Our Most Anticipated Games for 2025

[00:00:10] Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of 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 January 9th, 2025. We're back to talk about video games. Last week, we gave you our predictions for 2025. None of them have come true so far, but it's only been a week. There's still time. We've still got 50 weeks in the year.

[00:00:37] We've still got 50 weeks left. It's only a matter of time. I feel like this is the year of dreams, Jake. I think this is the year of video game dreams coming true. Okay, you're not talking about that PS4 thing where people made their own games in it? No, no, no, no. Dreams makes a comeback, everybody. Dreams re-releases. No, no, no. I think this is the year that a lot of dreams come true for a lot of people, I think. How?

[00:01:05] Half-Life 3 and all that type of thing. I was just going to ask what level of dream. I was trying to come up with tiers, like Half-Life 3, Bloodborne Remaster, Bloodborne on PC. I mean, I think those are the, like, yeah, Half-Life 3, Bloodborne Remaster, like that type of thing. The type of thing that people have been talking about for a long time, it finally happens, right? Right, you know? Okay. I like this. I love this optimism going into the year.

[00:01:31] 2025, man. This is the year of optimism. We're just going to keep it. You know, you manifest destiny. You tell the universe what you want and it listens. You know what I mean? So you just got to tell it. You just tell it hard and then it'll happen. Universe, let me win the lottery. I'll buy a ticket tomorrow. I mean, you got to manifest dust. You got to start buying lottery tickets. That's probably not a good idea.

[00:02:00] My wife would be thrilled. Honey, I bought 10 of these today. She'd be very thrilled. Well, 2025, Jake, what are you starting off the year playing right now? We're going to get back to our regular cadence soon. We got another one-off topic, as most of you know if you listen to the show. We do these first couple episodes of the year to do some fun looking forward into 2025. But we have started playing some games. Jake, what are you playing?

[00:02:27] I'm still plugging along in Metaphor ReFantasio. Nice. I'm still enjoying it quite a lot. Let's see. I don't think I've even hit halfway, though, man. I'm like 30 hours into it. Hey, it's still like a quarter as short as Persona 5.

[00:02:48] Yeah, the more I play Metaphor and the more I read about other Persona games, the more I'm convinced that I'm actually not going to play a Persona game after beating Metaphor. The quality of life changes and stuff, I just cannot. Don't do it. I can't let those go. So Metaphor's been on there. I actually started Conscript, which you played a bunch of. Oh, nice. Yes. I still need to finish that.

[00:03:16] I'm like, I think three quarters or halfway-ish through. Nice. I'm going slowly in that one. Man, a few people in their Discord, but Slugcat Stew, I think, primarily is the one who's talking about it. So quick shout out to you. Yeah, you put me onto it. He put me onto it as well. And that was great. It's great. I can't believe more people didn't talk about it this year. It's really fantastic. It is. It's wild.

[00:03:39] And so for folks who don't know about this game, it's like classic Resident Evil style, like old school Resident Evil style survival horror. The big twist is that this is taking place in the French trenches during World War I. And as far as I know, I'm not very far into it.

[00:03:59] There aren't really supernatural elements, but the game is in some ways even more horrifying and scarier because you're dealing with just humanity at its lowest and at its ugliest. Like, you know, World War I is notorious for being just like this brutal, ugly, terrible war. And I feel like the horror just really comes from the fact that you're in war. It's got it gives me a specific type of heebie-jeebie.

[00:04:29] I can't really name it, but it's not like traditional. I'm scared that this is happening, but it's like this type of maybe dread. I don't know. You know what I'm talking about, though? It's different. Oh, yeah, absolutely. It nails the atmosphere and the dread.

[00:04:54] Obviously, Jake nor I have never experienced war and probably never will. But they do something right with just that feeling. Probably better than most games I've ever played just to make you feel like the hopelessness and the dread that accompanies that, you know, war and the violence of it and the desperation of it. It's crazy. It's really weird. It feels like I'm trying to see. Maybe this is the right word for it.

[00:05:23] It's like an entirely like loveless scenario and that there's it's hopeless entirely and there's not a shred of light. So it is dark, but it is very well done. And World War Two also notorious for being like having a huge number of like pointless battles. Oh, yeah. Where it's just constantly taking and retaking territory. So tons of people just dying for no reason. And yeah, yeah.

[00:05:52] Senseless violence. Just awful. And then lastly, I want to point out and this is a great game. It's a great amazing game. We made that sound like the worst game ever created. It's fun. It's good. No, it's fun. Yeah, it's. Yeah, I am going to finish it out of duty, though, because I don't think anyway, check out the game. If I don't know if our sales pitch is helping, but yeah, but the last thing I want to bring up and this is a little bit of a pitch.

[00:06:22] A lot of my time has changed quite drastically at work. I'm doing a lot of stuff online for classes and not in person teaching. So I'm streaming a lot more on Twitch and the game I've been playing a lot of right now is Tactical Breach Wizards. Yeah. Which it has been so much fun. Cameron told me time and time again, I finally am playing it.

[00:06:46] But great writing, great story, like great abilities with the different characters that you use. It's a tactics like grid based tactics game. It is a big it is a ton of fun. I just hit, I think, a major skill check and I'm kind of like, oh boy. Can I do it? But I think I can. That's one that I want to get back to. I was telling you this last night.

[00:07:12] I feel like I just need someone to sit next to me and tell me exactly what to do for like five hours and then I'll be back in because I got through a huge amount of it and was really interested in like the story and what's going to happen and all the stuff they were doing. And then I just hit a wall in the game, just in the gameplay. And I just man, I just fell off a cliff and I just bounced off. It's so freaking hard. So it's going to take someone holding my hand to get back into it. But I'd like to. It's gotten really tough.

