Whatever.

[C]

They drive on the other side of the road over there. In San Mateo.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Beautiful San Mateo. Roger.

[B]

Got to travel to outer space in 30 minutes. Tell me about it.

[A]

Yeah, I am. I enjoyed Returnal a lot, I would say. I even loved the game. I'm just awful at it. So there was a moment where I hit the wall and I was like, am I pushing past this? Where am I at with this? And I just kind of just fell off the face of the planet with it. I enjoyed my time with Returnal. So going into Sorrows, I was very excited to try it out. I was a little nervous. I was like, do I still got it? Like, will this game kind of pick up and play the way that I remember? Eternal and man, let me say. How long did you play? It was four hours. Three hours.

[C]

A little over three hours.

[A]

Three hours, yeah. So same. Same with me. I played about three, maybe three and a half hours. And I have never been more locked into a video game in my entire life. I was leaning forward. I was so locked into everything that they had here, including the story, which I think was kind of the standout here for me. Of course, you expect Housemarque to have incredible gameplay, Bullet Ballet, as they've been calling it. We'll talk more about that in a bit. That work? That's amazing. The gameplay is great, but story also kept me really invested. And it's simple, but it is intriguing enough. And with Raul Kohli at the helm here, I had so much fun with my time. And it skyrocketed to a game that literally as soon as I came home, I was like, man, do I even want to touch Returnal? Because I have that itch right now. But no, I just need to get into Soros again, so I don't want to touch anything. House Mark until Sorrows comes out, because this is my most anticipated game of the year. Wow. From, like, not zero, but, like, pretty close to that to all the way to number one. I'm very, very excited for this game.

[B]

Andy, what are your initial impressions on Soros?

[C]

Game is going to kick a lot of ass. This game rocks. I. We kind of expected that based on just a lot of trailers and stuff we'd seen, you know, even watching some of the early presentations, whether it be at a showcase or whatever, game awards, whatever it may be, just watching it I had those moments like I felt like I was playing and sometimes being like, oh my God, that thing looks awesome.

[A]

Wow.

[C]

That visual effect looks great. Holy cow. This boss fight looks super cool. This weapon, whatever it is, I, you know, you could point out on the screen and getting hands on the sticks and feeling the way that it feels to play. Returnal was already one of the tightest video game controlling experiences ever and they really wanted to double and triple down on it and just really, really focus and they wanted this game to feel amazing in the hands as you're playing it. Visually, the stuff that they showed us, what they're doing and all of the improvements that they have made. We play on base PS4s and it looked awesome. Or PS5s. Yeah, base PS5s. And now I'm. I can't even imagine what this is going to look like on PS5 Pro. I'm super pumped to play it on my PS5 Pro. It is, it's an evolution to their formula. They are pushing what Returnal did even further. I cannot freaking wait to play this video game, man.

[B]

Roger, one of the things you mentioned is that the story kept you invested.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And I wanna, I wanna talk about that more because Returnal of course had a story and it had interesting cinematic moments, especially when you lose a run and then before jumping back into the

[A]

next run you have those like, it's very vibe heavy.

[C]

Very vibe heavy.

[B]

But yeah, you had those like weird like cut scenes or whatever that are very fast paced and it's like, whoa. And then she wakes up and then like the further you get, you're collecting.

[C]

You walk to a haunted house in first person.

[A]

Yeah. What does this mean? What's real?

[B]

What's not Collecting logs and all these, all these things for you. What about the story this time around is resonating.

[A]

It's a bunch of things. I mean this is very much like in your face, especially when you get to that home base of like this is a story. We're building something, a narrative here. It is not like vibes that you can kind of ignore a little bit. Right. It's like, okay, this is a story that we're telling. So I guess the base level of what this is and kind of the pitch of here is this is a alien planet that is some mega corporation is essentially trying to Soltari. Soltari is trying to take their version of Unobtainium, Right. Think about like Avatar.

[C]

What's the Lucanite?

[A]

Lucanite. So that is actually the things that you're picking up here. Which I actually like. That little piece of synergy right there. All the XP is this lucinite, this very expensive mineral that they're trying to pick up here from this planet. Right. So you are, I believe, the fourth expedition.

[C]

Yeah, there have been three different teams sent here.

[A]

Exactly. So, yeah, all the other teams have tried to, you know, colonize this place in some way. And you are the emergency team of, like, no one is responding. There's supposed to be a lot of people here. We haven't gotten radio silence from them for a while. So you are the last expedition coming through, trying to figure this out. And then there's this undercurrent of everybody kind of losing their mind on this place. Things are getting a little timey, wimey and weird. You're losing time there. And then also, Raul Kohli's character is seemingly trying to find someone that means a lot to him as a part of this expedition. So he kind of has a dual purpose there. And all of that is shown through some cutscene in the beginning and just talking to the characters throughout the game. But, yeah, I thought that was pretty. Especially the. The lucinite side of it. I thought that was really cool of like, oh, this is the thing. I'm getting to upgrade. But also, this is the main reason that I'm here on this planet. It's. It's some good. It's some good storytelling right there.

[C]

Arguably the best evolution of the game, I would say, because, okay, I don't want the game to evolve too much. I think that's the number one question. I got the most from a lot of people in our community, whether it be on, you know, Blue sky or Threads or Twitter or whatever. I'm getting a lot of questions of does it feel like a proper next iteration or. Or a next entry into Housemark's more modern game? Sort of like what their. Yeah, and I. I think I was. I kind of hesitate to say it's returnal with a little bit more because I feel like that seems derogatory and that's going to make you all feel like, oh, they just may as well just made DLC or whatever it's like. But I've, in my opinion, if they try to evolve the formula too much, don't. Don't add a weird fruits and vegetables to my pizza. I love my pizza the way it is. Yeah, you made the most perfect pizza possible the last time.

[B]

My question then is, what is most similar to eternal and what is most different?

[C]

Movement. You have your dash, you have the way the different guns work. They all will have different perks. You know, in the. When we talk about proper roguelite structure, you're getting different weapons each different run and they will have different perks on them and you can kind of level that up. And it is a lot of what you would expect from the next game. To follow up Returnal, of course, different IP has nothing to do with Returnal. Completely different.

[B]

Different world, different universe, different world, different everything.

[C]

Just a different video game.

[B]

Nothing related.

[C]

It's nothing at all. Story and world, no shared. No. This is no like.

[A]

And they confirm that for you. I didn't.

