Hello. What's the buttoners? Buttons. What's
the AI say? Don't forget to keep hitting them
buttons. Pressing them buttons? What? That. Don't
forget to press the buttons. That's the ones.
Don't forget. Hello. Hiya. What are you reading?
I don't really know. Just looking at stuff. It
looked like you were about to read something
out. No, no, I'm just looking at stuff. But it's
not important. I should probably stop. Okay,
here we are. 30 seconds in. Hello. Yeah. It's
happening. Time to stay in my lane. What is that?
I finished Iron Light. I heard. As you know.
I sent you the voice note. I sent that voice
note to many people. I don't feel special. No,
you got a special one, but I sent a voice note
to multiple people saying it's fucking done.
But it's done. Ladies and gentlemen, Dying Light
the Beast is done. Deleted. Fucking thrown into
the never. I'm not touching it again. If they
make another one, I'm not buying it. Great game.
Really good game. I recommend it to anyone. Very,
very, very well made. Fucking hate it. But why?
I just couldn't. I think that I just started
playing it at the wrong time, I feel. And like
you said, there was FOMO for the amount of games
that have come out in the last month. And I was
in that mindset of, I need to finish this rather
than I really want to finish this. And nothing
against the game at all, because I stand by it
when I say it's a really decent game. It's a
really good dying light. But I was just fucking
over it. Sick of it. I weren't touching the side
missions. I weren't exploring. I'd already done
loads prior. But I just knew, as you know, and
as most of the people that listen to this pod
regularly know, I'm a sucker for putting a game
down and not picking it up again. so I was like
if I put this game down I'm not picking it up
again so I was like finish it it's not that long
of a game it's like 30 hours if that so I finished
the fucking thing and I did yesterday and it's
finally finished and it was a good ending I enjoyed
it hard ending as well because I died about four
times which I rarely died during the game but
I'll give it I'll give it a 8 out of 10. I've
never heard someone hate a game so much and still
give it a good review. It's fantastic. It's me.
I'm the problem. I'm the problem. Not Dying Light.
I find it weird that you've got the day and night
cycle and you can completely avoid the night
cycle. There's quite literally, other than side
missions, no need to touch it. Of which I didn't
because it's absolutely fucking terrifying. Those
volatiles just like to bang you. and it's pitch
black. Your flashlight does fucking nothing.
I might as well have a glow worm in a jar. And
so, yeah, so I just avoided it. And there's camps
everywhere, so it's very easy when your watch
starts buzzing to say it's changing into nighttime.
You can just go and have a sleep until the next
morning and then crack on. But, yeah, it's a
good game. I've definitely missed out on a load
of content that's within the game. But I don't
give a fuck. I don't care. I've paid my money.
I've got my hours worth. I've deleted it. Done.
Like I said, if you're interested in it, get
it. It's good. But if you don't get it, I also
don't care. It's a fair review. Yeah, there you
go. That's a bog standard fucking back of a crisp
packet review. There you go. Do you like them
apples? Well, I've been playing. What do you
think I've been playing? You will never guess
it. Well, I won't guess it. No, no one would.
Because it's not Football Manager. It's not Artgraders.
No. It's not Battlefield. I have played Battlefield.
Yeah. I've played four games this week, mostly,
and Battlefield. Go on. One's called Necess.
I don't know. I don't know, man. One's called
Ball X Pit. Right. One's called Mega Bonk. Are
these on your phone? Nah, Steam. And then The
Binding of Isaac. The Binding of Isaac? Again,
yeah. Again. I love that game. Why? Sick, innit?
What's Mega Bonk? What the fuck? Why? I don't
really know, bro. Why are you playing these games?
Have you paid for these? Yeah. Well, they're
only like eight quid and that, aren't they? Let
me open up Steve then. Let's have a look. What
one do you want to look at first? Megabonk? I'll
have a look at Megabonk. Have a look at Megabonk.
What the fuck? Megabonk. All the games that are
out at the moment. And you're playing Megabonk.
Megabonk is sick. I don't care what anyone says.
I'll wait for it to load up then to explain what
the fuck Megabonk is. Yeah. In case anyone's
unsure. Have you bought Ark Raiders yet? Nah.
I didn't even know it was out. Yeah. When's it
come out? I haven't got time to play Ark Raiders.
There's too much shit out. Yeah, they need to
fucking... What is this? I'm watching the trailer.
No sound. What is this? This looks fucking sick.
It's mega bonk, man. It's mega bonk. Was it a
knight skating around? Now it's an orc. Or is
it kind of like Vampire Survivors? Yeah, it's
like Vampire Survivors. But better. There's a
skeleton on a skateboard. Yeah, you can skate.