[00:07:41] And so my goal today was to finish act three while streaming and I barely made progress in act three. Like. Oh boy. Yeah. Some of those scenarios get absolutely wild. It takes big brain, you know, 3D chess people maybe to get to like fly through that game. So anyway, I've been playing that. It's been a ton of fun. I'm really curious to see how that story goes and how it ends. So I'm definitely going to finish playing that one and that one I'll be playing on stream.

[00:08:11] Very nice. Well, I've been to this last week, but I've just continued playing Kingdom Come Deliverance, which I find myself like more and more into. That's a great game, man. It's that is. If you're somebody who's never played Kingdom Come Deliverance and you're a big like Skyrim fan. And in addition to that, if you enjoy medieval stuff.

[00:08:38] This game like knocks out of the park on that. And when I first played this, like I mentioned this in the last episode, but again, when you first start it, it has a really, I don't want to say like poor start, but it doesn't feel great. But and it kind of does that on purpose. And so you just got to play through that. And then it all comes together and it starts to gel. And you're like, OK, I see this game for what it is.

[00:09:05] And in fact, so much so that I pre-ordered Kingdom Come Deliverance to pre-order the sea, which I rarely pre-order games. And I don't even know why I pre-ordered it, but I was like, I pre-ordered it. The previews are out or excuse me. The review copies are already out for. Yeah. Yeah. And I just I like to I like this first one so much. I'm like, man, I'm really excited for what the possibilities are now.

[00:09:33] Now, six years later for what they could do like this type of game. So the Kingdom Come Deliverance have DLC. Yeah. Yeah. So I got the I got the copy that has like six different DLC packs. Some of them are like missions. They're not. It's not like a major DLC thing. I think it's mostly like a mission pack and then like a scenario. OK, but yeah, it's it is hugely surprised me.

[00:10:01] Like my biggest surprise of. Of 2024 and for this year, for that matter, and it's like leading me right into Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, which if you've seen the trailers for that looks fantastic. Oh, yeah. Not only visually, but just like I think they've made a lot of upgrades to the gameplay. It looks like. And they seem really confident as well, because they've got that game out there and reviewers hands like a month before release, which is always nice to hear. You love to hear that.

[00:10:31] You love to hear that kind of confidence behind the game coming. Yeah. Very cool. So that's funny. So that's gotten you excited for Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. And then actually playing Tactical Breach Wizards has got me excited for a game that I think, Cameron, you're also looking forward to. But it's another tactics game, which is typically not my jam, but I'm really feeling it right now. The Stone of Madness. Yes. That comes out. Stone of Madness. Tactical stealth game comes out.

[00:11:01] What? Next week? It comes out. No, we got a few weeks. I just double checked. It comes out the 27th or 28th. Oh, end of the month. OK. End of the month. That comes out. That one, it's made by the Game Kitchen. So these are the people who made Blasphemous 1 and 2. Yes. So honestly, the setting for that one has got me really excited. Super intrigued by the setting. Yeah. The Game Kitchen is from Spain.

[00:11:26] And for longtime listeners, you know I'm a professor of Latin American literature and studies in particular. However, you can't really study Latin America without studying something about Spain. There's this thing called colonization that took place. That's another podcast, though, that we could talk about. But anyway, a lot of the stuff that is being shown.

[00:11:48] I mean, the Game Kitchen does just a masterful craft of kind of showing off Spanish history. And I think Spanish perspectives towards Christianity and towards just there's a lot of creativity and fantasy that's kind of interwoven in there. But it's fantastic. And they're just doing I think it's like what? 18th century monastery prison break is the pitch. Yes. Yeah. Dude, it's such a cool premise. And did we talk about this at some point?

[00:12:20] That Blasphemous and then I'm going to actually I'm going to call we're going to label this. Right. It's like Christian mythology. Oh, what's the word for it? Right. Because it's like. Blasphemous wanted to are all about like creepy, scary, Catholic centered stuff.

[00:12:45] And then this game is like also involving like priests and like nuns and it's like creepy and you're in a like mental hospital. And then I think we talked about that. We watched a conclave. Yeah. Which is like the like Pope thriller thing, which sounds boring on its face, but it's actually like really well done. Yeah. It's like a whole genre. And Indiana Jones has like biblical. You know, Catholic mythology and like ancient.

[00:13:14] Anyway, it's a whole thing. It is a whole thing. And I think Christian mythology is the right way to describe it. Is that what it is? Okay. I would use that. Let's see. Quickly here. The pitch for the stone of madness is this. The stone of madness is a real time tactical stealth game set in an 18th century Spanish monastery located in the Pyrenees. This time worn Jesuit monastery is home to a madhouse and an inquisitorial prison.

[00:13:37] Five prisoners plagued by cruel punishment, madness and despair pool their skills and resources to face their phobias, stave off insanity, uncover the mysteries of the monastery and find a way to escape. Jake, this could actually be an interesting. I think it's a topic for an episode because Dark Souls has a lot of this as well. Giant cathedrals, huge churches with like huge scary bosses that are in there for some unknown reason. Yeah.

[00:14:03] It just like it definitely has a little bit of that like weird Christian Christianity, like Christian echoing mythology type stuff, which is which is pretty interesting. Yeah. I really like, I don't know if you did this, how intentional it was, but Christian echoing mythology, I think really does describe stuff that you're seeing in the Dark Souls series. There's stuff that's borrowed from Christianity, but I think it feels more fictional than something like blasphemous or I'm assuming.

