Summer Game Fest and Microsoft-Bethesda Recap! - Arcade #26
Tonight, on a non-Doritos-sponsored episode of the Renegade Arcade! Neoplasmic, Organoid Zero, The Director, and returning special guest Millennial Mike from The Exiles Network talk about all the games shown off at Keigh-3, aka Summer Game Fest! We also check in with Phil Spencer and the developers at Microsoft and Bethesda and discuss all of the games from their showcase! Join us, won’t you?
Hey, everyone! Neoplasmic here, hosting the Arcade festivities as usual. Hope you all are doing well and surviving, such as it is. Given the events of the past couple of weeks, I’m amazed things are still standing, but that’s a whole ‘nother story. Remember to support the women in your lives. These are frightening times.
Anyway, on to the games! I don’t want to belabor the point, since I already wrote a short piece about it, but Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is definitely a big topic in this podcast! We talk about it at the end of the podcast, so skip on to around 2:27:30 for that. Also, my fellow Aerith fans, please don’t be angry with me about my dreading her fate in Rebirth! I totally love her and want her to survive, but I just… have my doubts. Still gonna be a great experience, though, and I’m still clinging to the hope that we will be able to save her. I hope so. Don’t let me down, Square Enix!
On the SGF side of things, the Dorito Pope Emeritus himself, Geoff Keighley, presented a showcase with many intriguing titles, including the reveal trailer for Guile in Street Fighter VI, a game I’m thoroughly looking forward to, as well as long gameplay reveals for both The Callisto Protocol, a very gory and scary-looking sci-fi/space horror thriller, and of course, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, the continuation of the 2019 Modern Warfare reboot, now featuring more wavy water physics! Oh, and there’s lots of shooting and military jargon, too. Totally going dark after we’re Oscar Mike, am I right? Seriously, though, it’s more CoD, and if you know it, you know if you’ll like it. Personally, I’m interested in the campaign, but I’ll probably wait for a sale.
Apart from those, the other big announcement was the remake of The Last of Us Part One, which was leaked prior to the event airing, but Neil Druckmann, Ashley Johnson, and Troy Baker all showed up and chatted about how happy they are to receive more royalty checks from yet another remake of TLoU. I’m kidding! The game looks really good, and I’m glad they’re updating the combat system to mirror Part Two’s more intense mechanics. I’m also interested in seeing what becomes of the multiplayer Last of Us universe title, as well as who exactly Troy and Ashley will be portraying in the upcoming HBO TV series! Hopefully that show won’t be as disappointing as the Halo show was.
Now, let’s briefly highlight a couple of games shown off at the Microsoft/Bethesda event. First up was Redfall, the co-op focused looter-shooter where four players team up to face vampires who have apparently taken over a city. There’s more than a passing familiarity to Left 4 Dead on display here, and the gameplay had a peculiar jankiness to it, but I think it could be a fun diversion, especially on Game Pass. Let’s hope that this version of vampire slaying has more in common with L4D and not, say, Back 4 Blood, because that wouldn’t be nearly as good. Also, the gas prices in Redfall are shockingly reasonable! Hmm… do I want to live in a place where gas costs $8/gallon, or in a vampire apocalypse town? Probably the latter, I think. Just bring Buffy along.
Finally, let’s discuss the big Kahuna, Bethesda’s long-awaited FPS/exploration/space/survival sim, Starfield. We talk about it in the early part of the podcast, at around 0:09:30, and sadly, we mostly felt that the game seemed overly hyped. We’ve all seen the “No Man’s Skyrim” memes and comparisons, but I feel like there is potential here, too. Galactic exploration is always a great concept to build an experience around, and if Bethesda can pull off an interesting visual aesthetic for the various worlds, we could be in for something special. Also, I really love the character customization, including the different personality traits we can choose. Starships also look varied and can be customized to players’ liking, which should lead to a lot of cool-looking designs! Oh, and space combat! Man, if that wasn’t a thumb in the face of Destiny! If there’s one thing I wish we had more of in the modern console and PC landscape, it’s Descent-esque space combat! So I’m looking forward to that aspect of the game, as well.
However, there are some valid things to be concerned about when it comes to Bethesda’s magnum opus. While Todd Howard promised us that 1,000 planets would be featured in the final game, I don’t think that’s plausible, and I doubt that all of them will be hand-crafted ecosystems with a ton of variety. It’s far more likely that there will be about ten fully developed planets while the rest will be procedurally generated. In addition, the gunplay and combat they showed seemed woefully undercooked and wonky. Sure, most people don’t love Bethesda games for their superior shooting mechanics, but I’d still like to see more polish on that area of the title. Lastly, the framerate during their showcase video was barely stable throughout. I know it’s still an early build, but I hope that gets ironed out prior to release. Overall, while I’m excited to see Starfield featured at the event, I don’t know if it’s a game that I’m personally excited for. The pieces are there, to be sure, but it does look rough.
Well, friends, that’ll do it for another episode of the Podcast for the Players! Oh, and don’t worry, we talk about a lot of the smaller, indie games during the show, too, such as Hollow Knight: Silksong, Palworld (which got a lot of love from us), Resident Evil Village’s Shadows of Rose DLC, and much more! I hope you all enjoyed the episode, and be sure to let us know what you think in the comments below! Like, share, and follow us on Twitter and our new Youtube channel! Take care, and stay safe!
Reproductive rights are human rights!
Welcome to our Summer Games Fest 2023 wrap up special! Neoplasmic and Organoid Zero (Keona and Brock, respectively) break down their favorite game announcements and reminisce about the incredible titles shown off at “Keigh-3,” both of the triple-A and indie varieties! Enjoy the show! (Note: This audio is taken from a Twitch stream, so you may hear us interact with people in text chat as well.)