What's going on? It's like Risk of Rain meets
Vampire Survivors. It looks decent, you know.
It's fucking sick, bruv. It's so good. That looks
decent. It's so much fun. I'm currently using
a monkey that can climb walls and that. It's
so good. It came out 18th September 2025. Smash
your way through endless waves of enemies and
grow absurdly powerful. Grab loot, level up,
unlock characters and upgrade to create unique
and crazy builds as you fend off hordes of creatures.
This geezer reviewed it at 13 .6 hours of review
time. The kind of game you can use to actively
avoid engaging in critical real life responsibilities.
And now he's played 245 hours. Oh, decent. So
in 26 days, he's played 232 hours. It's a good
game, man. It's like the Steam Deck's ultimate
game. You know what I mean? So I'm on 176 hours
on record. Don't buy this game if you have addiction
issues. I cannot stop. My life is bonking. When
I close my eyes, I see goblins swarm. I dream
of sucky magnets and daggers that belong to some
guy named Joe. Yeah, Joe. Joe sells some shady
shit. After getting every achievement, I can
say 100 % this game is worth the $10. It's addicting,
challenging, will make you question your sanity
at times, but also just pure unbridled fun with
references to other great games and media. If
I had to describe it, I would say it's like Rogue
Genesia or Vampire Survivors meets Risk of Rain
2. I'm going to go eat some spaghetti now. I
doubt you've played Risk of Rain. No. The pretense
of Risk of Rain is... I suppose the horde mode
survival part comes from Vampire Survival where
you're collecting gems, levelling up, blah, blah,
blah. But then when you're running around, you're
also collecting coins which you can open chests
that are on the floor with the coins. And then
the whole point of the game is the longer you're
in the map for, the harder it gets. So you need
to find the boss portal, summon the boss, kill
the boss. and then leave to go to the next stage.
But the longer you stay in the stage, fighting
more and more waves of enemies, the harder it
gets, and the more reward you get. It's just
very fun. I've only got to the second level so
far, but I've had a great time. So that's Mega
Bonk. Yep, what's the next one? What else have
we been playing? Oh, Ball X Pit. Ball X Pit.
Ball X Pit is a brick -breaking, ball -fusing,
base -building survival roguelite. Batter hordes
of enemies with ricocheting balls and gather
the riches of the pit to expand your homestead
to generate resources and recruit unique heroes.
And that came out two weeks ago. Yeah. And, yep,
there you go. That's... I don't know how to describe
what I'm seeing. He's doing stuff. Yeah, balls
bouncing off shit. There's balls. Do you know,
it looks like one of them fucking mobile games
that don't exist. It does exist and it's fantastic.
42 hours. After 36 hours in the demo, getting
the first three characters through fast plus
nine, I had to take a break. I was having bad
dreams about getting single fusions three times
in a row every time. That's the worst. Because
it kept happening in real life. Every time I
did it, I cursed the game's creators. I must
have said, fuck you, Kenny's son, no less than
50 times in the span of a month. And then it
launched. And all is forgiven. You'll see what
I mean when you play on far enough. Not going
to spoil anything, but you're in for one hell
of a show. There's nothing like ball X pit around.
Not even close. This is the genuine one -of -a
-kind sort of game that blows everyone's expectations.
Genuinely, it does. And it seems so simple. You're
just hitting balls. But there's so much more
than that. And I don't know how to tell you.
It's just more. Yeah, no, well, I mean, the whole
point of doing this podcast is not for information.
Oh, no, it is. I'm being pedantic. Let me explain.
There you go. That's what it is. Ball X pit.
So you start, you get a ball, you ping it. Anyway,
you get multiple balls and you ping them. And
then every time, much like Vampire Survivors,
you level up after collecting little gems. and
you level up and you get to collect new balls,
and they do different things like freeze lasers
when you hit, set them on fire, freeze them,
I've already said that, earthquake, does AOE,
all sorts of different balls. And then when you
get the balls, you level the balls up. Every
time you level up, you choose what ball you want
to level up, and then you get the little fusion
things drop, and then you can fuse the balls
together, and then they have unique properties
when they're put together, so they turn. You
can get a ball called a spider brood, and then
every time a ball hits... a brick it bounces
into hundreds more balls and then you can fuse
that with something else and then it becomes
like there was a game like that on my mobile
phone i'm sure there was like 20 years ago yeah
uh and then that fuses in something else and
it has more unique properties and then you can
fuse two other balls together and get a unique
property and then fuse the already fused ones
together to get a it's just mental and it gets
crazy and it's hard and it's great and then there's
base building at the end of all that where you
have to like click resources and stuff It's just
a great game. And like I say, both of these games
have fantastic reviews. Very good reviews. Because
I only buy the best. Yes. That's what I do. Yeah.