[00:14:32] Well, the stone of madness actually feels a little closer to realism than blasphemous even does. But yeah, there's this whole thing there. There's a lot that you can learn, I think, that is really fascinating about medieval religion, particularly medieval Christian religions. Pretty wild stuff in that history there. Wild stuff. But it's ripe. That's a lot of Indiana Jones. That is a lot. Yeah, that is a lot of Indiana Jones.

[00:15:01] But what I mentioned this in an Indian impressions episode talking about just games from Latin America and Spain is that it's really cool that the game kitchen is doing this because it's a Spanish studio. They're drawing on all these things that, for example, if you're from the US or Canada, these are countries that are founded on Protestant Christian values and mythologies, if you will. Right.

[00:15:25] And so you're not really getting games exploring those themes and those aesthetics, not nearly as much as you would from a company that's from, or yeah, a studio that's from Spain. So very cool stuff that's happening. 2025. I'm, you know, I'm catching this optimism that you're manifesting into 2025. Yeah, let's get into it, Jake, because we're already kind of into it.

[00:15:51] But the point of today's episode is we want to talk about our most anticipated games for 2025. And boy, oh boy, are there a lot of games coming out in 2025. We talked about this on our predictions episode. I just mentioned, I think this is going to be a year of dreams. I think a lot of crazy things are going to happen. I think there's going to be a lot of really high quality, really cool, amazing games that come out this year. And there are every year. Right.

[00:16:20] But I think this is going to be one of those extra beefy, beefy years of just really dope, dope stuff. So let's get into it, Jake. We'll start with you. We'll just go back and forth. I've got a big list here. Let's just go back and forth. There's so many games. What's your first one off the top? Most anticipated games for 2025. Oh, you want me to start with number one? Is that what I'm hearing? Number one. Okay. Number one, I think is shared. In no particular order, right? Yes. Oh.

[00:16:49] Or is this in order? Okay. My number one, I definitely have a number one. And if you guys are longtime listeners, you know exactly what it is. No surprises there. Well, I think we have the same and everybody knows what it is probably. But if you don't know, we'll keep it a surprise. Okay. Just one. This is a game that I just learned about. It's a game that we all just learned about. It's Split Fiction, man. Split Fiction. This is also on my list. It looks great. Now, I will be honest.

[00:17:18] I did not finish It Takes Two. And I haven't played A Way Out, which I actually would go back and play. That one looks really good. But Split Fiction just looks immensely creative. And maybe some people won't agree with me when I say this. But we're talking like, I don't know, Super Mario Bros. Wonder levels of creativity. Just like the different missions you have. Yeah. It looks, yeah. Just insane.

[00:17:49] Yeah. This is from the studio. Jake just mentioned it. Made It Takes Two. Probably the most robust co-op game or one of the most ever made. It was designed specifically for co-op. I'm actually on my second playthrough with my son. Oh, nice. Who's obsessed with it. Nice. Obsessed with it. Like, too much. But I beat It Takes Two with my daughter a few years ago.

[00:18:16] And then I kind of introduced it to my son because he's old enough now to kind of handle it. And now he's obsessed. And then if you open It Takes Two, there's an ad for Split Fiction. So Split Fiction is now like his most anticipated game for 2025. Well, that was smart. Yeah. So that was very smart on their behalf. But yeah, this looks fantastic. Built for co-op. And they announced this in the Game Awards. But this game includes a friend pass.

[00:18:44] So if you're playing with somebody co-op, they don't actually need to own the game. Only one of you needs to own it, which is just wild value. Yeah. Crazy. Yeah. I don't even know how that works. I have no idea how that works. I feel like they did that maybe with It Takes Two. I don't know. I think they did. Yeah. I don't know. But very cool looking game. The only trick to that one, and this is going to sting for some people, is that you have

[00:19:14] to play it with somebody. Right? But the good thing... You do have to play it with someone. Yeah. There's no... Yeah. It's two player. Like hardcore. Yeah. But it's couch co-op or online. So plenty of options there. And I like the fact that this one looks like they're going a little bit harder. Like it's got some more meat on the bone in terms of like story and production values and the cinematics and like they're going on with the fantasy sci-fi.

[00:19:42] So they could do some kind of cool stuff in the genre. Whereas I think It Takes Two threw some people off because it was a little bit weird, right? Because it's like backyard and you're a doll. And so it kind of had a bit of a weird vibe. Whereas this is a lot cooler. Yes. It's cool, right? Right. Yeah. And there's no Book of Love. Book of Love is just... Yeah. It's one... You know, I don't really... Still don't really understand it. But yeah. Although I hope the Book of Love makes like some sort of cameo. Just like 10 seconds. Why not?

[00:20:12] 10 second cameo and then gets burned to ashes. Hold on. Last thought here. We're talking... We're not going to make this episode super long. But just last thought on Split Fiction because you made me think of this. They cheated in the best way possible. They were like, why confine ourselves to fantasy or sci-fi? Let's just do both in one game. Just do both. And that opens up your options, I feel like, dramatically in terms of what you can offer in a game. Good work. Hats off to you.

[00:20:40] And this is actually my first pick in our fantasy critic for the podcast. So I think this team knows what they're doing. They know how to make this style of game. I think this is going to be great. Okay. I'll give my next one, which is going to be obvious to most of you out there. But Ghost of Yote. That's my number one. Yeah. Yeah. Which, you know, I'm just going to say it now. It's Ghost of Tsushima is one of my favorite games of all time.

