June 27, 2025 • 37 mins
This week we talk about the rumored layoffs coming soon for Xbox, the reaction to Death Stranding 2’s release, Capcom revealing sales numbers for their 2024 GotY contender, Hellblade 2 coming to Playstation 5 and much more. Click this link for my socials, all of my other content and ways to support: https://linktr.ee/baundiesel
00:00:00 | Intro
00:00:18 | Opening
00:03:15 | News
00:34:43 | Updates
00:36:05 | Wrap Up
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This is the Bonfire Gaming podcast episode 343.
I'm your host Morgan AKA Von Diesel.
And this week we'll be talking about rumoured Xbox layoffs,
Death Stranding, twos release, Hellblade 2 is coming to
PlayStation 5 and much more. Well, we're about halfway
through the year. I I think I can speak for
(00:22):
everyone, or at least most people or some people.
We'll see. This is already been kind of a
crazy year. We already have a bunch of
really great games. Expedition 33 was such a big
hit, but then we have other games like death training 2 just
came out. We had avowed, which is hard to
believe it's been the same year,especially knowing that that
(00:42):
studio is still yet to put out two more games this year, which
is still just insane to me. But you know Obsidian going to
do Obsidian things. I I am probably the most excited
for the next Battlefield game. I'm hoping that still comes out
this year, even though, you know, we could possibly see them
(01:05):
push till to early next year to try to stay away from Call of
Duty. I still have a feeling this next
Call of Duty is going to be received similar to like Modern
Warfare 3 a few years ago, whereit just probably won't be
received that well because it sounds like it was another
situation where it was never really meant to be like a
mainline title. And so it probably won't feel
(01:27):
like one. But who knows I could be wrong.
We'll have to wait and see. And and then there's, you know,
lots of other things that, you know, I think announcements will
also be a big part of the rest of the year.
I, I still think, especially after last week's show, I, I
think there's a really good chance Xbox puts out their new
hardware next year. And if that's true, then they're
(01:48):
going to announce it this year. And we very well may see at the
Game Awards at the end of the year them do another Series X
like tease. And I, I just, I, I'm OK with
that. I, I prefer it not to be at that
arena, at that venue. I, I think Jeff Keeley is not
really deserving of that, but I'm obviously in the minority
(02:11):
and we're probably going to see something like that.
I, I, I think we'll see a bunch more games.
I mean, next year, like for Xbox, we know that they have,
you know, it's kind of sending it back to the 360 days.
A Gears of War game coming out, a Halo, maybe some kind of
announcement coming out. I would guess like a remaster, a
(02:31):
remake of the original game on the Unreal Engine 5 is very
likely. I I just, you know, maybe even
perfect dark. I assume with PlayStation we'll
maybe see something from Wolverine.
We'll see more about the intergalactic game, I assume as
well as I I would guess we'll find out more about what some of
(02:53):
their studios are doing and thenNintendo, you know, switch to
will probably finally get some new games next year.
Not just, you know, 5 year old third party games and a racing
game. So the end of the year maybe as
much about announcement as it will be actual new games and I'm
here for it. Getting into the gaming news for
(03:17):
this week, we have rumored layoffs by Xbox for the end of
June of 2025. We initially had some reports
from Tom Warren and Jason Schreyer about some general
layoff stories and and expectation that this will
happen. It'll be for the entirety of
Microsoft, but this one will likely heavily include Xbox.
(03:40):
And then there's been some othersources that, you know, just
aren't quite as reliable, but who claim that they've heard
from especially I believe it wasAUK based Xbox Studios that
they're expecting like 1 to 2000employees to be fired just from
Xbox and that entire studios could be closed.
(04:00):
The the rumor specified, you know, that turn 10, the Forza
developers, maybe ones that are kind of under under the gun
there. I this is kind of annoying.
It's it's June of 20 of the year.
It's June. So most companies fiscal years
and at the end of June, including the one I work for,
(04:21):
and it sucks but this is what happens every year at the end of
the fiscal year, these giant corporations layoff 5% of their
employees. It boosts their financials right
there at the end of the year, orat least the forecast because
they have fewer mouths to feed basically.
And then they rehire a bunch of people later on.
(04:42):
Now that doesn't feel any betterto those people who are laid
off. It doesn't make the layoffs any
less scummy. They're still disgusting, but
it, it is weird. It's strange to me how often
journalists and influencers and stuff, you know, you, you could
have PlayStation or EA or Ubisoft make these kind of moves
(05:03):
and people will be like, yeah, this is what happens.
This these companies suck their,their, their money grubbing
selfish D bags. But this is what they do.
But then Xbox does it and it's the like, like hands on face
like what? What's a layoff?
Oh, how evil. This must be the first time in
the history of business anyone'sever done this.
(05:24):
And to me, it's a bit disingenuous.
I, I think the way that stories are reported for Xbox are often
kind of intentionally. I, I, I don't know, like, not
misleading, but just like I, I always joke that whenever Xbox
does something before an influencer or journalist talks
(05:46):
about their IQ drops 100 points because they just, you know,
it's like they've never, you know, heard English before.
They've never seen a corporationmake moves before, good or bad.
And it's just, it's kind of frustrating for me, but it
really shouldn't matter to me asmuch as it does.
You know, we, we all have our faults.
I mean, at the end of the day, these layoffs suck.
(06:08):
I did a whole video about this earlier this week.
And this was before the most recent kind of rumors.
The most recent rumors are from like an ex Co founder of some
game studio. I believe he's still in gaming
and he very likely knows people who work at Xbox Studios.
But the way he worded stuff was very much like he kind of read
like Tom Warren and Jason Shire's like more vague accounts
(06:30):
and then just kind of made-up his own thing and posted it.
Because when people push back onlike, do you have any source for
any of this? He's just like, I'm not
journalist, like, OK. Like, so it's just, it's
frustrating for me because I, I wouldn't be surprised at all if
on Monday we find out that like 10,000 people were laid off from
Microsoft. That wouldn't surprise me at
(06:51):
all. And a bunch of them from Xbox
and maybe even the studio or twois gone.
I think it's pretty likely we'llwe will have never heard of the
studio. I've seen people speculating
it'll be like Ninja Theory and stuff.
And I that wouldn't make sense mostly because Ninja Theory just
has a lot of worth to Microsoft as a like a building.
(07:12):
They have like a motion capture studio for all of this.
All of their European slash, youknow, British, you know, United
Kingdom studios can all use that.
It's just, I mean, I guess it could be folded into another
studio or something, I don't know, But I, I doubt that that
ninja theory is at risk here. They they they're one of their
(07:32):
more premier studios. This the the the comparison has
been and we'll talk about here shortly that right after hi-fi
rush was announced for PlayStation five, they shut down
that studio Tango Gameworks and so now they're announcing
Hellblade 2 for PlayStation 5 and now they're going to shut it
down. I, I think those studios are in
(07:53):
very very different situations. Even before the Bethesda Zinemax
acquisition by Xbox, the Tango Gameworks had had multiple
complete failures and, and even Hi-fi Rush, even though it's
critically and enjoyed it didn'tsell anything even when it did
go to PlayStation where I, I just, I don't think that Ninja
(08:17):
Theory is in that same situation.
Ninja Theory also wasn't part ofsome big publisher acquisition.
It was a single studio acquisition.
I'm not that worried about it. I, I guess the, the line I try
to walk with these layoffs is that in no way, shape or form do
I want to defend layoffs. Do I want to pretend like it's a
good thing? Obviously not.
(08:37):
They suck. It's the result of this really
gross and very dehumanizing kindof capitalist system that we
work in. And I definitely don't want to
go in the preaching about that because honestly, I don't know a
ton enough about it to be too preachy about it.
But just being a person in the world.
I mean, if you if you're paying attention to anything, you can
see that there's some problems with our current system and the
(08:59):
way things work. And especially when you pay
attention to just the corporate world in general, specifically
the like tech industry. And then you can keep narrowing
it down to like the games industry.