Next one. NECES. N -E -C -E -S -S -E, I believe.
N -E -C -E... NECES. Build, quest, and conquer...
These all look the fucking same. Build, quest,
and conquer across an infinite procedurally generated
world. Play alone or with friends as you establish
a settlement and explore deep dungeons, fight
monsters and bosses, mine rare ores, craft magical
equipment, recruit specialists for your colony,
and more. Came out two weeks ago. Came out a
day after Ball X Pit. Sick game, man. I don't
really know what I'm doing. You're building,
you're going in caves, you're smashing shit up,
you're collecting stuff, you're building, you're
collecting shit. It's fucking... It's one of
them games that's far too intricate for me. Yeah.
That I just like fucking about. Do you know what
I mean? Let's have a look at some. It's got a
bit of like, I suppose, what's that game Steph
likes playing? The Animal one. Animal Crossing,
is it? Animal Crossing, yeah. It's got a bit
of that about it. It's got a bit of Terraria
about it. It's got a bit of Minecraft about it.
It's got a bit of Stardew Valley about it. Probably
got some of that Dream light. disney valley whatever
it's called about it it's all that sort of combined
into one but with a bit more wizards and magic
and goblins and orcs and all that sort of stuff
which i like so much because as you can see i'm
back on my fantasy ting yep um so yeah that's
that's they're the games and and i'm not gonna
lie i have had a fantastic time because i've
been playing my steam deck and then when i've
when the kids have gone to bed i've been going
right let's whack that on the old fucking dock
and get it on the big screen and use my ps5 control
which is even more It says, I assumed this would
be just a run -of -the -mill survival craft game.
Oh my God, I'm going to have to... Will you shut
up, Barkin! It didn't work. I assume this would
be a run -of -the -mill survival craft game,
but I was wrong. This is more like a blend of
Stardew Valley, Core Keeper, and RimWorld. After
playing for an hour, I discovered I can assign
a settler... as a sort of chest mule and have
them sort through the mountains of junk I haul
back from my spelunking adventures. That's it,
gentlemen. The genre has peaked here. Going forward,
any survival crafting game I play that doesn't
have a chest mule system is going to feel like
I'm playing a degenerate Stone Age game for prehistoric
boomers. I henceforth refuse to manually sort
through any of my own adventuring crap in any
future game I play. This game is really good.
Don't think about it. Just buy it. That sounds
like a good review to me. Seems like three solid
hitters that you've managed to found for the
sum of less than 30 quid. Yeah, oh, a lot less,
yeah. I've had a fantastic time. I really have
had a great little time. And then to top it all
off, obviously, Battlefield VR dropped. Yeah,
I haven't played that. Got my old buddy back.
Got my old Clarky baby back. Clarky's back. We've
been banging it out. The Geezer ain't been on
PlayStation in about six months. He says, well,
he's grown up now. Do you know what I mean? He's
in an office. He's busy. He's going, I ain't
got time for the gaming shit. And I was like,
that's fine, mate. But just know that I hate
you. And the reason I hate you is this is the
first Battle Royale that's ever came out where
I haven't played with you on the first night.
Just them words just broke him. And then he downloaded
it and we played it. And now... Now he's buying
Battlefield today because he can't stop thinking
about unlocking weapons and playing it. No, you
can play it for free, can't you? Yeah, the BR's
free. And yeah, he can't get enough of it. He
asked his assistant yesterday to find some weapons
for him, like a specific term in Battlefield
BR, like a conversion kit or something. And she
was like, oh, is it on the files? And he was
like, yeah. Had his assistant looking through
her computer files for a Battlefield thing, just
for a laugh. Decent. Sent me a picture. Today
of his computer screen. Saying my screen's just
showing no guns or fields of battle and this
is making me sad. When the test goes and they
didn't have Battlefield either. Also sad. So
he is well and truly hooked. And I can see why.
Because it's pretty fantastic. Now it's came
out to some sceptical reviews. Some people...
