We're covering August 24th–30th by walking straight through time, 1982 to 2022, watching the medium grow up: Richard Garriott's Ultima II, the cult classic EarthBound, the console-shooter landmark GoldenEye 007, the GTA challenger Saints Row, the rulebook-tearing Guild Wars 2, the beloved flop The Wonderful 101, and the FMV revival Immortality. Plus three deep dives: the evolution of the RPG, how the shooter came home, and the death and resurrection of full-motion video. Be sure to save your game, nerds.

Chapter Markers

00:00 -- Cold Open — "Imagine it's August 24th, 1982…"
01:29 -- Theme
01:46 -- Intro
02:56 -- Timeline Intro
03:26 -- Ultima II: The Revenge of Enchantress (1982)
04:40 -- EarthBound / Mother 2 (1994)
06:05 -- GoldenEye 007 (1997)
07:43 -- SaintsRow (2006)
09:05 -- Guild Wars 2 (2012)
10:19 -- The Wonderful 101 (2013)
11:52 -- Immortality (2022)
13:24 -- Deep Dive 1 — From Britannia to Tyria (evolution of the RPG)
15:01 -- Deep Dive 2 — GoldenEye and the day the shooter came home
16:48 -- Deep Dive 3 — FMV: the genre everyone laughed at
19:16 -- Outro

August 17th–23rd might be the most stacked seven days on the gaming calendar. This week: the most controversial Metroid ever made, a Sonic collection hiding a secret 3D playground, and Black Myth: Wukong breaking records worldwide. Then the single Tuesday in 2001 that dropped three heavy hitters at once — Arcanum from the creators of Fallout, Armored Core 2 from a pre-Souls FromSoftware, and a fishing game on the already-dead Dreamcast. Plus Deus Ex: Human Revolution's cyberpunk comeback, the day EA bought Command & Conquer, and the two days that handed Nintendo the birth of Zelda, the Super Nintendo, and the Nintendo 64.

Grab your controller, and press start to continue.

⏱️ CHAPTERS 00:00 — Cold Open 01:18 — Theme01:35 — Intro 02:59 — Timeline Intro03:11 — Metroid Prime: Federation Force (3DS, 2016) 04:02 — Sonic Jam (Sega Saturn, 1997) 04:54 — Black Myth: Wukong (PS5/PC, 2024) 05:41 — Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura (PC, 2001) 06:30 — Sega Bass Fishing 2 (Dreamcast, 2001) 07:12 — Armored Core 2: Another Age (PS2, 2001) 07:57 — Deus Ex: Human Revolution (PC/PS3/360, 2011) 08:45 — Deep Dive: The Day EA Bought Command & Conquer 10:05 — Deep Dive: A Very Big Week for Nintendo 11:49 — Outro🎨 Artwork by MizTink Find MizTink at Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/miztink🎵 Music by Shane Mandani Find Shane Mandani on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/grandewarlockOn Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3Jy9J5vNVFB3BuPUV0yYis🎙️ Written, produced & hosted by Doug ColemanFind Doug on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/therobustone

This week in video game history covers August 10th through the 16th — a week soaked in dread, disappearance, and second chances. On August 11th, 1999, System Shock 2 introduced a generation of designers to genuine fear in the form of SHODAN, one of gaming's greatest villains, and laid down the immersive-sim blueprint that BioShock would later build on. It shares that exact date with the birthday of Shinji Mikami, the man who coined "survival horror" — the anchor of our first deep dive, which runs through Resident Evil 4, Devil May Cry, God Hand, Vanquish, and The Evil Within.

The timeline also visits August 10th, 1999, when Nintendo's Mario Golf (a secret RPG) and Square's Chocobo Racing let two giant franchises clown around; Cool Cool Jam (2000), a charming SNK rhythm game trapped forever on the failed Neo Geo Pocket Color and never released in the West; We Happy Few (2018) and its "take your Joy or else" dystopia; Payday 2 (2013), the co-op heist that never ended; and Plants vs. Zombies 2 (2013), the free-to-play sequel that landed on the industry's mobile fault line.

Two more deep dives round it out: the strange seven-year disappearance of the Scott Pilgrim game and what it taught us about game preservation and digital ownership, and how fan developer Christian Whitehead and friends were handed Sonic and made Sonic Mania — the best Sonic game in 25 years.

Artwork: MizTink • Music: Shane Mandani • Written, produced & hosted by Doug Coleman

Be sure to save your game, nerds.

The week of August 3rd–9th across gaming history. Metroid hides a secret on the Famicom Disk System (1986), Guardian Force stays trapped in Japan on the dying Saturn (1998), Nintendogs and Advance Wars: Dual Strike share a single Nintendo DS day (2005), Braid helps light the fuse on the indie revolution (2008), No Man's Sky launches a universe and watches it fall to earth (2016), and Fall Guys becomes the world's lockdown escape hatch (2020).

Three deep dives this week: the Indie Explosion, the broken-launch redemption of No Man's Sky, and the strange, sad story of the Advance Wars game that September 11th delayed.

Artwork: MizTink • Music: Shane Mandani • Written, produced & hosted by Doug Coleman

Be sure to save your game, nerds.

July 27th–August 2nd in video game history. Seven releases from a doomed 16-bit console to a mobile juggernaut — Ghouls 'n Ghosts on the SuperGrafx, StarCraft II, SoulCalibur IV, Mega Man X4, a homebrew Halo on a 1977 Atari, LIMBO, and Clash of Clans. Plus: how Tecmo went from cleaning supplies to Ninja Gaiden, how StarCraft became a national sport in South Korea, and a Monthly Round-Up of the August games history only remembers by the month.

