Exclusive Exodus Story And Gameplay Deep Dive (Cover Story)

0:00Welcome back to the Game Informer Show, a weekly podcast covering the video game industry. Join us every Friday for a discussion of the latest gaming news, reviews, and exclusive reveals alongside Game Informer staff and special guests from around the industry. I'm one of your hosts today, Alex Van Aiken, and today I'm joined by Charles Hart. Hey, doing Charles? I'm doing well. Glad to have you. We're also joined by Kyle Hilliard. Hello. Hello, technically in Germany at the time you're listening to this. We're pre-recorded this one. Three of the four of us, as you're listening to this, we're now in Germany. Yeah, which is why there's like big crazy announcements that happen at Gamescom. And they're like, why are they talking about it? That's why we heard of this. We're just also if you're kind of like, you're right. And if your ad games come, please come by our booth

1:02and say hello, you might see us there. We're rounded out by the person that shares a very similar last name, but has no relation to me. It's Eric Van Allen. Hello. Is there for the development on that front that you feel the need to clarify it? It's just happening more and more. It is happening a lot. I've often joked that the funniest thing my parents could have done would have been to give me the name Alex. And that would have really just set up the greatest joke of all time. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's a busy show this week. We're going to be talking about our Exodus cover story, which spoilers. That's our next cover story, Exodus from archetype. It is a new upcoming sort of party based RPG set in space. Our cover story dives deep onto this character's name is silk. Correct. Correct. Salt. Salt. Salt. This character's name is salt. I have not read this yet because I

2:08just got it in the mail. Alex in the kitchen trying to take silk out of the soup. Oh, no. I literally just got this in the mail this early proof. I'm excited to dive in. I haven't read anything in it yet. But yeah, we're going to also be talking about Star Wars Zero Company. I've been playing a lot of that. Resonance, a play tale legacy. Kyle's going to talk about that in Blood Dungeon. It's going to be a packed show. Of course, I just said it a moment ago, but please, if you haven't yet, consider picking up a copy of Game Informer magazine. 10 issues a year delivered to your mailbox, 100 pages covered a cover. It's excellent. This is our special 35th anniversary issue. We've got an awesome feature in here celebrating 35 years of Game Informer coverage covers full of quotes from industry, you know, luminaries, developers, and I read some staff. Yeah, please. We got. We got. We got. We got. We got. Ed Boone, Takashi, Zuka, Tony Hawk.

3:14Rockstar. Tony Hawk is in this. Yes. Yeah. And then we've also got a lot of cover artists that have worked on the game and then also some like past editors like Andy McNamara, Elizabeth Olson, the first ever Game Informer editor in chief is in here. Yes. Hanson Dan Ryker. Lots of lots of Game Informer's history represented. Did you say Alex Ross? That's another one that we got Alex Ross. I was very excited about. Yeah. Yeah. So please, head over to Game Informer.com. Slash subscribe and pick up your copy today. Of course, if you've already got a copy or you're just here, you listen, that's all you can afford to do. You just like listen and show them up for Game Informer. Thank you for being here. We appreciate you. You're making a difference. And we hope that this this this podcast is entertaining for you. We wherever you're at, whether you're driving home from work, you're doing dishes at home, you're relaxing and listening to us as you play a game. We're glad you're here. Thanks for being here. All right. Let's get into the big talker this week. Charles and Eric, you two flew down to Austin, Texas,

4:21Eric's hometown to go hands on right with Exodus and see what it's all about. Interview the team. Learn about this character. Salt. I want to know everything. So please, please, let us let us hear it. Please. Okay. John, fine. Stop. Start talking. Come on. Yeah. We went to Archive Entertainment. This is a this is their debut game Exodus. And it's a studio that's founded by a lot of veterans of other AAA developers. They have a lot of posters in there of like games their team has worked on and then also stuff that inspired them. So like there's a lot of Star Wars merch in there. There's a big Yoda figure because Chad Robertson is one of the co-founders. He was he worked on Star Wars, the old Republic for a while at BioWare. And a lot of the heads there are X BioWare, specifically. Chris King, he worked on Mass Effect and Drama, but he also before that was at

5:22Halo Studios. And he was working on the Saints Row games before that. And then we got Drew Carpition who was there who was like lead writer on Mass Effect one and two I believe was his title. Eric, yeah. He knows more about BioWare history than I do. Sage Lee nodding in the background. But yeah, so we showed up there. This is again their debut game. This is also a studio that's under Wizards of the Coast. And I believe the Wizards PR that was there was like this is Wizards first like technically Wizards of the Coast's first published video game. So they're the publishers on this one. So they're very excited about this. They're pushing out a lot of stuff. There's a lot of tie-in media around this. So they got an episode of Secret Level. They got the Sci-Fi author Peter F. Hamilton to write two novels about the Exodus universe. And then there's also a whole tabletop role-playing game system that is like based off of Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition. That all exists already. And then Exodus the game is coming out next year. We got to play it.

6:27And yeah, I think the the the quick takeaway, the thing that gets people in the door is it feels like sort of an iteration on a Mass Effect type game made by some of the people who use work on Mass Effect. Not an exact one to one. There's a lot of different elements in this and a lot of new things. But if you are like hungry for Mass Effect and you haven't gotten one in years and years, this is kind of like the next best thing that exists right now. So the world of Exodus is named as such because I'll do some like brief world building explanation here. This is one of the hardest parts of writing the cover story by the way is I wanted to have so many paragraphs just breaking down the lore of this game as the foundational knowledge. So I'm like, okay, now I can start talking about stuff. In the game that I played, there wasn't a lot of it. I would say they integrated the world building very cleanly. It wasn't like overbearing or confusing all that much. And a lot of the stuff like there are the celestials

7:29are like an enemy race kind of it's more complicated than that. But like you don't really need to know all the specifics of what they are to like play through a level and shoot up some robots. But the gist of Exodus is that 40,000 years ago, sorry 40,000 years from now, humanity lives in a far different star system. So in the year like 2200 in the Exodus universe, everyone got on these ships and they left. And 40,000 years later, they successfully settled in this later star system. What's interesting is that they have speed, they have ships that are going at varying speeds. And one of the core pieces, I don't say mechanics, but I guess it is a beginning of X's. It's a concept of time dilation, which is that the closer you get to light speed, the slower you experience time. It's a big part of the movie interstellar. Not necessarily they're traveling, there's like some gravity effects that have come in that movie. But basically that you will

8:31have basically lived a few days and then back on your home planet, it'll have been months years, etc, etc. So I was to say that there is a group of humans that left earth and they had the fastest ships. I think they left last, but they had enough time to develop advanced technology. They had the fastest ships. So they arrived 16,000 years before the rest of humanity. And they have had like civilizations rise and fall and tech advanced so much that their bodies and physiology have completely evolved into this like umbrella of new species basically. And we call those the Celestials. So by the time they, that's such a cool concept. Yes, it's really genuinely awesome. There aren't as far as we know, there aren't aliens in this game in the traditional sense. They have not discovered life on planet that doesn't originate from earth. It's all earthy stuff. So by the time these other humans arrive in the year 40,000, these other guys have been like, hey, we've been here for 16,000 years. Like you are an ancient, ancient part of our past. And now

9:34you're trying to come in and like settle on these planets. So there's obviously some tension there. But also they're like, you're so much less than us. We're so advanced. We have all these crazy things. And some of them are like, now, yeah, go ahead. I have so many questions already coming the character like salt who is on our cover, the sort of octopus looking character inside of a giant mech suit. To be clear, salt is an octopus. Okay, salt is an octopus. Yeah. Okay, so that's not an old human that has transformed into. Okay, back here, I believe this character's name is Emris. This is an example of a Celeste. For the video viewers, I'll go, I'll go big screen on this. On the back. It's the person on the back. Yeah, the slightly groutish looking. Yeah, the character. And so this used to be a human. Yes, that is that is a long descendant of humans. He a human 16,000 years of it. And there's and this very human looking person is a human. That might be June. He's an octopus, Alex. Yeah. Yeah. And then on the front cover is salt.

