Triple Play: Avowed

The gang takes a deep dive into Obsidian's latest roleplaying game, Avowed. They talk about the crunchy combat, the ramifications of story decisions, and why the exploration works so well. Plus: SNL turns 50!

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

• 0:04Kirk Hamilton?

  Chests. If you've played a role playing game, you've probably opened one. But did you know that the same company makes every chest in every video game you've ever played? It's their whole thing. It's all they do. Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you. This week, we are talking about Avowed, Obsidian's fun new action role playing game, where you run around a beautiful world, getting into fights, having conversations, and opening a whole lot of chests.

• 0:30Kirk Hamilton?

  I'm Kirk Hamilton.

• 0:32Speaker 01

  I'm Maddy Myers.

• 0:33Jason Schreier?

  And I'm Jason Schreier. Hello.

• 0:35Speaker 01

  Hello.

• 0:36Kirk Hamilton?

  Hello, my friends.

• 0:37Speaker 01

  It's us again.

• 0:38Jason Schreier?

  I went to the DMV today. It was very unpleasant.

• 0:41Speaker 01

  What?

• 0:42Kirk Hamilton?

  Hopefully, we can be a better experience for you than that, recording Triple Click.

• 0:46Jason Schreier?

  I hope so, too.

• 0:47Speaker 01

  Low bar. Can we clear it?

• 0:49Jason Schreier?

  At this DMV, this is like a new DMV, and they make you wait in line to get in. And then when you get, you start off, before you even get to the desks, you start off at this little podium where this woman is like, "Here is the paperwork you need to fill out," before we can even register you. And what you do is you go to this little table, and you fill out the paperwork, and then you go back to her. And so I did that. And then the guy who was like in line, waiting to get his paperwork, started yelling at me because I cut the line. He was like, "There's a line here." And I don't know what happened. Usually, I'm pretty nice to people, but like my inner New York got out, and I was like, "The fuck is wrong with you? I'm just doing what she told me to do." And it was, it was very unpleasant.

• 1:23Speaker 01

  "The fuck is wrong with you?" You just like went full accent mode.

• 1:27Jason Schreier?

  It was full, full New York City. "Hey, I'm walking here."

• 1:30Speaker 01

  You were a Spider-Man NPC. It really got out of hand. That's terrible, Jason. That's terrible news.

• 1:37Jason Schreier?

  It was terrible. It was a terrible experience.

• 1:39Kirk Hamilton?

  That is an energy that I'm glad that we don't see here on Triple Click, a lovely and calm space that we are able to maintain each week, thanks to the support of our listeners. And of course, thank you to all of them, everyone who is a member of our wonderful network Maximum Fun, and makes it possible for us to make this show. And if you would like to join their ranks, go to maximumfun.org/join and sign up to become a member and support the creation of this show. We do monthly bonus episodes, that there are a ton of at this point, that you can listen to. The most recent one was a Beans Cast on Metaphor Re Fantazio. This month, we're going to be making an episode about launch lineups,

• 2:21Kirk Hamilton?

  because we're all abuzz about the Switch 2 and about the idea of a console launch lineup. So we're going to be talking about launch lineups in history. What a launch lineup might look like in 2025. It's gonna be very fun. That'll be out toward the end of the month. And next month, we're gonna be doing something very special for our yearly Max Fun Drive. We're gonna do a conundrums episode. This is a shameless lift from the Slate Political Gab Fest of all places.

• 2:48Speaker 01

  Which is so similar to us. People, we're just neck and neck.

• 2:52Kirk Hamilton?

  You know, in some ways, in some ways, it kind of is similar. We're very different, but you know, I don't know.

• 2:58Jason Schreier?

  Dawn.

• 2:59Kirk Hamilton?

  There are some funny similarities. Anyhow, every year that show does a conundrums episode. That's so much fun, and I thought it might be fun for us to do something similar. So we're gonna, we're gonna just get together and we're gonna discuss conundrums. So we came up with a couple of examples, like you can only play one video game for the rest of your life. Or would you rather play with only sound effects or only music in your game? Or would you rather play games only on the weekends or only on weekdays for the rest of your life? And those are just three that we came up with now, but we want to get your conundrums. So we're looking for conundrums from our listeners. They don't have to be about video games. They can just be about life, any kind of conundrum, this or that, something that might be difficult or interesting for us to talk about. Please send those to [email protected].

• 3:44Kirk Hamilton?

  Put conundrums in the subject line and Jason will get those all organized for us to go through. And we're gonna record that in March, so you got plenty of time. But if you think of one, please send it along.

• 3:54Jason Schreier?

  Can I just say, we should add, we're gonna be recording that in person, because the three of us are going to be in San Francisco for the game developers conference in mid-March. I think we're gonna try to plan some sort of casual meetup for any listeners out there who are in San Francisco that week. So stay tuned for more details on that as well.

• 4:13Kirk Hamilton?

  Yes, it'll be a lot of fun. All right, well, let's get into the subject of today's episode. We're talking about a video game, a new video game called Avowed that all three of us have been playing. I wrote a little preamble and then we will get into it. Avowed is the latest role playing game from Obsidian Entertainment, the storied story creators responsible for well-loved, if occasionally shaggy, genre stalwarts like Fallout, New Vegas, Pillars of Eternity, and Alpha Protocol, a game that I should totally make my predictions bet one of these years so that we can all play it and talk about it on the show.

• 4:48Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 4:48Kirk Hamilton?

  Avowed is set in the same universe as the first two Pillars of Eternity games, and it casts players as a godlike, one of a humanoid people who, in the Pillars world, have been touched by one of the pantheon of gods and sent to do their bidding. Godlike also often have fungus all over their faces, which is honestly just really cool. Your character is an envoy of the Adirin Empire and has been sent to check in on the colonization of the mysterious, magical, living lands, and in particular, to investigate a mysterious dream scourge infection that has been taking over the minds of the people and setting them against one another. The dream scourge may or may not also be tied to an apparent infestation of killer bears, who have overrun the living lands and seem close to displacing the kith and

• 5:32Kirk Hamilton?

  setting up their own bear society. Upon arriving in the living lands, your godlike character, whose god, it should be said, remains a mystery, begins hearing the mysterious voice of Aewa, who tells them to cast off the chains of the sky people and join the Na'Vi. I'm sorry, they begin hearing the mysterious voice near the Adra Stones, indicating some connection to some mysterious force in the land that is trying to make contact. Over the course of the game, you will explore several compact but densely designed, open world maps. You will engage in crispy, real-time combat with swords, bows, pistols, or spells, depending on your preference, while occasionally adding new companions to your party and getting to know those that you fight alongside.

• 6:15Kirk Hamilton?

  You will also do the usual ARPG stuff: leveling up, raising your stats, making story-altering choices, collecting an endless supply of upgrade materials, and of course, fighting bears. Eventually, if you level up enough in the Rogue Tree, you can summon your own bear, which is very exciting. It is a cool game. I've played a bunch of it, and we are going to talk about it. Jason, you raved about it last week, and you want more things, so let's start with Maddie. Maddie, what do you think of Avowed?

• 6:41Speaker 01

  I think Avowed is pretty fun. I don't know that it's an A+ for me, but I've really been enjoying playing it. I'm pretty far into the game at this point. There's apparently four big areas and I'm in the third one. So if listeners kind of have a sense of that, I'm not gonna, not gonna say anything else about what that means. And I'm, you know, I like any game where I can just hit things with a really big hammer. And something else that I, Jason, I think you shouted this out, or if not, I'll be the one to do it. I really like the verticality of the landscape in this game and how fun it is to explore. And at first, when I was starting the game, I wasn't really fully clicking it with me. It has a really strong kind of zombie outbreak intro, like the first couple hours. It's like you're learning what the dream scourge is. It's like a

• 7:26Speaker 01

  fantasy version of a zombie outbreak. You're like, oh, what's going on? And it kind of slows down and there's a lot of proper nouns. But then, once I got back in the open world and I was exploring and like climbing big mountains and climbing a lighthouse and finding stuff and then finding some strange ruins and collecting stuff and just coming across quests out in the world without feeling like I was being told what to do. I really enjoyed that. And the verticality part is super cool because it reminds me of Erdtree, the Elden Ring DLC, where you're like filling out the map super slowly and you think you can go somewhere, but then when you actually get there, there's like a huge cliff or a waterfall and you're like, oh, how am I gonna get around this? And that I find really fun and challenging and surprising. And so, yeah,

• 8:11Speaker 01

  I'm really like in the thick of exploring it and enjoying it at this point. But I, don't ask me to summarize the story. Kirk did a great job, but I, I don't know that I really know what's going on. This is my first Pillars game. I guess I should say that, too. I don't know the Pillars of Eternity world. And I think you're okay if you don't know them. I'm, I'm fine. Like, I'm getting it.

• 8:30Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, right. Like, you're enjoying the story even though you don't know.

• 8:33Speaker 01

  But, but also, don't ask me to summarize it. I'm, it's, I'm getting the vibes, but I do get some of the fantasy races mixed up from time to time and forget who's mad at who and why periodically. But, yeah, it's okay.

• 8:46Kirk Hamilton?

