Assassin's Creed Shadows Delivers on an 18-Year-Old Promise

Assassin's Creed Shadows finally takes the series to Feudal Japan. But is Ubisoft too late? Or does their AAAA mega release slice through the competition like a hidden blade to the neck of an unsuspecting foot soldier?

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  So Griffin is not here, obviously, but we were talking about Assassin's Creed beforehand. And without saying what Griffin thought, because I mean, even though he's not on it, I'm not gonna say what he thought of this game, because if he wants to share that, he should be on the episode. We started talking about, well, Griffin was the last Assassin's Creed game you did enjoy. He's like, I didn't like the last one very much. It's like, oh, okay. What about before that? What about Odyssey? Did you like Odyssey? No. Did you like Origins? No, no, no, I didn't like Origins. Valhalla? Didn't like Valhalla. It's like, okay, Griffin, who claims to be a fan of this series, has not enjoyed one since 2014. That is what we figured out. For 11 consecutive years, Griffin has not enjoyed this franchise.

• 0:40Russ Frushtick?

  Wowza.

• 0:41Chris Plante?

  Do you think he regrets getting that giant Assassin's Creed back tattoo of Ezio?

• 0:46Speaker 00

  Probably. Well, it's just a big Assassin's logo, and Griffin is still an assassin. That's important. Like, he still sides against the Templars.

• 0:54Chris Plante?

  You know what this tells me?

• 0:55Speaker 00

  Conflict. What?

• 0:57Chris Plante?

  This tells me that you've never put the black light on your brother. Because everybody who knows him well knows it looks like the Assassin's Creed logo. But when you pin him down and hold a black light above it, it reveals the faces of Ezio and Desmond.

• 1:12Russ Frushtick?

  And they're crying.

• 1:13Chris Plante?

  The Deuteronomist.

• 1:15Speaker 00

  I've been to both Sleep No More and Meow Wolf with my brother. I've seen him in every possible light. Trust me.

• 1:40Speaker 00

  My name is Justin McElroy, and I know the best game of the week.

• 1:43Chris Plante?

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

• 1:47Russ Frushtick?

  My name is Russ Fraschig. I know the best game of the week. Holy shit, I sound terrible.

• 1:51Speaker 00

  Welcome to The Besties, where we talk about the latest and greatest in home interactive entertainment. It's a video game club. Just by listening, my friend, you have joined our illustrious ranks. This week, we are returning.

• 2:05Speaker 00

  To the world of assassination, but not that world assassination, a different world of assassination.

• 2:10Russ Frushtick?

  There are so many worlds of assassination. It's the multiverse of assassination.

• 2:14Speaker 00

  It's Assassin's Creed Shadows. Chris Plant, what's that?

• 2:17Chris Plante?

  Assassin's Creed is approaching 20 years of existence in the video game world. And that entire time, people have been begging for, asking for, craving a ninja Assassin's Creed. And they got it after many other Assassin's Creed likes made ninja games. Does it surpass all of that? Was it worth the wait? You will find out right after this break.

• 2:45Speaker 00

  Chris Plant, I think you're, the way you contextualize this is, is so perfect. Because I really think that's the story of Assassin's Creed Shadows is for 20 years, there has been this, this huge lunch in front of Assassin's Creed that is like the ninja one. And everyone was asking for that. And then it feels like that lunch has been eaten many times over by many other people. And now Assassin's Creed has come to its beautiful table. Are there any crumbs left for Assassin's Creed Shadows?

• 3:17Russ Frushtick?

  That's, yeah, it's a good question. I, I, I think it's so interesting, this franchise in particular. And maybe it's just because it's me, but this franchise almost exactly times with the beginning of my career in covering video games. And just thinking it over that span, it's very, very close.

• 3:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, very close.

• 3:35Russ Frushtick?

  I remember like one of my first E3s seeing that demo and being like, holy fucking shit of that first Assassin's Creed. And being like, this is unlike anything I've ever seen before. Um, so it is interesting to see how it's evolved and how it hasn't evolved. But I do agree with you, like, it's a lot of pressure to put on this franchise, given the fact that like, everyone and their mother has made an open world ninja game.

• 3:58Chris Plante?

  Let me do a little bit more of a historical run through and I'll try to make this fast.

• 4:02Speaker 00

  Heck yeah, dude.

• 4:03Chris Plante?

  Why, why should this be a ninja game? And why did it take so long? The original series, as we all know, it starts out in, I think 12th century Jerusalem.

• 4:12Russ Frushtick?

  Yep.

• 4:12Chris Plante?

  And you are a ninja. Like, that's the thing about it.

• 4:16Russ Frushtick?

  That's a fair point.

• 4:17Chris Plante?

  You're basically a ninja there, and that's why people are like, hey, they're gonna make this into a ninja game. Right? Because I don't know why, but you're a ninja in 12th century Jerusalem. You're doing recon.

• 4:29Speaker 00

  Plant, you, I've never thought about this, but you have really touched on the big problem here, which is

• 4:33Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 4:33Speaker 00

  The whole foundational premise of Assassin's Creed is, you know, lots of places could have ninjas.

• 4:38Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 4:39Speaker 00

  Like, lots of different places could do different kinds of ninjas.

• 4:42Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 4:42Speaker 00

  Like, that is like, yeah.

• 4:44Russ Frushtick?

  People haven't just said, I want a ninja game. People have said, I want a feudal Japan Assassin's Creed game.

• 4:49Chris Plante?

  Yes, right, because, because what they're doing is they're playing the game and they're like, man, sure feels nice playing a ninja. I wonder what it would feel like to play in a ninja spot, you know? That would be an interesting idea.

• 5:00Speaker 00

  That's just embarrassing, though, because if they were thinking, they'd be wanting to play a ninja in a cyber future world. Because that's more funner. That would be fun.

• 5:08Chris Plante?

  Cyber ninja is better. But, but the Ubisoft, and maybe, maybe they had that in their head all along. They're like, no, the appeal of the game is ninja, non-ninja spaces. So naturally, the next non-ninja space would be Renaissance Italy, of course, right? And then after that would be Colonial America. Why not?

• 5:28Russ Frushtick?

  I also wonder, I also wonder, part of it is just like a marketing thing where they're like, what, what is the, like, broad game buying world? Like, what would engage them?

• 5:38Chris Plante?

  What history are they into right now? And the one thing that they, that history dorks are into at all times is ancient aliens. So they make sure to throw that in there, too.

• 5:48Speaker 00

  It's always an evil pope.

• 5:50Chris Plante?

  An evil pope.

• 5:50Speaker 00

  They're trying to fantasipate the audience and what they're gonna be into.

• 5:55Russ Frushtick?

  Justin, you're off the podcast forever. I hate it. I hate it.

• 5:58Chris Plante?

  Let me be clear. I enjoy all these games. I think all of us enjoyed most of these games until Assassin's Creed III. And then a weird thing starts to happen.

• 6:07Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, yeah, three, yeah.

• 6:08Chris Plante?

  They start to make it into kind of an action game. And then by the time we get to like the most recent decade of Assassin's Creed games, again, games I like. They're just action RPGs. You are straight up, you are not a ninja in Assassin's Creed Odyssey. You are not a ninja if you get god powers and you can fight with a trident. It's just a rule.

• 6:28Russ Frushtick?

  It's not just that. It's also just the idea of like, can you stand in the center of a circle of guys and take them out? Like consistently.

• 6:35Chris Plante?

  Yes, without even really paying attention.

• 6:37Russ Frushtick?

  And you started over time, you've like gotten more and more powerful.

• 6:39Speaker 00

  Which is, and I think that's kind of the story of the franchise for me is like, I feel like they did the, the hyper stealth and then I think they wanted something that was more mass market, obviously. And they thought, okay, we're gonna tamp down the stealth, heighten the action. And I think that it took a few games before the action was good enough to sort of like make that feel good again. But at this point, we've kind of lost that metaphor so much, like it's not, they're not ninja stealth games, really. They're like, like you said, they're standing in the middle of a circle and like take on the whole place. Or at the most, like I would say it's a little bit more dishonored, right? Where it's like, start quiet and then go loud at a certain point.

