The Big Switch 2 Episode – Plus the Best of SGF

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Besties – "The Big Switch 2 Episode – Plus the Best of SGF"

Release Date: June 13, 2025

---

Introduction and Episode Overview

In this episode of The Besties, hosts Chris Plante, Griffin McElroy, Justin McElroy, and Russ Frushtick delve deep into the highly anticipated launch of the Nintendo Switch 2. Titled "The Big Switch 2 Episode – Plus the Best of SGF," the discussion not only covers the nuances of the new console but also highlights noteworthy moments from Summer Game Fest (SGF) 2025.

---

Nintendo Switch 2 Launch and Availability

The conversation kicks off with reminiscing about the original Nintendo Switch, particularly the frenzy surrounding its pre-orders and availability. Justin McElroy nostalgically recalls, "They used to come with games... desperate for you to buy them." ([00:00])

Russ Freshly contrasts the past with the present, emphasizing the shift in consumer dynamics: "You're on your own, buddy. This is the new age." ([00:22])

Despite initial concerns about scarcity, the hosts share their varied experiences securing a Switch 2. While Russ mentions flying to California to attend SGF without his console, Justin successfully obtained one from Best Buy, highlighting a somewhat smoother distribution compared to previous launches.

---

Hardware and Performance Insights

A significant portion of the discussion centers on the hardware advancements of the Switch 2. Chris Grant succinctly describes the launch atmosphere as "sleepy" compared to the high-octane excitement of previous releases ([04:32]). However, he acknowledges the improved performance metrics, noting that the Switch 2 feels "more powerful than a Rog Ally and more powerful than a Steam Deck" ([39:03]).

Griffin McElroy shares his excitement about specific features, such as the enhanced Joy Cons and the new trigger buttons that provide a more tactile experience: "They're a lot more doable... It feels really good." ([14:58], [22:44])

Justin expresses some reservations, stating, "I can't think of a time where Nintendo... has ever been this conservative." ([11:33]). This sentiment underscores a perception that the Switch 2, while technically superior, may lack the groundbreaking innovation expected from a new console generation.

---

Software Compatibility and Game Performance

Chris Grant praises Nintendo's approach to software compatibility on the Switch 2, highlighting the absence of a cumbersome emulation layer: "It's all software, which is pretty impressive... high levels of compatibility on pre-existing games." ([09:44])

The hosts discuss specific game performances, with Russ noting significant improvements in titles like Animal Crossing, where load times are "absurdly shorter" compared to its predecessor ([08:54]). Griffin complements this by sharing his positive experience with Tears of the Kingdom Switch 2 Edition, lauding its smooth 120fps gameplay and rapid load times: "It's butter smooth... pretty great." ([08:20])

---

Comparison with Other Consoles and Portability

A recurring theme is the Switch 2's position within the broader console market. Chris emphasizes the unique portability factor, contrasting it with bulkier consoles like the PS5: "You're not going to lug a PS5 over... have a good multiplayer experience on the go." ([18:17])

Justin raises concerns about the iterative nature of the Switch 2, suggesting that despite hardware improvements, the console feels too incremental amidst the advancing portable PC gaming segment. He remarks, "When you have so many really solid handheld PCs... it's hard for the Switch to feel very impressive." ([22:36])

---

Multiplayer Features and User Experience

The Switch 2 shines in its multiplayer capabilities. Russ highlights its superior design for group play: "There's no other device more group multiplayer friendly than the Switch 2." ([17:58]) Chris adds that the game share feature enhances the communal gaming experience, allowing multiple players to engage seamlessly.

Griffin appreciates the enhanced tabletop mode, made feasible by the larger screen size of the Switch 2, which allows for clearer visibility during multiplayer sessions: "It's much more feasible... a squinting mess is actually kind of a big deal." ([14:58])

---

Summer Game Fest Highlights

Transitioning to Summer Game Fest 2025, the hosts discuss several standout announcements:

• Persona 4 Revival: Griffin is thrilled about the remake of his favorite game, praising the minimal yet effective trailer: "For us weirdos, that's awesome." ([46:02])

• Resident Evil 9: Russ provides insider insights, expressing optimism based on past performances: "They're really being very smart with that franchise...." ([49:32])

• Minerva the Hollow & LEGO Games: The hosts share excitement over upcoming titles like Minerva the Hollow and new LEGO releases, highlighting their potential for engaging gameplay and nostalgic value.

• Hitman Collaborations: Justin is particularly intrigued by the announcement of Deadpool VR and its unconventional casting of Neil Patrick Harris as Wade Wilson, speculating on the humorous and chaotic interactions that might ensue: "I bet we'll get... just kill yourself." ([52:51])

---

Guest Insights with Chris Grant

Chris Grant, a seasoned video game hardware expert, provides a deeper analysis of the Switch 2's market positioning and technical prowess. He draws parallels between the Switch 2 and previous Nintendo consoles, emphasizing the software-driven enhancements and broader game compatibility as key strengths: "I think getting to a place where what they're offering is more broad compatibility with AAA games...." ([16:34])

Chris also touches upon docking issues, expressing frustration over the incompatibility between Switch 1 and Switch 2 docks: "That's really maddening... I don't understand." ([21:06])

---

Game Reviews and Impressions

The hosts share their firsthand experiences with various games on the Switch 2:

• Mario Kart World: Russ compliments the new knockout mode, while Griffin points out the streamlined online experience and improved track designs: "It's the highlight... very cool." ([26:04], [26:45])

• Tears of the Kingdom: Both Griffin and Chris laud the game's smooth performance and innovative features like real-time GPS integration, though Chris notes concerns about load times: "The smoothness is a huge W. But the load times... was really nice." ([34:13], [34:43])

• Animal Crossing: Russ observes the substantial performance improvements, making island management smoother and more enjoyable: "The game runs... No longer an issue." ([08:54])

---

Closing Remarks and Future Outlook

As the episode draws to a close, the Besties reflect on the Switch 2's current standing and future potential. Justin remains skeptical about the console's immediate value proposition, citing the need for a robust library of first-party titles to justify its purchase: "There is very very little reason to buy this thing right now. I wouldn't buy this thing right now." ([24:23])

However, optimism lingers with upcoming releases like Super Mario Odyssey 2, promising to bolster the Switch 2's appeal: "As soon as Super Mario Odyssey 2 comes out later this year...." ([41:19])

The hosts also tease discussions for future episodes, ensuring listeners that gaming conversations will continue to evolve alongside the industry's advancements.

---

Conclusion

"The Big Switch 2 Episode – Plus the Best of SGF" offers a comprehensive exploration of the Nintendo Switch 2's launch, juxtaposed with exciting updates from Summer Game Fest 2025. Through insightful dialogue, personal anecdotes, and expert opinions, the Besties provide listeners with an engaging and informative overview of the current gaming landscape.

---

Note: Advertisements and promotional segments were omitted to focus solely on the episode's content.

Transcript

[Justin McElroy]

They used to come with games. They used to come with games. You used to. Do you know how many games used to come with. When it was at nes, how many. It came with so many games they had to shove two onto one.

[Russ Freshly]

And it came with a robot.

[Justin McElroy]

Both. And it came with a robot. And Super Mario Brothers and Duck Time. They used to be begging for you to buy these things, desperate for you to buy them.

[Russ Freshly]

You're on your own, buddy. This is the new age.

[Justin McElroy]

What do you mean I'm on my own in the podcast or on my own in the. In the hellscape?

[Russ Freshly]

Like Imagine Dragons? I said this is the new age.

[Griffin McElroy]

Do you like Imagine Dragons?

[Russ Freshly]

Fuck, I love Imagine Dragons.

[Griffin McElroy]

Imagine Dragon D's nuts on your face. I'm so excited for this new gaming console, guys.

[Russ Freshly]

Yeah.

[Justin McElroy]

My name is Justin McElroy and I know the best game of the week.

[Griffin McElroy]

My name is Griffin McElroy. I know the best game console of the week.

[Russ Freshly]

My name is Russ Freshly. I know the best game of the week.

[Chris Grant]

My name is not Chris Plant.

[Justin McElroy]

And that's it. Yeah, that's Chris Grant. He's just on the.

[Griffin McElroy]

The closest we could get, guys. The first name's the same. The last name rhymes. It's pretty close, don't you think, gang?

[Justin McElroy]

Sonically? Yeah, it's really actually very close. Like, the phonetics of the. Of the name are actually uncanny. I'm pretty proud of that. Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

Body size wise, two completely different silhouettes.

[Justin McElroy]

These.

[Griffin McElroy]

These fellows carve. They're saying one's bigger than the other one. I don't. I don't know why that is a shameful thing. It's beautiful. Both. Both of you guys have beautiful bodies. I want to say that. Thank you beyond record.

[Justin McElroy]

That's such an interesting thing for you to be talking about right now, Griffin. I think that's so fast.

[Griffin McElroy]

And Chris, I didn't. You didn't say thank you when I said that?

[Chris Grant]

No. I'm blushing.

[Justin McElroy]

I noticed that too. Chris, you want to speak about that or.

[Chris Grant]

I have a lot of body shame. So I'm still coming to terms with what you just said. It's hard for me.

[Griffin McElroy]

Not. You don't need it, pal. Shed that. Shed those layers. Feel the rain on your skin.

[Justin McElroy]

Good for you. Chris, what are we talking about this week? It's the Nintendo Switch 2, Russ. What's that?

