The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake is the most anticipated game of 2026 (that isn’t GTA)

This week, we reveal what will be the biggest video games still to come in 2026 that are not called Grand Theft Auto 6. [music] Hello and welcome to the Game Business Show. This week's show is sponsored by Keyword Studios. Keywords is really the secret power in the video game industry. It's got 13,000 people across 26 countries, and they're all about helping studios to make their games, get their games out there, and support them afterwards on a global scale. They are big with technology. They work with studios for long periods of time. It's not just for bit of quick work. And they have some of the top specialists in the world when it comes to making sure that players are having fun. Now, one of their big areas is around game art. They've got experts. That means they can produce creative work at scale without losing the craft and the consistency or the intent. And this ranges from concept art to asset creation to full production pipelines. In other words, studios can work with keywords to widen their creative capacity, support their world building efforts, and deliver art from the concept stage right through to the final product. If you want to find out more, there's a link in this week's

newsletter or you could just head to keywordstudios.com. Now, back to the show. Now, I'm joined this week by an old friend. He was the host of the Gainsbiz Microcast with me, which was very much the precursor of this show. He is currently communications manager at Digital Bandidos, and he's also a veteran business journalist and author. It's of course James Bachelor. Hello, James. How are you?
I'm good. I was starting to think you'd forgotten me. I know you you've had some much much more important and much much better guests on but it's been a while and so I was like I was like is he going to ask me again?
Yeah. You know what it's cuz I need to sort of portion you out.
I'm still trying to coax you back. That's what it is. I'm trying to convince you. Um
you you're waiting for me to beg for it. I see.
The uh How are things going at Digital Bandido? You got a big game? You got a demo coming out this week or something?
Yeah. So, we've got a big game coming up um end of the year called Curse of Rest Haven. Honestly, it's such a challenge to try and try and condense this into one genre. It is a single player

narrative rogike with like deck building mechanics, trading mechanics, a Majora's Mask style time loop. It's hard to kind of get across it.
That's your job. Your job is to get it across.
This is my job. [laughter] Exactly. Exactly. I have to like draft this out and like really hone it down rather than just off the cuff say this. Um, no. Honestly, it's it's absolutely incredible game. It's got this really cool like handdrawn style, but um yeah, I'm trying not to make this too much of a plug. The first ever demo is coming out um this Friday as part of the 61 Indie Demo Days event and um which is we're looking forward to like it's one of those games where yes, it's hard to explain, but as soon as you play it, you get it and you hopefully love it. So, uh yeah, we know we're doing okay. Um Froggy Ho is still uh doing nicely as well. So, that's another one that we launched earlier this year. And, um, we're just cracking on. We're kind of behind the scenes. We're finding ways to kind of help other developers, even if we're not directly the publisher. We're kind of working with them um on helping

bring their games to market. So, yeah, we're just we're we're doing what we can for the indie space.
Yeah. Wow. It's needs it. Um, well, the whole industry does.
The whole bloody industry needs it. Absolutely.
We've had a bit of fun, James, since you were uh last on. Uh, George Corner's on the team now.
Lovely George. I miss George.
Um, who of course was the sales leader on Gamesbiz. Um, he he didn't leave with us uh but we managed to he's he's come across later. Um, we actually just hit a million views on YouTube on the game business show.
Congratulations. That's fantastic.
I um I when we did the YouTube thing I was like well we'll see. Like you know we we experience on GI I wasn't expecting much and it's still not me wrong most of the audience is on Substack. You have a load on Apple Music and Spotify as well. And of course, we're not really about numbers. You know, we're all about reach and influence and all that kind of stuff. But, um, it is nice. I'm surprised and pleasantly surprised that YouTube's done our own.
We're not about the numbers, but the numbers do help.
They do help. You do. We are about

audience.
Yeah.
Do you remember Simon Maxwell, who was the publisher and the boss of Gamer Network? Yeah. And he see when I joined Games, he gave me like a form to fill in about traffic numbers and projections. And I was like, we're business title. That's not it's not what we're about. We're not about traffic. And then he would challenge me on that and he goes, "Well, we do need traffic and we need audience. It's not
Yeah,
because we used to say this all the time to anyone that joined us. Sure, that mobile piece may not do as well as that Xbox piece, but that mobile piece is probably speaking to a very specific group of people, the most relevant, whereas that console piece, it's being picked up by all sorts, which is the reason why the numbers are higher. So, um, it's still the same. It's still the same conversations we're having around uh but it is exciting when we get picked numbers. It does make us feel uh good.
That is just the joy of B2B, isn't it? It's reaching the right people, not the most people.
Yeah. So, this week we did a piece with Runescape. Well, last week we did a piece with Runescape and um it's it did exceptionally well because that game is a lot bigger, old school Runescape anyway, is a lot bigger than I think people realize. It's massive. And um we do a we did a piece last year on

Runescape. It's actually the most read and watched and viewed episode of the Game Business Show on Runescape. And this year's one, Runescape, isn't as big as last year's one yet, but it's not far off, right? [laughter] And so I'm a bit like, well, what's that about? was because it's ended up on a Runescape subreddit and it's got and it's also a good industry story as well, but it's it's got that's why it's done those numbers. The previous week I did one with Netflix on Unhinged and the numbers were a lot lot lower, but I got it got picked up by the BBC and the BBC did a whole thing on Unhinged because they'd read it the episode of the game business show and that matters. Those stories matter. They're really hard to get across in a LinkedIn post. I'll go with the numbers. But but it's Anyway, being distracted, James. So, we've decided this week to look at the biggest game still to come this year that's not called Grand Theft Auto 6. Now, we have a bunch of charts in the newsletter. Um the data covers games coming out in August to the end of the year. So, if you're wondering why Halo isn't in this list, that's cuz that's out this week. Sports games are also not in this. sports game didn't make the list anyway,

but obviously NBA and Madden the esports FC will be top of the charts. It's just the way those things happen, but we're going to leave them aside cuz they always they're always there. Now, because we're the game business, we're using data to tell us what those games are. We have trailer views, video views, and article count from Level Up Analytics. We have wish list data from Steam. Uh that's kindly supplied to us by Simon Carlos and the folks at Game Discover. And IGN has also shared with us their wish list chart, too. So, that's our old friends at old that's old pair and the folks IGN. So, we have lots of data points to go through and I think it's important we use data for this because James, if you and I were just selecting these games, let's be honest, it's just going to be number one, Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake. Um, absolutely. So, anyway, James, kick us off. What is the most anticipated game this year that isn't Grand Theft Auto 6? I reckon it'd be Legend of Zelda Rocker in real time. [laughter]
Do you have the numbers there? Do you have it in front of you?
I do have the numbers. Yeah, cuz I it's so it is genuinely it's top of two of the four charts I'm looking at. I

haven't got the IGN wish list one unfortunately. So that's that's all you. But um top trailers 152 million views and that's a good third nearly 30 million ahead of the second which is Marvel's Wolverine. Um media coverage 17,300 articles although I imagine a fair number of a fair proportion of that will be where was the rest of it cuz it was it was such a tease of a reveal. But um I mean that's significantly above um The Blood of Dawn Walker, which is the second most covered game at 5,400 articles. Um it's third place in video views. So it's kind of third behind Modern Warfare 4. Call of Duty obviously is um the most accumulated video views at 694 million. It's down to 553 million for Marvel's Wolverine. And then Zelda's there at 475 million um at number three. But, you know, number one in two of the charts, number three in the other chart, and obviously not on Steam wish list cuz it's not a Steam title.
Yeah,
there's a lot of anticipation for this one.

