June 13, 2025 • 37 mins
In this episode of Digital Coffee Gaming Brew, Brett Deister discusses the end of the SAG-AFTRA strike over AI voice replication, dives into gameplay and community feedback for 'Dune: Awakening,' and critiques the reveal of 'Call of Duty: Black Ops 7.' He highlights various showcases from Microsoft, Ubisoft, and reveals his excitement for 'Blood of the Dawn Walker' led by the former director of 'The Witcher 3.' Brett also talks about new gameplay updates from 'Neverwinter Nights 2 Enhanced Edition,' and the intriguing but troubled 'MindsEye.' The show explores recent layoffs at Bend Studio and discusses insights into EA's handling of 'Dragon Age: The Veil Guard.' Additionally, there is coverage of the controversy surrounding 1047 Games' 'Make FPS Great Again' slogan. Rounding out the episode are updates on 'Rainbow Six Siege X,' 'Warhammer 40K: Space Marines 2,' and GOG's new 'One Click Mods' feature. Brett ties everything up with a reflection on the evolving market dynamics favoring AA games over AAA titles.
3 Fun Facts:
- The new Dune Awakening game lets you build bases and survive sandstorms—just don’t get eaten by sandworms!
- Good Old Games (GOG) introduced a “One Click Mods” feature, making it super easy to install mods for classic games like Fallout 4 and Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines.
- Warhammer 40K: Space Marines 2 sold a whopping 7 million units, and a sequel is already confirmed to be in development!
Key Themes:
- SAG-AFTRA strike and generative AI concerns
- Dune Awakening gameplay impressions and issues
- Recent gaming showcases and game reveals
- Good Old Games' one-click mod feature
- Layoffs and restructuring in the gaming industry
- Controversy over FPS genre and messaging
- Developer struggles with understanding core audiences
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
And welcome to new episode of Digital Coffee Gaming Brew
and I'm your host Brett Deister. If you could please subscribe to this podcast
on all your favorite podcasting apps. Leave A five star review really does help with
the rankings and let me know how I am
doing. But this week we're going to be talking about well
looks like the SAG AFTRA strike is going to
(00:22):
be no more. We're going to be talking a little bit about Dune Awakening. I've
been playing a bunch of it, talking about
different showcases that happened last weekend that I didn't really get a chance to talk
about. It was. It wasn't bad. It
wasn't great to me. I mean there were some interesting games GOG
or good old games doing a one click mods and talk about that. We're also
(00:44):
going to be talking about Dungeons and Dragons, Neverwinter Nights Schedule
1 and the new update
that should be interesting as well.
We're also going to be talking about well
the Make FPS great again.
(01:04):
I don't really understand why there's a controversy but apparently had apologized and why you
should never apologize to the crazy lunatics. Also again,
some layoffs happening in the gaming industry just never
seems to stop. Just about every month or every other month there seems to be
something Rainbow six, Siege X Total. Talk about a little bit
about that and just some
(01:27):
weird things going on with Dragon Age, the Veil Guard
and just how EA is still isn't really
understanding it. Warhammer 40K, Space Marines 2
and the new sales update Mind's Eyes out and well
yeah, and then
(01:47):
just because let's get on with the show.
That's good. All right. I hope you're having
(02:10):
a great Friday and I'm gonna have an even better
weekend. But first off is the sec. AFTRA has
reached a tentative deal with video game companies regarding the interactive media contract.
Voice actors have been on strike since July 2024. The
primary issue of the strike was protection of actors from companies using
generative AI technology to replicate their voices without
(02:33):
compensation or consent. I think it's mostly been
specifically that which I'm never usually a bigger the
biggest fans of unions
specifically because unions usually protect the weakest
of their unions. So the people that
are usually the laziest, the people that don't really do great work, they protect those
(02:55):
and it doesn't really help the people that are doing great work for the most
part. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't really just depends on the union. But
from what I've seen over the years, they Usually are
slow to innovate and usually will have a tight grip on.
On innovation in general. Is this a bad
idea? No, it's not. I mean, you got to protect yourself and
(03:18):
your voice from generative AI because you easily copy it. And it's never
really fun to do that. So I'm not against it. It's just no
one really knew that they were still on strike because games kept on coming
out. And I'm pretty sure they would have found a way of just having like
silent protagonist again. So
have non voice actors. I don't really know. But it's good.
(03:39):
It's good to know. All right, moving on to
Dune Awakening. And I've been playing a bunch of it. It's actually a pretty
fun game. I'm still in the beginning ish of it. I think I'm in the
second part of it when I still have to figure out where the other
trial is. The second trial. But I've been doing a bunch.
I've been building my base. I've been making,
(04:02):
well, making things getting destroyed. I tried to
beat the sandstorm and that did not go well. I lost
everything. I had to rebuild everything, which wasn't the fun thing to do.
But that's the part of Dune is to not be eaten by sand worms and
to not be in the sandstorm because that thing will kill you
pretty quick. But all in all, it's a pretty fun game. It's
(04:25):
for the most part, pretty solo friendly. But it
seems like towards the end you have
to join a guild and players are kind of upset that it really
does prioritize larger guilds over solo or
smaller guilds. So we'll see once I eventually get to it. But
all in all, it's a pretty good game for just how built up it is
(04:47):
and how long it seems like it's going to take just to like do everything.
So I'm actually not disappointed with it. There are some.
A few issues I've had with jittering and just seems like
lag on the server side of it. But beyond that,
it's kind of like the give and take of MMOs and just that type of
thing. The combat is okay. I don't really like the knife fights.
(05:10):
They're kind of annoying. They're not really the best. To me.
The gunplay is fine. It's not terrible. It's not great.
It's just. It's just not the fun part about it. But I mean, you gotta
have combat. I just wish it was a little bit more
interactive or a little bit more. It was better in the
combat, especially the melee one because you basically just have a light and a strong
(05:32):
attack and that's really about it. And you kind of use the strong attack to
kill people with shields because the guns will not go through the shields.
And it's just like I said, it's just one of those
things. So we'll see if they fine tune that.
But yeah, right now that's probably the weakest part is that.
All right, so Microsoft did their showcase and one of the
(05:56):
bigger ones was Call of duty Black Ops 7 and I am
still not really caring about it now. It's going to be in the Future in
2035 featuring David Mason as a protagonist.
Activision marketing strategy for Black Ops 7
involves minimal pre promotion aiming for a surprise
launch similar to Beyonce album drop. Look, it's
(06:18):
not surprise when you release the game every year. There
is no surprise. I don't really understand this. We're going to
surprise. We're going to surprise our fans. You know, would it be
a surprise skipping a year?
I mean I guess it works. But why?
(06:41):
But Black Ops 7 will will include a co op
campaign which was absent in Black Ops 6 and will feature
near future weapon weaponry and multiplayer with new maps.
The game will also include the next chapter of round based zombies.
The cast includes Milo as David Mason.
(07:01):
Got a few other actors as well. It's gonna be available
on Xbox Series XS, Xbox One, PlayStation 5,
PS4, PC and
Xbox and Battle.net and Steam as well. So
on PC through Xbox PC. So it's basically available
everywhere you can do it. Except for the switch too for whatever
(07:23):
reason, which I kind of find funny because usually you would
think the switch to would be on there too, but it's not. The game can
also be played on day one through the game Pass. Ultimate
RPC game Pass. The development is co effort between Tech Rear
and Raven Software. Black Ops 7
is the first back to back release in the Black Ops sub series
(07:45):
following Black Ops 6 launch a prior year and
I played the beta of Black Ops 6. It really didn't care for it really
didn't. It didn't really motivate me to actually want to get it.
