Game Awards Hype, Clair Obscur's Big Win, and Disney's AI Deal | Games For Breakfast

[music] GOOD MORNING, MATT.
AH, GOOD MORNING, WILL.
GOOD MORNING TO ALL OF YOU.
WELCOME TO GAMES FOR BREAKFAST, THE ONLY INTERNET TALK SHOW WE TALK ABOUT THIS WEEK'S gaming and tech news, but that also this just in was the hype before Christmas when all through the net, all the creatures were stirring, even muppets. The trailers were prepped in high bit rate with care in hopes that Jeff Keelley would soon all be there. The games was were the gamers were all nestled in many Discord threads while visions of world premiieres played in their heads. And Will and his Keerigi and I and my cap had just started streaming what we hoped wasn't crap. When out of the stage arose such a clatter, I sprang from my headset to see what was the matter. Away to the Windows 11, I threw like a flash to see how many companies began to burn cash. Jeff sprang to his feet. Flute guy gave a whistle and before we all knew it, the gamers were bristled. But I heard him exclaim as he logged off that night, "Happy Elg Game Awards to all." And

Highguard's all right. Good morning to the last breakfast of the year, our holiday special. Two notes. One, I know I butchered that. Two, I wrote that in roughly 3 minutes.
He did. I actually I gave him the idea and then watched him write it. It was great. It was awesome. So, Cold Reed, clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose. Happy holidays, everybody. Welcome to the last games for breakfast in 2025. Of course, after this, we do know that you will individually be eating breakfast and playing games, possibly at the same time until the end of the year. It's just sadly your two internet dads won't be there with you, at least not like this. In spirit, of course. You can always look and pretend that we're there. We actually uh the the real reason that we go on uh holiday break here at Extra Credits is so that Matt and I can engage in our yearly holiday tradition of dawning sort of weird sackloth looking robes and grabbing

chains and haunting people in the gaming industry who have done bad things this year. And boy are we busy. Boy,
our list is huge,
right? Yeah, we're Marley and Marley. [laughter]
All right. Anyway,
well, thank you all for coming. Uh, please I hope you have a a warm beverage. I Oh, uh, another This is very important news, Will, before we get into the actual news. So, I broke my French press
again.
Um, again, um, uh, it fell this time from an inch to a lower inch and it shattered. Uh, but the good city of New York, uh, New York City as some people call it, uh, both taketh away and giveth. I found and washed another French press on the street. Um, there's just stuff out there. Like people are like, have a box that says free stuff and there was a French press. So, this is a regifted French press run through the dishwasher like twice. BUT NOW I

HAVE IT. I just thought I'd share in this spirit of the Holland. H Brad Janet,
that's horrifying, by the way. Just what I [clears throat] I don't know. It just like the way you introduced that is I found Edwashed. I washed it. Don't worry about it. Oh, yeah.
Like Yeah. Right. Okay. It's fine. Can it ever really be clean?
I guess. Yes. It's glass, right?
It's not like a porous material. If it was a porous material, we might have more concerns. But
but boy oh boy, are we going to see if it makes a good cup of coffee? I have no idea. [laughter]
Hold on. It's the French press distribution system.
And this is why you are the best chat in the business.
Yeah, true.
I'm excited. I'm excited for the show today. I'm excited to go over I'm excited to distill uh the three and a half plus hours of madness that we did on Thursday into a digestible cool hour

and 15 minutes.
Yeah. Uh, so if you missed it, the VA is still up, albeit lar there are multiple sections that are missing sound and one section that's missing completely in order to comply with our copyright overlords because despite the Game Awards being a thing where they encourage co-streaming as like a part of the way that the Game Awards works, they just get muted all over the place on every co-streaming service. There's no like carve out, so you have to go in and resolve like more than a half dozen. Anyway, I don't know. It's just it's there if you want to watch it. And the bingo is still up. So, if you haven't seen the game awards yet and you want to play Game Awards bingo, the Game Awards bingo is still linked in the description so you can make your bingo card and play along after the fact.
Comment on it when you get bingo, by the way. That's required with a time code.
So, update on the coffee. Uh, I just tried it and it was so hot that now I can't taste anything.
Amazing.

Ow. [laughter]
Okay. All right. Uh, Matt, to get that burning taste out of your mouth, would you like to talk about something else that was burning?
I sure would, Will.
That guy in the trailer was That was gross.
There was a lot of burning. So So we're going to kind of go back and forth. Will, did you just sort of ping pong these for our picks? Is that what
Yeah, there the the orderer is in the dock.
So, okay, great. Um, essentially, um Oh, look at that. You updated. You're so good. Um, we're going to kind of talk back and forth about the things that we really really dug about the game awards or or things that we questioned, etc. The first of which, of course, is uh this insanely disgusting trailer for Divinity. Now, I am I have not played uh the other Divinity titles from uh Lyen before. I do not know much about them. I know they are beloved. Uh this trailer and the uh you know demonic statue in the desert, which I'm I'm a sucker for a

good piece of uh corporate art that is also a mystery box. Um especially when it is themed like it came from hell. But um the trailer itself was so brutal and gross. Uh I was actually shocked. I mean, I guess because it's on the internet, you can do whatever you want. They gave us warnings for both violence and uh seizure warnings uh for the show, which I did actually appreciate they put up. Um this game looks dark as hell and like what if all the darkness of Balders's Gate 3, but then they just took every last chain off and we're like, nah, here have this insane pile of corpses that is also kind of like a burning effigy of a man. I don't know. But what I do know is I'm excited for Divinity for the first time due to this trailer's insanity and Larry's pedigree and the amount of hours that I've dumped into Balders's Gate 3.
Yeah. Like I I if there's a company that's going to do it and do it well and also not pull any punches in a space like this, I think Larian's it.
Yeah. No, I agree.

Yeah.
Um here's here's my question though because I am not actually sure. Uh because again, is this going to be because there's Divinity 2? Is this Divinity 3?
So did the Divinity games are weirdly named? I looked this up cuz I wanted to understand why like everyone was excited about. So that guy that got lit on fire was um a specific character from the Divinity series. Not a random dude, specific named character from the Divinity series. So, there's like weird amounts of backstopping in a bunch of games that are not necessarily numbered, but are all named Divinity. So, unknown, but this is also like not a sequential like one, two, three.
Okay,
well, that's fine. Uh, and regardless, don't worry. Oopsie. We're not going to be spoiling any Balders Gate 3 except you're probably going to love it. Um, yeah. I don't know. I I was glad that the statue was this and not a Diablo thing. I know there was a Diablo announcement and I know that people

still like Diablo. I've just fallen off the Diablo train. So,
yeah.
Yeah. I don't know. I feel like this was my first call out of like the second I saw the Larian logo, I was like, "Ah, yes, it begins with their own IP." And that's really nice to see as well.
Yeah. Um, this is a fun sentence I never expected. I loved Will's reaction to the melting flesh. [snorts] It's whatever, man. Like at this point, like we should probably address more in full and this is probably the right place to do it. The first hour of the Game Awards was soaked in blood. Like they went like all out on like blood and gore and just like it was very much like a violence spectacle for a fair amount of it. Yeah.
Um, which is not my bag like at all. Like some like Okay,

for its own sake, it's not really my bag. Like, if it makes sense and like helps with the world, that kind of makes sense. Like, weirdly, Elden Ring does a pretty good job of it because it like sells you like how wrong the world is, right? The gore in Elden Ring is offset as well by like they they don't it's not like it languishes in just the gore. That game languishes in everything like it so like everything is like elongated and and dramatic and and lengthy and so when it gets to a gory part you're like oh yes of course but the rest of the world feels like like
the design of multiple things in that game feel like the same level of care was there. not just like, oh, we really got to hammer on the gore to make it stick,
right? Yeah. So, um not not a huge fan. Uh but, you know, is what it is. Uh which is why my first pick of the Game Awards is obviously uh this completely unhinged trailer uh for Bradley the Badger.

