New Star Wars Games Revealed At TGA | The Battlefront Games Compared - Star Wars Escape Pod

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Time to abandon ship!

(00:04):
Oh no!
Here we go!
Can I persuade you to join us for a drink?
It's a tradition.
Here, here.
Jar Jar, homie, my main man, quickly.
Before the separatists attack, get into the escape pod.

(00:27):
Hey! This is escape!
Then we're the pod!
Jesus Christ!
Welcome back to Star Wars Escape Pod,
and a great episode this week.
We got a packed night tonight.
We've got your co-host Kirk joining us this evening,

(00:48):
and who knows who else is going to pop in,
but we'll see.
We've got some news from the Game Awards as of tonight,
recording.
Some pretty awesome news has come to light for some new Star Wars video games
coming out in the next couple year or two, I guess, or a couple months, who knows.
And we also have some chat in regards to Orbit Key's new Disney lineup,

(01:13):
and finally, a comparison between the old and the new when it comes to Star Wars Battlefront.
So, lots of game stuff on the roster this evening.
Let's dive right in.
Another happy landing.

(01:42):
Another happy landing.
I want it back.
The way it was before the Empire shut it down.
Massive engines.
Lightning fast.
Lives on the line.
The pilots were incredible.

(02:05):
Best of the best.
United by one beautiful dream.
The galaxy needs racing.

(02:32):
And it's like the Chi-fi,
The

(03:01):
all right coming 2026 is star wars galactic racer uh what do you think about that kirk
oh man i was just watching the trailer for the first time then it looks uh it's looking pretty

(03:27):
good i mean no gameplay footage yet but uh yeah yeah it's looking great yeah it looks awesome i
mean uh starwars.com did a bit of an article uh just 45 minutes ago and uh they say you can almost
feel jakku sun beating down on your face as you around the bend navigating between a downed star
destroyer and what's left of an 8080 in the graveyard of giants uh so we're gonna see the

(03:53):
return of jakku in this game uh they also had uh something to well fuse games the co-founder matt
webster and vp and gm of lucasfilm games douglas riley sat down with starwars.com for the trailer
breakdown uh this game will also see the return of sebalba which is uh pretty awesome because
recently we had sebalba return in a vr game also racing style gameplay called beyond victory which

(04:19):
launched on the quest 3s and 3 platforms so uh it's neat to see that character come back again
for anyone who wasn't able to get a glimpse of him in the vr world and i do wonder what this story is
going to be like i assume that there's going to be some sort of story involved um but uh but yeah i
mean star wars is a big part of uh i mean racing is a big part of star wars i mean like like how many

(04:42):
times have you watched the phantom menace and kind of gone back to the potter racing sequence and just
admired how much work it has gone into that and like constructing oh it's like i feel like they
could be just a whole movie like give me like f1 style but like a galactic racer movie yeah it's one
of the best parts yeah of uh of phantom menace for sure yeah even in attack of the clones when anakin

(05:08):
and obi-wan walk into that bar in on coruscant and you see on the monitors like in the in the in
the cantina that they're watching like different games happening across the galaxy and uh it's just
a memorable part of star wars at least for me and when i was a kid there was this book series that i
loved reading it was called jedi quest and i think it was the third novel that featured a story of like

(05:34):
young like young anakin skywalker is between episode one and two and him and obi-wan go on a
mission somewhere and it involves um someone who has to compete in a race and the the opponent in
this race is sebulba and sebulba has purchased anakin's pod racer so like he is now like his old

(05:55):
nemesis is like driving his pod racer that was built to be the fastest ever and anakin has to help
this guy there or this this new character like build a racer that's like faster than his old one
so i thought it was like such a cool like story element um and uh you know yeah just i don't know
big part of star wars is the racing did you ever play the old racer games uh only um i've actually

(06:18):
played quite a few arcade games in the past i couldn't tell you which ones that they were but
i haven't actually played too many of them uh over over the years but i'm i'm keen i'm more into them
now so i'm keen i'd probably be keen to get back yeah uh yeah they have a little uh a quote from
the article here and uh it says uh lucasome games has had a long and successful relationship with many
key leaders at fuse games and their time at criterion including their work on star wars battlefront 2

(06:44):
starfighter mode rightly notes in addition to the great work uh on our projects they have been
industry leaders in some of the most beloved racing franchises in need for speed and burnout i can't
think of any other studio better suited to bring star wars racing back to our fans uh have you have
you had any experience with need for speed or burnout oh yeah i used to play uh i played need

(07:06):
for speed uh most wanted that was like i played so much of that game um that's a bit of a throwback
with like the beam like the bmw like the m3 and stuff so are these the same guys developing uh this
one uh yeah it's the same studio oh we should be good in good hands then it should be yeah
yeah it's it's it's a no it's i mean i haven't played them in years so like i'm i don't think

(07:30):
i can't speak for i can't speak for that accurate of a uh of a uh of a representation but yeah i used
to play them back in like like the early 2000s not early 2000s like late 2000s i guess um early 2010s
um yeah no it's good yeah uh so uh this game in the first trailer we meet a character named shade

(07:51):
who's a lone racer with a dream of glory for and revenge uh so uh webster also hints coming down
the ramp to join uh the paddock on jakku uh look very closely and you may even see a flock of steel
peckers serving surveying the landscape uh players will learn more about shade as they progress through
the game's campaign your aim is to survive long enough to earn your shot at becoming an elite

(08:15):
racing pilot webster says our races are high stakes competitions where racers do everything they can
to get in front of uh or in front and in the solo campaign and in our awesome multiplayer gameplay so
there will be multiplayer gameplay of course which is pretty exciting uh and uh there's a planet that
shows up called ando prime so we got jakku ando prime i'm sure we'll see many other awesome biomes as

(08:40):
well uh the high speed teaser shows racers on all types of land speeders and speeder bikes
navigating locations like jakku ando prime of the later webster notes it's a backdrop to a brand new
skim speeder showing its unique handling properties as it cuts through the racing pack this awesome image
of a skim speeder highlights those different racing lines and handling characteristics in one shot

(09:03):
uh skim speeders are vehicles that reward flowing lines and maintaining momentum
banking through corners and knife edging through narrow gaps we're really excited to bring
this new creation to life and we're looking forward to sharing more about this new vehicle
and other gaming details in the future updates the latest galaxer racing expression will stand apart
from its predecessors and other games in the genre we've drawn real inspiration from runs based games

(09:29):
so the player will have meaningful consequential decisions to be making on how they choose their path
to become an elite racing pilot from the vehicle that they choose to start with the upgrade choices
they make to create builds that really suits their play style and what events they select in
determining their path to become champion of the league webster says along the way you'll complete

(09:52):
with uh compete with rivals journey to new planets and master different classes of repulsor craft or
speeders each of their own distinct capabilities uh so he goes on to talk a little bit more about that
uh he also does mention uh of course galactic racer is filled with new characters and locations
including uh like sentinel one revealed in the trailer for the first time it's home to a uh skat cohen

(10:15):
listening station built on a vast planetary scale with huge antennas and littering the landscape
uh and uh he also says that uh um the doug who tried to cheat his way through the ubuntu classic
uh subalba is returning and uh everyone loves a good subalba story so there are particular reasons
why he finds his way into our trailer as well as a detail in this shot that may lead to more even more

(10:40):
questions and uh that detail happens to be his uh long gray beard so um i don't know how old does his
species uh live for because obviously he's probably yeah he's quite older this time yeah i mean like that's
that's kind of what i'm wondering too i mean maybe his it's not uncommon to have an alien species that
does live two three hundred years uh it's sort of well known that humans don't live very long

(11:05):
naturally in in star wars so um in that regards i mean the human race is kind of a inferior uh race
you know compared to the aliens a lot of the aliens that that live many many years you know longer
uh in terms of lifespan and knowledge and and um technology and stuff like that but uh but yeah i
think it's it's very possible that we could be looking at a game that takes place even after episode

(11:31):
nine uh because i don't like i mean i don't know about you but just the idea of rey living on jakku
it doesn't really quite line up if there's these races happening at the same time like i imagine this
game to possibly take place after everything like after the first order is all like done and gone
and this could be kind of in that new jedi order time period that we're looking at which is going to

(11:55):
be heading into the ryan gosling movie starfighter yeah i don't know i'm getting that i'm getting that
feeling like are you where do you where do you think this game like takes place i feel like uh as the
these new movies start to come out they'll they'll begin to just uh um they'll begin to fill in the
gaps probably after i would say um although i guess they haven't uh yeah i'm not sure i feel like

(12:19):
they probably will start putting some games after episode nine um but it's hard to hard to say i guess
it could very well be before episode after episode uh six in between that that time period yeah yeah it
certainly could be um yeah that would be that would be really cool if it did i mean like that would
make sebala like i don't know how old would he be like maybe now like how old is he in the in the

