Marvel Rivals Director Fired?? | House Of Wolves Podcast

Episode 157. In this episode we discuss the State Of Play and our reaction, Tides Of Annihilation announcement and extended gameplay, Marvel Rivals director and US team being fired, Elden Ring Nightreign potential changes, visit to the Nintendo Museum and much more.

Intro: 00:00

State Of Play Reaction: 18:30

Tides Of Annihilation: 28:35

Marvel Rival's Director Fired: 39:03

Avowed Reviews/Early Access: 48:24

Elden Ring NightReign Technical Test Results: 55:48

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Let them come.

(00:03):
This is their fate.
All right.
Let me get my bird man's in there.
All right.
All right.
Welcome back to the House of Wolves podcast.
I am your host Deontay here with my near and dear friends Jaylen and Josh.
Today we got quite a little bit a bit to talk about, but we're going to try and make it

(00:25):
concise because we're on a little bit of a deadline, but we want to make sure we're touching
on a lot of these topics.
So we're going to be talking about about state of play, tides of annihilation, Marvel rivals,
people being fired and Elden Ring Night Reign.
But without further ado, due to the timing, Jaylen, Josh, tell people how you been, what

(00:46):
you've been up to, how's life going, what you've been playing.
Have we finally be metaphor talk to the people?
Yes, I did be metaphor BDR today, actually.
OK.
Yes.
What's your overall rating?

(01:07):
I feel like the end dragged out a little bit and the final boss wasn't I think the final
boss wasn't as interesting, but the main antagonist as a self, the character was pretty interesting.
I feel like he kind of provided a take that was similar, but opposite at the same time.
So I thought that's kind of interesting.

(01:27):
It just seemed like it was a little bit more deeper.
So overall, I mean, I get a game like a nine out of 10.
I enjoyed a lot of the game.
I think at certain parts of the game, I did start getting a little fatigue, but that's
what any RPG, like I said, when they go for a little bit of time, there's a lot of things
happen and obviously things kind of slow down when you start hitting the climax of the game

(01:49):
because there's a lot more to conceptualize and grasp those sorts of things.
So again, I mean, like I said, thoroughly enjoyed it.
I did almost everything in the game.
I don't think I 100 percent it or anything like that, because I know there's a couple
things I was like messing around ever.
So I don't even know what makes a game 100 percent.

(02:09):
If you get every single do every single thing or you just get all the trophies like, you
know what I mean?
So by the overall, like I said, it was good.
And I did find a way to I think I might have seen people in the group chat house that I
beat the one of the like the super bosses or something like that.
I beat them like in one one one turn.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

(02:30):
You told me.
Oh, yeah.
I was low key using that strap.
I was using a mess out that strap.
Well, I use it on a final boss, bro.
I ain't gonna lie.
I was at level 75 and I think the final boss is like at level 87.
So I think the first phase at 82 in the second phase at 87, I think it's a secret third phase.

(02:52):
You can look into that once it was.
And they say you based on we maxed out for that third secret phase.
If this actually one there, but I was trying to find stuff online about it, but I couldn't
really find anything.
So I'm starting to think that maybe the one I fought was the secret phase, but I don't
really know.
But anyway, that boss, the final boss, I beat him in one turn to know maybe it's two times.

(03:16):
So because he did, because he is doing too much.
And I'm going to just say when you get this one person, bro, that is this thing called
Faker's Forgery.
If you get that fake archetype, hey, hey, that mug go crazy with the combination of
that retry button, bro.
Retry and Faker's Forgery.
You go crazy with that.

(03:37):
That's all I'm gonna say, bro.
But yeah, metaphor was smooth and I enjoyed it.
I actually like metaphor more than a persona series.
So no.
OK, so that's that's still a big win for sure.
I enjoyed it.
It was where I was playing on my Steam Deck.
I mean, I'm on a plane with all the turbulence, high winds and stuff, heart sinking, but I'm
playing metaphor.
You feel me?

(03:58):
How everything else going?
Everything else smooth.
So yeah, everything same old, same old.
Still getting ready for this run.
So that's pretty much it.
Trying to figure out the next game I'm going to play.
Yeah.
I mean, that's always a good thing.
I mean, you've been games.

(04:19):
What about you, Josh?
What about you, Josh?
What you up to?
Yeah, so far this week, not a lot of new games, more Marvel rivals.
We're going to talk about that later.
But I've been playing a couple of matches are ranked on there just because I want to
see what the competition is looking like now that we're halfway through the season.

(04:42):
And yeah, like I thought, it's a lot less sweaty at the lower ranks now that people
have more time to level up.
I was able to play maybe like 11 or 12 matches and I got up into the silver bracket.
I'm just trying to reach gold because once you reach the bottom of gold, they give you
like ranked skins for that season.

(05:04):
And so this season, I think is Invisible Woman and probably Human Torch, which is going to
come out soon.
But yeah, it's a pretty fun game.
Other than that, my family and I, we there's a lot going on with like birthdays and Valentine's
Day.
So we actually been doing a lot together going out to dinners.

(05:27):
But one highlight we went out to the Nintendo Museum in Kyoto.
Yep, yep, yep.
That opened up I think last year, like November-ish.
And yeah, so let me just start from the front.
It's Nintendo.
So they're going to make you go through a lot of hoops.
Some of it is to prevent scalping.
Some of it is just because I think they like to see people jump through hoops.

(05:51):
To get your tickets for the museum, you got to go on their website, you're going to sign
up for a lottery and it's going to pull your ticket.
And when it pulls you, you have like 24 hours or whatever to secure your spot.
So my wife put us in the lottery back in December and it pulled tickets for February.

(06:16):
So that's our time slot.
So we got the tickets.
Okay, we'll go in February.
We don't got any plans right now.
Cool.
So on the day of we're preparing, we're looking at the website and we're like, what we need
to bring.
And it's like, you need your ID, your identification in Japan.
So basically like your state ID or whatever.

(06:38):
And then let your my number card, which is your social security card, both of those as
proof of who we are.
I guess you're a foreigner, you probably need like your passport and some sort of other
identification as well.
Anyways, we go out to Kyoto, it's in the middle of nowhere because the museum is not in the

(07:00):
city center.
It's like maybe 30 minutes to the south.
So it's real remote, not a whole lot out there.
But the museum and like a small, a couple of small little cafes and shops, we get there.
Line's not too busy because everybody pulled tickets.
So it's not actually crowded.
It's the exact number of people that should be there.