• 7:20Russ Frushtick?

  I think that's a good summary and that, that is actually a really good segue to this game. Cause it, it provides both of those experiences. It provides the stand in the circle and be a fucking powerhouse and the be a super sneaky person that can now crawl on their belly. Which I don't think we've ever been able to do before.

• 7:38Speaker 00

  Like a reptile. Is it, is it, uh, maybe one of you guys could tell me, there is a split narrative here. And we start with like a different character, a large sort of samurai gentleman. And then we pivot to our sort of main character who is, uh, not a big samurai guy. And I haven't returned to him, so I don't know if it's more of a framing device or what the, what the deal is.

• 8:04Russ Frushtick?

  No, he's in there. They, they become friends.

• 8:07Speaker 00

  Oh, thank goodness. I was worried they might be enemies or something more romantic. I don't know.

• 8:12Russ Frushtick?

  They're friends.

• 8:13Speaker 00

  Wait, tell me they become friends. That's not germane.

• 8:16Russ Frushtick?

  No, so the, so the two lead characters, uh, I actually don't have their names in front of me.

• 8:21Chris Plante?

  Yasuke and Naoe.

• 8:22Russ Frushtick?

  Yasuke and Naoe. Uh, Naoe is like a ninja woman, effectively. Uh, and Yasuke is like a samurai fighter, a black man who was formerly a slave that basically gets, brought to Japan and then.

• 8:41Chris Plante?

  Taken on as like a feudal guard, basically.

• 8:42Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, he's like a feudal guard. Right. And, and in addition to like their very differing backgrounds, they play incredibly different as well. So, uh, Naoe, again, predictably, very sneaky, hide in the shadows, uh, crawl through bushes, assassination, et cetera. And Yasuke?

• 9:01Chris Plante?

  Yasuke, yeah.

• 9:02Russ Frushtick?

  Ken like fucking powerhouse his way through a base with like giant slashing swords. He's got heavy armor. He moves a bit slower, but you kind of have that option.

• 9:13Speaker 00

  It's interesting though, because they start with him and they definitely like give you that feel at the very beginning. That's the first thing you experience and then it really pulls it all back for Na'wei.

• 9:21Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. It's interesting because a lot of the game is not super accessible to Yasuke. A lot of it is.

• 9:34Speaker 00

  What do you mean?

• 9:34Russ Frushtick?

  Just like, he's not as, he's not nearly as mobile. Like the, the mobility of Assassin's Creed has always been the thing.

• 9:40Speaker 00

  Okay, yeah.

• 9:41Russ Frushtick?

  And he's like, kind of slower to move through the world. He's got heavy armor and he's a bigger guy. And so it is an interesting contrast. You do get moments where like there's a dead, there are dedicated missions for each character, but there were also missions where like you can pick between the two. And it did feel like I was a little more limited and railroaded into playing a certain way when I was Yasuke. Whereas with Na'wei, I, I had a few more options.

• 10:09Speaker 00

  What did you guys think of, I always think, I mean, if Assassin's Creed has to nail anything, I think getting around the world and making that feel fun and pleasurable has to be one of the big things. How do you guys feel about how, how, how do you feel about like as Na'wei specifically? Cause we're talking about that mobility, like getting around the world as her. How did that feel for you guys?

• 10:30Chris Plante?

  It's wild how far the games come. You know, because you're right, the series has always been known about that and you can climb anything. You climb, climb the tallest tower. But you go back and play those games and it is rigid, like where you need to place yourself to climb. And

• 10:49Chris Plante?

  yeah, and, and the, the challenge that the series has had since then is we want it to look beautiful. We want it to be cinematic. We want you to be able to climb most things. At the same time, we don't want the kind of Legend of Zelda thing where it looks like you're kind of just like wobbling along the side of everything.

• 11:08Chris Plante?

  And I, I thought they did a good job of solving for it. One of the biggest fixes is a grappling hook. So when you are at an angle that would defy physics.

• 11:21Chris Plante?

  Whip out that grappling hook and grappling hooks. We just understand in our soul physics don't apply to. So you can flip it somehow underneath like the hood of the roof and you know, zip up, you know, at some weird, strange angle and it looks awesome.

• 11:38Speaker 00

  It looks awesome and it's really good in combat scenarios. It makes it really easy where you don't have to be looking around for like an up. If you see L1, it's like, oh, that's my up button. I'm gonna go up now.

• 11:47Chris Plante?

  It's your Batman button.

• 11:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's my Batman button. I'm gonna Batman out of here. See you guys.

• 11:51Russ Frushtick?

  I do think there were moments when I was playing this, it reminded me of Assassin's Creed 3. Because I'm not sure that like large nature-y spaces work super great for this format. There are just, there were moments where I was like looking for like a high perch to do the, you know, the fucking eagle scan shit. And getting to that perch in the open world, like they clearly had like a specific path in mind and trying to like walk in that path. Like if you think about the original Assassin's Creed games or two or whatever, when you're going through those cities, when you're going through Florence or whatever it is, you can kind of run in a straight line. And there was an automation to like normal buildings

• 12:36Russ Frushtick?

  where you would just grab a lot of the windows and the ba ba ba, so on and so forth. And you just don't necessarily have that. There are, I wouldn't call them invisible walls because if you go at the right angle, it does work. But there are a lot of weirdly impassable areas in this map that does, I think, hurt some of the flow. And I think my favorite moments of this game are like, I'm in a temple. I'm clearing the temple. I'm using the grappling hook to like climb up and get above guys and hiding in bushes, et cetera, et cetera. The second I'm in the open world, it just feels kind of like filler to me. Like it doesn't assist the experience in any way.

• 13:10Speaker 00

  I really like the, the feeling of getting around bases and like force and stuff is very good. And that's part of the, partially it's the setting, right? It's like there's a uniformity to the height. There is like a lot of architecture that like gives you the, the sort of like good, sticky, like climbing around sort of geometry. But it, it, yeah, in the open world, it does feel a little strange. I think the moment to moment. In the interiors also feels, uh, they do a good job of making the enemies pretty stupid. And in the sense of like, it's not stupid, forgetful, right? Like they'll see you the first time, be like, you're not supposed to be here. But if you hide, almost instantly, you see a little silhouette of yourself.

• 13:53Speaker 00

  And they're like, I think it's the game trying to say like, listen, one or two, like if you want to do the stealth thing, it is not keeping that from you. Like it is very easy to take a beat, hide, kill a guy and like reset.

• 14:06Chris Plante?

  I would say they are senseless in the most literal sense. As in they cannot hear or see, taste anything. You, it is incredible how many times I took pictures in the game where I was just directly underneath someone. But there was some shadow going on. The, the most dangerous time to be a soldier, a foot soldier in this game is when it is night and raining. Because you can just forget about it. Walk up to somebody within an inch of their face and they're like, oh, I sure hope nobody stabs me in the neck right now. And you're like, oh, that's too bad.

• 14:43Speaker 00

  You have moments that are a little bit like, you know how the predator, sometimes like when, when an, when an animal can only see movement? It's like, just stay still, he can't see you. It's like, that doesn't seem right, but he doesn't see me. Like, you're right, he doesn't. I, I am very disappointed by the way that in this particular take on feudal Japan, I cannot assassinate people through the paper walls.

• 15:04Chris Plante?

  No, you can.

• 15:05Speaker 00

  I, I did not get that prompt. Maybe it's like an upgrade ability or something.

• 15:09Chris Plante?

  It's an, it's an upgrade. It's the, the upgrade system is not great. So I can see how, yeah, the upgrade system is a bit of a mess. Um, but you can.

• 15:19Speaker 00

  Explain it to me, Chris, as both a public service and a service to me. Because I would love to understand it better.

• 15:25Chris Plante?

  Love to be humiliated.

• 15:27Russ Frushtick?

  There's knowledge points.

• 15:28Speaker 00

  Okay, so we have, listen, I, I think, let me say this. Normally besties, I feel like we do not traffic in this level of knit and or grit. But with Assassin's Creed or like a Call of Duty or Madden or whatever, I feel like the knit and the grit is the, is the thing. So how do you level up at this game?

