[00:00] This is your sponsor, Raycon, is celebrating Raycon Month by giving you big discounts. Get up to 25% off their all-new everyday clip earbuds when you visit buyraycon.com forward slash skillup. Click, click the link below in the description, scan the QR code on screen, or stick around to the end of the video to learn more.
[00:15] Gamers, feels like we're finally getting a bit of a break from the absolutely relentless news cycle these past few weeks. We've been so stacked that we haven't even had time to intro block, so it's nice to be able to take a bit of a break and knock over some important admin. Like, for example, did you know that SkillUp content is now on Apple Podcasts?
[00:29] Podcasts. It's just the audio feed for now as Apple Podcasts are still rolling out a video in different ways, but I know a lot of you listen to our stuff as a podcast, so I just thought I'd mention it. This is, of course, on top of still-up content being available on Spotify, and over there you actually can get the video, and you won't need to get any platform ads over there if you're a
[00:44] Spotify premium subscriber. Our next announcement, it's not admin, and it's something we're exceptionally proud to report. Last week, our This Thing in Video Games.com reporter Maddy Agney won the award for Journalism Impact at the MCV slash Develop Women in Game Awards. The awards look
[00:57] to quote, highlight an individual who's using their voice to positively build the industry as well as hold it to account where needed, and whose work is inspirational and groundbreaking in its approach, tone, and focus, end quote. And yeah, we couldn't agree more. Maddie has only been out of journalism school for less than a year,
[01:10] but has already made her mark in this industry through absolutely exceptional reporting and commentary. This show that you watch each week and the website that many of you generously support wouldn't be half as good as they were without her efforts and the efforts of the broad team. So a huge thanks to everyone, but a very special congratulations to Maddie.
[01:24] Keep on crushing it. Okay, that's everything I think. Let's say we talk about some gaming news. Why don't we start with some Sony stuff, since they just celebrated Last of Us Day, which I just learned is apparently a thing. In a blog post to Naughty Dog's website on the anniversary of The Last of Us,
[01:37] studio head Neil Druckmann gave some updates on their current games in production. When asked if the studio will tell more stories in the Last of Us universe, Druckmann responded, quote, We have a couple of very exciting new projects in very early stages, so we can't say much about them at this point,
[01:49] and we'll tell you that both projects will expand the canon of The Last of Us beyond Part 1 and Part 2, end quote. Very important to note that he did not mention if these projects are video game based or if they're related to the live action HBO show, but I do think it's highly unlikely that Druckmann would say this if it wasn't video game related, and given that they canned their live service multiplayer stuff recently, I think it's highly unlikely to be another one of those. All signs point to a single player last of us story, but whether that's part 3 or something else entirely remains to be seen.
[02:15] As for Intergalactic, Naughty Dog are holding their cards very close to their chest, saying, quote, The team is hands down on what's shaping up to be Naughty Dog's most ambitious game yet. There's an electricity around the studio right now as all the pieces come together, and we're stoked to finally unveil Intergalactic in all its glory.
[02:28] But we need to cook for just a little bit longer, so we want to set expectations. We're going to be quiet for the rest of this year. In 2027, that changes, and give you a proper look at Jordan's wild sci-fi adventure, end quote. Okay, cool. Sounds good. See you guys in 2027.
[02:41] Hopefully before Summer Games Fest, though, because June would be a hell of a long time to wait for a reveal. That wasn't all the Naughty Dog used this week though because rumours abound that the studio will be returning to one of their most beloved IPs but sadly, it is not Jak and Daxter.
[02:54] Site MP1st is reporting that according to sources familiar with the project Naughty Dog are making a new Uncharted game. I won't spoil Uncharted 4 here of course but reportedly the story will continue from the events of that game and the project is reportedly helmed by Sean Escag
[03:06] the director of Uncharted Lost Legacy. MP1st claims that this won't be released until after Intergalactic the Heritage Cross at ship And in fact, it's so early in this production that all of this is subject to change. But it's nice to hear that, if true, Naughty Dog are making a new engine in one of their franchises
[03:20] after years of remasters and remakes. I'm sure we'll find out if this news is true in, like, seven or eight years. So that's Sony. What's going on over in Xbox land? Well, for the last few months, we've been endlessly reporting on Xbox's Reset, which is perhaps the quickest rebranding of a redundancy and cost-cutting program the world has ever seen.