Yeah. Uh, I hopefully if you scroll across, it might be there for you, James, but the um um it is actually number three in the IGN. [laughter] [clears throat]
It's actually number three in the IGM wish list chart as well. I think the video views chart is slightly lower because there isn't that much to talk about because it was a very small teaser trailer. These are obviously content creator views and and all those sort of stuff. Jokes aside, Zelda is the biggest game. I'm interested in this one, okay? Because Germans, you know this, but for people that are listening at home, they may not know this. There are two eras of Zelda. There's everything before Breath of the Wild, and there's everything after Breath of the Wild. There's basically two types of game.
Yeah.
And the the Zelda game that was before Breath of the Wild, it's a little bit more linear. It's still open worldish, but you you go in, you go from dungeon to dungeon to dungeon in a select order, and you beat the boss at the end. Those games have been moderately popular. They're obviously cult favorites. They're huge fan favorites. But the bestselling one of those was Twilight Princess that did just shy of 9 million. The original Ocarina of Time did 7.6 million, but most Zelda games with the exception of those two do under 5

million copies, right? That was pre- Breath of the Wild. Then Breath of the Wild happens, and that game has done 33.8 million on Nintendo Switch alone. It also came out on Wii U. It's probably on 35 million now. Tears of the Kingdom, which was the sequel to Breath of the Wild, 22.56 million. but a completely different layer here, different scope. So, Zelda's either sort of a relatively small niche game and then you've got these these mega games. Our Queen of Time is obviously in the older style. We're assuming we know nothing about this remake. We're assuming it's going to be a traditional Nintendo remake. It looks prettier. It runs a bit smoother, but it's it's it's the same game. Now, Nintendo has released some Zelda games in between Breath of the Wild and now that are in the oldish style. One of them is a remake, which is Link's Awakening. That was a remake of the Game Boy game. It is a 2D Zelda game that did 6.5 million units. They did Skyward Sword HD, which is a remaster of the Wii game. That did 4.15 million units as of

December 2022. and Echoes of Wisdom, which was the only original game they've done, which stars Zelda, and it's a little different. That's 4.1 million units. Those numbers are more in line with traditional Zelda numbers and not in line with the new Breath of the Wild era. So, my brain is going, "Oh, Ocarine of Time is probably going to be around that level, maybe a bit higher because Ocarine of Time, it's probably not going to be a sort of Breath of the Wild Tears of the Kingdom level." Having said that, Link's Awakening, I said, was a 2D Zelda game. Echoes of Wisdom, also a 2D Zelda game, but also I don't think resonate very well. Um, even though I thought it was pretty good. Skyward Sword HD, and I know you and I share this view, James, is probably the worst of the 3D Zelda games. So, um, I don't know. Could Arena of Time be different? Could we were looking at a pretty big big moment for this and those are trailer numbers for what is a very small teaser with I'd love to have heard it in person. I'd love to have been the room when Ocarine of Time got announced. The raw would have been even though it' been te been leaked before.
Yeah. Oh, yeah. The the screaming in the

in the old earth, you know, Los Angeles Theater would have been would have been huge. I'm I'm really intrigued to see how this one does because kind of echoing what you you've said like we've got an entire generation of people who have been raised up on the the Breath of the Wild Tear the Kingdom massive huge open world systems driven Zelda.
Yeah. Sandboxy. Yeah.
Yeah. Sandboxy. I'm still getting like viral videos of the stuff that people have made in Tears of the Kingdom, but also like tricks and exploits people have find in Breath of the Wild and Ocarina of Time is not that. No. And as you said, like almost almost certainly, and I'm basing this largely on the Star Fox remake that came out, you know, a month ago, this is almost certainly going to be a onetoone remake. They might have like polished certain areas and expanded certain things, but it won't be like a, you know, a redesigned game. It will be onetoone. If you've played this back in the 90s, you will know exactly where you are going in this one. But I think the difference is like with we've already had Links Awakening, as you say, we had Skyward. The hype around those games, the the the prestige

and the reputation of those games isn't on the level of Ocarine of Time. This is held as one of the greatest games of all time, I think. Isn't it still like the highest rated game on Metacritic ever? All like nine reviews that are on there for Ocarine of Time. Okay. Yeah. But yeah, it tagline was the greatest game of all time, right? Exactly. Yeah. That the reputation it has. Yeah. So the the Switch generation that have been raised on like Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom will be intrigued by this and they will be more aware of this I'd argue than they are of like Link Awakening, Gers Wisdom, Skyward Sword and I'm intrigued to see how they'll find it cuz I think they'll they'll buy it on the hype
and I'm intrigued to see what the reception is and you know how word of mouth might help it, you know, help it long tail. I don't know. A lot of it comes down to how Nintendo see it
because I've seen this before when Nintendo take a game like the Ouija's Mansion and go right we're going to make this big and they put all their guns behind it and it's a good game right they know they've got a good game and they put all their weight behind it and it does does big numbers is Ocarine of Time are they going to go yeah it's a remake we'll put it out like we did Super Mario RPG or or stuff like that or

are they going to really sort of try and go let's try and push this quite hard amongst those Breath of the Wild users as well as those classic Zelda fans there's a Zelda movie obviously next year we don't No, you have to second guess them a little bit. There isn't that much from Nintendo this year. It's interesting if you look at the go back to the chart. The only other game in this list that's done really well specifically in the top trailers list is Nintendo Switch Sports Resort, which that surprises me, by the way. Not because I'm looking forward to that. I'd love that. I just don't think I don't expect a sort of casual sports game to make it into these charts. No,
but that one has. I think it's a lot. It got shared a lot on social media by the looks of it.
I'm really surprised to see that up to high. Like I don't get me wrong, it looked great. I wasn't interested in Nintendo Switch Sports. This one weirdly does appeal to me. I think this is scratching the the nostalgia for like that Wii era, but I I have to wonder how much of like the attention around this and the the the view count is getting, how much of that is people taking the pick out of the thumb wrestling demo?
Yeah, it might be a bit of that.