  Maddie, do you ever use the little lore codex that you can call up in the middle of conversations? I think that's a wonderful feature that this game offers.

• 8:53Speaker 01

  Really cool. It kind of reminds me of the Final Fantasy game that I otherwise didn't really like. What is that, 16? Is that the one that did this?

• 9:00Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, it was 16.

• 9:01Speaker 01

  Where if you paused.

• 9:01Kirk Hamilton?

  Active time lore, I think they call it.

• 9:03Speaker 01

  And it, you would, show you all this information about each character. This is kind of a similar version of that, that also works pretty well in a. Game I'm enjoying slightly more and have played more of.

• 9:12Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, it's actually, it's from the, it's from Pillars, which had it long before Final Fantasy 16.

• 9:18Speaker 01

  Got it. Alright, there you go.

• 9:20Kirk Hamilton?

  Jason, so how about you? You've played, I'm guessing, some more since you talked about it on your One More Thing. And also, that was pretty cursory. So yeah, what are you thinking of the game?

• 9:28Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I love it. I'm really enamored of this game. I think that it, what it tries to do, it does extraordinarily well. I've seen some people kind of jumping in and being a little bit disappointed that it's not doing certain things. It is not the all-you-can-eat buffet of RPG systems. It doesn't have an elaborate mechanic for stealing and attacking NPCs and getting put in prison or whatever. But I think that it's really smartly focused in what it's trying to do. And what it's trying to do is be just a super fun action RPG that has a few really good pillars, for lack of a better word.

• 10:09Jason Schreier?

  And those are combat, story, and exploration. And those are three things that I love in a video game. So I'm perfectly fine with that. So the combat, you mentioned crispy before, Kirk. I mean, it feels, it's very crispy. It's very crunchy. It's very kind of tactile feeling. I've been really enjoying the sword and shields alternating with the bow and arrow. And I haven't, I've seen people have a lot of fun with the spells, which I haven't even dived into. But that seems cool, too. I really just kind of enjoy fighting enemies in a way that I don't often in RPGs of this nature. The story for me is really doing it for me, especially the companions and the dialogue and the relationships.

• 10:51Jason Schreier?

  I find Kai really compelling as a character. I've been doing his side quests and finding them really interesting. I'm also, by the way, in Shadow Scarp, the third area, Matty. I'm about where you are. I was away last week, so I didn't get a chance to play, because it does not run perfectly well on the Steam Deck, unfortunately. So I could not really play that on the go. And so I'm really happy with the story and I find it really interesting. I think that the little moments, the little narrative side quests, or little narrative. moments that aren't even side quests and then also the side quests to me are a lot more compelling than the main story, which is often the case with these big RPGs.

• 11:27Jason Schreier?

  The main story, it's interesting. It's cool to find out, try to find out the mystery of this voice that is talking to you or the nature of the dream scourge, the plague that is haunting the lands. But to me, the real highlight has been like stumbling upon a group of animators arguing over ED drugs or like the, the side quests that like take you in unexpected directions. Or give you a bunch of options that you wouldn't expect, which to me feels kind of peak obsidian. And then the exploration, that's to me is the, the real strong suit of this game is just kind of finding little nooks and crannies, just exploring these. You mentioned Kirk, compact areas, but they're not that compact. They're, they've got a lot of space to them. They've got a lot of certain, certainly a lot of verticality, like Manny mentioned, and a lot of different

• 12:10Jason Schreier?

  kind of surface area, I guess I would describe it as. There's a lot of places to go, a lot of side quests to find, a lot of things to do. And to me, that is really what's kept me playing. I think my play counter is like 40 something hours is the exploration. It's just that feeling of knowing that if I go, I could go through the front door or I could go around a side path and find something cool over there. Or I could just, if I see some rooftop that looks inviting, it probably has something cool on it. So I really enjoyed it. And yeah, I mean, I love this game. It's, it's one of my favorites of the year so far.

• 12:46Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I'm enjoying it too. It's a, it's a very pleasant game to play and I find it's, it's just, it's great for scratching that itch of, yeah, I just want to walk around and do a little walkie, fighty, picky, uppy. Definitely that type game.

• 13:02Jason Schreier?

  Kirk, are you, are you a character on Bluey? Cause that's what you just sounded like. You just sounded like an Australian. Walkie, fighty, picky, uppy. And then we'll have some brekkie.

• 13:09Speaker 01

  Hyphenated as well. That's a genre.

• 13:11Kirk Hamilton?

  I do love Bluey. Yeah. I mean, if you like opening chests and getting lots of stuff and just finding more chests, the chests make a nice little noise. So you hear one and you're like, oh.

• 13:19Jason Schreier?

  Very fun noise.

• 13:20Kirk Hamilton?

  Where is that? How can I get to it?

• 13:22Speaker 01

  There's sparkles.

• 13:24Kirk Hamilton?

  So you know, I enjoy that about it. I think it is an important game to appreciate for what it is and not for what it is not. I think you're right about that, Jason. You could go into this game expecting a more simulated and open-ended game like Skyrim, since it does sort of feel like an Elder Scrolls game. And you might be disappointed because it's really more of an amusement park kind of vibe to me, which I don't mean as a bad thing. It just, the world feels very constructed and it is, to me, it feels compact but dense. There's a lot in there and each map isn't gigantic. You can cross it pretty quickly, but there's a lot going on. And then it's all been very carefully placed for you to stumble upon something interesting,

• 14:08Kirk Hamilton?

  have a nice little side adventure, just trying to figure out how to get inside of a building, and then go on your way toward your next journal objective. And then you just kind of move your way through it. And I like that about it. There are some things that kind of turn me off. The leveling system isn't my favorite, like tying enemy difficulty to gear quality. I've at least struggled to find the right balance on that.

• 14:33Jason Schreier?

  Which I think, I think a patch just came out that tweaked a lot of that stuff.

• 14:37Kirk Hamilton?

  That doesn't surprise me. It seems like something that would be very easily patched to just lower the crafting requirements. I guess I'll explain that. I'm still giving my initial impressions. Anyways, whatever, that's my initial impressions. I think it's pretty cool. It's not my favorite thing ever. I'm in the second area near the end. I'm kind of bouncing off it a little bit, but also it's so pleasant and fun to play. It's lovely looking. The combat's super fun. I do like the writing and the general tone. And it's nice to play a first-person adventure role-playing game like this. It's just been a minute and there's something about the first-person perspective, the feeling of climbing around and looking around through my own eyes that I just like. So just briefly to explain at least what I was running into up until this patch, they've, they've made

• 15:20Kirk Hamilton?

  the upgrade system, it's, it's definitely a choice. And I'm not totally sure I'm on board with this, just this general choice. Instead of leveling up and just doing more damage as you level up and then fighting enemies that are your commensurate. Level and doing the right amount of damage to them. You can be fighting enemies who have higher level gear than you. And if you're in the wrong gear tier, either your weapon or your armor, you do 35% less damage or you take 35% more damage from their attacks. And also, probably even worse than that, you have to suffer your companions telling you constantly how much your armor sucks.

• 15:56Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, let me, let me chime in here because the patch notes are.

• 15:59Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, tell us about the patch.

• 16:00Jason Schreier?

  First and foremost, significantly decreased how often companions comment about players.

• 16:05Speaker 01

  Amazing, amazing.

• 16:07Kirk Hamilton?

  Fantastic. Good, good job, guys.

• 16:10Jason Schreier?

  And this is, this is a day one patch, so like, most people who play this game will not run into that issue anymore.

• 16:15Kirk Hamilton?

  That's so funny.

• 16:16Jason Schreier?

  And then they also, they changed it basically from like a hard tier to tier system. They made it, what they say, dynamic based on player equipment in the tier and sub-tier of the enemy. So tier difference rules now only apply when there is a plus or minus four level gap. Which.

• 16:31Kirk Hamilton?

  That's fantastic.

• 16:32Jason Schreier?

  Changes the whole nature of.

• 16:34Kirk Hamilton?

  Yes, so take this less as me writing a video game review and more as me offering some, a way of describing the way that a game was, so that you can understand the context of the changes that they made, because I think that those are very interesting.

• 16:46Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, for the, the two weeks before it launched, this is what this game was like.

• 16:50Speaker 01

  I mean, there were people who got like the early access.

• 16:53Kirk Hamilton?

  Yes, I think this is, I think that this is a genuinely interesting way to understand how a leveling system might work. Because, as I was saying, that did not work for me. I found myself really scavenging for upgrade materials, particularly because I got a nice piece of rogue armor. I'm playing as a kind of bow melee, mostly ranged rogue. There's really a nice piece of rogue armor that you get at the end of the first area. You have to, there's kind of a major story choice that the consequence of going one way is you don't get the armor. And if you start murdering people, you do get the armor. And I really just killed them to get the armor. Rather than following, you know, my heart in that story moment. I was like, dude, that armor you're wearing though, that's gonna go with these gauntlets and boots I've got. That's gonna give me a lot of good rogue abilities.

• 17:35Kirk Hamilton?