[03:35] We've obviously heard plenty from Xbox leaders like Asha Sharma and Matt Booty, but what does Microsoft Bossman's Saki Nadella think about it? but we got some idea this week when he took an interview on the Sources podcast, and unsurprisingly, Nadella's feeling pretty chipper about it all. Quote,
[03:47] I feel fantastic about the IP we have right now. If I look at the studios, the IP portfolio we have, and our ability to then take that and produce great games going forward, I feel fantastic. End quote. It's all well and good, but do remember that Xbox just initiated round two of their layout strategy,
[04:00] stacking 268 roles across multiple studios, including most of Halo Studios, giving the franchise over to the Call of Duty machine Activision. whilst the last fourth of the 3,200 layouts they promised back in July are still to come.
[04:12] Nadella goes on to defend the shake-up, citing the need for a sustainable business and Xbox's goal of being, quote, a great publisher and a great platform provider to games across both PC and Xbox, end quote. A phrase in there is notable because it shows a fairly narrow view on their own native hardware.
[04:25] Rather than commenting on the presence they achieved more broadly through multi-platform releases, years before eBay is the first Xbox exclusive in the hot minutes, with Mac Booty and Xbox strategy lead Matthew Ball promising that more exclusives will likely come on a case-by-case basis.
[04:38] Certainly a big question mark right now is Xbox's partnership with Kojima Productions for the horror title OD and the newly signed Fizzant. If Xbox are swinging back around to exclusive, will Kojima's output be kept from PS5 owners?
[04:50] And rich owners as well, I guess, but let's be real, that shit was never coming to a switch. More broadly, Nadella makes clear the sort of expectations he has for Xbox in terms of profitability. Quote, After the thing that said that Xbox is going to get to growth in the next fiscal year, that's the plan they're executing on,
[05:03] and in that process, do a bang-up job of producing some great games. End quote. Interesting that the profit part comes before the making great games part, but maybe I'm just reading into that too much. One thing's for certain, though, if Xbox is going to be making money from Microsoft, it's not going to be because Microsoft sells the Xbox brand,
[05:17] which is something that a number of commentators have been speculating about in recent months. In an interview with the New York Times this week, Asha Sharma plants a firm flag by saying that Xbox is, quote, not for sale, end quote. Sharma made the comment when asked if her goal was Xbox divestiture, following up by saying, quote,
[05:31] We'll do whatever it takes to set the company up for success, and we will look at the right partnerships, the right operating model, and everything needed to achieve that, end quote. Weirdly, the same New York Times interview asked Sharma if she felt the need to apologize to Sony for snatching away Fizan and signing with Kojima,
[05:44] to which Sharma was like, uh, no? More specifically, she said that Xbox would continue to work with Sony, saying that, quote, competition and collaboration can coexist, end quote. Very cordial. So that's what Microsoft C-Suite is saying,
[05:56] but how are actual developers feeling about the great reset? Well, not great, understandably, and for a hint of that you need look no further than recent reporting from Eurogamer on the vibes at Gears of War developer The Coalition. Eurogamer writes that they, quote,
[06:08] learned staff at the studio had become increasingly fearful of imminent layoffs and the potentially major financial consequences which could follow. Eurogamer spoke to multiple sources at the Vancouver-based studio with knowledge of the situation for this article, who had been provided anonymity to protect their identity, end quote.
[06:22] Hero GameX says that various Coalition sources were actually feeling quite optimistic about their prospects during this big cost-cutting spree, since the studio was well-regarded internally at Microsoft, and the Gears franchise was and is an important tentpole in Xbox's portfolio.
[06:35] More recently, the mood has shifted, as big restructurations like moving Halo under Activision have made staff feel like any and everything could happen. Referring to the imminent release of Indie Day, one Coalition source said, quote, The mood is certainly, let's not celebrate the game until we're three months post-launch, just in case, which is very unusual, end quote.
[06:51] One of the big things that's really shifted the vibe is the departure of some key talent across the studio, says Eurogamer sources. Most notably, E-Day story director Juan Vaca announced that he'd been laid off as part of the recent round of cuts, and that left Coalition staff feeling very demoralized, a lot of them saying to Eurogamer,
[07:05] I can only imagine the heartbreak of spending all these years on a game to have the final stretch ripped away, completely out of your control. It's like you plan for a year on a meal for your family where everyone will be there, and on the day, you get locked out of the building or something and can't join in.
[07:18] More concerningly, coalition sources tell Eurogamer that they're worried that any layoffs affected soon will see them miss out on their Metacritic bonus, which is due to be paid towards the end of October. For those unaware, the Metacritic bonuses are actually pretty standard across the industry,
[07:30] and seed developers get paid a bonus if the game hits a certain score on Metacritic. It's obviously a deeply flawed model for a variety of reasons that we won't get into now, but it is something that staff can generally bank on when they know they've made a great game.