That was the big meme or or one of the big memes of like the you know the summer gamefest period. So this this data still shared with me from Level Up and Level Up has linked me to a tweet alone that got 2 million views for this game. So that so that's interesting. But so Nintendo Switch that's obviously a lot more than mainstream play. The other games that they've got is the Dust Bloods. Now Dust Bloods doesn't make any Well, it actually makes the media coverage chart right down at the bottom like number 15.
It doesn't make the trailer charts that you had 7 and a half million trailers. The Dust Bloods obviously is the From Software game. It's a PVPbee game. I think that's a really big audience mismatch there. I know they're about to enter some sort of play test scenario with that game from software games are associated with PlayStation. I know that if you go back to Gamecube eras, there was Lost Kingdoms and stuff, but Nintendo sometimes signed these games to try and bring those players into their ecosystem. They did that with um Bayonetta famously. M
and if this game was the sequel to um Bloodborne or a game in that vein, this

could bring those fans over because it's an multiplayery PVP thing or PVE thing. I'm a little
doubtful about it. I think it's an audience mismatch anyway and I'm not entirely sure it even appeal to From Software fans in the way that you might expect it to. So, um it's not made any of the lists and but that's the other game that Nintendo had this year. I mean, despite the love of like, you know, Mario Kart and Splatoon and things like that, like Switch has never been and Nintendo in general have never been platforms known for online multiplayer experiences. Like, that's just not the the go-to.
No, my memory isn't the Dust Blood's like it's related to Bloodborne. It certainly looks like it. It's something like it's set in the world, but they can't name it Bloodborne 2 because of reasons or something to that effect. That was my understanding of it. Yeah, it's it's weird like, you know, it's a title that's there to appeal to a very specific audience. Um, but that very specific audience has already got, you know, other platforms and plenty of things to play. From Software has a

major pull and I'm sure it will do all right. I'm just not expecting much from it and I don't think Nintendo will be expecting much from it. Uh, the other game is Fire Emblem which is out in September. That game is not on any of these lists, which doesn't surprise me because it's a nicheish game, but it's if you go back to the the last major Fire Emblem game, there was one in between, but the last big one was Fire Emblem Three Houses,
which was a which is a moderate hit and it was really popular, really wellreceived. And then if you go back to Firem Awakening, this game I think is being positioned as the sort of sequel to Free Houses, which uh you know, it did over 4 million copies three Houses, so it's not a tiny tiny game that's out in September. So anyway, my whole point is I wonder if Zelda, it looks like the biggest thing they've got.
Zelda is the biggest thing they've got. Unless there's like a September Direct where they suddenly reveal a 3D Mario or something this Christmas, which is not going to happen. This is absolutely their big bet.
I'm intrigued, Chris. When do you think they could release this?
I think November 19th.
Exactly where I was going. Yeah. Genuinely, I think Nintendo are the only ones who could launch this on the same

day as Grand Theft Auto and it wouldn't be affected. Um, I don't I don't think it launch the same day as Grand Theft Auto are going to be mad. But I do think they could release in November for this. And I think for several reasons. One, it's a Switch 2 exclusive and GTA is on Switch 2. Also, it's not like the game isn't going to get coverage. You know, the thing is with a lot a lot of games that are going, "Oh, we're avoiding launching in November." It's because your game isn't going to get the attention. I'll be honest. If Zelda and GTA come out close together, I'm getting Zelda because I'm of Yeah,
that I that's you're speaking to an, you know, you're speaking to me and so I think they probably could and they they have a lot of Zelda promotion going all the way up to the movie which I think is in spring next year. So you'd still recommend they put it a little bit away from GTA because it is going to suck up a lot of the oxygen. I've got in my head,
wasn't the original occur of timeout on like 22nd of November or something? like November was historically a a Zelda release date if I remember rightly.
So the famous thing about time in the UK

is they released I can't I can't remember the exact date. I thought it was early December but it was they didn't have enough units. They sold out almost instantly. They had very few units in the stock and then they they air shipped in copies of the game because they needed to get it out before Christmas. It landed [clears throat] just before Christmas that airship and and that's why Ocarine of Time was number one. Christmas number one when that used to matter.
It was Christmas number one in the UK. Good times.
Actually, you know, I'll go back. There's a couple of more stats here. Obviously, this isn't the first remake of Rockarine of Time. No. The other time it sort of came back was on the 3DS. There was a
You call it a remake. I mean, it's very similar.
It's a remaster.
It's a remaster.
We're into remake, remaster, reimagining, but it's a remaster, isn't it? Same game with a new coat of paint.
Yeah, it's it's very similar, but that did 6.4 million units, which is actually above what a lot of Zelda games do.
Yeah. I very rarely guess or or predict sales figures. I would put Ocarina of Time Switch above that. It's definitely not going to hit like the 20k 30k that um
30 million

20 million 30 million that um Breath of Wild Tears of the Kingdom do, but I I think it could maybe hit 10. Maybe.
Yeah, it won't do it quickly because it's Switch 2 game. No. Oh, no. No. And we're still in the early days of it. But yeah, I agree. I think it could be very special. Particularly as we're probably a long way away from Zelda, right? I knew we could talk about Zelda for ages. That's why I did it first. Um, I'm going to take the next one. James,
go for it.
I'm going to pick Call of Duty. Uh, so Call of Duty is in a really awkward, unhappy spot. So, Black Ops 7, James, I know you missed this cuz you were out of the media. It was a disaster. Like, you know, Brendan Sinclair, one of the games in the shop is used to talk about predict the the demise of Call of Duty, and he was always wrong. Like, if you'd have predicted it that year, he'd have got it right. Um, launch sales of Black Ops 7 was down 50% compared to Black Ops 6 in Europe. It lost its place as the biggest shooter of the year. It went to Battlefield 6. That's never happened before. Call of Duty is usually the bestselling game in the US every year, unless Rockstar game came out. It's normally uh Call of Duty is the bestselling game, but last year it was

fifth. Oo, that is low. Yeah. According to Ampair, Call of Duty HQ, which includes Black Ops 6, 7, Modern Warfare 3, Modern Warfare 2, and Call of Duty War Zone, it had 12.3 million players in June. just stream just gone. But that's a whole eight million lower than June the year before. So it's nearly lost 40% of its audience in the last 12 months.
Now there will be some fundamental problems here that goes beyond just C Black Ops because there it's been it was declining before Black Ops 7. Black Ops 7 certainly was a bad uh result for it. I've been keeping a breast of the Modern Warfare 4 numbers. Um they does seem to be generating some strong buzz and as you notice from the the charts uh Modern Warfare 4 is the third most watched trailer uh most watched trailers rather in the charts 119 million so behind Wolverine ahead of Marvel Token it isn't in the media coverage and this is fascinating I spoke to I said why is there no Call of Duty media coverage that does confuse me yeah
it's all YouTube right and I so I

actually spoke to Andy Robinson for VGC I went the media cover of duty so much we do a bit he said but
that audience is all on YouTube And I thought that's interesting. I didn't know that. But yeah, it's number one in terms of overall video views. It's across all creators. Nearly 700 million views there. It's not on the IGM wish list, but that's always can be a bit vague. So, it is getting a bit more buzz. It's getting a lot more attention. People are being more positive about this one. Uh, and I am fairly confident in saying that Modern Warfare 4 will be bigger than Black Ops 7. Black Ops 7 was very bad. And this game does look stronger. There was also this weird pattern with Call of Duty where you had like Modern Warfare 2 was really really good and everyone loved it and then Modern Warfare 3 wasn't and everyone hated it and then Black Ops 6 was really really good, everyone loved it. Black Ops 7 was also actually quite good but people hated it. Um so you had this you have this sort of one year you have this weird cycle of they did this weird thing where they did these two quick fire sequel things. It doesn't seem to have worked
but we're in the up year if following that pattern. This should be the year

where this one will be really good. Its problem is a certain Grand Theft Auto.
There's no chance that Modern Warfare 4 will beat Grand Theft Auto, but I'm intrigued to see like how close it comes. I am not a massive Call of Duty player, but my understanding is that Modern Warfare is still like the prestige subbrand. That's the one that everyone loves the most. Or is it shifted to Black Ops? [snorts]
Shifted to and from a couple of times actually. This is I was a massive Call of Duty fan back in the day. Modern Warfare was the hero brand and it it came out in 2007 and then the sequel was uh 2009, but then Modern Warfare 3 is when Infinity War had that implosion and Sledgehammer had a takeover. It's that point that Black Ops started becoming the premium brand and they're basically they're much they're both very very strong.
Yeah, I think the movie is going to be based on Modern Warfare,
I would imagine. So yeah, it's the quickfire sequel um experiment that you mentioned that I intrigued me about this one cuz obviously like the the reports I remember covering where sources say was that Modern Warfare 3, the new Modern

