← The Besties
The Besties
Mina the Hollower Is GOTY Quality
01:19:32
Mina the Hollower is a delicious 7-layer dip of beloved video games. It looks and feels like a gothic Zelda, but its influences stretch far beyond Nintendo’s action-adventure series. The Besties are joined by Jason Schreier (from Bloomberg and Triple Click) to burrow through one layer after another to uncover its many secrets. In the back half, we talk about the big news of the week: Dragon Quest 12’s development reboot and the end of Destiny 2.
Loading summary
Transcript432 lines
- [00:00]
Jason Schreier
Fresh.
- [00:01]
Christopher Thomas Plant
You said you wanted a story. You wanted to tell me because you're gonna try to shame me publicly on our podcast.
- [00:05]
Ross Frostic
Oh, no, no. I'm gonna save it for later.
- [00:07]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Oh, great. Cool. Something for me to look forward to.
- [00:10]
Ross Frostic
We're gonna save it for later. That's gonna be a nice little moment that we're gonna have. But thank you for the reminder. I appreciate it.
- [00:15]
Christopher Thomas Plant
No, no, no, that's great. Is there any other ways you could maybe publicly ashamed and disown me on our podcast?
- [00:22]
Ross Frostic
I mean, you have that thing that
- [00:24]
Christopher Thomas Plant
I'm not feeling well.
- [00:25]
Ross Frostic
That thing. No, no. You know, the other thing.
- [00:28]
Christopher Thomas Plant
You know which one's this? You know, I have so many embarrassing.
- [00:32]
Ross Frostic
I don't wanna.
- [00:33]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Is it my skin tags?
- [00:35]
Ross Frostic
Seems. I mean, I'm just. I'm not gonna like fill in the
- [00:38]
Griffin McRoy
blanks like this for people every week, Jason. It's like this every week and it's like this will they. Won't they sort of energy and the will and want. I just referenced to the shame kink that they had like this weird symbiotic shame kink that they both have pitching and receiving and I have to be a part of it. And there is no HR person on the besties.
- [01:04]
Jason Schreier
Well, it was Justin, but now he's got.
- [01:06]
Griffin McRoy
It was Justin. Justin was really the mediator for it. Justin was my ripcord where I could be like, come on, Juice, let's rip it. And now I don't even have that anymore. And it's just like non stop, like, tell them about your weird butt. Tell him about your silly balls. And it's like, guys, I'm freaking your co worker.
- [01:25]
Ross Frostic
Yeah, I wouldn't say silly.
- [01:31]
Jason Schreier
Yeah. I've known these guys for many, many years. I've seen.
- [01:35]
Griffin McRoy
Okay, so you're familiar.
- [01:37]
Jason Schreier
Fantastic. Well, because Plant used to be in New York and it was even more palpable when everyone's.
- [01:41]
Ross Frostic
Well, now there's a distance between us.
- [01:44]
Griffin McRoy
New York is the fifth best. Well, the fourth now. My name is Griffin McRoy. I know the best game of the week.
- [02:11]
Christopher Thomas Plant
My name is Christopher Thomas Plant and I know the best game of the week.
- [02:14]
Ross Frostic
My name is Ross Frostic. I know the best game of the week.
- [02:18]
Jason Schreier
My name is Jason Schreier and I do not know the best game of the week. Because they're two pretty good ones.
- [02:24]
Christopher Thomas Plant
You think this is like the greatest game that's come out since sliced game.
- [02:27]
Jason Schreier
That's true. Yeah.
- [02:28]
Griffin McRoy
You love this. You want to marry this game and get married.
- [02:30]
Jason Schreier
It's true. I would like to marry a mouse. I will confess that.
- [02:37]
Griffin McRoy
Welcome to the Besties where we talk about the latest and greatest in home interactive entertainment. It is a Game of the Year Club. Just by listening you have become a member of the Game of the Year Club. The Besties. This week I'm very excited we are going to be talking about Yacht Club games. The developers of Shovel Knight's new title, Mina the Hollower, which has been very anticipated around these parts. I believe it was on both mine and Russ sort of top games of 2026. And Chris, can you sort of set up what it is that Mina the Hollower is doing?
- [03:08]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Mina the Hollower. It looks a bit like Link's Awakening. It plays a bit like Link between Worlds and Bloodborne and Puzzle platformers. You play as Mina, a mouse who is a brilliant inventor responsible for Sparks. What are Sparks? Well, that's the great mystery that you're gonna have to uncover as a Hollower. A member of the Hollower Guild means you have the special gift of burrowing. And I guess also being just really, really smart, you don't talk much because as I mentioned, this is similar ish to Zelda. Will Jason correct me that this is not actually a Zelda game before the end of this episode? You. You can fucking count on it.
- [03:46]
Griffin McRoy
Sparks is the Energy Beer. Mina the Hollower invented energy Beer and we're gonna learn more about that after this short break.
- [03:53]
Christopher Thomas Plant
If you listen to Besties, you are the sort of person who loves just all the little details in video games. And I have great news for you. Reddit is full of people just as deep in the weeds as you are. It has breakdowns, it has fan lore explainers, it has speedrun tech, it has. It is endless. You want new trailers, it's there. You want details on an upcoming expansion, you'll find it. You want rumors about an upcoming season? Sure. You'll see it there. People are talking about all this and more on Reddit. With more than 47 million members on R gaming, Reddit is the front page for gaming news, updates, rumors and leaks, all discussed in real time by people who actually play. They're There are subs for every game, genre and niche, whether that is MMOs or shooters or RPGs or speedruns or modding or lore. Everything. It is real players sharing real tips, fixes and discoveries. I'm supposed to tell you here about my go to subreddit. The problem is I have too many. Am I on our Dragon's Dogma? Yes. Am I also on an entire subreddit Dedicated to weird video game physics? Absolutely. Do I regularly check in on our Kentucky Route? Zero because I want to know if they're going to actually announce a sequel or something new for one of my favorite games ever. You know I am. But then you could also just be on the general gaming subreddits too. There are so many different places to hang out and to learn about your favorite hobby. Just check out Reddit.com Reddit is the place to go for gaming deep dives. Download the Reddit app and dive into, let's say, our Dragon's dogma right now for the latest gaming updates for just that game. I suppose if you want something maybe a little broader, you can go to R gaming or our games or our PC gaming. Those are all really nice too. Download the Reddit app today.
- [06:00]
Ross Frostic
Before we dive into the game, I do want to formally introduce our special guest this week. We have none other than Jason Schreier, famous for his work over at the Triple Clips podcast, his scoops for Bloomberg, his fantastic books that he writes. He's written quite a number of them, most recently the Blizzard book, whose name is escaping me. Help me, Jason.
- [06:22]
Jason Schreier
Play nice. Play nice.
- [06:23]
Griffin McRoy
Thank you.
- [06:24]
Jason Schreier
And future of Blizzard Entertainment. Did you know that there is video footage of Griffin getting scooped by me?
- [06:31]
Griffin McRoy
Oh, that's true.
- [06:32]
Jason Schreier
Yeah.
- [06:32]
Griffin McRoy
I think in the press reset. Was it one of the press reset? Yeah. Gosh, that was wild.
- [06:38]
Jason Schreier
Old heads.
- [06:39]
Griffin McRoy
Remember when Polygon first launched, we did a video documentary series, a great video
- [06:44]
Jason Schreier
documentary series where Arthur gets a tattoo.
- [06:47]
Griffin McRoy
Arthur gets a tattoo during it. Yeah. And one of my things was like, as the news God, I was the deputy news editor under Brian Crescenti at the time. And I forget what the story was, but I was like trying to crack it. There's just a clip of me going, ah, fuck, Jason.
- [07:06]
Jason Schreier
And Chris Plant was extremely excited when I released a book called Press Reset and then like took over the Google results for Press Reset.
- [07:14]
Griffin McRoy
It is immersively snatched that SEO right up. Greatly appreciate it. This game is fan fucking tastic. It's so good.
- [07:21]
Jason Schreier
It's so good.
- [07:21]
Griffin McRoy
I really, I adored Shovel Knight and I find that the way this game kind of resonated with me is very similar to the way that Shovel Knight did in where like Shovel Knight was. What if we took this formula for like NES platformers, specifically DuckTales, which was a market that no one had really cornered yet, but then like modernized it, polished off a lot of the rough edges, added in the decades of kind of game dev, game design sort of techniques that had come across since DuckTales came out and just made this one fucking really incredible game. And they, they have done that again to a T with a game formula that has been iterated on by Nintendo a million times now, which is, which is Zelda, which is Link's Awakening. And I'm just so impressed with this studio and their ability to kind of like, I don't know, take something that's already amazing and really turn it into something.
- [08:21]
Ross Frostic
I mean, it has been 12 years, so they certainly took their time.
- [08:24]
Jason Schreier
Well, well, okay. In that time they also essentially there were these Shovel Knight DLCs that were essentially full games that were released for free to Shovel Knight.
- [08:31]
Ross Frostic
I know, I'm kidding.
- [08:32]
Jason Schreier
Just say. You know what's funny about that? Nintendo. I think one of the reasons they're the best, they're number one top tier video game company is because of their chemistry. Because they have longevity and they keep people, they retain people and those people work together and just build up this trust and just kind of rapport with one another. And I think Yacht Club did the same thing here. And actually one of the problems with Mina's development, I wrote this big story about it a few months ago for Bloomberg was that they wound up splitting the team into two and one team, like the founders and a couple other people worked on this Shovel Knight 3D game while the other team worked on Mina. That did not work out. Cost them a couple of years. And then they merged everyone together and you can see the results because now they have that just kind of like core team working together again. And this is a team of people who all left Wayforward together way back in 2000. I think it was 2012 or 2013. And they've all been working together. One of the reasons they all left Wayforward back in the day to start Yacht Club is because they got sick of being moved around from place to place and they wanted to all keep working together. And they've worked together on all the shelving and now on this. And I think it really shows that these people just like know how to work well together and are all just like on top of their craft.
- [09:44]
Griffin McRoy
It's awesome. There's so many cases of indie studios having like a hit that, that they were super duper passionate about and worked on for a long time. Their like big breakout first title and then their second game, for whatever reason, whether it's like bloat or over ambition or just, or just like odds, like
- [10:00]
Ross Frostic
the odds you're gonna get another hit. Crazy.
- [10:03]
Griffin McRoy
They just don't capture the lightning in a bottle. And it's interesting to hear that yacht club almost kind of fell into that pitfall by splitting up the party a little bit.
- [10:12]
Jason Schreier
Yeah, well, what happens is when you have a success, you just like instinctively you want to grow from it. You want to be like, we can do multiple things, we can be ambitious, we can do. We have all these crazy ideas, we want to pursue them all. And sometimes you just have to kind of stick together and do what's best. They also thought Mina was going to be a side project. They thought it was going to be a one year small scale thing. And the game just kept blowing up and just growing as it evolved over time, which I think also contributed to why it took so long.
