Xbox removes day-one new releases from basic Gamepass tier | This Week In Videogames

this video is brought to you by raycon and they're all new everyday earbuds it's the biggest refresh of raycons in years adding new features like active noise cancelling and Multi-Device connect all while remaining at rayon's famously reasonable price click the link below to get 15% off your order and free shipping or stick around to the end of the video to learn more Gamers how's dry July going for you I asked that question drinking a Negron at 11:00 p.m. as I write this script so I will say that my dry July is going splendidly thank you for asking on the games front it ended up being pretty big actually what with the release of dawn tral Zena Zone zero and the first ascendant a traditional MMO a Gachet game and a Luda shooter all releasing in the same week is a lot of content for those that prefer their services live I even tried some zzz myself actually and you know what it's not bad though I'm certainly not a fan of the gadget stuff more on that later in the episode but for now let's kick things off with a look at another live service game one that really shat the bed this week after having a pretty good run for quite a few years ah EA in the words of the great Todd EA never changes the majority of EA's business is of course its Sports business stuff like FIFA Madden Etc all that juicy Ultimate Team money propping up EA and providing Andy Wilson with an entire fleet's worth of Yachts he did after all take home $25 million last year despite laying off hundreds of workers but that's a discussion for another video EA spent a long time trying to export its Ultimate Team business model to other games like Mass Effect and Star Wars Battlefront 2 with the latter spectacular blowing up in their faces resulting in what is still to this day the most downvoted Reddit comment in history the old pride and accomplishment one remember that one ah 2018 those were headyy days anyway EA searched for a successful non sports-based live service game struck Pay Dirt in 2019 when respawn released Apex Legends a battle royale game set in the TitanFall universe that was much more than just a Shameless cash in on the Battle Royale fad it was a terrific game in its own right and it's gone on to have phenomenal success with huge play accounts an Engaged community and plenty of dollars for EA shareholders there was that iron Crown event a few years back which really took the piss with monetization and royally pissed everyone off pun intended the blowback was so bad that respawn swore they'd never repeat those same mistakes okay let's see how that promise holds up in the year of Our Lord 2024 just yesterday respawn uploaded a blog post titled battle pass updates which began quote hey Legends you know that we're all in on creating the best experience we're frequently iterating on the game chatting with players and considering how we can action on community feedback from casuals to Pros end quote after that they literally spent 1,000 words talking about how they're now about to charge twice as much money for the battle pass and remove the ability to earn it for free I almost feel sorry for the pr minion who had to write that [ __ ] up with such a Boppy tone because yeah that's exactly what they announced basically where before there was one battle pass per season with 110 levels there'll now be two battle passes with 60 levels each but rather than half the price of them the price stays the same so if you want to get everything those battle passes have to offer you're now spending twice as much per season now there are some upsides to this sort of with respawn claiming that they're going to offer more better rewards but no one asked to be charged twice as much for those rewards like damn man buy a girl a drink first it gets worse though and this is a thing that really pissed people off so you could actually earn the old battle passes for free just by playing the game it was really grindy took a really long time but you could absolutely do it and it was one of the many reasons that people continued to play the game as much as they did along with this announcement of double the battle passes double The price came the announcement that no longer will you be able to earn those battle passes for free respawn just shut that [ __ ] down offering the shittiest explanation possible quote the decision to move on from AC to real world currency is not one that we made lightly but it does allow us to decrease the price of premium plus for our community end quote okay great so you're removing the means for freet to-play players to be able to get the battle pass but the consolation prize is that those spending $20 per season are apparently getting some sort of discount a discount that you magically just pulled out of your ass because Premium Plus is a new thing and you control the price for all this stuff anyway this went down exactly how you would have guessed outrage from the community endless angry Reddit threads and plenty of Juicy qits on Twitter one person on Reddit asked how exactly is this better for players to which someone replied quote it's not it's better for EA shareholders which is their intention end quote and that's it that's the bottom line literally EA made $5.8 billion in profit last year the top five people who work at EA made a collective $60 million between them anytime a prosperous Corporation sta by grotesquely overpaid Executives tell you that they simply must raise the price on something they are feeding you a line doubly so when they try to present that stuff as some sort of improvement on the player experience this news is still fresh so it's unclear if EA will walk any of this back I do suspect they'll walk back at least some of it as it's a classic anchoring strategy that these companies regularly employ when they want to pull [ __ ] like this they announced something truly awful that they know everyone will hate they let the outrage play out and then they