#392 | Our Most Anticipated Games of 2026

22:16Dustin Furman:Post-Crapcom. I mean, so post-Crapcom that it's amazing, and I'm excited for them. And I hope it's great. From Capcom to Capcom, really. Yeah, Capcom to Capcom. Right, that's right. We should make a shirt that says that. Capcom to Capcom. Yeah. I think Capcom would be funny just as itself, as its own. Like Capcom. Just like, it's like one of those, oh, that's awesome merch you got. And then you look at it a little bit, like slightly close. And you're like, I'm not going to mention this. I'm not going to mention it. Gross. All right. What will I make my first selection?

22:55Dustin Furman:Yeah, I'll throw this one in there first. Saros. This game has a date of April 30th, a slight delay from when it was supposed to come out, which I believe was late March, and then they kind of silently, almost like they never announced the original date. It was just a new date in the trailer at the Game Awards. It looks exceptional. I mean, what can you really say about Housemarque at this point? They're just so elite. and I was skeptical of their ability to jump into the AAA realm. It's AAA. I mean, you wouldn't see many AAA games that are basically kind of roguelike, weird games like this, but just the production values and all the rest.

23:39Dustin Furman:They made the jump. They made the leap. Let's say they made the leap to a true 3D game very successfully, and I didn't really... I didn't know if they had it in them, and I didn't know if that was what they really could do. They weren't structured to do that for a long time. Housemarque is a really old team from the 90s. they've been making arcade games long before I ever knew who they were. I mean, they were making games on like PCs in Europe and shit like that. It wasn't until Super Stardust that they really became relevant to, um, to, especially to Western audiences outside of Europe, but also just the PlayStation audience.

24:10Dustin Furman:And they quietly, if you were, I mean, I don't know how into PlayStation, like I will, I was really into PlayStation three, right? Like I was, I was in there. And if you were a real PlayStation Mark at that point, house Mark was like your shit because they were releasing good stuff that really could only be played on ps3 they did they did some psp stuff with like stardust and later with vita with stardust as well but um returnal when it came out in 2021 as the story goes as our audience knows like it took a minute for like i bought it i was going to support them but i was i wasn't really into it at first and i stuck with it and I ended up playing it for like 60 or 70 hours and, and I loved it.

24:50And it, it, I love discovering games like that.

24:54Dustin Furman:It doesn't happen very often because I think it's like music kind of where you can listen to something for 30 seconds. You're like, all right, like I'm not really into this. Like you, you hear enough of what, like, you don't need to hear the whole thing to understand where you sit, but, but sometimes you let the song roll into like a bridge and it gets into like some real space rock bridge and you'll love and you're like, oh my God, this is awesome. And that's kind of what happened with Returnals. Like you, I just gave it a little bit more time and I didn't, I didn't throw it away partially because of who made it.

25:21Dustin Furman:And it's like, well, there's got to be more of the meets the eye here. And there was, it's graphically gorgeous to the point. I remember I was talking about it over and over again. It's like, I died so much in the game, just looking at it. Every boss fight I died almost like the first time, because it was like, I was just looking at like the bullet. I wanted to just watch it. I wish there was a way to like, I'm sure there is on PC, but a way to just make yourself invisible or invincible. And the game shuts off. It's like you can't you can't proceed or just it's like we an acknowledgement our game is so graphically beautiful that you might want to look at it at really bad times.

25:54Dustin Furman:And just the way the bullets were coming at you and the slowness of it all. And the the floral arrangement of the of all of the beauty as it but about how deadly it was. God, what a fucking game. And then, of course, the interesting story and the loop you're in and Celine, Celine, right? and uh and all the rest so saros is as we've said before what i hope is a continuation of returnal which of course it is but spiritually it's i hope they're assassin's creed 2 or they're uncharted 2 or just the one where it's like yeah we we get the the little things we did wrong that actually mattered and specifically as we talked about a lot with progression and giving players you know resetting the board but giving players more of a feeling that they're getting somewhere i think if they capture that essence this is gonna be a fucking banger you just know it right i mean i don't want to see anymore yeah so house mark working on this for four years like yeah this is it's great good shit man so i'm sure you guys are excited about this too and it was on your list at some point but yeah i had to throw saros out there first for a little first party love there's not that going to be that many options from the first party right anything to say about this otherwise either of me

27:11Colin Moriarty:uh yeah it looks great i think wasn't one of the main new mechanics they were showing is the shield you can uh block shots other than that like i'm i'm like you colin where i'm i'm kind of in for this i watched the game awards trailer but it's already kind of left my mind at this point i didn't re-watch it so um yeah returnal was was really really excellent and a surprising game as you were saying so them taking all of that and applying it to a new game and also dude i'm excited ps5 pro support as well on it any of the first party ps5 pro support games are have been really nice so from a technical perspective i'm i'm excited about it too well shout out to saros

27:58Dustin Furman:shout out to house mark chris anything to add before we move on because i think it's not it's on you next go ahead yeah no i think uh for i'm pumped about it i think it looks it looks better than Returnal which is sick uh in my opinion just because like Returnal I I thought was fantastic I think it's I think it's still probably like the in my opinion probably like the best gameplay that's come out of first party so I'm looking forward to experiencing that again yeah that's probably true right I mean like what would even from it from a pure game I mean I love the gameplay of the last of us and horizon and all of them but it's a little more conventional this is probably up there with like a I was even going to say god of war but I mean I mean ps2 god of war where it's like a true it's a true kind of different sort of gameplay yeah it's very doom in a lot of ways and i'm just like it's it's a video game ass video game you know like and i'm just like i'm all i'm all on board with that and all you're right that delay was very funny like the still sneak delay where it's just like hey we're pushing it a little bit and it was not even like how long was the delay it was like a like a month weeks right yeah yeah yeah it might It might be like 28 days or 29 days or something.

29:05Yeah, that was on my list as well. All right, so am I next? Right, I'm after you. Yep, you're next. Yeah, stick with it. This is your second selection. All right, so this is my second selection. Look, I debated this because I don't know what to expect of this. This is a very Hollow Knight kind of silksong kind of deal where like, I don't have any good reason to believe that it wouldn't come out this year, especially given the timeline that we've been given but i can't deny that of the games that i expect for next year judas is pretty high up there sure um it's i i don't know this is very likely in my opinion probably going to get pushed but i also don't understand how that could how could this be yeah right it's you know like it i feel like i do feel like at this point like 2026 it's like it is kind of like a shit or get off the pot type of situation for judas you know i'm i'm pumped about this game i think it looks great i think everything that i've seen about it looks exciting uh i'm a big fan of ken levine i'm a big bioshock fan i have a bioshock tattoo there's really i don't even have a halo tattoo you know so like i i adore that game design and that storytelling and just the the ethos around it i think it's fucking fascinating and it looks like this is continuing a lot of that in a more modern lens with a lot of really interesting game design mechanics behind it i watched that narrative legos um gdc uh talk that ken levine gave many many years ago probably probably like five plus times which is you know way more than anybody should be listening to a gdc fucking ted talk if they're not already just in the industry so i'm just i've been fixated on this game for for a very very long time i'm eager for it it was i think supposed to come out this year but it's been pushed now to uh 2026 presumably uh but this game's had a very very long dev cycle it wouldn't surprise me if it got pushed out of 2026 somehow but also like i think at this point like we really gotta like we really we really gotta we gotta get moving but of the games that i'm looking forward to next year like that's pretty high up there like this is the most this is probably the most anticipated i've been for a game

31:33in like probably over a decade so i can't not put it here right even though i'm like even though like the prospect of it coming out next year is like potentially likely and potentially dubious i don't know i'm 50 50 on it really i don't know what's going on i don't know what to think

31:48Dustin Furman:i really don't i don't know what to think would you would you say that that's a fair selection though yeah oh yeah definitely um it was on my list and i didn't want to put it up too high because of that whole that whole the whole idea of it um you know like we just don't know what's going on like it almost feels like we're getting to a position with this game where it's like damn dude we gotta get this you gotta get this thing out i think i've said before that i just i think there comes a point where you're putting a lot of pressure on yourself to deliver and if it's not people are going to, the more the game goes into development, the more people are going to be like when it comes out, be like this is it.

32:28Dustin Furman:You don't want to put yourself in that position even for a great game just because it's been so long. I mean this game's been I'm not saying they've been working on this game for all this time but Bioshock Infinity came out in the PS3 era. That was the last game that they released. So it's time to go and and see what it is. Dustin, I'm sure you're excited about it as well.

32:52Colin Moriarty:Yeah, I mean, the one thing consistent, I guess there's two consistent things about this podcast. We are Kojima fanboys and Glazers. We're also Ken Levine fanboys. I'm not going to say Glazer out of respect for Ken since he's been on this show, but you guys know. We love Bioshock is like top tier for all three of us. like top I'm assuming Bioshock is in all of our top fives yeah right yeah yeah I would think so

33:21Dustin Furman:I haven't I have to really sit down and do this exercise at some point you know yeah because I've been saying like my top five like my top games are just almost frozen in my mind where I'm like it can't be it can't be true that this is still true like right yeah I feel the same way yeah like Mega Man 3 and Symphony of the Night and Tales of Destiny and Wild Arms like I've been saying this since fucking high school it can't possibly be anymore right but yes bioshock is certainly in like the 3d spaces maybe other than the last was my favorite game right yeah and uh every trailer i guess there's there's been two trailers right i think so yeah there has been because it was shown and i mean this is kind of the crazy thing too is it was shown at the game awards in 2022 so it's yeah and obviously the game was in development for a long time before that so it's just like man we gotta we gotta get going because is that right 2022 yeah that feels impossible and i'm looking i'm reading here stroud zelnick had said in 23 that they expect the game to be launched by earlier this year.

