(logo chiming) - Hello folks. Today is Friday, January 26th, 2024. As usual, my name is Jake Baldino here to talk about all the video game news that has been going on this week. It's a pretty rollercoaster week. Lots of highs. Lots of lows. So let's just jump right in. The first story has to do
with "Assassin's Creed," a new leak, believe it or not, for the next "Assassin's
Creed" thing, it is a remake. Now, you probably remember these rumors couple of months back,
the rumor was that Ubisoft was remaking "Assassin's
Creed IV: Black Flag." The best one. - [Videographer] Agreed, - Or like close to it. - [Videographer] No, the best, right? - Okay. But now thanks to Eagle
Eye people on the internet, including Joel Raptor
on Twitter and YouTube, it does seem like this thing is officially in the works with a division
of Ubisoft, Ubisoft Singapore. Apparently now this game has
been in the works for a while with the pieces being put together thanks to LinkedIn posts for employees. It seems like this project is
definitely Ubisoft Singapore and the development has started
roughly four months ago. Now, it is probably like a remaster or we don't know really the extent of it, so we don't know how
long it's going to take, but it does seem like now
it's more officially a thing, which goes back to what I've
been saying on this show for years now, right? Ubisoft has invested so much money in trying to make "Skull
and Bones" a thing. That game still isn't out yet and here they are now spending resources remaking the "Good Pirate" game. Ubisoft should have spun off
the "Assassin's Creed" series at a point and called them
"Pirates Creed," right? They had "Assassin's
Creed IV: Black Flag," then they had "Assassin's Creed Rogue." They could have just kept going
and made cool pirate games. It's a perfect footprint for it. It's interesting too
because like, in my opinion, "Black Flag" doesn't really
need a remake or anything. Maybe like a cleanup, maybe a
remaster from modern consoles. Sure. But I can't see this thing
being completely redone because it's already really great and it also looked pretty decent. It can definitely be cleaned
up. Sure, but who knows? But I don't know anything.
I'm not a corporation. So yeah, while essentially this isn't like "AC IV: Black Flag" confirmed, it is people putting the pieces together through these listings
and it seems more likely. So let me know in the
comments what you think and also if you wanna read
up on it, check it all out. All the stories I talk about this week will be linked in a
description down below. Next up, the biggest story of the week, of course you know it's "Palworld." "Palworld" is released
on Steam early access and through Xbox Game Pass. And it is essentially
the first big viral hit game of the year. A total surprise if you ask me. We know that the game
has been in the works. We've talked about it
on game ranks years ago as haha "Pokemon" guns, but didn't really see
it blowing up this much. And it is blowing up a lot because even though it's an early access, it's giving a lot of
people what they want, just like a crazier,
weirder "Pokemon" game. But it's really not "Pokemon" like you're catching creatures, yeah, but it's really this interesting blend of like a survival game like Arc and a bunch of other
elements from other games. I talk about it way more in depth in a before you buy video,
I have some criticisms, but ultimately I think it's a lot of fun. But of course there
has been a conversation about like how hard the
game rips off "Pokemon." How close do these creatures
look to Game Freak's, famous million, billion dollar creatures. And it's something I didn't
expect Nintendo and Game Freak actually put out like a public statement, a public acknowledgement. I would've assumed that this would've been an all behind closed
doors lawyers type thing. But a public statement does
to me seem like something, maybe it's a scare tactic. I don't know what it is. But here's the deal, they
said, "We intend to investigate and take appropriate
measures to address any acts that infringe on
intellectual property rights related to the Pokemon. We will continue to
cherish and nurture each and every Pokemon hunt and its world. And we will work to
bring the world together through Pokemon in the future." So on the one hand, that
statement, like you can laugh because they say that
they want to continue to nurture Pokemon, but
for a lot of people, "Pokemon" games have fallen kind of flat or stale in recent years. But this is them like without
actually naming the game, this is them acknowledging that they are going to
investigate and look into things. And I think that's because of the flurry of conversation around "Palworld." There were people talking about the models possibly infringing
on actual Pokemon designs that was somewhat debunked. There was also just conversations of like these things just being made
through like an AI generator and also just of course
the bigger conversation, like the parody kind of copy
spoof, like where is the line? So it seems like the Pokemon company is also looking into that. And that comes with "Palworld's"