10:38That's not a octopus. Occentian octopus. Oh, we can really cool. It's the term they use. Well, looks like a rail gun. Yeah. Yeah. Really, really awesome. She's such a cool character. Mortar cannons and a rail gun and a mech that has like tentacles for arms because she thinks that human arms are inferior. And so she's like, yeah, she's very very mercenary, which I like a lot about her. She's very terse and is like, okay, there's like a big enemy in front of us. You're going to pay me more, right? And I love that about her. She's great. So yeah, the awakened are these animals that have basically, like while humanity was doing all this technology and research, they're like, hey, we can give thought to animals. What if we did that? And disregarding years of fiction that said that that's probably a bad idea and would lead to a lot of internal strife and conflict. They did it anyways. And it of course led to internal strife and conflict. A section that we saw during our hands on time, which was

11:44actually super fascinating. I wish we could have played more of it, but we weren't able to was a side quest where a person had been killed in this hub area that we were in. And the suspect wasn't awakened wolf. And so we were working with the like detective that was on it who was an awakened boar and his human partner to try and figure out whether it was a frame, whether it was a setup to try and get this wolf framed for the killing or not. And you get into a lot of like internal politics around that where the wolf and the boar are like, hey, like awakened are discriminated against because there's a lot of humans who just see us as like we're still dogs, right? And you get into like a lot of really cool stuff around that. And I was I was really vibing with that. And then they were like, we we got to play the rest of the game. Is this boar in this wolf are they are they standing on two legs? No, no, so the awakened animals, they look exactly like regular animals, except they're a little bit bigger. They live longer and they all have like a chip

12:47on their heads that lets you hear their thoughts in English. And it's usually a little simplified. So like salt wouldn't say, you're going to pay me more, right? She'd say like large enemy hazard pay. Like almost not exactly like this, but kind of reminds me of Rocky from Project Hail Mary, the movie. And Drew Carpition, he was saying like, it's not that's not word for word what they're saying. It's just the closest translation. So a lot of them come off as a or they can come off as a little more direct with a shortened sentences and syntax centered structure all that. So yeah, that that happened also from the humans on their way from earth to these new star systems. There's people that there's like generations that were living just on these ships arrived. And in that process, you had some animals that you know became awakened, et cetera, et cetera. So the you arrive in the world of this game on a planet, there's like ancient celestial ruins here. So even though

13:51they're like thousands of years advanced, they've been long gone from this this moon that you guys are living on. And in the world of Exodus, you play his character named June Aslan, no relation to the line from Narnia, we asked. And your father founded the colony. And then he and your mom went on in Exodus, which is a trip that uses light speed travel. So there's time dilation that's experienced. So you'll have these people that are known as travelers that are still going to use the light speed ships, but it's just known that like, hey, there's a big mission. We got to go to a far off star system. They're going to be gone for what feels like 60 years or something like that. And then they'll come back for them. It'll have only been a few days or weeks or something. So what happens is your parents at some point went on an Exodus, never came back, but your older brother did come back. He's like, hey, man, your parents are dead. It's also your half brother to clarify for

14:53throne reasons. He's like, I'm going to be in charge now. And June is a threat to the throne. So he sends you send you on the other end into hiding. There are dynasties for humans. So there are dynasties of different families that kind of act as the ruling factions for each one of them. We kind of got to see how some of those work with some of the other characters that they act as sort of the factions for each one. As humanity has started to colonize, they start to organize under these dynasties. And it's a really cool setup because you get a lot of those kind of like court, politic type moments as well. Yes. Yes. The setup of this game seems so cool. You can see why it has like the premise where they're like, we need someone to write two 900 page novels about this universe real quick to make sure we've got more real quick. Just knock that out. Yeah, just knock that out. Yeah. So all this is say, this mission starts. You're playing as June and we're about to go into, this is the first of two missions we played. It kind of three. But we're about to go into a

15:55place called the Traveler Launch Complex, which is used to be a place that travelers, which are the people that go on these time dilation like certain. Yes, that would go on an Exodus. It's been shut down for a number of years because I'm pretty sure that you're the last one was the one that your brother, Gideon came back from. So people haven't gone in Exodus in decades. You're back here. Gideon has a tyrannical rule over this whole planet. And it's you're trying to get a ship to enable you guys to do the lights be travel to basically fight back and get the resources you need to take your home world back. When you go into this place, you get to hire salt, who's a mercenary. And she is an octopus that pilots a mech suit, which from from what we're interested, it's not necessarily she's like the first one to ever do it. But to be on land and interact with like aquatic awakened animals is like a significant thing. So it's you we don't see a lot of other aquatic. I mean, we see some on on the following mission, but it's it's generally fewer and far

16:58between. So she's like a very specific unique person to be in this. The combat, basically what you start with, I was a lot more fun than I was expecting. That was kind of my biggest takeaway, is I was going for like the world building and there's like big decisions you make. But it was a thing that as we were playing, I was like, Oh, I'm wanting to shoot these robots. I'm finding a lot of fun with it. You've got a gun that can switch between, it's called a recycler, it can switch between like shotgun and assault rifle and there's one gun. He's like, this is like the DMR. And I was like, Oh, yeah, it is like a DMR from Halo. I'm like, Oh, yeah, you worked on Halo. You probably you probably like a DMR on purpose. And that's such a like a small thing that for some reason I'm really into in games like control, you know, having the one gun that can yes, even though it's like functionally the same as like switching between guns. There's some about it that just feels cooler, you know, yeah, like a shape shifting gun is just like it should it should all it should be all one. That's awesome. Yeah. And then in combat, you can like press one

18:00of the shoulder buttons and it pulls up a wheel of things that your companions can do. So assault has a move where she has an ink mortar where she shoots a big mortar of ink. It makes like a cloud of basically smoke and that like blinds enemy. So you can use that. You can like open combat with that and then stun them. You can use that if you want to help yourself get through some places stealthily. Like you can blind someone and then take someone else out so they won't have ever seen you. And then there's also lots of like synergies you can do. So you can throw a grenade into that ink. It'll blow up and it'll spread the blind lit. Sorry. It was really passionate about this. Yeah. Really excited about the ink grenade. It'll it'll spread the blindness out to like other enemies nearby and you can do stuff like that. That's cool. And then the second mission we played was with a character named Suleiman. And he's from a dynasty called the Tenjin dynasty. And they are basically just a whole faction of like awakened the animals and they have like a few humans in there. So like his bosses are all ravens. The council of ravens I believe it was called

19:06Parliament of Ravens. Parliament of Ravens. I thought that oh you're so rare. It's murder. There's a murder of Crow as an appointment of ravens. And so he'll often there's like a scene where you interact with some celestial tech and he's like I thought you'd be able to do that. I was wondering how long it would take for you to bust that trick out. And June's like why do you know I can do this? He's like he doesn't say this but he's basically like I have eyes everywhere like the ravens are always watching. He's getting information from all this stuff. I didn't like him at first. He's kind of like a jerk and he's really full of himself. But he's got really cool combat abilities and Eric was using them. And I was just like I'm definitely going to use the sky all the time. His ability you press the shoulder button. He has a scramble cloak that lets him turn invisible. And he basically like teleports behind you and enemy and like instantly just does a bunch of damage to them. So in stealth mission someone can be like about to see you and you can just tap that real quick and he's like nope and he takes them out and then you go back to being undetected.

