Everything We Loved from Summer Game Fest

We watched all of the Summer Game Festival events and curated the upcoming releases that we think you’ll enjoy! Plus, Frushtick and Plante attended SGF Play Days in Los Angeles and went hands-on with tons of games, from the new Tomb Raider to Stranger Than Heaven. Was this episode recorded alongside Nintendo’s big announcement? Were we struggling to retain control of our brains? Yes and yes.

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

• 0:00Griffin McElroy?

  This is a first, this is, this is a first, and it takes me back to my roots gang. Takes me back to the joystick days where Nintendo doesn't tell anyone when they're gonna announce all their shit. And so sometimes they do it right during the only scheduled recording time that we have for the besties. And so we're, I mean, the Nintendo Direct is happening right now as, as we're recording.

• 0:21Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I told Griffin that I could not multitask and speak and also keep an eye on whether they're releasing, I don't know, Banana Geyser 7. So you're gonna have to tell me, Griffin, if anything noteworthy.

• 0:33Griffin McElroy?

  No, I mean, I can do like Hello Kitty Partyland just announced October 29th, 2026. I'd be there. I'm gonna have it on in the background. So like, if we're talking about other shit and you hear me get distracted, it's because I'm watching an adult man do virtual thumb wrestling for 10 straight minutes in the newly announced Wii Sports Resort for Switch 2. But like, yeah, I mean, live blogging, guys, it's back in, it's back in a big way and it's happening here at the besties.

• 0:59Chris Plante?

  I think this is the way to do it, too. You know, like, you livestream by watching it, recording it, and then releasing it like, three or four days later, once everybody else has had a chance, you know?

• 1:11Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 1:11Chris Plante?

  To get a bite of the pie.

• 1:12Russ Frushtick?

  I am so-

• 1:13Griffin McElroy?

  Do we know Star Fox is coming out June 25th? I'll just, I'll just keep this shit updated in, I, in real time. This is gonna be a fucking mess, guys.

• 1:22Russ Frushtick?

  We're gonna crush it.

• 1:40Griffin McElroy?

  My name is Griffin McQuaid. I know the best game of the week.

• 1:43Chris Plante?

  My name is Christopher Thomas Plant and Nintendo just announced a new Muramasa and I am levitating.

• 1:50Russ Frushtick?

  My name is Ross Fraschek. I know the best game of the week.

• 1:53Griffin McElroy?

  Welcome to the Best News, where we talk about the latest and greatest in home interactive entertainment. It is a game of the year club and just by listening, you remember this week, we've got news, news, news. It's freaking hard to follow all this stuff now that E3 has been gone for a decade. And-

• 2:10Griffin McElroy?

  So we're gonna do sort of the hard work for you, the work that I wish we had someone to do for us, which is we're gonna be talking about the stuff that happened at Summer Game Fest, the stuff that happened at the Xbox event that probably has like a cool name that I don't know. We're gonna be talking about the PC Gamer Showcase, we're gonna be talking about this Nintendo Direct that is happening right now, right this second.

• 2:31Chris Plante?

  It just announced a new Final Fantasy and I can see Griffin's eyes just like, why am I here?

• 2:37Griffin McElroy?

  Final Fantasy resonance, it's, you know, it's a all Final Fantasy worlds combining. I think it's an iOS game that they're bringing to Switch 2, I don't know gang. It's gonna be rough and ready this episode.

• 2:49Chris Plante?

  It is.

• 2:49Griffin McElroy?

  But that's the only way we know how to do it. Russ and Chris were live at some of these events.

• 2:54Russ Frushtick?

  I'm so fucking tired, I'm so jet lagged.

• 2:56Griffin McElroy?

  I can't wait. It's gonna be a tired, shaggy episode of The Besties as we catch you up on everything that's coming up for the rest of the year. So we'll be talking more about that right after this.

• 3:06Russ Frushtick?

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• 3:51Russ Frushtick?

  Visit Alienware.com/15 today.

• 3:58Griffin McElroy?

  Where are we starting?

• 3:59Chris Plante?

  Okay, I'm looking at this list and I see Final Fantasy Revelation at the top. Somebody tell me how that happened. What's going on here?

• 4:07Russ Frushtick?

  It's not chronological, I just thought that was the biggest announcement that happened during SGF proper.

• 4:12Chris Plante?

  I'm not saying chronological, I'm saying I thought y'all were down on the last Final Fantasy 7.

• 4:17Russ Frushtick?

  Down like cool or down like?

• 4:18Chris Plante?

  No, not like, like, ooh.

• 4:20Griffin McElroy?

  They could pull it back, they could pull it back, you know?

• 4:22Chris Plante?

  They could, yeah?

• 4:23Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, sure. We had Rebirth, we had Remake. Right? Shit, wait, what was the second?

• 4:28Russ Frushtick?

  No, the second one was Rebirth. The first one was Remake. Remake, Rebirth, Revel-

• 4:32Griffin McElroy?

  And now Rev- Revelation.

• 4:34Russ Frushtick?

  Right, Revelation.

• 4:35Griffin McElroy?

  Following the, uh, following the pattern. Yeah, I mean, this is, in some ways, it's the, uh, biggest news, I would say, of Summer Game Fest. They announced the, the, the final part of the Final Fantasy VII sort of remake trilogy. Everybody knew it was coming, but we didn't know the name of it, and we didn't know when it was coming.

• 4:52Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 4:53Griffin McElroy?

  Um, so it is called Final Fantasy VII Revelation. The sort of trailer was very focused on what I would call the sort of Disc 2, 3 content of Final Fantasy VII, which is the, uh, you know, the, the great weapons, the ruby weapon, the emerald weapon, all that jazz.

• 5:10Russ Frushtick?

  Also a handsome vampire.

• 5:12Griffin McElroy?

  A handsome vampire, uh, yes, by the way, name of Vincent Valentine. Yeah, I mean, it looks cool. I, I really, uh, was pretty turned off by the multiple timeline stuff that Final Fantasy VII Rebirth did, but I don't know.

• 5:27Russ Frushtick?

  Well, okay, but let me ask you this.

• 5:29Griffin McElroy?

  I feel compelled to check it, to give it another shot, because I do, I mean, I love-

• 5:32Russ Frushtick?

  For argument's sake, if it wasn't for the multiple timeline stuff.

• 5:36Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 5:36Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, for me, what turned me off of Final Fantasy VII, the second one, was just the, like, I have to chase a fucking Mowgli around a tree.

• 5:42Griffin McElroy?

  The open world nature of it, I feel like, was not, uh, great, uh-

• 5:47Russ Frushtick?

  But this one does have airships, and you can fucking jump off the airships and do like a Fortnite thing.

• 5:52Chris Plante?

  Do you think that's maybe it? Like, maybe they just kept going in that direction, and they're like, no, you will eventually, we will get on the same page here, if we just go more and more and more open world.

• 6:03Russ Frushtick?

  We will catch that Mowgli eventually.

• 6:06Griffin McElroy?

  Hey, what's not, I'm, I'm not opposed to it being open world, I'm opposed to the open world stuff being like, I don't know, the same four things over and over again, and not, I don't know, not really. Uh, that, that stuff was not my favorite, it was the, the multiple timeline shit that really kind of-

• 6:20Russ Frushtick?

  Mm-hmm.

• 6:21Griffin McElroy?

  The, the, the way that they handled the big thing that happens in Final Fantasy VII, um, at the end of Disc 1, I, I found to be kind of, I don't know, uh, cowardly, I guess, um, but I, I will definitely be anticipating this- One cuz you know.

• 6:38Chris Plante?

  It looks fun.

• 6:39Russ Frushtick?

  It does look fun.

• 6:40Chris Plante?

