Triple Play: Assassin's Creed Shadows

There's a new Assassin's Creed out, and there's lots to discuss. Kirk, Maddy, and Jason talk about the structure of Assassin's Creed Shadows, the balance between protagonists Naoe and Yasuke, how the game might impact Ubisoft's future, and much more.

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

• 0:04Jason Schreier?

  Hey Ubisoft, how come you never made an Assassin's Creed that's set in feudal Japan? Wait, you did? And it's out now? Welcome to TripleClick, where we bring the games to you. This week, we are talking about Assassin's Creed: Shadows, the latest game in the long-running Killin' Series. Let's get into it.

• 0:30Jason Schreier?

  I'm Jason Schreier.

• 0:32Kirk Hamilton?

  I'm Kirk Hamilton.

• 0:33Speaker 02

  And I'm Maddy Myers. Hello.

• 0:35Jason Schreier?

  Hello.

• 0:36Speaker 02

  Hello, hello. We're back in the digital realm again.

• 0:39Kirk Hamilton?

  We are.

• 0:40Jason Schreier?

  Back on cams.

• 0:41Speaker 02

  After having just seen each other. It's a little different.

• 0:44Kirk Hamilton?

  It's not as exciting as when we're in person.

• 0:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 0:47Jason Schreier?

  And also not as chaotic.

• 0:50Kirk Hamilton?

  True, true. Sort of comforting, but not as chaotic.

• 0:53Jason Schreier?

  If you have not already listened to this week's bonus episode, you should go listen to it, because it's just totally.

• 1:00Speaker 02

  Definitely chaotic.

• 1:02Kirk Hamilton?

  Yes, quite chaotic.

• 1:03Jason Schreier?

  We're all in the same room, just talking over each other and asking ridiculous, ridiculous questions. Apparently, you two have just informed me that one of our listeners in the Discord has created a chart.

• 1:15Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 1:15Jason Schreier?

  Graphing. Wait, is this the same person who did the, who got the mug for doing the analysis?

• 1:22Kirk Hamilton?

  Yes, who?

• 1:23Jason Schreier?

  Okay, Neo on Discord, in addition to analyzing when you subbed in my voice on a previous episode.

• 1:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, they are going above and beyond yet again.

• 1:33Jason Schreier?

  Has also created a graph of hot dogs versus like how much you would make over time if you just had a million dollars.

• 1:40Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, the question was, would you rather have a million dollars right now or $1,000 every time you eat a hot dog for the rest of your life? And there was some discussion of that. You'll have to listen to the bonus episode to hear where we all came down. But if you would like to see some data analytics, you can also go to the TripleClick Discord.

• 1:54Speaker 02

  I appreciated the chart. I liked it a lot. Our Discord is good.

• 2:00Jason Schreier?

  And if you want to hear the bonus episode, of course, you can become a member at maximumfun.org/join. And now is the perfect time because it is Maximum Fun Drive. So you'll get a bunch of cool stuff, including our super cool pin if you upgrade or join. That pin is amazing. Our lowercase g gamer pin.

• 2:18Kirk Hamilton?

  Yes.

• 2:20Jason Schreier?

  Couple of things also. One is we will be doing a Max Fun Drive stream on Thursday, today, the episode, the day this episode is going live, tonight at 8:00 PM Eastern on our Twitch channel, which there's a link in the show notes. So check that out. Come hang out with us. We're not going to be streaming anything in particular. It's just going to be like Kirk playing games while we all just hang out and take questions from the chat and just talk about whatever. So that'll be cool. And the other thing is, big thanks to everyone who came out to the TripleClick meetup last week, which was super fun.

• 2:56Speaker 02

  So fun.

• 2:56Kirk Hamilton?

  It was so great.

• 2:57Speaker 02

  So cool.

• 2:57Jason Schreier?

  A lot of cool people come out. Yeah, it was really exciting to just hang out with a bunch of listeners. Exhausting to just do that much socialization, but also very fun.

• 3:08Speaker 02

  It was so fun and so worth it. It was like the good kind of exhausting where I left and I was like, we have so many cool listeners and they were so kind. And it was cool to hear about their projects because some of them were there for GDC and that's really exciting. It's cool to hear from everyone about their lives and what they're working on.

• 3:25Jason Schreier?

  Yes, it is. It is always very cool to hear from listeners, especially from listeners who like have been in the industry for years and years and years and still listen to us.

• 3:33Speaker 02

  And they listen to us?

• 3:35Jason Schreier?

  Yeah.

• 3:36Kirk Hamilton?

  They still haven't bailed.

• 3:38Jason Schreier?

  They have not been like, oh, God, these, these guys, what the hell are they talking about?

• 3:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:44Jason Schreier?

  I think that's it. So without further ado, Kirk, what are we talking about today?

• 3:49Kirk Hamilton?

  We're going to talk about Assassin's Creed Shadows.

• 3:52Speaker 02

  Yay.

• 3:52Kirk Hamilton?

  And I've written a little preamble about the game to get us, to get us started. Assassin's Creed Shadows is the 14th mainline game in Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed series, following 2020's supersized Assassin's Creed Valhalla and 2023's more bite-sized A

• 4:09Kirk Hamilton?

  Mirage. It was developed primarily by Ubisoft Quebec, whose past entries include 2018's widely beloved A.C. Odyssey and 2015's criminally underrated IMO Assassin's Creed Syndicate. Shadows takes the series at long last to 16th century Japan, otherwise known as the Sengoku era, a time of samurai and shinobi, of political intrigue, betrayal, bloodshed, vengeance, Hattori, Hanzo, swords, and all that other good stuff that you've seen in a million samurai movies and TV shows. It tells the story of two protagonists, Fujibayashi Nae, a young shinobi of the Iga Clan, who sets out for vengeance against the mysterious organization that engineered the destruction of her people, and Yasuke, a black samurai,

• 4:51Kirk Hamilton?

  who, after arriving in Japan enslaved by Portuguese Jesuits, falls into the service of the warlord Oda Nobunaga and eventually finds himself free to make his own destiny. Through a quite violent and tragic series of events, Nae and Yasuke wind up joining forces to form the Japanese Brotherhood of Assassins, known more commonly these days as the Hidden Ones, in a quest to rid Japan of the influence of the Assassins' longtime enemies, the Templars. The upshot for players is that they will control not one, but two very different characters this time around, with different strengths suited to different situations. She ninja, he samurai. She's small, he large, he very large. She sneak, he stab. She has a hidden blade and throwing stars.

• 5:34Kirk Hamilton?

  He can Sparta kick a man halfway across a village. This game involves setting out across a gorgeous, open world, fighting bandits, solving puzzles, meditating and making art, praying at shrines, exploring ruins, and hunting, killing, and occasionally sparing a variety of assassination targets. All the while, you are learning the backstories of the two characters, guiding them along their path towards presumably some kind of cathartic moment of closure. I wouldn't know, because this game is like a billion hours long, and I've only played about 15 hours. But I have played enough to know that I think the game is pretty fun, and I think that all of us have played enough to have a pretty solid read on it. So yeah, that's Assassin's Creed: Shadows. Now we're gonna talk about it. Let's just start with some, some quick thoughts on the game. Jason, how about you?

• 6:19Kirk Hamilton?

  Go first. What do you think of this game?

• 6:21Jason Schreier?

  So here's where I must confess that I haven't played a ton of this game. Because every waking hour, I've instead been playing or thinking about Blue Prince, which we'll talk about more in a couple of weeks. But I have played enough to kind of get a feel for it. So I'm a few hours in, I'm exploring Sakai, which is like the first city you go to after you get your base as now. I have not yet joined forces with Yasuke. And I have a couple of thoughts. One is that it's it's cool, it's gorgeous. It's like one of the most gorgeous games I've ever played on my computer on like ultra high graphics. It looks amazing. And it feels good. It's just, I mean, it's exactly what I expected from an Assassin's Creed game. There are no zero surprises.

• 7:06Jason Schreier?