It, it's just gross. Like one thing to keep in mind,
I, I saw someone made a quote or, or, or pointed out last year
that Microsoft laid off like 2300 people.
(09:20):
I, I hope people realize that injust the tech industry that
doesn't, I don't even know if that put them in the top 20 for
firings last year in the industry by percentage or by
headcount. Like right now, I think UPS is
like laying off like 20,000 people because of some contract
things that they've had. Intel is going to layoff like
10,000 people. It's, you know, all these, these
(09:42):
companies, they do this stuff all the time.
And I'm not just saying because it happens all the time, it's
OK. It's not.
But you definitely see it treated differently now in the
games industry. Microsoft and Xbox are unique,
right? I, I did, in the video I did
this week, I pointed out that Xbox or Microsoft as a whole
company has like 1/4 billion people.
(10:02):
They've 2 or a quarter million people.
Sorry, they they about 230,000 employees Sony, not PlayStation,
but Sony is a little over 100,000 and then Nintendo has
like 8000 employees. So, you know, obviously we never
hear about Nintendo doing layoffs, even though they have
kind of a weird system over there for getting rid of people.
(10:24):
But that's a different video. But PlayStation does layoffs.
They just did was almost 1000 layoffs not that long ago.
And if you kind of compare, you know, if, if we compare
companies, especially if you compare, you know, that was just
PlayStation when they shut down studios and fired people, you
know, I believe Xbox is presumedto have around 20,000 people
(10:46):
under it. You know, if you have it just it
all sucks, but I think that thisis getting hyped up in a weird
way and almost to the point where it is like turn into this,
this piranha pool where all these influencers and
journalists and stuff are, are like, just see, like just
(11:08):
waiting to see these people losetheir jobs.
Like they just like with like anticipation, like they're so
excited to report on it and to dunk on Xbox and to have this,
this great moment where they cankind of, you know, you know,
fulfill their, you know, their, their, their thing.
It it's strange. I think it's weird.
I think it's really odd. And I don't think they're hiding
it very well. And I think what frustrates me
(11:28):
the most is that we are seeing more coverage of these layoff
rumors now than what the same hacks who are doing it that
they're talking more about now than they will when or if it
actually happens when or if these layoffs happen, which I'm
going to assume it's when that that where there's smoke,
(11:49):
there's fire, right? Like, I'm assuming this is
coming, but it's going to happenand all these people are going
to be like, oh, look, my reporting was correct.
They're not going to go into whythe layoffs happened.
They're not going to really go into what departments it was.
And, you know, and, and, and getany info or kind of, you know,
commentary from Microsoft or Xbox about what the strategic
(12:10):
moves were that they're just going to glaze over it and be
like, Xbox bad, Game Pass bad, you know, nose console sales
bad. Guess they have to lay everyone
off. Xbox won't be in the industry in
three years, like, and and then they'll move on immediately.
There won't be any follow up. There won't be any talk about,
yeah, they laid off this many people last year and that's
(12:31):
awful and that's terrible. But they did hire like 50% more
than that. That's why they're a bigger
company now than they were last year.
Like, and, and, and part of thatis gross because it's firing
people who are like veteran workers and then hiring new
people who they can pay, you know, half the, the, the amount,
right? That stuff is that you see that
with BioWare. We're seeing that with BioWare
for sure. And that sucks obviously.
(12:54):
But what we're also seeing is Microsoft is still integrating
Activision Blizzard King. Hell, they're still act, as far
as I can tell, they're still bringing in Bethesda Xenomax in
some capacity. I think that's mostly done by
now. But Activision Blizzard King was
its own independent publisher ofthese like 3 big companies,
right? A bunch of those operations at
(13:17):
ABK are the same thing the Xbox was already doing.
So when there's an acquisition like that, there's redundancies.
And over the years as they integrate, this is going to
happen. I don't even think that's why
these layoffs are probably goingto happen in the next few days
because I'm assuming, like I wassaying before, this is just that
scummy move that corporations dowhere they fire a bunch of
(13:39):
people at the end of their fiscal year and then say, look,
we're about to save so much money and then they end up
hiring back a bunch of people orat least filling positions that
you know, have been vacated. So I, I, I don't know, like,
like this obviously is gross. It sucks.
It's also not the first time this has happened.
It's not the last time it's going to happen.
It's been happening forever. One of the things I always point
(14:01):
out is I specifically remember back in the day, even when I
worked at GameStop, because I was, you know, starting to pay
attention more the gaming news and not just releases.
It's back in the day that they, they would bring, that they
would fire people when the game shipped, they would fire the
whole studio. Now I'm, I believe back then it
(14:22):
was mostly like contractors and stuff.
So it was different. But back then you would ship a
game and then everyone got fired.
And then they all went and foundnew jobs.
And the only people who kept their jobs and you know, you see
some of the developers who have been at places for 20-30 years,
it's because they were in like leadership roles, right?
But all of the lower level people, like again, mostly
(14:42):
contractors, I believe, would just get wiped out from a studio
and they would all have to go find new jobs.
It it was a much more like, it seems like it was almost more of
a a nomadic job back then where you kind of, you know, just went
where the wind took you and you went to this new studio and did
this thing until you got senior enough to not be the one who got
fired. But game coverage is different
(15:03):
now. We pay a lot closer attention to
things that are happening. It's, you know, if you look back
in the day at the old gaming magazines, they very, very
rarely, if ever covered studio situations and layoffs and and
stuff like that. They covered games, they talked
about games, they reviewed games, they had opinion pieces
and all that stuff, right? And and things are just
different now and we're seeing that.
(15:24):
So I'm glad there's more coverage of it.
I just wish the coverage was of higher quality because more and
more it's becoming more and moreobvious that there's no money or
clicks and like educational, interesting, like fact based
journalism in the video game industry.
You could probably say this about, you know, non gaming
(15:44):
stuff as well, but instead of doing anything like that, now
it's just rumor reporting and speculation and dumerism and you
know what whatever whatever is going to get the most ad revenue
so it sucks. Moving on.
Death straining 2 has released and we have a bunch of reactions
(16:06):
about it, so it's open. Critics score is currently 90.
This is a pretty good almost 15 points higher than death
straining. One was that game did not click
with people initially. It's very interesting.
I and maybe it's just my perspective, it's probably just
my echo chamber. I see basically 0 hype for this
game, which is really curious. It's really interesting because
(16:29):
you know, if you see all the podcasts and all the influencers
and all that you, you know, in the lead up to this, they were
all getting their trips to Japanto meet, you know, the, the God
king Kojima. And and then the game comes out
and it gets a good score, like it's being scored well by a lot
of people. And I just, even when I've seen
or read reviews of it and commentary about it, it's it's
(16:53):
interesting. It feels like there was almost
like an obligation to be like, well, it's Kojima's new game and
he's an art of tour. So it's a nine out of 10.
It doesn't have a lot of the same problems as the first game.
Does it not really expand on anything significantly gameplay
wise? Is it actually, you know, and
this is just from what I've beenhearing and reading, is it
(17:16):
actually not really all that funto play?
Sure. But hey, it's Kojima's new game
and he's at a different level now than he was back then.
It it's just it's interesting. I think it's interesting.
I think it's a curious situationwhere so many of these reviews
I'm reading and watching, it almost feels like watching
people who are like, Oh yeah, it's a nine out of 10.
(17:37):
And then trying to convince themselves for an hour that they
actually believe that should be the score.
It's it's, it's interesting. Regardless, I'm sure it's going
to sell really well. It'll be on Xbox in like 5 years
when that exclusivity contract runs out.
I'm really curious how long it takes for it to come to PCI.
(17:57):
Suspect that won't be as long asXbox, but it wouldn't surprise
me. It's if it's still another year
or two away, so we'll have to wait for that.