(07:21):
Get in line and check our stuff.
Going through like the airport checkout, you look through your bag and stuff like that.
And so we get inside and it looks cool from outside.
I got some Mario, you know, statues outside.
First thing we did, we got the food at the cafe there.

(07:41):
First thing I'll say, don't get the food at the cafe if you can.
It's not really worth it.
It's overpriced.
And it's not even Nintendo themed.
It's just like regular food.
Kind of like you can kind of like customize your food of like with like silly colors,
like if you want a red hamburger or something like that.

(08:03):
But it's not really worth it.
And it's real expensive.
And like I was telling you through the text is that you have to use the QR code to like
put in your order, but you still got to wait in line.
It's not like you actually are doing anything with the QR code.
You just put it on the list.
But on their little food website, they don't have any way to say you don't want like no

(08:24):
cheese or no ketchup or nothing like that.
You have to choose those items on the app.
And so I was like, OK, what if somebody can't eat this stuff?
Like I got to put onions on my thing.
I was like, well, no, once you put in your order, you can go to the cash register and
request them to not put it on.
You just can't put that in the app.

(08:44):
So you can just completely skip that step.
But that just seemed on brand for Nintendo.
So anyways, we ate there, went inside the museum, not super crowded, which was good.
The actual museum area looks very nice.
It's more everything is on display.
Like you see the consoles, you can see the box art for the old stuff.

(09:07):
You see all the different controllers, all the different colors and accessories they
had over the years and give like a timeline.
They got a little bit of a sales breakdown.
They don't give it like sales numbers, but they'll say like in America, 50 percent of
our sales for like the Wii were from America or something like that.
So yeah, it was cool to see everything.

(09:29):
There are no pictures allowed in the actual museum area, which, you know, some museums
are like that.
But yeah, I guess it's also a Nintendo thing to do.
Yeah, and they also got some of their weird experiments like house appliances or stuff
like that.
Once you go through the museum, there's a bottom floor which has like arcade.

(09:57):
And basically with your ticket, you get 10 tokens to spend on the arcade.
And some games are more expensive than others.
Some of the highlights, I guess there is one section where they have a really like a giant
controller and two people can play together.
So one person is using the D-pad, the other person is using buttons and you're trying
to play something like a cart or trying to beat Bowser or Mario 64 or trying to.

(10:24):
I think there's like a Wii Sports one as well.
So yeah, that was pretty fun.
It's one of the more expensive games.
But like if you go with your family, you know, try to work as a team to see if you can do
this challenge.
It's really hard for most games because it, you know, you're going to be super uncoordinated
on this giant controller.
Yeah, but that was fun.

(10:44):
And kids are free.
Well, our kid is young, so she's free.
So she can just jump on the game as well, using any tickets with us.
Nice.
Then they got like a light gun thing where you're shooting at like the Bowser's minions
to get points.
That was pretty fun.
And then they got some kind of generic like arcade games or like if you want to pay your

(11:08):
tickets to play a Nintendo 64 game for 10 minutes.
That seemed like a scam to me.
But those I guess you got like one or two tickets left and you ain't got nothing to
do.
You can waste it on playing Pokemon Snap for 20 minutes.
That's crazy.

(11:29):
So, but overall, I would say it's pretty fun.
Tickets are only $30.
It's just you got to go through those hoops to plan ahead.
Yeah.
So if you all come here and I would say don't plan to spend your whole day at the Nintendo
Museum.
It's more of a museum.
Like just look around for a little bit.

(11:50):
You're not going to spend the whole day there.
And the arcade is a little bit of a fun part of it, but it's not.
Yeah, the arcade, I guess it could be better.
It's very limited what you can do, especially since they give you the 10 tickets.
You can't buy anymore or anything like that.
You know, go in, spend an hour and then leave.
That's kind of what they want you to do.

(12:10):
But yeah, it's worth the visit.
It's pretty cheap.
And we have fun.
But that was pretty much my week.
Just celebrating birthdays and hanging out.
Okay.
So what real quick top favorite thing you like there and the worst thing you like there
or worst thing that you had to deal with there?

(12:30):
Just to round it out.
So since this museum, I liked actually seeing all the different art for the games.
And I guess that's weird because it's just art.
But I didn't like know how much variation it was, especially like for the early systems
or even like the Game Boy Advance was like, I'm very familiar with all of these games.
But they're all the box art, different sizes for different regions, different designs.

(12:57):
And like, they're all spread out and displayed and they look very good.
And it was like, it would be nice to I don't I don't collect box art.
But I get it.
If I had that type of space in my home, and I had one to have like a collection of like
my favorite GameCube games or something like that, it would be cool because a lot of that

(13:19):
art is really good and to have it on display.
But yeah, I'll say the museum for me, like going through looking at everything, it was
nice to see all the history and all the all the stuff.
It was a lot of stuff I never even seen before as far as like accessories and stuff like
that.
So yeah, for me, as a gamer who grew up with Nintendo stuff, the museum was the best part.

(13:43):
For somebody who's not, you know, maybe for kids who might be the museum.
The worst part is.
I guess just the food, not because it was bad, it's just they're super you can't bring
any food in and you got to buy the food at their place.
And it's the only option.
So it's not really good.
I feel like that part could be expanded.

(14:04):
It's like, if you're going to charge us a whole bunch of money, it would make it a decent
experience.
Legend of Zelda Cafe.
Like, you know, give me give me something interesting instead of just whatever this
generic cafe was.
Yeah, gotcha.
OK, well, cool, cool, cool.
I'm glad you give us that little recap and give us some tips next time on what to do.