make one or two tiny changes after that which they position as we're listening so that the narrative shifts to the concessions rather than the disappointing outcome Bungie are the absolute masters of this strategy I know it super well for that reason but they are certainly not alone in their command of it I will keep you posted on if and when respawn have more to say speaking of price increases we all knew it was coming but it's finally here the cost of Game Pass is going up and that's not all say goodbye to Day One releases unless you are willing to spend even more Microsoft made the announcements through Windows Central and is in the process of Rolling Out official coms at the moment it's really complicated actually so bear with me while I try to explain all of this so right now there's something called Xbox game pass for console that will soon no longer be available to new signups but existing subscribers get to keep their subscription at least for now that's important because that te will continue to get day one new release games in addition to the expensive back catalog for which Xbox game pass is known so that's that any new game pass signups are going to be directed to what's called Xbox game pass standard it'll include online functionality when playing on on Console back catalog stuff but it won't include Day One new releases the price for that will be $14.99 per month Xbox game pass ultimate will remain unchanged in terms of its offering but it's getting a price increase to $20 a month PC game pass will also remain unchanged and it will continue to offer Day One new releases but its price will go up to $12 per month of note Microsoft are also capping the amount of months you can stack at 13 before you could stack literally years of Game Pass membership allowing you to combined gift cards and spiritual promotions to get Game Pass ridiculously cheaply if you still have those excess months then they're still yours but you will no longer be able to add new months past the 13-month mark so there it is the shoe has dropped I had long believed that Call of Duty on Game Pass day one would never happen I just couldn't see the commercials behind it I just seemed like Microsoft was giving away too much money for too little return so when they announced that Cod was indeed coming to Game Pass I was really confused I am no longer confused because clearly this was the plan all along to H people into a more expensive tier if they wanted to get access to those day one offerings the promise of Game Pass has always been those big day One new releases and now that promise only resides in a tier that costs $20 a month but curiously far less than that on PC and I do expect the Microsoft will have to answer repeatedly while their loyal console fan base are paying 60% more for Day One games in their PC Brethren funly enough this two-tier approach now aligns game pass with ubisoft's up playay plus and e a subscription service both of which had a basic tier that offered back catalog and a premium tier that offered Day One releases to be honest I've always felt that that was kind of fair and it's never felt quite right that you could play Day One new releases like Ford of horizon 5 or Starfield after having just spent like 10 bucks or less than that if you managed to stack those discount codes that gave you a month of Game Pass for a buck I know companies will very often overcharge in fact they do it all the time but I also do believe that there's the concept of undercharging something that has really devalued music news TV and movies over the last DEC as everything has either been given away for free or bundled into a cheap subscription service that era is looking to be ending though as the price of subscription Services continues to go up ads are creeping in and news outlets are collapsing I mean we're seeing a pivot back to piracy at the moment since the cost of subscription Services is rising and that in itself tells you a lot about the way things are headed in that context the game pass price increase and these structural changes are by no means surprising and given that Microsoft have not confirmed that the old Game Pass console tier will keep access to Day One games forever and given that they've now got four pricing tiers that they can tweak this way or that I definitely expect a lot more fiddling with price points and offerings over the coming months and years riviting from Xbox to Sony news it looks as though that Horizon zero Dawn TV show has been canned this news comes courtesy of Rolling Stone who did an expose of Steve Blackburn the showrunner for the Horizon adaptation as well as Umbrella Academy he was also the script writer for bones altered carbon and Fargo so that's a hell of a CV but Rolling Stone spoke to 12 people who alleged that he was a toxic leader with a history of bullying manipulation and retaliatory Behavior a few days after this Netflix informed Rolling Stone that the Horizon adaptation was no longer moving forward it's not clear if that was because of these allegations or if the project had been earlier canned but it is clear that it's not happening and honestly I'm kind of not surprised since the cost associated with doing this series properly would have been astronomical and I don't think Horizon has quite the same pull as stuff like Fallout or The Last of Us sticking with Sony they're planning to exhibit at the Tokyo game show this year for the first time since 2019 it's kind of a big deal since they're skipping Gamescom in August which is basically the largest consumer and trade show running right now but 1 month later in September they're a Tokyo game show why is that it can't be to promote astrobot since that would already be out by the time Tokyo game show rolls around and I very much doubt it would be to promote the Lego Horizon game since that's not really targeting a Japanese audience far more likely is that this will be the show where consumers will get their first look at the long rumored and all