(12:42):
phantom man yeah he'd be like like i like how old cad bane was in book of boba fett right yeah that was
technically what that was 20 like 30 years before the end of yeah yeah because like from i mean i i really
should keep this number like on the on my on my uh palm somewhere but uh like from phantom menace to
episode nine like i always blank on how many years precisely that is but i believe it's something

(13:08):
around i think it was like 30 or something wasn't it it's it's like double that it's like because
like there's 19 years between three and four uh the whole prequel trilogy takes place over the course
of 13 years roughly and then uh the original trilogy is five years of time i think if not three uh or

(13:30):
four and then uh and then there's a gap there afterwards of 19 years before force awakens and
then the sequel trilogy is like two years right so what does that add up to oh god i wasn't getting
my calculator up but that sounds around about 70 something yeah yeah like it made close to 80 years
or something like that so yeah i mean yeah i mean yeah it's not hard to believe that maybe you know

(13:52):
maybe he could be like 90 or like well 100 i guess i don't know i don't know how old he was to
begin with but it seemed like he was maybe a young hot shot you know maybe 20s kind of attitude or i
don't know like how much of a jerk does someone need to be to like beat around like a 12 year old
you know what i mean like oh it doesn't take doesn't take age for that to happen
not coming not not uh coming from anyone that i know that's uh done that but i guess uh

(14:19):
you can just you can never be too careful oh boy well galactic racer is up for wishlisting
already on digital stores and platforms across uh playstation xbox and steam on pc so uh very much
looking forward to playing this game uh there was one other game uh the game wars tonight so let's
just take a quick listen to uh fate of the old republic

(14:42):
so
so

(15:08):
so
so
so

(15:34):
so
so

(16:00):
all right so uh yeah this game looks insane i mean i don't none of this is actual gameplay uh this
these cinematics are all uh done in uh post-production you know visual effects companies and

(16:26):
um uh yeah i mean possibly the models and stuff are handed over but you know none of that is is
game engine rendered um i don't believe it's just it's so clean you know what i mean uh but it looks
sorry i was about to say it looks so good yeah yeah sadly uh sadly a lot of the yeah a lot of that

(16:47):
those cinematic trailers are typically not done in the game engine but um but it looks it looks cool and
they highlighted the game director's name at the very tail end there uh casey hudson who is the
director of the original knights of the old republic game series uh that's the first and the second one
and we actually just had a special guest on the podcast just uh recently and that episode

(17:10):
debuted uh as when this one launches it'll be last week's episode uh that was mike from switch to
the past and we did a chat on the original kotor and kotor 2 so uh it's just crazy that this
announcement comes out this week of all weeks because um people have been waiting like over 20
years for a good kotor successor and you know finally this is it this is essentially the spiritual

(17:35):
successor uh to knights of the old republic and um the old republic mmorpg that people have been
playing from ea and bioware for years now uh that one came out over 10 years ago i think and uh that
game you know it's it in its own way it is a spiritual successor as well to knights of the old

(17:56):
republic but it kind of goes off and it does its own thing for purposes of creating the mmo experience
so it's really really very much not canon it's it's it's kind of doing its own thing it creates that
star wars universe people want to play in for an mmo rpg experience but it's not really a narratively
cinematically driven game at all and um you know here we are once again with a triple a game that's

(18:22):
that's going to come out and uh really deliver us an experience that's probably inspired by kotor
but probably fits within the canon and also done by the same director as the original kotor game
series which both those original games had stellar like stories uh to the to the game itself so uh so
i'm i'm pretty excited to uh to to be able to play this game at some point in the future assuming that

(18:46):
it actually comes out and uh yeah i mean this guy also did the mass effect series so if you play
mass effect um you know maybe you're a big fan of mass effect but uh yeah what do you think of this
what do you think of this game yeah i mean um as um i mean someone that likes movies and plays
watch a lot more movies and i do play games it's cool to see them like put the director's name on

(19:07):
on the end um on the end there so that i thought that was uh that was cool but yeah the game looks
great i i i will admit i haven't played the originals um or like i i played maybe an hour of
the of the remaster that came out on like nintendo switch ages ago like they put they put a remastered
version or something on the switch and i sat down for an hour and i haven't gotten back to it so i do

(19:28):
need a i i it's been on my list to get to uh but uh yeah nevertheless this one looks good i um
uh although yeah as you said it's just a um it's just like a cinematic trailer from a completely
different engine so we may never know until uh for a while until what it looks like and we're still
waiting for eclipse as well yeah yeah yeah we are uh well starwars.com sat down with uh with casey as

(19:51):
well to talk about fate of the old republic and uh they had these things to say um about the game so
uh this will be developed by uh well it's the first one in quite some time star wars wise to be done by
casey um this one is blending innovative storytelling memorable characters and a heart pounding combat
um this game will immerse you in an unforgettable experience where every decision deepens your journey

(20:17):
toward the light or the dark so it seems like they're really carrying on the system that they
came up with for kotor 2 where your decisions affected your character's journey in the force
and that was part of the draw of that game is really that you had that that ability to push your
character into the light or the dark depending on what you wanted to do with that character inside the

(20:39):
game and uh this is a kind of a small debate i guess that we were trying to go over in the grand
scheme of how star wars eclipse will be because when blake and i played the quantic dream games for
beyond two souls and detroit become human there is this uh this element that drives the game which you
are essentially directing a story as the game unfolds you're making decisions for the character

(21:02):
things that you want them to do or say uh you you know drive your character physically in the world and
tell them where to go but you know at the end of the day a lot of it is conversation discussion
based and and uh you do choose different paths and those paths will will affect the story later
in the game or in the present moment so i do wonder if how much of an effect that system will

(21:27):
have on the game like maybe there's one like one ending or a different ending maybe there's only two
ways to end the game based on your light or dark affiliation i don't really know but it seems as if
they're really putting some emphasis on that part of the game which sounds kind of interesting um have
you ever played a game like that um it's hard like in terms of like a game that you know the choices

(21:49):
that you make changes the outcome of of your character and and and and and the ending of the
of the game is that what you're talking about yeah just any kind of game in which you as a player
affect the story um yeah i think also for me my one of my and it's one of my favorite games um that
i've played in the last like five ten years that was cyberpunk like oh yeah although there's

(22:10):
technically like there's not like millions of permutations of like outcomes that can uh that
can happen uh but um there there are definitely quite a they're quite a few and uh yeah i remember
i've played the game a couple times now being aware of like the different outcomes and things
um but uh yeah like i i do i really like it i think uh that's one of those things with i mean

(22:32):
obviously there are some games like like with survivor jedi survivor like i enjoyed how it was like one
storyline uh but it's all it is definitely cool when you know you like what you're doing what
your choices are have some kind of impact unless you then go up and then you research online the
other endings that could have happened and then you end up preferring a different ending and then
you go back you're like oh how do i do how do i do that ending right right yeah um well they do say

(22:58):
that fate of the old republic is not a direct sequel or continuation but it is being built by the people
who helped shape that legacy and uh throughout two decades of working on star wars games including
the older public uh casey says he has been extremely fortunate to see firsthand just how much these
stories mean to our fans and uh for us uh this new project is about honoring that legacy by creating

(23:23):
something in the same tradition of a deep cinematic choice driven role play game you reuniting with casey
has been a tremendous honor and we are pouring all of our shared passion experience into building the
next great chapter so uh so that's what they have to say on that and there's a lot more that you can
find on starwars.com uh through these interviews and uh you know i'm really uh looking forward to

(23:45):
seeing uh kind of what they do with this game so uh this one um doesn't have a release date uh same
with galactic racer neither of them have existing release dates but galactic racer is probably going to
come out way sooner seeing as you can wish list that one today and this one has no listings at all
so uh so yeah i mean we're still galactic racer says 2026 doesn't it galactic racer is for sure

(24:09):
happening next year uh which means that we'll be getting two star wars games next year uh that's
one of them and then zero company will be the other one that's the uh like the tactile uh tactical
strategy um board game essentially is what it is uh so yeah that's that's what those are uh those
are both coming out next year but um other than that you know this one it's let's just add it to

(24:31):
the list of uh of let's hopes which you know that's uh star wars eclipse that's kotor remake that's um
uh the total war studio uh possibly making a real-time strategy of some kind i mean there's
there's numerous star wars games always uh getting announced and then possibly getting cancelled in
the process so um yeah hoping hoping for the best for this one but great to see the news

(24:54):
fingers crossed yeah um all right and uh let's uh let's take a quick moment here to uh open the
blast doors and uh we've got kyle joining us this evening hello kyle hello there how are you guys
doing oh good thanks how are you doing fine doing fine uh just out of the kids uh christmas pageant

(25:15):
thing awesome awesome awesome yeah good good uh well um hey we got some uh cool stuff to go over
before we uh get to the battlefront stuff and i know you don't have too much time uh kirk but um
uh your old friends uh at uh at orbit key have sent us over some cool stuff and uh just wanted to take a