[Russ Freshly]

The Nintendo Switch 2 is the new console from Nintendo, the makers of cards and that weird grabbing toy you can get for $5 at Target. They've made a new console. It's very wide, it's very tall, it's very big. And it has cars on it. Not cards cars.

[Griffin McElroy]

Thanks for clearing that up, man. I'm so glad to know it has cars on it.

[Justin McElroy]

That's cool. And we'll be. And man, I've never missed Chris Plant more than right now. And we'll be back to talk about this console right after this.

[Griffin McElroy]

I'm a dad. I have a dad. I know all about dad stuff. And let me tell you about dads. We'd love to save time in a bottle always talking about that kind of stuff, but you can't. What you can do is photographs of your precious memories. But where are you going to keep all of them? Where are you going to put all of them? If you want to show all your photographs to your special father or someone else in your life, might I suggest an Aura frame? Aura Frames makes it so, so easy to take all of your digital photos and put them in one space with unlimited storage. And you can add to it or remove from it remotely so you can set it all up for Pops if he's maybe not the most tech savvy person in the whole wide world. We've given Aura Frames out as gifts to so many family members because it is the easiest way for us to keep them updated on what's going on in our lives and our kids lives by just dropping new pictures into their frames whenever we have stuff to share. It's super easy and we've gotten lots of wonderful feedback from the folks who we've gotten Aura Frames for so highly recommend it, especially as Father's Day is coming up. Aura has a great deal for Father's Day. For a limited time, listeners can save on the perfect gift by visiting auraframes.com to to get 30 bucks off on their best selling Carver mat frame. That's a U R A frames.com, promo code. Besties support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply.

[Justin McElroy]

Chris Grant, you've been someone who's been watching the video game space and hardware. You're very smart about hardware and video games and a great student of that industry. You've covered it for many, many, many years. How does the feel? I want to talk about the vibe first. How's the vibe of this launch compared to other launches that you've been alive for?

[Chris Grant]

I'm gonna say sleepy.

[Justin McElroy]

Okay. Interesting.

[Chris Grant]

Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

Nobody else thinks it's sleepy just from a. Like you're less, you're not as, not as busy having to grind on the.

[Chris Grant]

Coverage that's true, that's true. Yeah, I'm busy.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's got to be nice, right, to just like fucking kick back, pop open a cold boy and play some Switch 2 without having to worry about the content. Except here you are, got you having.

[Justin McElroy]

To worry about the content.

[Chris Grant]

Pull me back in for one more job, one more high school. No, I mean I think just talking to people, there's a lot of sort of is that out like a lot of this question of like, is that a real console? I think some of that is that it doesn't have a major hook on it. It's a bigger, quite literally bigger, faster switch too, or Switch.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Chris Grant]

And I think when you tell people what's unique about it, the answer is it's a goodr switch. And that's it. And there's a lot more you can say about that. And so how do you get people hyped about a goodr Switch? I think you have to have exclusive software that pulls them in. I don't think a gooder Mario Kart is that just yet. Will people play it and buy it? Yes, they will. But that's not going to be the thing that gets people really amped about Switch 2. I think so. I think what we have now is like a relatively slow and sleepy launch based on the pre order chaos. Like can we swear on this podcast?

[Griffin McElroy]

Can we swear? Yeah, you can swear.

[Justin McElroy]

Oh yeah, we love.

[Chris Grant]

That's so great. The pre order shit show. The idea.

[Justin McElroy]

Whoa, you didn't say S bombs, dude.

[Chris Grant]

Okay.

[Griffin McElroy]

And bastard. You can do two bastards. And there they go.

[Chris Grant]

I'll pay the fine. Based on that. It was surprising for me to walk into a Best Buy on release day, two hours after the store opened and just buy one with money.

[Griffin McElroy]

You are not the only person I have heard say that. And it's wild because I was caught up in the pre order show. It was up until like 1:30 in the morning one morning, just refreshing furiously. Fortunately, Walmart did come through for me. But then I heard like so many people. Like, yeah, I just went to fucking. I just went over to the Costco and they had a whole pyramid built out of them.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah, mine was in stock at the, at the Best Buy when I went to go get a memory card of SD Express.

[Griffin McElroy]

Oh, those are fucking. I was not prepared for the rush on those. Those aren't anywhere. You cannot find one of these special SD Express cards.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah, it was a hot ticket but they had them. You could just buy them.

[Griffin McElroy]

Crazy.

[Chris Grant]

Also based on like not just the pre orders, but people Getting their pre orders canceled. Like even like the day and couple days before, hours before it still seemed like it was going to be a scarcity. So I don't know. I remain pretty surprised that you can just walk in and pick them up.

[Russ Freshly]

Yeah, my. I had a pre order and it came I think a day or two post release. So not too bad. But yeah, like I could have just gone to the store and got one. Obviously the anxiety of knowing whether you could get one on launch day was very present and I think I regret nothing. What it did mean is I had to fly to California to go to Summer Game Fest without it and I had to beg for scraps from Jason Schreier whose Switch I used a few times. So let me touch it.

[Justin McElroy]

Just let me touch it.

[Griffin McElroy]

Jason somehow side loaded blueprints on that shit. Man has a sick.

[Russ Freshly]

He's a wizard.

[Griffin McElroy]

Serious illness. What was yalls first impressions? It's not the most impressive launch lineup in the world, but I was pleasantly surprised by the performance of it. I think one of the first.

[Justin McElroy]

By what? In what sense?

[Griffin McElroy]

Well sir, the first thing I booted up was Tears of The Kingdom Switch 2 Edition, which is a, I think a $10 upgrade unless you are a Nintendo Switch Online member and then it's free. And seeing that game run at, you know, I think 120fps butter smooth with like real fast load times was fucking pretty great. Pretty exciting. Not quite, you know, as juicy as my Rog Ally X probably, but you know I'm not gonna be able to play Zelda on that. So there's. There you go.

[Russ Freshly]

In addition to like the games that they said they were gonna patch, I have been very impressed by the games. They didn't say they were gonna patch, but immediately got improvements regardless of patch. So. So like Animal Crossing for example. Animal Crossing's load times dramatically shorter. I haven't done the math. Yes, they're like absurdly shorter. And if people will recall, I became a little bit scary with my island design to the point where the game would consistently run at around 15fps when I was running around the island.

[Griffin McElroy]

Oh shit. I didn't even think about it.

[Russ Freshly]

No longer an issue. The game runs.

[Griffin McElroy]

Wow. I put too many waterfalls on my island. That shit wouldn't even work.

[Russ Freshly]

Fucking waterfall the ass out of it. You'll be fine.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's funny, I played with Henry, him on the switch 2 me on my Switch Lite and I flew to his island and on his screen it was.

[Russ Freshly]

Just like boop boop boop boop boop.

[Griffin McElroy]

And on my screen I had to wait the whole time while he just stared at a black screen for a while.

[Chris Grant]

I'll say this from the hardware side. They're doing all of this in in software. This is not a hardware emulation layer. It's all software which is like pretty impressive especially when you look at some of Nintendo's more recent emulation foibles. The N64 back compat on the Switch being a bit of a mess.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Chris Grant]

And so seeing them kind of nail this out of the gate with really high levels of compatibility on pre existing games is really impressive. And like even pre patch they'll start patching some of those gaps that individual players find on games juice.

[Griffin McElroy]

It seemed like you were surprised to hear me say that I found the performance of the thing impressive.

[Justin McElroy]

Well, it's just. I didn't mean. I guess I was kind of compared to what I guess would be the question because it is like everything on it is bespoke for the thing.

[Griffin McElroy]

I mean compared to the Switch one the games I played are the games that I play still a lot with Henry all the time. And so like I don't know, most of the gaming I do is either at my PC or on my ROG Ally X like 95% of it. And then like if I'm playing games with Henry it is on the Switch. And so having a system that offers a markedly better like experience just from a, you know, load times performance, all that jazz perspective is. I don't know what I feel like I am getting out of it right now.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah, I think I have struggled because the whole thing just feels so iterative. I mean I can't think of a time and you guys correct me if I'm wrong but I can't think of a time where Nintendo in a generational Switch has ever, pardon the term has ever been this like conservative. I mean this is. I mean you have to go back to like the new Nintendo DS for and you probably got that new console per se but if you called that the Nintendo DS2 or the Nintendo 3DS 2 I think the reason they didn't do that is because even hearing me say it out loud to say the 3Ds too. But I'm saying like that is the. I don't think it is more of a leap forward than the, than the new 3Ds.

[Chris Grant]

I would say 3Ds in general.

[Russ Freshly]

I think like from a percentages standpoint like the new 3Ds from. I'm not talking about flops but in terms of what it could do versus what the previous version could do. The new 3DS could not do that much. It was like 20% more. And the actual exclusive.

[Justin McElroy]

Well, I'm not talking about the sort of Murphy's Law of the whole thing. I'm talking about the actual console and what you're gonna. Chris, you were gonna say something. What were you saying?

[Chris Grant]

I think I would not look to new 3ds to 3ds. I'd look at 3ds to DS, right? Where the basic form factor software compatibility feature set is almost identical, with the lone Exception that the 3DS had 3D support, which most of us just turned right off, or we got a 2Ds that didn't even support it. But I think that is a better paradigm of what was it. And I think they had the gimmick. They had the 3D gimmick to try and get people excited. I think the Switch 2 is missing a gimmick.

