Highguard Developer Lays Off Most Staff - Kinda Funny Games Daily 02.12.26

7:49Greg Miller:Okay, yeah, yeah. You know, chalk it up to that.

7:50Blessing Adeoye Jr.:You know, I start up a game, and if I see it's somebody with kanji katakana, I blank on the correct form of it. But I'm like, all right, connection here might be bad. Playing with somebody across the world. Get a hold of it. But it was like actually pretty good for the most part. Okay. Yeah, so connection, I think Nintendo solved their internet issues. Are you direct connecting into your Switch? No, this was just Wi-Fi.

8:13Robert Anderson:I was Wi-Fi-ing it. Wow. On my kind of shoddy Wi-Fi. Okay, that's a move. Okay. And guess what? A lot of bullet bills out there. Everyone's going bullet bills.

8:22Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Everybody is bullet billing, Mike, and I don't like it.

8:26Greg Miller:Get creative with it. What did we say? There was 30 plus rackets?

8:29Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Yeah.

8:29Greg Miller:Play a little bit with it. Have some fun.

8:31Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Yeah. Saw a lot of Waluigi out there. Okay. I don't know if a meta has quite formed. And I don't really know if I've quite found my character yet.

8:41Robert Anderson:You know what? I'm going to continue to say it.

8:43Greg Miller:Rosalina for the stats. All Bs across the board. She does, yeah. That's a solid stat lineup right there. I also like Donkey Kong. A little slow, though. An A and then a D on Speed.

8:55Robert Anderson:But he's got that range. He's got, hey, hey. Can't beat that combo right there. We will be playing Mario Party. No, Mario Tennis Fever tomorrow for Party Mode, Mike.

9:06Greg Miller:Very excited.

9:06Robert Anderson:Very, very excited.

9:07Greg Miller:play motion controls on ranked?

9:09Robert Anderson:Because you know me. I want to do all motion control. Oh, can you or did I? I mean, I didn't. I don't know if you can, though. Okay. I'm sure you can. How far can I take the motion controls? That's what I want to find out from this game. I actually think you can. Yeah, I got to assume that you go into just like your

9:23Blessing Adeoye Jr.:where you actually set up the motion controls and then from then on you're playing. Another question.

9:26Greg Miller:They let you pick which hand you're primary on? I didn't notice that when we were playing with Greg.

9:30Blessing Adeoye Jr.:They don't care about lefties. It's fucked up. It's a tough one.

9:35Greg Miller:Because that determines my forehand and backhand. That's a strategy.

9:39Blessing Adeoye Jr.:You're born lefty in Japan, gulag. They teach you the right way.

9:44Tim Gettys:Story number one, High Guard developer Wildlight Entertainment confirms layoffs at the studio. This comes from Wesley LeBlanc at Game Informer. High Guard developer Wildlight Entertainment has released an official statement on social media confirming the layoffs at the studio after several staff members began sharing news online that they had been let go. It did not state how many employees are affected, but this news comes after level designer Alex Grainer announced he and, quote, most of the team, unquote, were laid off. Wildlight also states that a core group of team members will continue to support HighGuard, though it has not stated how the rollout of its content roadmap will be affected.

10:28Tim Gettys:Wildlight's statement reads as follows, quote, Quote, today we made an incredibly difficult decision to part ways with a number of our team members while keeping a core group of developers to continue innovating on and supporting the game. We were proud of the team, talent, and the product we've created together. We're also grateful for players who gave the game a shot and those who continue to be a part of our community. End quote. In Grainer's post, he says this layoff, quote, really stings as there was a lot of unreleased content that I was really looking forward to and that I and others desired for high guard, end quote.

11:03Tim Gettys:If we take his words literally, it sounds like the content might never be released, which would be shocking, but not unprecedented in this industry, which has been under constant disruption due to layoffs. it's already happened Mike things are happening

11:17Blessing Adeoye Jr.:faster than I thought that they might have for a game like this things happen really really fast with Concord of course I thought this one might be able to escape the Concord shadow a bit and maybe kind of coexist you know but then when I think about a 100 person team trying to sustain that with a lower player base than you were definitely hoping for at a time where I don't know if, if multiplayer games have been more competitive, Mike. Yeah. How does this news hit you yesterday when you see the, you know, everything sort of buzzing around the internet?

11:56Greg Miller:Yeah. The team here are kind of funny. Our hearts go out to those affected over at wildlife entertainment, right? Like this is a indie dev team, a group that left EA and respawn went off to make their own thing. We always celebrate new and unique ideas. And I think when you, me, and Blessing came out of our preview down in L.A., we said, wow, this is something different. This is something that players ask for all the time. Hey, stop doing Battle Royale. Stop doing the normal. Give us something different. And this team over at Wildlight created that, right? It was something different out of the box that had little touchstones to things that you know, but it was truly a different kind of game.

12:32Greg Miller:And it is really disheartening to see that after, what, two weeks, we're already at mass layoff situations right now. that is really unfortunate there and goes to show you how volatile this industry is, right? Like at any moment, any one of these games could lose a player base and everything goes down into the toilet. So what do you do? What are the moves being made right now? On steam DB, we always talk about these aren't the numbers that you truly want to follow because there's not consoles involved, but like, it is a good representation of like, if steam is doing this, consoles are probably somewhere nearby in that number range, right?

13:06Greg Miller:There's 1600. hundred that's one thousand six hundred thirty seven players playing right now that is not enough to sustain a game for the long run especially two weeks after launch yeah especially when we talk about a game that had you know it has this content calendar has its roadmap kind of guaranteeing

13:29Blessing Adeoye Jr.:here's what's going to be coming out here two weeks after here's this new character along with ranked mode and you start to see some things kind of turn around a little bit forward because after all the initial negativity why i don't really know i think this will be the biggest question in the history of the games industry of like why this one why was this one that you know some of the i saw people tweeting out stuff of people banning people in their chats and the the unbanned request being like i hope you die in a fire like for playing this stupid game and it's like why why was this the one that we chose to kind of target and i don't think that any of the hate kind of goes well with an already super competitive industry like i i would have been playing high guard if it weren't for it coming at the most you know really really really bad times for me in my life where i'm just super back into overwatch and then overwatch has another big massive drop deadlock is releasing their fifth character out of eight characters you go to see how many concurrants are playing deadlock a an unreleased invite only game by the way a game that isn't open to everybody you have to be invited still and it's still around 128 000 mark on steam only it is just everything wrong that could have happened happened for high guard and i mean that

14:52Greg Miller:can be said for many games right we always talk about this is like here comes the game two weeks later there's another game there is more news on the game that you love fortnight now has another update right it is a very competitive market and it's tough to stand out right and i think a big one for me andy is what you talk about that first impression paul tassie has a really good article up on forbes right now kind of talking about um high guard and concord and how they just spontaneously combust right but he goes down list by list of like hey here's at first glance are we tired of hero shooters, right?

15:25Greg Miller:And I think that first impression matters so much. We've talked about it with games before. That first impression is make or break. You don't get a second one, right? Especially for gamers who have a million games on their backlog. You need to excite. You need to get people interested, and you need to lock people in. And this game, finishing off the Game Awards, was probably an unfortunate situation. Put the target on the back. Because it was a great Game Awards. I think people did not want to see a multiplayer game end that. If this is in the middle, we probably have a different conversation of it comes and goes.