20:09That was frequently how I used it was somebody was about to spot me and I would just out loud say nope. And hit the button and Suleiman would just up here and just like take the guy out and take him away. And I'd just be like yeah that's awesome. It's like if you play the Assassin's Creed Brotherhood it's like calling your brotherhood assassin in to take somebody out really quick and it feels just as good. That's awesome. And combat are you switching from character to character or are you one singular like commander character. You're like ordering people around. You're always June but your companions are like fighting alongside you. You can again like use those abilities. Those will have like cool down that you'll activate. But there's also a thing I really like where they will so you point to them you say like hey hit that guy and do damage. They're like okay I'll use my ability. They also will call people out to you. They're like hey this guy's vulnerable. And if you kill them then it like recharges their cooldowns faster. So it's like a fun interact development where you are like actively paying attention to what they're saying

21:11because if you act on the other person's things one it'll just be like the best option tactically usually. And two it's making everything cool down faster. So I didn't see for for those wondering at home I didn't see a health bar on any of the companions when we played so it's they are present and they are fighting. But it kind of feels like the more modern approach to this style of combat where the characters are not not present. You're not going to have to worry about reviving anybody from what I could tell or anything like that. They mentioned that they can get like stunned or like downed if it's like not easy to have. But there you don't have to like babysit them. And we never mean or Eric in our play sessions ever have an instance where they were. Yeah, they were they were taking some damage especially in some of those boss fights and stuff. They were they were definitely on the front lines. So yeah. The other major mechanic is that June was born and crafted with Celestial DNA. I kind of

22:12unclear to me. Still have that. Born and crafted. I say born and crafted. I don't know exactly what that means. I just know he has Celestial DNA in him and his dad has left some Celestial like artifacts for him to use. So he specifically has this gauntlet he can use and it has like these celestial powers. So the first thing you get is this like earthquake ability where you can slam your hand into the ground and like erupts a bunch of stone. Eric later got an ability where you can throw like a blob of live stone, which is this like it's evolving stone and it like encases someone in rock or it can like block off like energy beams or something like that. And there's also a lot of stuff that he can just like plug his hand into and manipulate and it gives him like extra access. Also, I'm saying him we played as the male version of June. You can also play as a god of but we didn't do that. So I'm just using heat pronouns because that's more convenient for me but there there is a female option. And then as far as like the storytelling aspect of what all goes, the game has a when it will have like a big decision like a choice you have to make.

23:19There will be a thing where you know it it the Eric's really excited about this. I love this part. It'll kind of pause up and there's like text on either side of June's head and it'll be like should we go with this option or this option. And part of June's celestial DNA is he has this like precognition so you can like kind of see into the future. So when you get to choose what's going to happen, you get like a small window of like a little montage just like a little animated gif of art that rotates through a few things that kind of hints to you what might happen to the world if you make this decision. So you have a glimpse into the future but you don't really have a hard hard ideal of what's going to happen. Craspon it. Yeah. Yeah. And so it's fun being like when we looked at one where it's like should we there's a piece of tech that we can use and either we could reverse engineer it and we could start making our own tech from scratch or we could plug it into the ancient celestial tech that's already here and improve that and the argument was like the celestial's

24:20are way ahead of us. So if we just use the tech that's already here will be way more advanced. But if we make our own stuff, we won't be as reliant on celestial tech in the future. And so it's like back and forth of what you do and they're like I can't remember which one it was but one of them like the preview image was like a giant snake construct and I'm like how would that even happen? What is is that good or bad? Is that our state construct is an enemy state is a snake going to eat us if we use the tech? So it adds like a fun rear the snake. Do we worship the snake? Like what's going on here? The snake? Yeah. I think to give like a very dramatic example that would not be a spoiler is like if it was like hey, should we should we adopt this chicken or not? And then on one side, you're kind of going into your Paula Trady's future vision haze and it's like chickens are ruling over humans and you're like way way way way not that and you go the other way and it's like all humans become chickens and you're like how does this happen from a chicken? And that is

25:21like the appeal is that you're making these choices that they're definitely not small. They're definitely not tiny choices. But they are just something of like hey, don't do this or hey, like let's elect to do this instead of that. And then you're seeing how way way in the future because of potential future time dilation and stuff, this could have an impact on the things that will happen later on. Yeah. So what Eric was saying with the time dilation there is one of the things that makes this I think such a cool concept of a game, but it's also the thing Eric and I were both like if they pull this off and it worked, it'll be awesome, but we didn't see it ourselves. So we don't I share like fully cosine on it, but there are missions in the game where you will go on in Exodus, you will experience time dilation and your home hub of Persepolis is the same city the main city that you're at like years or decades or however much time will pass there while you're gone. So if I'm making an investment into future technology, it's not just like a idealistic hope for

26:21the future, it's a thing you'll probably encounter in the game. You will see how it affects the world because you'll come back in 20 years of past or whatever and some crazy stuff has happened. So I think that's probably like the most exciting kind of promising thing. And I don't know how many times you go on in Exodus in the game, but they were pretty clear that they're like it'll be a big decision when you do it. Like you're going to be spending several missions leading up to it. The Exodus itself is obviously going to be some mission of great consequence and then you'll come home. They also said that like I don't know how often it'll happen or what the circumstances are, but not every companion will come with you on every Exodus necessarily or like you might have romance options where you're separated by the Exodus. So it's like a lot of a thing that I people always talk about wanting in games that's not always executed as extremely as you want it to be, but like you want your choices

27:23to feel like they matter and the way for that to happen is for there to be big consequences. So to be like I made this choice and therefore this drastically different thing happened is like really exciting as a concept for a story. And I'm hoping that when the game actually happens that you do feel these like I think it'd be so cool if you're in like the final act of this game and depending on what choices you've made like your world looks wildly different or you have a completely different party or something to that effect where it's like the world has changed because of the things that you did and not just in a you can talk to a few different characters. So yeah I'm excited about this game. I had fun playing it. I think Eric's in the same camp. We had some great conversations with the team at archetype. They were very willing to to talk to us and share the journey. Oh the other part about this game. It's so funny. So I talked a lot about the game. There's a lot of details on world being a lot of stuff to get over. Didn't even touch on the fact that like the way a lot of people know this game is the Matthew McConaughey game. Because he

28:27introduced the game awards in 2023. I think it was 2023. It might have been earlier than that. I don't know. Time's the illusion. It's his first video game that he's in and they told us the story of basically they they're like well we you know it'd be great for this game if we get like a big a list actor in this conversation. And they made like a list of people that they wanted to have. And because time dilation is such a big thing in interstellar they're like you know it'd be great if we could get Matthew McConaughey. Matthew McConaughey lives in Austin. They said he's got like a reputation of helping like local Austin businesses out. So they had a meeting with him and they were pitching the game to him. And it's such a funny thing talking about Matthew McConaughey also because I couldn't do a good impression of him. But whenever you talk about things he says you're always resisting doing an impression of him you know like it's always it's always right it's in a box I'm just not quite cracking open. But apparently he leaned back after they gave the pitch and he was

29:28like the one thing I want to know is like why me why am I the person that you think it should be. And Chad said he was like well time dilations are really important part of our universe and there is a bit of a a shorthand like a little less explanation we have to do to get people to understand it and wrap their heads around it. If they if we can just say it's like in our stellar Matthew McConaughey's in this game it's like the thing he did. And apparently he just sort of leaned back and went well okay and then they signed on and that's that's how it is. So he plays a game a character in the game named CC or Lev. We didn't see but he's also a traveler. And the images I've seen of him he seems kind of like a ghost like he I don't think he exists outside of time but he is a vibe like he exists outside of time. And like a party member he's not a member okay he's got a real cowboy vibe to him. He plays a man. You don't say yeah like would you say like a McConaughey vibe. Yeah I would say a