What I, I think it's, it's just I'm curious to how the fan
reaction is going to be. It just came out, I believe on
the 26th for fans. And that's where I've been kind
(18:18):
of surprised with how little commentary or talking about hype
I've seen about it where, you know, it's, but even on the kind
of aggregated social media partsof like your for you sections,
I'm, I'm not seeing it from people who I don't even follow
right. It, it that's kind of
interesting. That very well may be my
algorithm. So I, I don't want to judge that
too harshly. But yeah, it's I, I think what's
(18:41):
been most striking to me has been the reviews and the reviews
and commentary that I've read and watched it.
It just feels so much like people being like, Oh yeah, it's
like almost a masterpiece. And then basically just being
like, well, yeah, this part doeskind of suck, but and then this
part, yeah, that that part hasn't really gotten better
(19:02):
since the first game. And then it just turns into this
like kind of them convincing themselves that their score is
what it is. It sometimes it almost feels
like, for better or worse, some of these reviewers and and and
influencers start off with a score and then try to justify it
later. But that's probably just some
(19:22):
weird assertions on my side. Xbox has revealed A
collaboration with Meta for an Xbox branded the limited edition
Metaquest 3S. This is the VR headset that if I
remember correctly doesn't require any other hardware so
you don't have to like plug it into a PC that for it to run all
the graphics. This is completely internal self
(19:45):
reliant and I've heard it's a solid headset.
I just like this is neat. It seems like the the big
utility for it is it comes with an Xbox controller and so
basically you can access the game pass and in the Xbox game
store through it and play like it makes basically a big screen
in the VR headset. You you know Xbox doesn't
support VR games, but you basically can make a giant
(20:07):
screen in the headset and play your Xbox games that way.
I I believe I assume they're allstreamed.
I There's no way this thing has the hardware to be able to run
any of these games natively, butlike, it's just.
It's what I was said before, I think Xbox is about to flood the
market with hardware that can play or that can utilize their
ecosystem. I I hope that they maybe improve
(20:29):
their communication a bit so people understand what they are
aren't getting, but I I think this is just another step in
that direction. It's not anything special.
It's just a metaquest 3S right? Like it's nothing.
As far as I can tell, there's nounique features to it other than
the hardware appearance in the controller.
(20:50):
But you know, this is just another step in that direction.
That's why we have the handheld,We have this VR headset.
Now I suspect we're going to have more handhelds and, and,
and even I wouldn't be surprisedif we start seeing PCs being
sold by, I don't know, be like Dell or Asus or something where
it'll be like a desktop that's like Xbox branded.
And you know, it's not running the Xbox software, but you'll,
(21:13):
you'll have some kind of specification or some enhanced
app service or something where it's just, that's just how
they're going to market things. And then they'll put out their
own console next year. I'm curious how that goes.
Or the year after we'll see because they're going to have to
try to rewrite the script a little bit and be like, no, OK,
this isn't just APC. It's, it is a console.
(21:36):
You know, it's, I'm just curioushow all that plays out.
I have no interest in VR. I think VR is a waste of time
and resources and money. I'm glad that they're studios
and, and some platforms trying to support it, I guess.
But yeah, I, I just, I can't think of a bigger waste like
that. To me is, is, is a, is a gimmick
that we tried to make, you know,we've been trying to make work
(21:58):
for 20 years and it's just not going to happen.
I, I just don't see it ever being a thing because I don't
think it's that compelling everytime you see a game for this.
I know there's a few exceptions like the Alex a Half Life Alex
game, but for the most part theyjust look like these terrible,
kind of gimmicky, kind of boringgames that no one would really
(22:19):
want to play when you have all these other real games
available. But that's just my take on it.
Some Capcom documents that I don't think we're meant to be
public came out and showed that metaphor.
Refund Tazio only sold about 2 million copies since its
release. This is kind of notable because
they reported that it sold 1,000,000 copies in 24 hours,
(22:40):
which suggests that sales sloweddown a ton.
From what I've seen and some people in my community I've
talked to, that isn't all that surprising that the Atlas games
don't actually typically sell that great besides the Persona
mainline titles, so that this isn't that crazy.
I will still say that from the outside, like that makes sense,
(23:04):
but it doesn't change the fact that that's still for a, a game
that was hyped up a ton last year, a game that was a game of
the year contender on every single list.
I mean, those are pathetic sales.
Like those are really bad. I, I don't, I, I just don't
really care what they typically sell or don't, you know, for a
(23:24):
game that got hyped up the way that one did and got all the
praise and all the talk from allthe journalists, all the
influencers, all the content creators, I mean 2 million sales
pathetic. Like that's that's like arguably
bad. I believe these games are on an
old engine from when I played ortried to get into it and just
couldn't. They're not pushing any
(23:44):
graphical boundaries here. They're not doing anything all
that interesting visually. So you know very well maybe this
game just didn't cost that much for them to make, even though
I'm pretty sure it was in development for like 6 or 7
years. Maybe a bunch of that was pre
production, I have no idea. But you know the the the
comparison I made, which isn't avery good one I'll admit, is
(24:05):
that you know the commentary on Dragon Age of the Vailguard, to
be clear, metaphori fantasio, a game that had like a 93 open
critic score. Vailguard the game had like an
80. I would argue both good, one
obviously preferred over the other or at least from a score
perspective. But we it's just interesting the
perspectives and in the conversation around this where
(24:26):
we found out that this game is game of the year contender.
This big hyped up game only sold2 million copies.
While this other game that was reviewed well that was generally
enjoyed by it seems like a lot of people but didn't sell as
well as its publisher wanted. Likely outsold Metaphor that the
last number we've gotten from Vail Guard was 1.5 million I
(24:46):
think after 2-2 months or something.
Since then I have to imagine it's sold probably better than
people expect, at least similarly if not better to
Metaphor. But you're never going to see
that conversation. Now.
Did Dragon Age cost more to make?
I have no idea. No one really knows because no
one actually knows how much either of these games took to
(25:08):
make. It sounds like the time
commitment was pretty similar and maybe the expectations were
different. Maybe Atlas and their publisher,
you know, didn't expect metaphorto sell more than that.
But I just think it's kind of interesting.
And you know, whether people agree with me or not, I kind of
don't care at this point. But I I just think it's funny
that if you bring up Vale Guard,it's instant conversations about
(25:30):
how it failed because it didn't sell well, even though it was
like generally liked and a pretty good game, just maybe not
a very good Dragon Age game. While metaphor was this like
generational, you know, one of the best games of the generation
and barely anyone played it. Now to argue against my own
point before I move on. Astrobot, which was pretty
universally the game of the yearlast year, I don't think sold
(25:52):
any better. I'm pretty sure they sold two or
three million copies as as far as I can tell.
So probably doesn't matter in the long run.
I just sometimes wish things felt more consistent from a
commentary perspective. That's probably me just piston
into the wind sinuous saga. Hellblade 2 is coming to
(26:13):
PlayStation 5 on August 12th. This is the enhanced edition
that will also bring enhancements to the Xbox
versions. The Xbox Series X will get a
60FPS performance mode on console.
They're they are, they're also adding a director commentary.
And I think it's a like a rot gameplay mode, which I am
(26:37):
assuming is going to be like thefirst hell blade game that there
was this mechanic that it kind of insinuated that as you die
every time you died in the game,you you would rot.
You had this visual representation of this rot on
your character's arm and their body.
And at the end of the day, you come to realize that it's it's
(26:58):
not real. You could die a billion times
that game and and it would neverlike just in the game on you,
right. What I'm guessing is that this
rot mode in hell blade 2 is thatmechanic actually implemented.
So I guess it would be kind of like a hardcore mode or whatever
you would want to call it. So I guess maybe, you know, for
a from a gameplay perspective, maybe that raises the stakes for
(27:20):
some people. I still to this day think that
hell blade 2 is one of the most underrated games ever.