16:00Greg Miller:But unfortunately, it ends the game awards, and its showing isn't great, right? Having that final slot, you needed a great showing, and it left too many questions unanswered to the point where people didn't know what this game was. What is a raid shooter? Even when we left, we had troubles clearly defining what this game is to others to make it say, here it is in 30 seconds or less you understand it you want to play it now this game didn't have that because there were so many things going on inside the pot of creativity that made this game so unique and different right and i think at first glance that first reaction was probably the make or break for this game unfortunately and it never recovered yeah i think having the target on its

16:42Blessing Adeoye Jr.:back there and us living in a culture where tribalism is i think at its strongest and you want to be on the right side of something you want to you want the the haters to eat crow you want them to be wrong and you want them to like i'm right about this this game's gonna fucking be dog shit and i've already planted my flag in the sand for for whatever reason it's just like this one more than any of the other ones just kind of showed that people were ready to be angry at something even if i think if this game like you mentioned was shown at any other time we've seen so many different shooters be shown at different points of any of these showcases and this one i think was the most negatively affected by people wanting to not like it from the get-go because they because maybe that has to do with jeff keely hyping it up so much maybe that has to do with putting it at the end of a showcase and also the the thoughts and kind of rumors going along oh they had all this money to pay for that final spot and then that ended up being disproven but it's like once those false kind of things are thrown out there then that becomes people's you know oh you're paying for all of this just for that shitty game fuck you You know, like it's it's such a weird time to be in this industry.

18:07Blessing Adeoye Jr.:And I think. I don't know if a game has deserved less hate than it's gotten. And, you know, like when I think of Concord at the end of the day, it was an arena shooter. And that was the underwhelming part of it. When I played Concord, it's like, I mean, I still prefer Overwatch payload modes, you know, and that's where it was not doing the innovating. Right. I think High Guard did a lot more and enticed me a lot more and brought that intensity, even though I don't love Apex gunplay because I'm just bad at it. That's more of a personal thing. I don't know if there's a game that deserved less of the heat.

18:45Blessing Adeoye Jr.:A lot of that also has to do with their marketing plan and not planning to have marketing, just planning to be a day one drop. I want desperately to see the multiverse moment where this happens in another multiverse, in another universe, and it is just shadow drops. Bam. High guard. The people who made Apex, this is their new shooter. They left EA and Respawn. Go play it. Let it speak for itself. Yeah. Would there still be people not liking it? Of course. Genres aren't for, you know, not every game is for everybody. but I don't think it would be anywhere near as close to the hate that it has gotten.

19:22And now that also doesn't change what Overwatch would be doing.

19:26Blessing Adeoye Jr.:That doesn't change what Marvel Rivals would be doing with another hero being introduced. It's still so insanely competitive out there.

19:33Greg Miller:And at the end of the day, we talk a lot about this, right? Being good is almost not good enough. You have to be great, right? And I think to High Guard's fault, we could talk and praise about how it was different and they tried to do something fun. Unfortunately, the hate really got after them. But at the end of it, I just don't know if the game was great. I think it was good. I think there was some lackluster moments in that gameplay from being out in the open world and just looting and not enough maybe engagement. Maybe it was lacking the NPCs that now people are kind of clamoring for that PVE experience.

20:08Greg Miller:There was something about this game that just wasn't head and shoulders great. It was a good game and a fun attempt at trying something different. Given more time, you saw them adjust to 5v5. Maybe they would add more teams. Maybe they would add a different game mode. That's all in the future of what could be. But unfortunately, out of the gates, I think the game was just good. And unfortunately, right now in 2026, when there's a million games to play and already forever shooters, being good is not good enough to even get into the rotation of what they wanted. They didn't want to be your forever game.

20:41Greg Miller:They just wanted to be a rotational player, six-man off the bench. And that's not good enough. You got to be great. And it is very hard. And now the big problem here is now we're going to look at a lot of teams go, man, I'm afraid to release my game. I'm afraid to take that step and leave this company, go off on my own and create an indie team. I'm afraid that me and my indie studio aren't going to make it because these games are coming out a dime a dozen. And they're just getting washed away because there's so much.

21:08Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Well, I think a lot of the responsibility also has to fall on the directors and these executives because, like, if you're an indie team spinning off, I think 100 people just is, that's a lot of overhead to take that big of a risk, right? Unless you know you have a surefire hit, unless you are breaking off and making your multiplayer game a decade ago, you know, where it's a lot more certain that you might have a hit on your hands where it isn't as crowded, where not a whole lot of free to play exists, where there's a lot of people that are still paying$60 for a game. And instead they go, dang, a free-to-play game?

21:51Blessing Adeoye Jr.:You know, like, 100 employees is still a lot of overhead to try to sustain a free-to-play game in today's current climate.

22:01Greg Miller:I mean, this is a, we'll call it senior team when it comes to the live service games. This team came from Apex. They knew what they wanted. They had 100 people because they made the roadmap, right? We sat down with this team and said, hey, we got content. We're not just turning out the game and then creating the content. We have been making this game while making the content. We are a year out ready to rock and roll. And so this was a team that already knew what they needed, right? Maybe it was 100 people that was needed. Odd one to me that stuck out. I mean, no support, right? No publisher out there.

22:32Greg Miller:No kind of safety net at all. It was just this team and their backing and their belief in the game. And it just wasn't enough.

22:39Tim Gettys:So we have a super chat from Spooge Booge. Remember, you can write it with your super chats, your hot takes. did high guard deserve it spooge boos with a five dollar super chat says i blame jeff keely needs to be more responsible with his platform um i think now that thought may be in people's heads i think before this you would be stupid to turn this down that's a huge

23:05Blessing Adeoye Jr.:that's a kind jester right yeah that's just jeff keely wanting to be nice because he played this game early and liked it so much it said i would love to put a light on this and i also do think that if it were any other genre i think if it's a single player game i think it's just so popular to want to hate multiplayer games nowadays and and once public sentiment turns mike it's like then you even feel discouraged to play the game because it's like oh i'm playing the game that

23:33Greg Miller:everybody's shitting on right now we saw that happen a lot yeah right online we saw a lot of sentiment like that where people enjoyed it but they were a little outcast into even playing it right yeah uh but yeah i don't know i don't know if you can put it on jeff keely yeah no i think no i think that's an i don't know if that's the right take there i do wonder um i do wonder if

23:53Blessing Adeoye Jr.:it is just sort of a genre thing if it's maybe like we can break into this really really packed sort of playing field with our product because our product is better you know i think a multiplayer

24:05Greg Miller:game ending the game awards on such a stacked year is a big uphill climb uphill to climb yeah i think a lot of people especially with lofty expectations or hopes and dreams a lot of people were humping the hopium of half-life three was in the air throughout the whole lead-up to this game awards and to end it with a lackluster mega man showing and also go into high guard that is a tough way to end a really good game awards up to that point and yeah i think people go another multiplayer game

24:38Robert Anderson:we should have put the target on megaman's back you know megaman got a little bit of it though