30:30McConaughey. Well he's in a lot of the trailer like they made a series of like cinematic trailers where he's like pitching parts of the world as CC or Lev and they always end with with something along on to like I am CC or Lev yesterday today tomorrow and then it like and so that's like his sign-off line. But they they mentioned that he'll like judge decisions that you make as a traveler being like oh you tried to play it safe there it didn't work out or like that was a pretty extreme thing so like he's he's been around the block and that's just just fun. There's a list of Austin celebrities like a Pantheon if you will and Matthew McConaughey is certainly like at the top I would say he is he is the Austin celebrity. There you go. Yeah that's cool. Yeah so in that that you can read more details about that in the cover story which is live now digitally beginning physical issues in the next coming weeks. I'll have some extra coverage articles going

31:35up I think by now I probably have a couple up and then we'll have videos and stuff we did a rapid fire interview that was fun. Eric did not know my questions before I asked them and there was definitely one that we had to like pause after because I just really caught them off guard and I enjoyed yeah that that was that one calm me a little off guard we had to take a moment because I was laughing so hard. Yeah that'll be good I'm excited about this and I bet you guys will be too. Now back to Alex. Wow thanks Charles that was great. The way he said thanks Charles made it very like a Nintendo Direct. Yeah wow thank you Charles on now thank you so much now we're gonna take a quick break talk about ads come back and talk about Star Wars Zero Company residents a play tail legacy and blood dungeon we'll be right back right after this look we've all been there

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33:39serious about climbing the ranks this is the weapon of choice stop playing fair and start playing faster go to logitech g.com and use code game informer at checkout to save 25% off Logitech G products exclusions apply this offer is non stackable so grab the super strike today the winning click is finally here welcome back to the game informer show I want to get into star wars 0 company we hold on on before we totally leave Exodus behind I must perform the ceremonial I've decided it's ceremonial changing up my background folks this is unprecedented wow this is unprecedented Kyle changing out the background in real time this is how the sauces you thought this was face no you thought it was a green screen it's his real background that's right okay that's going

34:40to get that's going to make it the Exodus accolades trailer one of the one of the magazine covers on Kyle Hill you're smiling swapping it yeah by the way Wes asked me once what the order was you know none I just whatever I had just stop there a good order yes well I have been playing Star Wars 0 company the new tactical strategy game from bit reactor is published by electronic arts you if you've ever played an XCOM game you're going to be in familiar territory all right it's a sort of team based and team is in you are controlling multiple people on the team this is not a multiplayer game it is a single player game but you are controlling the tactics of a squad recruiting new members mourning the losses of ones that have died in combat because if you're a real gamer you play with permadeath on that's how this game was designed to be played no

35:42today no scaves coming around here no scaves coming no safe scumming around here do you like no skates coming anywhere I let my people die yes I do that is we talked about this oh maybe on a recent episode or maybe it was offline and I just think I'm always on a podcast I don't know but saves coming is for cowards all right that is the salvation for what it's worth yeah saves coming is for cowards we should live with our consequences it makes games more interesting it does however I don't like it when I don't get what I want so well maybe should go to therapy wow okay okay if you save scum going therapy Alex Vanneck in 2026 all right I said what I said this was this conversation by the way it was not on content this was one of our mourning meetings at work we're talking about oh yeah we're talking about an embargoed game because I made a decision

36:42and I didn't know if it was gonna work out or not and then West said scaves save scumming piece of s how dare you and then Alex said I don't save scum I accept the consequences so in character I can't wait to catch him save scumming I you're never gonna catch me I also want to do it it's gonna feel so good when I play animal crossing I don't time travel time travelings for kids that's that's different that's not different that's not different completely it's living in the real world Eric this is where we live animal crossing time traveling is like I have elected to break the game in a very specific way what is what is save scumming if not reversing time they give you save and load if they don't want you to have save and load they wouldn't give it to you Kyle let's know there's they know there's some cowards playing their games and they got a cater to them all right take I I I'm a commitment guy I like to just like live

37:43with my consequences but I also you just gotta do what you you know what makes it good you gotta love you gotta like it you know if you're if you're sad because you know you killed a guy go get that guy back sometimes you know dialogue option prompts are not super clear sometimes you press X to doubt and then your dude starts yelling at somebody and you're like I gotta go back and redo that I don't like alternate universes in general I just want one canon story so if I misinterpret what you said and it goes the other direction I just I feel like I'll live with that yeah that that is the other thing is if it's something that's like I can live with this consequence I will but they're like big things like if you mess up a romance if you miss recruiting a character or something like that if it if it feels bad rolling it back is like okay like I can do that because I just don't want to replay to see what happens and I don't want to go on YouTube to watch what happens I want this to be part of my playthrough moving forward 13 years ago I made a commitment

38:43to my wife when things get hard and there are times in your marriage where things will get hard well you can't just save scum and get out there because you want to get easier you're getting married listen in I'll it's not real this is crazy Eric that's we may I'm a man of commitment yeah I don't I don't like the the pivot that this podcast is taking it's a very three on one situation right now uh uh uh uh that you wish you could re-roll the beginning of this conversation right but understand that you can yeah you can I I could just leave the podcast I get at this whole thing out but I can't because I'm a man of commitment can't let's say I can't unsay it Eric so anyway I was going to start with zero company yeah yeah it's called the Trevor in this game let's talk about the video game uh I I like this video game a lot have any of you guys played this yet have you had a chance I haven't started I tried to start it this morning and then

39:43accidentally spent 30 minutes in the character creator and only had time for like half the tutorials so I've barely started it but I'm very excited for it this let's talk about the character creator because it's really good I spent and I normally am not in like you know an RPG's I'll like try to I really like to roleplay and I usually 50 50 on whether I'm roleplaying myself I find that I really get into the fantasy more and I I can really attach myself to the characters more when it's actually not me like when I I create you know carrot like in uh uh uh uh uh uh uh in uh obsidian's uh outer worlds too I made a guy and I was like this guy's like a space trucker and he's really stupid and so I like made him like I gave him all the perks to make him really dumb um and sometimes I'm saying you're not roleplaying as yourself Alex all right Kyle I said you're not I'm calling HR right now um and you show them the

40:49company zero company zero company it it it has such a good character creator that I was like I you so you you play as a character name hawks and you can customize what they look like like fully but they will always be named their last name is called hawks and you can say they're you can customize their first name whatever but in terms of like dialogue all the characters are gonna be calling you that um but how they look completely up to you the shepherds situation yeah exactly yeah like commander shepherd I made a uh you can you can I didn't know this going in because all the promotional trailers and stuff has just like a human man you can be an alien oh yeah so I'm I'm an alien I was a twy-lek was the one that I made uh which one they're twy-lek they got the twin it's aylisacura but they have like the two uh there's a green skin not a soka different species yeah I I played um one of the people who I think it's a oh I found a I found a list of them

41:53is that a toghurita or the green skin now yeah it's like my my person it looks like a human but they are different colors um I don't know if that that makes sense is it um luminaura undulys species it's a it's a myri myriolin uh myriolin we're along I'm looking at the wookie pdia myriolians or a long-lived near-human species native to the planet myriol they had skin tones ranged from green to yellow to pink to purple yeah that's what I'm playing the two most known star wars characters that would have would be that species yeah so my dude and you'll see it in the footage if you're watching the video version uh he's got like he's very he's green skinned he's got like uh swaff tear a beard but he and his hair colors like gray to blue he's very he's very cool looking and I made my character so it took me an hour to make him