- [10:38]
Christopher Thomas Plant
I want to talk a little bit about the Zelda stuff really quick because I want to give people an idea of what the game is. And I think Zelda is a great way into the game, whether you think it is or isn't like it. The top level thing where I think we can all agree this is very Zelda in nature and specifically link between worlds is you are dropped into this kind of central town and said, you need to go out and fix these generators. And they are in four different directions, really more than that directions. And by going out in northwest or southeast, you're going to discover dungeons, basically Zelda style dungeons. But the big difference, and this is where I think, Jason, you have a feeling of this is more like a puzzle platformer, is where a Zelda game, you'll go into a dungeon and get a new item and it's all about using that item. The dungeon itself is the thing that changes. So the way that the floors work because you can burrow and dig, or the way the enemy dynamics work, or the way that the flow of movement across the spaces works, that is what you are learning and adapting to per dungeon.
- [11:47]
Ross Frostic
Yeah.
- [11:47]
Griffin McRoy
Notably there's not the weapons.
- [11:48]
Ross Frostic
Right. There's no gear gating in this game. You can go to any dungeon in effectively any order technically because you could theoretically grind the needed currency to access any dungeon at the very beginning of the game. There's no gear gating where what there is is the like Metroid Brainia style. Oh, I now see how I can use the things in my current equipment to manipulate the world in ways that are unexpected. Like, oh, I can actually get a long jump. Even though they never gave me an item that allows me to long jump. Technically, if I combine this sub weapon with this trinket or whatever, suddenly I can get across bigger gaps. So the game is very creative in that sense. Whereas if you look at most Zelda games except for Link Between Worlds, they are pretty relatively rigid or I guess Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, that's where Zelda is going. But earlier Zelda games, pretty rigid in terms of the order you had to play them in.
- [12:42]
Griffin McRoy
There are a ton of upgrades, there's like a ton of shit to find and there's a whole sort of Souls esque system of enemies drop bones. And then when you hit certain amounts, you could upgrade these different stats. And you're also spending those bones on these trinkets which are sort of like hollow knight style badges or passive abilities, basically. Yeah, passive abilities that you can kind of like change your build and customize. And there's different weapons that you use. It's not like Link just has a sword. There's like five different weapons that you're kind of upgraded. So there's like a lot of different ways that are very kind of RPG y where you are feeling this constant progression. But none of it is like. But you have to get this thing before you can go and do you know this one section?
- [13:24]
Ross Frostic
Yeah, Jason, is that where you see the distinction?
- [13:27]
Jason Schreier
I wouldn't even call it a puzzle platformer. I would call it just a platform, like an action platformer. Because there aren't really any puzzles. They're just kind of like new mechanics that you just learn how to deal with and get to know. And I think the Zelda comparisons, they make you think that each dungeon is going to give you some elaborate, just kind of winding labyrinth with a bunch of keys and block puzzles you have to solve. And that's not what this game is. It's closer to Shovel tonight than anything. Or like a traditional Mario platformer in that. Hey, now you're in the. I don't want to spoil future mechanics, but I'll talk about the first one that most people will do, which is the Crypt. So you get to the Crypt and it's this undead themed dungeon and biome and there's a whole area leading up to the dungeon. And then you get to the dungeon and it's just gradually introducing new mechanics. So it'll be like, hey, here's a statue. And then there's a head in another screen that you have to carry to fill out the statue. But as long as you're carrying the head, you'll be chased by a ghost kind of animal. Well, dog style. And that ghost will try to kill you unless you put down the head along the way. So you have to kind of find the balance between when you're going to carry it and when you're not. And so that to me feels more like a traditional platformer mechanic that is just mapped on this kind of Zelda links awakening, link between world perspective and the action. And the jumping feels like link's awakening or links between world. But the rhythm of the game does not, the structure of the game does not. In the second area, for example, I mean, it's just like a lot of water themed stuff. So you have to learn how to deal with water mechanics. But again, it's not puzzles, it's just kind of platforming execution and learning mechanic and then mastering that mechanic.
- [15:00]
Griffin McRoy
Yeah, it's more exploration based, I would say, than puzzle based. There's very few moments where you're really. And honestly I was looking, I spent a lot of time early in Mina the Hollower looking for stuff I assumed was going to be there. And I think that that was a thing that kind of carried on which is really an issue with my own sort of expectations for what the game was going to be when really it has more in common with a banjo kazooie style. Here's a big checklist. There's 40 fucking things hidden in this part of the world. And if you really look really closely and you really take your time and explore and dig at every little hole that you see, you will find all that stuff. You will get stronger. And you need to get stronger because the game will also kick your ass up and down the street for a while until you start to get some of this stuff, which I also kind of appreciate.
- [15:52]
Ross Frostic
That first dungeon to me didn't feel like a puzzle platformer. It didn't feel like a platformer for that matter. It felt like bloodborne. Like when you first start playing and you have no kit whatsoever and you're just trying to eek out a win. It really feels like bloodborne. As the game progresses and you have more control over your build and things like that, it starts feeling like a link between worlds or those sorts of games, like just more exploration, more character control. But early on you, you are. It's really punishing. I do want to mention this is a good opportunity. The game in the settings has like a crapload of settings that you can change regarding game speed, regarding how much health you have, regarding how much bones the enemies drop.
- [16:33]
Jason Schreier
Do you want the screen to spin the entire time while you play?
- [16:36]
Griffin McRoy
It's fully, fully Goldeneye 64 level, like insane. You can make Mina be 16 times bigger than normal and move at. After I beat the game, I went through and tried turning on everything and then tried to play it. And it is unplayable. That is how bad it is.
- [16:53]
Jason Schreier
Well, there's a thing called barf mode that literally makes it unplayable because it's just like you can have Nina jump an infinite number of times until she's off the screen, and you could just play the game with her just jumping off, like, above the screen.
- [17:05]
Ross Frostic
That's so funny.
- [17:07]
Griffin McRoy
But the power curve is, I think, elegant enough that, I don't know, you spend so much time getting your ass kicked. I found this mini dungeon really early on where you can go in and rescue someone, but you have to spend some of your healing vials to get into the dungeon in the first place. And I just kept getting killed over and over and over again. But I was like, I bet I can do. I bet I can do this. And after enough tries and finding, like, a trinket or two that, like, helped me stay alive a little bit longer, eking that out was, like, so satisfying. So, so, so rewarding.
- [17:37]
Ross Frostic
I think it does the silksong thing that you have to remember, remind yourself while you're playing. If you hit a wall like that where you're dying, dying, dying, it's really fine to come back. In fact, you will just have so much of a better time if you come back in an hour when you've gotten another healing thing or whatever it is. It's fine.
- [17:54]
Christopher Thomas Plant
I will also say it is infinitely easier than silksong. Like, if you hear that, don't let that scare you off. You mentioned the combat fresh and the bloodborne comparison. That's probably a good chance to talk about the weapons. What weapon did everybody here use? Because they're quite different.
- [18:10]
Griffin McRoy
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I use the whip for most of it. When you start the game, it lets you pick from, like, three of the five different weapons, and then you'll unlock the rest as you play. And the whip just felt so having the range was really great because you can only take a couple of hits. Like, bloodborne. You keep making the bloodborne comparison. I think the most apt sort of part of that is that you have these healing vials that you use in the vein of estus flask or whatever. But, like, bloodborne, you can only recover health after you attack enemies. When you attack enemies, you collect what's called plasma, which determines how much the vials will heal you for. So if you just play super conservatively and you don't get in There, then your healing vials aren't going to heal you for very much and you're going to die just via entropy. The game really asks you to be aggressive and get in there, which is really smart because otherwise I think this kind of like top down action platformer style combat wouldn't be that engaging. Like the combat in Link's Awakening is not exciting or like particularly challenging in any way. But this one mechanic is enough to make you think like, oh shit, I just got hit. I better get in there and hit them right back or else I'm not
- [19:27]
Ross Frostic
gonna the dodging as well. You can go underground in the middle of combat. It's certainly more. There's more going on than links.
- [19:33]
Griffin McRoy
Yeah, sure.
- [19:34]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Jason, what weapon did you use the shield for?
- [19:37]
Jason Schreier
Most of it. Don't sleep on the shield. The shield. Because you can do this. Okay. So the shield is very short range. So you think of it as like, oh, this isn't nearly as cool as the whip. This isn't nearly as helpful. But if you use it you can get this kind of parry and if you attack at the right time, you'll parry an enemy's attack, which is extremely useful and more powerful than it seems. But I played around with all of them. I mean I played the game twice. I'm like almost done with the second playthrough with an item shuffler on. So all the items are in different locations. Maybe I could talk about that a little bit later. But so I played around with all of them and I find the shield actually to be the coolest one. Although I'm also partial to the daggers.
- [20:15]
Ross Frostic
Yeah, I use the daggers. That was, that was my preferred and I. Well, so I would switch between daggers and whip depending on the situation. But the daggers were nice for just like run of the mill normal enemies. And then if I was against the boss and I needed that safety of range, I would switch the whip.
- [20:32]
Christopher Thomas Plant
I use the weapon that I never used in these games, which is the hammer. I started with the whip, found the hammer, immediately hated it.
- [20:39]
Ross Frostic
Yeah, I hated it.
- [20:41]
Christopher Thomas Plant
I can't, I don't want to deal with like having to go find a place to change it. And then I don't even know when I started to love having this hammer. The hammer. You one, you can charge it up, deal an extremely damaging blow, but also you can dodge while loading that charge. So you do kind of a dodge
- [20:58]
Griffin McRoy
roll fully monster hunter style. Like really, really? Yeah.
- [21:02]
Christopher Thomas Plant
But the other thing that you can do to really kind of like spice up your combat is the Trinkets, you'll be able to collect more and more of them and they can have offensive and defensive capabilities. So I got trinkets where I could burrow longer. I could create poison paths wherever I burrowed. And when I came out of a burrow, it exploded wherever I blew up. So I would burrow around, create a poison path in front of me, pop up, knock people back, and then as they came to me, I would have the charge ready and I would deliver the hammer.
- [21:37]
Griffin McRoy
Cool.
- [21:37]
Christopher Thomas Plant
And like that. You can come up with that. And it wants you to come up with your own style of combat is wild. There is so much going on in terms of the depth of the combat in this little game.
- [21:48]
Jason Schreier
Yeah, there's a trinket with an air dash ability that is my favorite by far. There's also, man, there's some hidden synergies with the trinket, including. I won't spoil anything here, but if you equip endgame, if you get towards the end of the game and you have all of your trinket upgrades, I think you can equip six of them max. And if you equip six specific trinkets, you unlock a whole new mode and it changes. It's crazy. Yeah. You know what I'm talking about, Griffin.