Um I'm so excited because this is the first trailer that instead of making me go make me go, "Huh? Huh?" All right. I'm buying this game. I'm playing this game. This game looks amazing. I am very excited for this cross genre weird like fourth wall bending and snapping badger related extravaganza. Um, I will be playing this on stream. I am looking forward to it. I am aware of it. Please look forward to it. It's going to be great.
I'm I'm purposely not looking up much of anything about it. I will just play this game. Uh because I feel like like learning exactly what it's doing will be kind of uh too much of a spoiler in and of itself. I I so enjoyed seeing this. It was such a breath of fresh air just to sort of watch. And uh yeah, I think this is a perfect streaming game.
And I like um I I am a big fan of t people taking new shots at mascot

platformers.
Yes.
Right. Like I'm still waiting on um I don't think it's out yet. I don't think I missed it. Deno from last year's Game Awards. Still waiting on that. Uh it's Yeah, it's a like a legally not Crash Bandicoot style. Um and this looks like a very interesting style. So
yeah.
Uh yeah. Yeah, that's a very good way of putting it. It's big Wreck-It Ralph vibes. Agreed.
Uh okay, Matt, your next one was this one. Leon Leon is back, baby. Uh, and looking grizzled and and uh and distinguished as ever. I was already excited for Resident Evil 9. Um, I love that they kind of held not only that Leon is in it and a playable character, but they are going back to, which they haven't done in a little bit, the multiple like the two main characters going through the game. Now, I just recently beat the Leon version of Resident Evil 2 remake. I'm going to go back and do Claire. Um, but

uh those games I always really appreciated that you learned different story bits, but they overall those games they mechanically felt like the characters were the same. You're just getting different stories, right? Um, I'm really excited in the announcement for this that they said at the Game Awards that each like you play the game through as each character, but Leon is very combat focused and um um not Claire. Why? Claire's obviously Claire Redfield.
What was it?
Grace.
No, Grace. Thank you so much. Uh, then Grace is more like survival horror sneaking like, you know, I just I like that there's sort of you're going to be able to experience the game in two different ways. Also, there was a leak on either a Steam page or somewhere else that had like the tags for this game, and it did say something about VR. And if the other Resident Evil 7s and eights are anything to go by, um, they are

phenomenal, phenomenal, phenomenal examples of how to use VR and do VR well. Uh, I'm playing through four in VR right now and it's one of my favorite video game experiences I've ever had. And so, if I can do that in this game as well, that would be absolute chef's kiss. So, I'm hoping that comes through. Um, and Grace is the child from Resident Evil 8. I was wondering that, Mila. I I I thought so. I thought that was going to be kind of the the continuation here. And I'm curious how Leon gets the lore of these games. Like even at the end of Resident Evil, actually I don't want to give any spoils for Resident Evil 8, but there's other returning characters that come back and it's odd how they do. Um
yeah,
cool. Cool. Uh my next one,
Larky, real quick, you are correct. It does more than different perspectives. It it the remake pulls back, but nei Yeah. It's not a completely different genre of experience, right?
Yeah.
Um
and and and yes, Resident Evil has deep and abiding lore. There is a lore bible for Resident Evil. It just much like a

lot of Okay. Lots of games have coherent lore. It's just not important to most players, so it never comes up, right? Like,
sure,
Smash has lore. It's not very deep lore, but it is very coherent lore. It is lore that is like very onbrand and like there's a point to it, right?
Well, Master Hand being
It's all master's fault. Yeah, that's it. It's essentially it. Um, and so like it it really depends on whether or not people care enough to look into it, right? It's kind of like how Kirby gets away with being an Eldrich abomination. Uh, and also very cute. Little cute, Kirby.
Yeah.
Yeah. Uh, okay. Next up on my list was another series, long absent from the screen, now returning.
I have
the Blue Bomber.

Yeah. I have not I have not been a person who's played a lot of Mega Man. I like the concept of Mega Man, but I don't like a lot of the OG Mega Man graphics. [snorts]
What do you mean OG Mega Man graphics? Like like the old style of like sidescroller pixel art Mega Man games that a lot of people Not a fan.
Not a fan.
How dare you?
Not a fan. There's nothing wrong with them. I just don't like them. Uh and so getting a new highde Mega Man game might be interesting for me. Um so I'm kind of excited for that. I'm also excited because I saw a lot of other people being excited about Mega Man, right? Like I'm excited to see the fans pop off or absolutely shred this because there is no in between, right? It will either be the best thing ever or an absolute abomination which completely uh disservices the entire memory of Mega Man. You've killed it. How dare you? And then they, you know, just go on a rampage.
Uh I love the It's funny. I I feel like

we're the polar opposite here. Um I absolutely love the old pixel art stuff. In fact, I think I fell off Mega Man post Super Nintendo style stuff. I know they've done like spiritual successors in similar styles and play through, but like there's something about the mechanical very sort of floaty nature uh of the first six I think Mega Man that were out. I uh I think there's six on the NES. I is that wrong? I know one through three. I know there's definitely there's a four. Y,
someone in chat, Brad or Janet, correct me. Um, but I fell off when it did start becoming 3D. Either 2D sides scrolling 3D or uh like full-blown 3D.
Yeah.
Um I I I so I feel like we might be the polar opposite of these proclivities, but I'm I'm curious how this one goes.
Yeah, it it'll be very interesting uh to see. But either way, I did see a lot of people who are far more knowledgeable Me

Mega Man than me, which is most people who have played Mega Man seriously. um get pretty excited about this. So, I'm glad for that. Uh and I'm I'm glad to glad to see it. All right. Uh next up on our list,
Tomb Raider.
I'm excited. Specifically, I'm excited for The Legacy of Atlantis and I'm less excited about the new adventure. And I don't know why that is. I was trying to figure this out. Um, I know that they are Larara Croft has had an interesting journey uh as a character and this is I feel like this version of Larara Croft is trying to hybridize everything about the character and Tomb Raider that people gravitate towards into sort of one Tomb Raider.
I'm curious if that's going to work out how they think it's going to. But the thing I am excited about is going back and playing the hopefully they don't change at all batshit crazy story of the

first Tomb Raider. Maybe the first three. I'm not quite sure how this one packages it together with modern controls. Um I know they did a re-release of them too, but like that that is fully modernized in a in a in a hopefully um complete remake fashion. Um, I really did like the previous Tomb Raiders. Um, the there's three of the sort of reboots versions. Um, I played the first two. I think I owned the third one and just never got around to it, so I kind of fell off of it. I didn't love the the overt brutality of a lot of it. Um, that always felt a little unhinged to me. there was a lot of violence. If you failed at things, very bad things happened to Lara.
Um, and didn't love that. But now hopefully this is coming back to being a bit more like
level of action silly that like an

Uncharted is,
you know what I mean?
Yeah.
Uh, so I'm I'm hopeful for this. And then if this goes well, then maybe I'll get excited again for whatever the new one is. I was a little confused at how the Game Awards presented these because it was clear that it was two different games, but it wasn't clear like what each one was and where the break was. Right.
Yeah. Yeah. That was that was a little confusing. I think they could have handled that trailer reveal itself a little better.
Yeah.
Uh interesting. Yeah. Okay. Uh next up, Order of the Sinking Star. This is a puzzle game and that's all I want people to know about it. That and it's by the same guy that bait breed. Um
and that's it. That's all I want to know. This is this looks like you can look up more information if you want. Order the sinking star. Absolutely looks like the tunic style experience that I would really love to have which is shut

up. Nobody say anything. I just want to play the game. I don't want to see another trailer. I don't want to hear any marketing hype. I don't I would like No. I If if you know what, whatever publisher is representing Order of the Sinking Star, if you're watching this, because you're obviously watching this,
if you want me to play this game on stream, great. Send me an email, will extra-credits.net with just a Steam key. Don't send me anything else. Be like, "Hey, Will, this is the publisher. Here's your Steam." That's it. That's all. I don't need you to sell me on the game. In fact, I need you to sell me less on the game. Just let me play the game. I'm very excited. Um, uh, I think that it's going to be really interesting. I also think it's going to be like a weird new puzzle take, which I think is good. Anyway, um, Matt, do you want to do you want to wax?
Yes. I was trying to I was trying to get what Duke was saying on here. Matt say, "Oh, oh, as high pitched as you can.

Oh, hi.
Is that right? Yeah.
Hello. I don't know what that is. Um, I sorry, just about this real quick. I immediately was not drawn to this game if it wasn't for the pedigree of of the folks making it.
Sure.
Right. Like I the the graphic style of it I actually didn't really love. And I'm curious how how much that will change upon playing it. I I also think that there's another element to this which we're not which isn't really obvious from the trailer.
Yeah.
Um and probably does need the most minor bit of explanation. I will be beyond shocked if what we saw in the Game Awards trailer is more than a third of the game,
right? Like, yeah,
this is a game that sets itself up it as, okay, so here's all these mechanics and here's this whole section and now the floors dropped out from under you. There's something different.
There's something weird. There's something new.