(25:36):
moment to talk about their disney line because uh you know the previously to the disney line they were
doing a big star wars line they did uh key organizers they did some organizable like accessories on your
desk box it's called the nest uh they did some desk mats uh what else did they do kirk i'm trying to
think i think with the with the star wars line they did the rings as well and i i think that i think

(26:00):
that was it the um oh the key ring yeah yeah i think uh i think you've got a much better handle on it
than on now than i do but yeah they did they did a few cool things nice all right well uh they sent
us to like three well two two well actually yeah three different things here uh first up is the key
organizer just like uh just like the star wars lineup uh these are very much like character themed so

(26:23):
they come in this nice little box and the boxes have gotten even better now and now it's like
magnetically closable which is nice listen to this listen to this isn't that a little pop there
that's just that's that screams that screams quality oh yeah like listen to this listen to this
again boom magnet i didn't hear it that time i think i think your noise cancellation i oh that i

(26:43):
imagine it sounded just as good as the first time oh yeah yeah wait which uh which which product is
this one so this one is the mickey mouse um so like it's you know for a lot of star wars fans i feel
like you know was that the box or was that were you what were you opening and closing oh that's the
box yeah that's that's like the oh the box yeah so the box is it like the is it the gift the gift

(27:05):
set with the um the ring and the key organizer no it's just the key organizer they've made the boxes
so the star wars ones you you had like a slide out kind of drawer design right these ones have like a
magnetic flap instead on the front side and it's like a door a door it swings open and you can reveal
the product inside it's like it's crazy man but uh yeah that's pretty awesome yeah so they're very

(27:29):
they're character inspired so this one is mickey mouse and um if anyone doesn't know what the key
organizer is basically picture it as a swiss army knife but for your house keys uh this one has
is black and it has mickey mouse's red short pants like kind of painted like down on the bottom in a
very sort of savoring uh cool way and uh on the inside i believe uh they usually engrave something

(27:53):
on the inside there so you got the uh like kind of an embossed disney logo and um uh yeah i don't know
you you rock one of these right kirk uh i don't have a um i don't have the the mickey mouse or any
of the disney ones uh yet the star wars one i mean the star yeah the star wars ones like the ones that
i remember uh back a few years ago had different quotes and different little easter eggs in there

(28:16):
um but uh yeah looking at some of these um some of the news ones even like the the stitch one and
the donald duck wow they go uh yeah good job goes hard really yeah totally you can carry up to up to
seven keys and uh you know it's expandable if you get their expansion thing uh you could you got a
little metal uh loop there to attach your car fob and uh i believe something i could use yeah yeah

(28:39):
it's great i mean uh these have uh what are they made of like they're faux leather right i think some
of the star wars ones are real leather i think i think the one that you have looking at the side i think
it's a hybrid leather which means i think the inside is um the inside is i don't want to use
the word plastic but it's it's like uh that kind of material like full full leather and then

(29:01):
like on the outside it's i think on the outside it's real leather but on the inside it's like just
like a plastic so it's like a little bit more durable when you're sliding your keys like okay um
in and out i don't want to use the term plastic though because i know it's probably not uh oh
made from premium nappa leather on the outside and tpu polymer oh there you go nappa leather so

(29:21):
there you are there you are yeah so that one's that um and we got the donald duck key loop which
is it's very similar except the it's not a swiss army knife style it's basically your classic leather
loop above a key ring but the key ring is like insanely smart uh because uh you don't need to break your
fingernails to get this thing open it's it's a very smart locking mechanism that you just uh

(29:45):
kind of pull and and it just unclicks and uh yeah it's uh it's great how do i how do i how would you
describe that mechanism um i have to yeah i'm obviously biased but i think it's one of the
coolest like mechanisms that they've made like it doesn't require a key or anything to unlock it you
just like pull it up and it snaps and then you rotate it and then pull it back down again and it locks

(30:06):
everything into place um yeah yeah it's it's so uh you just simply pull and twist and it just
yeah and then there's a little gap in there that you can slide your keys in and then uh you just uh
you just pull it back in and boom just oh there you go another audio detail there i like it yeah
exactly uh and then finally the uh the other thing here is um they've sent out one of their amazing

(30:31):
toy story sling bags which uh this one is which one did you get i got woody and i think you have
that's good buzz lightyear right uh i have buzz lightyear when i was in disneyland i was uh i was
rocking that uh i was rocking that hard throughout the whole uh throughout the whole uh the whole park
and every time i saw someone else with an orbit key bag in uh in disneyland i was like oh look a

(30:53):
fellow person yeah and but i didn't actually go up to them no i just i just whispered in their ear i said
i have friends everywhere and then they they just they just they just looked at me strange i'm like
oh they must have not seen andor so um but yeah it's cool it's cool it's very handy when you're when
you're traveling and and stuff oh that's awesome yeah no this thing is great uh they have um uh the

(31:15):
weather resistant pu coated um zipper waterproof exteriors so uh you know it's not gonna get your
rainwater seeping in there uh it's made from 100 recycled fabric the zippers are ykk if anyone's
into the you know the gold standard of zipper technology um they've got a really comfortable
look and feel and uh gold standard of zipper technology yeah dude ykk is the zipper of choice

(31:40):
it is the it is the world's most known zipper brand yeah there you go right you know i i uh i used to
used to work at orbit key and now you know i'm like oh wow okay this is uh i gotta i gotta make sure
give me some of these get some get some quotes check your pants right now if you check your
pants the zipper on your pants is probably ykk yeah totally if it's good quality pants it will be

(32:05):
yeah yeah if i've got bad quality pants it's probably not ykk but that's right you got that's
when you know you got the good stuff that's right uh inside i love the inside because you get a nice
cable pass through through the different pouches which bridges the front to the back so you can uh you
could put like an external battery in the front half and then have it kind of working its way

(32:27):
into the back half where your phone might be hidden which has got this like secure kind of rear compartment
for your phone or your passport or anything like that uh the bag also has a what's called a custom
hardware which is for attaching your keys and accessories so uh picture like an orbit key like key ring
loop but like giant and sort of permanently part of the uh like the band that kind of slings it around

(32:52):
your body so it's a very secure mechanism and uh you know you could hang a water bottle off that
thing it's probably not going anywhere um but uh this thing also has a nice buckle so uh take a listen
to this oh yeah quality buckle oh yeah i think you just you just need to make a an edit like sounds of
orbit key and just like all these snaps and yeah just and everything like that that's right man even

(33:16):
the like the booklet attached to this thing it's like quality cardboard look at that this is this
is turning into an asmr asmr podcast that's right let's unbox uh let's unbox uh josh's new orbit key
toys and just listen to the listen to everything so good yeah you just got to get that soft voice going

(33:38):
like all right everybody now what we're gonna do is just snap all right everybody we're gonna take
a listen to the zipper there you go oh wow it's got a nice uh i don't know what was nice i don't know
what was nicer there the zipper or your voice i'm not sure i'm getting confused it's very nice soothing

(33:59):
voice sound like hayden christensen and uh you're gonna hear the sound of the zipper now
all we need is dave feloni to come back and give us a voiceover
although i think that's the opposite of asmr yeah i think it is uh i love the mesh pockets on

(34:19):
the inside it's all elasticated there's a little internal key loop there this thing is awesome i i
mean next time i'm gonna next time i'm in the disney parks uh i'm 100 going to be rocking this
thing uh what was it like bringing your buzz light year to disneyland did you get people looking
oh uh yeah i was getting so much attention in fact i had quite a few people uh that's a lie by the way
people weren't actually coming up to me because of my bag but i had a couple people uh like just

(34:43):
ask me when i was waiting in line they're like oh like which store in the park did you did you get
it from um and i and i said like oh no it was you know it was from the from outside of the park i
guess um i showed i showed one person uh the orbit key website so i did i did my duty um there you go
and hopefully uh hopefully that that worked out that works out all these things uh oh man i should

(35:08):
have had this uh information offhand but uh do you remember what they uh retail for totally forget
let me just look it up uh which which one particular the the key organizers um retail for
oh i got the australian pricing here so i'll have to change it to us pricing no you can good you can
do your australia it's closer yeah the usd usd is 34 for the key organizers um for the disney ones and

(35:31):
then um the travel sling is depending on which there's a few different slings and everything like
that so depending on what size and stuff you get they come in different prices and there's also like
gift uh so like a multi-tooling key organizer kit and the and different things so but yeah the
key organizers start from like 34 it looks like it and then um you got some of the kits like 49

(35:52):
where you get we get a multi-tool with it or something else oh yeah too so just check head
on over to orbitkey.com forward slash actually i don't know what forward slash collections forward
slash that's the one something something like that man you guys got a nice discount in australia we
have to so the sling bag over here is 140 canadian and then uh the key loop like the the key

(36:15):
loops or donald mickey goofy mini 54 and the key organizers are 45 so um definitely uh definitely
uh better to pick them up in australia if you're over there on a on a trip but um just heads up
yeah i guess uh i guess australian company they uh yeah yeah serving the locals first