• 15:44Chris Plante?

  I. Do not fully understand it.

• 15:47Russ Frushtick?

  There are, there are levels.

• 15:48Chris Plante?

  Well, no, no, okay, so you, you, you're playing through the game and every time you like stab somebody in the neck, you get a little thing that's like 10 XP and then you like stab an important person in the neck and you're like 110 XP.

• 16:00Speaker 00

  And it sucks by the way that you can stab super, super unimportant people and get like 5 XP. It's like, that doesn't feel right.

• 16:07Chris Plante?

  Yeah, yeah, it, it, there's basically snitches everywhere that they want you to kill unarmed snitches.

• 16:13Speaker 00

  Just maids, just like kill maids 5 XP.

• 16:15Chris Plante?

  And this game's gore, we, we'll come back to the gore, we'll come back to it, but first the XP. So you do all this and then every once in a while a little numbers pop up and you're like, great, I got like a point, right? And then you go into the menu and there are like, I don't know, five trees, but they're locked by tier. So you would think, oh, I spent some points a lot in this like one, in the assassin tree and then that'll unlock my next tier. False. You could, you fill it all up and it doesn't unlock. Wait, why, why, what's happening? There are also, as Fraschick said, knowledge points that you unlock and you do this by like quests, I think.

• 16:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, you pray at all the shrines.

• 16:55Russ Frushtick?

  I found some scrolls and that gave me a knowledge point.

• 16:58Chris Plante?

  Yes, so you have to unlock those to unlock the future stuff. So what you get in a scenario like me where I did not prioritize that and I'm just like rife with ability points right now. I'm just, I'm a, I'm a bank of ability points.

• 17:12Speaker 00

  I'm sitting here wondering, have I ever spent one? I don't know. Am I sitting on a big pile of them?

• 17:17Chris Plante?

  And when you go in, it, it does that classic thing where like the first thing you see is, oh, it increases blank 5%. And you're like, oh, okay, I'm not gonna sift through all five of these trees, but if you do, you will find that you can stab people through a wall, which gets us to the thing that I wanted to ask y'all about. The violence of this game, how did it hit y'all? Not in the, in like a puritanical way, I enjoyed the game, but I was kinda surprised where it.

• 17:47Speaker 00

  For me, I would say this, it looks, I could still use more animations because the animations are pretty gory, but you do notice them being repeated fairly, fairly quickly, like almost every time you kill somebody, you gotta stunt on them. And I, sometimes I wish it was a little bit more like, you know that sometimes it's that really funny Assassin's Creed animation? Every game ha, every Assassin's Creed has one that like casual kill, like the, just like a little. I would like more of that, that Anton Chigurh and just like a quick. But uh, so they, they do have that. It just feels, I got, I didn't get offended or I got a kick out of it, but it is like, for Nowai as a character, it does color for me, her like conversations,

• 18:29Speaker 00

  because like, she is having conversations with people where she seems reasonable and canny, but I know the truth. She is a fucking lunatic. If you get her in a room, a hundred people, she will level it. She will murder everyone in there. She's a maniac.

• 18:43Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, I think visually, the, the violence came off as like, I had ju-, you know, I finished Shogun a couple of months ago, like, in the same ballpark as that amount of violence.

• 18:55Chris Plante?

  Yes, I think they're going for a, um, lone wolf and cub type of like seventies.

• 19:03Russ Frushtick?

  If you do the paint stuff.

• 19:04Chris Plante?

  Japanese, yes. But it's like, when you slash someone, blood sprays across the room, but there's not a lot of like, dismemberment. I think you can, but it's not.

• 19:17Russ Frushtick?

  There's some heads that come off.

• 19:18Chris Plante?

  Common, yes.

• 19:19Russ Frushtick?

  If you count that.

• 19:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's gory. It's pretty graphic.

• 19:21Chris Plante?

  But, but to Hoops' point, there are scenarios where you go into a room and they have the, um, I can't remember what it's called. It was a way of making the floor sound like a bird, crying, basically. When you step in it, it was a security measure in, in old temples and forts and castles. And you'll step on it and like, three maids look up, like you just, you know, they're the gazelle and you're the lion. And you're like, oh, I know how this one's gonna end. And, I mean, the room is covered in, in, in viscera by the time you're done.

• 19:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, I get, I went to a temple.

• 19:58Russ Frushtick?

  Who's gonna clean that up?

• 19:59Speaker 00

  Just earlier. Yeah, right? Who's gonna clean this? I got, got, got Harvey Keitel. Get the wolf down here. I listen. Uh, I, I watched, uh, I, I did one right before this where there was a guy, just a guy, and he was in front of a chest. And like, I used my eagle vision or whatever. It's like, whoa, chest. Gotta get it. It's like, are you sure? Cause he's right there. It's like, nah, unfortunately, he's chosen the extremely bad place to post up, cause he's right next to the chest. And I do need that chest. Um, I think that they.

• 20:31Speaker 00

  The moment to moment things, I would say, uh, I have not found a lot of them to be super enjoyable. And I would like to talk to you guys about how this game handles, uh, getting around the world and finding your objectives. Cause I'm curious, it, it, that feels very different to me. And I'm curious how it resonated with you guys. And if you left it like as designed, or if you switched, switched to like a more guided experience.

• 20:59Russ Frushtick?

  I don't know which is the design version, because they do offer, as you sort of alluded to, a Pathfinder mode that literally gives you like a GPS ghost to follow to a, to an objective.

• 21:11Speaker 00

  So, right. So that's like, yes. And you can, it's confusing again, right? Cause it can give you, that Pathfinder mode can still work in the, whatever they call it, like guided whatever. But the alternative mode is like, it will give you waypoints to go to, that you're like, literally.

• 21:31Russ Frushtick?

  Correct. I started with that. And then there were moments where I was like, I have no fucking idea how to get to this waypoint. And then would oftentimes switch to Pathfinder.

• 21:38Speaker 00

  You can use the wayfinder to plot a point on the map manually, and you can go to the way, you know what I'm saying? Like, the pathfinding works regardless of whether or not you know where the objective is.

• 21:48Chris Plante?

  Yes. I'll talk through this, this like find your own way mode a little bit more. So if you picture like a traditional Assassin's Creed or open world game, you like get your quest, and then you open the map, and then the thing that you need to go do is just plotted there. And you go from point to point to point until you finish the game, right? And then eventually there are like 500 things on the map for all the different stuff you can do. In this game, and I think that they had done a version of this in a couple of the previous Assassin's Creeds, there is a fog of war, and you clear the fog of war as you travel the map. And one of the most important things about clearing the fog of war is you see the regions and cities and names of things added to the map. That's

• 22:31Chris Plante?

  important because you kind of on a Kill Bill-esque mission for the game to like knock out all these different heads of, uh, of, of. Gang, I guess.

• 22:41Speaker 00

  It's a secret organization.

• 22:42Chris Plante?

  Secret organization.

• 22:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:44Chris Plante?

  And to do that, you will say, okay, I'm gonna pick this one person. And I, to find them, I need to knock out three other sub kind of goals. And when you pick any of those sub goals, it still doesn't give you the location to go to. A thing comes up on the map and it's like, hey, it's south of Kyoto. Wedged into the mountainside, you know, near a bunch of trees or something. And if you have.

• 23:12Speaker 00

  Or if it's a person, it'll be like, they're in the firearms district, west of Sakai, near this guy.

• 23:17Chris Plante?

  And you can open your map and you can be like, dang, well, I know where Sakai is. But I haven't cleared the fog of war out in that entire area yet, and I'm busy doing other things. You can use a recon soldier effectively in the map. And point them at that area and that. Character will clear out the fog of war and that and discover, quote, any of the things that are in that area. And you can do this, I guess, like twice a day. This is where it just gets endlessly complicated to me because you, you also use these soldiers to. Claim special treasures in certain forts, and if you've used them in one spot, you can't use them in another.

• 24:00Speaker 00

  And they refill when the seasons change, or you can refill them when you go back to your home base.

