Atomfall

[00:00:09] Ladies and gentlemen, it's that time of the week again to talk about video games with the Pre-Order Bonus Podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Cameron Warren, and I'm joined, as always, by the Pixel Professor, Jacob Price. It's April 17th, 2025. Jake, what did you think of the Nintendo Switch 2 Mario Kart World Direct? Did you watch it? I missed it, man. Today was... I didn't watch it.

[00:00:40] So that's when I kind of think of it. I don't know, man. For us poor little Americans over here, I'm kind of putting my hype on ice for a second. Put the hype on hold? Yeah, the hype is on hold for a little bit. I saw that Canada has pre-orders reopening sometime soon. So now, right now, we're living the Spongebob meme of Squidward looking through the shutters of his window.

[00:01:09] And Patrick and Spongebob are running back and forth happily. So we missed this conversation because it got cut off on our lost episode. If you listen to our Kingdom from Deliverance 2 episode, we explained that we lost audio into the nether of the cyberspace and time that will never to be recovered.

[00:02:01] Yep. So that's right for the Mario Kart bundle. Correct. Okay. So... Gotcha. You could extend yourself. You could say, okay, I could maybe toss 50 extra bucks like this. Yeah, I think if I had a holiday bundle and the game was like DK Bonanza or Pokemon Legends EA, which I understand Pokemon Legends EA is Switch and Switch 2. But dude, I'm sorry. I'm not playing that game on Switch.

[00:02:28] After looking at the Nintendo Switch 2 reveal and seeing how much better the performance is on the Switch 2, dude, I cannot... Yeah. I don't want to risk another Pokemon Scarlet situation. So that's why I'm including it. Nope. Basically, the bundles that I am hoping for that I would buy in holiday are DK Bonanza, Pokemon Legends, EA. I would actually maybe go for a Hyrule Warriors Age of Imprisonment.

[00:02:56] But that would be a game for me exclusively and my kids. I know they're going to like DK Bonanza and they're desperate for the Pokemon game. So in all likelihood, it's going to be one of those bundles holiday 550. If it's 600, dude, I think I'm out. Yeah. I mean, 600 is when it starts to get dicey. Oh, yeah.

[00:03:23] And I think most of us probably feel like 600 is like... That's when like, yeah, I'm looking at it, but I'm not like, oh, yeah, I'm pre-ordering. Right? It's kind of a like... I think at that point, I'm waiting till DK Bonanza comes out and I'm going to say, if this is a 10 out of 10 masterpiece, then I'll put in order for one. Right. Basically. You know what I'm saying? I know what you're saying. Like that... Yeah.

[00:03:53] That would be the only put... And then if it goes beyond 600 and we're getting to like the 650, 700, then I'm like... Oh, I'm out. Like I just... Yeah. Like I just... I don't... If I'm being like brutally honest with myself, like I don't think I can do it. I can't do it. No. I mean, 600 for me is already probably too far. It would have to be an incredible bundle. I'm talking two games or something.

[00:04:20] Even if it's like Snipperclips 2.0 and I don't know. One other thing. It's... The thing that... What's that? 3-4 Switch? 3-4 Switch. Wait, Jake. What if it includes Welcome Tour? Oh my gosh. Did that change anything? It actually doesn't move the needle at all. Maybe the wrong way. We did. So since we talked about Welcome Tour and being pissed off about it, I did find out that it is a $10 retail. Retail.

[00:04:48] Which is still mind-blowing insanity that they're charging for that. Oh yeah. That is very wild that they're charging for it. Some inside baseball on that. Apparently Reggie Philzame, the former Nintendo of America CEO, apparently he had to fight to get Wii Sports bundled with the Wii. Really? And that apparently, this is like the story, apparently Miyamoto was very upset that they weren't charging for Wii Sports. Huh.

[00:05:19] And so there was like this internal political battle. Ultimately that won out and then I helped the Wii sell like a jacked on units. Yeah. So it was like a smart decision. But you'd think they would learn from that, but... Reggie's out, man. They don't have to... Reggie's gone. And who knows what Doug Bowser thinks? Who knows what Doug Bowser... Doug Bowser, honestly, like I think Nintendo is really...

[00:05:44] Could not have announced the release date of the Switch at a worse possible time. It is an absolute disaster for them. And I'm sure that they're in conference rooms every day debating and crunching the numbers because they're having the same conversation that you and I are having right now. Yeah. And they're probably coming to the conclusion that our consumers are just not going to pay X amount for this thing. Yep. We will have...

[00:06:12] They're going to have an upfront group of users that will pay up to a thousand bucks and they won't care. Right. They won't care. They got to have it no matter what. But people like you and I, hardcore gamers that intend to buy this thing but are just at a $600 price where they're just like, there's just no way I can do that. You know what I mean? So... Yeah. I think $600 and we talked about this before, paying that much to me feels like throwing

[00:06:41] $150 away because I know it should be priced at $450. Um, and then the other, I think, aspect to that is it's Switch 2 looks to be way more powerful than the first Switch, but $600 for a console that still underperforms compared to Series X and PS5. That doesn't feel good. Like, I don't know if I want to buy that even if it's my Zelda Pokemon Mario machine. Um, it'd be time. It'd be time to wait.

[00:07:10] Like, yeah, I mean, $600 maybe when it has a Donkey Kong, a new Zelda, a new 3D Mario, you know, a brand new mainline Pokemon. They're all on the system and there's some crazy bundle, right? That's when you're like, maybe, maybe you could like bring yourself to do it because it's so, you know, it has such a stacked first party lineup, but right out of the gate, no shot.

[00:07:39] It's, it's gone. Um, can I share something that Cameron is not prepared for, but I think he will get a good laugh out of. Okay. So, um, I don't know if everybody remembers, but we made, uh, Cameron made a specific bet about Hollow Knight Silk Song being showcased with a release date and the Nintendo 2 reveal. Uh, and. I don't know where this is going. I know. It's going to be great.

[00:08:07] So I was looking at, uh, the video game Lord of the Rings Gollum, the critically acclaimed smash success. And, uh. That's, uh, highest rated video game of all time. Yeah. Cause Cameron's going to play that on my stream. And so I was looking at it. I was like, dude, this has got to be on sale. And it wasn't. It was full price, 60 bucks. But then I saw in the corner of my eye that the deluxe edition was on sale for 10 bucks

[00:08:36] because like with game pass discounts or something. And so I bought it. So $10. Okay. It comes with a Lord of the Rings compendium, but it also comes with Sindarin voiceover. So when Cameron comes. What is that? It's a Lord of the Rings language. So when, when Cameron comes to play this, um, we're going to be playing it in Sindarin.

[00:09:07] And because otherwise I would have wasted the two bucks on the deluxe edition, which also comes with, I need to point out, uh, uh, special emotes. You're not kidding. There's a Sindarin edition. Is this fully voice act? We are going to find out. Wait, no. Okay. I got to look this up. That's insane. That's actually, that actually makes me more intrigued now. It could be. I'm going to be honest. I'm actually excited. I'm excited to play Gollum. I want to see.