but confirmed PS5 Pro Sony's language and various industry leaks have made clear that we should expect a pro upgrade by the end of the year despite the fact that no one is really clamoring for that right now as it still feels like the current console generation hasn't really begun regardless A PS5 Pro is almost certainly happening and if it is to aim for a holiday release then an end of September showing a turo game show makes a lot of sense I will be there actually so if Sony are doing any Hands-On stuff I'll be sure to report back that is if they let me in the building you never know speaking of the big three what a Nintendo up to lately well God bless them they're out there clarifying their stance on AI and unlike basically every other publisher it's a pretty good stance Nintendo President should sharo fora L A shareholder meeting where he responded to a question about the way Nintendo plan to utilize AI in their game making process here's what he had to say quote in the games industry AI like technologies have long been used for example to control the movements of opponent characters so I believe that game development and AI technology have always had a close relationship generative AI which is becoming a big topic recently can be used in creative ways but we recognize that it may also raise issues with intellectual property rights we have Decades of knowhow and creating the best gaming experiences for our players while we're open to utilizing technological developments we will work to continue delivering value that is unique to Nintendo and cannot be created by technology alone end quote it's a practical stance that says that AI can be utilized in past the development process but ultimately cannot be relied upon to create the things that players value most couple with Shira Moto's recent comments about the generational Handover currently taking place at Nintendo and the long recorded aversion to flippant layoffs and downsizing you get a clear sense that Nintendo's approach to people and technology is pretty sound now if we could just get them to lay off on all that dmca stuff we'd be golden a quick lighting round to finish off we could have had some GTA 5 story DLC but surprise surprise it got canned because GTA online was making just too much money we all absolutely knew this to be the case but we got some further detail about it this week when former Rockstar cinematics director Joe Rabino appeared on the San Inplay podcast there he confirmed that Rockstar were deep in development of single player DLC focused on Trevor feeling absolutely robbed that we didn't get to experience more of that literal mad lad Rea says that a lot of the work that went into that DLC eventually made its way into GTA online absent all the Trevor stuff of course but still it sucks to know that GTA storyline could have continued if the online stuff didn't make quite so much money speaking of cash counts Final Fantasy 14 has basically been the main thing keeping Square enx afloat over the past decade and a recent rumor suggests that it may be coming to mobile now I will say that I'm extremely skeptical of this one since the control scheme for Final Fantasy 14 is badshit insane it's like 20 activatable abilities hotb at any one time so I have no idea how you squeeze that onto a mobile but exua are reporting that Final Fantasy 14 mobile is currently in development as a joint venture between square anx and tensent who years prior had signed an agreement to do something together if I was a Haz it a guess I can absolutely see this existing as like a mihoyo style Gater game where you pull to unlock various characters from across the expansive Final Fantasy 14 Saga one pull is an S esian and the next is an FTI lease this is all just a guess of course based on a rumor so you should absolutely ignore everything I'm saying right now advice that is generally applicable in most instances Nintendo has announced that they are no longer repairing Wii U consoles the reason they run out of parts I guess the six people that bought a Wii U are going to have to be extra careful with how they handle them going forward though I'm sure the Retro reseller scene are rubbing their hands together with Glee a little more Studio acquisition news for the week paleo developer Singularity 6 has been acquired by Daybreak the studio forly known as Sony Online Entertainment responsible for games like EverQuest Planet Side 2 and plenty more Singularity 6 was founded by a bunch of EX RI devs when funding was easy to come by and their first and only project was paleo a much hyped cozy MMO that got a pretty teered launch reception but things have since improved the singularity have added more content to the game it hasn't been easy though a singularity laid off 35% of their people in April this year and did a further round of layoffs in May this acquisition is no doubt intended to steady the ship as it navigates these choppy Seas debre statement on the acquisition makes it clear that they're committed to the future of Pia so expect to see that one keep going for a while yet some sales numbers just to top you off remember that [ __ ] annoying Chicken ad at the Summer Games first that went for like 30 minutes and started every Hollywood celebrity with a pulse if you don't good I am jealous the game was called Squad Busters and after that obnoxious reveal it brings me no small amount of pleasure to report that it's kind of bombing at least in Mobile standards which of course means that it's still making about a 100 times the amount of money that your average non-mobile game makes Squad Busters ranked in $24 million in its first month of operation a number that might seem impressive until you compare it to the last two supercell releases brawl stars made 43 million in its first month and Clash Royale made 115 million hey you want to go really crazy honkai star rail made $190 million in its first month in that context 24 million ain't all that but it's still an absurd amount of money and a