(36:36):
so yeah so even though our exchange rate's terrible for everything else that's just what we gotta
that's what we're gonna do oh man well huge thank you to orbit key for uh for sending these over and
um and yeah thank you again and we we love we love the we love the line we love the uh uh the company
too and um always pumping out quality stuff um as as noted by the ykk zippers so you know that's right

(37:00):
that amsr zipper thing that's right all right uh kirk i know you don't have too too much time left
but uh i guess we'll uh we'll just get things started with you and you can kind of head out
whenever but um we'll move over to our our final subject of the day which is uh the battlefront
game chat so let's get into it
all right i um i had my headphones turned up all the way to hear your asmr and then now sebulba uh

(37:38):
that wasn't sebulba who was that what i just absolutely has turned me deaf now i can't hear
anything but it's only money just gets blasted away all right uh so uh this is a comparison of

(37:59):
the original battlefront 2004 from pandemic battlefront 2 from 2005 from pandemic and then
later the battlefront 2015 from dice ea and then battlefront 2 uh from 2017 and from dice ea so uh i
guess we can start off with kind of the earliest of well i guess first i know kirk kirk's got to go

(38:20):
but which games have you spent the most time playing uh i've played the oh definitely um the
two dice games um i got the first one played of the two dice games played so much of that um and then
um the the second one or the most recent one even after all the updates and everything and during the
quieter periods um i've played like i keep coming back to it just like one of those games you can just

(38:43):
pick up again and then it's so fun like just to do as a bit of an arcade shooter i guess
um but um yeah i love those games so much i think the campaigns are actually not too bad either or the
campaign on the second one um and i think that like the graphics and everything in the first one is like
unbelievable for like it came out in 2015 or something like it looks so good yeah um but uh yeah
both love those games obviously the second game is just far more polished and and the the first one

(39:08):
when you look at it now it's kind of like a very basic entry into the back into the franchise um
but uh yeah i love them yeah no it's great yeah what about you kyle like what have you spent the
most time with out of all four i spent most time playing the originals the the the first two um that
came out so those are the ones i spent most of the time playing myself but uh late at night i would

(39:29):
sit and i would watch twitch and i would watch people playing the other battlefronts
and i i really loved it i just never got it myself but i really loved watching people when
they're stormtroopers and it's like a hallway scene and then they put on some sort of acdc track
in the background and just obliterate with like heavy machine guns so i really loved watching that
stuff but personally um i just played the the earlier ones um that's just the stuff that i like

(39:52):
too and yeah you know that's where you start right yeah so uh the first battlefront from 2004 from
pandemic uh it there was four categories that i i kind of compare the games for uh category one is
scope of eras category two is single player experience category three is classes and progression
and category four is heroes and vehicles so this game primarily covered the clone wars uh episodes one

(40:18):
through three and the galactic civil war which is episodes four through six uh for single player
experience it featured non-linear campaigns that were essentially a series of instant action matches tied
to a chosen faction the classes and progression used a simple class system which was infantry heavy
sniper and engineer heroes were random and uh unplayable npcs uh and heroes and vehicles uh heroes

(40:42):
and vehicles were less central to the main game modes uh compared to later entries uh no playable heroes
so um uh is it is now the time kirk do you have to go now no i've got another 10 minutes or so it
should be good all right cool uh uh kyle what do you what do you remember about this first game
out of any of those four categories like what you might like the most about this game i always played

(41:03):
i always played heavy gunner um just because i'm a running gunner type of guy so but i i just loved
uh like the the playing fields that they did because i again i only played it single player and stuff i
never really did any multiplayer too much of that anyway on anything really um for star wars games but
i would uh my thing was it was it was my game that after i'd get off work i could sit down and play

(41:26):
immerse myself and kind of be in the star wars world now i know the graphics aren't obviously as good as
they are today or anything like that but you know a little more imagination kind of went into into it
but um i i love the gameplay for it um i like how it's open world kind of you can run around and
choose kind of what you want to do in each map that you were in so i like that sort of stuff but um

(41:50):
and i did like how the uh the heroes would come by and yeah you know you could uh you can mess up
some people pretty good yeah yeah i you know i i never actually spent a whole lot of time in the
first one i mostly spent time with battlefront 2 from the 2005 version of the game it's it's kind of
crazy that these games came back to back but um but i do remember what i liked about battlefront 2

(42:12):
something that a lot of people actually don't like about battlefront 2 is that uh you had the
ability to play as a hero which was uh which was a really cool unit which was typically like a jedi
or sith character but in the battlefront 2004 game you couldn't do that they were completely
unplayable npcs uh the heroes were were not within the player's realm of of being able to touch so

(42:32):
i remember being like you would run up to the play like you'd see that you'd see like mace or
whatever and you could run up to him and then he would just start messing people up around you
right yeah yeah if that's what i remember about it yeah so yeah there was also some cool maps in
this game that um were different from the battlefront 2 game in 2005 like i remember uh

(42:53):
some cool geonosis maps from 2004 that that never made their way into the 2005 game um so those were
really cool did you have a favorite map from this game that you liked playing i was gonna say no
it's got to be the geonosis one but there's there's one map where i believe you're on geonosis
and there's like a huge freaking um empire i forget i forget what it was but one of their

(43:15):
mechanized things going around and blowing stuff up and you had to run around as fast as you could
collect like five or six things and then be able to take that down and that was one of my favorite
maps because i i like the run around part of it so that was my i forget the name of the map but that
was my favorite one right well this game came out 21 years ago so it's um it's kind of surreal you
could actually get these games for free on xbox right now you can get them for free uh through

(43:39):
the x game uh game pass or something like that i that's i've got them on my xbox still too oh awesome
yeah i think they also just launched uh something called the classic collection which they re-released
the old battlefront games uh in sort of like they just slightly updated the the um uh i guess the
inner workings of the game to just work on more recent systems um i don't think anything's

(44:02):
different about them rather than they've uh you know just like emulated over sort of thing yeah
kind of yeah kind of so i wouldn't i wouldn't expect a whole lot out of the classic collection
that was recently you know released but um if anyone did want to play it on you know some newer systems
uh it should be available on the most recent of systems as of that collection having launched so

(44:25):
uh maybe give it a go if uh if it's up your alley it came out in march 2024
um relaunching on xbox one and series x and x and ps5 and and four and all and switch uh so uh yeah
it's um you know bringing the old battlefront classics to uh to the masses now so yeah because
i've got it on my xbox s and i didn't and i what was it it was like a few months ago that um i just

(44:50):
went on there and i was like i just typed in star wars and free games and it came up with a lot of
them for free right yeah yeah it certainly did yeah um yeah so uh i guess yeah i mean that's that
like i we can just kind of breeze through these here but like uh battlefront 2 only launched one
year later that one was from the the same studio pandemic uh for scope of eras this game expanded on

(45:13):
the 2004 game adding content specifically related to episode 3 revenge of the sith because of course
this game launched the same year that the film did uh the single player experience they had a highly
praised narrative driven campaign called rise of the empire following the perspective of a clone
trooper in the 501st legion which was narrated by none other than tamara morrison uh the classes and

(45:36):
progression of this game featured defined classes for each faction uh commander jet trooper for example
in the clone faction uh the republic uh and introduced playable heroes who could be unlocked by earning
points uh finally heroes and vehicles massively expanded on the original by introducing space
battles to the equation making iconic heroes and villains like jedi and sith fully playable in battles

(46:01):
uh you could play as darth vader you could play as anakin skywalker obi-wan kenobi darth sidious uh yoda i
believe you know there was a a bunch of playable characters and uh and it was pretty neat for that
uh there was also a really cool game mode that i remember called galactic conquest which if you
played is uh as a pair with one other person you could essentially it was like a big strategy board

(46:26):
game where you could conquer a planet either over space or on land and uh if you took the system it
would now become yours and you had to try and take over the galaxy and the enemy would would attack
your planets and it would you would go into a battle and you'd essentially be playing um a giant
board game but every time a combat situation happens you're playing a whole game of battlefront

(46:49):
which is which is pretty cool so sometimes it would take like a solid you know day or two to finish
galactic conquest and that's if you're good so um it was pretty cool uh pretty cool experience in the
game but they've never done anything like that since but uh kirk what do you remember from
battlefront 2 2005 oh i've only played um i must have been a a wee little lad when i was playing

(47:11):
when i played that i remember playing it alongside like halo 3 or something on my really old like
beige pc that my parents had back in the day um i've uh yeah i don't have too much memory of it apart
from like it was kind of like the around the time that i would have just been getting into um
like star wars because the prequels came out and everything i think oh my god i would have been

(47:34):
like eight or nine years old no not even i would have been like seven or eight years old um and i
think i probably played it not in like 2005 but maybe a couple a few years later um but uh yeah i
remember um in here in australia we always had um really bad internet so it was only like after like
11 o'clock at night that you could actually get like a game where you didn't get like 200 like ping