massive success dude. This is crazy. It is the second game in Steam history to hit more than 2 million
concurrent players. The concurrent numbers are insane. People can check those out and apparently the game
has sold 8 million copies. So it just goes to show like
give the people what they want. Just a fun simple thing. Even if it's goofy,
it's weird, it's broken. If it's fun and it takes a bunch of fun elements from other
games and it packages it up, people will go nuts for it. I think part of it with this game was also the fact that it
was went viral over last week and it blew up instantly through that. It is definitely just
like a fascinating case. Like I think we're gonna
be talking about this one in like video game studies, video game industry history
books for years to come. Me personally, after spending
a bunch of time in it, like it is still clear as fun as it is, it is still very much
an early access game. So I am really excited to see them hopefully take all this money and dump it into the game and make it way cooler and
fix some of the problems. The developers in the past have some issues with not
really totally supporting their games and there's a lot out there if you wanna look them up. But I think at this point now this is too big for it to
not become a bigger thing. But we'll just have to
wait and see where it goes. If you are playing "Palworld," I would love to know what you think, what's your favorite creature thing, pal? Have you done anything weird in the game? We played together as
friends. That was pretty good. It's good solo, but it's a
lot more fun with friends. - [Videographer] Yeah, until
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for sponsor in this video. And then in some downer news, Microsoft has announced
a bunch of layoffs, 1900 layoffs with the gaming industry. Now I think crossing
like over 10,000 layoffs in recent between 2023 and 2024, a lot of industries, tech
industries are facing layoffs. And this one comes right
off the heels of of course Microsoft buying Activision Blizzard for like a billion, billion dollars. So with that, Microsoft
has laid off people from both Xbox and on the Blizzard side. And this is significant because Mike Ybarra
Blizzard leadership is out. Another lead like head of design from the old days of Blizzard is also out. It's been pretty brutal out there. And along with that we got the news that with this Blizzard has also canceled their survival game that they've been working
on for a very long time. Now we know code named "Odyssey." They had officially confirmed this in 2022 and yeah, they scrapped it. Blizzard has a history of of
scrapping projects of course, but from the reports and
stuff it actually sounded like this one was shaping
up to be pretty cool. Which I always hate that
in like news and reports. Can you just tell me that it sucked. So like I don't have to like think like, oh man, be like, yeah they
canceled it 'cause it sucked. And I'd be like, okay, fine. But no, apparently "Odyssey" was shaping up to be pretty cool. I would've loved to have seen Blizzards spin on a survival game, a
genre that is jam packed, like with Blizzards resources and stuff. But now we will never know. It goes on the pile with
so many other things. Like of course "StarCraft: Ghost." Rip
- [Videographer] Rip. - And along with that, apparently "Black Forest" games, owned by Embracer THQ
Nordic, that whole thing, they had done "The Destroy Humans" remix. Apparently they have like 50%
of their people laid off now. Totally gutted. And they were working on the "Teenage Mutant
Ninja Turtle: Last Ronin" game that was announced
a couple months back that we were very excited about. So who knows what's up with that. Definitely an interesting
time for the industry. A lot of analysts and people are saying it's kind of
like a reconfiguring, a rethinking of things. And we're gonna be
feeling this for a while. Next up, some shorter
things to talk about. The first is a new look at "Suicide Squad: Kill
the Justice League," which people are going to be
able to start playing next week if they buy like the $100
dollars special edition thing, they revealed that there's
going to be like end game Elseworlds content. So we're getting like
an Elseworlds' joker. You're gonna be able to play
as this different joker. It's not the Arkham universe
Joker, he's a different joker. He looks kind of whatever. Yeah. So if you wanted to
play as a joker, here you go. But the developers
talked about Elseworlds' giving them an opportunity to bring in new, weird, quirky DC characters and that's what I want to see. We've had enough joker bring some weird old
DC freaks into the mix. Still the jury's out on "Suicide Squad." I don't know what to think about that game until I get my hands on it. We'll have a before you buy at some point, maybe next week or the week after. I don't know, just keep your eyes peeled. I say keep your eyes peeled a lot, but like, I guess that's
like my new phrase. Sorry, what does that even mean? Also, solid "Snake and