34:30Dustin Furman:So it's got to be close. It's got to be really close. And it wouldn't be surprising to wake up one day and you're on Twitter and you just see that a release date has been announced for. I think it would be an awesome summer game, to be perfectly honest with you, just to find a window, find an avenue. Good.

34:48Colin Moriarty:I figured it out. We were recording this on December 17th. The president has a message tonight at 9 p.m.

34:53Dustin Furman:Oh, that's it.

34:55Colin Moriarty:He's announcing the Judas release date.

34:58Dustin Furman:He's announcing the invasion of Venezuela, probably.

35:01Colin Moriarty:Oh, good. I've talked with Ken Levine. I've gone to... He's going to say, like, irrational games, and they're putting out Judas in seven weeks. He calls him irrational.

35:15Dustin Furman:Yeah, that would be fair. He's, like, more in tune with the industry than he should be, but also completely behind. Right. He's still calling it irrational games.

35:29i love the little hand magic that they do i love hand magic it's quite cool and you ryan great guy and you ryan great guy i went to his party

35:42rapture was a beautiful city rapture was a beautiful city until the immigrants came

35:52that's true in a way i mean it's all leave it to the native fish i guess yeah i know it's outrageous

36:03Dustin Furman:but i love why we want to spoil the story i was gonna say like that one guy with like the real irish accent where it's like yeah yeah you're really putting it on those are my people yeah very exciting times yeah so it's take two also and i'm sure i assume gta will come up at some point in this conversation like they have to contend with that being released they kind of can't release it next fall i mean you don't it would just be it's not even a matter of like eating it because you could like release it in october for instance and it would be well distant of grand theft auto and that would still be in the same quarter it would just be like complete financial malfeasance to be like yeah we want all of this money this quarter it's like no you don't like that would be fucking crazy you got to move it to a different quarter hopefully earlier and i got it it's got to be this year man it's got to be it's got to be um yeah i had to put it because i was just like it feels right it feels like okay we've done the delay we've done the reveal we've done the re-reveal how much more how much more really is left in the tech like I feel like you figure like maybe May to September, like that kind of window, maybe ideally.

37:19Because they're not going to put out in like December or something.

37:22Dustin Furman:No, and again, that would still be in the same quarter. And it's like just financially, you'd think that take two would be like, we got to spread everything out. And the left grand theft auto just dominate this quarter and probably the quarter after that. And then we'll get our money from that. And then we can because the thing I'm worried about is if that's true and it doesn't make it this year then it's going to be like no earlier than q2 27 probably and calendar year so yeah and i just don't know that it's just like come on man if we because if we get the 27 then you're getting the ps6 and it's like you didn't release a game during the ps4 or ps5 era come on ken you're too good for this come on we love you ken yeah we love you so much and dude i'm gonna i'm gonna shit myself when this game comes out it's just one of those few games where i am authentically yeah i'm not trying to be like you know oh everything's so trite and boring and i'm jaded it's nothing like that at all i just i've been playing games for a long time to be truly amped about something is rare it's very rare i don't know when the last time i've the last was part two for example was one of those games where i was like yes yes i can't fucking wait to play this i'm so excited or horizon probably was a maybe the last example but there's this is one of those games it's like when mega man comes out in 27 it's like that's gonna be and i gotta i'm not going to do it but i gotta be honest i could get this game early so easily it's not even funny and i'm gonna have to really he invited me to play it a couple years ago you know up to go off to boston and play it and so it's like i could get an early copy of game when it's time to go through my connections with him but i won't yeah but i won't this is um this is like i remember there were certain games where like i would get home from like i would get on the bus and go home from school and like the second i was off the bus i would be sprinting home to like play something that i was like really excited judas is one of those that's a sprint home kind of game like the say the second it's available like okay it's over now yeah like i'm not you're not gonna see me probably for a while you're gonna like completely shut my phone off no one's gonna cut no one's gonna come in contact with me for like a good like three days yeah i definitely don't want it to be spoiled hopefully it'll be dynamic enough to where it's difficult unspoilable but there will be too much to flood the zone and we'll have time to play it because again playing The Last of Us Part 2 having it being so thoroughly spoiled for me was a bummer still loved it would have been nice to not know

40:05Dustin Furman:in a classroom of sodas

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40:48Dustin Furman:Dustin, this brings us to you for your

40:50Colin Moriarty:second selection this is five overall okay my next selection we talked about capcom they got my cap coming yeah with pragmata oh surprise my next choice uh this comes out i was looking up real quick it comes out april 24th so yeah this is my second i mean my second choice and it's another capcom game but pragmata this is a game that's been in development for quite a while I believe if I remember correctly, we saw this around the or the like the pre-release of PS5. Yeah, it was at that event.

41:26Dustin Furman:It was at that showcase.

41:27Colin Moriarty:Right. Yeah. Yeah. And so this game's been cooking for quite a bit, but I got to play the demo at Summer Game Fest. And now there's a demo available on Steam, which is pretty much the same demo, but it includes a pause fight at the end. And what they're doing with this game is really unique. you do these little puzzles in the middle of combat in order to, you know, do damage on some of the various enemies in this game. And it it's one of those things that I had to really play to like get it, because I think when you just see gameplay, it seems like it might be kind of boring or weird. And it definitely is weird, but I was surprised with how much it clicked for me.

42:10Colin Moriarty:And this most recent trailer that they had at the Game Awards, the music was really cool. I'm really curious about the relationship between this little robot girl and this guy and being out in space on the moon and there's also these shots that look like they're in times square in new york city i don't need to know any more about story in fact the demo doesn't really give you that much about the story and i'm happy about that but i i feel like at this point we you know the three of us has been have been playing our game playing games our whole lives and uh we are going to continue to play games.

42:44Colin Moriarty:It's not all the time that you get something that feels truly unique. And Pragmata is one of those games like, wow, I don't think I've ever played anything like that. And so maybe it's a swing and a miss, but for now it is really, really intriguing and thus being my number two choice.

43:03Dustin Furman:Yeah, it's a great choice. I think the game looks awesome. it it's part of that capcom mystique of them trying and executing on new things once in a while and it's my hope that it it works out for them and it is my assumption again you don't show games that early if if you didn't have different plans for release and the game was obviously brought back to the drawing board at some point and we reworked in some significant way because it is years late for my in my opinion based on when they showed it and that shows to me that they believed in it that they're like there's something here it's too it's too good to waste with some half-assed bullshit that's not playtesting well or whatever problems they had.

43:39Dustin Furman:So I'm looking forward to it too. I love space stuff. And I love like space stuff, foreign space stuff. In other words, Mass Effect. We're in some made-up system and some made-up plan. But there's also a cool aspect to being on the moon. A familiar yet foreign. That was what was great about Andy Weir's book Artemis, which also took place on the moon. And it's like, yeah, there's something not so foreign about looking up at the thing you see in the sky every day and imagining that something is there. Something's happening there. And it's very, very exciting. So that's the sort of setting and all of that.

44:12Dustin Furman:And just the dual character, the little girl and like the adult male. It's very interesting. And like what her nature is. And she's getting an amiibo, which is, as we said, which is very interesting. I think I'd probably I think I'll probably buy that amiibo. Chris, are you interested in Pragmata? I'm not sure where you stand on this. Yeah, I'm I'm curious about. I know there's a demo I haven't tried yet. I've been meaning to, but I think it looks like it could be cool. I just I don't it's one of those things where I'm just going to have to get a feel for it. I'm going to have to play it because the visuals of it like he feel like the main character feels like he moves around like super heavy in a way that may or may not bother me.

44:50Like there are games that do that and they bother me. And then there are games that do that and they don't. But it's always like kind of like a 50 50 coin toss. I dig the style. I dig like the art design of it. I dig a lot of everything else that I'm seeing from it. Like I think visually it looks great. I think the, I think it's, it's got a vibe to it that I think is undeniably cool and weird. It's just one of those things where it's like, I'm definitely going to have to play it. I do have the demo. Like I'm pretty sure I downloaded the demo. I might not have installed so much shit over the weekend, but I'm curious about it.

45:23I wouldn't say I'm like, I'm anticipating it or like I'm excited about it, but it has my attention and I am curious. Yeah. and I hope it does well like I mean it's we've been we've been talking about this game in some way shape or form for like when was the last time it was shown like or the first time it was shown 2020 Jesus Christ yeah it's been a long time coming so I hope it I hope it uh lands well and uh they got something cool on their hands that people are going to be excited to check out I think it'll probably be very good yeah it was announced at the PS5 reveal as we said that was

45:57Dustin Furman:Drew has said earlier. It was announced for 2022. In 2021, it was delayed to 2023. In 2023, it was delayed indefinitely. In the summer of this year, they said it would come out in 26. Now we have a release date of April 24th. So, a long time coming. Something obviously went catastrophically wrong with this game. It was four years late. So, than their original timeline, I'd love to know more. Maybe they'll be free to say more once it comes out. Alright. Right. My sixth selection or my second selection for six overall, I should say, is the blood of Dawn Walker. I'm not entirely sure that this is going to be coming out this year.