24:43Tim Gettys:megaman got a little bit of it we should have put the target there uh another super chat from daniel alonso who says the game was the way because of the tga announcement jeff announcing it put so much unnecessary pressure on its back they needed more quiet and time i i this is one of those hindsight 2020 situations that if they felt like they needed more quiet time they could

25:03Greg Miller:have looked at jeff and said politely no right like they looked at that as an opportunity to shine a large light probably a larger light than what they thought they would have gotten if they just had press and media come a day before release talk about it and then release they clearly saw this

25:17Blessing Adeoye Jr.:as like the right avenue or else they would have said no yeah i also do think that if if anybody was in that situation, they would have said, of course, of course I want my, I want all this publicity and advertising for my game that I'm working on. You'd be stupid to turn it down, so I do not

25:34Tim Gettys:blame anybody for the decisions made there. Charlie Reeves with his super chat that I'll get to after this. I want to get to this other super chat from Kane with a$10 super chat. Thank you for your support. Remember, your support helps keep the lights and the mics on, so thank you, everybody. High guard situation is unfortunate. These developers clearly care about the game and are passionate about their vision. Anyone would have said yes to the game award spot and needs more teams like them. 100 % agree. Director Donovan also agreeing with a Super Chat says, it's a bummer the game hardly had a shot.

26:06Tim Gettys:And a happy birthday Super Chat to Cody J.

26:08Greg Miller:Happy birthday, Cody J. I mean, now we look at the future, right? Here we are two weeks post-launch. Like I just brought up, 1 ,600 players currently playing the game on SteamDB. 3 ,100 the past 24-hour peak, right? And we know that doesn't count consoles as well. What is the next move? You still have a core here. You clearly have content that is ready to roll out for the next year that you hope isn't too labor-intensive, right? Are they really going to hold out for a whole year? Will this end before we even get to six months, a year from now? Do they have a big enough team to even start to change and start to shift the ship a whole different direction?

26:51Blessing Adeoye Jr.:I think depending on, first off, I'm never right about this shit. Yeah. I think at any time regarding multiplayer games, regarding the industry, every prediction I've had is always wrong because it's just such a, it's a lottery ticket, man. It's a, on that day, because the wind blew that way and the grass fell and the leaves fell that way, this is now going to be the outcome. And the amount of successes, random successes we've seen from small indie teams that just completely pop off out of nowhere with their, like, I think of like BattleBit Remastered, where that has like a massive, you know, a massive couple of weeks or whatever.

27:32Blessing Adeoye Jr.:And a lot of it has to do with size of the team and scope. and I think depending on how much they downsized, there could be a possibility of success here that says, hey, if we can get these numbers back up and also if the other teams, if the other games out there start fucking up, that's what you're really kind of hoping for. Like I know they never really intended for this to be the main genre game. Battle Royales will always be Battle Royales. Tax shooters will always be tax shooters. There's no real encroaching on the Counter-Strike 2 or Valorant market, as we've seen games like FragPunks kind of come and go and a lot of other sort of tack shooters, but they always wanted this to be the rotational sort of player.

28:19Blessing Adeoye Jr.:And I think that depending on how much they downsized, a certain amount of player base may be able to sustain a smaller team. Now, we don't know what those numbers are.

28:31Greg Miller:I was going to say, here's my problem, right? I started to do quick math, right? And I'm no super finance fucking CEO over here, but I am looking at like, how much do you have in the bank? How much are we bleeding? And if it's a free-to-play game, that means no money's coming in. So it all comes off of microtransactions, which means those 3 ,100 players on Steam have to buy your$20 bundle. And if we only sell them one$20 bundle throughout the month, that's$62 ,000. I don't know if that's enough to stay in that team. Yeah. That's the problem is now you're free to play. No money coming in unless it's off of microtransactions or something.

29:07Tim Gettys:I'm not seeing people playing on console as well. Of course.

29:10Greg Miller:But I'm just saying it's like you start adding it up. How many$20 bundles do we have to sell to support whatever this core team is? It's not enough. Yeah.

29:19Tim Gettys:Unfortunately. It's just not enough. Unfortunately, it may not be enough. you bringing up microtransactions and, you know, supporting teams, just like everybody in the audience can support our teams. If you're watching on Patreon, if you're watching ad-free after the fact, but since you're not watching ad-free right now, here's a word from our sponsors.

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31:53Tim Gettys:We have a$5 super chat here from BanderSN who says, Friend at the studio was let go. High guard's problem wasn't Jeff or online chugs. As usual, it was the people at the top with dollar sign eyes. Sucks. I don't know if I fully agree with that. Because the people at the top,

32:14Blessing Adeoye Jr.:at least that you know some of the people that we spoke to yeah it it really just felt like it was a game at the wrong time and like and let me preface that by saying in the same way that i kind of felt that um when suicide squad killed the justice league is in development for eight years in development hell. And it's a games as a service live shooter that was starting development kind of when Destiny was at its hottest. And then by the time it comes out, it's just, whoa, what has happened to the gaming landscape out here? And that's kind of how I feel about High Guard. Now, I also don't feel that High Guard ever quite had the visual stylistic sauce.

33:08Greg Miller:To stand out.

33:09Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Yeah, and, you know, I do think it's cool that they try to do this like, hey, we're medieval, but we also have guns. I think that's, like, different and weird. But stylistically, I just don't know if it ever quite hit for me. I liked the way the models and the characters looked and were rendered and, like, you know, clear that these are artists that are talented. But the art style was always just kind of, like, clashing. And I never quite loved the way, like, you know, a lot of the game looked, unfortunately.

33:38Tim Gettys:And that has to do quite a bit with, you know, me necessarily maybe not wanting to go back to it, especially when Overwatch and Deadlock are so near and dear to my heart right now.

33:48Greg Miller:Yeah, I was when we spoke with that management team, we don't know what happens behind closed doors and afterwards. But I was impressed because I looked at Blessing and I said, where's the money coming from? And I asked that and they seem to put the creatives first on that. And it seemed like something different that we didn't really hear of. Like, no, it's all about these guys and what they're making. We believe in it and we think it's going to happen. And it's like, I was asking Andy and bless like, he doesn't care about money. This is crazy. You know?

34:12Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Yeah. Yeah. Turns out like we still need to pay people and feed people. No, you do need the money. People need to feed their families.

34:21Tim Gettys:So yeah, that's unfortunate. But yeah, much like Bandarist and I also have a, a friend of the studio who, who was laid off and yeah, it's all quite the bummer. So please, if you are a developer out there, you know, keep your eyes and ears open and looking on LinkedIn for a lot of very talented folks that are trying to be relocated somewhere. Shambo Baggins with a$5 Super Chat says, great job, Mike, on the Overwatch interview. Just listened to it yesterday. Twice.

34:45Robert Anderson:Thank you so much.

34:46Greg Miller:We're going to be talking about more of my time at Blizzard because we're going to talk about Diablo here in a little bit.

34:51Tim Gettys:Also, give us all your Super Chat hot takes and also let us know if your car alerts you when you have low tire pressure and how often do you check your tire pressure if your car doesn't alert you that.