So we'll see. And Activision claims that Black Ops 7 will
deliver the full Call of Duty experience despite
(08:05):
some fans perceiving it as a stopgap game.
Infinity Ward is expected to return with new Modern warfare game
in2026. So it
seems like development issues with Modern Warfare and then they just kind of
like switched them but here's the thing. If there's development
problems, skip a year. It's fine to skip a year. Like,
(08:28):
seriously, we don't need it every year. I
know that that's Activision's little marketing ploy, but you
don't need it every year. It's just. It's just dumb. All right, now the
one I actually am excited 4 is the blood
of the Dawn Walker. That's the dark
fantasy from the former director of the
(08:50):
Witcher 3. The game is set to be released in 2026,
and a special event is scheduled for June 21st
where 15 minutes of new gameplay, content and developer commentary
will be revealed. The game will include a
directional combat system that incorporates sword fighting spells and
vampiric powers. Players will explore the game world
(09:11):
of Val Signora, which will be will have gameplay
differences based on whether it is night or day. Interesting
narrative focus on Cohen's struggle with his identity and the choice between
saving his family or seeking
revenge. So this is the one I'm actually the
most excited about because, well, Witcher
(09:34):
3 was amazing when it. When it came out. It's just one of those things.
But I mean, there was
very few things I watched through all, but I watched the PC One, the
PlayStation One, the Summer Fest, and
this one. And yeah, Xbox One was probably the best one out of all of
them. But I mean, it's not really saying much, to be honest with you.
(09:57):
So I'm excited to see where they're going to go with this, how well this
will improve upon the Witcher 3 formula and actually how good it's going to be.
Apparently there's going to be a lot of timed objectives that you. And you're not
going to be able to finish everyone, which will make a very interesting gameplay
loop. But we'll see how they implemented it.
(10:17):
All right. Moving on to the outer worlds too. And it's. Well,
it's. Yeah, it's
gonna be a darker tone, apparently. Apparently they don't really want to
have it that fun tone than the first one was. And I was like, well,
that's kind of what made it charming, the first one. So
that's a little weird. It's gonna be the one of the first ones to have
(10:39):
the 80 price tag. But I'm pretty sure Black Ops 7 is going to
have the 80 price tag as well because it comes around the Christmas
season and Xbox wants you to get the game pass.
And I'm like, oh, fine, that's fine. I'll just not spend as much money on
Xbox games or Microsoft games. I mean it's a, it's
(11:00):
a pretty clear thing. I don't really care about
Call of Duty anymore. Other Worlds 2
seems interesting, but Obsidian,
one of the employees just seems to be like full on, like
woke for whatever reason even going far to say is that he will
(11:20):
help black people over white people and getting their
jobs because they've been oppressed, blah blah blah. But then it's like, okay, then
don't give your job to a black person. Never do it. But
it's just, it's a, it's funny hypocrisy because it is
hypocrisy. But this
should be interesting to see where this actually goes. And they said The
(11:42):
Outer Worlds 2 is described as a true obsidian reactive
RPG, which it's just marketing speak for. It's just our new
rpg, this weird like reactive. It's like
whatever skills and traits in the game are more significant
influencing combat, conversations and other aspects of the game. All right, so
it's leaning more into rpg. Great. Got it. That's really
(12:04):
what it means when it, whenever they add more identifier or
qualifiers to what they're saying. It's just, it's an Obsidian
rpg. It's not a true Obsidian. It's just an Obsidian rpg, which is
fine. They don't, they don't make terrible rpg. Well, Valve wasn't great,
but before they used to actually make really good RPGs. Now
they're, it's. It's kind of okay
(12:27):
now. The most interesting one out all of them was Clockwork
Revolution and this is by NXL Games and this will
in Excel Entertainment and this will probably more
than likely be the $80 games again. But the game is described as
a steampunk RPG shooter with kind of like time bending powers. So
it features gadgets and time bending powers. Yes. The
(12:49):
atheistic of the game is Clockwork Steampunk and includes
humor. Notable game Notable characters of the game are
referred to as the pissed off doll and the
knob. Clockwork Revolution is being developed by NXL
Entertainment with assistance from former Volition developers under the
studio name Shapeshifter Games. Volition, known as the for
(13:11):
the Saints Row series, was closed in 2023 due to the
poor performance of the most recent games. There is no specific release
date for Clockwork Revolution, but it will be available on game
pass from day one. The game will be released on PC and Xbox
series X and S. So no, no word on
PlayStation yet. We'll get more
(13:34):
updated information because we don't have that much I mean the,
the trailer we saw, I mean it was pretty good. It was probably the most
interesting out of all of them, besides the
Blood of the Dawn Breaker, which also is amazing as
well. But I'm interesting to see what this is, but it's gonna be $80. I'm
probably gonna skip it because I want to see reviews and see if
(13:56):
it actually will be any good. I mean, it's great that it's getting old
Volition devs, but hopefully it's the ones
that worked well with Saints Row and made the some aspects of it really
good. Because Saints Row from the last one was not very good because
there was no direction and it looks like they just infused a lot of woke
BS into it which didn't really work out in their favor because they got
(14:17):
closed by Embracer Group. Embracer Group has been kind of the
laughing stock of the gaming industry because of just how much they
bought and then all their deals fell through.
All right, so Good Old Games has introduced a new feature called One Click
Mods that allows users to essentially install popular mods for
certain classic games. The feature includes support mods
(14:40):
for games including Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines, Doom 3
Fallout 4, which plans to include Sky Oblivion mod for the Elder
Scrolls 5 Skyrim in the future. GOG
announced that this feature at the PC Gaming show and provides details on its
functionality and supported mods. The One Click Mod features offers
a created list of popular mods rather than all mods available for the
(15:02):
game, distinguishing it from platforms like the
Nexus mods. Installation process for One Click
Mods is designed to be simple automatic through GOG's online store and
GOG Galaxy Launcher. The current list of
supporter mods includes the Sky Blivian mod, the Phobos Mod for
Doom 3, Fallout London for Fallout 4,
(15:25):
Horn of the Abyss for Heroes of Might and Magic three, and the
Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines unofficial patch.
So if you're tired of Nexus mods and their
BS about which mods are okay for you to use on your single player game,
this might be a better alternative. But it's not the best alternative. We
just need a really good alternative mod site that will just allow
(15:47):
just about every mod except the ones that may be illegal
or promote you to do illegal things. Maybe, but really
that's, that's really all we need. So it should be interesting to see
how well this actually does and
if it's actually worthwhile or not. I mean, this seems like a simple way of
doing it. A lot of Nexus mods can be Difficult to understand how to install
(16:09):
them and they may not work. So this is bridging the gap between having
mods and not having mods. So Experian Media is announced
the release of Dungeons and Dragons Neverwinter Nights
2 enhanced edition during the PC Gaming Show 2025. The
enhanced edition is based on the original game released in 2022
in 2002 by Obsidian Entertainment.
(16:31):
The game features smoother gameplay, refined camera controls, polished
mechanics, enhanced textures, and full controller support with new controller
specific ui. It will be available on multi
platforms for the first time, including PS5, Xbox Series S and X
and Nintendo switch doesn't say 2, it just says
Nintendo Switch. Interesting. In addition to PCs, which is Steam and
(16:54):
GOG, the release date is going to be set for July 15, 2025
at the $30 price tag. Not a bad old
game. It is over
20 years old. It is one of the few games that kind of.