  It looks fun. Um, hey, they're remaking Resident Evil Code Veronica, which

• 6:46Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 6:47Chris Plante?

  As with so many of these things, we've known vaguely, they're going to do it. And the question was, how? Because Resident Evil Code Veronica, the one that most people didn't play because it was limited to the Sega Dreamcast at first. It is also someone with things that are not great in terms of how it represents its characters. And it's also

• 7:09Russ Frushtick?

  I don't actually know even what that is in reference to.

• 7:11Griffin McElroy?

  I don't know anything about Code Veronica.

• 7:13Chris Plante?

  I am not gonna get into it here.

• 7:16Griffin McElroy?

  Okay, cool.

• 7:18Chris Plante?

  But, but what I will say about it is that it looks like they're using this almost like a chance to do an entirely new Resident Evil game. Um, which is in line with some of the things I have heard about this game. The trailer that they showed looks closer to the kind of Resident Evil seven, eight sort of stuff. Uh, there's like first person, you're going through a like spooky apartment with an old woman. She seems so nice, which is exactly how you know that you can't trust her.

• 7:49Russ Frushtick?

  She's French. So that's really the, the tip off right there.

• 7:52Chris Plante?

  Yes.

• 7:53Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 7:54Russ Frushtick?

  Sorry.

• 7:54Chris Plante?

  Um, I am very, very excited about this. They have all, you know, been picking at this idea of like, how far can we take these remakes? I think Resident Evil four has been like the furthest extension of that. And unlike four and two, and to some degree three, they really do have a lot of permission to go as far as they want with this one. So I am very excited.

• 8:21Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, it is the team that worked on Resident Evil two remake and Resident Evil four remake. So arguably those are the best ones.

• 8:27Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, I would agree with that wholeheartedly. We're kind of hopping around here. Uh, between sort of stuff announced at the Summer Game Fest, the, the Resident Evil or the Final Fantasy thing was, was the Summer Game Fest. Uh, for my money, I thought the Xbox showcase was pretty shit hot.

• 8:44Russ Frushtick?

  Griffin loves his green consoles that you can see.

• 8:47Griffin McElroy?

  I don't even know where my green console is right now. So that is definitely not it. I do love that, like the big thing that Xbox kind of started out with was like, guess what, guys? Exclusives are back. And it to me, I felt like, oh. That's bad. I don't give a shit about like

• 9:06Chris Plante?

  We're gonna make you pay nearly a thousand dollars for our video game console.

• 9:11Griffin McElroy?

  Do you wanna play Gears of War E-Day? Well, then find your Xbox.

• 9:15Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, it is on PC too, so.

• 9:17Griffin McElroy?

  Sure, yeah, I guess that is. That is the one benefit that you do get with the, uh, with, with the Xbox side of things. But, uh, Spyro is also coming back with a new adventure, Spyro: A Realm Beyond, uh, which I don't, I didn't anticipate, I guess I didn't know that Xbox would be the, the stewards of Spyro moving forwards.

• 9:37Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I don't know. It, is Spyro fully exclusive?

• 9:40Chris Plante?

  Either. It's owned by Activision. That's why it's confusing. It was a PlayStation game.

• 9:45Griffin McElroy?

  And Toys for Bob.

• 9:46Chris Plante?

  Toys for Bob. Let's thank you so much.

• 9:48Griffin McElroy?

  Put some respect on Toys for Bob's name. Um, no, I mean, it looks fun. It looks, uh, it's weird to see Spyro moving around that fast with that many, uh, you know, pixels and polygons happening for him. Very excited for Spyro.

• 10:01Russ Frushtick?

  Apparently the, the remakes that they released, they had like a trilogy of the remakes and those did very well. And that was justification for why he was gonna get his full-on moment in the sun.

• 10:13Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, uh, excited for that.

• 10:14Chris Plante?

  How did you feel about the Persona kind of double announcement?

• 10:18Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, so I mean, the, the Persona thing, we got a double header during the Xbox thing. The big one was, for me, Persona 4 Revival. They showed off a lot, a lot, a lot of gameplay footage of that, uh, which is great because they needed to, because the way they revealed that game was like a total nothing burger. Now we get footage of, you know, running around Inaba. We get footage of, uh, the, the battles, which look extremely Persona 5-y.

• 10:48Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. What do you see is the, like, as someone who's coming at it, didn't play very much of 4, apart from the visuals, what do you see as the biggest differentiator here?

• 10:57Griffin McElroy?

  There's a ton. I mean, there's a lot of- I adore Persona 4 Golden, but Five and Five Royal introduced so many like incredible quality of life things that make that game a little bit difficult to go back to, right? You have things like the baton pass system, which opens up a lot of doors for how, you know, Persona does its like one more turn, hit the weak point combat. They've added a lot of stuff to that. Delta and Chapter 5 dropping June 24th.

• 11:25Russ Frushtick?

  Thank you, Griffin.

• 11:27Griffin McElroy?

  To the Nintendo Switch press conference. Oh, and fucking, oh, metaphor refund talk here, too.

• 11:31Russ Frushtick?

  Griffin is plugged into the matrix while we're recording this.

• 11:34Griffin McElroy?

  Guys, I'm fucking like, I've got, I'm like the alien secretary in Men in Black, just like, anyway, it looks incredible. It looks so good. Persona 4 Revival does. The like stylish, like all out combat scenes, like I'm so stoked. This is exactly what I want. And we got a release date, which is February 18th, 2027. And it's coming to, you know, PC and Xbox and PlayStation 5. So I cannot wait for that. February's, February's gonna be a fucking, yeah.

• 12:10Russ Frushtick?

  Q1 in general, because stranger than heaven is a January release and then February has a bunch of shit. Yeah, it's good. I think all these games are like, oh, no GTA, let's get the fuck out of there.

• 12:20Griffin McElroy?

  That is exactly what happened, is all these games are getting out of the way at GTA 6, but then during just the Xbox press conference, like there were a ton of huge ass, Fable drops in February, like there were a ton of games that are dropping within about two to three weeks of each other.

• 12:33Chris Plante?

  I feel like Sega, Capcom must be pissed, right? Because Sega, they've been releasing Yakuza, like a Dragon games in January, February for a while now. Capcom, they've, you know, they claimed the quarter one release. Now everybody else is like, looks pretty nice. I see, I see that you actually sell your video games. What's that like?

• 12:52Russ Frushtick?

  I feel like July, we need a little more July action right now.

• 12:56Griffin McElroy?

  A little July action, we go down so smooth right about now. Yeah, it's funny because they're all getting out of the way GTA 6, but like, what's the value in that if everyone releases all the other games?

• 13:04Russ Frushtick?

  They all should have talked.

• 13:05Griffin McElroy?

  Like, arguably, I think that is probably a much larger problem.

• 13:08Russ Frushtick?

  But before we move on, I wanted to make sure that we note that Persona 4 Revival is a number that we've seen before, whereas Persona 6 is a number we haven't seen before.

• 13:19Griffin McElroy?

  I mean, not entirely true, like Persona 6 has been like in the works for a long time.

• 13:24Russ Frushtick?

  I know, but have we seen that number in a trailer?

• 13:27Griffin McElroy?

  Have we seen the number?

• 13:28Chris Plante?

  We haven't officially seen that.

• 13:30Griffin McElroy?

  I guess maybe not, we haven't.

• 13:31Russ Frushtick?

  That's what I'm saying.

• 13:31Griffin McElroy?

  So I mean, we get about one minute of not gameplay footage, not really much of anything, just sort of slow scrolling through a graveyard, some like quick cuts through like, uh, I don't know, almost ransom note style, like creepy faces and then just P6 appears on screen. That's it. That's all you get. That's all you get. It's nothing. I, I, I need more than that for Persona 6 to get like stoked about that.

• 13:55Russ Frushtick?

