Remap Radio

A week ago, Rob and Patrick were on the brink of throwing up their hands at yet another disastrous season for the Chicago Bears. Now…Super Bowl? Super BEARS? 38-year-old Case Keenum, a guy hired to hold a clipboard and mentor players, had the game of his life, and simultaneously sent the Philadelphia Eagles into an existential crisis about their own season.

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Aftermath's Chris Person joins the show to free-associate about retro gaming, the Steam Frame, David Graeber, vibe coding, and Control Resonant. Rob and Patrick are loving it, and Patrick starts getting into the ups-and-downs of the Mac Mini market, while Rob has an important realization: he actually has an important (very relatively speaking) use case for the Steam Frame. Spoiler: it involves his god damn racing wheel. CW: The episode opens with a brief news bulletin on the Jacob Geller sexual assault news.

00:05:35 - Retro Gaming Sicko’s Corner 

00:58:15 - Steam Frame & VR in the Modern Day    

02:01:29 - Control Resonant    

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On Sunday, Rob and Patrick almost saw the entire Chicago Bears season sink underneath an injury to quarterback Caleb Williams. Rob’s Sunday was ruined. Patrick’s flight back from Los Angeles became a tomb. And the prospect of doing weekly check-ins on the Bears for the Remap audience suddenly became more daunting. Maybe they could chat about a book they were reading, instead? But thankfully, Williams is not out for the season. So we’re back? Sort of.

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We begin this podcast the way we ended the last podcast: talking about Control Resonant. This time, Rob’s spent 17 hours with Remedy’s latest, albeit all of it before the game was updated to validate the emotional and critical feelings of Patrick and Janet. But we also have much else to discuss, including Xbox’s ongoing “reset,” the alleged future of Bungie, Discord pushing forward on age verification, and many thoughts on both Silent Hill Townfall and Normal Golf Game.

Links: Control Resonant Post by Chris Person, Xbox Announces Continuing Layoffs and Restructure, The Next Chapter of Bungie, Post about Turning off Gambling Ads In Discord, Image of Confusing UI in Discord Settings

Discussed:

00:00:00 - Intro

00:00:44 - Control Resonant

00:55:07 - Xbox Studios Goes through Further Layoffs

01:18:49 - Bungie's Next Chapter

01:42:48 - Discord Age Verification Rolls Out

02:00:47 - Silent Hill: Townfall

02:20:04 - Normal Golf Game

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A conversation with the designer behind one of 2026's most pleasant surprises, and arguably the most unconventional take on hitting a golf ball since Wii Sports.

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You don’t get a new Remedy video game all that often, but Rob, Patrick, and Janet have all played Control Resonant and…well, you should just listen to the podcast. Elsewhere on Remap Radio this week, we’ve got [checks notes] a ton of bummer news, including several studios shutting down, IGN laying off even more people, a truly perplexing story about a studio head’s comments on crunch, and more. At least Chia’s back from Japan and playing Perfect Tides!

Links: Moss Dev Shuts Down, Heart Machine goes through Layoffs, Rockstar Union had a Mole in their Discord, Wardogs Dev won't hire people who have been vocally anti-crunch, Nighthawks Categorized as Adult Content by Steam, The Future of Marathon

Discussed:

00:02:33 - Unfortunately we must discuss the horrors    

00:04:49 - IGN/Indie Studios Layoffs and Closures    

00:44:24 - Wardogs CEO talks crunch    

01:16:36 - Rockstar deployed union mole   

01:25:00 - Nighthawks marked as adult content by Steam moderation   

01:32:03 - The Future of Marathon    

01:41:49 - Control Resonant 

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The 13th of September will no longer be known as a Chicago holiday, but as the day when the world declared in one voice, we will not go quietly into the night. We will not vanish without a fight. We're going to live on. We're going to survive. Today, friends, The Bears Are Back! Join Rob and Patrick for a Sports! mini-pod—seriously, it’s only 20 minutes—about the Bears pulverizing the Panthers. Our hope is to deliver one of these every week (unless we’re already doing a normal Sports!). Library-tier subscribers will get access to them ASAP, while everyone else can hear our thoughts on Saturdays…right before the NFL kicks off again! Beardown!

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Bruno Dias joins the crew to talk about his review of The Sinking City 2 and Lovecraft as author versus Lovecraft as brand. Then the gang gets into our glorious era of privacy annihilating personal technology and engages in a philosophical exploration of Siri Recap and when an audio file ceases to be an audio file. We discuss Kojima's announcement with Microsoft, and what it implies about Sony's relationship to big AAA prestige pieces and creators. You know, things like Wolverine from Insomniac, which Patrick has been playing a lot this last week. It's not great, bub! Then Bruno has been digging into 1000 Hells and Blood of Dawnwallker. If you ever wanted to hear about different ways voice lines and barks are handled at studios, this is the episode for you, because Bruno has spent time in those mines.

• 00:01:18 -  Sinking City 2           
• 00:59:44 - TCL’s TV Review Press List     
• 01:28:13 - Hockey Commentator reveals that EA is testing AI voice acting for EA Sports      
• 01:40:54 - 1900 Blizzard Employees Unionize    
• 01:52:22 - Microsoft acquires Kojima Production’s PHYSINT after Sony drops it  
• 02:16:01 - Insomniac’s Wolverine Woes   
• 02:45:57 - 1000 Hells      
• 02:51:49 - Blood of Dawnwalker     
• 03:04:00 - Star Wars Zero Company     

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Hey everyone look at this guy. He doesn't know who Miyamoto Musashi is. He doesn't even know about Ganryu! If you mention the Five Rings, he thinks you're talking about Tom Brady. And yet HE was worthy of the Onimusha: Way of the Sword review code? That's fine. We're not bitter. We have other games to play, like Super Mega Baseball, First Light, or Orbitals.

01:06 - The Sinking City 2 might be an Evil Within 2-like  

06:02 - 80% of Bit Reactor Furloughed    

18:22 - The DLSS5 Yassification Machine     

38:21 - De-listed games included in Xbox’s disc to digital initiative     

49:43 - Onimusha: Way of the Sword     

1:22:24 - Super Mega Baseball     

1:39:21 - 007: First Light     

1:54:27 - Orbitals     

2:09:26 - Question Bucket    

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2026 has been full of horrors, but it’s also been full of video games, too. With Grand Theft Auto VI coming later this year, though, there’s an avalanche of games coming throughout September and October. It felt like a good time to check in with Patrick, Chia, and Janet about their individual piles of shame, the games they plan to spend more time with before 2026 is over, and what games they’re looking forward to playing as the year rolls around. It’s, uh, a lot of games.

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