  So I'm enjoying it. The other thought is that it feels like I've played this game before a few times in a few different ways. One most notably is with Ghosts of Tsushima five years ago, which felt like it took the Ubisoft formula and brought it to feudal Japan. And that to me was kind of like, oh, all right. I've already played my Assassin's Creed in Japan game. And this, at least so far, does not feel that drastically different. I mean, there are other kinds of systems. You have this big chart where you have to kind of hone in on these circles of like targets or objectives and quests. And you have to kind of, if you're playing in the mode, the mode with with exploration turned on and like without tons of indicators and stuff,

• 7:51Jason Schreier?

  you really have to pinpoint where people are and what to do with them and so on and so forth, which I'm enjoying and I'm looking forward to checking out more, which I will do at some point. But like my initial impressions are not like, oh, my God, I have to keep playing because it feels like I've been there, done that. There have been a lot of feudal Japan games in recent years. I feel like the calls for Ubisoft to make this game were a lot louder, I don't know, seven, eight, nine, 10 years ago than they were now. But yeah, I mean, it seems cool, I suppose.

• 8:24Kirk Hamilton?

  Nice. Matty, how about you?

• 8:25Speaker 02

  I'm loving it. I will say I've never played Ghosts of Tsushima, so can't weigh in on that part of it, but immediately loved this. And I also am playing in immersive mode, which I just want to shout out because I think it's a really cool mode. And the game doesn't make it obvious to you that it has it because it's not right there at the first select screen. It's like four select screens in. So basically what it does is it has all of the Portuguese speaking characters speaking in Portuguese with English subtitles for my benefit, and all the Japanese speaking characters speaking in Japanese, which is just historically correct. And I'm really, really digging that. And you would think that would be on that first

• 9:09Speaker 02

  screen where you select all the subtitles. It's not. So just keep on clicking through and then choose that. And I'm also playing on canon mode, which means I'm not making any decisions. So Assassin's Creed games, kind of more recently, I think Odyssey was the first one that had player choice in it. I don't really care for that personally. I like it when there's a designed story and I'm playing as a specific character in an Assassin's Creed game. They have a motivation to become an assassin. I get to just be along for the ride while I'm watching that story play out with them and killing thousands and thousands of people along the way. I enjoy that. I don't really need to make dialogue choices. So that's how I'm playing this game and I'm really liking it. And it means that

• 9:50Speaker 02

  when a cutscene starts, I can just put down my controller and watch it like it's a TV show. And I'm really enjoying that. I'm really digging the story. So I just, I love Naue. I think she's a fascinating character. I really like everything that's happened with her. I think the opening with Yasuke is amazing and really cool. The game takes a really long time to get you back to Yasuke. If you're me and you're doing every single side quest, which I can't help but do, I'm like 12 hours in and I still haven't actually reached Yasuke. That's again, just my personal play style. I don't know that that's true for everyone. But I'm just really doing all the Naue stuff right now and digging it a lot. And I just

• 10:32Speaker 02

  really love her as a character and the story. And I mean, I could go on and on, but Kirk, I want to know what you're feeling about the game. I know you're also playing on canon and immersive mode, right? Are you regretting it?

• 10:41Jason Schreier?

  So am I. I think all three of us are per Kirk's recommendation.

• 10:45Speaker 02

  Cool.

• 10:46Jason Schreier?

  At least I am per Kirk's recommendation.

• 10:48Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I really like both of those modes. Immersive mode is impressive in part because as far as I can tell, they've got the animation Yeah. lip syncing matching up with the Japanese language, which is so neat. And then a couple of times, at least in the version I played, which is a pre-release review build, there were some more elaborate cutscenes. For example, the one where Naue and Yasuke first kind of meet, where it looked as though the lip syncing wasn't matched up. Like, maybe the scene was more elaborate, so they had to render it with the English, like, lip sync. So it looks more like watching a movie with a dub, only it's backwards, where it's like a Japanese dub on English acting. Anyways, I really like immersive mode, and it could be they've patched that out at this They probably have, yeah.

• 11:31Kirk Hamilton?

  But for the most part, it really looks like people are just speaking Japanese. I've found the Japanese voice acting to be really strong. Some of that may be that I don't speak Japanese, so some of the nuances of the performances are lost on me, but I really appreciate hearing the actual language people would have been speaking. And also, having just come off of Shogun. Yes. I feel like this game has quite a bit tonally in common with Shogun, and I really, you know, I just got used to watching that show. It's mostly in Japanese, that show, and, you know, reading the subtitles. I almost wish they had put as much work into the subtitles on this game as they did on the show Shogun. I think, was it actually Polygon? You guys had a whole article about the subtitle typeface that they came up with and how hard

• 12:14Kirk Hamilton?

  they worked to make it be more visible while you're watching the show, or something like that, or to match the characters. I can't remember all the particulars, but maybe we can link it in show notes. Anyhow, I have been really enjoying immersive mode, and I've heard, I've seen people criticizing the English performances and just the feel of the game in English, so I think that is the right choice. And yeah, I love canon mode. It's so funny to me that we've reached a point that taking away my choices is so appealing. I know. Because it used to be, there was a time, not in my lifetime, where adding choices to a game was just so exciting, it felt like, oh, I'm getting to play a part in the story. And now that's become so common that it's been added to games that frankly don't need it. And yeah, there's a moment, kind of early on, when Naue

• 12:58Kirk Hamilton?

  Defeats the bad guys and her allies are holding this one guy down and saying, oh, this, this guy sucks. He's one of them. And you know, one of her allies is like, let's kill him. No mercy. And the other one is like, no, that's dishonorable. You shouldn't kill him. And I'm like, this is 100% in non-canon mode. The moment when the little thing appears and it's like, kill him or spare him. And instead, I was like, oh, I just get to find out what happens. And now he's like, kill that motherfucker. And I was like, yeah.

• 13:22Jason Schreier?

  I love it.

• 13:23Kirk Hamilton?

  And it was also cool because now I chose vengeance in that moment, which I think actually does speak to her character in a way that makes sense. So I'm really enjoying.

• 13:31Jason Schreier?

  Can I just say, can I go on a quick, a very quick tangent here?

• 13:34Kirk Hamilton?

  Please.

• 13:35Jason Schreier?

  Which is that I feel like the fact that Assassin's Creed was a linear story and then embraced choices, and some of the choices were kind of meaningless. Some of them had bigger picture ramifications, but there were choices there. And now has moved into this area where like, it has choices, but it offers a canon mode in case you don't want choices. Really speaks to the limits of video game storytelling in cinematic ways. And when you compare it, as I have been, to a certain game, but really any game that embraces environmental storytelling, it's such a contrast. It really makes me think a lot. And I've been thinking a lot recently about how video games are just not meant to tell these like, big, grand cinematic

• 14:19Jason Schreier?

  storytellies where you're just, stories where you're just watching. And how much more satisfying and gratifying and rewarding it feels when you discover the story yourself in a video game. And I think for too long, the video game industry's kind of approach has been like, for the player to feel engaged in this story, or like, for us to take advantage of video games as a medium, you have to be able to choose. Mass Effect, you have to be able to choose good or bad. You have to be able to choose who lives and who dies. But more and more, I am feeling like the real way to get the player engaged and to make a feel like, make players feel like something totally that they can never get in any other medium is allowing the player to discover the story themselves. Going all the way back to the days of Myst. And that really feels like the way to tell a story. So it's funny that

• 15:04Jason Schreier?

  we're seeing this like, total boomerang with Assassin's Creed, that it's like, oh, now canon mode is the best way to play. These choices were all kind of artificial and meaningless in the first place. Well, okay, now you're just going to play, play through this playable movie as a story. And I don't know, it really makes you think about video game storytelling and the way in which it works.

• 15:24Kirk Hamilton?

  It does. And yeah, let's stay on this for a minute because I think that it's interesting, partly because Assassin's Creed is so many different things. The main story of Assassin's Creed is that cinematic story where you can opt for a canon version, or you can make some small decisions, you know, similar to a Mass Effect. But within Assassin's Creed, of course, there are 15 other games, you know, and some of those games do rely on player agency and let you discover your own stories, whether it's exploring some town or some ruin where there's a kind of interesting backstory, or something, you know, related to Japanese culture that's really interesting. Or even some of these assassination missions. There's this big elaborate objective board that's a little overwhelming, but the more

• 16:06Kirk Hamilton?

  I've played, the more I've come to kind of appreciate it. It's a nice way of visualizing all of the different possible plot threads for a game this massive. So you're tracking out all of these different assassination missions. You kind of have these circles, and in around the circle are a bunch of targets. And this was true in Odyssey as well. It feels like an evolution of Odyssey's big, complex, you know, murder board.