[Russ Freshly]

It has a mouse.

[Chris Grant]

It does have a mouse.

[Griffin McElroy]

C button.

[Chris Grant]

I mean, I have a mouse at home. Kids. We got a mouse at home. We don't.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah. Does it work on. Does it work on your lap, Chris?

[Justin McElroy]

It's not a mouse, man.

[Chris Grant]

Just.

[Justin McElroy]

You could use arrow keys to move a cursor around to make it a mouse.

[Chris Grant]

Griffin. It's actually working.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's blurring it out. Your camera, for whatever reason, thinks what you're doing, rubbing your mouse on your lap is a pornographic motion. And can I just say, good call. Net Nanny.

[Justin McElroy]

I have struggled with the. Okay. When you're an early adopter of a console, there's very little reason to do that. Logically, right? You do it because you're a fan, you're an enthusiast, you're excited to play with it, and you're. But I think also you're excited to share it with people, right? You want to say, like, you want to see this new thing? I have this new thing. Do you want to see it? And since I, you know, since the Switch 2 arrived, I have really struggled to figure out what to put in people's hands to say. Like, what. What do you think about this? Like, the, The. The. The closest I've had to a novel experience, sincerely, is like the feel of when it has a ball in the.

[Griffin McElroy]

Maracas in welcome park and you can.

[Justin McElroy]

Roll, move it around. You can feel the ball in there. That's really cool. That's pretty rough, guys. It's pretty rough. I'd be like, yeah, the new Nintendo. The new Nintendo Switch 2 is amazing. Give me 10 minutes to get into this Maraca simulator because if I turn it to ball, it actually feels really good.

[Russ Freshly]

I'll say, like, because a bunch of people had them at Summer Game Fest in like various hotel lobbies and things like that. And I'm not saying this is like a full unique feature, but it did kind of stand out to me in ways I wasn't expecting because of the increased size, specifically the screen size. The idea that you can play a multiplayer game on tabletop mode with other people and not have it be like a squinting mess is actually kind of a big deal. Like it actually kind of facilitates a use case that I know Nintendo was pitching for the first Switch, but wasn't the most feasible for most games. And now because of that screen size, it is much more feasible.

[Griffin McElroy]

Adding on also that the Joy Cons and the specifically the trigger buttons on the like Joy Con side profile controls actually you can actually use them. And so like I was playing, I forget what game I was playing with Henry, but we were doing that and I never. That shit never felt good on Switch line. Like, and here it's still like not as good as using a, you know, pro controller or whatever, but it's way, way, way more doable. And so I do think it kind of like, I don't know, fulfills the promise of some of that novelty from.

[Russ Freshly]

It seems unlikely that we will ever have any like, holy shit, new console moments in the. For like short of like fucking holograms. Yeah.

[Justin McElroy]

Just cause a rust. Just cause you can't dream.

[Russ Freshly]

Well, apparently neither can any of the other console manufacturers because either the Xbox or the PS5 were like basically the same problem. Right.

[Chris Grant]

I think this question of diminishing returns has been one that's been plaguing video game hardware iteration for like a really long time. How do you show off a console PlayStation 4 to 5 where like the games in a lot of cases look identical, run a little bit better. Will anyone spend $500 for that? And when you tell them, Justin, that the. The ball demo, which is neat, can be theirs for the low, low price of $500 US like 510. 510, kind of a tough sell. And so I think that getting to a place where what they're offering you is more broad compatibility with AAA games so you can play cyberpunk on it, for example, Fortnite runs.

[Griffin McElroy]

Did anyone actually get that? And check it out. The cyberpunk. I've heard good things. I just replayed it or Else I probably would have.

[Chris Grant]

I had it on PC running at a million frames a second a decade ago. It's late. And so I think that the sense of what are you buying here? You're buying portability and that's really interesting. And you can sort of offset some of that compute power to portable thresholds and that's what they're really offering. And they can increase the screen size and that also comes at battery life and that's what they're offering. But at some point what you're looking at is diminishing returns. Where to your point Griffin, you can play a lot of even PC games like on a portable PC now and get a good enough experience. That's just what you do. And the raw horsepower is not really necessary anymore.

[Griffin McElroy]

It feels like especially sort of boutique Y stuff because it's like the real thing that you're buying here is like access to Nintendo's first party catalog played on a system that doesn't feel like a 10 year old Android phone. Like it is at least on par with what good graphical fidelity was, you know, a year or two ago maybe, but that still feels considerably better. And I don't know that that is the best case to make for a, you know, a console.

[Russ Freshly]

I think there's, there's one more thing that I wanted to mention and it goes back to my earlier point. I don't think there's any other device that is more like group multiplayer friendly than the switch 2. Like bring it to a house and have a multiplayer game. I can't think of anything that is like better than that.

[Chris Grant]

I bring my everywhere and we can.

[Russ Freshly]

That was pretty good too. And I, and I don't think that's like. That is, I think how they continue to differentiate, differentiate themselves from the other consoles is you're not going to lug a PS5 over. You're not going to set up a screen. You have an option to, with two to four players or whatever, have a good multiplayer experience on the go. In addition to having access to like the first party stuff.

[Chris Grant]

I have a lot of fifth graders coming to my house on a pretty regular occasion. And the amount of times where it's just bring your Switch specify you have.

[Russ Freshly]

Kids, by the way.

[Chris Grant]

I do. I have children. Specifically a fifth grader.

[Russ Freshly]

Yeah. They're not just strange fifth graders coming to your house.

[Chris Grant]

I mean some of them are strange. I'm not gonna say they're not strange.

[Griffin McElroy]

But come on down to Grant's Arcade, Fishtown.

[Chris Grant]

But we have a lot of kids here and like they just bring their Switch everywh and it's really portable and it has some commonalities. They can play Minecraft together, they can play Fortnite, they can play Smash, they can trade carts or games. And I think that sense. I'm excited about the game Share feature. I think that's really cool. I think it's a really neat iteration of the Wii U technology and how do you reach back into that grab bag of failed ideas and repurpose it for something new? But to your point, it is a portable system and it is a system that is often convened in the same space. So game share starts to make a lot of sense if it is native. And when you have that extra horsepower, what do you use it for? The game I've been playing the most on Switch 2 isn't Mario Kart World, which is neat and it's not. It's probably a little bit of Fortnite. I had my nephew over yesterday and we were playing Fortnite and it runs fine as opposed to the Switch version which ran really poorly.

[Griffin McElroy]

Like shit. Yeah. But big old, big old file Fortnight.

[Chris Grant]

Though, for the old internal capacity taking up my whole.

[Griffin McElroy]

So if you are unable to find a SD Express memory card, which you will not be able to do, then you might want to skip this one.

[Chris Grant]

I did go put Notify me on all the local stores. I don't buy SD cards on Amazon anymore because they're always fake. So probably will Notify me on Best Buy and Walmart to Target. So hopefully I'll get one in. But I think the game I'm playing the most, which is not really using that hardware, but is one of the few Switch 2 native launch games is Deltarune Chapter 3. And it's not using that hardware. It's just a system that is portable that I'll play, that my son will play and bring places. And I think why are we playing it there instead of PC? Because he wants to bring it to his friend's houses and play with it. There's. And so I do think the portability, even more than the hardware, still is unique. But you know, I say this with a family with two other switches in the house, it is frustrating that the Switch 2 dock doesn't work with the Switch 1 console.

[Griffin McElroy]

Little frustrating.

[Chris Grant]

Yeah, I kind of didn't. I don't know, I guess I missed that detail in all of the preview coverage. But that seems. That's really maddening to me to need to set up two docks that dock that docked the same way. Why Couldn't you have just made it compatible? I really don't understand.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, I'm glad that a lot of the I have so many fucking Pro controllers just from like the fact that the Switch was my. If I'm going to a lake house thing with a bunch of friends, like I'll bring the Switch and all my Pro controllers so we can play Towerfall or whatever. I am glad I do not have to. Yeah, I'm glad I don't have. Well, I don't live in Austin anymore, so I don't need all those Pro controllers. I'm sort of a solo guy now. But all the Switch 1 controllers were with the Switch 2.

[Chris Grant]

That is nice.

[Griffin McElroy]

Which I was glad because I did not fucking buy a Switch 2 Pro controller.

[Chris Grant]

I did. I did foolishly only because I whiffed on all the switch 2 pre orders and didn't get one. And I was really feeling sorry for myself. And I did manage to land a Switch 2 Pro controller pre order. So I put that in as a consolation prize.

[Griffin McElroy]

How is it?

[Chris Grant]

It's nice. It feels really good. It has this like soft texture. Same as on the back of the screen.

[Russ Freshly]

Yeah, it's like a brushed plastic.

[Chris Grant]

Yeah. I worry about it because as somebody who's packing up a bunch of old controllers now, I don't know if you know anything about those plastics with that kind of treatment on them, but after 20 years they get sticky and gummy.

[Russ Freshly]

Yeah.

[Justin McElroy]

You guys think about the Pro, the holder dealy, the grip, that little guy.

[Russ Freshly]

It's not.

[Justin McElroy]

It's a bit of a different form factor. I don't love it so much. It's also the.

[Griffin McElroy]

Oh like the grip that you slide the joy consistently.

