transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] So good, so good, so good.

Speaker 2:
[00:02] Spring styles are at Nordstrom Rack Stores now, and they're up to 60 percent off. Stock up and save on Rag and Bone, Madewell, Vince, All Saints and more of your favorites.

Speaker 3:
[00:12] How did I not know Rack has Adidas?

Speaker 2:
[00:14] Why do we Rack?

Speaker 3:
[00:15] For the hottest deal. Just so many good brands.

Speaker 2:
[00:17] Join the Nordy Club to unlock exclusive discounts, shop new arrivals first and more. Plus, buy online and pick up at your favorite Rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you Rack.

Speaker 4:
[00:30] Study and play. Come together on a Windows 11 PC. For a limited time, college students get the best of both worlds. Get the Unreal College Deal, everything you need to study and play with select Windows 11 PCs. Eligible students get a year of Microsoft 365 Premium and a year of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate with a custom color Xbox wireless controller. Learn more at windows.com/studentoffer. While supplies last, ends June 30th, terms at aka.ms slash college PC.

Speaker 5:
[01:02] The 2026 Chevy Equinox is more than an SUV. It's your Sunday tailgate and your parking lot snack bar. Your lucky jersey, your chairs, and your big cooler fit perfectly in your even bigger cargo space. When it's go time, your 11.3-inch diagonal touch screens got the playbook, the playlist, and the tech to stay a step ahead. It's more than an SUV. It's your Equinox Chevrolet Together Let's Drive.

Speaker 3:
[01:30] So you're saying with Hilton Honors, I can use points for a free night stay anywhere?

Speaker 2:
[01:35] Anywhere.

Speaker 3:
[01:36] What about fancy places like the Canopy in Paris?

Speaker 2:
[01:38] Yeah, Hilton Honors, baby.

Speaker 3:
[01:40] Or relaxing sanctuaries like the Conrad in Touloume?

Speaker 1:
[01:44] Hilton Honors, baby.

Speaker 3:
[01:46] What about the five-star Waldorf Astoria in the Maldives? Are you going to do this for all 9,000 properties?

Speaker 6:
[01:52] When you want points that can take you anywhere, anytime, it matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay. Book your spring break now.

Speaker 7:
[02:00] I won prescription pair and get 20% off any additional prescription pairs at warbyparker.com/kindafunny. If you want to get our shows ad-free and our exclusive shows, go to patreon.com/kindafunny.

Speaker 8:
[02:14] Today's gaming news stories include Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resync has been revealed. Most big game companies are allegedly using AI and Mass Effect Dev explains why they've been so silent. We'll have all this and more because this is Kinda Funny Games Daily. Welcome to Kinda Funny Games Daily for Thursday, April 23rd.

Speaker 1:
[02:42] It's a little early.

Speaker 8:
[02:44] I never know if right there they can hear my microphone or not.

Speaker 1:
[02:47] They can't.

Speaker 8:
[02:47] So you gotta wait for the camera to turn on.

Speaker 1:
[02:49] Yeah.

Speaker 8:
[02:50] What's up, everybody? Welcome to Kinda Funny Games Daily for Thursday, April 23rd, 2026. I'm one of your show hosts, Snowbike Mike, and today I'm joined by my 1.1. You're going to be my number one, Roger Pecorny.

Speaker 1:
[03:05] Feeling good, Mikey.

Speaker 8:
[03:06] Look, hey, Big Raj, how are you?

Speaker 1:
[03:07] I'm feeling great, man. It's a big one today. Lotta lot of good content today. We have great content, probably the best games the only ever made. I just tell you right now. OK, it's one of the goats right now.

Speaker 8:
[03:16] We're talking about AI. So we'll see how that goes.

Speaker 1:
[03:18] I mean, that's every episode now. Then we have, of course, the Gamescast, which is going to be Elden Ring casting that. Then, of course, after that, we have the in review. What was it?

Speaker 8:
[03:27] That's the name of the Lord of the Rings, Two Towers, all time classic.

Speaker 1:
[03:31] Banger. And then, of course, Mikey, tell them, what is the party mode? Not the party mode.

Speaker 8:
[03:35] Tim Schafer and the crew from Double Finals coming into the building to play the hit, multiplayer online partying party brawler with Snowbike Mike and Andy Cortez. I'm so pumped to play Kiln once again. I played the open beta. I got lost in the pottery.

Speaker 1:
[03:52] Wow.

Speaker 8:
[03:52] I had so much fun that we're gonna go right back to it. We're gonna bring in Tim Schafer and the crew, ask all the questions, play the game, get real creative.

Speaker 1:
[03:59] Hell yeah. I'm excited. It's gonna be a big one today. Why the fuck did you bring this?

Speaker 8:
[04:03] I got a little show. Until I, you know, I have a lot of confidence. I like the opening show. I know a lot of people like we got to cut down on the opening show, but I like to get it out because I don't talk with my friends here. I kind of find I don't get to talk to you, the audience out there about enough of my life. And right now, Roger, I'm in two things. One, I'm in a Z-hole, okay? I'm deep into Zelda games right now, Chad. I've played two Zelda games back to back, Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. Completed both of them. Congratulations. Changed my life.

Speaker 9:
[04:33] Mikey.

Speaker 8:
[04:33] Changed my life, everyone.

Speaker 9:
[04:35] Not to ruin possible future content, but which one over the other?

Speaker 8:
[04:42] Yo, this Majora's Mask game is really good, Chad. This Ocarina of Time has got the dwarf and the master sword. A lot of conversation to be had. We'll see. I'm going to save it for maybe when Tim gets back. And so I'm deep into Zelda. I'm deciding, do I continue? Go to Wind Waker, maybe Twilight Princess. Do I keep playing it or am I on to something else? And then also, there's always another part of me, Roger, because every single day I think about Warcraft 3. Every single day I think about my beloved RTS game coming in the battle chest. And I just think about the goats. One of the greatest games of all time. As Blizzard celebrates 35 years, I think, man, this game really shaped my gaming life. I just want to share it with everybody out there. Did I buy these on eBay? Yeah, I bought them.

Speaker 3:
[05:30] OK, OK, cool.

Speaker 1:
[05:32] Your life is you have so much shit on your desk at all times that I just thought this was here for like four years. And then you just have randomly like, hey, this is the day I'm going to show it off.

Speaker 8:
[05:41] And so the cool part about Warcraft 3 on the PC boxes, in particular, Roger, is they have all four of the races in game here. So I gotta get the Night Elf one. And I gotta get the Undead Box to complete my sets.

Speaker 1:
[05:54] Okay.

Speaker 8:
[05:55] Pretty sick, right?

Speaker 1:
[05:56] Pretty cool.

Speaker 8:
[05:56] I know.

Speaker 1:
[05:58] Next time we do KFGT, I will bring all of my Splinter Cell games and we will do the same thing. But in reverse.

Speaker 8:
[06:02] Thanks, Roger. I would love that. I'm gonna leave those up there just for fun. Just to let everybody know. I'm thinking about you every single day, every day for the horde. Now, Roger, I've been signed out of my Google account right as the show started. You knew it was gonna happen. So, Roger, I think we have a really fun thing to promote as we get in to the nerdy news that everybody needs to know about. Can you please tell everybody what we're promoting this week on Blue Sky? Because I think my good friend Barrett Courtney has a big announcement.

Speaker 1:
[06:32] Yeah, Barrett. I mean, honestly, let's just let Barrett in.

Speaker 8:
[06:35] Okay, Barrett, tell us.

Speaker 1:
[06:36] Tell us about it.

Speaker 9:
[06:36] Tell everybody about it. I'll just tell you. If you don't know, I'm Barrett Courtney. I'm known here at Kinda Funny for replaying games and making in-depth videos about them. I've tackled Zelda, Persona, God of War, and a few other franchises. And while I love making videos like these, I eventually got burnt out and told myself after a while that I was done, retired more or less.