• 16:29Speaker 02

  And Origins has one.

• 16:31Jason Schreier?

  Valhalla takes it even further by making the big bad be like, well, I won't spoil it, but it's like a pivotal character. Yeah.

• 16:38Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I mean, I mean, really, just that because this is the same lead development studio, it feels as though they're probably evolving some other ideas from Odyssey.

• 16:45Speaker 02

  That's probably true.

• 16:46Kirk Hamilton?

  Because Odyssey introduced some of this stuff. But yes, I mean, the series has just been moving this direction. My point is, there are these circles of assassination targets. And in past games, you would just go kill all of those people, and each one would be a different kind of challenge. A lot of them are fairly repetitive. And I found myself kind of autopiloting my way through one of the early ones, and I killed some guy, and it was, there's a family of jerks, basically. So they're all kind of living together in this one compound. So I went and killed one, and then, oh, there's three other ones there. And so then I was kind of getting rocked as Naue, so I swapped out and brought Yasuke in, which is a very fun thing to do, because that dude is just like a tank.

• 17:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's a cool lane man.

• 17:22Kirk Hamilton?

  Right, starts, exactly. He, hey, hey, hey, through the wall and just starts destroying people, which is very satisfying, and killed a whole bunch more of them, and was down eventually to one left. And it was this lady who Was somewhere else, but in order to find her, I had to first track down a clue. Maybe this is actually a good point to like, put a pin in this story and explain a little bit about how objectives work in this game, which is also interesting, because it doesn't just tell you where to go immediately. It'll give you information over in the side of the of the menu. And it could be that this is one of the modes that I'm playing on like, but I think this is a kind of a standard way to play the game anyways, where you'll get a clue, you know, your target is in the western part of the continent on the coast. He frequents this temple.

• 18:05Kirk Hamilton?

  And then you can deploy scouts if you want to get, you know, a closer bead on the target's location. Or you can just follow the clues and go over there and kind of figure it out. And it can feel a little onerous, but the scouts sort of make it possible to move a little faster if you want to just plow through it. But being forced to slow down is actually kind of nice. In this case, I had to slow down because there was a clue to find that final target. And it was a note, and when I found the note and I read it, it, I kind of stopped autopiloting through the mission. And I read the note and realized, oh, this woman doesn't want anything to do with her terrible family and is actually going to try to be better. And that made me feel conflicted about the fact that I was supposed to go kill her. But then I went and found her and she was standing in a temple and I, instead of just immediately killing her,

• 18:50Kirk Hamilton?

  I had a talk prompt over her. And so now I talked to her and she said, you know, she's like, oh, I, you know, I know who you are. I know what you're here to do. And basically explains that she doesn't want to be like the rest of her family. And I chose to spare her. And then suddenly the little icon on the objective mark, you know, the objective board, instead of it being a like blood splatter over the person I'd killed, it was a little yellow glowing spared, you know, icon. And so it made me realize actually that I had killed her brother, who was a really nice guy. I just hadn't realized because I'd been in video game mode, just plowing through it. She says, she's like, oh, if you could please not kill Goro, my brother, you know, he really wants, the two of us really want to do that.

• 19:31Jason Schreier?

  And you were like, oh, definitely, definitely will do that.

• 19:35Speaker 02

  Interesting you say that.

• 19:36Kirk Hamilton?

  Cool, cool. What's his name? Goro? Yeah, um, I'll spare him for sure. No problem. Anyway, I gotta go throw a smoke bomb on the ground.

• 19:43Speaker 02

  If you find him dead later, it was not me. No.

• 19:48Kirk Hamilton?

  It was one of your brothers. So anyways, it was a really interesting, it was both kind of funny and also interesting moment of storytelling and also me discovering the story in a way that did feel organic and video gamey and not cinematic. There weren't really any cutscenes. It was just something I played through. So basically, long story short, this game does contain that sort of thing as well, just because it's a modern Ubisoft game and especially an Assassin's Creed game, it contains a million other things.

• 20:12Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, that's the thing that I was reading our former boss, Steven Totillo's, review of the game. And he mentioned something similar where he found a note and it led him down some rabbit hole. And that's the type of thing that actually makes me want to keep playing this game, which I definitely will after I'm done with my current obsession. Because, because like, I find that stuff to be the most appealing part of these games is when you like, really have to think about it. In fact, my favorite parts of Valhalla, and I'm curious to hear if there's other stuff like this, my favorite parts of Valhalla were like, the little mysteries you would find, and they contain little riddles you'd have to solve, or little puzzles, like, kind of, almost Breath of the Wild, shiny type stuff. And there would just be the blue, the blue dots on the map, and you would have

• 20:53Jason Schreier?

  to go and do just really interesting stuff with them. I really love in these games when like, something has the trappings of a AAA game, but it also includes some stuff that actually doesn't just hold your hand the whole time, and forces you to think a little bit about what you're doing. And stories like the one you just told Kirk make me really excited about this game and playing more of it.

• 21:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't know if there are as many puzzles. I've only played like, a couple of those, like, caves where you like, do a series of events to get loot. And I think those are fun, but they've been pretty simple so far. I do think, though, that playing as Nawa is always a puzzle, because anytime you're playing a stealth game, I see that as a puzzle in a, in a positive and fun way, where you're like, okay, I'm looking at all these guards or people, and like, maybe there's some civilians nearby, I don't want to intersect with them and get in trouble. And like, there's also some people who are kind of in between civilian and enemy in this game, like, people who will run away and warn the guards about you, but maybe you don't really want to kill them. And so you kind of end up with this-

• 21:56Kirk Hamilton?

  It feels kind of bad.

• 21:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, it does. It does. And so you're kind of, if, depending on how you feel about video game morality, clearly I have, I have my hangups about this. I'm like, okay, I only want to kill like the really bad guys, but I need to sneak around and plot out my path. And I find that extremely pleasing. And there have been some Assassin's Creed games in the past where they take away your ability to like, basically one stab kill somebody. And I've always found that very unsatisfying. I really like being able to just instantly down someone and or knock them out if you're playing in a no kill version, because I'm just like, I need to do it immediately, because otherwise the puzzle isn't fun. And this game just returns to form with that. Like as Nowai, you can just go around

• 22:40Speaker 02

  and like sneak up on somebody, immediately assassinate them, drag their body into the bushes, whatever you need to do, and then just go down the line, as opposed to feeling like, oh, there's all these other combat mechanics here. It's not to say I don't enjoy Yasuke, but like, I just really like that Nowai is the old school style assassin that just feels like the right kind of Assassin's Creed to me. And that helps balance out the fact that there's also this melee character who's really fun as well.

• 23:08Kirk Hamilton?

  To add a wrinkle to that, there are characters who you can't one shot.

• 23:11Speaker 02

  True.

• 23:12Kirk Hamilton?

  As Nowai. There are both, if a big character sees you coming,

• 23:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:16Kirk Hamilton?

  they'll just sort of stop you.

• 23:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:17Kirk Hamilton?

  Which I appreciate.

• 23:18Speaker 02

  Me too.

• 23:18Kirk Hamilton?

  It actually plays into something I like about Nowai is that she is very small.

• 23:21Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 23:21Kirk Hamilton?

  She's maybe the youngest protagonist in an Assassin's Creed game.

• 23:25Speaker 02

  And I think the most physically diminutive as well. She's very tiny.

• 23:29Kirk Hamilton?

  She certainly seems the youngest. She's like a teenager. And as a result, you really do feel that she's up against these big, tall men mostly, and she has to be really wily and figure out how to beat them. And even the animations, which man, the combat animations of this game are out of sight. And some of the assassinations where she like slides up under someone with her feet and trips them backwards so she can get at them. It's all very cool and kind of speaks to her character as being so resourceful. Very gory. There is also a setting.

• 23:54Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 23:55Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, it's very, very blind, very bloody.

• 23:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:57Kirk Hamilton?

  There's a setting actually where you can turn on one hit assassinations for everyone, if you just want to play it that way.

• 24:01Speaker 02

  Oh, I didn't know that.

• 24:02Kirk Hamilton?

  Which is really nice. And I could see wanting to do that. I'm like, okay with the limitation.