[C]

Yeah, this, this is not like a. A like, what's the word I'm looking. Spiritual successor or nothing like that. This is a. A proper different video game completely. Where. Where I think that they are making the right choices is in the approachability.

[A]

Yes.

[C]

When I think about Returnal, I think about a very difficult game that causes you to replay it and learn the game more. And the more that you play, the more you are learning and getting better and improving. Run to run. Of course, you might have a run out of nowhere on your sixth try that you die immediately, but that's just kind of the video game. Sometimes the game will treat you in certain ways that you just feel like, ah, dang, I really wish that I, you know, didn't go up. Up against that enemy here or whatever. But. And that's not to say this game is easier by any stretch of the imagination. I think the game Moment to Moment is as difficult as Returnal is. However, this game is doing a lot more with permanent upgrades and things to help your character get better for the long run, for future runs.

[B]

So one of the previous trailers we saw for this game mentioned come back Stronger as one of the key features. Right. And I'm pulling from the store page here. They say with the second chance feature, you'll be revived instantly on your first death. Helping you get straight back into the action reminds you of secular shadows. Beyond that, you can permanently augment your loadout from an evolving set of weapons and upgrades to overcome the challenges you face on Carcosa. Yeah, talk more about how that works.

[C]

Kind of an odd one because it really is just like having the astronaut in Returnal. The astronaut was your extra secondary life. I think the comeback Stronger sort of, you know, moniker and it felt like a tagline and it felt like it was almost Sekiro Shadows die twice built into the DNA of what. Who this character is and what the story. And really it's just in your skill Tree, you can buy a res to come back.

[B]

Oh, okay.

[C]

And I. I wonder if that was maybe just to kind of get people that were immediately worried about, like, oh, Returnal's hardest. I dropped off of that quick. It's like, hey, we're showing you that you can res. But a lot of that also has to do with the lore of the world and why it is you have this ability and the mysteries that kind of revolve around all of it.

[A]

I would push back a little bit. Cause I do think that the Comeback Stronger tagline is very apt. I was very surprised by when I died for the first time. And I was like, oh, man, I'm not gonna die this entire run. I'm gonna be the best gamer here or whatever. And I die and I'm like, okay, I can upgrade. I can use all lucinate to upgrade my run. It is pretty generous. Like, at least in the very beginning. Like, you are upgrading a ton. Like, you are able to upgrade your health. You're up to get your shields. Like, I did feel like every time I was dying, I had this pool of XP that I was able to use to come back stronger to actually kind of make the game easier. So I think I'm not like you where you'd recently just replayed a portion of Eternal.

[C]

Right.

[A]

But to me, at least from the very beginning, I was like, oh, this feels like a lot less punishing than Return.

[C]

I think I was thinking more the sense of like the actual. Just the res gotcha. Like getting the resurrection and like dying and then coming back to life immediately during the single singular run. But no, you're absolutely right, Roger. The. The way that the. The amount of level ups that I had after the first run, wild. Like, I felt like I was leveling up for a solid minute and a half or two minutes of like, there's that ability. There's that ability, and you're consistently going up, which is making your character more resilient. You have. You're also upgrading the shields. And the shield is one of the brand new features that adds a big different part of gameplay that Returnal had because Returnal didn't have this aspect of it. And I. I totally agree with Roger. I feel like when I came back, I felt for the second. Starting the second run, I was like, man, I can't even imagine how things are going to feel now because I just upgraded about like 12 things right now on this.

[B]

Interesting.

[C]

And maybe, maybe they got to pull back the amount of lucid you're getting early on because it did kind of feel like, how large can this skill really be if I filled up this far already? But a lot of that just kind of comes with balancing and tuning.

[B]

It feel overwhelming because sometimes in video games, I have the thing where I'm upgrading a character and I'm like, I'm a hoarder. And so I'll hoard skill points and then I'll like, fill up a skill tree all at once. And then I lose track of like, oh, I've. What have I upgraded now? Like, what am I doing?

[A]

So I will say I don't. I wouldn't say it feels overwhelming with the amount of upgrades. I did feel a little confused with like. Like, what everything meant. I do wish this game had a glossary. I couldn't find one. I was looking at all the settings to try to figure it out because, like, reading it right here, I have. You have your commando drive and your resilience command. Command.

[C]

Command is. And resilience command, when you hover over it, it says a command is shield capacity and power usage.

[A]

I didn't see that.

[C]

So the big thing about, you know, one of the big things, they're trying to differentiate and say, like, hey, let's try not to mess with the formula too much because Returnal fucking rocked so, so hard. Let's add a couple of extra things here and there. And one thing is the shield that Arjun Devraj has and the shield that you have in the video game is used to absorb projectiles, and it kind of powers up your shield and it powers up your. The. It says here the power usage, which is like, whenever you want to use your power weapon, it's powered by how much stuff you've absorbed with this shield. Think of, like, you know, t' Challa in his suit in Black Panther, right? And one really, really neat thing, if you're watching the video right here, when you. When the shield is busted out, it's. It's a. It's a blue sphere of a bunch of different, like, hexagons kind of making up a shield. And they told us that each particle that you are absorbing, each, like, blue orb of energy that an enemy shooting at you, it all kind of gets added into the shield to make up, like, to kind of form the shield. So, like, each one of those actually represents a hexagon on the shield that kind of gets built up one of their cool kind of, like, tech things because they also. They give a damn so much about tech in, you know, at. At Housemark. And so the shield not only obviously protects You. But it is key to using your power weapons and making them super strong. And that kind of got a bit. It took a bit for me to get used to. I don't know about you, Roger, but I I the thing that kind of threw me off a little bit about the shield is when you call it up, I think by default it's set to R1, and R1 is also melee. So if you just tap R1, you melee, and if you hold R1, you still melee, and then the shield gets brought up after. And it was getting used to that delay that was throwing me off a little bit because your character still has to swing and then shield gets popped up. So that took a little bit getting used to, but I think that that'll just, you know, come with time to kind of make that more. Make that feel less odd, you know.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

In the mechanic of it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But while we're talking about the shield, I I, I after getting through exactly what Andy was talking about of that little delay, like, it is so fun, especially in a boss fight of like, we'll talk about the bosses in a bit. But, like, figuring out that moment of like, okay, now is the. Is the. There's things coming at me. Put up the shield. Absorb it. Okay, now I can use that to redirect my super ability or whatever it's called. But yeah, going back to what I was saying earlier, I. Some of the words were just a little bit confusing to me. I didn't. I didn't know where to hover over to find the thing, but I think that was the overwhelming aspect of it all. Just the new words in the vernacular.