Speaker 5:
[06:58] So I'm here one last time.

Speaker 9:
[07:01] So that was kind of a lie.

Speaker 1:
[07:11] Wow, exciting. A brand new video essay from Barrett. 9 a.m. tomorrow, youtube.com/kindafunnygames. Barrett, we're not telling the topic to everybody, right? Because people are asking in the chat, what's the topic?

Speaker 9:
[07:23] It's a weird one. It's about a lot of things. It's about a lot of games that I've been thinking about lately that I've been wanting to break down. And it's not necessarily a series that I'm tackling. That's usually what I'm known for, tackling every Zelda game, playing all the Naughty Dog games. This is more about seeing a cohesive thread of messages from very recent games. So I'm going to be, to give it away a little bit, I'm going to be talking a little bit about Metaphor Re-Fantagio. I'm going to be talking a little bit about Claire Obscure. I'm going to be talking a little bit about Hollow Knight Silksong and a few other things around those. So yeah, I guess, you know, I'll say the title of the video because I'm going to put the premiere live later this afternoon. So you'll see it anyway. The title of the video is They Want You to Fight Back. And so look forward to that tomorrow at 9 a.m. Pacific, right here on youtube.com/kindafunnygames.

Speaker 1:
[08:23] Exciting, everybody. Look out for it.

Speaker 8:
[08:26] I'm very excited about that. Anytime Barrett's on and cooking up something awesome on the video essays, I'm excited and going right into Games Daily.

Speaker 1:
[08:32] So 9 a.m. And then boom, get get start your Friday off right.

Speaker 8:
[08:35] Are you ready to rock and roll, Roger?

Speaker 1:
[08:37] I'm ready to rock all you.

Speaker 8:
[08:37] Of course, don't forget, if you are watching live, you can be part of the show by super chatting on youtube.com/kindafunnygames. We couldn't do this without you, the Kinda Funny Best Friends audience all around the globe. And of course, our Patreon producers for the month over on patreon.com/kindafunny. So thank you to Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster and Delaney the Psalm Twining. For now, let's begin with what is and forever will be the Roper Report. We have five stories today. Thank you, Barrett.

Speaker 1:
[09:17] I was going to add the number of the stories, so I'm happy that I made Barrett go along because I need to catch my breath.

Speaker 9:
[09:22] Yeah, you need to catch your breath.

Speaker 8:
[09:26] Let's jump into story number one. Assassin's Creed Black Flag Re-sync has been finally revealed. We're going to watch over a little bit of the game overview trailer that has just been released as of 9 a.m. today. And I have a awesome article that will go in-depth from Tom Phillips at IGN. Let's kickstart this because I haven't seen anything about this. Yeah, I've been daydreaming, dreaming about Black Flag coming back into my life.

Speaker 1:
[09:50] You're a Black Flag guy?

Speaker 8:
[09:52] Roger, the Xbox One era with Black Flag, that was a big deal.

Speaker 1:
[09:56] You only get me out of my PS4 for a while, that and Mac.

Speaker 8:
[09:58] Man, I'll tell you what, this was peak Assassin's Creed. Maybe like towards the end of the peak, but like this was peak.

Speaker 1:
[10:05] I think this is the peak.

Speaker 8:
[10:07] Then it went downhill from there?

Speaker 1:
[10:08] Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Okay. All right, let's watch a little bit of it.

Speaker 10:
[10:14] Hello, Pirates, Matt Ryan here, the voice of Edward Kenway. This is Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced. Thirteen years after the original, this remake brings the classic game back to life.

Speaker 8:
[10:28] Look at that detail right there.

Speaker 10:
[10:29] Rebuilt from the ground up with the latest Anvil Engine to deliver the most thrilling pirate adventure.

Speaker 8:
[10:37] Okay, for those listening out there, let's look in, look at modern, looking up to date right here.

Speaker 10:
[10:42] I'd like to use a grand one, if I may say.

Speaker 5:
[10:44] So full of adventure.

Speaker 10:
[10:47] God, You play as Captain Edward Kenway, a rebellious scoundrel, eager to make a name for himself in the pursuit of glory, freedom, and a search for a better life.

Speaker 1:
[10:59] Damn, that ocean.

Speaker 10:
[10:59] I've seen your face before.

Speaker 1:
[11:00] I wanna drink that water.

Speaker 8:
[11:01] It looks good.

Speaker 10:
[11:02] These makes for them pirates done in Nassau.

Speaker 8:
[11:03] Everything so far is catching my eye, I'll fill it with shot.

Speaker 10:
[11:06] You hear me?

Speaker 8:
[11:11] Get that sweet blonde hair.

Speaker 10:
[11:12] Yeah, dude.

Speaker 1:
[11:13] Throw him right to that table.

Speaker 10:
[11:14] After crossing paths with the Assassins and Templars, Edward is drawn into their centuries-old conflict with secret locations.

Speaker 8:
[11:22] Hey, as of right now, looking at this, it looks like what I want.

Speaker 1:
[11:26] Yeah, it looks exactly like what I want. It looks how I imagined this game used to look like when I was a kid, when I was playing on the PS4. Yeah, I'm sure it does not look like this. I've never seen it before. But Mike, you have some more details on it.

Speaker 8:
[11:37] Yeah, Roger, let's dive in to story number one. Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resync has major changes. This coming from Tom Phillips at IGN. Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resync, Ubisoft's long-awaited pirate game remake, will feature major changes when it launches on July 9th with the addition of new story quests and characters, but the removal of several key features. In a detailed presentation on the game attended by IGN, Ubisoft explained that it had decided to focus solely on the single-player story of Black Flag's pirate-turned-assassin, Edward Kenway, meaning that the game's Freedom Cry DLC has not been integrated, its original multiplayer mode has been ditched, and the previously playable modern-day sections have been excised. Some small modern-day story offerings will still be included, it sounded like, though the exact details of this are unclear. One thing's for sure, though, you won't be wandering around the offices of Abstergo Entertainment as you once did, something that leaves unanswered implications for the game's bloodline-related story.

Speaker 1:
[12:46] Quote, I'm sorry, I was just talking about the bloodline.

Speaker 8:
[12:50] With Resync'd, we made a clear choice, Resync'd creative director Paul Fu said, It's a pure, story-driven adventure, and we are fully focused on Edward's adventure in the Caribbean. As a result of this focus, we have elected to not have the multiplayer or DLC. Resync'd is a 2026 take on the original legend, and for those of us who are curious, the original will still be available. End quote. Additional scenes have been recorded with Edward himself, once again played by the returning actor Matt Bellamy, with other new story moments for two of the original game's characters, Blackbeard and Stead Bonnet. Alongside additions to the game's story, Ubisoft has been tinkering with its gameplay mechanics. Combat has been rebuilt to resemble the Perry Focus system seen in more recent entries, though without the addition of fancy special attacks that would have seemed out of place. Rather than a desire to make the game's systems play exactly like the series' recent RPGs, the developers keen to impress that the original Black Flag still lies underneath. Familiar parkour options are also now available, including free jumps, sidey-jacks, and backy-jacks. You can toggle crouch to all of which should feel familiar to Shadow players. The original game's fiddly eavesdropping missions will no longer auto-fail if you get detected, and these fresh alternate fire upgrades for the Jack Dawes cannons. Lot there, Roger, lot of exciting stuff.