• 24:07Speaker 02

  I kind of Like the additional puzzle aspect of like, okay, you can one-shot kill or one-hit kill, rather, almost everyone except certain people, and then that's just an additional wrinkle that plays into the difficulty of the game. I'm enjoying that aspect personally.

• 24:21Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, it's fine. I appreciate that they give you the option. But yeah, to talk a little bit about the two protagonist setup and a little more about Nowai and Yasuke as characters. I really like this setup in that I like that there's a strong gameplay differential between the two characters. So Ghost of Tsushima is obviously a very relevant comparison point for this game.

• 24:44Jason Schreier?

  Especially since the sequel is about to come out later this year, too.

• 24:47Speaker 02

  True. Yeah.

• 24:47Kirk Hamilton?

  Sure, but even if it hadn't, it's still, I mean, it's, you know, it still would be. And I think actually the sequel might be able to solve this problem. I don't know that much about the narrative setup. An issue with Ghost of Tsushima, which I played a whole bunch of, I didn't finish because it's massive, but I played like all of it, the DLC, which was fantastic, really good game. It had this problem in the narrative, or it was kind of what the narrative wound up being about, is that the protagonist is a samurai. He's a lord. He is an honorable man. But then the fun thing to do in this setting is be a ninja and sneak around and like take people out like a dirty dog. And the whole problem with the game was that this guy who sees himself as very honorable and wants to do the honorable thing, where you like walk into the town square and announce

• 25:30Kirk Hamilton?

  yourself and say, "Come and fight me one-on-one, you know, because we are both honorable men", is instead climbing around on rooftops and like murking people in the shadows. And then he was always really upset with himself about that and feeling very conflicted.

• 25:42Jason Schreier?

  Which is the story of the game, to be fair. Like, that is the central front.

• 25:45Kirk Hamilton?

  No, not even just to be fair. Like, they almost had to make that the whole story of the game. Where in this case, we've just split the two characters up and it kind of simplifies things. And you get Nowai's story, which is the story of like, just like, a common person who is using every means at her disposal to stop an overwhelmingly powerful foe. And then also, you get a play Assassin's Creed, which has a much more elaborate stealth system than Tsushima. You know, there's all kinds of cool stuff that you can do. You can crawl in this game for the first time, like Solid Snake. It's totally sick.

• 26:15Speaker 02

  And also, like, she's small enough that she can really go under the grasses. Whereas in previous AC games, I feel like you could always kind of see Bayek or whoever.

• 26:24Kirk Hamilton?

  Connor seems like a pretty big dude.

• 26:26Speaker 02

  Yeah. It's just so satisfying that she's so tiny. Anyway, keep going.

• 26:29Jason Schreier?

  You can see Cassandra's triceps rippling through the grass.

• 26:34Speaker 02

  You can, though. You can. She can't help it. She's huge.

• 26:36Kirk Hamilton?

  I think that is a big, kind of a weird disconnect for me, especially with Odyssey and Valhalla, where I mostly played as Lady Ivor, Evor, Ivor, whatever, in Valhalla and as Cassandra. But they're both like jacked ladies who are big. And I mean, in Valhalla, you're a Viking reaver. Like, the picture of that character is someone with two axes and like, blood spraying everywhere, screaming as they run into a town to like murder a hundred people. Just the minute I would take that same character and start crawling around in the bushes, it just felt weird. It just didn't seem right. This divide works much better. And to compare it to one other game, which is Syndicate, which I mentioned earlier, a game that I really like, and UB Quebec also fronted.

• 27:21Kirk Hamilton?

  That was where you played as Evie and Jacob Frye, brother and sister, who I think this was like, it was like the 1.0 of this idea, where Jacob's was supposed to kind of be more of a melee combat, action character. They gave him a few special abilities, and Evie is more the stealth character. And similar to this game, I wound up playing as Evie all the time, both because stealth is more fun, and that's what I go to an Assassin's Creed game for, and also because Evie's a way better character than Jacob. She's like one of the best characters in all of Assassin's Creed, so I just wanted to be her. Jacob's kind of annoying. She's like a top hat, malady loser. Anyways, so they kind of differentiated the characters, but you could still play the whole game as either one, and they didn't feel nearly as different as Nowai and Yasuke. And I appreciate that they've really leaned into that.

• 28:06Speaker 02

  I think Nowai and Yasuke are both better characters, too. Like, you really like both of them, and that helps, I would say.

• 28:11Kirk Hamilton?

  I mean, Evie is an awesome character, but yes, Nowai and Yasuke are both good characters.

• 28:15Speaker 02

  Oh, I just meant like, they're both strong. I wasn't trying to...

• 28:17Kirk Hamilton?

  They're both equally good, I see what you're saying.

• 28:19Jason Schreier?

  So, is it, is the game set up that you can play any mission as either of them? Or they're like, do they each have their own storylines as well? Like, how is it kind of like structured?

• 28:28Kirk Hamilton?

  For the most part, yeah, here, take it, Matty.

• 28:30Speaker 02

  I mean, eventually, you can play both of them for either mission, the way that Kirk was describing, but they also both do have stories that they each follow.

• 28:39Jason Schreier?

  Well, my question is in reference to after they join up. So like, are you, is the rhythm of the game that like, you go from place to place and you can just swap them out at any time?

• 28:46Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, so you can swap whenever you want. It's a little onerous. You have to go into the menu. Sometimes the game pushes you to do it because you'll get a wanted level. So if your character gets wanted, especially Nowai, this will happen because she'll get spotted. And then alarm will go off and then that whole region, she's wanted, which just means guards will see her and immediately attack and it kind of just makes life harder. So it's the idea is to kind of push you over to playing Yasuke. For the most part, you can play as either of them, but then they each have their own story missions, like Matty was saying, where you have to play as them.

• 29:15Jason Schreier?

  Got it, got it. Yeah, I mean, I am enjoying playing as Nowai. I did not enjoy Yasuke quite as much. But I'm curious to see how I feel when I've, when I've played more of him.

• 29:26Kirk Hamilton?

  The thing is, like, it's Nowai's game in a lot of ways, and that's okay. I think they're pretty clear about that. You get Nowai's backstory. She's the one, you, you see this incredible tragedy that befalls her and you really get her motivation, where Yasuke is much more of a cipher and you learn his backstory over time. He's like a compelling character purely by just being a black man and samurai in Japan. Like, that's interesting. And you learn how he came to be there over time, but Nowai is a much more traditional Assassin's Creed character.

• 29:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:57Kirk Hamilton?

  She under, you know, she has a great tragedy happen to her. She loses everything. She vows revenge. She starts putting together a team and so on.

• 30:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:04Jason Schreier?

  It's interesting. It's interesting to hear that it's Nowai's game because like, I've reported on Bloomberg, back when the Ubisoft kind of sexual harassment scandal was happening about five years ago. I did a big report on Bloomberg and I talked about how dev teams for Assassin's Creed games had tried to either make a solo female hero or put more emphasis on their female heroes and just been denied. Odyssey might be the perfect example of that, where Cassandra was really envisioned at the beginning as like the hero of the story. And people at Ubisoft in the higher levels were like, nope, can't have just a woman as a game or it won't sell. And so they forced Alexios to be a playable character as well. But you play that game and it's like, clearly this is Cassandra's game.

• 30:49Jason Schreier?

  And like, Alexios is meant to be the, the character he becomes if you are not playing as him. So, yeah, it's interesting. Thing to hear. I don't know. I don't have any reporting on whether that was the case for this game as well, but it's interesting to hear that this is yet another game where it feels like the woman maybe should have been the sole character and the male protagonist feels more superfluous.

• 31:11Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, and I don't know if I'd say she should have been the only character. I agree that-

• 31:16Jason Schreier?

  Or at least that it's her story, I should say, is what the way you just described it.

• 31:19Kirk Hamilton?

  And she is driving the story, and it's okay having the secondary character. I've really, I have found Yasuke to be an interesting and compelling character. And it's, and like I was saying, I like how they've split up all this action stuff that they've built up over these games where you can play as this wrecking ball and just put that all in one character. So you then have a much more pure stealth character that feels more like older games. But I do agree that like, it seems clear over the course of this series. I mean, you've got, going back to Liberation, Aveline was the star of Liberation, but Liberation was kind of a standalone DLC. Like I was saying, Evie Frye was by far the best character in Syndicate, but she still was kind of tied to her brother. And then she got a really great DLC expansion that she, you play through as her. It's super

• 32:01Kirk Hamilton?

  cool. Like, she really became a great character. Same thing with Cassandra. Same thing even with Avar, where like, you can play as, I don't even remember what the canon was with that, but they did a whole tricky thing where Avar kind of is both femme Avar and mask Avar, depending on-

• 32:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't remember how they pulled that off.