46:38Dustin Furman:They say it is. Or in 2026, I should say, because we're recording this in late 25. They did say it was coming out in 26. It is my sincere hope that it arrives in 26. Games like this often get delayed and you wouldn't I wouldn't be surprised. you don't really want to release anything after October in 26 pushing the game to February or March 27 Bandai Namco is the publisher I'm not entirely sure what their entire release schedule is are they publishing that switch from software game

47:13Colin Moriarty:I don't know I'll find out the answer though

47:15Dustin Furman:and then they'll have a couple other things they're doing Tales there might be a Tales game next year Although this was tales is 30th anniversary. So I don't know if that was, I don't know. We'll see what happens anyway. Um, I love vampires and I don't want like, there's all sorts of different ways to do vampires and I'm not into all the different motifs. Um, I have no problem with, uh, twilight for instance, but it's not my kind of vampire story, right? It's cool. Or that, that show that HBO show true blood, my mom really liked that show, which disturbed me when I watched it cause it was, it's very sexual and i'm like oh um why are you liking this um why are you a human being and but so that's another way to do vampires or whatever i like carpathian eastern european castlevania-esque vampires like original bram stoker dracula nosferatu vampires and you gotta watch nosferatu dude the new one yeah i heard it's a new one's good does he look scary dude Nosferatu used to scare the shit out of me when I was when I was I used to go to the the the local library to rent tapes and the joke was that I used to rent like the Nosferatu but would never watch it when I was a kid like I'd rent it that's how close I would get and then I'd be like and I don't know why my parents were letting me rent this shit yeah but they but they were so I did it wasn't until I was older that but that is the scariest makeup I've ever seen in my life especially because it's so old you know i feel like it won't look as scary but in like hd i don't know he's he's chris did you see it yeah yeah yeah he's pretty freaky what's his name or nasty boy count yeah or or or lock or lock yeah that's a great movie and nosferatu came from correct me if i'm wrong i don't know if you guys know this it's you probably do because you know a lot about film or whatever is for some reason bram stoker didn't trademark dracula in the united states and so nosferatu is like a dress is supposed to be dracula and which is a different name is that true i think that's what it is i think you're right yeah it's it's something along it's something along those lines where or maybe they it was copyrighted or or trademarked or something but you could get away with it i think that's why they use nosferatu instead of dracula i think I'm not sure there's something you're right about like there's like some weird like trademark copyright thing yeah it must be copyright it was always what what it must be because he's he's Bram Stoker's Irish but I think he wrote it in Britain I think he was British but I think he was born in Ireland anyway it doesn't matter um I just love that's my vampire kind of stylings Castlevania that kind of shit and this is this takes place in the Balkans it's exactly what I want and there are some things about this game that turn me off a little bit actually including that it seems like you have to do everything in a month in the game in game so 30 in game days but I and I don't like being against constraints like that typically but then I remember I mean we're talking about our earlier earlier like some of our favorite games is like Majora's Mask is my favorite Zelda game and I remember feeling the same way when I was in high school when that game was coming out.

50:33Dustin Furman:I was like, oh, you got three days kind of fucking sucks. Like I want to just look around and hang out and ended up loving it. If you can leverage that sort of imminence into the game effectively, I think there's a lot to be excited about it. And I know that this Rebel Wolves team that's making it are remnants of the Witcher team, including I think the director of Witcher 3, which I think means something fairly significant. I'm not a huge CD Projekt fan. I wouldn't I wouldn't put myself in that category because I've not played enough of their games but I liked The Witcher 3 a lot and I loved cyberpunk so it's not like that culture didn't make anything that culture of that studio culture didn't make anything that I like so there's some there's that reason to be excited about it as well but takes place in the 14th century your character I think is named Cone and C-O-E-N it says here and you got to kind of like save your family from a vampire's curse and that original trailer we saw which i think was earlier this year i want to say i've watched i've gone on psn and like just watched it on several occasions and i'm like this is so fucking good like this is he's running with the little girl in his arms like into the church and like there's all the different kinds of vampires i like that there's like there seems to be like almost like a mongol like uh uh what what are the um the russian horsemen called I can't remember the I'll look it up.

51:58Dustin Furman:Oh, it looks like that. Like one of the characters looks like them. And one of the characters is like a like a European vampire and like a younger vampire and all that. Like, this is this is cool as fuck. And he like takes the little girl and like and like cuts his cuts his wrist and like bleeds into her mouth while she's like, I'm like, oh, this is and all the religious imagery. I mean, that's a big part of it to me. And I've said that many, many times. I love religious horror, like Christian religious horror. You know, I don't know. Is there like Islamic horror? Oh, there must be. Just because I.

52:33Dustin Furman:I feel like the I mean, there's going to be all sorts of different people, moderates and more liberal Muslims, but the religion seems to be so much less about interpretation and even bastardizing it in a way. it would be cool to see if that actually existed like some sort of interesting

52:53Dustin Furman:supernatural like the blood of christ and the crown of thorns and the the man nailed to the cross like there's so much horror imagery you know and it's almost impossible to avoid it it's an exorcism and it's like it's catholic really and orthodox i guess too so are either of you looking forward to the blood of dawn walker i'm curious about it like i don't i haven't looked too deeply into it because i every time i try to get into a vampire game i just inevitably just kind of fall off like i tried with vampire the masquerade bloodlines too and there's elements of that that are really good but like i don't know it just kind of feels a little off and then there was another one that i think uh dustin and i think brad were playing or it was like a survival kind of game do you guys do you remember what that was oh where like the sunlight it's called yeah you know what i mean right like the sunlight would burn you and you have to go out and scavenge like there's a lot of cool like i wish i was more into it this one is probably the most into a vampire game i've seen in a while oh is that v rising yeah rising yeah there you go um and yeah i mean this looks cool it's just one of those things where i don't know if i've seen excited about it like this is one of those games where i'm probably gonna wait to see like what the temperature is um if people have like interesting things to say about it i'll probably check it out because i do think i think the vibe and like so far what they've shown looks really cool i just i don't have a sense of like what the moment to moment i think you know let me see if i can find this unless there's like a long gameplay demo i think they're i think they did release like a 30 minute on a walker like a third yeah there's a 30 minute yeah there's 30 minutes of gameplay so I'll send it to you you can watch it yeah I only I actually only scrolled through it a little bit because I don't want to see too much I don't want to see 30 minutes of the story why would I want to see that but it it looks cool I'll put it in the chat here I remember the CGI trailer that they had for it I think if I'm remembering it correctly it was really dope but oh yeah yeah okay five months ago Oh, yeah, this is some random person's, like, footage of it, by the way.

55:07Dustin Furman:There's probably better links. Let me see if I can. Did I see this?

55:12Yeah.

55:14Dustin Furman:Huh. This is I'll put theirs. This is that this is a version of this is actually a part two of that, I think, too. So there's even more. OK, you can kind of see it. So it does look pretty, you know, it looks like The Witcher. Right, right. OK. Yeah, I think it looks just like I worry about I guess, you know, what I'm seeing in this game is like I look at it and I'm like, this looks cool. is this going to be like a 70 hour game oh yeah looking at it again i was just like this that's exactly the what like put me off a little bit where i was like this looks like something that's going to be fucking long yeah i wonder if it'll be like never going to finish it you can see in the corner oh i don't know where you are in the video but in the corner of mine it says like the blood of dawn walker is like a quest and it says rescue your family 22 days left so my assumption is the days that maybe it's like an hour a day or something and maybe it'll be like a 30 hour game you replay, which would be kind of neat.

56:03Dustin Furman:Like there's only you can only do so much. That could be cool. I think it looks great. I'm just I just know my attention span for these types of games. And I'm just like, I hope it's good enough for me to just like power through it. We'll see. I hope I'm not totally confident it's going to come out this year, but I don't know. I don't know anything about it to know that. I just feel like these things get delayed. It's just the way it goes. Dustin, are you interested in the blood of Dawn Walker before we move on?

56:28Colin Moriarty:I'm not disinterested but just from looking at the trailer it looks great it doesn't look like the type of game that I'm really into but I'm open to it I'm open to it when it comes out maybe I'll give it a shot what if the vampires

56:44Dustin Furman:were Japanese

56:47Colin Moriarty:only if they have Japanese eyes you know like Japanese styling like anime you know you say it yourself I was like you know what i meant

57:02Dustin Furman:um the word i was looking for by the way of the russian horseman was cossack or cossack c-o-s-s-a-c-k i would have never also in a million years come to that conclusion i did look up your question about the dustbloods

57:14Colin Moriarty:and it is not being published by bandai namco oh interesting they're self-publishing self-publishing

57:19Dustin Furman:and i think nintendo also that game is gonna be stinky i promise might be good we'll see but it's gonna stink it's probably gonna stink all right chris on to you this is your third selection number seven overall all right yeah my so my number three is 007 first light i think uh i don't know man i love i love the hitman games i think io does some really really interesting stuff i think them moving into kind of a more linear sort of action oriented genre is fascinating i think and for what it's worth i actually think like the the combat which is not typical of hitman hitman's like very hitman is somewhat like skyrim in a way where it's just like the combat seems to be sort of an afterthought it's really more about like stealth and planning your way through things and then when they get to the combat it's just like you know you hit somebody with a a bottle and that's it this seems a lot more involved they seem to have put a lot more effort into just the animation and the production value of those kinds of scrappy interpersonal fights i remember being pretty impressed with the level of interactivity in some of the gameplay that they showcased um and that there is like some hitman identity still in there is really exciting to me I dig the idea of, you know, some of the open stealth sandbox of Hitman being brought into a 007 game that isn't based on a movie that's completely original type stuff.