[00:21:12] It's the best Assassin's Creed game ever made, which is interesting given another game I'll mention on this list. But yeah, Ghost of Yote, new protagonist. It's in mainland Japan. It's jumping forward in time a little bit. They've got guns in it now. I just, I'm so pumped to see what this studio churns out. Am I disappointed? We talked about this several weeks ago, but are we a little disappointed? We don't have our homie Jin in there. Yes.

[00:21:42] But Sucker Punch knows what they're doing. So I'm just pumped to see like what they're going to do. They just make, it was just so good. Yeah. I mean, full confidence in the studio. I love my boy Jin and it's okay that he's not going to return. I think his story is actually quite complete as is. Yeah. I agree. I still, I want to replay this so bad. And I have the PS5 version, which would be even better, obviously. But even though the PS4 load times were just like insane. I have to mention that.

[00:22:12] Iki Island, dude. I haven't played Iki Island yet. So that's. Oh my gosh. I know, man. That's a must. That's literally like a must. You have to do Iki Island. At the very least. Maybe don't finish your second playthrough if you don't want to, but at least do Iki Island. Because it's like its own. It's almost like its own whole game, to be honest. Yep. Ghost of Yota. All right, Jake. What's your next one? Next one I have on here comes out very soon.

[00:22:38] And it just looks like pure adrenaline. It's a Dynasty Warriors Origins. Oh. Like the ultimate. Little Dynasty War. Interesting. The ultimate power trip, right? Swing your sword horizontally once. Knock 30 dudes sky high. Gosh, there's something about those trailers. Have you played any of these? So I've not played a Dynasty Warriors game. I have played, what is it, Musou, Musou.

[00:23:07] I have played that style of game before. Like the style with tons of guys on the screen and it's like a war. Yeah. And it's like you versus 9,000 dudes and you. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, but watching this, it just looks so good. And it just looks like, yeah, dude. Let me easy button my way through this game, dude. It just looks so, I don't know. To me, that looks like the ultimate. Like, I had the worst day of my life at work. You know what's going to turn it around?

[00:23:34] I'm going to press one button and just send a hundred guys to the moon. You know? Fair enough. Yeah, dude. I played one of these a long time ago because just like you, I watched those trailers probably when I was a kid and I was like, oh man, like that is so cool. Like there's a billion guys on screen and this is probably like a PS2 era Dynasty Warriors game. And then I actually played it and it was like, yeah, it's okay.

[00:24:02] So, I'm not excited for it, but I'm hoping for the best for you. I mean, I hope it's amazing. It is one where I'm waiting for reviews. You know, I'm not going to pre-order or anything, but dang, dude. I actually have the demo and I might end up playing the demo tonight. But dude, it just looks like a good time. Yes, sir. Okay, my next one, which we already talked about.

[00:24:28] It's Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, which was not on my list at all up until probably a week ago. This is on my list now. Got... I've already told the story 20 times now, but I'll just say it again because that's who I am. Kingdom Come Deliverance. Got it for like six bucks with all the DLC. Started into it. I was like, yeah, maybe, maybe not. And then it got its hooks in. And then I was like, oh man, okay.

[00:24:57] Now I'm like really invested in it. I'm going to beat it before this comes out. Like I'm super committed. It's very janky. It's got a lot of jank to it, but it's got like good jank. And when you see the trailers and stuff for Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, it looks like they really polish and modernize the experience. And just the whole medieval... I just love like medieval stuff. I just find it fascinating and like super fun. I love just that type of thing in general.

[00:25:27] Like I talked about Stronghold. It's like my favorite... One of my favorite games of all time. And that's like a pure medieval castle building simulator. So this game, they go hard on that, right? It's very sort of semi-realistic first person combat with swords. And you're like moving your sword in different directions. And you have a crossbow that like has a realistic load time where it takes you like a full like 20 seconds to load the thing. But then it's super... It's like that whole thing.

[00:25:56] So I'm super pumped for this. It looks really cool. And that comes out in about three weeks. That one's soon. That's right around the corner. Yes, sir. I'm going to pick another game that's coming out right around the corner. Avowed. This was... This is also on my list. This was pitched, I think, as like... Or when we last heard about it. I remember watching a trailer and being like,

[00:26:25] Oh, I don't know if combat looks that great. And then they released a bunch of like updates or devlogs or something talking about how they've tweaked combat. And just added a ton of polish to it. Honestly, what I love about this is it's going to be like, I think, a 20 hour campaign. It's like a small, dense, open world. And I'm really excited to do that. Like in a fantasy setting. Just give me something really dense.

[00:26:55] Something that I can chew through relatively quickly. But I can still feel it when I'm chewing through it. Yeah, somebody said it best that like Obsidian makes double A games with triple A like production or experience or something. I can't think of how they said it. But it's a really great description of how they make games. And it's very true. And I just... I love it. I think it's a fantastic approach. I don't... It's interesting because like you never hear...

[00:27:27] I mean, because Microsoft owns them and they're essentially like a Game Pass factory now. They have a lot of leeway to kind of do a lot of stuff. Which I don't think is a bad thing for them. I think it's a perfect fit for them, right? Yeah. Avowed. It is not the highest on my hype meter. But I love Obsidian and I just love what they do. And so I'm hoping that this one surprises me. I'm hoping this one surprises me.

[00:27:54] I've been let down a teeny bit by some of the... Some Obsidian stuff in the semi-recent history. And so I'm hoping this one... This one like really comes out swinging. Yeah. I kind of feel like Obsidian for me is this... It's what Xbox wanted with all these acquisitions that they've had in the past few years.