Speaker 1:
[14:31] Yeah, no, I mean, this is exactly what I want, and I was a little nervous originally hearing about them remaking this, if they're going to keep on adding the RPG systems that we've seen later on in the Assassin's Creed franchise, that has just really lost me. You know, I'm sure it's for certain people, but I, even though it had a lot to be desired and there's a lot of modernizations that they could have added, I do appreciate what the original Assassin's Creed games were going for when it comes to combat. So to see that they're adding kind of all the best stuff around it to make it more modern, but also not just trying to make it, you know, Valhalla or Shadows, I think is really great. So yeah, this seems like everything I want out of this, and also something that is in the article, the game is 60 bucks. So, you know, not going for the 70 premium title, 60 bucks. I think that's right around where I want to be for the specific title.

Speaker 8:
[15:19] I like that price tag there, Roger. I also love seeing some of the things that they're talking about. Of course, the eavesdropping missions. I think all of us have auto failed that way too many times. And I love that we're, hey, let's address this. Let's fix this. Let's knock it out. But the game looks pretty as can be. What you brought up with the RPG systems, that feels like a Black Flag 2 is right, Roger. Let's focus on what this is at its core. The DLC, okay, I wish we had that with you. But the multiplayer, of course, I knew I wasn't going to get that.

Speaker 1:
[15:49] Yeah, no, the multiplayer, I completely forgot it. Also, the Abstergo stuff, I also forgot existed.

Speaker 8:
[15:55] Bear knows I don't like the Abstergo stuff.

Speaker 1:
[15:56] Yeah, I remember now as they're talking about it was first person, and that's what they're going for there. But it was completely forgettable for me, at least. So yeah, that being out there. Yeah, I know that the DLC was beloved for a certain group of people. And maybe there's one day where this game hits, and then eventually they do the DLC update or whatever. But focusing on the core game is the right move. But I mean, enough about us. I mean, we are Assassin's Creed people, but I know the Assassin's Creed person who actually saw this a little early. So maybe you can give his impressions on this. And that's Barrett Courtney. Barrett, what did you think about all this?

Speaker 9:
[16:30] Yeah, surprise, surprise. I got to see this a week ago when it was, you know, kept leaking about the event, about this, all the details about this. Insane. I like what I see so far. The game is gorgeous. And like you were saying, Roger, it's one of those. It successfully makes you feel like the, you know, this is what it looks like back then type of thing. Everything around that I'm really interested in, but it's one of those. It's hard to have a lot to say without having my hands on the sticks. I'll bring it back here to some combat for the video people here. Yeah, one of the main things being combat. I like what they're saying so far, at least of, hey, we're not going to do the full RPG, the full system of what you've known in the last few Assassin's Creed games. But I think there's a smart kind of modernization, maybe an adaptation of what the original Assassin's Creed combat system was back then, which if you go to today, as someone who did Assassin's Creed interview back in five years ago already, Jesus, even back then it was like, man, this is really outdated, eventually a little bit mindless of what you're doing and auto killing everybody so easily and all this stuff. So I'm excited to see what their take is on trying to modernize that and make it a bit more engaging and then not, you know, like trying to over correct and bring in like a bunch of RPG elements, which doesn't feel like the spirit of what the not just Black Flag was, but the OG Assassin's Creed games were right. The modern day stuff, I'll be interest to see. The way they talked about it in the 30 minute special presentation, it made it almost sound like it wasn't that there was no modern day stuff, but that they were doing something to refocus on like the core of Edward story. And while I'll agree that like the modern day stuff with Black Flag was the first game where it was really like, oh yeah, this is really like, what are we doing here? You know, we killed off the main character who was like kind of the original like main emotional pull for the modern day stuff. What are we doing here? But there is still like a cool thing at the end of the modern day stuff that like ties into like a big chunk of what Edward was doing and like figuring out as a newly recruited assassin. So it's like, I'm curious to see how that they make that still work as like an emotional kind of like to get out the same kind of or similar emotional reaction from you. When you get to some of that later stuff, I'm fascinated to see what they do differently and if they can still make something like that work. Jackdaw stuff seems interesting with some of the add-ons that they're going for with some of the different like shop types that you have to use during combat, which are tied to new characters that they're introducing into the game that you can recruit. And these are optional characters that I think you can recruit to the Jackdaw. So that'll be fun and interesting to see. It'll be interesting to see like, all right, you want to cut some things, but now you want to introduce some different story elements. Can you make that all kind of work and feel seamless and make this still feel like kind of genuine to Edward's story, right? And then yeah, outside of that, it's like there's not much else to say. This game kicked ass 13 years ago and seeing a really pretty version of that today with some slight adjustments, I think is a, you know, it's not a revolutionary thing, but I think it's a cool way to like kind of preserve, I think one of like the most beloved games in the series. And I can't wait to get back to it in a couple months here.

Speaker 8:
[20:26] So yeah, let's let's talk about right now because yeah, I think it's interesting that you bring that up back in 2023. Ubisoft announced that Assassin's Creed Black Flag had reached over 34 million players, right? And of course, that's a long lifespan as Barrett brought up. Ubisoft Plus 10 years. So that would have been the 10 year anniversary of that with 34 million players. But Barrett, Roger, what do we expect here on July 9th when this comes out? Will this be a big boost to the franchise of all players coming in? New players getting excited for another Assassin's Creed entry, but also maybe one of the more beloved titles from beyond?

Speaker 1:
[21:01] Yeah, I think this game is going to do really well. I mean, it gets me excited more so than any of the new ones that they've done, even Shadows, which is in Japan. Like this gets me so excited to see me. Nostalgia wins, right? Always, right? Like, yeah. And to see this is again, as we've said, like it looks like why you imagine it. It's gorgeous. Seeing that combat looks so fucking sick, like shooting out the grab hook, putting people down. And I love I was laughing earlier. Not because of Barry. I was laughing because of the video that he was showing, which was the it was like, Oh, here's like what the original game looked like when it came to the eavesdropping segments, right? It's like him sneaking around. It's like, this is what we're doing now.

Speaker 8:
[21:33] And it's just fucking got stabbing him.

Speaker 1:
[21:35] It's like, yeah, awesome.

Speaker 9:
[21:35] Yeah, it'll be interesting to see like how they play that out. And it seems to go into the ethos of what they've been trying since like Unity of like you can do this in any sort of different way. And so I'll be interested to see like if you do feel the tailing section, like what do you need to do to like make up for that? Because usually you're doing those to like find information to find your next target or what have you.

Speaker 1:
[21:57] So you just find a note on the ground.

Speaker 9:
[21:59] Yeah, we'll see. But I think it would be cool to see maybe something slightly more interesting than just that, right? Because then what is really the motivation other than to like, oh, okay, I'll just automatically fail this, kill the dude, and then just do it like right there and then words. The way they talked about it made it seem like there might be a little bit more involved afterwards. So that'll be interesting. Also, the final thing I'll point out is you can recruit a cat to the jacked off, which is, of course, you know, they're cheating there.

Speaker 8:
[22:27] Yeah, but like, I guess I still fog with my final question for the both of you, right? As we talk about bringing Assassin's Creed Black Flag to the modern day and bringing it back into the forefront, what were the downfalls of the game? Right? I think to myself, a lot of the ship combat, right? Can get repetitive in a little bit stale at the end of it all. It's a large journey and you are jumping from island to island. What are some of the things, Barrett, that maybe new players might find a little bit annoying? Or like, what are some things that maybe the team over at Ubisoft needed to address to make sure the modern day player that maybe never played this and doesn't have nostalgia needs?