Because at the beginning Obsidian kind of just did a lot of
what BioWare used to do and they kind of did the sequels to it. Never
(17:16):
know which are Nights two, the Knights of the Republic. And
so it should be interesting what they do with that. It seems like they always
had a really tight time schedule because they wanted the games out quickly and so
it never really was as good as the originals.
But the Knights of the Republic 2
did have a better story than the original one. Or that's my firm belief.
(17:38):
They just were on time, they were on a tight time frame and it
just didn't really work out. There are mods that kind of bring back a lot
of the cut content that from the story that actually bridges the
gap and makes it a lot better. All
right, so Schedule 1. Latest patch, which is
version 0.3.6 has been fully released. New features in this
(18:00):
update include items slot filters, replacement of employee beds
with lockers, and improvement in the saving system. Developer
TVGS apologized for the delay in the update, citing personal reasons including
surgery for wisdom teeth removal, university
commitments and other undisclosed issues. Fair enough.
TVGs express excitement about continuing to work on the game and mentioned
(18:22):
setting up a community voting system for future content updates. The
first vote will allow players to choose between three potential
updates, a police expansion, a rival cartel, or shrooms.
Hey, you know what? More power to him. I mean this is like one guy
and he has a lot of things going on and he's still trying to update
as much as he can. I'm not really, I'm not really upset about
(18:44):
that. I mean things happen and the dude made like a game that
beat Out a lot of AAA games in like 24 hours. I
mean it beat out of Dragon Age, the Veil Guard I'm pretty sure
beat out Assassin's Creed Shadows and just funny because it's like
one dude that created like a fun game about drugs.
Still fun. Still fun. And he's going to continue to update it. He's
(19:06):
continuing to make it better. I would like to see rival cartels,
even a police expansion might be interesting to do something a little. A little bit
more gameplay style to it. I mean it already it is. It is a really
good base. I will give them that. And so
that is. That's good. So
(19:27):
I really want to see more of that. I think having communing voting system
is helpful. I don't think always going by that religiously
kind of like still using your own like discernment between
what you actually think it needs and the community. But I do think getting
input from the community is actually really good spot.
All right, so the CEO of 1047
(19:51):
Games, which is the developer of Splitgate 2,
he apologized on a video
for controversy surrounding his combat. The comments and hat
Warren the Summer Game Fest
2025 hatred make
FPS great again. Which is kind of like.
(20:15):
It's kind of like Make America great again but without
the Donald Trump type of a thing. And he said it
was intended to be a political statement, which I didn't take it as a political
statement at all. It's a true statement. Make these. Make this genre good
again. Why? Why is that so controversial? Just because Trump said
Make America great again. Are you people this stupid? Like
(20:36):
seriously, can you not get your head out of your butt? Can
you not distinguish between what is political and what is not? Saying
so you want to make something great again is never a bad thing. But you're
so TDS infused that you can't even
distinguish between what is someone that just wants to make their
genre that they create a game in good and what is political.
(21:00):
I mean, he remarked the state of multiplayer FPS games is
tragically stale, which is true. He's not lying
about anything. He's making true statements and that they
needed something to grab attention to the event. He acknowledged the hat and associated
messages were meant to be a name expressing their desire to improve games,
which I took as never apologize to these
(21:21):
lunatics. You saw what they did in la. I am in the next county
south of la, which is Orange county.
And we don't. We never want to be associated with LA. LA
sucks, LA is terrible. You avoid LA, you go for the
day and you, you come back and you do not stay in la.
(21:42):
And the fact that these weirdos and
called one of them a walking fallacy, because it is because you're
like, oh, my God, he created something out of a message from Trump. He
must be a Trump supporter. Or he just really wants to make this the first
person shooter genre great again because it is very stale.
He has said nothing wrong. You guys are lunatics. You guys
(22:04):
are children. Grow up.
Like, seriously grow up.
Like the same Asian lady had the f
ice picture. And it's like, yeah, huh? Yeah, I know
what you are. You Marxist leftist. You just want to destroy the
country, which is another thing. But saying things that are
(22:27):
true, which is make FPS great again, which isn't just
Battlefield and isn't just Call of Duty and specifically Call of Duty, because
it's been stale since Modern Warfare in
the beginning. The first one, not. Not the Modern Warfare remake.
It kind of helped it a little bit, but it's been stale for a while.
Splitgate 2 is an interesting thing. The finals is
(22:49):
another interesting way. And we just don't play them as much because we're. Well,
we don't like change very much either.
So what he said was nothing. Of course. The same lady was like,
oh, well, the same people that you think are not
playing or the manga or whatever because
(23:09):
aren't playing the games. I'm like, how do you know that? Because she doesn't really
know that. She's making an assumption. It's like, stop. Like,
his statement was true. There was nothing wrong with this statement.
You are all lunatics if you cannot distinguish between two different
statements. There's a reason why
symbolism makes one thing one way and one
(23:30):
thing another way. But it's the same thing. You
just take it as different ways. But if you cannot
act like adults, maybe it's time to do a timeout on X.
It's. It's ridiculous. And I. I tweeted the developer,
like you should. There's nothing you should have apologized for. There's nothing
(23:52):
wrong you said. But he did, because I don't really know.
I mean, of course the media. Because it's always the
media that's in favor of these weird things. It's like, oh, it's got a mixed
review with 62% positive. All right, well,
Steam people don't really care as much. And it's a hodgepodge of different people. They
might actually have a problem with the game, which is fair. And because they a
(24:15):
problem messaging, fine. But it'll get
people. You. They'll get over it. They'll find another TDS thing
that people can get upset about. But look it, he said
nothing wrong. He did nothing wrong.
Don't apologize to lunatics.
(24:36):
It's one of the most masculine things you could do, bro. Don't
apologize. Own it. Because when you own
it, they lose the power. When you don't own it and you apologize, they get
it back. And that's how we got into this situation.
All right, Moving on to Bend Studios, developer of Days Gone has
reportedly lay off 30% of its workforce, which is approximately 40
(24:58):
employees. A little slayoff occurred five months after Sony canceled the studio's
live service project. Bend Studios is working on a new yet to be
revealed game following the cancellation of its live service offering. The canceled live service
game was one of two projects shut down by Sony in January. The
other service was Live service God of War game developed by
Blue Point. Jason Schaefer of Bloomberg reported that only
(25:21):
Ben Studios was affected by these layoffs. And it's
unfortunate because Days Gone was a really good game. I do not understand why Sony
does not want to make a second one of it. It was a good game.
I don't. Don't give us a remastered.
That was dumb. Stop with the remasters of games that are two years
old. That's really dumb. I'm tired of seeing
(25:43):
Last of Us re, re, re, re, re
Remake, slash Master. Last remake slash Master. This is the
last one. I swear. It's like, no, it's not. Stop it. And now they have
the complete edition. It's like, stop doing that.
All right, so moving on to Ubisoft has finally released
(26:03):
Rainbow Six Siege X. The game is available on all
platforms. PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox
Series S and X, and Amazon Luna. The
update improves graphics and adds new content. The game offers free access for
newcomers, allowing them to play with a selection of
operators and access unranked Quick match and dual
(26:26):
front modes without payment. Certain features such as Ranked
Playlist, Siege cup, additional operators cosmetics require payment to
unlock. The Lead Edition is one of the. It's one of the options available,
granting access to all game modes, including Rank Playlist.
