GameEngineStart Podcast

Blue Prince has caused some differing opinions on the show this week. It's an interesting discussion but I worry about the outcomes...

• Euan talks about the new game from Paradise Killer developers Promise Mascot Agency and wonders if the series can be saved in Lost Records: Bloom & Rage Tape 2
• We both talk all things Blue Prince and it gets in depth and interesting.
• Calum gives a brief glimpse once again into Final Fantasy 14 Savage Raiding

• 00:05:47 - Promise Mascot Agency
• 00:08:48 - Lost Records: Bloom & Rage Tape 2
• 00:24:40 - Blue Prince
• 00:54:19 - FFXVI Savage Raiding
• 01:04:15 - News - Bungie finally revealed Marathon, an extraction shooter with stunning art direction and some pretty big unanswered questions.
• 01:06:53 - News - Nintendo finally showed us the Switch 2, in an unfortunate maelstrom of world news.
• 01:13:07 - News - Respawn and ex-XCOM devs are making a Star Wars turn based strategy game.
• 01:19:22 - Upcoming & Housekeeping

Intro Music - There It Is - Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Outro Music - Honey Bee - Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

News Sting - News Intro - Maximilien (soundbible.com)

All Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

If you're listening to this podcast, I hope you're maximising your sleep and you're on your eighth bottle of sparkling water by now...

• Calum does a check in with Monster Hunter Wilds and is in full preparation mode for the next raid tier in Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail
• Euan also wraps up Citizen Sleeper 2 and Split Fiction, and talking ins and outs of Contractors: Exfil

• 00:12:30 - Monster Hunter: Wilds
• 00:14:19 - FF14
• 00:20:25 - Citizen Sleeper 2
• 00:21:56 - Contractors: Exfil
• 00:30:00 - Split Fiction
• 00:37:06 - News: AI ARK trailer
• 00:41:07 - PSA: Great Humble Bundle
• 00:42:04 - News: Nintendo Stream
• 00:50:30 - Upcoming & Housekeeping

Intro Music - There It Is - Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Outro Music - Honey Bee - Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

News Sting - News Intro - Maximilien (soundbible.com)

All Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

After a two week break for two big games the two host return to (read as two) talk about them. Two.

• Calum has played both rather large games of the past month in Obsidian's latest Avowed and continuing culling of ancient enemies in Monster Hunter Wilds
• Euan returns to teen type in Lost Records and gives a brief overview of Split Fiction. More to follow.

• 00:01:28 - Avowed
• 00:17:23 - Minor Pillars of Eternity Spoilers
• 00:27:16 - Minor Avowed Side Quest Spoilers
• 00:37:03 - Lost Records
• 01:00:00 - Monster Hunter: Wilds
• 01:17:30 - Split Fiction
• 01:26:38 - News - Unity announced a number of layoffs, and are focusing on "Live Services and AI" as one of their tenants moving forward
• 01:27:46 - News - Phil Spencer said some really dumb shit about AI
• 01:32:51 - News - Asynchronous multiplayer Resident Evil spin off Re:Verse is shutting down as it has "served its original, celebratory purpose"
• 01:36:01 - Upcoming & Housekeeping

Intro Music - There It Is - Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Outro Music - Honey Bee - Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

News Sting - News Intro - Maximilien (soundbible.com)

All Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

It's 2025 and we emerge from our winter hibernations. Turns out all we did was play video games. Funny how that works.

• Euan has been stuck in the virtual world with Contractors: Exfil. He also tries to go to the stars in the highly anticipated Citizen Sleeper 2
• Calum played newest Atlus offering Metaphor: ReFantazio, the same game 90% of people were playing over winter Marvel Rivals, and is very ill in the head and this returned to Warframe

• 00:09:32 - IXION
• 00:11:02 - Contractors: Exfil
• 00:38:11 - Metaphor: ReFantazio
• 00:44:30 - Dishonoured 2
• 00:54:34 - Marvel: Rivals
• 01:05:58 - Warframe
• 01:22:14 - Citizen Sleeper 2
• 01:30:23 - We have a half announcement for the Switch 2, and it sure looks like a Switch.
• 01:33:43 - The next Destiny 2 episode is shipping with so much missing voice acting due to the SAG AFTRA actors strike that it has subtitles on by default to cover it.

Intro Music - There It Is - Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Outro Music - Honey Bee - Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

News Sting - News Intro - Maximilien (soundbible.com)

All Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

It is the time of year to put another log on the fire, grab your drink of choice, and listen to us talk about our favourite games of the year.

Or in one case spend 20 minutes just quoting it.

• 00:06:13 - Euan - #5
• 00:10:44 - Calum - #5
• 00:17:42 - Euan - #4
• 00:24:13 - Calum - #4
• 00:34:06 - Euan - #3
• 00:43:54 - Calum - #3 & #2
• 00:56:21 - Euan - #2
• 01:10:09 - Calum - #1
• 01:24:48 - Euan - #1
• 01:46:20 - Runners Up
• 01:56:52 - Looking to 2025

Intro Music - There It Is - Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Outro Music - Honey Bee - Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

News Sting - News Intro - Maximilien (soundbible.com)

All Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

The world has conspired so that we both got a game from a series we love in one week, so it's a long one.

