Maximum Hearts

Multiple former Ubisoft executives arrested for their part in long lasting and widespread sexual abuse and assault at the French gaming publisher. To lighten things up, we also talk about what gaming franchises deserve a second chance at life.

Catch SDGC Live ACTUALLY live Thursday nights at 9pm Eastern US time - twitch.tv/officialsdgc

Join the community Discord for a cool, inclusive, protected space for all kinds of folks to talk nerdy - https://t.co/5cjbEy1SCF

We bemoan another huge wave of layoffs at multiple companies, including Epic Games, Sega, and Ubisoft. Later in the show, we're joined by Ash Parrish from The Verge for an extended interview with Samantha Béart, who portrays fan-favorite Karlach in Baldur's Gate 3.

Catch SDGC Live ACTUALLY live- Thursday nights at 9pm Eastern US time - twitch.tv/officialsdgc

Join the community Discord for a cool, inclusive, protected space for all kinds of folks to talk nerdy - https://t.co/5cjbEy1SCF

Embracer lays off a buttload more people they couldn't afford to keep after their acquisition spree, and Microsoft accidentally leaks a bunch of their own sensitive info through the process of a court case about their latest acquisition spree. Is there a pattern here? Can we make there be a pattern?

Catch SDGC Live ACTUALLY live Thursday nights at 9pm Eastern US time - twitch.tv/officialsdgc

Join the community Discord for a cool, inclusive, protected space for all kinds of folks to talk nerdy - https://t.co/5cjbEy1SCF

We're joined this week by voice actor Cissy Jones to talk about the roles that uplifted her career, the art of voice acting, and the need to protect the people who perform that art for a living from predatory forces in various industries. We also touch on Unity's disastrous policy changes resulting in unprecedented backlash from developers of all sizes.

The crew unites and celebrates as reputable journalists and news outlets report on Nintendo's top secret upcoming Switch successor, which was shown off to development partners at Gamescom. What do the details of this report mean for Nintendo's next console? We also talk about the trend of games releasing early for players willing to pay premium prices, and how Microsoft managed to double-dip on Game Pass subscribers with Starfield.

The long-awaited new entry in the cult favorite Armored Core franchise comes to us via a very different FromSoftware than the one that oversaw the last game 10 years ago. Derek, Jeff, and Justin break down this fast-paced giant mecha action game and how it breaks the mold from what FromSoftware fans old and new might be expecting from it.

NOTE: Shortly after publishing our review, developer FromSoftware adjusted the difficulty of some of the mentioned notorious early-game bosses via a patch, addressing our primary complaint in a way we acknowledged in the review was possible.

Thanks to Bandai Namco for providing us with a review code for the game.

We're joined by a couple friends this week to talk about what we've been playing (spoilers, a LOT of Sea of Stars and some Armored Core 6), layoffs at Embracer Group owned developers, and Sony cranking up the price of their online service.

Long-awaited Kickstarter darling Sea of Stars is finally here! Finn and Derek, who have been playing the game, are joined by John for our review of this love-letter to retro RPGs from the team that brought you The Messenger. Sea of Stars? More like "A+ of Stars". Finn made us write this.

This game was reviewed on PC with codes provided by the publisher. Thanks to Sabotage Studios and TinsleyPR for the opportunity.

We're joined by our friend Josh Fagundes aka Anoriand to try and tackle an actual busy newsweek after nonstop Baldur's Gate episodes. Xbox opens the doors for games on Series S to be more different from their Series X counterparts, Geoff Keighley gets Bill Clintoned for the second time in a year, the voice of Mario retires, and nobody on this show has their stuff together.

We're joined by writer and friend of the show Sam Tolbert to gush some more about Baldur's Gate. Plus, new strike-based moderation policies at Xbox leave room for improvement, and we talk about our favorite indies and AA games of 2023 (both so far and upcoming).