Yeah, so it's out there hasn't
been really much of a change. I mean, there's new, there's updated
(26:49):
some stuff, but there really isn't much of a change. So there you
go. I don't really have much to take because I don't really play it anymore.
All right, so Trekking's Vell Guard. It's. It's
one of those games where news keeps on coming out, it's just
never good news. It just. The reason why this game was so terrible is
basically it. So the Dragon Vilgard
(27:11):
underwent significant production issues, including being rebooted, delayed and
renamed. We all know that. We all know it's, it's been true for a while.
It's. It's nothing new to it, but it's just kind
of funny that it happened because they were talking about how great it
was. And from a optimized standpoint, not bad.
But from anything else, not great. So EA provided
(27:33):
BioWare with a year and a half to overhaul the game and aim for a
broad market. Dumb, first of all, year and a half. But you're like,
go for our audience and that's all you need to hit. Because
that's how it happens. The game development was constrained by tight deadlines leading to limited
storytelling and world building opportunities. It's why it kind of feels
weird and doesn't really feel like a Dragon Age game specifically because
(27:56):
that's what actually has happened. It's just not great.
So Dragon Age of
Elgard missed its sales projection by over half.
And even though journalists claim it was critically,
it was a generally positive. It sits at a
69%. People do not like the companions. People
(28:19):
were okay with the combat and the lore was fine because it was already
built in there. But it wasn't great. It
wasn't terrible. Terrible if
you negate the companions. Because companions kind
of were the sticking point for a lot of these issues,
like the hitting me over the head with binary
(28:42):
genders that are non existent and pulling the Bravo.
Like all this stuff gamers hated. So even the media gets
this wrong because they're stupid. Most of them are.
YouTube ones are usually pretty solid, but the ones from the traditional media,
they just don't understand. They are completely oblivious to their
own issues that we have with them. But
(29:04):
my issue with this is that they didn't understand
what made Dragon Age great. And this was their issue. And they could
never understand why it made Dragon Age great because the executives and the
marketing team didn't understand the game. If you
don't understand the game, you go hire somebody that understands the game. You talk to
the audience, you talk to your customers, you figure out why
(29:26):
this is a good game and then you make it for that niche.
I get you want a broad audience, but you only get a broad
audience when you satisfy your hardcore audience
first. This isn't rocket science, guys. This is
marketing 101. You have a customer base.
Stop trying to say we're going to, we're going to
(29:48):
appeal to the broad audience. What does that mean?
They didn't understand their game. They barely understand Mass
Effect. They barely understood this one. I don't even understand why they bought this studio
anyways. They basically like ran it into a ground, effed up
everything. And then we're like, we don't know why our games aren't selling great.
(30:09):
Well, you hire the wrong people, you promote the wrong people and you have the
wrong marketing for it. Three things you
shouldn't do. You did all three of them.
First off, you make an RPG game for the fans, for the people that
love Dragon Age. Dragon Age Origins was great because it had that
nostalgia field of the old combat systems with great
(30:31):
writing, with great companions and with world building.
Then you had Dragon Age 2, not so great because you had
a short timetable, but the story was interesting
and the companions were interesting. Dragon Age Inquisition, you gave
more time. It had newer mechanics that
weren't that were okay, but not that great. And at least the world
(30:55):
building was still there. At least it still had some of the dark feeling of
was still there. Then you had the Veil
Guard, which basically did nothing. You changed it from
the Dread Wolf because Inquisition actually set up for
Solas to be the main bad person. Then you were like, nah, we're good with
that, we'll do something else. And it's like you already had your
(31:18):
story there, you just had to go with it. But
nope, a little bit more cartoony, not so
dark fantasy, more of this a high fantasy again
again. So you kind of like flip the script on it when what made
the original what people loved and you're like, look, it's still a Dragon Age game.
Everybody's like, not. It's not a Dragon Age game. Look at ea. I can
(31:41):
actually help you with this. I can actually tell you specifically what to do and
I probably would make a pretty successful game, at least marketing wise.
But you guys, you, you, you need to like
look at your marketing team, look at your executives and be like, look at,
play our games, play our old games and
figure out what our audience is. Because that's the only way you're
(32:03):
gonna make successful games. If you don't understand these,
you are a bad executive and a terrible marketer.
Alright, so Mind's Eye is out. It was developed by Build
a Rocket Boy and Boyd. Is it not doing
well that I've seen a lot of YouTube videos
(32:23):
on it and yeah, it's not looking good. It is one
of those where I'm like that probably should
have been delayed, but it wasn't. And
so we're down with this. This is supposed to be like kind of like
a double A game of
Rockstar's Grand Theft Audio. Grand Theft Auto
(32:46):
Audio, Grand Theft Auto. But in the future. But it
wasn't. It has massive issues.
I don't recommend it even. I was like looking at all this stuff, I'm like,
that means game is gonna do very well and it's not. And
the main guy is like, oh, it's all the trolls and everything.
(33:06):
I'm like, no, you just made a bad game, dude. Like
optimize your game. Like I
heard that they had like a developers preview and you had to go
on to like zoom and you had to watch the gameplay and even then they
had to turn on God mode and it's like, oof,
that's not good. So well,
(33:29):
build a boy rocket could be no more. It's their own
fault. So good luck.
All right, so Warhammer 40K Space Marines 2 has sold 7 million
units to date. The game was published by Focus Entertainment. It was
developed by Saber Interactive and launched on September 9, 2024.
Focus Home announced the two that 2 million copies were sold
(33:52):
the day after launch. So they got an extra 5
million since that day. Sales reached 5 million
units by the end of November 2024.
And a sequel is coming of Warhammer 4K. Space Marines 3
was confirmed to be in development as of March 2025. So this is how you
make a game. They understood their audience, they understood their game, they knew
(34:15):
what the audience wanted and they had been successful.
It wasn't a woke version of this. It was very high
testosterone type of a game. That's what people wanted. That's why I love
the original one. This is how you do it correctly.
Did it have its issues? Of course it did. It's a game.
(34:36):
But it did the things it needed to do and it did
it well. When you do that, you
have good games. At least
Saber Interactive understands what players want.
Everybody else should take the lead from Saber
Interactive and figure out what their audience
(34:57):
wants. If you already have made an established game understand your
audience, it's not hard. It is one
of the easiest things to do.
It's just developers have lost sight of it, especially in
the big publisher sphere. They keep on going, what will appeal
to everybody? And I'm like, then you have a nothing game.
(35:20):
Appeal to everybody. You don't have a game. Appeal to your audience.
You have a game.
It is that simple. You don't need to Be technical,
simple about this. Very simple. What are
your priorities? What do you want to
to basically get across in your story? What do you want to
(35:43):
get across in your gameplay design? How do you work
on your gameplay design first and have the story match the gameplay design
and do top three things in each of these categories? Don't
do top seven, do top three.
If you can do more, fine, but do top three at least. And
(36:03):
then once you're done with that, then you will have,
then you'll be on track for a successful game. But know
your audience. It is the simplest thing to understand
and EA keeps missing the mark. They may
actually understand it in Battlefield. May is a
big, big May because everybody has eyes on
(36:26):
Battlefield 6. Everybody's skeptical about how well it's actually
going to do and how well it's going to appeal to their audience.
And so as I keep on saying, before the market is
shifting, Double A studios are probably going to be taking the lead
on new IPs, new stories and
(36:50):
new gameplay features. And AAA games are just going
to be mass appeal to the masses. That will be
just mediocre games that will people just like
cuz they know of the game.
