Our Big Predictions for Video Games in 2025

Frushtick and Plante’s annual predictions episode returns. They revisit their predictions from January 2024, crown a winner, and draft new predictions for the year to come. Here’s your chance to know the future!

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Chris Plante?

  So for Christmas, I got the hot new video game handheld console.

• 0:04Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, yeah.

• 0:05Chris Plante?

  Yeah, I got the VanillaWare Go. Have you heard about this one?

• 0:09Russ Frushtick?

  No.

• 0:10Chris Plante?

  Yeah, the VanillaWare Go. So the the basic idea is it's this like amazing, beautiful handheld that it it only plays all of VanillaWare's games, except for like the most recent one, so.

• 0:23Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, sure. So it's so it's only for adults, is what you're saying.

• 0:26Chris Plante?

  Yeah, you shouldn't play it in public also. I should mention that. But yeah, Muramasa, the Demon Blade, Odin's Sphere, Grand Grand War, you know, these like kind of iconic, universally beloved games.

• 0:41Russ Frushtick?

  So universally beloved that you've long had physical copies of all of these games and now you're finally getting the opportunity to play them.

• 0:48Chris Plante?

  This is actually true. These are a lot of games I've owned but never fully played. Grey Knights History. I mean, the list goes on.

• 0:57Russ Frushtick?

  Sure.

• 0:57Chris Plante?

  And by goes on, I mean, I think there's maybe one more.

• 1:00Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 1:02Chris Plante?

  And it's just so so great for the dozens of us out here. The weird thing about it, though, is it does play Dynamite Dika, a diehard arcade inexplicably.

• 1:18Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 1:18Chris Plante?

  And effectively like every other video game release before the PlayStation 3.

• 1:24Russ Frushtick?

  That does seem weird.

• 1:25Chris Plante?

  I don't know why they branded it like this.

• 1:28Russ Frushtick?

  Right. It does seem weird to brand it specifically like VanillaWare.

• 1:32Chris Plante?

  Yeah. And the weird thing is, it came in a box that I had wrapped in paper myself and scrawled VanillaWare Go.

• 1:40Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 1:41Chris Plante?

  But then when you tore off that, it said Retroid Pocket 5 underneath it. And that looked like it was like somebody had actually like put some real work into it.

• 1:50Russ Frushtick?

  But there was a busty lady on the box.

• 1:53Chris Plante?

  Well, I had drawn that. I'd also drawn, because I want to be fair here, mini busty men of just absolutely shredded beefcakes.

• 2:03Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 2:03Chris Plante?

  I'm starting to think that I might have been in a fugue state. And it was kind of like, you know.

• 2:08Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, this is Chris playing autopilot. He just ends up with a bunch of vanillaware games. I think that.

• 2:13Chris Plante?

  Yeah, you're right. Like, I went to sleep and then kind of like my own Santa Claus. I cobbled together the system of my dreams. I woke up the next morning covered in cookie dust.

• 2:25Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, good. I'm glad it was cookie dust.

• 2:27Chris Plante?

  Yeah. And, um.

• 2:31Chris Plante?

  Yeah, so anyway, that was my Christmas. How was yours? How was your Hanukkah?

• 2:36Russ Frushtick?

  Great.

• 2:37Chris Plante?

  Cool. Let's talk about video games.

• 2:56Chris Plante?

  My name is Christopher Thomas Plant, and I know the best game of the week.

• 3:00Russ Frushtick?

  My name is Russ Fraschich, and I know the best game, Louis.

• 3:03Chris Plante?

  Welcome to the besties, where the world's best friends pick the world's best games. This week, we are talking about our predictions for 2025 and looking back on our predictions from 2024, which is a tradition amongst Fraschich and I. You might have noticed by now, there are two McElroy's who are not here.

• 3:23Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, they both died.

• 3:24Chris Plante?

  They both needed a holiday break, which is understandable.

• 3:27Russ Frushtick?

  Is that what it was?

• 3:28Chris Plante?

  Yeah, that's what it is, which it feels like to not have them around. It feels like this giant gaping hole in our heart. That is sad, but I am so excited to be able to continue this tradition, which we've been doing for a few years now.

• 3:42Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, it's a nice tradition, and it's also nice because we originally were going to put this episode, this predictions episode, behind the paywall for the rest of these folks. But because Justin and Griffin were not here, and because it's the first episode of the year, we thought, where better to put it? Y'all had a bonus episode from our bracket episodes, and now we. Have a, I guess, another almost Patreon bonus, although there will be also a Patreon Rusties coming to you shortly as well. So you're getting both.

• 4:09Chris Plante?

  This is a chance for you to hear what's been going on behind that wall and be like, you know what? I want to go see more of that stuff. Or you might be like, you know what? If I have to hear Plant talk about vanillaware games one more time, I need to go back to the normal main feed. And you know what? Either one's cool. I'm cool with it either way. For people who are unfamiliar with this, just real quick, we'll do the rules and then we'll take a break. The way this works is we go through a list of predictions that we've made, kind of a pool of predictions. And then we draft them. That's our current standard of them. We pick five each and then we reflect back on them to see who had the most success. I think this is going to be a contentious episode and I can't wait.

• 4:53Chris Plante?

  So let's go to the break and we'll be right back.

• 4:56Russ Frushtick?

  Awesome.

• 4:58Chris Plante?

  Woo boy. Okay.

• 5:00Russ Frushtick?

  So the, so the first half of this episode is going to be dealing with the predictions from last year to determine who got more right.

• 5:09Chris Plante?

  Correct.

• 5:10Russ Frushtick?

  And I'm very excited because I think because of the new drafting format, it did result in more positive answers than previously. And I'm very excited to see which you consider to be right answers versus wrong answers. But should we just like list out the ones that we got right?

• 5:28Chris Plante?

  Let's dig into.

• 5:31Russ Frushtick?

  All of the predictions and see what we got right and wrong?

• 5:34Chris Plante?

  How about, how about we just go through the predictions, top item, real quick? And we'll go, we'll go back and forth between mine and yours.

• 5:41Russ Frushtick?

  Okay.

• 5:42Chris Plante?

  Okay, my first one, we haven't even heard the name of 2024's game of the year yet. And this prediction is made in January 2024.

• 5:52Russ Frushtick?

  Correct.

• 5:53Chris Plante?

  Yours.

• 5:54Russ Frushtick?

  My first prediction was the Borderlands movie will have a rotten on rotten tomatoes, and at least one outlet will question Hollywood's rush to adapt video games.

• 6:05Chris Plante?

  Okay, okay. Next one I have is Bobby Kotick has a new executive job before the end of the year.

• 6:14Russ Frushtick?

  Next one I have is a handheld not made by Valve will launch with native SteamOS support.

• 6:20Chris Plante?

  I've got Switch goes for two. Nintendo Switch has at least one other iconic IP in its first three months, not including Metroid.

• 6:28Russ Frushtick?

  And to be clear, you were talking about the Switch 2 when you were talking about that. Or are you gonna make this?

• 6:35Chris Plante?

  Yeah, no, I'm not gonna. I was talking about the Switch 2.

• 6:38Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, okay. My next prediction was Fortnite will drop one more standalone mode akin to Lego, Rocket Racing, or Fortnite Festival before the end of the year, developed by Epic or a studio that Epic owns. It can't be a one-off experience like the Alan Wake thing that they did.

• 6:55Chris Plante?

  Okay. Next up, I've got one of the five major Japanese publishers will be acquired. Capcom, Square Enix, Konami, Bandai Namco, Sega. This is tricky because some of these have huge parent companies, and recently we haven't seen big consolidation amongst Japanese studios.

• 7:09Russ Frushtick?