  Do these games ever have like crossover with the other games apart from like the weird wizard in the door? This is how little.

• 14:02Griffin McElroy?

  The weird wizard in the door, outspoken like a real Persona head. Yeah. I mean, in Persona 4, there's like a sequence where you go back to.

• 14:09Russ Frushtick?

  Got it.

• 14:10Griffin McElroy?

  The, the place from Persona 3. Uh, it's usually quite sparing if, if there is anything.

• 14:16Chris Plante?

  Yeah. I think in Persona 5, like in the subway, you can see references to other characters, like.

• 14:21Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 14:21Chris Plante?

  How life has gone on for them.

• 14:22Griffin McElroy?

  The thing in Persona 4 is like the biggest one I can, I can really think of. Um, but yeah, Persona 4 revival, can't wait. This is what I wanted was so, this is my favorite game ever and have been fairly disappointed by what they've shown off so far. And this was like shit hot. Persona 6, whatever. I, yeah. I, it takes so much more for me now, guys, than just the, a name.

• 14:42Russ Frushtick?

  That's, I think that's growth, quite honestly, Griffin.

• 14:45Griffin McElroy?

  Honestly, everyone should be that way. If fucking, but if, if Todd Howard gets on stage and is like, guess what, guys? Elder Scrolls 6. And then they show a, a forest and then it says Elder Scrolls 6 on it. We need, demand more than that.

• 14:57Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, and ironically that happened eight years ago.

• 15:01Griffin McElroy?

  Crazy. That's what I'm fucking saying, man. Like, okay, Persona 6, great.

• 15:04Chris Plante?

  Literally how they announced the game.

• 15:06Griffin McElroy?

  Get back to me when you can show me a guy. Show me one guy. Like, show me a, a human being, a person.

• 15:12Russ Frushtick?

  Well, Todd Howard is a person.

• 15:13Griffin McElroy?

  Okay, fine.

• 15:14Chris Plante?

  We, we actually have at least two more games that started as the, uh, this thing exists and now we actually know what they look like. Virtual Fighter Crossroads. Made by, in some part at least, the Ryu Gagotaku team, or AKA the Like a Dragon Yakuza team. And it is a fighting game, but it is also a single player story. And the last time we got a big single player story that kind of was birthed from the neck of Virtua Fighter, it was called Shenmue, my friends.

• 15:46Russ Frushtick?

  Wait, Shenmue came from Virtua Fighter?

• 15:49Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 15:49Griffin McElroy?

  I mean, the same, sort of, a lot of the same devs and like, the combat was very, very Virtua Fighter, sort of.

• 15:55Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. I would also add the Street Fighter, the latest Street Fighter game, I think it was Street Fighter VI, had like, an open world city that you run around, do missions in, while also street fighting.

• 16:05Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, that's a good point, Russ.

• 16:07Chris Plante?

  But this, this looks more like, oh, we actually want this to look like a AAA, big budget story game. Which, I'm not entirely sure what that is gonna be like, but I-

• 16:18Russ Frushtick?

  Forklifts, baby.

• 16:20Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, forklifts coming, coming at you fast.

• 16:23Chris Plante?

  So many races.

• 16:25Griffin McElroy?

  I, uh, I, 1666 Amsterdam. 1666, I'm gonna need someone to fucking remind me what that was.

• 16:31Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, Griffin, uh, I'm sorry.

• 16:32Chris Plante?

  Oh, man. Oh, man.

• 16:34Russ Frushtick?

  Bring us up to speed on 1666 Amsterdam, because this is very-

• 16:37Chris Plante?

  So, a long, long time ago, I think it was after Assassin's Creed II, Patrice Desailly, who is the creator, one of the original creators of Assassin's Creed, left Ubisoft and was like, "I'm gonna make my own big vision of what we could do in an Assassin's Creed type of game." And that game was called 1666 Amsterdam. And now, I don't know, like, 13, 14 years later, we might actually, well, we actually can play the game right now, because a demo is available on Steam. Um, this game has been tortured. Um, it has been ups and downs. I think it's been cancelled-ish multiple times. Um, and yet, here it is. It, it appears to be real,

• 17:23Chris Plante?

  but I think is going to launch in early access, if, when it does launch. I am-

• 17:30Chris Plante?

  I mean, this is, this goes a step further, Griffin, than like even the demo is not enough to convince me like I need to, I need to see the final credits of this game to know that it is real.

• 17:40Russ Frushtick?

  Sort of how I feel about Beyond Gorniva, which still isn't canceled.

• 17:44Griffin McElroy?

  Crazy, man. That would be the biggest news story for me. The most sort of cathartic bit of news is the saying, I'm sorry, guys. Sorry to all of our Space, Space Monkey supporters, backers. It's just, we couldn't, we didn't.

• 17:59Chris Plante?

  A quick pause here, Griffin, do you want to tell people what's happening in the Nintendo Direct right now?

• 18:03Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, I mean, they just announced fucking Kingdom Hearts 4.

• 18:07Russ Frushtick?

  That seems like a big deal.

• 18:07Griffin McElroy?

  It looks pretty sick. I mean, yeah, talk about games that I look, I am surprised to feel fucking stoked for, it's, it's Kingdom Hearts 4. Hold on, they're doing their big like, and one last thing.

• 18:18Russ Frushtick?

  Is it Mickey?

• 18:19Griffin McElroy?

  For the Nintendo Direct. Again, I told you we were gonna be jumping around. This looks like Zelda. Yeah, this is gonna be that Ocarina of Time remake, I think.

• 18:28Russ Frushtick?

  Gotta be.

• 18:29Griffin McElroy?

  Okay, the Ocarina of Time remake coming 2026, this year. That's a surprise.

• 18:34Chris Plante?

  Holy moly.

• 18:36Griffin McElroy?

  Switch 2, I guess, exclusive?

• 18:38Chris Plante?

  Yeah, gotta be. They want you to buy that expensive hardware.

• 18:42Griffin McElroy?

  Right? I'm gonna turn this back down before I have to watch this man thumb wrestle again. Yeah, okay, so we're doing things quite out of order, but they showed off the Ocarina of Time remake at the end of the Nintendo Direct press conference. With basically kind of a new version of the first like minute of that game where you see Link wake up in the Kokiri forest. Very cool. Okay, so back to it. We got a new Stuntman game coming, Stuntman Hollywood. Did we not talk about this last week? Was this not State of Play?

• 19:07Russ Frushtick?

  I know. Uh, was it in State of Play? I don't think so.

• 19:10Griffin McElroy?

  I feel like, I don't know, I feel like I've talked about Stuntman on this show.

• 19:14Chris Plante?

  I think we did because I think we were like, oh, we kind of wish casted it into existence a little bit.

• 19:18Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, because it's gonna have a fucking, uh, Too Fast Too Furious and like actual film franchises. It looks so cool. I'm, I'm very excited.

• 19:27Chris Plante?

  Yeah, also apparently Jurassic Park is gonna be in it, but they were not allowed to talk about Jurassic Park because Jurassic Park was on a mysterious media blackout for like eight months. Where nobody could talk about Jurassic Park. Very weird.

• 19:40Russ Frushtick?

  But it's got like, uh, what is it? Back to the Future and other franchises in it.

• 19:45Griffin McElroy?