It's very Marmite. I think people either really
loving it or they're really hating it. I am...
much more in the love in it camp i wouldn't say
it's like perfect i think as battle royales goes
it's unique enough you know i mean you can blow
buildings up like the destruction in the br is
much more than the multiplayer like you can literally
stand on a roof blow a hole in the ceiling and
pepper people below you do you know what i mean
uh you can get the tanks but they can be easily
dealt with not that we've been able to easily
deal with them But you can, if you run up alongside
one, gives you an option to like firm it just
by pressing a button and then the people inside
either have the option to cook alive or jump
out the tank. And to get them, you have to do
a mission. Every now and then, a mission. screen
will pop up and you get to choose a mission if
you want to do it and it gives you certain rewards
one being a tank one being like a helicopter
all that sort of jazz and i always thought helicopters
and tanks from battlefields perspective would
be too overpowered in the br but they're really
not they're scary when you see them but also
that you can deal with them right um i play the
engineer how that works i can only talk on the
engineer because he's the only one i've played
you have your perks along the side like you're
doing the multiplayer as you just do things by
surviving another 10 people or open chests or
do missions kills whatever your experience will
rise and then you'll unlock a level of your perks
and then so on so forth you get all of them the
first perk that i unlock is my rpg that i start
with then just automatically gets fitted with
a um an auto locking scope on it so then i can
just lock on stuff and then i think one of the
top perks you unlock is every time i damage a
vehicle It immobilizes it for eight seconds or
something, which is a long time. But they've
all got their own sort of different perks and
play styles and stuff. But yeah, it really is
unique enough to be different from the rest.
And it's enjoyable. It's exciting. And when it
wants to be, it's very, very, very cinematic.
Like where you're like, wow, this looks like
out of Die Hard or something. The ring is...
very intimidating and I love it it's instant
death it's a ring of fire and flames and when
you're like back up against it in a building
that's all you can hear just flames it's thrilling
you get a little marker up and the closer when
it starts getting closer it starts burning you
and then obviously if it actually touches you
you will die but yeah doing doing pretty well
on there and having a and i'm having a good old
time leveling guns up and stuff much like in
call of duty but doing it like naturally just
by playing and enjoying it um so you can find
like it's not like chests like warzone you'll
open it you'll find a ar and then you can find
an ar I don't know what they're called, like
an AR upgrade kit, say, for example, and there'll
be one for SMGs, shotguns, sniper rifles. So
if you've got a green AR, you can use that upgrade
kit, and then it'll give you an option. Do you
want to increase the accuracy or increase the
damage, the magazine size? But when you do one
of them, it'll give you, like, a better scope
if you go for accuracy, like a grip. Change the
rarity from green to blue, and it'll just keep
going up and up. So you do that. Also, you get
your custom weapons drop, like a loadout. But
they just drop out of the sky. So any weapons
that you've favourited in your loadout system
thing will be in there and you can go and collect
one. And yeah, it's just a good old time. We
came second, I think, a couple of times, or third.
We've come very close to winning. But it's just
a jolly old good bit of fun, you know. It's good.
It's Battlefield, man. Battlefield. I mean, it's
got a good chance. It's unfortunate it's come
out so close to Ark Raiders and probably unfortunate
for Ark Raiders it's come out so close to Battlefield
BR, but I don't know where the two markets will
sit. In regards to that, I'm sure they'll split.
But yeah, BR's enjoyable, man. Very, very enjoyable.
I look forward to playing more of it. I won't
touch it. That's fine. But I'm glad you enjoy
it. It's just not my cup of tea. I'm not interested
in the Battle Royale. What I am interested in
is seeing all the COD streamers cry about it.
I take great pleasure in watching those types
of videos. Other than that, I haven't actually
played Battlefield since the last pod that we
did, so since last week. It's been busy. And
also Dying Light and shit like that. But I would
imagine... I would imagine this will find its
own niche of player base. Not niche, but its
own sector. How impactful that will be for when
Black Ops comes out? Because Black Ops isn't
releasing with a BR or anything like that, is
it? Well, it'll be integrated into Warzone, so
it will be the same thing. Yeah, so... Yeah,
it's difficult, isn't it? Because the tear between
Battlefield players and Call of Duty players
has always been quite... quite a defining line
and it happens every single time a Battlefield
comes out you go all the Cobb players will come
over and play Battlefield and then vice versa
so I would imagine most not most of the people
but a lot of the player base for Battlefield
at the moment are mainly Cobb players and will
soon flutter off over to Call of Duty well fuck
off then just fuck off With your shitty cartoony
Fortnite -looking gameplay. Just fuck off. The
best thing they can do is not listen to all the
Call of Duty streamers and all that jazz because
they're complaining about things like the time
it takes to put plates in and stuff like that
because it's not like zip, zip, zip. It's like
zip, zip, zip. Yeah, because they're used to
fucking arcade -y speed, fucking jumping around.