Will you be successful? To a certain extent, but then it will become
stale, old and dry. I really hope
(37:12):
it's not going to be that way, but I think it is. So good luck
to you Microsoft. Good luck to you Ubisoft, Good luck to you ea.
And good luck to you take two because you all are just,
just aren't worth it. Not with $80 a game anymore.
So what do you think? Do you think I'm crazy or not? Let me know
(37:33):
in the comments below. But thank you for listening to Digital Coffee Gaming Brew. I
really do appreciate it. Please subscribe to this podcast and all your favorite podcasts.
A five star review really does help with the rankings. Let me know how I'm
doing and join me next week. Let's talk about what's going on in the gaming
industry. All right guys, stay safe. Get to the games you want to play even
if they're not the quote unquote popular ones and see you next week
(37:53):
later.
And welcome to new episode of Digital Coffee Gaming Brew
and I'm your host Brett Deister. If you could please subscribe to this podcast
on all your favorite podcasting apps. Leave A five star review really does help with
the rankings and let me know how I am
doing. But this week we're going to be talking about well
looks like the SAG AFTRA strike is going to
(00:22):
be no more. We're going to be talking a little bit about Dune Awakening. I've
been playing a bunch of it, talking about
different showcases that happened last weekend that I didn't really get a chance to talk
about. It was. It wasn't bad. It
wasn't great to me. I mean there were some interesting games GOG
or good old games doing a one click mods and talk about that. We're also
(00:44):
going to be talking about Dungeons and Dragons, Neverwinter Nights Schedule
1 and the new update
that should be interesting as well.
We're also going to be talking about well
the Make FPS great again.
(01:04):
I don't really understand why there's a controversy but apparently had apologized and why you
should never apologize to the crazy lunatics. Also again,
some layoffs happening in the gaming industry just never
seems to stop. Just about every month or every other month there seems to be
something Rainbow six, Siege X Total. Talk about a little bit
about that and just some
(01:27):
weird things going on with Dragon Age, the Veil Guard
and just how EA is still isn't really
understanding it. Warhammer 40K, Space Marines 2
and the new sales update Mind's Eyes out and well
yeah, and then
(01:47):
just because let's get on with the show.
That's good. All right. I hope you're having
(02:10):
a great Friday and I'm gonna have an even better
weekend. But first off is the sec. AFTRA has
reached a tentative deal with video game companies regarding the interactive media contract.
Voice actors have been on strike since July 2024. The
primary issue of the strike was protection of actors from companies using
generative AI technology to replicate their voices without
(02:33):
compensation or consent. I think it's mostly been
specifically that which I'm never usually a bigger the
biggest fans of unions
specifically because unions usually protect the weakest
of their unions. So the people that
are usually the laziest, the people that don't really do great work, they protect those
(02:55):
and it doesn't really help the people that are doing great work for the most
part. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't really just depends on the union. But
from what I've seen over the years, they Usually are
slow to innovate and usually will have a tight grip on.
On innovation in general. Is this a bad
idea? No, it's not. I mean, you got to protect yourself and
(03:18):
your voice from generative AI because you easily copy it. And it's never
really fun to do that. So I'm not against it. It's just no
one really knew that they were still on strike because games kept on coming
out. And I'm pretty sure they would have found a way of just having like
silent protagonist again. So
have non voice actors. I don't really know. But it's good.
(03:39):
It's good to know. All right, moving on to
Dune Awakening. And I've been playing a bunch of it. It's actually a pretty
fun game. I'm still in the beginning ish of it. I think I'm in the
second part of it when I still have to figure out where the other
trial is. The second trial. But I've been doing a bunch.
I've been building my base. I've been making,
(04:02):
well, making things getting destroyed. I tried to
beat the sandstorm and that did not go well. I lost
everything. I had to rebuild everything, which wasn't the fun thing to do.
But that's the part of Dune is to not be eaten by sand worms and
to not be in the sandstorm because that thing will kill you
pretty quick. But all in all, it's a pretty fun game. It's
(04:25):
for the most part, pretty solo friendly. But it
seems like towards the end you have
to join a guild and players are kind of upset that it really
does prioritize larger guilds over solo or
smaller guilds. So we'll see once I eventually get to it. But
all in all, it's a pretty good game for just how built up it is
(04:47):
and how long it seems like it's going to take just to like do everything.
So I'm actually not disappointed with it. There are some.
A few issues I've had with jittering and just seems like
lag on the server side of it. But beyond that,
it's kind of like the give and take of MMOs and just that type of
thing. The combat is okay. I don't really like the knife fights.
(05:10):
They're kind of annoying. They're not really the best. To me.
The gunplay is fine. It's not terrible. It's not great.
It's just. It's just not the fun part about it. But I mean, you gotta
have combat. I just wish it was a little bit more
interactive or a little bit more. It was better in the
combat, especially the melee one because you basically just have a light and a strong
(05:32):
attack and that's really about it. And you kind of use the strong attack to
kill people with shields because the guns will not go through the shields.
And it's just like I said, it's just one of those
things. So we'll see if they fine tune that.
But yeah, right now that's probably the weakest part is that.
All right, so Microsoft did their showcase and one of the
(05:56):
bigger ones was Call of duty Black Ops 7 and I am
still not really caring about it now. It's going to be in the Future in
2035 featuring David Mason as a protagonist.
Activision marketing strategy for Black Ops 7
involves minimal pre promotion aiming for a surprise
launch similar to Beyonce album drop. Look, it's
(06:18):
not surprise when you release the game every year. There
is no surprise. I don't really understand this. We're going to
surprise. We're going to surprise our fans. You know, would it be
a surprise skipping a year?
I mean I guess it works. But why?
(06:41):
But Black Ops 7 will will include a co op
campaign which was absent in Black Ops 6 and will feature
near future weapon weaponry and multiplayer with new maps.
The game will also include the next chapter of round based zombies.
The cast includes Milo as David Mason.
(07:01):
Got a few other actors as well. It's gonna be available
on Xbox Series XS, Xbox One, PlayStation 5,
PS4, PC and
Xbox and Battle.net and Steam as well. So
on PC through Xbox PC. So it's basically available
everywhere you can do it. Except for the switch too for whatever
(07:23):
reason, which I kind of find funny because usually you would
think the switch to would be on there too, but it's not. The game can
also be played on day one through the game Pass. Ultimate
RPC game Pass. The development is co effort between Tech Rear
and Raven Software. Black Ops 7
is the first back to back release in the Black Ops sub series
(07:45):
following Black Ops 6 launch a prior year and
I played the beta of Black Ops 6. It really didn't care for it really
didn't. It didn't really motivate me to actually want to get it.
So we'll see. And Activision claims that Black Ops 7 will
deliver the full Call of Duty experience despite
(08:05):
some fans perceiving it as a stopgap game.
Infinity Ward is expected to return with new Modern warfare game
in2026. So it
seems like development issues with Modern Warfare and then they just kind of
like switched them but here's the thing. If there's development
problems, skip a year. It's fine to skip a year. Like,
(08:28):
seriously, we don't need it every year. I
know that that's Activision's little marketing ploy, but you
don't need it every year. It's just. It's just dumb. All right, now the
one I actually am excited 4 is the blood
of the Dawn Walker. That's the dark
fantasy from the former director of the
(08:50):
Witcher 3. The game is set to be released in 2026,
and a special event is scheduled for June 21st
where 15 minutes of new gameplay, content and developer commentary
will be revealed. The game will include a
directional combat system that incorporates sword fighting spells and
vampiric powers. Players will explore the game world
(09:11):
of Val Signora, which will be will have gameplay
differences based on whether it is night or day. Interesting
narrative focus on Cohen's struggle with his identity and the choice between
saving his family or seeking
revenge. So this is the one I'm actually the
most excited about because, well, Witcher
(09:34):
3 was amazing when it. When it came out. It's just one of those things.