[00:28:19] They wanted to be able to just green light project after project from a really well-established studio to create first-party games that are really high caliber. Right? And Obsidian has been able to do that with like Pentimate Grounded. I think you're kind of referring to what the Outer Worlds, right? Is the one that didn't quite hit the mark for you. Yeah. It was a little off the mark. Yeah. And then now like Avowed is looking to be really... In my opinion, it's looking to be really good.

[00:28:47] And they just kind of... I think... Yeah. There was this golden moment of... In Game Pass and Xbox history where they had purchased a few studios. And people were like, yeah, we're going to have these amazing studios just keep funneling these incredible games into Game Pass. And then everything kept getting delayed or their projects canceled and things kind of fell apart. But Obsidian to me is like... That's what Xbox was hoping with every single acquisition they had like in the past four years or whatever, right?

[00:29:18] I think it perfectly aligns with Xbox's strategy, right? Is they can put out a steady cadence of not massive super AAA juggernauts, but really solid, you know, like chunky size games that get people to kind of stick on the service. So, yeah. Yeah. I hope that one's really good because I've also put on my list surprisingly, even though I didn't love it, is Outer Worlds 2.

[00:29:47] Oh! I am surprised. And I'll tell you why I added it. So, I actually... Outer Worlds, I did play actually quite a bit of it. I think I played probably 25 hours, which in that game is like a lot. The one thing that I didn't like is I hated the combat. I really didn't like the combat. And I thought it was too janky and like too... Even more dumbed down than like a Fallout 4 situation. But watching the trailer, and that's not much to go off of, so we don't really know.

[00:30:14] But watching the trailer, it looks like they've put a lot of effort into upping the ante with the combat. Like it looks much, much improved, which I'm excited. Like if they can nail the combat side, for me, that's really important. If they can nail that, I already know they're going to nail the RPG side. Right. And like the decision making and the dialogue. They're going to nail that, like no question. Obsidian are masters at that.

[00:30:38] But if they nail the combat, this could be really, really good. Well, and you know what's interesting about this is when Outer Worlds, yeah, when it first came out, we have an episode on this. One of our first episodes is actually on the Outer Worlds. You guys can go listen to it if you want to listen to really green Jake and Cameron discuss games on this show. I shudder a little bit to think about.

[00:31:05] I was hesitant even saying, mentioning that we had done that episode because it's so old at this point. Didn't have a lot of reps back then. No, yeah, did not. Where was I going with this? But oh, with Indiana Jones, there is rumor. I don't know how confirmed it is, but they collaborated a lot with Arcane, which is why the immersive sim stuff, because you have Dishonored devs who kind of gave either some coaching or some pointers for Indiana Jones.

[00:31:33] And I kind of wonder, well, I don't know, did Obsidian get the pointers from Machine Games, who has a history in the Wolfenstein games of very good shooters? We might be seeing some really positive synergy with some of these studios. So yeah, I hope it's a total improvement on the original. I liked the original, but yeah, I wasn't in love with it. I agreed.

[00:32:03] Jake, what's your next one? Okay. I am. Why am I prefacing this so hard? I so desperately want this game to come out this year. Like so desperately. It doesn't have a release date. They went into alpha testing in the fall of 2024. What is this? Wait. Okay. And they have shown some alpha footage.

[00:32:32] It looks amazing. And it's the new reboot of Skate. Oh, you think this is going to make it this year? If please make it. I'm just manifesting positivity here. Skate. Yes. This is what we're about on this podcast. Yes. It's coming this year. Mark my words. Skate is coming in the fall. And it is going to just throw a monkey wrench straight into GTA 6's face. No. So, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

[00:33:02] Okay. Back up real quick. So, this was at the Xbox show, right? Skate? I don't think it was. What's the one that was at the Xbox show and they did the commercial with that comedian who does, I think you should leave. No, that was Skate. Yeah. That's Skate, right? That was at Xbox? I'm pretty sure that was at the Xbox show. Yeah. And it was, remember, it was like a commercial about a corporation. And they were making fun of it. Okay.

[00:33:30] My impression from that is that that's super far away. Am I wrong about that? Because I haven't read anything about it after that fact. You know, okay. I pulled this up. I think it has a chance of coming out in 2025, which is why I have it here. Okay. Okay. So, let's see. I pulled up this article. This is PC Games. This is Christian Vaz. This was published one month ago, right? Yes, sir. Christian says here, we've seen plenty of early footage of Skate 4 already. Right?

[00:34:01] And so, we've seen a lot of alpha footage. It's supposed to be semi-open world. And let's see. Okay. Christian says here, we believe the game is going to launch between Q2 and Q4 2025. Okay. So, there it is. Christian, thanks for validating my manifestations, I guess. I don't know. i'll take it year of dreams your dreams anyway um i think there's a chance it does come out here

[00:34:29] and i am excited this is a rare case of a game that i think they're kind of going for like some sort of live service aspect to it and i would probably subscribe to this one because i'm a huge sucker for skate i mean if it's good it's good right i mean i just feel like there's actually a live service model that could make sense there right different skate locations or at the very

[00:34:53] least like leaderboards new i mean they i can absolutely see that yeah so i don't know i'm super excited for that one please come out this year uh next on my list is assassin's creed shadows which just got delayed an additional month uh which kind of interesting news hit today that they announced to the public that they wanted to give it more time they're getting like player

[00:35:19] feedback i guess uh they wanted to make changes to it they said in their board meeting however the phrasing was a little bit different and it was basically we want to give the best conditions for a successful launch which that to me says we're getting the f out of the way of monster hunter wilds