What makes it feel more like Apex, where you
damage someone, they can't just duck around a
corner and come out full health again. You've
whittled them down, you know what I mean? You
have to keep the pressure on them. But the time
to kill, the TTK is fantastic as well. It was
like Call of Duty is way too fast. Always has
been. It's like dead, isn't it? Where you can
get shot in Battlefield and escape. You know,
it's not an instant death. The sniper rifle's
very, very hard to hit. So if you see a sniper
glint from, you know, 300 metres away, you're
not just going to die like you're doing Call
of Duty unless they're fucking sick. And, yeah,
the time to kill is, it feels good because you
obviously crack their plates and then keep finishing
them until they're down. But it's not punishing.
Like, it's good for the average player. It just
feels better. Do you know what I mean? It's,
I was seeing all these people running and jumping
and all that shit. And they, this is the cop
players and they stand out. I saw fun, but the
arm that are the, um, the camos that you're wearing,
they're just so good. Like I, sometimes I struggle
to see Clarkie and he's got a name above his
head. You know what I mean? And he's just laying
down. I'm like, I would never see you there.
Um, so yeah. camping or tactically waiting I
see they also toned down some of their skins
that are coming out like the one that's got all
the green green stripes going down it they released
a photo of it and it was quite bright and I think
a load of people looked at it and went what the
fuck is that what are you doing and then they've
toned it down which I think to be fair is good
in a game like Battlefield no cunts running around
the battlefield with bright luminous green strips
all over their body no one's doing that no so
why are we throwing that into battlefield it's
not a thing that should be done money have some
green on there but fucking hell we don't need
to we don't need to touch any of that shit um
so yeah hopefully hopefully they don't start
pandering to cod streamers and just go you want
these changes fuck off Go away. Take your meta
build and fuck off. Absolutely. You're sausage.
I... New World's a bit mad, though. New World's
gone. Straight gone. New World's gone. The Lord
of the Rings MMO that Amazon was making has been
binned off in favour of... Courthouse. A Snoop
Dogg AI game. Yeah. Possibly one of the worst
games I have ever seen in my life. And I'm talking,
you remember that King Kong game that came out
where there was an actual fucking JPEG in the
middle of one of the cutscenes? I'm talking it's
worse than that. It's fucking horrendous. Horrendous.
There's 14 ,000 people. 14 ,000 employees are
losing their job. They're not just specifically
from the gaming section of Amazon. It's a corporate
-wide thing. However, as far as I'm aware from
what I've been reading, Amazon's stance is that
they want to move to the more casual games and
AI -focused gaming, which is fantastically shit.
Awfully shit. But what's even more mad is that
they had a massive content release for New World.
That was free, which put it in the top 10 Steam
charts for a while, give it a nice chunky resurgence,
and then they've binned it off. No, not just
that. They also let everyone buy the season pass.
Yeah, and then they're not refunding. No. They're
refusing to refund. So as far as I'm aware, even
now, you can still buy the game. Yep, you can.
And the store in the game is still open, and
you can still buy currency. but you can't refund
anything. Of course not. Which is just amazing.
It's very consumer -friendly, I thought. But
they're going to keep the servers, so it's going
into maintenance mode. The servers will be active
all throughout 2026, but they've said that there
will be no further content update, including
seasonal updates. So things like Christmas events
and shit like that won't be happening, as far
as I'm aware. And yeah, and then they haven't
said that they're going to sunset the servers.
If you're banging them into maintenance mode,
everyone's going to fuck off. You're going to
sunset it anyway. It's done. It's done. If you're
saying you're not going to release any content,
there's a petition going out trying to get them
to continue making. Sell it, man. Sell it. If
you don't want it, they're going to ask silly
money for it. 200 million, maybe more. Who knows?
Sell it cheap. If you don't fucking want it...
if someone's willing to give you five million
for it fucking take it because it's five million
you're not going to have and it's off your fucking
head then and take it and let someone else have
a crack at the whip because it's got a massive
following a lot of people love that game there's
a complete and utter outrage and uproar about
it So there is demand for it, but obviously they
don't see the financial benefit of it, but another
team might. So this week, Amazon confirmed it
was walking away from making new content for
its MMO New World amid huge layoffs affecting
14 ,000 roles at the company, according to a
report by Bloomberg. These layoffs included significant
cuts to Amazon's video game operation, which
will reduce development work and layoff staff
mainly in its Irvine and San Diego offices. Bloomberg
said Amazon was cutting back, especially in MMOs.