[00:09:35] I want to know firsthand for myself. Yes. You know, like. 100%. Folks, we talked about a date, so I'm going to mention this date, but Cameron, you correct me if this won't work for you. Um, last Cameron and I talked about this. This was going to be Saturday, May 17th in the evening mountain time. We haven't quite coordinated a time. I think that date still works for you. Sorry to put you on the spot like this. Uh, yes, I believe so. I think that works.

[00:10:05] So mark your calendars, put this in your schedules, do a, uh, I don't know, some sort of notification reminder on your phone. Um, we will be playing Gollum in Sindarin. Wow. Wow. Wow. Big stuff on the horizon. Jake, are you going to play the Oblivion remake next week when it comes out? By the time this podcast is live, it may be out already.

[00:10:35] Okay. Has this even officially been announced? It hasn't, right? It has not officially been announced, but the word on the street is that, uh, the infamous Jeff Grubb of gaming news journalists lore. Yes. Uh, do they call them journalists still? No. They're just content creators. I don't even know. I mean, Jeff Grubb is kind of... Jeff Grubb apparently said it's supposed to come out sometime next week.

[00:10:58] And then on the website on for the developer, they leaked quote unquote or accidentally, or maybe it probably wasn't even accidentally anymore. Or screenshots or some video footage of what looks like a remastered slash remade Oblivion. And so it sounds like we're maybe we're getting a shadow drop next week. Listen, the answer is no, because Claire Obscure Expedition 33 comes out next week. See, okay. Okay.

[00:11:28] So that's a really good point. Why? There's no way this gets dropped next week. No. I... Why would they compete with their, like, premiere RPG that's Game Pass coming this week? For me, this seems like this is a high profile, you know, widely anticipated third party game coming to Game Pass. And Game Pass is on fire right now. Like, uh, I would say February, April, and then May.

[00:11:57] Like, if you have lapsed from Game Pass, I highly recommend looking at what's on there right now for new releases. Yeah, it's a, it's a B, it's a B. It's a loaded up. It's really difficult to pass up if you're interested in any of these games that have been coming out. I mean, they just added SpongeBob Squarepants Patrick the Star again. So I'm just, just saying. Also, weirdly, GTA V. Again, it was on there before. Yeah, it's back. That game will never know. And Blueprints. Blueprints, maybe. Blueprints is on there?

[00:12:27] Critically Acclaimed. Blueprints, South of Midnight, Adam Paul, which we'll talk about today. Yeah, I mean, it's stacked. It's, it's stacked. Um, so if it's Shadow Drops next week, the answer is simply no. I have way too many games on my plate right now. Now, if it comes out when in more of a lull period, then absolutely, because I've never played Oblivion. Um, my first Elder Scrolls game was Morrowind, which I borrowed for, I borrowed for a very

[00:12:55] long time from somebody in high school. Um, I loved Morrowind, man. And I feel like the discourse or maybe not discourse, but just the sentiment that I see around Oblivion is that it's more of a cult classic than Morrowind. That some people really were like, this sucks. And some people were like, I love the jankiness. So I'm super curious. I want to play it.

[00:13:20] But if it is coming in April or May, it's a hard pass until I get my, until my schedule cools down. Well, I mean, I'm, I'm interested in it. It sounds like the rumor is that it is very, it's quite a bit of a remake over a remaster, like a lot of redone assets, graphics completely like from the ground up and then combat system redone to be more souls like key or whatever that means. Right. Who knows what that means now? Right.

[00:13:49] I mean, I'm interested in it. I love Skyrim. I never, I played Oblivion maybe once for like an hour. And at the time it was just too much for me. And then I got really into Skyrim like a few years later. And so, yeah, I'd circle back to this for sure. But it is weird. Yeah. There's, there's like very heavy, heavy rumors that this is coming out next week, but I've totally forgot that Claire Expedition, Claire of Skura Expedition 33 comes out April 26, which is like a very high profile game pass release.

[00:14:18] So it seems strange that they would muddy the waters like that. So I, I don't, yeah, that actually makes me think I, it probably maybe is not. Yeah. Maybe it's getting announced next week. Maybe that's what it is. Maybe, yeah. I think it being announced makes way more sense. Game pass is super stacked right now. I don't think you need to, I honestly think it'd be oversaturating game pass to have it just drop next week. Now we know of Xbox's plans, what?

[00:14:47] Through May, June in terms of release dates from their developer direct. Yeah. I mean, we're getting doom like in May. Yeah. We're getting doom in May. Dude. Oh my dude. Game pass. So I just wouldn't be surprised if this was announced for, let's see, for summer, like in June. Like I wouldn't be surprised if, uh, I know Xbox has already made announcements about their summer game fest showing, right? They're going to have their Xbox showcase. Outer Worlds 2 direct. Outer Worlds 2 direct. So we're going to see a lot on that.

[00:15:17] I'm anticipating a release date sometime in the fall for that. Like why not just have Oblivion kind of kick off? That to me would make way more sense as a shadow drop. Welcome to the Xbox showcase. Here's Oblivion remastered and it's out right now on game pass. Yeah. That makes way more sense. That doesn't make sense to just drop that next week. So yeah. Nope. Rethinking it. I don't think that's, I would be shocked if that happens because it seems like a waste of time, right? Like why not?

[00:15:46] That's a cult classic that a lot of people love. Why would you not wait till you've got a lull on your game pass to drop that? Which is not going to be till like July, right? And I just assume there's a lot of people like me who are curious, you know, from the sidelines what Oblivion is. But I don't know. I personally would be way more excited if I saw some news about Morrowind just because I really love that. But yeah. And Oblivion remaster has me curious.

[00:16:14] I want to try it out on game pass, but I'm not dropping what I'm playing for it. I don't know how common my sort of take is on that. I know there's a lot of Oblivion, you know, diehards or whatever, but it doesn't really seem to make sense to me. But hey, what do I know? Well, speaking of what you're playing, what are you playing? I'll tell you what I've been playing. I've been playing a little game called Blueprints, which we just mentioned. How's it going for you?

[00:16:43] You know, I'm not a puzzle game guy. But it got a lot of hype. It was on game pass. You know, I booted it up. We gave it a run. It's cool. Explain that tone. It's cool. But the problem is, is when you're a dad gamer and you're playing a complex-ish puzzle

[00:17:12] game at 10 p.m. And it asks you to do like a set of math puzzles, you're just like, no, no. And then you shut your Xbox off and then you just don't play it. I, it is, it's an intriguing prospect. But I think that I'm just too dumb. There's too much friction for someone, for me. Right. There's too much friction.

[00:17:39] Like I just, I, I'm not smart enough to solve things quickly enough where I get the satisfaction of like, oh, let's quickly solve that puzzle. Because the puzzles are actually kind of hard. Right. And because of the nature of how you're like drawing up rooms and you're trying to reach a certain destination, it's rogue, rogue-likey in a way, right? Where you're repeating a lot of things and then you're learning about the game and that makes you better at like drafting the rooms. But ultimately there is a little bit of RNG too.