  So I got that armor and then in the second area, I was, it was still tier one and I needed to get it, or it was tier two and I needed to get it to tier three. And I was just taking so much damage because. Of that big jump. So it's a great move for them to move it to a graduated system as it sounds like they've done. So anyways, we don't need to spend any longer talking about that, though it's it's cool to play these games early and then watch how they change at day one, because this kind of gripe is an easier one to fix than if, for example, the whole world didn't do anything for me, or the story, you know, kind of left me cold.

• 18:05Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, it's it's been a common point of contention in some of the reviews. And it actually, it's interesting. Obsidian is a really interesting, I think. So I want to talk about a couple of things. I want to talk about the development of this game specifically, but I want to put a pin in that, because I want to talk about Obsidian in general. If you look back in history, Obsidian's probably most beloved game is Fallout New Vegas, which has become this complete and utter like player darling. It is a, I don't know if I'd even call it a cult classic, because it was pretty successful even at the time, but it is a beloved game.

• 18:39Kirk Hamilton?

  I would say that it's a it's a narrative masterpiece. It really is, especially that H-bomber guy video really drove home for me, because he played the hell out of that game and really breaks down how well done the narrative is. And man, I mean, there's some incredible stuff going on in that game.

• 18:53Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's gotten to the point where I think player consensus, I think it's safe to say, is that New Vegas is better than Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 for a lot of different reasons. A reaction that people at Bethesda may or may not be very happy about.

• 19:09Kirk Hamilton?

  Thrilled about it.

• 19:10Jason Schreier?

  From what I've heard. But anyway, if you look at New Vegas, if you look at like, the Metacritic, which for whatever flaws it has, is a useful way of gauging what the critical consensus was. Metacritic has an 84, whereas Fallout 3 is a 93, and Fallout 4 has like an 87. So critical consensus of New Vegas was not quite what player consensus was. A large part of that is because of bugs that hit at the time. And so it's really interesting looking at that, because a lot of those bugs have since been fixed in New Vegas. It's kind of interesting seeing the kind of the critical snapshot and how that actually reflects today. And a large part of me wonders if Avowed, which has like an 80 or something like that on Metacritic, which actually surprised me, because I expected it to be much higher. It'll be interesting.

• 19:54Jason Schreier?

  To see like as this game grows and as players go to appreciate, I suspect that there will also be a gap between like where it's landed critically and what players ultimately think of it. Because I think players will start to appreciate what it really does and what it accomplishes as time goes on.

• 20:11Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, and related to that also narratively, I think I at least don't have a total sense of how it's going to work narratively and how many different ways that it threads together the choices that you make. I have found a surprising number of times that I make a small decision and then get a little callback to it later from some character, which I think is really neat. And it's just very hard to get your head around that with a game that's a big role playing game, just because there's so many different variables. So I'll be interested to see that. One thing I do really like about the story and the choices that you make are that you're not being told in your dialogue options which options are weighted which way or what's going to cause what to happen.

• 20:53Kirk Hamilton?

  You just kind of have to read them, which I honestly, it was like a switch I had to switch in my brain to start actually reading each line of dialogue and not just going with the one that unlocks because I have the arcane scholar background or the one that unlocks because my perception is high enough, but really reading them all and thinking, how do I want to respond to this person and how do I want this conversation to go? I actually found that by turning off subtitles, which is, I don't know why I did this. This is kind of a weird thing. I don't usually do this, but I turned off subtitles and I just listened to the characters talk to me and I have to just sit and listen to the voice actor, just read the lines of dialogue and internalize them instead of reading the line of dialogue and skipping through it with a spacebar like I usually do.

• 21:35Kirk Hamilton?

  And as a result, it's led the conversations to feel much more naturalistic to me, like that paired with the fact that the options that I'm given are just varied options that I can choose however I want to.

• 21:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, I can say that I've noticed some really significant story changes as well that I think are really cool. Like, for example, that fight you described that you got in Kirk, I chose not to and then later was like, maybe I should have killed those guys. I won't get into why, but like, it's funny that you mentioned that fight because I don't know about how many other. Kind of big fulcrums there are, and they don't make them obvious. Like, in that moment, I was like, this one seems like a pretty clear one. But the other ones, I'm like, ah, these could pay off in any number of smaller ways.

• 22:21Jason Schreier?

  So there are some that are not obvious, and like, you have to kind of figure out as you go. And they're significant, very significant, to the point where like, again, I think as players like really unravel this game more, they'll really go to appreciate it. So I'll be as vague as possible to not spoil things. But at the end of, um, I guess, Act Two or Area Two, there's a major thing that happens. And the outcome of that major thing will vary drastically depending on if you did an unrelated side quest to the main story, which would help you lead you to find a certain place and do a certain couple of things that would then change the outcome of what happens.

• 22:58Kirk Hamilton?

  I think I know what you're talking about, just from your vague clues.

• 23:01Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I mean, it's pretty, yeah, if you've done it, you know. But there are also, there are a couple of ways that you can like, you can either accidentally stumble upon this major thing, or you could like, hear about it from someone else. There are a few ways that the game will kind of breadcrumb you into this thing. And if you, you find this area and you do this thing, you will drastically change the end of Act Two, and that will have ripple effects for the story to come. So yes, there's a lot of this stuff from what I've seen, a lot of just kind of elaborate choices and consequences.

• 23:31Kirk Hamilton?

  That's very cool, you know, especially to hear, because I made the, the different choice from you, Maddie, at the end of Act One. I killed someone, you know, it was sort of seen as the pro Empire move. And I was, I, I actually don't feel sympathetic to the Empire at all.

• 23:47Jason Schreier?

  Fascist Hamilton over here.

• 23:49Kirk Hamilton?

  I just wanted the guy's armor, like I said, this was a purely utilitarian call.

• 23:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I didn't really need it, so.

• 23:55Kirk Hamilton?

  The Empire sucks, and it very clearly, uh, you know, I'm, I'm opposed to them. But I actually then found, I was a little disappointed in the second act because the game repeatedly made it clear to me that actually that was the right call and that guy needed to die because he was, you know, it, it's sort of, it's sort of excused it. It didn't make me really sit with the consequences of that. It gave me an out. But hearing that there are a whole bunch of, you know. You know, branching options like that. It it wouldn't surprise me if that first choice, they kind of give, they soften it a little for you no matter which way you go. Just so that your very first choice doesn't feel like a massive, you know, a massive story fork. Because it's the first choice that you made. So I'll be very curious how that plays out as I go.

• 24:37Jason Schreier?

  I think the way they have this game designed is they want to avoid, like, there's no situation in which you can piss off an entire faction to the point where there'll be, there'll be hostile on sight for the rest of the game. So in that case, it's like, if you move against the rebels by killing that guy, the rebels have to still interact with you at different points throughout the game. So they're not going to be like, well, you killed that guy. So now you're dead to us. So it doesn't quite work like that. In the same way, you can like, fight different factions belonging to the empire, like the Steel Garrote, who like, pop up early in the game and are kind of there throughout.

• 25:10Kirk Hamilton?

  Nice guys.

• 25:11Jason Schreier?

  At certain points, you can fight them. And I was kind of like, oh, man, like, if I fought these guys, does that mean they're hostile to me for the rest of the game? But no, it doesn't work like that. It's kind of like, we acknowledge that you did that, but you're still the envoy. And we still got to kind of like, treat you with like, some, at least some, some, some degree of unwa- like, respect, begrudging respect, or whatever it is. So here's some context that might help you guys kind of try to look at this game and what it is and what it's turned into. This game had a really troubled development cycle, at least during its first few years. So I interviewed the director for Bloomberg, Carrie Patel, and I've also talked to various people who have worked on this game over the years in various capacities.

• 25:53Jason Schreier?

  And what this game was originally, this game was pitched, I believe, before Xbox acquired Obsidian, which was at the end of 2018. They were pitching this game. And this game was one of those pitches that is like, any hot buzzword you can think of is, is, we're throwing at it. It was like Destiny meets Skyrim meets like a ton of other things. It was like the most ambitious possible project they could have done. Multiplayer Skyrim with like a bunch of other cool shit in it. And for its first couple of years, it had a different game director. It was kind of setting out to be co-op. Skyrim had a massive open world. And at a certain point, it wasn't working. I believe throughout this game, they've had three different vertical slices, which a vertical slice is like a, a demo that you make essentially to kind of showcase the game.

• 26:39Jason Schreier?

  As you're working on it, get a slice of every portion of it, hence the vertical slice part.

• 26:45Jason Schreier?

  And at the beginning of 2021, Carrie Patel, who's the current director, took over. And the two major things that she did were, one, kind of focus it into this region-based structure, the way it is now, where there are four different regions, I think four, maybe five, four different regions, and each of them is its own zone, rather than one big massive world like Skyrim, which I think is very smart and a very smart way to approach scope. And the second thing she did was she brought a lot more pillars into the story and into the world, and it made it feel a lot more like a proper sequel to, like, The Pillars Games. And so, yeah, this current version is, is kind of the, the

• 27:26Jason Schreier?

  scoped-down, just kind of like tailored, focused version of the game, which, again, I think speaks to that kind of common complaint I've seen, which is like, this doesn't have enough systems, like, why isn't this, why can't I interact with the world in all these different ways? It's because they deliberately chose, no, we want to focus on what we're really good at, rather than trying to make this game all things to all people, like the biggest, most vast, most ambitious RPG ever, which never would have worked.