(47:57):
so i remember it was always like it never really worked but like when like whenever like i think
later later on i played a little bit uh of it with friends and stuff like on school land servers and
things like that and that they were good fun um but uh yeah i definitely most of my at least
experience has been from um um the uh the the more recent dice games uh admittedly right yeah uh kyle

(48:22):
what do you what do you have what's some fond memories you have of the battlefront 2 uh for me um
well again i never really played too much of the multiplayer um i did mostly storyline stuff so i
had a ton of fun just playing that but the galactic what was that one you were just saying the galactic
war uh the galactic yeah i think it was called galactic conquest and it was uh basically uh either
a single player or multiplayer driven sort of board game experience where you had the whole galaxy at

(48:49):
your disposal all the galaxy being the the maps that they have obviously made playable in the game
and uh you could you know you would start off with maybe two or three planets or one one to three
planets in your in your possession and the enemy would start off with one three in theirs and uh you
would progress through the game by taking over systems kind of like risk is a little bit like risk

(49:11):
of how you kind of move outwards and when you could when you come into contact with the enemy on any of
these planets or if they come into contact with one of yours you get launched into a game into a battle
on that planet uh or and you also have space units that are going around protecting some of these
planets and if their fleet intercepts your fleet then you'd be launched into a space battle over that

(49:33):
planet instead so it was really cool that if you had ever attacked a planet that was being guarded by
space battle uh by spaceships and had uh you know the enemy's possession you'd be going into a space
battle first and then i think you also had to do the ground battle after so you had to work your way
yeah yeah like it was a really cool like way of doing a game i feel like it set a standard in my

(49:57):
opinion for how the battlefront series should have unfolded with the the canceled third game in the
series and um which would have featured a system in which space battle was happening simultaneously to
the ground battle and you could fly from the space battle down to the ground and vice versa and it was

(50:18):
all happening at the same time so that would have been insanely cool and it's still not something
that they've done even to the most recent battlefront game where the the the space battle scenario is kind
of this interlude between capturing command posts um and gaining enough points if you hold the main you
know the the the majority for for so many so much time um it's uh it's a system that they haven't worked

(50:43):
out quite yet in terms of like happening all at the same time but uh that would have been a really
cool cool thing but i i remember battlefront 2 being amazing for their their you know brand new space
system and uh getting to fly around and stuff like that yeah cool concept i don't i don't like for some
reason it sounds familiar that but i don't remember playing that but um that to me i thought i'm gonna go

(51:05):
back and actually remind myself or play it again just to be like it yeah because that is i love that style
of gaming it's like chess like um what's it what's another game that it's like it's kind of like eve
online where it's like you take system by system and people could come and still mess your planets up
yeah yeah exactly yeah so yeah that's uh and and yeah it's called galactic conquest mode in inside of

(51:26):
star wars battlefront so uh definitely my favorite part of oh sorry oh no oh yeah it's also um in the
first game as well so if you play the first one as well it's it's a mode in both that exist in both
games yeah okay well then i definitely played it but i mean 20 something years and i've played
i've got 480 games on my xbox right now so yeah dang that's quite a bit but no i'm gonna go back and

(51:50):
play that one and uh i always i always download as much as i can for for video games but um i'm gonna
go back i'm gonna try that one over again for the conquest because i've just been getting back into
old video games this last little while and so i think that's one that i'm gonna i'm gonna go do
that again yeah yeah for sure um all right i was gonna say though my favorite part of that though

(52:11):
was that you could actually finally be uh like a jedi you could be a hero person oh yeah yeah i feel
like like that that part of the game was very divisive i feel like either you love it or hate it um
depending on if you were playing against other players in the multiplayer experience or if you were
uh you know playing with because you know if you were a battle droid or a clone and some jedi or

(52:32):
that came along you're you're just done like there's no there's no hope about running that
guy or anything like you're just you're just toast you just gotta sit there and take it you know
uh but you just let's like throw spam grenades and hope that something hits you know it's uh
kind of crazy you know what that's that's like a good segue into the new ones because in the new
ones if you got vader or luke you're gonna own like a section of that battlefield for a little

(52:57):
while at anybody that you come up against you're gonna destroy them yeah yeah yeah uh all right
kirk i know you gotta go so uh we'll exit you out but thanks so much for jumping on buddy uh appreciate
it and uh thanks thanks for having me on this one guys uh yes enjoy i'll speak i'll uh be on the pod
next time but in the meantime i'm off to dex's diner for a dozen donuts so hey kirk before you go

(53:21):
check the chat i i want i sent a picture of how uh how enthusiastic my daughter was at her play
tonight so check that out before you go you'll laugh your butt off she looks just as enthusiastic
as i did when i got out of the theater of watching episode nine yeah there you go okay yeah okay
all right see you guys all right thanks buddy take care you too man you too bye

(53:45):
all right uh moving on to the 2015 battlefront delivered to us from dice this one was a bit of
a hit to the series uh the top well the franchise title i guess i should say because i think a lot
of people just expected a lot more out of the game that had the battlefront title to it uh this game

(54:05):
for scope of the eras uh it focused exclusively on galactic civil war which was the original trilogy
only no clone wars content was in there at launch uh the single player experience was uh completely
almost almost entirely irrelevant uh this game lacked a traditional story campaign at all and

(54:26):
instead offered exclusively cooperative uh cooperative co-op missions uh kind of like a survival mode so
you could play with one other player online in like a two-player uh zombies mode so to speak where
they the enemies come at you in in waves and i think it maxes out at like wave 15 or 25 or something
like that um and you could either play that solo or with a friend the classes and progression of this

(54:52):
game replaced the traditional class system with a highly customizable star card system allowing players
to mix and match abilities for their trooper or their unit and then the heroes and vehicles side of
this game heroes and vehicles were accessed by picking up randomly spawned tokens on the battlefield
making their appearance completely luck based uh initial release lacked space battles entirely and was

(55:17):
later added via a dlc but i think in the time that i played the game i don't even remember um a whole lot
of the game involving space battles but i then again i mean there was no campaign to this game
whatsoever like it was simply just for the heck of putting out an online shooter and i think when
they made this game i i really do think it was almost ahead of its time with the mentality of you

(55:44):
know having constructed the game for an online focus group and and not so much um you know your
average couch gamer who might have a buddy or two in the room and uh and also just maybe the single
player who doesn't want a competitive experience at all and just wants to verse you know like bots or
something like that the only mode they could play was essentially survival so um would you have any

(56:06):
memories of this game when it came out uh 10 years ago or um like what would you uh like what do you
have you know experience wise with with this one oh me yeah i thought you were talking um for me
when it came out um i i kind of listened to everybody and they said that there was no real you know
single player opt like it kind of sucked so for me i never i never got the game i never played it

(56:27):
but i just watched the heck out of it on twitch because i loved watching the battles um i usually
pick people that don't talk on their twitch i don't want to see their video i don't you know what
i mean i just want to see the game being played and uh i just had fun watching it especially when
somebody found uh one of the little lightsabers that would be sitting there turn into the character
and i was just like yeah go get them you know and i love the graphics in it i liked what i saw for

(56:51):
the gameplay like again you're saying it's kind of ahead of its time and it reminds me of a game
that came out on playstation i like 2010 and it was like this new game 400 people in one map and it
was insane but it never took off like the concept was great but it never took off there was no single
player option it was only you play the 400 or nothing and i i find that the game was great fun to look

(57:17):
at fun to watch but gameplay wise like i i want a cool solo at least like like call of duty black
ops they usually have some pretty good solo stuff a lot of people now that's controversial a lot of
people be like no they don't but i enjoyed a lot of it you know i enjoyed playing those parts yeah
i enjoyed the survival mode the best i think uh i'm a sucker is for i'm a sucker for like the

(57:37):
uh the call of duty zombies game you know but but i mean it is very much a niche thing i didn't i
didn't dump a whole lot of hours into this game whatsoever um the uh the star card system was kind
of an interesting way uh which they they stuck with that one through battlefront 2 um but it was
an interesting way to add some customizable traits to how you wanted to play the game so that way you

(58:03):
could make your guy look however you wanted to and choose your weapon but then you know completely
customize the the uh the bonuses or or i guess some of the personalized effects that your guy would
have on the battlefield so um so that part was was kind of interesting there was some maps that were
really cool in this game that actually i really wish they had recycled a lot of the battlefront 2015

(58:27):
stuff into battlefront 2 but you know as the way things go um they they do want to keep that game
its own game and and not have it be um irrelevant when the second one comes out so as as critically
negative as it was received uh sadly some of those really stellar gorgeous looking maps just never made

(58:48):
its way into the next one um so i mean they're really only environments and maps you can play
in the first game that you wouldn't be able to play later and that that was kind of a crying shame but
um but yeah some of the some of my good memories from that one definitely evolve around the the two
player survival mode uh not so much they should have had a sea snipers uh make some of those maps

(59:08):
we we did we made some of the maps for call of duty and uh uh they were some of the more favored maps
too bad they never got to us yeah i guess i guess so yeah uh okay finally is the battlefront 2
the 2017 game from dice ea uh this game the scope of eras expanded on the 2015 game outwards to