• 24:05Chris Plante?

  But I'm not sure if there's a punishment for changing seasons. And yeah, there's like so many systems at play. That's kind of the, the big challenge I had with the game is. There are so many systems that I would end up kind of getting lost in one thing. And then forget what game I was even playing. As in, there's a fort that I did last night that was. Probably in total, an hour and a half. I spent an hour of it looking for six different sub bosses. So that I could open a special crate and then I got like a relatively novel piece of gear. Right, and but but then

• 24:46Speaker 00

  That's all good stuff.

• 24:48Chris Plante?

  In doing that, the sport is so huge and finding these enemies was so big or took so long. And then at the end, I got that gear, but then there was these other treasures that I just couldn't claim and I didn't fully understand why. I I kinda did because it was tied to these like helper characters, but I was like, I guess

• 25:06Russ Frushtick?

  Right, you have to like send helpers in to

• 25:08Chris Plante?

  Yes, and I was like, I guess I should have spent more time getting helpers. But then I realized, oh, wow, I haven't finished the main mission yet. I want to do that before we talk about it. And as I kind of pulled back, I realized I was like eight layers deep of

• 25:23Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 25:24Chris Plante?

  not knowing what I was supposed to do. And I like, you can build up your base, but I'm not sure why I should build up my base. Again, I had already mentioned that I didn't have the knowledge points to use my ability points. So all of these things on their own are cool. I think when you really understand the game and you know, the system, they probably work well. But it requires, it requires, one, that you spend the time to like, learn every individual part of the system. And then two, that you bring your own self-control to not getting pulled down any one avenue for too long.

• 26:00Russ Frushtick?

  It's hard not to feel like Assassin's Creed games in particular are maybe the worst current AAA franchise for the besties podcast.

• 26:09Speaker 00

  Man.

• 26:09Russ Frushtick?

  No, no, no.

• 26:10Speaker 00

  Geez, Russ, taking some big swings.

• 26:12Chris Plante?

  Wow.

• 26:13Russ Frushtick?

  For the besties podcast specifically because I think these games are designed to be played in the way that like, I just buy Madden every year. I think people that are Assassin's Creed fans buy like, maybe they buy one game and they play it over the course of six to 10 months. And that's what this game feels so dense of all of those systems at play that I think, I enjoyed my time with it, but like, I think it is not designed for a just

• 26:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, like I did in, in, you know, I enjoy, I don't know if I enjoyed my time with it, but I did spend a lot of time with it and wanted to keep spending more time on it. And I think that it would be It's always that thing with Assassin's Creed games that bothers me like there's there's super rewarding stuff, right? Like there's a narrative, there's story that people have worked really hard on and it's like, it looks incredible. I just wish like the, the time, it didn't require so much time of me to like manage systems and stuff. To get at the stuff that's really in it. Like I like all the content. It's just like this, it's not hard to make compelling systems. Like there's lots of big games where the systems are understandable, right?

• 27:23Speaker 00

  Like and the, and the leveling is understandable and like you could understand system, like the

• 27:27Chris Plante?

  Including Assassin's Creed games. I mean,

• 27:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:30Chris Plante?

  For me, I, I know what you mean, Frush, and I think that's right. I think people who listen to the show who really just like are cool spending as much time as possible in a world and are fine with some of that being like, hey, that's like real six out of 10 energy in exchange for the 10 out of 10. This is for you. That said, Odyssey is an amazing game. And what Odyssey does is it traps you on an island at the beginning and you leave that island once you understand how the game works.

• 28:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:01Chris Plante?

  And I, I think that's the problem here is

• 28:04Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, Breath of Wild does the same thing.

• 28:06Chris Plante?

  Yeah. And, and it's a great solution. And here I am, you know, I don't know, I'm, I'm probably like somewhere between 15 to 20 hours into this game. And I'm still bashing my head against some of the systems. And that's just kind of weird.

• 28:20Russ Frushtick?

  I had a, a, another question for you, you know, while I was playing this, I think it's fair to say that I was thinking of some other games in this milieu. And Ghosts of Tsushima kept coming to mind. And the thing specifically that came to mind was there was like a lot of like visual design stuff in Ghosts of Tsushima, which I wouldn't describe as realistic, but I would describe as striking. And I wasn't getting that same striking, like picturesque aspect from this game.

• 28:47Chris Plante?

  Why?

• 28:49Russ Frushtick?

  You don't think so?

• 28:50Chris Plante?

  Well, I think this is just taste. I'm the opposite.

• 28:52Speaker 00

  Are you talking about picturesque or are you talking about like artistic flair? Because this game is obviously like super picturesque. It loves how picturesque it is.

• 28:59Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, sorry. Flair is a better way to describe it.

• 29:00Speaker 00

  It makes you look at it and will not let you skip the synchronization sequences.

• 29:04Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 29:04Speaker 00

  Even if you're somebody that gets really easily bored watching a camera spin around an environment for 30 seconds.

• 29:10Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 29:10Speaker 00

  I got the zoomies, guys. Let me go kill someone. Thank you.

• 29:14Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, I think it's flair. I guess that's the answer. It's like you don't have that like golden sundown moment that you get from a Ghost of Tsushima or the like poppy fields that are just like, oh, I could, this is my fucking wallpaper. This feels like more like, I guess the analog would be like Death Stranding, which is like, at a glance, not necessarily like a flary environment, but it is like picturesque. Uh, or like a spot you would want to take a vacation to.

• 29:43Speaker 00

  I, I will, I'd like to touch on something that I felt while playing this game, and I think it's so close to ephemeral, but I wanted to touch on it, is that in, oh, I understand, I think you're totally dead on about getting around in the open world, uh, feeling weird. I will say that I felt like stealthing through the natural world was actually pretty pleasant. I think that they do a good job of like integrating the landscape in a way where it doesn't feel like you're fighting it as much as it is like you're kind of using it to your advantage. I think it, that feels pretty good.

• 30:16Russ Frushtick?

  Lot of shrubs.

• 30:16Speaker 00

  Lot of shrubs.

• 30:17Chris Plante?

  The forest actually look and feel like forest. As in, they're hard to get around, and when you're up high, they look like a forest in a way they just don't in video games.

• 30:28Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 30:28Chris Plante?

  Um, and there is this amazing feeling in the game where you come out of a forest and like, was I even really supposed to walk through that area? And suddenly you're in a field, dawn is breaking over this little village, and you know that you're just about to wreck shit in it. And that feels incredible. Um, that, that to me is when it, again, it's the going through the forest, six out of 10. Approaching a village at dawn, ready to kick some ass, 10 out of 10. And if you can make that exchange, you're in a pretty good spot.

• 31:04Speaker 00

  I don't know if, for me, if you're someone, if you're an Assassin's Creed fan, like we've said on this, I feel like we're pretty, we feel pretty confident that like, it's a pretty good one of those. Unless you're deep in the lore, I have no idea how the broader Assassin's Creed lore is being addressed here.

• 31:22Russ Frushtick?

  I don't think I can talk to you if you're deep in the lore of Assassin's Creed.

• 31:24Speaker 00

  If you're deep in the lore, actually, you should listen to another podcast. You're not welcome here, but.

• 31:28Chris Plante?

  I know we're running along on this segment, but that's the strangest part, is you're right. Once you start the game, good luck. It's gonna be a long time till you start to tie in everything else.

• 31:40Russ Frushtick?

  You get a little nibble at the beginning.

• 31:42Chris Plante?

  But every time you load the game, it's like, it assumes you must be the biggest Assassin's Creed lore fan on the planet, because you can actually cycle through the other characters that you've played as in other games.

• 31:56Speaker 00

  They're like trying to make an Animus like for you.

• 31:56Chris Plante?

  Yes, they're trying to make this like giant mega Assassin's Creed game, where it looks like at any moment you could switch to any of the other AC games. So, yeah, it's

• 32:07Speaker 00

  Very ambitious. I think there's no reason to think that the, it is weird. They've set up a UI that looks like something that they cannot do. But you're right, Flan, that's what it looks like. Who do you want to explore as today? It's like, that's a different video game. I do not own that.