[C]

Yeah. The skill tree is essentially comprised of, I think, four to five different things that you are upgrading, but the three main ones are command, which is like I just mentioned, shield capacity, power usage. It's like the blue little thing. Red is a drive, which is. It increases the lucinite gain to allow faster proficiency upgrading. So the more lucid you're getting, the fat, the better weapons you will be getting later on during the runs for, like, weapon proficiency. And then resilience is your armor, which is basically, you know, your health. And that. That's what kind of gives you a bigger health bar along the way. And I didn't really feel too. I was just more. I wasn't really overwhelmed. I was just like, God dang, I was. I only played for about 50 minutes and now I've, like, gone so far. I just wasn't expecting what the full

[A]

skill tree, it stops at a while.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

They have little areas like checkpoints. Yes. That are checkpoints that are like, hey, you got to beat a boss in order to get past. Right. So they do stop you and they have like this. There's definitely this vibe of like, hey, we know you're going to get to this point pretty fast. We're going to hard stop you until you beat a boss.

[C]

And the way that you are upgrading is by walking up to this really cool computer at the home base.

[A]

It's like. It's like mother in aliens.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Which alien they mentioned was one of their, you know, big inspirations when it comes to the art direction of this world. And it was so awesome to hear from their art team be like, what an awesome challenge it is to create an alien world. You have anything that you could do. The world is at your fingertips. And it's like, what do I want to do? And what do I want these aliens to kind of, you know, what do I want their architecture to look like? What do I want their, you know, manufacturing areas to look like? All that stuff is just so fascinating to me as somebody who's like, always buys art books for a lot of these games. And you talk to this big robot at your home base, which is one of the many NPCs you can speak to, and it's immediate that it kind of hits you immediately that like, ah, this robot, something's up with this dude.

[A]

Like, oh yeah, he's just the awful vibe.

[C]

Bad vibes. Bad vibes.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

So, yeah.

[A]

Because the robot is basically saying that he is the representation of the company at the homeworld.

[C]

Sultari.

[A]

Yeah. So Tari. So like, basically they're like, everything's falling apart. So you're talking to. You're like, okay, we got to save these people. And then this robot's like, no, I'm Sultari. I'm your boss. You're working for me.

[C]

Like, they're the.

[A]

You don't worry about them. Like, focus on figuring out this lucid night.

[C]

Very similar vibes to like, Roger was just mentioning alien, where they, they're desperate to be saved. They're desperate for a rescue. And the number one directive is like, no, get the sample of the alien. We don't give a damn who dies or whatever.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And like, so it's very similar vibes to that. And that's one thing, you know, going back to the narrative real quick, real quick that I'm so excited to get into because they mentioned, yes, we have a really cool story that we're proud and Excited for people to learn more about. But for the people that just want gameplay, you can just get the gameplay. You'll run to a cutscene here and there, but this game will give back the more that you try to get from it. Meaning when you finish a run, you have your hub world, which is the spaceship that you. Or your home base or whatever, where all of the different NPCs are there. And I can already tell I already had that vibe of after I would end a run, I'd be like, I want to go see what's up with everybody.

[A]

Yep.

[C]

What everybody feeling?

[A]

How has things changed?

[C]

They got new things to tell me. We're looking for this one guy who got lost out there, and I found him, and he's just giving me weird vibes. Every. Like it. This eclipse is really messing with people's heads. And, you know, we're finding note, you know, all these little, like, text logs everywhere. And immediately I'm like, oh, shit, I'm so into this already. I want to be invested. I want to dive deeper into it and find out more about this world and what the hell is happening in this sort of video game.

[B]

The more y' all talk about it, mystery. The more you talk about this and tell me if I'm off. Like, the more. The more you talk about this, more I think of Hades. And Hades too, as far as, like, when you come back and talk to everybody and even like the comeback stronger thing, you know, like, Hades is one of those ones where it is, all right, I'm back. What can I cook up? You know what. How much darkness have I gotten? What can I put that into? Right. And like, you do go back into every run. Theoretically stronger in that game and a lot of modern roguelites. Is that like a comparison that's off, or do you, like, look at that as something that's like, oh, no, that is what it feels like.

[C]

I feel like that's pretty damn spot on. I. For me, that. Because the vibes are so. Are just so scuffed and so sad and scary and solemn and everybody's just, we're trying to get out of this place alive and you don't really know who to trust.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And. And. And it's just. It's just an uneasy vibe all around. The vibes I get from it are the first time that I played demon souls, whenever I would die and go back to the hub world, and there's dire NPCs being there, just being like, dude, my. You know, I'm wife and my daughter Whatever, you know, you're like, man, I feel like right now. But I love it, you know, like, yeah, it's giving me, like, just really good story vibes. And I want to know more about these NPCs while. While you're doing that. Also finding little secrets around there. And I hadn't really gotten much into. I don't really know if there was much customization happening, but aside from, like, just going to the robot and building up. Oh, okay.

[A]

Yeah, I didn't see any of them.

[C]

Yeah. Because it may be like, Returnal, where they had no customization and maybe you would just get a secret outfit if you beat the game or whatever, but I didn't see much of that happening. However, the hub world is a place that I do not. When. Whenever I was down Returnal, I. I maybe had one or a couple moments where I'm like, oh, what's going to be different when I arrive back here? I'm looking forward to every time seeing what's going to change.

[B]

And.

[A]

Yeah, so talking about change, there's some.

[B]

I.

[A]

You've probably noticed this with the outfit of the main character of, like, things are changing about this character already. And, like, you start to see that it's not just everybody around him, it's him as well. Right.

[B]

Like, is it Shadow Colossus?

[A]

Yeah. Some things are changing about the way that, you know, his corruption looks like. It's. It's. It's really cool to see the very finer details that they're just leaving out there. And on top of the audio logs, like, I found one that's, you know, just a very simple one. It's not generic, but you kind of expect it. But it hit, when you're listening to it, of, like, somebody celebrating a birthday. Right? And it's like, I've been on this planet, I'm celebrating a birthday. I didn't even tell anybody about it because vibes fucking suck.

[B]

And.

[A]

Yeah, and it's like, man, this is really good. And it's just a random audio log that I found. And, you know, for three hours of playing a game and being this invested into the story of, you know, how Smart game did not expect that.