Warfare 3 was originally an expansion or DLC for Modern Warfare 2 that got spun out into a standalone release like the following year. And that would mean that this is techn if if true, this would technically be Modern Warfare 3. Yeah. Yeah. And so they've had a bit more time to to percolate on it a bit more. So this should be the stronger release in theory.
Yeah. And Activision said they're not doing that anymore. They're not doing the quick fast sequel. We won't have Modern Warfare 5 next year. I don't know what they'll do next year. Whether they'll have a game or whether they'll do updates or they'll invest in War Zone. I don't know. The franchise is in is in I don't want to say troubled like not about to disappear. But there was a time I would have said what are the biggest games of 2026 excluding Call of Duty. I'm not doing that anymore.
No. But this Modern Warfare 4 is out 23rd of October. And of course, that's just just under a month.
Yeah.
Before GTA 6 launch. So, it has time to get the launch out there and get players. But it is going to hit into that GTA window. And it's now down to Activision, Blizzard, and Microsoft and their marketing team and be how can we

lean into GTA and the audience that will bring into PlayStation and Xbox rather than lean out, you know, could we do some big promotions around Black Fridays and and sales and stuff like that? you know, want people put down GTA. Um, I don't know. It's great to see it doing all right in these charts. Um, but say it's in a tough spot
ultimately. Like even when Call of Duty is in a tough spot, it's still selling like millions more than vast majority of other games. At the top of the show, you said that um sports games aren't in this because we just know they're going to come out. We know they're going to sell. Well, I kind of put Call of Duty. Call of Duty is like the gun sports game as it were.
So, James, you pick the next one. What's the next game should we talk about? I mean, the next one must be Marvel's Wolverine.
Yeah, it's up there near the top of the charts for all of them. So, 128 million views in top trailers, second only to Zelda. It's third in terms of media coverage, 5,300 articles written about it. It's, uh, second in video views, 553 million accumulated views, second only to Modern Warfare. It is top of IGN's

wish list. Um, it's not on the Steam wish list.
That's cuz it's not on Steam.
That's because it's a PlayStation game. humans. [laughter] That'll be why. God, am I out of touch already? Um, this No, this is this is a big one. Like, so Insomniac Spider-Man games have done so well and they've really kind of raised the bar for kind of not licensed tie-ins, but licensed titles and you know, an original text. The comparison I would see is like they've kind of done for Marvel games what Batman Arkham Asylum did for DC games and they they've raised the superhero game bar um higher. I'm intrigued to see how this one does because this one is a lot more linear than the Spider-Man games. Spider-Man games are usual kind of open world. You're in New York and oh, now we've got a bit of Queens as well, but it pretty much the same sort of structure that Spider-Man games have been since, you know, Spider-Man 2 in 2004. Wolverine's going to be a bit more linear. Lot kind of set pieces, lots of, you know, globe trotting in different locations and so forth. And it's a lot more brutal. Like I am a bit of a Marvel fan. I enjoy a

bit of Wolverine, but I watch this personally. I watch this footage and I'm like, I really hope there's a way to turn off the blood.
There is apparently
because there is so much of it. There's a lot of excitement for this one. Like, Insomniac have proven what they can do with superhero games. Marvel, as much as the MCU is kind of stalling a little bit. The hype is building again for Avengers Doom Day at the end of the year. So, Marvel has never completely lost its popularity, Wolverine's always been one of their biggest characters. I This has got to be and this is this is coming out September. So this potentially what biggest set game of September apart from sports games.
I think outside of sports and GTA this is probably the best game of the year because on paper it's got everything right.
Yeah. It's a storydriven PlayStation game. I know that it's not the open world of Spider-Man as you say. It's more of a linear thing but those games also do well on PlayStation as we've seen with God of War. It's more God of War than I think Spider-Man.
Yeah, it is.
And those games do extremely well. Insomniac are just consistently brilliant. This is their fourth game on

on PlayStation 5. They had Miles Morales, they've had Spider-Man 2, and they've had Ratchet and Clank uh Rift Apart. All of those did really well critically. So, you got a great game. Sony are clearly putting their weight behind it. They were just at Comic-Con this weekend um doing a lot of promotion around the game. Spider-Man is huge. You say first two games by May 2022. This date is really old. It's 33 million sales. Spider-Man 2 is not included in that cuz it came out later, but that sold 11 million units in 6 months. So these are, you know, they're the good games. There's a few things like I do think the violence is a bit much. Insomniac games are always in a bit like PG-13 or 12A. Like it's the Ratchet and Clank studio.
Yeah. And and they do do obviously Spider-Man is a lot more violent than Ratchet and Clank, but it's still
Yeah.
It's still something that I wouldn't mind if I had a 12-year-old playing it, right? But I would mind Wolverine. And Wolverine's I don't resonate with that character quite as well as Spider-Man. I oddly, despite being a massive Insomniac fan, I'm not that excited for it. But
on paper it looks really good. It's

actually one of two Marvel games that Sony publishing. The other one is this beat him up Marvel Tottenham which I'm a bit out of that scene. I went to EVO last year and went, "Oh wow, I can see why these games do really well in these charts." And this obviously this there's been a couple of new fighters this year. The other one was Invincible Versus which also got a lot of buzz around it. Lots of pre-release buzz and hype for Marvel Token. Um it's in the chart number four in the trailers 98.5 million. It hasn't had a huge amount of media Oh, no. No, that's why I'm lying. [laughter] I should have put numbers on this. It's number five in media coverage. Um, and it's hanging about. It's doing very well in those in those various charts. Um, uh, let me just see where it is on the Steam Wish list. This one is coming out on Steam. Um, to confuse things about PlayStation published games, but it's not on the Steam wish list chart. I think it's a fighting game, so therefore it's naturally going to have a small audience being have a dedicated and very, you know, active audience, which is the reason why the numbers are so high. obviously stars a lot of famous Marvel characters. They've done a lot of promotion for it. The beta weekend it just had there was a bit of a backlash

the PC performance. There was some issues around that. But um
yeah, two Marvel games um both from Sony. Um Wolverine will be the big one.
Yeah. Oh, absolutely. But like I'm I'm I'm interested to see how token does cuz as you say like it that is a very targeted release. There's a very specific audience there. The fact that it's developed I believe it's developed by Arc System Works. you know, big fighting game developer. So, and you know, just the screenshots alone, it looks really, it's one of those games you look at, it's like, I am not the audience, but if I was the audience, I would absolutely get this. Like, it looks like kind of best of class kind of.
Yeah. What game do you want to cover next?
Well, I was thinking connections. We were two Marvel games. There were also two Star Wars games out.
I ruined your segue. I'm so sorry.
No, no. I was I was I was You didn't at all. I I was I was thought maybe let's go try that. Let's go from Marvel to Star Wars cuz there are two Star Wars games in this chart. one again like Marvel actually Marvel is quite high on both of them. There's two types of Star Wars game again very different genres. One is Star Wars Galactic Racer which is