[Chris Grant]

I think it feels a lot nicer than the Switch 1 grip. Cause the Switch 2 joy cons just feel way nicer.

[Justin McElroy]

I got. Okay. I feel like I'm struggling because early adoption doesn't. Like I've said earlier, early adoption doesn't really make sense. And so you're talking a lot about intangibles. And I think that one thing that is the Switch is really up against for me personally. And maybe there's other people who are in this scenario, but not. I understand it's not the biggest segment, but like as the sort of portable computing segment, you're like Steam Deck, portable PC. You know, Rog, all those guys. As that segment gets better and better and more evolved and more interesting, I feel like the. It gets harder for the Switch to. Or the Switch period to feel like very impressive. And I think that it is a market that the Switch really like kind of carved out in, in a, in a sense and it really like created a lot of. But I think at this point where we've had so many really solid handheld PCs with more on the way, we're seeing a lot. That's what I've been playing most of. Like that's the Rog Ally X is like the thing that I play most. So when I picked up the Switch 2 is kind of like eh, you.

[Chris Grant]

Know, I just kind of. I got to point out though, and.

[Justin McElroy]

It'Ll end up being worth it when there's a lot of Nintendo games, which is the oldest story.

[Chris Grant]

Every time you guys say Rog Ally X. I do think you sound like total dweebs though. So.

[Russ Freshly]

Okay, should you say Republic of Gamers?

[Chris Grant]

If you said Republic of Gamers Ally X, I think that would be cool.

[Justin McElroy]

Republican gamer, that'd be cool.

[Griffin McElroy]

I mean I agree with you. There's not a. There still is not going to be a third party title that comes out that I'm going to opt to buy on Switch two over.

[Russ Freshly]

Unless there was like a. I'll give you an example. Virtua Tennis. Not announced. But like if you wanted to play multiplayer Virtua Tennis, wouldn't you buy it on Switch two and not on.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yes. You got me in a technicality there, Russ Bazinga. Burn my ass.

[Justin McElroy]

It's like it's hard to talk about because the truth is this, right? If you really like Mario Kart a lot, I think it's. You could. No, I don't think you could justify it yet. No, I wouldn't know. But when there's a few Nintendo games you like, you can buy it. I mean it's really. But there is very, very, very little reason to buy this thing right now. I wouldn't buy this thing right now.

[Chris Grant]

One of the ways I justified it to myself. I'm going to take this on a trip with you guys and tell me if it, if it smells okay. Nintendo doesn't lower the prices. If you wait five years for there to be a whole bunch of first party Nintendo games, guess what? The Switch 2 is going to cost the same dang price. It might more expensive with tariffs, et cetera.

[Justin McElroy]

Eh? Yeah. I mean they're not gonna lower the price and there's a tariff question. Maybe it's more expensive in a few months.

[Griffin McElroy]

So if you don't buy one right now, you're losing money.

[Chris Grant]

That's right. You're losing money.

[Justin McElroy]

You're actually losing money.

[Chris Grant]

Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

Can we spend a little bit of time going through some of the games that we have been playing? I don't think we. I don't know if we're planning on doing like, a whole Mario Kart World episode or what, but I think that that's probably salient is what we've been planning on.

[Russ Freshly]

Yeah, for sure. I'll just speak for myself again. I was sor of playing when I could over Summer Game Fest. I landed last night, so it's. It's just trying to fit it in. And I played Mario Kart, as you mentioned. I really enjoyed it. I think the knockout mode in particular, I was really enjoying.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's the highlight.

[Russ Freshly]

I think it really stands out. I was a little disappointed by the open world stuff. I was expecting more, and I kind of hope that, like, maybe over time, over the year, they'll, like, update it with, like, more challenges and more online, whatever it is. But right now it feels it's so.

[Griffin McElroy]

Really barren to find. I didn't. I couldn't find. How did you even get on the title screen? On the title screen, I thought the.

[Justin McElroy]

Open world was the fact that you could, like, drive between the different little towns.

[Griffin McElroy]

I figured that's on the title screen. Like, if you go into, like, single player or whatever, it's not one of the options there. But on the title screen in the bottom corner, you. It says press plus for free play, for free roam, and then.

[Justin McElroy]

All right, well, you guys keep talking. Let me go grab my switch.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, sure.

[Chris Grant]

It's weirdly hidden for a game where world is in the title and they kind of marketed it this way. I was very surprised that I had.

[Griffin McElroy]

To hunt for it, but like Forza Horizon, it is not. And I think that the interconnected levels is very novel, and it benefits a mode like Knockout, which is like a stay above this. This place in, you know, the. In the race, every time you reach a lap, we're going to knock out, you know, places 20 through 24. So you got to stay ahead of it. And then those laps are just like one on a course, and then you seamlessly drive to the next course. So you go through like five and cross the whole country. It's very, very cool. But, like, I don't know, without a more. Without much more to do in the open world stuff, it feels like a weird thing to kind of anchor the game around that they did not sort of put a lot. There are p Switch challenges that you can do to earn stickers you can stick on your car, and that is just about the only thing that I found to do in Free Roam, I.

[Chris Grant]

Have only played a handful of races. And all of the extra costumes I got, I got in Free Roam. Are those available if you play just Grand Prix, if you get food, or is that only in Free Roam?

[Griffin McElroy]

I don't know. I got a biker Waluigi costume from playing a Grand Prix and then I was like, I'm good. I don't need any more.

[Russ Freshly]

I got a crab that I didn't recognize the crab previously, but it was a crab.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, you can be a crab fully in this one. The online works great. I was surprised when you play that is the benefit I think of the free roam mode is that when you play online it drops you in a lobby with 23 other people. For me, every time I've tried fairly quickly. And then you get to just kind of cruise around the open world while you wait for them to finish whatever race they're on. And then everyone votes on what they want the next race to be. So you can kind of see like where people are at and cruise around. And it's like a, it's. It is a fun little thing to do to spend time while you.

[Russ Freshly]

It's like the Namco playing like Galaga in the load screen.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, exactly. But it works. I mean, I think the online is commendable how much it, how well it works. And I think the tracks are neat. But it's hard, I think to follow Mario Kart 8, which was in many ways like the, like the super smash Brothers ultimate of Mario Kart where it's like it has fucking everything. It has a hundred tracks and everything you could ever want. Following up on that, I, you know, I see why I do something different.

[Justin McElroy]

But really great looking menus.

[Griffin McElroy]

Love the menus.

[Justin McElroy]

That's something that matters a lot. Really.

[Chris Grant]

My sister pointed out when they had on the TV and he said it looks really like. I forget the word he used, but he basically said it looks crisp. I was like, you're right. Like he was just trying to point out how it looked different.

[Russ Freshly]

Yeah, you were running it at 720p before and now it's not 720p.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, I really like welcome Park. I think it's still wild. You have to pay $10 for it. But. But like I think you want to talk about the thing that makes you feel like that was $500 well spent is a $10 little game that's like, check out every little fucking thing that this little, this little guy can do.

[Chris Grant]

Can we talk about that $10 like, it's still. It seems quite literally, like unimaginable to me that they're charging $10 for what.

[Justin McElroy]

Is effectively a Please don't buy welcome Park.

[Chris Grant]

It's a commercial.

[Justin McElroy]

Like, whatever we say here, don't get welcome Park. Don't buy that.

[Griffin McElroy]

I welcome, welcome Park.

[Russ Freshly]

Griffin just recommended welcome Park. He said it's the only reason to spend $500.

[Griffin McElroy]

I look, I like tech. I'm not saying it is insane that it costs $10. It is insane that it is not a free thing, which is the literal norm that has been established by every modern game, you know, company on earth. As a person who likes the moment where you get a new technology, a game where you get to turn into a little guy and climb inside the controller and it's like, yeah, this is what the fucking microchips look like on the inside of it. I think that's very neat. I think that that is a very neat experience that is somewhat fulfilling. As a, I don't know, person who is enthusiastic.

[Russ Freshly]

It is exclusive. Like, I think the positivity would be through the ceiling about welcome park if there wasn't a price tag on it. And I know there's like a reputation within Nintendo of like Reggie claims, this is sort of up in the air in terms of accuracy. But in Reggie's book, he claims that Miyamoto said, we do not give games away for free. And Reggie convinced him to give Wii Sports away for free. And that's why it blew up in the States. And obviously Reggie died. Sorry, Reggie. So we're here having charge for.

[Griffin McElroy]

Reggie did not die. I do want to say here, he died in Nintendo. He was okay in the Nintendo fiction.

[Russ Freshly]

So now we have to pay $10.

[Chris Grant]

Crazy to have a game that is a tech demo with a cute little guy who's inside the hardware bouncing around for a $500 console. And historians of ye olden times in gaming might recall the PlayStation 5 had a little free pack in called Astro's Playroom, which was a cute little guy who bounced around the hardware and told you about the cool new features. And the big difference there is, I think that was a much better game with higher production value than welcome Park. And it was the blueprint for the game that won game of the year and swept every single publication last year. And Sony gave that away for free.

[Griffin McElroy]

Well, you wait for welcome Park 2 next year, baby. It's gonna blow. Your fucking.

[Russ Freshly]

That little guy that runs around, he's gonna be fucking awesome.