• 32:17Kirk Hamilton?

  Like where you are in the Animus or something. It's like when you go to Valhalla, right? You kind of switch depending on where you go.

• 32:23Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, when you're like, when you're Odin, you're like male, and then when you're, yeah, that's the canon way.

• 32:30Kirk Hamilton?

  Right, so they always kind of have to add the male playable character. And I don't know why that is. I mean, granted, I defer to your reporting on that, but it does seem like there still hasn't been one where it's just, you're a lady, she's the main character. It's fine, everyone will be fine.

• 32:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's kind of too bad, I guess, that they can't just stick that landing, but I really enjoy Yasuke so much, so it's not like I'm annoyed at all. And I think if they're gonna do it, having both of the characters be marginalized in some way is also fascinating and has clearly brought many bigoted people out of the woodwork. But, but I also think it makes for an interesting story. In both of their cases, because it's like, okay, you have this like really diminutive woman who's also like lacks a lot of power in society and she's like carving her way back and has her own vengeance storyline that's really cool and you like her and then Yasuke's story is fascinating just because of who he is and where he is. So just like by dint of the fish out of water storyline, it's like, okay, how's this guy going to get through the situation?

• 33:31Speaker 02

  And that is interesting on both cases. And then the fact that they play really differently, I think is clever. So honestly, I, I don't really have any complaints. I think they really nailed it. In terms of picking the two characters that work.

• 33:43Kirk Hamilton?

  Right. Even when I look at the series history and can kind of see this pattern at the same time. This game far more than Syndicate, I think, at least from what I've played, is more successful and doesn't have me saying, you know,

• 33:53Speaker 02

  Right.

• 33:54Kirk Hamilton?

  what I said with Syndicate, which was, why isn't Evie the only main character of this?

• 33:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:57Kirk Hamilton?

  Like her fuck up brother could just be an NPC who shows up sometimes. Like she could have just been the main character. In this case, Yasuke feels like an essential part of the game and I find his, his story cool and I like, you know, I really like when they come together for the first time. I would say like narratively, they're really close to really nailing some of these beats. There were some times, for example, the, the whole sequence that brings the two of them together, which Maddie will have played. I felt like that was a little rushed. There are times where I feel like the pacing gets a little bit off. They could have set it up a little longer to have it make, just be more satisfying when Yasuke finally shows up since that is a big moment in a game like this where you've been playing as this small assassin.

• 34:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:38Kirk Hamilton?

  Who has to be so careful and then they give you control of the motherfucker again and he gets to just walk in and destroy everybody.

• 34:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:44Kirk Hamilton?

  Which they do do that and it is very fun and satisfying, but I'd want it a little bit more, but they've been doing a pretty good job of leaning into the differences and using it in the narrative.

• 34:53Jason Schreier?

  So tell me, you guys have played a lot more than I have. Does it feel, so I looked at the map of this game and it's humongous and this feels like yet another massive open world Assassin's Creed game that's going to be forever long to finish. I actually did finish the last two.

• 35:09Speaker 02

  Which is wild. I haven't.

• 35:10Jason Schreier?

  Which is wild. I know, I know, I know. I don't know how, but I did finish both of those.

• 35:14Kirk Hamilton?

  I finished Odyssey, but could not do. Valhalla, which was even longer.

• 35:18Speaker 02

  I can't believe you did that.

• 35:19Jason Schreier?

  I finished both of them. Yeah, Valhalla, both, both of them have incredible endings. Valhalla especially like has this wild, animus, modern twist at the end.

• 35:27Speaker 02

  It does. I will admit, I watched, I watched it on the internet. I wanted to know, I wanted to know the ending.

• 35:34Jason Schreier?

  I, I, I will argue, I'm a, I'm a stan of both of those games. So I'm, I'm, we'll see if I finish this or how much I play this. But I'm curious, does it feel like repetitive the more you play? Or does it feel like it, it holds, holds up even as you're just kind of going from region to region in this massive world?

• 35:53Speaker 02

  Hmm, I don't know if it's far enough to say, but I do know from coworkers that are further that eventually it does feel repetitive, especially if you're like crushing every single tower and trying to collect every piece of loot. Like they become very samey or so I hear after a while and the way that every Assassin's Creed game does. And I, I sometimes will find myself just doing those repetitious missions if I just want to spend more time playing the game. I've certainly done that in these before, but for me, the draw is the story. I like that it has one that I'm enjoying. I'm probably just going to get myself to play the 30 hour version. Like I can feel myself getting drawn into the like completionist mindset that I don't like when I do that.

• 36:37Speaker 02

  And I have to force myself to stop.

• 36:39Jason Schreier?

  Don't do every single side quest.

• 36:40Speaker 02

  I have to like actually pull myself out of my body and be like, what are you doing right now? Why are you doing the side quests? You aren't having a good time when I'm playing these games because they make it feel like you're supposed to. I don't know what it is. There's something about the design that just gets me.

• 36:57Jason Schreier?

  It feels like a perfect Steam Deck game. Steam Deck slash Switch 2.

• 37:02Kirk Hamilton?

  Which is Steam Deck verified.

• 37:03Speaker 02

  I have been streaming it to my Steam Deck. I actually have been streaming it because it looks better on the, on there. If I don't play it natively and then it looks really pretty when streamed. But yeah, it is a good Steam Deck game, especially if you're like not doing a cutscene moment and you're just like, I'm just going to go smash some, some stuff and get some, some loot for a bit. It's fine on Steam Deck for that.

• 37:25Kirk Hamilton?

  I think back to Odyssey, which I played and almost 100%ed, or at least did every major side quest. And the thing is, in Odyssey, some of the side quests were so cool. You're fighting the Medusa or whatever, or, you know, getting to, or Gorgons and-

• 37:38Jason Schreier?

  Or hanging out with Socrates and just like-

• 37:40Kirk Hamilton?

  Exactly, like, so I, I don't know whether or not this game has side quests that are like that, where it's not just, oh, clear out another castle and kill the samurai there and open the chest, which there are plenty of those and they're repetitive but fun, but I'm sure they get very repetitive if you do them all, versus, you know, a side quest that is a really interesting fleshed out thing. And I don't also know whether or not there is mythological stuff, the way that, you know, they have those Animus glitches or whatever where it can manifest as-

• 38:08Speaker 02

  There almost certainly has to be, especially in this series. There'll be some ending that I'll be like, what the hell? What?

• 38:16Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, and I guess, and to throw out there, so far for me, there's been almost no emphasis at all on the modern day stuff or the weird outside the Animus stuff, which I-

• 38:24Speaker 02

  Which might disappoint some people. I know there's, there are stands of just that part of Assassin's Creed. And it starts out with that.

• 38:31Jason Schreier?

  There is, yeah, well, there is the kind of, the, the package that it's in, which is, used to be called Assassin's Creed Infinity. I forget what it's called now, Animus, whatever. And presumably, I mean, it seems like they're gonna be adding, like, the modern day components to that over time.

• 38:47Kirk Hamilton?

  Right, but if you compare that to Black Flag, where you start off in first person perspective as a game tester at Abstergo in Montreal and you're walking around an office, like, it's, it's nothing.

• 38:56Jason Schreier?

  They've changed it quite a bit.

• 38:57Kirk Hamilton?

  A voice comes in sometimes and says, find some little glyphs in the game. I mean, there's, there's very little. I gather there are sort of emails or letters that you get, you might even go to a site outside of the game to find out what's going on.

• 39:07Jason Schreier?

  This has been the trend for the last few, they've been really just kind of scaling down the modern stuff in recent days.

• 39:13Kirk Hamilton?

  They have, though. I, I enjoyed the stuff with, I'm forgetting her name, but there was a, a modern day timeline character in the last few games who had adventures and was on a whole thing, working with the Templars.

• 39:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, I know who you're talking about.