- [22:18]
Griffin McRoy
It's a totally different thing. Yeah, I 100% in it, mostly because, one, it's amazing and two, it's just really fun to go around and find all that stuff. And the game does a great job of communicating okay in this area. Like, you're missing these three things and you kind of start to get an idea of what kind of stuff you have to look for. And yeah, finding those synergies and putting together the strategy really is a super rewarding kind of gameplay loop that I am not used to this type of game really offering.
- [22:53]
Jason Schreier
You're not used to games being this good is the problem.
- [22:56]
Griffin McRoy
Yeah, I guess so. The game also, we haven't talked at all about sort of the aesthetic. Like, the game looks fantastic.
- [23:02]
Jason Schreier
And the music, Holy shit, the music is spectacular. Oh, my God. Knocking on the door.
- [23:07]
Griffin McRoy
The design is, at first I thought like sort of Game Boy color, because the Game Boy color had like that very limited. Like each sprite only had like three colors in its pixel art, and so they had to kind of work very minimalist, but you still get like a lot of detail with that stuff. What was it? What was the comparison?
- [23:23]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Neo Geo color.
- [23:24]
Griffin McRoy
Definitely Neo Geo color.
- [23:25]
Ross Frostic
Like a Wonderswan, maybe?
- [23:27]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Yeah.
- [23:27]
Griffin McRoy
Yeah, it's definitely more high def than a Game boy color game, but just really gorgeous to look at. And the music's spectacular too. And the vibe is also just like kinda. Kinda creepy. I thought for maybe because the first level is like a big graveyard level, I was like, oh, it really is like a bloodborne kind of horror style type thing. But the game goes other places. But the whole time there's this whole air of like something is terribly, terribly wrong here and they do not shy away from that. The game's story goes some really fucking buck wild places and is very, very memorable, I think, for that.
- [24:04]
Ross Frostic
Chris, I know you in particular had some pathing issues when exploring the map. The open nature of the map and some backtracking issues as well. I wanted to dig into that a little bit because I know you kind of struggled.
- [24:18]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Yeah, this for me is the one downside of the game. And I told this to fresh before we even hopped on. This is that thing where you like it so much that when you come across the sandpaper on your toes, you're like, why is this here? But the by being totally open, you can go in any direction. And I think the structure that the game expects you to play as and let me know if you all agree with this is each dungeon actually is two dungeons. There's a midway point where you will fight a boss and it is allowing you to go back, spend some of your credits in the town and then come back. That's what it's wanting you to do. I did not understand this until about halfway through the game. So what would happen is like I would get to the midway point, I would reach a dead end and I would think, oh, well, I don't know which way I'm going. I will head back. And then a problem that happens if you do not kind of figure out your pathing while you're in the thick of it is you start having to look at every damn wall trying to figure out what you missed. An example of this, and this is like not a spoiler and also, if anything it'll help you is you come across a puzzle in a bayou where you turn these kind of like screws to raise and lower water. And I did that. I went through it. I went and fought a boss. I found a mirror. Mirrors are important for various reasons that we may not sp. And then I found a room that seemed to show that like, oh, I could keep moving on, but I couldn't figure out how do I get through it. It was almost like it was throwing me into a new biome. Well, surely I needed to Figure that out to get to the generator that I needed to go solve. So I end up spending an hour. Do I go back into the other biome to find a way there? Do I need to figure out a way to play with the electricity that's zapping across the screen? Do I need a different utility? There are these special powers which we'll talk about. Any of this. Will any of this work? The answer is no. What I needed to do was actually go back to the screw puzzle. Five screens back, turn a different screw, go a different direction. And that kept me on the righteous path. And there's a few times in the game where this happens where it seems like it's trying to tell you, go this way. In reality, it's go back to a puzzle and discover that that puzzle has multiple ways for it to be solved that can keep you going forward.
- [26:45]
Ross Frostic
Okay.
- [26:45]
Christopher Thomas Plant
It's not often, but the problem is because the cold.
- [26:48]
Ross Frostic
Okay, stop, stop right there. Because this is perfect timing for my story.
- [26:52]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Okay, okay, okay, okay.
- [26:53]
Ross Frostic
We teased it in the cold open and here it comes. I spent the weekend this past weekend upstate upstate New York. And while we were up there, it was a very rainy weekend. The weather was terrible this weekend and we were looking for indoor activities to do. And what we found was Howe Caverns, which from where we were staying is about a two hour drive north of where we were staying and in, in heavy, heavy rain. So we're like, well, I guess this is something to do. So we go to Howe Caverns.
- [27:24]
Griffin McRoy
You took your child on an impromptu two hour rainy road trip followed by,
- [27:31]
Ross Frostic
followed by wild, followed by taking a giant elevator down about 20 stories into the earth to do a 90 minute cave tour which involves like water and a boat that you get on to go through the cave. It's very well paved, it's safe. But he's four, so like keep that in mind. Okay. So that happens. So I'm in the cave, I'm coming up in the elevator. As this cave is going on, the way we've been cajoling him to get through it is, hey, there's a gift shop at the end. Of course, he's a four year old, he loves gift shops, naturally. So he's incredibly amped about the gift shop. We're going up in the elevator, we go to the gift shop. He now the gift shop is like large and it's got tons of shit in it that 4 year olds would absolutely love. And now he's obsessing over, what does he get from the gift shop? It's like a huge mental anguish situation. And I'm standing over him like, what do you think about this? What do you think about this? And while this is going on, Chris Plant sends me literally 16 text messages about getting through the open ended nature of fucking Mina the Hollow. And at some point during these text messages, I'm trying to like politely convey to him that maybe now is not the time. And it starts light. It starts with, hey, I think you go down here. And then I say, uh, yeah, it might be over there, but I'm actually out and about right now, so I don't have time.
- [29:01]
Griffin McRoy
And then that's enough for me. That, hey, Russ, that would have been enough for me.
- [29:05]
Ross Frostic
Right? Most people would see out and about and be like, I think maybe I'll.
- [29:09]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Nope.
- [29:10]
Ross Frostic
Chris Plant plows through and at one point he sends a few more and he's talking about how frustrated he is about getting around. And I say, okay, have fun. You would think that would be the end.
- [29:23]
Griffin McRoy
No, certainly not.
- [29:25]
Ross Frostic
Another screenshot of I'm stuck here.
- [29:31]
Christopher Thomas Plant
I just care about, you know, when you love someone, it's like you can't fully experience things without their involvement. I guess. So I need to see this through your eyes.
- [29:41]
Griffin McRoy
In Chris defense, I had definitely a lot of moments, specifically when I was playing cleanup. Like I had gotten to close to where the final boss was and I wanted to 100% it, but some of this shit was just like, what Chris said is super true. You will find a solution to a puzzle and then you'll do it and then you will kind of forget about it, not realizing that. But that solution is also the solution to six other hidden little things. And there were many times where I was like, man, I wish this game was out so I could find a hint or something online. It is fairly opaque. But I also, I don't know, I also kind of like that. I am glad that I didn't have the option to do that because it forced me to kind of try to puzzle.
- [30:24]
Ross Frostic
Yeah, I mean, as you guys know, I'm obsessed with that and I know it's not for everyone. And I would also add that, like Chris's experience, while valid, 100% valid, it's also not an experience that really anyone else would have because short of the Internet shutting down forever, anyone that gets that frustrated would probably just look something up, which is fine. I don't think that's necessarily like, I, you know, it's. I think my rubric for this is like, is it possible to figure the game out without Help online. I think the answer is yes. I think most of us were able to do it. But I do agree for people that hit that friction and don't have the patience to, like, throw themselves at it, you have the option. Just look it up. It's fine.
- [31:06]
Griffin McRoy
That area was also my least favorite area for the buy.
- [31:09]
Jason Schreier
Water areas are always the worst when you are trying to 100% the game. I can't. I didn't have that experience. Chris. That sounds frustrating, but I can't speak to the main campaign part of it because I didn't find much frustration there. But when you are trying to 100% in it and get everything, you can actually get this ability, this skull that will glow different colors. It glows. It'll have. On your ui, you'll see this little skull and it'll glow blue when you're in a room next to a room with a secret in it, and it'll glow red when you're in a room with a secret in it, which is super helpful. And that helped me find everything in the game, except for, with one exception, where there was this one room to the west of OS X where, like, the skull glows red, but you actually need to activate something in a different screen in order to get the secret there. That was very interesting.
- [31:51]
Ross Frostic
That was not the only place you got stuck, Jason.
- [31:53]
Jason Schreier
Yeah, there were two.
- [31:54]
Ross Frostic
Okay.
- [31:54]
Jason Schreier
Two places. That's true. You got stuck in one of the same places. I did, too.
- [31:58]
Ross Frostic
Yeah.
- [31:58]
Jason Schreier
But I complained to the developers. Yeah. The kite was. That was stupid. That was me. Well, no. Okay. What happened was I messaged Russ and I was like, hey, with this kite, do you need, like, a special. Do you need a trinket to open it? And he was. Or to get it? And he was like, no, you don't need a trinket. And so for some reason in my head, I was like, oh, that means I don't need a sidearm either. But not so I didn't realize that Russ was being.
- [32:23]
Griffin McRoy
I think there's a few different ways to do the kite.
- [32:25]
Christopher Thomas Plant
I say this because this is someone who sent fresh 16 messages. Never send frush a message asking for a tip because he's the fucking riddle of the space. He's always like, if you know a plus three, then the riddle gives me kitty cat toy.
- [32:40]
Ross Frostic
It's because I want people to have that moment of discovery. I think that's the best part of these games.
- [32:44]
Christopher Thomas Plant
That's why I do it.
- [32:45]
Jason Schreier
I mean, for the most part, I found the game to be extremely fair and it felt like everything was justified. And the answer to most of the secrets is burrow. Like if you burrow you will find.
- [32:55]
Ross Frostic
Or just like really look at the screen very carefully.
- [32:58]
Jason Schreier
Yeah, yeah. Or like yeah, look for hidden cracks or look for symmetry. Like if, if one side of a room can be blown up, maybe the other side can too. Et cetera, et cetera. It's all just common sense stuff for the most part. But yeah, that. That sounds frustrating. Chris, I'm sorry you had that experience and had to Russ 20 times to that.
- [33:16]
Griffin McRoy
That was the hard. Russ, I'm sorry you had that.
- [33:18]
Jason Schreier
No kidding.
- [33:19]
Ross Frostic
I was.
- [33:20]
Jason Schreier
I mean going underground while. While playing Venus sounds pretty cool. Like did you want to burrow with your kid?