• 32:20Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 32:22Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, they've talked about working on this for many years of like, having the equivalent of the Call of Duty app for Assassin's Creed. It does not work in this context, because as we've all talked about, like not, most of these games are not even supported on the platform you're playing it on. So.

• 32:37Speaker 00

  I do think, though, if you wanted to at some point get me, I, I think that they could do, I would do Animus as a subscription service, that isn't just like Assassin's Creed games, but like, some of these like more historical environments that you could go explore at will, right? For a monthly fee, you can go look around Egypt, whatever you want, go explore these other places.

• 32:57Russ Frushtick?

  Why are you turning this into a monthly fee, Justin?

• 33:00Speaker 00

  Cause I want it to actually happen. And I'm trying to keep.

• 33:03Russ Frushtick?

  They had that for free, though, I think, or they. They sold it for $5 where you like explore a fucking

• 33:07Speaker 00

  I like that. Yeah, I'm saying as a unified thing, right? Unify it.

• 33:10Chris Plante?

  Give you a unified app that's it's the history book of Assassin's Creed.

• 33:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, and you can go explore. Yeah.

• 33:16Russ Frushtick?

  That's sure to bring Ubisoft from the brink of

• 33:19Speaker 00

  That's gonna save everything. I don't know. What I was gonna say, I think if you like Assassin's Creed, you're gonna like this. I I don't know if it does enough to differentiate itself from like to go back to where we talked about. I don't know if it does enough to differentiate itself from the other games that are very, very, very similar to this. I mean, we are. We are getting into like nitty gritty again, but like this goes to Shusima, Sekiro, like

• 33:45Russ Frushtick?

  What was the Way of the Samurai? What was that one? The Sony one that we played like two years ago with the glider?

• 33:50Chris Plante?

  Rise of the Ronin?

• 33:51Russ Frushtick?

  Rise of the Ronin. Very similar.

• 33:53Speaker 00

  Like very, it's very. I don't know that it does enough and I don't know that it. You know, it's funny. We there is a meditation mini game in in this and

• 34:05Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 34:06Speaker 00

  It is a mini game where you try. They tried to give you the approximate feel of meditating. And it is a mini game where you can meditate and mess up at meditating. And there's like a little bong. You messed up meditating. It's like, okay, guys, with all due respect, we don't need to bring every element. Right. I mentioned that to Griffin. He's like, compare that to Wanderstop for a second. Like, how are these two things approaching the same idea? I don't. I don't know that it. I don't know that it does enough to separate those where if you play a lot of games or if you played other games in this genre, I don't know that there's enough here to separate it. Cause like even during this conversation, we've been trying to figure out which mechanics are which game, right?

• 34:47Speaker 00

  Like trying to remember like, wait, was this this? You could do this in like, I don't know that it feels different enough.

• 34:52Russ Frushtick?

  I personally, I liked Rise of the Ronin more, and I know that game got kind of buried, but I just like the freedom of it. I I mean, realistically, what I want is not something that's narrative driven, and this is incredibly narrative driven.

• 35:03Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 35:05Russ Frushtick?

  And I don't think the narrative in this is particularly noteworthy.

• 35:08Speaker 00

  Did you guys do English or Japanese? English or Japanese?

• 35:11Russ Frushtick?

  I did do English voiceover. Yes.

• 35:14Chris Plante?

  I did. Japanese, but I think it might be more of a historical Japanese because I was like real like some of these games. Listen, I do not understand Japanese when I play these games, but I can pick through it and I was like really overwhelmed by it.

• 35:28Speaker 00

  I did a plant. Okay. For whatever it's worth, you're you know, more Japanese than me, but I had a very similar experience. Where I can like, listen to Japanese with text on the screen.

• 35:39Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 35:40Speaker 00

  And like, connect a couple of things, but like, I, I, it is, it was, and that's not weird. There's whole tenses of the language now that I don't know. There's formal tenses of the Japanese that I don't understand, right? There's like, I understand, uh, very little, but it was like.

• 35:56Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 35:57Speaker 00

  It was really hard to grasp.

• 35:58Chris Plante?

  Yeah, I, I, I, one last thing of the Ubisoft of it all. It feels like they knew this was the last great bet that they were going to make and they went all in. And fresh, you mentioned Rise of their own and a challenge that I have with this game and where the series has been trending anyway. Is they want it to be everything for everyone.

• 36:22Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 36:22Chris Plante?

  And they want to make sure they're, they're offering something in there that will make sure that somebody buys it. And that, in my experience, often got in the way of me finding the thing I probably would enjoy doing the most.

• 36:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 36:38Chris Plante?

  And I was having a trouble finding my way through the sheer density of stuff.

• 36:44Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 36:45Chris Plante?

  It's, it's not, yeah, I don't know. I, I, I'm very curious how this game does. I'm very.

• 36:51Russ Frushtick?

  I really think people that like will spend 80 hours will, if, look, you come home from a long day of work, you have an hour. You play through it, you have an experience and then you have, you know, you have that for the next six months of your life. I think there are people that want that. Yeah, I don't.

• 37:08Speaker 00

  I just, again, Russ, I do want to push back against that because we do long games a lot here. This isn't that. It's like, how rewarding is the time? And that's the issue that I have is like, you spend, if that time is valuable, you don't want to spend it fucking around with systems. You want to spend it playing.

• 37:25Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I agree with that.

• 37:26Speaker 00

  And I feel like that is the, what is.

• 37:27Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, part of the other issue is like, the experience that we had, I mean, Plant played longer than we do, but in the first five, 10 hours, it's all fucking systems. You're buried in systems. And some of that is like a mistake. They should spread that stuff out or figure out a way to better tutorialize it. Obviously, once you understand what's going on and you know, oh, I need to recruit these guys to do this, et cetera, et cetera. There's less of that, but I agree with you. It's very front loaded and it just, it's just.

• 37:54Speaker 00

  Piece of advice for that. Don't, don't make my mistake. Follow the main quest, I suspect, for the beginning. Cause I just started exploring every corner of the map I could. And I think that was an issue where I, again, am not getting into some pretty basic functionality.

• 38:09Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, you'll hit walls where it's like, you don't have this thing to do this thing. And that sucks. That's not a good feeling.

• 38:14Speaker 00

  Yeah. And that sucks to find out, but it's like, it's like the cost of letting you have as much freedom as you do. And letting them put as much stuff in, you don't feel that editorial hand. It reminds me that, um, Plant, what you were saying earlier reminded me that Mark Twain quote, I didn't have time to send a short letter. So I sent a long one. If this feels like that, right? This feels like a lot of competent teams making really competent stuff and no one at the top saying like this, but not this.

• 38:41Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, cut this, cut this, cut this. Yeah.

• 38:43Speaker 00

  Great. Let's take a quick break. And then when we come back, uh, we're going to check in on game, the game developers conference, uh, with our man on the street, Chris Plant.

• 38:55Russ Frushtick?

  Chris, tell us about, man, when you say it out loud, it sounds like the most boring fucking shit imaginable. The game developers conference. Obviously we love game developers here, but.

• 39:06Speaker 00

  That was one of your, your better ones. Saying game developers conference out loud sounds so boring. He says, from the hosting seat of a video game podcast. Like, what are you talking about?

• 39:18Russ Frushtick?

  It's also a conference I actually genuinely.

• 39:19Speaker 00

  Games are developed, meeting and greeting, networking, snore.

• 39:23Russ Frushtick?

  I don't know what it is. I love that. I love attending that conference.

• 39:26Speaker 00

  It is. It's great.

• 39:27Russ Frushtick?

  But yeah, I don't know. It sounds incredibly fucking.

• 39:30Speaker 00

  You know what? I think there's a little bit of a, a thing that I think a lot of journalists. I don't know. This was always my experience at GDC. It's such a cool thing and you are an outsider and you feel that more at Game Developers Conference than anywhere else because it is a conference for game developers and you want to feel like more on the inside of that, but it is a little bit like looking outside, looking in, you know?

• 39:53Russ Frushtick?