[00:18:07] And so there's this, the progress is knowledge, but that also sometimes makes it hard to feel like you're making progress if you're not super smart and you can't retain a lot of information. And that's pretty much me. Yeah. I, let's see, I played a little bit of it and I feel like, listen, and when I say a little bit, I mean like an hour and a half, I hardly touched this game. I don't know. I just kind of feel like, yeah, I might have knowledge, but then I might just get dealt

[00:18:35] a ton of crappy rooms to draft or rooms that don't seem to, you know, I get a bunch of closets and so I end up with a bunch of keys, but then I just get a bunch of dead ends. And I agree, like you get a lot smarter about what rooms you draft and sort of how you plan things out. But I'm with you. I want to give it a try when I'm not just under the weight of a ton of games and I can really sit down and I have the clarity of mind to think through it. But dude, I'm the same thing.

[00:19:04] If it's like 9, 10 PM and I've had a long day, dude, don't ask me to do dartboard math. Don't ask me to figure out the pattern and then do the math. Like I can't do it. And so instead, this, I actually haven't had a lot of time in the evenings to play, which is unfortunate. But I want to share this game that I just finished streaming today, which is a little game called Lush Foil Photography Sim. Yeah. Dude, it is great.

[00:19:34] How long ago did we interview the creator? So I checked. Was that two years ago now? It was two years ago we had Matt Newell on the Pre-Under Bonus Podcast to talk about Lush Foil Photography Sim. Honestly, it's a fantastic game. What I would highly recommend, because you can play it on Xbox Series S. And so when I first streamed it, I streamed it from a Series S. It's got great vibes.

[00:20:00] But man, it is too chunky looking of a game for a photography sim. This is something that I would normally, I think, excuse or just not really care about. But because the point is to take pictures and for things to be as beautiful as possible, I just highly recommend that you play it on the most powerful machine you have access to. Because playing this on a 1080p monitor on a Series S is one experience.

[00:20:24] But then playing it on a Series X on a 4K TV is night and day different. Like, and usually Cameron and I, we don't really care all that much. We don't make too big of a huff about like frame rate or whatever and resolution. But I think this is kind of a rare exception because of what the game really is. Because you're snapping photos and you want everything to look beautiful. Play this on the most powerful machine you got. And honestly, I think it's really fantastic.

[00:20:54] You're in these small levels. They're gorgeous. And then you have some objectives to complete. I won't spoil it, but I ended up like 100%ing a level. And that unlocked something that really caught me off guard. And was relatively impactful emotionally as well. Wow. So I would say that if you want to just go through the game and take pictures of each of the locations, you can. And it's a super chill experience.

[00:21:24] But if you're looking for something to maybe catch you off guard or a nice little surprises, little secrets, complete all the objectives in a level. And you'll get that. So I've been really pleasantly surprised. I know. Sorry. I'm not getting commission. I swear for this game. But it's 15 bucks. And that has a launch discount right now. And I think it's a really easy pickup. Yeah, absolutely. No, I'm definitely going to pick this up. I want to give it a shot.

[00:21:50] That's one of my favorite episodes that we ever did for our Game Maker series, which unfortunately we decommissioned several months ago. But that was one of my favorite episodes. If you're curious about Lushville Photography Sim, go back. Find our Game Maker series episode on that one. But that was... I distinctly remember our conversation about ray tracing. Yes. So if you're curious, go listen to that. Yeah. Very cool, Jake. Quick shout out also. I'll just throw out there.

[00:22:20] Age of Mythology retold. Oh. Also on Game Pass. Super fun. If you're a real-time strategy sicko like me, and you were a millennial kid who had a crappy PC and played Command & Conquer and all those in Age of Empires, Age of Mythology has legitimately pretty cool campaign with very, very, very similar mechanics to Age of Empires.

[00:22:48] But retold is just like a complete up-res facelift. And so I've just been dipping in that once every other night. And it's super fun. And it's on Game Pass. And it looks great. Dude, nice. Shout out to that. Very nice. Well, Jake, enough news. Enough game. Now talk.

[00:23:14] Let's talk about a game that we have played and we want to dig into, which is also another Game Pass title. And that is Atomfall. Jake, how are we going to break this one down? We will be talking about Atomfall in our signature three categories. Narrative, Mechanics, and then Fine... Or narrative, excuse me. Narrative, Game Design, and then Impact on the Industry. If you are new to the Pre-Rot of Bonus Podcast, just so you know, when it comes to narrative,

[00:23:42] we stopped talking about the story about 20%, 30% in. So there'll be some light upfront story spoilers. But the majority of the game, we'll talk about sort of thematically and how the story is being told as opposed to delivering you all the like beat by beat plot events. And then, yeah, the second one is Game Design. So this is a survival game kind of at its core. And we'll be talking about how it does that, what the mechanics are.

[00:24:10] And I think here we'll talk about open world versus open hub versus like just level design as well. This is a huge component to this game and the crafting mechanics. And then finally, Impact on the Industry. With a game this new, we're going to be a little more speculative and kind of talk about what we think, where we think this game will sit in like the industry and in the industry's history, if people will remember it. And if so, how they will remember it.

[00:24:38] So that's how we're going to be talking about Atomfall in today's episode. So Atomfall is, takes place in a sort of what? 1950s, 1960s era, Northern Great Britain, England situation at the place at this like,

[00:25:02] they discover some mineral or something, some scientific discovery. They bring all these scientists and soldiers and then there's this crazy explosion. Bad things happen. Yes. And you basically start the game. You wake up. You don't know who you are or where you are or what you're doing. But some dude comes in.

[00:25:27] He's like, hey, I need you to go to this place and figure some stuff out. And you're like, okay, I guess I'll do it. Yeah. And that's pretty much for lack of being a descriptive. That's pretty much how the game starts. So it's kind of an amnesia situation, but with this sort of cool kind of unique setting. It made me think of. I'm trying to remember.

[00:25:56] I can't remember what I'll think. Oh. The British tone of it just made me think of like all the British TV shows I've watched like over the years. And because it's set in this like picturesque, like northern, you know, English countryside setting. But it's just this super weird. So I just I found the setting like very intriguing and very interesting. But anyway. Yeah. This this is a story that's interesting because.

[00:26:27] The game drip feeds you the narrative. There isn't any exposition or any like introduction. It just drops you into the middle of a situation and it kind of asks you to just figure it out. Yeah. And I think that lends lends itself to some cool, interesting discoveries. But and we'll talk more about this. But for me, story wise, I'll just start off by commenting. I think that was an interesting idea.

[00:26:54] But for me, I needed like a teeny bit more of a tug in the right direction because I found myself wandering aimlessly for like a couple hours. Nice. Until I really got a handle on, oh, this is what the game wants me to do. And this is how you progress to like the juicy meaty stuff that's in here, like from a story standpoint. Right. And so I needed the game to do a bit more to like pull me in the right direction. So anyway, that's my initial comment on the story.

[00:27:23] But Jake, what was what do you think about this? I would agree. I think the initial onboarding isn't super strong and the amnesiac sort of player character. This is something that I don't know. It doesn't feel new or fresh. However, see, the game is organized by like these different open hubs. In the first one, you essentially meet one NPC who will kind of tell you a little bit about what's going on.