It's not what you thought it was because that is exactly what happened in Braid, right? By the way, if you've never played Braid, Braid is definitely one of the OGs that definitely holds up. You should play Braid. Um, it's a little Brain Bendy, but play Braid. It's good
indeed.
Um,
moving on to uh my game of the year 2026.
Yeah, Matt's very normal about this. [laughter] So, very normal.
Sorrowos, baby. Uh, look, anytime we see more from this game, I love that we uh saw the main actor. I love uh that we got a little bit more of the story going forward. I am so curious if and how at all and I don't think it does uh that it ties into anything Returnal. The gameplay of course is pure returnal but then like what if we had four more years in development. Um and I can I could not be more hyped for day one purchase of

this game. Um it did go up on pre-sale. I don't tend to pre- buy things, so I'm not going to. But like, if I were ever to break my rule, it would probably be for this game. Um,
what what by the way, what is the name of the game?
Oh, Sorrowos.
I thought I said it before. I thought I said Soros, baby. But maybe that was just too fast and furious.
Um,
family.
Yeah, I uh
What was that?
Family.
Yeah, family.
Family. Uh I just I Yeah, the demon just wants a hug, Survivor. That's really all it is.
The biggest hug. Yeah. Uh yeah, I I am genuinely interested in it. I at one point will actually play Returnal, but um keep being other things that take me away from the idea of playing Returnal, like running a Minecraft server or patchmiss in Final Fantasy 14. I just don't have enough time. Uh which is unfortunate. I have a secret hope that somehow the

civilizations in in Saros are actually related like and it happened like 200,000 years ago or something like that would be really cool.
Yeah.
Um but anything uh I I I am I am very very very very very very very very very pumped for this. Uh March, I think. So that's not terribly far away.
No, it is not. Uh, okay. Next up, uh, the what a game that is widely being acclaimed is probably the cutest game at the Game Awards. Free Shepard. Also, can we can we just take a moment to appreciate Matt's dedication here? We just
I did a lot of real bad Photoshop work.
Can we just take a moment to appreciate the number of Santa hats individually placed on on sheep heads here? Can we just real quick? Okay, great. Excellent. Um, Free Shepard is a game where you play as the best buffer. That's it. There there might be more plotline. I

don't care. It is another game where like I want to know less and simply want to give me the puppy game.
I wish I wish to play as a dog with a job. That's it. That's all. Also, I feel like it begins to lean into the sort of um say less more esoterica of like flower or absu
maybe
or flow, right? Like they are like it feel it feels like it's in that space of like this is a game that doesn't have a lot of words that is about the experience of playing rather than the need to like puzzle through and win it. And I think that I need one of those. In fact, I would go so far as to say I think most of us need one of those more than we probably realize um right now. And so Free Shepard looks uh great for that. I'm I'm very excited.
Agreed. I I I think it gave me Stray vibes.

Um though Stray did like lean a little into like a little bit more story and a little less of what we were just talking about. But yeah, still I like Stray a lot. Mhm. All right, time for Matt's weird cute game of the night.
Yeah, I was going to say time for the cutest game of the awards. I'll fight. Uh, [laughter] Coven of the Chicken Foot. Uh, this game.
I could not believe how much I I fell in love with sort of the whimsy and the art style and the little floaty grandma going through everything. Um, what was I going to say? This is um Yeah. So, this is um is Duckman doing this?
I don't think so.
It's It's The Last of Us and Uncharted 4 director.
I don't think that's
not Duckman. Um
I can't remember the gentleman's name all of a sudden, but like it's basically it's basically uh just such a different swing from the games that they've made in the past. And

uh I could not be more excited for it. I think having a a giant tree monster with a little Baba Yaga chickenfoot lady that you control. Um I don't know. It just feels absolutely lovely. The art style is so I don't know whimsical and unique feeling.
Um
it definitely feels like it's got Last Campfire energy. Last Campfire is the same is the game by Hello Games that they made in between releasing more free updates for No Man's Sky than is reasonable in any world except this one.
Um, and it's got the same kind of like, hey, this is a big studio and we did this cuz it's a passion project. We made it very cute and also prepare your feelings. You're going to get punched in them.
Yeah. Um, I I don't know. This one took me by by first. It's funny. I love it when a trailer starts and I'm like, eh, whatever. And then by the end of it, I was like, I this is my favorite thing now. Um, so
aka an effective and good trailer.
Yeah, a trailer that does its job.

Wow. Imagine doing your job. Well, I guess we should keep doing our job and talk about
Warhammer Total War 40k. Um, so first off, uh,
there were too many units here to put hats on, so I just put the hat on the UI.
That's That's fair. That's fine. Um, oh god, I was gonna bring up his name and now brain forgot actor
Cavl.
No, the one who introduced this.
Stranger Things.
Oh. Oh, Harbor.
Harper.
David Harbor.
Yeah. Um, was wearing an Inquisitor shirt, which I thought was really cool. Uh, and and then he was like, "Hey, by the way, I'm in this game and I love this game." And I love when all the like 40k nerds are like, "All right, great. I guess I get to talk about this now cuz now it's my job. LOOK AT ALL MY TINY FIGURINES I'VE PAINTED.
YEAH, I think I think um I think this game is going to be a a large part of uh

Extra Credit Studios 2026. Um I think I still have a dream of trying to get a full-blown like we all train everyone at the company who wants to be in a tournament. Like we train with this game for like a week and then we just go. Um
I think you're I think you're dreaming too small, Matt.
Yeah,
I think we get the whole Nebula crew in. [laughter]
We get the whole Nebula crew. There's a decent amount of Nebula folks who do uh Warhammer.
Yeah, I I just feel like that'd be great. And that that also excuses me so I don't have to play a grand strategy game. I just get to shot Call and be like the lore expert [laughter] or shoutcast and lore expert. Um, yeah. I think Okay, it's kind of weird. It is taking me a second to feel like this is correct. Even though these things go together like peanut butter and marshmallow fluff, it is kind of like the initial

like hm. I cannot tell you why. I think it's because I'm so used to like the Dawn of War setup for Warhammer like being the vibe, right? Even though this is like a one significant step further back from war uh from Dawn of War. Um and even though this obviously makes sense, it's a tabletop strategy game. Obviously, the grand strategy game company is going to make a grand strategy game for the tabletop strategy game. Like it just m it makes good sense, right? Um, it is taking me a second to like, huh, okay, I guess, sure. I don't know why, but
I'm in it. I'm I'm I'm here for it. I think it's because um I think it's because I love 40k and I'm not even remotely deep into the lore of it, but I've always kind But I also know that like I don't have time or money to like get into it like in a proper way.

Yeah. um where something like this as a game package, I can do that. And so I'm looking forward to sort of deep diving, uh through through this game.
Yeah.
Um and being able to connect with all my Warhammer nerds, uh who I know are so so so deep in the weeds that I smile and nod and I am excited for them.
If anyone ever says for the Emperor and doesn't do it, ironically, we've got problems. Yeah.
Um uh I I do I do want to bring this up. People are wondering if Dawn of War 4 and this will eat each other's lunch. I don't think so. I think um the difference between a an RTS and Grandstat are big enough that those are two different target markets. They are they share like similar original roots, but the differences between the two and the way that it works now, I think are far enough apart that like there's room to coexist. Some people will buy both. Some people will buy one. But I don't think someone's going to look at one of them and go, "Oh, I only have room for

one Warhammer game." That's not
Yeah. I don't think that's how it works.
Even if it's true, that's not how it works.
Yeah. Uh, okay. Next up, Matt, could you please talk to us about this? Okay. Matt does indeed have a Street Fighter Christmas uh sweater on. I believe that is enough to cement that he is our resident expert on this uh Street Fighter movie reveal.
I loved this so much. I love that the movie I love it when franchise films especially if there's like competing styles of things. We all know Mortal Kombat 2 is coming out and I've talked about that death to death uh coming out next year. That's taking a more serious tone. I don't want a Street Fighter movie that also takes a serious tone. I want a neon drenched uh comedy nightmare fuel film. And the trailer that I got here was Chef's Kiss. Um if they can

capture that energy throughout most of the movie, it will be phenomenal. What do you got, Will? I was gonna say, and if you think that it didn't do that, I would like any other explanation for the fact that there is a scene that is the bonus level where you smash car that's part of the trailer for no coherent reason. You don't need one. It's going to be phenomenal for that.
I I had such low hopes for this and I know there's like casting decisions people don't like. Cody Rhodess is Guy. I'm seeing Mila's saying in the chat, um, I look, I don't think that like I don't think there's going to be any non-comdy performances in this film that aren't also action related that are going to do anyone any favors. What I'm here for is taking going back and making the utmost kind of silliest thing you can because it's the opposite of a what you would