• 27:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a good call. Like, you're reminding me of some of the things we said about Star Wars Outlaws, which truly felt like it was trying to include so much. And we were like, what if it had just focused on three things? And I really agree with Kirk's take from the top of the show, where it's like, this game really does that. And it just does those things. Or maybe you said that, Jason.

• 28:13Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I said that, yeah, yeah.

• 28:14Speaker 01

  The pillars.

• 28:15Jason Schreier?

  No, that's a great, Star Wars Outlaws is a really great comparison point, because you're 100% right. And you know what? It's kind of, it's the difference also between a team in Obsidian, where this game was made by like, around 100, maybe 120 people, with like, code dev help also outsourcing, which everybody uses these days, but like, a pretty small core team, whereas Outlaws, that's a Ubisoft game made by hundreds, if not thousands, of people. And it's really, it's kind of like, you can really see the difference in kind of like, a tailored, a focused experience versus a game that is just trying to be all things to all people. And what I really like about Obsidian's approach is that like, a game like A Vow, That's not gonna have to sell 10 million copies to be profitable.

• 28:58Jason Schreier?

  Whereas Star Wars Outlaws, that sells a million copies and it's considered a massive flop. And so I think this feels more like a model of sustainable development. I kind of wish, I was talking to some people about this at Dice last week. I feel like games should have like a price tag on them so we can put that in perspective as we're kind of playing and talking about them. Like this game costs $30 million, this game costs $300 million. Cause I think that would be a really useful point of comparison when we're talking about these things.

• 29:28Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah. It feels like it was successfully scoped. It is, I think, beautiful looking. It's an Unreal Engine game. I think it looks and it runs great for me on PC. And honestly, as much as, you know, they've patched stuff about the upgrade system. There were a couple of bugs pre-release that were patched before early access. It's pretty bug-free, or at least for me. I mean, it's a very polished experience because it is pretty contained and it seems like they were working well within their scope. I think that when I am most enjoying the game is when I am taking my time with it. And as I mentioned, turning off subtitles, slowing down and really listening to the conversations, reading through the lore codex, just enough to understand what something was.

• 30:12Kirk Hamilton?

  For example, something I like about this world is kith or something that they talk about. Kith just refer to humanoid peoples. And that was not a term that I knew because I played a little of Puzzles of Eternity forever ago, but I don't remember it. It was really nice to just call that up when someone said it and then see what it was. And also, if you're playing without subtitles, you don't always get all the proper nouns and the spellings, but if you call up the lore little codex, you get to see how everything is spelled and what it all means. So slowing down and really enjoying that stuff and letting it take its time just talking to you also helps the pacing of the game. And I've found that when I turn on subtitles and I'm moving really quickly through things, and it really just does become a jumpy, climb-y, picky-up-y, fighty game, it starts to feel

• 30:56Kirk Hamilton?

  much more repetitive to me and a little less fun because I'm kind of compacting the pacing of my experience until I'm just running around. From checkpoint to checkpoint to checkpoint. And then it really starts to become clear that, okay, all I'm doing is just picking up materials and I'm fighting pretty samey fights, you know, there isn't a ton of combat variety, which is not the end of the world, but you know, it becomes more apparent if you're doing fight after fight after fight after fight and blasting through conversations and not really paying attention. So you kind of, for me anyways, it's really helped to control my pacing and slow it down so that I'm spacing out some of the exploration in combat.

• 31:32Jason Schreier?

  Hmm. It helps. This is a game that I think helps your enjoyment to actually do every single side quests.

• 31:38Kirk Hamilton?

  That's certainly true.

• 31:39Jason Schreier?

  Both because of the pacing, like you said, and also because that upgrade material is true. Yeah, they matter. They have interesting consequences and story ramifications, but also the upgrade system. I think this is a game, I've seen some reviewers, including I believe Polygon's reviewer complaining about the lack of upgrades.

• 31:55Speaker 01

  I'm thinking about the resource management for sure.

• 31:57Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, which I think is mitigated if you're doing a lot of exploring and side quests and stuff because you'll find yourself picking up a lot of, a lot of items.

• 32:05Speaker 01

  It doesn't lend itself to the rushed reviewer experience that almost no actual person has.

• 32:10Kirk Hamilton?

  Especially the pre-release version of the game.

• 32:13Speaker 01

  I know, which is tough.

• 32:15Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, there's some great, there are some great side quests. There is a side quest called Dawn Treader, I believe it's called, early on. That's a real standout. Also, the NPC that you interact with is voiced by friend of the show, Matthew Mercer. The whole time I was playing it, it's not, it wasn't on his IMDb page yet because it was pre-release. And I'm so attuned to his voice now, as I've mentioned before. So I'm sitting there just being like, is this him? Is it? And then at some point he did some laugh or something. I was like, yeah, that's definitely him. But it is a, more to the point, it is a great little side quest, a really cool, self-contained story with the zealot who's trying to build this shrine. But it also intersects with other characters from outside of the side quest who are kind of more a part of the main story.

• 32:56Kirk Hamilton?

  And slowing down, really listening to everything, taking my time and sort of understanding what each waypoint I was moving towards represented and what this area I was really was, it really helped. That might sound weird, but it is so easy with games like this, especially when you have a little waypoint on your HUD. To just go from thing to thing to thing and then you fight some stuff and you pick up, oh, the doohickey and then you take it back to the guy and then he says some stuff and I don't know, you pick some things. It's really easy to go into that mode with this game in particular because it's so familiar. So much of it is role-playing game stuff you've done before. And I really suggest anyone playing this, try to pull yourself out of that mode because it makes the game much, much more enjoyable.

• 33:35Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, so, okay, so that Don Shredder quest, I feel like encapsulates all things that are cool about this game like in one quest. Like, there's the main decision where you have to, or the main story where you meet this guy who's an oracle, another god like you, and he's building this massive contraption and you have to decide what to do about him and about the contraption. And there are a lot of different ways in which that can kind of go. There's also the dungeon, which itself is this kind of like level design wonder of full of verticality and really interesting kind of side passages. And then there's also the hilarity of it all in that you meet this dude, is this punk kid who's like really sad because he's gonna die a virgin and like you save him and then your characters keep making jokes. Your characters keep making jokes about now he could go and get laid

• 34:18Jason Schreier?

  and like the entire time, there's this running commentary from your characters about him getting to go and just like all this innuendo and joking about it. So, to me, that one side quest like perfectly captures what the, maybe that was the vertical slice.

• 34:30Kirk Hamilton?

  I was about to say, I wonder if that was their vertical slice.

• 34:33Jason Schreier?

  That really, that feels like it captures what this game is all about. It's got the humor, it's got the choices, it's got the visual spectacle, and it's got some cool combat and boss fights and it just works super well. And by the way, Kirk, one thing that helps prevent the combat from being samey is that a lot of the boss fights are really cool and do different interesting things. A lot of them, some of them just take kind of like typical MMO raid boss mechanics where like there'll be a big red circle and you have to get out of it. But still, I found them, they add some kind of spice to the combat, I think.

• 35:04Kirk Hamilton?

  Let's talk about combat a little more specifically. So, Matty, you said you're playing with a big hammer, like you're a melee fighter?

• 35:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. No shields required.

• 35:14Jason Schreier?

  Classic me.

• 35:14Kirk Hamilton?

  How has that, how has that been?

• 35:16Speaker 01

  I think it's really fun and it's not, it's kind of weird because it's, it's not like there's like a lock on dodge roll souls like situation here. It feels a little messier than that, but I can get on board with that and I kind of am enjoying how messy the combat feels. I, there's like a, a command wheel, almost like a Mass Effect style situation where you can direct your two companions to attack things. I really like the way that feels and how it works because I'm a fighter. I can like bring a magic user with me or somebody who has super different abilities for me and still take advantage of that. And feel like I'm actually enjoying all the different facets of the combat. So yeah, I'm really liking it, but I also, I, I didn't start playing this game until I feel like they had rolled out some of the resource patches as well.

• 36:01Speaker 01

  I don't know. I guess Jason said it was a day one patch, but like, I feel like it wasn't that bad for me. So maybe I'm just so good at games, but also I'm playing every side quest.

• 36:11Jason Schreier?

  To be clear, the re, the day one patch was for the difficulty tiers, not the resources.

• 36:15Speaker 01

  Well, I'm talking, yeah. So like to speak to the resource management, I really haven't personally struggled with that. And I've found it to be fine, but also like when you're playing with like sword and board style in this game, you just need to get enough metal. And I am never afraid to break down every single item in my inventory and kiss it goodbye. So I'm just like fully like Marie Kondo-ing every single thing and, and maxing out all of my three items every single time. And I'm really enjoying that. I think the upgrade stuff is, is fun for, for that. And I don't know. I like, I like swinging a big, big hammer at a guy.

• 36:50Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I've been playing, I think Jason, you and I are both playing rogues with bows. Is that right? Are you still playing that character, kind of character?