• 39:25Kirk Hamilton?

  Simon and the other characters turn up and she eventually-

• 39:27Jason Schreier?

  And then Cassandra.

• 39:30Kirk Hamilton?

  I'll bleep that out, I guess, for anyone who hasn't played Odyssey. But like, so I'm saying like that there used to be at least some, they kind of returned to the modern day for a little while in that third gen, or whatever you want to call it, of Assassin's Creed. This game is just not doing that.

• 39:44Jason Schreier?

  But, but in Mirage, they barely touched it, from what I remember. So that's what I mean by the last couple of games that they haven't, they've been kind of scaled back.

• 39:52Kirk Hamilton?

  Oh, yeah, sure. My point is just like, they are clearly moving, they appear to have moved back in the direction of almost no modern day stuff.

• 39:59Jason Schreier?

  Um, I want to share something real quick, just kind of putting, so, so one thing we should talk about real quick in the last couple of minutes is just Ubisoft in general. A lot of people have been looking at this game because Ubisoft has been through some pretty high profile financial troubles over the last couple of years. There are a lot of questions about their future as a company. Latest reporting from Bloomberg, from my colleagues, not from me, but from Bloomberg is that they're planning on like, creating this new entity with outside investment that would license out their franchises and it's, it's a whole thing. It's going to be very interesting to see. And a lot of people have been looking at this game to see how it does. And also, this game has become such a flashpoint for like, the chuds of the world, that it's become a big question of like, are you gonna go broke because, because you have a black

• 40:42Jason Schreier?

  person in your game and therefore you're woke? I got an email, someone sent me an email from Mark Alexicote, I hope I'm pronouncing that right, who is the Vice President and Executive Bruce for Assassin's Creed. And he said that this was, I believe, after launch weekend, or just past the end of launch weekend. He said that Shadows had the second highest day one sales revenue in the franchise's history behind only Valhalla. And Valhalla, of course, was a console launch game and came during COVID, so kind of an anomaly in the series. So it's doing pretty well. Remains to be seen if that'll hold up, like how the tale will be. Seems like word of mouth is pretty good, so I would think it would be do pretty, do pretty well.

• 41:24Jason Schreier?

  So, um, once again, my kind of ongoing, uh, uh, theory that there's zero correlation between DEI and sales of a game in either direction holds strong.

• 41:35Speaker 02

  Is the game good is an important question.

• 41:37Kirk Hamilton?

  It's almost like that's more important.

• 41:39Jason Schreier?

  It's almost like 99% of players just do not care about what skin color they're playing as, only that a game is good.

• 41:46Speaker 02

  If it's an interesting game with a good story.

• 41:48Jason Schreier?

  Yes, and there will be no backlash to, yeah, it's, it's so.

• 41:51Speaker 02

  And I know we also talked about Star Wars Outlaws a lot on the show, and I know, I know that's not the same people, but I was thinking about it a lot and playing this in terms of scope and like, oh, is this game trying to do too many things? Because I know a lot is riding on this game. There's a lot of pressure on Ubisoft developers right now to make a hit. And there was a lot, I mean, that was like every sales call they had after Star Wars Outlaws was about how nervous they were. And I don't feel that way about this game. I feel like they chose some really specific things to do and they did them. And I like the things they chose to do. So that was kind of a relief, honestly.

• 42:24Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, it's worth noting. So something that specifically said is that because Outlaws launched in kind of a not ideal shape, it had some bugs, it had some issues, they chose to give Shadows more time. And from what I've heard behind the scenes, I mean, if they had tried to launch this in November, as they originally planned, it would have been rough. It would have been a really rocky launch from a glitches, bugs perspective, polish perspective. Like, these extra few months were really, really important for polish, from what I've heard.

• 42:52Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I've, I've been comparing it to Outlaws as well, just because that game eventually got a lot better. It became more polished. They added a lot of new systems to it and overhauled some things that had bothered people. And it was that feeling of it missed its window, you know? Also, it didn't launch on Steam, which I think impacted the PC sales.

• 43:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure.

• 43:10Kirk Hamilton?

  And there was just that feeling like, is it okay to come back to Outlaws now? I still see people asking this question. Hey, is it time? And yeah, I'd say it is. But then again, I went back to it and it's, I think it's a pretty fun game. I really kind of like it. I think it's well made. But at the same time, you know, the gunplay is like a little weird. There, there's, the stealth is like kind of half-baked. And so there's still the feeling that it's not totally sure what it's doing, as much as it is a fun game and a great Star Wars simulator. This game does not feel that way. First off, this game is polished as hell. I mean, I've definitely run into some bugs, but it, it runs great. Like I said, the animations are crazy cool. It's beautiful. Like we've mentioned, I mean, on a, I'm playing on like an OLED monitor with HDR. And holy shit.

• 43:54Speaker 02

  I bet, yeah.

• 43:55Kirk Hamilton?

  The seasons change in this game, which is something we haven't mentioned, but is very cool and not something that happens in many open world games.

• 44:01Jason Schreier?

  I didn't know that. That's awesome.

• 44:02Speaker 02

  Oh, you're gonna see it.

• 44:04Jason Schreier?

  It's like a, based on a real, like, time calendar?

• 44:06Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, there's a whole seasonal change system. It's tied in with the scouts and time passes. I think winter doesn't happen as often because winter actually has like significantly different mechanics. There's snow everywhere. I think sound works differently. The stealth in this game is like, there's sound and visibility. You can wait until night when it's raining to sneak in and then no one can hear you. There's all kinds of stuff like that. They need to add a wait button, by the way. I think they probably will, where you can wait until a certain time of night. Cause I'll wanna sneak in at night, but it's morning.

• 44:34Speaker 02

  You gotta sit in a fire for a while. Play your Acarino.

• 44:36Kirk Hamilton?

  Something like that. But anyways, yeah, the game is really polished, really beautiful looking. Play is great. The combat is super fun. I always, I can never quite remember what the combat felt like in the last one of these, but this parry-based combat, it's very good. I mean, I have a really great time.

• 44:52Speaker 02

  I mean, it reminds me of Origins. I am the person that I am. It reminds you of my favorite one. This is why I like this one is because it has all the AC Origins feel to it. It just feels good.

• 45:04Kirk Hamilton?

  So, you know, it's a really polished, beautiful game. I'm not surprised it's doing well. That's good to hear, though. I mean, it deserves to do well. It's a good game. Nice. Well, that'll do it, I guess, for this conversation of Shadows. I'm certainly gonna play more. I share your current obsession, Jason, and I'm probably gonna get back to that as well. But it's a nice palate cleanser. It's a game I'll probably be playing for the rest of the year. And I'm at least really enjoying it. So, yeah.

• 45:26Jason Schreier?

  Matty, when you're, you're gonna start texting us soon. Just wait.

• 45:29Speaker 02

  I haven't started playing this game that my two co-hosts are talking about. So I've been having no trouble playing Assassin's Creed Shadows. And I'm a little scared to play anything else.

• 45:40Jason Schreier?

  Don't, don't start it until you're ready for your life to change.

• 45:44Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 45:45Kirk Hamilton?

  All right, let's do, uh, let's take a little break, talk about Max Fun Drive, and then we will be back with one more thing.

• 45:53Kirk Hamilton?

  All right, so it is still Max Fun Drive. It's the second week. It runs through the end of the week, which means if you're listening to this, you've got one more day for all of this stuff.

• 46:01Speaker 02

  Hurry!

• 46:01Kirk Hamilton?

  Thanks so much to everybody who's already upgraded or become a $10 member to support us and to support the network, because we really appreciate you. And also, if you did that, you get a really, a really cool pin, at the very least. So we are, of course-

• 46:19Speaker 02

  It is really good.

• 46:20Kirk Hamilton?

  We are, of course, a totally listener-supported show. We say this all the time. You all know this. We can probably keep this kind of short. But Max Fun Drive is the best time to upgrade, because if you do, or if you join and become a member, you get these, you know, limited-time prizes. The best, of course, being the $10 a month prize, which is the lowercase g gamer pin, designed by Tom DJ, of course, who made our show art. And fun fact, made the show art for Strong Songs as well. Tom is the best, and he made a really great... It's like a little riff on the TripleClick logo, really.

• 46:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, which he also designed. It's perfect.

• 46:53Kirk Hamilton?