(14:27):
But OK, what I played, I played KCD to I was playing that for quite a bit on the PlayStation
5 Pro.
There's an audio issue with it with surround sound, so you got to turn that off.
I'm not sure if you guys are aware, but if you are having KCD to do KCD to issues with

(14:49):
audio, turn your surround sound off that affects it.
It's just some weird bug until the developers fix that you're going to just have or audio
is dropped.
But I've been playing that.
I'm really enjoying it.
It's a lot of weird stuff happening in that game and some stuff I don't like that you
can't really control the outcome because you like haven't seen a lot of stuff yet or you

(15:14):
kind of don't know.
So it does feel like, yeah, it's best to go level up and then go back and do everything
because the stuff that you want the outcome to have, you really ain't got that much of
a choice because if you're not leveled up in a certain charisma or books or knowledge,
you're just not going to be able to successfully.

(15:37):
A lot of people spend all their time in the tutorial area trying to raise the stats before
going out.
Yeah, because basically you don't have any impact on the world.
It's basically just stuff happening to you until you can actually start to impact in
a better way, which is a good thing and a bad thing.
The good thing is that you have a lot of variety in what you should be experiencing per quest.

(16:03):
But the bad thing is that you don't really have a choice in what the decision made is
because whatever that situation is, if you don't have the ability to kind of talk your
way out of it or say the thing that you want to say and get it across and be successful
in it, it becomes like I'm just here for the ride at that point.
So it's a good it's a good give and take, but I do enjoy it overall.

(16:25):
Definitely a fun game and peaceful game at that, but that'd be my one critique there.
But I have more once I finish it and final up my finish up my thoughts around that.
Outside of that, I've just been chilling, man.
Chillin, chillin, chillin.

(16:49):
Haven't really been doing much else.
I started reading Monsters We Make, the book by or the anime manga by Cory Kenshin.
It's decent.
I'm going to finish that up here soon.
His first volume.
And I report back on that as well, if you are interested.
So I started reading that and.

(17:11):
Finished up a few other shows.
I've been watching Paradise, which is pretty interesting as well.
Very much so in the vein of.
Who done it and why is the world the way the world is at this point?
I ain't going to spoil it for you, but Paradise is pretty fun and interesting ride.

(17:33):
If you have the time to watch it, they started off very simplistic.
You know, you just the president gets killed.
You got to figure out why.
But then it starts to expand upon the world and expands and expands and then gives you
that wider view until you start to realize stuff isn't what it seems.
So I just think it's a really cool show.
You can check it out.
It's on Hulu.

(17:54):
I like.
I don't know the man.
I don't know that dude name from This Is Us, but it's the black guy from This Is Us.
He's the lead actor.
Just can't remember his name.
But that's all I got.
Kids are great per usual loud.
We're potty training at this point.

(18:15):
So what a blast.
So we're just going through that, going through the motions here over here at the VCD household.
So yeah, interesting times, interesting times for sure.
But let's move on because we are running low on time.
Let's get into our first topic.
First thing I wanted to kind of get is initial reactions to the state of play.

(18:37):
I'm not sure if you guys watch it, so I'm going to go ahead and just provide my thoughts
around it.
After looking back, reflecting, seeing a bunch of love and hate on Twitter, I came to the
decision that it was a mute.
It was a six out of ten.
It wasn't great.
It wasn't bad.
We got review date.
We got dates, release dates, but it was very much so a boring fest to watch.

(19:03):
Release dates aside, those are blog posts.
We didn't get much new footage of gameplay, but we did get a lot of confirmed things that
what I chalk it up to guys is a continuation of the game awards.
Everything the game awards provided you, but they just gave you the dates.
That's what I would feel like the state of play was.

(19:24):
People like it.
That's cool.
I like to be surprised.
I like to be wowed and I like to have some differences or something different happen.
I didn't feel like nothing different happened here.
Yeah, we got a few announcements, but we got cinematic trailers and really didn't give you
any understanding of the games.
I was able to call that House Marquis game immediately when they started talking and

(19:48):
they were providing us no nothing like but this somber music.
I was like, oh, this is definitely House Marquis.
It was a mute.
I thought it was going to be Returnal 2, but they changed the name for some reason.
I don't know why, but they basically said it's in the same depth and realm of Returnal,
but they just wanted to change.

(20:08):
I don't know.
They just want to change the name.
They didn't want to change the name of the game.
Yeah.
New character.
Yeah, I would rather them kept the cache of Returnal and just decoded Returnal 2, but
I understand that they might want to do some different mechanics that may not make sense
for the name to be Returnal.
So cool.
I thought that they didn't do much else.

(20:28):
To me, I felt as if it was like a speaking.
You want to say about Days Gone?
Days Gone Remastered?
No, we got a PC version and PC version works just fine and it looks good.
Even the PS5 version of the old game looks good.
It's not like it's a bad looking game.
The problem with Sony is that Sony makes great games.

(20:49):
They don't need to reiterate on them.
They can just go on to the next and they can't because they can't afford to, or at least
these studios can't afford to because they don't fit the budget because they spent so
much on the first one.
It didn't sell well.
They make big gambles.
They can fit more zombies on the screen.
More zombies.
Oh boy.

(21:09):
Anyways, the remaster is really just that, a cash grab for the studio.
Hopefully it does help them create another game because that's all I really care about.
I didn't like Days Gone like that.
I played it, but it wasn't like my favorite and I can see why other people just was off
of it because it just was a little bit more to on the nose with all the rest of the stuff

(21:31):
that was coming out around the time.
It did have a cool mechanic with the hordes, but it's just that it wasn't enough to carry
it.
I would love to see the Days Gone world in a different space or maybe even have Benz
Studio do something else.
Maybe this will allow them to get there.
I don't really care about the mechanics behind the picture.
All I can tell you is right now how I feel about a remaster in the days of remastered

(21:54):
as the PlayStation just continuously doing the same thing over and over again.
It feels a little bit too much.
It feels a lot of feels like Nintendo and I feel like they didn't figure out their business
model yet.
I do still agree that exclusivity is the key.

(22:14):
I think they need to figure out a subscription service to keep the money coming in at all
times.
This is not looking good for the Sony brand if they continue to make big bets and lose
like Concord.
So I really want them to figure out a way to keep exclusivity in the front four fronts.
I do think that's the winning formula, but I don't think it's a good idea to continue

(22:39):
to keep remaster and expecting the generation or the people, the players to go along with
it.
I don't think that's a good model.
So they got to figure out something.
Yeah.
I was looking at some Reddit posts about Sony's output this generation and I think that compared
to the PS4, we're at like half as many exclusives released on the system.