expect and b um I I believe the pedigree um I've got to remember this. I think this is actually from the director of I think you should leave um aka let me let me double check this but basically a comedy director if I'm not mistaken uh director oh the Eric Andre show sorry um so like there's a lot of chops here that I'm very excited to sort of see stretched into different things.
Yeah.
Uh also just as a general thing, anime you can have ask a question. WILL WE ANSWER IT? I DON'T KNOW. BUT IF YOU ASK IT, THAT'S GOING TO UP the chances,
right?
Um
uh I Okay, so and I want to I want to get to Williams. Yeah. Will the fighting be any good? Hold on.
What do you mean by good? So that's the like so so for instance
if the like

in the trailer alone we see even like you know what I I kind of love this is all good um edit work for trailers like we see guile um I forget the name of the move but the the spin kick the the thing where he
he kicks someone through a wall. You like to see that you see a couple different things. I love that like Jason Mamoa is also psyched to play Blanca which means it's going to be completely unhinged.
Um the fighting I think is going to be
impressive for the martial artists in the movie namely Ken and uh Ryu. Uh I think that uh possibly even Chun Lee as well. But like if and oftentimes films have different trailer editors than the actual editor for the film. But I was confident in the vibe. The the two V's of this trailer are vibes and violence. And I think that the way this was cut convinced me that if it is the same person or team doing the movie, even with people doing mediocre action, they

can make it feel heavy and good. Case in point, there's a there's a scene near the end of the trailer. I think it's Ken and Rayu uh Rayu teaming up where one person kicks someone and they start spinning and the other person kicks them the spinning person in the air into a wall. That is a silly thing. That is a thing that can't really happen in real life. In the moment of the trailer, it didn't feel floaty. It felt like it had weight and like actual momentum behind the action. And that's what I'm looking for when it comes to a certain when it comes to a fight scene. I don't care how fantastical it is. Um, again, we don't know. The movie could be hot garbo, but we won't know until we see it.
Right. I also think that like there is a specific kind of fan service which is required for fighting games which is they've got to show all the moves right like the iconic moves for each character like Zanief has to do the the Zanief pile driver thing right there's got to be a um there's got to be a Chunley hummingbird kick scene like we expect a certain level of like coherence and

adherence to the core like iconography flashkick yeah is another great example right
um also real I want I know this is kind of off topic, but I'm going to ping pong back and forth. Uh anime did ask about uh engines for a 3D cafe simulator, which is off topic, but because I called out saying that they can ask a question. Honestly, um in my opinion, again, very very limited. You could do either, but probably Unity. Jeff might know more on Thursday if you want to come back for design club.
Yeah. Uh Jeff's been working uh in Unity recently, but there are plenty of options in GDO and GDAU's got a lot of open source support. So, it really depends on like unhelpfully do what your heart tells you. The engine you're the most comfortable with is going to be better than the right engine that you're not comfortable with.
Yeah.
Right.
And then, sorry, I know we're we're we're ping ponging back here, but thank you for the question, anime. Uh, Walt, actually, I feel like you nailed it. You nailed what I want here. I feel like a Street Fighter movie for me needs to be

Big Trouble in Little China as if done by Jackie Chan. Yes.
Yes.
Correct. That is it.
Yeah. Mhm. Um, so yeah, I I don't know. I am hyped for this. I wasn't before at all and now I am again. Good trailer.
Yep. Absolutely. Uh, okay. And then the last one more thing. High guard.
She has the power.
Right. But
is that not a He-Man pose?
No, that's definitely a He-Man pose. There's like That's not a little bit a He-Man pose. That is the He-Man pose. Washboard abs included. So, okay,
let's
This isn't really on either Will and I's list, but it also the story that we're going to talk about isn't interesting.
It's kind of on my list.
It's kind of on my list, too. Like,
so there's some problems. So, number one, this comes out January 20. Okay, so let's first back up. Highguard is the

unannounced secret game by a new studio made up of exec made up of former uh folks from Apex and Titanfall. So, it's got Titanfall/Apex style very clean like freeer running movement. That's sort of a hallmark of that team. It was the one more thing reveal at the Game Awards. I at least in theory am intrigued by it because it looks like attack defend like bomb plant scenario allaha valorant or counter strike or siege but done with these very robust movement mechanics. It's far more acrobatic than any of those three which I do think is an interesting take on it. It's also got some things that look a little bit like a battle royale in it, but that also makes sense given that team. And then you start looking into it and

it's got like a whole bunch of like really nonsensical requirements for antiche and like I just stopped being excited immediately. But not for any of the reasons and we'll talk about them in a second that the internet stopped being excited about this about 30 seconds in.
Yeah. Let's talk about like our legitimate concerns about it and then go into the absolute ish show that seemed to happen after the fact. Um I when the trailer even started playing, go back and watch our stream of the game awards to to see this. I was um not really psyched about it. I thought it looked pretty bland until about halfway through the trailer when it started like showing I think in my opinion more interesting characters, more interesting actions d like it kept like it was building. I thought the beginning for half of the trailer was just sort of meh. And then the fact that it was uh basically essentially freeto play. Um I was like, "Oh, cool. I'll try it." Right. I I got kind of excited about the the sparrow aka turning into a spectral

horse and like the dude with the bear claws. I was like, "That looks kind of neat. Cool." I am looking for a hero shooter. Rivals just does not connect with me and I don't know why it seems so good. Um, but I miss my Overwatch days and I I liked Valerant, though I didn't get terribly into it and I incredibly trust the team that made Titanfall. So, like, let's go. Um, so and and I think this brings us to sort of what happened at the end and how everyone on under the freaking sun seemed mad that this was the last like announcement thing at the Game Awards. Namely because uh Jeff hyped it so hard before it came out and then it was just, you know, air quotes another looter shooter or not looter shooter, another hero shooter.
Yeah. Um, to that I say, dear internet, have you not been watching the Game Awards since their

inception?
Right. I don't
This is exactly what happens all the time. In fact, I would argue that the the coveted last spot right of this Jeff is equally excited no matter what it is. And he might look he could there's nothing wrong with being excited for this game. I there's literally nothing wrong with it. But like to have all of us judge like to be like you could be disappointed too. Let's be very clear. But like to be like mean and rough about it after years of this hype machine just churning hype 247 like it just is a it's a factory that makes nothing but hype. So like he he's paid by him.
Yeah, he's
But here's the other thing. So, okay, I'm not going to pretend that the Game Awards is a bastion of of of earnestness, but like I will say this

about Jeff Keley, and we've we've mentioned this many many times. He is the epitome of faking it until you make it. He just decided that he him and his team was going to be the arbiter of awards for video games. and over the course of time they did it. There's no arguing it now. Much the same way that the Oscars or the Academy Awards, the Golden Globes, you know, anything like that. These are these are things that just gathered people in the spaces and declared, "Yes, this is what the award is." And it's all an advertising campaign regardless when you boil it all down. I don't know what the the methodology behind this last being the last announcement was. Did Highguard pay the most and they want it at the end. I don't even know if that's the most expensive part of the show. I bet you it's not because it's three and a half hours in. Um, also maybe Jeff does like is legitimately excited about this. Maybe he has people that he knows from those teams that like he's been keeping it under wraps and they said they'd let him announce it at the Game Awards. Maybe that deal was penned before her

shooters became unpopular, right? Like there's a lot of different things here that are going on and I didn't think I saw anything egregious enough to be like actively mad. You could be disappointed about it. Like sure, like I wish What game did I wish? I wish we got Bloodborne Remastered. That'd be nice, right? But like I'm not going to be upsetty spaghetti about the game that got the last like
there were there were people who were like super hoping for Elder Scrolls 6 news. That game doesn't exist yet. Yeah,
that game is that game is a fever dream that Todd Howard had one day while he was calling for more blankets and less blankets Dewey Cox style. Like it's fine, right? Like it it doesn't what the Game Awards is a place, right? And I think um for most people it's a very important place or for most gamers it's a very important place, right? There were more than a million people watching the Game Awards on Twitch.

Mhm. just Twitch. That's not people watching on YouTube. That's not people watching on Tik Tok live or any of the other places. There were a million people watching the Game Awards on Twitch. So, I think that it has accomplished its goal of being hype. I I will say I find it so interesting that people are like that the that the people who are upset are upset because it's like being seen as a hype piece and not because of all the legitimate problems with it coming out in like the middle of January, right? Like it's got hella invasive kernel level antiche and also requires secure boot. Pro tip, no zero, zero video games require either of those things. There is no game that is so good that you should install a rootkit on your computer to play it.