[07:42] Here's how Eurogamer reported on the anxiety of certain staff. Another source said that while those potentially laid off shortly before the payout should technically be eligible for the bonus they still remain doubtful It hard to believe anything Microsoft leadership say anymore after discarding staff in this manner they explained Another expressed similar skepticism saying they wouldn put it past Microsoft to try to avoid paying these bonuses out to potentially laid
[08:02] employees, end quote. And yeah, I certainly wouldn't put it past them either, but that is a more generalized skepticism towards any large-scale corporation rather than a specific indictment of Microsoft. Reviews for ED came out overnight, actually, and the title card resists at an 87
[08:15] Metacritic. Is that score high enough to get the Coalition staff their bonus? We don't know, But if it were, would Microsoft pay it to them? I guess time will tell. Here's a publisher that's been laying low this last for a while, Ubisoft. They've been going through a lot these last few years,
[08:28] and much like Xbox, they too are doing a big restructure program at the moment. This week we've got some important details on that, details that are going to be very relevant to any Tom Clancy fans out there. Ubisoft revealed some time ago their desire to restructure into a number of different creative houses,
[08:40] and this week we learned that the second creative house will be called Massive Entertainment, just like the studio of the same name, will encompass massive studios in Sweden, as well as Ubisoft Paris, Montreal and Toronto. Part of this business unit will be to look after several of the company's Tom Clancy franchises,
[08:53] like The Division, Ghost Recon and Splinter Cell, as well as the mobile March of the Giants that Ubisoft acquired from Amazon in 2025. Christopher Hartman, previously Vice President of Amazon Games and co-founder and president of 2K Games, will lead the house, while Massive Managing Director Thomas Andron will move over
[09:07] to be the General Manager of Ubisoft's newly formed Creative Network team, which will help provide shared resources to all the development houses. Taking his place as Managing Director of Massive Entertainment is Natalie Francis, who was most recently the Chief Development Officer at Avalanche Studios, after having long since at both DICE and EA.
[09:21] This second creative house joins Vantage Studios, the first creative conglomerate formed in 2025, and backed by a $1.3 billion US dollar investment from Tencent to watch over Ubisoft's biggest moneymakers, including Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six.
[09:34] While giving Massive the remaining Tom Clancy franchises makes a lot of sense, I would have also loved to have seen them stick with Star Wars Outlaws for a sequel. The game had its problems, sure, don't get me wrong, but I think there was some good foundational stuff there that could have been built on. Unfortunately, Massive made layoffs earlier this year due to poor sales of Outlaws,
[09:48] and with long-time creative director Julian Geraghty no longer at the studio, I'd be very surprised if they took another swing at the Star Wars universe any time soon, if ever. We do know about what other franchises the other Creative Houses will cover, although they haven't been officially named yet. Creative House 3 is in charge of live service games like The Crew, Writers Republic, and For Honor.
[10:03] Creative House 4 will oversee the strategy and platforming titles like Heroes of Might and Magic, Ringman, Anno, Prince of Persia, and Beyond Good and Evil, if that even still exists. Finally, Credit House 5 will take care of the casual and mobile games side of things,
[10:15] so basically their NFT division. Oh wait, sorry, NFTs and Robots. So basically their AI division, probably. A quick lightning round to finish off, and Certified One's grasshopper manufacturer has announced it's independent from their parent company, NetEase, this week. An estatement reported by Gematsu,
[10:28] due to detail the company's decision to become an independent studio again after 13 years with different publishers. Quote, having improved our own self-publishing know-how, We have a broad range of options available to us, and regardless of how our games may be published, we remain committed to creating unique titles featuring the no-game, no-life gaming experience expected of glasshopper manufacture with our own signature flavor and further enhanced quality."
[10:48] Worth noting that NetEase has pulled funding from a number of their Western and Japanese studios, including ex-Ride executive Greg Street's Fantastic Pixel Cartel and Anchor Point Studio back in 2025, and Nogoshi Studio founded by Yakuza creator Toshiro Nogoshi in 2026.
[11:01] All the best to Suda and his team. I know people on the Skill Up crew are secretly praying for a contact 2 or a flower of sun and rain 2, but I don't like their chances. From a studio that stood the test of time to one that's buckled within only a few years of its founding,
[11:13] it seems like Minds Eye developer Bill the Rocket Boy is probably finished. On the 25th of September, Bill the Rocket Boy filed into administration with the UK government's Companies House Agency. Being in administration means that the company has become insolvent and can't pay their debts.
[11:26] The appointed administrator's role is to protect said company from any legal actions brought against it because they can't pay. Builder Rocket Boy has confirmed to GamesIndustries.biz that Opus Advisory Group has been appointed as the administrator for the company, which is a UK firm that specialises in these types of cases.