[Griffin McElroy]

I think that the money question lingers over, casts A pretty long Shadow over the switch 2. And I know that that is not a conversation that we want to get especially mired in, but I will just say that I think Mario Kart World is pretty fun. I do not think, as a first shot across the bow of can$80 be the standard price of our first party games? I don't think that it is the strongest fucking argument for that case. Because it's not. It's not. You don't feel. You don't feel that $20 difference in the. You know, when you equip the cow skin and switch it to hdr.

[Justin McElroy]

Especially a product that is, like, better. The more people that play. Yeah, sure, right. Like, the more friends that you have playing Mario Kart, the more valuable Mario Kart is.

[Russ Freshly]

Did anyone else play anything else that, like, stood out in terms of. Those were the two games that I played for Wordsworth?

[Griffin McElroy]

I mean, I've been playing Tears.

[Russ Freshly]

Oh, yeah, you mentioned. Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

I mean, it's been just long enough to have forgotten all the puzzles and shit.

[Russ Freshly]

Have you been doing Zelda notes?

[Griffin McElroy]

Yes. It's very cool. It truly is. You can connect to your. I don't know how it connects, but whenever you are playing the game and connected to the Internet and you have the Nintendo app on your phone, it will do, like, a live GPS show you exactly where you are, and you can see whatever on the map. And it will do, like, voice navigation for you that updates in real time, which is very neat.

[Russ Freshly]

Would it let me find all the koroks?

[Griffin McElroy]

It would let you find all the koroks. It'd let you find all the cave entrances if you wanted to get rid of it. I did that already about it. Yeah, that's true. I forgot.

[Chris Grant]

Griffin, how old was your. How old was your tears saved?

[Griffin McElroy]

I started a new one.

[Chris Grant]

Oh, so. Oh, yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

I mean, I played at launch. Yeah. 2023.

[Chris Grant]

So I had not gone back in. This was kind of surprising to me since August 23rd. So firing it back up, I kind of. I don't know. I felt like it was more recent.

[Griffin McElroy]

Than that, but it feels fucking great, right?

[Chris Grant]

Yeah, no, it feels great.

[Griffin McElroy]

It runs so, so, so, so well. And it's, like, the best game ever.

[Chris Grant]

So I think the smoothness is a huge W. But the load times, like, the load times in that game were painful. And being able to fire it up and immediately have the game pop up quickly or die and have it pop up quickly, that was really nice. The Zelda notes thing is really cool. I worry that it's a Great. I don't know proof of concept for the kinds of things they can do with Nintendo Switch app. I don't know if you're going to see a lot of that kind of integration.

[Russ Freshly]

Probably not.

[Griffin McElroy]

This felt like it was like not for free.

[Russ Freshly]

We don't want to redesign the core internals of the game so we're going to kind of halfway it with an app.

[Chris Grant]

I think that second screen thing is really clever. I mean they launched a whole console with that in mind and I think adding it is smart. I just. I don't know if they have enough ideas to extend it and if any other third parties are going to do it. But yeah, I was really impressed with that and Breath of the Wild. I did some of the gamecube. I fired up some.

[Griffin McElroy]

Oh yeah, how's that?

[Chris Grant]

Fired up some Wind Waker. I have not. I managed to finally order a GameCube controller, but I didn't get it yet. I didn't. I wasn't exhaustive. But the emulation seems really good. It doesn't. It doesn't seem really compromised. It's fun to get gamecube games on there and I'm excited for them to add more. I would love Luigi's Mansion to be available, you know, for spooky season.

[Griffin McElroy]

When you go, I'll see what, I'll see what I can do.

[Justin McElroy]

You should check out the Rog Ally.

[Chris Grant]

X. I mean I have a gamecube right here. It's just, it's. When it's on the Switch, it's really.

[Justin McElroy]

You want to play with widescreen up res.

[Chris Grant]

Widescreen.

[Griffin McElroy]

Come on over. Justin's got some really, really sick shit, man.

[Chris Grant]

Justin, is that.

[Justin McElroy]

No, it's just like there's no. I mean the truth of the matter is if Nintendo didn't have a first party stable to like fall back on, this is an unimaginable flop. I mean it is twice as much as like competitive devices that can play a lot more stuff and have a.

[Chris Grant]

Lot more flex hardware standpoint.

[Justin McElroy]

Literally no reason to get. They are holding it hostage. They're holding Mario and Link hostage in, in their expensive box like and this. And if you think that I'm like being hyper like, like, like facetious here or overstating it. They are charging you $10 for the tutorial. They will do anything to get as much money out of you as humanly possible. And I'm saying that like there's no this, this, this device. You cannot justify it.

[Chris Grant]

I'll say this. Compared to the PC gaming portable segment that's your rogue allies and your Steam decks and everything else. The Switch 1 outsold the entire category by a bajillion to one. The forecast on the Switch 2 are that they're going to continue to outsell the entire portable PC gaming category by many orders of magnitude. So in some cases, this is a popularization of the concept. The super dweebs in the house like you and I. I'm a Steam Deck user still not. I'm not fully Rog ally pilled, but we'll play that because we have games on Steam and I still would rather spend time and money on Steam Library than Nintendo Library. Even though I will give Nintendo a lot of credit. I went back before the Switch 2 launched and pulled up my op ed just before the Wii U launched. And then I wrote another one just before the Switch launched about how bad Nintendo's online capabilities are and how much it gave me pause with regards to their ability to kind of compete in a modern environment.

[Griffin McElroy]

But also, that used to be the Charlie Brown football with us. I feel like even as far back as Joyce Dick of like, man, did you hear about this fucking streetpass stuff? At 3ds, Nintendo's finally found Figure it out.

[Justin McElroy]

And then that and Monster Hunter. This is the Monster Hunter that everybody's.

[Chris Grant]

Going to get into up until even the Switch. Like if you lost your DS, if you lost your 3Ds, if you left your portable console at school or on the bus or wherever, all the games you bought on it were gone. That's insane. That's like a truly insane prospect. And so the Switch changed all that, and the Switch 2 changed all that. And I think the idea that your Library has some and now the fact that your Switch 1 games work through a software layer on Switch 2 and they work better, gives me some confidence that this is a place you can actually put your digital purchases safely and not feel like they're going to disappear in one generation. In the way that I think that's part of why a lot of people stick with Steam. Because those games you bought in 2007 on Steam are still there.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's still like the stuff all does kind of the same thing. But I do think that there are clearly still two. I mean, there's more than two. But the Rog Ally X Steam Deck ecosystem is different from the Nintendo Switch ecosystem insofar as you can go to Target and buy the Switch and then you turn it on and Mario's like, here's how to put $80 in to get me to take my clothes off. And the Steam deck, if you are not familiar with that world and you are not familiar with that ecosystem and you are not as savvy about that stuff, you know, it can be a bit imposing, I imagine.

[Russ Freshly]

And the Rog even more so.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yes. Fuck yeah, man. The stuff you have to do, it's.

[Justin McElroy]

Just, you know, with a Nintendo console you're not paying for horsepower. You're not paying for like you're paying for the library and the joy, the pleasure, the whimsy.

[Chris Grant]

I actually think that this is the first time that you can make a case that Nintendo is really hardware forward. Yeah, they're bragging about the specs of this thing. Their entire pre release cycle was about spec sheet in a way that it normally is not. And the early readout from your dorks at Digital Foundry, you know, once the smart nerds get a hold of it, is that from a hardware standpoint, this thing is more powerful than a Rog ally and it is more powerful than a Steam Deck. It won't always be. That market will iterate more often than the Switch 2. But for right now this thing is kind of a beefcake compared to the Switch one at its launch and certainly compared to some of the other current PC gaming counterparts. What they do with that horsepower, it's.

[Justin McElroy]

Just so hard to just. Unless you're dying to get back into those old Nintendo, the Switch 1 games though. It's just so hard to justify like there's so little. It feels so cynical that it's really hard I think to get excited to launch because it feels cynical. It's not my cynicism, it's like it feels cynical to me.

[Russ Freshly]

Even at the Switch 1 launch we were like you should like you had fucking breath of the wild and people were still saying you could you find waiting like wait a year, the library will be more filled out. It'll be have more.

[Justin McElroy]

You'll always find way. I mean like that is a. You know, I want to try to separate like the, my anti consumers impulses here from like I don't, I'm not trying to rain on, on the parade. Like it's always. You could always wait and the prices, the prices are always gonna get better. But as they say it at the RV store in my town, the price is going to go up and the kids are going to grow up eventually you just got to pull the trigger and get it. This one, I just don't know how I wish I could justify it. I'd love to get excited about it. There's just nothing there.

[Russ Freshly]

Well, it's a good thing you have a podcast about video games. So there's your justified.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, dude, it's fully justified for you. Do not sweat it, man. Like you're good. Personally, you don't have to worry about that.

[Justin McElroy]

I wish I could justify endorsing.

[Chris Grant]

Well, as soon as Super Mario Odyssey 2 comes out later this year. I heard it from my uncle who does definitely work in Nintendo.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, I heard at the end of Bonanza, Donkey Kong gets killed by Mario with the hammer. Mario from Mario Odyssey. And then he's like, November 15, 2025 and he announces the release of that one. So fucking that's the good stuff. Yeah, it's so cool. We should take a break.

[Russ Freshly]

Yeah, let's take a break.

[Griffin McElroy]

We have been going for a while and we have summer game fest to talk about. So let's do that.