But I mean, there was
very few things I watched through all, but I watched the PC One, the
PlayStation One, the Summer Fest, and
this one. And yeah, Xbox One was probably the best one out of all of
them. But I mean, it's not really saying much, to be honest with you.
(09:57):
So I'm excited to see where they're going to go with this, how well this
will improve upon the Witcher 3 formula and actually how good it's going to be.
Apparently there's going to be a lot of timed objectives that you. And you're not
going to be able to finish everyone, which will make a very interesting gameplay
loop. But we'll see how they implemented it.
(10:17):
All right. Moving on to the outer worlds too. And it's. Well,
it's. Yeah, it's
gonna be a darker tone, apparently. Apparently they don't really want to
have it that fun tone than the first one was. And I was like, well,
that's kind of what made it charming, the first one. So
that's a little weird. It's gonna be the one of the first ones to have
(10:39):
the 80 price tag. But I'm pretty sure Black Ops 7 is going to
have the 80 price tag as well because it comes around the Christmas
season and Xbox wants you to get the game pass.
And I'm like, oh, fine, that's fine. I'll just not spend as much money on
Xbox games or Microsoft games. I mean it's a, it's
(11:00):
a pretty clear thing. I don't really care about
Call of Duty anymore. Other Worlds 2
seems interesting, but Obsidian,
one of the employees just seems to be like full on, like
woke for whatever reason even going far to say is that he will
(11:20):
help black people over white people and getting their
jobs because they've been oppressed, blah blah blah. But then it's like, okay, then
don't give your job to a black person. Never do it. But
it's just, it's a, it's funny hypocrisy because it is
hypocrisy. But this
should be interesting to see where this actually goes. And they said The
(11:42):
Outer Worlds 2 is described as a true obsidian reactive
RPG, which it's just marketing speak for. It's just our new
rpg, this weird like reactive. It's like
whatever skills and traits in the game are more significant
influencing combat, conversations and other aspects of the game. All right, so
it's leaning more into rpg. Great. Got it. That's really
(12:04):
what it means when it, whenever they add more identifier or
qualifiers to what they're saying. It's just, it's an Obsidian
rpg. It's not a true Obsidian. It's just an Obsidian rpg, which is
fine. They don't, they don't make terrible rpg. Well, Valve wasn't great,
but before they used to actually make really good RPGs. Now
they're, it's. It's kind of okay
(12:27):
now. The most interesting one out all of them was Clockwork
Revolution and this is by NXL Games and this will
in Excel Entertainment and this will probably more
than likely be the $80 games again. But the game is described as
a steampunk RPG shooter with kind of like time bending powers. So
it features gadgets and time bending powers. Yes. The
(12:49):
atheistic of the game is Clockwork Steampunk and includes
humor. Notable game Notable characters of the game are
referred to as the pissed off doll and the
knob. Clockwork Revolution is being developed by NXL
Entertainment with assistance from former Volition developers under the
studio name Shapeshifter Games. Volition, known as the for
(13:11):
the Saints Row series, was closed in 2023 due to the
poor performance of the most recent games. There is no specific release
date for Clockwork Revolution, but it will be available on game
pass from day one. The game will be released on PC and Xbox
series X and S. So no, no word on
PlayStation yet. We'll get more
(13:34):
updated information because we don't have that much I mean the,
the trailer we saw, I mean it was pretty good. It was probably the most
interesting out of all of them, besides the
Blood of the Dawn Breaker, which also is amazing as
well. But I'm interesting to see what this is, but it's gonna be $80. I'm
probably gonna skip it because I want to see reviews and see if
(13:56):
it actually will be any good. I mean, it's great that it's getting old
Volition devs, but hopefully it's the ones
that worked well with Saints Row and made the some aspects of it really
good. Because Saints Row from the last one was not very good because
there was no direction and it looks like they just infused a lot of woke
BS into it which didn't really work out in their favor because they got
(14:17):
closed by Embracer Group. Embracer Group has been kind of the
laughing stock of the gaming industry because of just how much they
bought and then all their deals fell through.
All right, so Good Old Games has introduced a new feature called One Click
Mods that allows users to essentially install popular mods for
certain classic games. The feature includes support mods
(14:40):
for games including Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines, Doom 3
Fallout 4, which plans to include Sky Oblivion mod for the Elder
Scrolls 5 Skyrim in the future. GOG
announced that this feature at the PC Gaming show and provides details on its
functionality and supported mods. The One Click Mod features offers
a created list of popular mods rather than all mods available for the
(15:02):
game, distinguishing it from platforms like the
Nexus mods. Installation process for One Click
Mods is designed to be simple automatic through GOG's online store and
GOG Galaxy Launcher. The current list of
supporter mods includes the Sky Blivian mod, the Phobos Mod for
Doom 3, Fallout London for Fallout 4,
(15:25):
Horn of the Abyss for Heroes of Might and Magic three, and the
Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines unofficial patch.
So if you're tired of Nexus mods and their
BS about which mods are okay for you to use on your single player game,
this might be a better alternative. But it's not the best alternative. We
just need a really good alternative mod site that will just allow
(15:47):
just about every mod except the ones that may be illegal
or promote you to do illegal things. Maybe, but really
that's, that's really all we need. So it should be interesting to see
how well this actually does and
if it's actually worthwhile or not. I mean, this seems like a simple way of
doing it. A lot of Nexus mods can be Difficult to understand how to install
(16:09):
them and they may not work. So this is bridging the gap between having
mods and not having mods. So Experian Media is announced
the release of Dungeons and Dragons Neverwinter Nights
2 enhanced edition during the PC Gaming Show 2025. The
enhanced edition is based on the original game released in 2022
in 2002 by Obsidian Entertainment.
(16:31):
The game features smoother gameplay, refined camera controls, polished
mechanics, enhanced textures, and full controller support with new controller
specific ui. It will be available on multi
platforms for the first time, including PS5, Xbox Series S and X
and Nintendo switch doesn't say 2, it just says
Nintendo Switch. Interesting. In addition to PCs, which is Steam and
(16:54):
GOG, the release date is going to be set for July 15, 2025
at the $30 price tag. Not a bad old
game. It is over
20 years old. It is one of the few games that kind of.
Because at the beginning Obsidian kind of just did a lot of
what BioWare used to do and they kind of did the sequels to it. Never
(17:16):
know which are Nights two, the Knights of the Republic. And
so it should be interesting what they do with that. It seems like they always
had a really tight time schedule because they wanted the games out quickly and so
it never really was as good as the originals.
But the Knights of the Republic 2
did have a better story than the original one. Or that's my firm belief.
(17:38):
They just were on time, they were on a tight time frame and it
just didn't really work out. There are mods that kind of bring back a lot
of the cut content that from the story that actually bridges the
gap and makes it a lot better. All
right, so Schedule 1. Latest patch, which is
version 0.3.6 has been fully released. New features in this
(18:00):
update include items slot filters, replacement of employee beds
with lockers, and improvement in the saving system. Developer
TVGS apologized for the delay in the update, citing personal reasons including
surgery for wisdom teeth removal, university
commitments and other undisclosed issues. Fair enough.