That sparked concern for Lord of the Rings MMO.
This morning I was part of the layoffs at Amazon
Games alongside my incredibly talented peers
on New World and our fledgling Lord of the Rings
game. and in brackets it said you would have
loved it the developer said in a now deleted
post on LinkedIn it's always tough to see such
a strong team go through something like this
I've been lucky to work with some of the most
skilled creative and kind developers I've ever
met although Lord of the Rings was announced
in 2023 in August last year Amazon Games boss
Christoph Hartmann told IGN it was still in still
early days we're still trying to find the hook
bloody bloody blah In 2013, Embracer said it
needed to be exploiting Lord of the Rings in
very significant fashion by turning it into one
of the biggest gaming franchises in the world.
Just reading that. Exploiting Lord of the Rings
in a very significant fashion. No, so what you're
saying there is that you want to try and get
as much profit out of Lord of the Rings as possible.
Exploiting. I want to exploit this game. I want
to exploit this genre. Is that dead? Sorry? Is
the Lord of the Rings MMO dead? Yeah. Yeah, it's
done. It's dead. What a waste. It's the same
as Disney having Star Wars IP. It says, this
isn't the first time, sorry, Amazon has cancelled
the Lord of the Rings MMO. In 2021, it halted
a Lord of the Rings MMORPG that was first announced
in 2019 amid a contract dispute with Tencent.
But yeah, it's... Yeah, it's dead. It's dead
in the water, unfortunately. More waste. They
made that TV show which people don't like. I
enjoyed it for what it was. But massive Lord
of the Rings fans are not so keen on it. And
now they've cancelled the MMO. It's one of the
biggest IPs along with Star Wars and they're
just getting butchered. What is going on? I just
don't understand why... How have you not had
a really good Lord of the Rings game? Modern
Lord of the Rings game. What is going on with
that? Where is it, man? Well, it's the same as
the fucking Star Wars problem. It's just not
something that people want to tap into. I don't
know why. I really don't know why. I think they're
scared, man. They're scared. It's too big for
them. The Lord of the Rings MMO is still active.
There is Lord of the Rings online. But it's not
the new one that they were creating. No, no,
no. That has an active player base. i think it
still gets updates now um but yeah they haven't
there is i don't i don't know man i don't know
i don't know why you would cancel new world like
you say fucking sell it off let someone else
deal with it rather than just canceling the thing
cancel it yourself but sell the fucking thing
off to someone else there will be someone else
that will want to buy that there will be someone
else who can pick that up there'll be streamers
that can afford to pay for that so fucking give
it over to them give it to someone else let them
deal with this shit at least you get some form
of money back rather than just rather than just
sunsetting it like I don't no one's going to
spend no money on it now you've said that so
you're not going to receive any more finances
so sell it receive no further content updates
and could be gone completely by the end of 2026
It says, after four years of steady content updates
and a major new console release, that's the point.
It just came to fucking console as well. Go back
100 episodes or so ago, you'll see the exact
conversation when I had the dilemma at the old
place we did the pod, saying, I want to play
New World, I want to play World of Warcraft,
and I want to play whatever the other new one
was. There was loads of MMOs, and I wanted to
pick one. I couldn't pick one, and I wanted one
that would survive. New World, in that short
space of time, is dead. I spent the big bucks
deluxe version I bought the game as well. Not
silly money, but stupid enough. And it's dead.
Don't get me wrong, I haven't played it for a
long time, but... The fact that it's dead already
is disgusting. It's mad. And when you've got
World of Warcraft still piling on years later.
We've reached a point where it is no longer sustainable
to continue supporting the game with content
updates. The recently launched Season 10 and
Nighthaven update will serve as the final content
release for New World on PC and consoles. It
is only after much consideration that we've reached
this decision. To thank you, the New World community,
for your support over the years, we've made the
Nighthaven release available to you for free.
To ensure all New World players can experience
this content, we also made Rise of the Angry
Earth free for all PC players. Well, thanks.
Thank you that you've made the game that you're
getting rid of free. This comes as a genuine
surprise to me, a shock really. New World wasn't
a huge hit by any means, but seemed a reasonably
successful mid -tier MMO, which quite frankly
is about as good as Amazon Games has managed
its concurrent player count. Ebden flowed, but
peaks of 50 ,000 and 60 ,000 players suggest
to me that the players are there. The failure
is in keeping them engaged. New World Alternum
will remain available for purchase, and you'll
still be able to buy in -game currency as usual,
although I'm not sure why you'd want to, because
let's be honest here, the countdown clock is
ticking. New World isn't being taken offline
right away, and Amazon said it will continue
to keep the game running smoothly with bug fixes
and server merges as necessary. World bosses,
bonus weeks. And some seasonal events will also
continue, so New World will keep ticking along
without any major hitches, at least until it
becomes obvious that nothing new has happened
in the past six months or so. Yeah. Yeah. That's
just mad. I just find it... But then... Let me
find some shit on this fucking WAF AI. Amazon
courthouse. What was it called? I don't know.