[00:27:52] And then the rest of the NPCs in the area are hostile. Not all of them, but the majority of them, the vast majority of them. And so you don't get a whole lot of narrative clues. And I think the idea is that environmental storytelling was supposed to situate you a little more firmly in the game's world. And yeah, I think to mixed results. However, if you make it to the windfall, I think it's called location, that town. Yeah, it's like the first objective. Yeah.

[00:28:21] If you make it to windfall or if you make it into the interchange, which becomes a very crucial point for the rest of the game. Then you start getting a lot more narrative. I personally, if you're listening to this and you're kind of on the fence about atomfall and you want strong story, I'd almost say just beeline it to windfall. And then you're going to get a lot more straightforward storytelling about what's going on,

[00:28:49] how people are reacting to the different incidents that have taken place. Essentially, this is based off of a real nuclear problem. Or issue, event, what were tragedy in the UK, the wind scale fire. And so you just get more information from people about what they're doing. And you essentially have all these people who are stuck in quarantine. They're not allowed to leave because of this nuclear incident. Yeah.

[00:29:15] So I think narratively, the game gets very interesting. And just as a quick warning, this game has multiple endings. And you have several opportunities to kind of get to the point where you can choose which ending you want, but also that you can burn bridges. And so you will shut yourself off from multiple endings. Your decisions, I feel like, I know it's kind of a trident or like a tropic thing to say, but your decisions have weight and your decisions matter.

[00:29:43] And you need to ally yourself with certain people or not. And I don't know. I think it's awesome. I think that the narrative, the writing and the side quest too, they all felt good. They felt organic. But it takes a second to get to all that. But once I got to that stuff, I was hooked, man. And then narratively, I always tell myself this. I want to go back and get two or three more endings. I don't have the time. So I'll probably end up looking them up.

[00:30:13] But I'm deeply curious with the ending that I got what I missed out on. So I was hooked. But yeah, it took me a second to get there. Yeah. I think if I, and I didn't design this game and I have no skills or abilities or creativity. So just ignore what I'm saying.

[00:30:33] But what I would have done, I think, if I was creative, if I was like working on this game, is I probably would have shaved out. I probably would have started you in the interchange or really are much closer to it. You are ways from it. And then kind of have a Breath of the Wild moment where you come out. Even though it's a little, you know, it's a little reductive, right?

[00:31:03] Everybody kind of does Breath of the Wild moments, whatever. But who cares? It works. True. It does work. Yeah. So I probably would have started you much closer. Because what happened to me is I just went and I wandered around because I was like, oh, I'm going to go discover stuff and the world is going to react to me dynamically. But it doesn't do that. Right. Like, you have to pick up the threads in order for the world to react in a specific way. And so I went like through a camp of these cultists in the very, very beginning of the game.

[00:31:33] I went like all the way through this thing. Holy crap. I like ramboed my way through the entire thing. Like assassinated like 900 people. And there was like nothing at the end. There was no story. There was no clues. There was literally nothing. And so that left me like with a sour taste. So then I went back and then I went just beeline it to the main objective. And I was like, oh, okay. I get now where I'm supposed to go.

[00:31:58] But the game didn't react to me as dynamic as I would have liked because it gives you so it almost gave me too much freedom. Yeah. That's wild. Because I'm just thinking about Cameron's experience. I didn't know this before he shared it. And honestly, I think that was probably the worst way to start this game. But yeah. No. But you had that opportunity, right? Like. I was just. Yeah. I was just going places. I was like, oh, this looks cool. I'll just go here. You know. Like. Yeah.

[00:32:28] Because out of all the factions you meet in the game, the very first one in the first open hub section is the one with the least narrative meat by far. Like by far. And so it's interesting. And this kind of makes me wonder, right? Like was that first area really just designed to be mechanical exposition for you as a player to get used to how the game functions and its survival, you know, mechanics and systems?

[00:32:55] And that was more important than kind of getting you into some of this narrative. And, you know, this is just an open question. I don't have an answer for it. And I'm not expecting Cameron or anybody else to have an answer to it. But like it's super curious because I ended up avoiding most of the combat because I was afraid that I was going to get super annihilated. So I went around the edge of the first open area, found a few NPCs to talk to. And then they kind of pointed me towards, OK, go to the interchange or go to windfall.

[00:33:25] And I was like, OK, I'm going to go to interchange. And then that gives you the real like main game objective. And then I went to windfall and then which is a relatively peaceful hub area. And I talked to a million people and I figured out what the heck what was going on. And there I could kind of make some decisions about how I wanted to play the game and who I wanted to support in my playthrough. But yeah, that first hub, you don't have conversations with just about anybody.

[00:33:56] Yeah. So, I mean, look, I ended up getting to the first thing and then that was like, oh, I can see, OK, I can see kind of the progression and like the loop and like where I'm going and kind of there's there's stuff under everything. I was kind of it was reminding me of what's the game that came out last year? The Russian. It was like the futuristic 1950s sci fi Russian.

[00:34:26] Oh, Atomic Heart. Atomic Heart. Atomic Heart. It was giving me Atomic Heart vibes, but it's like way more open, way more open. Whereas Atomic Heart is like, you know, kind of a straight up kind of linear first person shooter situation. Yeah. But I but I almost was thinking about Atomic Heart. I was like, OK, at least in Atomic Heart, I kind of knew what direction I was going. But like, look, if you're not going to give the player and maybe this is getting into the

[00:34:55] design conversation, but like, Jake, I'll let you let's let you talk more. About any themes or any interesting story beats that you want to like call out, I guess, before we get into the just the overall design. Yeah, sure. A big one is it's just trust. Who do you trust? This isn't a secret and this is illustrated in trailers, but you get from these classic, you know, the classic red British telephone booths. You get these phone calls and you get this mysterious voice talks to you and says, this

[00:35:23] is what you need to do to escape this area, to escape the quarantine here. And then you meet other people. And so, yeah, it's trust. It's who do you want to trust and why? And what kind of who do you want to align yourself with? I think so. That's one of the main themes. Absolutely. I also think just like another one of the main themes is like accountability. Like if you screwed up, who are you accountable for?

[00:35:50] Do you just quarantine and shut everything off and then just keep people in there as victims so they don't spread to the outside world what actually happened in here? Um, there's also extremely, it's not even subtext on the nose, uh, anti authoritarian messaging in this game. I think probably one of the best things about this game in terms of writing is after this, like a nuclear event takes place at the wind scale plant, you get all these different factions

[00:36:19] that crop up and they felt like organic reactions to what happened. They each have their own distinct culture, um, and their own distinct belief systems and how everybody should react to what has happened, um, in this area. I want to say the area is called like Cumberland. Yeah. Cumberland. Um, and that Northern, Northern England. And honestly, that was probably the, my favorite part of the world building there is that, Hey, I mean, it was, to me, it was a Lord of the flies situation.

[00:36:48] Uh, suddenly everybody got screwed. And so how do they band together to try to survive and outlast the dangers that they're in? And I thought that that made for a really compelling story and you are just kind of this monkey wrench. And so people are either really afraid of you or they want to recruit you to their cause. Um, so that's what I found to be extremely compelling about the game was just like, okay, this is Lord of the flies. Who side am I going to join?