At least in my opinion, right? Like they're they're they're complaining because they want to complain and because they don't understand, not for all of the very reasonable reasons to complain that are right in front of them. I also think again I go back to precedent like this is not for for as much as I do enjoy watching the game awards specifically with all of you when we're streaming it together. It is not a a paragon of virtue like it's it's getting mad at something you should very much expect. Does that make again disappointment is fine. Um, and I and and it seems like everyone I'm sort of seeing here, like for people that are disappointed, you're reacting accordingly. You're saying, "Yes, it was a disappointing ending." I totally get that. But people went on
just tangents about this game. Uh, that I I felt uh was a little bit unjustified. If we want to criticize this game, let's criticize it for the game, right? Like not the

placement of where it was on the big gaming commercial.
Yeah. you know, um,
uh, clarity, uh, the the trailer did not say it was Colonel Level. The Steam page is up.
Oh.
So,
yeah. Anyway, I again, I think I vi I started vibing with this trailer the second I realized, oh, this is Master of the Universe.
Yeah. You get a giant magic sword that summons a thing and a tear through space to knock down a castle
and then like like hot fem Prince Adam here. Like sure, [laughter] let's just go. But like I think that I I if I want to criticize I think the guy who's like the main guy I think we have him on the thumbnail right now of this episode. The guy with the staff is like Blandy Mc Blanderton. Like sure that's something but like I don't know. Just wait to see the game. It comes out in January. Maybe when it drops. Oh, this is the last thing I wanted to say. Sorry about this. People were like calling it like the nickname for it was

Conquered 2. Nah, bro. Conquered was a fullpriced game.
Right.
Even if this thing fails, it cannot fail as spectacularly and as quickly as Conquered did.
Also, unlike
due to its priced style.
Yeah. Right. Right. Also, unlike Conquered, you've heard of this game. Conquered failure was not in [laughter] being a bad game. Conquered's failure was that they completely screwed up all of the marketing.
And this game shadow like faded into existence fully formed six weeks from launch at the game awards as the one more thing means it's already far surpassed Conquer's entire marketing spend. I wonder I wonder if they were gonna the actual plan was for them to be done and able to shadow drop it at the game awards because that feels more like a like a cuz you could get away with this if like imagine if the

game came out and even if it was just fine then it wouldn't just be going off the last part of the game awards as the thing we know about it
right
but I I maybe again I'm tinfoil hating all over the place right there's tin foil lining the inside of the Santa hat.
That's right. That's actually
But like, doesn't it feel like this probably was that at a certain point?
Maybe.
Yeah. No. Conquered uh Larky is the Sony game. Uh for the Bungeie game. Was it Bungie? No. Who made Conquered?
No one remembers because it doesn't matter,
right? Um
Firewalk.
Yeah.
Acquired by Sony. That's right. There we go.
Yeah. Yeah. Nobody made Concord.
This is the new Conquered Killer.
Yeah, exactly. And that was it. So, overall, I mean, game awards going to the game. You may have noticed we didn't talk about

awards. We talked about them last week. The awards went as expected with no surprises.
Also, uh you know that we could we could open up the can of worms of the indie game stuff, but uh Cla Obscure sweeping it uh felt very good. And this comes from someone who hasn't even played the game. I just have a lot of friends who have and they all agree and I was like, "Well, I trust your opinions." Um, you know, I think I think the Game Awards might benefit from taking a look at what is considered indie.
Yep.
Um, maybe h it's all it's all marketing. That's the thing I keep every time I think of a way to be like, "Oh, what if we did this? What if it said, "Well, it had to be under this price point." And then you're like, "Oh, does that include marketing?" And like, "Oh, what what about stuff that's not accounted for?" Like, it's so hard to label like something in an award show like this like indie game. Like, you know what I mean? Like, it's it's cuz it's it it is a marketing term at the end of the day.
And I think um uh I think Lark's got a

really good point, too, which is uh the the best indies were in the pre-show.
Yeah. They they like I if I have a structural complaint about the Game Awards, guys, you got to stop doing the stuff in the pre-show like this. And also, you got to stop doing the rapid fire three or four awards in succession thing. Like, we've won at a time in, but when Jeff Keelley stands there for two minutes going, "The nominees are blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah." And the game award goes to completely undercuts the idea that you're supposed to be an award show. But like they are presenting it as an award show, so please stick the presentation of it as an award show.
You could also um you could also trim down the awards.

Yeah. Like I I understand it's trying to do all the things under the sun, but um Oh, this is actually interesting. Sorry, Yin. This is a great point. Game size versus team size ratio is a really good for categorizing indies or the games in general. They should use that. Something like that, right? Like is there like a combination of mathematical things about team size, price point, and non-traditional methodologies of getting money to publish? Like,
right? Cuz like Claire Obscure in best indie was up against a oneperson team, right? Yeah. Blueprints had a lot of uh contractor help, right? But Blueprints is like a solo dev project,
an absolutely completely unhinged beautiful solo dev project, [snorts] right? So like the the these two things are not in the same weight class, right?
Yeah.

Yeah. It's interesting. Anyway, I again, it's the every problem I had with the Game Awards this year is the problem I have with the Game Awards every year. But again, I'm not terribly upsetty spaghetti about it because I know what I'm signing up for.
Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep.
And overall, look, overall, I think the Game Awards is a positive thing for the industry. it um it makes everything even though we all know that gaming is literally the most profitable form of entertainment at this point um it legitimizes it amongst other things and it starts letting it play in other weight classes. I mean there was again and you could you could change what you value this legitimacy with right but like more and more [snorts] Hollywood or uh celebrity from other places are becoming staples at these things. Um it's a good bellweather of oh this is not obviously a niche hobby anymore. This is the the default. Gaming is the thing that movies, television,

streaming, and social media are all trying to take pieces of.
Yeah.
And it's nice to have a big dumb thing that like points and says like, "Look at this thing." Now, here's my last criticism of it. Perhaps perhaps maybe we should mention all the layoffs, though, Jeff. Maybe we SHOULD TALK ABOUT THAT for a moment, Jeff. There there are ele they've done it in the past and I think tastefully I understand that it is a business, but you no one said running a hybrid show like this is going to be easy. And it felt like this year there was a lot of opting out of anything that was a remotely difficult conversation.
Yep. Um,
and like now to be clear, it is Jeff's show. Jeff gets to do whatever he wants

because it's Jeff's show, right? But that does mean that we get to yell at Jeff specifically when the show avoids things that it should probably be talking about. Again, I I want to make it very clear, doing something like that and walking that line and making sure your sponsors are happy while making sure you're representing the people that are actually making these games is very difficult. Like I I would not envy that writing or hosting position. However, you faked it till you made it and now you're there and it feels like you might have a responsibility to the to a group of people that make the things that you are awarding. That's kind of it. Um, again, I don't want to make it seem like why did you just do the thing because it's so much more complicated than that. But
you have shown you are ready for a higher class of war, my friend.
And uh
Yeah. Yep.
I just wish that was uh more the case.

Agreed. [snorts] All right. Uh that conveniently brings us to the time for ads where we do fake ads for real for things you can't buy while Twitch chat gets real ads for things that you can buy. Matt and I are going to uh make up some ads for things that you can't buy um right now while Twitch gets those ads to keep our stream over on Twitch pre-roll free. But over on YouTube, don't worry, you'll get them in Twitch. If you're getting ads now, you can watch them later on YouTube. Uh, so Matt, would you care to start us off?
Sure. Hey everyone, Matt from Extra Credits here. Would you like to hire me to write you something in approximately 3 minutes that is a broken parody for a holiday special? Well, then let me introduce you to around uh 11:10 this morning. That's right. At that time, I wrote the thing at the beginning of this episode. And if you would like to hire me, all you have to do is send uh a illustrated piece of uh non-legal currency that you draw your specific kind of money into a PO box into an

address that does not exist. And if I happen to find it, I will write you a parody thing of whatever you'd like up to 25 words. That's a product you can't buy. [snorts] Hi [laughter] everyone, Will for Extra Credits here to tell you uh maybe don't worry so much about the game awards, right? Like I know a lot of people are super worried about the game awards. Consider don't just accept that it's a big day of trailers with some occasional trophies that are apparently way too heavy. I noticed that this year. What did they made it out of? Like solid steel uh that they give to people. Like just don't worry about it, right? Like it's not like if it's not for you, that's fine. Just like watch the trailers afterwards. Like it doesn't it doesn't have to be like a thing, right? Like it's it's just the Game Awards. It's not it's not actually a big deal. We make it a big deal, but it's not. You can you can live without them.