- [33:26]
Griffin McRoy
4 hours of rain driving for 90 minutes of 4 year old cave diving. I do feel like you set yourself up for kind of a stressful.
- [33:35]
Ross Frostic
Well, the alternative was an entire day at home.
- [33:39]
Griffin McRoy
Oh, don't get me wrong. No, you were not facing any.
- [33:42]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Before we wrap, I do want to hear Jason, you said early on you were going to explain the. The bonus weapon abilities. It works in a really interesting way in this game. How it incentivizes you to use these secondary weapons.
- [33:57]
Jason Schreier
Bonus. I was going to explain the randomizer.
- [34:00]
Christopher Thomas Plant
I don't think we've actually talked about the sidearm and the sidearms.
- [34:04]
Jason Schreier
Well, I mean some of them are. Yeah, the sidearms. They're two kind of subsets of things. You can get the sidearms which are basically like Castlevania weapons that you just equip in a separate screen and use a separate button to use. And there are a bunch of cool ones. There's the classic Castlevania axe and a dagger. And then there's crazy ones like a bike. And there's a fun little mini game that you can do in OSSEX with the bike too. Super cool. And yeah, the teleporting thing you mentioned where you throw this disc and then you teleport to it by pressing another button and then explode everything around you. Super cool. And then the trinkets we talked about earlier and some of those also give you special abilities in addition to everything else like the air dash and whatnot. What I was talking about earlier is the item shuffler which is after you beat the game. Guys familiar with randomizers like Zelda games,
- [34:51]
Griffin McRoy
Metroid games, all too well. Yeah, I've streamed a few Zelda games. Amazing.
- [34:54]
Jason Schreier
Yeah, those are so cool. And like watching the speedruns of them is incredibly fun. And this game has a built in one so you don't even need a mod for it. After you beat the game, you can choose item shuffle on and that just like completely shuffles up every location of every item and upgrade in the game to a hilarious degree. So like normally the game opens with this ship crash and then the captain of the ship gives you some vials and is like here, these will help you heal. And so to get through the early game you need those to be able to heal. But in the item shuffler he'll give you anything depending on what the seed has you give it. So like I got, I think it was a weapon upgrade or something, maybe like a key. I don't remember exactly what it was, but he just gave me that and I was like, shit, I have to go through like the first two hours of the game without healing until I find a vial somewhere.
- [35:39]
Griffin McRoy
Yeah.
- [35:40]
Jason Schreier
And it took me a while, which is extremely fun. Like because once you've mastered the game, it's really cool to go through. There's also new game plus and there's also like you can play the whole game in mirror mode where it's all flipped. You can play. There's a set of mods. So in addition to having 200 something mods, there are also these kind of collections of them. So like you can choose. There's one called Ura Mina which is a reference to like an old classic Ura Zelda type thing. And basically it just chooses like 40 mods or so that make the game tougher. And so that can be the tough mode. And you don't even have to go through all 200 on a granular level and pick them all yourself. You can just choose this category. The other one is there's another one called Barf mode that I mentioned earlier. There's a shuffle mode, the level of detail they put into these mods into everything of this game. I think the best way to sum up this game is just the word meticulous. Everything in it is just so clever and well thought out and just so much attention to detail paid to even the tiniest little things, including the mods, which is very satisfying.
- [36:44]
Ross Frostic
I think the studios also, and we've seen this with Shovel Knight and then the DLCs after. Very, very smart in the way they reuse the assets they've created in clever ways that like enhance, like turns this into. I mean I don't think they're stretching it, but it's if you're getting 100% at least 30 hour game. Right? least.
- [37:01]
Griffin McRoy
Yeah.
- [37:02]
Ross Frostic
So that's pretty Amazing. And then once you beat it, you have all this extra stuff where you're going through. It would not surprise me if they might have already announced this. I don't know where, hey, you can play through the game now as a new character or something like that. So I could see this game having a lot of life and in turn funding the development, easily funding the development of their next project, which obviously would
- [37:24]
Griffin McRoy
be a bigger deal. I think it's going to be huge. I think it's a goatee contender up there for me. I was so, so, so deeply into this game.
- [37:34]
Jason Schreier
I mean, it's number one. I'm Metacritic right now.
- [37:36]
Ross Frostic
And Jason, in your reporting you said that the number they were trying to hit is 200k units sold.
- [37:42]
Jason Schreier
Yeah, I don't even think that's accurate anymore. I'll do a new story on Friday, but that was a number that they kind of threw out before pricing it at $20. I think they'll need to sell more than 200,000.
- [37:53]
Ross Frostic
Do you think it was more than that at the point?
- [37:55]
Jason Schreier
Yeah, I think for them to be so. Yacht Club is entirely independent. So this game was made entirely by their funding, the studio themselves based on what they made from Shovel Knight over the years and Shovel Knight and all the other games they've worked. Like they publish other games and work with codevs and stuff. None of them have really been hits other than Shovel Knights. They definitely need this to be a hit otherwise they'll have to downsize or find outside funding or something like that. And they have a Runway. I don't know when it ends. And they need this to sell X number by then. I think they'll be fine. I mean, like I said, this is number one on Metacritic right now at the 93, right over Forza, Pokemon, Resident Evil, Mugenics. So they'll be fine, I think, unless people really don't want a Game Boy style game. But to your question, I mean, since it's only 20 bucks, I think they have to sell a lot more. I was talking to Sean Velasco, the head of the studio last week for a story that'll be up on Bloomberg this Friday. And he was like, look, really, I want to sell a million copies and I want to sell a million copies like within the next, like soon. Ish, like within a short time frame. I think that's very doable. 20 bucks makes this such a no brainer for people. Like if it was even, even 25, it would be like, oh, okay, I don't know. But $20 for like, this quality of game, it's gotta be.
- [39:07]
Ross Frostic
They're looking at Silksong, they're looking at Hollow Knight and realizing clearly, you'll see
- [39:13]
Jason Schreier
in this story that I did. But I'll just kind of. I'll spoil it a little bit early for you guys. I'll give you guys the exclusive, which is basically, the yacht club team met last month, and they had picked a release date, and they were like, okay, we're all set to go. Finally, we gotta talk about the price.
- [39:27]
Ross Frostic
And fucking crazy that that's when they were talking about the price.
- [39:30]
Griffin McRoy
That's great. That is insane. Compared to these sort of like. I mean, we'll talk about the Destiny stuff later on, but just like, the AAA world of, like, that's the whole first fucking thing. That's the first thing.
- [39:42]
Jason Schreier
Well, in Triple A, you don't need to talk about the price.
- [39:44]
Griffin McRoy
It's just, how can we make a game that we can charge $90? Like, that's the fucking.
- [39:48]
Jason Schreier
So they're like, we got to talk about the price. And they had kind of assumed so on Kickstarter you could get a copy for 20 bucks. And they assumed that would be the cheaper price and then they would go for like, maybe 30, maybe 35. But they looked at Silksong and they also all got together. So basically what happened was they got together for this meeting, and a lot of them expected to be like, all right, we're gonna have to debate this, like, 30, 35. But every single one of them thought on their own, this should be 20 bucks. And they all got in the room and there was no debate and no argument, because every single person in there was like, this needs to be $20. And they ultimately figured, which I think is true, that this will make more money at $20 than it would at $30.
- [40:25]
Ross Frostic
It's got it. The people that normally wait for the sale at 30 will not wait for the sale.
- [40:31]
Jason Schreier
And it also feels so good, I think, from a consumer perspective, to be like, I am giving such a little amount of money to support this independent studio that is so dedicated to their craft and cares so much and is willing to just sell this for so cheap. It just feels like a good. And to get that much value for your price, to me, it seems like it's a brilliant move, especially compared to. And then you have Microsoft being like, hey, outer worlds 2 is going to be $80. Actually, about that. Never mind. So it's like, such a contrast. And, yeah, I think it's a brilliant move.
- [41:05]
Griffin McRoy
Yeah. Can't recommend this one enough. I really, I think it's for just about everyone.
- [41:10]
Jason Schreier
It's pretty special game.
- [41:11]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Yeah.
- [41:12]
Griffin McRoy
Yeah. Let's take a break. There's some big news to talk about and so we're gonna get into that with Jason just, just after this break.
- [41:22]
Ross Frostic
This episode of the Besties is sponsored by Proton vpn. Okay. You know when you're like on the Internet and suddenly every ad you start seeing is stuff that you like previously googled and it like creeps you out or like you're traveling and the thing you're trying to watch on some streaming device is blocked. Good news, there's ProtonVPN. Proton VPN is a secure VPN service designed for people who want to prioritize their digital privacy and security. It keeps what you do online private and lets you access the Internet. Like it should work. Open, secure and on your terms. Unlike most VPNs, Proton is backed by strong European privacy laws and years of expertise, creating a safer, faster and more open Internet for everyone. And good news, it's easy to get started. Right now, Proton VPN is offering our listeners 70% off a two year plan. When you go to Proton vpn.com besties, that's P R O-T-O-N V P N.com besties. For 70% off your two year plan, that's protonvpn.com besties.
- [42:38]
Griffin McRoy
I didn't know that today was Dragon Quest day.
- [42:41]
Jason Schreier
Oh yeah, it's Dragon Quest Day, baby.
- [42:43]
Griffin McRoy
Being unplugged is again. I talk about this a lot. It's just a wonderful surprise.
- [42:47]
Ross Frostic
Your slime tattoo didn't tell you giving
- [42:50]
Griffin McRoy
shit about the games industry for one hour a week. When I record the besties, it's just like every day is like opening up a special little present. Because I don't know that they're announcing Dragon Quest Shit. And I love Dragon Quest.
- [43:01]
Jason Schreier
But the announcement today was that Dragon Quest XII was rebooted and starting scratch.
- [43:07]
Griffin McRoy
Yeah. So what is the. Obviously they announced Dragon Quest XII with like the most bare bones. Here's what the logo of it was.
- [43:15]
Ross Frostic
People running around. Subtitle.
- [43:17]
Jason Schreier
Okay, well, okay, I mean the context, they had originally announced Dragon Quest 12 like five years ago. A long time ago it was like 2021 or something. And today they announced, hey, about that. We've rebooted it and restarted from scratch. And now it has a new subtitle. And here's a little bit of footage. This game is forever away, which I did not expect. I expected them to be like, hey, Dragon Quest 12. It's almost done. It's coming out next year. I was totally caught off guard by them saying it before rebooted.
- [43:44]
Ross Frostic
That's crazy.
- [43:45]
Christopher Thomas Plant
The fans, they just want more Dragon Quest. Keep it as Dragon Questy as possible. In the point, like when they announced the original version this five years ago, people were like, oh no, it's dark outside and there's fire. I don't want grim dark Dragon Quest. This is going to be too moody. And then they're like, got it, got it, got it. We're going to reboot it. You're going to get all that colors right back. And then all I see on Twitter or what is it, blue sky this morning is people being like, I don't know, that guy looks pretty tired. I don't think I'm really into it.