• 36:57Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, bow and slip, switching back and forth between a bow and a sword and shields.

• 37:00Speaker 01

  So like less melee, a little more distance fighting. So how does that feel?

• 37:05Kirk Hamilton?

  Feeling, I have a feeling that playing with a bow is maybe, it's fun, but it's a little, it gets a little repetitive only because I'm always keeping distance and firing arrows. But I think the magic system might be really fun. I'm kind of considering re-spec.

• 37:18Speaker 01

  Sad none of us have tried it.

• 37:20Kirk Hamilton?

  Well, you can re-spec at any point. It just. Costs some gold and then just go ahead and, you know, have a magic user or even kind of dual wield a grimoire like a book. And a gun which gives you the range stuff. So kind of be a rogue, hybrid rogue wizard. And the magic looks kind of fun and um I don't know that I feel like looking at some of those ability upgrades. They just look a little more cool than the rogue ability upgrades. I've been a little disappointed with the abilities. The actual active abilities in this game, just because it'd be cool if I could have a double jump or a blink or some other really. Sick mobility stuff with rogue, but a lot of the rogue upgrades are kind of ranged weapons do more damage or harvest two items when you pick things. And I kind of wish there were a few more things where press a button and something happens in the fight.

• 38:05Kirk Hamilton?

  And it seems like wizard is maybe a little more in that direction. So I'm considering respec.

• 38:10Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, from what I've seen wizard has like all of the cool powers that uh.

• 38:15Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah.

• 38:15Jason Schreier?

  Like gravity wells and like moving people around the battlefield. A lot of that cool shit is like for wizards. I. I do also kind of like, uh, but you know, one thing that's nice about uh about combat and and skill building is that it's so flexible. Like there's nothing rigid about it.

• 38:32Kirk Hamilton?

  Yes.

• 38:33Jason Schreier?

  You could go and switch like you could reset all your skills for like a pitiful, like a pittance of gold. And then just go and become a wizard if you wanted to and just halfway through the game, switch gears. So you're not locked to anything.

• 38:47Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, especially now that they've made upgraded gear less precious, that it's just easier to switch to a different build and then level up a grimoire pretty easily. And that seems like it would be cool. And I just, I want to stress overall, the combat is really fun. I mean, it's it's got that whatever sticky friction, I suppose, is the Tim Rogers term. It has that pop. There's a sound effect that plays when you nail an arrow shot. That lines up with headshots and really just feels very, very satisfying. It's super snappy. It's really responsive. The dodge is cool. There is an amount of dodging that happens in fights like when a big, you know, a big bruiser comes up to me and starts swinging his his hammer at me and I dodge backward and then he misses. And it really makes me feel agile and like the map is really responsive or sort of the battlefield.

• 39:32Kirk Hamilton?

  Feel is really responsive to what I'm doing. So

• 39:34Jason Schreier?

  Good parrying too. Good parrying system.

• 39:36Speaker 01

  There is a parry. That's fine. Yeah.

• 39:38Kirk Hamilton?

  Combat and it, you know, I mean, compared to an Elder Scrolls game, it's night and day. I mean, the improvement here is, is

• 39:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, that's what I was expecting. Like it, I, I feel like that's kind of the headline is like an Obsidian game has pretty fun combat. Like I didn't go into this game being like, well, this is gonna really feel good, but it does. It actually does.

• 39:57Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah. And you know, I think all three of us weren't the hugest fans of the Outer Worlds, which was their previous role playing game, more of a sci-fi gun kind of thing. And I didn't find the combat in that to be terrible, but I didn't find it to be super fun. Mostly with that game, it was the tone and the writing that just kind of didn't draw me in. Though I know that game has its supporters, but this really does feel like this combat is fun, man. I do just like the fights. If they are able to make another one and add more enemy types and, you know, add more variety and mobility to the combat. I mean, it seems like a very great 1.0 for this type of combat. It could go in a lot of cool directions.

• 40:33Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, a hundred percent. And it's worth noting, Obsidian is releasing Outer Worlds 2 this year. Like at least they've announced that it's coming later this year, which is pretty wild too.

• 40:42Kirk Hamilton?

  That is wild.

• 40:43Jason Schreier?

  The fact that Obsidian has those two games and just released Pentament a couple of years ago. Obsidian has released more games since it's been bought by Microsoft than like first party Microsoft Studios.

• 40:54Kirk Hamilton?

  Man, Obsidian kind of carrying Microsoft.

• 40:56Jason Schreier?

  Obsidian has released like four games. Grounded is also very successful.

• 41:00Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 41:02Kirk Hamilton?

  How do they do it? What a studio. That's so cool.

• 41:05Jason Schreier?

  Well, they did this dice talk, like the two, two of their vice presidents, guys who help run the studio. They did this dice talk where they talk about like sustainability and all the things that the three of us love. And talk about like not wanting to, not needing to hit home runs and how they want each game to be profitable. But it doesn't have to be like some massive like 10x growth or anything. And you want to know how they do it? I think that's a big reason how. They also have a lot of people there who have been there since like the very beginning and before that, working together at Black Isle and Interplay and whatnot.

• 41:39Kirk Hamilton?

  And they just brought back John Gonzalez, right? He just did. New Vegas narratively just came back.

• 41:44Jason Schreier?

  Mm hmm. But yeah, but even, I mean, at the higher levels, Ferguson Cart, the founder, still runs the place. Josh Sawyer, I think is a pretty well-known director there. He directed New Vegas and then Pentament and Pillars. So they have a lot of people who have been there from the very beginning who are still there. I think that's a big part of it.

• 42:01Kirk Hamilton?

  It's almost like not running out all your talent can pay dividends over the long term.

• 42:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, so wild.

• 42:08Jason Schreier?

  I think they've had some of their own internal drama too. Don't get me wrong. I don't think it's a perfect place to work, but yeah.

• 42:13Speaker 01

  What? Why, why doesn't that exist? Something we haven't talked about yet that I just want to shout out before we move on from Avowed is just how cool the visual designs are. Like, the godlike looks so cool. And like, you can design them to look however you want, I suppose, but I love how she looks for me. And like, every time I get to see her, I'm like, oh yeah, I look so sick. And this is why every time everyone sees me, they know exactly who I am. Because the godlike has this, like, these markings on their face. And you get to kind of decide how they look, but no matter what, you're gonna have them. And they're kind of like mushroom growths, like outcroppings on your face.

• 42:54Speaker 01

  But then also, this kind of zombie plague, for lack of a better term, has kind of a similar weird look as well. And then that's kind of like a haunting parallel that I haven't beaten the game. So I don't know how that's gonna play out. But like, people meet you and they kind of sometimes remark on that. But also, you look really freaking cool, no matter what you do. And then also, there's all these weird mushrooms everywhere in the world. But they're so colorful. It's not like grimdark Last of Us zombie mushrooms. It's like Lisa Frank mushrooms or something. They really go for it with purple and pink and yellow mushrooms.

• 43:27Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, no, yeah.

• 43:28Speaker 01

  It's great.

• 43:29Kirk Hamilton?

  Well, it reminds me of Morrowind.

• 43:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, that's a good pull.

• 43:32Kirk Hamilton?

  The Elder Scrolls game with all the mushrooms in it, which is cool because that's a beloved game. And this game already has some Elder Scrolls feeling. It's like a more colorful

• 43:43Kirk Hamilton?

  Morrowind, which, which I really appreciate it. Yeah, I think the world looks really nice. The music's a little bit of a letdown for me. I think that it's atmospheric, it's fun. But it doesn't quite have the, you know, the grand melodies that I would hope for from a fantasy game like this, even while it sets the mood and supports the visual design. But yeah, I think the visual design is lovely. And it's fun to have a character who is unusual looking that other characters in the world react to, you know? Because you can't choose, you know, whatever type of kith you want to be, you have to just be a godlike. As a result, they can write slightly more specific reactions to your character, which helps give a specificity to the whole story, which I appreciate. It's kind of another scope thing, you know? Just pick one type of character that you're playing as.

• 44:27Kirk Hamilton?

  And as a result, hey, actually, we can make the story much more specific throughout.

• 44:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, it really worked for me in comparison to something like Metaphor Refentazio, where I guess technically your main character looks different from everybody else. But like to us, they actually don't.

• 44:41Kirk Hamilton?

  Right, he actually looks like a person.

• 44:42Speaker 01

  So it's kind of fun and different to be like, you're super visually different and noticeable. And everyone knows exactly who you are as soon as they see you. And that's stressful politically, emotionally, et cetera. And like, I just met these two characters who are like, kind of sciencey fetishy obsessed with me as a godlike.

• 45:00Kirk Hamilton?

  Oh, I've met them.

• 45:01Speaker 01

  And I thought they were so funny. And like, I loved that, like, that was a conversation that I could have. And then I could like, make fun of them and be like, yeah, you're really making me feel normal here. Like that, I just think is such a fun way to play with just a really cool visual design and have it be something that matters about your fantasy races in your game.

• 45:21Kirk Hamilton?

  Nice. Well, yeah, any final thoughts on Avowed before we move on?

• 45:25Speaker 01

  Pretty good.