42:56because I was like just like let I was going back and forth I ended up making him a scout which is one of these oh yeah one of the classes in the game you can play as there's scout there's a salt um there I mean there's a lot uh sniper have snipe the heavy um you didn't go sniper when that was the option I I feel like I associate you with with sniping for some reason I love sniping yeah yes I love sniping but in tactical games like xcom I like to have like more of a I want my commander guy like this guy's gonna be in all of my battles most likely yeah I don't I I want like more of a like uh leader archetype where like I'm giving buffs to my team at all times um and so that's kind of like what uh what my guy what my hawks is doing and then I've got a sniper character that I've recruited I think probably like eight missions seven eight missions in I found a

43:58you unlock like a recruitment desk a little before that but I was a few missions in went to the recruitment desk and it'll give you a list of aliens that are like wanting to that are for higher and you've got a certain amount of beds in your ship and you know you can you can upgrade your ship to get more beds to get like medic base you can heal people in between fights anyways I picked a sniper guy and he's been in my my combat every time I also really like there's a clone trooper name trick and he's one of the first characters that you get he's like a main character in the game main supporting cast um in all the promotional material he's this the clone trooper with like the burn on his helmet and his chest armor uh and I really like his character he's like just kind of like that really uh kind of always dad like always ready to to fight like quippy kind of like just like very likable um and then my my third kit my I guess my my fourth character the third other

45:03party member that I have uh has kind of been swapping between people because I'm still trying to figure out what I want that person to be um but yeah I'm I'm really enjoying zero company as far as like the tactics go uh it's it's very familiar you know you are uh you'll load into a game load into a mission rather which is like on a star map that you select back at base uh and there are there are side missions that will they'll tell you okay this will give you you know intel this will give you currency whatever then there are like main story missions um that you can that you can and have to fulfill eventually um and those all those will kind of progress the story get you characters that sort of thing um and so you'll whatever you pick you'll if it's if it's like a story mission there might be some um some like preliminary like text based adventure sort of uh choices yes Eric you're raising your hand uh did you ever play marvels midnight sons I did not

46:07unfortunately but okay because because a lot of what you've been describing is very reminiscent of I do know that you have a game you had relationships and bonds yeah a lot of relationship building but then there's a lot of you can do a lot of extra stuff between your story missions and there was kind of a lot of like there there's a good cadence of like here's a critical story mission that we're going to funnel you into and then we'll funnel you back out and you have a bunch of options to choose depending on how you want to build your squad out do you want you know more do you want to add members usually the members in midnight sons were part of the story things but do you want to get resources that will help you upgrade things and things like that kind of like funnel in and funnel out and is it kind of like that yes it is yeah 100% um and it's actually funny I've had marvel midnight sons downloaded on my steam deck for years and I never deleted because I'm like one of these days I'm gonna boot it up and I'm gonna love it um but uh but yeah Star Wars very similar like you are in between missions you're talking to characters you're doing little fun interactions like um Hawks can like play an instrument and you like it's little like

47:11vignettes where like you're just like living life on the spaceship um and you know as you progress these missions you're building out your spaceship right you're you can also uh the the more characters that go into combat together their bonds with each other will also increase um so not only do you have a bond with them uh but they can have bonds together and then you can go into training like bond training essentially where like okay um trick and uh Hawks are have have leveled up their bond select like it'll give you like three choices to pick from it'll say Hawks and trick their range damage increases by one or uh you know they they get extra movement all right we've got these three choices that you pick from and you'll pick it and then they'll level up their bond and then the more the more they fight again they'll they'll go up and up um and other characters can do that without you being involved as well as long as they're in the mission together they can kind

48:15of have those moments um interesting to do a pick three do you feel like if you like I have you leveled up enough to see if you pick one of those options do the other two cycle back at all or it does it feel like you're picking one and I think I've had a couple repeat ones yeah it's not it's not like a think of it less of like a uh like a rug like like yeah exactly yeah um slide the spiders exactly where my mind went um it's the classic pick three yeah of course um uh but when you're actually in a mission uh and like I said there can be like some preliminary missions where it's like uh you know so and so is taking over this uh this slum do you want to and like intervene do you want to let it happen here's kind of like what you can expect some of your team members they have their own opinions on these choices that will affect your bonds and so it's like okay do I want to you know and tearigate the slum lord and and take him out do I want to

49:15you know side with the people do I want to just like uh side with whoever you know there's a lot of choices like that and those are all like yeah almost like text little adventures that are like played out on the star map and then it'll you'll kind of uh you know eventually get to go into an actual mission I like that because it kind of breaks up uh and like adds a little bit of context to what you're doing so like all the story beats aren't just always in a combat arena you know what I mean and there's actually something really cool about zero company is uh there will be areas you go to as you're squad but it is in like a third person camera that you're running around with your character interacting with and talking to people uh to like like you know action gameplay but just like like narrative moments so yes exactly okay and then when it's time for action it'll go into the more uh tactical you know combat arena vibe um and when you're in that each

50:16character has a select number of action points by default every character on your squad has three action points uh there are abilities like my hawks uh since I'm kind of going for that more leader approach I can give certain party members uh extra action points uh to do more actions on their turn um what's up Eric? um no keep going keep going okay um he's got thoughts uh when you when you say my my hawks you really got to annunciate every syllable oh god yes god because I've been giggling about that a little bit oh god I got to help us I've been trying to find a sneak in a hawks to a joke and I can't really I was I was going for so you can name your hawks right but they is is it last name hawks last name hawks yeah potentially first potentially first name Mike yes yes it could be um

51:19spelled is it a w x yeah like a bird yeah it's like oh like okay okay I thought it was like Tom playing these airplane talk birds yeah yeah um so yeah like I was saying three uh three action points per character of course you can kind of use expend other action points on other characters to give buffs to your teammates um you can heal your teammates but usually you're like your main your main uh choices are like I'm gonna move so I'm gonna move behind cover I'm gonna get up close on it many I'm gonna I'm gonna try to flank or get the high ground or even the low ground um uh the second option you can kind of you know just fire your weapon at them certain characters can get extra hits in depending on like uh it seems like certain characters their attack takes more AP than um uh than than others and so you kind of factor that in um I think you can move the weapon type from what I was yeah yeah I think you're right it's kind of a pool

52:23of AP that you're working with and then exactly every so many action so that's that's interesting to me so it's not exactly like XCOM where everybody gets a move and shoot every turn like you could elect to have somebody hunker down and just do nothing all terms exactly yes so that's a that's a little velkiri chronicles to me that's interesting yeah I like that yeah uh and like Charles said there are different weapon types and you can you can modify them back at the at the base uh and swap them out so you can have there's blaster pistols um there's uh snipers there's uh more just like uh blaster rifles and then there's there's one more than I can there's a few different kinds and yeah they all they have they have different characteristics to them um but uh you can also of course uh you know uh every tactics game now I feel like has this there's like an overwatch mechanic they call it overwatch in this where you know your your character you can select a cone um with

53:23your mouse and the cool thing about Star Wars Zero companies overwatch is like you can you can really extend it across the entire battlefield and what changes is your your accuracy um so if you want to make sure when somebody runs and and in front of my like vision cone my character's automatically going to shoot depending on the distance that I have selected it could be a hundred percent it could be a 90 percent chance of hitting and you can you can really extend it across the map which is really fun when like you pull off like just like a hail Mary overwatch shot it's like I knew this guy was going to move across the map and I really had to protect my other character that was over there and I'm god I'm just hoping that like this 20 percent 20 percent accuracy shot actually hits and when it does you're like oh my god from across the field um it's really cool it's a really cool concept because I feel like one of the hardest parts of tactical movement that