- [44:14]
Griffin McRoy
He does look tired. They used the Dragon Quest Tired eyes preset, which really took me by surprise when they sort of revealed this guy. It's Dragon Quest 12. Beyond Dreams, very important. Which is.
- [44:26]
Jason Schreier
Well, that's what he's saying.
- [44:26]
Griffin McRoy
I mean, I don't know, man.
- [44:28]
Jason Schreier
Beyond dreams into like. Also he has the broccoli hair, which
- [44:34]
Griffin McRoy
brought the cool fade on the sides.
- [44:36]
Jason Schreier
This is like the Gen Z Dragon
- [44:38]
Griffin McRoy
Quest See Dragon Quest guy, I think it was Dragon Quest VI was the one that had a dream world. I don't know. I've played all these fucking things and I can't keep them straight. So I'm wondering if it has something to do with that. But I don't think we have any kind of plot details. They just showed off like, hey, there's a cool lady with a robot side chick and side chick. Side chick side chick. A robot robot side chick and a motor.
- [45:04]
Jason Schreier
One of them you can. So it makes sense that you would also be able to have a side check. Also, again, he's Gen Z. So like they have all sorts of ideas about polyamorous relationships.
- [45:13]
Griffin McRoy
They also announced sort of with again, just kind of a logo reveal. There's a new Dragon Quest Monsters game quote coming soon. And Dragon Quest 11 is coming to Switch.
- [45:24]
Ross Frostic
Yeah, the notable.
- [45:25]
Jason Schreier
It's already on Switch.
- [45:25]
Ross Frostic
So it's already on Switch. It's a definitive edition dragon, I think that's right. Notably, they did not announce an upgrade path for the Switch 1 version. So if you already own it on Switch 1, there's a good shot that you're just gonna have to pony up another love.
- [45:41]
Griffin McRoy
Love Dragon Quest xi. I do not know that I'm going to want to buy it at Switch 2 price to play It's a pretty
- [45:48]
Ross Frostic
bold move by Square. I think they just did a sale on the original Switch one version, like, two days ago. And so if anyone bought it, then they might be kicking themselves. But what are you gonna do?
- [46:01]
Christopher Thomas Plant
I mean, somebody's gotta pay for this new Dragon Quest, you know?
- [46:04]
Griffin McRoy
Yeah, that's the thing. It's not like it was. I played it all the way through on Switch.
- [46:08]
Jason Schreier
That's like the first time I played it.
- [46:10]
Griffin McRoy
It's fine. It works good.
- [46:11]
Jason Schreier
You can even. You can play it in the 2D mode and then it runs great on Switch.
- [46:15]
Griffin McRoy
Right. You don't need all the fidelity. You don't need the HDR shit if you just play it in pixel art mode. I'm excited for more Dragon Quest, but I don't know, man. My JRPGs have been really letting me down lately in the, like, anticipation department because it's like, when is Persona 4 revival coming out? When's Persona 6 gonna fucking revive?
- [46:34]
Ross Frostic
Wait, there's another person. Persona 4 coming out.
- [46:37]
Jason Schreier
There's a Persona 4 remake coming.
- [46:39]
Ross Frostic
Oh, the remake.
- [46:40]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Yeah.
- [46:40]
Griffin McRoy
And then 6 is that they announced with again, like, 15 seconds of gameplay footage. And, you know, I don't know what it is. I mean, I know that these games are enormous and take forever to make, but, like, I don't know why the drip feed is quite as. You can't just show me 15 seconds of the guy running around the city and play Tell me, boy. Like, that's good, but I want. I think I need a little bit more than that.
- [47:08]
Jason Schreier
Yeah, my question. And I actually emailed Square to ask them this. My question is, when did they reboot it? Like, are we talking two years ago they rebooted it or like this week they rebooted it?
- [47:16]
Ross Frostic
Because, yeah, it could be like a Metroid Prime 4 situation.
- [47:19]
Jason Schreier
Exactly.
- [47:19]
Griffin McRoy
I don't know why this is. It's crazy to me that game companies are so hesitant to talk about that. That they are so hesitant to talk about the. I was always. I was really impressed when, like, IDTech. IDTech. ID tech came out and like, sort of said, like, okay, Doom. I was at the Quakecon where they, like, sort of revealed this is what Doom 4 is now after years of it being kind of like, in development hell. And here's all the shit that we didn't get right. And check it out. Now you're gonna just chainsaw these guys in half. We fucked up trying to make it some other thing, and now it's just. And the response to that was insane. Like, people were crazy. About that. And I think to this day, people hold that game and sort of Doom in very high regard now, knowing the hell that it went through to get there. And it seems like there are so many developers and publishers out there who think of that as, like, some great failing or that they have wasted your time or they have wasted the. The. The shareholders sort of like, time and investment, when really it just means, like, hey, we are actually working much harder on this thing.
- [48:21]
Ross Frostic
I mean, they did waste a lot of time and money working on Metroid Prime 4 before they rebooted it. And in. In term, like.
- [48:27]
Griffin McRoy
And then they. Yeah, that's obviously a bad example, because then the one that came out was bad example.
- [48:32]
Ross Frostic
But even in good examples, like, it's them admitting fault on, like, hey, we spent four years on this thing, and most of it's not gonna get used
- [48:41]
Griffin McRoy
for a legacy thing like Dragon Quest, like Doom, like Metroid, if that game had been good. Like, I think it's more important to say, like, hey, this thing is. We can't put something out that's not, like, good. That's not good enough. That's not up to what people are expecting. And so we went back to the well, and we. I don't know. There are so many situations essential.
- [49:01]
Jason Schreier
They said, hey, it wasn't working out. We rebooted it.
- [49:03]
Ross Frostic
This is more candid, both in the Nintendo situation with Metroid and this way more candid than you traditionally see from Japanese studios. So things are changing.
- [49:12]
Jason Schreier
Also, for what it's worth, I think that with Japanese studios, it comes as a surprise because there isn't the same kind of reporting there. Like, if this happened in the west, it would probably get out. It would probably leak in some way.
- [49:22]
Ross Frostic
They'd have staff turnover and people would be talking to Jason on the phone.
- [49:26]
Jason Schreier
So get some text messages.
- [49:28]
Christopher Thomas Plant
The other part of the news. How are y' all doing? How are y' all feeling about the Destiny news?
- [49:34]
Griffin McRoy
So I think it was last week, like, right after we recorded that Bungie came out with their, I guess, weekly update and said, hey, so the patch that comes out on June 6th for Destiny 2 is the last update that we are releasing for Destiny 2. And then development up, you know, ongoing development on Destiny 2 is done.
- [49:57]
Ross Frostic
Good night, sweet prince.
- [49:58]
Griffin McRoy
Literally, three paragraphs right in a. Which is already kind of shocking. There's so many shocking things about this one. Like, the comms from Destiny has had to be pretty thorough because the fan base expects a lot and wants to know everything that's kind of going on to Announce in a fucking, like, PR blast that big, like, so we're done. Bye. Thanks for playing that game for 65,000 hours. Bye.
- [50:28]
Jason Schreier
Do you still play it, Griffin?
- [50:30]
Griffin McRoy
So, I don't know. I played Final Shape and I played a couple of updates, like, after Final Shape.
- [50:34]
Jason Schreier
Oh, so you do still play. I mean, that's more recent. I haven't played.
- [50:38]
Ross Frostic
Stopped on Final Shape.
- [50:39]
Griffin McRoy
Okay. No, yeah. So I played through all of Final Shape, which was fucking spectacular, which was really, really great. Really. Like, I think there's a lot of people who think it should have stopped there. If you're going to stop it, stop it after this extremely exciting, cathartic, kind of polished way out of this whole story. But because the structure of that game was based on seasons and what's coming next, they kind of kept going along with it, even as the player base continued to kind of slough off.
- [51:16]
Jason Schreier
I mean, that's the fatal flaw, right? Is they announced this thing called the Final Shape, made everyone think it was the end, and then just kind of limped off with just like, hey, here's some more stuff, kind of.
- [51:25]
Ross Frostic
I mean, it was the end. Like, effectively, it was the end in terms of, like, significant updates.
- [51:29]
Jason Schreier
Yeah. I mean, I was talking about this with someone to Bungie, actually. I was like, it makes no sense. Like, why would you guys not just tease Destiny 3 at the end of that? And they were like, yeah, I mean, this is a problem. The problem. I actually. I just made a YouTube video about this. I'm a YouTube. I'm a YouTuber now, so, like. And subscribe. I just made a YouTube video video about this.
- [51:47]
Ross Frostic
What's your channel called?
- [51:48]
Griffin McRoy
Mr.
- [51:48]
Jason Schreier
Beast. It's called Jason. Jason. Yeah, it's called Mr. Beast. And check it out. I do all the games and games.
- [51:54]
Griffin McRoy
The games break.
- [51:56]
Jason Schreier
I'm going to give hundreds of thousands of dollars to everyone at Bungie.
- [51:59]
Griffin McRoy
To fucking Bungie.
- [52:00]
Jason Schreier
Yeah, it's Jason Dash Schreier. Check it out. Like, and subscribe. No, so I think what happened. I mean, my understanding of what happened is that, like, first of all, they had this project called Payback that was like a Destiny thing. It was kind of a third person Destiny Genshin impacty thing that Luke Smith was working on that got canceled around the time Final Shape came out. They really couldn't.
- [52:24]
Griffin McRoy
Was that because of the Destiny Mobile game that.
- [52:28]
Jason Schreier
It was because of other big, like, upending at Bungie. And I think that Destiny 3, like, Sony just didn't have the appetite to spend that kind of money out of Destiny 3. Like, that's we're talking 300, 400, $500 million before marketing for the next four.
- [52:44]
Griffin McRoy
I mean, the Paul McCartney is going to need like 10 million at the very end.
- [52:48]
Jason Schreier
But also you have to fund Marty o' Donnell's Congress campaign. So that's.
- [52:53]
Griffin McRoy
Is that real?
- [52:54]
Jason Schreier
That's really. He got endorsed by Trump.
- [52:55]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Oh, Griffin.
- [52:56]
Griffin McRoy
Oh, no, no, no.
- [52:58]
Christopher Thomas Plant
It's real bad.
- [53:00]
Jason Schreier
He is. A picture of him. You got to check out his X feed. It's already adult.
- [53:05]
Ross Frostic
Dude.
- [53:05]
Griffin McRoy
Oh, man. This is the opposite of a present. This is like. No, guys, guys. My detachment from the games industry is supposed to only be good. Finding out that fucking legendary game composer Marty o' Donnell is a fucking cheater.