[Chris Plant]

This episode of the Besties is brought to you in part by Car Gurus, y' all. I lived in New York for most of my adulthood and then I moved to Texas and I suddenly needed to buy a car. And let me tell you, I wish I had had Car Gurus back then. This website rules and it makes purchasing a car not just easy but but like straight up not a headache like it used to be. It does pretty much everything that you're going to need. It will help you find a trusted dealership whenever you're ready. It gives you the transparent hassle free, hassle free buying process. It lets you know all the details about the vehicle itself and it sets you up with lots of great deals and there are tons and tons of options. Over 4 million listings. That is more car listings than any other major online automotive marketplace in the US plus all the tools and the info and everything else that I already mentioned. It is no wonder that similar web estimated traffic data shows Car Gurus is the number one most visited car shopping site. So buy or sell your next car today with [e-mail] Go to CarGurus.com to make sure your big deal is the best deal. That's CarGurus.com CarGurus.com this episode is sponsored in part by Trade Coffee. Trade Coffee is exactly what I need right now as we are barreling into the summer season because listener it is getting hot outside and I am craving cold brew basically every minute of the day. But if I go to a cafe and I buy it every minute of the day, I will go broke. Trade Coffee has a very helpful and very easy solution which is order some Trade coffee, get it in the mail, and then I just make the cold brew myself. It is so easy. You scoop the coffee, you add the water, you chill overnight, and voila, it's waiting for you. I personally like to save my caffeine for a little bit later when it's nice and warm out, like 2 or 3pm Just open the fridge and it's right there. No having to get the keys and go to a cafe and spend a ridiculous amount of money on something that, you know, I just have waiting for me in the fridge. It is delicious coffee. So if you are something of a connoisseur, you have that handled. It's all roasted to order. They curate all the equipment that you could need. So if you want to get started, they got that covered for you too. Like I said, easy peasy. I really enjoy having these just shipped right to my house. And I love having that sweet cold coffee waiting for me whenever I need it throughout the summer. And I think you will too. For a limited time, trade is giving away a free Hario cold brewer when you sign up for a cold brew subscription. When you go to drinktrade.com forward/besties, that is drinktrade.com forward slash besties B E S T I E S to get your free cold brew maker with select cold brew subscriptions. That's drinktrade.com forward/besties.

[Russ Freshly]

So as I mentioned earlier, I was in California this past weekend for Geoff Keighley and the other gang. Summer Game Fest 2025.

[Justin McElroy]

Yes, a lot. God, the announcements.

[Russ Freshly]

There's a lot of announcements. A lot of games.

[Griffin McElroy]

Sure.

[Russ Freshly]

I didn't play a ton of games, but I did watch a lot of trailers. I don't know. Did you guys follow any of the news? Anything that jump out to you in particular?

[Griffin McElroy]

Well, they're remaking my favorite video game of all time in Persona 4 revival, which they announced with a trailer that was the equivalent of Atlus saying, yeah, we're doing it. Shut the fuck up. Shut the fuck up. It'll be done when it's done. Persona 6 is coming in 2081. Fuck you. It'll be out when it's out. It was 15 seconds of the protagonist running through the fancy updated streets of Inaba while one of the songs from Persona played. And for us. For us weirdos. That's awesome.

[Russ Freshly]

Do you want to guess when the actual next sequel will happen?

[Griffin McElroy]

Oh, I mean, I don't know. In Persona 6.

[Russ Freshly]

Well, because they do say, in addition to the trailer, that in the letter, that they released.

[Griffin McElroy]

They put out a statement because I think they knew that this trailer, this thing was so thoroughly pre revealed via the rumor mill that I think people's expectations were a little bit high. And the trailer really was. I think it's 40 seconds long and it is very, very, very, very little footage to go off of. And so they did put out a statement that was like, hey, we're working on it. Really excited. We know people like this one a lot and we're still working on the next one too. I think probably it's not going to be until 2027 that we see Persona 6 at the earliest. And I think it would be a shock if Revival shows up this year, as excited as that would make me. But, yeah, I'm glad that that one paid off also. Grounded two. Yep, Grounded two would be interesting.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Russ Freshly]

The games that jumped out to me when we were watching trailers were ill. Did you see that trailer for Ill?

[Chris Grant]

It looks sick.

[Russ Freshly]

Looks very cool. It's a scary first person shooter. It looked kind of like Resident Evil.

[Justin McElroy]

I'm surprised I spoke to you, Russ, because you're usually such a scary.

[Russ Freshly]

Yeah, I'm not going to play it. I'll be too scared to play it.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Russ Freshly]

But I like the idea. I thought the visuals were very impressive. And it. And it just jumped out at me as like. Because they do like weird crowds of zombie babies that. It was just working for me.

[Griffin McElroy]

New Resident Evil.

[Chris Grant]

Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

Resident Evil. What's it? Requiem.

[Justin McElroy]

Requiem.

[Griffin McElroy]

Is that the name of it?

[Russ Freshly]

Let's go with Resident Evil 9, which I think is a good shorthand.

[Chris Grant]

I'm. I got a real thing for Resident Evil games just in general, like historically, but ever since seven and then Remake two and three and then eight, they're all.

[Griffin McElroy]

So they've all been good.

[Chris Grant]

They're all so good. I go back and I like, go. I get weird about completely finding everything, doing all the stuff. So they showed no gameplay, new characters. Is this a continuation of the story? I don't know. I have no idea.

[Griffin McElroy]

I think it is.

[Chris Grant]

Yeah.

[Russ Freshly]

I guess I will say they showed gameplay at Summer Game Fest in a back theater that was under embargo, so. And there were aspects of that that I can't share, but I am aware of.

[Chris Grant]

Can you tell us this?

[Griffin McElroy]

You're just bragging right now.

[Russ Freshly]

Well, I didn't see the. I didn't see it. I just heard it through my sources.

[Chris Grant]

Does it have graphics in it?

[Russ Freshly]

So there are graphics and characters and.

[Griffin McElroy]

Can you shoot, guys?

[Russ Freshly]

Can't say that.

[Chris Grant]

Come on. Damn it, Russ.

[Russ Freshly]

No, that's too much.

[Griffin McElroy]

You weren't even there. You didn't sign the embargo.

[Russ Freshly]

That's true. I am optimistic of that one because basically every Resident Evil game released recently has been pretty at least good, if not great, if not excellent. Some of them have been excellent. So I think they're really being very smart with that franchise in ways that for many years they weren't very excited to see.

[Griffin McElroy]

Mina the Hollow.

[Russ Freshly]

Oh, hell yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

The next Yacht Club Games. The creators of Shovel Knight, it looks a lot like Shovel Knight, but their take on a sort of more top down. What would you say, like almost Zelda?

[Russ Freshly]

Yeah, it looks like Link's Awakening. I think it's probably the closest analog. You're like a little mouse named Mina, I assume, and there's like a whole open world of dungeons and puzzles and upgrades that you can find for your character. And man, I loved Shovel Knight so much. So I kind of have a lot of faith in this developer to make dope ass shit. I think there's actually a demo, a playable demo on Steam right now. I don't want to play it because demos for games that I really, really want to play seem like spoilers to me. And you know how I feel about spoilers. But it was really cool.

[Chris Grant]

How about Scott Pilgrim? I like everything tribute games does. That's my intro there. And I know it's not a game that didn't like the World on Fire. It was missing for a while and they just did the release last year, but two years ago. But that scratches it for me. I'll say this. I don't know if my kids have any affection for beat em ups and like, I don't think it does much to them. And I'm always like, let's play Streets Rage 4. And they're like, no, that's stupid. But it does it for me. So yeah.

[Russ Freshly]

And this is a new. A fully new game. It feels like it's borrowing more from River City. Ransom has like these RPG elements.

[Chris Grant]

Yeah, yeah.

[Russ Freshly]

Which is cool. I'm into that as well.

[Justin McElroy]

I want to talk about Deadpool.

[Russ Freshly]

Okay. He's the bad boy of Marvel.

[Justin McElroy]

So Deadpool is the bad boy of Marvel and he is back with a new twisted adventure in virtual reality. I think it's developed by Twisted Pixel. Pretty sure I'm accurate in that. Does that feel right?

[Russ Freshly]

I don't know actually.

[Chris Grant]

Who developed they going Concerned still.

[Justin McElroy]

I think I'm right. I'm a Google Twisted Pixel. Yeah. Okay.

[Russ Freshly]

What other games for remind the people what Twisted Pixel has Worked on so.

[Justin McElroy]

Twisted Pixel, did Wavy Tube Man Chronicles and Wilson's Heart Explosion Man. Loco Cycle Explosion Man. And I'm looking at their website now, and they've done some other games that I was not aware of, like Path of the Warrior, Defector and B Team. And then this. Now we got Deadpool VR and it's a new Wade for a new day. Neil Patrick Harris is taking over as Wade Wilson. And I just want to know how everybody feels about this. Do we feel betrayed or. I want to talk to my biggest Deadpool guys and just see where we're at.

[Russ Freshly]

I'm just glad that Mint Mobile is doing okay. And clearly it's doing okay to the point where he can just set it aside and be like, yeah, you can get the scraps, Neil. You're good.

[Griffin McElroy]

Ian's going through a lot right now.

[Russ Freshly]

Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

And so sometimes when that happens, you need a friend to step in and pick up some of the slack.