(59:29):
the most comprehensive in scope entirely ever made featuring content from all three major eras
including the prequels the originals and the sequel trilogies uh including a little bit from rogue one
and solo uh although i don't know if the maps i'm blanking on whether or not there was maps from
oh yeah you know what there was a map from solo uh it was the uh uh whatchamacallit um you know

(59:55):
kessel uh single player experience was uh was amazing uh this game introduced a canonical
single player campaign that followed the character idon versio who is the commander of an imperial
special forces unit called inferno squad uh this game also had a tie-in novel that featured the same
group of characters from inferno squad which was a pretty great star wars book in my opinion

(01:00:19):
much better than the first battlefront book which was called twilight company uh the classes and
progression in this game reverted to a more traditional defined class-based system with
assault heavy officer and specialist uh that level up and unlock upgrades and star cards but they kept
the star card system from the previous game so they kind of combined the best of both worlds in that

(01:00:42):
sense when the old games featured some basic um classes but then you also had the star card system to
further tune those um those units to your liking and furthermore they did have some more specialized
unit uh classes as well like aerial and uh there was uh uh another one there as well i'm just blanking on

(01:01:04):
it um and then they had heroes as well so this game um uh brought in those uh the classes and
progression system or sorry the uh the heroes and vehicles in this in this game uh are accessed by
spending battle points earned through the performance of the current match uh making them a reward for
skilled play in the moment so those those points did not cross over between games so if you really

(01:01:29):
suck at the game uh you might only be able to play as a jedi or a vehicle like maybe once but if you're
really good then maybe you would like be hogging all the luke skywalker respawns and uh you would just
be you know milking that until you run out of of lives but uh this game featured robust starfighter
assault mode as well uh a ton of space combat was brought into this game and also was featured in

(01:01:53):
the main campaign as well um and i know people that pretty much exclusively played battlefront 2 2017
for the space combat like that was like a really dialed in system at this point it had a lot to offer
and even though i suck at the space combat um i fully recognize that it had its own fully
fledged out system and all that stuff so uh what kind of what kind of memories do you have of of

(01:02:17):
this game kyle uh battlefront 2 um again i i basically watched all of it on twitch for a long
time but um i would say okay again what i said earlier uh my favorite stuff is when you get a nice
team together and you're you get like a couple dudes with machine guns and you do a hallway scene
and i absolutely love those and i i like the fact of when i'm when i'm watching that and you it just

(01:02:42):
it looks like so much fun but because you're watching the blaster fire go off and it's just
insanity and and it and it reminds me of i again i do kind of hate to say this but call of duty
which is a game that i absolutely loved back in the day it's it's turned into something different now
but it it it makes me think of that like there's there i don't know it just reminds me of the

(01:03:03):
camaraderie and i absolutely love the graphic of it and and how it made me feel while i'm watching
this is wow this is you're on this planet oh you're actually doing this like you can immerse
yourself into it quite well even just watching it and somebody else playing where it's something
that's star wars it's new you're seeing a battle from a different way i just really like that sort

(01:03:24):
of thing that's that's where mine mindset is on it yeah yeah for sure um i i really enjoyed the
campaign about this game too i don't know if you ever played the campaign but um it was a it was
a really cool story and uh fits within the canon and and also uh features a lot of environments and
and areas of the game that you cannot access in the multiplayer experience um so it was its own

(01:03:47):
uh part of the game very very unique in its own right and uh i always highly hold on here you said
it's canon uh yeah yeah everybody that from everybody that i like that i've spoken to they
said the the games are not canon the games are canon ever since the original battle is that the
original battlefronts because they they were canon or something no yeah no they changed it no well ever

(01:04:08):
ever since the disney buyout nothing prior to the disney buyout is canon other than the clone wars
so you know the the new battlefront from ea the the dice game that was the first one to do a campaign
because the first 2015 ea dice game uh didn't feature any kind of story at all so um that being
said you know this one uh did have a canon storyline and i believe it was the first game other than

(01:04:35):
jedi fallen order and uh i think that was pretty much it like it was it was released during the dry spell
where ea held an exclusive license to make star wars games for a while and there was very little in
terms of canonical stories within the canon that took place in a video game but so far we only have
a few we only have the jedi fallen order jedi survivor star wars battlefront 2 star wars squadrons

(01:05:02):
and since then we've had a few others like star wars outlaws there's been some vr games like the
vader immortal trilogy and the tales from the galaxy's edge and beyond victory um and uh other than that
there's really very very few game experiences that have contributed to the canon which is why
today is kind of an exciting day we've been waiting years for star wars eclipse to come out

(01:05:27):
uh that's still in progress we've got two trailers that released as of today that feature cinematic
gameplay narratives in a game uh which will be coming out in the next couple years so uh you know
i think going forward um you know the the idea is that i think we're we're going to be getting more
of those uh story star wars games and uh they they will indeed be taking place within the canon of uh

(01:05:51):
that lucasfilm has been building for the last couple years so uh that's that's what's really exciting
about all that um but uh but yeah give it a give it a go you know give it a playthrough and uh i think
i think you'll enjoy it yeah i'm definitely expect me on the second one if it's if it's got a
like one where i can immerse myself in and play like solo and i don't really have much people with
me uh that's definitely more of my kind of alley for because when i'm playing a video game i i like

(01:06:16):
turning all the lights out i like you know oh man getting right into it and i'm like okay today i'm
this a hundred percent yeah i'm john marsden today a hundred percent you will you will get a a kick out
of battlefront 2 then if you've never played the campaign in that game prepare yourself because
it's it's fantastic uh definitely worth your time so uh yeah and that um i mean one of my favorite

(01:06:42):
parts about this game about battlefront 2 is uh playing the co-op um expansion that they did later
on i think it was a it was a it was an online multiplayer mode that they released later and it
didn't actually come out at launch but you and three other players online basically uh take part in
kind of a tug of war experience with the command posts and uh either you're on offensive or defensive

(01:07:08):
and if you're on offensive you have to capture at least one of the two or three command posts that
the enemy has and you have to do that three or four consecutive times um each pushing the enemy back
towards their their last uh final singular uh checkpoint and if you're on defense battlefield yeah and if
you're on defensive is the same thing except you're defending so it was a really cool mode and it was

(01:07:30):
the perfect kind of gameplay if you and three other friends just were uh playing online together and you
needed something to do and and uh it was an awesome way to experience um the the game uh but that being
said i mean it was capped out at four and there were times which i would have more than four players
online which then we would have to play the online galactic um uh assault mode or whatever that one's

(01:07:54):
called the actual battle mode yeah either supremacy or galactic conquest and uh and then you'd be in
in the boat with other players and all of a sudden it gets uh a little bit more competitive of course
because then you get real people shooting at you as well as npcs but um but all the modes in battle
front 2 are fantastic they even introduced ewok hunt which was very very well done where you either

(01:08:15):
start off as an ewok or a stormtrooper and the stormtroopers have to hunt all the ewoks down
and the ewoks have to uh hunt all the stormtroopers down and the stormtroopers have to live until the
the shuttle shows up so there was a lot of cool stuff there uh to enjoy in that game and i still
find myself going back into battlefront 2 from 2017 and and playing a few of those modes here and there

(01:08:37):
and uh and you can also find the game for it's cross-platform isn't it i and well i i don't know
if it is or isn't i i don't think it is sadly i think they they should have made a cross-platform
but i don't think it is um i think oh darn yeah the consoles might be cross-platform so like i think
you might be able to play with ps players if you're on an xbox but i don't think the pc version is

(01:09:03):
cross-platform which is really kind of a crying shame this game had a really rough launch uh didn't
didn't launch very well at at all because uh initially the game had a lot of microtransactions
involved with the main game and the online experience and uh after a reddit comment from
one of the developers uh was posted online shortly after the game's release uh it was in reply to

(01:09:28):
somebody's criticism online and reddit and that developers um or that community uh managers like
i don't i forget who it was but it was somebody who's working at dice or ea uh got the most downvoted
uh comment in reddit history ever and that was about a star wars game and so after that i believe
that person was relieved of duty and uh ea actually did a huge overhaul to the game it stripped out all

(01:09:55):
of the microtransactions from the gameplay and uh because the game launched at first where you
couldn't even play as vader or any one of those heroes uh you had to like basically like earn in-game
currency or buy in-game currency to then purchase a loot box and then the loot box would maybe unlock
it for you so you would have to be like you know either investing further into the game or playing

(01:10:17):
a heck of a lot to try and just unlock the ability to play one of those famous characters so a lot of
people are pretty mad about that and uh and that's why uh they ended up changing that within the first
couple months i believe it was but even still like there's a lot of people who don't know that about
the game but that was a a notorious thing about the game at the time when it got released like people

