- Hey folks, today is
Friday December 15th, 2023. As usual, my name is Jake Baldino, here to talk about all the video game news that has been going on this week. And it's a pretty jam-packed week. So let's just jump in. The first story is kind of a funny one. It's actually kind of a familiar one. It's about "Grand Theft
Auto" under attack. Yes. This time it's "Grant Theft Auto VI." It's not even out yet. It's just the reveal trailer, and people are already coming after it. This is similar to a
situation with Lindsay Lohan going after "Grant Theft Auto
V", if you remember that. She sued them for kind of
using her likeness in the game. It was a really thin case, and ultimately she ended
up losing that battle, but it was in the headlines
for quite some time. This time around it's a little different, because of this guy. This is Lawrence Sullivan, otherwise known as the Florida Joker, and he's been calling out "GTA VI" for using him in the trailer. He of course is famous for
like in like 2016, 2017 having his mugshot on TV, and people are like, "Wow, that
guy really likes The Joker." He has green hair, face tattoos, and the "Grand Theft Auto VI" trailer shows a guy with similar
face tattoos and purple hair. So it's very much specifically
parodying that shot. Is it an exact representation
of the guy itself? Like that's for the courts to decide, if it gets that far. But he has taken to social media, basically saying, "Hey 'GTA,' pay me a million dollars, pay me $2 million, because you took my life, you took my likeness here." He has threatened to lawyer up, and claim that he has evidence. So we'll see where this goes. Is this a clout chasing
thing, or is this for real? I mean, like, as soon as I saw that shot in the game trailer, I immediately remembered
that viral screenshot of that guy from back in the day. That's where we're at with this. Who knows? Rockstar doesn't usually
tend to publicly respond to things like this. Will it get caught up in court? Will it end up like the
Lindsay Lohan thing? I have no idea, but this is stupid. But me personally, all I can do is celebrate
any fellow diehard Batman fan that's trying to get money. But the other big news this week, in terms of courts and legality, is the Insomniac hack. So there is reportedly a hacker group that has gotten access to Insomniac data, like a full data breach, and they are holding onto
spoilers for the "Wolverine" game, threatening to release them, unless Insomnia pays them
like a $2 million ransom. And it is a real story. Sony has confirmed that they are investigating
this whole thing, and we don't know where it's gonna go, but there is already, I believe, some stuff floating around out there. Even stuff about Insomniac, not even pertaining to "Wolverine." I don't wanna talk or
show anything really here, 'cause the video could get taken down. Stuff is now leaking from Insomniac, from "Wolverine" itself. Like you know, there's
some stuff on the internet, it's been scrubbed pretty quickly, but just in terms of
like a ransom hack thing. It's a scary thing to be
working on something, you know, whether it's a game or not, and suddenly you're hacked, and essentially blackmailed
into paying a mysterious group like a bunch of Bitcoin or something. It's a wild weird world. This isn't a hot take or anything. I've seen other people say this as well, but like these hackers are
using their awesome skills to just go after game makers. Like, go after the bad guys or something. But sticking with Sony, there has been some news trickling out about PlayStation 5 Pro specs leaking. There are some numbers
floating around out there. Not too much to grab from, other that it's like an
update on the GPU architecture from RDNA2 to RDNA3, with more compute units. The CPU relatively the same-ish, but those specs may not be real. And also a famous leaker from
Insider Gaming, Tom Henderson, has also come out saying that
he can't confirm these leaks, but he said that actual real spec leaks will probably come out soon, and Sony is internally preparing for that, because according to him, and take it with a grain of salt, this is just rumors, you know, specs will start to leak out, because development kits for PS5 Pro will start going out to developers. Who knows if that's the case, we'll just have to wait and see. Again, it's all just
rumors and speculation. It's a smaller story, but I figured I'd bring it up, because you do see a lot of headlines where it's like, "PS5 Pro leaked. Oh my God, it's amazing." Like, we don't totally know for sure. It may be a leak, it may not. We may have one soon. I don't know. Some people only just got a PlayStation 5, so come on man. But, jumping back to superhero games next, "Blade" was one of my
favorite announcements from the Game Awards, with Arkane Lyon, the Arkane side specifically, for like "Dishonored 2,"
"Death of the Outsider," and "Deathloop." They're making a "Blade" game, like a blade-ass "Blade" game, and that teaser trailer was really cool. I think it's a match made in heaven. I'm really excited. I haven't really talked about