• After months of discourse, Calum digs into Dragon Age: The Veilguard, and seems to like it a lot.
• Life is Strange: Double Exposure takes Euan into his Pacific North West feelings, even though this installment takes place in Vermont. Remember, "sad teen" is a genre not a time period.

• 00:05:55 - Euan Game Catchup
• 00:09:31 - Dragon Age: The Veilguard
• 01:00:31 - Life is Strange: Double Exposure
• 01:36:15 - News - Sony decided that the "best path forward" for Concord is to close the studio completely
• 01:37:47 - News - 343 Industries is now Halo Studios, and are pivoting to Unreal Engine for the future games.
• 01:38:35 - News - The mobile Animal Crossing game is getting one more year of updates, and if you want access to it then it's going to cost you $20.
• 01:44:52 - News - Another month, another Destiny 2 controversy, this time with the community sleuthing out a bug with their drop rates.
• 01:59:39 - Housekeeping & Upcoming Games

Intro Music - There It Is - Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Outro Music - Honey Bee - Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

News Sting - News Intro - Maximilien (soundbible.com)

All Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Nostalgia is a double edged sword, make sure your not falling for it. Also some quirky hardware with a crank. Real hard swings this episode.

• Silent HIll 2 is a foundational game for Euan, so his time with the Bloober Team remake is complicated.
• Awful delivery companies aside, Calum finally got a Playdate. It seems cool!
• We realised we had never talked about the joy of Astro Bot, so we remedy that.
   

• 00:03:31 - Euans Random Games
• 00:06:07 - Silent Hill 2
• 00:54:49 - Playdate
• 01:09:20 - Astro Bot
• 01:24:07 - News - What is happening over at Ubisoft?
• 01:33:53 - Upcoming & Housekeeping

Intro Music - There It Is - Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Outro Music - Honey Bee - Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

News Sting - News Intro - Maximilien (soundbible.com)

All Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

We took some time away. We've come back. There are video games. It never changes

• Calum talks now real video game Deadlock. We all thought it was a secret, but it was just a MOBA
• Euan talks about the seemingly perfectly average Star Wars Outlaws

• 00:02:00 - Sony announced a £700 PlayStation Pro
• 00:11:48 - Concord has been taken offline after less than a month
• 00:20:39 - Former head of Sony Europe says industry layoffs aren't caused by greed, and people should "figure out how to get through it"
• 00:23:51 - Deadlock
• 00:45:17 - Star Wars Outlaws
• 00:59:51 - Space Marine 2
• 01:01:40 - Upcoming & Housekeeping

Intro Music - There It Is - Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Outro Music - Honey Bee - Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

News Sting - News Intro - Maximilien (soundbible.com)

All Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

We saw some video games happen, some people are denying video games are happening, and some people appear to be doing whatever they can to ensure they don't make another video game happen again.

• Euan investigates some sci-fi murders with mixed results in No One Wants To Die
• Calum conquers his demons, namely the new Final Fantasy XIV Savage Raids, and experiences some retro Morrowind vibes in Dread Delusion
• We both finally got to experience Thank Goodness You're Here, and it's every bit as good as we were hoping for

• 00:01:10 - Deathlock is being played by 20,000 people, but has never been officially announced or even acknowledged. Also we talk about that Verge article, and how people who don't understand what journalism is lost their minds.
• 00:15:05 - No One Wants To Die
• 00:26:25 - Thank Goodness You're Here
• 00:35:46 - FFXIV Savage Raid
• 00:44:38 - Dread Delusion
• 00:54:03 - News - PSVR2 looks like it's in trouble, with not a lot of new games and now $200 off in a fire sale
• 00:56:56 - News - Silent Hill: Ascension, the awful "interactive" TV show, won an Emmy!?
• 00:59:16 - News - Tango Gameworks, one of the many studios killed by Microsoft, appears to have been saved by South Korean publisher Krafton
• 01:06:35 - News - Bungie had another round of layoffs, bringing the future of Destiny into real question. Also the CEO bought a  lot of cars. Unrelated I'm sure.
• 01:18:29 - Upcoming & Housekeeping

Intro Music - There It Is - Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Outro Music - Honey Bee - Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

News Sting - News Intro - Maximilien (soundbible.com)

All Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

The games are sparse so we revert to type with RPGs and VR galore

• Calum plays hot new release Elden Ring. This is a lie but he hasn't heard anyone talk about this game, so it's worth a go. This was also a lie.
• Euan forgets reality for one of a virtual kind with Contractors Showdown and Ghosts of Tabor
• We both tried The First Decendant. It's alright. That's it, that's all we have to say

• 00:02:08 - Elden Ring
• 00:22:47 - Contractors Showdown
• 00:39:30 - Ghosts of Tabor
• 00:46:18 - The First Decendents
• 00:49:35 - FFXIV Raid
• 00:50:43 - Upcoming & Housekeeping

Intro Music - There It Is - Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Outro Music - Honey Bee - Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

News Sting - News Intro - Maximilien (soundbible.com)

All Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0