It's insane. Even when this announcement
happened, I saw some people, some kind of notable people who
I think need to really check themselves a little bit being
like, yeah, the game's kind of bad.
Like it it isn't. And and and I will still hold to
(27:40):
this day, Like I remember like the kind of funny review Giant
bomb, a few of these these people I used to watch when this
came out when they talked about Hellblade. 2I hold to this day
that some of those people didn'teven finish the game because so
much of the commentary from the people on kind of funny from the
people on these other outlets felt so much like they played
(28:02):
the first two or three hours, said I get it, and then wrote
the review and maybe didn't acknowledge that maybe they
didn't finish it. Because I can't recall a single
review that I watched or listened to from these kind of
bigger names that gave me the impression they played the
second-half of the game. I'm not even saying that the
(28:23):
second-half fixes all the issuespeople had, that it changes
everything. But there were there are things
that happened in the 2nd that the complaints people had about
Hell Blade 2 or at least some people really made it hard for
me to believe they actually played the whole game because at
least in some capacity, many of those things were addressed.
There were also things that people complaining that the
(28:44):
combat was simpler than it was in the first game And and it
wasn't, you know, you didn't have a thing was like the dodge
roll or whatever anymore. But there were these like
relatively deep systems in that game that most people just never
interacted with. They now admittedly, I don't
think that they were shown very well in the game.
So you can know about, but there's things like, you know,
(29:05):
there's enemies that you'll go up against it that can throw
like Spears or axes at you. And in the game it's implied
that you just like have to parrythem, right?
But there's also a mechanic where you can catch them and
throw them back, or there's different kinds of Perry's and
there's all these different attacks and stuff that you could
do that, you know, when when thegame came out, you had all this
commentary about the combat and stuff like that.
(29:26):
And none of these people mentioned any of these mechanics
because it seems like they neverinteracted with them.
So yeah, of course you had a boring experience because you
didn't fully play through the game, at least in some capacity.
So, or with full depth or whatever.
So I don't know. I I'm just, I, I suspect at
least in small part that this isgoing to change a little as this
(29:49):
version comes out for PlayStation 5.
Because a lot of the hate towards Hell Blade 2 was coming
from people who were maybe more PlayStation leaning who were
upset that this game was an exclusive to Xbox and kind of
dogged it. I think it's going to come out
and you're going to see suddenlya whole bunch of people have
much brighter opinions on this game.
(30:11):
But maybe I'm wrong, maybe it won't change anything.
We will have to wait and see. We got some more Resident Evil 9
Requiem gameplay. Grace Ashcraft will be the main
player character. This is in pushing back on
reporting. I think I read and talked about
on a podcast a while back that Ithought it was confirmed that
(30:31):
Leon Kennedy was going to be themain character, but he won't be
more on that in a second. It can be played in first or
third person, which is really interesting because at least in
a lot of those situations, that means that they had to design
this game to work from either perspective.
Which is kind of insane if you think about it.
Because the gameplay experience and I assume the way that you
(30:52):
build a game in the first or third person is so insanely
different that I have to imaginethat was a ton of work.
Even if you think about it just in the how you design the world,
because observing a game world from first person, you see
things that you just don't see from 3rd and vice versa, right?
So the fact that they had to take into account all of the
(31:15):
environments and all of the gameplay and everything and to
try to make it work for either perspective, that's pretty
crazy. If you want me to be totally
honest, I think I think that's pretty wild.
So I'm glad they did that because I do not want to play
another first person Resident Evil game.
So I'm happy there. And they confirm that this game
will take place 30 years after the nuke was dropped on the
(31:36):
Raccoon City. Leon Kennedy was actually
considered for the protagonist. He would be 51 years old in this
setting, but they felt like he would be too stoic for the type
of game they were making. They gave the impressions that
this was meant to be more of a kind of a more Syria, more a
more scary game, more horror game.
(31:57):
Then how some of the more recentgames have turned into more
almost action games to a point. So so that's why they did that.
I'm I'm I'm actually excited about this.
I couldn't have cared less aboutResident Evil 7 or 8.
I hate the first person perspective for these games.
I just had no desire to do it. But I am extremely interested in
this one and I can't wait to play it.
(32:19):
And then finally some rematch impressions.
This is a kind of soccer arcade soccer game made by the Sifu
maker slow cap. It's got a million sales since
it released and over 3,000,000 players, if that.
If those numbers don't compute, that's because it released on
Game Pass, so this must be pretty popular on Game Pass if
(32:41):
it has presumably 2 million players accessing it.
That way, you know, double the number of people who bought it.
So good for them. I hope they got a good deal.
I'm sure they did. After the Sifu success.
I could not careless about this game.
I love FIFA, I love soccer. I played my whole life.
I even played in college. I continued playing up until my
(33:05):
daughter was born and and then Iwas, you know, got sick of
getting knocked down by 18 year olds or honestly, I got sick of
getting knocked down by people even older than me.
If I have to be totally honest, that's a whole different
conversation. I love soccer and this game, I
get it. It's supposed to be kind of like
a Rocket League style game. I just I feel like this game and
(33:28):
I've noticed this from the people I've seen talking about
it kind of funny bringing them up again.
They have a couple of people whotalked about this game who just
started playing soccer like in the last year, who love it.
And I I think it has something to do with if you've played the
law FIFA or if you actually played the game, you kind of
expect certain things to work certain ways in a game like this
(33:50):
where it's not like a, you know,it's not like FIFA where your
camera is way above the field and you're controlling things.
This is a like third person soccer game and it just, it
doesn't work the way I want it to.
I hate the controls. I think they're way too
overcomplicated. I'm I'm sure if I played more I
would get used to it. I just, I don't know, it's just
not drawing me like that and that's OK.
(34:11):
It doesn't have to. It's not just for me.
Obviously a bunch of people are enjoying it.
I just these games, man, it reminds me of like Knockout City
and stuff. You have these multiplayer games
come out from these like solid studios and they get hot for a
minute and then six months latertheir player bases are dead and
they get shut down South. I hope that doesn't happen here.
I hope that they can do a bunch of stuff to keep these people
(34:33):
who are playing it. It's a rough Rd. out there for
these games and I will. I'll wish them the best.
As for some content updates, nothing big.
I don't think we have any big showcases coming up.
I'm not aware that we have any big, you know, big releases or
anything coming up super soon, at least not that I'm interested
(34:55):
in. I still too need to finish my PC
Mass Effect Legendary edition modded playthrough or in the
last half of that. I believe we're doing the Ranak
missions right now with the Corians and the Geff.
And it's always funny to me thatMass Effect 3, you play and you
(35:16):
you go through everything. You do the Krogan and turian
thing, you do all that. And then I feel like you hit the
quarry in part and it feels likeyou should only be like still
starting the game. And once you finish that you're
kind of in the final act, right?So that, that, that's always
kind of jarring. But I'm hopefully I'll get back
to that. I am still trying to keep
posting on the YouTube channel, so keep up with that.
(35:39):
I continue tinkering with the branding of the podcast.
So both the Bonfire, the one you're listening to now, and my
other podcast, the Mass Effect Hype Cast, which does have a
relatively new episode from a few weeks ago.
You know, don't be surprised if you see those things changing,
but please continue listening. I really do appreciate it.
And yeah, that that's kind of the content updates for right
(36:01):
now. And I think that's where we're
going to wrap this one up a bit of a short one this week.
I suspect next week is going to be a bit more interesting, I
fear. Thank you so much for listening
to this episode. Subscribe to the show on your
favorite podcast app, leave a review on Spotify or iTunes, and
subscribe to the Von Diesel YouTube channel to get all of my
(36:24):
videos, including this podcast. Thank you to everyone who
supports as YouTube members and or Twitch subscribers.
If you're interested in supporting this podcast and all
of my other content, please check out the links in the show
description. If you have any questions or
feedback, be sure to hit me up on social media at Von Diesel or
at the Bonfire, go into my Discord to talk to me and
(36:45):
everyone else there, or leave a comment on Spotify or YouTube.