54:24these games have tried to emulate to varying success is cover fire like like the concept of cover fire makes sense in practice but when you're trying to do a turn based tactical game how do you do cover fire and overwatch kind of felt like one of those ways that you know developers tried to emulate that sort of mechanic but having it be a cone of vision that you have to place and then a distance that you're kind of gambling on is also interesting I like that a lot because it feels a lot more like you're making an intentional choice rather than an x-com it sometimes feels like overwatch is just well I would you not overwatch just hit over watch yeah exactly but you're you're spending AP on this too right so you are yes you're investing into it which yes I think makes for a more meaningful choice yeah 100% so yeah move attack and overwatch like you're three every character has has those abilities and then you have equipment so you can equip like grenades you can equip you know

55:24smoke traps all sorts of different pieces of equipment you can do like stem packs that kind of thing and those are single use like consumables that your character has in the in the battle um you can certain characters will have like you know I really like one character I have who's a heavy but the blaster pistol and and they like will like taunt they can taunt when you select taunt you'll like there's a big radius that you select and any character within that gets gets taunted and the character like shfired they're like hey and then like fire their blaster in the air and it's like it's really fun and it's so funny sometimes to see my my heavy on my team is like one of those tiny little aliens that are in like the bar bands and star wars that were like to play the clarinet yeah it's like it's just a tiny little skinny dude who's just like hey and then like eight people turn and look at him to like kill him it's really funny are you talking about the the bands the play jizz and in star wars yeah yeah they play jazz yeah I think it's literally called

56:31I think they changed the they changed the canon finally I think I don't care yeah this is something that Eric is willing to commit to unlike every other ask yes yes please don't state that in a whole sentence I don't need that committed to pocket but yeah I mean I'm there's all sorts of like you like it right Alex like I don't know if you've like oh yeah I really like it I get I've been so I do explaining it that I haven't talked about yes I really like it it's um thank you for asking that I I really these days that is video games are the only way I really engage with star wars truly I mean like I like the Jedi games I like outlaws like is the story interesting and engaging here yeah so yeah so the the the the story so far is that your character Hawks used to what's up

57:34come on you guys do not do not edit out Hawks daughter it was not we have to edit out a single Hawks we've all got ADHD today I'm sorry um um yeah so you your your character used to sort of be like a higher ranking uh I think like a captain or something in the in the military and kind of had some sort of like fall of grace and has now runs this band of of rag tag mercenaries called zero company can I clarify even for because I think I remember this from the intro it was like the hundredth company under pong which is like a I don't know if that name comes up again at all Alex you're giving me a flight so maybe not pong krill it's it's an infamous episode in Star Wars the Clone Wars is why I mention it is because I've never watched Clone Wars so it's probably why there's a look at it you so crazy I I have to look up what it is again he's at least associated with it's a mission where

58:34there's this Jedi master named pong krill who sucks like there's there might be a subreddit devoted to people hating on pong krill because he's a Jedi and he's pushing his troops way too hard and they're all like dying and they either revolt against him or he dies or he leaves but it's like just like a uh oh it's a notable it's a notable thing to tie into a game because it's just like one episode of the show but it's like a memorable one and I just thought that that was cool that they were like you you have some connection to this company that was under him that kind of revolted so it kind of ties into like it makes it so yeah it is funny you say that because the army it's it's funny you say that because there's a conversation where like Hawks is clearly like reminiscing on like whatever happened and they're like it wasn't your fault you know uh so I feel like that's it a bunch of prong prong krill pong krill yeah we don't need to say that prong krill

59:35big big you don't either like just say in the chat star wars name yeah krill heads krill heads this is for you krill krill krill krill and uh yeah so like zero company is indebted to the huts at the start of the game and like they are just being manipulated and just you know uh this hut in particular he is just uh you know kind of dangling their debt over their heads and it's just they can't get out from under it and so when a you know a very risky mission comes about from a republic source um that is willing to pay off their debts to the huts for them they are like ah yes please uh this is happening amidst the rise of a uh zealot movement a cult movement um by someone I think the name the character's name is phatham perhaps yeah um and uh yeah it's like this religious cult that it's cropping up all over the

1:00:39galaxy and uh you know I imagine all of this sort of ties in with what's happening so have we discussed yet where this takes place in the star wars uh between episodes two and three I believe during the cold okay yeah okay yeah so still clone wars um I forget what that era was called okay so we could well we wouldn't see Coleman Trevor sadly but we could see true plow plow koon or kifisto is also true Anakin Skywalker is in the game um so it is before before we started this pod Charles and I were just naming Jedi from the from the prequels and it was a good time Coleman Trevor is the guy he runs up on count duku in he tries to solo duku and then jango vet just like shoots him twice and he falls and dies he gets no he gets damn yeah sorry we brush past it but he's no he's no pond grell yeah yeah Anakin is in the game is he Anakin Skywalker is in the game he's voiced by his clone wars actor

1:01:42matley okay cool okay do we know if gulp shido is in this or this glove shido thank you um I do want to say I don't know if you mentioned the casting at all in this Alex but that was what that was a new story I wrote that I just thought was really interesting of like the people in this game of please tell me um I'm unaware so jay mordant she's like in the opening cut scene she's played by Judy Alice Lee who plays malinoa in hidey's two among other things oh yeah jabby blanc plays uppercut he's in he's one of those guys that's in like literally everything jason spizek plays someone named lucco bronc jabby and jason spizek they are what's his name it's a silko and the two guys in order you're talking about um it's not yeah yeah it's not valder what is his name um vander vander vander and sell

1:02:42uh uh i was wanting to say the other name that would be a spoiler for the part of our game um deep radley baker he voices all the clones in star wars the clone wars and all the associated animated stuff he plays the clones in this game oh i know his voice that's cool yeah yeah uh and then the ones that stood out to me that are like not necessarily as like significant is benick halorin he's played by liao howard who is the star of a disney channel xd sitcom called kickin it where he was like the the prodigy karate kid at the bobby wasabi dojo okay yeah and i was just like that i've never i haven't seen him in decades so it feels weird i'm like oh my gosh you're alive i was crazy and then uh if you're a dropout fan vick mchalus plays a runa blask oh that's that was the crazy why i remember seeing that i was like i cannot believe they got them which i haven't i haven't reached out i've been careless i was like we should get

1:03:44big mchalus on the g iso i don't know if they would have time or interest but it would be fun it would be fun uh big fan over here um but yeah zero company i'm probably five hours in uh really really enjoying it um i i i don't know what else to say besides that you know i uh the story hasn't really gone many places yet so i you know it's just kind of like uh serving as like the impetus for me to keep moving between missions but i'm having a lot of fun with the combat the tactics um and yeah i i look forward to when my characters die and i commit uh to not save scumming i can't wait to to get my crew killed Alex van Aiken 26 yeah maybe Alex maybe Alex already met vick mchalus and they're just dead yeah i've only had one death okay you have okay i've had the one death that is i think required because uh scripted one yeah um because i'm also good at these games so you know

1:04:48i'm not like i'm not i'm not presented with with that choice very often i actually want to ask you like lose one i'm terrible at these games uh from another particular is it a particularly challenging strategy game or is it seem pretty well balanced uh well balanced so far you know i i think these games tend to skew on the harder side typically uh at least like i feel like tactics games like this um you know there can be some really challenging ones and i think there's typically like there's always some levels that become like infamous of like oh my god that mission um and i don't think i've hit one of those yet um but i would say like you know you definitely need to like be paying attention like if you if you're kind of wasting your turns and not really maximizing what you can do i think it's pretty easy to get overwhelmed because you know there's when you're on missions um you know some of the missions are more objective base where go and activate this thing but you're have to defend defend the zone while you're in there and there's gonna be reinforcements