Just like Snoop Dogg AI video game or something.
That'll come up, won't it? What's happening,
motherfuckers? Oh, courtroom chaos. Yeah, fucking...
Courtroom chaos. That's fucking... Courtroom
Chaos starring Snoop Dogg. Obviously all the
first articles are good articles. There's nothing...
Amazon breaks glass marked AI powered Snoop Dogg
game where he's a judge to get you to pay attention
to its wilting lunar streaming service. A cursory
search tells me that the last time Amazon's lunar
cloud gaming service... The greatest pages of
the website was in February, blah, blah, blah.
Next time you fire up Luna, old Bezos will present
you with Game Night, the service's new hub, which
will present you with a glittering array of casual
games that everyone from you to your Meemaw,
Meemaw, can fire up and join in with just by
scanning a QR code with your phone. And yes,
foremost among these new casual games is Courtroom
Chaos, starring Snoop Dogg, which Amazon calls
a human -built, AI -powered improv courtroom
game where players invent outrageous characters,
spin wild stories, and do whatever it takes to
defend their testimonies before Judge Snoop Dogg.
I simultaneously want to hear much more about
it and much less. Fantastic. It's fucking awful.
It's awful. There's a trailer for it. It's basically...
It's Snoop Dogg sat in a courtroom, obviously
like a cartoon. And then as far as I'm aware,
you speak into your phone and set the basis for
the case. And you're meant to play it with friends
in a group setting where half of you are the
defense and then half of you are the fucking
whatever the other version is of the defense.
I can't remember what they're called. The prosecutors.
The prosecutors. And then you come up with this
wild story and then Snoop Dogg, powered by AI,
responds to what you're saying and asks you questions
and shit like that. I mean, yeah, but the concept
of that is pretty cool, pretty funny. But not
to cancel Lord of the Rings and New World. If
you want to do that on the side as a little bit
of fun, it might be a cool little game. But to
cancel and all them people lose their jobs, if
you're putting all your eggs in this basket,
seems like a very strange manoeuvre. A fucking...
It's so dumb. It's very dumb. So it seems. But
then why does this sort of stuff keep happening?
Why does it feel? It's very much like football,
right? It feels like everybody that isn't paid
to do the job of the managers or everyone that
is not a game developer or makes the commercial
decisions on video games, everybody knows better
or sees. the bigger picture that they can't see?
Are they too entwined in what they're doing to
not notice obvious things? There you go. Amazon
is focusing its gaming efforts on AI and casual
games for its Lunar Cloud streaming service,
including the Courtroom Chaos starring Snoop
Dogg game. Just the fact that it says starring
Snoop Dogg at the end. End of the title pisses
me off. This shift involves halting significant
AAA game development to invest in AI technologies
and casual party style games aiming to make Luna
a more accessible and profitable platform. You
dumb cunts. You fucking dumb, dumb cunts. It's
so boring. There'll be a small minority of people
that that's really fun for. Like with the Nintendo
Switch and you can do the party thing. It's fun.
It's good. You ain't cracking it out on a daily.
You ain't fucking doing that. You ain't partying
every day. You ain't cracking that out at a party
every single time you go. It's fun, but it's
not fucking game changer. So why with the money
that Amazon has at its disposal would you...
It's so boring. It's so lazy. If you're going
to cancel New World, focus all your endeavours
on Lord of the Rings MMO. Make that the best
MMO. Yeah, yeah. Why cancel that and run with
this? Because they obviously... Amazon doesn't
know anything about gaming. Yeah, but they must
employ people that do know. Exactly. So what
are they doing? They must employ people that
do know, but think of Amazon as an actual being.
I don't think that company knows anything about
gaming. So has obviously seen MMOs and MMORPGs
as something that they can break into and make
a shitload of money out of. Found out it's very
difficult to actually do that because there's
some absolute powerhouses that you're trying
to take away from. failed at it, and is now going
for the... The fact that it's going to AI games
as well, you ain't even fucking making them.