  That's how I felt when I traveled to Japan. It was a similar vibe where it's like, I just want to absorb all this thing, all the things around me, but it's very different from my day to day life. So it was cool.

• 40:02Chris Plante?

  So true. They're identical. Japan and San Francisco.

• 40:06Russ Frushtick?

  It's just a personal analogy. Jesus.

• 40:08Speaker 00

  Wow, they're being hard on you today, Russ. I'm sorry, man. They're not really like this.

• 40:13Chris Plante?

  So it, uh, we talked about it on Arrested, folks can hear, maybe you already have heard on the Patreon. I'll spare people the nitty gritty of the GDC thing itself, but I will talk about what the mood was at GDC, which was weird. The great thing about going to GDC is it's kind of a taste of the state of the industry. They have these sub summits where it's like, AI, here's 30 panels on AI. Um, and you go and you get a sense of who's feeling confident and who's not. And the answer is nobody is feeling confident. It's not like you go to the AI panels and everybody's like, it's gonna be great, bud. Like, this is where the money

• 40:55Chris Plante?

  is. No, there's, there's a general sense of fear and malaise that I would say, um, bounced off the walls. The weird thing, though, is there were a number of people that I spoke with who were doing well in the sense there is, I don't really want to talk about it. I don't want to make a big thing of it because there's also an anxiety of things are so bad. I don't want to be the person over here who's like, well, actually, my studio's thriving and I'm feeling great. So it was this kind of weird vibe of a lot of people feeling bad and the people who are doing well, really not wanting to be seen as like the assholes

• 41:40Chris Plante?

  who are, you know, taking a victory lap at an awkward time.

• 41:43Russ Frushtick?

  Well, yeah, it does seem like the number of people doing well is probably a very small compared to the number of people that are like kind of struggling right now.

• 41:52Chris Plante?

  Yeah, I, I, I think that is almost certainly right. It's also strange because

• 41:58Chris Plante?

  GDC is, as Hoob's mentioned, a great place for networking. It's where a lot of students go to learn from, you know, kind of industry veterans. And it is where more junior employees could go to get new jobs. But it costs a lot to go.

• 42:18Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 42:18Chris Plante?

  I can go and get a press pass, but it costs a small fortune to go if you are a normal person. And money is tight right now. Money is tight for individuals, but it's also tight for companies who are not just going to drop a ton of cash to send 30 employees like they may have done in the past. Maybe they send just a couple now. So it felt smaller in a way than it used to. So yeah, it's certainly not dying by any means. In the same way that the video game industry itself is not dying. But both of them are going through pretty clear change. And you can tell that people are uncomfortable with the growing pains.

• 43:03Russ Frushtick?

  Did you get to like, I know they have the section of one of the halls dedicated to like very bizarre input devices?

• 43:12Chris Plante?

  No, I didn't, I didn't get to do it. So it's called Alt GDC and people should Google this and you can see whatever was there this year. But this is usually when Fresh and I would go together, our favorite spot. Like, can you give an example of the type of thing that you would see there?

• 43:27Russ Frushtick?

  I feel like I played a game where I was drumming on a butt. I might be imagining that.

• 43:31Chris Plante?

  Probably, that sounds right.

• 43:33Russ Frushtick?

  That seems like something I did. I did see a video of someone, there was a game, maybe it was Patches played this, Matt Patches at Polygon, where you have to like pet a dog, like a furry dog. And that was the input device, but it was like a stuffed animal dog. So there's like all sorts of stuff. There's like one where it's like you're eating noodles and that's like the way you interact with the game. I always love, that's always like my favorite part of the show.

• 43:55Chris Plante?

  Yeah, there was one that I remember that was a single line of LED strip light. And they had coded a game using that single line of light. And it was fantastic. But yeah, it's all these kind of like challenges like that.

• 44:11Russ Frushtick?

  It does seem weird though, because like the my, like days of yore, when I would cover GDC. Always had the like, the indie part of it was always so scrappy. And we're talking about like 15 years ago, where people would just like show up with a laptop and just like, do their best. And I'm sure that's still happening. But like, then you look at like the indie game awards and it's like, basically a lot of games that you already know and were already like super successful. And it's just, it's just like the industry has changed in that way. And it kind of bums me out that there doesn't seem to be as much of a megaphone for those micro devs.

• 44:47Chris Plante?

  You say that, but so the IGF, the Independent Games Festival is the award show that happens during this each year. And the winner was a game by a team of, I think, four or five people, a game called, I think, Consume.

• 45:03Chris Plante?

  But yeah, you could actually- Huh?

• 45:06Speaker 00

  It's pronounced consume.

• 45:16Chris Plante?

  The level of pride. I wish people could see your face right now, just beaming.

• 45:22Chris Plante?

  Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's a weird, it's a weird time for the industry and it's a weird time to be young people in it. I think that was, you're right, the scrappiness that you're talking about, Frush. There would be, there's a park right in the center of the convention center called Yerba Buena Gardens. And it was something different kind of every year. Like some years it felt like all the college kids had really taken it over and made it their own. Or kind of an anti-GDC movement had taken it over and made it this like, hey, if that's the expensive thing, we're going to give free courses out here. And it could always be something. And this year, there was no kind of main gimmick.

• 46:06Chris Plante?

  Nobody had taken the, the throne of like what you're going to use that space for. And I think that is where, again, you kind of feel this like sapping of energy where, oh, you know, there's not, you can almost tell something's like its significance by its counter movement.

• 46:25Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 46:25Chris Plante?

  And there not being one is, is kind of like a bummer in a weird way. But-

• 46:34Russ Frushtick?

  There's always next year.

• 46:35Speaker 00

  Do you have the sense that uh there used to be, I feel like a GDC thing where it was a place where game developers would often say things that would make headlines because we didn't let game developers talk a lot back then. And so sometimes, I'm speaking specifically in this instance of when Chris Hecker said that the Wii was basically two GameCubes duct taped together. If you guys remember that.

• 47:01Russ Frushtick?

  That was also the Phil Fish quote about JRPGs was from GDC.

• 47:06Speaker 00

  Right, exactly. That used to be, is that still, do you still, do you get the sense that you have a lot of people like listening, like you can still like change the conversation at GDC?

• 47:15Chris Plante?

  I think, I think it's less in that

• 47:20Chris Plante?

  hmm, it's less in that people are just more cautious, I think. Post Gamergate, post all social media brouhahas. I mean, that's just such a different time. It's also a different time where people would say that stuff and a few years earlier, the people who had reported on it worked at like EGM and they only had so much space in the magazine. And by the time it was for published, they would forget that they even wanted to include it. Where suddenly you had the joysticks, the Kotaku's, the Destructoids of the world. Where if you said anything like that, they were, that poster was up within five minutes.

• 47:53Speaker 00

  Right.

• 47:54Chris Plante?

  I mean, I, I'm sure you remember that period where somebody said something like that and you're like, my bills are paid for the week.

• 48:01Speaker 00

  Laptop on here. I've got this crappy little wifi hotspot extender.

• 48:06Chris Plante?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think everybody's gotten a bit more shrewd about all of it, for better or for worse.

• 48:15Speaker 00

  Uh, let's see, what is, do you want to talk about reader mail? We'll see what people are.

• 48:20Russ Frushtick?

  We have a, yeah, we have a few quick reader mail things. These are actually a couple, from a couple of weeks ago, but obviously you guys weren't here last week, so I wanted to save them. This is from Slack. The way you describe Wanderstop reminds me of Monk the Robot books by Becky Chambers. The first one is named A Psalm for the Wild Built, and they're pretty short novellas. They're about a tea monk and their wild robot friend with motivation similar to Wanderstop's MC. The books are relaxing, refreshing to read. Highly recommended. That's cool. And I also wanted to call out this Luke mail. Griffin mentioned that the Wanderstop soundtrack is going immediately into his listened at work list. I'm always looking for good ambient video game music to throw on at work. What are the besties' top tracks?

• 49:07Russ Frushtick?

  Anything jump to mind? Juice?

• 49:10Speaker 00

  Uh, I was just getting at my, I don't listen to a lot of video game soundtracks in my, in my...