number six in the trailers. 44.3 million uh views on trailers. It is it's doing quite well with media coverage a little bit lower down 11 I think in the it's in the video views 121 million vis video views. It's number four on the IGM wish list. Uh this is a UK made game published by UK studio based on the Star Wars IP. is I I play this James. Do you Did you play pod racer back in the day?
Of course I did. Yeah.
Yeah. Right. That was a very arcadey Star Wars game. And I only realized that because I played this one and it is not. [laughter]
The pod racing thing is excellent. Like it was so excellent.
But I crashed a lot because I realized that I can't just skim a wall.
Oh, that was how I got through the courses.
Yeah. And if you touch a wall, your your thing blows up, right? And it's like, wow, this is tough. And it's also very burnouty. So, in Burnout, you remember when there's a crash and then the camera does this whole sort of fit and in in um in in Star Wars Galactic Racer, I'm diving through the canyon like this and then suddenly I nudge somebody and he crashes into a wall and there's a lovely replay of it. Then it cuts back to me

and then I crash into a wall because I'm going really fast in a canyon, right? But I thought it was brilliant. It looks incredible. But and it's and it's but I'm surprised there's not been a Star Wars racing game. This these data suggest it's a bit of a surprise not been a Star Wars racing game. um uh in a very long time. There was a couple brown pod racer, there was a couple that followed it, but then sort of from the early 2000s, they just stopped and um this marks a return to it.
The last one I remember was I think it was Star Wars pod racer racer revenge.
Yeah, there was also Super Bombad Racer, their cart version.
Oh god. Yes.
Yeah. Yeah,
I remember that. But all of this was around that um the prequel trilogy time when Star Wars were Yeah. Lucas were licensing out like Star Wars. There would there there were points where there'd be like three or four games coming out per film. You know, I remember like around Attack of the Clones, you had like the Clone Wars, which was like the strategy sort of one. You had Bounty Hunter, your action adventure. You had Jedi Star Fighter, which was your dog fighting game. Like, so
yeah, the like pod racing they were

capitalizing on when the prequels were huge and they were trying to make them huge.
Yeah.
This feels like a good timing because we are in that weird point where it's it's the nostalgia cycle, isn't it? It's been 20, 30 years since the the prequels. Therefore, the people who watch that growing up are now excited for that feeling again. And so, this is you watch it and you watch, you know, how it's directed, how it's lit, how it's how it looks. This is very much like a pod racing game for the children who watch episode one, but are now adults and want that feeling again. And I find it fascinating seeing like the pre because the prequels were obviously so we hated them. [laughter]
They were hated. Everyone hated the prequels for decades and in the last 5 10 years it's become like oh weren't they brilliant and oh that gener that generation was fantastic the son of nostalgia for like clone wars and Star Wars Rebels. So this is a welltimed this is a you're right it's surprising there hasn't been a pod racer game earlier but this is the right time to do it and I I

think this could do quietly quite well.
I think it will do really well. It's made by Fuse Games. That's almost entirely the Need for Speed Team, right? So these people know how to do this stuff. Yeah.
Interesting. As a Doctor Who fan, I'm used to everyone saying, "Peter Kapori, what a rubbish doctor." And then two two generations later going, "Do you remember the Kapori era? Yeah, it wasn't that good." And now we're going for that through Jody Whitaker at the moment. So, it's weird thing, the rose tinted specs a little bit. But this game is not a pod racing game. There is pod racing in it, but there's like loads of different vehicles all the way from different eras, you know, even though it's set in a certain specific time place with characters and there's story to it. Um, it do it isn't just for people that loved episode one pod racer, but it it is clearly going to build that. And yeah, you're right. It's doing so well cuz of that nostalgia. It looks great as well. There is another Star Wars game coming out called Star Wars Zero Company. That's out quite soon. Um, it's from EA. It is quite low down in the trailer charts. In fact, technically it's off the trailer chart, 21 at 10.2 million. Um, it's in the Steam Wishlist chart, 652,000 wish list. So, it's doing

quite well there. Um, but it's sort of not in any of the others. Uh, this is another I think this has another nostalgic potential because it's basically Star Wars XCOM. Um, but it's not it's not generating quite the same um noise as Galactic Racer. But I don't know. I don't think it matter. I think when you've got a game like this um these sort of games, it's a strategy game. It's certainly more it's certainly more niche. Um it's out next month, by the way. It's out on the 27th of August. um and um it can build and find that fan base and stuff like that all over time. If you look at how you know sort of fair access games do I I think it has that potential if it's good. Um I don't know. I I know this is nothing to do with this studio. It's nothing to do with this publisher. But come on, stop m messing around with licensed XCOM games and just make me an XCOM game. It's like [laughter] can't we just start building our own IP a little bit here? But yeah, I I think it's interesting because obviously Star Wars Outlaw didn't do very well. It missed. It was a bit of a disappointment if you go back to that

Ubisoft game,
which angers me cuz like Star Wars Outlaws is one of the best Star Wars games I've played in years. Like it is it is factually brilliant. So I don't understand why it didn't do better.
Well, I think Star Wars is probably going for a bit of a malaise. There's a lot of noise around it and that cuz but I think the thing for me is being niche and going into targeted areas. We're going to make an XCOM Star Wars game. Brilliant. Yeah, I'm going to make a racing Star Wars game. Brilliant. Rather than going, let's make a big blockbuster Star Wars game. you're gonna make a Marvel fighting game. I think that's kind of where things might work for video games. I do think if you're gonna spend that much money on even Insomniac with Wolverine. Actually, I probably don't agree with that. But certainly if I was Ubisoft, I'd have probably made The Division 3 rather than Star Wars cuz you have to share the revenue with Disney and all sorts. Anyway, James, pick me pick us the next game on our on this. You know, we don't go through all of them. But by the way, if you want to see all of them, the charts are in the newsletter and all you can see all the games in there. But James, pick us another
The one I was going to pick was I'm going to go with Control Resident.

So this is coming out. This is second in the IGM wish list chart. It is
bottom of the top 10 in video views. 124 million. So still more than it's just above Star Wars Galactic Racer. It's number six in media coverage, 4,200 articles. It doesn't I was right down the bottom of top trailers uh with 10.7 million views. But I mean, this one is particularly interesting because Remedy have been uh Remedy historically perhaps a little niche in terms of their their games. There's a big big cult following around them. Um but they've never been like absolutely massive sellers. Control did really really well. Alan Wake 2 then followed and has done well. My understanding is that Alan Wake Alam 2 has done well over over time. And here is a you know a sequel. I'm intrigued about this one. Like control I am not a remedy fan unlike people that we know. I am not a massive uh I mean you're a bit of a remedy fan, aren't you?
I love that way. Yeah.
Yeah. Um Control is the one one of the

two games of theirs that I actually really enjoyed. I liked Quantum Break, but Control I absolutely loved. This is interesting because it's a sequel, but it it goes a very different direction. The first one was very kind of third-person shooting and you know lots of superpowers and so forth and it was all set within this kind of brutalist um claustrophobic office and then this has gone it's not open world but it's like much more open sections um of levels and it's a lot more melee and like almost superhero melee combat with like weird powers and so forth and so given that it's control did really well and was received really well to go such a strange Not strange in such a different direction with the sequel. I'm interested to see whether this pays off for them. Classic remedy. They will never but this is but the but you're right. We had remedy on the show back in in May and the big thing we talked about about the game should do better. You mentioned Alan Weight 2 did well. It