1:05:50that continually come in until you exit the level that kind of stuff so you really need to kind of think about your positioning uh manage your your your ap well you know not getting caught out in other enemies like the enemies overwatches um and like really maximizing your team in their position uh but i i think you know uh it's it's balanced and the star wars flavors there it's really fun to see you know classic like star wars lasers shooting across the battlefield and you know why you in between your turn but you're like figuring out your turns they'll just be like ambient battles happening where like your characters like shoot over cover at the enemy and it's like while you're just like kind of idling uh so it's like it feels it's got this the star wars energy to it uh and and yeah it's cool i i recommend it um but i i say we go ahead and move on to the next game on our list today uh is a resonance a plague tale a legacy now Kyle off the bat i want to

1:06:55know what a what a plague tale legacy is what does that mean uh i imagine it is separate characters from the core plague tale games um and uh yeah that's about all i know about this game so please enlighten us it's a great question Alex uh i don't really know what this has to do with the plague tale tonight playing the full game i don't know if the protagonist of this game is a character in wait what second plague tale game yeah so i actually i'm i'm kidding i know a little more than that yes this is this is a character from the second game who is a secondary character who helped the protagonist but this game is like a prequel where you're following her and she's like this cool pirate lady uh who's part of this like big pirate community and it's like completely as far as i know i mean like there's i mean there's like at least one sort of like call to the original games

1:07:56that like kind of went over my head because i didn't play those two where this is like a completely standalone game you're playing as uh sofia who's this pirate lady who's like basically a treasure hunter um and this is like just a very significant thing that happens in her life um that i don't even really know in terms of like the narrative like how it feeds into the previous two plague tale games not really sure it just really seems like it was kind of her own thing and um which is kind of the reason why i was like eager to review it marcus went to like an event and played it and was like this is one to keep an eye on because it's like um it is a plague tale game but it really is very much standalone and it is i can totally confirm that and then the other cool thing about it is it's very much like going after sort of that uncharted or kind of tomb raider like vibe it is a third person action game where you are going back and forth between solving these gigantic like uh environmental

1:08:57puzzles you know where you're like rotating gears to have affect things in these giant rooms and then between those you are engaging in sword combat with like a group of people who are similarly chasing the same sort of treasure as you and it's just really well done like it's it's not unfamiliar i have played games like this before it it hits on elements of the genre that have been done really well and this game like like matches it like the the sort of like running and jumping around these environments is cool the puzzles are rewarding without being too obtuse um the combat is like simple you're not really learning combos or anything but like you're doing a lot of counters and i like the the health system because you only have like three health like health pips i guess you could say sure and like so if you get hit three times you die but for every enemy you kill you you recover a pip so like like it what it does is it makes combat really fun and tense because like you

1:10:01might get hit twice but if as long as you kill two more people you can kind of be back on top so it's like you you can kind of like very quickly monitor your health and know that it's like if i get one more hit i'm out of here but if i do kill this guy i get it back so it like keeps it tense and like the pace is good in terms of like going back and forth between exploring a little bit and puzzle solving and combat and then on top of all that like the story is interesting and the performances are good and like i like felt myself getting connected to the characters and like understanding why this is so hard for Sophia and she's like really well performed it's like i i ended up like really liking the game it's it's it's good it's like one that i think we'll sneak up on people and be surprising and like i almost think you might even get scared away by that subtitle because the full the title is resonance colon a pleghtail legacy but it's like really like it kind of basically has nothing to do with pleghtail there are no rats in the game as like a point

1:11:03of example um is there a tease of the rats at any point like does does the game end with them putting barrels on a ship and being like you check those for rats right no no not at all it's it's really very much like Sophia had this event happened to her in that just happens to be in this world and later down the line she's gonna meet those kids from the first two pleghtail legacy games yeah it really feels like this game has like a wrong title like because uh yeah both because of the subtitle and also like resonance as a word is one of those like almost like uh stock gamer terms like i don't know what that was especially this year right you like you gotta say every game is using it now because we have control resonance and final fantasy resonance like if you told me like oh that's your resonance meter i'd be like okay oh sure and i was like i'm with that means yeah and i feel like it doesn't really capture the like the action piratey sort of like aesthetic now is like interesting about this game

1:12:04yeah i it's funny because like you know sometimes you'll see a title like that and then like you beat the game and you're like oh okay i see why you guys called it resonance uh i didn't get that here i didn't walk away from this being like uh perfect time bill like they should have called it like Sophia the the pirate queen or something like i think that would have been better honestly because it's like so if you're so cool like i really like her like i want to hang out with her like you should have focused on her but you know hi whatever i that's who cares they gave it the wrong pirates life but like it's a cool game it's like exclamation mark and you're not and that you're not fighting hordes of rats but there is like a very cool technically impressive like monster that you're fighting especially in the last third of the game that is like i can't really think of like you know another game that has something like this and it's gonna i think it'll stick with me about like how it works and how it sort of affects this island that you're visiting and it's uh i it really in a way it surprised me and didn't surprise me the whole game because

1:13:06because Marcus in particular who likes the plectale games and i've always heard they're good like i've always um people are uh often recommending them that i would play them that i would like them and i i just haven't you know because there's only so much time in the day and so when Marcus was like yeah you know this is this is a sequel but it really has nothing to do with it and it like feels closer to like uncharted or tomb raider than you might expect i was kind of like okay great this is like an entry point this is a cool third person action game i'm in the mood for one of those i think it was like yeah about 15 hours give her take to finish it's not like crazy long it's just like just a well executed third person action game with a good story and good performances you know i i i i it's it's it's cool i like resonance plectale i could see yeah what's the uh the ratio of like action to uh puzzle in this game i mean it's like it's like half and half like it really i mean like they do a good job but like it's like really what it is right

1:14:06it's like in games like this where it's like you go back and forth between you fight enemies for a while you solve some puzzles you go to the next room you fight some enemies you solve some puzzles and the games that do that well kind of trick you into thinking it it's a natural transition and you don't really see it and you don't really clock it as as like oh i'm uh they're doing they're like making me switch back and forth like and this is a game that does that well like you you end up in rooms that like you feel were like the natural extension of your adventure and then the the sort of like the one i guess uh like hurdle i guess you could say the thing that i liked less was there's a lot of um like stealth isn't it's i guess you could call it stealth in the last third of the game against this like monster you're not sneaking around to defeat enemies it's just not the type of game it is but you are hiding from a genuinely scary like monster um and like having moments where you're kind of have to sprint away from it and getting chased by it and stuff like that and like that stuff i didn't like as much as the combat or the puzzle solving but like again like it's like

1:15:12one of those things it's like a really good genre execution you know it's not doing anything hugely innovative but it is doing what it is doing well um and i appreciate it for that reason yeah awesome uh well let's move on to the last game that we're going to talk about today uh this one is another one you played Kyle i actually played it at summer game fest and really enjoyed it uh this is blood dungeon uh which is mixes like the idea of an auto-battler with a platformer almost in like a like think of like a down the the the the the ones i played almost like a downwell meets like an auto-battler um but i i know you played this Kyle my biggest uh real real quick would you use it i i hear auto-battler i hear a much different genre oh i'm sorry not auto-battler a bullet heaven sorry oh oh no that's okay cool that's for a moment

1:16:13i'll pull on that's on me yeah it's a bullet heaven game like a vampire survivor is that sort of thing is very bad but a lot of survivors yes but this takes i mentioned it at summer game fest i really liked how this game like my number one gripe with like vampire survivors is it's just like boring to move around like you know once you're like like the vert you're just like pressing wasdi and moving around like a 2d plane and you're just kind of walking and and you know yeah you're kind of like sometimes you're walking away from enemies or you're walking you're too thin yeah but blood dungeon when i played it just felt like so much more active and but at the same time like uh it was a little required a little more of you i thought which you know some people go to those games because they can just kind of shut their brain off and walk around and see numbers go up and that kind of thing and i felt like blood dungeon was like the next step of like okay it requires a bit more of me but there still is that sort of there's a quality to it that just becomes you kind of like zone out