That is all I have for this episode of the Bonfire Gaming
podcast. So until next time.
(37:15):
None.
This is the Bonfire Gaming podcast episode 343.
I'm your host Morgan AKA Von Diesel.
And this week we'll be talking about rumoured Xbox layoffs,
Death Stranding, twos release, Hellblade 2 is coming to
PlayStation 5 and much more. Well, we're about halfway
through the year. I I think I can speak for
(00:22):
everyone, or at least most people or some people.
We'll see. This is already been kind of a
crazy year. We already have a bunch of
really great games. Expedition 33 was such a big
hit, but then we have other games like death training 2 just
came out. We had avowed, which is hard to
believe it's been the same year,especially knowing that that
(00:42):
studio is still yet to put out two more games this year, which
is still just insane to me. But you know Obsidian going to
do Obsidian things. I I am probably the most excited
for the next Battlefield game. I'm hoping that still comes out
this year, even though, you know, we could possibly see them
(01:05):
push till to early next year to try to stay away from Call of
Duty. I still have a feeling this next
Call of Duty is going to be received similar to like Modern
Warfare 3 a few years ago, whereit just probably won't be
received that well because it sounds like it was another
situation where it was never really meant to be like a
mainline title. And so it probably won't feel
(01:27):
like one. But who knows I could be wrong.
We'll have to wait and see. And and then there's, you know,
lots of other things that, you know, I think announcements will
also be a big part of the rest of the year.
I, I still think, especially after last week's show, I, I
think there's a really good chance Xbox puts out their new
hardware next year. And if that's true, then they're
(01:48):
going to announce it this year. And we very well may see at the
Game Awards at the end of the year them do another Series X
like tease. And I, I just, I, I'm OK with
that. I, I prefer it not to be at that
arena, at that venue. I, I think Jeff Keeley is not
really deserving of that, but I'm obviously in the minority
(02:11):
and we're probably going to see something like that.
I, I, I think we'll see a bunch more games.
I mean, next year, like for Xbox, we know that they have,
you know, it's kind of sending it back to the 360 days.
A Gears of War game coming out, a Halo, maybe some kind of
announcement coming out. I would guess like a remaster, a
(02:31):
remake of the original game on the Unreal Engine 5 is very
likely. I I just, you know, maybe even
perfect dark. I assume with PlayStation we'll
maybe see something from Wolverine.
We'll see more about the intergalactic game, I assume as
well as I I would guess we'll find out more about what some of
(02:53):
their studios are doing and thenNintendo, you know, switch to
will probably finally get some new games next year.
Not just, you know, 5 year old third party games and a racing
game. So the end of the year maybe as
much about announcement as it will be actual new games and I'm
here for it. Getting into the gaming news for
(03:17):
this week, we have rumored layoffs by Xbox for the end of
June of 2025. We initially had some reports
from Tom Warren and Jason Schreyer about some general
layoff stories and and expectation that this will
happen. It'll be for the entirety of
Microsoft, but this one will likely heavily include Xbox.
(03:40):
And then there's been some othersources that, you know, just
aren't quite as reliable, but who claim that they've heard
from especially I believe it wasAUK based Xbox Studios that
they're expecting like 1 to 2000employees to be fired just from
Xbox and that entire studios could be closed.
(04:00):
The the rumor specified, you know, that turn 10, the Forza
developers, maybe ones that are kind of under under the gun
there. I this is kind of annoying.
It's it's June of 20 of the year.
It's June. So most companies fiscal years
and at the end of June, including the one I work for,
(04:21):
and it sucks but this is what happens every year at the end of
the fiscal year, these giant corporations layoff 5% of their
employees. It boosts their financials right
there at the end of the year, orat least the forecast because
they have fewer mouths to feed basically.
And then they rehire a bunch of people later on.
(04:42):
Now that doesn't feel any betterto those people who are laid
off. It doesn't make the layoffs any
less scummy. They're still disgusting, but
it, it is weird. It's strange to me how often
journalists and influencers and stuff, you know, you, you could
have PlayStation or EA or Ubisoft make these kind of moves
(05:03):
and people will be like, yeah, this is what happens.
This these companies suck their,their, their money grubbing
selfish D bags. But this is what they do.
But then Xbox does it and it's the like, like hands on face
like what? What's a layoff?
Oh, how evil. This must be the first time in
the history of business anyone'sever done this.
(05:24):
And to me, it's a bit disingenuous.
I, I think the way that stories are reported for Xbox are often
kind of intentionally. I, I, I don't know, like, not
misleading, but just like I, I always joke that whenever Xbox
does something before an influencer or journalist talks
(05:46):
about their IQ drops 100 points because they just, you know,
it's like they've never, you know, heard English before.
They've never seen a corporationmake moves before, good or bad.
And it's just, it's kind of frustrating for me, but it
really shouldn't matter to me asmuch as it does.
You know, we, we all have our faults.
I mean, at the end of the day, these layoffs suck.
(06:08):
I did a whole video about this earlier this week.
And this was before the most recent kind of rumors.
The most recent rumors are from like an ex Co founder of some
game studio. I believe he's still in gaming
and he very likely knows people who work at Xbox Studios.
But the way he worded stuff was very much like he kind of read
like Tom Warren and Jason Shire's like more vague accounts
(06:30):
and then just kind of made-up his own thing and posted it.
Because when people push back onlike, do you have any source for
any of this? He's just like, I'm not
journalist, like, OK. Like, so it's just, it's
frustrating for me because I, I wouldn't be surprised at all if
on Monday we find out that like 10,000 people were laid off from
Microsoft. That wouldn't surprise me at
(06:51):
all. And a bunch of them from Xbox
and maybe even the studio or twois gone.
I think it's pretty likely we'llwe will have never heard of the
studio. I've seen people speculating
it'll be like Ninja Theory and stuff.
And I that wouldn't make sense mostly because Ninja Theory just
has a lot of worth to Microsoft as a like a building.
(07:12):
They have like a motion capture studio for all of this.
All of their European slash, youknow, British, you know, United
Kingdom studios can all use that.
It's just, I mean, I guess it could be folded into another
studio or something, I don't know, But I, I doubt that that
ninja theory is at risk here. They they they're one of their
(07:32):
more premier studios. This the the the comparison has
been and we'll talk about here shortly that right after hi-fi
rush was announced for PlayStation five, they shut down
that studio Tango Gameworks and so now they're announcing
Hellblade 2 for PlayStation 5 and now they're going to shut it
down. I, I think those studios are in
(07:53):
very very different situations. Even before the Bethesda Zinemax
acquisition by Xbox, the Tango Gameworks had had multiple
complete failures and, and even Hi-fi Rush, even though it's
critically and enjoyed it didn'tsell anything even when it did
go to PlayStation where I, I just, I don't think that Ninja
(08:17):
Theory is in that same situation.
Ninja Theory also wasn't part ofsome big publisher acquisition.
It was a single studio acquisition.
I'm not that worried about it. I, I guess the, the line I try
to walk with these layoffs is that in no way, shape or form do
I want to defend layoffs. Do I want to pretend like it's a
good thing? Obviously not.
(08:37):
They suck. It's the result of this really
gross and very dehumanizing kindof capitalist system that we
work in. And I definitely don't want to
go in the preaching about that because honestly, I don't know a
ton enough about it to be too preachy about it.
But just being a person in the world.
I mean, if you if you're paying attention to anything, you can
see that there's some problems with our current system and the
(08:59):
way things work. And especially when you pay
attention to just the corporate world in general, specifically
the like tech industry. And then you can keep narrowing
it down to like the games industry.
It, it's just gross. Like one thing to keep in mind,
I, I saw someone made a quote or, or, or pointed out last year
that Microsoft laid off like 2300 people.