[11:39] See, it's not good, and it comes after a string of layoffs and cancelled publishing partnerships with Builder Rocket Boy, the most recent of which we covered last week. It was pretty obvious then that things were headed this way, but this just confirms it. I do wonder if those pesky saboteurs will ever be brought to justice.
[11:52] From one horrible rollout to another, Discord has finally started rolling out their age verification measures globally. Back in February of this year, Discord announced this rollout, which pissed everyone off so much that they walked it back from launching in March to launching in September. In a blog post from Discord's Chief Technology Officer Stanislav Dzyzneski, he clarified that Discord doesn't, quote, want or need any more information about you aside from your age, end quote.
[12:12] Options for verification include credit cards and third-party sites like AgeKey. Discord will also automatically put users in age groups based on how old the user's account is or what servers they're a part of. One very important point in all this is Discord's assurances on making sure data is protected while using third-party sites for verification.
[12:28] So they now, quote, committed to publicly documenting every third-party aid assurance vendor and make it clear who each vendor is and what their practices are, including what data they handle and how long they keep it, end quote. Every time I bring this up, I need to remind everyone, in October of 2025, Discord suffered a massive data breach involving third-party customer service that led to around 70,000 government IDs being leaked, most of them from Australia.
[12:50] Just hoping this rollout goes a hell of a lot better than that one did. 1000 player numbers now, and let's start with Valve's newest MOBA, Deadlock. On September 29th, the Deadlock team released a major update for the game called City Never Sleeps, which brings in quote, a massive visual update to the map and neutrals, six new heroes, HUD updates,
[13:04] numerous quality of life additions, accessibility options, and more, end quote. The update attracted 228,000 concurrent players to the game, rocketing over the previous concurrent peak of 171,000 players. Remember, this game isn't even live to the general public,
[13:17] yet only accessible through an invite-only beta, but sits at the most wish-listed seeing game at the time of writing. In a post accompanying the update, the dev team shared where they're currently at in the development cycle, saying, quote, We felt that there was still a good amount of work we wanted to do on the core game itself
[13:30] before we moved on to more polished phases of the game development. Unlike previous updates, where our efforts were more singularly focused on the key parts of that update, this year we've been working on several different things in parallel. A good number of those things you'll see in today's update, end quote.
[13:42] From a massive invite-only beta to one of the biggest releases of the year, military FPS War Dogs has just sold 3 million units. The game only launched on the 10th of September and has a massive peak in current play count of over 420,000 people at the time of writing.
[13:55] It seems that Dev Studio bulkhead is suffering from success, though. As CEO Joe Brammer explained on Twitter that the team, quote, have been a bit overwhelmed with the response, and I mean it literally. It feels like we've spent our whole time fighting bottom-seater cheaters and constant DDoS attacks.
[14:07] We feel a bit out of control with how big things have gone and how much extra security we have been forced to do, so I still believe in our plan and ask you to believe in our team, end quote. Another release that's had a massive player count but is getting flamed for its performance is The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt Remastered.
[14:20] When this free upgrade for existing Witcher 3 owners went live on the 29th of September, it reached a peak in current player count of 120,975 players. The channel sits as the all-time player record for the game on Steam.
[14:32] Although this new update has brought a lot of people back to Geralt Adventures, some of them are not happy about how it's performing. Audio issues, stuttering, framerate dips, and changes to the art style have been the main sticking points across both PC and console. The Witcher 3's overall rating still sits at overwhelmingly positive on Steam, but it's gone down from 96% to 82% since the remaster's release.
[14:51] Ouch. It's not all expressly negative, though, with the remastered version sitting at a 94 on Metacritic after 10 critic reviews and plenty of people posting about enjoying their time with it. Oh, Steam Project Red, you just love a controversial launch, don't you?
[15:03] And finally, in a surprising twist, Craston has cancelled the PUBG extraction shoot of PUBG Black Budget after only a year in development. On the Black Budget theme page, developer PUBG Studios outlined their reasoning for the cancellation. Quote, After reviewing the project's development status and future directions,
[15:16] we concluded that its current direction would not allow us to deliver an experience players could enjoy over the long term. We have therefore made the difficult decision to end development of PUBG Black Budget. We sincerely thank everyone who took the time to participate in our closed alpha test and share their feedback.
