Remap Radio

Rob and Patrick spend 20 minutes in stunned silence, as the Chicago Bears continue their streak of what people seem to call “competence.” And why does it feel so weird to be calm in the face of Packer week, a time of year that usually instills dread? Now, it’s all house money. But it won’t stop Rob and Patrick from cackling like demons if they take down the Packers yet again.

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Can you hear it in the wind? That’s the sound of a new Dragon’s Dogma game, which heralds the arrival of Austin Walker on the podcast. Austin and his many hours with Dragon’s Dogma 2: Dark Arisen join Rob, Patrick, and Chia to mull dragons, dogmas, the state of independent game funding, Mike Tomlin’s Minecraft world, Star Wars Galactic Racer, Forever Ago, and more.

Discussed:

00:01:45 - Mike Tomlin's Minecraft City  

00:17:58 - Strand Store    

00:29:56 - Gardens Secures Further Funding   

00:34:44 - Investments in small games  

00:59:38 - Gravity Well layoffs   

01:07:03 - 50% of Bit Reactor Staff back from Furlough   

01:10:52 - The Incident at Galley House   

01:13:24 - Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen    

01:59:39 - Forever Ago     

02:32:26 - Star Wars: Galactic Racer    

03:04:21 - Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve

03:15:34 - Thousand Hells

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It’s rare video game stories tell angry stories of grief. Of jealousy. Of feeling robbed of a promised future, of a past that’s rarely exactly how your nostalgia suggests. Forever Ago, the new adventure game from developer Third Shift, sits with these complicated feelings. Patrick recently had an opportunity to chat with two of the developers behind the emotional game.

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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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