  If it's got a car in it, I'm going to turn this Nintendo Direct off because I do think they're moving into treehouse mode, which I appreciate, but. I can't, I'm so distracted. I wanted to shout out a couple of other things that you all didn't write down here during, I think during the Xbox event. They announced Guild Wars 3, which like, I think Guild Wars is a very cool game franchise that I've played a little bit. It's a, if you've not played, sort of an action MMO. Guild Wars 2 got released a long time ago, and they released a thousand expansions for it, and was very novel in how they handled like, exploration and all kinds of stuff. Guild Wars 3 is gonna be on, I think Xbox, PS5 and PC,

• 20:27Griffin McElroy?

  and it looks very cool. I'm, I'm very curious to see what they, what they are still planning to do with that franchise. Also, I can't believe you guys didn't put this on here, Fable. They showed off a lot of, including a new, sort of, more, I would say dramatic arc than the Richard Iwate trailers that they have had so far with Haley Atwell, is that her name? Playing, playing a character. I don't know. They showed off a lot of gameplay footage, a lot of how the like, you know, hero reputation mechanics are going to work.

• 20:57Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I'm, I'm very excited about Fable, really looking forward to it. I'm a little bit bummed that they're doing the thing where it's like, you're talking to someone and then you say something rude, and there's like a speech bubble that says, "They think you're rude", which, which I think we could probably into it.

• 21:14Griffin McElroy?

  I don't know, man, that's, it's so what that game is about. Like, managing your heroic reputation is like the core game.

• 21:21Russ Frushtick?

  I guess that's their solution, because you don't, I think the idea is you're not like, growing horns and shit if you're evil. So it's all just like, actual like, how you are in the world. And so the only way to, I guess visually represent that is like, speech bubbles that say you're rude. But it was a little on the nose, but as a game, I'm, I'm very excited and curious to see if that studio, which has previously really just done racing games, can do a not racing game, would be very interesting.

• 21:48Griffin McElroy?

  And, and two, two other things about Fable, it's cross-platform, it's gonna be on PlayStation 5 and PC as well as Xbox. I don't know, was there another exclusive thing? Was the Halo campaign evolved, which was another thing announced during the Xbox press conference? A sort of remaster of the original Halo campaign with some like, additional missions? The tone of that trailer was bizarre to me. It was very, um... I don't know, silly, I guess, is the, is the word I would use.

• 22:17Chris Plante?

  Campy, almost.

• 22:18Griffin McElroy?

  Campy, it felt a little out of step with what I've come to expect from the, from the Halo franchise.

• 22:22Russ Frushtick?

  I wonder if that's because they've seen some struggles doing the like ultra-serious sci-fi, hard sci-fi thing? And I think when people think back to the original Halo campaign, like, they just remember like having fun in co-op, maybe.

• 22:36Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 22:36Russ Frushtick?

  So.

• 22:37Chris Plante?

  Yeah, it's kind of a rock between a rock and a hard place, whatever, there. Because like, if you go the campier route, you kind of end up going into the MCU, like, I'm disgusted and embarrassed with myself, which is...

• 22:49Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, not sure I want to go quite that far. Other Xbox things, if I can just run down, I have the list here of like other announcements, because it was, it was quite, quite dense. We had State of Decay 3, okay, curious about that. We got a lot of Castlevania Belmont's Curse, which I can't believe didn't end up on this list, gang, because that-

• 23:07Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I was mostly focusing on stuff that like mostly hadn't been announced yet.

• 23:12Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, no, I guess that's, that is fair, but-

• 23:14Russ Frushtick?

  Don't judge me, Griffin, it's okay.

• 23:16Griffin McElroy?

  There was a lot of good. I'm just surprised at you, Russ, because that's like your shit.

• 23:20Russ Frushtick?

  I'm extremely excited for that game.

• 23:23Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, me too. The creators of Dead Cells are making a new, full-blown Castlevania game.

• 23:27Russ Frushtick?

  It's side-scrolling, 2D Castlevania, fuck yeah.

• 23:30Griffin McElroy?

  So good, so good. Viverium, I thought, looked really neat. Animated, like, uh, like, uh, I don't know.

• 23:37Chris Plante?

  Like a 70s anime?

• 23:38Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, 70s anime, like, early glibly, like, uh, Castle of Caliostro, sort of that, that far back, but very chill kind of life semi-type game, looks very lovely. We had-

• 23:52Chris Plante?

  Clockwork Revolution?

• 23:53Griffin McElroy?

  Clockwork Revolution looked kinda neat, looked like Bioshock.

• 23:56Chris Plante?

  That seems like it's the other big console exclusive. This is the new game from In Exile.

• 24:02Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 24:03Chris Plante?

  And I think they're probably first major game since being acquired by Xbox.

• 24:08Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, we got Modern Warfare 4. Alright, Minecraft Dungeons 2, they showed off a lot of gameplay footage of, which I'm, Henry and I played the shit out of the first Minecraft Dungeons. It was a really interesting Diablo-like, and we really sunk our teeth pretty deep into that.

• 24:23Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I'm extremely excited for that one.

• 24:25Griffin McElroy?

  And then, of course, there's Crazy Taxi World Tour. They're making a new Crazy Taxi game with the offspring and all of it.

• 24:30Russ Frushtick?

  They did, we should note, on the Crazy Taxi front, they did kind of step in it from a just overall standpoint, because they did, I think, have to announce that they use generative AI to some extent in the creation of that game.

• 24:44Griffin McElroy?

  I didn't see, why do you need generative AI to make a new goddamn Crazy Taxi game?

• 24:48Chris Plante?

  I, let me be clear, bad, so dumb. I think that we're gonna see studios just like not say that they're doing it. Because these gener, these, the companies like Steam and Xbox that request that you say what AI you use, they need to be much clearer about what they're actually asking for. Because I think that there's like studios who are using gen AI in code and not mentioning it. And then there's like studios like Sega where they're like, yeah, we're kind of using it for like reference. And then we have like this whole press thing that we're still in where people are like, what do you mean by that?

• 25:25Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 25:25Chris Plante?

  Do you mean that it's like concept art? Do you mean that something like before that?

• 25:29Russ Frushtick?

  Is all the VO generative, like, that's, these are the...

• 25:31Chris Plante?

  Yeah, like, what are these things that you're doing? And they need to be specific. Not that that's like gonna convince people to get the games, but like, this vagueness is so stupid.

• 25:43Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 25:43Griffin McElroy?

  Just so dumb. Yeah, it's kind of the worst possible, it's the worst imaginable version of it. Because I'm just gonna assume the worst, I think, if you don't, if you're not super.

• 25:51Russ Frushtick?

  But to answer the question, they are using it for the cars. And that's, I mean, sometimes they have five wheels, sometimes they have three, but it's fine.

• 25:58Chris Plante?

  Multiple fingers, let me be clear, this is not actually happening, don't do a Sega.

• 26:02Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. Um, the PC Gamer Showcase, did you guys watch that or attend to that?

• 26:07Russ Frushtick?

  I didn't physically attend it. Um, uh, no. You want to bring us up to speed?

• 26:12Griffin McElroy?

  It was, it was, I would say pound for pound, it had the most games in it. Uh, and there's, I mean, I would encourage you to go back and watch some of the trailers because it's a ton of games that I had never really heard of before, uh, or did not know sort of existed. Uh, they're making a new Cassette Beast, which is a very cool, uh, Pokemon-like, but this one's going to be sort of 3D. It's called Cassette Beast 2002. And then there's just like a ton of games that look very cool, like Slash Zero and, um, Virtua and a Sledgehammer is the next game from the, oh no, what was the Carcass? Uh, there's a new game from the mouthwashing team that looked, uh, very cool. Yeah. Carcass Cloud is a tank sim from the mouthwashing devs. All right. It looks cool as shit.

• 26:57Griffin McElroy?

  Um, I don't know that there's a ton of big sort of news pegs that came out of it. Just a ton of like neat looking games.

• 27:04Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 27:04Griffin McElroy?

  Into the Wind, which is a, looks very, um, shit. Chris, what's the airplane Miyazaki movie that you have a tattoo inspired by?

• 27:12Chris Plante?

  The Wind Rises?

• 27:13Griffin McElroy?

  But yeah, it looks very much Wind Rises-esque.