reminder of how infantes small the core gaming Market is compared to mobile Guilty Gear strive has just passed 3 million units sold it's a great result for a fighting series that to this point has been fairly Niche but has since picked up a lot of steam after the incredibly polished strive release back in 2021 incidentally strive got the third most signups at Evo this year behind Street Fighter 6 and Tekken 8 showing that the competitive side of the game is just as healthy as the commercial side Final Fantasy 14 just hit its highest ever concurrent player count with the release of the Dawn Trail expansion Square didn't release numbers but Yoshi P did release a statement saying quote with your support we were able to reach a record number of concurrent users we've not seen since the release of A Realm Reborn in 2013 end quote honestly a little surprised that that's the record since I would have expected shadowbringers or n Walker to be the high point da tral may be doing numbers but it's definitely struggling in terms of reviews and player feedback more on that later speaking of play counts Forza Horizon 4 just hit its highest concurrent player count ever on Steam you might be like wait isn't that the old one and yes that's the old one with Forza Horizon 5 and Forza Motorsport both releasing after Horizon 4 the reason for the surge in popularity is that it was recently announced that the game would be delisted from sale in December of this year and as such Microsoft discounted the game by roughly 80% as a fire sale the result was that it hit an alltime peak of 75,000 current players on Steam which puts it near the top 10 most played games on Steam for that period that is still on sale by the way so if you want to grab it do get in quick next to find is that new Cod likee shooter from Ubisoft it's doing pretty good 11 million players and still Rising along with some solid reviews and feedback from the shooter Community shadow of the earth trees Sold 5 million units in its first day remember all that difficulty discourse feels like a distant memory at this point doesn't it the sh shank inspired a way out from Joseph Ferris and his team is now sold through 10 million units and very nice to hear that Stella blade has sold 1 million units a fantastic result for an ambitious new IP that launched on only one platform I do imagine that the game will do solid numbers when it arrives on PC and I am very interested to see what the modern Community has in store for that one sadly there were plenty of layoffs recently that Trend continues and shows absolutely no signs of slowing down take perfect world for example they just cut 1,000 jobs out of their china-based operations there's no Clarity on what this means for their in progress projects like one punch man world but 1,000 people is a lot and are sure to have a substantial impact on whatever it is they're working on mobile game developer gameof just sacked for 9 people in their Toronto Bay Studio they also cited the turbulent market conditions that are all the rage right now this was quickly followed by Ubisoft sacking 33 of their Toronto based employees the studio quickly confirming that work on the SPO cell remake will continue and finally Tales of kenara Z developer surgeon Studios announced layoffs as well with over a dozen people let go Z got a solid critical reception but you get the feeling it didn't sell Gang Busters Studio boss and House of the Dragon actor Abu bakar Sim announced the layoffs on Twitter saying quote I'm so proud of what the team has achieved over the course of these four years when things got tough every one of them stood so strong it was inspiring so to be delivering this news today really sucks I know we're not alone here but that doesn't make it easier end quote hopefully Sergent can regroup and continue as it' be a real shame for them to not be able to follow up on their impressive debut so w announced are delayed this week where we often credit the Cozy game genre to stardew Valley but before that it was Animal Crossing and before that it was Harvest Moon but nestled in there somewhere was also boo no Natsu yasumi a series of games set in 1970s rural Japan that were just about you know cozy game things the first one released in the year 2001 for the PS1 and there were four games in the series none of them ever got an English translation though the person most responsible for them is someone named Kaz aab and he's been putting out games this entire time the latest one is called natson 20th century summer kid and this one is getting an English localization if you want to soak up the sort of Vibes that my neighbor Toro is putting out then this one might be for you it arrives on August 6th for switch and PC hey remember how the Dead Space series was totally awesome until EA killed it and then remember how the Dead Space remake was incredible and then EA killed any hope of a remake for Dead Space 2 well EA are finally ready to put things right which is why this week they announced what every Dead Space fan has been hoping and praying for a battlefield 2042 Dead Space crossover yeah all right it's a limited time outbreak event game mode thing where you have to fend off Necromorphs before extracting the game mode runs from the 9th to the 16th of July which is an extremely short window of time for a game mode that would have taken actual Dev hours to create absolutely no one asks for this and all it accomplishes is reminding us that dead space is once again dead you ever wanted to race Transformers and then fight when you reach the Finish Line sure you have you are 8 years old once luckily now there's a game for that or at least there will be soon Transformers Galactic trials that you race Transformers through fairly sparse looking tracks but at some point that six sound effect plays and it's time to transform into ask kicking mode to be honest this looks pretty janky and it's being published by outright games the label behind the Terrible Louie and Peppa Pig games