Speaker 9:
[23:04] I think just like varied it like, you know, it did feel like you're going through the motions eventually with how like lengthy this one was, which I think a little over 20, maybe like closer to 30 hours. And I think eventually after a while, it's like, okay, like, I'm kind of doing the same moves over and over again. And I think it seems like they're trying to address that with some of the new abilities that you get through some of the new people that you're recruiting. So I'll be interested to see how they mix that up. And then maybe also just like different variety and how enemies like take you on. Because I think like eventually it just turned into like, you know, there'd be like, it's silly to say, but there'd be like boss battle ship, the things right where it's like a really tough ship, but really just like a really big health bar. And then like outside of that, like there would be a couple of different moves here and there. Yeah, I'll be interested to see how they kind of like make that still like kind of a continuous thing. But also it's like, I didn't mind that back in the day. And I didn't mind that when I replayed it in 2021, right? But I'm also just a pirate sicko. Yeah. And so, and then the other big thing, they're bringing new shanties into this, which I'm fucking stoked.

Speaker 8:
[24:18] Okay.

Speaker 9:
[24:18] You tell me, I'm gonna like sail out and like hear the shanties again.

Speaker 1:
[24:23] Isn't Woodkid involved with that? Or just in general?

Speaker 9:
[24:25] Woodkid is involved some way, shape or form. I'm unsure how or why. Apparently Woodkid did a lot of Assassin's Creed.

Speaker 1:
[24:33] Oh, I know that.

Speaker 9:
[24:34] Music back in the day, which I was unaware of. But yeah, it'll be interesting to see what Woodkid does there. What was the... To go back to your early question, though, Mike, I think the other reason of like, I agree with Roger, I think this is going to do very well. Think about the big hit, the cultural phenomenon that is broken out of our little nerdy corner of the world and has gotten to people who watch Netflix, who have fallen in love with One Piece. And people are fucking into the pirate adventure right now, man. And I think like Black Flag coming out right now is like almost like a perfect time for people to like after some think about like wanting to go on their own pirate adventure.

Speaker 1:
[25:13] I love that One Piece DLC.

Speaker 8:
[25:16] Roger, anything to add on that?

Speaker 1:
[25:17] No, I'm extremely excited. Like out of nowhere, I like the idea of it sounded exciting to me. But looking at that, I'm like, oh, no, that's fucking must play. I'm so excited to actually finish this game because those eavesdrop sessions just got me so fucking annoyed. So I'm excited to actually do it. You plan it?

Speaker 8:
[25:31] Yeah, it's interesting because I am just like you have like before this, I was like, yeah, another Assassin's Creed.

Speaker 1:
[25:37] Yeah, why not?

Speaker 8:
[25:37] Bring back Black Flag, whatever. And then you see and you're like, oh, I remember all the moments.

Speaker 1:
[25:41] Yeah.

Speaker 8:
[25:41] And how special this game was at the time. Right. And so it'll be very interesting to see how far I get it. I remember this one being the more lengthier feeling one out of the series when I was young, Barrett of like, oh, I felt like I got I could handle most of them. And then I got the Black Flag. Oh, this feels much bigger than a lot of them for me. So we'll see if I have the time where I fall. But nothing better than this game. This game is something special.

Speaker 1:
[26:04] Exciting.

Speaker 8:
[26:05] Let's move on to story number two. But before we do that, this one coming up is a lengthy one. So we're going to take a quick word from our sponsors.

Speaker 7:
[26:14] This episode is brought to you by Warby Parker. Buying eyeglasses was always a whole to do before Warby Parker came into so many of our lives. Greg, Gia, Joey, me, all of us. Hated how buying glasses always felt so complicated and overpriced and often the styles were just super outdated. But Warby Parker, total game changer. Nothing comes close on quality, price, selection and customer service. You can literally try on glasses from your phone before you buy it with their virtual try on. Greg says it's wild how well it actually works. And a super cool thing is Warby Parker's covered by major eye insurance plans. That's how Gia got hers. They make it incredibly easy to use. You just enter your information to see if you are eligible for benefits on frames, contacts or eye exams. And if you are, they automatically apply them for you. Right now, buy one prescription pair and get 20% off any additional prescription pairs at warbyparker.com/kindafunny. That's 20% off additional prescription pairs when you go to W-A-R-B-Y parker.com/kindafunny.

Speaker 8:
[27:24] Welcome back. Let's jump in to story number two. Google exec says almost every big studio uses AI, but not all disclose it. This coming from Chris Scullion at VGC. In an interview with MobileGamer.biz, Google Cloud's global director for games, Jack Busser, said a lot of studios use AI-powered tools to help with development, but a number of them are unwilling to confirm this publicly for fear of backlash. Busser says Google's own tools like Gemini and NanoBanana Pro are used by some studios to remove the drudgery and repetitive low-value work in game development, but that while many studios use them, the fact that AI is a divisive topic means they keep quiet about it. I think what players don't realize is that their favorite games right now were already built with AI, he claimed. Those games have shipped. We did a survey around Gamescom last summer with studios all over the world. Roughly 9 out of 10 game developers told us, yeah, we're using it. Now you'll see other surveys from other organizations that have more around like 40 to 50 percent. And you might ask yourself, well, that's still a large number. It's still almost half of the developers out there. What's that gap? And that gap is basically the developer's willingness to tell you whether the fact of the matter is it's being used or not. Buster also suggested that if players realized that AI had been used for some of the games they currently already play and enjoy, they may be more willing to accept it in development. Quote, they'll start to realize that this is actually helping me get my favorite games faster, he said. And also, I'm also getting more innovation in the industry because there's more room to take risks. And now it's not seven years waiting for one game, but that studio can make five games. And maybe they understand that only two of those five will be a hit. But that's OK because these other three games are really interesting and cool and would have never been made with the old model. Once that stuff starts happening and it's already happening now, you'll start to see the sentiment change. Elsewhere in the interview, Buster cited Capcom as an example of a company that uses Google's AI tools in development, claiming it uses them to make less important assets so it can focus its creativity on the main aspect of its games. Quote, one of the big problems that they have is they're building these massive worlds and they've got to fill it with content, he said. Just coming up with all the ideas for every pebble by the side of the road, every blade of grass, and having those art reviews, the manual labor just piling up in pre-production, what they're doing is using NanoBanana and Gemini to rapidly generate just countless ideas. And then they're taking to Gemini to actually go through those ideas and curate them. And of these thousands of things, here are the ones that are probably most interesting to you as the art director. And then the art director takes that and then gets the art team going on these items. The AI is already pre-filtered and pre-selected by probably really good looking pebbles on the side of the road. And then all of their creative energy gets focused towards the high value creative tasks. The main character, the big enemies, the main scene, objects, and that kind of stuff. End quote. Roger, that's a big one. And I would recommend everybody go read this one. Get informed. And let's have a conversation about it because of course, right now, the Google exec, of course, let me bring it bring it back over here. Google's cloud global director for games, Jack Busser, said all of that about AI and studios using it, but being unwilling to talk about it.

Speaker 1:
[31:23] I mean, he's not wrong. Like, I don't think he's lying here. Like, I completely understand and believe that most tech companies in general are using AI in some fashion, right? Are they using Gemini Nano Banana? Probably fucking not, right? They're using Cloud, Claude, they're using ChatGPT, they're using things when it comes to programming, they're using things when it comes to image generation, that probably isn't Nano Banana. But in general, it is true. Like, these companies, all tech companies, all big major companies that are trying to, you know, cut wages, cut people, cut working hours, cut creatives from their teams are, of course, experimenting. And I know from firsthand, secondhand, thirdhand knowledge of, you know, smaller teams that aren't in the video game industry, right? Or 11% 12, not this company, but just smaller companies in general that are talking about 11% 11 year old business. No, but I know smaller companies in general that, you know, don't have the overhead of this and are still looking into AI and trying to figure that stuff out because, of course, these corporations are right. They're trying to cut as much of the unnecessary work as possible. I think our opinion on this has been pretty vocal, right? When you start to cut out the easy things, you are undercutting artists, you are undercutting creatives, you are undercutting human work and value. And I don't think that... I think a lot of people in the chat, I saw them, they were like, oh, he's just lying because he's an AI tech company, you know, CEO or whatever. I think this is happening actively and him naming Capcom, who has apparently has not denied it necessarily, but he says specifically Capcom. Yeah, I would assume that most companies are doing this and they're not being vocal about it. Are they using generative AI art? That's a different question, right? Our brain goes to, you know, generative AI. We think, you know, generating the photo, right? The video, the, you know, Nvidia DLSS5, right? We think about that stuff. But are they using generative code? Probably, you know, I mean, that's what a lot of programming is. That's what a lot of mandates are in tech companies. You know, I have friends that work at tech companies. They're like, hey, like our company is literally telling us, like my job is a programmer, but now I have to use AI to program because that's what they want. That is, they're telling me I have to have a hit a certain quota of AI prompts in order to be good in my next review. So I am not surprised that I don't think that the because gaming is a creative field, that it would be immune to these this type of fuckery.