[00:37:18] And what are we going to do? Let me ask you this question. If you do the right direct, this is spoilers, spoilers, spoilers, spoilers. If you don't want to hear this, if you, if you don't want to hear this, skip ahead 20 seconds. If you go the right path, what happens when you go to the cultist camp? Is there like story elements there or do you just go kill everybody and get your thing that you're looking for? Let's see.

[00:37:44] Um, you know, I'm talking about like the cultist camp or the, in the castle. Yeah. Um, well, let's see. I actually, in my playthrough, I didn't have to interact with them very much. You didn't, you didn't even go there. I went there, but I didn't have to get anything. You just killed people. Well, I went there because there was a specific bunker that I needed to go to, not to their main encampment. Okay.

[00:38:13] So I was in my playthrough, I had to go to every single hub, but I didn't have to do a bunch of the objectives in those hubs because I had decided there was like two or three endings that I, you know, I met the key NPC or some sort of plot that happened that was like gearing me towards a specific ending. And so I kind of worked on these three until I just finally decided to pick one and I went for that ending.

[00:38:39] Um, and within those three, yeah, depending on which ending you're going for, it is going to drastically change. I feel like who you interact with and why and how you interact with them. Interesting. Well, I probably need to put a little bit extra time into it. I, but the reason I didn't is primarily because I found the combat in this game to be a bore. And you play this on what difficulty?

[00:39:09] Well, and I should point out, I love the way that this game does difficulty because it has three different difficulty bars. It's like combat puzzle and exploration maybe. Yeah. Yeah. It has some really good difficulty. No, I, so there's no dodge first off. Yeah. And you have a melee, but so basically the way they've designed combat is it's essentially kick and then hit. Yeah.

[00:39:38] So there's no jump and there's no dodge and there's no block. So it kind of goes like way north, which I, I, I, I understand like maybe wanting to maybe have a different feel in the combat, but it kind of just ends up feeling like a less good dodge. Right. Because it's essentially just, okay, I'm going to kick them to like stun them and then hit them. Right. That didn't feel great, but then I got guns, but in the game starts out making you feel

[00:40:07] like, oh, like you don't have much ammo. You really need to conserve. But then suddenly you become like commando, like Arnold Schwarzenegger and you're just stacked with MO and you're literally just, you're like doom guy in this world. Just one headshotting everything in sight and just killing everybody. And then at that point it was like, oh, okay. Like I can basically just dominate everybody in this world. And I'm sure there's ways to manipulate the difficulties that people take more shots that they can or whatever.

[00:40:36] But yeah, I just found it kind of boring. And like I, when I was coming out of that main hub area where you go as like your first objective, if you remember, there's a whole bunch of guys who come out to me and I just happened to have like a Molotov and I just brutally murdered all of them in like five seconds. Yeah. Like, so it wasn't really even a fun fight. It was kind of just like, oh, there's like 20 guys here. You're like, oh, is there tension? It's like, no, not really.

[00:41:05] Just threw the grenade and like headshot at everybody. So yeah, I wanted more from the combat. And I realized, you know, not every game has to be like a combat thing. I think for me though, that's an important element. I need some kind of hook of like your core mechanic. Right. And if you're going to make combat a huge part of the game, like I wanted a little bit more from it. I can understand that.

[00:41:30] I had, so when you select your difficulty, right, you were forced to pick these three different sliders. You can't just pick easy, normal, hard, very hard, whatever it is. You choose where you want those things to be. I had combat on the second highest difficulty. And I, I agreed that my experience was pretty much the same early on when you are low on resources, you don't have crafting recipes and you're kind of stuck with just melee attacks.

[00:41:57] It is freaking tough because these, these folks have pretty good aim. All you know what I mean? They will hit you. And if you get hit with a few rifle shots, like you're done. But to be very clear, dude, the rifle and the pistol in this game, dude, we're talking Halo one pistol. Like you can snipe dudes from far away and you can just absolutely. Yeah.

[00:42:22] And if they don't have a helmet on, like it's a headshot and it's two max to take down a bunch of these guys with the pistol. And then you have the rifle and then you are just unstoppable and you can unlock some crazy powerful guns later in this game. And so the power scaling, yeah. For a survival game, I feel like the power scaling was very much in the player's favor. I was reading that the developers, they designed it specifically so that everybody dies easily,

[00:42:51] including the player, which I found to be true. Like if you're, if you Rambo without the element of surprise, like you just walk in and everybody's alerted, you'll, you're probably going to get gunned down and killed. But most scenarios, it's like you huck a few grenades, they're well placed. You cause a lot of confusion, you kill a lot of dudes, and then you enter in and you unleash your rifle or whatever it is on, on everybody. Then they really don't stand a chance because they're too much in a frenzy kind of to, to

[00:43:20] react and deal with you. And so, yeah, combat at some point just became a little, um, more simple. There are, there is an enemy type. Most of the enemy types are human. There is one enemy type that is not. And those guys, it felt like that was the biggest challenge. Um, those guys were the biggest challenge. And then there are, uh, I don't think it's spoiling, so I'm going to say it, but just the robot enemies.

[00:43:48] And, uh, I'm going to say something controversial. Let's hear it. I think this is why I like turn-based combat. Oh. Because no matter what, it causes you to have to force some kind of, some kind of strategy in how you approach combat if you make it turn-based. It's like kind of an easy move, right? Because it just becomes rock, paper, scissors at that point. I see what you mean.

[00:44:18] And even if it's the simplest form of rock, paper, scissors, that's a slightly more interesting than just point, gun, shoot, guy, die. Right. Right? So, not saying that, that every game should be turned-based. And I like action-based combat as well. I'm just saying, like, at a certain point, all good combat distills down to a little bit of rock, paper, scissors, or in the case of Dark Souls, like pattern recognition. Right.

[00:44:43] Like memorizing patterns and adapting to, you know, like really lagged sword swipes. Elden Ring. The 15-minute wind-up for like a triple slash or whatever. The 15-minute wind-up just to freak the player out who's like spamming the dog button. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think it's interesting, like, how different games approach it.

[00:45:11] I think this game, I think this game would have been elevated to another level if they had done something just like, I don't know, even just like a slightly bit more interesting with the combat, right? Like, it could be, and this is where I'm going to go, armchair game dev. All right. For a second. Like, it could be as easy as like, oh, when you're fighting outlaws, like, they're more susceptible to melee or something. Right.

[00:45:41] You know what I mean? Like, something along those lines, just to give me like some kind of like, oh, okay, I'm fighting melee guys. I need to switch it up. It's not very effective to use pistols on these guys because they have a certain type of armor. Just something, right, to give the player something. And that's kind of what I wanted. And I think because this game is, I think people compared it to Fallout. Fallout already has sort of RPG and stats and a little bit of mini turn-based stuff going on at all given times.

[00:46:09] And so that's built into the combat, even though it is action-based. This kind of didn't have that. It was like super, super, super light mode first-person shooter. Yeah. But again, that's not really why you're here to play the game. But then that makes me feel like combat is just in the way of the meat, which is the discovery and the understanding that you're building in this world. Yeah. So I wonder if for you, it just would have been more fun to put the combat on easy.