(09:20):
I, I hope people realize that injust the tech industry that
doesn't, I don't even know if that put them in the top 20 for
firings last year in the industry by percentage or by
headcount. Like right now, I think UPS is
like laying off like 20,000 people because of some contract
things that they've had. Intel is going to layoff like
10,000 people. It's, you know, all these, these
(09:42):
companies, they do this stuff all the time.
And I'm not just saying because it happens all the time, it's
OK. It's not.
But you definitely see it treated differently now in the
games industry. Microsoft and Xbox are unique,
right? I, I did, in the video I did
this week, I pointed out that Xbox or Microsoft as a whole
company has like 1/4 billion people.
(10:02):
They've 2 or a quarter million people.
Sorry, they they about 230,000 employees Sony, not PlayStation,
but Sony is a little over 100,000 and then Nintendo has
like 8000 employees. So, you know, obviously we never
hear about Nintendo doing layoffs, even though they have
kind of a weird system over there for getting rid of people.
(10:24):
But that's a different video. But PlayStation does layoffs.
They just did was almost 1000 layoffs not that long ago.
And if you kind of compare, you know, if, if we compare
companies, especially if you compare, you know, that was just
PlayStation when they shut down studios and fired people, you
know, I believe Xbox is presumedto have around 20,000 people
(10:46):
under it. You know, if you have it just it
all sucks, but I think that thisis getting hyped up in a weird
way and almost to the point where it is like turn into this,
this piranha pool where all these influencers and
journalists and stuff are, are like, just see, like just
(11:08):
waiting to see these people losetheir jobs.
Like they just like with like anticipation, like they're so
excited to report on it and to dunk on Xbox and to have this,
this great moment where they cankind of, you know, you know,
fulfill their, you know, their, their, their thing.
It it's strange. I think it's weird.
I think it's really odd. And I don't think they're hiding
it very well. And I think what frustrates me
(11:28):
the most is that we are seeing more coverage of these layoff
rumors now than what the same hacks who are doing it that
they're talking more about now than they will when or if it
actually happens when or if these layoffs happen, which I'm
going to assume it's when that that where there's smoke,
(11:49):
there's fire, right? Like, I'm assuming this is
coming, but it's going to happenand all these people are going
to be like, oh, look, my reporting was correct.
They're not going to go into whythe layoffs happened.
They're not going to really go into what departments it was.
And, you know, and, and, and getany info or kind of, you know,
commentary from Microsoft or Xbox about what the strategic
(12:10):
moves were that they're just going to glaze over it and be
like, Xbox bad, Game Pass bad, you know, nose console sales
bad. Guess they have to lay everyone
off. Xbox won't be in the industry in
three years, like, and and then they'll move on immediately.
There won't be any follow up. There won't be any talk about,
yeah, they laid off this many people last year and that's
(12:31):
awful and that's terrible. But they did hire like 50% more
than that. That's why they're a bigger
company now than they were last year.
Like, and, and, and part of thatis gross because it's firing
people who are like veteran workers and then hiring new
people who they can pay, you know, half the, the, the amount,
right? That stuff is that you see that
with BioWare. We're seeing that with BioWare
for sure. And that sucks obviously.
(12:54):
But what we're also seeing is Microsoft is still integrating
Activision Blizzard King. Hell, they're still act, as far
as I can tell, they're still bringing in Bethesda Xenomax in
some capacity. I think that's mostly done by
now. But Activision Blizzard King was
its own independent publisher ofthese like 3 big companies,
right? A bunch of those operations at
(13:17):
ABK are the same thing the Xbox was already doing.
So when there's an acquisition like that, there's redundancies.
And over the years as they integrate, this is going to
happen. I don't even think that's why
these layoffs are probably goingto happen in the next few days
because I'm assuming, like I wassaying before, this is just that
scummy move that corporations dowhere they fire a bunch of
(13:39):
people at the end of their fiscal year and then say, look,
we're about to save so much money and then they end up
hiring back a bunch of people orat least filling positions that
you know, have been vacated. So I, I, I don't know, like,
like this obviously is gross. It sucks.
It's also not the first time this has happened.
It's not the last time it's going to happen.
It's been happening forever. One of the things I always point
(14:01):
out is I specifically remember back in the day, even when I
worked at GameStop, because I was, you know, starting to pay
attention more the gaming news and not just releases.
It's back in the day that they, they would bring, that they
would fire people when the game shipped, they would fire the
whole studio. Now I'm, I believe back then it
(14:22):
was mostly like contractors and stuff.
So it was different. But back then you would ship a
game and then everyone got fired.
And then they all went and foundnew jobs.
And the only people who kept their jobs and you know, you see
some of the developers who have been at places for 20-30 years,
it's because they were in like leadership roles, right?
But all of the lower level people, like again, mostly
(14:42):
contractors, I believe, would just get wiped out from a studio
and they would all have to go find new jobs.
It it was a much more like, it seems like it was almost more of
a a nomadic job back then where you kind of, you know, just went
where the wind took you and you went to this new studio and did
this thing until you got senior enough to not be the one who got
fired. But game coverage is different
(15:03):
now. We pay a lot closer attention to
things that are happening. It's, you know, if you look back
in the day at the old gaming magazines, they very, very
rarely, if ever covered studio situations and layoffs and and
stuff like that. They covered games, they talked
about games, they reviewed games, they had opinion pieces
and all that stuff, right? And and things are just
different now and we're seeing that.
(15:24):
So I'm glad there's more coverage of it.
I just wish the coverage was of higher quality because more and
more it's becoming more and moreobvious that there's no money or
clicks and like educational, interesting, like fact based
journalism in the video game industry.
You could probably say this about, you know, non gaming
(15:44):
stuff as well, but instead of doing anything like that, now
it's just rumor reporting and speculation and dumerism and you
know what whatever whatever is going to get the most ad revenue
so it sucks. Moving on.
Death straining 2 has released and we have a bunch of reactions
(16:06):
about it, so it's open. Critics score is currently 90.
This is a pretty good almost 15 points higher than death
straining. One was that game did not click
with people initially. It's very interesting.
I and maybe it's just my perspective, it's probably just
my echo chamber. I see basically 0 hype for this
game, which is really curious. It's really interesting because
(16:29):
you know, if you see all the podcasts and all the influencers
and all that you, you know, in the lead up to this, they were
all getting their trips to Japanto meet, you know, the, the God
king Kojima. And and then the game comes out
and it gets a good score, like it's being scored well by a lot
of people. And I just, even when I've seen
or read reviews of it and commentary about it, it's it's
(16:53):
interesting. It feels like there was almost
like an obligation to be like, well, it's Kojima's new game and
he's an art of tour. So it's a nine out of 10.
It doesn't have a lot of the same problems as the first game.
Does it not really expand on anything significantly gameplay
wise? Is it actually, you know, and
this is just from what I've beenhearing and reading, is it
(17:16):
actually not really all that funto play?
Sure. But hey, it's Kojima's new game
and he's at a different level now than he was back then.
It it's just it's interesting. I think it's interesting.
I think it's a curious situationwhere so many of these reviews
I'm reading and watching, it almost feels like watching
people who are like, Oh yeah, it's a nine out of 10.
(17:37):
And then trying to convince themselves for an hour that they
actually believe that should be the score.
It's it's, it's interesting. Regardless, I'm sure it's going
to sell really well. It'll be on Xbox in like 5 years
when that exclusivity contract runs out.
I'm really curious how long it takes for it to come to PCI.
(17:57):
Suspect that won't be as long asXbox, but it wouldn't surprise
me. It's if it's still another year
or two away, so we'll have to wait for that.