Speaker 8:
[33:51] Yeah, I think the big one here on the divisive side, right, is cutting jobs and cutting creatives out of the space by using AI. That's the conversation that we've been having, right? Trying to cut every dollar and save every penny so the stock market, so the share price goes up and the shareholders are happy, right? Yeah, that's the divisive side. We're not happy with that. The consumers and the fans of games out there are not happy with you cutting jobs every single day. That's what we're getting at. We understand AI is being used. We want it used in the proper ways. We want to use so these people aren't losing their jobs to some AI chat bot that is now generating games, right? The guy goes, well, we can make your games faster and give you five in seven years instead of one. And maybe two of them will be hits. And the three of them will go, oh, maybe they were cool. I don't really want that. I want great games. I don't want some crap game that you tested and thought, oh, maybe Mike will spend $40 on that.

Speaker 1:
[34:45] I mean, if we're talking about the ideal universe, right? It is the same amount of creatives that are working at Rockstar 2K that are able to locally and sustainably use AI on their own servers that are not going up to a fucking thing that is destroying the fucking universe when it comes to these data centers that are sucking up all the water in the middle of the country, right? It is being able to use 250, 250, 500 people to make two to three games every, you know, seven years instead of two years, right? That's the James Cameron quote when he talks about AI is like, hey, what's the he was asked, like, what is the amount of people that it should take to make Avatar 3 when it takes Avatar 3 last time took I think 1000 people. He's like, should take 1000 people. Thousand people should be working on these movies. We should just be making more of them and faster. And I would like the tools to be better so then we don't have to go through these revisions. But he's like, I don't want anyone to lose jobs. I don't want I want 1000 people. I want as many people as many creatives in this world to work on these projects as possible because the collaboration is important. It's important to have these people from the ground up. You don't want to just be like, OK, well, this is a low value art. It's like you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. You don't know. This is all cohesiveness. When it comes to the art design, you can't just be like, we're going to type in pebbles into fucking nano banana and get the right pebbles so then I can focus on the main character. It's like, no, all this stuff works together. And that is, again, the thing that I always talk about when we talked about and video DLSS 5 is like a lot of people in the chat, not a lot of people, some people in the chat were saying like, oh, it looks better. It's like, I don't think you like video games. I don't think you like art is that you are looking at all these. They all look the same. They're all trying to maximize realism. You have to have an artist that goes in there and has their touch and is making something that is not realistic, but is their interpretation of realism. And it is has their touch, has their feeling like Resident Evil 9 looks like that because it's Resident Evil. It's artists that are working on it, that have a vision, that know how sexy they want Leon to look. They don't want to put just an old person filter on it or a human filter on it like this. These are human beings working on these things from the ground up. And that's what's beautiful about video games. Not because they're typing in pebbles and they could put pebbles. You know what I mean? That's such a false flag. You know what I mean? It's focusing on the pebbles. That is something that is actually going to revolutionize game production. I think that's CEO bullshit fully.

Speaker 8:
[37:04] Well said, Roger. Of course, in the article, we have our exec going on. Jack says, roughly nine out of ten game developers told us, yeah, we're using it. And then other organizational surveys will show you like 40 to 50 percent Roger, we are starting to see a little bit of a difference now. We're seeing some game companies get called out for not talking about their use of AI or maybe leaving in placeholder items at the end and then catching it and having to change that. We see other companies now coming out early and saying, hey, we use AI, we talk about AI. This is what we're going to do, right? And the public sentiment seems to switch on each one of those decisions and how they come out. Do you see anything in the future? I mean, I guess I start to think of the general audience. Do they even know? Do they even can we have this conversation of like what we do on this podcast and the audience that we reach are the people who do care, the people that do understand and know. But I don't know past that where the breakthrough is, if they're aware of this, I think right now, right?

Speaker 1:
[38:05] Like, let's say Capcom is using AI and let's say they used it. And this is me just talking on my ass, right? Of like, let's say in Pragmata, they used AI to help the back end code or whatever. Right? Of course, we will never know that we didn't know that. You know, normal consumers will never know that. But I think there is a line that I, capitalism and these companies are trying to find, right? When it comes to DLSS5, when it comes to, you know, a fucking putting Val Kilmer, who's passed away in movies, right? Like, all of these things, they're trying to test the audiences. And I do think there is a line where normal audiences, not just the people that are online like us, that love the stuff that is like entrenched in all these things as it was happening, are going to revolt against it, right? There's going to be a game. There's going to be a moment where we're...

Speaker 8:
[38:47] I think that Val Kilmer is a great one. Like, hey, here's Val Kilmer, who you know has passed away, rest in peace right now. Like, you're gonna look at him on a movie and they're gonna try to pass this off. Yeah. And you're gonna go, do I like this?

Speaker 1:
[39:00] Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 8:
[39:00] And I wonder if this will be one of the first moments of like, hey, hold up, don't really like that.

Speaker 1:
[39:04] No, and then on top of that, when some company's gonna try to make an AI-generated animated movie, I think that's gonna be the first thing that's probably gonna pop off. And that's probably gonna be, some company's gonna be like fucking Skydance or some shit is gonna be like, hey, we made an AI-generated movie, AI animated movie, it's in theaters right now. And then you're gonna see people look at that and be like, this is, there's something hollow about this. And that is the pervades. I think people want real human art, even if they don't know they want real human art. You know what I mean? Like they're gonna feel it.

Speaker 9:
[39:31] Shout out to the Val Kilmer thing reminded me of like, shout out to Disney for normalizing that shit 10 years ago with the fucking Rogue One and the guy who plays, all of them. Tarkin. And then also Princess Leia and all that shit. Yeah, real cool stuff.

Speaker 1:
[39:48] Yeah, that they did scan in the faces and everything.

Speaker 8:
[39:52] Yeah, that's I'm looking forward to the day where we get to it, where the companies are out in front of it and the general audience is now making that decision of like, hey, I stand by this or I don't. Right? Because I don't feel like we've got to that point yet. We're still, hey, I'm hiding it. Oh, an asset fell through the cracks. And all of a sudden, the gamers have stood up and said, hey, what's up with that? But I don't think we've gotten to the point where it's like, hey, I'm whatever company, we're making this AI. And everyone's like, you know what? I'm turning my back on you.

Speaker 1:
[40:22] You can't put the genie back in the bottle. You can't close Pandora's Box with AI, right? AI is always going to be around in some fashion form. But I do think that there will be a cultural revolt or maybe just a situation where everyone's like, no, it's not cool to have AI or to it's really cool to make things with your hands and your minds and like doing it shit the hard way. Like that is going to come back in fashion, like handmade things, people that are focusing. And it's already happening right now where it's like people make incredible art. They have to be in the beginning, be like, this is not AI. And, you know, it's both depressing, but it's also kind of cool because it's like, hey, like someone could do that by fucking typing shit into a fucking AI chatbot. But then you decided to spend, you know, thousands of hours to make something really awesome and have that people appreciate that. Like there's going to be that cultural revolution. I think it's already happening because, yeah, I don't think that AI is always going to be around. But I do think creating with AI and creatives are going to continue to, in the mainstream, push back against it.