[00:35:43] and which i think whether that is a sort of a lie or not which i don't think personally i don't think it is i think everybody wants everybody and their dog wants to hate on ubisoft everybody is rooting for this thing to fail everyone literally everyone well every by everyone i mean the gaming internet which are all so freaking negative um but yeah i honestly think this is just seriously just to get out of the

[00:36:10] way of monster hunter wilds and just give this game the very very best chance to succeed which i think is super smart so this was releasing like one or two weeks before monster hunter wilds now it's releasing three weeks after and i kind of think and cameron i wanted to ask you this i kind of think so just to kind of preface um my opinion on it but i want you to weigh in here do you think three weeks

[00:36:38] is enough time for the casual monster hunter wilds player to to fall off wilds and then start playing another big like a game like assassin's creed shadows well there's some amount of crossover and then there's a bunch not right i think monster hunter is a growing franchise if you would have asked me this three years ago i would have said no assassin's creed's way bigger than the monster hunter but

[00:37:07] because of the popularity of monster hunter world has just grown exponentially and this game is poised to do major records there's a major pc crowd that loves this the monster hunter games and i think it's going to do bonko numbers on steam but i i think there's a huge crowd that there's a bunch of crossover there as well of people who are into assassin's creed like the hardcore gamer but then there's this huge

[00:37:35] crowd who's not and that would be the game they would pick but i think ubisoft just doesn't even want to have to think about that they just want to say like no we'll just give people time we'll give the the casual gamer time to go play whatever they want to play in february because there's about five games coming out in february civ 7 major pc crowd that yeah monster hunter wilds major pc crowd avowed game pass xbox crowd yeah and then two other games there's one more there's a bunch of other

[00:38:05] kingdom come deliverance 2 in the beginning of the month that's right and so i just just get out of the way um just get out of the way and from what i'm seeing honestly like between the visuals the combat the upgraded massively upgraded combat massively upgraded crazy looking parkour everything just looks so good on the surface on this game yeah i i have confidence that like this

[00:38:35] is going to be the one this is the one that is going to like get people back it's from the same team that made assassin's creed odyssey which was massively popular yeah so i think this is it i think it's going to do well now is that i made the prediction and this is going to like save ubisoft or something it sounds like also in that board meeting they basically said like we may sell anyways and so that sounds like like they're in plans to oh my gosh they had the worst quote i've ever heard

[00:39:02] let me just read this this is the most gobbledygook corporate crap this ubisoft today confirmed that leading advisors have been hired to look at transformational strategic and capitalistic options to extract the best value for stakeholders that is the biggest load of like corporate speak jargon i've ever heard in my freaking life that means we're figuring out

[00:39:31] every option to squeeze every dollar out of ubisoft that we can that doesn't involve making better video games a part of me is like can we just we're just letting these corporations in corporate speak get away with adding whatever suffix they want to the end of a word you know but at the same time corporate speak drives me insane i can't stand it like what does that mean does everybody just smile

[00:40:00] and nod like i read this and like sure you can get meaning out of it but it's also like let me just pass the time but the last i mean in essence in essence and saying and this is true and sometimes we beat around the bush and we admit and we say that this isn't true but ubisoft is a publicly traded company their number one priority is not to make video games it's to make money yes

[00:40:30] and so at the end of the day like yes the way that they make money primarily resides in making video games but what this statement tells me tells everyone basically is like we're figuring out every possible way that we can make a dime here yeah and that people can get out of this with money and not like lose a bunch of money specifically yeah how do you say the french name yves yves oh my french

[00:40:58] is so bad yves skimmel yves skimmel the ceo like the family that owns ubisoft they have like a major anyway we don't need to get into that bottom line is i don't count out assassin's creed i think this is okay there we go i'm fine with that answer next up jake back to me okay um this is i think on my list

[00:41:23] here it's the only dlc so um chained echoes ashes of eldrant oh yeah chained echoes came out a few years ago it is was like this not quite solo dev when most people say solo dev they mean one creative director who contracted a bunch of people to do the work that they needed to uh sign elsewhere but it was uh anyway seven year eight year project from a solo dev out of germany chained echoes reinvigorated

[00:41:52] my curiosity into the jrpg it was that good very nice yeah just phenomenal game and it is it's got this amazing story it feels like almost a you know trilogy in and of itself it has this big huge ending and i was convinced that a sequel was coming and so to see this being added as a dlc has me super

[00:42:20] intrigued with what they're going to do with this game um especially a bunch of the footage that they showed in the dlc seems to imply certain things about the ending of chained echoes um so yeah i'm super curious uh i think they said q2 for this one um really looking forward to it i would just say that if you were like me three years ago or whenever chained echoes came out

[00:42:47] and you had kind of you thought you were done with jrpgs if you have an inkling that you might want to go back to them or you might want to figure out what the hype is when it comes to jrpgs chained echoes is probably the best introduction or reintroduction to the genre currently yeah man chained echoes is one i actually have been meaning to go back to because i played it when i was on game pass and i left game pass and for whatever reason just at the time i just bounced off it and

[00:43:15] i'm hoping when the expansion comes out that there'll be like a combo i'm sure there will be like a definitive edition thing yeah and i'm gonna pick that up yeah that one's looking hot it's looking good okay next on my list is dune awakening oh this is entering early access in 2025 this is the dune

[00:43:38] mmo situation and you say dune mmo and you kind of like brush it off but if you watch like the videos and the presentations and like the gameplay on this game it looks freaking dope like it looks really really really cool and it's a really cool concept um takes place on arrakis you can choose between uh one of like the different houses in the world of dune you can choose your class and then you kind