it too much in other videos, so thank you for hearing me out. But if you were hungry for
any little extra, like I was, Arkane Lyon did put out a
couple of concept art images, and they look really cool. It definitely sets a tone. It is Paris, it is "Blade," it is dark and moody, and like kind of weirdly
fashionable and artsy. And they posted these screenshots also with like a link and a
post about how they're hiring. So that's what happens a lot of times with some big early game announcements. It's because they want to staff up. So as us, just regular
people on on the outside, I would take that as they're
only just staffing up. They're still working on this game. It's gonna be a while
before we see this one. But in some bummer news, E3 is canceled, like officially forever. We've talked in the past multiple times about E3 being canceled, like for that year, you know, and this year we knew it was canceled, but now we got the news from the company, the organizers behind E3, that that's it. They are wrapping it up, it is done. That's it. And it's happening for a lot of reasons. Number one, the biggest thing is that companies are realizing now, with the internet they can
just put on their own events. They can do their own thing, and not have to pay for show
floor stuff or stuff around E3. They can control their
information more freely. Also the ESA, the board,
the group behind E3, has had a lot of weird bad decisions in the last couple of years. They've also had a lot
of leadership turnover, and just some stuff behind the scenes. And yeah, for a lot of people it seems like it just didn't
get with the times enough. Gaming has become so big now,
it's freaking massive dude. It's beyond any of us. E3 should have been like at the top, and they just couldn't really get there. Whether it's through those choices, or the changing times, whatever. So we kind of saw this coming, but still hearing about it now, even after we're like,
"ha-ha," makes sense. Still kind of sucks., 'cause as a kid I
remember reading about E3 in magazines, wanting to go there one day. Then I ended up, you
know, watching it on G4, and like on early YouTube
and internet stuff, and wanting to go there, to eventually getting to go there, and feeling like it was an
immense and awesome privilege. But you know, I went to the last one. What was the last one? In 2019? Not expecting it to never happen again. So I almost wish I could
go back to 2019 E3, knowing that there would
never be another one again. Because they were cool,
they were really fun events, they were open to the public, so thankfully some people
got to really see it, when they did open it up in
the last couple of years. But that's where it's at, E3 is no more. There will be plenty of other
events to take its place. The Summer Game Fest, of course a lot of people
have been talking about that. But all the other, like
the Future Game Show, the PC Gaming Show, there's Indie Showcase, there's just so much stuff. It's really like kind
of E3 for forever now. Just spread out, spread thin. I don't know if it'll
ever be as fun as those, like condensed packed. I would take off work. Like those condensed-packed
couple of days, where it would just be constant
gaming news and showcases. But yeah, that's where we're at now. The times they are a change. I'm not gonna do the Bob Dylan voice. No way. That would be terrible. That would be awful. Woo. The times they are changing. No, nope, nope. The times... Nope, whoa. (coughs) Hey folks, before we keep going, this episode is sponsored by Factor. If you're new, Factor delivers fresh, never frozen, dietician-approved meals
right to your doorstep. And it's super easy. What's great, is that we
have a fully-stocked fridge here at the office, and basically you just take one, boom, in the microwave for two minutes, and you're good to go. They're good, real meals, so
you feel better afterwards. It's not like, you
know, like we're eating, we're splurging on fast food again, or you know, you get
caught up running outside, buying groceries all of the time. This takes the guesswork out
of eating during the day, and that has been so
clutch for me personally. They offer keto, calorie
smart, chef's choice, and vegan and veggie options, which include seafood,
meat and plant-based meals. So there's just a lot of choices, a lot of ways to eat and feel pretty good. They have a lot of
options on your website, and you can customize how
many you get sent to you, and what exactly you get sent to you. Check out the fall flavors, if you're down for something
a little different. Those are pretty delicious as well. So if you wanna check it out
and you wanna start eating, all you gotta do is click the link in the description down below, or head to factor75.com, and use code GAMERANX50 to get 50% off your first Factor box. That's right, 50% off, that's good eats. That's GAMERANX50 as the code, factor75.com. Get eatin', and big thanks to Factor
for sponsoring these videos. Also, sorry, in just a
little bit more bummer news, more layoffs have been