• 27:16Russ Frushtick?

  As sad.

• 27:18Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, oh, there's, there's, uh, I think two new Dave the Diver games.

• 27:23Russ Frushtick?

  There's a spinoff, Dave the Diver game.

• 27:26Griffin McElroy?

  Dave the Diver, and then there's, uh, In the Jungle DLC. Looks very cool. Um, yeah. Not a ton of, they're making a game called Pipes.exe, which is a horror survival game based on the Pipes screensaver from Windows. Also, there was a Hack 95, a game called Hack 95 that also is very, uh, I don't know, nostalgic, old Windows type thing, but it looks like a card battler hacking game. Looks cool. Not a ton of, like I said, you're not getting, there's a new Ocarina of Time remake, but the, uh, you know, the, the stuff that they did have to show off. There's, there was a lot of stuff I was interested in. Control resident for folks who are, you know, stoked for that.

• 28:04Russ Frushtick?

  I'm very stoked for that.

• 28:06Chris Plante?

  Do you want to tell people about the stuff that we saw on the floor now, or you want to take a break and do that?

• 28:11Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, let's take a break, uh, and we'll jump into some of the stuff we saw on the floor. And then I think there was some of the...

• 28:17Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, we can cover some of the Nintendo.

• 28:18Russ Frushtick?

  Some of the other Nintendo stuff that happened.

• 28:21Griffin McElroy?

  All right. Take a quick break and then we're going to do some hands-on pressies.

• 28:25Russ Frushtick?

  This episode of The Besties is sponsored by Alienware. You know, gaming today isn't one thing. It moves between cozy, chaotic, and everything in between. One minute you're exploring something slow and immersive, the next you're in a fast-paced match. And somewhere in there, you might be creating, streaming, or seeing where the session goes. That's why Alienware systems are built with the performance to handle it all. With Nvidia GeForce RTX, it delivers powerful graphics that bring every world to life while optimizing battery life. So whether you're playing, creating, or jumping between both, everything runs the way it should. No interruptions, no slowing down. You don't have to adjust the way you play. You just keep gaming your way, however that looks in the moment. Be more Alien at alienware.com/gameyourway.

• 29:13Russ Frushtick?

  This episode of The Besties is sponsored by Lisa. You know, we are starting to get into the cooler months of the year. And you know what I love in the cool months of the year? An incredibly cozy mattress that you can just cozy up into. You got the blankets and everything. And I will speak from experience, but maybe not my experience, because Lisa sent me one of their mattresses. But it was timed as such where actually my son, who was becoming a toddler and needed like an actual bed, needed a mattress. So we had him use the Lisa mattress. And every time that I get into that bed to read him a story at night, I am incredibly

• 29:55Russ Frushtick?

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• 30:35Griffin McElroy?

  When you say the floor, like what is the floor? It's not like the LA convention.

• 30:40Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, correct. It's not. The floor SGF has their like press conferences, of course, and that's pretty typical. And then there's Play Days, which is a press and industry-only event that happens in downtown LA. And it's basically an alley.

• 30:57Chris Plante?

  It's a very cool venue.

• 30:58Russ Frushtick?

  It's a nice alley.

• 31:00Chris Plante?

  Yeah, it's an alley that goes into the back rooms of multiple venues. Like, and then all of the buildings in the alley are actually part of the same space. It's very strange.

• 31:13Griffin McElroy?

  Is that where they used to do EA Play? Did they do EA Play there once?

• 31:16Chris Plante?

  Yes, I think they may have done that there. Yes, they had done Activision events there in the past. But it's a good way for like, all the different places for like Sega to have like, a building that you can go into, and for Square Enix, and for Bandai Namco. I don't know if Square Enix actually had one. We saw so many big budget games, but first, let's talk about a game that looks like it was made in MS Paint, and was the most fun that I had.

• 31:43Russ Frushtick?

  This was the game that I recommended to literally everyone that asked. And it's a cool one, because it also has a demo right now on Steam.

• 31:51Chris Plante?

  Do you want to do the pitch?

• 31:52Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. The game is called Blood Dungeon. It is made by the team that made Nidhogg, and most recently Wheelworld.

• 32:00Griffin McElroy?

  Yes. I didn't know that that was the same team.

• 32:02Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, same team.

• 32:03Griffin McElroy?

  Okay, cool.

• 32:04Russ Frushtick?

  And the Blood Dungeon is buckle up Vampire Survivors meets Spelunky. It is a side-scrolling platforming game wherein it's also an auto-shooter, and you're trying to level up and earn perks and rewards. And it uses a very similar crunchy look that Nidhogg had for the graphics. And it's very weird and bizarre and...

• 32:33Russ Frushtick?

  My extremely my, it feels like a very besties bestie kinda game.

• 32:38Chris Plante?

  It looks sick.

• 32:38Russ Frushtick?

  So I'm very excited for that. And honestly, yeah, go, go play it. Blood Dungeon is available on Steam as a demo right now. I think it's planned for the summer release, which is very exciting for me. It's jumped up my list.

• 32:50Chris Plante?

  We saw three big budget games that I would say are all, we will see how they go. And we also saw one big budget game that is, I think, gonna be great. That is the Star Wars racing game. Not worried about it. Looks like it's a rogue like, don't need to tell you much more than that, other than we will definitely be covering it on the show.

• 33:09Russ Frushtick?

  That's Galactic racer.

• 33:10Chris Plante?

  Bigger question marks around Tomb Raider, Stranger Than Heaven, and Clutch. Three games that could go any which direction. Do you want to start with Tomb Raider fresh?

• 33:19Russ Frushtick?

  Sure. It is a remake of the original Tomb Raider game. And by that, I mean the one that came out in like the mid 90s. It's called Legacy of Atlantis. And it is, okay, so I went in expecting like they're gonna, you know, upres it and add fancy lighting and blah, blah, blah, blah. And they're gonna make it really pretty. And what they actually did was make a fully fucking floor to ceiling new game. Using the framework of like, hey, Laura is in her element. She's a practiced adventurer. Notably, not an archaeologist because she does not give a fuck about smashing pots and dropping giant gears into the water.

• 34:01Russ Frushtick?

  But she does Tomb Raid and she does it quite well in this game. And I was really, really impressed with what they have going on. Cool puzzles, lots of physics based stuff. The combat feels really good. The movement feels amazing. It really feels like they've full on made a like new Tomb Raider game, which is weird because they actually have a sequel coming out. That's like supposed to be the true reboot of the game.

• 34:24Chris Plante?

  I am stunned.

• 34:26Griffin McElroy?

  So what's the hes- what is the hesitance of?

• 34:30Chris Plante?

  Yeah, this is my hesitance. I thought this was one of the worst demos I've ever played in one of these.

• 34:35Russ Frushtick?

  Really?

• 34:35Chris Plante?

  It was, I would say disastrous. And I kind of can't believe that they showed it. But I'm, it sounds like maybe it's very hit or miss. This was one of the buggiest.

• 34:47Russ Frushtick?

  Oh.

• 34:48Chris Plante?

  Completely unfinished. They have delayed this game. I think that they should consider delaying it significantly longer.

• 34:57Chris Plante?

  When I was playing it, my character would jump and just float. When we would do, uh, looking for puzzles, I would try to finish out puzzle sequences. And I would, um, do the jump that it wanted me to, and it would not connect multiple times. So then I would wander, thinking there was a different answer for the puzzle. The people who are giving the demo had to instruct people how to get through the levels. Basically, they were running from one person to the next, trying to help them know that, no, that puzzle actually can be finished that way. You should try it again. And again, there were paths that they clearly had cut this out from a more open world demo. I mean, it was, it was top to bottom. I, I could not believe that they were showing it at this early of a stage.

• 35:41Russ Frushtick?