[C]

So I really. I wrote down just a bunch of words like, I'm sure, Roger.

[A]

Same.

[C]

Just words that were kind of encapsulating the stuff that they were saying on stage. And then we're talking from the director to art director to writer to narrative, all that stuff. Bullet ballet.

[B]

See, I was gonna bring up Bullet ballet. I want to talk about that. Unless you Get. Do you just want to rattle off words?

[C]

Just rattle. Let me just rattle off more words that you could think about during the upcoming ad break. Okay. Bullet ballet Evolving shape shifting world Haunting and layered narrative richer world building tighter session lengths Autosave at launch.

[B]

Oh, okay.

[C]

A lot of things that will get the maybe like to talk about dipped out on returnal. Maybe this could be the one that we're like, all right, they care about me who has a kid that I need to pause during a run or whatever. You know what I mean?

[B]

I need to put this thing on rest mode.

[C]

Yeah, let me get it. Yeah, man.

[B]

Well, you talk about how people dipped out on returnal. I hope you don't dip out on this episode of Kind of Funny Games cast because we got way more to talk about when it comes to sorrows. But don't click off. Of course, if you have the kind of funny membership that allows you to get shows ad free. And speaking of ads, let us tell you about our sponsors.

[A]

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[B]

Bullet Ballet two words that I like hearing together in a video game. Andy, talk to me about the guns. What kind of weaponry we rocking here? Kind of guns we shooting cool shoddies.

[C]

An awesome shoddy that was actually at housemark. You know it's oh you know they like built it out. It sounded real good obviously, but it was like a really sick. You don't know that really just on the wall in case of emergencies. Just a really sick ass 3D prop. I love the way the weapons look in this world. It is so like. It is so dystopian future tech, but like futurist 80s sci fi sort of vibes to it. I enjoyed a lot of the weaponry in this game. I. And like they mentioned that they mentioned in a couple of the interviews. We don't. This game, if you aren't the best at aiming, that's okay. The game is about, you know, just kind of hopefully locking on in a general direction of an enemy. Because it isn't necessarily about precision, it's about avoiding everything. And timing.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

When it comes to make sure you're making sure you're dashing through the right projectiles, making sure you're absorbing the right projectiles, jumping over those energy waves on the ground, all of that stuff that you love is here. One thing that I do hope to find though later on in future runs is I know they don't care about precision. I would love a super cool just like snipers beam, like, you know, something like that. Because I. So much of the game is just kind of like you running and jumping. You either have your pistol sort of hand cannon, you have an AR thing. Very similar, very similar weapons that you would come to expect from, you know, the, the game that's following up Returnal.

[B]

Is it active reload?

[C]

Yes, yes, active reload.

[B]

Oh, do they do the thing where you have. Because in Returnal with the power of the adaptive triggers, you press down on the R2 button a little bit and it's the regular fire but you hold it down and that's a secondary fire.

[C]

If you, if you hold L2 halfway, that does something separate to pushing down L2 all the way.

[B]

Maybe that's what I'm thinking of actually.

[C]

Yeah, it may have been that, but I played Returnal recently on PC so I. I don't really know if I have the best sort of like, you know, compare knowledge comparison. But yeah, I, I had a great time with the weapons. Roger. I don't know how you felt maybe wanting more. The. I think the thing that confused me the most was. And I still get confused within Returnal, knowing what abilities do what and knowing what perks are doing what, you know, and, and how the ultimate ability looks vastly different to that ultimate ability. A lot of it comes down to just looking at the name and just trying to remember, oh, this does that one beam and this does this.

[A]

Yeah, and that'll take with time. Yeah. I enjoyed the weapons Again, there is a machine gun, pistol and a shoddy. I actually enjoyed the pistol mostly. I would find pistols that have like, electric energy so then it would connect to other enemies. So especially during lighting. Yeah, chain lighting. So, yeah, during, like the first boss fight where there is like some like, side little characters you need to fight before you get to the main boss. That was super helpful. I didn't love the shotgun. Maybe it's just. That's not my playstyle. Like, I'm not getting close to people. I was like, when I got through the main tutorial, they like give you a shotgun. It's like, hey, try out the shotgun. I was like, I want to drop this immediately. Like, I do not. Like, that's just not my vibe. I'm sure that you were fucking fragging out.

[C]

I didn't. I didn't love the shotgun initially, but I wonder if they're like this shotgun that the character is using in the. In the footage. I wonder if there are. And there likely are little add ons whenever you pick up a weapon. Like in Returnal, as I was playing over the weekend. Here we go. The horde shotgun. Searing rounds. Okay, so Kevin, is there a way

[B]

to back up the footage to where he was looking at the weapons and pause? Because I want to talk about some more of those, like, specific weapon things.

[C]

So the searing rounds have to be like, maybe your ammo, you know, tears through enemies more.

[B]

Right.

[C]

But the. The shotty that I've been using in Returnal, the one that I always kind of gravitate towards, is the one that's the narrow ma. Because they have wide ma with maw, where it's like, yeah, wider shotgun spread. The narrow MA shoots out in a more collected sort of cone. And it's great for just hitting one enemy as opposed to feeling like. So you don't have to feel like you have to be right up in somebody's face. The narrow mile one is awesome. I think they also have slug shot, which is an even tighter cone of shooting, but cool. I. I hope that I. I would assume that they would have little perks like that. As we see, the Eruptor hand cannon has explosive rounds and favored target. And I think the favorite target is the enemy with either the lowest health will be prioritized if you're like kind of shooting in the general direction of it, I believe. Yeah.

[A]

But talking about, like, just words and stuff, I do wish that there was like, hey, this is what this is like here. It's like in plain English, you know, because, like. Because I was Playing it honestly, at a point I was like, okay, higher number wins, Right. Like, I just. Even if it's a different thing, I'm just going to go higher, right. We're just moving through it.

[B]

But holding one weapon at a time. Or is it secondary?

[A]

Yes, you are holding only one weapon at a.

[B]

A time.

[C]

One weapon at a time.

[B]

And if I remember correctly from eternal. Right, these numbers are just like, which weapon is better?

[C]

Right? Yeah, that's like weapon proficiency level. So essentially your weapon proficiency will get up to. Let's say it's 13. And that means you're gonna start finding 13 guns, you know, level 13.

[B]

Oh, yes, yes. I remember this real quick question, right? Like, if I find how different are like the pistols that I'm finding, right. Like when we look at the one pistol from another, of course there might be eruptor rounds, might be something else. How varied are these?