• 45:25Jason Schreier?

  No, I'm really stoked about it. I mean, I think for me, a measure of whether a game is really cool is if I am going to finish it even after it comes out and I'm done covering it. And this to me feels like one of those. So maybe we'll talk about it more. Maybe we'll do a Beans Cast about it at some point down the road. Because to me, it feels, this feels like one I'm going to finish, despite having a million other things to play right now.

• 45:50Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah.

• 45:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's fun though.

• 45:51Kirk Hamilton?

  There's a lot going on, but I want to go back to it too, especially since they made it easier to upgrade. And also, hey, it's on Game Pass for anyone listening. You know, it's a great, a great kind of Game Pass game. If you subscribe to that, you can just pick it up and give it a shot. So that is Avowed. It's out on Xbox and PC. It'll be out on PlayStation later. Pretty cool game. Let's take a break and then we will be back with one more thing.

• 46:19Speaker 03

  Hey. Hey there. Do you love reading smut? Erotica? Romance? Romanticy? Is your e-reader full of horny fairies and sexy shifters? Are your shelves bursting with enemies to lovers? We're reading smut, your new faded mate. Every other Friday, we dive into sexy books and talk to the people who love them. Consider this, our meet cute. Reading smut, every other Friday on Maximum Fun.

• 46:55Speaker 04

  Hello, internet. I'm your husband host Travis McElroy.

• 46:58Speaker 05

  And I'm your wife host Teresa McElroy.

• 47:00Speaker 04

  And this is a promo for Schmanners.

• 47:02Speaker 05

  It's extraordinary etiquette.

• 47:03Speaker 04

  For ordinary occasions. Every week, we're going to tell you about a bit of culture, a bit of history, how etiquette still applies in the modern day, all that stuff.

• 47:13Speaker 05

  We also love to do biographies and histories of and, you know, general procedurals, how to do etiquette in today's society.

• 47:22Speaker 04

  So come check it out every Friday on MaximumFun.org or wherever you find your podcasts.

• 47:28Speaker 05

  Manner Schmanners, get it?

• 47:31Kirk Hamilton?

  And we are back for one more thing. Maddie, why don't you go first?

• 47:36Speaker 01

  Uh, mine is a movie. I mean, this is always what I do when we all play the game, right? I watched a really cool movie. Uh, so this is a movie called Priscilla. It's about Priscilla Presley, and it was directed by Sofia Coppola, who I love, love her work. She does some really, really cool movies, usually with female characters at the center. Vibes-based movies is how I would describe a lot of them, like just real like female interiority style movies. And Priscilla Presley's life was so bonkers that it just is like perfect for the Sofia Coppola treatment. So it goes, it charts her whole life from meeting Elvis Presley when she was 14 years old, and he is 11 years older than her, by

• 48:21Speaker 01

  the way. And that is the age difference that remains for all time, because that's how math works. Uh, and that is when they're-

• 48:28Speaker 04

  But it's a little different when you're 30 and 41.

• 48:31Speaker 01

  Well, they don't make it that far. They get divorced before that, I believe. I believe when she was 27. And so that goes all the way up from age 14 to their divorce. And that's where the movie ends. And this actress who plays her, let me look up her name because she's incredible too. Kaylee Spanney is her name. I might be pronouncing her last name wrong. I don't know, but she, they do such an incredible job with the makeup on her. I've truly thought they cast a 14 year old. I, but she's not. She's like 20 something when she was in this movie and she has to play it all the way through. And so you're really just with her. It's not an Elvis movie. It's just about how basically she was groomed and also kind of treated almost like a peasant girl who the prince falls in love with.

• 49:16Speaker 01

  Like her parents are kind of blindsided by this, like Elvis has taken an interest. This, this like very old, but in ridiculously incomprehensibly famous man has taken an interest in their 14 year old daughter. And they just like visibly don't know how to react to this and just eventually are like, okay, I guess you can go live with him and his castle.

• 49:36Kirk Hamilton?

  Man, Michael Jackson echoes there, huh?

• 49:38Speaker 01

  It's so weird. And like just Sofia Coppola does such an incredible job of just showing how eerie and like kind of spooky that is and how weird her life is. And just, it just, it's not just that it makes you feel sorry for her, but also you are rooting for her to leave him by the end. And that is spoilers is how it ends. Of course, we know that about her life. And I just thought it was fascinating and I really liked kind of getting to know her. It's produced by the actual Priscilla Presley.

• 50:05Jason Schreier?

  I was gonna ask if she was involved because she's still alive.

• 50:08Speaker 01

  She's still alive and it's based on a book, a memoir she wrote. So like, she's very involved. Movie's accurate. And like, it's a really look into what her life was like. And I just thought that was really cool and fascinating. And a good, weird, sad story about some decisions Elvis made in this girl's life and then a woman's life. So I really recommend it. It's just called Priscilla.

• 50:29Kirk Hamilton?

  And a good counterpart to Elvis, you know, the Baz Luhrmann one that recently came out as well.

• 50:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, which I haven't seen. Maybe I'll watch it. This was kind of the movie that I was like, this is the one I'd like to see.

• 50:40Kirk Hamilton?

  It's appropriate that they would both be out at around the same time.

• 50:43Jason Schreier?

  So when you say that they met at 14, is that when they started a relationship?

• 50:47Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 50:47Jason Schreier?

  When she was 14 and he was 25? Wow.

• 50:50Speaker 01

  That's right. Yeah. Yeah, it is gross. And the movie really does a good job of kind of depicting how that works and how it plays out between them. It's creepy.

• 51:00Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I've wanted to see it. I'll, I'll, I'll add it to the list. Jason, how about you? What's your one more thing?

• 51:06Jason Schreier?

  So my one more thing is, when I was flying home from Vegas to New York last week from Dice, I was looking at the bookstore at the airport and grabbed a book and it looked interesting. It was one of those kind of airport thrillers and grabbed it and got on the plane and read it all in one sitting and loved it to death and loved it so much that when I got home, I started looking up the author's other work and just started snatching up books. I've already read what like her, another book from her. I've already ordered a third book from her. So this is the author Lisa Jewell, who is a British crime thriller author. I guess not even crime thriller, thriller author, who is a master of her craft.

• 51:45Jason Schreier?

  And so the book that I read on the plane was called None of This Is True. And then I read a different book called The Night She Disappeared. A lot of these are kind of psychological suspense books. There's a lot of just kind of missing people involved and or just kind of like, like suspenseful, suspenseful tragedies, like that sort of genre. And she's very, very good. I've read a lot of thrillers over the years. I really like the genre and some are just kind of like, some are poorly written, but interesting stories. Others are kind of like just a mess in some way or another, or leave you ultimately unsatisfied.

• 52:28Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, well, I was gonna say, I was gonna say Lisa Jewell is a master, like truly a master. Like, I'm so impressed by her work, not just in terms of her pacing and plotting and structure and twists and turns, which I think are really good, but also just like the, her writing ability, I think is really, really good, which again, I think is a rarity in this genre. I think usually it's a little bit less about the. Caliber of writing and a little bit more about telling a good story. And with Lisa Jewell, it's both. So I've already ordered a third book from her and then there were none. I'm very excited to read it and to keep going through her catalog of like 20 something books, which is pretty wild and fun. Nice. Always fun to discover a prolific author or find an author you really like and then

• 53:13Jason Schreier?

  discover that they are prolific. Cause I'm really enjoying it. And yeah, I mean, I've read a lot of thrillers also where it's like the, the twist ending a chapter just fizzles or is like pisses you off because it turns out it's like just a total, I don't know, misleading nonsense moment or red herring or whatever. But Lisa Jewell is, is excellent at pulling this off. And just to kind of give you a brief description of like what actually happens in these books. The one I read on my flight, None of This is True, is about this woman who is kind of like a relatively successful podcaster who like interviews women about their lives. And this woman, woman one, runs into a second woman at a bar.

• 53:56Jason Schreier?

  Turns out they both have the same birthday and the second woman becomes a little bit fixated on woman one and eventually like discovers her again in a park and goes up to her and is like, hey, you should do a podcast about me because my life is really interesting. And then the two of them start talking and woman one, the podcaster, she starts to get a little bit like icked out by this second woman and a little worried that like maybe her life is in danger or something like that. But she's so hooked on the idea of being able to tell this compelling story in her podcast that she just kind of like lets, lets her guard down a little bit and lets this woman into her life in ways that maybe she shouldn't. Whereas woman two, she is like trying to inch her way into woman, into the podcaster's

• 54:40Jason Schreier?

  life and like starts taking home some of her things and. Parasocial podcast thriller. Gets quite, gets quite interesting, gets quite, quite interesting and tragic. Want to read more books about podcasters. Yeah. Sounds great. They're actually.

• 54:56Speaker 01

  Like a new single white female, but with a podcaster.

• 54:59Jason Schreier?

  Single white podcaster. Funny you say that Kirk. It's actually, over the last like four years, it's become almost a trope of the thriller genre, like the psychological thriller, like a lot of-

• 55:12Kirk Hamilton?

  Like only murders in the building too, even on TV.