Speaker 8:
[41:22] Well, I don't know if this story is ever going to leave us, Roger. I think we're going to be talking about AI for quite some time. And you know what else we're going to be talking about? Story number three, Roger. We're going to be talking about this game for quite some time because Mass Effect devs are too busy working on Mass Effect to tease Mass Effect. This is coming from Eddie Machuk over at GameSpot. A new Mass Effect game is in development at BioWare, but the esteemed RPG studio has not said much about it. That continues to be the case. So fans are trying any way they can to get more info. And that includes asking executive producer Michael Gamble for an update via social media. Asked if he could provide, quote, something juicy, end quote, for fans to obsess over, Gamble said the only update he can provide for the next Mass Effect game is that the team is just busy working on it. Not a lot of time for a tease, he said. People have been yelling at Gamble for a long time now, demanding more information about the next Mass Effect. He said in November 2025 that he understands fans are thirsty for updates on the game, but the team was heads down and focused exclusively on the next entry in the Space Faire series. On last year's Mass Effect Holiday and 7 Day, Gamble said, quote, We have a lot of universe to cover, lots of features to build, and lots of romances to figure out. We're excited by what we're building, and we promise you when we're ready, it'll be a lot of fun to show, end quote. The next Mass Effect game has been in the works for years, but we still don't know much about much about much of anything about it. It's Bioware Bioware's follow up to Dragon Age of the Veil Guard, which came out, which came up short in terms of sales. Roger.

Speaker 1:
[43:06] Juicy and thirsty in the same article. That's pretty dope.

Speaker 8:
[43:08] Give me some juicy. Let me obsess over some juicy. I mean, this is a beloved franchise. This is one that everyone is excited to get back in their lives. They're very pumped up about it. Of course, coming off of the last Mass Effect, there are a lot of things riding on this and there's a lot of expectations to meet, to meet the original trilogy and say, hey, can we come back and make a big swing on this? Right?

Speaker 1:
[43:34] Yeah. And we're on the Internet have it out for Bioware right now. So I'm sure they're very, very much aware of what they're trying to do here and what they're building. Yeah, it's cool. I appreciate the honesty. I appreciate you're working on something. Yeah, we don't got time. Like we always hear the stories of like, hey, why didn't you have a trailer at Summer Game Fest? It's like, hey, we're in the middle of development and like literally us making a trailer to like get all the assets and like get picture lock on certain situations. Like that is a lot of effort. You have to kind of stop development a little bit just to kind of focus on the trailer of it all. I think it was Wolverine that we're talking about that a while ago. Yeah, either way, it makes sense. That's very honest. That's how game development works. So I don't think we're going to see this this year.

Speaker 8:
[44:12] Yeah, let's get real really quick. We have Summer Game Fest right around the corner. We have an N7 day all the way out in November. A TGA out in December. Is this year the year we see anything Mass Effect, Roger? Or as Michael said, the team is working hard.

Speaker 1:
[44:27] I think it's a 2027 showcase at least and maybe a 2028 release.

Speaker 8:
[44:31] OK.

Speaker 1:
[44:32] But I don't think we're seeing it this year. Again, I don't think he would be on Twitter responding to people asking for something juicy if he knew two months from now you were going to get a trailer. So I think the earliest I can see it is maybe TGA, but realistically, maybe Summer Game Fest or TGA next year for 2027 and the 2028 like actual release. What about you?

Speaker 8:
[44:52] I was going to give you a pizza bet, but like it's a small one. I think it's just a little pizza. When it comes to end seven day, I think you'll get something. Now, what is that? I don't know if that's a trailer. I don't know if that's just a screenshot. But like I do think on end seven day this year, you will get something for Mass Effect that is beyond just a, hey, we're working hard and we got a lot of things to go off of. Probably like you'll get a Twitter post of four screenshots.

Speaker 1:
[45:21] You want to do a pizza bet, right? A small pizza bet. Let's do a small pizza bet specifically.

Speaker 8:
[45:24] Okay, you have to buy a personal pan for your personal people. Okay, so what you're saying is on end seven day this year, you will get something Mass Effect that is not just a tweet saying, hey, we're working. I think it's screenshots or visuals, some visual visuals are above.

Speaker 1:
[45:39] I'm saying you do not get that. And what is a visual? Is it in game stuff or is it a poster? What are you thinking?

Speaker 8:
[45:45] It has to be in game. Oh, yeah. Okay.

Speaker 1:
[45:48] Well, you're definitely losing.

Speaker 9:
[45:48] See, I give that recorded down as a small pizza, small pizza, small pizza, small personal pizza bet.

Speaker 8:
[45:55] Everybody one slice from Costco.

Speaker 1:
[46:00] I can do that.

Speaker 8:
[46:01] Very excited for Mass Effect. Can't wait to see where we're going with that. Right in the high off of Project Hail Mary. We talked about Artemis to return into planet Earth. I mean, we just talked about the Expanse video game. We saw Exodus, the video game we were talking about with Andy as well. A lot of space in my life, and I'm excited. I'm excited to go out to space because I can never go out to space.

Speaker 1:
[46:24] Oh, I thought you're transit.

Speaker 8:
[46:25] Oh, sorry. Number four. Let's talk about space.

Speaker 1:
[46:27] Okay, there we are.

Speaker 8:
[46:28] Orbitals gameplay reveal. Let's give a little quick trailer reaction because now we get to see gameplay of Orbitals, which we saw a little bit of already.

Speaker 1:
[46:36] Yeah, I'm excited. It's a full on gameplay overview trailer. I think it's four minutes. I want to really very excited for this. I saw some previews go up. Very jealous.

Speaker 4:
[46:43] I want to play this.

Speaker 8:
[46:47] Killer look, killer music. Do you have the co-op puzzle solving mechanics?

Speaker 1:
[46:53] Apparently, one of the developers was a level designer at Tazer.

Speaker 4:
[46:57] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[46:57] This is huge.

Speaker 4:
[46:58] My name is Jacob and I'm the game director of Orbitals.

Speaker 1:
[47:01] I think pretty sure it was Jacob.

Speaker 8:
[47:02] I think we've seen that name before, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[47:04] We're going to be playing through some sections of the game and show you how the co-op works.

Speaker 3:
[47:07] Let's go.

Speaker 8:
[47:10] The game just oozes style, Roger, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[47:13] All right.

Speaker 8:
[47:13] So there's one person pulling or heating up and then you pull.

Speaker 3:
[47:16] Yeah.

Speaker 8:
[47:18] Yeah. It's all about working in tandem in these games. I'm making it fun, Roger. It's easy to be like, hey, one person does object A, the other person does B.

Speaker 7:
[47:25] You got to make it fun, Stan Bell.

Speaker 1:
[47:27] In order to succeed. On this, their first mission, Mikey and Omura have chosen different tools.

Speaker 4:
[47:32] Mikey is carrying the scrap hook and Omura the beam cannon. So here, I need to use the beam cannon in order to keep this drone charged. Otherwise, it will explode.

Speaker 1:
[47:41] Wait there.

Speaker 3:
[47:42] I need to clear the path.

Speaker 4:
[47:44] Here we go. Nice.

Speaker 2:
[47:45] And shoot it up.

Speaker 4:
[47:48] Okay.

Speaker 3:
[47:49] I'm going to be ready.

Speaker 1:
[47:51] Yeah, it's a switch to exclusive.

Speaker 8:
[47:53] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[47:53] And we go.