- [53:21]
Jason Schreier
Griffin, I don't know if you know this, but the games industry is mostly bad news these days. So, yeah, I mean, I think Sony just didn't have the appetite for that kind of money in a market that is like increasingly harder, getting harder and harder every year. Nobody's making that, like significant profits off of spending budgets like that. The budgets are going up and the timelines are going up. And Sony has been burned a bunch of times with some of their investments
- [53:47]
Griffin McRoy
and bad moves, specifically by Bungie, I think.
- [53:50]
Jason Schreier
Well, you know what's really crazy? I talked about this in my video. So not only. So Bungie put Bungie aside. The amount they spent $3.6 billion buying Bungie, plus all the burn rate that they've been going through. So Bungie, I don't know if you guys know this. In 2016, Destiny 2 was delayed a year. And as a result of that delay, the guy who was running Bungie at the time was kind of asked to leave. Harold Ryan. Harold Ryan would go on to found a company called Probably Monsters that would start a studio called Fire Walk and to run a game at Firewalk, they would bring on this guy, Ryan Ellis, who was the Original director of Destiny 2 before the delay and kind of reboot happened on D2. And Ryan Ellis would direct at Firewalk a game called Concord. So this is like full circle here.
- [54:34]
Griffin McRoy
And again, just getting them from all. Getting Sony from all sides.
- [54:37]
Jason Schreier
So Sony has all these investments that have quite panned out and it's. It's.
- [54:42]
Griffin McRoy
Where does it. What was the story? What was the story? This is obviously, I think, pretty germane, but again, I'm. I'm pretty detached. What was the Sony losses? They like, put up like almost a billion dollars.
- [54:53]
Ross Frostic
Yeah.
- [54:53]
Jason Schreier
An impairment on Bungie. Yeah, I mean, that's. That could be a number of things. And when it comes to accounting. I think that the games press doesn't really know how to. How to handle that or what it actually means.
- [55:05]
Griffin McRoy
Yeah, sure.
- [55:05]
Ross Frostic
When.
- [55:05]
Jason Schreier
When. When a company writes. Writes off like investments into a game company, it can mean a lot of.
- [55:11]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Here's my question about the video games for you, Jason. What does this mean for Marathon? As somebody who loves going to Tau Ceti, does this mean, hey, we're actually going to focus what money we do have on this thing and try to make sure.
- [55:25]
Ross Frostic
And I do want to drop in a stat on Marathon before Jason jumps in the stat that I looked at the second they announced the Destiny news that they'd not be doing any more updates. Destiny at the time had more daily active users than Marathons did.
- [55:38]
Jason Schreier
Daily or concurrent on Steam?
- [55:41]
Ross Frostic
Concurrent. But I was looking at the averages per day. So it was.
- [55:44]
Jason Schreier
But on Steam specifically you're talking.
- [55:46]
Ross Frostic
It's Steam specifically. So granted they are on multiple platforms, but I was kind of extrapolating out.
- [55:50]
Griffin McRoy
That's so surprising. Yeah.
- [55:52]
Christopher Thomas Plant
A number going down versus number going up is also more important.
- [55:55]
Ross Frostic
I mean they're both going down. But the difference is this game that came out three months ago is lower than the game that came out 12 years ago and hasn't had an update and it year.
- [56:04]
Jason Schreier
So Bungie is definitely investing in Marathon. They have a big team on Marathon that is continuing. They've moved people off of Destiny onto the Marathon team. I don't know if they can recover. I don't know if they can get to the player base that that game needs to get to to be a success. But it's not like they're shutting down the game and shutting down the studio, but they're going to be.
- [56:26]
Ross Frostic
Yeah, I mean that's the question. It's like when does Sony lose all patience in Bungie as a student studio?
- [56:33]
Christopher Thomas Plant
That's true.
- [56:34]
Jason Schreier
Yeah. Destiny 2 is going to keep going just without any updates. Yeah. What they're going to do. So the current state of things is they have a big investment in Marathon. They're going to keep that going for at least the imminent future they're going to have. Right now people are pitching and prototyping new ideas there, including Destiny stuff and other stuff, but could pitch and wind up getting greenlit a new Destiny thing, whatever that looks like. I cannot imagine it would be Destiny 3, but certainly possible. Destiny 3 is not an active development, but it be.
- [57:02]
Ross Frostic
Could very well happy roguelike two years development.
- [57:06]
Griffin McRoy
It's such a. I understand why they would. I understand why they would be hesitant to invest the amount of money required to pay Paul McCartney his nut to like, make Destiny 3. But I have thought I've played thousands of hours of Destiny 2. It's one of my favorite games of all time. I think it's the tightest shooter ever made. Like, feeling like it's a great studio.
- [57:27]
Ross Frostic
Marathon's a great game too.
- [57:28]
Griffin McRoy
Great studio. There's so much talent and there's so many, so many stories of that talent being squandered going on these wild goose chases after. Oh, fuck, Overwatch is big. Quick do Overwatch. Oh, shit, Fortnite's big. We better do over. We better do Fortnite. Like, and. And betraying that incredible amount of like, talent and competence. And Sony not really sticking by. Or Activision or whoever was kind of like on top of things at the time, like, bailing at the first sign of like, oh, someone doesn't like this thing. I told you guys we should have done a Fortnite. Like, there's so much mismanagement and it's so. It's heartbreaking to me as both a fan of what Bungie does. Like, they have made some of my favorite games of all time and also of just a fan of Destiny 2 and Destiny in general and the world and the lore. It has been truly devastating to see the videos coming out of the, like, YouTube community. The creators, my name is BYF and you know, all the folks who, like, I would go to, like, watch their raid guides and shit. The BYF one is in particular pretty sad because, like, he would do these 10 hour explainer pieces on the lore of the world and, oh, I can't wait to find out what Sivu Arath is actually. And like, in three paragraphs they were like, that's. And that's it. It's fucking. It's so. There's nothing. It's purely sad. It's truly, truly, truly sad. And I'm still kind of reeling from this news and I think it speaks to so many problems that the games industry has been facing for a decade. And it's just such a huge, terrible loss. I feel like. And it seems I have felt like Destiny 3, if they had announced it and made it would have been fucking huge. It would have been big because there's still such an appetite both for this type of game and for this world. And I just don't understand.
- [59:25]
Ross Frostic
I mean, it would have been 2032 before that game came out.
- [59:28]
Griffin McRoy
Yeah. I mean, unless they started working on it, you know, seven years ago. Right.
- [59:33]
Jason Schreier
Like, but then you need hundreds of people Working on that game. It just seems so impractical in this day and age. I don't know. I mean, the modern games industry is just so fucked. And like, I think that especially Western game development, where the, the salaries have to be high to deal with our cost of living here in the US and therefore the budgets are getting out of control. I mean, I just don't see how sustainable it is to have a team of 800 people, most of whom are in the suburbs of Seattle, working in a video game.
- [60:03]
Griffin McRoy
It's just move to West Virginia, open up Bungie in Huntington, West Virginia.
- [60:07]
Jason Schreier
Well, it's funny you say that because they're a remote first studio, so people can be anywhere. It's just that they have their offices in Seattle. And also, who the fuck wants to work for a company where you get. Get less money if you're working somewhere else? So that's a whole nother can of worms too, right? Like, if you're paying Seattle salaries to some people, you have to pay them at everyone. So yeah, it's tough, man. And on top of everything else, Bungie is going to be laying people off, which is something that we reported at Bloomberg. And I heard that last week there was like an all hands meeting. And basically they. People were asking, people have been asking for a long time about layoffs. People asked the head of the studio, are there going to be layoffs? And she essentially dodged a question. He was like, we're not announcing a riff right now. Like, it's just, it's. It's bleak over there and sucks to work on that team.
- [60:53]
Griffin McRoy
Yeah. Yeah, bummer. Huge, huge, huge, huge, huge bummer news. Do we, do we want to do some. Maybe we can find some point of light. Let's bring it out.
- [61:05]
Ross Frostic
Bring it up, Bring it up energy wise.
- [61:07]
Griffin McRoy
I. I can start?
- [61:08]
Ross Frostic
Yeah.
- [61:09]
Griffin McRoy
I finally played that Diablo DLC, Diablo 4 Lord. Just a brief backstory. I thought Diablo IV was okay. Didn't really like the first dlc, the Vessel of Hatred. Played it for like an hour and was like, eh, this is more Diablo. And I finished the Lord of Hatred, the newest DLC that came out a month or two ago, maybe last month, yesterday. And hey, it's fucking great. It's really, really fun and really good. It asks a lot when you start playing Diablo 4 after not playing it for a long time and you drop into one of those hub towns and it's like, okay, man, do you want to do the Pit or the Tree of Whispers or the Artificer's Tower, or do you want to do a nightmare dungeon? Or do you want to level your glyphs? Or do you want to go to runecrafting? Or do you. It's like, fuck, just stop.
- [61:59]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Just stop.
- [61:59]
Griffin McRoy
Just chill, Just stop. And there are so many different ways that they have kind of worked to provide a pathway for stuff you can do that's gonna be fun and will get you constant sort of drip feed like upgrades. I've been playing as the Paladin, which is one of the two new classes, Paladin and Warlock, and it is a returning class. And being able to kind of create this tornado of hammers and then just running through a place like I'm a fucking Beyblade and then constantly finding these different ways to like, like make that feel better and make that feel faster and stronger. And then going up to the next difficulty tier and finding new and taking on these different challenges.
- [62:42]
Ross Frostic
I'll tell you the thing, and I'm curious if it addresses this. I'll tell you the thing that made me bounce off Diablo 4 was I felt like I built, I did my build, I had my combo that was like a 5 to 10 second combo where I would do the same combo every time I ran into a room, clear the enemies out, pick the stuff up, go to the next. Is there any sense that that flow has changed at all in this expansion?
- [63:05]
Griffin McRoy
Yeah, so there's. There is just from the core kind of like gameplay side of things, they added a system now where gear has sockets, right? This is like classic Diablo shit. And you're slotting in gyms now. You can also spend two of those sockets to have like an activator rune and a power rune. And the activator is like, it will generate energy if you drink a potion or if you use this type of skill or if you do this and it'll generate this much energy and it will, after a certain point activate the other rune, which is a skill from any class.
- [63:36]
Ross Frostic
Oh, that's fun.