[00:46:38] If the combat's not a challenge, just remove the combat and let it be more exploration-focused. Yeah. And maybe I should have just put it way down and just kind of rushed through so I could get to the juicy story bits, which is probably what I should have done. At that point, it kind of becomes a walking simulator. But that brings us to that other question, Jacob. Do games need combat at all? When do you have combat in your game and when do you don't? Right? Right. When do you make that up?

[00:47:09] Yeah. And that's a tough question that maybe we save for special topics because we could say a lot there. But what I want to say about game design here, I have a few other things to praise about this. One is, dude, smaller, denser worlds. Please, please let us live in a golden age of games like this. Yes. I 100% agree with you on that.

[00:47:35] This game has, like, of all the negative things I've been saying, that is so good. It's got, like, what, four or five open hub areas. You are easily finding little nooks and crannies to explore, to get new crafting items, to get crafting recipes, to figure stuff out, get more little notepads that you can read about what people have been doing in this area. Yeah. And yeah, I'm a huge fan of this. Like, it doesn't take you that long to cross from one area to another.

[00:48:05] And there's a billion different shortcuts between the hubs so that you can pretty much get anywhere that you want to as soon as you discover it. Like, I'm a huge fan of this world design. I think it's done exceptionally well. Between those that have vowed, we're just, we're living in a dream world of small, denser worlds. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm here for it. Like, give us more games like this. And honestly, I feel like this is kind of the direction that Xbox is heading in right now. It's like, hey, let's focus on campaigns that are between 10 and 20 hours. Right?

[00:48:36] Yeah. They're trying to attack this budget problem, you know, any way that they can. If this is a solution to the budget problem, then I am all for it. Right? Yeah. Give me these dense worlds that are compact. So, I'm a huge fan of that. Something that I was kind of torn on was the barter system. So, you have a pretty... Oh, yeah. That was... You have a limited... You have like 12 inventory spaces.

[00:49:02] Now, just to make this clear, a bunch of your crafting materials, you have unlimited space for. So, for example, glass or metal. Like, you could carry up to, I'm sure, 999 of each of those categories. And there's like seven of those, right? But in terms of like crafted items, you have 12 inventory spaces. So, that's going to be your bandages, your like resistance to poison, resistance to radioactivity, all of your grenades.

[00:49:28] And then you have four weapon slots, which can be melee or weapon or like firearms. And then you can pick up three... I think it's only three tools. And so, like the tools and like the weapons are their own. The inventory is its own. And then the crafting items are their own. I think like in theory, I get why everything was so categorized, right?

[00:49:58] But when it came to bartering, I felt like I had like no bartering power for the stuff that the vendors were selling that were like really good. So, like vendors would sell like crafting recipes and you're like, dude, I need that. And there's no money in this game. And so, it's either your weapons or your crafted items that you are... Or your bullets, right? That you are bartering to get some of these items.

[00:50:23] And dude, these NPCs strike a freaking hard bargain. Now, some NPCs, they're like more interested in specific types of items and it's kind of on you to figure that out. But even then, I was like, dude, you want me to trade you like seven first aid kits for the crafting recipe for nail grenades or something? And that you're wiping out like my entire inventory for this one thing. And so, I don't know, man. You just constantly get screwed.

[00:50:53] I think that the inventory system, and you can hear me hesitating, but I think the inventory system itself was actually fine. Like 12 inventory slots was okay because you weren't like bullets and crafting materials didn't count towards that. But dude, your inventory would just get wiped clean with this bartering system. So, I'm mixed on it. Like, I think overall, I didn't have any serious problems.

[00:51:18] But a part of me was like, dude, I would load up on a ton of items and then dump a ton of items. I don't know. What did you think about that? Yeah. I mean, yeah. I always get annoyed when I can't carry the items that I want. That always annoyed me.

[00:51:45] I just feel like, I don't usually understand why, like, what's the point of the give and take of the inventory system other than to like annoy the player. Like, I get that there's an idea of like choice and decision, but I'll give you an example of a game that has more choice and decision than any game imaginable in terms of like what you carry and what you have. And that's Boulder's Gate 3. I knew it.

[00:52:12] And Boulder's Gate 3 gives you just insane inventory. Like, it doesn't even matter. Yeah. It literally, you don't even ever think about it. It's never annoying because there is a limit because, but it's so high. And the reason there's a limit is because they don't want you to path like 900 fire barrels in your person, which you totally can actually manipulate the game to do in certain ways. But I just, I never like it. Just give me as much inventory space as I want.

[00:52:42] Yeah. I don't. And I realized this game had an economy around that. So it was like, if you could carry everything, then it would have imbalanced the economy. But I feel like there's other ways to approach it. I don't know. I always think that this is so tricky when it comes to these survival games. Right? Because the idea is like resource management must be like a key factor. You have to Tetris your inventory or whatever it is. Yeah. I don't know. So I'm super mixed on it.

[00:53:12] I feel like the Resident Evil games seem to do it incredibly well. At least RE4 remake and RE2 remake. I loved how they kind of had that resource management, like scarcity in there. I think it worked fine in Atomfall. But like, yeah, I don't know. Sometimes it just felt like it was never always balanced. Sometimes it was incredibly in my favor. And sometimes it just very much wasn't in my favor.

[00:53:42] I never felt like there was a good balance between scarcity and like having bounty, I guess. So yeah. And then let's see. Other things about like game and level design. This is one of those games that this is might be kind of silly. There's a lot of notes and pieces of paper that you need to read. I thought that they were organized fairly well. And I actually was compelled to read a bunch of stuff that was happening in here because it was like easy access.

[00:54:11] And they're all short entries. Nothing will kill my interest faster than like, OK, here's a book. It's 12 pages. I don't know. And I don't know. Read it if you want more information. Just give me three paragraphs. Like that's kind of where my attention span is at. And I think Atomfall did that really well. But yeah, lots of secrets, lots of shortcuts, lots of nook and crannies. This dense world, I think, is probably the highlight for me of this game.

[00:54:42] Let's talk about the impact on the industry. I think this leads, this lends to our conversation on small, dense worlds. Jake, are AA games making a comeback? Or have they always been here? Why don't I feel like there's just a higher frequency of like higher budgeted, more polished,

[00:55:07] AA games that don't fit that huge, massive $100 million mark, but still offer like a condensed, you know, AAA-ish type experience? It's the, you know what I'm saying? Like, is this a real thing or am I, is this an illusion? Am I imagining that? I feel like, again, I mean, I agree. I think it's kind of anecdotal. But I do feel like I'm seeing a lot more of them.

[00:55:35] I personally believe that Xbox is really pushing this ground. Which is kind of interesting because I feel like Xbox for quite a while now has done pretty well when it comes to indies and like smaller budget games. But I feel like they've kind of just embraced that this is their bread and butter. And these are the kind of games that they want on Game Pass so that they can have this constant flux of new games, making that subscription service like a little more worthwhile or just

[00:56:05] to give it that much more value. But I don't know. I mean, I think we're, I hope we're entering kind of this golden era of smaller AAA, you know, size games like Flintlock Siege of Dawn, I think was a really good one. That was a shorter game. It played really well. It had a specific goal and then accomplished it really well. Adamfall absolutely falls into that.