Artwork by MizTink. Music by Shane Mandani. Written, produced, and hosted by Doug Coleman.

The week of July 20–26 is absolutely stacked. This week: a Capcom platformer that had to erase Adolf Hitler before it could ship in America, Sam Fisher's late arrival on GameCube, a snowbound PS2 horror underdog, the bullet-time noir that reshaped shooters, and the Wii game that got grandparents swinging a remote. Then three deep dives — two Nintendo hardware gambles ten years apart, the seven-person indie that headlined a console storefront, and the $40 zombie game that accidentally turned into Fortnite.

Written, produced & hosted by Doug Coleman. Artwork by MizTink. Music by Shane Mandani.

This week, we go all the way back to July 15th, 1983 — the day Nintendo released the Famicom in Japan and quietly kicked off the home console industry as we know it. From there, we jump forward to a smuggler who finds out he used to be someone else entirely, a submarine crew trapped with something in the water that shouldn't be there, a monkey-hunting sequel, a summoner's pilgrimage across a dying world, and a samurai's last stand on an island he can't save the old way.Plus three stories worth slowing down for: the recall that almost sank Nintendo before it started, the black-cartridge outlaws who tried to break its lock and got buried for it, and two off-duty doctors who started a game studio out of pure boredom with medicine.🎨 Artwork by MizTink: https://www.twitch.tv/miztink🎵 Music by Shane Mandani — follow him on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/grandewarlock and Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3Jy9J5vNVFB3BuPUV0yYis✍️ Written, produced, and hosted by Doug Coleman https://www.twitch.tv/therobustoneBe sure to save your game, nerds. See you next week.#VideoGameHistory #Nintendo #Famicom #KnightsOfTheOldRepublic

Two companies stared down bankruptcy this week — and two games pulled them back from the edge. This is July 6th through 12th in gaming history.A young artist named Shigeru Miyamoto turns two thousand dead arcade cabinets into Donkey Kong and saves Nintendo. A near-bankrupt studio called Square bets everything on one last role-playing game and names it accordingly. A summer arrives when the entire world walks outside to catch Pokémon. And a little handheld takes its final bow — built by the man who created the Game Boy.Games covered this week:• Pokémon GO — iOS/Android — July 6, 2016• Rocket League — PS4/PC — July 7, 2015• Donkey Kong — Arcade — July 9, 1981 (Japan debut)• Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec — PS2 — July 9, 2001• The App Store / iPhone 3G — July 10–11, 2008• Final Fantasy — NES — July 12, 1990• SwanCrystal (WonderSwan) — July 12, 2002 (Japan)Deep dives: the genius of Gunpei Yokoi and the philosophy behind the Game Boy • the desperate gamble that became Final Fantasy • the summer of Pokémon GO and the map that was waiting all along.⏱️ Chapters in the comments / below.🎨 Artwork by MizTink🎵 Music by Shane Mandani🎙️ Written, produced, and hosted by Doug ColemanNew episodes every Sunday. Be sure to save your game, nerds.

Video game history, one week at a time. Episode 24 covers June 29–July 5 — the week the original iPhone launched in 2007 unable to play a single game, and the story of how mobile went on to become the biggest force in gaming.

We run the timeline from Diablo II and NiGHTS into Dreams to Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, Civilization Revolution 2, Futurama: Worlds of Tomorrow, Zenless Zone Zero, and Identity V. Then two deep dives: The Mobile Revolution, and The Diablo Diaspora — Blizzard North's rise, fall, and comeback with Torchlight. Plus the debut of "Sometime in July," a round-up of NES classics from Kid Icarus to Snake Rattle 'n' Roll.

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Five legendary games. One date. June 23rd is the strangest, most loaded square on the entire gaming calendar — and this week we walk through all of it. From the birth of Sonic the Hedgehog on the Sega Genesis to Super Mario 64 launching the Nintendo 64, the immersive-sim landmark Deus Ex, Sonic Adventure 2's farewell on the dying Dreamcast, and Batman: Arkham Knight — plus Quake dragging the whole industry into true 3D with a Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails soundtrack.This Week in Video Game History covers gaming history week by week — release dates, the stories behind the games, and the rivalries that built the medium. This episode (June 22–28) also features three deep dives: the Broken-Launch Era of Arkham Knight and Cyberpunk 2077, the 2011 Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association that declared video games protected free speech, and the Console Wars between Sega and Nintendo.Covering: video game history, retro gaming, Sega Genesis, Nintendo 64, Dreamcast, id Software, Quake, Deus Ex, Sonic vs Mario, console wars, FPS history, immersive sims, 90s and 2000s gaming.Artwork by MizTink. Music by Shane Mandani. Written, produced, and hosted by Doug Coleman.00:00 -- Teaser01:15 -- Intro02:16 -- Timeline Intro02:49 -- Quake04:56 -- Sonic The Headgehog06:44 -- Super Mario 6408:15 -- Deus Ex09:44 -- Sonic Adventure 211:13 -- Batman Arkham Knight12:31 -- Deep Dive 1: The Broken-Launch Era14:04 -- Deep Dive 2: Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association15:37 -- Deep Dive 3: The Console Wars17:19 -- Outro