• 55:14Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I mean, it's, it's become this thing where like, uh, that at least is a little more farcical. A lot of times it'll be like a woman. There was one book I read a couple of years ago, or last year called, um, Tell Me The Lie, and it's about this podcaster who like goes home to her old, it's always about all these, uh, books, like in the, in the, um, the spirit of Gillian Flynn's Sharp Objects. It's always like, uh, someone left their, their small town, uh, and comes back 20 years later because there's a-

• 55:41Kirk Hamilton?

  This is also in the spirit of every Hallmark movie ever.

• 55:43Jason Schreier?

  That's true, but comes back later to discover a murder mystery that has not yet been like, that is a cold case that was never properly solved. And using their podcast, they find a way to solve it. That's like the story of like 15 of these thrillers.

• 55:57Kirk Hamilton?

  It's funny, you know, it's like mayor of Easttown was that trope, except that mayor had never left the town. And that also made for a very interesting story that she had always been there her whole life. But yes, a familiar setup.

• 56:07Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I mean, there are definitely subversions of this, but yeah, but the podcaster thing, that's become a very, very common trope in these books these days.

• 56:14Kirk Hamilton?

  It's a kind of a good, it's a good profession for this kind of story because a podcaster is in other people's lives and interviewing them and learning about them and doing investigations.

• 56:21Jason Schreier?

  Exactly. You need an excuse.

• 56:23Speaker 01

  Don't exist anymore, so she can't be a journalist.

• 56:25Kirk Hamilton?

  Right, it's used to be a journalist or maybe a private investigator.

• 56:29Speaker 01

  Now she's an independent podcaster.

• 56:31Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, you need, yeah, exactly. You need the excuse for the main character to be poking around in this sort of thing. And, and, um, in this book in particular, and none of this is true, um, the, uh, main character needs an excuse for why she continues to allow this woman into her life. And in this case, it's because she wants the story. And that kind of adds another kind of interesting angle to this, uh, uh, clearly creepy psychological manipulating situation.

• 56:57Kirk Hamilton?

  The thing is, so if I wrote a thriller about a podcaster, the problem would be there would be whole asides where two people have long conversations about which microphone is better and the main character would have all these internal thoughts about the electro voice RE20 and how it sounds better than the SM7B.

• 57:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that'd be really good.

• 57:13Kirk Hamilton?

  My editor would just delete the entire book. Yeah.

• 57:17Jason Schreier?

  You joke, but it's actually, it's quite a skill, being able to like immerse yourself in that much research, or in your case, personal, first-hand knowledge, and tell a compelling story that feels true, but also is paced well. It's like, it's a really interesting kind of, uh, may or may not be something I've been thinking about a lot recently.

• 57:34Kirk Hamilton?

  Of course.

• 57:35Jason Schreier?

  But storytelling, when you're like intimately familiar with a world, I think is a really interesting kind of skill and muscle to really build. So yeah, that's my one more thing is Lisa Jewell's None of This Is True, and also The Night She Disappeared.

• 57:48Kirk Hamilton?

  This is the Tom Clancy effect, where he's so into just the coolness of military vehicles that he winds up writing whole chapters about the treads on some armored vehicle or something.

• 57:58Speaker 01

  I mean, it worked for him.

• 58:00Kirk Hamilton?

  It did work for him, it's true. All right, well, I will go last. My one more thing is a really, really great documentary that I watched last week called Ladies and Gentlemen: 50 Years of SNL Music. This is streaming on Peacock. It is directed, of course, by Questlove and also Oz Rodriguez, though Questlove's fingerprints are all over this thing. It is a very long, like a three-hour documentary, chronicling the entire history of musical guests on Saturday Night Live. So SNL is currently doing this 50th anniversary thing. They started in 1975 and have been going for 50 years, which is kind of wild. And I haven't caught a lot of it. I'm sure some of it is very self-congratulatory and, you know, puffing up SNL and their importance

• 58:44Kirk Hamilton?

  and everything, but I heard nothing but good things about this documentary. I've watched one of Questlove's other documentaries, Summer of Soul, which is also an amazing music documentary. So I knew, I mean, he is, he is an incredible director. This is his calling. I mean, he's a great drummer and a great musician and a great podcaster and everything, but this, man, he is good at this. And so knowing that he was the one behind this movie, I was excited to watch it. Oh, man, it's so good. It is, I would say, equally good as a chronicle of Saturday Night Live. I know there are other 50-year anniversary chronicles of the guests and Weekend Update and whatever, all the different things that each of us may remember from that show. But actually looking at the show through the lens of the musical guests is a great way

• 59:27Kirk Hamilton?

  to understand Saturday Night Live, some of the biggest controversies of SNL. You know, Sinead O'Connor ripping up the picture of the Pope, or Rage Against the Machine being the musical guests on an episode that Steve Forbes hosted, which I had totally forgotten that Steve Forbes hosted SNL. You too. And then they wound up almost like attacking his family because they got in an altercation about hanging the flag upside down. Man, there are some wild stories. I'd heard the story about Fear. There was a punk band, Fear, that John Belushi got on as the guest artist. This was in the 70s. And they brought their whole crew of rowdy punk boys to come and thrash around the stage. And it turned into this pretty awesome, actually,

• 1:00:10Kirk Hamilton?

  like a very violent but pretty amazing spectacle of just guys onstage and everyone's getting thrown around and the mics are getting knocked down while the guy is singing Beef, Beef, Beef, Beef Baloney and like yelling. And the stuff that was happening on that show in the 70s, I mean, I've rarely, I've barely watched any SNL from the 70s. And the musical guests they had were wild. Captain Beefheart is there. Keith Jarrett, the jazz pianist, just played a set on SNL. They had so many different guests. And seeing them all just back to back to back to back to back with interviews with all kinds of people, you know, you got Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo, but then you've also got all these classic folks who are on there. Eddie Murphy's there talking about James Brown, when Prince first came on, before Prince was even really Prince.

• 1:00:52Kirk Hamilton?

  And you get to see all these performances. And then because Questlove just is such a chronicler of music and has so much care and understanding, he just, he, he presents it beautifully. It opens with a montage, the supercut that he's put together, that must have just taken a thousand hours of work, where he's overlaying songs and kind of mashing them up to move through, I don't know how many different performances, so that they're overlapping and bouncing off of one another and mixing and matching tempos. And it just feels like this overwhelming thing. I want to watch it five more times. So it's a really, really, I mean, it's just like a pure pleasure to watch it. Whatever your relationship is with SNL, you know, I grew up in an SNL house. We loved it in

• 1:01:35Kirk Hamilton?

  the 90s in particular. There's a lot of focus then on that era, you know, when Adam Sandler was singing the Red-Headed Sweatshirt song or the Hanukkah song. And, you know, just all of these different musical moments. And, I don't know, it really made me realize how musical a show SNL was and how important the relationship between comedy and music is, and especially how important comedy and music in New York in the 1970s was. So I like, cannot recommend this documentary enough. It's fantastic. It's streaming on Peacock. It's called Ladies and Gentlemen: 50 Years of SNL Music. Go watch it. What are you doing?

• 1:02:07Jason Schreier?

  Do they get into Lonely Island, too, in there?

• 1:02:09Kirk Hamilton?

  Oh, yes. There's a whole thing on Lonely Island. They talk all about it. They got, they've got Timberlake on there. They got Sandberg. Everyone talking about how they came up with all that stuff.

• 1:02:17Jason Schreier?

  Can we talk about SNL just for a second? First of all, I watched last week on the flight to Vegas, I watched a flight, a movie called Saturday Night, which is

• 1:02:27Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:27Jason Schreier?

  a very different kind of

• 1:02:28Kirk Hamilton?

  A movie that almost doesn't exist, even though I know of it. It came and went, that one.

• 1:02:33Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I don't know if people liked it. Well, I thought it was awesome.

• 1:02:35Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:02:36Jason Schreier?

  I thought it was great.

• 1:02:37Kirk Hamilton?

  Nothing against its quality, just that it, I barely realized that it had come out.

• 1:02:41Jason Schreier?

  Well, I feel like that's true of a lot of movies. It's just how movies work these days. So weird climate for movies now, yeah. But it's all, it's all set on like, the hours before the first ever SNL, and it's a dramatized version. And, and part of the fun is seeing these kind of younger, current actors playing Chevy Chase and Lorne Michaels and Gilda Ratner and all these kind of classic characters. Andy Kaufman, what's his name? The guy from Succession plays Andy Kaufman. The guy, Cousin Greg from Succession

• 1:03:11Kirk Hamilton?

  Oh, nice, okay.

• 1:03:12Jason Schreier?

  plays Andy Kaufman incredibly.

• 1:03:15Jason Schreier?

  And also plays Jim Nelson, the creator of the Muppets incredibly. That movie is extremely enjoyable, but also, did you guys watch the SNL 50, like their anniversary special?

• 1:03:25Kirk Hamilton?

  No.

• 1:03:25Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:03:25Jason Schreier?

  Oh, man. It was really wild. It was really

• 1:03:28Kirk Hamilton?

  I'm sure.

• 1:03:28Jason Schreier?

  weird and way too long, but self indulgent also, to your point Kirk, but also fun to watch. Adam Sandler did a new song, just kind of playing tribute to SNL, and there is some fun stuff in there.