[00:44:08] of go about doing stuff that you do at mmos i watched a longer form like gameplay presentation on this and came away like really impressed so i'm really looking forward to this i i hope this is really good i i hope this is good enough that i want to spend a whole bunch of time in it because mmos you know they can be kind of they've got just you know mmo style mechanics in it that are just sometimes not fun for me and so i hope this game kind of breaks that mold and does its own thing honestly this game

[00:44:37] when i first saw the trailer for this i was really surprised at how good it looked not just like in terms of graphic quality but just just what it was i kind of feel like that this will be a major hit on pc right i think it's coming to steam first and then ps5 and series x later um but i could just imagine that this game on pc is going to be it's just going to take over the world i think for a month

[00:45:03] you know it's all you're going to be hearing about um man i hope so it looks very cool supposedly early 2025 so soon jake what's up what else do you have i've got a let's see i've got i think five more on here to talk about the next one is uh metal gear solid delta snake eater oh i forgot about that yes i'm

[00:45:30] looking forward to that so i am playing all of the metal gear solid games uh freddie go boom a friend of mine a friend of ours in the discord he pointed out that i was actually playing through all these metal gear solid games backwards because i played five and then i played peace walker oh yeah but um i don't know snake eater this is like i feel like the probably the most iconic right metal gear solid is that controversial to say probably i think yeah right metal gear solid 3

[00:46:00] um yeah when we last saw i mean footage from or at least gameplay or whatever they were showing us it looked very cool i've always been really interested in this metal gear solid in particular because it's the one that i feel like is the most hyped and it's gonna look amazing so uh it was targeted i think originally for like end of 2024 and so i'm feeling like it should come out this year

[00:46:26] but but who knows yeah i'm excited for this one it's been a long time since i played mega mega solid 3 but the it looks like they're doing this one they're doing this remake right i mean it looks like it looks like it's gonna be like an ff7 rebirth level quality situation to it oh fingers crossed

[00:46:50] next time i list is subnautica 2 which should be entering early access this year um subnautica 1 is a fantastic single player survival game that game was only single player the thing that made that game cool besides it being dope underwater and having like underwater bases and stuff like that was the story was actually really engaging like the mystery to it was actually really cool

[00:47:16] and so i'm hoping that that's going to be the case with this one and also the fact that it's co-op super excited subnautica 2 this should be i mean that's one of the top survival games like on the list of survival games in terms of all the stuff that it does well so i hope the sequel uh measures up to that which i think it will i yeah the multiplayer aspect to it is the thing that's actually giving me a

[00:47:45] little pause on this one um subnautica works really well as a single player experience so i'm just curious to see how how to lands yeah i mean i could see that i mean i think it's not like the traditional survival game where it's like 10 people like in a server okay i think it's limited to i think it's

[00:48:10] either two or four maybe max four so it's a little bit of a more like tighter like refined kind of co-op experience anyway that's that's the vibe that i'm depression like grounded yeah no yeah similar idea i think yeah definitely okay that's cool i like that all right folks this this is a game that i know cameron you're excited for this one but we haven't heard about this one in a while but i'm confident

[00:48:40] it's coming out this year and that will be yes your grace snowfall yeah i forgot about that one too man um i can with more confidence to recommend everybody go listen to our episode on yes your grace um because it's newer than the outer worlds but um man i loved that game because it is this wonderful balance between like resource management and decision making it's this game that has like if you complain

[00:49:08] that games don't have enough narrative branching or that your decisions don't have enough weight or impact play yes your grace because you will see the consequences of your decisions quite speedily um yes your grace snowfall looks to be essentially the same gameplay wise which is fine visually though

[00:49:30] it they're leaning into this like 2.5 d and it looks stunning it looks very very good so i'm really excited for that one uh if i remember correctly it just picks up off where the first game ends so it is a bit of a direct continuation i do highly recommend anybody play yes your grace it's a shorter experience but you also might not get to the ending on your first attempt because

[00:49:56] there's probably 20 different endings in the game uh last one on my list there's a million games i could have put on here but i just stopped just because i didn't want to go on forever and jake you uh luckily picked up a bunch of ones that i forgot um last one for me is crimson desert

[00:50:21] crimson desert may or may not make it to 2025 i think it probably will though uh we've seen a lot of this game it's been at a lot of shows and a lot of stuff it looks kind of like insane i don't know if you remember that first yeah trailer they released this game and it was like whoa like what is this this is wild looking and they're it just it's a high high production

[00:50:52] high quality kind of visual crazy visual experience i've watched a ton of videos on this combat looks fantastic looks like it's got like a massive open world story all that stuff like i don't know how that's going to pan out but i mean we don't know that much about this game but it does look really cool and supposedly coming out this year so i'm hoping it turns it develops into like a really

[00:51:15] cool really dope uh like single player open world experience so from what i understand crimson desert is made by pearl abyss who made black desert right yeah the mmo the mmo and so i played just a tiny bit of black desert and i think if black desert and i had crossed paths at a different point in my life i would have been hooked and obsessed you know yeah but um i had kids at that point and i was old and

[00:51:44] tired and i was like no i can't i can't do this game now crimson desert it's a single player game right yeah yep oh man that that is just i don't know that might just be my kryptonite right now dude i might just let my life and give my life to crimson desert just let your life suck away to crimson desert yeah it looks insane i mean if they can pull off what they're showing us

[00:52:11] that alone could be like super huge but you know you never know sometimes games show super well and don't end up playing how you think they're going to so yes very true well jake that's the end of my list uh i mean there's a million games we could talk to in 2025 but i think those are kind of the big hitters for now uh what else do you have on your list you want to i have three more i'll talk about them briefly um citizen sleeper 2