35:04Greg Miller:I feel like this should be like a once a month thing.

35:08Wesley Leblanc:How often are you checking your oil? I'd like to chime in as someone whose tire recently exploded while on the freeway. Holy shit. I didn't know that. Oh, yeah.

35:16Tim Gettys:Andy, it was bad. It's real loud, I bet, right?

35:19Wesley Leblanc:It wasn't. I mean, no, it doesn't make a lot of noise. It's more that like once it's like all the air is gone, you're like on the ground on that side.

35:30Tim Gettys:Damn.

35:30Wesley Leblanc:Anyways, this is a serious thing of like, you got to notice that tire pressure. You got to notice that tire pressure.

35:36Blessing Adeoye Jr.:So my car tells me, but he says your car doesn't tell you.

35:39Wesley Leblanc:Yeah, I mean, we don't have fancy cars.

35:41Greg Miller:Yeah, some of us have 40-year-old cars. We're driving cars that are going to explode one day.

35:45Robert Anderson:My decade-old Honda Civic fancy car.

35:48Greg Miller:I mean. You got a backup camera? Yeah.

35:50Blessing Adeoye Jr.:I do.

35:51Greg Miller:I have a backup camera. Whoa, wow. That's pretty cool.

35:54Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Well, 2016 was the, actually, I think it was the first year where they mandated that.

35:59Robert Anderson:Wow.

35:59Blessing Adeoye Jr.:They're like, cars from here on on have to have that shit. I don't know if that's true or not, but that's what the car person told me. What would be your next car?

36:05Robert Anderson:Look that up. Look that up, someone. I could see you. Cadillac Escalade. No, I want another. I would love a. No. Excel. You want me to have a gigantic SUV? Just no parking anywhere?

36:19Greg Miller:Driving no one either.

36:21Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Just good. Yeah, I would have nobody in the car. The worst gas guzzler. I want a Toyota Prius. I want the new Priuses. I just love the look of them. Prius. The new ones look so cool.

36:33Tim Gettys:I just love the body style. Or I just, if the next, I try to keep up with Honda Civic rumors. Okay. I like kind of looking on the internet.

36:42Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Because I don't like the current Honda body style. But apparently 2027 is going to be a big refresh. And that's, I want to see like a different kind of look for them.

36:49Tim Gettys:Because I just don't like the way the Honda stuff looks right now.

36:51Wesley Leblanc:Andy, think about how nice it is not to spend any money on your car.

36:55Tim Gettys:It's been great. It's been great. I paid off my car like four years ago and it's been awesome.

36:59Wesley Leblanc:Dude, keep doing that. Do that for another five years. You know? Just maintain the car.

37:05Tim Gettys:I have a lot of people here at Kind of Funny that are looking to buy a Porsche. Yeah, he's wheeling and dealing. It's true.

37:10Greg Miller:He has the power and nothing feels better than the Porsche.

37:13Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Right now, I have the powers in my hands for the negotiation, Mike. I have so many buyers here at the company. It's just like, who's going to give me the best sort of deal?

37:26Tim Gettys:Maybe if I do sell it to Nick because his car is always breaking down. It's crazy. Maybe if I do sell it to him, I work in the negotiation, Mike. I'll give you a discount if we get a basketball hoop here at the studio.

37:36Greg Miller:Okay. Something to think about. I like that, yes.

37:39Tim Gettys:Something to think about. He'll quickly complain about it.

37:42Greg Miller:That's an unselfish lover type of move.

37:44Tim Gettys:Thank you, Mike. Thank you.

37:45Greg Miller:Important to the team.

37:46Tim Gettys:Street Shadow with a$10 Super Chat says, The issue for High Guard, it's revealed the game awards and a lack of communication and marketing into the buildup. No playtests, no betas. If Jet told me I was the last game of the show, I would say no.

37:59Blessing Adeoye Jr.:I don't know, man. I think I still would have taken that shot.

38:02Greg Miller:I think at this moment, you have to take that shot. No matter what, you have to take it.

38:08Robert Anderson:Can I ask you a question, Mike? Tell me. Did you dye your hair?

38:14Greg Miller:No. Does it look different?

38:15Tim Gettys:Yeah.

38:16Greg Miller:Yeah, no, somebody said that last night. Is it darker? It doesn't look darker to me. Okay, someone said that last night, but Rob the Barber's there. You know what I mean? Rob the Barber, he's cutting me up. I'm going to see him Saturday for the big Valentine's Day.

38:29Robert Anderson:Oh, shit. What are the plans? Just cutting my hair. Oh. Just getting the haircut. Sweet. No date, no special lady out there. Just cutting my hair, you know what I mean? Damn, unfortunate.

38:37Greg Miller:What if we went to a basketball game together?

38:39Tim Gettys:Could have gone last night.

38:41Greg Miller:Mike and Andy's financial responsibility is very different. I have to. We have gaming news to talk about. We have to make it a Gregway. We'll make it a Gregway.

38:50Blessing Adeoye Jr.:We have gaming news to talk about, but I just have to say, we'll tease a future Gregway by me saying, I don't feel great and I don't feel good.

39:01Tim Gettys:Give, you know, putting this financial burden on you, Mike. So I won't ask you to spend this much to go to a warrior Spurs game. Cause when Benyama is in town, I got to watch my Spurs. And Mike said, the tickets were 800. I thought they were 8 ,000.

39:14Blessing Adeoye Jr.:I thought that's why you were freaking out.

39:16Greg Miller:You told me you wanted to sit courtside. I assumed when you said eight, oh, a thousand. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm looking at it going, okay, one night with Andy, he's going to cost me a whole trip to Japan. Here we go.

39:26Blessing Adeoye Jr.:He was so ready to spend$8 ,000. Story number two comes from Assassin's Creed Black Flag.

39:33Tim Gettys:The remaster in the art book appears at Amazon UK. Now for pre-order. This comes from Robert Anderson at IGN. The heavily rumored, but yet to be confirmed, Assassin's Creed Black Flag remaster slash remake is getting its very own art book, at least according to its recent Amazon listing in the UK. Pre-orders are now available, strangely, before we've got official confirmation of the game actually being real and given its own release window. Its art book is listed at€29.95 and a slight reduction from the€39.99 RRP. I'm assuming that's like their version of the MSRP.

40:08Greg Miller:That's a great, great price.

40:09Tim Gettys:Yeah, thank you. Are you going to buy that?

40:12Greg Miller:An Assassin's Creed art book? I don't think I need it.

40:14Tim Gettys:I'm not an Assassin's Creed guy. Titan will be publishing the art book. They also did art books for Assassin's Creed 3, Unity, Syndicate, Origins, and more. and after years of internal leaks, relentless fan speculation, and even not so subtle nudges from the original game's lead actor, Ubisoft still refuses to officially acknowledge that a Black Flack remake is real. I mean, of course, that makes sense. I don't see why they would ever go like,

40:42Robert Anderson:damn, you guys got us. Like, why would they, you know?

40:45Greg Miller:Damn, guys, we're really behind on this. Everybody hates us right now. We're going through massive studio restructuring. Maybe we should get a little win under our belts, trying to announce something cool coming up here. You know what? We'll hold off for another six months, take the bad press.