[Justin McElroy]

So usually, though, being Deadpool is his outlet. You know what I mean? That's where he works through.

[Russ Freshly]

Now.

[Griffin McElroy]

Do you think.

[Russ Freshly]

Do you think, in classic Deadpool fashion, Neil Patrick Harris will allude to the fact that he is not what people think of when.

[Griffin McElroy]

I bet we'll get.

[Justin McElroy]

There is. Hey, dude, there's no way. There's no way that he is going to refer to the fact that there's usually a different guy doing the Deadpool voice.

[Griffin McElroy]

No way.

[Justin McElroy]

I will bust up.

[Russ Freshly]

So he for sure will. He will say that. And you're gonna be busting. Just kill yourself.

[Chris Grant]

There was a whole Brian Reynolds already made like a joke video about the whole thing. I imagine this is running gag for a while.

[Russ Freshly]

You're gonna have a good time, Justin. Good news.

[Justin McElroy]

That's good.

[Russ Freshly]

Worry not.

[Justin McElroy]

That's good.

[Russ Freshly]

I played a game.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Russ Freshly]

Did you have anything more to say about the Mercury with the mouth?

[Justin McElroy]

No, no, no. Thank you.

[Russ Freshly]

I played a game called Art is Rifle. This was at the. It's called the Mix or the Indie Mix, I guess it's like a collection of indie developers showing their stuff. And I have no fucking idea how this game is played. I tried playing it and enjoyed shooting paint around.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, it looks like if Antichamber was like a fun game game.

[Russ Freshly]

Sorry, Antichamber.

[Griffin McElroy]

I love Antichamber, but this looks like if Antechamber was also. And that's it.

[Russ Freshly]

Yeah, it looks fucking sick. Yeah. It's all these hard lines and weird. Yeah, Antechamber is a good analogy. It's on Steam. You can look it up. The screenshots of it. I have no, again, no idea how it's played. I was stuck in an area I assume there are puzzles and color probably plays a big part, which might preclude me from enjoying myself. But what I did play was encouraging.

[Justin McElroy]

I'm excited about the idea of Killer N, which is a social deduction game. It looks like there has been a murder and you're trying to figure out with a bunch of other. It looks a little like vibes wise. Not vibes wise, but like, it seems a little bit like after the. The shooting has happened, like after the action has happened. You're kind of like trying to put the pieces together. It's not super specific, but it looks like a really neat idea from the trailer. So I'd like to check more of that out.

[Griffin McElroy]

I'm excited to play Lies of P some more. I never finished it, but now there's DLC and it's out now.

[Russ Freshly]

Apparently the DLC is too hard for even Lies of PS Sickos.

[Griffin McElroy]

They've been complaining sucks because I am not one of them.

[Russ Freshly]

So they are patching it to make it easier. So maybe it's a good thing that we haven't played it yet. But I am excited about that as well.

[Griffin McElroy]

What was this LEGO game? I didn't actually watch the trailer for LEGO Voyagers.

[Justin McElroy]

Hey, watch it while we're just sitting here. It looks really interesting. It's like you're. It's sort of following a piece. Like a LEGO piece, literally.

[Russ Freshly]

No, actually, you're confusing that with the other LEGO game. There were two LEGO games. Sorry to interrupt, but there were two LEGO games announced.

[Justin McElroy]

How did you psychically know which game?

[Russ Freshly]

Because we're looking at the rundown.

[Justin McElroy]

Okay, got it.

[Russ Freshly]

A good question, though. Talk about your people.

[Griffin McElroy]

Oh, no, yeah, no, I was talking about Lego Voyage.

[Russ Freshly]

Oh, so I was wrong.

[Griffin McElroy]

Oh, you were wrong.

[Justin McElroy]

So one of us is a clown who knows Russ is a clown better than the other one and it turns out it's me. Wow. I know Griffin better.

[Russ Freshly]

Weird.

[Griffin McElroy]

There is a game called Lego Party, and I didn't even know that that was a thing. What is that, Russ?

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah. You seem like such a big fan of it, Rust.

[Russ Freshly]

I am. It was on the rundown. I was such a big fan. Lego Party is Mario Party, but with LEGO and a little less bullshit. But if you like Mario Party and less bullshit in Mario Party, I really found that quite enjoyable.

[Justin McElroy]

Play warioware.

[Griffin McElroy]

This does. This Voyagers game looks cute, though. You are like a little piece and you're just going around and you're building stuff and you're solving puzzles with a friend.

[Justin McElroy]

It's like. It's like Deadpool VR but with Lego puzzles.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah. I mean, I get excited about games where I'm like, yeah, that's a. That Henry will definitely want to play that. And this seems like one of those for sure. And Deadpool VR, you know what other.

[Chris Grant]

Game Henry might be into? I was thinking.

[Griffin McElroy]

What's that?

[Chris Grant]

There's a new Wu Tang game coming out.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yes.

[Justin McElroy]

That looks cool as hell.

[Griffin McElroy]

Henry's really excited for that.

[Chris Grant]

At some point, you have to introduce him to Wu Tang. And I'm not sure. Different parents, different styles. I'm not going to tell you when, but, you know, it's good to know it'll be there when he's ready.

[Griffin McElroy]

We do a sort of like when Rachel was still pregnant, we would put Wu Tang up to the belly and so there would be like. That way when they were ready for it, they would have some. The lattice work would be some of the support systems.

[Chris Grant]

The scaffolding is there for them to clip right into 36 chambers. That's good. It does look fun, though.

[Justin McElroy]

Also, Le Chiffre from Casino Royale is coming to Hitman, which is very confusing. I don't know why they did that. It's very confusing.

[Griffin McElroy]

Wait, what? Le Chiffois, the bad guy from the Mads Mikkelsen bad guy from Casino Royale who cries blood.

[Justin McElroy]

He's going to be a high value target in Hitman.

[Griffin McElroy]

God bless you. God bless you, Hitman. Keep doing your thing, man.

[Justin McElroy]

I want to. Okay, Hitman, if we're doing it, let's fucking do it, dude. Let me hunt Freddy Cougar. Give me the tool.

[Griffin McElroy]

That is not. I thought it was gonna be fully like, let's do a James Bond Hitman game. I thought that's.

[Justin McElroy]

They are doing it in the media. Let's get some.

[Russ Freshly]

Because all the Hitman missions happen with like people just going about their day to day. So, like, just like checking him out and trying to take him out while he's like at the library checking out books would be fucking awesome.

[Chris Grant]

I got a better one. Let's do Freddy Fazbear. And we could just mix. Get the. Get the kids, get the, you know, get the gens, the zoomers, the alpha gen kids on. On Hitman. At some point you got a bridge.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah, let's do. Let's do Hitman versus. It follows.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yes.

[Justin McElroy]

And it's like you don't know who the target is until you see someone walking all weird and Then you shoot them.

[Chris Grant]

Social Deduction game. I like this.

[Justin McElroy]

But it might be game like Spy Party too.

[Russ Freshly]

That might be Hitman disguised as It Follows.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, sure. It's. This thing's got legs and layers.

[Chris Grant]

You call it Hit Follows? Because Hitman would call it that.

[Griffin McElroy]

Chris Grant. Fuck yeah, man.

[Chris Grant]

That. I want to talk about the game that wasn't at Summer Games and it's driving me crazy because I feel like they're. Torture is a strong word. I don't want to use it lightly, but I feel like there is an abuse going on with a certain games community from a certain developer, and that is Hollow Knight, specifically Silksong.

[Russ Freshly]

And it actually was a game fest, by the way.

[Griffin McElroy]

It was to a certain extent. It was showed on a screen at the Xbox.

[Chris Grant]

They keep doing.

[Griffin McElroy]

And then it was like, and when's it coming out?

[Chris Grant]

It's coming out later. Check us out.

[Russ Freshly]

They said this year. Yeah, sure, they did last year.

[Justin McElroy]

That's adorable.

[Russ Freshly]

And it's confirmed.

[Griffin McElroy]

So wild. I made a joke in the Slack chat when it showed up on a screen and was like, what if this was the only Hollow Knight Silk song that we got during this? How wild?

[Russ Freshly]

For that matter?

[Griffin McElroy]

Or ever? Yeah, what if this is the last time we got to see it? Yeah, no, it's wild that that's not more of a known quantity at this point.

[Russ Freshly]

Even Deadpool made fun of Hollow Knight.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, there's nothing sacred to that guy.

[Justin McElroy]

Was that in the Deadpool VR trailer?

[Russ Freshly]

I think it might have been in Geoff Keighley's promo for it. Real quick, Griffin. I'm surprised you mentioned Stranger Than Heaven, which is the Yakuza in like various decades in Japan.

[Griffin McElroy]

Oh, was that at the Kingdom?

[Russ Freshly]

He showed a new trailer for it. I don't remember which one.

[Griffin McElroy]

I didn't catch all of those.

[Russ Freshly]

Yeah, yeah. Stranger in the Heaven Looks very cool. It was originally called Project Sentry and ah, okay. I think it was.

[Griffin McElroy]

I've heard of that.

[Russ Freshly]

The idea is that you're gonna see Yakuza through different time periods is.

[Griffin McElroy]

Oh, fuck yeah. This looks rad.

[Russ Freshly]

Fucking sick. And there's.

[Griffin McElroy]

This looks really cool. Hey, man, thanks. You're a good games journalist. Because I didn't know that. And now I do.