[15:29] PUBG Studios will carry what we learned from development and testing in the future projects, continuing to listen to players as we explore new gameplay experiences. End quote. I wonder if Kraken is seeing the writing on the wall for the extraction shooter genre, with games like Marathon so massively underperforming, and Earth Raiders hitting the rocks soon after
[15:43] its huge launch. Or perhaps they just didn have enough money to back it after their drawn out legal battle with Sub Creators Unknown Worlds Who can say but this is not an isolated incident for a PUBG spin as the isometric tactic to shoot a PUBG blind spot was taken down earlier this year after only 53 days in early access
[15:58] There is still that PUBG Dead.net game, which was revealed at Gamescom opening night live on the horizon, but let's see if that one meets a similar fate. So what can announce or delay this week? Well, it's time to buckle up and pay your fare, even though I know most bosses don't have seatbelts, because not even two months after Double Fine's split from Xbox, the indie studio
[16:13] is already releasing its first game. Thank You Bus Driver is their small-scale comedy driving game where you're a bus driver who's only managing driving and navigation, but also the weird rules of the bus with the intent of punishing any passengers that break them. It's being put out under their new Double Fine Action Labs label,
[16:27] where they're keeping their quick-hit experimental stuff and now has a release date October 14th this year. Hopefully people turn up for it. I certainly will be. You know what else people turn up for? Monster Hunter. You know what else people turn up for, sadly? Free-to-play mobile gacha games.
[16:40] Capcom announced a deal a while back to let Tencent make a mobile version of Monster Hunter called Outlanders, and it's now got a release date of October 29th for iOS and Android. May the gacha odds be forever in your favor. You know what people don't turn up for? VR, but especially meta VR,
[16:53] given all the privacy issues that they've got going on. Did you see that Gamers Nexus video, by the way? Anyway, Zarkin Co. revealed their new mixed reality headset last week called the Meta VR Glasses, and that's a bunch of new games for it, all externally developed, of course, because they basically shut down all of their game studios they acquired already.
[17:06] First one is Tetris Effect Mixed Reality from Enhanced, which is like, yeah, of course. That Mizuguchi sure loves his VR, so it makes sense that he'd be all over that shit. The second one is Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney Dual Destiny VR, which adapts the 3DS courtroom drama visual novel into a VR experience.
[17:21] Like, I guess the 3D models and stuff were already there because of the original, but even the hardcore Phoenix Wright crowd are like, really? This one? And the last one of note is Story of Seasons Your Wonderful Life, which takes the Japanese life simulator and turns it into a kind of tabletop experience
[17:33] in a way all these games are coming out sometime in 2027, so both Quest 3 and those new glasses, not Steam Frame though, You'll just have to play Half-Life Alyx again, and Beat Saber of course, but we never stopped playing Beat Saber, so carry on. So what came out last week? Well, let's start off with Minecraft Dungeons 2, the game designed as baby second RPG, after of course, Minecraft Dungeons 1.
[17:51] This one has actually done pretty well for itself, a mighty 85 on OpenCritic, but the review is saying that the more involved gearing and questing and general connection to Minecraft makes it a stronger game overall. Still some issues though. Gamescom gave this one a 7 out of 10, saying, quote, So Minecraft Dungeons was a charming introduction to the dungeon-caller genre. Dungeons 2 built this deeper action RPG with the same familiar blocky framework.
[18:09] While it doesn't completely escape the limitations of its predecessor, Minecraft Dungeons 2 is a more ambitious sequel that finally gives its loot, build, and world the depth that was missing, even if a few rough edges remain enclosed. Moving over now to our radar pick from last week, Toem 2, the charming black and white puzzle exploration game.
[18:23] This one has done really well for itself, actually. A mighty 84 on Urban Critic. Tentacru doesn't actually score their reviews, but they had some very nice things to say about this one. Quote, What I love about Toem, and also love about Toem 2, is its insistence that you be here purely because you want to be.
[18:36] There are checklists to complete, yes. Both tones revel in offering the player dozens of tiny details worth photographing with a simple camera for the sheer pleasure of it, end quote. Ah, yes, playing games for the sheer pleasure of them. What a concept! The fact that it also said that Tone 2 made them want to go outside, though,
[18:51] so a little PSA warning for you gamers out there, since none of us have time to do that during this busy release season. Find the Dynasty Warriors 3 Complete Edition Remastered now, which doesn't have a ton of reviews yet, but currently holds a 79 on Metacritic, with a few enthusiastic Dynasty Warriors fans coming out of the woodwork to revisit this one.
[19:04] One of them was from Respex, a new advert from the RPG site folks, and they gave this one an 8 out of 10 saying quote, Even though it still has several quirks, Dynasty Warriors 3 Complete Edition Remastered generally does a good job of bringing back a timeless classic entry to the modern graphical update.
[19:17] The flexible toggles for the new gameplay features and quality of life improvements particularly give much freedom for each player to adjust the game as they like it end quote. It's still an old school Dynasty Warriors game though, so keep that in mind if all you've played are the more inventive spin-offs like Hyrule Warriors or Persona Strikers.