(23:07):
And I'm not saying anything about the quality, but yeah, that's a huge drop off.
For me, I feel it as far as like the brain or just the perception of the PlayStation
where it's like, why don't I feel like I need to get one?
Well, you're putting out half as many games as you did last generation where for like

(23:29):
the PS4 quickly, we all had games that we, exclusives that made us feel like we needed
the system.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I do think that that is the difference.
I'm not saying that the market is shrinking.
They did when we had to talk about the 65 million that they sold last time and then
they come back and they show that they actually sold 75 million.

(23:52):
That puts them right on target, right on target.
Like they are actually doing well still with half the games that they shipped last time.
That's just loyalty.
I can see there.
I just want to see them.
I want to see them continue to win and succeed in a way that the exclusivities are going
to come and they're actually going to flourish on the council because I feel like, yeah,

(24:15):
we are pushing up games that may not be as big or great as they once were because we
really don't have nothing else to play.
I do feel like they do have great games in their catalog already.
That's exclusive to the PS5, but it's so far in few in between that it is becoming a big

(24:36):
outlier in their catalog to say, Hey, where's those money makers?
Where's those games that have that need them for you need this council?
Unfortunately, those numbers is telling them otherwise.
If everybody's still buying the PS5 and the generation is lacking in regards to exclusivity,
it tells them that they may not need it.

(24:57):
And I don't want both companies to not have exclusivity anymore.
I don't want a company.
I just don't care enough about, I don't know, hardware.
I don't know.
To me, it feels like sometimes we're losing that competition portion of the council generations
like, imagine if there was just Apple and no Google to doing their own different thing.

(25:26):
I couldn't, I couldn't, I wouldn't be able to take it.
It's just like the same thing with AMD.
Everybody has their phones.
Nah, they wouldn't.
They would just have, they have, it'd be brainwashed to think what they're, what they're, what
they're getting a new calculator would be a great, it's a great innovation.
It's not just to say, you know, but anyways, the,

(25:47):
the AMD and the video thing, like Nvidia is putting AMD on a butts.
And I think that in this AI stuff, I just feel like when you do, when you lose the exclusivity
portion of it, I think it does help the consumer.
I'm not going to lie, but I think it slows advancement.
I just really do.
I think that the advancement of gaming, why we want to buy games and maybe Microsoft has

(26:10):
something in a tuck that's going to make hardware the specialty, the best thing out there.
And all I know is that software is the, where everybody is going to make the innovations
and make the changes.
It's not hardware.
Hardware is very much so becoming across the board stagnant.
It's the software.
It is the implementation.

(26:32):
It's the PSSR.
It's the ray tracing.
It's the other things that's making it become more attractive.
So one person is thinking that it's hardware.
One person is thinking of software.
I think I'm going to go with the software guy until I see the hardware that I can see
that will make me believe it's different.
Software is great.

(26:52):
And I think Microsoft has a hand in both, but I don't want Sony to lose the thought
that, Hey, exclusivity still matters.
Things that are tied to your system that may want other people want elsewhere helps bring
both ships forward or all rising ties situation versus, you know, I don't care anymore.

(27:16):
We already getting people to buy it.
We don't really need exclusives anymore.
We could just go on with those, those, those, you know, bare minimum of what they've been
doing.
So I only like the bare minimum.
I want people to try to exceed my expectations, not just to meet them.
So that's where I'm at when it comes to what I saw at that state of play and why I didn't
like it.

(27:37):
Any thoughts from you guys on that before we move on?
Nope.
I agree.
For me, I was a little more disappointed, but I think it's based on Sony's first party
output.
I think third party, everything is looking good.
And I like to see some of the games highlighted and you know, even some of the surprise stuff

(27:58):
like that one game that you mentioned that tides of annihilation.
Yeah.
So yeah, tides of annihilation stuff that's completely from left field, but it looks very
cool.
Sony's still putting those out.
It's just, yeah, I think I want to see more new stuff from Sony.
Not to say House Marquis isn't doing anything good.

(28:19):
I was interested in return.
I'm interested in this.
But you know, maybe a little bit more announcements from Sony about stuff coming soon will be
exciting.
But yeah, overall, yeah, it was, it was pretty mid.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, let's move on.
I wanted to talk a little bit about a tides of annihilation, not more so about the gameplay.

(28:42):
Well, both.
I want to talk about the gameplay, but I also want to talk about what they did.
So tides of annihilation was announced at the state of play the next day after they
dropped gameplay.
They dropped actual extended gameplay of their game showcasing it running on a PS five.
At least that's what my assumption is, because it looked like it was on a PS five and not

(29:05):
a PC.
It didn't state anything otherwise.
So I'm gonna go with that is on the PS five.
But what that did was one, provide confidence in their game showcasing that they, hey, they
know that, you know, people want to see gameplay for games that they may be interested in versus
just dropping a teaser trailer.

(29:26):
So it gives me more confidence in the third party that they're selecting to showcase.
I feel like all of them should do that.
Obviously they, I know they all can't, but having gameplay as a key factor in like, this
is why we're different than the other games.
Tides of annihilation sticks out to me way more than it did before, simply due to the

(29:48):
fact that that's the only one that dropped 15 minutes of gameplay right after.
Like that is the only one that decided to do that.
And I feel like that is should be acknowledged and praise because that will, will set you
apart in these big showcases where everybody is doing the same thing.
They're trying to give like 30 seconds, a minute timeframe of time to kind of showcase

(30:08):
what your game is all about.
But give me something right after that.
Why is fresh in my mind?
Talk to me about like why this game is cool, why it looks good and why is actually important
for us to be shown the gameplay in the first place?
Because I can say gameplay matters.
It makes you want to buy the game, makes you want to actually, you want to get a representation

(30:29):
of what the game is going to be.
If you can't get a representation of it, it really is like, okay, well that was fun.
Just like the same thing would happen with, um, uh, intergalactic.
I'm not saying it looks bad.
I'm just saying that I didn't get a grasp of it and it's probably not going to be talked
about until the next time they show it.
Because there was no actual gameplay to be shown.

(30:50):
There was nothing to actually sink your teeth in and lock, talk through and think about.
So I think what should be praised here is that tides of annihilation actually provided
gameplay right after, and they showcase what their game was about.
And I thought that was really dope.
Um, but with that out the way, uh, let's talk about the game itself.