59:03And I think it looks I don't know, man. I think it looks cool. I think they may be cooking. You know, there's some things that concern me a little bit. Like, I'm not I don't know if I'm really all that convinced that Lenny Kravitz was a great choice. Yeah, it's a little weird. it's a very bizarre choice like i don't that's weird and you know who knows how that'll end up but i think the game itself looks um like it's heading in a great direction i think io is just just good about making games that make you think in really weird weird rate or weird ways and uh yeah i'm i'm just looking forward to it uh it's been a while since we've gotten a 007 game of any real consequence too so in that aspect it kind of feels like a little bit of a throwback there's like a vague nostalgia oriented with this game for me even though like i've never really like i played a lot of night fire but i i didn't really play much night fire i wrote the guide for that in college actually yeah i dug night fire quite a bit yeah it was cool but um but i don't have a lot of experience with 007 really like i haven't seen many of the films uh the films i have seen i don't think i've seen in their entirety so like a lot of what i know about 007 7 is through like osmosis or through cultural satire or through the handful of video games that I have like a loose association with.

1:00:21So it's I'm kind of looking forward to this game in large part just to kind of get acquainted with it and see, you know, this might actually do for me. This might do what Indiana Jones did and kind of make me like rewatch the original trilogy. I might like obviously there's a lot more 007 than there is Indiana Jones, but maybe before 007 i might catch a mood where yeah i'll pick some films and get ingratiated into that world but i don't know i just think it looks really cool i'm into it the um there are different

1:00:54Dustin Furman:i'm not a 007 fan at all either no my accountant's calling me sorry there's gonna be an awkward cut here uh my accountant was calling me when the company the company's accountant and we're recording this like, you know, we're finalizing everything for the calendar year. So I had to take the call to make sure that everything was good, but everything's fine. Everything's fine. So what I was saying about 007 is that there's this, you know, obviously they started as books. I have no familiarity with the books. And then there's the movies which are famous. And my old colleague, Nick Scarpino was a massive 007 fan.

1:01:26Dustin Furman:But I understand and I'm like you, Chris, like I'm not super familiar with it. I've seen some of it and I've played some of the games, but there are all these eras like I don't think I've ever seen a Sean Connery or Roger Moore 007 movie which is crazy those are like the first two and then I became kind of familiar with 007 honestly during like the very brief Timothy Dalton period which was when I was like a very little kid and then Pierce Brosnan and then at some point in the Pierce Brosnan era I fell back out and then the whole Daniel Craig era I just missed I haven't seen any of those movies so I'm excited about this game because it looks great and I don't know that 007's ever really contingent on knowing any of the other maybe they are but I've never gotten that vibe they all kind of like the self encapsulated it's like it's like watching Law and Order or something it's like right right the characters and what they would call a procedural as opposed to a serial but I could be wrong about that it's it's about the vibe is what it seems like from the outside looking in and I dig the vibe of 007 and so I'm looking there's even like a lot of gameplay stuff that they're doing like the bluffing mechanic I think is interesting I don't know.

1:02:31There's a lot of weird shit that they're doing that I think could be pretty innovative and cool. And I think it kind of looks like Uncharted.

1:02:40Dustin Furman:Yeah, it's like Uncharted Hitman. Yeah, right. Sick. So for that reason, I'm excited about it as well. So yeah, I'll definitely be playing this. It does have a date of March 27th, so we'll be playing that relatively soon. Dustin, do you have anything you want to say about First Light?

1:02:52Colin Moriarty:Yeah, IO Interactive. I mean, I got in on Hitman 2016 and that whole world of assassination, assassination trilogy. Each one just got significantly better. I think they're all great. Chris and I have talked about the mansion level in Hitman three. That is just so incredibly good from a design. I mean, gameplay design perspective, like just amazing. and so to see them it's like a match made in heaven to have them get the 007 license to make that kind of game is so cool so i'm 100 in i have seen quite a few of the 007 movies i don't love them but i think they're cool so for me it's mainly about the the developer behind it so So I'm there.

1:03:43Colin Moriarty:Day one, I had this on my list as well.

1:03:46Dustin Furman:Yeah, I wrote it down as well, but I didn't think I would ever actually maybe get to it because it does seem a little disingenuous for me to say it, but comparable to some of these other games. Sure. And by the way, if anybody, I'll be looking at the comments. There's so many 007 movies. I really don't. I would have no idea where to start with. So if there are like fans in the audience, if they've got like an idea, let me know in like the discord or whatever. Cause I'm, I'm going to be probably trying to at least watch like maybe two or three before, before the game comes out. Yeah, that'd be cool.

1:04:20Dustin Furman:It would be cool. It would be cool to their MGM owns double does double a seven. Right. So that would be, they're probably all on Amazon. Yeah, they're probably all pretty readily available. All right. That brings us to you, Dustin for your first, are you? I'm sorry for your third selection. This is eight overall.

1:04:37Colin Moriarty:Okay. Obvious pick. I'm surprised it took us to round three to get to it, but it's grand theft auto six coming out this year. Oh no. Well, yeah, I guess by the time this episode comes out, it'll be coming out this year. And man, I just, I keep like every few months I go back and I watch particularly trailer two and just looking at this game. Yeah. Visually is just, it's stunning. It's shocking. It looks like a billion dollars. When you see this trailer, it looks like many many years of work into this game and i really like one of the most intriguing aspects of it to me is the two main characters that are uh in a romantic relationship and i'm curious about how that will play into the story you want to see it it's you want to see it don't you oh i mean you saw a trailer too there's this is a this is a little bit of a horny game yeah

1:05:35Dustin Furman:Yeah, sure.

1:05:36Colin Moriarty:I mean, it's Grand Theft Auto, but maybe this one a little bit extra horny. So, yeah, I am so curious about this. I'm curious, too, about the next era of Grand Theft Auto Online as well. I've never been big on Grand Theft Auto Online. I've played it before, but seeing about how they're going to evolve it, it's one of those things that they know they got. I mean, not only they just need to get the game right in general, but Grand Theft Auto Online is going. this is going to be their moneymaker for at least a decade or more to come. Certainly. So I'm really excited about it. And, you know, we've had delay after delay.

1:06:16Colin Moriarty:So, uh, I, I think it's going to land though in November. So it'll be the biggest media release of all time.

1:06:29Dustin Furman:Yeah.

1:06:29Colin Moriarty:In terms of dollars. Right.

1:06:31Dustin Furman:Yeah. So I think that's definitely, gonna be the case yeah i'm looking forward to it i was it was funny i was uh i i will i go last in our round robin here or it's not really around robin it's like a rotisserie here and uh so i if we got to the last pick i would have picked it because but i wanted to play a little bit of chicken with it as well it's actually not one of my most five anticipated games personally but i am very i am extremely curious i've probably never actually ever been more curious about a game than I am about what this one is really just getting into it and seeing it. And I don't want to know or see anything else, and I don't want to know anymore.

1:07:11Dustin Furman:I would like to see some minute-to-minute gameplay. I wouldn't mind seeing a mission or something, mostly because I'm curious about just how it looks. What are we talking about when the game's actually being played, when you're really playing it? What does it look like? And because the game's not being released on PC, we'll probably see it on PS5 or PS5 Pro, and so we'll get a really good representation of it. chris i assume you're excited about gta 6 as well yeah i mean this was the obvious kind of given you know like i think we're all like so curious and it's it's very rare these days that we have like a big tentpole release that everybody's excited for like usually the big phenomenons happen kind of out of nowhere now it's usually something like fortnight which you know over over time or overnight just kind of becomes this phenomenon nobody was looking forward to fortnight yeah i know nobody was hyped about for it i remember like i remember years ago i was because on facebook they have this like on this day thing and i always like every now and then i click on it out of curiosity like what was i saying like what was i posting about in like 2011 or whatever and i remember e3 like 2012 or like 2013 or something like that fortnite showed up with like the save the world mode and i said i i think i i posted something that was like um this looks like a flop no one's gonna be playing this which is technically true nobody did give a shit about save the world but yeah or something like um a lot of the big things are like cyberpunk which launches all fucked and then eventually gets better or like arc raiders which is like kind of overnight so to like gta is really the last or this one in particular is like really the last big thing that everybody is kind of unanimously like i we gotta line up for that so for the from that perspective alone i'm excited about it as like you know kind of the kind of the ending of like these big big exciting like everybody's excited for type games but like also dude gta trailer 2 in particular i'm glad you pointed out that trailer specifically because that's it's that trailer is so impressive to me on like almost every like fundamental level like i think somebody posted on uh twitter like months and months ago a picture of gta 5 next to gta 6 and it is fucking startling how much gta 6 makes gta 5 look like san andreas or like GTA three, like it looks comically bad in comparison, which is crazy.