(01:10:38):
were only told bad things about it because of that and um yeah and therefore the the long-term life of
the game ended up just kind of fizzling out uh they put a number of pretty solid updates afterwards uh
after that whole event uh they promised a a roadmap which delivered um i think it was up to like two or

(01:11:00):
three years worth of content and then it just kind of died and there was a bunch of content that
actually went nowhere because there's like voice lines for like ahsoka tano and stuff that were never
used uh it's a character that you can't play as in the game but voice lines were recorded for the
character uh same with venturous i believe and maybe a few others so i think i think they were planning

(01:11:21):
on doing like a clone wars specific update and that would have been bonkers but because a lot of the
existing material in the game also include some some clone war stuff but um but yeah there was it was
kind of sad that the game didn't further continue to update because i feel like they probably could
have you know done some more work to uh to flesh out the game fix up some bugs still expand the game's

(01:11:48):
material and and possibly put out um better ways of making money back on the game with proper like dlc and
and stuff like that that didn't milk the experience for players you know and and um i feel like that
would have been appropriate for a game that does feature an online source of players but uh they
never i think they just gave up they're like you know what like i guess we've they've they've moved

(01:12:12):
on to other things and uh they just they just didn't have the heart to keep going with it which is
really sad so you know this is this is the thing that i find with a lot of game developers um you find
that they make a game they make this awesome game and people go nuts for it online goes hey this is
great and we'd like to see another one let's see it um and then they take it make the new game and

(01:12:35):
it's it's i mean battle battlefront 2 is great and everything but you see how they cut it when it's
like look they had so much more material that they could work with and they just chose not to and it's
like dude you guys had the largest it may be negative but they're all presses good press right
so you had the largest downvoted thing in the history of reddit and you're not going to capitalize

(01:12:56):
on that and drop as much stuff as you can i'm glad that they got rid of the microtransactions
because i hate those but at the same time you know right if you're going to pump something out
you can do dlc content people will pay for for characters and for extra content you know and as
long as you're not doing a microtransaction it's like okay you can get ahsoka but nothing else it's
like if you make a package deal out of it you'll you'll make money on that and and that's all they have

(01:13:18):
to do listen to the people and and and even that bad news it's still good it's still good for your
company look at how many people commented look how many people want a good product right yeah exactly
yeah it's um it's true i mean and you know the game has um yeah just uh it's kind of wrap this up
in a nice neat little bow is this game does have a very uh intense modern group out there and uh there's

(01:13:42):
a project so if you do play the game on pc and you know you're still very much actively playing this
game uh there's a discord out there and a community called kyber star wars battlefront 2 they have a
website up and everything they're doing play tests on a fourth wave now and essentially it's an online
group uh they've created their own custom server system so now you can it's not blindly jumping into

(01:14:06):
a match like at least you can you have the option of setting up servers you know or jumping into a server
knowing how many people are actually in there and not relying on the ea servers which is uh blessed
because those servers were terrible and then on top of that they've in they've included mods into the
certain servers so there's some servers that will auto download certain modifications to your game

(01:14:30):
now all of a sudden you have characters that you could play as that you've never been able to play
as before uh there are so so many uh cool things that they've done to expand the game and uh and give
it new life and uh continue the lifespan of the game for for players who are even just getting the game

(01:14:50):
today so uh just as an example like you can play as asajj ventress in the in the kyber modes you can play
as darth revan you can play as darth nihilus uh you could play as uh man like i mean let's see here
like there's there's so many characters uh you can play as ahsoka tano uh you can play as uh kit fisto i

(01:15:13):
believe um there is uh an incredible amount to see and uh and play through in this in this um expanded
version of battlefront there's also maps that they've made for the game uh the star wars
jedi temple map that's most made famous from the 2005 game like you know that's something that
they're bringing into this game as well uh so there's a lot happening in this game which um

(01:15:38):
in the kyber mods that uh would uh certainly add a lot of value to the game for anyone who is looking to
get back in there and keep going uh recently wave four deployed 12 000 new players into their play
test so a ton of people have been playing it so as specifically for people playing on pc
this is definitely something that you'll want to do if um if you were a big star wars battlefront 2

(01:16:03):
fan and want to keep going and feel like the ea server side is dead uh this is kind of infused new
life into that game so uh or if you don't play on pc and you're looking to maybe jump into a pc
shooter or some kind uh this uh might be a great place to start it's supposedly fairly easy to get
the kyber system set up on the game itself um but uh i'm not entirely sure which version you need

(01:16:25):
uh to be safe i would probably say the steam edition but um but who knows it probably doesn't
matter at all so definitely check that out and uh yeah that is uh the uh star wars battlefront
comparison um but um but yeah very exciting stuff is there a just for the people that are out there i i
just looked it up on xbox and battlefront 2 right now is only 26 dollars about yeah the new ea one

(01:16:49):
yeah it was uh 26 canadian right now it was completely free on epic games um i think probably
like two years ago or three years ago now um which is really cheap yeah yeah yeah um on free i like
how you're like well it's it's really cheap it's free that's super that's as cheap as yeah it's as
cheap as you can get um right now it's top dollar on steam it's still like you don't know i want better

(01:17:12):
but uh yeah it's like right now i wouldn't recommend buying it right now because um right
now it's like 52 bucks on steam but i've seen it get very frequently they have a star wars sale on may
4th and it goes down to like next to nothing like we're talking like 10 dollars maybe 15 at the very
most um this year we had an xbox right now it's it's 26 just for star wars battlefront 2 it's 51

(01:17:36):
dollars for the celebration edition upgrade or you can get the triple bundle which is like you get
squadrons you get all in order and battlefront battlefront 2 for 109 yeah so just wait till like
may 4th or something like that that that'll be like half price like easy yeah um yeah yeah the sales
on may 4th are crazy especially for those games like because they're a little older now they've

(01:17:58):
definitely added like a crazy big discount i thought they would have put out what is it outlaws
yeah well outlaws just came out last year so that one yeah i've seen it come on man 40 off
maybe but yeah battlefront 2 like i've seen it go for like 85 90 off which is which is pretty
unreal so um if you don't own the game yet and you're looking to get it maybe just wait a couple

(01:18:18):
months or just keep an eye out for those sales but um but yeah yeah definitely yeah if you want more
life and added to the game buy it on pc get the kyber expansion i think they're uh they're only open
to patreon subscribers at the moment but it's like three or four dollars only on a monthly basis just
to get in and then you're in do you have any uh star wars traditions that you do for christmas this

(01:18:39):
uh you know on on an annual basis do you watch the movies do you uh you know watch the holiday special
like what do you do well the holiday special uh i don't really have any star wars traditions plus i'm
in the i'm in the process of moving and everything so i guess this year i think is going to be pretty
pretty quiet but um i know i'm going to watch at least a couple and right now i'm looking at

(01:19:00):
battlefront 2 at 26 and i'm going i want to play the solo so i might just do that for the next
little while nice have you played through star wars squadrons the the campaign on that no no i
haven't i haven't played the squadrons at all but i'm told it's really fun it is fun yeah that one
that one was definitely a good one um it also has like an online player base as well for like

(01:19:24):
dog fighting uh but uh that's cool the campaign was definitely really cool squadrons was actually
built off of the the space combat uh engine that they developed for battlefront 2 so uh it has a
lot of similar feel when it comes to you know driving around in the starfighter but it's all
first person so uh so that was kind of neat about that game and then of course you you played fallen

(01:19:46):
order i think right yeah yeah okay anything with cal yeah okay so within the first like four star wars
ea games i guess you you at least played like one of them uh or two well i guess you played
battlefronts too and survivor yeah yeah okay so you played the the the best uh single player
stories that that you can get exactly okay all right yeah cool because again i when when i'm doing

(01:20:08):
that i i like and i become okay you can i know there's people out there that don't like me but
you know when you walk past an npc and they're like would you like this uh i could walk past them
a hundred times and be like yeah not today you know like i like i talk to them you know what i mean
so so and i love doing that because um i think that's what games are yeah i think that's what

(01:20:29):
they're made to do is really let you escape and become somebody else and and you can fail and
there's no real repercussions from your failures it's how do i figure this out to accomplish my goal
and that's one thing that i love about all games yeah that was something that outlaws actually did
fairly well i have my critiques about outlaws i played through that entire game i i like i finished

(01:20:50):
the main story yeah i finished the main story there was a lot of side missions that i'm still
kind of working my way through but um but the main story what did you think it's because well like i
watched a little bit of it but i haven't played it like you can definitely like you can just listen
to our like in-depth review like we did an episode on that but in short um i mean i i had a lot of

(01:21:12):
problems at launch uh they that they later fixed in updates and uh just as far as the story goes like
it was it was not bad like it was it was i guess if you're a big fan of like solo and the world like
the underworld and the world of smugglers and stuff like that i think you would probably gravitate a
lot more to it than than i did but uh like i'm a sucker for like a good like force user story so