(31:11):
Did anybody else see tides of annihilation?
Did anybody see the gameplay before I get started?
Yeah, I saw some of the gameplay, uh, showcase.
They love to show them bones.
Don't they?
I was like, Oh my God.
Soon as I saw, I was like, well, I gotta get people to buy your game.
Yeah.
Oh, he's gotta do that.

(31:31):
But it may, it may perfect sense, but I was like, yeah, this is anyways.
Um, that type of stuff is, I don't like when, when people give the individuals around the
internet things that they can use as weapons to say what women should be, look, should

(31:53):
look like and be, should be perceived as in video games.
But I understand the fact that, um, this is a different type of development cycle or developers
and like, this is different, like norms.
Um, and I think they're a Chinese developer as well.
Right.
So I'm not mistaken.
I ha I gotta look up their developer.
I gotta look up that developer.

(32:14):
I almost, I almost sure that it was a Chinese developer.
Um, yeah, I'm not, but at point of it all to say, they chose them.
They got the people going with that.
I've seen a lot of focus on that, but I, what I really liked was that it kind of took the

(32:36):
final fantasy 16, they'll make cry formulas and mashed it together.
Um, to me, it was a lot of cool things like the, like the, um, the ability to shift between
different, um, I guess I wouldn't call them deities, but they're like different monsters
or whatever that you're controlling spirits that you're controlling that you can use to

(32:56):
kind of change up the game play.
Um, it's very similar to final fantasy 16, if you ever played it.
Um, and then they also add on top of that, it looked like some very more so interesting
combos and like the lock on system with your ability to kind of see the bar as it's going
down more devil may cry five ish.

(33:17):
Um, it just like had a lot of different elements of different games that I, I enjoyed.
There was parts of final fantasy 16 that I liked.
Um, there's a reason why I did buy it again to finish the story, but it's just like that
pacing of that game was terrible and I didn't enjoy the story.
So there, there to deviate from that basically state that, um, there was aspects of it too

(33:41):
that I enjoyed.
I did want to see that.
Um, I did like that.
I saw that in that game, um, traversal and everything looked really fun.
It was like, it was interesting.
It had a lot of those, like I said, more devil may cry ish, um, aspects to it where you kind
of do a small, not too big, um, platforming and you're using, uh, different, um, different,

(34:06):
uh, what can I say at different attacks and things like that, or, um, to, to pull things
towards you, push things away and all that good jazz.
She also had a broken arm, kind of like, like I said, they were still a lot.
It was like a lot of, you know, uh, similarities to devil may cry, but I, I, I felt like it

(34:31):
was still a good concept to kind of enjoy and not take too serious.
Um, I guess the world is, is broken and it seemed like the main character knew about
it, but the side character, just this small, uh, child that can like turn into a, uh, a
fo, not a Fox, but like a bird and like turn into different weapons for you.

(34:56):
She was kind of like not too familiar with the world.
So she was asking questions.
So basically she's going to be the person that you kind of get fed information through
through her questions and things like that about the world, but very similar to, um,
all the, all the games that, you know, like near armada and stellar blades, stuff like

(35:18):
that, that kind of had that same vein, but just in a different way.
So I thought it was looked at cool.
I really liked the big cinematics and the like big moments where you're literally walking
down a street and then all of a sudden it turns on the side and now you're walking through
the world.
So I'm like, I'm really looking forward to seeing how they kind of manipulate the world

(35:41):
in that way, kind of almost like a Bayonetta S, um, situations.
Those are my games.
Action games are my games.
Those are the games I enjoy to play.
I really like them.
So I'm looking forward to kind of getting to see more from this game.
Um, but yeah, that's, that's what I pulled from it.
Um, I'm going to stop there and let y'all, uh, jump in if you, if you want.

(36:03):
Yeah, not a whole lot to say about it.
I think it was a surprise from the show, uh, looked, uh, pretty fun as far as the action
gameplay and very Final Fantasy, um, inspired with like the, the characters or the visuals,
um, as well as devil may cry.
So overall it looks good.
And for what I say from the gameplay, the story I'm less interested in, like, um, cause

(36:29):
I've been reading about it and people are saying it's like an adaptation of like a King
Gauntlet story.
Uh, so not, I mean, it could be good, it could be bad, uh, but nothing.
Can you give me a brief explanation of that King Gauntlet comment?
I don't know what that means.
King Arthur, King Arthur.
Oh, King Arthur.
Oh, okay.
Gotcha.
Gotcha.
Gotcha.

(36:49):
I don't know if it's that exact story, but it's some, it's some story related to King
Arthur and that's why all the characters have are named after characters from that story.
Okay.
Gotcha.
No, no.
And beyond that, I think the voice acting is bad.
Uh, so I'm not going to, if I play it, I'm not going to play it in English, uh, cause
it sounds really bad.
No, when she said that one line where she was talking about like, you know, you don't

(37:11):
know anything about me.
And I was like, man, it was, it was so bad.
And she ain't even like, it didn't even match the emotion she was showing.
So I was like, there is some rough edges for sure, but go ahead.
Yeah.
Uh, overall, I'll say the game play and the production behind the game, uh, it's, it's
got my interest, you know, maybe not as polished as stellar blade, but overall looks very creative.

(37:37):
And fun.
So, uh, I'm going to try, you know, uh, and like you said, the game play shows, uh, showcase
is showing that they're confident in their game, which is good.
Cause there are a lot of games that were announced and they kind of just blend into each other.
They're all like souls, like games, but we don't see any gameplay or anything to really

(37:57):
solidify their identity.
So at least this game is confident in itself.
Uh, so yeah, it was good to see the games that I remember are like berserker.
Design where they actually show gameplay.
Like those types of games don't stick in my mind.
Tides of annihilation will stick in my mind, but probably the other few games they announced
probably won't because simply due to the fact that I didn't see gameplay, there is one that

(38:21):
I saw that I can't remember the name now that was at the X-box showcase.
Um, it's coming to game pass.
I've got the name now where the winds go or something like that.
Something about the wind that would look okay too, but they actually did show gameplay.
So there's one of the, there's, there is a benefit to doing that.
It, like I said, it allows people to go into your world and kind of understand your vision

(38:42):
and versus kind of just being able to try to perceive it based off of a two minute clip,
a two minute trailer.
So definitely a benefit and hopefully everyone adopts that type of approach.
Uh, but any last thoughts on that before I move on?
Nope. All right, give it to me, Josh, what's going

(39:05):
on with your Marvel's rivals, man?
What is it?
What's, what's, what's happening in the streets?
Why is people getting fired?
What's the director getting fired for?
They actually directed a good game.
Uh, they are getting fired because they directed a good game.
That's what it seems like.
Um, cause yeah, I saw that as soon as I woke up, basically, uh, net ease is a Chinese company.