40:57Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Well, they're waiting for the big moment. They want their big reveal. They want that thing to be real. It's this. It's this. This is not enough. I still can't believe that Sands of Time remake gets just axed completely. That was like a massive shocking day. We were at the High Guard event when that thing comes up in the slack, and I was just like, holy shit. I cannot believe this right now.

41:23Greg Miller:We have the head of the division team. He's leaving the studio after saying, game's in great shape. It's looking real good. We're going to do things you've never seen before. Yeah, that doesn't help.

41:33Blessing Adeoye Jr.:That was one of the funnier back and forths we had of former division lead peacing out after saying,

41:42Tim Gettys:this one's going to change the game. This division is going to be the best thing you've ever seen in your life.

41:47Blessing Adeoye Jr.:It's going to be like a genre maker. and going later. Good luck with that shit. That shit made me laugh a lot. So all but kind of confirmed.

41:57Greg Miller:So what are they holding? What are they holding back for? What is this Ubisoft event that I'm not seeing? They wouldn't dare do another Ubisoft forward from the Laquinta ballroom in Santa Fe.

42:10Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Well, they had to change to the Las Cruces, New Mexico. Now, the problem is, though, it does seem like it's too far out to wait for something like Summer Game Fest.

42:21Greg Miller:unless it's a fall title, but then it's going to get eaten up by GTA. It's just a black flag remake. Why are we holding this as if it's like the next coming of the Assassin's Creed video game franchise?

42:33Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Because when you're in the state that Ubisoft is in right now, that's the W you have. Like that, that's the big win that you have. It's going back to one of the most beloved of your most popular

42:47Robert Anderson:franchises.

42:48Greg Miller:Maybe I'm not seeing the picture and someone just wrote it in the chat. What if it's today? What if they team up with PlayStation and reveal it today at the state of play?

42:57Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Damn.

42:58Greg Miller:Pre-order went up too early.

43:01Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Now, when would it go on sale?

43:04Robert Anderson:The game? Yeah.

43:05Greg Miller:I mean, if I had full control, this game would either be a shadow drop, which would be a big win, or I would drop this like March, April right away. We'd get this out the door. Yeah.

43:15Tim Gettys:You got to drop that.

43:16Greg Miller:But like we were talking about Grand Theft Auto, right? Mike and Greg a couple of weeks back of like, you know, leaks and how that team is like really on it. Right. And then you have Ubisoft where it's like, this stuff is leaking left and right. You just can't keep anything.

43:30Tim Gettys:Right. Yeah. Well, that's the unfortunate thing is. Yeah. I saw Barrett in chat say this can't be their big win, but like at this point, what else?

43:40Robert Anderson:So much. They need a lot to get back the big win.

43:44Blessing Adeoye Jr.:No, but I mean currently in the next six-month window, unless everything we've heard about this Splinter Cell thing has always been in development. We've never, like, have they actually ever fully said it's in full production or is it like, yeah, we're still in the pre-pro kind of planning stages?

44:02Greg Miller:We'd have to ask Roger. I don't know what that, the last update was sometime around either a Game Awards. I don't remember when we got one, but someone was at like a bar. I think the guy was at like interviewed at a bar and he was like, yeah, we're in the movement. Yes.

44:16Tim Gettys:Yeah. I see. I saw somebody in chat say. Beyond good and evil too, of course. No, man.

44:24Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Like that's just not reality. That game won't come out for another five years. If they're still around, you know, next far cry.

44:34Robert Anderson:The next far cry. You got to go back to the tent poles. You always go to the tent poles. They got three tent poles. I think the next Far Cry has to get announced at Summer Game Fest. When was the last time we had Gustavo Fringan?

44:46Blessing Adeoye Jr.:When was the last?

44:47Robert Anderson:Far Cry 6.

44:48Greg Miller:Far Cry 6 was 2021. But then you had, remember, Avatar. Right.

44:55Tim Gettys:But Avatar wasn't the Far Cry team, I don't think.

45:00Blessing Adeoye Jr.:It looked and played like Far Cry, but I don't think it was the core Avatar. There's also just a lot of teams out there. It's like when we talk about Nintendo. You talk about all the different divisions of them. It's always kind of hard to keep track of that.

45:13Tim Gettys:Yeah, it wasn't. It was Massive who made Avatar. You would think the next Far Cry would be next,

45:22Greg Miller:which I still continue to say Far Cry 6 was one of their best since about 3. They went 3, 4, 5, and started going down a little bit. Far Cry 6 was a nice return to form. Co-op was good But like they need something big for Far Cry To be even close to what it was Way back in the day They got a Far Cry TV show coming though

45:47Tim Gettys:I mean if they could kind of line everything up together With Rob Mack Oh shit that is right But he's not in it He's just kind of like running it right

45:56Greg Miller:Yeah I bet he gets in an episode

45:59Tim Gettys:Yeah he'll get in here and there Lucid Dream with a 2-0 Super Shots Has new Crimson Desert video out today boys Man Crimson Desert is

46:05Greg Miller:Did you see they've been dropping some videos

46:07Blessing Adeoye Jr.:They are hitting the internet hard, Mike, with like, hey, we're serious. Don't doubt what we're doing.

46:14Greg Miller:Doesn't get you more excited.

46:15Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Fuck yeah, it does.

46:17Greg Miller:You and I are the biggest Crimson Desert fans here, though.

46:19Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Especially enjoying The Witcher 3 as much as I am right now. Like, I am... The one thing I'm worried about is playing any other large open world game and just going,

46:31Tim Gettys:oof, writing just isn't there. Characters just aren't there. but that's how I felt about you know Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild where it's like I don't give a shit about the story because I'm just so in love with the systems and how awesome everything intermingles together this has got and this seems like this is doing that it's insane holy shit I can't wait get that code to us immediately um Jay Dubin says with a five dollars super chat says Mike needs to save all the money he can for Ember uh and any new upcoming skins for her if you know

47:00Greg Miller:It's my first gotcha game.

47:03Tim Gettys:What?

47:03Greg Miller:Which gotcha game? I played Ark Knights Enfield. Oh! The one that they sponsored us recently. Yeah, yeah. We had that big sponsorship a couple months at the beginning of the year. And the game released in January. I've been waiting my time because it's so big and I just didn't know when to play it. And I said, I have a rule for 2026. There's three things I'm going to try. My first ever gotcha game. We're going to play Warframe together. Yes. And I'm going to figure out what the hell is going on in World of Tanks. I'm going to get down to the bottom of World of Tanks

47:32Blessing Adeoye Jr.:but this sounds more like you want to do investigative journalism

47:35Greg Miller:you know what I mean I just need to connect the dots how is it still relevant who's playing this game

47:41Tim Gettys:here's what I want to do in the year 2026

47:44Greg Miller:those are my big three for the year

47:46Tim Gettys:you do investigative journalism into World of Tanks I want to do investigative journalism into man I don't even know if I shouldn't mention these games because it's like maybe they sponsor us and we, you know, would love some financial backing. I like that. I like that.

48:01Blessing Adeoye Jr.:But I just think about the games that, like, Twitch offers for sponsorship nowadays. Oh, okay. Where I'm like, how do they, where is this money coming? Really fumbled the bag on that.