You ain't even making them. You're putting the
building blocks in, and then you're getting a
computer to go, finish that. Finish that and
crack on with it. What a fucking... I mean, for
the party side of it, I agree. As the game as
a whole, that seems quite cool. For the cost
of what you've made. What you've sacrificed to
make. It's not worth it. No. But everyone's always
wanted that. I want a game that fucking talks
back to me and blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah,
that's great. And I'm sure you can get some funny
stories out of it. But fuck me. What a fool.
You're going from AAA games or trying to create
AAA games to party -based, casual, fun AI games.
It's just not going to take off. No. It's just
not going to work. They've nailed their own coffin
in the gaming industry, I believe. They're not
going to come back from that, are they? Unless
something crazy happens. They're putting all
their eggs on their Luna basket, which, fair
enough, I ain't got anything against Luna. It's
getting better and better by the week. But if
you want to break into that world, stay breaking
into that world. Don't try and fucking... Involve
yourself in MMOs. Especially when you've gone
through the efforts of making one. Because I
know New World when it was released was a hot
mess. But they slowly over time have sorted that.
I just feel like it's one of those where allow
it to have its resurgence properly. You've just
released it on console. You've just released
a massive update for it that was received very
well. Let people crack on with it. Or like you
said, fucking sell it to someone else. Get rid
of it. Give it to someone else. It's a sad, sad
day for gaming. Why would you get... It's just
such a Bezos thing to do. Shall we buy it? It's
such a stupid billionaire thing to do. Let's
get AI to do everything. Oh, you're so fucking
stupid. You're such a dumb cunt. We'll start
the bidding at £50. You're closing it down. Just
give it to someone. Give it to something. Give
it to Blizzard. Give it to fucking whoever. On
the plus side, silver lining to everything that's
going on, it was announced that with the latest
Xbox that comes out, the next generation of Xbox,
you will be able to play World of Warcraft on
it, which is quite interesting. It shouldn't
have a next generation. It feels like this has
just come out. That's in like 2027 is what they're
saying. But that's because apparently the next
Xbox is going to be a PC rather than an actual
fucking console. So it will be able to, much
like a Steam Deck, be able to be on a windowed
mode and use the Battle .net launcher. And it
was named specifically that it will be able to
launch World of Warcraft, which you could then
format to a controller, blah, blah, blah. So
it's not the thing that everyone thought it was
going to be, but it's heading in that sort of
direction. But I'm just fucking miffed by it.
It was that game. Courtroom Chaos starring Snoop
Dogg. That's so shit. That is... That's so wank.
Sums it up, man. sums amazon up as a game studios
unfortunately amazon has relaunched its lunar
cloud gaming service with a new structure that
emphasizes casual and party games accessible
directly through the cloud without downloads
so i like lunar for that aspect i think as a
whole lunar for party based games that's fabulous
that makes perfect sense you're not playing competitive
online games with amazon lunar effectively or
big triple a games so for those littler games
and for stuff like that it sounds great get on
the fucking fire stick you know i mean like that's
perfect you ain't gonna download anything just
straight stream it decent keep it there because
outside of that is shit a new feature called
game night includes a selection of party games
which can be played on mobile phones without
a separate app um a key feature is courtroom
chaos blah blah blah shut the fuck up The move
is part of a broader strategy to pivot away from
expensive large AAA games and instead focus on
the lunar subscription service and AI -driven
games. Broader implications. Amazon has made
the difficult decision to halt a significant
amount of its first -party AAA game development,
particularly MMOs, confirmed in an internal memo.
The company may continue to work on existing
AAA game projects, but likely only to fulfill
contractual obligations. Amazon is also leveraging
its Amazon Web Services to provide infrastructure
for AI development, such as with its SageMaker
service for game creation. I mean, it's a decent
money stream and innovation pump into AI, which
is fair enough. But I think, yeah, I'm just butthurt
that the Lord of the Rings MMO is just being
fucking binned off. It's just miserable, isn't
it? It was a miserable turn of events. Fucking
stupid. And then all them developers and everything,
apparently they didn't even know from what I've
been reading. They literally just got an email
saying, yeah, you're done. Bye. Yeah. For fuck's
sake. Cut for them. People out of work probably
relocated their entire families to do these jobs
and just, yeah, cut. Savage. Billionaire bullshit.
Damn straight. Oh well. End that on a somber
note then. Yeah. Oh well. Oh well. We've got
Outer Worlds 2 and Battlefield and Little Nightmares
3 and shit like that. And Ball X Pit. And Ball
X Pit. And Mega Bonk. And Mega Bonk. And Nessess.
And Nessess. See you later everyone. Oostie Roostie.