1:09:40Cause I remember that game being like very, very detailed. I remember being impressed by that game and I don't, I don't, I don't feel that often. Like usually I'll go back to a 360 game and I'll be like, ah, that looks pretty good, you know, or like, you know, but that's, that changes like that. You see the money and I am so painfully curious about, you know, how long that game is going to be, how in depth it's going to be like, what they're going to lean into with the online. Like, are they going into a are they going to lean into the the gta role play aspect like what are they going to do with the the phone mechanic that's been kind of a staple of gta going from gta 4 to gta 5 and potentially maybe here like the mind kind of races as as to what they're going to do and like how second life is it going to be i'm really curious about gta online like i feel like i missed out on something with gta 5 online because like when i first played it it was not in the it was not in the state that it it would end up being and it was kind of like still felt like somewhat of an afterthought when i was playing but now that they've seen like the sheer success of it like how are they going to double down on it what's the story going to be is it going to be like red dead two tier narrative writing like i i don't know but like the prospect of that type of writing finding its way into a gta game is really really exciting because i personally gta 5 didn't resonate with me that much GTA 4 I loved um I think the narrative in GTA 4 is probably still to this day probably the best GTA narrative so I'm excited to see it potentially surpassed and excited to be impressed and yeah this is undoubtedly like the biggest the biggest thing for all of us I think

1:11:20Dustin Furman:protein is now at Starbucks and it's never tasted so good you can add protein cold foam to your favorite drink or try one of our new protein lattes or matcha. Try it today at Starbucks.

1:11:36All right, my third selection, number nine overall, is Mina the Hollower.

1:11:41Dustin Furman:We don't have to linger on this too long, as I know I'm probably the only one truly excited about it, but I've been waiting for this game for a long time now. I'm a big Yacht Club fan, as I think everyone knows. I'm a little disappointed in their trajectory over time, and I feel like this is a game for them to get back on their feet hearing them say that they really need to sell maybe a couple hundred thousand copies to be okay made me feel good because I think that's a fairly safe bet for them in the first days probably of the game's release and they said if they sell half a million they'll be in great shape which I think is also entirely possible for people that don't know Mina the Hollower it is a game that is kind of predicated on a game I mean to me it looks most like the Game Boy Color Zelda games Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons so late Game Boy maybe early Game Boy Advance, but really it's not a Game Boy Advance game.

1:12:28Dustin Furman:And it looks awesome. It just looks totally true to form, obviously a love letter and some sort of passion project for them. It is interesting to hear how it all spun up. It's a double-edged sword in that this young... Their intern, their old intern is directing the game, which is so interesting, and yet he kind of bit off, it seems like, more than he can chew and wasn't really a great leader. And so the game took longer than they wanted to, and now Shovel Knight's director is helping finish the game. And I assume we'll see it fairly early in the year. It doesn't have a date yet, but I'm sure no later than the second quarter.

1:13:04Dustin Furman:And that's probably even pushing it because it seemed like they didn't even know if they were really going to delay it out of this year. There was still kind of some uncertainty about that, but really looking forward to this game and really want to see what it is. And as someone who owns a, you know, co-owns a studio that has an affinity for making exclusively old games. I feel connected to this sort of project that you do something within the confines of something very limiting and see what what's possible and it looks the gameplay looks fucking phenomenal it just and I love the character characters really cute could be another interesting plush toy could be an interesting amiibo considering their connection to Nintendo with all the Shovel Knight amiibos that happened I think they got four so it's a lot getting a fire emblem territory are either of you

1:13:55Colin Moriarty:going to play Mina when it comes out yes I played the demo on Switch 2 and I didn't finish it because it was so good I thought yeah I'm locked in I'm locked in for this it plays great and I just want to I want it to come out because it was supposed to come out this year and it did honestly probably good for me personally because playing so many other things that I maybe not I wouldn't have gotten to it But yeah, this game looks sick.

1:14:25Dustin Furman:Chris, let's go on to, if you don't have anything to say about Mina, it is your turn too, so take it away however you'd like. Yeah, I mean, I can't pretend like I know much about it. I'm just not, I'm pretty bad at 2D games, to be honest with you. Like, I appreciate them more than I like them, I think. Like, there's some that I love. Like, I love the original, like, Mega Man. And I think, like, there's certain, like, obviously Mario World and things like that. but I'm staying with sticking to my lane I think yeah as far as Mina goes unless I hear like amazing shit about it then then I'll be curious but yeah so this is my number four I think yeah this is four ten overall guys I uh it's a marathon yeah sure I am I'm a believer man like I don't know like I've been I've been thinking about it kind of constantly to be honest with you like I think even when i spend time in arc raiders and i play that with like friends of mine i'm i'm just constantly thinking about marathon as i'm playing it because i just like man that vibe i love that it's a continuation or that it's like rooted in the same lore as the original games and the original dude the lore in the original marathon is so good and i'm so excited to see like how this is going to connect to it especially because it seems like they're really doubling down on that i've i've heard and i think they showcased a little bit in this recent viadoc of like there's like a codex with like an og marathon terminal in there that kind of keeps track of all the big story beats so that you can follow along and it doesn't get lost in it doesn't get lost in the in the weeds of like gameplay or like you're not listening to an audio log while you're in the middle of a firefight and you lose it like you can sit there and really really really scoop through everything and and really get intensely familiar with it i think the game plays phenomenally well i think a A lot of the additions that they've made since the delay only strengthened that.

1:16:21I think they've doubled down on the environments. They've doubled down on the tone. They've doubled down on the threats. And Ark Raiders really kind of, and to be fair, Marathon opened my eyes to Ark Raiders, which Ark Raiders has opened my eyes even more to Marathon, where I'm just like, I'm really looking forward to getting involved in that gameplay, in the same kind of gameplay loop, in the same kind of, you know, thing that's so intriguing about arc raiders but in a world that i am familiar with in a world that i care about in an aesthetically unique and interesting world that is in my opinion unlike any like i really think the art design in marathon is top fucking tier i think it looks immaculate and i'm just excited um the gameplay there is just so good and having that destiny style game feel in a tense, you know, dog-eat-dog kind of PvP landscape.

1:17:21It's really appealing to me. It's probably the only multiplayer game that I think I'm looking forward to next year. As far as I'm aware, I don't think anything else really comes close for me. But it's definitely on the higher end. Like, this is one of those where I'm going to be really, really stoked about it when it comes out. but yeah that's my it's my number four I don't know if I have much more to say about it

1:17:47Dustin Furman:but it's okay you don't have to say anything you don't want to say you don't have to pontificate if you don't want to I'm not obviously going to play Marathon but Justin nothing wrong with it it's just not my kind of game Dustin I assume you'll play it

1:18:04Colin Moriarty:and Chris I'm with you I mean I don't know how good it's going to be I haven't had the privilege being invited to play the beta or figured out some sneaky way to get in. I haven't been invited back either. Yeah. Bummer, but. So I have not played it, but the recent video they put out looked insanely promising. And I'm with Chris. I love that Bungie FPS feel. and so taking the things that i love from arc raiders and adding that bungee gameplay feel i mean that's enough already on top of that the amazing art style um is is just it's all there and so yeah it's had some issues and i think that they've done a good job course correcting particularly in having um proximity chat is going to be a huge huge difference i'm curious about how the kind of hero aspect is going to play out on the surface.

1:19:05Colin Moriarty:I don't particularly love that idea, but I am open to having my mind changed. So I'll be there for Marathon for sure.

1:19:13Dustin Furman:All right, Dustin, I'll stick with you then. It's time for your fourth selection. This is 11 overall.

1:19:18Colin Moriarty:My fourth selection. Let's go with this one. Crimson Desert. This is a game I was I'm watching a trailer. March 19th. two years ago Gamescom opening night live 2023 and just watching this trailer is so insanely impressive and it's from two years ago this is Breath of the Wild Tears of the Kingdom for adults to enrage many people but

1:19:53Colin Moriarty:what's so impressive about this I mean there's way newer gameplay out there this just happened to be the one I clicked but there's just so many systems happening at once where there's like this amazing particle effects. When you fight, there's all kinds of physics objects going all over the place. The game has an insane amount of verticality to it where you're looking like glide around. It shows later there's like sky islands, kind of like tears of the kingdom as well. And all of this looks so impressive. And it's funny. There's a trailer or there's, there's a comment on this trailer from two years ago that says, this gameplay looks insanely ambitious it's definitely one of those i'll believe it when it's released kind of games and that's how i felt also until summer game fest where i didn't get to play it but i sat beside brad as he played it and it was all there it all came together whether it works for a full game of course is yet to be determined but what i saw in that trailer looked so incredibly impressive the the main concern i concern i just have is that i am assuming it was played on a pc on that trailer but with a big as with an open world that's this big running on playstation 5 on on console hardware i'm i'm a little concerned from a technical perspective but we haven't seen that yet so i could be blown away but crimson desert i think this could be low key if they pull it off one of the biggest games of next year.