Hey everyone, Matt from Extra Credits here trying to sell you the concept of hoping that your co-host's fake ad was longer than it was because you had to text your landlord back about something important. Now, I know life comes at you really fast, and that's okay. Sometimes you have to just rely on your other friend who's virtually right next to you continuing to do a bit over and over and over again while you are dealing with an important life event. Now, is everything fine? Absolutely. But it could have not been. And in that case, I would need Will to keep talking about different Game Awards things or perhaps his love for all things indie trash or maybe even where he is in Elden Ring. It would have been helpful. But instead, I'm talking. Hi there, Will from X Credit here to sell you the concept of tell your co-host you need them to vamp. That's

right. We have these things called words where you can use them to tell your co-host that you need them to vamp instead of going on a whole fake advertisement thing about how you needed them to vamp and then they didn't. You could just tell them, "Hey, go again." Or, "Hey," or make a hand motion or literally anything instead of making up a whole ad about how you needed them to do a thing while you texted your landlord. You could just use your words to say, "Hey, I need you to do the thing." But instead, we get an ad break for me not vamping long enough. [laughter] Hey everyone, Matt from Extra Credits here. I would like to sell you the concept of DON'T TAKE IT SO PERSONALLY, WILL. [laughter] It was JUST A REQUEST. I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT WAS HAPPENING. It was busy and it's the holidays and I'm stressed and I need to figure things out sometimes and I wasn't calling you out for all of the things that were going on in the moment. I just had to deal with something very quickly and then all of a sudden it's

all coming to me like I'm attacking you. But all I needed was a little bit of grace. But no, these holidays are ruining us all. We have to go sit around with our families and argue about politics. And I thought breakfast in this animated kitchenette would be the one place, the one place that I would be safe, but apparently not. Now I guess I have to go talk to you about what JD Vance and how he's doing a REALLY GOOD JOB. THAT'S NOT TRUE. SO PLEASE JUST GIVE ME A SLIGHT moment of calm before the rest of this nightmare. [laughter]
Did we do it? Did we fill the ad time?
Yeah, we did. It was great. Good job. High five.
Oh, I like this copper. I like this copper.
No grace on THE ESTUS FLASKS.
[laughter]
NO, IT'S THIS. Move over Impossible Burger. A new fake beef just dropped.
Yeah.
God, the best fake beef I've seen since I saw um I saw a music YouTuber create a

beef with someone else who was like faceless and then they had like a week-long beef with them and then revealed that it was just them in a different outfit that they'd been beefing with for a week. So, they created drama that didn't hurt anyone and drove traffic to their channel. It was spectacular. That was amazing. Well done.
I like this episode brought to you by Valid Crash Outs.
Listen, uh, when is the apology YouTube video dropping? Uh, when I learned to play ukulele.
Yeah, we really got to get on those ukulele lessons.
Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Uh, okay. Let's
moving on.
Move on to some other news. So, let's talk about Shrine Legacy. So, Shrine Legacy is a SNES style RPG. That's like what it is. It's sort of illustrative of a problem that we're having in the industry right now. And we want to I wanted to like take this opportunity to like call it out.

So, um Shrine's Legacy. Hold on. I'm going to check the Steam DB as of uh time of recording because that's a good thing to do.
Yeah, facts.
Make the facts happen.
Ste facts on
in my in my breakfast. Absolutely not.
Right. Amazing. Try's Legacy uh has a fairly big good history of like positive reviews. Got 117 positive reviews and 18 negative ones.
Sure. And some of uh unfortunately some of those negative reviews are reviews which accuse the game
jacuzzacuse of having undeclared AI content. Now a reminder you're allowed to have AI generated content on Steam as long as you declare it in the part of the Steam page that is for declaring generative AI

use in the game or AI use in general. There's still some discussion about whether that covers like machine learning algorithms for things that aren't generative, but like that's a different question. Okay. So, um the developers vehemently deny this and there's no evidence. And yet the first response to someone not liking a game now is to accuse it of being AI slob. I am not making any claims about the quality of Shrine's legacy. I haven't played it. What I am saying is that we need to look at this case and be a little more cautious because I think it is very easy for people to not understand the uh one idiot clapping

problem. So, I don't I don't know if you've ever seen this happen, but if you're ever in a place and you are supporting a friend, one of the best ways that you can do that is by sitting all the way in the back of the room while they're giving a presentation, doing a performance, whatever. And the second they finish, start clapping like an idiot. Be the only person clapping because everyone else will do it. That's the positive version. The negative version is the second that someone goes, "Hey, I don't like this game. I totally think it's AI slop. Other people will take your word for it. And now we have this big problem because it's getting harder and harder to verify. So when someone says they didn't and you just sort of randomly make up an accusation that they did, now we have this big problem around a game that's just trying to be a SNES style RPG. By all accounts, like everything I could find suggests that it's like a labor of love. like SNES style RPGs, not known

for making the big bucks, not known for being like front page of Steam or like making a ton of money, right? Like it's just it's a passion project pretty clearly. It's got 117 reviews.
Yeah. I I um I don't know anything about this game either. Uh I'm not going to say one way or the other. Here's what what what Thunder said is something interesting that I've been thinking about a lot lately. The knee-jerk reaction of calling anything AI slop these days is getting irritating. And I'm like, you know why it's getting irritating? It's because it's the laziest form of criticism you can do. And why are we mad at AI? We are mad at AI because it takes away the thought, the work, the humanity of a thing and just generates garbo and throws it out there. And we're all rightfully mad at that. So why then would I or anybody else feel comfortable criticizing something in the style of the thing that you are criticizing? Unless you are being satire, which I don't think this is. So, if you have

legitimate problems with this game or any other game and you think it's AI, you could probably mention that. The developers seem to say it absolutely isn't. So, then you're getting into a well, you're either going to, if you care that much, going to do some real deep dive research to find out the devs are lying or not, but like that's then you're sort of spiraling out anyway. You can not like a game. Talk many different ways about why you don't like it. Heck, if you want to be helpful, be constructive criticism, right?
But like it it has become the the very thing we hate AI for essentially the laziness um and the soullessness is now seeping into criticism of AI or or jacuz of AI. And I think people who do that do need to kind of take a look in the internet mirror for a second. Oh man, we got to invent an internet mirror. Is that just a camera lens? I don't know what is the internet mirror.
[snorts]
It's dark.
I got lost. Regardless, it's stupid and lazy and don't do it.

Yeah. Right. Like, and and and to Matt's point about like the internet has been bad at this for a really long time. And I am personally working as a content creator and someone who reviews games to get better at this. There is a world of difference between I don't like this and this is bad. Those are two different axes, right? I don't like plenty of things that are good and I like some things that are trash, right? Who is out here liking things that they know are trash, right? Who has beloved games that are absolute swill, right? And you will admit that freely that they are absolute swill, but you love them, right? Like we got to be better about that and we got to ask other people to be better about that because it like we just end up in this deadend

space of people slinging accusations which can really hurt developers because they're unable to articulate the difference between I don't like this game and I think that someone used a thing as a
it's a shortcut. It's a shortcut to criticism. It's an easy way to get um people to blindly uh upvote you on Reddit.
Like because people rightfully are mad at AI AI. So if you make something and say this did AI with for people that are not interested in diving deeper than a headline, they'd be like, "Yeah, screw that." Like
that sucks.
Yeah. It's not it's not a helpful thing to do. It's not a big So yeah, that's that's why we bring up the the tale of Shrine's Legacy is to take this opportunity to tell you to not do this and to call people out when you see them doing this because it's not helpful. It does not make us a better game industry. It does not lead to better games. It's just lazy criticism. Don't do this. Be better.
Uh speaking of AI and lazy and sinking

in industry.
Okay. All right. So, you remember you remember Sora, Matt,
the Kingdom Hearts character?
Sure. You remember how they named an AI that generates motion pictures, Sora?
Yeah. You remember how one of our biggest hopes was that uh Disney would sue them out of existence after it was discovered that they had loaded like every Marvel movie and all of Disney's catalog into Sora as part of the training set without asking Disney, which is pretty flagrant copyright violation.
Will, why would why would they do that when they could just give them a billion dollars?
Yeah. So instead of doing anything sensible or useful, Disney has given Sora a billion dollars.
Oh no, Fen, they didn't buy it. They

bought into it,
right? They just gave the burning They just threw a billion dollars at a burning trash fire and said, "It's okay. You can use our stuff." To be clear, the ideas behind this is to do things like allow Disney Plus like members to like make their own shows. So, if you uncancled your Disney Plus subscription after the last bout of nonsense that Disney did, a reminder, check and see if you uh if you're giving them money. And if you don't like this idea, don't give them money. Um cuz like I I don't think I just don't think about this because if I think about it too hard, I will begin screaming at it in a in a pitch that is