didn't like it is it's profitable. Didn't lose the money but um it didn't it didn't took him a while to get to profitability on that title and um it should have been a massive hit. like it's a one of the best horror games made in it's up there with it's it's Resident Evil quality. Now I'm not expecting it to do Resident Evil numbers those an exceptional thing but even like it should do it should be one of the better performing horror games. It wasn't and I partly I think that's to do with um the fact their games are a bit strange and they are a little bit unique and a little bit you know David Lynchy and um I the whole thing is Remedy's publishing this one themselves now. They they learned how to publish games with last year's uh uh incredibly disappointing um uh forgot the name of the game now, the live service game they released last year that uh uh underperformed for them and they had to uh and they basically, you know, scaled back on that. But um this one is they're publishing themselves so they can probably lean into their weird a little bit. They can embrace what makes their games unique.

I'm not saying the publishers didn't get it before, but they really get it. Remedy, you know. Um so, um I'm intrigued by it. It's getting a lot of attention. They're very good at PR remedy and media really love remedy. So the fact it's done very well in the media coverage is not a surprise. It's done really well on video views though um even if it's not done quite so well on the trailer charts but it is in the trailer charts. I think it'd be interesting. It's coming out in the death zone though. What is it with remedy and releasing their big games next to big games? Like it's just I they I know they don't do it on purpose. This is like it just seems to be the curse of them. Alan Wake 2 came out when Spider-Man 2 did and was in that sort of weird crunch zone of October. I can't remember it was 2023 where it was like it was just all these big big titles that came out at once at that time. Obviously famously Alan Wake ended up being killed by Red Dead Redemption and now we've got um Control Resin in that kill zone of um uh [clears throat] of September but obviously it's not all about launch anymore and you know they're getting the game out well in advance. It looks interesting. I really

want it to do well. Um, so, um, yeah, it's interesting. I'm Can I Can I pick some new IP?
Go for it.
I'm going to pick two because we're running out of time. One is Blood of the Dawn Walker. Blood of the Dawn Walker is really interesting. We had them on the show uh earlier this year. Uh, this is a game from the former Witcher devs. It's basically vampires meet the Witcher with some sort of, you know, you decisions that can't be undone and all have to make decisions and things like um, it is uh, it looks good. pub published by Vander Namco who are good at uh western RPGs obviously um with they did the Witcher they also published from software games as well so they're good with this sort of audience um uh the um the uh uh I think this is going to be a hit if it's good I think it will be a hit regardless but I think it will be a it will be so blood it's not that high on the um trailer charts it's in just just outside the top 15 15.4 4 million trailers, but it's number two in the

media coverage and um it's it's number two in the Steam wish list charts. 1.47 million wish lists coming out in early September. It's also I'm unless I'm missing something. Is this the only Western RPG coming out this year?
I can't think of any other
Fable was due this year. It's now February.
There's also there's a lot of lingering hunger for a new Witcher game. So in the absence of that a new game by the Witcher developers particularly if it ends up being very Witcherike like you know I know a lot of studio a lot of developers like when they break away and the start of their own studio they want to make something completely different but I think if there's enough crossover there um yeah I mean like you know the the Witcher 3's reputation is just absolutely huge. It's one of the one of the most you know praised games of the last 10 years.
Wow. They just announced DLC for the Witcher 3.
Yeah, I know. That's nuts. that's how uh it's still going and 4 is deep in development. I think it will come down to how good it is.
Um I'm thinking like you know there's a thing with sort of Europeanmade RPGs that are you know Boulders Gate 3 and

stuff. They can break out and do really really big numbers. Blood of the Dawn Walker I think it's going to do good decent numbers any regardless. It's not the biggest team. It's made in a country that's not it's quite cheap to make games relatively cheap to make games rather. And so I think that um I think it's going to do very well. How well will depend on um how good the game is.
As you say, it comes down to how good the game is and how well Bandon Namkai and Rebel Wolves emphasize that Witcher connection because I'll be honest, when I first looked at these charts last night, like I was like Blood of the Dawn Walker. Honestly, I'd forgotten the name. It's it's very kind of word of the word word sort of title, but do you know what I mean? Like it's like not generic, but like it's like it's just I don't know what that means. as soon and I I thought oh that's scratching a vague memory of what that is. As soon as I saw former Witcher devs I'm now interested. So I think they really need to emphasize that kind of from the makers of
I think Gamescom is going to be a big moment for it as well as TD Project will

be there pulling out the Witcher as well. So it's going to be a lot of noise around that kind of stuff. The other new IP I want to talk about is Beast of Reincarnation.
Yeah. Now this is this is a Japanese RPG. It's made by Game Freak, who are obviously very famous for um uh Pokemon. Um oddly, this game is not on Nintendo. It's backed by Xbox. It's Game Pass uh day one, so that guarantees it a strong sort of audience on day one. It's it's high on the list partially because it's out soon. It's out next week, right? So that's that sort of naturally that's the thing with these charts. They are influenced a little bit by the games and hope out sooner. It's it has featured, but it has also featured in both the Xbox and PlayStation digital events. So, we have, you know, it has had a lot of push from the consoles. It's it's, you know, it's doing quite well in terms of media coverage. I think it will do even more because it's just had a load of uh stuff being said about it. It's it's in the top 10, 28.2 million in top trailers. Uh it's um uh it's surely it's

in the it's at the bottom. 97.7 million video views in the video charts. Um, yeah, it's it's just it's just it's in the in the IGM wish list thing. I think it could be and it the buzz is quite positive around it and it looks kind of nice for what we're used to the technical capabilities of Pokémon. Like hang on, why do I what? That's what I'm waiting for. Well, that's what I'm waiting for is when this if this comes out and is an absolute technological marvel and is done brilliantly and like then the scrutiny on winds and waves next year even though obviously like you know very different platform you're making this for like much much more powerful consoles than you know Nintendo's even the Switch 2 but it does it looked stunning like I like I watched the trailers for this I watched you both the um the showcases in June and I had to keep reminding myself like this is by Game Freak like you proper squint it's like If you took the logo off the trailer, you would not be able to tell this is by the people who made Pokémon. It looks like a whole other class of games.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, the numbers are

certainly positive for it. Go on, James. You pick the next one.
I'm actually going to I'm going to put pick a chart. Can we talk about the Steam Wish Lit chart? Go.
Okay. Go on then. There's a lot of games in there that I'm like, what?
Yeah, exactly. Well, no, just it just emphasizes to me that Steam really is its own world. like it's it's completely separate from the the wider console and PC space like you know if you look at Steam on its own like you know Blood of the Dawn Walk is like number two as you said but you know Phantom Blade Zero, Onamushia, Way of the Sword, Dawn of War 4 those are like the other top the others in the top four and those are much lower in the other charts but you know you mentioned about new IP there's so much more new IP in the Steam Wish chart and it's cuz it's it's indie Yeah.
And you've got, you know, Nalis, I'm not going to go into detail on all these, but like just picking out some that I know of. Nalus Knights is, I believe, the developers of Cloud Punk. They are, it's set in the world of Cloud Punk, and