[A]

Very, very different. Especially like you get that first machine gun and it takes a long time to kind of like get like. It's almost like a Gatling gun. You know, I have to rev up again. You go super fast. Like, you get some that are just like pretty much instantaneous. You get some that have the chain lightning. Like, they really do feel different. And again, that goes back to the small criticism of like, this game has so much going on, so many multipliers and like changes and variables that it's like you don't. Just looking at that, it's not easy to tell what is going to be it. But it's not like there's any issue to pick. You can pick up a gun, shoot it and then pick up.

[B]

Yeah. Mess around with it, right?

[A]

Yeah. So there's no issue there. But yeah, it is. It doesn't do it justice when you pick up a gun. It's like, damn, this feels completely different than the last machine gun that I had.

[C]

I'd like to talk about the eclipse.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

In the game, because the eclipse is kind of the main thing that, you know, in this planet of Carcosa, we're talking about the people that lived there. And a lot of there's a cult that lived there or lives there. We don't quite know, but they worshiped this eclipse. And the eclipse is what's making everybody go buck wild. And that's why in one of the first videos we ever saw this, it's this guy on the planet yelling at Rahul and he's going kind of freaky and he's losing his mind and then he gets shot in the head. And Rahul's like, what the hell? And he looks. And who shot him in the head? It's the actress who plays Celine from Returnal. She's in this game as a different character.

[B]

I thought you said it was a different universe.

[A]

I didn't know what that word meant.

[C]

And yeah, I just. It's really, really cool that, you know, there are several moments that things happen in this game where Rahul was like, this damn eclipse is messing with us. Like what the is happening. And I, I just love this feeling of, of not knowing what's real or what's happening or who you could trust. And the eclipse also is, you know, a big portion of the gameplay differentiation. And at certain points throughout the run you will walk up to a little item on the ground and you will summon this eclipse. And suddenly everything gets more orange and scary looking. And the enemies that are in the game, the projectiles are shooting at you are now corrupted and they hurt a lot more. The enemies just do more damage to you if you try to absorb them, those corrupted sort of projectiles with your shield, let's say your shield is about this big blessing and you start taking corruption, absorbing corruption, it's lowering your health bar and so but it's making your ultimate really, really powerful. So there's this push and pull of I don't want to deal with this corruption because it's going to lower my health so much that when I use my ultimate it's going to clear out. You use your ultimate to kind of clear corruption, but your health is still way the heck down here because you built up so much corruption, you gotta

[A]

fill it up again.

[C]

And so it' this sort of push and pull of I could just try to avoid these bad yellow projectiles because the blue ones are good, you could absorb those all day. Yeah. The bad ones are the yellow ones. And if you decide to just avoid the yellow ones then you could just kind of play like normal. But absorbing all the corrupted stuff makes the game tougher. Cuz you're more likely to be one hit but it makes your ultimate insanely powerful. And it's like there's a big risk reward there. I need to get used to that a bit more. Cuz early on I was very confused with what the actual benefits were because I wasn't necessarily.

[A]

I gotta be honest, I'm learning this for the first time. I was playing the entire time. I was like, why? I'm like, I feel powerful, but I'm also losing the thing. That makes a lot of sense.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

I hadn't Played enough to look at the numbers and go, oh, me using my ability, me using this ultimate with the corruption is doing this much damage versus without the corruption. You know, I just hadn't played enough or gotten used to that enough. But yeah, I think it's a really cool kind of addition that will. They showed us how aesthetically all of these worlds will change. And it's really cool. I mean, a lot of, you know, the. Not only the color temperature changes, so it's not just world turns orange. There's just a lot of really Breaking Bad Mexico. Yeah, there's just a lot of really cool artistic things they're doing to the world to make things go, oh, now the eclipse is on and things are harder and things I need. I need to be more worried about enemies out.

[B]

So when you're saying world changes, you're not just talking about like, okay, we just finished up this big area. Now it's on to Area 2, or

[A]

sort of a little bit. I mean, so. So let me just break down. Yeah, yeah.

[C]

They did show a lot of, like, before and after picks of. Here's what this area looks like before the eclipse and here's post eclipse.

[A]

Yeah. So but the way that it starts off is that you're not in the eclipse in the very beginning. You're running around, you're going through areas, and then every world, pretty much every, like, area that you're fighting and you have combat in also has like a challenge room as you're seeing right there. Yeah. Which is like this red that you have to hit. And it usually has upgraded weapons. Maybe it has a little thing that you have to avoid, maybe some enemies. So those are optional. You don't have to do that. And then eventually you will get to basically, I would say, like the halfway point of every level. And then it literally, it's like a hard stop. You have to do the eclipse cutscene happens and then everything turns orange. World kind of changes, everything's harder. And then eventually you will find a shortcut to a boss fights it.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And then that will essentially allow you to. Next time you play in that run, if you don't beat the boss, you can, I think pretty much right after the eclipse, you have you. Or is it before the eclipse?

[C]

I think it's like right after you pretty much go straight to the boss.

[A]

Yeah. So it cuts it in half, essentially the level next time you play it again. So you can go straight to the boss right after the eclipse. And then. Yeah, then there's a boss fight. And then after you Finish the boss, then you're done with that world and you can move on to the next thing.

[B]

Gotcha.

[A]

Yeah. So the Eclipse is pretty much the halfway point. So you think that. So I've had. I had a few runs where I was like, man, I'm fucking killing it. Oh, shit. I didn't even hit the Eclipse yet. I'm fucking halfway held. I'm fighting for my life. Yeah, it is. It is noticeably harder. I wouldn't say it's like deathly harder. You know, I don't think it's like, super duper hard. It's not like, oh, shit, I'm playing on, like, super hard mode. But yeah, enemies are more aggressive. I think that's the best way to describe it.

[C]

And you'll. You will notice when you are trying to absorb those bad particles that like. Wait, why is my health so low? Yeah, I was. I had my shield up, and it's because the corruption overtook your health bar, and in order to clear it, you have to use your ultimate and. But even when you clear all of it, your health is still as low as it was when all the corruption sort of took over. So you might have just pixels of health left, and you're like, damn, I really need to find a heel now. Because I took all that corruption so that my ability would be insanely strong. Was it worth it? Because now my health is this small, you know, that feels.

[B]

Does this feel like the. The replacement to. I forget the exact word for it, but it was like the malignant something in returnal, where they're essentially these.