audible only to nonhuman creatures and then I will accidentally become a Disney princess and then somehow miraculously I will owe Disney money despite the fact they just gave an AI sw.
Let me read what Bob Iger has to say cuz I think it's really going to clear some stuff up. Technological innovation has continually shaped the evolution of entertainment, bringing with it new ways to create and share great stories with the world. Iger said in his statement today, this comes to us from IGN. The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence marks an important moment for our history. And though this collaboration with and through sorry and through this collaboration with OpenAI, we will thoughtfully and responsibly extend the reach of our storytelling through generative AI while respecting and protecting creators and their works.
That's not how any of that works.
How how how you do those things

diametrically opposed to one another. Look, and Disney is not a paragon of virtue either. I believe back in the day, even though uh you know things were much much different, it's not like uh Walt Disney was never really caring about the well-being of his animators.
Correct. Or or the sourcing for some of their most famous films.
Look up the look up the Japanese film Kima the White Lion.
Yeah. But my my my point here is again, God, I hate that we there's so many caveats to when you're talking about AI. I saw someone a while back in the chat say like AI is a tool, you can do the thing. Yes, a thousand%, but also the phrase AI means a trillion different things. Um, so I agree in certain situations or whatever, but like when when something is being used to scrape creativity and mash it into a new ball from other people, um, like the thing here that got me was new ways to create

and share great stories with the world. Now, you could read that one of two ways. New ways to create and share great stories with the world. You could read it as kind of a sort of underpinning truth of like these stories are not new. They are being stolen and repurposed and here's a new way of sharing that stolen content. Uh you could also though look at like share great stories with the world. I don't know how many great ones there's going to be. The great ones are kind of already there and the models have already learned and scraped a whole bunch of stuff off them. So it's not really new, right? It's new ways to do it.
Yep. It's all semantics. Um, I don't know how this is all going to land. Again, this entire bubble, a billion dollars, um, it's all six companies trading and playing makebelieve with a hot potato at this point,

right? None of it's real money. There's like a billion plus dollars, which is an unfathomable sum of money, by the way. We talk about it casually. It's 1 billion, right? But if I tell you that it's a million million, then like maybe we get somewhere or something like it's it's a lot. Um uh it's not a million million, but like hyperbole like
I just I cannot fathom like Okay, you let's back up. Let's even back up for a second. How does this make Disney money? Okay, Disney is ubiquitous. The characters are wellknown. Whether you're talking about the actual Disney characters or the stuff they bought like Star Wars and Marvel, it is all like so ubiquitous across the globe. It is the Coca-Cola of product, right? Like it is of media conglomeration. And I understand you have to like water that garden or whatever to keep it relevant, but like okay, so you are

essentially going to allow your audience to flood the the field with stories they generate with your characters. Granted, you're going to own all those things. I imagine this is kind of the No, no, no, no, no. But no one's going to fight back on it. I know legally, but like truly this is how it's going to go. Yeah,
the Disney characters are owned by Disney. Anything Sora generates cannot be copyritten. The only copywritten part is the characters and then therefore it's going to and they're not going to sue Sora for doing it. So what it's trying to do is pray that in the millions and millions of pieces of slop that we create burning every natural resource we possibly can that um something there is going to be popular and hit. It's it's a it's a broken clock is right twice a day kind of thing. infinite typewriters for an infinite amount of monkeys. Someone's going to make Hamlet. Like, that's what they're

going for. [snorts] But by the time that happens, [clears throat] there's going to be so much slop that your the value of your characters will go down.
So, the second that So, let's let's also address like the value of characters going down real quick, just just as a side note. So the second this goes live, there will be Mickey Mouse in every language that Sora can generate AI uh text to speech in making incredibly [snorts] divisive political speeches about political leaders around the world and they will never be able to undo it the second goes live. Right? We don't even need to talk about other stuff. We don't need to talk about illegal stuff. We don't need to talk about any of like the really gross stuff. We can just use They will create political speech around the entire world with every Disney character

and they can never undo it. This is such a stupid move. Their characters are instantly worthless.
Like I just don't understand what they think the endgame is here. Like is it to pay less people to make the stuff? Like if that's the case, make less expensive stuff. Like you can do it, you just don't want to. Uh uh it it it's a whole bunch of yuck. Um we'll see. We'll see. I feel like all I'm going to do is keep complaining at this point, so we should probably move on.
Yep. Nope. 100%. It's awful. Uh let's move on to something brighter, lighter, and more fun. Uh Claire Scare decided that they were going to say thank you in a very charming way. So uh as part of their game of the year acceptance speech, they announced the thank you DLC which went live as they won game of the year.

They they released a free patch which includes no small end of bugs and bug fixes. Bunch of bugs in the new patch. There's also a bunch of bugs fixes in the patch and a photo mode and more content. So, uh, it's pretty cool. It's pretty great. I think this is a great thing. I am talking about this not specifically because it's Clare Obscure, but because I would really like games to do this, right? We we've we've kind of had that sort of vibe, right? But like, if a game wins game of the year, do something cool with it.
Yeah.
Don't just sit on it. Don't just be like, "Ah, we won game of the year. That's it. It's in the trophy cabinet, right? Like we live in an era of ongoing games. Do something nifty. Even if it's not right away, do something cool with the fact that you won game of the year. I think
they did, which is nice.
Yeah. What is What exactly is the DLC? Do we like Is it a
So, it is in the third act of the game. There is a new zone. Um, which is a uh I'm going to do all of this without

spoilers and you should too, chat. Um, it is a fantastical storybook wonderland full of color and different costumes for the characters. Um, there are some um additional bosses from that zone added to an endgame boss rush mode zone kind of thing. Um, in addition to new equipment, new um, pictos, that kind of thing. Um, so it's it's got its own little story. Uh, I've seen a couple people play through it. It's pretty good. Yeah.
Nice.
I likes it. But you know what else I like, Will?
What?
Super Earth. Specifically, Super Earth that uh might have some elements that change per run with some lightful progression in them.
Yeah,
y'all. This is a story from IGN talking about how there might be a new Rogue Light mode for Hell Divers 2 that might never see the light of day. Um, but I like that they're experimenting with it.
Right. Th this is also me and Matt just giving like passing the copium around.

Like this is this is some severe here. Uh super earth with a rog light mode would make me play so much hell divers so fast. Um I would bump that significantly to the top of my list. I think it would be really cool. But uh it's going to be I I think it I think it would be a very cool choice and a very good move on on
uh Joan Petstead Arrowhead CCO uh has said we have a prototype of a rog light mode. It changes the game fundamentally. But they also say that they're they're not sure they're ever going to release it.
Right. [laughter] But they have also confirmed that their Hell Divers 3 is not an idea that they they want to keep Hell Divers 2 running for a good long time for Super Earth as part of like this ongoing campaign thing. Um, which I think is good. I I think it's
I've been thinking a lot about Warframe recently because Warframe also did that completely unhinged Warner Herzog like ad. So good.
So good. um uh and how they've managed

to tell like this Grand Space Opera story over like a decade.
Yeah.
of of gameplay, right? And I think it would be cool if we had more games that did kind of that story, that style of like grand scale storytelling, right? Um like if you get to be a Hell Diver who says, "I was there at Malevolin Creek." That's cool, right? And so, um, things like the rog light mode and things that keep Hell Divers 2 going, even if I'm not actively playing it, I think are good for people to look at and be like, "Hey, that's a cool idea. I should do something like that." Um, I think that's all I got on that one.
Yeah, I just liked it. I like the excuse to put the the the bullets. Uh,
hanging out with
All right, chat. Do you know what's better than hot pizza sometimes?
Any pizza.
Cold pizza all the time. Um, Wilds is delivering the cold pizza. They have released their road mapap for

finally fixing the PC problems. Now, I also want to be very clear about something because this happens a lot of the time when people talk about Wilds. Plenty of people, including me, have played Wilds all of the way through on PC without any real problems. It's not as ubiquitous as I think it's easy to make it sound like. There are some problems. There are some optimization problems. Not everyone has them and they are not universal. I think a lot of people seem to think that they're universal. Every time we bring this up, they're not. Plenty of people play it without any problems and some people have hideous problems. There shouldn't be anyone with hideous problems, but it's also not everyone. Does that make sense? Does that clarity make sense? cuz like people sometimes will just like glom on and BE LIKE THE ENTIRE GAME IS TERRIBLE AND NO ONE HAS EVER PLAYED IT. Like that's not that's not it. Um
yeah,
I bounced off Wilds sadly. Um

sorry
I I really wanted to continue on with it. Um and I can't pinpoint why. It was never a technical issue. I had it on PS5. It didn't it didn't uh
I will I will tell you um I think I know why and I know why I bounced off.
Hammer is too good. They made a lot of
use hammer.
Yeah. Well, they they my my kind of point is that they buffed a bunch of characters um and or a bunch of play styles rather and the game did not get commensurately buffed to compensate. Uh and so the game felt a little flat in terms of difficulty progression for a lot of it. Um, yeah, it it just it didn't feel like they um
I think I used the switch.
Yeah, switch is also very good, right?