they they've made it, it's kind of a cyberpunk life sim is my understanding of it. Um, Big Walk is the new one by House House and Panic. Um, so that's the House House is the Untitled Goose Game developer, I believe.
Yeah. there lots of the weird kind of um like job based games like uh you know lowbudget repairs, Retory, Chill Electronics Repair. Like it just I I look at the Steam Wish list chart and I'm like it really shows that the PC gaming space is very very different to kind of the broader market. I know people can't talk about PC and consoles if they're the same sort of thing. They're really not. The audiences aren't really different like and and like there's a heavy turret simulators in this. Hell let loose for Vietnam, by the way, British made game published by Team 17. We don't talk about that very much. I'd like to get them on the show at some point. Um the um uh but yeah, but also even things like Phantom Blade Zero, which is the Wookie sort of um uh action game. It is technically part of a franchise, but um it's it's a not that game is very high in the trailers and

the Steam Wish list charts, not at all in the media charts. That's the thing like none of these games on the media charts. um on emushia. So yeah, it's really it's really fascinating. By the way, we talked about Control Res earlier. It's number five in the Steam Wish list chart.
Yeah, that's Yeah. And and crucially, Grand Theft Auto is not coming out on PC yet. So
yeah,
these are the games that people are looking forward to because they don't have access to Grand Theft Auto.
Yeah, it's certainly it is a is an eclectic chart. I actually wanted to bring up because you mentioned we mentioned Phantom Blade Zero there and sort of I guess loosely connected to that looks similar is Onamushia. Played that at Summer GameFest. I was a little bit like a Capcom, why you doing that? You know, it's like it was I'm doing me wrong. It was okay on PS2. Did all right, but it's not exactly the biggest thing in the world. But look, look at it. I underestimate Capcom at your peril. Um number three in the Steam Wish list. I played it at Summer Game Festival Support. It was really good. It is in the top trailer charts. I think it's at number 11, 18.5 million uh views there. It's been covered quite a lot by the press. It's just behind Control Res

3,800 articles. Um, and Capcom on such a streak of success, Resident Evil Recquum into Pragmata and and Onushia looks like it might do all right. I don't think it's going to be the biggest thing in the world. It's also coming out in that kill box of September, but um yeah, sorry. I was sort of derailed there from talking about Steam, but it's like it's in the it's in that top chart.
It's a good one to pick out.
Yeah. Um, I think the only other thing like looking across all the charts that that strikes me, obviously we've talked about Zelda Orin of Time extensively, there is one more remake that's doing the the rounds, which is Rayman Legends Retold.
Um,
I think [clears throat] I think the fact that you picked that out talks to our bias.
I think it does.
What the games that we like?
Well, no, I I never played them. I just It surprises I'll be honest. No, that's not my bias. That is my surprise. I'm surprised that that is so popular.
Yeah. Well, it is a little higher than I thought it would be. Certainly, this is like a 3Dish remake of Rayman Legends. I don't know why it's not just a different game. I have said that to Ubisoft. Why is this why is this being positioned as

a remake of a when it's so different? I mean, it is is quite similar to it, but yeah, it's doing quite well. Top it's in the top trailers, top 10, 12 point um 24.2 million. It's uh it's had a bit of media coverage as well. Um yeah, it's it's it's it's in it's even in the video views. It's had a lot of chat around it, which, you know, I'm pleased by. I'm not expecting too much from it. I don't think it's going to be the biggest game of the year, but it's um certainly uh doing a little it's doing all right with the numbers. Of course, what we should probably talk about, and I don't care about it, I suppose you don't care about it very much either, is Gears of War Eday, um which is uh which is higher up a lot of these um a lot of these charts, it's number nine in the um trailers, 25.3 million. It's number four in media coverage, 4,600. I expect most of that is people amazed that they're making it exclusive to Xbox.
I was going to say that is absolutely the majority of the narrative around this game. Again, really interested to see how that performs because Xbox shifted away from exclusivity for a

reason. Uh that reason perhaps being lower platform sales than, you know, the biggest platform on the market. Um, I mean, I'm just I'm interested to see whether this because funnily enough, I've been hearing a lots of um conversation like podcasts and stuff around Gears of War and the debate as to whether Gears of War obviously is one of the temple franchises for Xbox, but is the audience still there? Is the audience that grew up on the original trilogy on Xbox 360? Are they still interested in Gears of War? Are they still
I don't know.
Don't I don't mean no entirely. It is relatively popular in the US. Gears of War, right? I think it kind we come from a slightly European perspective where the franchise it does sell some copies over here but not very much. Um uh which is the reason why I think they've utterly killed it in the in Europe. It would do all right in the UK because UK has a decent Xbox install base but Europe doesn't.
Um and I think not putting Gears of War on PlayStation is going to hurt it quite a bit outside of America. Um but it

isn't the hero title it used to be even though it's closely associated with the the console. Um but numbers are pretty good. A lot of chat around it in October. Um so and maybe this will be the one. You know C whole thing about Xbox this whole plan of there all the layoffs, all the closures and stuff is all about focusing on the core franchises and they've clearly identified Gears of War as being one of those core franchises. Certainly one they believe they can bring back. Obviously that plan is new. Gears of War Eday has been development for some time. But um yeah, we had Lucy James on the podcast and she just was very dismissive of it and the some of the fans were not entirely happy. Um but I think um you know maybe this will be the one. Um it's like games do stage comebacks all the time. I'm going to have to run out. I could leave it there. If you want to see the full chart by the way of all the listeners at home, um we have got there's loads of games in this. That's interesting. Silent Hill Townfalls in there as a well that's sort of in the middle of a lot of these charts. Minecraft Dungeons has done well with the trailers. Doesn't do so well with the media coverage, but it's is in there

as well. Um uh uh we Dawn of War 4, it's actually quite a big PC release that one. Um obviously made by different developer this time, the from the Dawn of War normal games. That's that's in the charts as well. There's a few games that aren't in the charts cuz they're technically not new games that I think will do very well. And I'll pick two of them. Um one is Lego Batman. So Lego Batman obviously came out in May. It didn't come out on Nintendo in May. It's coming out in Nintendo, I think, in September. Um, and obviously that is a uh that the Lego games do very well on Nintendo platforms. They're one of the third party games. Um, that do very well on on Nintendo things. They don't necess tend to do very well at launch on on on Nintendo platforms. Yeah. September 18th. Um, they tend to do well over time. They do well at launch and then they keep growing and growing and growing. But that'll be a significant one um for that game. The other one is Forza Horizon 6, right? Cuz that's coming out on PS5 and apparently it's

coming out on PS5 in 2026, not on the list cuz it came out on PC and Xbox back in May. Forsa Horizon 6 for Horizon 5 came out on the PS5 last year and was a huge hit.
Um so this is so I don't know if that means that people for Horizon 6 come out and PlayStation fans will go we just just got one just got that one a year ago or if they'll go ah we love that one. we'll get this new one as well. Um I think that but I it will definitely do numbers. It will definitely do. All right. It is coming. Depends how close it launches to GTA actually, I suspect. But um that is a uh assuming it's still coming in 2026.
There's another game that's uh coming out to a new platform at some point.
I knew you going to mention this.
Yeah, of course it was.
Yeah. What's what what game are you going to mention, James?
7 First Light. [laughter]
Millions sold within the first couple of weeks. Absolutely the best Bond game in decades. It's uh you know I might might double dip myself. Might pick it up on Switch as well. It's like I'm I'm going to
Yeah. It's about time the Nintendo audience saw saw how good it is. So that's coming out some point before the end of the year.