[00:56:30] Like I think Avowed is clearly like a AAA game, but it feels just a little more compact a little more dense. And so I think you're right. And this is one potential solution to the AAA like overblown budget problem that a lot of studios and companies are facing right now. Um, but I, I largely believe that this is an Xbox thing because Nintendo doesn't care.

[00:56:55] Nintendo can weather storms and they have enough goodwill and enough money to do things like give tears of the kingdom and extra years worth of polish. Right. Um, when it comes to like third party studios, we've had this conversation before, but I think Western third party AAA studios are really struggling right now. Um, I can't really think of AAA games that are coming out from that space or excuse me. I can't think of AA games that are coming from that space.

[00:57:24] Maybe Prince of Persia, right from Ubisoft. Yeah. I think that probably counts. Um, and then from Sony, I don't know, man. I think they're just kind of a AAA machine at this point. They're just AAA. Yeah. There's no. Yeah. So I want to agree, but I think it's really only coming from Xbox. Yeah. It's interesting. I think Xbox is embracing like they obviously they're partnering with third parties that

[00:57:54] are making double A style games. Yeah. They're also producing them in house. It's interesting. Do you think outer worlds too, because of the attention they're putting on it? Is this a beefier thing? Do you think then like a vowed or outer worlds one? Is this like a triple a RPG situation or, or, or is it just, that's the game they want to put headlights on? I think that's an excellent question. I'm trying to think of, cause it's a June showcase thing, you know?

[00:58:22] So it seems like, you know what I mean? I think there's a, probably a few factors. And of course this is all speculation. Hey, we're impacting the industry. This tends to be a little more speculative anyway. Right. I kind of think that, um, there was a, a golden, sorry, I keep using the phrase golden age, but there was a golden age of Xbox acquisitions. And it was before the Activision Blizzard acquisition.

[00:58:52] It was a Zenimax. It was Obsidian. Um, it was those games. And I think we're seeing the projects that were green light, like they were green lit in the early Xbox pass era come to fruition now. And one of those studios is Obsidian. I think Obsidian is just on fire, man, between pentiment grounded and avowed. Um, I kind of wonder if they're pushing outer worlds too. Cause they're like, this studio is on fire right now.

[00:59:19] The studio is doing very good things for the Xbox name. Let's get them front and center. I just assume they have a ton of confidence in that studio and in that game. And that's why they're making it a big show piece. Um, I don't know what else. I'm curious what the, I'm curious what the numbers are, you know, they never, they don't share that stuff, man. I would love to know. I'm curious the players of these Obsidian games.

[00:59:43] Cause I just, yeah, they're just super solid, just fun offerings and they, they're just well done. I, I really want to know the numbers for avowed, man. That's one that I would love to know. Yeah. Super interesting. Super interesting. Yeah. And so they, yeah. But what else does Xbox have coming in the fall? I, I was like racking my unannounced stuff, right? Not announced yet. Yeah. That's going to all be announced in June.

[01:00:14] So as much as, so I, if, if, if outer worlds two, and this is talking a little bit Xbox strategy, but we'll circle it back to, to Adam fall. But if outer worlds two is coming is the main focus, then we assume that that is the big fall game. There might be another one. We know fables pushed to 2026. I think to no one's surprise.

[01:00:39] There's, there's definitely going to be at least a couple of things coming in fall and probably one more thing in the summer. Uh, that they'll announce in June. I want to see more about clockwork revolution, dude, that one. That's my, that's clockwork revolution. Maybe my most, one of my most anticipated games. Cause I, I'm, I love wasteland three.

[01:01:07] I'm a huge fan of wasteland three. Speaking of CRPGs, if you're a CRPG fan, or if you played like BG three and you want some more CRPG wasteland three is better than fallout. Whoa, whoa. And if you like the fallout vibes, wasteland three all the way. Yeah. Nice. Anyways. Um, Adam fall. Yeah.

[01:01:34] I think this is a fantastic, this is a fantastic gift for game pass. It's a great like double a situation that presented super, super well. This is a sweet spot for like a game pass type service. Now an Adam fall on its own without the power of Microsoft publishing marketing budget, I think dies in the water. Sad. Yeah. And I think that's the sad reality of the games industry that we live in.

[01:02:02] Unless you make a hotness like Bellatro that just goes insanely viral. The world that we live in is a game like Adam fall as cool as it is and as cool things as it does without the power of like Xbox publishing and something like a game pass from a marketing standpoint. I just, man, it's just, that's a tough, that's a tough, tough, tough battle to win. That is just so tough.

[01:02:27] And it doesn't, it doesn't look cheap, you know, like Adam fall doesn't look, it's like it looks expensive. Yeah. Like it looks, it's a good looking game, man. So I don't think this is one, this wasn't some like little indie projects. You know what I mean? Like this is a kind of a meaty situation here. So I, I agree. I think that rebellion that made it has been around for a long time and they do what, what's this series that they're known for currently?

[01:02:57] Uh, sniper elite. Sniper elite. So sniper elite has kind of been the thing that they've been doing for the past few years. And so I, I hope, right. My hope is that this is a studio that has kind of developed good workflows and how they make games and how they put these games out. Um, but yeah, it's interesting. This is just such a tough space.

[01:03:22] I think right now with how expensive games are, but also how much money gets spent on marketing for games that being able to partner with somebody who's going to help with that marketing like Xbox, when they're showing off what's coming to game pass. Um, I don't know if that's, you know, dollars and cents saved necessarily, but that's gotta be helpful to have somebody else is kind of taking charge of marketing. Um, yeah, but yeah, I don't know. It's a good game. It did have a $50 price point.

[01:03:51] I think that does work in its favor. Um, I think now, now going forward when we're seeing switch games getting more expensive, I think if these double A's can hold onto a 40 or $50 retail price, uh, that's going to help, right? Like imagine, uh, Adam fall sells for 50 bucks. Whereas, you know, GTA six sells for a hundred bucks, you know, it's, it's, if you're, if you're

[01:04:19] tight on your budget, yeah, everybody and their mom, I get it. You're buying and you're playing GTA six, but if it's not GTA, I don't know, pick some other game that's retailing for 70 or 80 bucks, you know, in the near future. And then you have a double A that looks good and it's 40 or 50 bucks. Microsoft. I think I'm curious to, I would be curious to know what the numbers are looking like.

[01:04:44] Not that they've shifted to this new strategy of every platform plus game pass, Xbox first, everything's an Xbox, but you could still play it on our Xbox consoles and we're still going to make those, but you can also kind of play everywhere else. You can buy it on steam. That's on game pass. You know what I mean? Like that seems like in 2025, a winning strategy, like Indiana Jones is coming to PlayStation.