- [63:37]
Griffin McRoy
So I'm a Paladin and for a while I had a piece of gear that I slotted one of these runes in and it used a necromancer skill that was actually pretty synergistic with the shit that I was doing. But even beyond all of that, I played through the campaign. It took me five or six hours or so, and I've been diving into some of the in game stuff afterwards and I've barely kind of scratched the surface of finding the piece of gear that changes the way that your build works entirely. I haven't found any of that shit I've just kind of been picking away at what I have missed out on. And I don't know, man, there's a lot there and I don't know, it would take me a while to kind of figure out exactly what has changed, but I feel compelled to. To check that stuff out. I feel compelled to see what this thing is that people talk about, this gameplay loop that people obsess over, or to see what I need to do to get to that next difficulty tier. Here's a checklist and here's a bunch of rewards. There's a really smart system called War Plans now, which is just like in the main city, after you finish the campaign, you get what's called War Plans, which is where you set a branching sort of path of activity and you build sort of a route through them. And so right now I'm picking like three different activities, but it'll be like, do a Nightmare Dungeon, do a Helltide, and do, you know, some other thing. And then you lock that in. And then as you do that shit, you are getting so much gear and you're getting points that upgrade those individual activities. So now you know, I've leveled up War Helltides and now, like now different shit happens during Helltide events that doesn't happen for other people because I've leveled it up through this thing. Just doing stuff I would normally be doing anyways. There's just a lot of really, really, really smart kind of systems that are in play now. Also, the story is fucking killer. They take some big swings. They do some major shit with some characters that have been in the franchise since Diablo. And I don't give a shit about Diablo lore, but even I was like. I had several modes during this campaign where I was like, holy shit, I can't believe they did that for. It's the strongest Diablo has been for me since. I don't know. I think Russ and I got into Diablo 3 on switch for a while when it came out, and I enjoyed going through and trying to find the rare gear and trying to find the thing I need to make my barbarian build work. This is clicking for me on a level that is quite a bit deeper. Henry had surgery yesterday and so I was in the hospital for a while and I've just kind of been staying up with him as he kind of recovers from that. And it's been been pretty choice for just kind of zonking out and turning into a Beyblade and tearing through a million zombies or whatever. So, yeah, I've had the code for this for a while, and I didn't dip into it because it's like, eh, it's Diablo iv. Who gives a shit? But me, as it turns out, is the answer to that.
- [66:28]
Ross Frostic
Jason, anything that you've been playing, it doesn't have to be a game. It could be something. A book you're reading, for example.
- [66:34]
Jason Schreier
One more thing, if you will.
- [66:35]
Ross Frostic
Oh, one more thing.
- [66:37]
Jason Schreier
Can I talk about 007?
- [66:40]
Ross Frostic
Ooh, we have. We are planning on doing it next
- [66:43]
Jason Schreier
week, but I won't be here next week.
- [66:45]
Ross Frostic
I know.
- [66:46]
Griffin McRoy
Just. What's it come out?
- [66:47]
Jason Schreier
Comes out.
- [66:48]
Griffin McRoy
Oh, it's out. It's out. Tell me everything. Tell me all about. Tell me what to expect from.
- [66:52]
Jason Schreier
I'll just do a very quick version, very top line.
- [66:56]
Ross Frostic
I literally haven't played it, so we don't want to spoil.
- [66:58]
Jason Schreier
No, I'm not gonna spoil anything.
- [66:59]
Griffin McRoy
How's Lanny?
- [67:00]
Jason Schreier
No, I mean, it's really cool. I really like it a lot. I'm way. I'm into it more than, like, most triple. Like, I haven't been this into a triple A game in a minute because I find AAA to be so tedious and repetitive that it's like, it's been
- [67:13]
Ross Frostic
hard to stick and there's only six of them a year, so.
- [67:16]
Jason Schreier
That's true. Yeah, it's really cool. It's like a mashup of uncharted style cinematics and driving and shooting and Hitman style kind of immersive sim stuff. It's not quite as sandboxy as Hitman, for good reason.
- [67:28]
Ross Frostic
It felt a little closer to Splinter Cell was my like.
- [67:32]
Jason Schreier
No, no, it feels very hitman. Like, it's like you'll overhear someone talking about how, like, there's the password is over in that room. Or like, you'll. You'll try to sneak into an event and someone will mention that they left their press badge over there. And so you don't get it. It's very Hitman in that way.
- [67:48]
Ross Frostic
But you're not like, cutting the fugu fish.
- [67:51]
Jason Schreier
No, you are not cutting the fugu fish. At least from what I've seen.
- [67:53]
Griffin McRoy
It's not a hitman game if you don't.
- [67:55]
Jason Schreier
That's true. And you're not dressing up as a duck. It's. It's more serious than. But it's like Hitman. I've always appreciated Hitman, but never really gotten sucked into it. And I think that's because it lacks a real story and real characters, and that's what this has. And the Performance of Bond is so delightful in an unexpected way. And the writing is so good in a way that I really just was not anticipating that. I've been really into it and really just hooked by the story and wanting to see what's going to happen next. I'm also not a James Bond fan. I've never even seen one of the movies. So I don't know anything about James Bond.
- [68:27]
Griffin McRoy
I've never seen one of the movies.
- [68:29]
Jason Schreier
I've seen every Austin Power movie, if that helps.
- [68:31]
Griffin McRoy
That's incredibly weird. If you add all those up, it equals one James Bond movie.
- [68:36]
Jason Schreier
Exactly. No, I played Goldeneye in the N64, but I've never seen.
- [68:39]
Ross Frostic
Well, you know what happens.
- [68:40]
Jason Schreier
Yeah, I mean, I have. I know who Odd Job is.
- [68:42]
Griffin McRoy
Yeah, he can slap quick around the bend recommendation, I think Casino Royale. If you're gonna watch one Bond movie.
- [68:48]
Jason Schreier
Good to know. Maybe after I finish this, I'll check that out and. Yeah, it's good. One thing I'll say, though, not a spoiler, but Lenny Kravitz has been kind of like been part of the marketing campaign of this game. His performance is truly, as the kids would say, mid. It is like. It is horrible.
- [69:04]
Ross Frostic
You don't want to go his way.
- [69:06]
Jason Schreier
It's. No, you do not. You do not want. I think Zoe got the talent in that family. Yeah, Lenny Kravitz should not be in this game. But it's very Gen X of them to be like, we gotta get Lenny Kravitz in our James Bond game. But yeah, it's a cool game. I like it a lot more than I expected to like it.
- [69:26]
Ross Frostic
I am excited. I really just played like the first int and I'm excited to play more. And we will indeed be talking about it more next week. Plant, do you have any honorable mention stuff?
- [69:36]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Yes, I saw Obsession, which is. It is taken over the movie theaters. The rare movie that does better on its second weekend than its first one. It is a new horror movie.
- [69:49]
Griffin McRoy
The word of mouth has been pretty crazy for this year.
- [69:51]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Yeah, it's a lot. The basic premise is a young man is yearning for the affection of one of his friends. He makes a wish that she will love him more than anyone else on the planet. And he gets that wish. And where it goes from there is unbelievably gruesome and dark. It is a horror movie that earns its r. It is a horror movie that actually has scares that aren't just jump scares. It's just like. Like really, really unsettling. And it's A horror movie that you hear that premise and it is, like, kind of about social things. It is definitely a movie about the, like, quote, nice guy who, you know, just wants your love, but really, it. It's. I didn't find it interesting at all in terms of what it has to say. I found it interesting in that it set up a really, really mean and nasty premise, and it is determined to see that through and where that could possibly go, which is many, many, many wrong directions.
- [71:00]
Griffin McRoy
I've heard a lot of good stuff about, I think, Inda Navarret, the woman who plays the sort of object of affection who turns in a truly dazzling, terrifying performance.
- [71:14]
Christopher Thomas Plant
If there was a just world where horror or comedy or family movies could get Oscar nominations, one, Rachel McAdams would have, like, five Oscars. But two, yes, this is the sort of performance that, like, deserves that caliber of attention. I also, if you're gonna go see it, try to see it in a busy, crowded theater. There are so many moments in it that are going to get very big reactions, and you don't get many chances to enjoy that anymore where you're in a theater with people who are genuinely shocked and aghast. And I would say most of that is, like, pretty fairly earned. So, yeah, you should check it out.
- [71:53]
Jason Schreier
No wonder you're sick. You went to the theater and just got all this.
- [71:56]
Christopher Thomas Plant
That is the risk. I'm twisted.
- [72:01]
Griffin McRoy
Russ, what about you?
- [72:02]
Ross Frostic
I reached room 46 in.
- [72:05]
Griffin McRoy
Wow.
- [72:06]
Jason Schreier
Oh, man. Do we have another hour to talk about this game?
- [72:09]
Griffin McRoy
Oh, you finished the tutorial.
- [72:12]
Ross Frostic
Jason said he's like, congrats on the prequel or whatever. The.
- [72:14]
Jason Schreier
The prologue.
- [72:15]
Ross Frostic
The prologue. The prologue.
- [72:17]
Griffin McRoy
We only. This is our last chance to be insufferable about blueprints. Russ, you're the last person to play it. Please let us just kind of celebrate this.
- [72:24]
Ross Frostic
Live it up, guys. That's a good fucking game. It's great. Important to note the Switch 2 update with the accessibility features is indeed live. Finally.
- [72:34]
Griffin McRoy
Great.
- [72:35]
Ross Frostic
It happened about halfway through my playthrough.
- [72:37]
Jason Schreier
It's so funny that you've been like this long and then you end up playing the version.
- [72:41]
Griffin McRoy
I know. Have you been galaxy braining? Have you been.
- [72:44]
Ross Frostic
Oh, yeah, we've got.
- [72:44]
Griffin McRoy
Do you feel like Goku taking off the ankle weights where it's like, now I can see what all the different things are.
- [72:49]
Ross Frostic
Yeah. We've got a truly unhinged notebook that started kind of normal and then just goes wild from there. We are sort of in this place of, like, definitely more threads to pull. I am curious to Know how long this game, like keeps our attention? Because it's certainly there now. But at a certain point, if I feel like I hit a wall or we hit a wall and we feel like we have to start looking things up, that would kind of kill it for me. So I don't know. How many days did you guys do well?
- [73:23]
Jason Schreier
Okay, the question is how many? Like, do you have a bunch of goals still in your head that you want?
- [73:27]
Ross Frostic
Yeah, I wouldn't say. I would say probably 4.4ish goals.
- [73:31]
Jason Schreier
And are you curious about how the story and lore just kind of unravels to some extent?
- [73:35]
Ross Frostic
Yeah, if only for the sake of opening safes specifically.
- [73:39]
Griffin McRoy
Have you found any fucking crazy keys?
- [73:43]
Ross Frostic
Yes, I found some crazy keys.
- [73:45]
Griffin McRoy
Okay. I mean, that. That for me was the big kind of breadcrumb trail that if you found one, the sanctum keys, I think is what.
- [73:55]
Ross Frostic
Oh, yeah, no, I haven't. We haven't found any of those.