  Mine is Nintendo will make some public reference to the durability of the Switch 2 analog sticks in either marketing materials or an official press release. An interview does not count.

• 7:20Chris Plante?

  And last one for me, Hades 2 will have a horde mode, i.e. instead of going room to room, you have to survive against waves à la Vampire Survivors or like traditional horde modes.

• 7:30Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. And my last one is Hollow Knight: Silk Song will come out and let you play as a character other than Hornet, and this character has to be really playable and not like a rideable Hornet. Not like a rideable. Hornet cannot be near the other player for the character. This is only because we had some fun last year about the Zelda prediction, where I tried to make a case for a giant robot that you ride being a separate character. Anyway, it doesn't matter because fucking something didn't come out.

• 7:58Chris Plante?

  So some things you should know as we go through this and actually see if we nailed these is we actually set out to make these more difficult. I remember.

• 8:06Russ Frushtick?

  No, I don't think so.

• 8:08Chris Plante?

  No, so we let each other draft, which was to create a sense of fairness where like neither of us was able to let us kind of set up easy ones for ourselves.

• 8:16Russ Frushtick?

  Sure.

• 8:16Chris Plante?

  But we do push on these to be like challenging. We don't set the, I don't think we like, we could pretty easily pick 10 predictions.

• 8:24Russ Frushtick?

  Oh yeah, sure. That is true. We do want it to be a bit of an X factor.

• 8:28Chris Plante?

  Yes, yes. And it can't be stuff we already know, et cetera, et cetera.

• 8:31Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 8:31Chris Plante?

  Um, so, okay, so let's go through this from the top. What are the ones that you think you got?

• 8:36Russ Frushtick?

  Sure. Uh, so the two that I got were the Borderlands movie being rotten on Rotten Tomatoes and at least one outlet questioning Hollywood's rush to adapt video games. And the other one that I got right was Fortnite will drop one more standalone mode akin to Lego, Rocket Racing, Fortnite Festival by the end of the year, developed by Epic, et cetera, et cetera.

• 8:56Chris Plante?

  Okay, so tell me about the Borderlands one first. What I, obviously it's rotten on Rotten Tomatoes.

• 9:02Russ Frushtick?

  Yes.

• 9:02Chris Plante?

  No question.

• 9:02Russ Frushtick?

  Do we need to check the score? I haven't seen it in a little bit.

• 9:05Chris Plante?

  We don't need to check the score.

• 9:06Russ Frushtick?

  I'm gonna check it.

• 9:07Chris Plante?

  Okay, great.

• 9:08Russ Frushtick?

  So the score for the Rotten Tomatoes movie, I'm sorry, the score for the Borderlands movie right now sits at 10%.

• 9:15Chris Plante?

  Cool.

• 9:15Russ Frushtick?

  Which I believe is rotten.

• 9:17Chris Plante?

  Unquestionably rotten.

• 9:19Russ Frushtick?

  Tears of rotten that have not yet been seen. So the really second part of this is really just having an outlet talking about the rush to, uh, adapt video games. I have a few links here.

• 9:33Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, the first one comes from Time Magazine. This is like, this is an article called, "Borderlands is video game movie made for absolutely no one." Uh, the quote is, "Right as Hollywood has started to learn how to successfully adapt videos from the screen, Borderlands arrives as a reminder on how not to do it." I have another link. This comes from ScreenCraft. Uh, I'll just give you the article title, "Why video game adaptations may work better as TV." And the last one is, uh, from TechRadar, "Borderlands is proof that the era of video game adaptations is officially over. Good video game adaptation is officially over."

• 10:08Chris Plante?

  Okay, that, that, that, that last one feels like it nails it.

• 10:11Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 10:11Chris Plante?

  The first two back and forth.

• 10:13Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 10:14Chris Plante?

  Okay, okay, okay, okay. And then walk me through the Fortnite one.

• 10:18Russ Frushtick?

  Sure. So Fortnite, as of just a couple of weeks ago, released a mode called Ballistic.

• 10:25Chris Plante?

  Ballistic is... Oh, okay. Yeah.

• 10:28Russ Frushtick?

  What did you think I was gonna say?

• 10:30Chris Plante?

  I had no idea. This was the one I was like, what are you talking about? I was too busy thinking about IP. I was thinking like, no Disney thing came out, no big IP thing came out. Be right. Tell the listeners what Ballistic is for people.

• 10:45Russ Frushtick?

  Ballistic is effectively an answer to games like Counter-Strike or Valorant. It's a 5v5 first-person shooter set, you know, with Fortnite characters and Fortnite Universe, but like the gameplay is following the model of Counter-Strike. It really plays nothing like Fortnite. And internally developed and released, I think it basically checks all those boxes.

• 11:10Chris Plante?

  Okay, okay. I think that's definitely that you got those two. I think that makes perfect sense. Okay, so mine. I have, we haven't heard the name of 2024's game of the year yet. The case for this being that I said that game, most publications award game of the year has yet to be formally announced, or if it is public, it's not from an existing franchise. There are two games that I think would need to actually pass this test, and that is Bellatro, which I think is like the easy pass. And then I think the other one is Astro Bot, which is also passes.

• 11:47Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, Astro Bot is actually not even a question. There was a post, I think on Reset Era, I'm doing your research for you, that collated like all the major publications and their pick for game of the year.

• 12:00Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 12:00Russ Frushtick?

  And Astro Bot was the leader by a mile. It had dramatically more picks than any other game in the list.

• 12:07Chris Plante?

  Yeah, I wanted to favor the Polygon game of the year too.

• 12:10Russ Frushtick?

  That's nice.

• 12:10Chris Plante?

  I gotta do what I can.

• 12:11Russ Frushtick?

  No, I appreciate it. I would have pushed back if you said Bellatro. I would have pushed back.

• 12:15Chris Plante?

  Here's the tricky one, and I'm curious where we land on this.

• 12:20Russ Frushtick?

  Okay.

• 12:20Chris Plante?

  One of the five major Japanese publishers will be acquired. And I'll read the entire blurb. Capcom, Square Enix, Konami, Bandai, Nymco, Sega. Then I said this is tricky because some of these have huge parent companies. Recently, I haven't seen big consolidation amongst Japanese studios. The company, the parent company that owns Elden Ring maker From Software is in the process of acquisition with Sony, which is a massive, massive, massive company. The tricky part is that From Software is not technically owned by Bandai Namco, but

• 13:01Chris Plante?

  it is owned by a company that is bigger than Bandai Namco. And that's where I feel, when I, I think it's like, if we're going by the sanctity of what we meant when we said it, I don't think I was like, oh, somebody's got to go buy up Pac-Man. I think what the clear intention there is, somebody's got to buy up From Software on Bandai Namco.

• 13:23Russ Frushtick?

  I would agree with you if you said that someone buys From Software. And honestly, even if you had said that, I would push back because no one has bought From Software at this point, they're just talking about it.

• 13:35Chris Plante?

  Well, no, no, no, there's a letter of intention for the acquisition. You couldn't, we could never say buy within the calendar year because what, what happens in any acquisition process is the letter of intention of acquisition.

• 13:50Russ Frushtick?

  Well, let's look at the language. Let's look at the language, see what it is. It looks like one of the five, maybe, one of the five major Japanese publishers will be acquired.

• 13:59Chris Plante?

  No, okay. You know, you know just as well as I do.

• 14:05Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, fine.

• 14:06Chris Plante?

  An intention of acquisition.

• 14:07Russ Frushtick?

  If you want to, I'm, I think there's just no scenario where like, I'm giving you credit for someone buying Bandai Namco because another company mentioned that they're intending to acquire From Software and they, and Sony is like considering the acquisition. That's, those are, there's like a mile between those two.