  Yes.

• 46:53Speaker 02

  It's great.

• 46:54Kirk Hamilton?

  It's perfect. It's really great. But if you go to $20 a month, you get like a towel and a bucket hat. They're kind of doing a spring break theme, so you get some good Max Fun stuff. It's, yeah, that Lisa Frank-

• 47:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's Lisa Frank-themed. It's really good.

• 47:07Kirk Hamilton?

  Rainbows and unicorns, super good. 35, you get a cooler bag, which everybody needs a cooler bag. You're gonna go buy some stuff at the grocery store that you need to keep cool. Whenever I get ice cream at the grocery store.

• 47:18Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 47:18Kirk Hamilton?

  Gotta put it in a cooler bag.

• 47:19Speaker 02

  Or if you're taking a picnic, come on, gotta have a cooler bag.

• 47:22Kirk Hamilton?

  True, if you're taking a picnic, it's about to be summer.

• 47:25Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 47:25Kirk Hamilton?

  So anyways, yeah, that's, uh, those are the rewards. But the real reward is that you get to help a cool thing continue to exist.

• 47:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:33Kirk Hamilton?

  And by a cool thing, maybe I'm referring to TripleClick, but maybe I'm referring to Maximum Fun. Why not both?

• 47:38Speaker 02

  Why not both?

• 47:39Kirk Hamilton?

  You're helping both of these things exist, and, and we really appreciate it. So yeah, we're gonna do our stream tonight. That'll be our other Max Fun Drive activity. That'll be super fun. I hope you can all stop by and say hi. And yeah, that you think about becoming a member and supporting our show, because we really appreciate you all, and we, we really just do it with your support. So yeah, Max Fun Drive. Maximumfun.org/join is where you wanna go. There's a link in the show notes. You all know this already. All right, thanks, everybody. Let's get back to the show.

• 48:14Kirk Hamilton?

  And we are back for one more thing. Maddie, how about you go first?

• 48:18Speaker 02

  Okay, I watched a scary movie on the plane home from GDC and I really liked it and I want to recommend it. It's called Heretic and it stars Hugh Grant as a scary man. I really like Hugh Grant's late career pivot to just playing weird guys. Like, I think anytime you're like a rom-com man in your youth, when you get older, you should pivot to playing just weird guys and creepy guys because that just feels like more fun and interesting and nuanced. So, the premise of this movie, this is a movie that's like, kind of like a play. It's kind of like Ex Machina, not in terms of topic, but in terms of vibe, where it's like, characters go to a place and then

• 49:02Speaker 02

  a series of things happen at the place and it's more of a thriller and you're like, I don't know, this is creepy, creepy, creepy. And then something whack happens at the end, but is actually legit scary and then the movie's over. It's that kind of vibe. But this time, instead of being about a commentary on the tech industry, it's about religion and whether or not God is real. So Hugh Grant, his character, has lured these two young women who are Mormons, they're missionaries, to his home because he just has some questions for them. And that's like, the premise and then it just goes from there. They quickly realize that he's not going to let them leave and from

• 49:44Speaker 02

  that point on, it just plays out like a kind of locked room horror movie where he's got this like, whole puzzle box set up that they can't escape. And like, the machinations of the puzzle box, I don't really personally think are that interesting, but I think the religious debates that happen in the movie were really interesting. The two actresses who play those characters, Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East, both grew up Mormon and they brought their own experiences to the role. And Hugh Grant said that he brought some of the like, Christopher Hitchens atheist vibe to his role, which I thought was fascinating because he plays it like, pitch perfect, like, the worst guy, but also like- Makes good points and you're like, okay, he's kind of right about some of this,

• 50:28Speaker 02

  but he did kidnap these two women. I don't know. It's, it's really a fascinating movie. Those are the best villains. Yes, genuinely, yes. And you get to the end of the movie and like, obviously you hate him for doing all this, but you're also like, he did kind of make some decent points about Christianity, though. And like, I don't know. And like, it just leaves you thinking. And, and I really enjoyed reading about the movie after the fact and reading all the theories about it. And there's a couple of really good interviews on polygon.com, a website with the directors that I thought were really fascinating as well. Maybe we can link those in the show notes because I was like, these guys really thought about this one. So if you like religious debates and like a slow burn horror movie, that's not like a jump scare style thing.

• 51:10Speaker 02

  It's more just like, are these women going to be able to get out of here? Kind of a style thing, then you'll, you'll dig it. It's called Heretic and it's good. It's a good movie.

• 51:21Kirk Hamilton?

  Nice. I will go next. My one more thing is a podcast that I listened to a little while ago that I really enjoyed. I've been traveling and, and playing blueprints and I don't know, reading, reading the murder bot books. So like, I don't have a ton of new things to share, but this was a really great podcast episode that I just wanted to get on people's radar. It's an episode of Search Engine, a podcast that we've talked about on the show before. This is PJ Vogt and Shruthi Panamanian's new ish show, though I guess it's like three years old at this point or something. And it's an interview that PJ did with Ira Glass, the producer and, and, you know, showrunner of This American Life about it's, well, it's kind of about life and kind of about work and kind of about having kids or not having kids.

• 52:04Kirk Hamilton?

  It's, those are the three big points of the conversation, but really it's sort of just Ira Glass talking about his life. The question is, is it okay to just work all the time? Because the premise of Search Engine, which like PJ sort of loosely sticks to, but it's like a little bit, just an excuse to talk about things. But the premise is that he is going to act as a search engine. So you can ask a question and then he'll try to find the answer to it. And the question here is, is it okay to just work all the time? And he's kind of interrogating the way that if you love what you do, which I think I'm sure some of our listeners can relate to, I certainly can relate to, especially when you're younger, you feel like, oh, I'm going to just do this all the time and it's going to be all I do with my life. And that sometimes older people, and especially people with kids will say to you,

• 52:45Kirk Hamilton?

  well, you're not always going to feel that way, you know, like at some point you're going to value other things. PJ does not have kids, but is now in a relationship with someone who does. So he has sort of now has children in his life. Ira Glass also, I actually think he's actually in a similar situation, which I didn't know. I didn't actually know anything about Ira Glass. So we thought you'd have Ira on as this kind of titan of radio and this very successful, creative person to just have a conversation about those kinds of things. And it's really great. I mean, it's just a super interesting conversation, mostly just because Ira Glass is a fascinating guy. I, you know, I feel like I know him because I know his voice so well and I've listened to A Lot of This American Life and I'm very familiar with Ira Glass. But actually, he is a consummate reporter.

• 53:29Kirk Hamilton?

  He really kind of keeps himself out of the stories. You don't really know that much about him because why would you need to? He's just telling you someone else's story. So I thought this was a really interesting conversation, mostly because of him. He's a real, he's a real realist, I guess. There are these times where he'll say stuff about, I don't know, how his legacy doesn't matter. They get into a whole thing about, well, you know, what do you think about what you're leaving behind? And Ira's just like, it doesn't matter. Like, literally, it doesn't matter. New people are just going to make stuff. What I'm making is what I'm making now, but it's just not a big deal. And then PJ says something along the lines of, oh, that, so, you know, you'll like get out of the way and make room for people. And Ira's like, no, you're dressing it up. Like, you're making it sound like I'm doing something noble. It just doesn't matter. Like, he's much more kind of realist and kind of, not cynical, but just hard about

• 54:14Kirk Hamilton?

  it than even PJ is, who kind of wants to dress things up. And I found that just to be refreshing and interesting. And, uh, yeah, so it's a great, a great conversation with, uh, you know, a real titan of the field of podcasting and radio. So I really recommend it.

• 54:29Jason Schreier?

  I think radio people tend to look at things a little more ephemeral than, say, I don't know, print journalists.

• 54:35Kirk Hamilton?

  They talk about that. They get into it where Ira started out making this show on the radio where there was not really an archive and there was no way for people to listen to it. So they just didn't think about it as something that would be a legacy, you know, that you would build up, the way that when we got into podcasting, you already thought of it as like, oh, well, there's going to be this really easily accessible digital archive of everything that I've done. Like, I certainly think of Strawn Songs that way. It's like one great body of work that I'm slowly building. But yeah, right. If you were making radio in the 90s, you know, whatever, like it went out, maybe someone, some freak recorded it somewhere and it's like on tape, but like, you know, we have the masters, but like, who's gonna want to listen to this?