What I, I think it's, it's just I'm curious to how the fan
reaction is going to be. It just came out, I believe on
the 26th for fans. And that's where I've been kind
(18:18):
of surprised with how little commentary or talking about hype
I've seen about it where, you know, it's, but even on the kind
of aggregated social media partsof like your for you sections,
I'm, I'm not seeing it from people who I don't even follow
right. It, it that's kind of
interesting. That very well may be my
algorithm. So I, I don't want to judge that
too harshly. But yeah, it's I, I think what's
(18:41):
been most striking to me has been the reviews and the reviews
and commentary that I've read and watched it.
It just feels so much like people being like, Oh yeah, it's
like almost a masterpiece. And then basically just being
like, well, yeah, this part doeskind of suck, but and then this
part, yeah, that that part hasn't really gotten better
(19:02):
since the first game. And then it just turns into this
like kind of them convincing themselves that their score is
what it is. It sometimes it almost feels
like, for better or worse, some of these reviewers and and and
influencers start off with a score and then try to justify it
later. But that's probably just some
(19:22):
weird assertions on my side. Xbox has revealed A
collaboration with Meta for an Xbox branded the limited edition
Metaquest 3S. This is the VR headset that if I
remember correctly doesn't require any other hardware so
you don't have to like plug it into a PC that for it to run all
the graphics. This is completely internal self
(19:45):
reliant and I've heard it's a solid headset.
I just like this is neat. It seems like the the big
utility for it is it comes with an Xbox controller and so
basically you can access the game pass and in the Xbox game
store through it and play like it makes basically a big screen
in the VR headset. You you know Xbox doesn't
support VR games, but you basically can make a giant
(20:07):
screen in the headset and play your Xbox games that way.
I I believe I assume they're allstreamed.
I There's no way this thing has the hardware to be able to run
any of these games natively, butlike, it's just.
It's what I was said before, I think Xbox is about to flood the
market with hardware that can play or that can utilize their
ecosystem. I I hope that they maybe improve
(20:29):
their communication a bit so people understand what they are
aren't getting, but I I think this is just another step in
that direction. It's not anything special.
It's just a metaquest 3S right? Like it's nothing.
As far as I can tell, there's nounique features to it other than
the hardware appearance in the controller.
(20:50):
But you know, this is just another step in that direction.
That's why we have the handheld,We have this VR headset.
Now I suspect we're going to have more handhelds and, and,
and even I wouldn't be surprisedif we start seeing PCs being
sold by, I don't know, be like Dell or Asus or something where
it'll be like a desktop that's like Xbox branded.
And you know, it's not running the Xbox software, but you'll,
(21:13):
you'll have some kind of specification or some enhanced
app service or something where it's just, that's just how
they're going to market things. And then they'll put out their
own console next year. I'm curious how that goes.
Or the year after we'll see because they're going to have to
try to rewrite the script a little bit and be like, no, OK,
this isn't just APC. It's, it is a console.
(21:36):
You know, it's, I'm just curioushow all that plays out.
I have no interest in VR. I think VR is a waste of time
and resources and money. I'm glad that they're studios
and, and some platforms trying to support it, I guess.
But yeah, I, I just, I can't think of a bigger waste like
that. To me is, is, is a, is a gimmick
that we tried to make, you know,we've been trying to make work
(21:58):
for 20 years and it's just not going to happen.
I, I just don't see it ever being a thing because I don't
think it's that compelling everytime you see a game for this.
I know there's a few exceptions like the Alex a Half Life Alex
game, but for the most part theyjust look like these terrible,
kind of gimmicky, kind of boringgames that no one would really
(22:19):
want to play when you have all these other real games
available. But that's just my take on it.
Some Capcom documents that I don't think we're meant to be
public came out and showed that metaphor.
Refund Tazio only sold about 2 million copies since its
release. This is kind of notable because
they reported that it sold 1,000,000 copies in 24 hours,
(22:40):
which suggests that sales sloweddown a ton.
From what I've seen and some people in my community I've
talked to, that isn't all that surprising that the Atlas games
don't actually typically sell that great besides the Persona
mainline titles, so that this isn't that crazy.
I will still say that from the outside, like that makes sense,
(23:04):
but it doesn't change the fact that that's still for a, a game
that was hyped up a ton last year, a game that was a game of
the year contender on every single list.
I mean, those are pathetic sales.
Like those are really bad. I, I don't, I, I just don't
really care what they typically sell or don't, you know, for a
(23:24):
game that got hyped up the way that one did and got all the
praise and all the talk from allthe journalists, all the
influencers, all the content creators, I mean 2 million sales
pathetic. Like that's that's like arguably
bad. I believe these games are on an
old engine from when I played ortried to get into it and just
couldn't. They're not pushing any
(23:44):
graphical boundaries here. They're not doing anything all
that interesting visually. So you know very well maybe this
game just didn't cost that much for them to make, even though
I'm pretty sure it was in development for like 6 or 7
years. Maybe a bunch of that was pre
production, I have no idea. But you know the the the
comparison I made, which isn't avery good one I'll admit, is
(24:05):
that you know the commentary on Dragon Age of the Vailguard, to
be clear, metaphori fantasio, a game that had like a 93 open
critic score. Vailguard the game had like an
80. I would argue both good, one
obviously preferred over the other or at least from a score
perspective. But we it's just interesting the
perspectives and in the conversation around this where
(24:26):
we found out that this game is game of the year contender.
This big hyped up game only sold2 million copies.
While this other game that was reviewed well that was generally
enjoyed by it seems like a lot of people but didn't sell as
well as its publisher wanted. Likely outsold Metaphor that the
last number we've gotten from Vail Guard was 1.5 million I
(24:46):
think after 2-2 months or something.
Since then I have to imagine it's sold probably better than
people expect, at least similarly if not better to
Metaphor. But you're never going to see
that conversation. Now.
Did Dragon Age cost more to make?
I have no idea. No one really knows because no
one actually knows how much either of these games took to
(25:08):
make. It sounds like the time
commitment was pretty similar and maybe the expectations were
different. Maybe Atlas and their publisher,
you know, didn't expect metaphorto sell more than that.
But I just think it's kind of interesting.
And you know, whether people agree with me or not, I kind of
don't care at this point. But I I just think it's funny
that if you bring up Vale Guard,it's instant conversations about
(25:30):
how it failed because it didn't sell well, even though it was
like generally liked and a pretty good game, just maybe not
a very good Dragon Age game. While metaphor was this like
generational, you know, one of the best games of the generation
and barely anyone played it. Now to argue against my own
point before I move on. Astrobot, which was pretty
universally the game of the yearlast year, I don't think sold
(25:52):
any better. I'm pretty sure they sold two or
three million copies as as far as I can tell.
So probably doesn't matter in the long run.
I just sometimes wish things felt more consistent from a
commentary perspective. That's probably me just piston
into the wind sinuous saga. Hellblade 2 is coming to
(26:13):
PlayStation 5 on August 12th. This is the enhanced edition
that will also bring enhancements to the Xbox
versions. The Xbox Series X will get a
60FPS performance mode on console.
They're they are, they're also adding a director commentary.
And I think it's a like a rot gameplay mode, which I am
(26:37):
assuming is going to be like thefirst hell blade game that there
was this mechanic that it kind of insinuated that as you die
every time you died in the game,you you would rot.
You had this visual representation of this rot on
your character's arm and their body.
And at the end of the day, you come to realize that it's it's
(26:58):
not real. You could die a billion times
that game and and it would neverlike just in the game on you,
right. What I'm guessing is that this
rot mode in hell blade 2 is thatmechanic actually implemented.
So I guess it would be kind of like a hardcore mode or whatever
you would want to call it. So I guess maybe, you know, for
a from a gameplay perspective, maybe that raises the stakes for
(27:20):
some people. I still to this day think that
hell blade 2 is one of the most underrated games ever.
It's insane. Even when this announcement
happened, I saw some people, some kind of notable people who
I think need to really check themselves a little bit being
like, yeah, the game's kind of bad.