1:17:19while you're also kind of being more active is that like accurate to like the whole experience Kyle yeah i think so i mean it is to be blunt i mean it is vampire survivors crossed with like a platformer right and and you're right like yeah are running and jumping and you can you kind of stick to walls and there are like fences that you can climb and stuff like that and so you that it it is the like the vampire survivors shortcoming is like yeah it's not super engaging to like move the character moving the character in blood dungeon feels good you're running around you're jumping you can get the different characters feel a lot more distinct because they have different abilities like one that there's one that like can just fully fly you know there's one that's kind of like shoots out spider webs and you can kind of like jump on the spider webs and stuff like that um and so it's it's hard not to compare it to vampire survivors frankly because it's like within that genre um and so it's i like it a lot it's really fun it is definitely one that i'm like more

1:18:24engage with and say like a vampire survivors but there are things that like you'd never quite the one of the fun things about vampires virus is like that ramp to invincibility right like that feeling of like if you do have a good run and you're and you've been playing for 30 minutes the game like literally like it's like all right you're done you know what i mean like you cannot you you cannot go any further you're basically invincible and like and that's fun like that's something i like about vampires and virus and here like i i struggled a little bit because it's like you do have the platforming and that is fun and it feels good but you do hit a point where like it doesn't matter if you're the best platformer in the world you're gonna get overwhelmed right by design like there's just it's just you can't ignore that but there's also not quite the ramp to like to that sort of like feeling overpowered in the final moments of the match it's a little it struggles a little bit with that um like it doesn't quite like you are definitely more active and there's a more to do and i really appreciate that but like i i do the overwhelmed element at the

1:19:29end sometimes i never quite like felt like that's like i always kind of felt by the end that i was like that would really fell apart there at the end you know um yeah but like yeah i mean there's even still i i guess it's sometimes you just sort of start with complaints because that's what's on your mind but like on a on a basic level like it's cool like the abilities are weird and fun like i my favorite it's like it's weird to call my favorite but like anytime the basketball shows up i'm like hell yeah give me that basketball because you just start talking about basketballs and they bounce all over all over the corners and everything and like um like you can get like a whip that like you can upgrade that and then you can get something that like makes everything you're shooting like larger so like your whips are larger and your bullets are larger and like um the art style is like weird i think i'm i think i'm ready to say i don't like it it's it's ugly but it's got like it's got it's got a it's got a very distinct vibe that i appreciate um that's very like new grounds derpy i mean like oh you basically scored out of a butt like every time you die like to go back into

1:20:35the dungeon and it's kind of like i don't know man i'm i really loving this you know there's a really powerful unlock there's a really powerful weapon that's just like a poison cloud that it's great for a game like this because it just like envelops you right there's just like a poison cloud around you but it's like the idea is like you're farting and like every time i'm like oh i want that but i don't want to hear farts every five seconds yeah like this yeah i was like that where i'm just kind of like turned off by the art style but like it really works for the game you know and it has it has a it has a mood and it has a tone that's undeniable yeah i was talking to the developer um i think it's mark mark eson um who you know works at mess off you know during the day they they work on things like nidhogg wheel world those sorts of games really cool games and he was like yeah this is the game i just like at nighttime when i wanted to work on something but i didn't want to like work i would just work on this thing and it was like very unseerious and just fun and a way to line down

1:21:39and so i think that kind of like these it comes across in the art style too because it feels like oh yeah like uh mark just like opened up microsoft paint or something and like doodle to little guy you know and that was that's that i like i like that i don't need it to be like really detailed and and and like there's i just want expressive you know and this is definitely expressive but it's just like it's just kind of a little gross you know like there's one character that's just like a naked woman doing cartwheels you know and it's just it's just odd you know but it's like it's like it's it's it's good for the game right it's like there's no other game that really looks like that's except for maybe the original nidhogg which has that kind of like vibratey kind of pixel style um but i i i i quite like it it's it's a game i've been playing primarily on my steam deck and it's like the kind that i could see myself like returning to often you know the same way i do vampire survivors like every now and again i'll just be like i might play a little vampire survivors you know i can't remember the last game i said this about but it

1:22:43kind of has an art style in the vibe of like the video game that the older brother and his sitcom is playing when they enter the room like it's like just edgy and flashy enough that like it communicates to an audience like he's doing a lot and it's crazy look at this wacky game but like yeah like a booger man or like an earthworm gym or something you know i was going to be using eugenics my genetics yeah yeah which is another one that i don't i like i love mick millen i love meat boy but it's like another i'm like i don't i'm not gonna like put a sticker of any of these characters on my water bottle this is a little ugly which is intention because i have a sticker of blood dungeon on my camera kit that i got sgf because i was like this is fun yeah but uh yeah i want to play this um yeah if you like vampire survivors and like you like platformers like even simple like you i'm not saying you have to be like platformer expert but like if you just

1:23:43like running and jumping in a game like yeah this this this feels like a gap in that growing genre of like you know you we've got the sort of like fun of the getting stronger and stronger and like you know blowing things up all around you and feeling good about that but then we also have where it's like it is fun to move around you know like that's yeah that's cool they pulled that off um and i and i like that element of the game yeah um yeah yeah i also just like uh the developer mark just a nice guy cool guy very chill and uh you know talking to him i just like maybe like the game more uh because he's just like just a chill guy and i'm like okay i get it i think this feels very very you in a way um and you see like a kind of guy that wants your player character to fall out of a butt when you enter the blood dungeon yeah that's crazy maybe it'll be in the b-roll that's playing right now just loop that just loop that one little thing over yeah yeah dude falling

1:24:47out of a butt repeatedly yeah and i'll I'll cut it in reverse so you get stuck in yeah reverse who's going up into the butt yeah over and over yeah yeah there's a there's a piece of footage that i have to remember to put in somewhere this is a easter egg for folks who are watching our youtube channel when we were doing uh the onamusha cover trip west did a shrine where you had to like put a wish on this rock and then go through a hole and come back out of it uh to like have your wish be granted or have it just just you know uh cemented into into wishing and uh the footage of him emerging through that hole is some of the funniest stuff i've ever shot on camera and i'm just going to stick it at the end of like one of our last onamusha videos as a little bonus easter egg for people who stick around so uh look look forward to that of of west emerging from the hole and just imagine that as blood dungeon but like f and v style uh shout out to grabbing the name blood

1:25:47dungeon can't believe that wasn't yeah that was available that's yeah that's a good video name yeah yeah yeah coloned a play dungeon yeah uh well i am i am so overwhelmed by work right now we have so much going on so i think we need to end the podcast because i got a pack to go to germany tomorrow uh and i haven't even pulled out my suitcase yet uh no laundry yet yeah i got to do laundry i gotta hey Eric had to come over come over after this and get some stuff yeah i gotta bring the camera kids over we're gonna have to be up some gear a little inside baseball but yeah the this is the end of the podcast if you're still listening thank you for being here if you're still listening please consider picking up a copy of game and former magazine hey if you're at the end of this video you probably subscribe to us so thank you for oh dude i love all the different i love the Eric erics one he pulled out was so random that i just got out yes erics guy what is that dark

1:26:48spider yeah this is dark ciders three yeah that's a two maybe two two two two two two two two two two two uh this is i i put my my exodus behind me so i just happen to have no rest for the way yeah uh who's never mind um anyways let's let's let's get out of here y'all uh i hope you have a good week uh if you're games calm try to find us say hello if you see us please stop us say hey uh and swing by our booth you can win i think you were given away like a ps5 pro every day so if you're doing some giveaways yeah you can get a free copy of the magazine i think um so yeah stop by swag i think we have some swag some very various goods yeah they're all good to be had we've got swag out the wazoo yes we do uh thanks for listening y'all hope you have a good week and we'll see you next time goodbye

1:28:07come