  Wow. Yeah, I did. I literally did not have, I mean, here's what I'll say. First of all, I'm really good at games. So there's that. Keep in mind, I'm really good at games. But yeah, no, I didn't experience bugs. Uh, I found the, just the visuals really impressive and, uh, I thought the puzzles were interesting. So, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm surprised, but you know, to each his own, I guess.

• 36:05Griffin McElroy?

  I just Googled Tomb Raider Legacy of Atlantis bugs and the Google AI result said that maybe it's because you're playing older existing titles in the franchise, such as the Tomb Raider one to three.

• 36:15Russ Frushtick?

  Because they had bugs in them, like actual bugs.

• 36:17Griffin McElroy?

  That's possible.

• 36:18Chris Plante?

  Actual bugs. I think that's probably what they're thinking.

• 36:22Griffin McElroy?

  Also, a result from this search is that it has AI-generated, uh, tools were used during the development to support some early exploration, temporary development content. Any AI-assisted assets were either replaced or refined by. Humans in order to maintain the creative and artistic vision of the development team. So maybe you're getting some of that.

• 36:38Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 36:39Griffin McElroy?

  LLN like, you know, uh, cyber dream.

• 36:43Chris Plante?

  I, I am, I'm glad to hear that, that, that you had a good experience of it because what's tricky when you get a messy demo like this is like, you kind of can't tell what is going to get fixed and like, what is just bad design? Like, am I not able to go in this direction because it's not working? Am I not able to go in this direction because they're invisible walls? They're going to frustrate me with the real game. So I am, I am glad to hear that. I will say the thing where I was more positive is Stranger Than Heaven. Which is the new game from the, um, like a dragon team. I think it is set in the like a dragon yakusa universe.

• 37:25Chris Plante?

  It is set across five different periods. I think like 30 years, 40 years, something like that.

• 37:32Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. Starting in like the 1910s, like it's distant past.

• 37:36Chris Plante?

  Yes.

• 37:37Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 37:37Chris Plante?

  Because every video game over a certain budget needs to make at least one decision where you're like, well, that makes me queasy. This game, uh, stars Tupac, um, uh, which is, you know, strange because he's dead. And also because I don't think the people who run his estate are necessarily seen as a great stewards of his vision. But that's up to everybody else. What I do know is the fighting in this game is fascinating.

• 38:07Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 38:08Chris Plante?

  Very interesting, not like most of the like a dragon games. The way it works is you have your right bumper and trigger assigned to your right arm and your left bumper and trigger assigned to your left arm.

• 38:21Russ Frushtick?

  And leg.

• 38:22Chris Plante?

  It's not.

• 38:22Russ Frushtick?

  Left arm and leg.

• 38:23Chris Plante?

  Yes. And it's not fully like gang beast, but it's not not that in some ways.

• 38:31Chris Plante?

  And you are like, really like somebody like will grab one arm and then you're like punching somebody else with your right arm.

• 38:38Russ Frushtick?

  That shit, I have never seen anything like that where you'll kick and someone will grab your leg and you're on one foot and you're punching away other guys with your other hand and foot and falling to the ground. And it is, it is an amazing feat that they pulled that off.

• 38:53Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, this looks fucking sick, guys. Is Snoop Dogg, Snoop Dogg's in this game?

• 38:56Russ Frushtick?

  He is also in it, yes.

• 38:57Griffin McElroy?

  What's going on?

• 38:58Chris Plante?

  It also has like, is, I'm not trying to do the everything's dark souls, but it. Requires you to use your health items in a way that require way more strategy than these games have in the past, where you are backing away from a character, taking a moment to recover, taking a moment to apply a buff or something. And I found that super interesting because if it is trying to do just great action movies and specifically great Japanese action movies, that, okay, I'm going to take a break, I'm going to plan, I'm going to see what you are planning to attack me with, and then we're going to get back into it. I don't know, it just felt very cinematic in a way I dug.

• 39:39Russ Frushtick?

  There's a guy that you fight in the middle of it. Well, you fight a number of like a wide range of enemies, but one of them is like legitimately 10 feet tall and looks like he weighs 500 pounds. He's just enormous and muscular and huge. And then you fight the hardest guy in the demo is a guy that looks about 110 pounds and has no shirt and comes at you with, what is it, a sword or something? And it basically turns into like a 1v1 intense samurai combat battle, where you're just trying to like stay alive and this guy's a fucking beast. So it does seem very FromSoft in that way, in ways that like, I don't particularly love the combat in the real time Yakuza games, and this made me more interested in it.

• 40:24Griffin McElroy?

  What is Clutch?

• 40:27Chris Plante?

  What is Clutch?

• 40:28Russ Frushtick?

  Clutch is a game, Clutch is a game that was made, that is made by the, some of the former members of Playground Games, most notably the folks that made Forza Horizon. And they spun off into an independent studio and they are making a narrative racing game set in the south of France slash in Monaco, with like full on like actual story compared to the story that's in Horizon Games, which is like, we're having a party and come out and race your cars and wherever. This is like an actual narrative, a story of like a brother and sister as they like... Make their way through the racing world.

• 41:08Chris Plante?

  We were trying to figure out how the money worked in getting this game made because this game looks like, it doesn't just look like an EA game. It looks like EA's biggest game of the year.

• 41:19Russ Frushtick?

  And to be clear, it is not published by EA. It is currently an independent, technically independent game, although obviously they have a shitload of money.

• 41:27Chris Plante?

  We know it had like self-funded at first and then some other funding. We know at some point, Amazon was funding it, but then Amazon changed directions. Whatever the case, it looks gorgeous. And when Fresh talks about this story, like real actors giving good performances.

• 41:45Russ Frushtick?

  And like me actually caring about the scenes, which is just very bizarre for a racing game. Like I'm so used to not caring. Uh, and they did, yeah, just a tremendous job. I'm very curious to see how this comes together. They are currently still without a publisher and I don't even know if they're ever going to have a publisher. They might just release it themselves. At this point, there was some weirdness with where they had money from a ton of money from Amazon for a time and then they didn't. So right now, uh, I'm very interested.

• 42:15Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 42:15Russ Frushtick?

  Very interested.

• 42:16Griffin McElroy?

  Um, let's run down the Nintendo Direct.

• 42:19Russ Frushtick?

  Yes.

• 42:20Griffin McElroy?

  Stuff. There were a ton of announcements of games that have been out for a while.

• 42:24Russ Frushtick?

  And one of them, I don't know if this was announced already, but Chris Plant, did you see the Dragon's Dogma news that was in this trailer?

• 42:32Chris Plante?

  Of course I did. They truly have something for everybody. They said, yeah, Plant, you got your Dragon's Dogma 2 and now you can play it portable. You also got a new Muramasa, which you know, you see things that you just assumed they would never make. Why would they make another Muramasa? It does not seem to be vanillaware. It is marvelous. Uh, but I'm not gonna, you know, I'm not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth. I am excited about it. But then they have plenty of stuff for both the YouTube nerds.

• 42:59Russ Frushtick?

  Yes. Uh, they have Orbitals, uh, which is a game that was previously announced, but they did give it a release date of September 3rd. Orbitals is a, uh, I, I heard this. I can't, I don't remember who I can give credit to for this, but it's a haze light. He's like, I should say, uh, cause he, he's like studios, most notably made it takes two and getting, uh, whatever the other ones were that we half hated. Uh, and this game follows that same rule of like, it has to be played in co-op. Um, but it uses like seventies anime aesthetic and just really cool puzzle solving and visuals. And I'm, I, I'm very, very excited for this one. This is going to be a really good one. I think.

• 43:40Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. Um, so yeah, a bunch of, uh, port announcements, stellar blade, uh, double me cry five. Uh, we got, oh, the new rayman legends retold game was announced for, for switch two.

