Last of Us HBO series cast, Call of Duty Zombies, Lady Dimitrescu, Kingdom Hearts' upcoming PC release! - Arcade #14
Welcome back to the stage of history and another episode of the Renegade Arcade! Keona, Tyler, and Brock are back to discuss the Last of Us HBO series casting news, along with some Call of Duty Zombies chatter, Epic Game Store’s upcoming exclusive PC release of the Kingdom Hearts franchise, more Resident Evil Village/Lady Dimitrescu analysis, and some fighting game news to top it all off! We’re a little late with this episode, so please forgive us! Now let’s get the party started!
So, due to the fact that we’re late uploading this episode (we recorded it last week Thursday, prior to Valentine’s Day), we would like to wish all of the people in Texas and across the nation who are dealing with horribly severe weather the best during these difficult times. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers and do whatever you can to help out. Thank you.
Grabbed this pic from Variety.
Alright, being that it’s taken a long time to get this episode out there, I’m going to keep my notes on the actual podcast pretty brief and then quickly discuss some current gaming news in order to get us all caught up. Let us begin with the Last of Us casting news! Major industry outlets were quick to report that Game of Thrones star Bella Ramsey has been cast as Ellie and The Mandalorian himself, Pedro Pascal, will take on the role of Joel in HBO’s adaptation of the hit game franchise. The game’s creative director and lead writer, Neil Druckmann, confirmed the news of Pascal’s casting himself on Twitter, while the Hollywood Reporter was the first to break news of Ramsey’s role in the upcoming show, which is led by Chernobyl executive producer Craig Mazin and the pilot will be directed by Russian filmmaker Kantemir Balagov. This is definitely exciting news, as we may actually see a great video game adaptation grace our screens! I’m very interested to see how it all turns out.
Tyler and I of course chatted more about Firebase Z, the latest Zombie mode map in Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War, which has only been out for around two weeks and is already one of the most fun maps I’ve ever played! I love the intuitive nature of the map, especially in terms of turning on the power and utilizing the rewards terminal to gain quick access to the wonder weapon. And the map is large enough that you have space to thrash the undead hordes while also staying aware of your position and the spawn points around you. I know that’s typical of every Zombies map, really, but Die Maschine was kind of small compared to past maps, and I found Firebase Z to be quite an improvement in most regards, personally speaking.
I like the daughters, too.
Up next, we just can’t go a week without talking about our tall vampire queen, and apparently, neither can Capcom’s Tomonori Takano, Resident Evil Village’s art director. In an interview with IGN, Takano exclaims that he and the company are overwhelmed by the response to the 9’6” goddess-I mean, frightening vampire creature (yeah, that’s totally what I meant), and that the first image of the character he ever drew was of her ducking down to head through a doorway in her mansion, which was, as he says, positively bewitching. We’re big fans of Lady D here at RPC, and we’re definitely looking forward to RE Village’s release, which is fast approaching! Also, God bless Suzi Hunter for getting the ball rolling on this whole tall hot vamp lady thing.
Okay, now we have to talk about Kingdom Hearts and the Epic Games Store. So, Epic has an exclusivity deal in place with the KH series on PC, which means that all of the titles in the franchise will launch on PC through the company’s game launcher. No word yet on whether it’s a timed exclusive or a permanent one, but it looks like if you don’t have the franchise on PlayStation, your only option on PC is Epic. Hopefully, it’s a timed exclusive, much like Axiom Verge 2, so we don’t have to deal with this bullshit forever.
Finally, some fighting game news! As someone who grew up during the heyday of brawlers like Konami’s classic X-Men, Simpsons, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2D beat ‘em ups, and the launch of Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter II, I’m excited to see that King of Fighters XV and Guilty Gear Strive are coming along nicely! Street Fighter V itself is vastly improved over its launch state, and has a few new characters in the pipeline, including Dan and Rose from Street Fighter Alpha! Looking forward to playing as her, in particular. KOF, on the other hand, just released a trailer featuring Kyo and it looks sweet! Meanwhile, Guilty Gear Strive has reached its beta phase and looks incredible! I’ll be buying all of these, for sure.
Now, let’s get caught up on some news which broke since our episode was recorded. First, Nintendo released a 50-minute Nintendo Direct on Feb. 17th, which detailed a bevy of new games like Square Enix’s Project Triangle Strategy, a very cool-looking narrative-driven RTS title which reminded me a lot of Tactics Ogre and Final Fantasy Tactics. Y’know, the great examples of the genre. It’s coming to the Nintendo Switch in 2022. A successor to Octopath Traveler was also announced, but no further details were given.
In addition, a bunch of first-party franchises will see new releases on Switch in the near future, with Mario Golf: Super Rush launching on June 25, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD coming on July 16 (along with a themed Joy-Con release), Splatoon 3 announced for 2022, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate will see two characters from Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Pyra and Mythra) join the roster in March. In addition, we also had news regarding third party releases like Ninja Gaiden: Master Collection (which collects Ninja Gaiden Sigma 1-3), Fall Guys, two Famicom Detective Club games, Samurai Warriors 5, a Legend of Mana HD remaster, a brand new franchise called Neon White, and a new trailer premiere for Monster Hunter Rise! Whew, I think the Switch is doing pretty damn well for itself.
Also, and we’ll talk more about these two items on next week’s show, we had a trailer premiere for the new Mortal Kombat movie, which looks pretty insane and violent and in line with the tone of the games. I’m actually excited to see the film on HBO Max and in theaters on April 16th. We also have the upcoming release of season two of Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War, which sees the release of another Zombie map and game mode, as well as more multiplayer maps, weapons, and more stuff for War Zone. The free content update drops on Feb. 25th, so it’s been a quick turnaround for us Zombie mode players. I’m definitely going to check out Outbreak, as it seems very fast-paced and challenging. Should be fun!
Alright, everyone, that’ll do it for this installment of Arcade. Take care to all of our friends and listeners in Texas, and I hope things get better soon! We love you, be safe, and see you next time, Renegades!
-Neoplasmic
Welcome back to the stage of history and another episode of the Renegade Arcade! Keona, Tyler, and Brock are back to discuss the Last of Us HBO series casting news, along with some Call of Duty Zombies chatter, Epic Game Store’s upcoming exclusive PC release of the Kingdom Hearts franchise, more Resident Evil Village/Lady Dimitrescu analysis, and some fighting game news to top it all off! We’re a little late with this episode, so please forgive us! Now let’s get the party started!