Yeah.
So, that was a big problem. Um, that being said, they have they have announced this uh this plan, this multivar plan starting with title update for to um to do uh CPU and GPU optimization on all platforms. And then in January, there will be a Steam version exclusive um patch and then there will be additional optimization in February. So, they're finally making good on this. Now, is it super late? Yes,
it's super super late. Should they have done this much sooner? Yes, absolutely. Am I glad that they're doing it now? Yes, because look at the player count for worlds,
right? Monster Hunter World. Well, the world is bigger than the wilds, will
Sure,
because the wilds are only a part of the world.
Monster Hunter World currently has 9,000 people playing it on Steam. World came out in 2018.

It is still being played on Steam. Monster Hunter Games have a very long tail.
Should this have been done sooner? Yes. Am I really glad they're doing it to preserve this long tale? Yeah, I I am. I am very glad for that. Like I think that that is a good thing uh for them to do because these are the kinds of things that like there is a possibility of this living much longer than a traditional live service game might. Right.
Yeah.
And I think that that's good. Yeah. So
uh agreed.
Uh yeah is a DD2 player. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Longer t longer tails, better cutting. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, okay. I think that's all of our thoughts on that. So, that brings us to our dessert story. A little piece of interesting good news.
Nom nom nom.
So,
is it eggnog flavored?
Uh, it might be. Depends. You could

definitely serve eggnog in your new WoW playerhouse. So, Wow. Wow got player housing. Good. WoW got the good style of player housing also. Very good. I watched some people run a lot of content for very specific items from across the entire history of the game to make a chair or a fountain or stairs, which was fascinating to me. They're like, I'm going to go kill all of these raid bosses to get this singular mat that I need to make this chair. And I'm like, this is phenomenal, right? Cuz like this is a great way to reuse old content and for the WoW players that [clears throat] are enjoying it and playing it. Awesome. They discovered a little a little bit of an unintended interaction between some of the elements of the exterior housing builder tool. Um, the exact how is not something that I really think we need to go into, but the short version is that you could make your house float. Now, this was very clearly

from the very beginning completely. This was not intended behavior. This was an error that made it through QA because obviously no one QAs, wait, what if the players try and make the house fly? That's not a thing that you do in QA. You go, can I build the house and not have it crash the entire server? And the answer is yes, you can, but you can also make it fly, which and that's cool, and that would be like a cool story. But what makes it a great story is that Blizzard saw this and said, "Hey, that's a really cool idea. You keep doing that. We're going to build tools to make it easier to do that and make it official. And here are the things that we know are problems with this method. And we just want to make it clear that these are some things that we know that we like there currently aren't." So the bottom of the houses isn't textured. So you'll see a lot of people doing like this nomish airship

kind of design where they put something under it, right? In that case, it's a flipped house by underneath it, right? Very cool. There are like your tree houses and all kinds of cool things. The other one is you have to have a way to get to your front door because you actually have to interact with your front door to go inside. So they're suggesting building a staircase or a jump puzzle or something to get inside. Um, and they are also saying that they will be releasing tools later on to help people do this on purpose rather than needing to use a um rather than needing to use a glitch that's a little on the finicky side to get it to float in exactly the position you wanted to. So,
I think that's pretty dope. I thought, it's funny, I just haven't paid attention to Wow in a little bit. Um, I thought this was something I thought housing was coming in the next expansion, but it was the last one. It is the patches in between the expansions.
Okay.
So, this is like the roll out is part of the leadup to the next expansion.
I still think we should do some some

team uh when is it Shadows or Midnight? What's the name of the next one?
Midnight. Sure.
I don't know. I think we should because I'm curious about the UI changes.
Yeah.
And I'm I'm also curious about the new player experience.
Yeah. Um, there's a lot we could do with WoW if we wanted to later on, but uh, that's all for the new year. Actually, let us know in the comments. If you're watching this over the break or you know you you've watched all the way through your
or if you're on Nebula, let us know on Blue Sky.
Yeah, if you
throw up our Blue Sky thing, Will,
Matt, you can't just tell me
Mention Blue Sky out of nowhere and then be like immediately throw up the thing. H
mention it out of what? Nowhere.
But where where might that nowhere be?
I don't know.
Out of the blue. Um.
Oh. Huh. Very funny. Leading people to puns is the best form of humor. Um,
right.
Uh, let us know if you if you'd be

interested in that. If you'd be interested in us doing a team like Warcraft play through or World of Warcraft playthrough to look at the new UI changes and on board me as someone who's never played World of Warcraft. If you'd like to see us do a Total War thing, if you'd like to see other things that we've talked about in the new year, if you want to see me and Matt go hell diving for Super Earth or whatever, let us know in the comments what kinds of things you'd be interested in seeing in the new year because this is also the time where we're going to recharge and think about what we want to do next year while we're not here every week doing this for all of you.
Yeah, 2026 uh will be wacky. Um but yeah, love love spreading the ideas around. If you got some, please let us know uh either in chat now or on the YouTube comments or on Blue Sky wherever you are watching this. That would be lovely. Hey everyone, thank you so much for another year of this. Uh it's it's honestly I know I've said this before,

but it's my favorite. It's it's since we've done this show, we've been doing it for years now. It is a phenomenal way for Will and myself to get like energized to go about our work week and we hope that it is actually that for you as well. Um it's silly and fun and sometimes we talk about heavy stuff but like at the end of it I'm always feeling really really good about like actually continuing and beginning my work week and I think it's funny there are more optimal times we could do this show. Absolutely.
Um,
viewership on by new news like constantly.
Yeah, there's both from uh when our audience is active on Twitch and YouTube and from a uh news breaking during the show kind of thing and by the time Tuesday hits by the time the VOD's up Monday like later something is already broke that we can't talk about.
But I think the real value of the show is not like breaking news. It's getting

to hang out with all of you and just having a really good vibe to kick off the work week with.
Um, so thank you very much for joining us and uh I hope that your your various uh wintertime holidays are wonderful and festive and you don't get into too many of those arguments that uh we were talking about before and that you get to just play some games. I know Hades 2 is my holiday break game that I'm going to crack into. Um, I'm also going to try to finish Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. Um, and obviously keep trying to kill the dredge lord in Night Rain. That's kind of mine. Will, do you have do you have sort of holiday game plans?
Uh, so tomorrow the new Final Fantasy 14 patch drops, so I'm going to be gearing up my uh character for Savage Rating, which starts in January. Uh, and I'll be playing a bunch of that. I've got um we're working on a script that necessitates that I play some Pokemonite. And I have made the mistake of remembering that I have a Switch 2

with Pokemon Unite and so that's been a thing. Um I will probably also be hanging out in the community Minecraft server a bit. Uh but I also want to play Final Fantasy 9.
Yeah.
Uh I have heard only good things about it from a variety of sources uh including from the lovely the amazing the wonderful Alchemy whose cat is named Vivi.
And I have not played Final Fantasy 9 so I am going to be rectifying that over the break. That is the hope anyway.
Yeah.
So, uh, yeah, I think all that then remains is for us to do the same sign off we do every week. Matt, would you would you please for one last time for 2025, lead us in our in our combined uh sign off?
Of course, because it's the same sign off at the end of every show. You all know it. You all love it. And if you're new here, this is a chance to learn it so that next time when we do the exact same thing, uh you can join with us and go into the week uh energized and happy and ready to to tackle whatever uh challenges come your way. Now, wouldn't

you know it, I did forget the thing that we need every time. So, Will, would you please vamp for me very quickly while I go get the prop that should have been here the entire show because I don't even know why it's not. Could you just vamp for a second?
Sure. Sure, Matt. Yeah, this is uh I'm going to get left here. It's fine. Everybody, thank you so much for being here this entire year. I know I've seen a lot of people commenting on um how much this means to them and how it helps them start the week. Uh deeply appreciate that. Um it is really the greatest start to my week. Uh I don't like mornings like at all. It's awful and I hate it. So uh this is one of the ways that we get to do this. Now I'm betting I'm betting that Matt has not abandoned me.
Okay, Will. I'm ready.
Yeah. Okay,
he's a puppy.
I would really like to apologize for the fight that Will and I had earlier. There's no excuse, and I don't have the

ukulele that I actually need. So, I thought I'd bring this tired pup to wish you a happy holiday. Goodbye.