- [73:57]
Jason Schreier
But I've been to that room. Yeah, when you're unlocking 46, you get to that room.
- [74:01]
Ross Frostic
I've been to the room. So we were. I certainly figured that there were ways to access.
- [74:05]
Griffin McRoy
By tracking those down. You will. You will. That is the kind of, of, I think, closest you get to a critical path in the end game part. It goes lots of other places for sure. But by hunting those down, you will start to see the broader kind of.
- [74:21]
Ross Frostic
The broader picture.
- [74:22]
Griffin McRoy
There's like three different ending. I know this is not being insufferable as a bit, but there's a few different kind of benchmark ending points where you've solved a bunch of different shit. And the like 46 is one of them. And then there's a few really, really satisfying ones that you can dig up if you.
- [74:42]
Ross Frostic
Yeah, we're obviously, you know, we're aware of the giant vault door and black bridge and all sorts of other things. So there is definitely stuff to pull. I think the number one goal right now is try to make a power hammer so to access all the brick. Nice.
- [75:00]
Griffin McRoy
Put that shit in your.
- [75:02]
Ross Frostic
I know. That was our intention. We were going to store it once we made one.
- [75:05]
Jason Schreier
Well, now that you're done with. With the basement key, you don't need to.
- [75:09]
Ross Frostic
Yeah, so we use that. We've used that twice, so I think we're more or less done, but who knows? We'll see.
- [75:15]
Jason Schreier
Griffin and I were in a discord pre release, like solving everything with a. With a bunch of other press people.
- [75:20]
Ross Frostic
So much solid playing with someone else.
- [75:23]
Jason Schreier
And it's really cool really?
- [75:25]
Griffin McRoy
If you want jokes, if you want little hints. I know, I know. What? Well, I'm talking about little rust sized, tiny, micro, fun sized.
- [75:33]
Ross Frostic
Jason sent me like a. The first three sentences were like, this would save you a bunch of time if. And I send him, like, gifs to, like, scroll the text. That's how much I don't want to.
- [75:43]
Jason Schreier
Did you ever go back and look at that? Because all I said to you was. You're gonna. All I said to you was that the. The pump room just stays persistent so you don't have to worry about going back and changing it. That's all I said to you.
- [75:56]
Griffin McRoy
God damn it, Jason. How could you?
- [75:57]
Christopher Thomas Plant
I know.
- [75:58]
Jason Schreier
How dare I say.
- [75:58]
Ross Frostic
But I don't know the degree to. To which Jason is informing me.
- [76:01]
Griffin McRoy
I think if the alternative is you bail from the game, there are.
- [76:04]
Ross Frostic
I think I would look stuff up or ask for.
- [76:06]
Jason Schreier
Well, no, don't look stuff up.
- [76:08]
Griffin McRoy
I just want to ask Jason and I, because it's the last thing we have.
- [76:12]
Jason Schreier
So, I mean, I. Worth. Okay. So to give you kind of. Griffin and I both saw everything this game has to offer. Like, we got deep, deep, deep, deep, deep. I think it's 100% worth it, but there's definitely some stuff that I never would have been able to solve on my own. So you will get to a point where you probably need some.
- [76:28]
Griffin McRoy
Yeah, Animal.
- [76:29]
Ross Frostic
Well, was the same way. Like, once I knew we had a
- [76:32]
Jason Schreier
little different than Animal Wall, because Animal Wall, it's very clear when you get to the bunnies that it's like, all right, this is the point of no return. I don't mind asking for ants anymore. The eggs you can do on your own with this. It's a little less kind of distinct the point. The layers are a little less distinct. And I think some of the hardest stuff or some of the stuff that is most obtuse is throughout, is sprinkled a little bit throughout. But I will say, at least for me, it was well worth getting to that final layer because the stuff you find at the end is so cool from a story perspective, a design perspective, just like a. Holy shit. What is this game perspective? I think it's.
- [77:06]
Griffin McRoy
There's another sort of threshold, which is like, it would have been helpful for someone to have told us, like. And that's it.
- [77:12]
Ross Frostic
Yeah.
- [77:13]
Griffin McRoy
And now you found the last thing because. Not a joke. Jason can attest to this. Like, weeks spent certainly. I don't know how pre release we got the code, but, like, nights spent just, like fucking banging our head against stuff. I remember one time I hopped in the discord. Like, guys, I found something. Holy shit. I blew the whole thing wide open. And what it turned out is that I had found a glitch where I could interact with something through a wall that I wasn't supposed to be able to do. And they're like, oh, no, this is this other thing that you haven't even found yet. But there was a long, long, long, extended period that ended with us going like, okay, so I guess that's. Yeah.
- [77:47]
Ross Frostic
What happened with Myst. I remember playing Myst when it first came out, and you just, like, it ends with you looking at the book where they're trapped in the book. And I was like, where do I go now? And you can walk around the entire fucking island. And they never tell you. They never swear.
- [77:58]
Jason Schreier
Well, that's what this is inspired by. I asked Honda Ross, and he still won't tell me. Although I think it's very clear that we've seen all there is to see. But he still will never acknowledge whether.
- [78:07]
Ross Frostic
Was there not a layer of Internet crazy people going even deeper than what you guys did?
- [78:12]
Jason Schreier
No, we actually. We found everything before the game came out.
- [78:15]
Ross Frostic
Oh, that's cool.
- [78:17]
Griffin McRoy
Much like Animal well, where. Like, we just. You did Animal well, like, no Animal well.
- [78:22]
Jason Schreier
We didn't find everything Animal well, people found that audio log, like, after the.
- [78:27]
Ross Frostic
Like, after the rabbits.
- [78:29]
Jason Schreier
Well, the reviewers couldn't. We couldn't find it. There weren't enough. You needed 50 of those screens to fill up.
- [78:34]
Griffin McRoy
That's right. Yeah. That's a big bottleneck. But, yeah, they found it in, like, 12 hours. Like, this stuff.
- [78:40]
Jason Schreier
It took us, like, a week with blueprints. I'm actually proud to say the reviewers. We found everything right before we actually. I mean, we also were working with QA testers who, like, seen everything, and so they kind of guided a lot, little, like, nudged us a little bit. But still, we found everything. And then people in the real world found it, like, three days after it launched. And now it's clear that there's nothing else to find. But, yeah, we. I don't know. I think it's kind of clear. But, yeah, if you have questions about, like, is this it?
- [79:08]
Ross Frostic
Like, we'll keep picking at it, and it's still really engaging. So, yeah, you know, it is up for Besties Game of the year 2026. It is an option.
- [79:17]
Jason Schreier
Love it.
- [79:18]
Ross Frostic
We punted it to this year, so we'll see.
- [79:20]
Griffin McRoy
Maybe I'll play it again in the fall after my brain has do you
- [79:24]
Jason Schreier
think I wish you could erase your brain, like, forget everything about it? Selectively.
- [79:28]
Griffin McRoy
I would. Eternal sunshine. This.
- [79:30]
Ross Frostic
And I think 20 years down the road, that's about 10 to 20 years. You start forgetting the numbers.
- [79:35]
Griffin McRoy
Way less than that, dude. Way, way, way, way less. We're old, Jason. Where can people find your stuff? Obviously, there's the excellent triple click.
- [79:44]
Jason Schreier
Triple click. People should come to triple click. I'm a YouTuber now, so people should come to, like. I don't know if I'm actually going to be a YouTuber.
- [79:50]
Ross Frostic
Are you doing a count box openings on YouTube?
- [79:53]
Jason Schreier
I should. I should unbox LEGO sets.
- [79:57]
Griffin McRoy
Jason hates sort of the AAA state of the AAA industry, but fucking loves LEGO sets.
- [80:02]
Jason Schreier
It's true.
- [80:03]
Griffin McRoy
I cannot get enough.
- [80:04]
Jason Schreier
I can't get enough of it. I'm gonna unbox LEGO sets. But it's only my daughter's LEGO set, so it's like Lego friends. Oh, Bard here. I'm checking out the Heartlake Hospital today, and.
- [80:15]
Griffin McRoy
Oh, man. Henry and I built that Ganon Final Battle Ocarina of Time Zelda LEGO set this past weekend. That's a fucking cool.
- [80:22]
Jason Schreier
Is it? I was not impressed by that. I like the Daykin tree. The Daykin tree, which I see in your background, but I do not like. I actually. I am very tempted by the Minas Tirith LEGO set. Oh, my God.
- [80:34]
Ross Frostic
Yeah.
- [80:34]
Jason Schreier
$650.
- [80:36]
Griffin McRoy
That's the. I would. I would have to hide it.
- [80:38]
Jason Schreier
Yeah.
- [80:38]
Ross Frostic
Yeah.
- [80:39]
Griffin McRoy
I don't think I could. I don't think Rachel could. I don't think I could tell her I spent $600 on a giant.
- [80:43]
Ross Frostic
No, there's no coming back from that.
- [80:45]
Griffin McRoy
There is no. Jason, thank you so much for joining us. This is a great week to have you because there was a lot of stuff happening. A lot of.
- [80:53]
Jason Schreier
Yeah, Lots of fun stuff to talk about. Yeah, People can find me. Triple click is where you should find me. But also Bloomberg News. I mean, I'm sure you notify me there or just on my. If you haven't seen my articles, you've seen YouTubers reading them out loud, so.
- [81:06]
Griffin McRoy
God damn, that's like the coolest sort of fucking UFC pre fight flex. You know me. They won't. They can't keep my name out of their mouths. So if you're a fan of the besties. Did you know that there's a lot more waiting for you on Patreon? If you go to patreon.com thebesties it sounds like I'm talking to you, Jason. I'm actually pivoted now to talking to the if you wanted to join our Patreon Jason I would love to.
- [81:31]
Jason Schreier
I'll sign up right now if I can afford it after buying Minas Tirith Lego set.
- [81:35]
Griffin McRoy
We have monthly bracket battle episodes. We have episodes of the Resties that Chris and Russ talk about even more
- [81:40]
Ross Frostic
games, as a matter of fact. So we have a resti these up already. And next week we have a very special bracket battles episode featuring the one and only Ron Funches.
- [81:50]
Griffin McRoy
So such a fun one. Unhinged this episode.
- [81:53]
Ross Frostic
It is a really fun one. So stay tuned for that. I do have a couple subscribers I wanted to shout out. We have Hank K. We have Thumpus, we have Nelo S. And we have Daniel R. Thank you for being members over at the patreon patreon.com thebesties we love y'. All.
- [82:09]
Griffin McRoy
Yeah. Next week, 007 first light, if I'm not mistaken. So join. Join us again for the Besties next week as we dive into Bond's latest caper. And join us, you know what, while you're at it every week here on the Besties, because shouldn't the world's best friends play the world's best games? Sam.