48:10Greg Miller:They offer a sponsorship for Art Night Enfields. I played it anyways. Nice. Way to go. Should have clicked the button. Hell yeah. I don't know what I was doing. Hell yeah, brother. But yeah, Ember.

48:20Robert Anderson:Batty? Six star. Nice.

48:22Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Oh, that's a high school go. Six star Batty. you fucking you came up big right now we're up baby story number three diablo 2 gets first

48:30Tim Gettys:major update in 25 years with reign of the warlock starring raul coley this comes from jennifer moss at variety this is the shit that gets me so excited this isn't part of the article but yesterday talking about um you know it would be awesome if nintendo added new content to

48:51Blessing Adeoye Jr.:something like Mario 3D World. Oh, snap, yeah. And with the rumors of this Witcher 3 DLC, this could be a really cool time for a lot of developers saying, hey, money is tough. And money's not tough. It's just like, hey, maybe, maybe, executive, you earned 30 million this year instead of 49 or whatever. A little bit, yeah. Yeah, but it's like, if, I hope that this kind of catches momentum and we can kind of create a new rhythm of adding DLC to like old beloved games. I think it's such a cool concept. You're wild. I want more of this. I love that. I want more of this. So this story comes from Jennifer Mosse Variety says,

49:29Tim Gettys:big news for Diablo 2 fans. The Blizzard Entertainment game is getting its first major update in 25 years. Titled Reign of the Warlock, the DLC will feature actor Rahul Kohli from Haunting of Lye Manor, Midnight Mass, and the Kind of Funny podcast in the year 2017. starring as the voice of titular warlock. Per Blizzard, the warlock is disciplined, ominous, and incredibly knowledgeable, lingering in the shadows for years and studying secrets. And studying secrets mortals shouldn't know. In addition to debuting in the new update for Diablo 2 Resurrected, which is the remastered version of the original Diablo 2, the warlock class will arrive in the upcoming Diablo 4 Lord of Hatred update in April and the mobile title Diablo Immortal this summer.

50:12Quote,

50:13Tim Gettys:this actually just came out of the this actually just came out of the blue that's why i'll call he saying that into my lap call he said uh variety in the interview ahead of the official announcement i received a text message from roth fergus and he said hey bruv do you not want to do diablo and i was like what are you talking about and he's like we haven't heard back and i went to my team i was like oh bruv what's going on with diablo and they basically forwarded this offer in the email heading at diablo 2 which i thought which i thought was a typo he's gonna do the fart instead of thought. I love that.

50:43Tim Gettys:They do that sometimes. You're killing it. Coley continued, because I'd also worked with Rod previously on Gears of War, I sort of assumed at some point Diablo 4 would

50:51Blessing Adeoye Jr.:come knocking, and it never did, so I sort of resented him for that, and then when it came through, it was Diablo 2.

50:56Tim Gettys:Obviously, I thought it was a typo, but then once I looked through the character profiles, I realized, oh, this is new content for a game that came out in the year 2000. Obviously, it's for the remaster, but it's still content for a 26-year-old game, so I was very, very hyped. This is cool shit.

51:10Greg Miller:Shout out to Rod Ferguson making the phone call. Yeah. What an awesome grab right there. That's cool to have these two team up. And of course, the Diablo team gets new content. Just a wild thing out of nowhere. Andy, they're celebrating 30 plus years. It's a big thing. Oh, yeah? It's not a wild thing. It's a big thing. 30 plus years of Diablo. First time Diablo 2 got any sort of content in 25 years and get this and he makes the eighth character class now in the game. Crazy. I played it before release because I went down to blitz. You heard Rahul in your earphones. I heard him, and I didn't even know it.

51:47Greg Miller:Wow. This is the first time I've learned about it. Wow. Isn't that crazy? Very, very cool. But let me tell you this. Very exciting stuff. Diablo II Resurrected, my favorite game, one of my top five all time, Diablo II. Diablo II Resurrected is a ton of fun to play, and like they said, it's the year of the Warlock. The new character class coming to all three Diablo games this year is awesome news. And I got to play Diablo II, and it was a ton of fun. and it's really exciting to see a new class come to that and then be able to see the tease. Big Diablo spotlight yesterday. Of course, Blizzard's having their big spotlight throughout this whole past couple weeks.

52:23Greg Miller:32 minutes full of Diablo news. If you're a Diablo fan, you're going to get really excited. If you want to go back to the old school one that I love, you're going to really get excited as well.

52:33Tim Gettys:Very, very cool. Shout out to Rahul and congrats on the team. Story number four. Hideo Kojima says he talked to Vince Sampella about making a Metal Gear shooter at Respawn. This comes from Neil Long at VGC. Kojima has claimed that he and Call of Duty co-creator Vince Zampella once discussed making a Metal Gear shooter at Respawn, speaking during a video package at DICE 2026 during a Remembering a Titan keynote on Zampella's life and work. Kojima said the conversations took place after following the launch of Metal Gear Solid 4 in 2008. In 2010, Zampella and Jason West were fired from Call of Duty, maker Infinity Ward, and set up Titanfall and Apex Legends studio Respawn.

53:13Tim Gettys:The Metal Gear shooter discussed with Kojima was one of the options being considered as Respawn was being founded, the Death Stranding designer said. When Kojima himself went independent to build Kojima Productions, he said he sought Zampella's advice about setting up his own studio after his experiences at Respawn. Quote, without him, the gaming industry wouldn't be what it is today, said Hideo Kojima of Zampella. Very fascinating.

53:40Greg Miller:Always fun to get a little peek behind the curtain of what could have been. The stories, the meetings, the moments that we hear about later on. It's like, oh yeah, that was a crazy idea that could have happened. And that would have been pretty crazy. I think Titanfall might have been a better idea, but I wonder how big a Metal Gear shooter would have been if they said yes to this. Well, it also just seems like this was kind of another option to explore.

54:07Blessing Adeoye Jr.:I don't know if it would have taken the main spot, but I just love that talks like this even happen. I want to know more about these random sort of talks in the industry.

54:16Tim Gettys:I love hearing about sort of the secrets we don't really necessarily get to hear about of cool collabs and things of that nature. Always super fascinating. Story number five. A new line of StarCraft figures has been announced. Mike just pointed up at the heavens to thank God for this. This comes from Connor McCarr at Eurogamer. Joy Toy, a popular figurine production company, has announced a line of small-scale StarCraft models as part of a collaboration with Activision Blizzard. In a blog post to the official Joy Toy website, the company announced it will be making models for the Zerg, Protoss, and Terran.

54:53Tim Gettys:Exactly what those models are remains a mystery for now, as they're silhouetted in the announcement posts. Details on product information and pre-order schedules are set to come to the future via Joy Toy channels. These figurines will be a compact size of roughly 10 centimeters with seemingly five available split across the three playable StarCraft factions. It is, of course, also possible these figurines are just a nice, nostalgic way to show your love for the original StarCraft and that nothing is going on with the StarCraft as the IP remains dormant. Mike, do you think that this is actually maybe hinting at something possible in the future with StarCraft?