(01:21:37):
you know yeah me that's what i want if i'm playing star wars it's not that i didn't like it it's just
that i didn't really like i wasn't really drawn in as as much as other games that's not your people's
right yeah but as far as the detail on the game it was it was very well done uh the especially the
parts of the environment that have a lot of npcs and a lot of people um the areas that are more

(01:21:59):
populated was just exceptional and uh there was a lot of like you know conversations you can eavesdrop
on some people you get a hint as to where like a treasure stash would be in a waterfall somewhere
and then you have to like go there and because it's very open world like it actually takes you a
couple minutes to get these places so um so it was very like large in scale and um you have the

(01:22:23):
freedom to go between all the planets in your ship kind of similar to jedi survivor except it took it
to another level um so there were definitely some things about the game that were really cool and
it's also a very good looking game like it looks really good um the console experience was probably
more stable than what i had on the pc but uh again that were just issues at launch that i had

(01:22:44):
problems with uh but in general though i i would say like if you like star wars games and you like
uh stories and games that just tend to last like many hours i mean this is definitely one of those
games um battlefront 2 the campaign is very very much on the rails um it's like as you would expect a
call of duty campaign to be like where you're just there for the story you're just there to shoot some

(01:23:08):
some stormies you know like that's the that's the battlefront 2 experience and then there's the uh
the squadrons experience which is also very much like that as well it's like it's very much on the
rails for the campaign you know you're put into a star wars episode if you will for like 10 to 12
hours on a binge and then it's done so um outlaws is very much more expansive it's takes longer to

(01:23:33):
finish uh it's like jedi survivor but like doubled in size and and you know you are playing the role
of a smuggler in the greater galaxy and uh there is a story unfolding there but unless you just binge
and pursue only the main objectives you could theoretically spend a lot of additional time in
the game doing a lot of side stuff and side jobs and getting to know some of the the more ins and outs of

(01:23:58):
like the the time period that you're playing in and uh and it's good for that as well but um but
yeah i mean there's nothing i would say that was like loomingly bad about the game or anything it
was just mostly a lot of technical issues and some complaints here and there and um i think a lot of
the things that they have uh addressed have have kind of brought it up in my opinion a little bit

(01:24:19):
further but um but yeah definitely not my favorite star wars game though but they uh yeah i mean again it
it could have been probably a little higher up on the list if they had done a lot of that stuff from
launch so yeah anyway that's my i just remember being at san diego comic-con and they had the big
outlaw thing there and i was dressed as uh uh obi-wan kenobi and they had a motorcycle that you could get

(01:24:41):
on the motorcycle the the character has oh yeah and you get on it and it was like a green screen thing
they're like you don't know what's playing behind you but they're just like all right throw the fans on
and then fans would blow in your face so it looked like the wind was going and then you just do
something for like 10 seconds i'll have to find the video i'll have to send it to you but it's
it's just pretty funny yeah yeah yeah that's cool all right well uh yeah what are you um what are you

(01:25:06):
looking forward to uh in the coming year because uh this will be the last time that uh that we hear
from you this year but uh yeah is there anything coming in 2026 that you're really stoked for i mean
uh you know we have that darth maul animated series we have the mandalorian and grogu hitting theaters
uh there is that one is a big one for me the mandalorian and grogu i need i need closure i need

(01:25:27):
closure and it better be freaking good closure yeah yeah uh there's the two video games zero company
and uh star wars galactic racer uh that was announced today um but uh but yeah what else what
else are you looking forward to oh i'm kind of to be honest i'm a little nervous about the new mall
show coming out like they've really overdone mall quite a bit but everybody loves them so i get it

(01:25:51):
and i love them too but i'm told that there's going to be a vader mall fight and i'm going come on
come on you know like not a fan but i i i just i i am a fan but i'm just worried that they're gonna
they're gonna mess it up yeah well i'm gonna be this is like this is big okay in in star wars world

(01:26:15):
and i'm i'm worried they're gonna mess it up well this i'm looking forward to it but yeah this fight
is definitely something that has been foreshadowed uh in star wars rebels uh a long time ago i think
this this was foreshadowed but like seven seven eight years ago or something like that in season two
of star wars rebels when maul says to ezra that he can't take vader alone so um so yeah it's been a

(01:26:40):
it's been a long time coming and uh you know i guess however they do it i think will be have been
well planned seeing as it's been so long since that was uh initially conceived i think within the lore
so uh we're we're only uh going to spectate something that i think dave filoni and and uh other
creators over there at luke's film animation have actually been aware of for for quite some time

(01:27:04):
so i guess we'll we'll see another thing that hopefully you can put to rest because you're the
guy that i go to and i send you all this stuff you know i'll just send you a message i'll be like
is this meme real is this happening and you're like you you give me the star wars info man and you're
like no that's not happening but this is going on so my question is is george lucas actually coming

(01:27:27):
back to help with a new project no no way no way i mean there's okay i don't i don't think he
not only i yeah not only i he's he's kind of the age he's at now he's he's i think he's aged out of
the movie making process when it comes to releasing big blockbusters it's just not he just doesn't have
the energy to do anymore um i think a lot of the fans would probably want to see it but um but i don't

(01:27:52):
think he's got it in him to do so i i mean i always love hearing the rumors but i think it's
just as it's just as likely as all those other rumors that we've been hearing for the last 10
years that that kathleen kennedy is going to be walking out the door and i think it's all uh
it's all a big joke right like uh all the rumors are a lot of them you know what you should do i should
say you should have a little uh one of your little side podcast things and it should be debunking

(01:28:18):
the bs that comes out online and then you just have me jump in there and go dude i saw this
and i saw this and i saw this and you're just like nope nope yep nope that's not a bad idea maybe
we'll we'll we'll start off the new year by doing one of those perhaps uh but uh there we go yeah i'll
gather as much of the weird stuff that i see because i always do you yeah yeah come to this podcast

(01:28:44):
he knows his stuff my man okay well we certainly we certainly try to keep it real here and uh we
only talk about stuff that is actually uh uh you know been announced and and through official sources
you know we're never you know any any possible speculation stuff is uh is usually called out
as being speculation and and you know we always have fun with uh speculating what what would come

(01:29:06):
next but it's it's always uh it's always you know preconceived yeah yeah yeah and it's always
preconceived that that that those are kind of our opinions and such but um but yeah i mean uh you
know as far as this commentary do not necessarily represent those yeah exactly uh we even have a
little disclaimer in the star wars launchpad uh podcast that we've been doing on the side um i don't

(01:29:29):
know if you've been listening to any of those but um but you know there's there's a bit of a
disclaimer the short ones those are the the short ones that are done completely with once in a
well with ai yeah oh okay no i i thought i was the what is it the lightning ones or something oh
lightspeed yeah lightspeed is our new our news sub series but uh star wars launchpad is is the ai

(01:29:52):
series that we're doing on the side um i think it's got like 12 or 13 episodes now and okay uh yeah
and it's it's mostly all driven by completely driven by ai um the only the intro and the outro
it has been pre-recorded by myself um but the actual conversation the discussion take place is
completely ai based and and it's exceptional it's it's crazy how good the conversations can be

(01:30:18):
sometimes uh with how deep that they get in uh in you know in the details and stuff like that it's it's
it's nuts so uh what what's the podcast app that you listen in like what do you listen on
oh for me just spotify oh okay yeah so yeah i'll i'll send you a link um and uh you can you can
subscribe over there but uh yeah it's a cool it's a cool experiment okay i was gonna say i i hope that

(01:30:44):
you do another one of those hollow net dj music ai music ones again i'd like to do another one of
those oh yeah wicked man yeah yeah i'll uh i'll be looking into that i think in the new year because
uh we've got we've got volume one and we have a volume 1.5 which was like one or two tracks for
our christmas episode that we did uh but uh but yeah volume two is is well overdue and uh and that'll

(01:31:09):
certainly uh have its time in the sun i think uh you know as soon as the technology gets a little
better so before that one let me know when you're gonna do it and and i'm i like you can do it on
your ai because i don't understand how it works so i i just learned chat gpt so there you go but
uh let me know beforehand and what i'd like to do is pick it like pick a topic that you could give

(01:31:34):
the ai thingy to make a song about yeah yeah yeah that would be good that'd be cool yeah um yeah a lot
well a lot of those say again you'd be like this one's your song and i'd be like yeah
yeah all right man uh thanks so much for uh joining in this week and um i guess we'll catch

(01:31:56):
another time yeah all right definitely definitely
all right a big thank you to our audience for tuning in and uh this will be one of our final
episodes of 2025 heading into 2026 we've got loads planned for you we've already done some pre
scheduling pre-planning for a lot of the subjects ahead in the coming weeks in the coming months

(01:32:18):
uh it's uh it's going to be a packed year uh which is exciting and uh you know lots to talk about
lots of video games look forward to the mandalorian grogu coming out maul shadow lord uh the marvel
prequel coming out to that animated show uh we got so much stuff to talk about in the future so
may the force be with you and we'll see you next episode of star wars escape pod

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}New Star Wars Games Revealed At TGA | The Battlefront Games Compared