1:21:22Dustin Furman:Yeah, it does look like one of those games, right? That's going to sell 10 million copies or something and like really storm the beaches because I'm most interested because Pearl Abyss is a very well-respected MMO studio with a lot of money and they're South Korean. And this game began as, I think, a sequel to that. And I love the idea of them seeing something so special and maybe a little uncertain in the MMO market as well, where it's like our route to success with this game is actually doing an action RPG in the vein of a Western role-playing game. And it does look excellent. It really, really does.

1:22:01There's just no doubt about it.

1:22:04Dustin Furman:And I know this thing has been kind of bouncing around for a while. And right, it was 2020 Game Awards?

1:22:12Colin Moriarty:I think so. And so it's...

1:22:17Dustin Furman:It's exciting to see it come to fruition. And I was hoping for it this year. I mean, they were really going into this year as the date. And I know they need more time and they announced such. It is, as we said before, about other games, a blessing that it got pushed out because it's going to get lost probably in some respect, no matter where it's released. We always talk about even games with really huge sales still disappear from the zeitgeist because of the nature of this ever ending wheel of fucking games that comes out. But it looks incredible. It really does. It really does. and it speaks to me and yeah i'm looking forward to it as well chris are you gonna play this game i'm intimidated by it it seems like an intimidating game i don't know if it if it's exceptional i feel like i'm gonna have to try to get but like this is kind of again this is another this is another thing this or i feel similarly that i feel with um to this that i feel about blood of dawn walker i'm like this looks like a hundred hour kind of thing and i just don't know if i'm hungry for that by the way oh my god every single day for the last week they've been vacuuming in the room right above me i don't know what the hell's going on up there the people when i lived in santa monica would would vacuum every day that's crazy every day they must have been clean of shit going on in that in that in that room it's a crime scene but serve pros there that's such a weird reference it's but yeah i don't know it's it's it looks like another 100 hour game so like i'm probably gonna i'm probably gonna let it let it pass but it looks fucking great like the production value of it looks incredibly impressive it looks truly next gen in a lot of ways but i don't know that life is demanding you know yeah i mean everyone has to make concessions like that so i don't i don't blame you yeah everyone has to kind of make a deal to get through this this heinous schedule all right this brings me to my fourth selection and this is 12 overall it is animusha way of the sword animusha 5 another capcom game a lot of Capcom on this list comparable to other publishers.

1:24:35Dustin Furman:I've been waiting for a new Animusha game for almost 20 years. By the time this comes out, it will have been about 20 years. And we don't have a release date yet, but they're saying 2026. And when you read about the game, and when you see the game, but when you read about it, it says, and they're saying all the right things. People very quickly ask, are you making Animusha into a Souls-like? No. is the game open world no how long is it 20 hours it's they're hitting all the right notes of course remembering that animusia was basically a horror resident evil at first and they're sticking to that japanese supernatural historical action game with role-playing elements and upgrading elements which go back to the original animusia warlords it's just fun to see this come back and I wish we weren't streaming at the time but it's so funny like I called that this was Animusha like two seconds into the trailer yeah and it because it because it just it just read like and I was like wow they're really doing it and the four Animusha games on ps2 I think are really great like they really are great games the if people haven't played them Animusha 1 and Animusha 2 most people consider Animusha 2 to be the best those are both available on PS4 and PS5 for you to play and they're relatively cheap I assume they'll probably get Animusha 3 and 4 Animusha 4 wasn't called Animusha 4 it's called Animusha what was it called this one is called Way of the Sword Animusha I don't even remember who cares but it came out in 2006 and I wrote the strategy guide for it at the time what was it Dawn of Dreams that's what it was and people really didn't like it very much for some reason but I actually think it's a really strong game so it's my hope that they get all four of them out in time for a celebration of getting an animusia really on its 20th anniversary since the game came out and really it's like 25th anniversary since animusia itself launched i don't know if they're gonna they're going to lean into that or not but it's a really special series and when i went back and played it when they released animusia i guess it was in 18 or 19 on ps4 i i expected it to have to make more concessions about like oh this game comes from a different time it's not going to be as fun as you remember and it was great I was like no this game is still totally great and very approachable very sucking the souls in with your gauntlet kind of some simple upgrades different types of weapons and attacks and they evolve it over time and it's very and I think it is a very contained Resident Evil style game in that you're kind of going through sections and you're finding like a key and then you're solving a puzzle and then you're going but it's a little more linear so i'm really looking forward to this game when it will be dated i don't know again i think this is a very good like late summer early fall release and i would expect to see it perhaps in that in that time frame are you guys interested in this game yeah yes oh good chris go ahead no i mean i'm yeah this was on my list too uh i think it looks great i loved i really enjoyed the original anemusha when i when i when i finally played i think i started it back when they ported it and then like i kind of fell off because i just i don't know if i got it um but then i think i played it i think in the last like year or two and i really really dug it um i love these types of games and it looks like it looks like this is just building on it it doesn't look like they're trying to reinvent the wheel here it looks like they're trying to really evolve it in a way that makes sense everything i love the interactivity too like i think there was like a scene with i think he kicked the table or something that i remember like sticking out to me it's like oh this is cool um so yeah this is definitely up there for me yeah the original animusha is very nostalgic for me just in it came out when i was in 11th grade that spring and uh it was one of the it was amongst those original not not launch or launch uh region games but one of the original like great games for some people look at it it's like up there with like red faction i loved the bouncer a few other things that were as silent hill 2 was a little bit later than you get when you get to the fall you get the gta 3 mgs 2 it's like pretty crazy fucking year on ps2 but it all began really in that era that march that february march april era when games started actually coming out and it was like yes yes yes yes this isn't just a dvd player it's it's not just a fantavision machine dustin it's time for you to go you can say anything we want about anemusha or you can make your fifth and final selection in the 13th slot or you can do both yeah well onimusha i played

1:29:22Colin Moriarty:the first one it might have been last break or the year before for the first time and i was uh i was pleasantly i don't want to say pleasantly surprised because i was expecting it to be awesome and i liked it and everything we've seen from this new one looks great and while i agree and know that it's not I'm not calling it a Souls like but from watching the gameplay with certain boss fights the parrying and some of the sword combat is reminiscent of Sekiro I don't know how much it's going to be like Sekiro but I like a good you know parry mechanic in a game this certainly looks like it's got some of that so I'm very excited dude Capcom three games on this on our list from Capcom they are just absolutely been killing it and I assume are going to kill it in 2026 so my next choice here let's go with this one and maybe this is unfounded coming from me but legitimately i am very excited to check this out and that's dragon quest 7 reimagined i why would that be disingenuous for you you're from because i i've never fully beaten a dragon quest game oh i've only played in fact the only one i've really played is uh 11 and i didn't beat it interesting so but this one in particular i just feel like looks so cool aside i'm matt damon aside

1:30:49Dustin Furman:from the characters that's a good moment for you on stream yeah that was that was a good moment um

1:30:56Colin Moriarty:uh i think this looks really cool i've always heard so much about particularly i feel like the Dragon Quest games I hear the most about are seven and eight in particular. And so this feels like for me, like, okay, I may have missed the boat on 11 and I could go back to it. But this game in particular looks like, okay, this is the one, this is the one that I'm really going to go full force into and play. I know it's pretty long, which is a little intimidating, but I just, I really like what they've done here with it. So Colin, Colin you probably will have more about this to say than I will but it is indeed one of the games

1:31:35Dustin Furman:I'm most anticipating yeah I don't think I'm going to get to it I mean I'll buy it because I want to support Square Enix with these Dragon Quest ports I think it's important that they get them out for everybody and they continue on I know hopefully we'll get four five and six at some point obviously we're eagerly anticipating 12 and Brad and I were just talking recently about Dragon Quest 10 because that's obviously the mysterious one that never was released in the west because it's an MMO and they didn't want to translate all that so they never released it which is like my favorite part like there's there's multiple Dragon Quest games over time where they're like yeah we just don't want to translate it it's too much text and they I don't know if you remember Dustin they released that offline version of it on Wii U but we never got it so we were talking about all the different Dragon Quest games Dragon Warrior 7 as we knew it on PS1 a very late PS1 release was the first Dragon Warrior or Quest game we had gotten since Dragon Warrior 4 on NES, which came out in the West in 92 or 93.

1:32:31Dustin Furman:So it was seven or eight years. It felt like longer at the time because games came out a lot quicker. And what I've said a million times, what I remember the most about that game is how fucking long it is. It is by any, through the lens of that era, it is maybe the longest game. Like I don't, like I can't think of a, because people would say like, oh, it's a hundred hour game. It's like, really there weren't a hundred hour games back then. I mean, you could, a lot of people were like leveling all their characters up to 99. like in Dragon Quest Final Fantasy 6 like you could spend 100 hours with it if you did everything with all the characters and taught everyone the espers and but really you could beat it in half the time now we have games that really are authentically that long and even longer and Dragon Quest 11 is a 130 hour game if you platinum it but what I like about Dragon Warrior 7 or Dragon Quest 7 reimagined is when it comes out February 5th is that they apparently like really edited it and I think that the I frankly think it needs it.