55:30Greg Miller:Anywhere there's smoke, there's fire. Yeah. And there's a blazer coming. There's something warming up right now. You know what else I'm getting? A lot of San Antonio Spurs in the early 2000s on the plane playing StarCraft together. And I think to myself, I think we're back. I like to live in a world where we are back, right? Now, it's going to be very exciting. They're celebrating 30 plus years. I think it's 35 years for Blizzard, which is a super exciting milestone. And it's like on the back of that, there's StarCraft. And you know what we haven't heard from in a long time? StarCraft. You know what the people yearn for?

56:08Greg Miller:StarCraft. What do they deserve? StarCraft.

56:11Blessing Adeoye Jr.:I don't know if you make a figurine for something that dormant, unless it's just we're celebrating the anniversary.

56:18Greg Miller:I mean, this group makes like Warhammer figurines. So like StarCraft is kind of up their alley, right? When I went over to Joy Toys, it's like, oh, they're just making those kind of style of figurines. So it seems like an easy layup win of like, yeah, we make Warhammer figurines. You got cool, you know, space marine monsters. Let's do that. You know what I mean? What's 10 centimeters into inches? Take a guess.

56:44Tim Gettys:I'll go with. Let's see. Hold on. I'm trying to do the math. Take a guess. I'm trying to do the math. 10 centimeters. 0.8 inches. 0.8 inch. No, it's four.

56:56Robert Anderson:Right. Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking. We don't talk enough about centimeters. And we don't. How tall are you in centimeters?

57:04Greg Miller:Nobody talks about that. Nobody talks about centimeters. I'm looking forward to seeing what we see out of Blizzard in the future. As a big Warcraft guy.

57:14Tim Gettys:I was thinking millimeters.

57:15Greg Miller:Okay. I want a Warcraft 4. I want more RTS from Blizzard. We don't get that as those two are kind of dormant. Here's the Storm. I really enjoyed their take on a MOBA. that's been kind of like it's on life support we'll call it right but like what do you do with starcraft we've had the conversation of a shooter a first person shooter and like where do we go right i'm hoping uh for more starcraft i'll take a first person shooter i'll take starcraft ghosts

57:46Tim Gettys:but i also would like an rts i don't know if i needed kevin oh yeah like 10 centimeters is 0.34 four inches, three nine inches. Yeah. Man, StarCraft, Mike, that would be massive. Huge news.

58:00Robert Anderson:That would be so huge. But if I want something smaller, say the tiniest news I need to know about, where would I go? Andy, I'd take you to our last news story,

58:09Greg Miller:the WeNew channel, where we cover all the small news items you need to know about.

58:14Blessing Adeoye Jr.:WeNews. From Wario64,

58:16Tim Gettys:the Steam Deck OLED is all sold out in America. and this is something worth noting from Kotaku. The whole situation has players and analysts scared that this is a sign of what to expect for the foreseeable future as PC parts and memory components used to make consoles and gaming devices become harder to find and more expensive to buy due to the ongoing shortages caused by AI hyperscalers. But at least you get to see yourself hanging out with Peter Griffin and Samuel L. Jackson.

58:48Greg Miller:I saw Kobe Bryant in Arcane fighting Jinx. And I said, this is trash.

58:56Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Right.

58:56Greg Miller:And it's ruining our planet.

58:58Blessing Adeoye Jr.:This is why we, like, this is worth it.

59:01Tim Gettys:You know? If I could see a video of Donald Trump and Epstein crossing over LeBron James, I'd go, you know what? Maybe this AI stuff ain't so bad. Maybe we need this. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

59:13Greg Miller:I saw LeBron cross over a tank from World of Tank. and I said stop this fucking right now

59:21Blessing Adeoye Jr.:but I got at least 38 likes on Twitter Mike you know I got a couple of repos

59:28Greg Miller:we need to stop this and I'm telling you to stop this we need to stop this

59:33Tim Gettys:from IGN Time Magazine is celebrating Pokemon's 30th anniversary with exclusive covers and you can buy them now the 96 page special edition of the magazine is coming out with three different covers each featuring iconic pocket monsters from over the years. One cover depicts Mega Charizard X, one has Lugia and Ho-Oh, while the third shows Rayquaza. You can purchase any of the four covers for$14.99 on Amazon right now.

59:59Greg Miller:Yeah, they did this once before, I believe. But yeah, 30th anniversary right around the corner. Big deal. What's gonna happen? Big deal. Very excited to celebrate Pokemon. What an awesome year to celebrate Pokemon as well. I can't wait for us to get the news at the end of the month. And then throughout the entire year, it's gonna be so much

1:00:18Tim Gettys:It's Rayquaza. Damn, I've always said Quaza.

1:00:23Greg Miller:Maybe it's with Kwanzaa.

1:00:24Tim Gettys:Maybe I've just always done that.

1:00:26Greg Miller:What did you think about the Super Bowl ad with Jigglypuff and Lady Gaga?

1:00:29Robert Anderson:Dude, I loved it. You loved it? I loved it. Everybody's saying their favorite Pokemon? I want that to be the marketing from now on.

1:00:36Blessing Adeoye Jr.:I want just... And I love the swerve of it. I love that you didn't know what they were talking about. You thought that they were just talking about the greats in their field or the greats of a certain athletic field, it kind of seemed like, well, he's the GOAT, man. It sounds like Lady Gaga's maybe talking about, you know, who's a singer? Celine Dion or something. And then that soccer player, I believe, it's like, oh, maybe he's talking about Messi or something. And then it's just a swerve, and they're talking about Pokemon.

1:01:05Tim Gettys:Dude, I fucking loved it. I want that from, I just, I don't know. There's some, like, dorky part of me that just falls for the marketing of, like, man, I love when celebrities just end up the stuff that I like. It's so cool.

1:01:15Greg Miller:I still, I hold tight to that Call of Duty celebrity commercial where everybody was in it. That was one of the greatest commercials of all time.

1:01:22Blessing Adeoye Jr.:It's just so much fun. I need Mike as Wolverine in bed with the picture frame, but it's like a tablet instead just watching in bed. It's the greatest commercial of all time. It's a better time for us.

1:01:34Tim Gettys:From Variety, video game publishing giant Ubisoft has set a goal to cut the staff at its headquarters in France by 200 employees as it continues a larger reorganization of the company. In line with Group's ambition to reshape its headquarters into a leaner and focused organization, consultations with employee representatives have been initiated regarding the objective to reduce headcount at Ubisoft HQ in France by 200 positions to a voluntary departure plan, the company said in a letter to shareholders. Accompanying its latest quarterly earnings Thursday, quote, these measures are intended to support a more agile or if they can always if they can be more agile buzzwords.

1:02:14Greg Miller:synergy.

1:02:15Tim Gettys:We need agility here. And it can reinforce the group's ability to deliver sustainable, profitable growth. Fuck yeah, man.

1:02:25Greg Miller:This is like when the Tiger King said, I'll never financially recover from this. We just see Ubisoft and it's like, they'll never recover from this.

1:02:32Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Yeah, man. It's just like more like the fact that you go, hey, we're planning on doing this.