[C]

The curses.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. The curse is essentially where you pick it up and you get a bonus. But also you have. You get the, Like a curse that you up for a while.

[C]

I mean, they're. It's. It's a different thing entirely because that is still in the game.

[B]

That's still here.

[C]

Yeah, There are still like these. These glitched. I don't know what the exact terms that they're calling them, but they are like, you see your body kind of start to grow this weird kind of on your back shoulder normally. Like your back.

[A]

Corrupted. Corrupted.

[C]

Yeah. The corruption will sort of take over your. Your body, and you are under that corruption, either, you know, increasing your cooldown for your dash or whatever, you know, lowering your health but getting a benefit on top.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. I have an example here where it was like, you get more shield, but then your health drops down if you're not moving or while you're shooting or something like that.

[B]

Right?

[C]

Yeah. Like, constantly be Shooting.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. So you get a lot of those, especially when you're leading up to like a. You get them throughout the world, but when you're leading up to a boss, like, they kind of like the boss fountain area, where it's like pretty much just all corrupted abilities, where it's like, hey, you want some. You want to get a little more powerful? Do you think you can fucking handle not, you know, staying still for the entire boss fight? Try it out. Right? So I thought that was. That's actually really fun. And I was. I was happy to see a lot of those because I was taking on a lot of those corrupted abilities. Honestly, by the ending of it, where I was like, okay, I think I can deal. Moving around and trying.

[B]

He's like, looking all fucked up. So did you guys get to face off against bosses?

[A]

Yeah, we did.

[C]

Yes. Yeah, Two bosses. That was the. The demo was essentially try to get to the end of the second boss.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

And I think Roger and I think discovered we died the exact same amount of times.

[A]

We're equal gamers.

[C]

Yeah. We three tried the first boss and we first tried the second boss. Yeah. So I died a couple times. I was unfortunately, in those times that I died, I was sitting next to Luke Stevens and I noticed him look over me and like, ride down on like. You're like, he's gonna let the intern

[A]

going on the Internet.

[C]

He's going to let the Internet know. Games journalists aren't good at games. Yeah, I. I had a great time. Even the mini bosses, like, there are awesome mini bosses like the one that we're watching on screen right now that are not a main boss with a big health bar. They're just.

[B]

Yeah. That's crazy.

[A]

I'm supposed to put up a shield there.

[C]

Come on. It would be one of those things if the shield went up immediately, but it doesn't. It's melee, then shield. So, like, you kind of have to pre assume that you know some of these.

[A]

Yes. Another one.

[C]

Yeah, here's that. Eclipse Corruption, corruption projectiles. Lower your max armor integrity even when blocked with shield. Use power weapons to cleanse corruption and regain your max armor integrity.

[A]

I should have read that.

[C]

And those are all the. The yellow projectiles that are. They're gonna come after you and they're gonna hurt even more.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And they're gonna screw up your health bar if you aren't or. Or screw up your health bar if you're trying to shield from them, you know? Yeah. So there were moments later on where I'm like. Like, this hasn't really been working out for me too well. So I'm just gonna try to avoid all the yellow ones instead of trying to shield my way through them. But, yeah, movement and everything feels awesome. Good button remapping, I would say. I. I'm.

[A]

So you went in there and did it?

[C]

Oh, yeah. I had to.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

I'm so stoked to play with back paddles because that's going to make the game even better for me because I essentially put jump on L3, so that dash was on, I think R1, maybe. Wow. Yeah, I had to. I had to do a lot of stuff in there because you. What? You got to keep your right thumb on the.

[A]

That feels illegal to do at a preview event.

[B]

You gotta put the. With default control.

[A]

I feel like that might get us banned.

[B]

That's kind of creepy.

[C]

No, the illegal part was, like. The illegal part was that one time at the Dragon Age Vale Guard presentation where I'm like plugging in my controller and then auto controller from home is, oh, no, maybe it was a night rain. It may have been night rain, but I'm plugging in my controller and then on stage they're like, like, please don't plug in anything in the computers. And I just ignored it again. And Lucy was like, they're looking at you.

[A]

And I was like, nah, nah, don't

[C]

worry about it, don't worry about it.

[A]

Let's talk to the guy behind me.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

So I'm gonna ask a question that feels very 2021. We just started PS5.

[A]

I love it, bro.

[B]

Dual sense, you know what I mean?

[A]

Like, thank you.

[B]

Thank you, Returnal. One of the things I remember, I had a tweet that went viral because I had taken a video when Returnal first came out of my controller, sitting on my desk, and like the rain coming down in the game and you can, like hear the pitter patters of rain in my controller. And like, Twitter went crazy with that one. Twitter loved it. How does the Dualsense feel here, even. Tell me about, like, even sound design and stuff like that. If you have the. The stuff to talk about, sound design,

[A]

I am sure is great. I don't like those PlayStation headphones.

[C]

Me either.

[A]

Yeah, they like. They feel a little cheap and like they're hurting my ears. And I was like, I don't. This doesn't feel like it's doing it justice, but from what I can hear, it's great. The Dualsense is incredible, man.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

When I play. When you play a first party game, especially this one, it's like, like you pick up that dual sense. Like oh, I get it. Like I, I will, I will take this over with the 3 hour battery life that it has any day. Like it justifies it completely. Yeah.

[C]

Playing this and like it's an additive experience.

[A]

It's such an added experience and the, the, the way that it, it changes and evolves throughout your gameplay and yeah, especially those adaptive triggers, man. Like it, it feel. I can't believe that you're able to play that. I mean I guess you won't be able to in the future play this on PC with a thing that isn't dualsense because this feels like it's made for the dualsense completely.

[C]

Speaking of PC, that is a great little question to be asked because it was asked at the event by some people that we know because I asked, hey, I love Return of Co op. You all out of that any chances of co Op. And I was given the response of we're not ready to talk about post launch content at this time. So I was like, okay, that's fair.

[B]

I like that answer.

[A]

I like that answer.

[C]

As far as the PC question, a friend of ours in the industry did ask that question and they were met with. We're here to talk about Saros on the PS5 right now. So not looking good. I, I got to assume just like we read all those, you know, every report about how them they're pulling out of the PC business. It kind of makes sense with how, with the, the way that we were met with, you know, those responses were met. Yeah.

[B]

Can you, did you get a sense of scale at all? Does this feel like it's return. Returnal as far as like size and scope and length?