[19:30] Speaking of niche genre stuff, how about Transport Fever 3? On OpenCritic it's got a strong end to it, with only 7 reviews counted so far. On Steam though, things are looking mostly positive for the English language reviews, and mixed for everyone else. There are more than a few negative quibbles about performance, as is common these days,
[19:44] and almost just as many saying no, it's fine actually. One of the reviews that talks about the game itself is from Steam user GameBorrow who says quote, At first glance you might not realise what has changed compared to previous games, but almost every system has been tweaked, adjusted or upgraded. There's so much depth in every system end quote.
[19:57] Another one suffering from performance issues sadly is Nivalis Nice. The Indian business management team set in a massive and sprawling cyberpunk city. Yeah, now that I put it that way, it's actually kind of up to quality. Still, it's sitting in a mostly positive sentiment with about 74% of 1,700 people giving it the thumbs up.
[20:10] Here's Stingwater, Captain Dogwater, whose review was picked up because we just wanted to say those words out loud. They wrote, quote, Massively enjoying this so far. What I thought was going to be a simple slice of life cyberpunk restaurant team has so much more depth to it. Few little things here and there,
[20:22] but overall, nothing so far has stopped me from wanting to get lost in this world. It's really scratched that cyberpunk itch. I've not had any performance issues. as always, read Euromancer by William Gibson, end quote. Good advice. Okay, so what's coming out next week?
[20:34] I know I told you to buckle up a short time ago, but now it's really time to buckle up, because, Dan, the next seven days are absolutely stacked with games, and there's something for basically everyone here. We'll start with Ace Combat 8 Wings of Thieves, because a review for this one actually came out last week on account of the paid early access period.
[20:47] If you haven't already seen my review, I'll leave a link to it below the like button, but long story short, this game is exceptionally pink, full of ridiculous emotional highs, and just straight-up hell yeah moments. If you are acquainted with Ace Combat, you absolutely must play this and if you aren't, I am begging you to start playing it because you have no idea what you're missing out on.
[21:03] A lot of the other reviews were on the same wavelength, this one landed at a mighty 88 on Open Critic. I then gave this one a review and progress score of 9 out of 10 based on the campaign alone saying, quote, Ace Combat 8 Leans of Sea is a remarkable achievement for Project Aces. It combines stunning visual and sound design with engaging story moments,
[21:17] whether they're out of cockpit sequences or the radio chatter that build up its excellent memorable characters, it's also a surprisingly emotional and resonant story that's deeply relevant to the current age, was delivering the best aerial combat the series has ever had alongside some of its best mission design."
[21:30] At the time of writing, Ace Combat has just released, and it's worth noting that the hardcore Ace Combat players are a little upset about how things have gone down on Steam, whereas user reviews currently sit at 77% mostly positive. One of the major things is specific to the pre-order bonus for the game, which comes with a port of an older game in the series,
[21:44] called the Belkan War, which originally came out on the PS2. On PC, that hasn't been included as a standalone game, rather it's an alternative launch option when you boot up Wings of Thieves. Some folks who are keen to dive into that game are understandably annoyed that they have to download and install an extra 130GB to get access to it.
[21:59] The other thing is that support for Hotep 16 is pretty limited. In a space where a group of Flight Sim folks have probably been going all out with their Microsoft Flight Sim setups over the past few years, it's quite understandable that they'd be very annoyed about this detail. There also seems to be a slew of issues relating to graphical performance and Anki chip, which is never great,
[22:14] but look, if you're interested in the PC version of this game, you should probably be aware of all these issues before making a decision. Ace Combat 8 is now available for everyone on Steam, but it's also available on PS5 and Xbox Series consoles, where it all seems to be fine, at least as far as we can tell.
[22:26] It's played it on the PS5, no problems reported. Falcon Wars, separate client. Game remains peak. Alright, moving on now. You can't have issues with a PC launch if you don't launch your games on PC in the first place. Am I right, PlayStation? The complete edition of Ghost of Yosei should come out by the time this video is live,
[22:40] which might have been a good time to release a PC version too, where Sony's still interested in doing that. With the complete edition come two new expansions for Yosei. The first is a roguelite mode called Most Wanted, as well as a story expansion called Echoes of Sekigahara,
[22:52] which features new locations, enemies, and weapons as you learn more about Atsushi's time in mainland Japan. Here's five only for this one, of course. Also out by the time this video goes live is End of Abyss, a game made by Section 9, a new developer made up of folks formerly of Little Nightmare Studio Tarsier.
[23:05] We played a little bit of this at the last couple of summer games first, but have been dabbling in the full game for the past week. This is essentially a top-down sci-fi survival horror metroidvania, which is a very enticing concept, leveraging a lot of what made the vibes of Little Nightmare work so well,
[23:17] with a lot more agency, weapons and messed up monsters. We'll share some more impressions next week when we play it a bit more. This one's being published by Epic Games, so no Steam release for this one. If you're a PC main, it's also available for PS5 and Xbox Series consoles as well.
