This week marks the beginning of the Lotus era at The VGBees Podcast. She joins John and Niki as the third permanent cohost of the show and immediately brings insight to the program like...what if Nintendo likes making money?

But also!

• the dense delight of Digimon Story: Time Stranger
• the apparent end of Hyper Light Breaker's development
• the rumor that AMD needed a 10,000,000 unit commitment for Xbox's dedicated handheld
• Nintendo's slide into Disneyfication
• Ubisoft's canceled Reconstruction Era, anti-Klan Assassin's Creed
• why is former Halo art director vagueposting on LinkedIn?
• Megabonk's relationship with cringe and Risk of Rain 2
• Shadow Labyrinth being itself, for better or worse
• Hades II's self-inflicted narrative challenges
• a thorough review of a new Windows PC
• Absolum's rapid ascent to many Best of 2025 lists

We also answer your burning HIVE QUESTIONS from our lovely Discord.