1:33:29Dustin Furman:I like long games. I like media games. I think there's a major compounding difference between 50 and 60 hours and 80, 90, 100. Like each hour wears more and more. And I just, I don't know that you, I think people, first of all, completion stats say that people are not beating these games. But I think people often overstay like, yeah, I really do want the 100 hour role playing game. And there are some people that really feel that way, but most people don't. if you want the series to be successful, you can't do that shit. And you certainly can't release a game that's almost 20 years older than Dragon Quest 11.

1:34:05Dustin Furman:That's arguably longer. Because I don't know. I don't know how you're going to square that circle. So, but yeah, it looks so I'll get to it. I'll buy it because I bought Dragon Quest 1 and 2 as well, but I just it's like I'm not going to get to this stuff anytime soon. First of all, I'm very familiar with those games. You can go. hopefully it is my sincere hope that my dragon warrior one and dragon warrior two walkthroughs that i wrote in high school are getting somewhere although they've probably changed the games effectively enough where they're not going to be super accurate um good selection chris we won't even ask you about it yeah but we will go to you for your fifth and final selection this is 14 overall all right yeah so honestly as i'm looking through the rest of my list there's look there's there's things that i think i'm more confident in than this there are things that i think there's a lot of the rest of it this is like yeah i'm looking forward to that i'll play when it comes out i'm not necessarily excited about it this one arguably i'm just more curious about i have a lot of doubt but i i can't deny like if this turns out well i will be a very very happy boy but it's fable what the fuck's going on what's going on here so you think it's coming to playstation oh yeah yeah i think look i don't mean to talk too much about that ooyah thing but like i mean that seems like if if there's ever been a time if halo is already coming like day and date i don't see why like i i don't i really don't understand what the logical argument it would be to just not also do it with fable.

1:35:51And I think Gears E-Day is also day one. I think. Yeah, I think everything. I really do think from here on out, it's just like there is scuttlebutt that the delay

1:36:00Dustin Furman:or like why the game kind of has disappeared for a while is to get a port ready. Although that's who knows if people are making that shit up. I'm just so I just don't know what direction they're going in, Chris, because of what they're doing with Forza Horizon, where it's not coming day and day to PlayStation. And I wonder if that's because they just are they still trying to play nice with their fan base is just not going to be ready i don't know so because i believe fable will come but i don't know if it'll be day and day but anyway go ahead i'll i'm gonna i mean i'm gonna look i don't know i don't know i'm gonna allow it but i just feel like it's it's plausible enough and look i love fable i think i fable too i have so many fond memories of fable too i play fable too every now and again like i think i play it usually every holiday at least a little bit um the backwards compatible version of it on series x is kind of rough it's still locked locked at 30 uh fable 3 is a much better port but fable 3 sucks so it doesn't really matter but i have really fond memories of fable i i really think the vibe is interesting i think it's a cool game i think it's somewhat of an underappreciated game as well and i'm curious to see what that studio i think it's playground is working on this i'm curious to see like what their mark is going to be on it but also the last time we saw this was what like 2020 2021 latest yeah it's been a long fucking time and so much like judas uh this is kind of like a shit or get off the pot type situation in 2026 um i just i don't know i don't know if i have really much confidence in xbox game studios as of late but there is a serious aching curiosity that i have about this game that i cannot pretend is not there i'm so i'm so fucking curious and um so we've seen it we've seen it twice by the way it was announced at xbox showcase 2020 along with the xbox series reveal and then it got an in-game trailer in 2023 and that's it three years since the like it's it's crazy like what are we doing and there are other games on this list that i think i'm looking for like again like i'm more confident in it's like yeah this is gonna come out yeah i think i'll probably i'll probably like that but like this one i'm just like bro i gotta know like this arguably aside from gta 6 this is the one where i've like i gotta know what you've been doing this whole time.

1:38:31So that's up there. May not come to PlayStation, but I think it's it's more plausible than I think people might assume. Yeah, I'm going to allow it.

1:38:41Dustin Furman:It's not announced for PlayStation, but there's no reason to expect that it wouldn't come to PlayStation at this point. And now I think the only question is, will it be day and date? And this game is running on Forza Tech, which is so funny. So it's a playground. So we'll see what they're capable of. I think they're probably going to do great but i don't give a shit about fable so i never i just it's not even that it's an xbox thing because the original fable was on the original xbox which i played it was just uh i'm like i'm not into this fucking lion head it wasn't even a lion head i didn't even know what it was at the time but like this just the visuals of it and stuff like this very uh whimsical fantasy i'm like you know like a little whimsy a little bit whimsy here and there just a little sorry man can't do it sorry man next oh man can't do it man thank you thank you all right um all right so one more selection that's for me now i ask you guys should i make the colin selection or should i make the sacred symbol selection because there's different ways i think make the colin selection and then we can get into the sacred symbol like if we have like any anything that like skirted by we can mention the sacred symbols okay then i'm going with bloodstain the scarlet engagement bloodstained is finally supposed to launch um this year we'll see if that actually happens being developed by art play like the original 2.5 d8 uh one was from i was about to say 2d hd 2.5 d1 from art play in 2019 bloodstain ritual of the night.

1:40:18Dustin Furman:It's been a while. I don't know why it's taking so long. I also wonder if the I mean, I don't even wonder the game is launching into a different environment with Metroidvanias than the original did. And even when the original came out, it was still somewhat crowded with competitors. But this was a long awaited Igarashi game and it was going to be big. I wonder what this game is going to look like when it comes out in terms of its reception, because even even these seven years later, it's or by the time the game comes out seven years, it's so different. And it is my hope that people turn out in a major way for Bloodstained because Bloodstained is about as close to Castlevania as we've gotten.

1:41:00Dustin Furman:And what's funny about this is the original Bloodstained came out before came out. I'm sorry, after Netflix Castlevania began. and when you would have assumed at some point konami would be like we should do a castlevania game now i've said i've said over and over again i believe that there's not only one castlevania game in development but maybe even multiple ones i don't know anything that's just my prediction because they have to know that there's these different directions they can go in 3d metroidvania old school and it's funny to see bloodstained explore two of those multiple times in between any Castlevania game.

1:41:42Dustin Furman:In other words, like you would have seen Bloodstained's Kickstarter. Then you would have seen Bloodstained's like lead up and then the release and how much everyone loved it. Then Circle or Curse of the Moon and its sequel, which are fucking sublime, like even better than than Bloodstained, the original Ritual of the Night. And then we're going to get a sequel. And they're just like, yeah, no Castlevania. So I guess what I'm saying is, is that this is about as close as we're going to get for a while. and I'm fine with that. I thought I thought Bloodstained the original Bloodstained was great and I never platinumed it because there was some fucking stubborn RNG not unlike some of the Castlevania games that Igor Roshi had made before about the way enemy drops and stuff where I'm like I can't do this.

1:42:21Dustin Furman:Like this is. This is fucking crazy. I can't I can't fight this demon over and over again with a 0.5 % chance it's going to drop what I need or whatever. I just can't do it. Right. So but yeah shout out to this and so yeah all right so that's the colin choice uh are either neither of you are really bloodstained fans i assume but um they are great but take it from me like they're they're nice love letters to castlevania from a person who would know right um now the so that is my choice but i was good the the sacred symbol choice is that no one said wolverine

1:42:56Colin Moriarty:dude there are people are gonna be so mad they're gonna be so mad what have we done i said fable look i think i think the thing is ultimately like i don't know a lot a lot of what's on my list is like half curiosity half excitement and i'm just not curious about wolverine i i know what it's going to be like i know it's going to be very very good i have no doubts about it so like i think that kind of makes it a little bit less interesting um but the rest of my list is stuff that i'm also looking forward to playing

1:43:31Dustin Furman:it's just like i'm not what you got anything else you want to just give an honorable mention to yeah a handful of things uh i am curious about halo coming out like that is a weird choice there's going to be some original content in there too like i wonder how well that's going to work or if it's going to feel disjointed as fuck um but it's up there for me i'm curious how it's going to look and feel especially on a playstation controller that's going to be that's going to be really surreal um tomb raider legacy of atlantis i'm also really keen on uh that first tomb raider game is like i played it a long time ago i never beat it the tomb raider was like rough for me like it's just like a really archaic kind of game to wrap your head around so like i'm looking forward to like really plowing through that first tomb raider game and getting reacquainted with it and you know with more modern controls re-animal is on my list very keen on that Wolverine is on my nose as well.

1:44:25Dustin Furman:That went gold I think by the way. Yeah. And then Lego Batman for me. Sure. That's April or May right? Yeah. Yeah. I think I think I'm going to like that one. It looks it looks like they're going more of an Arkham route. It looks like they're going like Arkham light as opposed to like traditional Lego which I think is a smart move especially in the absence of Rocksteady or any meaningful Batman on the horizon. So yeah I'm looking forward. Those are the honorable mentions. Cool.

1:44:54Colin Moriarty:my honorable mentions are tomb raider chris mentioned curious about that one that's kind of low-key but mouse pi for hire yeah that looks looks like a cool game the demo brad and i saw summer game fest was pretty interesting and i just love uh the art style for that phantom blade zero is a pretty big curiosity for me it's um one that i'm probably gonna wait to see what reviews say So I'm glad not that I wouldn't have put it on the list, but I had as an extra in case all my other ones ran out. And the last one was also one that Chris said, Halo campaign evolved. I'm still a little disappointed that there is no multiplayer component to it.