• 49:15Russ Frushtick?

  I'll shout out one that I've listened to from time to time, apart from like the obvious, like the Stardew Valley's of the world. Stardew Valley's like a staple.

• 49:24Russ Frushtick?

  Packing? That game Packing? Was that what it was called or Unpacking? Now I'm forgetting. Unpacking?

• 49:30Speaker 00

  Unpacking?

• 49:31Russ Frushtick?

  The game was called Unpacking. Sorry. Unpacking had a great soundtrack, and I've definitely turned to that as just like a productivity soundtrack option. It's not super long, but it is quite good. Point, do you have any ambient video game soundtracks you listen to for vibes?

• 49:49Chris Plante?

  Not a big video game soundtrack person because I find it a bit repetitive because I think it's supposed to be when you're in the game, right? Yeah, I'll listen to it near now and then. I'll go to a near concert now and then. I'll go to a near concert in Japan and then in Los Angeles. No big deal. It's not a big thing.

• 50:05Speaker 00

  I have two that I actually am looking through my writing playlist now that I listen to a lot. The Bastion soundtrack.

• 50:11Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, yeah.

• 50:12Speaker 00

  I do listen to a lot. That's great. I love the, the way that thing is orchestrated. That's part of my thing with video game music. I like that sort of more folk sound where you can hear more of the instrumentation stuff. That's really, really good for that. You know, the other one, this is like, you guys, I guarantee have not even thought about this game for 100 years because I definitely haven't, but if you remember Remember Me?

• 50:32Chris Plante?

  Oh, yeah.

• 50:33Speaker 00

  That was a soundtrack that the, uh, let's see, it was by Oliver.

• 50:41Speaker 00

  Derivé. I don't know. Listen to that one. It's very cool because that was a game about like time manipulation and the soundtrack does cool stuff with like the sound warping back in on itself and stuff, but that's a really cool game soundtrack that I still listen to regularly. Those are the only two.

• 50:57Russ Frushtick?

  Cool.

• 50:58Speaker 00

  And oh, Elder Scrolls.

• 51:00Russ Frushtick?

  And do you actually listen to the Elder Scrolls soundtrack?

• 51:02Speaker 00

  When I need to get there, you know, I need to get pumped. Remind myself that I am the Doofakine, you know?

• 51:09Russ Frushtick?

  That's a different.

• 51:10Chris Plante?

  She did some honorable mention.

• 51:11Speaker 00

  Fussru, Fussru, don't rain on my parade. Thank you.

• 51:18Russ Frushtick?

  I have an honorable mention. I wanted to talk about Noita, which is a game that I just recently learned how to pronounce because I've been saying Noita for about four years. I talked a little bit about it last week with Griffin and I've played more since. And man, this game is so fucking up my alley. It is, it is basically spelunky and Binding of Isaac mashed together in like, but, but I would say I think it is difficult to a detriment of the game. And so I would echo what I said last week, which is please install some like quality of life mods.

• 51:56Chris Plante?

  Is that the game changer for you? Because you, you've played this before.

• 52:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, I have.

• 52:01Chris Plante?

  Years ago.

• 52:02Speaker 00

  I know.

• 52:02Russ Frushtick?

  I know. I played it before and the game cha- it's, the game is so genius in its systems, but like the big chunk of the systems doesn't even reveal itself until you get past the first level. And most people I think just die constantly in the first level.

• 52:18Chris Plante?

  Okay.

• 52:18Russ Frushtick?

  And I don't think in this case, it necessarily helps the game to keep a lot of that stuff secret. There are tons of secrets in the game and like weird esoteric like alchemy shit. That fine, you want to keep that a secret. That's fine. But like the game does not tutorialize the fact that you can build these very intricate wands that have like.

• 52:41Russ Frushtick?

  Infinite combinations of like, interactions with the world. And there's just like so much of it that I think is just obscured by the fact that it's a very difficult game that you get one shot like immediately.

• 52:52Speaker 00

  So this is less of a recommendation, more of a criticism for the people that made it and how they should like change it, right?

• 52:59Russ Frushtick?

  I'm not, I'm not asking them to change it.

• 53:00Speaker 00

  I think they should change it because I'd like to play it. So fix the things that Russ is saying and then I'll play it.

• 53:04Russ Frushtick?

  Well, good news, Justin, because they do support Steam Workshop, which makes it incredibly easy to add mods.

• 53:10Speaker 00

  Allowing other people to fix it is not the same as fixing it, Russ.

• 53:13Russ Frushtick?

  And I-

• 53:14Speaker 00

  I'm not a fan of this gig economy.

• 53:16Russ Frushtick?

  I already provided some mods that I'd recommend. There's a great health container mod. There's a minimap mod that I think was just really good. And all that stuff has just allowed me to appreciate the game in ways that I couldn't before, in the same way that like Binding of Isaac gets infinitely more approachable and enjoyable when you have the item description mod installed that lets you know what you're picking up. So.

• 53:38Speaker 00

  Do you think, Russ, can I ask you something? Do you feel like that is, we've never really talked about this, but I think it's interesting. As a mental thing, do you think that is a legitimate game design path is to say like, if I put it in the game, then that's part of the game. So the pure experience is without these, but I do understand, like, is it a mental trick? Like putting it outside the bounds of the video game itself makes it so that you're, you're not necessarily approaching it with those things in mind?

• 54:06Russ Frushtick?

  Like, are you talking about me or are you talking about the developers?

• 54:08Speaker 00

  I'm talking about how you feel about that as a, as a design thing. How do you feel?

• 54:14Russ Frushtick?

  When you say that, you mean adding Steam Workshop?

• 54:16Speaker 00

  The idea of recommending a game, but the game is designed to let people mod it to make it different than it is, like to make it easier or more accessible. Like, because I always get in my head about like, well, then is this like cheats? Like what am I, I don't know what experience you want me to be having, I guess is, is my question.

• 54:34Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, I, I mean, here's what I did is I played a lot of the game without mods and experienced like the game as intended and found that I wasn't able to see as much of the game as I wanted to. So the way I was able to get around that was by using mods.

• 54:52Speaker 00

  And this is my question, but this is the thing I'm interested in. Obviously that's valid. Do you, would you prefer that be part of the game? Or is it better for you to be outside the bounds of that mentally? It's, is it different?

• 55:04Russ Frushtick?

  No, I would rather it be part of the game because I think it opens, it makes it much easier for me to recommend this than saying, in addition to downloading the game, install these mods. I'd rather just be like, pop into settings, turn this on, turn this on, turn this on. I'd rather it be built in. Um, I understand it can't always be built in and honestly, like a lot of these things are like pretty intricate additions on top of a game that is already very intricate. So it's possible like it creates more instability by having some of these on. Uh, but, uh, yeah, no, I, I.

• 55:37Speaker 00

  I mean, it's tough because like the way, the ones you recommended for Binding of Isaac like really unlocked it for me. Like I really, I mean, I spent dozens of hours in that after those little tweaks like.

• 55:47Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. And I think that's, it's a similar situation with Noita. You know, there's also a really strong YouTube community of people making content around the game, explaining it and like how wand crafting works, things like that. Um, it's been great. Uh, I'm playing on Steam Deck. I think it's probably easier to play with a mouse and keyboard, but it is playable on Steam Deck. It's just a little more challenging.

• 56:09Speaker 00

  It sounds like it does not need that. It sounds like, but it does not need any more challenge than.

• 56:14Russ Frushtick?

  There is a, there is a mentality that I have about when I'm adding mods and like, well, if I was playing on mouse and keyboard, it would be harder. So let me see if I could balance things out, you know, be easier. So let me see if I could balance things out. So Noita is great. It means witch in Finnish.

• 56:30Chris Plante?

  Hmm. Interesting. Um, I am playing Blueprints.

• 56:35Russ Frushtick?

  Still under embargo.

• 56:36Chris Plante?

  But I'm talking about the demo.

• 56:39Russ Frushtick?

  I don't, yeah, I don't even want you to talk about the demo.

• 56:42Chris Plante?