Speaker 8:
[47:54] Oh my God. Oh, nice. Okay. That looks fun. Nothing too crazy yet that you haven't seen before in these co-op games that we've seen. But man, the beautiful art style just really brings this along.

Speaker 1:
[48:06] Yeah, I think it's the art style. It's the it's the music, but it's like just that anime old school.

Speaker 8:
[48:11] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[48:12] Nineties aesthetic right there. So cool, man. Yeah. We could skip around just a little bit. I want to see just some more visuals. Oh, look around.

Speaker 8:
[48:19] Oh, so they're opening up the flap so you can keep that drone alive. That was cool.

Speaker 1:
[48:23] That's nice.

Speaker 8:
[48:24] Clear in the gunk.

Speaker 1:
[48:25] Gorgeous, man. You excited for this one?

Speaker 8:
[48:28] Oh, yeah, Roger. Well, you know what? I need someone in my life to play these games with because my best friend, my one point three right now, he ditched me when it came to Split Fiction.

Speaker 1:
[48:38] He did ditch you.

Speaker 8:
[48:39] And my best friend, best friend, my one point one has a loving fiance.

Speaker 1:
[48:43] That's true.

Speaker 8:
[48:43] So I don't have someone in my life to play these games with. And like I was about to play Split Fiction one man, two controllers. That's how much I wanted to play this game. I need to find someone in my life to be able to play these games with.

Speaker 1:
[48:56] That's depressing as fuck. That's the maybe the set. Are you going to do that here with orbitals?

Speaker 8:
[49:01] One control, two controllers, one man. Yeah, yeah, probably.

Speaker 1:
[49:04] That's disgusting.

Speaker 9:
[49:05] That is follow up to two girls.

Speaker 1:
[49:11] Orbitals has a summer 2026 release date, so no specific date here, but they showed up a lot of gameplay. So I'm assuming we're going to get some type of release date announcement. Yeah, Nintendo Direct.

Speaker 9:
[49:21] OK, I could see you because we've been seeing a lot of them. Like this is a big drop here. I could see. And out today on the next big Nintendo.

Speaker 8:
[49:31] Oh, that would be a blast. That would be great.

Speaker 1:
[49:34] We were feeling it during. What was the TGA? Whenever they announced this officially for the first time, we were like, fuck now today. Oh, today, please give it to us right now, because this game looks so fucking cool. But yeah, again, the I didn't put any of the preview round up there, but it was all really positive. A lot of people being like, hey, like this is really this is what we're looking forward to scratch that itch. It was super exciting, gorgeous. I do think the framerate is a little bit tough right now, but maybe that's just the recording. Maybe that's just maybe they'll they'll iron that out a little bit.

Speaker 9:
[50:01] But is that like not a part of the art style as well?

Speaker 1:
[50:04] Yeah, maybe. Yeah. Maybe it's just also the resolution just feels a little low. But again, maybe these are all things that will be ironed out. You know, these things were compression and all that jazz. That's exciting. That's big.

Speaker 8:
[50:13] Roger, Orbitals is big in my life. And me playing it by myself with two controllers is even bigger. But if I need something small, if I need something smaller to get me through the day, where would I go?

Speaker 1:
[50:24] You go to our last story, the We News Channel, where we cover all the small news items you need to know about.

Speaker 8:
[50:28] Roger, let's jump into We News. Annapurna announces Nintendo Switch 2 ports for a lot of their awesome games. Stray is coming out May 28th. 2 a.t. is coming out June 11th. Wonder Stop is coming out June 28th. And my favorite, Sayonara Wild Hearts and Lorelai and the Laser Eyes are out now.

Speaker 1:
[50:51] I'm definitely going to play Lorelai. I'm going to try that out. I know it's hard to suck, but I'm going to try it.

Speaker 8:
[50:54] You let me know how that game is, because Lorelai and the Laser Eyes might be the goadest of goadest video game titles. Dude, I have the greatest video game title I've ever heard. No, I've never played it.

Speaker 1:
[51:04] Oh, I was about to spoil something for you. You got to play it. That's an hour long stream.

Speaker 8:
[51:08] That's easy.

Speaker 1:
[51:09] Super quick. Okay. Super quick.

Speaker 8:
[51:11] And you think I like it?

Speaker 1:
[51:12] Yeah, there's a fun moment at the ending. I don't spoil it. Don't let the chat link up.

Speaker 8:
[51:15] You know about the ending of Sayonara Wild Hearts?

Speaker 1:
[51:17] Yeah. Good game.

Speaker 8:
[51:18] Good game.

Speaker 1:
[51:19] What are you talking about? What are you doing?

Speaker 8:
[51:20] Queen Latifah's in it.

Speaker 1:
[51:21] Okay, that's what I was talking about. So you do know about it.

Speaker 8:
[51:24] Oh, Lorelai and the Laser Eyes? That's Queen Latifah in it?

Speaker 1:
[51:28] I was talking about Sayonara Wild Hearts.

Speaker 8:
[51:29] Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[51:30] I'm sorry.

Speaker 8:
[51:30] What are my number one games? I love that game.

Speaker 1:
[51:33] Oh, okay. Yeah I was talking about Sayonara Wild Hearts the entire time. I think we were split up there.

Speaker 8:
[51:40] According to Famitsu, Tomodachi Life, Living the Dream has topped the Japanese physical game sales charts for the month with 565, 565,000, 400,000, 405,000 sold. Thank you, Ron.

Speaker 1:
[51:55] Yeah.

Speaker 8:
[51:56] Huge sales right there for physical copies.

Speaker 1:
[51:59] Huge, huge. I think the second was Progmodo, which is only like 54,000. So like they're crushing over there. So I'm excited to see like the full numbers next month for America.

Speaker 8:
[52:06] And Crimson Desert version of 1.04 Patch is out now on PC. And it's massive, adding difficulty options and a host of highly requested features. If you're playing Crimson Desert, let me know in the chat right now. You got a big patch coming your way. Roger, with that, that is the end of the show. Let's dive into some super chat. I'll kick it over to your wrong to see what we got wrong.

Speaker 1:
[52:30] We're going to do a rapid fire of super chats, everybody. We got a lot. Mr. Person, super chat says, holy hype, my goat Barrett is making peak. Love that. Silver J Hawkins, Barrett's new video title is, this is a spoiler over here, everybody, get ready, the complete breakdown of Skibbity Toilet. You've heard it here first.

Speaker 8:
[52:47] Read it one more time.

Speaker 1:
[52:48] Barrett's new video title is the complete breakdown of Skibbity Toilet. He is going to-

Speaker 8:
[52:53] Barrett deep dives into brain rot.

Speaker 9:
[52:55] I am not young enough, nor that brain rotted enough to you know what would be cool though, Barrett.

Speaker 8:
[53:02] What if you, me and Roger deep dive into Roblox? We kick off with Skibbity Toilet and brain rot gets us into Roblox. And then we learn the inner workings of Roblox and how they make so much money. Why is there such a player base? And what the hell is going on?

Speaker 9:
[53:15] I think this is going to go back to your let's investigate world of tanks. World of tanks.

Speaker 8:
[53:21] This turns out as a fun game.

Speaker 1:
[53:22] We should do it backwards. We should start with like Gmod, because that's where Skibbity Toilet ends like the pinnacle of it all. Whatever. The postman Super Ted says, Love that shirt, Mikey. I started watching One Piece a month ago and just finished Alabasta. Oh, my eyes out.

Speaker 9:
[53:35] Hell yeah. He's wearing like the shirt for the cops.

Speaker 8:
[53:38] I got the, yeah, but you know what the cool part is? The back, the back, the back part of it is like the, I'm going to be honest.

Speaker 1:
[53:43] I look at these. I thought these were titties.