TVGs express excitement about continuing to work on the game and mentioned
(18:22):
setting up a community voting system for future content updates. The
first vote will allow players to choose between three potential
updates, a police expansion, a rival cartel, or shrooms.
Hey, you know what? More power to him. I mean this is like one guy
and he has a lot of things going on and he's still trying to update
as much as he can. I'm not really, I'm not really upset about
(18:44):
that. I mean things happen and the dude made like a game that
beat Out a lot of AAA games in like 24 hours. I
mean it beat out of Dragon Age, the Veil Guard I'm pretty sure
beat out Assassin's Creed Shadows and just funny because it's like
one dude that created like a fun game about drugs.
Still fun. Still fun. And he's going to continue to update it. He's
(19:06):
continuing to make it better. I would like to see rival cartels,
even a police expansion might be interesting to do something a little. A little bit
more gameplay style to it. I mean it already it is. It is a really
good base. I will give them that. And so
that is. That's good. So
(19:27):
I really want to see more of that. I think having communing voting system
is helpful. I don't think always going by that religiously
kind of like still using your own like discernment between
what you actually think it needs and the community. But I do think getting
input from the community is actually really good spot.
All right, so the CEO of 1047
(19:51):
Games, which is the developer of Splitgate 2,
he apologized on a video
for controversy surrounding his combat. The comments and hat
Warren the Summer Game Fest
2025 hatred make
FPS great again. Which is kind of like.
(20:15):
It's kind of like Make America great again but without
the Donald Trump type of a thing. And he said it
was intended to be a political statement, which I didn't take it as a political
statement at all. It's a true statement. Make these. Make this genre good
again. Why? Why is that so controversial? Just because Trump said
Make America great again. Are you people this stupid? Like
(20:36):
seriously, can you not get your head out of your butt? Can
you not distinguish between what is political and what is not? Saying
so you want to make something great again is never a bad thing. But you're
so TDS infused that you can't even
distinguish between what is someone that just wants to make their
genre that they create a game in good and what is political.
(21:00):
I mean, he remarked the state of multiplayer FPS games is
tragically stale, which is true. He's not lying
about anything. He's making true statements and that they
needed something to grab attention to the event. He acknowledged the hat and associated
messages were meant to be a name expressing their desire to improve games,
which I took as never apologize to these
(21:21):
lunatics. You saw what they did in la. I am in the next county
south of la, which is Orange county.
And we don't. We never want to be associated with LA. LA
sucks, LA is terrible. You avoid LA, you go for the
day and you, you come back and you do not stay in la.
(21:42):
And the fact that these weirdos and
called one of them a walking fallacy, because it is because you're
like, oh, my God, he created something out of a message from Trump. He
must be a Trump supporter. Or he just really wants to make this the first
person shooter genre great again because it is very stale.
He has said nothing wrong. You guys are lunatics. You guys
(22:04):
are children. Grow up.
Like, seriously grow up.
Like the same Asian lady had the f
ice picture. And it's like, yeah, huh? Yeah, I know
what you are. You Marxist leftist. You just want to destroy the
country, which is another thing. But saying things that are
(22:27):
true, which is make FPS great again, which isn't just
Battlefield and isn't just Call of Duty and specifically Call of Duty, because
it's been stale since Modern Warfare in
the beginning. The first one, not. Not the Modern Warfare remake.
It kind of helped it a little bit, but it's been stale for a while.
Splitgate 2 is an interesting thing. The finals is
(22:49):
another interesting way. And we just don't play them as much because we're. Well,
we don't like change very much either.
So what he said was nothing. Of course. The same lady was like,
oh, well, the same people that you think are not
playing or the manga or whatever because
(23:09):
aren't playing the games. I'm like, how do you know that? Because she doesn't really
know that. She's making an assumption. It's like, stop. Like,
his statement was true. There was nothing wrong with this statement.
You are all lunatics if you cannot distinguish between two different
statements. There's a reason why
symbolism makes one thing one way and one
(23:30):
thing another way. But it's the same thing. You
just take it as different ways. But if you cannot
act like adults, maybe it's time to do a timeout on X.
It's. It's ridiculous. And I. I tweeted the developer,
like you should. There's nothing you should have apologized for. There's nothing
(23:52):
wrong you said. But he did, because I don't really know.
I mean, of course the media. Because it's always the
media that's in favor of these weird things. It's like, oh, it's got a mixed
review with 62% positive. All right, well,
Steam people don't really care as much. And it's a hodgepodge of different people. They
might actually have a problem with the game, which is fair. And because they a
(24:15):
problem messaging, fine. But it'll get
people. You. They'll get over it. They'll find another TDS thing
that people can get upset about. But look it, he said
nothing wrong. He did nothing wrong.
Don't apologize to lunatics.
(24:36):
It's one of the most masculine things you could do, bro. Don't
apologize. Own it. Because when you own
it, they lose the power. When you don't own it and you apologize, they get
it back. And that's how we got into this situation.
All right, Moving on to Bend Studios, developer of Days Gone has
reportedly lay off 30% of its workforce, which is approximately 40
(24:58):
employees. A little slayoff occurred five months after Sony canceled the studio's
live service project. Bend Studios is working on a new yet to be
revealed game following the cancellation of its live service offering. The canceled live service
game was one of two projects shut down by Sony in January. The
other service was Live service God of War game developed by
Blue Point. Jason Schaefer of Bloomberg reported that only
(25:21):
Ben Studios was affected by these layoffs. And it's
unfortunate because Days Gone was a really good game. I do not understand why Sony
does not want to make a second one of it. It was a good game.
I don't. Don't give us a remastered.
That was dumb. Stop with the remasters of games that are two years
old. That's really dumb. I'm tired of seeing
(25:43):
Last of Us re, re, re, re, re
Remake, slash Master. Last remake slash Master. This is the
last one. I swear. It's like, no, it's not. Stop it. And now they have
the complete edition. It's like, stop doing that.
All right, so moving on to Ubisoft has finally released
(26:03):
Rainbow Six Siege X. The game is available on all
platforms. PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox
Series S and X, and Amazon Luna. The
update improves graphics and adds new content. The game offers free access for
newcomers, allowing them to play with a selection of
operators and access unranked Quick match and dual
(26:26):
front modes without payment. Certain features such as Ranked
Playlist, Siege cup, additional operators cosmetics require payment to
unlock. The Lead Edition is one of the. It's one of the options available,
granting access to all game modes, including Rank Playlist.
Yeah, so it's out there hasn't
been really much of a change. I mean, there's new, there's updated
(26:49):
some stuff, but there really isn't much of a change. So there you
go. I don't really have much to take because I don't really play it anymore.
All right, so Trekking's Vell Guard. It's. It's
one of those games where news keeps on coming out, it's just
never good news. It just. The reason why this game was so terrible is
basically it. So the Dragon Vilgard
(27:11):
underwent significant production issues, including being rebooted, delayed and
renamed. We all know that. We all know it's, it's been true for a while.
It's. It's nothing new to it, but it's just kind
of funny that it happened because they were talking about how great it
was. And from a optimized standpoint, not bad.