• 1:03:41Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I saw headlines about that. A thing that I really, really liked about the Questlove documentary is that it never once felt like self congratulatory nonsense. It never felt like propaganda, even though it's so common for shows doing their own 50th celebration to fall into that. It always felt like an outsider's perspective. I think because Questlove, as much as he is a staple of New York entertainment and of TV even, you know, being on The Tonight Show, he is kind of an outsider to SNL and it had that flavor and I really found that refreshing. And I think I'll probably watch it just because I'll watch the actual 50th celebration. But that stuff, it feels inevitable with that sort of a documentary and it feels very special that they also made this separate thing that has more of a remove.

• 1:04:24Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I mean, some of the self indulgence is justified because SNL is such a titan. Like you could trace back so many comedy careers today to SNL. Some of it is a little much for sure, but there's some fun moments. I mean, there's like, like Andy Samberg did like a song, a music video about how everyone who worked on the show had anxiety. And it's all about just like all these different people like having to pitch to Lorne. There's like a section that it about like, well, it's true. We're not coal miners, but hey, coal miners didn't have to pitch to Lorne. It's just like a fun, a fun thing.

• 1:04:58Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I'm sure I'll watch it.

• 1:04:59Jason Schreier?

  It's got some merit.

• 1:05:01Kirk Hamilton?

  It's, yeah, I guess it's not to knock that. It's more to say how special I think that aspect of the music documentary is.

• 1:05:07Jason Schreier?

  A hundred percent. Yeah. I think that the 50th anniversary has like four different musical performances.

• 1:05:12Kirk Hamilton?

  You should, and you should watch the music thing. You both should. It's really, it's so good. It's really, really great.

• 1:05:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I didn't realize how, how involved it was. So thanks for the rec.

• 1:05:23Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, beautifully, beautifully done.

• 1:05:25Jason Schreier?

  But SNL, it feels like it's such a like vestige of culture. It's such an institution. It's like, there's nothing else that is that kind of dominant as the culture has gotten so fractured in television.

• 1:05:36Kirk Hamilton?

  Half a century.

• 1:05:37Jason Schreier?

  Fractured, there's something else that's, it's still like capable of water cooler moments in a way that nothing else is, which I think is just kind of like really interesting. And I wonder how much longer that'll be the case.

• 1:05:48Kirk Hamilton?

  I have to wonder, right? Especially when Lauren leaves, like what it will mean.

• 1:05:52Jason Schreier?

  That's the big question, right? It depends what happens. Like, the rumor is that like someone like Tina Fey or Seth Meyers would take over, which I think could be good.

• 1:06:04Jason Schreier?

  Tina Fey is, feels like the proper successor, but I don't know yet. I mean, it's fascinating to think about.

• 1:06:09Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, it'll be really interesting to see. Yeah, man, SNL, 50 years, half a century. It's wild.

• 1:06:15Speaker 01

  No, it's wild.

• 1:06:16Kirk Hamilton?

  It's so wild.

• 1:06:17Jason Schreier?

  Well, what's really, what really makes you just kind of like your head explode is to think that when we were watching it in the 90s with Chris Farley and Sandler and Spade.

• 1:06:25Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:26Jason Schreier?

  It was only 20 years old then.

• 1:06:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:30Jason Schreier?

  Now it's 50 years.

• 1:06:30Kirk Hamilton?

  They were doing 20th anniversary, I remember that.

• 1:06:32Speaker 01

  But I feel like I had a lot of ability to recognize that because my parents had all these old VHS tapes of the really old SNL sketches that they remembered. So like even as a child, I was like watching Chris Farley back to back with like Eddie Murphy.

• 1:06:46Jason Schreier?

  No, no, no, no, but that's, that's the point, Matty, is that like back then it was only 20 years old. It's been 30 years since we were that age. That's the part of this that is like.

• 1:06:56Speaker 01

  It's only been two years since then.

• 1:06:59Speaker 01

  It's been no time at all. It's fine. The 90s were like 10 years ago.

• 1:07:04Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, right?

• 1:07:05Speaker 01

  It's fine.

• 1:07:06Kirk Hamilton?

  Maybe we can do an SNL Beans Cast or something at some point. I feel like there's actually a lot with SNL to talk about.

• 1:07:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would love to do that because like a lot of those sketches are like just things that. My sister and I watched over and over and over. And I feel like every, all three of us probably have that. And it might be fun to talk about that.

• 1:07:21Kirk Hamilton?

  Oh, my God. I mean, the inside jokes on my family, the list, there was.

• 1:07:25Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:07:25Kirk Hamilton?

  It was never the good sketches. There was a fake ad.

• 1:07:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, there would be weird, like, family favorite sketches where it's like, no, not that the family likes it, but like certain families, like, pick a sketch that they're like, this is the one we're going to quote to each other repeatedly.

• 1:07:38Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I think, and I think every family was like that. For us, there was a, it was an insurance sketch where there, he said, we're gonna take all the people we insure and, and write their names down on a list. And we'll keep the list in a safe place. And we will not lose the list, because that would be bad. And it's just this dumb, it's a very mid-grade fake ad. And yet somehow in my family, losing the list, and, oh, you cannot lose the list. That became this catch-all phrase that meant everything. Oh, that would be bad. Yes.

• 1:08:04Jason Schreier?

  Very funny.

• 1:08:04Kirk Hamilton?

  So there are a lot of things like that. And I do feel that you're right. Every family had that.

• 1:08:07Jason Schreier?

  Still, things will pop into my head, like Da Bears. There's so many things, like.

• 1:08:12Speaker 01

  A van down by the river.

• 1:08:14Jason Schreier?

  Van down by the river.

• 1:08:15Speaker 01

  That was like everyone's classic sketch, but.

• 1:08:18Jason Schreier?

  There, there's so many just lines that will just randomly pop into my head. And when I try to think, oh, where's that from? Oh, yeah, it's SNL, the 90s slash 2000s.

• 1:08:26Kirk Hamilton?

  We're too wild and crazy guys.

• 1:08:27Speaker 01

  Too wild and crazy guys.

• 1:08:28Kirk Hamilton?

  You up. I mean, even from the older SNL that I didn't watch, I still knew Hans and Franz, you know? Wayne's World? Don't get me started on Wayne's World. My God, we're not worthy.

• 1:08:37Speaker 01

  I legitimately like Wayne's World. Like, the movie Wayne's World, I think, is good. I will come out and say that I think it's good.

• 1:08:44Kirk Hamilton?

  Penelope Spheres, classic. It's a great movie. SNL holds up. Wayne's World holds up. One of the most quotable movies ever made. I mean, there are a thousand quotes from that movie that I still quote.

• 1:08:54Speaker 01

  Remember when SNL led to, like, really good comedy movies that would just spin off of it? That's how you know things will change.

• 1:08:59Jason Schreier?

  Well, even back then, some of them are awful.

• 1:09:01Kirk Hamilton?

  Wayne's World is kind of an exception.

• 1:09:03Speaker 01

  That's true. And also, I say that, and like, I love Popstar Never Stop Stopping, and you could argue that's what it is. So like, what am I saying?

• 1:09:10Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, although it's not, it's not based on an SNL character.

• 1:09:12Kirk Hamilton?

  But Popstar was a massive bomb. Wayne's World was also a box office hit. Popstar, like, lost tons of money.

• 1:09:18Speaker 01

  Popstar shouldn't have been a bomb. Popstar shouldn't have been the biggest.

• 1:09:21Kirk Hamilton?

  No, I agree. I love that movie, too.

• 1:09:22Jason Schreier?

  But yeah, there were some bad ones. I mean, I always liked, like, Night at the Roxbury, but like, that movie was terrible.

• 1:09:27Speaker 01

  I love that movie so much.

• 1:09:28Kirk Hamilton?

  But it's not, it's not good, but I love it.

• 1:09:31Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, or like Blues Brothers.

• 1:09:32Kirk Hamilton?

  Oh, my God. Okay, maybe, maybe, all right, all right. We're gonna do, we'll probably do an SNL episode. It's clearly, there's a lot. This is fertile ground. We will, we will talk about it more in the future. For now, though, I think this has been a very fun episode of TripleClick and Avowed. Cool game and some cool One More things as well. So let's say goodbye for now and we will see everybody next week.

• 1:09:56Jason Schreier?

  See ya. Bye.

• 1:10:00Kirk Hamilton?

  TripleClick is produced by Jason Schreier, Maddy Myers, and me, Kirk Hamilton. I edit and mix the show and also wrote our theme music. Our show art is by Tom DJ. Some of the games and products we talked about on this episode may have been sent to us for free for review consideration. You can find a link to our ethics policy in the show notes. TripleClick is a proud member of the Maximum Fun Podcast Network, and if you like our show, we hope you'll consider supporting us by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join. Find us on Twitter at TripleClickPod, send email to [email protected], and find a link to our Discord in the show notes. Thanks for listening. See you next time.

• 1:10:58Jason Schreier?

  Maximum Fun. A worker-owned network. Of artist-owned shows. Supported. Directly. By you.