[Russ Freshly]

I try a couple more to wrap it up. Mixtape looks very cool. That's from the artful Escape developer. I don't know if you guys played that game, but that game.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Justin McElroy]

Oh, God.

[Russ Freshly]

I love our fantastic Moonlighter 2, which is obviously the sequel to Moonlighter. I think that also has a demo On Steam. That looks fucking sick. Luminesce Arise is.

[Justin McElroy]

Fuck.

[Griffin McElroy]

You're kidding.

[Russ Freshly]

Luminous is back, baby. It's got chameleons in. Looks fucking sick. It's obviously made by the developers of Tetris Effect. And then the last game, which I wasn't expecting, especially because it's named so forgettably. It's called Crimson Desert. Crimson Desert is basically looks like a medieval game, but with the gameplay of Breath of the Wild. And you are a single knight, I guess, but there's a war going on, but you are not part of the war. The war is like between two factions and you are like an outside element to that war. And so you have all, like Breath of the Wild tools and grappling hooks and such, so on and so forth. And you're going through pretty gorgeous, like, medieval environments as they're fucking, like, duking it out and I guess trying to like, complete missions and stuff. But I thought it looked really neat.

[Griffin McElroy]

This looks sick. Yeah.

[Justin McElroy]

Yes.

[Griffin McElroy]

I thought it was a massively multiplayer online game just because the name of it.

[Russ Freshly]

Yeah. I think it is developed by a team that traditionally makes MMOs, but this is not.

[Justin McElroy]

Okay, well, it's from Black. It's. It's from the black desert people. Right. So I'm assuming it's a.

[Griffin McElroy]

Is it from that? It is. You're right.

[Justin McElroy]

Okay, so I'm assuming it's part of the Desert Verse.

[Griffin McElroy]

That's great. I love that there's a desert verse.

[Justin McElroy]

I invented that just now. It may not be a desert verse.

[Russ Freshly]

I mean, now there's two games in the Desert Verse.

[Griffin McElroy]

They're making two games with desert in them. And now I have a desert verse.

[Russ Freshly]

Okay. I think that's basically it. We covered a lot of ground. Grant, anything you want to mention in honorable mentions before we close it out can be a game, could be a book, could be a piece of machinery that you're using.

[Griffin McElroy]

Tv, movie, whatever.

[Chris Grant]

Two fun games I've been playing that we didn't get to one. It's this JRPG influence. It's not Japanese, though game. And it has this really cool, innovative parry system that everyone's been talking about.

[Russ Freshly]

Is it called Claire Obscure?

[Chris Grant]

No, that's not it. It's Sea of Stars. Great game.

[Griffin McElroy]

Okay. I thought this was setting up a bit and it was.

[Chris Grant]

Sea of Stars just got a new DLC that came out. It's like eight to 10 hours. I'm not that far into it yet, but that's what they say, and it's excellent. And since I played it last. It has now three player couch co op so you can just hop into it with your buds, your fam right from the couch. The base game was excellent, so if you haven't played it, but now there's a whole new expansion. The expansion also costs Nintendo $0, which is nice.

[Griffin McElroy]

So do you need to. Is it one of those things where it picks up at the end of like a finished save file or can you like start it from scratch and just.

[Chris Grant]

I think you need the save file, I guess.

[Griffin McElroy]

Is it standard?

[Chris Grant]

There's a certain chunk of the game we have to get to. I had beat the game so I loaded up for my end game save and went that way.

[Griffin McElroy]

I forget which platform I beat it on, so I was struggling to remember.

[Chris Grant]

So there's that. And I've also been playing Sulaco, which just had a big patch come out and if you were playing Doom and just want to scratch more Doom itch, it's. It has a decidedly old school look, but it plays like a really modern game. They've been in a long early access period and they've been changing a lot and there's more stuff to come, but I found it.

[Griffin McElroy]

Is it an Aliens game?

[Chris Grant]

No, it's just an indie kind of old school boomer shooter FPS. But they do a really good.

[Griffin McElroy]

I thought that was the name of the ship from.

[Russ Freshly]

I think it might be. Yeah. I think it is a nod to that.

[Chris Grant]

Yeah.

[Russ Freshly]

They don't have the rights or anything.

[Chris Grant]

But yeah, great game. A lot of fun. It scratches that itch. And I've been going in, just kind of getting all the secrets and min. Maxing my runs through the levels and. Good stuff.

[Russ Freshly]

Yeah, I like video games. Chris Grant, you would like a game that we played like six months ago with hook shots and grappling and sliding on a hoverboard whose name I don't remember. Does anyone here remember that name?

[Chris Grant]

Cool.

[Griffin McElroy]

No, I don't. I simply don't. I simply don't.

[Chris Grant]

I'll go back and listen to every Bessie's episode.

[Russ Freshly]

That would be the best.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, I don't think that's too much to ask.

[Russ Freshly]

I finished and. Or season two, which was very good.

[Griffin McElroy]

Don't spoil anything. Don't even say that it's good, Russ, because if you say that it's good, I'm gonna know exactly what happens at the end.

[Russ Freshly]

No, that's fair. I think that's a fair critique. I won't. I won't do it.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's fucking great though.

[Russ Freshly]

Oh, that's. Yes. It's, it's very man, I was, I was very engaged with it. I also didn't realize that Dedra Miro, who's one of the stars of the show is also the voice of Yennefer from Witcher 3.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Russ Freshly]

Just making it happen. Good for good for dead. Your Miro, that's not her real name. That's the character's name.

[Griffin McElroy]

No.

[Russ Freshly]

Anyone else have anything? Justin?

[Justin McElroy]

You know what? I set up the GeForce Nvidia streaming which I messed around with a couple years ago and didn't do much with. But I, I set it back up now. The GeForce now set it up and I set it up on the Steam deck just as a, I don't have anything like installed on it now. So I wanted to set it up for streaming and it works really, really well. I, I, it has evolved to appreciate point where it is it works really great and it's also the front end will let you tie in your like game subscriptions. So your steam, your other whatever other games, you have like cloud access to Epic games store, whatever and then you can play them from that main hub. So it kind of like turns all of your library into a streaming setup and it works really well. The lag is almost unnoticeable and you can play a ton of stuff just like right on the Steam deck. So that's very convenient and it works super duper well. It looks great.

[Russ Freshly]

What is that called again?

[Justin McElroy]

Very G force. Now.

[Griffin McElroy]

We finished Devil's Plan season two fucking rules. We also finished rehearsal season two and I do want to just second Russ's full throated endorsement of that. It's a rough ride at times, but it is also the most ambitious comedy thing I think I've ever seen and is also like thought provoking in a very genuine way that has really left it stuck in my craw for I don't know, like five days after we finished it.

[Russ Freshly]

Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

And yeah, I've been playing something else that is not we can't talk about yet but and then a bunch of Switch 2 shit clubhouse games. Clubhouse games on the switch. Played that on the switch too a little bit. Mostly because I watched Devil's Planet and they played some mancala on there and I was like, oh yeah, hell man, I'd love to tear up some mancala. I have ways of doing that now.

[Russ Freshly]

You can just find some stones, set up some cups.

[Griffin McElroy]

I guess I can make my own moncala board. Sure, I guess.

[Russ Freshly]

Okay. I think we did it. I want to thank Chris Grant for joining us.

[Chris Grant]

It Was a pleasure to be here. It just took us not working together anymore to get an invite. No big deal. I wasn't counting the days or anything. It's fine. It's not a big deal. I'm not. So that's cool.

[Russ Freshly]

You were working in my heart.

[Justin McElroy]

No big deal. I'm so happy that you're here, Chris. To podcast with you is a real gift. So thank you.

[Griffin McElroy]

We left it all out on the court today, man. And we did it for you because we did it because we wanted to do a good job for you, boss. So you know what?

[Chris Grant]

Let's just keep this one for me personal, private stash, and we'll do a whole other episode for the.

[Griffin McElroy]

Your own vintage. Yeah.

[Russ Freshly]

I also want to thank our patreon [e-mail] thebesties we have some new members that have recently joined us. We have Lindsay. We have Duncan. We have Andrina. I hope I pronounced that right. And Jameson, thank you for being members over at the Besties. You can go over to. Did I say it already? Patreon.com TheBestes I've heard.

[Griffin McElroy]

I'm sure you can't say it too many times.

[Russ Freshly]

You can't say it too many times. Yeah. Actually, three is too many, so I hope I didn't hit three. Okay, next week we are gonna keep it vague for y' all because we're still kind of figuring out the whole plan. But at the very least, I guarantee at least one game will be discussed. Is that fair to say?

[Griffin McElroy]

Wow.

[Justin McElroy]

Guaranteed.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, man. I think we can pretty much offer that for all of our episodes. I do think we've at least hit on one game at some point in the. In the runtime.

[Russ Freshly]

I also know that I'm going to be playing a switch that isn't owned by Jason Schreier. So that is something that I'm really looking forward to because he got his meaty grips all over that guy.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah. Wet.

[Russ Freshly]

I mean, it wasn't wet. They were. They were meaty. It was a meaty switch.

[Griffin McElroy]

It was wet when I did it. Please take us out of the show, Justin.

[Justin McElroy]

Thank you. That's gonna do it for us this week. Be sure to join. See you next week for the besties. Because shouldn't the world's best friends make the world's best games? Sam?