happening in the game industry. Now it's up to, like, thousands this year. From the economy, and maybe
just like the publisher model, and higher ups making bad decisions. The latest is some people
from Wizards of the Coast, "Dungeons and Dragons" people, many of them who had their hands in getting "Baldur's Gate 3" made, which is unfortunate. Also, right now at the time of recording, it's not officially confirmed, but it seems like Embracer Group is laying off a ton more people, specifically from like
"Splitgate" and 3D Realms, legendary classic developers, and apparently they're being
like nearly gutted by half. I will link the most
updated report I can find, as well as everything else
I talk about in the show. But yeah, especially
right before the holidays, it's just like a long line of people suddenly caught short from their jobs. And it's not just the gaming industry, it's happening to a lot of us out there, other industries, other jobs. And it sucks. So if you do make games,
or you work around games, and you were laid off, just know that we're thinking
of you and good luck. And in some last-minute
bummer surprise news, we gotta add this in. Naughty Dog has officially announced that they have canceled
"The Last of Us Online" multiplayer game. This new "Last of Us Factions" game, that was originally intended to be an add-on for "The
Last of Us Part II", eventually became its own project, has now officially been scrapped. And personally I'm really bummed, because "The Last of Us Factions" was like one of the few multiplayer games, modern multiplayer games, I really got into. So I was looking forward to this. Their statement is very interesting. Part of it says, and I quote, "In ramping up to full production, the massive scope of our
ambition became clear. To release and support
'The Last of Us Online', we'd have to put all our studio resources behind supporting post-launch
content for years to come, severely impacting development on future single-player games. So we had two paths in front of us: become a solely live-service game studio, or continue to focus on
single-player narrative games that have defined Naughty Dog's heritage." They also confirmed, and I quote, "We have more than one
ambitious, brand new, single-player game that we're working on here at Naughty Dog, and we can't wait to share
more about what comes next." Interesting statement, where they felt like they had to commit to either being like a
games as a service maker, or a single-player studio. With a studio as big as Naughty Dog, I don't know. I'm curious to hear what you guys think about this statement. But ultimately I do prefer
single-player adventure games, so I'm glad that won out in the end. But still, I was really
looking forward to this, so yeah. Now jumping over to some
other wild and weird news. "The Day Before." "The Day Before " released, and it's not good. Yes everybody, what
everybody was thinking, you know, a lot of people
were throwing around that it was like going to be
a scam, or it wasn't real. It seemed like most of that was true. I didn't do the before you buy on this. Every so often, like, I can't do every
single before you buy, so I have to delegate them. So Falcon and Eric, behind the scenes checked out "The Day Before,"
and yeah, it's a mess. You've probably seen all
the viral videos already. We linked it in the
description down below. But the interesting thing
is that it was so bad, that Steam delisted it, they took it away so you
couldn't purchase it. And then shortly after that, there was the announcement
from Fntastic, the developers, that they're shutting down. They were like, "Hey, this didn't work, we're shutting down. See ya." Just very aggressive, very weird. They were even replying
to people on social media, being like, "Shit happens." That's an actual quote
from the developers. So weird, wild time. Was it a small group of developers like in over their heads? I don't know what it was, but the initial trailer,
that seemed really cool, people were interested, made the game be massively
wish-listed on Steam. So there are still some people out there that got the game, hoping it would be this cool thing, and they only saw that first trailer, and now here we are. That sucks. But thankfully, it seems like everybody's
gonna get a refund, and I hope they do. What a shit show. (chuckles) But in other news, just some other trailers and stuff I've linked in in description down below. "Asgard's Wrath 2" is a VR
game dropping pretty soon, and the reviews for it are really good. So I'm curious to check that out. That like totally caught me off guard. I knew the first one was good, I played a little bit of it, but damn. Also "God of War Ragnarok: Valhalla," the free expansion DLC that
Sony Santa Monica just dropped, apparently is pretty
good and worth playing. I haven't gotten to jump into it yet. I redownload it for this weekend. But word on the street is that
it's actually really cool, and adds some story stuff. So I really wanna see what that's about. So I just wanted to put