• 43:54Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. The other notable thing is they announced the release date for fire emblem fortunes weave.

• 44:00Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. September 17th. They showed off a ton of gameplay footage. Um, it looks really, I mean, it looks.

• 44:06Russ Frushtick?

  Based on what they showed, it really continues to look more and more in line with three houses, which I think is probably the pinnacle of the franchise. Uh, versus the previous one. I think fire emblem engage, which felt more like a, an off entry for them. And this feels like a bit of a return to form. There's four like main characters. And you pick one of them. So presumably they all have their own like story arcs and people they meet and all sorts of stuff like that. Um, looks really fucking good. I'm very excited for fortunes.

• 44:35Chris Plante?

  I, I, I, yeah, I, I happen with just a one more Muramasa update because I know people are, are just, you know, aching for it. Um, it is being made by vanilla.

• 44:45Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, thank God.

• 44:45Chris Plante?

  And marvelous will be publishing and it will be on steam, which I think is the first vanillaware game on steam.

• 44:53Russ Frushtick?

  Wow.

• 44:54Chris Plante?

  Big day.

• 44:54Griffin McElroy?

  Love it. Um, pokopia DLC coming in August. It's underwater.

• 44:58Russ Frushtick?

  Mm hmm.

• 44:59Griffin McElroy?

  So they're adding like a whole new underwater biome and a bunch of new Pokemon that you can encounter down there. Uh, which is great. I love that. It's weird to see magic cart like just fucking flopping around on land. You feel bad for him. You see that. Uh, xenoblade chronicles, all the xenoblade chronicles games are getting switched to, uh, upgrades with like new features and mechanics and stuff. They also revealed xenoblade genesis, which is the next uh, xenoblade title coming out next year. Um, I'm not like the world's biggest xenoblade guy, but I thought it looked really cool. Nintendo Switch Sports Resort.

• 45:31Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, yeah.

• 45:32Griffin McElroy?

  With 12 games, including Thumb Wrestling, which they showcased the most. But you also have like, you know, ping pong and twin prop plane flying and a bunch of stuff. It looks, it looks like a great sort of carrying the torch of Nintendo Sports Resort.

• 45:48Russ Frushtick?

  It did a little make me want there to be another Pilot Wings game.

• 45:53Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 45:53Russ Frushtick?

  Which I think is actually set in the same island, if I recall. So maybe someday, but at least we have a plane. So that's something.

• 46:01Griffin McElroy?

  Final Fantasy Resonance, according to this thing I'm reading, is a sort of reimagining of Final Fantasy Brave Exuvius, which was the live service mobile game. But they are sort of doing it in the HD 2D sort of engine. It's coming to Switch on October 22nd. I never really gave a shit about Brave Exuvius, but that's, that's cool, I guess. Dusk Bloods showed off a little bit.

• 46:26Russ Frushtick?

  Let's remind the people what Dusk Bloods is.

• 46:28Griffin McElroy?

  Dusk Bloods is the new FromSoft game that is going to be a Switch 2 exclusive, I believe. Very, very brief sort of feature here in the Nintendo Direct, but they did reveal that there's going to be a closed network test sometime this, this.

• 46:42Russ Frushtick?

  How do I get in that?

• 46:44Griffin McElroy?

  They, I don't know.

• 46:45Russ Frushtick?

  Get me in there.

• 46:46Griffin McElroy?

  They didn't really show off any more than that. Dragon Quest Monsters, The Withered World, new Dragon Quest Monsters game. It looks great. It looks adorable. I've never really gotten my, you know, too deep into a Dragon Quest Monsters game. It looks great. It's coming December 3rd. Like I said, Delta Rune, Chapter 5, coming later this month. They showed, gosh, a bunch of like third-party games. The one that stuck out the most to me was Final Fantasy XIV, the online Final Fantasy game coming to Switch 2 August 2026. That I will be very curious to see how that goes.

• 47:20Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 47:21Griffin McElroy?

  Kingdom Hearts, they're releasing every Kingdom Hearts game on Switch 2. So you're not going to have to do the weird cloud version from, from the original Switch. You can transfer your saves over if you do have those cloud versions of the Switch versions, but.

• 47:37Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. Are they removing cloud from the game, though?

• 47:40Griffin McElroy?

  Cloud is going to be in the game.

• 47:42Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, cool.

• 47:43Griffin McElroy?

  That whole collection's coming October 8th, and then they showed off Kingdom Hearts IV. With like a lot of gameplay and stuff. Genuinely, it looks very cool. It was the same thing of, you know, Sora kicking the ass of big, heartless guys in the middle of a modern city. It looks way less sort of cartoony than Kingdom Hearts has. Much more sort of realistic.

• 48:02Russ Frushtick?

  That's what I was looking for from Kingdom Hearts, is a ultra-realistic gritty retail.

• 48:08Griffin McElroy?

  And then, uh, yeah, new Ocarina of Time remake coming this year, apparently.

• 48:12Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, so on the remake, uh, real quick, I don't know how I feel about this. Mostly because I think Ocarina of Time, for me, and I realize everyone loves it, but for me, is not one of my favorite Zelda games. It's actually pretty low on my list. Mostly, mostly because I find it kind of rigid compared to a lot of the later games like Majora's Mask and things like that. So I am curious to see if in addition to like revamping the graphics, they take steps to maybe modernize some of the experience.

• 48:41Chris Plante?

  That's the appeal of all these like potential Nintendo 64 remakes, right? Is that the games, it is the generation that aged the worst.

• 48:49Russ Frushtick?

  Yes, that is true.

• 48:51Chris Plante?

  And I think that there is potential there for them to do something with it.

• 48:55Russ Frushtick?

  We saw Nintendo do a very good job remaking Metroid 2, which they turned into Metroid: Samus Returns on 3DS. So I would love to see that approach, which is to say, hit the beats, that's fine. Mumu, lamp, whatever the fuck the place is. Mumu Land?

• 49:12Chris Plante?

  Yeah, Mumu Land, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 49:14Russ Frushtick?

  Kakariku, you've got the windmill, the music.

• 49:17Griffin McElroy?

  Jesus Christ, man.

• 49:18Russ Frushtick?

  All that stuff. Fine, hit the beats. But I want to see like the equivalent of what Capcom's doing with the remakes. That's what I want to see.

• 49:25Chris Plante?

  Mumu Land 2.

• 49:27Griffin McElroy?

  Mumu Land 2, why not?

• 49:28Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 49:28Russ Frushtick?

  Lon Lon Ranch, that's what it's called.

• 49:30Griffin McElroy?

  Is that you're trying to get to Lon Lon Ranch?

• 49:31Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, they sell Mumu Milk at Lon Lon Ranch. It's confusing. And I think that's more or less brings us up to speed.

• 49:38Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, man, I truly I would pretty big year. I feel like these summer game fest weeks are so weird because you know, you don't have the kind of corralling that happened during E3 where everyone kind of had to work around each other. And so sometimes it's a light time, a light year. Sometimes it's quite heavy. And I mean, shit, man, we just talked for like 45 minutes about all the new stuff. I think.

• 50:04Russ Frushtick?

  It's incredibly busy. It was one of the busier like series in the last few years, I think, because these are now all the games that like kicked off during COVID are like actually coming out. So it's very crazy.

• 50:15Chris Plante?

  I can't believe they didn't include this in the Nintendo Direct in America, but Nintendo Japan Direct, they've just confirmed that Earth Defense Force 5 and 6 are coming.

• 50:26Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, thank God.

• 50:27Griffin McElroy?

  I can't imagine why they didn't.

• 50:29Russ Frushtick?

  That game has a ton of bugs in it.

• 50:32Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, too many bugs.

• 50:35Russ Frushtick?