I don't think that's going to be one of the biggest game biggest launches.
Not for you but
Well, but but I mean it is for me. I first it's brilliant. Right. Yeah.
Absolutely brilliant. Um I'm the guy with the gold signed gold poster on my wall.
Yeah. I know. Yeah. Fair point. Fair point. And there is an association with Bond and Nintendo because of that game. Um so yeah, I think it would do all right. I just um it's [laughter] I don't think it's going to trouble the charts come come the end of the year. Um James, thank you for joining us.
No, thank you so much. This has been a really fun episode to be on. So, thank you so much for for asking me.
Yeah, this is less layoffs, no disc what's happening to the discs, none of that rage. It's all just let's look forward to some games. Um but um yeah, I think it's an interesting year. Oddly, although there's lots of games on this list, they're all quite lots of loads of different games. Yeah. Right. Even in the September, we're talking about September being this Kill Zone. And I guess it is a little bit, but Marvel's Wolverine, Control Resonant, Onimushia, they're they're quite different. Um, and I think even if they're going to eat each other a little bit in September cuz

people having to make choices, I'm going to have to I'm a big Fire Emblem fan. I'm going to get Fire Emblem, which means I'm probably not going to get Marvel's Wolverine. And I'm probably not going to get control resident that month, but I will get them because I they they they look brilliant. Um so, uh yeah, I think it's I think it's going to be good.
It's going to be a good year. Plenty for everyone. Obviously, I'm just waiting for Zelda, but yeah,
there's other things to keep me distracted on the on in the meantime.
Yeah, me too. Right, I'm going to now do the news, James, so I'll let you go. But, um yeah, thank you for joining us.
Thank you so much.
Good luck with your demo launch.
Cheers. All that's left for us to do now is wrap up the news from the last week. And there were actually a few stories. There was a few financial results as well. And we're going to start with Craft. Now, we don't always cover Craftton, some financial results, but Craftton launched the Subnautica 2 smash hit game only a few months ago, and it has paid off for them very well. The Korean games giant saw its revenue shoot up 94.9% to $889 million, and operating profit rose 67% to $283 million. It wasn't just Subnautica 2 that did the

business for them. PUBG as well, but obviously that game was a real breakout hit. Um, even though we did see it coming. It was dominating the Steam wish lists, but yeah, it did extremely well. Sticking with financials, Capcom delivered incredible results really for Q1. This is on the back of two things. Resident Evil Reququum continues to do very, very well. It's now sold 8 million units. And also, the new game Pragmata, that's a new IP as well. 2 and a.5 million copies that game has sold. As a result, Capcom's income rose 69.2% 2% $177.5 million while profit hit 250 million which is up 67%. Uh incredible results there for the folks at Capcom. Let's do Ubisoft Financials as well. It's a little bit older this one. Um it's a mixed results. 255.8 million euros which is you know down 9.2% over the quarter the year before but the decline was due to the comparison with Assassin's Creed Shadows which launched in March last year and and did very very well for them into the following quarter. The firm is feeling pretty bullish though. He's just launched Assassin's Creed Black Flag Reync, which has done very well and it sold 3 and a half million copies. So

that's um some some more positive little bit more positive news out of Ubisoft. Um a few negative stories. Double Fine Productions reduced its workforce by 23 people or 25% of the team and this is following it divorce from Xbox obviously left the studio now. It's independent. It's still to sign P. It's trying to find new deals, new publishers. Uh as is Compulsion Games, the other studio that spun out from Xbox. These are hard landings for these companies. They've been given a little bit of runway cash, but they have to find work fast, and [clears throat] it's going to be difficult. It's difficult market to do that in. Also, a company having a bit of a tough time is Wizard of the Coast. Um, so Wizards owner, Hasbro, recorded a $56 million impairment charge last week due to its video game investments. Several video games have been cancelled. And now the Coast boss, John Hy, who was stepped down. He's stepping down from September the 1st. He's a former Blizzard exec. He sort of handled World of Warcraft and he's been overseeing Magic the Gathering, Dungeons and Dragons, and the upcoming video games, Exodus and Warlock. Uh, both those games still scheduled for 2027. They're big bets there for Wizards of the Ghost. Some interesting stories. Atari has signed a

deal with Universal Pictures to develop 10 of its IP into games. Those titles are Asteroids, Adventure, Berserk, Breakout, Centipede, Crystal Castles, Millipede, Missile Command, Pong, and Ys Revenge. None of them are particularly massive, and I'm not entirely sure what the plan is with those games. They don't scream blockbuster successes at the box office, but who can I'm sure there's a plan somewhere down the line. February is shaping up to be a really busy one for the video game industry next year. We already had Fable, the Xbox reboot of the classic um RPG franchise that was coming on February 23rd. We had Tomb Raider Legacy of Atlantis coming on February 12th. And now we have God of War, the big big PlayStation game. It's coming out February 16th. There's a lot of female fronted games there. Uh and they all look excellent. So busy busy February uh for the video games industry. The EU Commission has approved the $55 billion acquisition of Electronic Arts and that's the acquisition from a consortium of investors led by the Saudi Arabia public investment fund. We have talked about this quite a bit on this show and check out the political episodes we've done with George Osborne sort of explain why the Saudis are so interested in buying EA and their and their investments in video games. It's eye opening reading.

And [snorts] a few final little stories. Human Fall Flat has now sold 60 million units worldwide. That game came out 10 years ago which is deeply upsetting for me that feels like only yesterday. is being developed of course by No Breaks Games was published by Curve. So incredible results there. Human Fallout. What a massive number. And finally, Xbox is making classic games available on PC and via Game Pass. The first four titles are Blinks the Time Sweeper, Fusion Frenzy, Crimson Skies, High Road to Revenge, and Conquer Live and Reloaded. That last one is a remake of Conquer's Bad Fe, which is the game that inspired me to become a video game journalist. So, I love that game and I wanted to make sure that I reference that story. Um, that's it from us today. And in fact, this is that's it from us for a week. We're taking next week off. A little bit of a break for us. Uh we've been doing 135 136 I've lost count episodes of the game business show as of now and that doesn't include our micros. So we're having a little bit of a pause but we do have some really big episodes when we come back. We have a major interview with well two major interviews with big AAA game studios. We've got some interesting companies you've never heard of as well. Plus a major three

major publishers I think we're doing and one of the biggest video game legends you can imagine is coming on the show as well. all in the next few months. Uh we'll of course also be covering the Tokyo Game Show. My first time in Japan. I'm very excited to be out there uh to be interviewing some of the Japanese game studios and games companies. And Gamescom, of course, we're going to be there in a big way as well. We've got some nice interviews set up there. Some and we've got some breaking stories we've got for you some more data. Lots and lots of stuff to look forward to. Just not next week. Next week you're not going to be here. But until then, uh thank you for tuning in. And if you want to make sure you don't miss those episodes when they do land, head to the gamebus.com and put in your email address and that way you won't miss an episode. Have a lovely week.