• 55:11Jason Schreier?

  Much harder to find stuff and cancel you from back then.

• 55:15Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah. So Ira definitely kind of had to undergo that, that metamorphosis over the course of his career, which they talk about and is also really interesting to think about. So anyways, it's a great, a great conversation of a very good podcast. So yeah, I hope some people like it. All right, Jason, what is your one more thing?

• 55:32Jason Schreier?

  So on my flights to and from GDC, I read four books, all of them thriller books. All were kind of, eh, none of them were particularly great, but I thought I would share one because at least had an interesting premise. So one of the more recent books I read is called Vantage Point by Sarah Slighar. I hope I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that right. But it is a book about kind of a Kennedy family stand-in, a very wealthy family in, in the northeast of the country in Maine, who have an island and have a compound on the island and their

• 56:17Jason Schreier?

  family is cursed and many of them get into awful situations. Things go awry for them. And the book centers on three main characters. One is the scion of the Whelan, they're called, the Whelan family, Teddy Whelan, who is running for senate. The second character is his wife, who came from a very poor background. And the third character is his sister, who has some, some issues, some struggles, some, an eating disorder and some other kind of mental health issues that she is reckoning with. And Teddy and Clara, who is his sister, their parents died when they were young, so that has been haunting them. And the kind

• 57:00Jason Schreier?

  of, the, the, what happens is, the kind of inciting incident is that a sex tape of Clara is leaked onto the internet. And Clara watches it and she's like, I don't remember this ever happening.

• 57:17Jason Schreier?

  Of course, she was a party girl, so it could be that she like blacked out and had a was on drugs at the time. And that's one of what becomes multiple videos and they wind up disrupting the this family's lives and the especially the Senate campaign of Teddy, because he is like involved in this this heavy political campaign. And the rest of the book is dedicated to unraveling the characters' relationships, literally unraveling, and also what is actually going on here and the kind of the source, who who is distributing these videos, where are they coming from, etc., etc. And it's an interesting book. I mean, I wasn't a big fan of the way it ended for reasons that are a little too spoilery.

• 58:01Jason Schreier?

  But basically, some of the character kind of massive swings in character personalities kind of came out of nowhere for me a little bit, but it was enjoyable to read and it's always fun to read about an ultra wealthy cursed family in New England that just tragedies happen to.

• 58:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is one of your favorite topics.

• 58:23Jason Schreier?

  It's a real donor, apparently.

• 58:24Speaker 02

  Cursed rich families.

• 58:25Jason Schreier?

  Cursed rich families, yeah, just like the root trees, right?

• 58:27Speaker 02

  I mean, it's a good, it's a good topic. There's a reason there's so much fiction about it.

• 58:31Jason Schreier?

  And there's a lot of just like a lot of fertile ground to dig into when you're talking about a lot of pathos involved in rich families and their legacies and their curses and what it does to people. And it's always interesting.

• 58:47Kirk Hamilton?

  I mean, what is America but the ultimate cursed rich family?

• 58:50Jason Schreier?

  It's true. It's true. It's true. And the dynamics, I'm always, I'm always fascinated by dynamics of like people who aren't accustomed to money then kind of getting into it.

• 58:59Speaker 02

  In the situation with these people who are, yeah, that's always interesting to to have a couple of those.

• 59:05Jason Schreier?

  Last year's Long Island Compromise is a much better dissection of a rich family, but this is fun and it's a fun thriller. I wouldn't like not recommend it. Just be prepared for a little bit of an underwhelming or at least kind of confusing

• 59:18Jason Schreier?

  ending at the end. Yeah, just if you're curious, if you want to hear some of the other thrillers that I read just in names, I won't actually, I won't do like a Kirk and like do a four more thing, but I will.

• 59:30Kirk Hamilton?

  Oh, come on. You can't indict me while about to, you're about to do the thing that I do. Say the books, tell people the books. They want to hear it.

• 59:37Jason Schreier?

  One was You Are Fatally Invited by Andy Plego. Man, not, not great. Another was Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell. This one was actually really good, but I already shouted out Lisa Jewell a couple of weeks ago. She was the thriller writer I mentioned who like was killer, wrote these killer two books. This one was really good, actually. And then the third one is The Author's Guide to Murder, which is by Beatrice Williams, Lauren Willig, and Karen White. And that was also meh.

• 1:00:06Speaker 02

  Three writers.

• 1:00:08Jason Schreier?

  Three writers, yeah. And it's, it's a book about three writers.

• 1:00:12Speaker 02

  Oh, I got it.

• 1:00:13Jason Schreier?

  Are all murder writer, like thriller, crime writers. And it was, it was not, not great. But yeah, vintage point. Fun, fun book.

• 1:00:24Kirk Hamilton?

  Nice. I just got Long Island Compromise in Libby in the library.

• 1:00:29Speaker 02

  Oh, cool.

• 1:00:29Kirk Hamilton?

  But also I got.

• 1:00:30Jason Schreier?

  You're gonna love it.

• 1:00:31Kirk Hamilton?

  I have like 13 books currently on my Kindle from Libby.

• 1:00:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:00:36Kirk Hamilton?

  I just took it offline and I'm like, okay, I think I'm good for maybe the rest of the year.

• 1:00:40Speaker 02

  I also have a lot of books that have been recommended by the two of you that are just downloaded. And maybe someday I'll read them. It's, it's a thing. It's a thing.

• 1:00:50Jason Schreier?

  Is there a time limit for your library books on Libby the way there is in a, as a physical library?

• 1:00:55Kirk Hamilton?

  Well, not if you do the, the classic Libby Kindle trick where you put it on your Kindle and then you put your Kindle in airplane mode. And then it gets returned from your account. So the next person can check it out, but it stays on your Kindle. So you can keep reading.

• 1:01:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's a classic trick. Everyone knows.

• 1:01:10Kirk Hamilton?

  It is, I think, or I would, I would assume.

• 1:01:12Speaker 02

  I don't know. I'd never heard of this before, but it's a great trick.

• 1:01:14Kirk Hamilton?

  Maybe some more people know it now. It's a good trick. Amazon, if you're listening, don't, don't change that. Don't patch that out.

• 1:01:21Speaker 02

  I don't know that they can. I think that would be very hard to patch out.

• 1:01:25Kirk Hamilton?

  It would be a real bummer.

• 1:01:26Jason Schreier?

  Well, they would, they would make it so you have to like check in every

• 1:01:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, they'd make it so it's always online, like Diablo 3, and it was constantly ping in your Kindle.

• 1:01:34Kirk Hamilton?

  You don't need to tell them how to do it. They're not gonna do it. So it's not possible. You can't do it. Forget it.

• 1:01:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, we never talked about it.

• 1:01:39Kirk Hamilton?

  Anyways, books are cool. Triple Click is a good podcast. Thank you so much for being members. Hope to see some of you at the stream.

• 1:01:47Jason Schreier?

  Kirk is just gonna censor that entire conversation.

• 1:01:50Kirk Hamilton?

  And, you know, it's Max Fun Drive. You got a couple more days.

• 1:01:54Speaker 02

  So true.

• 1:01:55Kirk Hamilton?

  And then there'll be a PIN sale, so you can still buy the PIN. But, you know, right now, think about becoming a member.

• 1:01:59Speaker 02

  Please.

• 1:01:59Kirk Hamilton?

  Think about supporting our show.

• 1:02:01Jason Schreier?

  And if you work for Libby, earmuffs, don't listen.

• 1:02:04Kirk Hamilton?

  No, Libby is cool. If you work for Amazon.

• 1:02:06Speaker 02

  Consider becoming a member, you know? Consider becoming a member of Max Fun and supporting us, I would say. That's what I say to them.

• 1:02:12Kirk Hamilton?

  Books are good. All right, that'll do it. This was fun. And yeah, I'll see the two of you next week.

• 1:02:18Jason Schreier?

  See you next week.

• 1:02:19Speaker 02

  Bye.

• 1:02:23Kirk Hamilton?

  Triple Click 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. Triple Click 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.

• 1:03:21Speaker 03

  Maximum Fun, a worker-owned network

• 1:03:23Speaker 04

  of artist-owned shows

• 1:03:25Speaker 03

  supported directly by you.