Like it it isn't. And and and I will still hold to
(27:40):
this day, Like I remember like the kind of funny review Giant
bomb, a few of these these people I used to watch when this
came out when they talked about Hellblade. 2I hold to this day
that some of those people didn'teven finish the game because so
much of the commentary from the people on kind of funny from the
people on these other outlets felt so much like they played
(28:02):
the first two or three hours, said I get it, and then wrote
the review and maybe didn't acknowledge that maybe they
didn't finish it. Because I can't recall a single
review that I watched or listened to from these kind of
bigger names that gave me the impression they played the
second-half of the game. I'm not even saying that the
(28:23):
second-half fixes all the issuespeople had, that it changes
everything. But there were there are things
that happened in the 2nd that the complaints people had about
Hell Blade 2 or at least some people really made it hard for
me to believe they actually played the whole game because at
least in some capacity, many of those things were addressed.
There were also things that people complaining that the
(28:44):
combat was simpler than it was in the first game And and it
wasn't, you know, you didn't have a thing was like the dodge
roll or whatever anymore. But there were these like
relatively deep systems in that game that most people just never
interacted with. They now admittedly, I don't
think that they were shown very well in the game.
So you can know about, but there's things like, you know,
(29:05):
there's enemies that you'll go up against it that can throw
like Spears or axes at you. And in the game it's implied
that you just like have to parrythem, right?
But there's also a mechanic where you can catch them and
throw them back, or there's different kinds of Perry's and
there's all these different attacks and stuff that you could
do that, you know, when when thegame came out, you had all this
commentary about the combat and stuff like that.
(29:26):
And none of these people mentioned any of these mechanics
because it seems like they neverinteracted with them.
So yeah, of course you had a boring experience because you
didn't fully play through the game, at least in some capacity.
So, or with full depth or whatever.
So I don't know. I I'm just, I, I suspect at
least in small part that this isgoing to change a little as this
(29:49):
version comes out for PlayStation 5.
Because a lot of the hate towards Hell Blade 2 was coming
from people who were maybe more PlayStation leaning who were
upset that this game was an exclusive to Xbox and kind of
dogged it. I think it's going to come out
and you're going to see suddenlya whole bunch of people have
much brighter opinions on this game.
(30:11):
But maybe I'm wrong, maybe it won't change anything.
We will have to wait and see. We got some more Resident Evil 9
Requiem gameplay. Grace Ashcraft will be the main
player character. This is in pushing back on
reporting. I think I read and talked about
on a podcast a while back that Ithought it was confirmed that
(30:31):
Leon Kennedy was going to be themain character, but he won't be
more on that in a second. It can be played in first or
third person, which is really interesting because at least in
a lot of those situations, that means that they had to design
this game to work from either perspective.
Which is kind of insane if you think about it.
Because the gameplay experience and I assume the way that you
(30:52):
build a game in the first or third person is so insanely
different that I have to imaginethat was a ton of work.
Even if you think about it just in the how you design the world,
because observing a game world from first person, you see
things that you just don't see from 3rd and vice versa, right?
So the fact that they had to take into account all of the
(31:15):
environments and all of the gameplay and everything and to
try to make it work for either perspective, that's pretty
crazy. If you want me to be totally
honest, I think I think that's pretty wild.
So I'm glad they did that because I do not want to play
another first person Resident Evil game.
So I'm happy there. And they confirm that this game
will take place 30 years after the nuke was dropped on the
(31:36):
Raccoon City. Leon Kennedy was actually
considered for the protagonist. He would be 51 years old in this
setting, but they felt like he would be too stoic for the type
of game they were making. They gave the impressions that
this was meant to be more of a kind of a more Syria, more a
more scary game, more horror game.
(31:57):
Then how some of the more recentgames have turned into more
almost action games to a point. So so that's why they did that.
I'm I'm I'm actually excited about this.
I couldn't have cared less aboutResident Evil 7 or 8.
I hate the first person perspective for these games.
I just had no desire to do it. But I am extremely interested in
this one and I can't wait to play it.
(32:19):
And then finally some rematch impressions.
This is a kind of soccer arcade soccer game made by the Sifu
maker slow cap. It's got a million sales since
it released and over 3,000,000 players, if that.
If those numbers don't compute, that's because it released on
Game Pass, so this must be pretty popular on Game Pass if
(32:41):
it has presumably 2 million players accessing it.
That way, you know, double the number of people who bought it.
So good for them. I hope they got a good deal.
I'm sure they did. After the Sifu success.
I could not careless about this game.
I love FIFA, I love soccer. I played my whole life.
I even played in college. I continued playing up until my
(33:05):
daughter was born and and then Iwas, you know, got sick of
getting knocked down by 18 year olds or honestly, I got sick of
getting knocked down by people even older than me.
If I have to be totally honest, that's a whole different
conversation. I love soccer and this game, I
get it. It's supposed to be kind of like
a Rocket League style game. I just I feel like this game and
(33:28):
I've noticed this from the people I've seen talking about
it kind of funny bringing them up again.
They have a couple of people whotalked about this game who just
started playing soccer like in the last year, who love it.
And I I think it has something to do with if you've played the
law FIFA or if you actually played the game, you kind of
expect certain things to work certain ways in a game like this
(33:50):
where it's not like a, you know,it's not like FIFA where your
camera is way above the field and you're controlling things.
This is a like third person soccer game and it just, it
doesn't work the way I want it to.
I hate the controls. I think they're way too
overcomplicated. I'm I'm sure if I played more I
would get used to it. I just, I don't know, it's just
not drawing me like that and that's OK.
(34:11):
It doesn't have to. It's not just for me.
Obviously a bunch of people are enjoying it.
I just these games, man, it reminds me of like Knockout City
and stuff. You have these multiplayer games
come out from these like solid studios and they get hot for a
minute and then six months latertheir player bases are dead and
they get shut down South. I hope that doesn't happen here.
I hope that they can do a bunch of stuff to keep these people
(34:33):
who are playing it. It's a rough Rd. out there for
these games and I will. I'll wish them the best.
As for some content updates, nothing big.
I don't think we have any big showcases coming up.
I'm not aware that we have any big, you know, big releases or
anything coming up super soon, at least not that I'm interested
(34:55):
in. I still too need to finish my PC
Mass Effect Legendary edition modded playthrough or in the
last half of that. I believe we're doing the Ranak
missions right now with the Corians and the Geff.
And it's always funny to me thatMass Effect 3, you play and you
(35:16):
you go through everything. You do the Krogan and turian
thing, you do all that. And then I feel like you hit the
quarry in part and it feels likeyou should only be like still
starting the game. And once you finish that you're
kind of in the final act, right?So that, that, that's always
kind of jarring. But I'm hopefully I'll get back
to that. I am still trying to keep
posting on the YouTube channel, so keep up with that.
(35:39):
I continue tinkering with the branding of the podcast.
So both the Bonfire, the one you're listening to now, and my
other podcast, the Mass Effect Hype Cast, which does have a
relatively new episode from a few weeks ago.
You know, don't be surprised if you see those things changing,
but please continue listening. I really do appreciate it.
And yeah, that that's kind of the content updates for right
(36:01):
now. And I think that's where we're
going to wrap this one up a bit of a short one this week.
I suspect next week is going to be a bit more interesting, I
fear. Thank you so much for listening
to this episode. Subscribe to the show on your
favorite podcast app, leave a review on Spotify or iTunes, and
subscribe to the Von Diesel YouTube channel to get all of my
(36:24):
videos, including this podcast. Thank you to everyone who
supports as YouTube members and or Twitch subscribers.
If you're interested in supporting this podcast and all
of my other content, please check out the links in the show
description. If you have any questions or
feedback, be sure to hit me up on social media at Von Diesel or
at the Bonfire, go into my Discord to talk to me and
(36:45):
everyone else there, or leave a comment on Spotify or YouTube.
That is all I have for this episode of the Bonfire Gaming
podcast. So until next time.
(37:15):
None.
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