  Okay. Well, I'm going to let people know that I'm having a nice time playing the demo.

• 56:47Russ Frushtick?

  Yes.

• 56:47Chris Plante?

  On Blueprints. Okay. It's a great game.

• 56:50Russ Frushtick?

  Don't, don't tell me secrets. Did you guys figure out the, the secret of the title? I figured this out.

• 56:55Speaker 00

  I did, I did yesterday.

• 56:56Chris Plante?

  It works.

• 56:58Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I told Griffin, live on the show, I told Griffin.

• 57:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I experienced it too.

• 57:03Chris Plante?

  You see, Prince is normally known for being purple, but now he's blue.

• 57:07Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. Okay, sorry for being obnoxious on this episode, y'all.

• 57:13Speaker 00

  Wait, sorry, that was pre-recorded. I just have that saved as a bumper. Let me play it again, hold on.

• 57:18Russ Frushtick?

  Sorry for being obnoxious on this episode, y'all.

• 57:24Speaker 00

  Well, it was gonna be Blue Prince, honestly, so I don't know. Nothing. Nada. Jack shit. Uh, what did I? Um, oh, okay. I played the entirety of a game about digging a hole.

• 57:38Chris Plante?

  Oh, yeah.

• 57:39Speaker 00

  I had a lot of flights, so I played all of the game about digging a hole.

• 57:43Russ Frushtick?

  What is the game called?

• 57:44Speaker 00

  A game about digging a hole.

• 57:46Russ Frushtick?

  No, no, no, but what's the actual game?

• 57:48Speaker 00

  So you're right, so that's fun. You start with a... You guys already give the pitch on this? I don't wanna...

• 57:55Russ Frushtick?

  No, we haven't done this game.

• 57:56Speaker 00

  You haven't done that? Yeah, Griffin mentioned it, I think maybe on a different episode, but he said it in passing. It's a game about digging a hole. You show up at, it is a 3D thing, is a three-dimensional first-person game, where you show up at a house that you've purchased and you are told that there is treasure in the backyard, uh, at the bottom of this, uh, at the bottom, somewhere in the backyard, there's treasure. And you get a very bad shovel, and you're encouraged to start digging, and when you dig...

• 58:25Russ Frushtick?

  God, I hope you can upgrade that shovel.

• 58:27Speaker 00

  Oh, good news, man. You can upgrade the shovel. You can start digging and you find minerals, you take the minerals back with you to your shed, and at the shed, you sell the minerals and you can upgrade your digging. You can buy a lamp to make the digging go better, you can power up your jetpack to make getting out of your gigantic hole better. And as you start digging deeper, you start finding...

• 58:52Speaker 00

  Like other dirt and more dirt that you can't break through right away. So you gotta get a better shovel to keep digging down. And it is very pleasurable.

• 59:03Chris Plante?

  Do you think it's like a click? Is this a clicker?

• 59:05Speaker 00

  It's not. It's not. It's really, it's, it's more about the exploration, right? Do you know what it reminded me of? Okay. I watched a lot of Curse of Oak Island, okay? And on Curse of Oak Island, if you don't know, it's this show about these aging brothers. Everybody's aging, middle aged brothers, old men that go out to this island in Canada where they, there is supposed to be treasure. Everyone knows there's not treasure, but we all have to pretend there's treasure for the TV show. And as they dig down, every once in a while, they'll be like, hey, we found wood fibers that date back 600 years. We gotta keep digging here. What's fun about this game is that you'll be digging and then you'll hit like something weird. It's like, I don't know what this is.

• 59:48Speaker 00

  So I'm gonna, I'm gonna excavate this thing to figure out what I'm looking at here. That's fun. And that's the whole thing. That's it. It's just about digging around the yard, excavating. There's obviously a, it is obviously doing the video game loop of like, a very concentrated version of you get the thing, you get the more powerful thing. But it is, you're not gated with any of that, right? So you could dig through the whole yard with just the basic shovel, uh, if you wanted to, but why would you?

• 1:00:15Chris Plante?

  Imagine telling your, I'll let's say 10 year old self that you played two games this week. For one of them, it's like $200 one. It is a one to one recreation of feudal Japan. You get to play this two awesome characters, amazing story. It looks real. Like it looks like.

• 1:00:35Speaker 00

  Real. It's like a movie.

• 1:00:36Chris Plante?

  Like real.

• 1:00:37Speaker 00

  A movie.

• 1:00:38Chris Plante?

  And like, ah, you can ride a horse, you can climb up mountains. The other one, you can dig a, a hole in the backyard. It doesn't really look like a, it doesn't look like much of anything. And there are different types of dirt. I don't know. It's like maybe like an hour long.

• 1:00:52Speaker 00

  No guns.

• 1:00:53Chris Plante?

  Um, and they're like, oh, great. So like, good thing you didn't have to play that dirt one very long. No, no, no, no. I'm sorry.

• 1:00:59Speaker 00

  No, no, no, no. I played all that and then went back and there was an achievement mode and I played some more of it. So yeah, that's the one that I was really.

• 1:01:05Chris Plante?

  Yeah. That sounds fucking sick. I gotta, I'm like legit. That sounds sick.

• 1:01:08Speaker 00

  It's great. Well, here's what I will say. I've, I've made more space in my heart for things that just bring me. Pleasure and calm. And it was, I turned on a book and I dug around in this yard and I made a, a like a nine hour flight just disappear.

• 1:01:24Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:24Speaker 00

  And it was amazing.

• 1:01:25Chris Plante?

  Oh, very quick, very quick. I have a book for you specifically hoops. I think you will love. This will be my thing since I can't talk about blueprints. Everything Must Go. It's a nonfiction, uh, critical history of apocalypse fiction, starting with the Torah and the Bible, all the way up to like Last of Us. And it is fantastic. And it is that sweet spot where you can listen to it like you would a podcast and still be able to get your chores done and drive. There's some nonfiction that I listen to where I'm like, uh, too dense. Can't, can't listen to it while driving. Will run off the road. This is right in that

• 1:02:08Chris Plante?

  sweet spot and it is so good. And has also just recommended so many books that I want to read now. Um, along kind of the journey of the book. It is awesome.

• 1:02:21Speaker 00

  All right. Cool. We talked for so long, even without Griffin.

• 1:02:26Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:26Speaker 00

  Crazy.

• 1:02:27Russ Frushtick?

  Griffin and I did a, a long one too. Just, just us two.

• 1:02:30Speaker 00

  It's like, we're not as anxious to get off when there's not four people screaming at each other. That's it. It's just more pleasant to conduct. It's just a better show with three people.

• 1:02:41Russ Frushtick?

  I wanted to thank some, uh, folks over at the Patreon, patreon.com slash the besties. Uh, some new members that have joined us, James, Sarah, Ashland, and the eagle. Thank you for joining us, uh, over there. You can gift subscriptions to the besties at patreon.com slash besties slash gift. If you want to get that for someone. We also have a bunch of merch, uh, for besties specifically. We have a nice bestie shirt. There's like a challenge coin that has New York giraffe on it. Uh, there's like cool shit in the merch store. Uh, it's the McElroy merch store. I don't know how to get there, but I'm sure you could Google it, uh, and search bestie stuff and it'll, it'll pop up. Uh, I think we have a good sale going on right now for that stuff. So keep an eye out. Next week.

• 1:03:27Russ Frushtick?

  Next week's a big week. Uh, the switch two is being announced next week. I imagine we'll probably do something on that. And maybe other games?

• 1:03:38Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:39Russ Frushtick?

  Atomfall?

• 1:03:40Chris Plante?

  One, one other note, we have a new episode of The Resties up, but the ending got cut off a little bit short.

• 1:03:48Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, no.

• 1:03:49Chris Plante?

  And we will, we were going to do a re-upload of that. So people will know how that fixed.

• 1:03:53Russ Frushtick?

  Sorry about that. I don't know how that happened.

• 1:03:54Chris Plante?

  Don't worry, we'll take care of y'all.

• 1:03:55Speaker 00

  Well, that's gonna do it for us for this week on The Besties. Be sure to join us again next week for The Besties because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games?