[23:29] Jumping over to next week, and there are a couple of heavy hitters jostling for the poll position on Tuesday, October 6th. The first is Gears of War E-Day, the prequel which is, get this, an Xbox exclusive. Between this and Ghost of Yotei, it looks like console exclusives are back in vogue Reviews for this one have already dropped and as I mentioned earlier in the show it a good news story for the Coalition and Xbox as the game is currently sitting at an 87 on Metacritic I actually finished this and my review will go up tomorrow
[23:51] night, but I won't be coy. I had a great time with this. The TLDR is along the lines of, do you miss the good old run-and-gun Gears of War? Do you want to play a new one of those? If so, then that is what you're going to get out of this, and I say that in a complimentary way. The story of Gears, despite what you may think about the framing, is not really the star of the show. It's really about
[24:05] going back to what makes Gears work in both a single-player context, and probably multiplayer if that's what floats your boat. It's a nicely put together package that probably isn't going to pull in new Gears fans, but those who have been to the series from the start are very likely going to appreciate this one.
[24:17] If you want more details, and like I said, my video will be live tomorrow night, be sure to subscribe and ding that notification bell so you know the minute it goes live. Next up is Star Wars Galactic Racer, a high-up game racing game that, yes, includes pod racers, developed by an outfit called Fuse Games, made up of several former Burnout developers from Criterion.
[24:32] It continues the zero-company trend of former developers from a studio best known for a certain genre making a Star Wars game in said genre, and much like Zero Company, the experiment is a success here with Galactic Racer, because this shit absolutely rocks. Reviews of this
[24:44] one went live an hour ago, so at the time of writing, I have no idea what the actual review scores are, but I'm going to be stunned if this thing doesn't hit like a 85 maybe on OpenCritic. Like, this is some seriously excellent shit. I thought I could get through
[24:56] all of it pretty quickly, but the more I played of it, the more I was like, oh, that's new, oh, that was unexpected, oh, that's fucking awesome. I was planning to drop my review this week, but I'm still just playing through this thing and loving it, and so my review will go up next
[25:08] week instead, but for now, my review in progress is, this totally rules, and it should definitely be on your radar when it drops on October 6th. Continuing now to Thursday, October 8th, and things really don't slow down. This day is led by another horror game in Clive
[25:20] Barker's Hellraiser Revival, which is a first-person action horror game based on the film series. It is, judging by the early previews for this thing, suitably horny, in line with the source material, and the video game part is supposed to be pretty solid too. So, being interactive is developing this one, and it comes out
[25:32] on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series consoles. Next up, Order of the Stinking Star is a sprawling puzzle game from Tecla, a studio headed by none other than brave creator Jonathan Blow. This game has been in development for over 10 years now and actually borrows a bunch of different mechanics and ideas
[25:44] from a number of notable puzzle designers external to the studio, smashing them together in a big ambitious mashup that plays around with all of them, PC, PS5 and Switch 2 for this one. Right, what else is there? Here's one that Lucy James recommended in her newsletter a little while back,
[25:56] Silver Pines. And guess what? It's another horror-themed Metroidvania, this time set in an ominous small American town, just like all good messed up stories. Bit of Twin Peaks, bit of Alan Wake, but some combat that's supposed to be that way, I think. Big atmosphere play here, so if any of those aspects tickle your fancy,
[26:10] get in on it, all platforms for this one. If none of those games are your jam, then you might just be the kind of person who would rather spend 400 hours replaying Kingdom Hearts. Well, it's your lucky day, because the last one we'll mention this week is the Kingdom Hearts Collection, which comes out on PS5, Xbox Series, and Switch 2 on October 8th.
[26:24] This one collects the first three games in the series in their expanded format. Already available on PC, though, but now coming to consoles. no doubt intended to get people ready for the next Kingdom Hearts game releasing next year. Fingers crossed. So they did swear up and down that it's definitely coming.
[26:36] So hopefully, yeah. Well, it's October now, so that means it's time to be inundated with horror games that make you feel absolutely terrible. But here's a cool one that Ed's been playing that's unlike any of the others we've talked about so far. Put this on your radar.
[26:55] Okay, so in all those movies where there's a creepy-ass kid who's capable of terrible things, This game is called M.I. Nima, and it's a narrative game that puts you in the shoes of that kid, only you have amnesia and you have no idea what the truth is. It plays out like a visual novel adventure, but a key gameplay hook here is how you play with thoughts and concepts in Nima's brain,
[27:12] merging them together to uncover new ones, and keep slowly digging into her subconscious and uncovering the true story while doing so. Or do you? You also use these concepts, of which there are so many, to converse with characters, giving it a real freeform feeling where you're just swirled with options.