1:02:39Greg Miller:Well, in France, they're like, actually, you're not allowed to just lay people off. You're going to have to

1:02:44Robert Anderson:talk with the union again yeah agree you're not getting off with this so how are you going to make

1:02:49Tim Gettys:me voluntarily depart depart yeah uh the nintendo we is getting a brand new game called metal canary this year including a physical disc version metal canary why is this happening

1:03:03Blessing Adeoye Jr.:in a brand new game called metal canary i like the idea though that i always kind of see in email

1:03:09Tim Gettys:presses or email press releases of you could play this game on Game Boy Advance or on Game Boy Color. It's always a super cute little gimmick, but I don't know how much if it leads to much success for anybody. Art graders has sold 14 million units to date and surpassed 960 ,000 concurrent players. Speaking of another game that it's like at the time was a coin flip. Will this game do it? Who knows? Yep. Will the mass market be cool with this sort of hardcore of a genre? I'm going away.

1:03:40Robert Anderson:Unbelievable.

1:03:40Greg Miller:Unbelievable that that team was able to find the secret sauce, that Weapon X, whatever it was, that was like people are staying and they are into it and they want to live and breathe in this world. And I don't know. It was a special mix. Maybe it was the voice chat. Maybe it was the PVE. There was something special there that people attached themselves to where it wasn't, oh, I'm just getting sweat lorded on all the time and getting absolutely dumpstered on, and I don't know what to do anymore. I'm still having fun.

1:04:09Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Great in a competitive game. Yeah, I mean, the great matchmaking of if you're more aggressive,

1:04:14Tim Gettys:putting you in the lobby with more aggressive people.

1:04:17Blessing Adeoye Jr.:And I also think that I think back to one of the first times previewing it, then the big conversation that you have with every, you know, multiplayer studio of, like, you're not going to go free to play? and they go we were going to be but we decided to go$40 that way we could concentrate on making content for the game that makes the game better and not just making content for cosmetics sake

1:04:42Greg Miller:to nickel and dime and keep the studio open and sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't

1:04:47Tim Gettys:and sometimes you have a banger that just sort of hits at the right time and uh yes shout out to

1:04:52Robert Anderson:them that's amazing two big games too the finals internet and bark studios kingdom come deliverance

1:04:58Tim Gettys:sold over 5 million copies in its first year. Pacific Drive sold 1.5 million copies and surpassed 3 million players. That makes me very happy. That's a game I always wanted to try out but never gave enough time to. So that's very, very cool. Absolume Threads of Fate update 1.1 is now available. And Dicey Tales is getting delisted on Steam. I don't even know what Dicey Tales is, but that'll do it for our Wii News section. let's get to some super chats and some your wrongs before we get the heck out of here and again a different schedule today we're doing interview after this followed by a little bit of an overwatch

1:05:38Greg Miller:stream yeah it could be a little overwatch a little bit yeah i mean it may not be super long

1:05:43Blessing Adeoye Jr.:but uh you know we got to get ready for the big state of play today playstation state of play 2

1:05:49Greg Miller:p.m we'll be live about 1 45 with your predictions and hang out but we'll be live throughout the

1:05:54Tim Gettys:entire day if you want to hang out with us here kind of funny i have uh you're wrong we got let's see from the 12th mad rockto says mike said he's going to play his first gotcha game in 2026 when he played umo musume when it first released and that's very much a gotcha game yeah but we

1:06:12Greg Miller:don't count that because i was coaching helping the horse girls succeed and i didn't fall trap i didn't fall victim to the gotcha mechanics this one i'm giving myself to the guy yeah you don't

1:06:22Tim Gettys:You didn't understand the lore back then.

1:06:24Greg Miller:They were getting got by me. Yeah. I was doing the gotcha.

1:06:26Tim Gettys:Gotcha.

1:06:26Greg Miller:To the horse girls.

1:06:27Tim Gettys:Yeah, I gotcha. Yeah. Kebab says, Mike mentioned in Barks, he was trying to find the Weapon X. He probably meant Chemical X. Weapon X is Wolverine, who, to be fair, would be sick to add to our craters. I don't know if Mike knew what he meant there at all.

1:06:43Greg Miller:Like, I don't think that's a correct. Sometimes it just gets going, and you got to catch up. The wheels get going.

1:06:51Robert Anderson:It's going to be a long day. I don't know if I've read more into your mind than ever. I stayed up real late last night, okay?

1:06:59Greg Miller:I played Tokyo Scramble all the way through, and it was X Factor. I played Tokyo Scramble in one sitting. My mind has been scrambled, okay? I'm lucky to be here right now.

1:07:11Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Ron Mexico with a$2 Super Chat says, Mike and Andy is like watching Prime, Kobe, and Shaq. Thank you, Ron Mexico. He's my dude.

1:07:17Robert Anderson:I was going to spend$8 ,000 to spend a night with Andy. I can't believe it was only$800, Andy. $8 ,000 was what I thought. What are we doing?

1:07:27Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Short change hero. But it could not have been$8 ,000 because Steph wasn't even playing.

1:07:33Greg Miller:Oh, that would have been a tough$8 ,000 to go down.

1:07:37Blessing Adeoye Jr.:You would have been able to say, I'm watching the greatest player of all time right now, Victor Wimbanyama.

1:07:41Greg Miller:That would have been cool.

1:07:42Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Short change hero with a$5 super chat says, I understand the idea that travelism could have contributed to High Guard. However, if they made a truly great game, we'd all be playing it. Just by two cents. Oh, a thousand percent.

1:07:52Greg Miller:That's what I said. Yeah. Which is a good game.

1:07:54Blessing Adeoye Jr.:I think it's a mix of a lot of things. I think a lot of really good games have been overlooked as well. So, like, I don't think all good games immediately means success. Right now, it really does feel like a crapshoot.

1:08:08Tim Gettys:Hugo Sanchez with a$10 Super Chat says, World of Warcraft stream when?

1:08:12Greg Miller:Are you ready to go back? Like, let's be real.

1:08:14Tim Gettys:Let's do it.

1:08:15Greg Miller:The last time we did it, we did hardcore. We won't do hardcore this time. Because when we lost you, we lost everything.

1:08:23Robert Anderson:Yeah. I died about five times. It wasn't great for me.

1:08:28Blessing Adeoye Jr.:I forgot about Hunter's Mark. I forgot about all of my, you know, Eye of the Eagle, Eye of the Cheetah, and stuff like that.

1:08:34Greg Miller:We're going to have some fun.

1:08:35Tim Gettys:Red Misfit with a$10 super chat says, Andy, you need to stop hating on 30 frames per second. Not every game has to run at an ultra-fluid motion 60 frames. The former provides a cinematic filmic effect for story-based games. 60 is not great for everything. Hey, you know, if you want to use a rotary phone,

1:08:52Blessing Adeoye Jr.:if you want to get to work on a fucking horse and carriage, you're more than welcome to. Be his guest. That's totally fine. You know, if you want to drink water from a lake, by all means.

1:09:03Tim Gettys:Hey, make sure you boil that water. By all means. Thank you for the$10 Super Chat. That's going to do it today for Kind of Funny Games Daily. Stay tuned for In Review After This. But until next time, it's been our pleasure to serve you.

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