But from anything else, not great. So EA provided
(27:33):
BioWare with a year and a half to overhaul the game and aim for a
broad market. Dumb, first of all, year and a half. But you're like,
go for our audience and that's all you need to hit. Because
that's how it happens. The game development was constrained by tight deadlines leading to limited
storytelling and world building opportunities. It's why it kind of feels
weird and doesn't really feel like a Dragon Age game specifically because
(27:56):
that's what actually has happened. It's just not great.
So Dragon Age of
Elgard missed its sales projection by over half.
And even though journalists claim it was critically,
it was a generally positive. It sits at a
69%. People do not like the companions. People
(28:19):
were okay with the combat and the lore was fine because it was already
built in there. But it wasn't great. It
wasn't terrible. Terrible if
you negate the companions. Because companions kind
of were the sticking point for a lot of these issues,
like the hitting me over the head with binary
(28:42):
genders that are non existent and pulling the Bravo.
Like all this stuff gamers hated. So even the media gets
this wrong because they're stupid. Most of them are.
YouTube ones are usually pretty solid, but the ones from the traditional media,
they just don't understand. They are completely oblivious to their
own issues that we have with them. But
(29:04):
my issue with this is that they didn't understand
what made Dragon Age great. And this was their issue. And they could
never understand why it made Dragon Age great because the executives and the
marketing team didn't understand the game. If you
don't understand the game, you go hire somebody that understands the game. You talk to
the audience, you talk to your customers, you figure out why
(29:26):
this is a good game and then you make it for that niche.
I get you want a broad audience, but you only get a broad
audience when you satisfy your hardcore audience
first. This isn't rocket science, guys. This is
marketing 101. You have a customer base.
Stop trying to say we're going to, we're going to
(29:48):
appeal to the broad audience. What does that mean?
They didn't understand their game. They barely understand Mass
Effect. They barely understood this one. I don't even understand why they bought this studio
anyways. They basically like ran it into a ground, effed up
everything. And then we're like, we don't know why our games aren't selling great.
(30:09):
Well, you hire the wrong people, you promote the wrong people and you have the
wrong marketing for it. Three things you
shouldn't do. You did all three of them.
First off, you make an RPG game for the fans, for the people that
love Dragon Age. Dragon Age Origins was great because it had that
nostalgia field of the old combat systems with great
(30:31):
writing, with great companions and with world building.
Then you had Dragon Age 2, not so great because you had
a short timetable, but the story was interesting
and the companions were interesting. Dragon Age Inquisition, you gave
more time. It had newer mechanics that
weren't that were okay, but not that great. And at least the world
(30:55):
building was still there. At least it still had some of the dark feeling of
was still there. Then you had the Veil
Guard, which basically did nothing. You changed it from
the Dread Wolf because Inquisition actually set up for
Solas to be the main bad person. Then you were like, nah, we're good with
that, we'll do something else. And it's like you already had your
(31:18):
story there, you just had to go with it. But
nope, a little bit more cartoony, not so
dark fantasy, more of this a high fantasy again
again. So you kind of like flip the script on it when what made
the original what people loved and you're like, look, it's still a Dragon Age game.
Everybody's like, not. It's not a Dragon Age game. Look at ea. I can
(31:41):
actually help you with this. I can actually tell you specifically what to do and
I probably would make a pretty successful game, at least marketing wise.
But you guys, you, you, you need to like
look at your marketing team, look at your executives and be like, look at,
play our games, play our old games and
figure out what our audience is. Because that's the only way you're
(32:03):
gonna make successful games. If you don't understand these,
you are a bad executive and a terrible marketer.
Alright, so Mind's Eye is out. It was developed by Build
a Rocket Boy and Boyd. Is it not doing
well that I've seen a lot of YouTube videos
(32:23):
on it and yeah, it's not looking good. It is one
of those where I'm like that probably should
have been delayed, but it wasn't. And
so we're down with this. This is supposed to be like kind of like
a double A game of
Rockstar's Grand Theft Audio. Grand Theft Auto
(32:46):
Audio, Grand Theft Auto. But in the future. But it
wasn't. It has massive issues.
I don't recommend it even. I was like looking at all this stuff, I'm like,
that means game is gonna do very well and it's not. And
the main guy is like, oh, it's all the trolls and everything.
(33:06):
I'm like, no, you just made a bad game, dude. Like
optimize your game. Like I
heard that they had like a developers preview and you had to go
on to like zoom and you had to watch the gameplay and even then they
had to turn on God mode and it's like, oof,
that's not good. So well,
(33:29):
build a boy rocket could be no more. It's their own
fault. So good luck.
All right, so Warhammer 40K Space Marines 2 has sold 7 million
units to date. The game was published by Focus Entertainment. It was
developed by Saber Interactive and launched on September 9, 2024.
Focus Home announced the two that 2 million copies were sold
(33:52):
the day after launch. So they got an extra 5
million since that day. Sales reached 5 million
units by the end of November 2024.
And a sequel is coming of Warhammer 4K. Space Marines 3
was confirmed to be in development as of March 2025. So this is how you
make a game. They understood their audience, they understood their game, they knew
(34:15):
what the audience wanted and they had been successful.
It wasn't a woke version of this. It was very high
testosterone type of a game. That's what people wanted. That's why I love
the original one. This is how you do it correctly.
Did it have its issues? Of course it did. It's a game.
(34:36):
But it did the things it needed to do and it did
it well. When you do that, you
have good games. At least
Saber Interactive understands what players want.
Everybody else should take the lead from Saber
Interactive and figure out what their audience
(34:57):
wants. If you already have made an established game understand your
audience, it's not hard. It is one
of the easiest things to do.
It's just developers have lost sight of it, especially in
the big publisher sphere. They keep on going, what will appeal
to everybody? And I'm like, then you have a nothing game.
(35:20):
Appeal to everybody. You don't have a game. Appeal to your audience.
You have a game.
It is that simple. You don't need to Be technical,
simple about this. Very simple. What are
your priorities? What do you want to
to basically get across in your story? What do you want to
(35:43):
get across in your gameplay design? How do you work
on your gameplay design first and have the story match the gameplay design
and do top three things in each of these categories? Don't
do top seven, do top three.
If you can do more, fine, but do top three at least. And
(36:03):
then once you're done with that, then you will have,
then you'll be on track for a successful game. But know
your audience. It is the simplest thing to understand
and EA keeps missing the mark. They may
actually understand it in Battlefield. May is a
big, big May because everybody has eyes on
(36:26):
Battlefield 6. Everybody's skeptical about how well it's actually
going to do and how well it's going to appeal to their audience.
And so as I keep on saying, before the market is
shifting, Double A studios are probably going to be taking the lead
on new IPs, new stories and
(36:50):
new gameplay features. And AAA games are just going
to be mass appeal to the masses. That will be
just mediocre games that will people just like
cuz they know of the game.
Will you be successful? To a certain extent, but then it will become
stale, old and dry. I really hope
(37:12):
it's not going to be that way, but I think it is. So good luck
to you Microsoft. Good luck to you Ubisoft, Good luck to you ea.
And good luck to you take two because you all are just,
just aren't worth it. Not with $80 a game anymore.
So what do you think? Do you think I'm crazy or not? Let me know
(37:33):
in the comments below. But thank you for listening to Digital Coffee Gaming Brew. I
really do appreciate it. Please subscribe to this podcast and all your favorite podcasts.
A five star review really does help with the rankings. Let me know how I'm
doing and join me next week. Let's talk about what's going on in the gaming
industry. All right guys, stay safe. Get to the games you want to play even
if they're not the quote unquote popular ones and see you next week
(37:53):
later.
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