1:45:38Colin Moriarty:But I mean, it's Halo. I'm going to I'm going to be playing it when it comes out. The thing about that, man, is just like that reads to me as such a deliberate decision where like they're clearly going to make a new like multiplayer only Halo platform. yeah i think and then that's going to be day and date i would imagine because it's a live service so like if that's going to be day and date which i'm pretty confident in if halo comet evolved is going to be day and date what the fuck well why wouldn't gears eday be day and date like why wouldn't fable be day and date it just seems very i understand what you're saying colin about the the forza that's weird but like it doesn't it doesn't seem like any decision that they're making is particularly coherent anyway so it might just be about what's ready and like you

1:46:24Dustin Furman:know kind of getting in and i think they they realize and they might have seen it with indie is like you kind of get a second marketing boost that's probably good for the game on pc and xbox as well so why not we saw that with hell divers going to xbox that they said that there was a major increase in playstation player base during that week so you might they might just be learning things where it just makes sense to stagger them even though we all know they're coming eventually we'll see right um i had a few as well so tomb raider was one of mine as well and i think that that's gonna be dope uh it looks awesome and again the original tomb raider so zany um wolverine was on my list i just didn't select it because we got you know there's other games i'm more excited about deca police is finally supposed to come out that's the new level five game it's described as a crime suspense RPG.

1:47:10Dustin Furman:It looks fucking cool. I played most of level five games. I've not played all of them, but that's one to keep an eye out on and it's on PlayStation and Switch and PC, I think, and it's supposed to come out this year. It was first shown years ago. I think Nintendo, I think it was at a Nintendo Direct. It might have been premiered actually.

1:47:28Colin Moriarty:Yeah.

1:47:28Dustin Furman:And Ontos or Ontos, O-N-T-O-S from Frictional. Now I'm not, I don't know. I don't know about this game because I'm not like a Soma person or anything like that, but it looks fucking dope. So I wanted to give that a shout out, but I didn't select it here. The Adventures of Elliot, the Millennium Tales looks pretty cool. Oh, yeah. Wanted to give that a shout out. And that's it. That's all I had written down. Well, obviously, there are some games that are nebulous, too, that we just don't know when they're coming out. So and some of the things that we've talked about here are undoubtedly going to get delayed.

1:48:01Dustin Furman:We'll see what what that is when the time comes. But a nice list of games, boys as we wrap up this episode of 392 of sacred symbols chris goodbye to you be well good job the exercise was very successful this year yeah we did we we hit it you know and we're recording again tomorrow so it's like this is a crazy we're recording 390 tomorrow so we're going back in time yeah yeah it'll be fun but yeah it's good it was good doing this i like i like these exercises they're fun yeah I think they're good it's like going to a study session at school and like kind of reaffirming what you've learned and then you kind of remember it better it's it's a bit of a selfish exercise if I'm being honest but it's sure but you know um because I'm like yeah what is because I have to like do the it's like yeah what is coming out and then you and you're going through all these lists I'm like oh yeah it's actually kind of exciting when you when you find some of these things or remember them Dustin goodbye to you be well goodbye uh this was fun many games

1:48:59Colin Moriarty:look forward to and i couldn't even put any nintendo games on the list of course new fire emblem calling i'm pumped yeah fortune's weave how exciting it's gonna be great yeah i'm sure

1:49:12Dustin Furman:mike is all gonna be all over that too uh but yeah so many games next year and so many that

1:49:17Colin Moriarty:we probably don't even know about yet that are going to be awesome so looking forward this is the first episode of sacred symbols in 2026 so another great year of content ahead so look forward to it yeah this is our 10th

1:49:31Dustin Furman:calendar year right I think that's right 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 yeah that the sacred symbols has been going scary we're dying all right my boys it's good to see you guys I'll see you again tomorrow but it'll be weeks ago by the time people hear this I'm confusing the timeline and I gotta go patreon.com slash last day media for early had free access. We appreciate you over there. Last Stand Media dot store for merch. See you next time. Until then. Goodbye. See ya. Take care, guys. Sacred Symbols, a PlayStation podcast, is a product and trademark of Last Stand Media and Colin's Last Stand LLC and is proudly recorded in the USA.

1:50:10Dustin Furman:The show was conceived by, is written by, and is directed by me, Colin Moriarty. My co-hosts are Chris Raygun Maldonado and Dustin Furman. The show is produced by executive producer Dustin Furman. All of Last Stand's theme music is by my best friend, Ramon Narvaez. As you know, all of Last Stand's shows, including Sacred Symbols, are fan-funded on Patreon at patreon.com slash laststandmedia. The following names are at the producer level on Patreon, our highest tier, and we're grateful for your thoughtful and kind contributions to our independent endeavor. Thank you. Patrick Leslie, Mad Mock Media, Kyle Martin, Mark, Brad Cooley, Daniel D 'Amour, John Cordero, Don Lee, Shane Rayum, Joshua Smallwood, Enrique Perez, Chad Lewis, Paul Joyce, Austin Riley, Justin Wagaman, Justin Payne, Alex Monez, Omar Rosa, Joey Gondaliger, Gio Corsi, Cam Wallace, Benjamin Michalko, Donald Difford, Alex Gates, Michael Gates, Josh McKinney, Adam Nix, Throw7, Phil Crone, Mr.

1:51:10Dustin Furman:Tom, Cannonball Jones, Jorge Pal, Anthony Thank you.

1:51:43Dustin Furman:Gavin, Martin Beck, Turbo Makes Games, Joosh, David Castanez, Miranda Grubba, Michael Vecchio, Sunny Sides Up, Carlos Algaret, Organic Produce, Joseph Lopez, Josh Gravelick, Sean Mason, Jonathan Coates, Roto24, Johnny Waffles, Mark Liberto, Aaron Betke, Chris Morton, Christopher Devayo, Azan, Cody Benin, Conrad Pennyfarthing, Stewie108, Toby Ryland, Daryl E. Naaman, Colin Love, Morgan Ashley, Kyle Hagel, Saqib Alam, Robert Schultz, Ali Fritz, Mason Bouchard, Chris Galvin, Dave Alvarez, Jimmy Rodriguez, Kendrick Caius, Joseph Baker, Matt Flowers, Who is Steven Day, I Come on My Toys Just In Case Toy Story is Real, Nick Amato, Saul Balcazar, Ross Marenka, Wesley S., Alex Lapeer, Dan Nolan, Mr.

1:52:36Dustin Furman:Malf, Boots, John Zyle, Ticos, Remington James, Gus, Gregory Slavinsky, Zainal Uichi, Trelond, Weary San, Jeff Mercado, Bjorn Campbell, Captain Verde, Jay Getter, Stefan Hackett, Alan Niner, Antonio C, Jeremy J. Roberts, Trey Woodward, Jake C, O, Tyler Tremel, Electric MD, Sketch McGetch, Josh Godfrey, William Holbert, Randall Halsey, Christopher Morgan, The Shady Mailman, Vitra, Asak Paredes, Neil Amon, Dan Root, Michael Buffel, Peyton Stone, Zach Cohen, Double Duty Dirk, Terry Tip, Jad Rita, Dustin Klingman, Matt 20, Alan Tiniak, Relentless Rex, Corey Beacom, Whiskey Sin, Electric Soup, Grayson Maxwell, Frail Cabbage St.

1:53:26Dustin Furman:Matthews of the Diocese of Brig, Jason Arzon, Eddie Medina, Umcart, My Name is Mayo, Donald John Vaders, Josh Sullinger, Albion, Ellis, Nate Izod, Lizard King, Sweaty Magic, Aaron Temple, Michael Mash Potato, Shane Brekke, Will Williams, Dustin Spruill, Collins Mindhole, Adam Refriended, Rallo, Vance Cody, Jorge Padua, Brian Williamson, Zachary Wood, Brandon Runger, Kyle Jay, Emmanuel Perez, Brano Bezera Bloom, Logan Little George, Wesley Mullins.

1:54:22The Super Mario Galaxy movie hits theaters on April 1st, And it's easily going to be one of the biggest film events of the year. This time, the stakes are cosmic, as Mario and his friends travel across entire galaxies to stop Bowser Jr. from destroying the universe as we know it. You've got all your favorites, Mario, Luigi, Peach, Toad, Bowser, plus Yoshi and Rosalina joining the adventure in a way that fans of all ages are going to love. It's funny, it's epic, and it really leans into the wild, imaginative energy

1:54:53Dustin Furman:that has made Mario a pop culture icon for the last 40 years. Whether you grew up playing the games or you're just looking for a great time at the movies, this is one you'll want to see on the big screen. Experience the Super Mario Galaxy movie only in theaters April 1st. The galaxy is waiting. The comedy movie event of the year. Mike and Nick and Nick and Alice. Now streaming only on Hulu and Disney+. Time to party. That's a great attitude. It's a time-traveling, ass-kicking movie event. You sound insane. Starring Vince Vaughn, James Marston, and Asa Gonzalez. I thought you were a clone. Well, clones aren't real, dummy.

1:55:30Dustin Furman:And time machines are super grounded in reality. Mike and Nick and Nick and Alice. Rated R. Written and directed by Ben David Grabinski. Only on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers.