ANNOUNCER: Games in this podcast range from E to M.
[XBOX SOUND]
– Hello, and welcome to the Official Xbox Podcast, the only podcast coming to you from inside Xbox. This week we’re going to be talking about a surprise new game release from Ubisoft and a new way to enjoy cloud gaming with Xbox with a device that you may already have. Joining us on this summer adventure are short-sleeved, living our best summer podcast lives, Hailey Geller.
– Hello.
– Product Marketing Manager on Halo and Gears. How are you doing? Welcome back.
– Good. Good to be back with Ethan and yourself again. Yeah, thanks for having me.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: You said you would not come back on the show unless Ethan Rothamel would join as well. How are you doing?
– [LAUGHS] I was the same. Doing well, man, doing well. Thanks for having us back. Yeah, we got to host this, I guess it’s a little over a month ago now. But that was super fun.
– Yeah.
– So good to be back here. We did get to hang out a little bit during showcase, which was nice, catch some sun. But mostly we were stuck working. It’s a bit of a whirlwind, that weekend, as most folks probably imagine.
– No Disneyland.
– No Disneyland.
– Yeah.
– We did do that last year. I think we talked about that last show. Unfortunately, too wiped out this year. It was crazy.
– Yeah, I think I know how you were wiped out, because I would say too much sun. We were all staying at the same hotel leading into the Xbox Showcase. And at one point, I just sort of was like, oh, let me see what’s up here on the top floor. And I walk outside and there’s a pool that was about the size of this mug, but sitting–
Yeah. [LAUGHS]
– You were standing?
– Yeah, I was, I was.
– Yeah, he was sitting out there with Malik Prince–
– Yeah.
– –who I know you’re besties with.
– Totally.
– And just getting some sun.
– Listen, I had a few hours to kill before the first meetings. And it was like, yeah, coming from Seattle, where it’s typically dark and gloomy, it was like, immediately, I’m going to go to the pool, get some sun, get mentally prepared for the intense weekend. And I do that every time. And I love it. It’s like a ritual.
– Yeah, I got sunburned walking from my Uber into the lobby.
– It was pretty toasty.
– That’s what happens when you live here for a long time.
– We are vampires in Seattle.
– They should make a movie about that.
– Yeah. I think they’re making a game. I think there might be a game coming soon. Stay tuned.
– Also in forks?
– No, no.
– Yeah, well, so speaking of games, what are you playing? Who wants to go first?
– Ooh, ooh, this is good.
– Do you want to go first?
– I mean, I’m gonna take up so much time if I do.
– OK, fine. [LAUGHS] Well, I finally played Balatro because you two–
– Very good.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yes.
HAILEY GELLER: –do not stop talking about it. I feel like we joke that every single show. It’s a line item out of somebody’s mouth.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Totally.
HAILEY GELLER: Play Balatro the potential game of the year. So I played.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: And?
HAILEY GELLER: I liked it.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah.
HAILEY GELLER: I think I played somewhere between two to three hours.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Probably in one go.
HAILEY GELLER: Yeah.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: That’s pretty good.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: That’s Balatro right there.
HAILEY GELLER: Yeah, did not realize how much time had passed. But yeah, it was fun. I realized I should never go into a profession in card gaming.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: [LAUGHS]
HAILEY GELLER: I’m not good.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: You gotta away from the Balatro tables in Vegas.
HAILEY GELLER: No, no. Yeah, well, I was laughing to myself. I was like, what if you actually could play this in real life. And just the fact that I should never be allowed at the table because I would get greedy and be like, no, I can definitely do better next time, and then just continue to knock 300 points–
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, continue to lose your money.
HAILEY GELLER: –or whatever, yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I’ve had the same thought. Have you ever played this like Microsoft solitaire? I feel everyone’s played played it.
HAILEY GELLER: Yes.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: There’s one of the scoring things called Cumulative Vegas.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Oh.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: You start off 52 bucks, I guess in the hole, one for each card. And then every one that you put in the top, whatever the heck that’s called where you have the Aces, you get 5 bucks back because it’s completely random. Sometimes you can get yourself into $100,000 hole. And I’m like, if they had this in Vegas, I would be sitting there all day, just playing cumulative solitaire and slowly–
– Whittling away.
– –depleting my retirement.
– Yeah.
– Exactly. So last time you were here, you were the fourth episode in a row of someone talking about Balatro.
– OK, yeah.
– And I had not played. And I was like, here we go. Now I’m a Balatro bro.
– Yeah, that’s what we’re called.
– Yeah, that’s a thing.
– Balatro bros.
– And when I was driving home, I was listening to What’s Good Games, I was listening to. Great podcast, if you’ve never listened to it. Andrea Rene, Britt, who’s been on the show before, Riana Manuel Peña, also a great person, former coworker of ours. They have a great show. And Andrea was talking about Balatro. And she’s like, I’ve played for 50 hours. And I was like, all right, between the two of them, I gotta go home.
So I went home that night. I downloaded it. And I was sitting in the living room playing and my kid walks in like, just as I’m starting. She’s like, what’s this? And I’m like, I don’t– Balatro. And she’s like, whatever. So she sits down next to me and she’s just on her phone. And she’s like looking up. And she’s like, what’s a flush?
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: [LAUGHS]
– And I was like–
– Let me tell you.
– Yeah, and I was like, oh, it’s when the whole hand is hearts. I never played poker. Doesn’t know the first thing about cards. Within an hour, she had transformed into, are you stupid? You can’t throw that joker away. You need to keep this one because that’s going to let you get a straight flush, like within one hour.
– She knew. She knew.
– And that became the game that we played that for like three weeks straight every night until way too late at night. I was like, do you have school tomorrow? It’s 1:00 AM. You need to go to bed now. But that’s the way Balatro is.
– It is so addicting, it really is. I got my dad to watch me play because he’s not a big gamer. And he was immediately like trying to offer suggestions. And then we were all diving in. And then before you know it, we’re all sitting on the couch watching one person play. And even this weekend we were doing the same thing.
I was at a cabin trip this weekend on vacation. And we had an Xbox on the main TV. And sure enough, every morning someone’s booting up Balatro. Because it’s such a great like game with coffee, get your mind working or whatever. But then we’re all just kind of sitting there. No one’s making breakfast, we’re just watching Balatro.
– It’s a great backseat game.
– Yeah.
– Because after like the second game, I was like, you’re holding the controller from now on. I may have discarded a hand accidentally. It’s a little easy to accidentally–
– It is. I kept doing that.
– On a controllers, especially.
– And I was like, X not Y or Y not X. And I was like, oh jeez. But it is a really fast way to learn how to play cards.
– Yeah.
– Because all my guy friends, they always do poker nights. And they’re like, oh, you want to come play? And I’m like, no, I don’t want to lose money.
– Yeah, get your money taken.
– I don’t know the rules. But it goes over what everything means. And then you’re like, oh, that’s what you’re talking about.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, you just need to start introducing jokers into your poker nights.
– Yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And it’s gonna to spice things up considerably.
– They love that, yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, yeah. I’ve got three billion points this game.
– [LAUGHS] For what it’s worth, you could be very good at Balatro. And I play a lot. But I’ve done a few of the charity poker tournaments at work, and I get absolutely destroyed.
– Well, maybe you’ll be better now.
– So I don’t know if it’s one to one, yeah.
– It is not a transferable skill.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, I don’t know.
– I am with you on that.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: I’m not good at betting maybe.
– When you weren’t, what, pressing X to touch grass?
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah.
– I don’t know what button it is to touch grass.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, X, it is.
– But what else have you been playing?
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, so like I said, I was traveling this week. So I only had my handheld with me, my ASUS Ally. And so–
– Only? So basically, I only had access to 10,000 games.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Everything. Yeah, literally everything under the sun. But yeah, so I was playing a lot of just kind of chill games that I could play out on a towel. I was getting some sun, you know, or whatever, just big chilling. And so outside of Balatro, I was playing a lot of some older games, but Wargroove.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: That’s a very good game.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Wargroove rocks. I obviously miss the boat by a couple of years on that. I think that was 2017, maybe.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, yeah, that was an ID@Xbox Game from some time ago. It’s sort of an ageless look. It’s something of a spiritual successor to Advance Wars.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So I was a big Advance Wars player on the Gameboy SP or whatever it is. A lot of similar vibes.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah. Yeah, it’s basically like you just control an army, but the characters are kind of fun. The queen that I picked, she has a dog named Caesar. And that’s why I liked her because she has a dog. And I love dogs.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: There’s dog troops in the game?
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: There’s dog troops and stuff. So it’s very fun. But it is like a Tactics kind of game with good music and good vibes, very fun on the go. So I love Wargroove. Definitely worth picking up and running around. Great remote play on the go as well.
The other game that I would highly recommend for folks at home is For the King II. I’ve been playing it a lot.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Tell me about it.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: So For the King was on Xbox and PC. For the King II has just come out currently only on PC. But it’s another kind of gamified board game. What do they call those? It looks like Catan tiles. Is that hexagons?
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: That’s a thing? They’re like hexagons?
HAILEY GELLER: Yes, yes.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, yeah. So you kind of run around, but it’s like D&D accelerated. So you have a character. You’re a warrior, you’re a mage, you’re a healer. And you run around with up to three of your friends. Or you can control all four characters. And you want to get to the end. But it’s roguelite, so you die and you unlock more weapons, you unlock new classes, and you try again.
So it’s very difficult, super gamified. It almost feels like you’re playing a board game of D&D with turn-based combat and dungeons. I could spend an hour talking about this game. I am a huge fan of For the King I and II. One of my favorite couch co-op games out there and really, really great on the go. So if you haven’t checked either of them out, check them out, For the King I and II.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: That is a good recommendation here.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I trusted you on Balatro.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So, eventually.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, so I’m gonna burn you eventually with a bad–
HAILEY GELLER: Another 20 hours.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, yeah, after the fifth episode in a row you’re talk about For the King 2–
– Yeah, yeah.
– –I’ll finally get around to it. So what do you think makes for a good travel game? Because I actually have some travel coming up. I have a 12-hour flight coming up on Saturday.
– That’s a good question.
– Maybe.
– I like snackable stuff. I mean, some people will dive into a story-driven game. For me, I like stuff that I don’t have to be super attentive to. Because I might have someone talking to me or I might be on an airplane where it’s loud or maybe the flight attendant is coming by to talk.
So I like the stuff that’s like, there is a story, but maybe I have to press A to get through the dialogue. Or it’s just quick, it’s snappy, it’s gamified. Or it’s more like board games or arcade-style games where the time to fun is shorter is what you might want to call it, I guess.
– You won’t be mad if somebody interrupts you.
– Yeah, it’s like, I can pause it. Yeah, like Peggle. Peggle is a great travel game.
– Oh, that’s a classic.
– Something like this, yeah.
– So do you ever do this thing where you have an x amount of hour flight, but you download 15 games–
– Yeah.
– –and then maybe you end up just playing the thing from before.
– Yes, every time.
– OK.
– Every time, yeah.
– So here’s the game I’m preparing for. So I also have a ASUS ROG Ally. I love that thing. I play it all the time. I talk about it ad nauseam. It’s not hashtag sponsored. I bought my own.
HAILEY GELLER: [LAUGHS]
– And well worth it, modded it.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Oh, nice.
– Yeah, added a little more. Well, I added I have a terabyte in there.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Ooh, this guy knows how to mod.
– So I figured YouTube can make anyone an expert.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: [LAUGHS] Facts.
– Although they do not accept any responsibility if you do it, right?
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, yeah, of course.
– Mod at your own risk. Anyway, so I did that. And so Octopath Traveler 2, this is the game that came into Game Pass earlier this month. I loved the first one. If you’ve never played the first one, it’s also in Game Pass and well worth it. It’s a very old-school RPG. I would say, if you enjoyed really Super-Nintendo-ere–
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, Final Fantasy.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: –Final Fantasy games, exactly. Final Fantasy, I forget, in the US, it was Final Fantasy 2 and 3. But I think it was 5 and 6–
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, that’s always how it goes.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: –in the full pantheon. And so it’s very much like that. It’s called Octopath because there are eight paths. You start off as any one of the characters and then you encounter the other characters. You sort of live through all their stories at once. And so you’re just jumping from character to character and building this group of eight people eventually.
And you’re solving all of their problems and it sort of ladders up to a larger thing. So people are in different parts of their lives. So you might be like, eh, I don’t like this character that much. It’s fine. You’ll move on from them pretty quickly into something else. So you have a bunch of different strands. And they go for a long time. I remember playing the first one. It was my treadmill game. Look–
HAILEY GELLER: How do you like– [LAUGHS]
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: But that’s the thing–
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: It is like turn based.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, it’s turn based. All right, so when I’m on the treadmill–
HAILEY GELLER: I’m like, I can’t do that.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, yeah, I can’t do that.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: [LAUGHS]
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: It’s a left handed thing. I’m an inverter. Maybe I can do that. Any game that involves aiming, I will fall off.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah.
HAILEY GELLER: Yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: If I have to aim with the right stick, my brain goes into the character. And then I fall off the treadmill. And that has happened. And I don’t recommend it. But a game like this where it’s 2D and you’re just steering with one hand and then you just hit A button, you tap.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: And every prompt is like you have an A button prompt–
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Exactly.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: –which is nice. That is exactly the game that’s great on the go.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Exactly. So those are treadmill games for me or elliptical games or whatever you might do. I’m not going to go outside and suffer.
– Treadmill at your own risk.
– Yes, exactly. Yeah, by all means practice, start slow. I’m not running. I’m going at like three and a half.
– Sure.
– I set it at four. But next thing you know, you’ve walked like six miles and you’ve got some achievements. It’s great. Anyway, this is good for that. So I started it.
– I do resonate with that, though, real quick. Because I can’t work out without some form of entertainment.
– I normally watch TV.
– That works.
– OK, there you go.
– Yeah, but I’m the same way. I like the I like Balatro. I like those kind of games.
– Balatro’s perfect.
– I get so bored, I just get off the treadmill.
– Yeah.
– Yeah, there we go.
– Anyway, I didn’t mean to interrupt you.
– All right, we’re getting fit, we’re playing games.
– We’re getting so jacked this summer.
– We’re going to be in muscle shirts in two episodes from now.
– Yeah, you’re gonna be in a tank top next time.
– All right, let’s talk about actually another great way to play games. So let’s get into this week’s news.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Oh, nice.
– So Xbox, we’re always about bringing more games to more players, finding more ways to play. And something we did a couple of years ago using the cloud that opened up Xbox games to people that don’t have consoles or even a PC was playing through certain Samsung models you can stream games through. Well, now we’re coming to a lot more players.
So the Xbox app is going to be on Amazon Fire TV devices. So no console required. A lot of people have Fire Sticks. I’ll tell you which ones it works. But it’s basically cloud gaming. So it’s powered by the Microsoft service. If you have Xbox Game Pass Ultimate membership, then you can play. The app will be available soon. And this will be available on the Amazon 4K Max and 4K Fire Sticks.
– Nice.
– That allows you to play a lot of the newest stuff, obviously the things that we were just talking about like Octopath Traveler II, Senua’s Saga, Hellblade II, Starfield, Forza Horizon, Fallout 76. And so where I think this is really convenient is you go to your parents’ house. And what I would always do is put my Series S in a backpack, which was a great way to do it.
But they’ve got decent internet. And with a Fire Stick, it’s much smaller thing. They retail for between $49 and $59, those models. I think they already have one. You can just download the app and all of your cloud games go right over.
– It’s also great for those TVs, I get unreasonably angry when I go to someone’s house and their TV’s mounted above a fireplace.
– I’m with you on that one. I’m like, oh, this is great. First row of the movie theater.
– Yeah, so there’s ways to mitigate that. And I’m not trying to shade anyone in the comment section here. But that is–
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: We’re getting a lot of comments from the fireplace people.
– Yeah, yeah, yeah, like I love my fireplace. But this is great. That is the exact setup where you just have the stick in the back and you can play and you don’t want to have to mount a console, even if you want to use a licensed mount that are great for this. There is awesome scenarios where this stuff is great on the go.
And I love the call out of Fallout 76 because that is my go-to cloud gaming. Because I always am addicted to a service game at any time, whether it’s ESO, 76, World of Warcraft, what have you. I usually pick one. But you gotta do those dailies. You want to get your rewards done. You gotta lock in those cosmetics. And to be able to log into something like a Fire Stick is perfect for just locking in those dailies.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yes, and there’s millions of them out there.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah.
– Basically, it’s a lot more people who will be able to, if they’ve been hearing about Fallout 76, actually, if you’ve been watching the Fallout show on–
– You can do both now.
– Yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: There you go, exactly.
– It’s cheap, too. $49.99?
– Yeah, yeah, yeah, for the Fire Stick. And then I want to say the 4K Max is $59.99.
– But the convenience on its own, it’s definitely worth it, I feel like.
– Yeah.
– It’s amazing. I do have my TV above my fireplace.
– Yes! I pegged you for that.
– So I’ll send you a picture of the setup so you can judge me.
– Oh, no.
– I guess if your sofa–
– You can extend it.
– –is far enough back.
– Yeah.
– But I feel like there’s just a lot of this. And then I’m like, ooh, yeah.
– I just feel like a lot of houses aren’t designed–
– There’s no where else to put it.
– Yeah, exactly. If you go into looking at half the apartments to rent, it’s like, they all have a fireplace with it above. It’s just like, where else am I going to put the TV, you know? Get a Fire Stick.
– That’s a good point.
HAILEY GELLER: Get a Fire Stick for your fireplace.
– It’s very easy for me to say this when I don’t have a fireplace, so, yeah.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah.
– Anyway, so that is coming soon. So keep an eye out for that. There’s more information over on Xbox Wire, which is news.xbox.com.
– Shout out to Cloud Team. That’s great.
– There you go.
– Yeah.
– They’re keeping busy. Actually, my neighbor works on that.
– Nice.
– Good guy.
– Very cool.
– He didn’t tell me about it, but you know that’s him doing his job. All right, so, yeah. I don’t go over there and be like, what are you working on? Yeah.
– Creep in through his window.
– Yeah. [LAUGHS]
– Just looking in.
– So this was a surprise. Ubisoft announced and then launched Beyond Good & Evil 20th Anniversary Edition earlier this week. Are you familiar with Beyond Good & Evil?
HAILEY GELLER: No
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Familiar, but I haven’t played these games. I have not played the original.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Well, it’s 20 years old, so it came out, the original one back in 2004. It’s kind of a contemporary then of Psychonauts, you know?
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Right.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: From that OG Xbox era, that PS2 era. But now it’s upgraded to 4K, 60 FPS resolution and frame rate, updated controls, quality-of-life features, a number of other different things. I was just looking at the video. And this looks like it has that classic look. I remember going back and playing Psychonauts before Psychonauts 2 came out a couple of years ago. And it brings you back.
HAILEY GELLER: I have the sticker somewhere.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Oh, you do? Very good. And I was looking at this, and it’s like that aesthetic, but running really smoothly. And so it looks really cool. I had never played it. I’ve heard of it. I remember when it first came out and going to see it. And I had just never gotten around to playing it. So anyway, it’s available now.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And you can just check that out. Thank you Ubisoft–
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: It’s amazing–
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: –for surprising us.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: –a lot of these classic games get so much more mileage when you just can upgrade the frame rate to 60 or the resolution. It’s been so fun to go back and play some of those games. It really is amazing.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: It makes them look like how you thought they looked.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, but obviously–
HAILEY GELLER: It’s what modern means now.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, your brain smooths out the frame rate.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: 100%.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And if you were to go back and load up the original one, it’s not going to look like this 20th anniversary edition.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: No way. And I guess 2004, so most of us were probably still on tube TVS or the big–
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Oh, for sure.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, so–
HAILEY GELLER: Oh, the huge–
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: –nothing.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Nothing, four by three.
– Yeah, yeah.
– Yeah.
– Yeah.
– It’s also fun when you had an experience with something back then and it still hits the same way today.
– Totally.
– I think that’s almost the best part of it is some things might have changed. Even at Psychonauts, it looks very different, but you still have those same lovable moments that you did back then that you do today, which is–
– Yeah, for sure.
– –super special
– Yeah, just a shot of nostalgia–
– Yeah, yeah.
– –which is always nice.
– Yes,
– Yeah.
– Yes. Speaking of, great announcement out of the Nintendo Direct, but last week, but that applies to folks on Xbox as well, which is Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake, which is they released a trailer. It’s coming out in November on Xbox. And I loved these games.
So the original Dragon Quest I, II, and III, they were called Dragon Warrior when I was a kid. And then at some point, much like Final Fantasy, sort of changed the numbering and all that type of stuff. But I remember renting this game, the OG I on the NES from Blockbuster. And I never got to finish it because I had two days. Two days to beat Dragon Quest?
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: No time.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: It wasn’t going to happen. So this is going to be coming out in November. It looks cool. They’ve been doing these HD, actually kind of a similar-ish aesthetic to Octopath Traveler. So if you get into Octopath Traveler II or I on Game Pass now, this is something you’re going to want to keep an eye out for. I love these games. Dragon Quest I or Dragon Warrior is probably the game I’ve beaten the most.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Really?
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: That was my first ever RPG.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Oh, cool.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And I just became obsessed with it. I know where everything in that game is. II was a lot bigger. And then the III, even bigger than that. So very cool that we’re going to be getting that. And yeah, it’ll be November 14. A lot of RPGs to play this fall, which is going to be really cool.
And just a real quick note about something coming out next week. First Descendant, this is a game that we had a lot of information on it last year at Summer Game Fest, I want to say. But they released a new trailer recently. This is a third person co-op action RPG looter-shooter running on Unreal Engine 5. As you’d expect, it looks real pretty.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: It’s made by a Korean developer. And this is just a cool aesthetic on this one. So this one caught my attention. It’s coming out July 2. This is that time of year where you’re either catching up on stuff that you’ve been playing or you might still be playing Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree. I know I am.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, absolutely.
– I did take out the Blackgaol Knight–
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Oh, nice.
– –since the show was over. That’s like literally the first boss. So don’t get too excited.
– Well, still.
– I’m pretty far in. I will say that.
– It’s harder. It’s hard.
– It is very hard.
– The DLC is much harder than the base game.
– Correct. And we can get back into that. But anyway, so keep an eye out for First Descendant next week. And I would take a look at some of these videos. And there’s a lot of stuff that looks really good.
– When you said First Descendant, I thought you were talking about The Descendants TV show. And I was like, where’s Dove Cameron?
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: The prequel of Dove Cameron.
– Yeah, so where is she?
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Where is she in this game? It would be a great DLC.
– Not a playable character.
– That was the one where everyone’s the children of the bad–
– Yeah, it’s like fairy tales, science-fictiony.
– Yeah.
– I don’t really remember what it is, but there’s three.
– Like Maleficent’s daughter, I think that was–
– Something like that.
– –that was Dove Cameron. And I can’t remember the rest. My kid was into it at one point. And I may have watched all of them.
– [LAUGHS] Yeah. Cross advocate.
– For next time you can catch up and watch it again.
– It’s one of those things you sit down and you’re like, why am I watching this? And then it’s like, when’s the next one? The next one, I could watch it right now.
– That’s like all that Disney Channel originals, though. If you go back and watch them, you’re like–
– Yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah.
– –oh, that happened.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: There goes your day.
– Yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah.
– Yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: It’s gone.
– It was a different time. It was a different time. There was a lot less entertainment, a lot less access.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah. All right, have you played Shadow of the Erdtree? We kind of skipped over that. We talked about it quite a bit last week.
– Well, so I will say, I had mentioned twice now that I was out of town this weekend. But the only reason we brought an Xbox on the trip was because of Erdtree. It was actually specifically Erdtree. And it was Stein’s xbox, Josh Stein, friend of the show. And so I woke up a few days and literally would come, wake up out of bed, and Stein’s already on playing. So I haven’t played yet. I’ve watched Stein. It’s definitely on my list. I’m a huge Souls fan. And my god, it is difficult.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Out of the last week, three nights I’ve had dreams about Shadow of the Erdtree.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Really?
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: That I’m like playing it. I’m not in that world, thankfully, but I’m like–
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Horrifying.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, except I woke up, it was two days ago that I was actually able to beat the boss who I’m stuck on.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And then I woke up and realized, no, I’m not even close to being able to beat this boss.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Oh, no.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: But I think that means–
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: You’re manifesting it.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: –that’s what I’m manifesting.
HAILEY GELLER: You’re manifesting it.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: It’s gonna happen.
HAILEY GELLER: Yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I’m going to have to respec, I think. I don’t want to get into names and stuff. Because people are into the lore.
– Yeah.
– I’ll be honest, I don’t necessarily know what’s going on. But I feel like there’s a little bit more because it’s a more concise story in this particular one.
– Also they’re just kings of environmental storytelling. So even if you’re not paying attention to the names and stuff, you kind of get the gist of what’s going on just by watching the game.
– This, I think, had quicker payoff, though, because you’re dealing with a more limited set of characters in this DLC, mainly because in the main game you’ve killed everybody.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yes, yes.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: There’s nobody left. So you’re following Miquella, which you encountered that in the first two minutes. But then there’s a couple other characters that people are talking about. And one of them, one of them is kicking my butt.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Oh, OK.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I was doing real well until that point. So going through, catching my Scadutree Fragments, I’m on level 12, I want to say–
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Nice.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: –of that, so we need to fix it.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Sometimes you just need to sleep on a boss. I’ve definitely been stuck–
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: You do, yes.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: –for hours on any Souls game boss. And it’s just like, I just need to go to bed and then reset and then I’ll be fine.
– So what my reset has been, I was going to go back to it. I took yesterday off because I was so, like–
– Tilted?
– Yeah, maybe that’s the term I’m looking for. And I was like, let me try this game that I’ve been wanting to try. It came out right before we went out to Showcase, so I haven’t had a chance to try it. And that is Hypercharge– Unboxed.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Oh, interesting.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So this is a game, I will say, the developers of this game have been really, really cool with the community, I guess. You might have seen some videos over the course of the last honestly two years of this game that’s action figures fighting in a store and a bedroom.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Oh, yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: You know what I’m talking about.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, I know exactly what you’re talking about.
HAILEY GELLER: I have no idea what you’re talking about.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Imagine Toy Story–
HAILEY GELLER: Tell me.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Imagine Toy Story the game.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yes, exactly.
HAILEY GELLER: Toys that talk?
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Toy Story FPS, you know?
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: And fight, yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And this reminds me, actually takes me back to Quake III Arena, which was the first PC game I was super into as a kid. And there was a mod or some sort of fan made level where you’re running around a bedroom and you’re jumping on the stapler or fighting underneath the bed. You were really tiny and it was so much fun. And that’s the vibe of this entire game. You’re these action figures. In fact, when you respawn, you pop out of your packaging, like there’s a story in it.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: That’s nice.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And it’s really cool. And I’m sure you’re seeing the footage right now. And if you see it, it’s definitely worth a shot. There’s both a single player adventure, which works a little bit like a tower defense where you have a couple of minutes where you’re protecting these areas and you’re collecting coins and building up walls and turrets and things like that.
And then you go into the fighting mode where waves of enemies come through, which are toys. And I was playing the first round. These little toy robots are like, doo, doo, doo, doo. And you’re like, just blowing them up. And you’re like, is that all you got? And then the next round, these glider airplanes come through and they’re parachuting in other enemies and these exploding sort of slime toys.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Oh, nice.
– And there’s a lot of clever details in here, a lot of things that almost are callbacks to the games you’ve played, even just the books on the shelves. The level of detail or funny little puns or jokes on things that you probably had as a kid. And you get to pick all these different action figures and you’re collecting things. It’s sort of very much like an old school feel to it, but with real high fidelity, running really smooth and looking great.
Then I jumped into multiplayer. And this was bringing me back, like old school. There’s matchmaking, but I went into the server browser. And it was like four on four. And I’m like, oh, this one has seven people. And I can balance it out to eight. And I jump in. I just had like the time of my life, just going through and just running around this kitchen. And this particular level was in a kitchen.
And you’re jumping and fighting behind the microwave and the sink and up on the shelves and respawning in cabinets. And you have a great angle. And you die and you immediately respawn. And you’re playing to 100, red versus blue. And it was so much fun. So this team has been doing great. They’ve been really excitedly tweeting out. Every time they sell another 10,000, they’ve been doing great. I don’t know exactly where they’re at right now.
– They’re doing really well.
– Yeah, yeah. They’ve just been so grateful to the community. And just their relationship with the community, I think, has just been inspirational. And so I wanted to play it. I wanted to talk about it here on the show. Hypercharge– Unboxed, really recommend you try it out. And I think in co-op is where it’s really going to sing. Because you can play that adventure game in co-op. They give you bots otherwise, but I think this would be–
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: More fun.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: This is totally your Friday night game.
– Yeah, I love the sound of this. In fact, you bring up Friday night, the group I play with on Friday was gushing about this game this week.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: OK, good.
– And I hadn’t seen it until they brought it up. And then looking up online, to your point, like the creators are so nice and they’re so involved in the community. So it’s definitely on my list to check out. It looks, to your point, just fun.
– Yeah, I’ll look at getting them on the show. I’d love to hear more about it–
– Yeah.
– –the things they’re doing. Because the level of detail, this is a labor of love, you can tell. There’s collectibles. And they did so much more than they needed to do, I feel like.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Right.
– They had something good. And I think if it was just running around the bedroom and being army men action figures–
HAILEY GELLER: GI Joe.
– –that would have been good. That would have been good enough, but they went so far beyond that that I just love the detail. And there’s just tons of unlockables and tons of reasons to go back.
– Nice.
– There’s not dolls in it, though, are there?
– Ooh. I do get freaked out by dolls.
– Same.
– Are there some freaky things?
– Yeah, like, no dolls.
– Like Billy dolls, yeah.
– I wouldn’t say. There’s 14 levels in the campaign. I didn’t–
– Oh, god.
– So who knows what–
– The last mission.
– I’ll get to, yeah, I don’t even know if I’ll get to 14. I’ll get to two. [LAUGHS]
– There was nothing that creeped me out, but it’s like a real fun, breezy aesthetic.
– Not haunting.
– It was the opposite of Elden Ring.
– Yeah, yeah, OK.
– It was a good thing to palate cleanse–
– Yeah.
– –yeah, before I go back and try to–
– That’s awesome.
– –run against that wall again. A couple of things we talked about games coming to Game Pass. Let’s talk about some of them were coming. Now they’re here. EA FC 24 available now. I don’t know if you’ve been watching the Euros at all.
HAILEY GELLER: Are you going to any of the matches? I was going to say–
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: No, when I can, I’m going home and watching.
HAILEY GELLER: Yeah.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Nice.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So it’s going out at the same time as the Copa America, which is happening in the US.
HAILEY GELLER: Yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: US won their first match 2-0, which was great. Yesterday as we’re taping this, it was an amazing match. They’re on during lunch, the Euros. So like Italy versus Croatia, which was like wild, like late winner and all that stuff.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Very cool.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: If you don’t have time to watch them for us during the day, then you can just play them at night EA FC 24 which is in the Vault, they still call it the Vault. It’s available now. If you have a Game Pass Ultimate, then you’ve got access to EA Play and all the games therein.
– Very nice.
– A couple other games now available on Game Pass, SteamWorld Dig and SteamWorld Dig 2. These are probably pretty good travel games, Metroidvania types.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yes, that’s exactly what I was going to say actually. These are exactly what come to mind, games like SteamWorld Dig and Spelunky that are like perfect on a little screen.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yes, and Robin Hood– Sherwood Builders, this one looks pretty cool as well. We talked about it a little bit more last week. They’re all out now. So plenty to play, even though it tends to be one of the slower times of year in terms of new releases. Lots of stuff coming to Game Pass. And actually looking forward into July, some great stuff coming that have already been announced.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah.
– So I’m really looking forward to things like Kunitsu-Gami– Path of the Goddess and Dungeons of Hinterberg and just a bunch of other stuff.
– It’s the perfect time of the year to find those indie darlings and stuff too, just dive into some of these quick games coming to Game Pass you may never have heard of.
– Exactly. Now, when I’m playing these games, I want to hear ’em real well.
– You gotta hear ’em nice, yeah.
– And it’s a good thing we’ve got a hardware expert.
– [LAUGHS]
– –on the show that can tell us about one of the new SteelSeries.
– Yeah. Yeah, so a couple of things from SteelSeries. First off, a great partner with design for Xbox hardware. I’m a huge fan of SteelSeries. My daily driver right now is the Arctis Nova Pro, which one of the headsets I want to talk to you folks about today is just that one.
It just came out in white, which I know it’s black or white. Those are your options today. But this is a very nice headset. It’s extremely premium. It’s coming in at $349.99. It comes with, I guess you want to call it a bay for the headset. And this is where you charge your batteries, adjusts your audio settings.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So fully wireless?
– Fully wireless. Yeah, and it’s cool. It comes with a battery that plugs into your headset. And then it also has a second battery that charges in the bay. It just pops out and you switch ’em. So you don’t ever really lose audio.
– So if your battery dies while you’re playing–
– You just switch them real quick.
– –yeah, you don’t need to say I’m done playing for now, I gotta put it back on the dock.
– Right, or wire in or anything. You just have another one. So it connects to your PC and your Xbox or it connects to your Xbox and a USB device. So some people use their phone perhaps. I know a lot of folks that do that. But you’re going to get unbelievably good quality from that headset. You’re going to get some really cool things that I’m going to talk about as well.
But I want to put a pin in because if that price point is a little too rich for your blood maybe, check out the Nova 5X Wireless. Because this thing just came out, I think, a month ago. It’s a little bit cheaper. This one’s coming in at $129.99. And it doesn’t have the bay like the other one does, but it has a really cool app, which is really what I’m here to talk about today. Like SteelSeries new app does all the management for you on this headset. It has customized sound profiles that exist on both these headsets and EQ presets, which is just equalizer presets.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Not emotionally intelligence?
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: No, no, not emotional intelligence. Yeah, my first guess too.
HAILEY GELLER: It could be that, too.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, it could be a bit.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: If you put on headphones while people are sleeping, you’re showing high emotional intelligence.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, exactly.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So it all works out.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Wow, there you go.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: That’s an advertised feature.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: [LAUGHS] Yeah, one way to bring us home.
HAILEY GELLER: Winning.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: But I think one of the things that’s tricky about audio is audio is for the average person, tough, to know your levels, to know your bass, your treble, all these things. I think most people don’t really want to fiddle with that or have to worry about it. And so SteelSeries has got your back. They’ve uploaded the app and the bay with hundreds of presets. So they have things like Baldur’s Gate 3, Apex Legends, Call of Duty.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Malik.
– What’d you say?
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Malik.
– Yeah, Malik.
– He’s not using that Apex.
– I wonder if he just reset it to default at this point. That’s the only one he uses. But Fortnite, a lot of games, some of the top games you’ve been playing, they’re going to have presets for them. So it’s easy to jump in, switch your thing, switch your preset to the game you’re playing, and you’re off to the races.
And then one of the other things, in addition to more bandwidth on the microphone of the 5X, which is another cool feature for folks that may be gaming in loud environments, they also have really nice features where if I get a phone call, I can switch, I can take that call without losing my audio on Xbox. I’m a big fan of that.
So there’s just a lot of, if you’re someone that’s going to be gaming on the go or gaming with two devices or even just taking calls with your phone while you’re playing, both these headsets are really, really nice. Again, the Arctis Nova 5X, which is the more affordable one with the companion app and the white Nova Pro Wireless, which is their flagship. It’s very nice, yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I see you didn’t bring one in for me.
– I didn’t. I knew you’d take it from me, so I had to lock ’em up.
– You’re not wrong. We will have an unboxing here in just a minute. But before that, I also want to call out a couple of updates that are a real game changer for some games that are out now. I’ve been very excited for this one since it was announced, I want to say at Summer Game Fest earlier this month. Was it earlier this month? I was going to say last month. We are still in June.
– We’re still in June.
– Somehow. So for Street Fighter 6, M. Bison, my main.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: The legend.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: He is back for Street Fighter 6 Season 2, including new combo trials, missions, and more. So basically, you end up getting this character pack. I want to say it’s Character Pack 2. Also it’s going to be later including Terry Bogard and Mai Shiranui from King of Fighters, which is pretty sure the first time they’ve had that kind of crossover. So I’m really excited about that. But Bison, I’ve seen some of these combos and he’s come a long way from even like Street Fighter IV, where I was pretty heavy on Bison back then. Pretty good.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: I didn’t know you were such a fighting game guy.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I mean, I came up in that era, in the arcade fighting era. So Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, it was a whole social experience. And there was a sort of an element almost danger, being a kid. And if there was like someone older there, you almost had to have deference to them. Because they would have the better positioning on the arcade machine.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah.
– Playing people virtually, you’re comfortable, you’re kicking back. You have a sense of security. When we were going there–
– –on the couch.
– Yes, exactly.
– You’re much bigger than me. Is it worth it for me to beat you, to the extent that I was able to beat them.
– Or get my quarters stolen.
– Yeah, yeah. But if you kept running up against them. There would be people where I’d walk into the arcade and I would see them playing, and I’d be like, nope, not today.
– That still happens at Jupiter, if you ever go to Jupiter.
– Like the planet?
– No, Jupiter, the bar in Belltown. It’s like an arcade.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I would not have known that.
– Have you ever been there?
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: No.
– Oh, it’s amazing.
– Barcade?
– It’s an arcade bar. But they have fighting games there. And it’s the same thing where you see people just doing their little dance.
– It’s intimidating.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, yeah.
– I’m intimidated by it.
– There’s a lot of arcade bars, Seattle’s a good barcade.
– You gotta go there. It’s amazing.
– OK, I will have to go there. I’ve been to Shorties.
– OK.
– Shorties is great.
– It’s just down the road from there, yeah.
– Good to know, good to know.
– See, I’m giving you recommendations on our– [LAUGHS] They include gaming.
– Yeah.
– I appreciate that. A couple new updates here that you might not find in your local arcade. Disney Dreamlight Valley has now the Lucky Dragon update. This one’s about Mulan–
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Let’s go.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: –including the Mulan realm, with Mulan and Mushu, the little dragon joining the Valley. As a new recruit, you can assist Mushu around the training camp and hone your skills with Mulan, challenging your strength, precision, and endurance. The Majesty and Magnolias Star Path brings decoration items made of magnolias, including a new dream style for Mulan. The Star Path is running from June 26 through August 14. There’s also a free mini-event in game to celebrate the release of Inside Out 2.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Blowing up box offices.
– Yeah, all I keep seeing is that–
– I haven’t seen it.
– I keep seeing this TikTok of Sadness doing this little dance–
– Yeah.
– –I’m guessing at Disneyland or something like that. Everyone’s doing a dance, and she’s going, you know, just like the look of sadness.
– Totally. I just saw it. I went to a 21-and-up-only theater because that’s typically where I go. And that theater was full. It was almost full.
– Everyone’s talking about Anxiety, one of the characters in Inside Out 2. So I haven’t seen that TikTok, but my timeline has been flooded with memes about your anxiety versus the anxiety that the character has in the movie. And I’m like, relatable.
– Yeah, totally.
– Well, so there’s going to be rewards in this through July 17, including Anxiety and Ennui, Envy, and Embarrassment.
– There you go.
– There you go. So before you watch the movie, I guess, you could play that.
– Play the game. [LAUGHS]
– Oh, I didn’t realize. Is it Ennui? Is that boredom?
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Ennui, is that how you say it?
– I think it’s boredom.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah.
– Sure, yeah. I think she’s boredom. Yeah, yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah.
– I don’t know actually, no. [LAUGHS]
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I pronounced your name correctly.
– You did, yeah, that you used it all.
– The one thing for the–
– Yeah.
– So UFC 5, just in time for International Fight Week and UFC 303. UFC 5 introduces 15 new rostered fighters and Hall of Fame alter egos. So that’s the biggest update since launch for UFC 5.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Nice.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: A bunch of stuff hitting there. Also, Ghostrunner has its heat pack available today on Xbox Series X and S. It’s the third cosmetic pack where, look, there’s heat-themed katanas and motorcycles. So that works for me.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: I mean, say less.
– You know what else is coming out next week?
– What?
– What?
– Final Fantasy XIV– Dawntrail Expansion. I hit the mic. They’ll make me retape this. That’s fine. So we have the collector’s edition. Actually this is the digital collector’s edition. And I think we’re going to unbox this here. So Final Fantasy XIV came out earlier this year on Xbox. This is the first major, major update to hit FFXIV since it came out on Xbox. You all are here just in time.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yes.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Look at this.
– That artwork is just awesome.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I love it. I like the gold box. I almost don’t want to open it, but–
HAILEY GELLER: Shiny.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: –we must.
– Yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: We simply must. So which one of you is tearing into this thing?
– Ethan. [LAUGHS] Because I will rip the tab.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Because you didn’t bring the headset, so you’re unboxing this.
– Come on.
– All right. So a little bit more information here. Actually early access for Final Fantasy XIV– Dawntrail starts tomorrow, June 28. Full launch is July 2. Blue seas, clear skies, and boundless possibilities await in Dawntrail, the newest expansion pack for the critically acclaimed Final Fantasy XIV Online. Explore uncharted territories with familiar faces, as you discover new tribes, confront formidable threats, expand your horizons as hope’s light dawns once more. All right, what do we got here?
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: So this is the statue here.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: There’s an expertly crafted Viper figure. This is the Warrior of Light as a Viper. Look at that. All right.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Two swords?
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Two swords. Pose it. I’m told that there’s an adventurer’s cloth map inside.
HAILEY GELLER: I feel like Dora.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah [LAUGHS]
HAILEY GELLER: Gonna lay it out.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Look at this.
HAILEY GELLER: Upside down. Cute.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: That’s really pretty.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Very good. There’s also the Unending Journey Notebook. And there is an adventurer’s pen case, which I believe that is.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: This is nice. Look at this.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Have you all played FFXIV?
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: I have, yeah.
HAILEY GELLER: No.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: What class did you choose?
– Oh, well, so I’m always rogues. Whatever the name is in any game, it’s like if I’m daggers and archery, that is what I play.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, I appreciate that.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: I really don’t deviate from that. Yeah, yeah. So I’m a sucker for that. I haven’t played Final Fantasy in a couple of years. I haven’t played since it came to Xbox. And it’s on my list once I get out of my Fallout 76 kick and move on to the next service game. My wife and I, like I said, we kind of rotate between them. But yeah, always rogue and my wife always goes tank. So she can take the shots.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: What a power couple.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Seriously, come on. Yeah, she does all the work, and I’m just like, arrow.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: [LAUGHS] I’m helping.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: I’m helping, yeah. [LAUGHS]
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Very good. All right, so Dawntrail coming out next week, but early access means it’s out tomorrow. So that might be your weekend confirmed. And yeah, Final Fantasy available now on Xbox, Final Fantasy XIV. I know a lot of people were very excited when that happened. A lot of people participated in the beta. And now with the first major update, we are all caught up with all of the content.
– Amazing.
– So that just about wraps us up this week. Please feel free to follow us on twitter.com/xboxwire for this and, of course, all of the news throughout the week. And we’re also on youtube.com/xbox and on Spotify, Apple Podcast, wherever finer podcasts are sold. Hailey Geller, Ethan Rothamel.
– Hey.
– Hey.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Thanks so much for joining us this week. Any final thoughts from you?
– Ooh. The only one I have is just always a thank you. I love when you guys invite me on the show. Shout out to the production crew as always. And yeah, it’s just fun to get to geek out every week with you guys. So this is great.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Very good. Always good to have you, Hailey?
– I’ll plus one that. And thank you for teaching me about new games. I really liked Balatro. So yeah, I’ll have to play the Toy Story, not Toy Story one.
– Yeah, Hypercharge– Unboxed.
– Yeah.
– I’m sure next time I see you, you’ll have put in significantly more hours in Balatro and hopefully in Hypercharge as well. And I hope you all do too. So thank you for joining us. Next week, Canada Day, Independence Day, no podcast week. We’re going to take that week off.
And then when we come back, we’ll actually have a cool remote episode with Malik, your good friend Malik will be joining us from San Diego, as well as someone from the UK, our editor-in-chief of Xbox Wire, Joe Skrebels. You might know him from IGN. Quite the podcaster, he’ll show us all how it’s done–
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Nice.
– –with 100% more accent than we have this week. So thank you so much. Hope you have a great week. If you have a holiday coming up next week, enjoy that as well. We’ll see you soon.
[AUDIO LOGO]
ANNOUNCER: Games in this podcast range from E to M.
[XBOX SOUND]
– Hello, and welcome to the Official Xbox Podcast, the only podcast coming to you from inside Xbox. This week we’re going to be talking about a surprise new game release from Ubisoft and a new way to enjoy cloud gaming with Xbox with a device that you may already have. Joining us on this summer adventure are short-sleeved, living our best summer podcast lives, Hailey Geller.
– Hello.
– Product Marketing Manager on Halo and Gears. How are you doing? Welcome back.
– Good. Good to be back with Ethan and yourself again. Yeah, thanks for having me.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: You said you would not come back on the show unless Ethan Rothamel would join as well. How are you doing?
– [LAUGHS] I was the same. Doing well, man, doing well. Thanks for having us back. Yeah, we got to host this, I guess it’s a little over a month ago now. But that was super fun.
– Yeah.
– So good to be back here. We did get to hang out a little bit during showcase, which was nice, catch some sun. But mostly we were stuck working. It’s a bit of a whirlwind, that weekend, as most folks probably imagine.
– No Disneyland.
– No Disneyland.
– Yeah.
– We did do that last year. I think we talked about that last show. Unfortunately, too wiped out this year. It was crazy.
– Yeah, I think I know how you were wiped out, because I would say too much sun. We were all staying at the same hotel leading into the Xbox Showcase. And at one point, I just sort of was like, oh, let me see what’s up here on the top floor. And I walk outside and there’s a pool that was about the size of this mug, but sitting–
Yeah. [LAUGHS]
– You were standing?
– Yeah, I was, I was.
– Yeah, he was sitting out there with Malik Prince–
– Yeah.
– –who I know you’re besties with.
– Totally.
– And just getting some sun.
– Listen, I had a few hours to kill before the first meetings. And it was like, yeah, coming from Seattle, where it’s typically dark and gloomy, it was like, immediately, I’m going to go to the pool, get some sun, get mentally prepared for the intense weekend. And I do that every time. And I love it. It’s like a ritual.
– Yeah, I got sunburned walking from my Uber into the lobby.
– It was pretty toasty.
– That’s what happens when you live here for a long time.
– We are vampires in Seattle.
– They should make a movie about that.
– Yeah. I think they’re making a game. I think there might be a game coming soon. Stay tuned.
– Also in forks?
– No, no.
– Yeah, well, so speaking of games, what are you playing? Who wants to go first?
– Ooh, ooh, this is good.
– Do you want to go first?
– I mean, I’m gonna take up so much time if I do.
– OK, fine. [LAUGHS] Well, I finally played Balatro because you two–
– Very good.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yes.
HAILEY GELLER: –do not stop talking about it. I feel like we joke that every single show. It’s a line item out of somebody’s mouth.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Totally.
HAILEY GELLER: Play Balatro the potential game of the year. So I played.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: And?
HAILEY GELLER: I liked it.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah.
HAILEY GELLER: I think I played somewhere between two to three hours.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Probably in one go.
HAILEY GELLER: Yeah.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: That’s pretty good.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: That’s Balatro right there.
HAILEY GELLER: Yeah, did not realize how much time had passed. But yeah, it was fun. I realized I should never go into a profession in card gaming.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: [LAUGHS]
HAILEY GELLER: I’m not good.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: You gotta away from the Balatro tables in Vegas.
HAILEY GELLER: No, no. Yeah, well, I was laughing to myself. I was like, what if you actually could play this in real life. And just the fact that I should never be allowed at the table because I would get greedy and be like, no, I can definitely do better next time, and then just continue to knock 300 points–
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, continue to lose your money.
HAILEY GELLER: –or whatever, yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I’ve had the same thought. Have you ever played this like Microsoft solitaire? I feel everyone’s played played it.
HAILEY GELLER: Yes.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: There’s one of the scoring things called Cumulative Vegas.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Oh.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: You start off 52 bucks, I guess in the hole, one for each card. And then every one that you put in the top, whatever the heck that’s called where you have the Aces, you get 5 bucks back because it’s completely random. Sometimes you can get yourself into $100,000 hole. And I’m like, if they had this in Vegas, I would be sitting there all day, just playing cumulative solitaire and slowly–
– Whittling away.
– –depleting my retirement.
– Yeah.
– Exactly. So last time you were here, you were the fourth episode in a row of someone talking about Balatro.
– OK, yeah.
– And I had not played. And I was like, here we go. Now I’m a Balatro bro.
– Yeah, that’s what we’re called.
– Yeah, that’s a thing.
– Balatro bros.
– And when I was driving home, I was listening to What’s Good Games, I was listening to. Great podcast, if you’ve never listened to it. Andrea Rene, Britt, who’s been on the show before, Riana Manuel Peña, also a great person, former coworker of ours. They have a great show. And Andrea was talking about Balatro. And she’s like, I’ve played for 50 hours. And I was like, all right, between the two of them, I gotta go home.
So I went home that night. I downloaded it. And I was sitting in the living room playing and my kid walks in like, just as I’m starting. She’s like, what’s this? And I’m like, I don’t– Balatro. And she’s like, whatever. So she sits down next to me and she’s just on her phone. And she’s like looking up. And she’s like, what’s a flush?
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: [LAUGHS]
– And I was like–
– Let me tell you.
– Yeah, and I was like, oh, it’s when the whole hand is hearts. I never played poker. Doesn’t know the first thing about cards. Within an hour, she had transformed into, are you stupid? You can’t throw that joker away. You need to keep this one because that’s going to let you get a straight flush, like within one hour.
– She knew. She knew.
– And that became the game that we played that for like three weeks straight every night until way too late at night. I was like, do you have school tomorrow? It’s 1:00 AM. You need to go to bed now. But that’s the way Balatro is.
– It is so addicting, it really is. I got my dad to watch me play because he’s not a big gamer. And he was immediately like trying to offer suggestions. And then we were all diving in. And then before you know it, we’re all sitting on the couch watching one person play. And even this weekend we were doing the same thing.
I was at a cabin trip this weekend on vacation. And we had an Xbox on the main TV. And sure enough, every morning someone’s booting up Balatro. Because it’s such a great like game with coffee, get your mind working or whatever. But then we’re all just kind of sitting there. No one’s making breakfast, we’re just watching Balatro.
– It’s a great backseat game.
– Yeah.
– Because after like the second game, I was like, you’re holding the controller from now on. I may have discarded a hand accidentally. It’s a little easy to accidentally–
– It is. I kept doing that.
– On a controllers, especially.
– And I was like, X not Y or Y not X. And I was like, oh jeez. But it is a really fast way to learn how to play cards.
– Yeah.
– Because all my guy friends, they always do poker nights. And they’re like, oh, you want to come play? And I’m like, no, I don’t want to lose money.
– Yeah, get your money taken.
– I don’t know the rules. But it goes over what everything means. And then you’re like, oh, that’s what you’re talking about.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, you just need to start introducing jokers into your poker nights.
– Yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And it’s gonna to spice things up considerably.
– They love that, yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, yeah. I’ve got three billion points this game.
– [LAUGHS] For what it’s worth, you could be very good at Balatro. And I play a lot. But I’ve done a few of the charity poker tournaments at work, and I get absolutely destroyed.
– Well, maybe you’ll be better now.
– So I don’t know if it’s one to one, yeah.
– It is not a transferable skill.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, I don’t know.
– I am with you on that.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: I’m not good at betting maybe.
– When you weren’t, what, pressing X to touch grass?
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah.
– I don’t know what button it is to touch grass.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, X, it is.
– But what else have you been playing?
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, so like I said, I was traveling this week. So I only had my handheld with me, my ASUS Ally. And so–
– Only? So basically, I only had access to 10,000 games.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Everything. Yeah, literally everything under the sun. But yeah, so I was playing a lot of just kind of chill games that I could play out on a towel. I was getting some sun, you know, or whatever, just big chilling. And so outside of Balatro, I was playing a lot of some older games, but Wargroove.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: That’s a very good game.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Wargroove rocks. I obviously miss the boat by a couple of years on that. I think that was 2017, maybe.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, yeah, that was an ID@Xbox Game from some time ago. It’s sort of an ageless look. It’s something of a spiritual successor to Advance Wars.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So I was a big Advance Wars player on the Gameboy SP or whatever it is. A lot of similar vibes.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah. Yeah, it’s basically like you just control an army, but the characters are kind of fun. The queen that I picked, she has a dog named Caesar. And that’s why I liked her because she has a dog. And I love dogs.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: There’s dog troops in the game?
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: There’s dog troops and stuff. So it’s very fun. But it is like a Tactics kind of game with good music and good vibes, very fun on the go. So I love Wargroove. Definitely worth picking up and running around. Great remote play on the go as well.
The other game that I would highly recommend for folks at home is For the King II. I’ve been playing it a lot.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Tell me about it.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: So For the King was on Xbox and PC. For the King II has just come out currently only on PC. But it’s another kind of gamified board game. What do they call those? It looks like Catan tiles. Is that hexagons?
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: That’s a thing? They’re like hexagons?
HAILEY GELLER: Yes, yes.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, yeah. So you kind of run around, but it’s like D&D accelerated. So you have a character. You’re a warrior, you’re a mage, you’re a healer. And you run around with up to three of your friends. Or you can control all four characters. And you want to get to the end. But it’s roguelite, so you die and you unlock more weapons, you unlock new classes, and you try again.
So it’s very difficult, super gamified. It almost feels like you’re playing a board game of D&D with turn-based combat and dungeons. I could spend an hour talking about this game. I am a huge fan of For the King I and II. One of my favorite couch co-op games out there and really, really great on the go. So if you haven’t checked either of them out, check them out, For the King I and II.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: That is a good recommendation here.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I trusted you on Balatro.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So, eventually.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, so I’m gonna burn you eventually with a bad–
HAILEY GELLER: Another 20 hours.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, yeah, after the fifth episode in a row you’re talk about For the King 2–
– Yeah, yeah.
– –I’ll finally get around to it. So what do you think makes for a good travel game? Because I actually have some travel coming up. I have a 12-hour flight coming up on Saturday.
– That’s a good question.
– Maybe.
– I like snackable stuff. I mean, some people will dive into a story-driven game. For me, I like stuff that I don’t have to be super attentive to. Because I might have someone talking to me or I might be on an airplane where it’s loud or maybe the flight attendant is coming by to talk.
So I like the stuff that’s like, there is a story, but maybe I have to press A to get through the dialogue. Or it’s just quick, it’s snappy, it’s gamified. Or it’s more like board games or arcade-style games where the time to fun is shorter is what you might want to call it, I guess.
– You won’t be mad if somebody interrupts you.
– Yeah, it’s like, I can pause it. Yeah, like Peggle. Peggle is a great travel game.
– Oh, that’s a classic.
– Something like this, yeah.
– So do you ever do this thing where you have an x amount of hour flight, but you download 15 games–
– Yeah.
– –and then maybe you end up just playing the thing from before.
– Yes, every time.
– OK.
– Every time, yeah.
– So here’s the game I’m preparing for. So I also have a ASUS ROG Ally. I love that thing. I play it all the time. I talk about it ad nauseam. It’s not hashtag sponsored. I bought my own.
HAILEY GELLER: [LAUGHS]
– And well worth it, modded it.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Oh, nice.
– Yeah, added a little more. Well, I added I have a terabyte in there.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Ooh, this guy knows how to mod.
– So I figured YouTube can make anyone an expert.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: [LAUGHS] Facts.
– Although they do not accept any responsibility if you do it, right?
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, yeah, of course.
– Mod at your own risk. Anyway, so I did that. And so Octopath Traveler 2, this is the game that came into Game Pass earlier this month. I loved the first one. If you’ve never played the first one, it’s also in Game Pass and well worth it. It’s a very old-school RPG. I would say, if you enjoyed really Super-Nintendo-ere–
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, Final Fantasy.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: –Final Fantasy games, exactly. Final Fantasy, I forget, in the US, it was Final Fantasy 2 and 3. But I think it was 5 and 6–
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, that’s always how it goes.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: –in the full pantheon. And so it’s very much like that. It’s called Octopath because there are eight paths. You start off as any one of the characters and then you encounter the other characters. You sort of live through all their stories at once. And so you’re just jumping from character to character and building this group of eight people eventually.
And you’re solving all of their problems and it sort of ladders up to a larger thing. So people are in different parts of their lives. So you might be like, eh, I don’t like this character that much. It’s fine. You’ll move on from them pretty quickly into something else. So you have a bunch of different strands. And they go for a long time. I remember playing the first one. It was my treadmill game. Look–
HAILEY GELLER: How do you like– [LAUGHS]
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: But that’s the thing–
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: It is like turn based.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, it’s turn based. All right, so when I’m on the treadmill–
HAILEY GELLER: I’m like, I can’t do that.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, yeah, I can’t do that.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: [LAUGHS]
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: It’s a left handed thing. I’m an inverter. Maybe I can do that. Any game that involves aiming, I will fall off.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah.
HAILEY GELLER: Yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: If I have to aim with the right stick, my brain goes into the character. And then I fall off the treadmill. And that has happened. And I don’t recommend it. But a game like this where it’s 2D and you’re just steering with one hand and then you just hit A button, you tap.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: And every prompt is like you have an A button prompt–
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Exactly.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: –which is nice. That is exactly the game that’s great on the go.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Exactly. So those are treadmill games for me or elliptical games or whatever you might do. I’m not going to go outside and suffer.
– Treadmill at your own risk.
– Yes, exactly. Yeah, by all means practice, start slow. I’m not running. I’m going at like three and a half.
– Sure.
– I set it at four. But next thing you know, you’ve walked like six miles and you’ve got some achievements. It’s great. Anyway, this is good for that. So I started it.
– I do resonate with that, though, real quick. Because I can’t work out without some form of entertainment.
– I normally watch TV.
– That works.
– OK, there you go.
– Yeah, but I’m the same way. I like the I like Balatro. I like those kind of games.
– Balatro’s perfect.
– I get so bored, I just get off the treadmill.
– Yeah.
– Yeah, there we go.
– Anyway, I didn’t mean to interrupt you.
– All right, we’re getting fit, we’re playing games.
– We’re getting so jacked this summer.
– We’re going to be in muscle shirts in two episodes from now.
– Yeah, you’re gonna be in a tank top next time.
– All right, let’s talk about actually another great way to play games. So let’s get into this week’s news.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Oh, nice.
– So Xbox, we’re always about bringing more games to more players, finding more ways to play. And something we did a couple of years ago using the cloud that opened up Xbox games to people that don’t have consoles or even a PC was playing through certain Samsung models you can stream games through. Well, now we’re coming to a lot more players.
So the Xbox app is going to be on Amazon Fire TV devices. So no console required. A lot of people have Fire Sticks. I’ll tell you which ones it works. But it’s basically cloud gaming. So it’s powered by the Microsoft service. If you have Xbox Game Pass Ultimate membership, then you can play. The app will be available soon. And this will be available on the Amazon 4K Max and 4K Fire Sticks.
– Nice.
– That allows you to play a lot of the newest stuff, obviously the things that we were just talking about like Octopath Traveler II, Senua’s Saga, Hellblade II, Starfield, Forza Horizon, Fallout 76. And so where I think this is really convenient is you go to your parents’ house. And what I would always do is put my Series S in a backpack, which was a great way to do it.
But they’ve got decent internet. And with a Fire Stick, it’s much smaller thing. They retail for between $49 and $59, those models. I think they already have one. You can just download the app and all of your cloud games go right over.
– It’s also great for those TVs, I get unreasonably angry when I go to someone’s house and their TV’s mounted above a fireplace.
– I’m with you on that one. I’m like, oh, this is great. First row of the movie theater.
– Yeah, so there’s ways to mitigate that. And I’m not trying to shade anyone in the comment section here. But that is–
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: We’re getting a lot of comments from the fireplace people.
– Yeah, yeah, yeah, like I love my fireplace. But this is great. That is the exact setup where you just have the stick in the back and you can play and you don’t want to have to mount a console, even if you want to use a licensed mount that are great for this. There is awesome scenarios where this stuff is great on the go.
And I love the call out of Fallout 76 because that is my go-to cloud gaming. Because I always am addicted to a service game at any time, whether it’s ESO, 76, World of Warcraft, what have you. I usually pick one. But you gotta do those dailies. You want to get your rewards done. You gotta lock in those cosmetics. And to be able to log into something like a Fire Stick is perfect for just locking in those dailies.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yes, and there’s millions of them out there.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah.
– Basically, it’s a lot more people who will be able to, if they’ve been hearing about Fallout 76, actually, if you’ve been watching the Fallout show on–
– You can do both now.
– Yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: There you go, exactly.
– It’s cheap, too. $49.99?
– Yeah, yeah, yeah, for the Fire Stick. And then I want to say the 4K Max is $59.99.
– But the convenience on its own, it’s definitely worth it, I feel like.
– Yeah.
– It’s amazing. I do have my TV above my fireplace.
– Yes! I pegged you for that.
– So I’ll send you a picture of the setup so you can judge me.
– Oh, no.
– I guess if your sofa–
– You can extend it.
– –is far enough back.
– Yeah.
– But I feel like there’s just a lot of this. And then I’m like, ooh, yeah.
– I just feel like a lot of houses aren’t designed–
– There’s no where else to put it.
– Yeah, exactly. If you go into looking at half the apartments to rent, it’s like, they all have a fireplace with it above. It’s just like, where else am I going to put the TV, you know? Get a Fire Stick.
– That’s a good point.
HAILEY GELLER: Get a Fire Stick for your fireplace.
– It’s very easy for me to say this when I don’t have a fireplace, so, yeah.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah.
– Anyway, so that is coming soon. So keep an eye out for that. There’s more information over on Xbox Wire, which is news.xbox.com.
– Shout out to Cloud Team. That’s great.
– There you go.
– Yeah.
– They’re keeping busy. Actually, my neighbor works on that.
– Nice.
– Good guy.
– Very cool.
– He didn’t tell me about it, but you know that’s him doing his job. All right, so, yeah. I don’t go over there and be like, what are you working on? Yeah.
– Creep in through his window.
– Yeah. [LAUGHS]
– Just looking in.
– So this was a surprise. Ubisoft announced and then launched Beyond Good & Evil 20th Anniversary Edition earlier this week. Are you familiar with Beyond Good & Evil?
HAILEY GELLER: No
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Familiar, but I haven’t played these games. I have not played the original.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Well, it’s 20 years old, so it came out, the original one back in 2004. It’s kind of a contemporary then of Psychonauts, you know?
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Right.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: From that OG Xbox era, that PS2 era. But now it’s upgraded to 4K, 60 FPS resolution and frame rate, updated controls, quality-of-life features, a number of other different things. I was just looking at the video. And this looks like it has that classic look. I remember going back and playing Psychonauts before Psychonauts 2 came out a couple of years ago. And it brings you back.
HAILEY GELLER: I have the sticker somewhere.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Oh, you do? Very good. And I was looking at this, and it’s like that aesthetic, but running really smoothly. And so it looks really cool. I had never played it. I’ve heard of it. I remember when it first came out and going to see it. And I had just never gotten around to playing it. So anyway, it’s available now.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And you can just check that out. Thank you Ubisoft–
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: It’s amazing–
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: –for surprising us.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: –a lot of these classic games get so much more mileage when you just can upgrade the frame rate to 60 or the resolution. It’s been so fun to go back and play some of those games. It really is amazing.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: It makes them look like how you thought they looked.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, but obviously–
HAILEY GELLER: It’s what modern means now.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, your brain smooths out the frame rate.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: 100%.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And if you were to go back and load up the original one, it’s not going to look like this 20th anniversary edition.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: No way. And I guess 2004, so most of us were probably still on tube TVS or the big–
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Oh, for sure.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, so–
HAILEY GELLER: Oh, the huge–
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: –nothing.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Nothing, four by three.
– Yeah, yeah.
– Yeah.
– Yeah.
– It’s also fun when you had an experience with something back then and it still hits the same way today.
– Totally.
– I think that’s almost the best part of it is some things might have changed. Even at Psychonauts, it looks very different, but you still have those same lovable moments that you did back then that you do today, which is–
– Yeah, for sure.
– –super special
– Yeah, just a shot of nostalgia–
– Yeah, yeah.
– –which is always nice.
– Yes,
– Yeah.
– Yes. Speaking of, great announcement out of the Nintendo Direct, but last week, but that applies to folks on Xbox as well, which is Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake, which is they released a trailer. It’s coming out in November on Xbox. And I loved these games.
So the original Dragon Quest I, II, and III, they were called Dragon Warrior when I was a kid. And then at some point, much like Final Fantasy, sort of changed the numbering and all that type of stuff. But I remember renting this game, the OG I on the NES from Blockbuster. And I never got to finish it because I had two days. Two days to beat Dragon Quest?
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: No time.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: It wasn’t going to happen. So this is going to be coming out in November. It looks cool. They’ve been doing these HD, actually kind of a similar-ish aesthetic to Octopath Traveler. So if you get into Octopath Traveler II or I on Game Pass now, this is something you’re going to want to keep an eye out for. I love these games. Dragon Quest I or Dragon Warrior is probably the game I’ve beaten the most.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Really?
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: That was my first ever RPG.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Oh, cool.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And I just became obsessed with it. I know where everything in that game is. II was a lot bigger. And then the III, even bigger than that. So very cool that we’re going to be getting that. And yeah, it’ll be November 14. A lot of RPGs to play this fall, which is going to be really cool.
And just a real quick note about something coming out next week. First Descendant, this is a game that we had a lot of information on it last year at Summer Game Fest, I want to say. But they released a new trailer recently. This is a third person co-op action RPG looter-shooter running on Unreal Engine 5. As you’d expect, it looks real pretty.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: It’s made by a Korean developer. And this is just a cool aesthetic on this one. So this one caught my attention. It’s coming out July 2. This is that time of year where you’re either catching up on stuff that you’ve been playing or you might still be playing Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree. I know I am.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, absolutely.
– I did take out the Blackgaol Knight–
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Oh, nice.
– –since the show was over. That’s like literally the first boss. So don’t get too excited.
– Well, still.
– I’m pretty far in. I will say that.
– It’s harder. It’s hard.
– It is very hard.
– The DLC is much harder than the base game.
– Correct. And we can get back into that. But anyway, so keep an eye out for First Descendant next week. And I would take a look at some of these videos. And there’s a lot of stuff that looks really good.
– When you said First Descendant, I thought you were talking about The Descendants TV show. And I was like, where’s Dove Cameron?
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: The prequel of Dove Cameron.
– Yeah, so where is she?
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Where is she in this game? It would be a great DLC.
– Not a playable character.
– That was the one where everyone’s the children of the bad–
– Yeah, it’s like fairy tales, science-fictiony.
– Yeah.
– I don’t really remember what it is, but there’s three.
– Like Maleficent’s daughter, I think that was–
– Something like that.
– –that was Dove Cameron. And I can’t remember the rest. My kid was into it at one point. And I may have watched all of them.
– [LAUGHS] Yeah. Cross advocate.
– For next time you can catch up and watch it again.
– It’s one of those things you sit down and you’re like, why am I watching this? And then it’s like, when’s the next one? The next one, I could watch it right now.
– That’s like all that Disney Channel originals, though. If you go back and watch them, you’re like–
– Yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah.
– –oh, that happened.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: There goes your day.
– Yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah.
– Yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: It’s gone.
– It was a different time. It was a different time. There was a lot less entertainment, a lot less access.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah. All right, have you played Shadow of the Erdtree? We kind of skipped over that. We talked about it quite a bit last week.
– Well, so I will say, I had mentioned twice now that I was out of town this weekend. But the only reason we brought an Xbox on the trip was because of Erdtree. It was actually specifically Erdtree. And it was Stein’s xbox, Josh Stein, friend of the show. And so I woke up a few days and literally would come, wake up out of bed, and Stein’s already on playing. So I haven’t played yet. I’ve watched Stein. It’s definitely on my list. I’m a huge Souls fan. And my god, it is difficult.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Out of the last week, three nights I’ve had dreams about Shadow of the Erdtree.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Really?
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: That I’m like playing it. I’m not in that world, thankfully, but I’m like–
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Horrifying.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, except I woke up, it was two days ago that I was actually able to beat the boss who I’m stuck on.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And then I woke up and realized, no, I’m not even close to being able to beat this boss.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Oh, no.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: But I think that means–
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: You’re manifesting it.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: –that’s what I’m manifesting.
HAILEY GELLER: You’re manifesting it.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: It’s gonna happen.
HAILEY GELLER: Yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I’m going to have to respec, I think. I don’t want to get into names and stuff. Because people are into the lore.
– Yeah.
– I’ll be honest, I don’t necessarily know what’s going on. But I feel like there’s a little bit more because it’s a more concise story in this particular one.
– Also they’re just kings of environmental storytelling. So even if you’re not paying attention to the names and stuff, you kind of get the gist of what’s going on just by watching the game.
– This, I think, had quicker payoff, though, because you’re dealing with a more limited set of characters in this DLC, mainly because in the main game you’ve killed everybody.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yes, yes.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: There’s nobody left. So you’re following Miquella, which you encountered that in the first two minutes. But then there’s a couple other characters that people are talking about. And one of them, one of them is kicking my butt.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Oh, OK.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I was doing real well until that point. So going through, catching my Scadutree Fragments, I’m on level 12, I want to say–
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Nice.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: –of that, so we need to fix it.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Sometimes you just need to sleep on a boss. I’ve definitely been stuck–
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: You do, yes.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: –for hours on any Souls game boss. And it’s just like, I just need to go to bed and then reset and then I’ll be fine.
– So what my reset has been, I was going to go back to it. I took yesterday off because I was so, like–
– Tilted?
– Yeah, maybe that’s the term I’m looking for. And I was like, let me try this game that I’ve been wanting to try. It came out right before we went out to Showcase, so I haven’t had a chance to try it. And that is Hypercharge– Unboxed.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Oh, interesting.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So this is a game, I will say, the developers of this game have been really, really cool with the community, I guess. You might have seen some videos over the course of the last honestly two years of this game that’s action figures fighting in a store and a bedroom.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Oh, yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: You know what I’m talking about.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, I know exactly what you’re talking about.
HAILEY GELLER: I have no idea what you’re talking about.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Imagine Toy Story–
HAILEY GELLER: Tell me.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Imagine Toy Story the game.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yes, exactly.
HAILEY GELLER: Toys that talk?
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Toy Story FPS, you know?
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: And fight, yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And this reminds me, actually takes me back to Quake III Arena, which was the first PC game I was super into as a kid. And there was a mod or some sort of fan made level where you’re running around a bedroom and you’re jumping on the stapler or fighting underneath the bed. You were really tiny and it was so much fun. And that’s the vibe of this entire game. You’re these action figures. In fact, when you respawn, you pop out of your packaging, like there’s a story in it.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: That’s nice.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And it’s really cool. And I’m sure you’re seeing the footage right now. And if you see it, it’s definitely worth a shot. There’s both a single player adventure, which works a little bit like a tower defense where you have a couple of minutes where you’re protecting these areas and you’re collecting coins and building up walls and turrets and things like that.
And then you go into the fighting mode where waves of enemies come through, which are toys. And I was playing the first round. These little toy robots are like, doo, doo, doo, doo. And you’re like, just blowing them up. And you’re like, is that all you got? And then the next round, these glider airplanes come through and they’re parachuting in other enemies and these exploding sort of slime toys.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Oh, nice.
– And there’s a lot of clever details in here, a lot of things that almost are callbacks to the games you’ve played, even just the books on the shelves. The level of detail or funny little puns or jokes on things that you probably had as a kid. And you get to pick all these different action figures and you’re collecting things. It’s sort of very much like an old school feel to it, but with real high fidelity, running really smooth and looking great.
Then I jumped into multiplayer. And this was bringing me back, like old school. There’s matchmaking, but I went into the server browser. And it was like four on four. And I’m like, oh, this one has seven people. And I can balance it out to eight. And I jump in. I just had like the time of my life, just going through and just running around this kitchen. And this particular level was in a kitchen.
And you’re jumping and fighting behind the microwave and the sink and up on the shelves and respawning in cabinets. And you have a great angle. And you die and you immediately respawn. And you’re playing to 100, red versus blue. And it was so much fun. So this team has been doing great. They’ve been really excitedly tweeting out. Every time they sell another 10,000, they’ve been doing great. I don’t know exactly where they’re at right now.
– They’re doing really well.
– Yeah, yeah. They’ve just been so grateful to the community. And just their relationship with the community, I think, has just been inspirational. And so I wanted to play it. I wanted to talk about it here on the show. Hypercharge– Unboxed, really recommend you try it out. And I think in co-op is where it’s really going to sing. Because you can play that adventure game in co-op. They give you bots otherwise, but I think this would be–
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: More fun.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: This is totally your Friday night game.
– Yeah, I love the sound of this. In fact, you bring up Friday night, the group I play with on Friday was gushing about this game this week.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: OK, good.
– And I hadn’t seen it until they brought it up. And then looking up online, to your point, like the creators are so nice and they’re so involved in the community. So it’s definitely on my list to check out. It looks, to your point, just fun.
– Yeah, I’ll look at getting them on the show. I’d love to hear more about it–
– Yeah.
– –the things they’re doing. Because the level of detail, this is a labor of love, you can tell. There’s collectibles. And they did so much more than they needed to do, I feel like.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Right.
– They had something good. And I think if it was just running around the bedroom and being army men action figures–
HAILEY GELLER: GI Joe.
– –that would have been good. That would have been good enough, but they went so far beyond that that I just love the detail. And there’s just tons of unlockables and tons of reasons to go back.
– Nice.
– There’s not dolls in it, though, are there?
– Ooh. I do get freaked out by dolls.
– Same.
– Are there some freaky things?
– Yeah, like, no dolls.
– Like Billy dolls, yeah.
– I wouldn’t say. There’s 14 levels in the campaign. I didn’t–
– Oh, god.
– So who knows what–
– The last mission.
– I’ll get to, yeah, I don’t even know if I’ll get to 14. I’ll get to two. [LAUGHS]
– There was nothing that creeped me out, but it’s like a real fun, breezy aesthetic.
– Not haunting.
– It was the opposite of Elden Ring.
– Yeah, yeah, OK.
– It was a good thing to palate cleanse–
– Yeah.
– –yeah, before I go back and try to–
– That’s awesome.
– –run against that wall again. A couple of things we talked about games coming to Game Pass. Let’s talk about some of them were coming. Now they’re here. EA FC 24 available now. I don’t know if you’ve been watching the Euros at all.
HAILEY GELLER: Are you going to any of the matches? I was going to say–
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: No, when I can, I’m going home and watching.
HAILEY GELLER: Yeah.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Nice.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So it’s going out at the same time as the Copa America, which is happening in the US.
HAILEY GELLER: Yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: US won their first match 2-0, which was great. Yesterday as we’re taping this, it was an amazing match. They’re on during lunch, the Euros. So like Italy versus Croatia, which was like wild, like late winner and all that stuff.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Very cool.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: If you don’t have time to watch them for us during the day, then you can just play them at night EA FC 24 which is in the Vault, they still call it the Vault. It’s available now. If you have a Game Pass Ultimate, then you’ve got access to EA Play and all the games therein.
– Very nice.
– A couple other games now available on Game Pass, SteamWorld Dig and SteamWorld Dig 2. These are probably pretty good travel games, Metroidvania types.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yes, that’s exactly what I was going to say actually. These are exactly what come to mind, games like SteamWorld Dig and Spelunky that are like perfect on a little screen.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yes, and Robin Hood– Sherwood Builders, this one looks pretty cool as well. We talked about it a little bit more last week. They’re all out now. So plenty to play, even though it tends to be one of the slower times of year in terms of new releases. Lots of stuff coming to Game Pass. And actually looking forward into July, some great stuff coming that have already been announced.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah.
– So I’m really looking forward to things like Kunitsu-Gami– Path of the Goddess and Dungeons of Hinterberg and just a bunch of other stuff.
– It’s the perfect time of the year to find those indie darlings and stuff too, just dive into some of these quick games coming to Game Pass you may never have heard of.
– Exactly. Now, when I’m playing these games, I want to hear ’em real well.
– You gotta hear ’em nice, yeah.
– And it’s a good thing we’ve got a hardware expert.
– [LAUGHS]
– –on the show that can tell us about one of the new SteelSeries.
– Yeah. Yeah, so a couple of things from SteelSeries. First off, a great partner with design for Xbox hardware. I’m a huge fan of SteelSeries. My daily driver right now is the Arctis Nova Pro, which one of the headsets I want to talk to you folks about today is just that one.
It just came out in white, which I know it’s black or white. Those are your options today. But this is a very nice headset. It’s extremely premium. It’s coming in at $349.99. It comes with, I guess you want to call it a bay for the headset. And this is where you charge your batteries, adjusts your audio settings.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So fully wireless?
– Fully wireless. Yeah, and it’s cool. It comes with a battery that plugs into your headset. And then it also has a second battery that charges in the bay. It just pops out and you switch ’em. So you don’t ever really lose audio.
– So if your battery dies while you’re playing–
– You just switch them real quick.
– –yeah, you don’t need to say I’m done playing for now, I gotta put it back on the dock.
– Right, or wire in or anything. You just have another one. So it connects to your PC and your Xbox or it connects to your Xbox and a USB device. So some people use their phone perhaps. I know a lot of folks that do that. But you’re going to get unbelievably good quality from that headset. You’re going to get some really cool things that I’m going to talk about as well.
But I want to put a pin in because if that price point is a little too rich for your blood maybe, check out the Nova 5X Wireless. Because this thing just came out, I think, a month ago. It’s a little bit cheaper. This one’s coming in at $129.99. And it doesn’t have the bay like the other one does, but it has a really cool app, which is really what I’m here to talk about today. Like SteelSeries new app does all the management for you on this headset. It has customized sound profiles that exist on both these headsets and EQ presets, which is just equalizer presets.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Not emotionally intelligence?
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: No, no, not emotional intelligence. Yeah, my first guess too.
HAILEY GELLER: It could be that, too.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, it could be a bit.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: If you put on headphones while people are sleeping, you’re showing high emotional intelligence.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, exactly.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So it all works out.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Wow, there you go.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: That’s an advertised feature.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: [LAUGHS] Yeah, one way to bring us home.
HAILEY GELLER: Winning.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: But I think one of the things that’s tricky about audio is audio is for the average person, tough, to know your levels, to know your bass, your treble, all these things. I think most people don’t really want to fiddle with that or have to worry about it. And so SteelSeries has got your back. They’ve uploaded the app and the bay with hundreds of presets. So they have things like Baldur’s Gate 3, Apex Legends, Call of Duty.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Malik.
– What’d you say?
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Malik.
– Yeah, Malik.
– He’s not using that Apex.
– I wonder if he just reset it to default at this point. That’s the only one he uses. But Fortnite, a lot of games, some of the top games you’ve been playing, they’re going to have presets for them. So it’s easy to jump in, switch your thing, switch your preset to the game you’re playing, and you’re off to the races.
And then one of the other things, in addition to more bandwidth on the microphone of the 5X, which is another cool feature for folks that may be gaming in loud environments, they also have really nice features where if I get a phone call, I can switch, I can take that call without losing my audio on Xbox. I’m a big fan of that.
So there’s just a lot of, if you’re someone that’s going to be gaming on the go or gaming with two devices or even just taking calls with your phone while you’re playing, both these headsets are really, really nice. Again, the Arctis Nova 5X, which is the more affordable one with the companion app and the white Nova Pro Wireless, which is their flagship. It’s very nice, yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I see you didn’t bring one in for me.
– I didn’t. I knew you’d take it from me, so I had to lock ’em up.
– You’re not wrong. We will have an unboxing here in just a minute. But before that, I also want to call out a couple of updates that are a real game changer for some games that are out now. I’ve been very excited for this one since it was announced, I want to say at Summer Game Fest earlier this month. Was it earlier this month? I was going to say last month. We are still in June.
– We’re still in June.
– Somehow. So for Street Fighter 6, M. Bison, my main.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: The legend.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: He is back for Street Fighter 6 Season 2, including new combo trials, missions, and more. So basically, you end up getting this character pack. I want to say it’s Character Pack 2. Also it’s going to be later including Terry Bogard and Mai Shiranui from King of Fighters, which is pretty sure the first time they’ve had that kind of crossover. So I’m really excited about that. But Bison, I’ve seen some of these combos and he’s come a long way from even like Street Fighter IV, where I was pretty heavy on Bison back then. Pretty good.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: I didn’t know you were such a fighting game guy.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I mean, I came up in that era, in the arcade fighting era. So Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, it was a whole social experience. And there was a sort of an element almost danger, being a kid. And if there was like someone older there, you almost had to have deference to them. Because they would have the better positioning on the arcade machine.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah.
– Playing people virtually, you’re comfortable, you’re kicking back. You have a sense of security. When we were going there–
– –on the couch.
– Yes, exactly.
– You’re much bigger than me. Is it worth it for me to beat you, to the extent that I was able to beat them.
– Or get my quarters stolen.
– Yeah, yeah. But if you kept running up against them. There would be people where I’d walk into the arcade and I would see them playing, and I’d be like, nope, not today.
– That still happens at Jupiter, if you ever go to Jupiter.
– Like the planet?
– No, Jupiter, the bar in Belltown. It’s like an arcade.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I would not have known that.
– Have you ever been there?
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: No.
– Oh, it’s amazing.
– Barcade?
– It’s an arcade bar. But they have fighting games there. And it’s the same thing where you see people just doing their little dance.
– It’s intimidating.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, yeah.
– I’m intimidated by it.
– There’s a lot of arcade bars, Seattle’s a good barcade.
– You gotta go there. It’s amazing.
– OK, I will have to go there. I’ve been to Shorties.
– OK.
– Shorties is great.
– It’s just down the road from there, yeah.
– Good to know, good to know.
– See, I’m giving you recommendations on our– [LAUGHS] They include gaming.
– Yeah.
– I appreciate that. A couple new updates here that you might not find in your local arcade. Disney Dreamlight Valley has now the Lucky Dragon update. This one’s about Mulan–
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Let’s go.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: –including the Mulan realm, with Mulan and Mushu, the little dragon joining the Valley. As a new recruit, you can assist Mushu around the training camp and hone your skills with Mulan, challenging your strength, precision, and endurance. The Majesty and Magnolias Star Path brings decoration items made of magnolias, including a new dream style for Mulan. The Star Path is running from June 26 through August 14. There’s also a free mini-event in game to celebrate the release of Inside Out 2.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Blowing up box offices.
– Yeah, all I keep seeing is that–
– I haven’t seen it.
– I keep seeing this TikTok of Sadness doing this little dance–
– Yeah.
– –I’m guessing at Disneyland or something like that. Everyone’s doing a dance, and she’s going, you know, just like the look of sadness.
– Totally. I just saw it. I went to a 21-and-up-only theater because that’s typically where I go. And that theater was full. It was almost full.
– Everyone’s talking about Anxiety, one of the characters in Inside Out 2. So I haven’t seen that TikTok, but my timeline has been flooded with memes about your anxiety versus the anxiety that the character has in the movie. And I’m like, relatable.
– Yeah, totally.
– Well, so there’s going to be rewards in this through July 17, including Anxiety and Ennui, Envy, and Embarrassment.
– There you go.
– There you go. So before you watch the movie, I guess, you could play that.
– Play the game. [LAUGHS]
– Oh, I didn’t realize. Is it Ennui? Is that boredom?
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Ennui, is that how you say it?
– I think it’s boredom.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah.
– Sure, yeah. I think she’s boredom. Yeah, yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah.
– I don’t know actually, no. [LAUGHS]
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I pronounced your name correctly.
– You did, yeah, that you used it all.
– The one thing for the–
– Yeah.
– So UFC 5, just in time for International Fight Week and UFC 303. UFC 5 introduces 15 new rostered fighters and Hall of Fame alter egos. So that’s the biggest update since launch for UFC 5.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Nice.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: A bunch of stuff hitting there. Also, Ghostrunner has its heat pack available today on Xbox Series X and S. It’s the third cosmetic pack where, look, there’s heat-themed katanas and motorcycles. So that works for me.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: I mean, say less.
– You know what else is coming out next week?
– What?
– What?
– Final Fantasy XIV– Dawntrail Expansion. I hit the mic. They’ll make me retape this. That’s fine. So we have the collector’s edition. Actually this is the digital collector’s edition. And I think we’re going to unbox this here. So Final Fantasy XIV came out earlier this year on Xbox. This is the first major, major update to hit FFXIV since it came out on Xbox. You all are here just in time.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yes.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Look at this.
– That artwork is just awesome.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I love it. I like the gold box. I almost don’t want to open it, but–
HAILEY GELLER: Shiny.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: –we must.
– Yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: We simply must. So which one of you is tearing into this thing?
– Ethan. [LAUGHS] Because I will rip the tab.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Because you didn’t bring the headset, so you’re unboxing this.
– Come on.
– All right. So a little bit more information here. Actually early access for Final Fantasy XIV– Dawntrail starts tomorrow, June 28. Full launch is July 2. Blue seas, clear skies, and boundless possibilities await in Dawntrail, the newest expansion pack for the critically acclaimed Final Fantasy XIV Online. Explore uncharted territories with familiar faces, as you discover new tribes, confront formidable threats, expand your horizons as hope’s light dawns once more. All right, what do we got here?
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: So this is the statue here.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: There’s an expertly crafted Viper figure. This is the Warrior of Light as a Viper. Look at that. All right.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Two swords?
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Two swords. Pose it. I’m told that there’s an adventurer’s cloth map inside.
HAILEY GELLER: I feel like Dora.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah [LAUGHS]
HAILEY GELLER: Gonna lay it out.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Look at this.
HAILEY GELLER: Upside down. Cute.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: That’s really pretty.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Very good. There’s also the Unending Journey Notebook. And there is an adventurer’s pen case, which I believe that is.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: This is nice. Look at this.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Have you all played FFXIV?
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: I have, yeah.
HAILEY GELLER: No.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: What class did you choose?
– Oh, well, so I’m always rogues. Whatever the name is in any game, it’s like if I’m daggers and archery, that is what I play.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, I appreciate that.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: I really don’t deviate from that. Yeah, yeah. So I’m a sucker for that. I haven’t played Final Fantasy in a couple of years. I haven’t played since it came to Xbox. And it’s on my list once I get out of my Fallout 76 kick and move on to the next service game. My wife and I, like I said, we kind of rotate between them. But yeah, always rogue and my wife always goes tank. So she can take the shots.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: What a power couple.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Seriously, come on. Yeah, she does all the work, and I’m just like, arrow.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: [LAUGHS] I’m helping.
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: I’m helping, yeah. [LAUGHS]
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Very good. All right, so Dawntrail coming out next week, but early access means it’s out tomorrow. So that might be your weekend confirmed. And yeah, Final Fantasy available now on Xbox, Final Fantasy XIV. I know a lot of people were very excited when that happened. A lot of people participated in the beta. And now with the first major update, we are all caught up with all of the content.
– Amazing.
– So that just about wraps us up this week. Please feel free to follow us on twitter.com/xboxwire for this and, of course, all of the news throughout the week. And we’re also on youtube.com/xbox and on Spotify, Apple Podcast, wherever finer podcasts are sold. Hailey Geller, Ethan Rothamel.
– Hey.
– Hey.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Thanks so much for joining us this week. Any final thoughts from you?
– Ooh. The only one I have is just always a thank you. I love when you guys invite me on the show. Shout out to the production crew as always. And yeah, it’s just fun to get to geek out every week with you guys. So this is great.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Very good. Always good to have you, Hailey?
– I’ll plus one that. And thank you for teaching me about new games. I really liked Balatro. So yeah, I’ll have to play the Toy Story, not Toy Story one.
– Yeah, Hypercharge– Unboxed.
– Yeah.
– I’m sure next time I see you, you’ll have put in significantly more hours in Balatro and hopefully in Hypercharge as well. And I hope you all do too. So thank you for joining us. Next week, Canada Day, Independence Day, no podcast week. We’re going to take that week off.
And then when we come back, we’ll actually have a cool remote episode with Malik, your good friend Malik will be joining us from San Diego, as well as someone from the UK, our editor-in-chief of Xbox Wire, Joe Skrebels. You might know him from IGN. Quite the podcaster, he’ll show us all how it’s done–
ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Nice.
– –with 100% more accent than we have this week. So thank you so much. Hope you have a great week. If you have a holiday coming up next week, enjoy that as well. We’ll see you soon.
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