(39:30):
They mostly make mobile games and live service games.
Uh, but they, they have studios all over the world.
And so the studio for Marvel rivals, at least where the director was located is in Seattle
and a lot of his, uh, team who were the leads on a lot of the project, uh, they, if not
all of them, most of them were laid off.

(39:53):
Uh, and it seems not to be a, um, financially like negative decision where it's like the
game's not doing well, uh, they're laid off because they don't need them anymore.
I guess.
Um, it seems like the game is still going to be under development, just not in Seattle.

(40:14):
Um, yeah, but it is pretty new as far as the story.
So I don't have all the details, but basically on LinkedIn and other places, the developers
were just start posting like, Hey, uh, we were laid off today and I need some help finding,
you know, uh, a new home.

(40:34):
So that, that seems to be the case looking into it.
A lot of people have been saying that this is on brand for net ease in the sense where
they're, um, as a, as a company, they might not be as trustworthy.
Or employment at least, um, because it seems like they will invest in an outside studio,

(40:54):
let them build something and then cut them off and just keep it for themselves, whether
they keep developing it or they just let it sit and just let the money keep coming in
because they don't need to make any more content.
Who knows?
Marvel rivals, I think is too popular to, for them to just stop development on it completely.
And they just announced also today, they just announced two new characters that are coming

(41:18):
out on Tuesday, uh, Friday, maybe, um, human torch and the thing.
So it's like, Oh, and also they tease blade for next season.
So it seems like they got more characters coming and this is a very popular game.
I assume that they should be making a lot of money.
So this just seems like they don't need the American development team anymore.

(41:42):
That would be my, my guess, but who knows?
We got to wait to hear more about what's actually going on behind the scenes.
But I think because they are located in China, that information is going to be slow to come
out about what's actually going on.
Okay.
Yeah.
I really don't have much to add to here outside of, I don't, I don't think that the industry

(42:04):
is in the bat.
Well, it's in a bad place, but I don't think it's like to the point where people are having
success and getting fired.
I think this is a one-off situation with this net East company where maybe as you kind of
alluded to is that, Hey, they don't need you.
I mean, they don't really need you anymore.
And they kind of have what they need.
And at this point, all we need to do is continue to maintain the game and people will still

(42:27):
play it.
Um, yeah, I mean, I don't know how I feel about that, but yeah, but I think last year
there were two other games that had the same situation where the game came out.
It was doing well and the developers were let go the same week of the game.
Uh, so hopefully it's not, I'll have to look at the games.
I know for one, there was a trials game, trials of not trials of mana, secrets of mana, something

(42:52):
like that.
It's the same.
It used to be a square next IP.
I think that was also net East, but there was a, another developer who on the same situation.
So what I would say is that the industry is in a weird place for employment.
Yeah.
Because it can happen where the game is successful, but maybe they want to downsize, um, uh, after

(43:15):
the game comes out.
Cause that's usually what happens.
Like that award comes out.
We had a thousand people working on it.
Uh, the next game is seven years away.
We don't need a thousand people for seven years.
So we don't cut down to 500.
That is common.
Hmm.
Okay.
So, no, I, I, I feel like, um, it has been a lot of, uh, bad press about the game and

(43:38):
industry for sure.
And it's rightfully so.
Um, but I, I do think that I would hope there is still being rewarded success is still being
rewarded.
I would hope.
I don't really want to see that to turn on its head either.
Um, and honestly, it does kind of, and I don't, I hate to keep saying it, but it does kind

(44:02):
of pay, um, pay close attention to how Microsoft is doing it.
They, they, I just saw an article earlier about how this, that one game was an internal
wilds, um, not internal wilds.
It was something by rare.
That game been working on for like the last eight years, I believe.
And they just saying like, we given our people time to make them.

(44:24):
And I don't, I haven't heard of people being laid off, but I understand Microsoft has been
laying people off as well, but it just, it kind of goes to show that we don't know these
cycles and we don't know how these cycles truly work and what really takes to make a
great game.
I understand that there's different budgets, different scopes and different avenues to

(44:44):
go down and how you want your games to be made and how they should work.
But for the most part, I think Nintendo is above all else.
Then is Microsoft, then the Sony.
I just feel like that the, the, the tide of who has happier employees has probably shifted

(45:05):
from Sony's bigger companies to maybe Microsoft's teams now simply due to the fact that they
have these built in safety net of not feeling super pressured.
You know, I think Nintendo is up there just simply because I have never heard, and maybe
I'm not in the gaming, I'm not in that gaming news enough, but it just seems like they got

(45:25):
it all figured out in regards to budgets on and keeping people around.
Like, have you heard a lot?
And maybe you can speak to it of people being fired from Nintendo.
No, but Nintendo is also a weird case where they don't have a lot of American studios
and the ones that are there.
People end up leaving because they're frustrated because they don't have full creative control.

(45:49):
As far as Japan, especially because of labor laws, people are not fired or laid off like
they are in the US, because in order to do a mass layoff in Japan, your company has to
be like, actually out of money.
And so you don't see developers getting laid off.

(46:11):
What you might see, maybe they might have contractors that, you know, they just don't
renew their contract.
But as far as I know, most people working at Nintendo, like you say, are full time employees.
So they're good.
Yeah.
You know, they don't retire from Nintendo.
Probably.
That's what I was trying to get at is like, I feel like there is a, and maybe Japan is
going to do it better.

(46:31):
I don't know.
But you feel like they got a safety net over there that is like almost, almost god tier
and they don't have any scares, it's not scared of losing their position based off of a whim
or a bad quarter or something like that.
I feel like Sony is probably second to that where, where they, well not, well, I think

(46:51):
it's the 10th.
I mean, Microsoft now simply do the defective, how much they now control and their ability
to kind of take from a collective pot pro so to speak, which is IE game pass.
And then there is Sony's where they do have safety nets and they do make the most money.
They make more money than Nintendo and Microsoft.

(47:14):
It just feels as if their culture is shifting because of so many negative, you know, situations
that have occurred from their games.
I don't want that to be the case.
I felt like they had like a great, you know, network within the North America, but it does
feel like now the tide is shifting a little bit.
I'm not even saying it like money wise.

(47:35):
I'm just thinking of it from a perspective wise of like who has, who is the better company's
umbrella to work under to me has always been the tender at the top.
Simply due to the fact that they can't really, as you stated, there's laws against it.
They may be in North America is problematic, but they don't have that many in America because
they've most totally a Japan based company.

(47:57):
So out of the big three, I go into 10, though Microsoft Sony.
But yeah, interesting, interesting stuff.
I do not want to see success rewarded with firing.
That's kind of crazy.
But I hope this is one of those outlier situations.

(48:17):
Anything to add to this before we move on?
Nope.
Cool, cool, cool.
All right.
Next thing, we're the last thing we want to talk about here is, well, two things.
I may have to round out the last one alone, but about reviews are in.
We're getting sevens, getting eights, we get nines.

(48:37):
That's a lot of mixed bags out there for about really.
I didn't expect it to be so mixed.
I thought it was going to be like, you know, nines and eights, honestly.
And it's not because I thought the game was going to be good in the beginning.
I just thought because it was reviewing, not reviewing, but being previewed well, it was

(48:59):
like being previewed so well, people had nothing but good things to say about it.
That's what got me interested in the game in the first place.
But I guess there has, you know, people have gotten to access to the early access and people
have been sharing their opinions online and the journalists and all that stuff.
I guess from your perspective, what have you all seen online about about and what does

(49:21):
it has the reviews look like or the people's opinions on this look like for you all on
your feeds?
Yeah, I guess I'll try to be quick.
It's also been mixed from what I've seen, but I would say mixed in a interesting way
because right away, some of the expectations were like Skyrim or something like that or
Bethesda game.

(49:43):
And it's not that.
So if you're going in expecting that there's a bit of disappointment to be had, for example,
there's no like mass looting or things like that, like going to a shop and like steal
stuff and then everybody chases you around town like something like Skyrim.
That doesn't happen because that's not what their focus is on this game.
So they didn't even put that thief system in the game.

(50:05):
That being said, from what I've seen, the combat looks fun.
The build that looks interesting.
The creativity as far as like the art and the characters as also the exploration.
It all looks very good.
And people have been praising that those aspects of it.

(50:26):
And it seems that the game is complicated with like the stats and the builds.
So some people that's off putting other people, they really like that type of stuff.
Overall, I would say my impression is that the most people are positive on the game and
I'm actually interested in playing it based off the previews I've seen.

(50:51):
Yeah, I definitely downloaded on my PC and I'm going to give it a shot.
Not sure if I want to play it on the Xbox just yet, but if it becomes a crash city or
problematic, I see a lot of people talk or some people talking about corrupted files,
save files and all that good jazz.
So I'm assuming that's on the Steam version because Xbox Game Pass, they usually have

(51:16):
that cloud.
There could be some issues, but Digital Foundry also did a breakdown.
They said the game performance wise is pretty solid.
Yeah.
So yeah, I didn't see any performance issues.
I saw like actual like weird things like save issues.
So the game is performative, by the way, if you guys weren't aware of that, you could

(51:39):
check out the Digital Foundry breakdown and there's a few others that had did breakdowns
of it.
And everybody felt as if the game ran well on their systems, which is great to see in
a PC market.
So yeah, with that being said, I mean, I wanted to cover off on this and I take it from here
in regards to about pay to play early situation.

(52:03):
Like here's my simple thoughts on this.
You don't have to pay if you are okay with being, you know, missing out on those first
few hours to kind of get it, be excited about a game and playing it firsthand.
I don't think I think it's okay.

(52:24):
I don't think that the early access is taking too much from anybody else.
If you're always online, maybe if you're like always someone that's online, looking at stuff,
you might get a spoiled a little bit here and there.
But I feel like the early access period was a little bit more hard for this about one
because it was over the weekend.
Most people can't play until we can anyway.

(52:47):
So now you've got people on the weekend playing a game you ain't got access to.
So say for instance, early access started on Tuesday and your game drop on Friday.
That's easier to handle because you're like, I'm going to play it till Friday anyway.
So with this one, I think it dropped on a Thursday night or something like that and
nobody could play it till Tuesday night.

(53:08):
So that kind of felt like, yeah, the prime time for me to play this game is now.
I think that is a little bit of a little cringy approach, but it is what it is.
It's what they want to do with it.
And if you want to pay that extra money to play a game a couple of days early, like half
the money of the game to play the game a couple of days early, it's kind of feels insane.

(53:29):
So how I feel about it in all honest and to be completely honest, I got enough to play
right now.
I don't really need to play a vile day one.
I can understand if you were really anticipating it.
Maybe that is something you want to play.
I don't think I came with DLC, so it makes it a tough buy to pay twenty five dollars

(53:50):
for a couple of skins and early access.
So I do feel like, yeah, that's a problem.
But for me, I got plenty of play.
I don't need to play about day one.
And for most people, it doesn't feel that it's not that bad.
It's another way for them to monetize their games and be able to kind of put more money

(54:11):
back into the developer's pocket that you don't have to necessarily buy into.
Kind of the same thing with skins and free to play.
If this is what we got to deal with to get more single player games, I'm all for it.
Like this is the route you're going to take to kind of monetize more off of these games.
Sure.
Go at it.
I feel like at a certain point in your life, you got to realize that none of this stuff

(54:35):
is going anywhere.
If you got to wait a couple of days to play it, that's fine.
Wow, this egregious approach here over the weekend might be a little tough because you
ain't going to play it until the week next weekend.
And now you've got a bunch of time for people to kind of spoil things and make you feel
like you missed out on something.
But if they are one that will give a three day early access pass to most of their games,

(54:59):
dropping in game pass, I'm for it, especially if you're going to keep giving me single player
games.
I think the multiplayer position is the worst where you like playing multiplayer games and
they got three day early access.
That's a problem that gives someone an extreme advantage over you.
But if it's a single player game and nobody's playing online together or whatever, I don't
think that's a problem.