that on your guys' radar, like don't forget it. But also don't forget "Dusk." "Dusk" is one of my favorite
kind of like retro-style first-person shooters. Absolutely incredible. And they just re-released
like an updated version called "Dusk HD." And yeah, if you wanna check that out, that is linked in the
description down below. Also, "Ready or Not 1.0" is out. And it seems like people
are really digging this, a little bit more of, like,
something more intense, tactical focused, shooter. As an old-school fan of
like original "Ghost Recon," original "Rainbow Six," this is just what the doctor ordered. I wanna check this out at some point. But there's so many games
out right now, it's insane. Also, I do wanna link a new trailer, a gameplay trailer for "Mouse." Now, we highlighted this back when, like, an early, early, just like quick production
clip went viral, but now we have a full trailer. And this is like a 1930s
cartoon first-person shooter, and it looks like it actually plays like a real first-person shooter. You can tell a person is playing, I think, with keyboard and mouse, and it looks pretty intense. But it's like goofy gut, like finger guns and silly blunderbusses, and like, you know, bad
guys that you're shooting or like their heads are falling off, or they're turning into ash, like old cartoon-style stuff
that I absolutely love. I hope this is awesome. Even from the developers
here after they put it out, we're not gonna see it anytime soon, but I am keeping my eye on this one, and we will keep you informed, because me personally, like I love stuff like this, I just love cartoons of all time periods, and I love game developers playing with different
art styles and mediums, and I hope this is cool. Anyway, one other story
I wanted to touch on, is Hideo Kojima and Kojima Productions has announced that the
"Death Stranding" movie has a publishing partner. We knew there was a "Death
Stranding" movie coming, that made headlines a while back, but now we know that Kojima Productions is working with A24 to make
a "Death Stranding" movie. A24, for the last like decade or so, has been making waves as a movie company doing some pretty cool unique stuff, like "X," "Pearl," if
you like horror movies, "Midsummer," "Talk to Me," most recently, "Everything Everywhere All at Once." Like they do all kinds of stuff, but it usually got a really
cool creative spin on it. And I actually think this
partner really makes sense. Good on Kojima for nailing
something so big like that. Like A24 is still kind of like the darling in the movie world. And I actually think, like, A24 choices and their vibe and their aesthetic, definitely matches up
with "Death Stranding." I could totally see a "Death
Stranding" movie by A24, but that's just crazy. Good for video games here. (chuckles) This is nuts. I'm curious, a lot of people are just questioning like what is a "Death
Stranding" movie gonna be like. Is it gonna kinda like focus up that story that got a little messy towards the end? That was like my one real
complaint about that game. You know, is it gonna
be the same character? Is it really gonna be
the actors from the games playing the characters in the movie? Who knows? It's probably gonna be a while before we actually see anything. I mean, there's still a
"Metal Gear Solid" movie in the works. So video game movies are weird, man. But with that, that's the
gaming news this week. So I wanna hear from you guys
in the comments of course, but I just wanted to say also this is the last recorded
Friday show for the year. We're gonna have stuff
every Friday for you up until after the holidays. You know, I'm gonna do like a wrap up, and the game of the year thing, but as of me talking to you right now, December 15th, that's it. So thank you guys for
watching every Friday. Another year in the books. I hope you have a happy holiday. Whatever you celebrate,
if you celebrate anything, if you don't, just have a great time. Happy New Year, happy,
healthy, all of that. Good luck. Let's go kill it in 2024. And thank you again for
watching this stuff for so long. You know, it keeps us working, it keeps us paying our
bills, so thank you. But yeah, let's talk about
the stories this week. The PS5 Pro spec leak, whatever. But the "Grand Theft Auto" story, are you with Florida Joker
man or are you against him? What do you think about
the "Wolverine" hack? Have you caught any
glimpses of anything online? Also of the new trailers and stuff, what are you excited about? Are you a VR person like me? Are you interested in
"Asgard's Wrath" too? Are you an unfortunate soul
that purchased the day before? Maybe misery loves, maybe you love misery, I don't know. (chuckles) But let's talk about any of
this stuff down in the comments. There's a lot to talk
about, so let us know. And also, pin the comment in that thread. Be sure to drop what you're
playing this weekend, for research, so we can tailor our videos to you guys. But that's really it. So thank you guys for watching. Really, I mean it. Have a good one. Be safe. I'm Jake Baldino. Pizza's on me.