• 14:31Chris Plante?

  I think we should put it up to the listeners.

• 14:32Russ Frushtick?

  We can put it up to the listeners.

• 14:34Chris Plante?

  I'm prepared to lose at the hands of the listeners.

• 14:38Russ Frushtick?

  I'm fine. I certainly was a pesky mofo last year with the Zelda thing and the Yoshi thing.

• 14:44Chris Plante?

  Do I expect to lose? Yes.

• 14:47Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 14:47Chris Plante?

  But do I think I am still, you know, in the heart, right? I think the intention of it is, is pretty clearly right, which is like one of the, if not the biggest.

• 14:58Russ Frushtick?

  I don't even think, correct me if I'm wrong. I don't, I don't think Sony's the one that would acquire it. Is that right?

• 15:04Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 15:05Russ Frushtick?

  I don't think they've officially said that they're going to move forward with it. I think they've just said that they're considering the acquisition. But tell me if that's incorrect.

• 15:14Chris Plante?

  I don't think that's correct. Also, you would never say that. You would never, unless you, you would never publicly say

• 15:21Chris Plante?

  that you are going to acquire something.

• 15:24Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, there might be like a formal business step anyway.

• 15:26Chris Plante?

  Yeah. Then in IGN 20 November.

• 15:31Chris Plante?

  Yeah, it's intent.

• 15:32Russ Frushtick?

  You can put your evidence in the thing.

• 15:34Chris Plante?

  Okay, okay, okay.

• 15:35Russ Frushtick?

  I think my evidence is simple. The words from software were never uttered in this prediction. So that's really what it was.

• 15:43Chris Plante?

  Yeah, it's the.

• 15:45Russ Frushtick?

  If you guys want to give Chris Plant a pity quarter point, I'm fine with that.

• 15:49Chris Plante?

  Quarter point, full point. I have a feeling that I will lose. So what if I lose? What, what am I going to get? What, what, what did we agree on for the win?

• 16:01Russ Frushtick?

  Well, we did the art last year. I thought that was a nice thing. What did you think? You remember what you got last year?

• 16:06Chris Plante?

  So I would need to, I think I would need to find you a piece of, um, kind of like a waifu pillow.

• 16:12Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, no. I got you a very respectable near nonsense thing for the wall that you could actually hang up and not be embarrassed.

• 16:20Chris Plante?

  You did.

• 16:20Russ Frushtick?

  Which is surprisingly difficult.

• 16:22Chris Plante?

  That's, that's, it wasn't surprising?

• 16:25Russ Frushtick?

  No, it wasn't surprising.

• 16:26Chris Plante?

  I, you know what? I'm just going to say I lost because I, I don't want to tie. That doesn't sound good. And also you're right, by the letter of the, this is a good lesson for me about how I come up with my, my answers moving forward.

• 16:38Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, language is very important and part of this. As established by the Triple Click Podcast, language is in the way that, you know, we all know the Supreme Court considers language very importantly and never gets anything wrong.

• 16:54Chris Plante?

  That's so true. I do like to think that we are better at this than the Supreme Court.

• 16:57Russ Frushtick?

  I think that's a fair assessment.

• 16:58Chris Plante?

  Um, okay, okay. So I'm going to find you a gift and I'm going to be seeing you in person in only a couple of weeks. I'm gonna, maybe I can have it before then.

• 17:07Russ Frushtick?

  Can you do it that quickly?

• 17:08Chris Plante?

  We'll see, we'll see.

• 17:09Russ Frushtick?

  That'd be exciting.

• 17:10Chris Plante?

  Okay, I feel good about this. I, you know what? We actually did pretty okay. I think like-

• 17:16Russ Frushtick?

  We did better than we've done previously. If I recall correctly, in previous years, we've gotten like one and maybe one and a half right, if that.

• 17:24Chris Plante?

  Yeah, well, and what I feel good about this with is like the stuff we didn't get is kind of still in play for the most part.

• 17:33Russ Frushtick?

  I kind of, I brought some of these, I don't know if that's fair, but I have them in the draft. I added some of the ones that I didn't get this year, because I do think they are going to happen and we maybe just got the timing wrong.

• 17:45Chris Plante?

  Yeah. Um, some other stuff that we had from last year that we didn't end up not going with. Um, we had Xbox will show its hand. We will see gameplay from at least two of these five borderline vaporware games. Everwild, Contravand, Perfect Dark, Avowed, South of Midnight. If either of us had taken that, they would have gotten it.

• 18:04Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 18:05Chris Plante?

  Silent Hill will be relevant again. Either Silent Hill 2 or the new Silent Hill release will score above 80 on Metacritic. We would have gotten that one right. Um, but then there's some ones that we would not have gotten right. Control of Remedy, Epic, Sony or Microsoft will acquire Remedy. They actually went the other direction.

• 18:22Russ Frushtick?

  Right.

• 18:22Chris Plante?

  Remedy has really begun to like set its independence.

• 18:25Russ Frushtick?

  They're securing their IP and doing their own thing.

• 18:28Chris Plante?

  Yeah. Um, YouTube enters the gaming space. YouTube adds games. Um, people can publish games directly onto YouTube. I didn't see that. I don't-

• 18:38Russ Frushtick?

  I think there is an interactive like YouTube gaming thing. I remember seeing it, but I didn't look directly into it because we didn't pick that one.

• 18:45Chris Plante?

  Yeah, that would have been a reach, I think, even if either of us had done this. Um, and then Return of the Classic. Three franchises that haven't had a mainline entry in at least five years will return. Their publishers will announce new titles. So this excludes games already announced like Metroid and Prince of Persia. This, I think, is a perfect pick for 2025. I think this is like-

• 19:09Chris Plante?

  The future. I think everybody's gonna try to do the Nintendo model if they have a deep pool of classic IP. Sega's already there, right? Sega's really rushing to bring back a lot of its popular franchises.

• 19:23Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, top of my head, also like, things like Fable.

• 19:28Chris Plante?

  Yes, that, but I think we'll also, you know, in 2025, see stuff like Newcastlevania announced, New Metal Gear.

• 19:37Russ Frushtick?

  Wow.

• 19:38Chris Plante?

  Announced. I would not be surprised at all.

• 19:40Russ Frushtick?

  Man, these sound like good predictions.

• 19:42Chris Plante?

  Pac-Man and Dig Dug. I mean, I just feel like old IPs are coming back in a big way.

• 19:47Russ Frushtick?

  Is Sony gonna allow Pac-Man and Dig Dug to come out if, after they buy Bandai Namco?

• 19:54Chris Plante?

  Okay, you're getting your art. You're getting your art, and every little joke you make is one step closer to your waifu pillow.

• 20:05Russ Frushtick?

  Understood, understood.

• 20:07Chris Plante?

  It's gonna be great. Okay, this is good. You wanna go to the meat and talk about our predictions for 2025?

• 20:14Russ Frushtick?

  Let's do it.

• 20:15Chris Plante?

  Cool.

• 20:17Chris Plante?

  Okay, we are back, and here is the meat. Here is the good stuff, the fresh stuff, the what is going to happen in the future. We are looking into our crystal ball and telling you exactly what to expect for the months ahead. You might be saying, but you only got a third right on the last segment. Hey, a third? That's pretty damn good. I'm feeling even more powerful this year. It's good enough that you can walk away from this episode knowing something that will happen in the future, but not so good that you can gamble on it, which I would say we do intentionally. I would hate for you to lose your house on

• 20:56Chris Plante?

  something like this. So, here's how it will work. We are going to read through all the predictions we have here, and then we will draft them. So as we read through these, I think this is a good chance for us to hone them. If either of us have any concerns about them, or just wanna talk through why we picked them, we can do that now, and the draft will be kinda bam bam bam at the end. That sound good to you?

• 21:20Russ Frushtick?

  That sounds great.

• 21:21Chris Plante?

  Cool. So I'll kick things off with my first prediction. Mafia releases in 2025, the new Mafia game, and GTA 6 bumps to 2026.

• 21:37Chris Plante?

  Here's my logic behind this.

• 21:38Russ Frushtick?

  Now, this is Mafia, the old country.

• 21:40Chris Plante?

  Mafia, the old country. Thank you. Words matter.

• 21:45Chris Plante?

  The rumor, I think it's, it might not even be confirmed yet, but the rumor is that Mafia, the old country should release in June or July, and I think it will hold to that date.

• 21:56Chris Plante?

  I don't understand why Take Two would release both of these games in the same year. That doesn't make sense to me. They have a crowded year already. And this is a publisher that is known for kind of clearing the runway for its major releases. So.

• 22:16Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, yeah. Do you honestly think, let's say for argument's sake Mafia does come out in June or July? And again, argument's sake GTA 6 were to come out in October? Do you honestly think Mafia's sales would at all impact GTA's sales?

• 22:33Chris Plante?

  It's the opposite.

• 22:34Russ Frushtick?

  It's the opposite. I agree.

• 22:35Chris Plante?

  GTA's sales affect Mafia's sales.

• 22:37Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I think the rationale being that like maybe sales would have tailed off by then. I agree with the premise. I don't agree with the rationale necessarily. I think whether GTA 6 comes out this year or not has nothing to do with Mafia. It has everything to do with when can they put this game out and not have it be a disaster? And given the complexities of these games and given the cyberpunk of it all, where no big studio wants to risk their cash cow, they're gonna make sure this game is fucking great. And I think a game this complex has a tendency to get bumped. So I think for sure, I mean, I agree with this premise, but I guess we'll, we'll get to the drafting part later.

• 23:19Chris Plante?

  Cool.

• 23:20Russ Frushtick?

  But I think we're both on the same page in terms of the actual letter of the law.

• 23:24Chris Plante?

  Next up.

• 23:26Russ Frushtick?

  Do you want me to do this one?

• 23:27Chris Plante?

  Yeah, yeah, go ahead.

• 23:29Russ Frushtick?

  The Elder Scrolls Oblivion remake will be announced and released in 2025.

• 23:36Russ Frushtick?

  So there's been rumors very recently of an Elder Scrolls Oblivion remake happening, HD remaster, whatever it's gonna be. There's been rumblings of it. There's been word that it's gonna get announced pretty soon. There's been no news about a release date, but that's pretty much all we know. So obviously, it being announced and releasing in the same year, pretty straightforward.

• 24:02Chris Plante?

  Yeah, it feels to me like the cadence for announced to release for these remakes, remasters, especially something like this, is pretty quick. I also think Bethesda has a bit of a history of putting games out shortly after announcing them. This is following-

• 24:20Russ Frushtick?

  Was that a joke?

• 24:21Chris Plante?

  No, there was a weird, there was that point where they had not been acquired by Microsoft yet, and they clearly wanted to be acquired. And they announced like every game they would make for the next 15 years. And then they went pretty quiet for a couple of years and started doing this thing where it's like, oh, we announced the game in June, it comes out in August or September.

• 24:40Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 24:41Chris Plante?

  But I could be wrong. But I-

• 24:43Russ Frushtick?

  I would be very excited. I think Oblivion's great. I think it's kind of unheralded because obviously Skyrim has been around for so long. It is much weirder than Skyrim is. It allows you to like break the game in fun ways. So I'd be very happy to see that. But yeah, good prediction.

• 25:01Chris Plante?

  Okay, next up I have Death Stranding breaks 85 on Metacritic and gets a glowing write-up in the New York Times or New York Mag.

• 25:12Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, this is a pretty interesting one. I think from a, I mean, I'm a fan of simplicity. I would probably just lose the New York Times or New York Mag thing. It feels like snobby media talk. And if it's, it breaks 85, that seems like enough for me. Whether an editor at the New York Times thinks that's worthy of coverage is a different story. So I would just lose the second part.

• 25:38Chris Plante?

  I'm fine losing the second part. I'm gonna-

• 25:42Chris Plante?

  Bonus worth no points.

• 25:45Russ Frushtick?

  Okay.

• 25:45Chris Plante?

  Just to have it there because yes, the reason that I want to include that just as a calling our shot is it feels like such a game that is going to get the exact story that people have been telling about Death Stranding 1 is going to finally be said on the New York Times and presented as wholly new by like some random writer.

• 26:11Russ Frushtick?

  Well, and they've also done, I don't know if the New York, I forget who did it, but either New York Times or New York Mag has done like the profile of Kojima's great thing.

• 26:21Chris Plante?

  I think Simon Parkin did a good one over at New Yorker.

• 26:24Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 26:25Chris Plante?

  But yes, I could be wrong, but it just feels like we're going to get the, hey, this was a game about the pandemic story a few years late. That said, I'm curious because by the time that that game comes out, the writing, the game's writing at New York Times is getting better. Like it's just, they're getting better and better. So.

• 26:48Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, it doesn't, whether they're good or not does not determine whether they're going to write a glowing review. None of this counts as a point. I don't know why we're analyzing.

• 26:56Chris Plante?

  I just find it interesting. Okay, Death Stranding breaks 85 on Metacritic. That would suggest that it gets a better score than the current one, which I think has an 82 on Metacritic. And I think it's, I think it's gradually gone up.

• 27:09Russ Frushtick?

  The director's cut is at 85, which I think is a more representative, that was like the post-release included whatever add-ons and shit. So it would have to do better than the previous one on Metacritic.

• 27:22Chris Plante?

  Okay, okay. I think that's good. Okay. What we got, what do we got next?

• 27:25Russ Frushtick?

  Next up, Nintendo Switch 2 isn't released until the second half of 2025 and launches with either a new Mario or a new Mario Kart.

• 27:33Chris Plante?

  How do you feel about that one?

• 27:37Russ Frushtick?

  Well, I don't know that I want to put a ton of thumb on the scale for any of these, whether I think they're legit or not, because it's going to impact our drafting.

• 27:45Chris Plante?

  Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.

• 27:47Russ Frushtick?

  I will say like a lot of these came from you. We, I, I added ones at the end of the list. So we are just reading them back and forth in order, but that was one that you added.

• 27:56Chris Plante?

  Okay.

• 27:56Russ Frushtick?

  You want to read the next one?

• 27:57Chris Plante?

  Yeah. Um, EA releases a new Battlefield and it breaks 75 on Metacritic. I had a bonus here worth no points. A major outlet or YouTuber describes it as a comeback for the series, which I think is like, kind of a given. If this game is even mildly good, somebody major will, will say those exact words.

• 28:20Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. This is an interesting one because the last game, if I recall, I think it was an 81. But it also, those reviews came out before the huge blowback of the entire community and the game being a total disaster. So there is, I think, a narrative currently that Battlefield games are bad. So really just a question of-

• 28:42Chris Plante?

  If it's bad, it will be punished.

• 28:44Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, yeah, pretty severely. I think it was probably a little bit defended by its IP. And that won't happen again.

• 28:52Chris Plante?

  Yeah. Um, okay. What do we got next?

• 28:54Russ Frushtick?

  Next up, the game of the year winner at the 2025 Game Awards is released after June 1st. But at least three games from the first half of the year are nominated for the award. That's very complicated, but I think I understand it.

• 29:11Chris Plante?

  Here's my logic behind this one.

• 29:13Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 29:14Chris Plante?

  There are going to be a bunch of big games in the first half of the year. Like just an onslaught. We have a bunch of AAA stuff that got delayed into that window. I don't think any of it will actually win game of the year, despite it being like, the new Monster Hunter being out, right? These are all going to be very popular, very beloved games. They will make it into the final game of the awards category, game of the year category. But whatever wins is going to come out after June 1st. It will be something that is closer to the awards. It will be something maybe that we haven't even heard of yet. It could be, you know, a new Mario on Switch.

• 29:56Chris Plante?

  Or it could be something like Mafia, right? I mean, I don't think it will be Mafia, but it could be.

• 30:05Chris Plante?

  But it'll be something in the back half of the year.

• 30:07Russ Frushtick?

  It definitely, from a historical standpoint, your favorite, the first half, the first half is favored.

• 30:14Russ Frushtick?

  By the release calendar, because historically, big games release towards the end of the year, you know, September, October. But the X Factor here is the Switch 2. And when the Switch 2 comes out will determine so much of this, because you have to assume at least one of those games, probably, unless it's like a total fucking disaster, will appear on the game of the year list.

• 30:36Chris Plante?

  Yes.

• 30:37Russ Frushtick?

  And if, you know, you're a little bit screwed if the Switch 2 comes out after the second half of the year, if you picked this, but good insight.

• 30:44Chris Plante?

  That's, that's A good chance for you to split your bet, too, if you do this and then you pick the Switch 2 option.

• 30:50Russ Frushtick?

  That's true. Hedge it. Yeah.

• 30:51Chris Plante?

  Um, okay. After that one, I have, uh, Valve releases two new pieces of hardware, including a new member of the Steam Deck line. Now, when I say new member of the Steam Deck line, I want to be super clear. That could be a portable, but it could be a Steam Deck, like, that goes under your TV. So it would be called, like, whatever. It would use a SteamOS. It would work like a Steam Deck does. I don't know if they would call it the Steam Deck, but it would be like in that same category.

• 31:27Russ Frushtick?

  I think it would need to be called something Steam Deck related for it to be in the Steam Deck line.

• 31:33Chris Plante?

  Okay. I think that's fine. I think still keep it.

• 31:36Russ Frushtick?

  So

• 31:37Chris Plante?

  And then the other hardware could be anything from a VR thing to, I think, a original new controller.

• 31:47Russ Frushtick?

  Okay.

• 31:49Chris Plante?

  Uh, let's see. A, a non Steam Deck labeled PC. But there would need to be something

• 31:57Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, they're not putting out a fucking, they're not doing that.

• 32:00Chris Plante?

  Yes. Yeah. I mean, the Steam machines come back, baby.

• 32:04Russ Frushtick?

  Um, okay. Okay. That's, that's, that's an interesting one.

• 32:09Chris Plante?

  Oh, the next one, I'm glad that you're saying this one, because this is something you really care about.

• 32:13Russ Frushtick?

  Wait, wait, wait. Actually, let's go back to the last one.

• 32:15Chris Plante?

  Okay.

• 32:15Russ Frushtick?

  The language. Valve releases two new pieces of hardware. I'm just gonna like, throw this out there. If Valve puts out a new original controller with two different SKUs, like one of them has fucking back buttons or whatever, I don't think that counts.

• 32:32Chris Plante?

  Well, it wouldn't count because it wouldn't be a Steam Deck line.

• 32:35Russ Frushtick?

  Well, no, they could very easily call it a Steam Deck, whatever.

• 32:39Chris Plante?

  Oh, okay. Sure. Yeah, no, yeah, we won't count that if they do.

• 32:45Russ Frushtick?

  And ditto for like, if they put out a Steam, I don't think they're gonna do this, but if they put a Steam Deck and one has like, 512 megs and one has, you know, different SKUs don't count.

• 32:54Chris Plante?

  Okay. That's okay. Okay, okay, okay. Good, good, good. Can't include two SKUs of the same product. Next up.

• 33:01Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, this is one that's near and dear to my heart. A new entry in the, in Nier is finally announced.

• 33:08Chris Plante?

  Fantastic. Love that pick. Love it. No notes. Um, I don't think there is any that, like, we don't need any more added to that.

• 33:16Russ Frushtick?

  Well, I guess the question I have is, so there's two Nier games right now, right?

• 33:21Chris Plante?

  Okay, so.

• 33:22Russ Frushtick?

  Or are there more?

• 33:23Chris Plante?

  We should actually adjust this. A new entry in Nier is finally announced for, um, major consoles, for home consoles.

• 33:33Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, because there's been like mobile shit?

• 33:35Chris Plante?

  There's a mobile shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 33:36Russ Frushtick?

  Okay.

• 33:37Chris Plante?

  Um, okay, yes, that, that, that sounds.

• 33:40Russ Frushtick?

  And it can't be a, an HD re-release.

• 33:43Chris Plante?

  And, I mean, uh, yeah.

• 33:45Russ Frushtick?

  Just, just clarifying.

• 33:47Chris Plante?

  Yeah, no, it's worth doing. Nier and Amata could get something like that, yeah. Okay, okay, okay. Um, next up. A AAA, which I'm gonna say is a budget bigger than Astro Bot, game will win game of the year at the Game Awards.

• 34:02Russ Frushtick?

  Do we know for sure the budget of Astro Bot? Or are we just kinda gut checking?

• 34:06Chris Plante?

  I think we can agree.

• 34:08Russ Frushtick?

  We certainly know.

• 34:09Chris Plante?

  Here's, here's what I, I would say by this, because we can kinda use some examples in the past to, to set the ground here.

• 34:19Chris Plante?

  Astro Bot would not count. Baldur's Gate 3 would not count. We are talking about something like a Last of Us, a Spider-Man 2, a, I guess it gets tricky, a Fable.

• 34:35Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, but let's give an example. Super Mario, whatever. If there's a new Super Mario on Switch 2, that's a bigger budget than Astro Bot. It's gotta be, right?

• 34:44Chris Plante?

  Yes. And I think we can also just say that like that represents AAA and it is like the peak of whatever that company has to offer. Right?

• 34:53Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, when I think budgets smaller than Astro Bot that are still like big publisher budgets, I'm thinking of games like, what was that game? Tear Down? Tear Away. Sure. Or those sorts of things.

• 35:08Chris Plante?

  Yes. The question for you is Avowed would still count as AAA, do we think?

• 35:13Russ Frushtick?

  I think Avowed would be AAA and more expensive than Astro Bot.

• 35:18Chris Plante?

  Okay, okay. I think that's good. That's a good boundary. I think Avowed is a good line of what falls into that category.

• 35:26Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, I don't know for sure that Avowed is more expensive, but my gut says that it is. And I think we can gut check it.

• 35:31Chris Plante?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, next up.

• 35:36Russ Frushtick?

  Ubisoft or a hostile takeover company will announce its intention for a sale slash acquisition or merger.

• 35:43Chris Plante?

  Oh, I wrote this one before we recorded the episode and already more careful with the language. This one seems pretty likely.

• 35:52Russ Frushtick?

  Is there breaking news?

• 35:54Chris Plante?

  No, but I think it's, it feels safe to say that Assassin's Creed: Shadows is make or break.

• 36:03Russ Frushtick?

  Sure.

• 36:04Chris Plante?

  For this publisher. And I would not say that is the game I want to have a giant publisher's, you know, future writing on.

• 36:13Russ Frushtick?

  Certainly not when it gets delayed like a week before release.

• 36:16Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 36:17Russ Frushtick?

  February. Yeah, yikes.

• 36:19Chris Plante?

  Yeah. Okay, next up. Following a successful announcement of Nvidia's new GPU earlier in the year, a major government official, and this can be a member of Congress, the Senate, or presidential administration, demands Nvidia participate in a government hearing about AI.

• 36:41Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, so again.

• 36:42Chris Plante?

  There's two parts here.

• 36:43Russ Frushtick?

  There's two parts here.

• 36:46Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, I would, they've announced the new GPU, right?

• 36:50Chris Plante?

  They haven't announced it, but we could take this away because they will announce it.

• 36:54Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, has there been a year in recent memory where they haven't put out a new GPU?

• 36:57Chris Plante?

  Well, no, this is the first time that they, sorry, it's the new RTX label. So this is the, they only do these every few years where it's the major step ups. But we can, we can just remove it.

• 37:08Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I would just lose that part for simplicity's sake. This is a major government official demands Nvidia participate in a government hearing about AI. So, so to clarify, Nvidia does not need to participate. We're just, there's just a public statement made by a government official that's saying Nvidia needs to come and do it.

• 37:29Chris Plante?

  Yes, but Nvidia, you can't like say no.

• 37:32Russ Frushtick?

  Sure.

• 37:32Chris Plante?

  You know, I mean, I will, I will also say Nvidia, a member of Nvidia appears before, appears before a public or behind closed doors console.

• 37:45Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. Next.

• 37:47Chris Plante?

  Okay, what do we have next?

• 37:49Russ Frushtick?

  I think this is you.

• 37:52Chris Plante?

  Um, you want to read it?

• 37:54Russ Frushtick?

  A major developer sparks a controversy over listing a job opening for AI prompt experts.

• 38:01Chris Plante?

  Yeah, I think that pretty much speaks for itself.

• 38:03Russ Frushtick?

  Pretty straightforward. Well, we should define sparks a controversy. I think we need, certainly news coverage needs to happen. It can't just be like Reddit posts.

• 38:11Chris Plante?

  At least three different publications cover it.

• 38:16Russ Frushtick?

  I guess major publications again.

• 38:19Chris Plante?

  Yeah, the trick is always like, what is major? But I think like the type of publications.

• 38:24Russ Frushtick?

  Established. It can't be a medium post.

• 38:29Chris Plante?

  Yes.

• 38:29Russ Frushtick?

  Okay.

• 38:30Chris Plante?

  Okay.

• 38:31Russ Frushtick?

  We're getting, we're getting into a handful that I added here. We'll start with a simple one. Silk Song comes out, baby.

• 38:39Chris Plante?

  Great, great. You are not gonna add the second part that you had last year to this?

• 38:45Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, at this point, I can't even rely on anything about Silk Song. I don't even wanna like, put caveats on it because it's been such a fucking running joke.

• 38:55Chris Plante?

  Yeah, that's I-

• 38:56Russ Frushtick?

  I think we should just leave it.

• 38:57Chris Plante?

  Sure, I think that's fair. Um, uh, next up, I got Nintendo will make some public reference to the durability of the Switch 2 analog sticks in either marketing materials or an official press release. An interview doesn't count. I feel like I remember this one from last year.

• 39:13Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, this one was carried forward and I loved it so much last year because I-

• 39:17Chris Plante?

  Sure.

• 39:17Russ Frushtick?

  It's such a anti Nintendo thing, but uh, you know, it's just a question of whether they're gonna have to like publicly acknowledge stick drift, which they really haven't done intentionally because they don't want to get a class action lawsuit against them. But uh, yeah, that's-

• 39:34Chris Plante?

  Okay, what do we got after this?

• 39:36Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, after this, we have either Xbox or Sony will formally formally announce their handheld plans and show a clear look at the hardware. I think you added that last part, which is probably a good add.

• 39:49Chris Plante?

  Yes, yeah. I think that there is very much a chance that Phil Spencer is like, "Yeah, we're making one," and never gets around to showing it. Um, okay, I like that. Um, jump me to include this one. You skipped a handheld not made by Valve, launches with native SteamOS support. It needs to be new hard, new hardware and it can't just be retroactively added to existing hardware. So I think what you mean by that is the um, vanillaware go or the retro pocket 5, whatever you prefer to call it. Somebody could add SteamOS to it. That doesn't mean it has a new handheld that is launching intentionally with SteamOS support. You're talking about-

• 40:31Russ Frushtick?

  Right, you need to, you need to open the box, turn it on, and it needs to be SteamOS.

• 40:37Chris Plante?

  And the first OS it launches with is SteamOS.

• 40:40Russ Frushtick?

  Yes.

• 40:40Chris Plante?

  Got it. Because I think there is a scenario where things dual boot, but it's not the first OS.

• 40:46Russ Frushtick?

  Now, yeah, and again, like, when I say it can't include an existing piece of hardware, I'm talking about like the Rog Ally. If, if Valve announces support for SteamOS on the Rog Ally, that does not count unless you buy a Rog Ally and you boot it up and it starts in SteamOS.

• 41:06Chris Plante?

  Got it. I like that. I like that a lot.

• 41:08Russ Frushtick?

  It's a slight modification of what we did last year, but I think it's a good one. And just a side note, on last year, in week one, I thought I got last year's right, which was really just something launching with Steam because, and I forget the hardware company. I think it might have been IONEO, announced that they were releasing a SteamOS handheld. And I was like, so thrilled. There was like all these news stories about it. And then Valve forced them to retract it and say, actually, we're doing a side offshoot, third-party version of SteamOS, which didn't count unfortunately, but it was a funny, funny brief celebration that I had there.

• 41:47Chris Plante?

  It was a great moment. A new 3D Mario comes out and follows the open world structure of Bowser's Fury. Hmm. I like that one.

• 41:58Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, that's fun. And, oh, I guess, okay, question on the open world structure of Bowser's Fury.

• 42:06Chris Plante?

  It can be multiple open worlds, but-

• 42:08Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, that's what I was gonna ask. So-

• 42:09Chris Plante?

  But they have to be as big as Bowser's Fury and not like Mario Odyssey.

• 42:16Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 42:17Chris Plante?

  Okay, okay, okay.

• 42:19Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, the last prediction, and then we're gonna do our draft.

• 42:22Chris Plante?

  Okay.

• 42:23Russ Frushtick?

  Samus will have less speaking time in Metroid Prime 4 than she did in Metroid Dread.

• 42:29Chris Plante?

  Wow.

• 42:30Russ Frushtick?

  She speaks for about 15 seconds in Dread. Now, I am not including like text stuff. So like if she's reading like a diary that's written by Samus, doesn't count unless she's vocally reading it.

• 42:44Chris Plante?

  You're talking about VO, recorded VO.

• 42:47Russ Frushtick?

  Recorded VO.

• 42:48Chris Plante?

  Okay, okay. I like that. That feels, I like these because they feel both obvious and high risk somehow at the same time. Like, in hindsight, if they happen, we'll be like, oh, obviously. And yet, I don't know if I would put my money on-

• 43:05Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, there's been games, there's been Metroid games where she speaks for like, an hour.

• 43:11Chris Plante?

  Okay, okay, okay.

• 43:12Russ Frushtick?

  So it's, it's, it's an interesting one.

• 43:15Chris Plante?

  Okay, so you're ready to draft? Each of us are gonna take five each, so some of these will not get picked.

• 43:19Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, man. Who, who gets to go first?

• 43:22Chris Plante?

  I think, do I, is loser goes first in a draft? Is that how it works? I think, I think that's usually how it is.

• 43:28Russ Frushtick?

  I'll let you, I'll let you go first.

• 43:29Chris Plante?

  Wait, actually, I think I went first last year.

• 43:32Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, I don't remember.

• 43:33Chris Plante?

  I think so. How about, how about you go first?

• 43:36Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, I'm going to take as my first draft, The Elder Scrolls Oblivion Remake. I think The Elder Scrolls Oblivion Remake will be announced and released in 2025.

• 43:49Chris Plante?

  Okay, um, I will take... Boo, buh buh buh buh buh buh buh. This is tough. I will take Death Stranding Breaks 85 on Metacritic, knowing where my heart is.

• 44:04Russ Frushtick?

  I would love to see it. I think there's a pretty good chance of that happening.

• 44:06Chris Plante?

  I think it has a shot.

• 44:08Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, it's so rare that, I feel like, game sequels very rarely go down in Metacritic. And I think the people that'll be reviewing it will be diehard Death Stranding people, which, uh, we should just, I'm gonna add a two to that, just for clarity's sake.

• 44:22Chris Plante?

  The other hook here is, will it actually come out this year?

• 44:26Russ Frushtick?

  Right, which is certainly up in the air. Um, okay, so my next one, I'm gonna take the, uh, the AAA game, a budget bigger than Astro Bot, will win game of the year at the Game Awards.

• 44:39Chris Plante?

  Cool. I like, I like this one because I think it speaks to just next year being a banger year for big budget games.

• 44:46Russ Frushtick?

  It is, it really is, yeah. I mean, I like small, you know, we all love small games are the besties, but, uh, it will be, yeah, one of those years. Maybe one of the last years, honestly.

• 44:57Chris Plante?

  It does feel like that. Um, I'm going to go with Ubisoft, or Hostile Takeover Company will announce its intention for sale or acquisition.

• 45:08Russ Frushtick?

  Okay. Poor Eve. He's gonna have his golden parachute and everything.

• 45:13Chris Plante?

  Um, what do you got next?

• 45:15Russ Frushtick?

  Um, I'm gonna do the Samus one.

• 45:19Chris Plante?

  Oh, okay.

• 45:20Russ Frushtick?

  I, I feel, I'm a big Metroid fan and I'm always fascinated by how much they do with Samus or how little they do with Samus. And it's definitely a big X-factor. So I think that'll be a fun one to do. So this was, just to clarify, Samus will have less speaking time in Metroid Prime 4 than she did in Metroid Dread. She speaks about 15 seconds in Metroid Dread. It needs to be recorded VO. It can't just be text.

• 45:48Chris Plante?

  I can't believe I'm gonna do this stupid one.

• 45:50Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, boy.

• 45:51Chris Plante?

  Silk song comes out, baby.

• 45:52Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah!

• 45:54Chris Plante?

  I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take the bait this year.

• 45:57Russ Frushtick?

  I love it. I think it's gonna happen.

• 46:00Chris Plante?

  Do you?

• 46:01Russ Frushtick?

  I've been saying for a while that I think when they announce all the third-party support for Switch 2, it's gonna be in there. And that's why it keeps getting delayed. That's been my headcanon guess of what's going on with this game.

• 46:14Chris Plante?

  I like that. I don't know if it's right, but I liked it.

• 46:17Russ Frushtick?

  I don't know if it's right, but it would be cool.

• 46:19Chris Plante?

  Okay. What, what else you got?

• 46:22Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, man, let's see.

• 46:27Russ Frushtick?

  I wanna do, I wanna do the durability one. I wanna run it back.

• 46:33Chris Plante?

  Okay, okay, okay, okay.

• 46:34Russ Frushtick?

  Nintendo will make some public reference to the durability of the Switch 2 Analog 6 in either marketing materials or an official press release. An interview doesn't count.

• 46:45Chris Plante?

  Okay, what am I gonna do here? What am I gonna do? Do I go with my heart?

• 46:52Russ Frushtick?

  Is this your last one?

• 46:53Chris Plante?

  No, I have, I have two more.

• 46:55Russ Frushtick?

  You have two more to go. Okay.

• 46:56Chris Plante?

  Um, god damn. Okay, I'm gonna say Nvidia, I'm gonna say a major government official demands Nvidia participate in a government hearing about AI.

• 47:09Russ Frushtick?

  Okay.

• 47:12Chris Plante?

  Okay. So this is your last one.

• 47:15Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, this is my last one. Oh, boy. Okay.

• 47:18Chris Plante?

  It better be good, because I can see you thinking, the listener can't see this, but you are thinking so hard that ripples are going across your forehead. Energy, pure energy is radiating out of your ears.

• 47:33Russ Frushtick?

  I'm leaning towards one of the two Valve ones, but Valve is such an enigma.

• 47:38Chris Plante?

  It's so tough, right? And what they tell you is never what they tell you, right? They'll be like, "We're not making another Steam Deck," and then it'll just show up.

• 47:45Russ Frushtick?

  I feel like they don't know until like a week before it happens that it's for sure happening. Like Gabe will show up with some knives and be like, "Fuck this shit, I'm making more knives."

• 47:52Chris Plante?

  And also, here's Half-Life.

• 47:54Russ Frushtick?

  And also, here's Half-Life. I think for my last one, I've been saying there's no way GTA 6 is coming out this year, in 2025, and I gotta put my money where my mouth is. We're gonna go Mafia is coming out this year, and GTA 6 gets bumped to 2026.

• 48:10Chris Plante?

  Okay, I like that.

• 48:13Chris Plante?

  Okay. Can I walk you through a challenge I'm having here?

• 48:19Russ Frushtick?

  Okay.

• 48:19Chris Plante?

  Nintendo Switch 2 isn't released until the second half of 2025, and it launches with either a new Mario or Mario Kart. I would do this if it was after June 1. Because I think there's a real chance that it comes out in June. But I'm a little worried about saying it's gonna be like July through.

• 48:42Russ Frushtick?

  Here's what I'm gonna give you. Needs to come out before June 15.

• 48:49Chris Plante?

  Okay.

• 48:53Russ Frushtick?

  I think that's a generous option.

• 48:56Chris Plante?

  I think it's, I like that, and it's so good, because there's a real chance that it would be like June 7.

• 49:05Chris Plante?

  Okay.

• 49:06Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, just adjust the second half part.

• 49:10Chris Plante?

  Okay.

• 49:10Russ Frushtick?

  For clarity's sake.

• 49:12Chris Plante?

  Oh, yeah, so it'll come out after June 15. Okay.

• 49:15Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 49:17Chris Plante?

  Okay, let's do that. Nintendo Switch isn't released until after June 15, and launches with either a new Mario or Mario Kart.

• 49:27Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 49:29Chris Plante?

  Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. We did it. That's five each.

• 49:33Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, man.

• 49:34Chris Plante?

  Is there any that you left on the table that you're like, "Ugh, maybe I should have taken that?"

• 49:38Russ Frushtick?

  Um, I want to do the Valve one about the handheld not made by Valve launches with native SteamOS support.

• 49:47Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 49:47Russ Frushtick?

  Because I know for sure that they're working on bringing SteamOS to other devices.

• 49:54Chris Plante?

  But they've been saying that for so long.

• 49:56Russ Frushtick?

  They've been saying it for a while. I think it is close. I think it's going to happen this year. But there's a far cry from that actually happening to a device launching natively with it.

• 50:05Chris Plante?

  Yes.

• 50:06Russ Frushtick?

  But I think, I feel like it might happen, but I'm fine.

• 50:11Chris Plante?

  I also just wonder how interested they are in that now that Steam Deck is such a success.

• 50:15Russ Frushtick?

  I think they're super interested in it because any handheld that comes out that has SteamOS natively on it will sell a fuckload of Steam games.

• 50:22Chris Plante?