[01:05:13] It's getting like a play it's getting, it's out today. Actually, I think on PlayStation, it's getting, it's getting pisser upgrades for the PlayStation five pro. You know what that is, right? Um, I think I can, uh, into it what it means. It's the, it's the AI, it's the AI upscaling, the custom AI. Oh, it's like Sony's AI upscaling technology, but the acronym is PSSR. Oh, perfect. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:05:41] Anyway, super sampling resolution. Anyway, they didn't have somebody check that one, huh? It's a winning strategy. It's a winning strategy, I think, but you know, who knows? Um, but yeah, I love, I love these games like Adam fall that come to the service and I can hop in and play South of midnight. Another one. Great example. And you know what? Not all of them hit for me. Honestly, this one didn't hit for me on all cylinders and South of midnight didn't necessarily

[01:06:09] hit for me on all cylinders, but I really liked about it. It was, it's super fun and I'm really enjoying it. And so I, if they can continue to come out with games like Avowed and find a place for those games, I say, you know, I know that people are critical of having consolidation in the industry for these big companies, but if that can be a place where games like

[01:06:32] this can thrive, I think that's, that's the only safe space that's kind of left, you know, unless you want to make another, you know, a way smaller budget game or, uh, a, some, some sort of multiplayer shooter and hope it goes viral. Yeah. Oof. And that last one is such a, such a risk. I don't know.

[01:06:57] I just kind of feel like this could work $40, $50 double A games, you know, in a market where game costs and the price of games is rising. Um, I just kind of hope that players, when they see a 40 or $50 price tag, they know that they're getting a smaller experience or that they probably will be getting a smaller experience. Something that I see that is kind of outrageous. So I've been playing the, um, the indie game.

[01:07:26] It was five bucks. It's called the Rangers in the South. It's basically a bite-sized Diablo game and, um, it's great. It's a ton of fun. I was looking at the reviews on steam and it's got like mixed reviews and a bunch of the negative reviews are like, this game isn't long enough. It's a really great game. It's a ton of fun. It has great systems, but it needs to be beefier. Negative review. And I'm like, dude, it's $5. Right.

[01:07:54] Like in a bunch of negative reviews on an indie game on steam is devastating. Right. This is why indies is, I mean, all games, right? I'm just, this is an indie game. So that's why this comes to mind. But dude, you're pushing for that overwhelmingly positive. This is why I think that I think that GTA six actually might damage the industry more than save it. If it's a hundred bucks or how so?

[01:08:20] No, because I think what I think is going to happen with GTA six is it's going to grow the industry, but it's not going to lift all boats. If that makes sense. It will lift all boats. If you are a, if you make consoles and you sell it on your platform, that's going to be great for you. So Microsoft PlayStation, et cetera.

[01:08:51] But in the long run, because it's a game that gets made once every 10 years and it's like a one time $100 game. And it's the type of game that pretty much almost everybody who plays video games will end up buying it or playing it in some shape or form. It's going to create this generation. So the, the, the, the conversation around GTA six is that this is going to be the game that

[01:09:20] gets the fortnight kids to go pay full price for a premium game. Right. That's the hope and kind of maybe not. That's like the hope and what, right. And so then that price, that, uh, anchor, that price angers price anchors, the young kids that they're back in, like they're back in the industry. We get them off the, uh, proverbial, um, you know, we get them out of their mother's womb

[01:09:46] of fortnight where they've been comfortably playing for free for years and spending their little battle pass bucks. And we get them to pay a whopping 80, 90 bucks for a full price game. And then that means that they're going to buy full price games forever. Well, the problem is, is I think they're going to pay full price. They're going to pay if GTA is not a hundred dollars and it's 70 or 80, then the expectation is that every $80 game is another GTA. Ooh, I see where you're going.

[01:10:15] And so now you putting the rest of the industry in a place where it's like, okay, if GTA six is a just, just a quote unquote full price game and it doesn't come in at like a hundred dollar price point, just entry point. Then every other game now is going to be valued lower by the masses, which are the masses that you need to make lots of money on your video.

[01:10:40] And so I think that's probably a destination we're heading for. Although I would not be surprised in the slightest if GTA six retails at 90 bucks. Right. And then we avoid that problem. You think people are like, okay, 90, I think it helps. I think it helps because it sets a premium. So then you get to play with pricing a lot more, right? So if GTA six, GTA six sets the standard, GTA six sets their price at 90 bucks, which I

[01:11:07] think that they'll probably do if they're smart, then that's a super high price, but who cares because everyone's going to buy a GTA six. Yeah. Like they just are. But then you've got room now if your PlayStation or your Xbox, cause then it's like, Oh, Fable Fable could be 80 bucks, but then it's like, Oh, it's $10 cheaper than GTA six. Well, that makes sense because it's got, you know what I mean? Yeah. Or if it's 70 bucks, quote unquote full price. Oh wow. It's $20 cheaper than GTA six.

[01:11:37] But then you have room, right? Cause then you can come out with, you know, maybe you make that mega game, but then you get to charge a hundred dollars for it or 90 bucks for it. Skull and bones too. Skull and bones too. The quadruple A, it'll cost $500. Sorry. Sorry. Getting too in the weeds on the business side, but I think you guys get it. Yeah. So I'm bringing this back to Adam fall. I think my final thoughts here, I know I've already said it several times, but I think $50 is a great price point.

[01:12:07] And I, and I really want double A's to have this kind of success. Smaller, very polished, dense, very clear, achievable goals and what their game is. And to me, that is a big win. Now who buys those games? That's my question. And I don't have an answer for that. Is there a demographic of gamers that's on the lookout for $40, $50 double A games?

[01:12:33] Um, I think what you see in new cycles tends to skew to the extremes in that like, uh, indie unicorn viral hit, Bellatro, vampire survivors, Stardew Valley, or massive triple A smash hit monster hunter wilds. Um, I just wonder who's talking about the double A games and who's looking for those games. Um, they're great. I'm super glad they exist.

[01:13:02] Dude, I, I beat Adam fall, I think in 11 hours. Um, that's just one ending money dude. And it was golden. I loved it, man. That's golden. That's golden. That's what I want. Right. And I think South of midnight is going to turn into something similar and I'm super grateful for that. But am I an outlier more than I am the norm? Probably. Cause we're old geezers. With that, ladies and gentlemen, let's spend our episode on Adam fall. Uh, yeah.

[01:13:33] It's on game pass. Check it out. Cool game. Interesting concepts. Um, yeah. If you enjoyed the show, please leave a review on your podcast platform of choice. Helps people find our podcast. We need more people to listen to our podcast. We need it. Please, please. We promise we won't put random car dealership ads into our show. So we promise they're giving us a switch to for free. Yeah.

[01:14:01] I mean, they might, you know, we could, we, everyone has their price. We could swing it if you could give us switch to, or you know what? I'd even take like game pass for life. You know what I mean? Like what's uncle Phil, if you're listening, we've got a deal for you, man. We review a lot of game pass games. So I'm just throwing that out there. All right. So whoever, whoever has the power, whoever works at mic at Microsoft, who happens to listen to this, just let us know. Hit us up in the DMs. You can also support us directly on patreon.com slash period of guys.

[01:14:31] You can sign up at whatever level you wish to get the content that you want. Extended editions, special topics, episodes, Jake's indie impressions. And we're putting a lot of work in that Patreon for you guys to give you extra value there. And then you could support us and help us buy more video games so we can play more stuff. If there's a game that you want us to play, you can also hit us up. Join us in the discord link to that's in the description. You can come chat with us in the discord. You can say, Hey guys, play this game and do an episode on it.

[01:15:00] And there's a 99% likelihood that we will do that. Yep. Even if we have to hate play. So just let us know. We thank you so much for listening. Have a great night.