[A]

Yeah, I was interested in that because I, I mean the three and a half hours of us playing, I mean I went through those two worlds pretty quick. Not quickly but you know, I could have, I could have started going deep into that third world, but I was kind of hard stop there. So I was wondering if how short or how long this is going to be.

[C]

Part of me wonders if if in their balancing they decided these runs take a long time. What if we gave you more,

[A]

what

[C]

if we gave you more sort of boss fights that were shorter in length, not that the boss fights were too long. I'm talking about just like the actual run of getting to a boss fight. Right. What if we condensed that and but gave you more of that? That's what I would hope for because I think some of those runs did feel like they took a Long time in Returnal.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And this is the. The second boss that. That we took on Bastion. I. I would love to. To hopefully I. I would hope for a lot of verticality because I think Returnal does that in such an amazing way, adding crazy amounts of depth you can go to and crazy heights you could reach. I hope to see a level of that. I didn't see a whole lot of it, at least on this, you know, in comparison to Returnal, but I would. Yeah.

[A]

I mean, they have those jump pads in the second one, which add a little bit of that.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

It's not really what you're looking for.

[C]

No. I. I guess more of like there's. There's several moments in return where I'm like.

[B]

You're like descending.

[C]

Damn. I'm like, wait. You could go way the hell down there. You know, it's. It. It's not the most. It's not that this game felt flat at all. It's just maybe reaching those heights. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. One thing I want to talk about before we wrap up is the Carosan modifiers, which I think was shown off in a recent trailer. The way that they do this is. Is a dial that you can make the game harder or easier, depending on what you need. So the way that they do that is you have different modifiers. Think of like, I don't know, like the Halo skulls or whatever.

[C]

Right.

[A]

Where you can add in something where. I don't. I actually don't have any examples off

[B]

top of my head, but there's like the Hades, like.

[C]

Yeah. What's it called?

[B]

Heat.

[C]

Heat.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're. You're. You're. This is not it. This is the upgrade system right here, though. But look how sick that UI is for all the video watchers. But the world dial and not the world. Sorry. It's a different thing that I think happens later on in the game. So the way they do it is that you can make the game harder and like, depending on what you add and what you take away, but you cannot start a run if you make it too easy. So they. They make sure that it's. Maybe eventually that's something you can do. Maybe that's an accessibility option. But the way that they were doing it, I tried to make it easier just to see what would happen. It was like, no, you can't do that. So you have kind of a wiggle room to make it a little easier. Right. You don't have to be exactly in the middle of the dial. You can make it. You know, add some. Some debuffs. But you do have to be within that range or you can make it harder if you want to. And I do. I would love to see somebody that does the full crazy run, which everything's harder, because that would be super entertaining. Did you play with that at all?

[C]

No, I didn't even really know that was available.

[A]

Oh, okay, gotcha. Yeah, I think it was like after the second ball or like around the second.

[C]

Okay, gotcha.

[B]

Yeah. Separate from the. Was it called Carcosian?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Kirkosan, Kirkosian dial or whatever? Yeah, separate from that. In a regular run of this game, did it feel like you had the potential to become op? Because that's one of my favorite things to do in a Roguelite where I'm like, damn, all right. I got this combination of gun upgrades or whatever, and I feel like I'm just dominating and I love that. The way you guys describe it though, it sounds like the way to get more powerful is by dying.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like, do you feel what. What's your take on that?

[A]

I.

[C]

Sorry, I was just gonna say I think maybe if you want to feel OP is possibly going back into the first world after a lot of upgrades or. Or trying to fight refight, the first boss, I didn't really get the sense of that, but it also. But that doesn't also. It didn't feel like the game was kicking my ass in a lot of ways, you know?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I. I do think that by the ending the game you will feel OP if you go backwards. But it again with the locked progression of like, hey, you have to beat a boss in order to get past a certain point. I do think that this is a very purposeful direction when it comes to the upgrades of like, they want us to feel powerful. They want us to feel like, oh man, I'm rich as hell. Lucid Night is so powerful. I can do all this stuff. Oh, no, I need to stop right here. So I believe, if I were to guess, I feel like the upgrades are going to get way slower after this, where it's going to take a lot more to get to a point where you feel a little bit more powerful.

[C]

And I would also assume that there may be some of those abilities that we just saw pop up on the screen right there, which are mid run little upgrades. There may be some perks out there that we just aren't aware of, that you go, oh my God, I just picked up this thing that gives me health back every time I melee or whatever. There could be things like that that that sort of do change the game for everybody.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

One of the last things I want to ask you guys, of course I always shout out Janet Garcia because she asked this during a preview once and I was like, I'm going to steal that for every single preview that I host. Love that she has this thing that she did when she worked at a school called a rose Thorn bud. A rose, in this case being the thing that you love the most from your time previewing the game, thorn being the thing you liked the least in your time previewing the game. And the bud being what you want to see in the final game, something that you're unsure of that you want to see pan out in the final thing. Roger, I'll start with you. Do you have a rose, a thorn and a bud?

[A]

I mean, sorry, Rose.

[B]

Rose. Your favorite thing.

[A]

My favorite thing is honestly, I think it's a story. I mean it's maybe the most surprising thing for me where it's like I just didn't expect how smart to got it like that. I knew they had the vibes. I didn't realize that they would have something that. That I'm actually interested in from like a Sony first party perspective of storytelling.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Like, did not expect that. The Thorn, I think is just some of the gameplay stuff. Again, when you come down to the corruption and all that jazz, like it gets a little confusing in the moment. Right. I'm sure that's going to even itself out. But when it comes to the bud, like it's the story again, like I, I am I very much that needs to be nailed. Like if we're just setting up a bunch of things and the conclusion feels like whatever, like my time was wasted. I could see that with this type of game when people are losing time and things are wiki wacky, like you don't know what's a dream, what's time you want me like, you need to nail this. And I would love a not a clear, like concise like this is exactly what happened to these characters. But I want to be able to understand the story and not just go off the deep end of like anything could be real. Nothing can be real. I want them to actually nail that.

[B]

So buttoned up.

[A]

Yes, exactly.