  Real quick, should we do some honorable mentions before we wrap?

• 50:38Griffin McElroy?

  I would love to do that. Yes.

• 50:39Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, I know Planet's watching it, but Griffin, are you on the Widows Bay train?

• 50:43Griffin McElroy?

  Dude, I want to watch Widows Bay, but my only TV time is at night from the hours of 8:30 to 10:00 PM. And convincing my wife to watch a very, a show that looks pretty spooky in that window is it is a tough.

• 50:59Russ Frushtick?

  I did notably watch it while traveling for work. So yeah, that was probably the only way I was able to pull it off. But man, that show is fucking great. And I'm so, so happy it exists. It's really very special.

• 51:13Griffin McElroy?

  I really want to watch it very badly. I will at some point, probably by myself while traveling or something. But yeah, it looks great. I've been playing No Man's Sky a bit. I kind of wrapped up my time with Diablo 4, I feel like for this season, really, really enjoyed it. I went back and played the last DLC, mostly because I was annoyed that I had played the first chunk of Diablo 4 and the third chunk of Diablo 4 and had not finished the, and it really can confirm my sort of feelings that it was not great.

• 51:40Russ Frushtick?

  Do the new features like get introduced to the old DLC?

• 51:44Griffin McElroy?

  Not really, no, not, not, not in any. I mean, the, the seasonal features are all there, right? But like, I don't know, the war plan thing doesn't really unlock until you finish the whole kit and caboodle. So, um, but I got through it very, very, very quickly. And now, uh, I don't know. The, the new season launches, I think next, next month, and I might dip back in just to be like there when it, the whole thing starts. Uh, but, uh, very cool. But I've been playing No Man's Sky, uh, because they have added one, a new expedition, which are like their time sensitive kind of community events. This one introduces the swarm, which is like a new type of enemy. And it like, uh, segments the player base into three teams and you're all kind of competing in this like galactic war against this new threat,

• 52:28Griffin McElroy?

  um, the swarm. It's very cool, but the thing that is most cool is that they have added, um, turn-based battles for the creatures that you collect as your pets. Yeah. And it's like full Pokemon, like every creature that you find has an elemental type based on like the type of planet that you found them on. Uh, there's like, it's pretty meaty, man. It's, there's a lot of ways to kind of like upgrade and customize your individual, you know, procedurally generated creatures. Uh, it's that, that game is celebrating its 10th birthday this year.

• 53:01Russ Frushtick?

  It's also cool because all this stuff presumably is going to be introduced, or at least some of it's being made in the new game, which is Light No Fire, and then bringing back into No Man's Sky. So they are in a way, beta testing Light No Fire in No Man's Sky.

• 53:14Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. Very, very excited for, for that to, you know, to materialize a little bit more. The last thing, uh, haven't finished it. Rachel and I watched most of it last night. There is a new documentary about the band Earth, Wind & Fire, directed by Quest Love.

• 53:28Russ Frushtick?

  I thought that came out in September.

• 53:31Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, I don't know, man. I watched it last night. So, um, uh, it is, I, this is a band that I love, right? Like my mom and dad were both really into Earth, Wind & Fire. Uh, listened to a lot of it growing up and like, you know, everyone loves the classics of Earth, Wind & Fire, but I didn't know anything about them, nor did I ever kind of like put in the effort to, uh, learn more about. About them and it is a, I mean, it's a pretty wild story, mostly about Maurice White, who was the, the leader of the band and his kind of constant uh struggle between making like the fucking funkiest music ever and also seeking an extra plainer level of spiritual enlightenment. Uh, like the name of the band Earth, Wind and Fire, I did not realize was

• 54:16Griffin McElroy?

  based on like his, uh, you know, his Zodiac chart and the raw elements of the universe. Uh, and like, I don't know, man, there's so many stories about like, they go out on stage for a concert and then they just sit in Lotus position for eight minutes and make the audience watch them meditate and then they stand up and just fucking tear the house down. Uh, it's, it's really, uh, it's really great. Um, haven't, haven't finished it yet, but really came out of nowhere and, uh, has really ignited in me more, more appreciation for, for this band.

• 54:50Russ Frushtick?

  Cool.

• 54:51Griffin McElroy?

  Plant.

• 54:52Chris Plante?

  Bah, bah, bah, bah.

• 54:57Griffin McElroy?

  You got yourself a Thor.

• 54:59Chris Plante?

  He's got me, Thor, baby. I put in an order months ago and I knew it would take forever to get here. So I used that time to sell all of my old emulator handhelds.

• 55:11Russ Frushtick?

  Good for you.

• 55:12Chris Plante?

  And reduce my life to one. And, um, hey, you know what's pretty cool that I think fresh you, maybe both of you were telling me about game native?

• 55:20Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, yeah.

• 55:21Chris Plante?

  Fully molly. That is why I got this thing because I wanted to have something where I could play Steam games on the go that I didn't have to worry too much about. I could throw it in my backpack and this thing plays. It's bonkers.

• 55:36Russ Frushtick?

  And, and to be clear, does it load up?

• 55:38Chris Plante?

  Reload on it.

• 55:39Russ Frushtick?

  Can you just download Steam games right natively? Like, or do you have?

• 55:42Chris Plante?

  Right there. I literally downloaded game native.

• 55:44Griffin McElroy?

  There's a compatibility. There's a compatibility. This is the one thing about it that does annoy me is that there is a compatibility layer that needs to run, uh, sort of on, online in order for the games to run on the Thor. And I have had a lot of issues with like playing a game on it like Mugenics and then putting the thing into sleep. And then when I turn it back on, the compatibility layer has crashed and it does not, you know, it it struggles to like guarantee a cloud save in that instance. I've lost a lot of progress in times like that. So I have, I have, it's incredible how well it works. It is just like, there is this one limitation, which is that, you know, traveling with it, not having internet access, putting it in sleep mode, like that stuff can can kind of

• 56:28Griffin McElroy?

  fuck it up. It is not quite a Steam OS native shit.

• 56:31Chris Plante?

  I will report back on my my journey this week as I'm flying around and seeing how that goes. I also know that there is the ARM version of Steam that runs that's going to run on this.

• 56:43Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, it hasn't come out yet, is my understanding.

• 56:46Griffin McElroy?

  It's not out. That's that'll be it. That'll be the fucking, that'll be the game. I finally got in my Retroid Pocket 6 that I ordered three or four months ago, four or five months ago. It was a long time ago and it is, it's gonna run that stuff really, really well when I can guarantee that like, I'm not gonna lose a bunch of progress all the time. That's it. Big week. We're gonna be, we got a Patreon. If you've never checked it out, patreon.com/thebesties. You can go there and support us and the show directly. And when you do that, you also get access to our monthly bonus episodes, our bracket battle episodes. You also get access to episodes of the Resties, where Chris and Russ talk about other other games that we don't

• 57:27Griffin McElroy?

  cover here on on the Core Show. And yeah, do you want to thank some backers?

• 57:32Russ Frushtick?

  I do. We have Ola Fur, sorry if I pronounced that wrong, Michelle Buddy and Jack Sure, if that's how I'm gonna pronounce it. I will. Thank you for being backers and thank you to everyone else who really make the show possible, genuinely. And we greatly appreciate you.

• 57:47Griffin McElroy?

  If you can't get enough besties, go to patreon.com/thebesties, because there's a lot more there waiting for you. Next week, we are going to probably be doing a grab bag and also talking a bit about Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tale, the new sort of mana-inspired 2D HD 3D, whatever the acronym is, game from square. So we're gonna be

• 58:13Griffin McElroy?

  Talking about that and probably a bunch of other games too next week. So please join us for that and join us here every week for the besties. Because shouldn't the world's best friends play the world's best games?

• 58:52Chris Plante?

  Besties.