Fortnite." "Snake and Fortnite." Your resident metal gear weirdo thinks that he looks really cool. The character model designs for old snake, solid snake riding looks good man. I'm not gonna play "Fortnite"
but like this is cool. But I did think about it, I
thought about it for a second. That's how thirsty hungry
"Metal Gear" fans are. Also some good games to
look forward to some, some releases right now. First is like a" Dragon Infinite Wealth," Falcon and Eric behind the scenes played that did a before he buy on it and all the reviews out
there sound fantastic. I love these games. Like I really like the
brawler combat more, but like I haven't really
dived into the new Itchy games. I am a guy so like I do
wanna jump in this one to see what his deal is in it, but like yeah, seems
like an awesome new one. Also "Tekken 8" just dropped. People are just jumping into it, really getting their feel for it. Early reactions seem pretty positive before you buy is in the
works, I'm not on that one. I have to defer sometimes 'cause I'm not a fighting game expert. But it does seem like
people are digging it. "Tekken" continues to be popular. So when is there going to be
a new "Tekken" tag tournament? That's all I have to say. Clearly. I'm like an old PS2 era gamer. I'm like just bring back tech
and tag with the bowling. The bowling was good. - [Videographer] No the bowl- - The bowling was really good. We also got a trailer for
"Earth Defense Force 6" with the English version coming soon. That's definitely more defense
force from the trailer. Those games are extremely underrated. Also check out this trailer for a VR game. It's been a minute since
we talked about a VR game, but this is a "Titanic: A Space Between." It's a really awesome Titanic
sinking recreation in VR. Yeah, sure, but also there's like a
slenderman monster chasing you. Seems like a good idea if you ask me. It really, really ticks my boxes, my weirdly highly specific boxes. But yeah, it's coming Valentine's Day, so not too much longer. And it does just seem like a cool concept. Also, in case you missed it, PC People, "Horizon Forbidden West" now has a Steam listing with a date. So you're gonna be able
to play it March 21st. Along with that, there have
been rumors floating around suggesting more ports are coming soon. They're guesses, they're
pretty logical guesses like the "Demon Souls" remake, "Gran Turismo 7," stuff like
that less of us part two. I could see it happening, but it's all just a matter
of when at this point. Again, those ones aren't
confirmed, those are just rumors. But "Horizon Forbidden
West" is fairly soon. Also, in case you missed it, this just dropped another "Switch 2" rumor this one from Bloomberg, which usually has a
really good track record. We've heard a lot of "Switch
2" rumors in the past, a couple of weeks and it seems
like it's coming this year, maybe like holiday season now
with this report suggesting that it is going to have
a seven inch LCD screen. The seven inches is great because seven inches is the
size of the Switch OLED, which is a little bit of a bigger screen. But with this new "Switch 2" this screen reportedly being LCD, that seems to be leaving a
lot of people disappointed. I can already tell from
the reactions online, Nintendo tends to cheap out on some things and I could totally see them releasing the "Switch 2" with an LCD screen and then a year or two later
an OLED edition, which sucks. But regardless of how you feel about that, this is another rumor another thing, another leak suggesting that "Switch 2" is coming pretty soon. Now my big questions are
like what does this entail? What else does it add? Obviously like we've talked
a lot about the graphics and the componentry and stuff, but for me it's like what's
Nintendo's little spin on things and also what's gonna be the
launch title or launch titles? "Metro Prime 4." Eh, eh,
I don't know. We'll see. But that's the news this week. That's everything to get you
guys caught up real quick. We don't wanna waste
your time, you got to do. So lemme know in the comments
what you think about, the layoffs, but the really
the canceled survival game from Blizzard. Could you imagine what that would be like? Lemme know what you think about "Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag," returning, remake, remaster, whatever. Do you care? Are you playing
a "Snake in Fortnite?" (Jake laughing) What a weird sentence. I'm sorry, just saying that out loud. "Tekken 8," what are you playing? Let us know in the comments, there's going to be a pinned
comment in the comment section. It's like the sponsor link. But in that comment thread, be sure to let us know what you're playing for research purposes. But thank you guys for coming around here watching the Friday show with us. We've been doing this for
like a million years now. We are always here every Friday for you, so if you like this video,
click the like button helps us. That's all you gotta do. What I really ask is that
you have a great weekend. Be safe. I'm Jake Baldino. Pizza's on me.