(55:21):
That's just my take.
I understand that that could probably be problematic to some, but it's my take on it.
I feel like they have to evolve and how to figure out, get more money out of single player
games.
And I think that's the easiest way to do so.
But that's pretty much it on that topic.
Anything to add there, Jalen, before I move on to my last.

(55:43):
I ain't got no time.
Cool, cool, cool.
All right.
Let's talk about Elden Ring, Night Reign.
So the technical test went OK.
It didn't go bad.
It wasn't like the greatest, but it didn't go bad.
People were getting disconnected and they did have to shut it down the first night over

(56:04):
the two hour block.
I believe the next day it did go a lot more smoothly.
But a lot of feedback they were getting in regards to Night Reign was that they wanted
people to be able to play two players.
And they did say they might change it.
I don't know how.
I don't know where this report came from, and I need to find the actual report, but

(56:24):
I can't really find it.
So I'm going to go based off the assumption that a lot of people just read feedback was,
hey, we can't find three people to play this.
Maybe you could allow for two.
I really didn't ever get the point of them forcing people to play with three or one,
honestly.
I mean, I feel like this game is highly adaptable to that.

(56:48):
They understand how to scale bosses.
It shouldn't be an issue for them to make that change and put the two player limit in
versus three.
I really didn't see why they forced people to either play single player or three, unless
there's some special mechanic out there that really throws it all off if it's two players
or something.
I think that scaling it to the appropriate difficulty is probably something they already

(57:15):
can do with the type of...
They have that in the original games.
Like Elden Reign, you can play with two people and they scale it appropriately.
You can play with three people and they'll scale it appropriately.
I never really understood the whole, no, you only can play with one or three players unless
they just wanted people to squad up and it was a money grab thing.

(57:37):
I don't know.
This seemed like a weird design, especially when your game is known to be able to support
it.
I do think we might win this one, to be honest.
I don't think that there'll be much effort on their end to implement something they already
got.
My biggest concern really with this whole Night Reign technical test and everything

(58:00):
is their net code.
I feel like they have some of the worst net code I've probably ever touched.
I think that goes back far.
Now granted, there's plenty of times where maybe a boss wouldn't show up on my screen,
but maybe that was because of that seamless mile we were using.

(58:21):
I don't know, but it just seemed like sometimes either Jaylen's floating across my screen,
teleporting, or there's issues with animations not being shown correctly.
Even when people get slashed by hits, they still be up on the screen and then you'll
see the die afterwards.

(58:43):
Their net code has never been degraded.
That is my biggest concern.
Is this going to work well when it's always online?
Well, if it's going to work well, if it's more focused on a multiplayer aspect than
it was before.
Obviously, you can still play a single player.

(59:03):
You can go through it all you want, but it's more a social aspect of this game that's at
the forefront than the single player approach.
The technical test, I'm hoping that they find what they need to find in order to fix.
We're already seeing great progress from night one to night two.
People are saying that the game is difficult, especially day, night two.

(59:25):
I believe night two is a beast.
They were saying it's really tough to kind of get through night two because you're going
through multiple cycles.
I think it's a five stage is day one, night one, day two, night two.
And then you go straight into the last boss.
I think that's how it works.
Or maybe maybe it's day one and then you go to the boss.

(59:48):
But I mean, day three and then you go to the boss.
But that is the the cycle of it.
And you kind of use those night and day cycles to level up and I guess get better.
So I don't know.
I don't know.
I feel like it can go either way.

(01:00:11):
I think Elden Ring has enough cash to kind of sell anything to anybody.
But at the same time, I don't know if it's going to be like a defining experience or
or something super different than what we're used to.

(01:00:31):
But at the same time, most people just want more Elden Ring in a different way.
So it could be either or.
It really don't have to be some big crazy deviation.
It just has to hit everything on all cylinders at right at the right times, which is gameplay,
net code, net code and net code.

(01:00:54):
Like really, that's the only thing I really care about.
Like everything else I know they can do.
They can do pretty good.
I just feel like they can't do net code well.
And I think that that's going to be my biggest problem with that game is like drops and stuff
like that.
It's very, very weird.
And I really hope that doesn't make it easy.
I hope that they make it easy to jump into games with your friends and you don't have
to go do something weird in the world to do so.

(01:01:15):
So I don't expect that to be the case.
But you never know with you never know with them from software boys.
They kind of they kind of move to their own beat for real, for real.
But yeah, I mean, that's pretty much it.
I didn't have anything else to kind of talk through.

(01:01:37):
Those were the topics for today.
We did get go through a lot pretty quickly.
But again, we were kind of in time crunch.
So I wanted to make sure we hit on everything that we needed to today.
But is there anything else before we get a body here?
Anything else that needs to be said?

(01:01:57):
And hopefully just not get our hopes up too much for the new owner.
I ain't trying to get my hopes up.
I'm trying to trying to keep them very tame, because again, Night Elder Ring is one of
those games that, you know, it's already been solidified.
I think that they are adding this extra component like the Coliseum basically in a way that

(01:02:20):
makes it fun.
And I hope that it works really, because I think they need to experiment more.
I think the gaming industry need to experiment more anyway.
And I think from software leading with a groundbreaking, high selling IP is cool.
But is it really groundbreaking if it's just Battle Royale?

(01:02:42):
I don't know.
Maybe not.
Maybe not.
But I'm looking forward to seeing that adaptation in their game anyway.
So but all right.
I want to thank you guys for listening.
As always, if you got to this part of the episode, you're the real OG.
I want to thank you as always for tuning in.
You can check us out on Spotify, Apple Podcast.

(01:03:06):
You can find us on Pandora.
You can find me on YouTube at BCD universe where I break it down and everything like
that as well.
So you can have it and see it posted there as well.
So again, I just want to thank you guys for listening and I will see you all next week
with more topics and news to discuss.