Speaker 8:
[53:46] Well, I have gigantic titties because.

Speaker 1:
[53:47] Well, no.

Speaker 8:
[53:48] Are you making fun of me right now?

Speaker 1:
[53:49] No. I mean, the blue thing, I mean, it just looks like some weird titties.

Speaker 8:
[53:55] I think it's a bird.

Speaker 9:
[53:56] Yeah, I think it's like a was a seagull.

Speaker 1:
[54:00] I just said it. Willie the deuce AC one next, please. It's so hard to play the OG play an OG form.

Speaker 8:
[54:07] Yeah, we didn't talk about that.

Speaker 1:
[54:08] That's a good one.

Speaker 8:
[54:08] Are we going to go back to the original trilogy? Bear, do you think with these remasters and remakes of like, hey, do we look at one through three or whatever and start identifying?

Speaker 1:
[54:18] I would love them to fix AC3, bro. I would love them to figure out AC3.

Speaker 9:
[54:21] Yeah, AC3 had so much promise, but it just did not have it. It was close. It was such a lot of cool ideas.

Speaker 1:
[54:27] So many cool ideas.

Speaker 9:
[54:29] Maybe a little too many ideas that made that game not feel great to play. Yeah, I would love that. But I think that's where you get into the time investment of like, if we're going to do that, why not invest in, you know, like part of what made those original games particularly so special was the modern day stuff. And if you start growing back to that, it's like, well, should we just start investing in this kind of stuff again? And like, I don't know. I don't know if that's where they would go. I agree that like, I think the only one that's like really hard to get is AC1 on modern consoles. I think everything else has like some sort of remaster that was released on like PS4 and Xbox One that you can, you know, get through the store today still.

Speaker 1:
[55:13] Are you body shaping me? Nightlife Superchat says, What's that? Was that a grappling hook? That's awesome. It was looks sick. We have D Davis becoming a member for 30 months. Hell yeah. Shout out. I'm just a Billy says, somebody tell bless that Edward Kenway is voiced by Constantine from Legends of Tomorrow. Tell me that as well, because I watch that shit. Probably more than blessing tomorrow. Oh, yeah. My grandma was watching Constantine, bro. You had a family, but you were part of the arrow versus that was a big deal because NBC and Constantine's NBC and then it went over there. Hundreds of monkeys Superchat says on the AC remake, I would have loved the ability to have to hands hand off the ship piloting to an NBC. Otherwise, it does look pretty great. Interesting. I thought it was like pretty much the funnest part of the game.

Speaker 9:
[56:04] It's like what makes that unique.

Speaker 1:
[56:06] Yeah.

Speaker 9:
[56:06] Just having like, are you saying like maybe like auto sale, kind of like a auto like horse riding and stuff, not necessarily like battles and stuff. I could see that. Like I understand.

Speaker 8:
[56:15] I like that song. I'd appreciate it. Take some cool screenshots.

Speaker 1:
[56:18] Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 9:
[56:18] I love taking screenshots.

Speaker 1:
[56:20] Like I do it, Joshua Bowen. A bit of we knew is Lego party devs had to find a new back end provider for their multiplayer as their former Hathora was bought up by an AI firm.

Speaker 9:
[56:31] It works.

Speaker 1:
[56:31] AI. Well, sucks for that.

Speaker 8:
[56:33] But I like those devs a lot for switching over us. We like that.

Speaker 1:
[56:36] Shout out to them, though, really quick. Please get us a switch to version like that. We have this game on this. I just need to switch to version that game rules. OK, we got T. Don't doubt. Cass Dawkaws, he super excited a few times, but said, We need Binks Brew One Piece Chanty. We'll see. I don't know what that means.

Speaker 9:
[56:54] I can't I can't have Binks Brew in Assassin's Creed.

Speaker 8:
[56:58] That would be great.

Speaker 9:
[56:59] Because like not just like, Mikey, we have a kind of animated record in a couple of weeks. And like that episode is going to be us talking about pretty much getting almost halfway through One Piece. And so like we're going to talk about Binks Brew. But like any time I hear that song, I want to cry.

Speaker 8:
[57:17] It's a great song.

Speaker 9:
[57:17] I want to burst out into tears.

Speaker 8:
[57:19] They should put that in there.

Speaker 1:
[57:21] I can't. Falcon Super Chat says, No, he's lying. All the AI CEOs are lying. That pebble and grass stuff is just procedural generation that has existed long before this. That's very true.

Speaker 8:
[57:31] Trying to sell the AI of like, that's making a lie.

Speaker 9:
[57:35] They weren't being specific.

Speaker 1:
[57:36] He was just saying example. Yeah, I think he was using it as a fuck ass example. I'm not saying that that is happening. I'm saying he's probably right in terms of people are using AI. I don't think he's lying that he talked to a bunch of developers and they all said, yeah, we're using AI in some.

Speaker 9:
[57:49] Did he talk to a lot of developers or are we talking to a lot of executives who are also like that? That's where you get into the whole, like, what the fuck are we doing? And are we differentiating between the different types of AI? And are we actually talking to the people who are actually making the games? Or are we talking to the other execs and investor types who are just, you know, wanting that nice sniff of the, I don't know where this allegory is going, but like, you know, you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1:
[58:16] I know what you're saying. Aaron Lyme says, Tomodachi, life is super selling super well. Yep, talking about exactly what we were talking about before. Why I don't buy Greg's argument about PS5 and family games make the space and family show up. It sounds a little bit different, but I agree. Not Calvin Prez, Lorelai's amazing great game to play with someone sitting next to you taking notes. Same as Payne's Creek. Killing's never heard of that one.

Speaker 8:
[58:38] I wish I had someone to sit next to me.

Speaker 1:
[58:41] One more, maybe two more super chats. Bode, L-Y-K, we knew some Tom Warrens scoop circulating right now. Microsoft Gaming as a division is no more. Xbox is focused slash branding now. We'll talk about that tomorrow on...

Speaker 8:
[58:53] Yeah, I just pulled it up there. I'm sure we'll talk about it in a little bit.

Speaker 1:
[58:57] And then Phil, the trucker says Google's statement is self-serving. We have more games released yearly than we can play. We don't need AI for more quantity. We need devs getting a higher wage for better quality. AI dilutes art and pay. Fucking preach. I love that. And that is the final Super Chat.

Speaker 8:
[59:13] Let's jump into You're Wrong. Of course, we ask you while you're watching us live here on Twitch and on YouTube to keep us honest by going to You're Wrong anytime that we screw things up. We only have one. You're wrong. And it's not even a You're Wrong. Just my friend Jeppo writes in and says, Mike, when are we doing a Danganronpa Games cast? And will you be on it? No, I've never played a Danganronpa.

Speaker 1:
[59:38] And maybe by two by two.

Speaker 8:
[59:39] I'll put it in my back pocket. You never know. I'm playing a lot of video games. Chat, let me know. Of course, this has kind of been kind of Funny Games Daily. I like that.

Speaker 1:
[59:47] Kind of been.

Speaker 9:
[59:48] I like that. That's a good one.

Speaker 8:
[59:50] That's really good.

Speaker 1:
[59:50] We might add that.

Speaker 8:
[59:51] If you love what we do, consider supporting us with the Kinda Funny Membership on Patreon or YouTube to help keep the lights and mics on to get the shows ad free and get your daily exclusive show from Greg, which is also me. I have a lot of shows to do today.

Speaker 1:
[60:04] We have a lot of shit to do.

Speaker 8:
[60:05] Oh, man. I forgot that. So we got to keep this going. Chat, we will be back with the Gamescast right after a fun run of the buzz and a reset. We'll see you on that one. If you got to go. Hey, guess what? It's been our pleasure to serve you.