  That's true. That's true. That's true.

• 50:23Russ Frushtick?

  They want people in their ecosystem like that.

• 50:25Chris Plante?

  That's true.

• 50:26Russ Frushtick?

  And that's why a lot of these hardware manufacturers haven't done it necessarily. Because they want people, you know.

• 50:31Chris Plante?

  Seating that control, yeah.

• 50:32Russ Frushtick?

  Right.

• 50:32Chris Plante?

  Um, yeah, the only one that I, there's like a bit of pride going into it for me is the Nvidia in a government hearing. Mostly like, I want to be able to call the shot. But I, I'm worried that Nvidia, especially with the upcoming Trump administration, you can't really predict anything.

• 50:55Russ Frushtick?

  Sure.

• 50:55Chris Plante?

  Of like what's going to go on.

• 50:56Russ Frushtick?

  Well, here's, here's what it relies on is, is Elon Musk and Trump, are they still going to be friends? And how does Elon Musk feel about Nvidia?

• 51:05Chris Plante?

  Nvidia, yeah. No, that's true. I mean, a year is a long time with, with that. And also, there is the fact that like Congress could require the hearing too. I just think, I feel like there has to be some sort of hearing. It's so weird that we are having this giant shitstorm around TikTok, but not around like AI companies.

• 51:27Russ Frushtick?

  The thing that will really impact us.

• 51:28Chris Plante?

  Yeah, and like how these pieces of hardware are being sold in China. Like, it feels like the conversation's kind of happening, but not nearly at the level that you think it would.

• 51:39Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 51:39Chris Plante?

  Um, yeah, it'll be interesting. Okay.

• 51:43Chris Plante?

  That's it. We did it.

• 51:45Russ Frushtick?

  We did it.

• 51:46Chris Plante?

  I feel good about this. Um, how are you feeling?

• 51:48Russ Frushtick?

  Pretty good. Yeah, I, I'm not, I don't think there's guaranteed home runs anywhere, but I feel pretty good that certainly I think either of us is going to get at least one, if not multiples.

• 51:59Chris Plante?

  Uh, you got any, uh, stuff you recommend that you've been playing or watching separate from all this?

• 52:06Russ Frushtick?

  Well, here's the thing. I'm, I'm finally on the Shogun train and as a, as a father of a toddler, I realize that I'm late to all forms of media that aren't video games because I have to play video games because I'm, because of this job. And now that I'm watching Shogun, I am absorbing the fact that it's one of the best television shows I've ever seen in my life.

• 52:27Chris Plante?

  Wow.

• 52:29Russ Frushtick?

  And no one wants to talk to me about it because that, this happened like months ago.

• 52:33Chris Plante?

  Honestly, this should be your prize for winning the award is I will watch all of Shogun.

• 52:39Russ Frushtick?

  It's not, you know what? That's your prize. You win for, for enjoying such a fantastic show.

• 52:44Chris Plante?

  That you're right. That is, I tried to get out of it. I tried. Okay, okay, okay.

• 52:49Russ Frushtick?

  Um, I will say this though. Shogun has like made me kind of want to go back and play like Ghost of Tsushima.

• 52:56Chris Plante?

  Wow.

• 52:56Russ Frushtick?

  And I'm kind of pumped about the sequel because I think they take place in similar, I have to check the years, but it is, both of those games do focus pretty, pretty heavily on the like, the West interceding, uh, within Japan.

• 53:10Chris Plante?

  Do you remember that game that we played at the beginning of this year? The open world?

• 53:14Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, the Sony produced, Sony published game.

• 53:18Chris Plante?

  Oh my gosh, it was, I really enjoyed that.

• 53:20Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, that was pretty cool.

• 53:21Chris Plante?

  Well, I, I think that you might dig going back to that because it has a lot to do with.

• 53:27Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, does it?

• 53:28Chris Plante?

  Yeah, like there's, I think it's Yokohama that's in it where it's like kind of built up in Western style.

• 53:34Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, sure.

• 53:34Chris Plante?

  I, I think it takes place probably a hundred, 20 years after.

• 53:37Russ Frushtick?

  Nagasaki, I think was the Western style.

• 53:39Chris Plante?

  Um, yes, but it is, it's, that game was pretty cool and just kind of lost to time. Um, yeah, I've been playing Muramasa, the Demon Blade and let me tell you, that game works so well as a handheld game. It is just a delight, and I think it came out on Vita. I think there was a version of it on

• 54:01Russ Frushtick?

  I think that's right. I think I did play it on Vita.

• 54:03Chris Plante?

  Yeah, and yeah, I'm really, really enjoying it. Even with it on Vita, the kind of stop and go nature of it on the Retro Pocket 5, being able to just save wherever you want.

• 54:16Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 54:16Chris Plante?

  It's really great because while the game is awesome, the art is incredible. It is a bit repetitive, and being able to just play a little bit in Burst really matches the kind of tone and speed of the game.

• 54:29Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 54:30Chris Plante?

  That's it.

• 54:31Russ Frushtick?

  Who?

• 54:31Chris Plante?

  Cool. Who do we have to thank? We got some Patreons?

• 54:34Russ Frushtick?

  We do. We have some patrons from the Patreon, if you will. We have Virum, we have Connor, we have Logan, and we have Damodanko. Thank you for being patrons of the besties. We really appreciate you. Thank you to everyone else who listens to the show, shares the show, spreads the word. We hope you've enjoyed this brief glimpse behind the paywall into what's going on with the resties, as well as last week's Bracket Battles episode. We've got a new Bracket Battles episode that is coming out this Tuesday. We determine the best open world world. So all the open world worlds that have happened over the years, we've picked the very best one, and that'll be available to subscribers on Tuesday.

• 55:19Chris Plante?

  I'm very happy with the final five. How we got there, interesting, but

• 55:24Russ Frushtick?

  It was a route.

• 55:25Chris Plante?

  Yeah, I'm very happy with where we landed with the final five on that one. Cool. Well, that is it.

• 55:32Russ Frushtick?

  I should mention, next week, we are doing the most anticipated games of 2025 with the whole gang, so that'll be really fun. There's a ton of games that we either think are coming out, or we know are coming out. Some of them were mentioned in this episode, so we'll be pumped to go through those next week.

• 55:51Chris Plante?

  And we will be talking about Indiana Jones by the end of the month. We will talk about

• 55:57Russ Frushtick?

  Before the end of January, we will do an episode on Indiana Jones. I still have not had time to play it because

• 56:04Chris Plante?

  It's awesome.

• 56:05Russ Frushtick?

  Breaks are not breaks for me, but once school reopens, I'll be hanging with Harrison and all his friends.

• 56:13Chris Plante?

  I'm very excited to hear what you think. I also know that we have, we won't spoil it, but we have a special guest episode coming up.

• 56:20Russ Frushtick?

  Oh yeah, coming in a couple of weeks. I'm very excited for that as well.

• 56:22Chris Plante?

  I think the audience is going to be super pumped for that. Uh, okay. That's it. We did it. Thank you for listening, everybody. If you really enjoyed this, like we said, you can go get a lot more Resties episodes over on the Patreon and you can always just hang out right here because we are here for you with the Besties every Friday. That's it for the Besties. I'm Christopher Thomas Plant.

• 56:47Russ Frushtick?

  I'm Russ Frushtick.

• 56:48Chris Plante?

  We don't normally do this at the end of the Besties. This is another episode of the Besties because shouldn't the world's best friends?

• 56:56Russ Frushtick?

  No. Best games, pick the world. Wait, no, you're right. You got it right.

• 57:00Chris Plante?

  Because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best game?

• 57:33Chris Plante?

  Besties.