[27:25] If you've ever played a game called Doodle God, it's kind of like that, where you're mixing raw elements with each other to create new things, and then mixing those with other things to make other new things basically infinitely. There's some good sauce here in a cute but disturbing cartoon art style, the dark but suffocating color palette, and some good scratchy horror editing that you don't really see in the trailers.
[27:41] This one comes out on PC on Thursday the 8th of October, and there's a free demo available on Steam right now if you want to check it out. If you do want to check it out, you're left to link to it over on our Steam creator page, which also has links to all of the other Put This On Your Radar stuff we've recently covered.
[27:53] I'll leave a link to all of that below the like button. Here's a weird story for our weekly feel-good. We covered Gavin's main hobby a little while ago, building lavish mega-yachts and then selling them around the world like some sort of seaborne pharaoh. But did you know the man has another cheaper hobby?
[28:05] Mongolian throat singing. This is true, and it's a story first spotted by GamesRadar, who caught wind of it from the Indie Game Joe YouTube channel. Joe was interviewing Counter-Strike founder Min Lee, and Lee was regaling with stories about what it was like to work in the same office as Gabe.
[28:17] He spoke about his habit of bringing his hobbies to work, including the throat singing thing. Quote, So we started to do this Mongolian throat singing stuff, and he was doing it throughout the office. You would hear him try to sing with his throat and he's walking down the halls.
[28:29] And I remember a lot of people in the office, they were kind of annoyed with this because it's kind of loud, right? End quote. And just so we're clear, here's an example of what Mongolian throat singing actually sounds like. Can you imagine being on a Zoom call and having people on the other end being like,
[28:56] uh, can you mute yourself please? Your boss is throat singing again and it's making my dog bark. Even funnier is that Gabe recently confirmed all of this when Twitter user Baz emailed him directly to ask if it was true. Gabe responded, quote,
[29:08] Yeah, I chatted with Paul Penn about it after I tried learning on my own. I am entirely self-taught and it shows. I worked on Sigit and Karigar and other styles and I got to the point where I was really annoying, end quote. David, if you're listening, please come on the FPS podcast
[29:20] and give us a live demonstration of your skills. Who knows? You might get a record deal out of it or something. Give yourself something to fall back on in case the whole video game storefront thing doesn't work out. All be God's business, I guess. Okay, everyone, you've made it to the end of another This Week in Video Games
[29:32] and we appreciate you for that. If you appreciate yourself and you should, then reward yourself by giving us a like. I know it doesn't make any sense, but we still wouldn't hit that like button anyway. May as well subscribe and ding that notification bell while you're down there,
[29:44] since we have a lot of content coming this month, including in-depth reviews for Gears of War Ebay and Star Wars Selected Gracer, and this month we've got plenty of big releases like Dragon's Dogma 2 Dark Arisen, Valor Mortis, Phantom Blade Zero, and more. Thanks again for watching, and a big thanks to this video's sponsor, Raycon.
[29:58] This video is sponsored by Raycon, and wouldn't you know it, it's Raycon Month! What does that mean? it means big discounts on their lineup of earbuds, including their brand-spanking-new everyday clip earbuds. These things are built different. They actually clip around the side of your ear using a memory metal clip,
[30:12] which is really great if you don't like earbuds that go around your whole ear, or if you wear glasses, or if you have piercings in a specific spot. The clip positions the earbud in just the right spot, so you get many of the benefits of an in-ear earbud without having a piece of plastic jammed into your ear.
[30:25] And the design also lets in a little bit of ambient sound, so you can always hear what's going on around you. But that's just the design, where the internals deliver great, clear sound, 8 hours of continuous playtime, or up to 30 total hours thanks to the included charge case, plus multi-point connectivity means you can connect the everyday clip earbuds to more than one device at a time, switching seamlessly without hassle.
[30:43] I've been trying these out for the past few weeks when I've been around the house or out for walks, and I've been really pleasantly surprised by them since I've never seen a clip design quite like this before, but I've got to say, it works. It's comfortable and lightweight, so much so that sometimes I forget I'm even wearing them.
[30:55] Raycon loves means it's never been a better time to grab a new set of earbuds for yourself, or maybe even stock up on gifts ahead of the holiday season, since everyone always loves getting a new set of earbuds. For a limited time only, you can get up to 25% off the Everyday Clip earbuds when you
[31:07] visit buyraycon.com forward slash fill up clip. You can scan the QR code on screen, but that's buyraycon.com forward slash fill up clip to get 25% off. Thanks to Raycon for sponsoring the video, and thank you for watching it.
[31:25] Thank you.