[C]

Yeah, man. Honestly, I echo a lot of what Roger feels at story. It's like it was my most surprising thing and it's the thing I'm probably the most excited about because I knew I was going to get if not just returnal gameplay, better returnal gameplay. And that's exactly what I Got. So for. For Rose, I would say just to switch it up, I would say, like, I would say visuals.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Like, the game looks fantastic. Everything they're doing with, you know that they talked about their graphite sort of. It's not an engine, but it's this foundation that they've been building for a long time of how to make all of these amazing visuals look as good as they do and run as smoothly as they do. That's another big thing that they care about is like, we want this stuff to look good and to run at 60 frames per second on the PS5, you know. And for Bud, I would say I'm most excited to see how this would look on a PS5 Pro, because it already looked awesome on a normal PS5, even though I could see. All right, that's probably going to be improved on the neck on the newer gen or PS5 version. PS5 Pro version rather. And for the Thorn, the thing that I disliked the most, honestly, Rahul Kohli,

[B]

that was actually my next question. How was Raul?

[C]

No, he's awesome. He's great. He's awesome. He's. He's awesome. Great. I am so stoked to see what the hell happens with this story because just, it's just like, it feels like what we experience, Roger, is like the first episode of an HBO show that we know nothing about. And that the episode we're like, whoa, this is really cool.

[A]

There is a cutscene at the ending of the second world that they made us all watch. Like, make sure that, hey, if you didn't finish the second boss, which you and I did, because we're gamers.

[C]

Yeah, we're gamers.

[A]

But they were like, hey, everybody, I want you to stand outside here and watch.

[C]

We'll see what Luke Steven says, though.

[A]

I don't know. But the cutscene is incredible. And you see, like, it is not just Raul doing amazing job as he always is. He's incredible excited for that Exorcist movie they're making right now. But also just the way that they shot it. It feels very Sony first party, very cinematic way that you wouldn't expect. Like, he's angry and there's this light beeping in his face and it's like, fuck. Okay, so good. It's so good. And like, I understand why they told Everybody, hey, it's 5:00pm you're gonna get into rush hour traffic. I need everyone to stand here and watch this thing again. It made a lot of sense. And yeah, I'm very, very excited.

[C]

Yeah, I had to go Back the second day to watch that because I beat the second boss, but I didn't grab the item after the fact to, like, push forward. I just. I just thought, like, all right, okay, I guess I'm done. And. And then, you know, I was pulled off my headphones, and people started asking me, did you watch? Like, what'd you think of that cutscene? I was like, I don't really know. And they're like, oh, my God, you didn't. So I saw them pulling people into, like, a little theater there. And it was for people who weren't able to beat the second boss. Hey, you weren't able to beat it. We ran out of time. However, come watch this little. This little bit. So I went back the second day, where it was another day of other media and creators and, like, streamers and content creators playing the game, and they were able to get me into the theater just to watch. It was awesome as hell. Yeah, it was great. Real quick. Just to kind of, like, piggyback on the whole the. The headphone thing that Roger had issues with with the Sony headphones. Something about this game was, like, just insanely loud. And really, it felt like everything was kind of just peeking out a little bit too much.

[A]

Oh, really?

[C]

In my headphones, especially. And I would.

[B]

The PlayStation Pulse headphones.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

I was lowering the volume. I don't. I don't feel like it ever.

[B]

I don't trust them.

[C]

It did get lower. I feel like it kept going back up. Like, I was having to go into the game menu to do that because it wasn't letting me do it on the hardware side, but it just kept. The game just stayed real loud the whole time. And I don't know if that was the game or. Or partially the headphones, but. But whenever there were explosions in the game, it was crunchy, such a deep punch that, like, maybe felt like it was peeking out here and there, but I. I don't really expect to see that in the final product because. Return.

[B]

As somebody who's used. I've used the Bass Pulse headphones, I've used the Pulse Elites, and I use the Explorers all the time. Something about that Bass Pulse headset. I don't know. Like, yeah, I would have, like, random weird. Granted, I got, like, the first iteration, like, point Point, you know, one.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Base polls that they sent to us for review. And so, like, maybe it's just the

[A]

fact that Never updated it or something.

[B]

Never. I mean, I definitely updated it, but maybe it's just a physical hardware thing. I don't know, but sometimes that would peek out in a way where I'm like, what the. Why does this sound like. Yeah, yeah, my Elites are better, but even my explorers are also kind of weird.

[A]

Sometimes they don't make it for people, like, have weird ears. Like me.

[C]

Me too. Yeah.

[B]

Weird ears.

[A]

I got weird ears. Look, I got the cartilage, like, sticking out. It's weird.

[B]

Weird. Oh, interesting. I never looked at your ears like that.

[A]

You're like, yeah, you got weird ears.

[B]

Yeah, well, my dad has big ears,

[A]

but yeah, I think I don't even got big ears. I just got weird ears, everybody.

[B]

Oh, they don't. They look normal.

[A]

They feel.

[C]

They don't feel.

[B]

They don't feel normal. I feel my ears constantly.

[C]

They don't feel normal. Blessed.

[A]

Don't invalidate me.

[B]

Let us know in the comments below. What are your thoughts and sorrows after hearing the guys talk about it? Are you more excited? Of course. That is coming out April 30th, so you're only waiting another month.

[A]

That's way too long. That's way Sony. You got to give us the codes.

[C]

Come on. You got it.

[B]

Yeah. No, that actually has me excited because that means codes are probably a couple weeks away. Y' all got me hyped about this now, so look forward to that. Of course, if you're watching this live, right before this, we just did our reaction to the Xbox partner preview. We did our live reactions and reviews. So if you missed that, go check that out after this is in review. That's right.

[C]

Earbud.

[B]

Our first time watching.

[A]

Yeah, that's my first time watching. I'm very excited.

[B]

Yeah, I've never seen it. Roger and Mike. Then we have a gameplay stream that's going to be more of that retro rewind for day three, but that's it. What's so funny?

[A]

Retro rewind

[B]

with Mike and Nick, of course. This has been the kind of funny games cast where each and every weekday we get together and talk about the biggest reviews, previews and topics in video games live on YouTube, Twitch and on podcast services around the globe. You guys gotta figure that out. If you love what we do, support us with the kinda funny membership on Patreon, YouTube, Apple or Spotify to get all of our shows ad free and get a daily exclusive show. Until next time. I've been blessing. That's been Roger. That's been Andy. It's been our pleasure to serve you.

[A]

There's a world where legends race across city skylines. Romance blossoms in glittering ballrooms and there's magic around every corner. It's a world known to many as Great Britain. You've seen the action on screen. Now visit the real star of the show. Visit Great Britain. To discover more, go to tripadvisor.com Great Britain.