[00:52:40] that comes out this month january 31st if you are at all adjacent to the indie world you know that this is the big buzz everybody's super excited for this sir um the developer uh was his what's their name excuse me i don't want to misgender um gareth damien martin maybe they said that this is the last video game for citizen sleeper right so it's just going to be two parts citizen sleeper

[00:53:08] they had a few dlc and then citizen sleeper 2 but that citizen sleeper actually is going to get like this fully fledged uh ttrpg release which um i think works really well because citizen sleeper plays with dice rolls right it's a narrative based game with dice rolls that are really significant um yeah super excited for the sequel it's going to be incredible looking forward to that one um i am

[00:53:34] very excited for claire obscure expedition 33 oh yes yes this looks so good it looks so good and i really hope it gets uh it they pull it off i think cameron you mentioned this this is actually a debut game from a dev or from the i don't know if this yeah that yeah i was gonna say i don't know let's

[00:53:58] see who is this developer comprised of a bunch of i'm sure it's gotta be man it's like they're saying stuff like we're gonna revolutionize the jrpg genre and that just always makes everyone kind of in the room a little bit nervous you know because you're like yeah and they've got like 30 employees so this isn't a big team yeah but man it shows so well it's got such a cool premise i hope they pull it off

[00:54:27] i really hope they pull it off and uh let's see game director came out and said that claire obscure takes inspiration from jrpgs obviously but final fantasy and persona series specifically i think you see the the persona stuff in the ui which is really incredible um but yeah i don't know i want this game to be the biggest success because it looks very cool it sounds very cool um as i'm playing through

[00:54:55] metaphor right now it seems like the type of game that would be really great to play after beating metaphor so hopeful for that one and then finally to the surprise of absolutely nobody listening to this podcast right now i'm really excited for a game that's being made by a little studio called from software and being published by bandai namco called elden ring night rain um i haven't heard of

[00:55:20] this one jake what is this old what did you say elden don't even joke cameron you know this is personal for me no so i'll be honest about elden ring night ring i'm sure it's gonna be amazing i'm sure it's gonna be amazing although part of me there's a little part of me there's a little pessimistic guy inside of me that's like is it gonna be the same without like the lore and the world building

[00:55:45] and the and the like exploration of the you know what i mean because it's such a different format like is it gonna hit the same what do you think jake this is this is precisely why it's not my number one most anticipated game of 2025 um listen we know that the combat is gonna feel great we know that there's gonna be fantastic set pieces incredible bosses they showed off a cerberus looking boss

[00:56:12] that looks super cool they even have nameless king from dark souls 3 showing up which was the hardest boss for me in that game um so it's got coolness but it's it's very different from what we're used to from from software um i read a little bit up on behind this game and apparently during the the production of elden ring the combat director pitched this spinoff way back then it was like

[00:56:41] hey what if we did this thing where we just focused on groups basically one or three and they go through like this gauntlet series and then they fight off a big boss and i think the idea was probably my imagine is that they were like incubating this idea for a little bit and then when elden ring sold call of duty numbers they're like go for it man why not you know we've got the assets here

[00:57:06] just do it do it let's see what happens and so it's going to be a different style of game but what elden ring night rain i think represents most for me is that from software is unleashed man they have such financial security because of the success of elden ring and shadow the urtree dlc that they're like like you know what we've always wanted to do something like this or like someone's like hey this idea seems really cool and guess what we can have this out in 2025 and so they're like great let's

[00:57:35] do it you know so i like wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing this cool era from software where they start putting out these random bonkers games or even like armored course you know whatever it is and this is like mayazaki's underlings getting handed the reins right because he they've been quoted him saying like okay i'm i'm handing down like creative control to my like top people on my

[00:58:05] team that have been making these games for years and letting them do their own thing so this is one of those and the the crazy thing about from software is i think right now and players like me we associate them with souls games but from software has been around for a long time and armored core at one point was their flagship franchise or like king's field right and so maybe i don't think we're really but maybe we're coming to a shift in from software where they start what's their new kind of franchise

[00:58:34] that they're going to be known for i think they'll continue to make souls games until they're dead and gone don't get me wrong don't don't misread or don't look too hard into what i'm saying here but i think we're entering this cool era of experimentation but i do have that one thing holding me back which is like is it actually going to feel like elden ring though if the genre is totally different this it's not exactly like a roguelike necessarily but it's much closer to a roguelike

[00:59:00] than a souls game so you just want to hope that they kind of make that jump gracefully love it well there's one more thing that we want to talk about but we're going to save that uh we've already we're already an hour in talks about our most anticipated of the year but there's a whole bunch of there's a lot of things that could happen and games that could come out that we don't know about but i think we're going to find out about imminently

[00:59:29] so if you're a patreon subscriber you already will get this but you'll get you can get the extended edition where we're going to continue the conversation and talk about jake and i's hopes and dreams and wishes for nintendo and the switch to this year uh which a huge part of what's missing from this is obviously the switch 2 which hasn't been announced uh but if not then you got an hour's worth of our most anticipated games of 2025 hopefully that you you heard of some games that maybe weren't on your

[00:59:57] radar and are now are um if you like the show please leave us a review on your podcast platform of choice uh please join us on our discord channel where you can continue the conversation let us know what your most anticipated games are anything that we missed uh on this show that you want us to know about you can also join us if you want to get access to that extended edition on patreon.com slash period or cast where you can sign up on one of our premium tiers and you get access to all

[01:00:22] the extra content if not thank you so much for listening we appreciate you always thank you so much and have a great night