I do not have high hopes for this one but as a grown ass man I hardly the target market this one Launches on all platforms on October 11th two bits of cancellation news this week the first is for Battlefield 3 4 and Hardline probably doesn't matter too much at this point but EA have just announced that there sunsetting online support for these games on the Xbox 360 and the PS3 that does feel like a pretty good run given that we're now two console Generations past that online service for all three games will end on November 7th with three still playable on PC and four and five still playable on last gen consoles and PC and finally the media has struck EXO Primal the Capcom made competitive Co-op shooter that saw you fighting against hordes of dinosaurs that fell from the sky like a torrential downpour to be honest I saw this coming from the moment I played EXO Primal the setting was weird the combat was good but not great and the competitive PVP aspects were really busted with some very imbalanced map design and mechanics that made the final sections of each round a real pain play cans for this one created pretty soon after launch and when Capcom only released minor content updates it was pretty clear that this one would follow the actual dinosaurs into the land of Extinction this week ccom confirmed that the game will get its last content update on July 11th after that time the game will remain playable but content will be cycled monthly beginning with season 1 a sad end for a weird game it's cool that Capcom took a punt with this one but yeah this was a very long odds bet let's hope it doesn't stop them from putting out other weird [ __ ] in the future because as much as we all love Resident Evil and Monster Hunter and Street Fighter and Devil May Cry it's nice to have some out of left field stuff in the mix too so what came out last week a really interesting spread of title actually kicking things off with Final Fantasy 14 Dawn trailer which officially launched last week after a brief Early Access period for pre-order customers last week we covered the fact that the game wasn't getting a particularly warm reception and things a little better this week with the expansion sitting at a mixed 62% on Steam a far cry from previous expansions which were usually in that very positive or overwhelmingly positive territory almost every negative review points to the story which is meant to be a real drag full of obtuse politics and boring characters that pale in comparison to the characters that took Center Stage over the past two expansions critics are a little more upbeat on it though with Dawn tril currently sitting at 85 on open critic aan scored an 8 out of 10 saying quote Dawn tril may have some Growing Pains as it establishes a compelling New Era for Final Fantasy 14 but in its best moments it lives up to what made this MMO RPG so special for all these years end quote no doubt Yoshi and his team will get things back on track in the future but right now this does seem to be a bit of an awkward stumble into this next chapter of the Final Fantasy 14 Saga next up is the first descendant the longin development looter shooter from the free-to-play focus Nexon now as I said in the past I played this one a long time ago and I didn't love it that was a long time ago and I'd hoped that things would have come a long way since then by all accounts they seem to have not really come that far at all critical consensus on this one is that it's by no means bad but it's not great either it's clearly aping a lot of what Destiny and Warframe do without being better than either of those games which really begs the question why would you jump into this one when you could be playing those instead still it has been a fairly big hit if you look at play counts it picked at over 260,000 current players and that number is actually increasing over time which is a very good sign the Steam Reviews are less encouraging sitting at a mixed 51% negative reviews point to some General blandness in terms of tone story and the core gameplay Loop but the most angry reviews are the ones calling out the in-game cash shop Nexon really went full Nexon here selling characters for up to $55 providing no way to earn the premium currency and even going so far as to make paint jobs one-time use a move that Bungie pulled back in the day with the launch of Destiny 2 before being shamed into abandoning that approach very few Critic reviews for this one out at the time of writing as everyone's still working through it but gaming bolt did score at a 50 out of 100 saying quote all the glitz and dopamine inducing loot drops can't stop the first descendant from feeling generic repetitive and just plain soulless end quote it's possible that given a year or two of Updates this might become something worth checking out but right now you get the feeling that you're better off letting others experience all those live service growing pains by the way did you guys see that story about how much the first descendant is straight up ripping off various icons from Destiny some of them are kind of line ball calls but some of them are so blatant they'd make Po World blush another freom play offering that GED a lot of attention this past week was Zena Zone zero and by a lot of attention I mean it got over 50 million downloads in the first few days if that's surprising then perhaps you don't know that this is the latest thing from mihoyo makers of genin impact and honkai star two absolute Behemoth that tore up the rule book for the gacha game sub genre Zen Zone zero has been teased and hyped for a long time now and it seems as though mihoyo have another honest to goodness hit on their hands besides those impressive launch numbers the game currently sits at an 80 on Metacritic reviews praising the presentation music combat and even the progression with the general sentiment being that you can enjoy a fairly rich 40-hour single player campaign without having to spend a dime you're a gamer with fans scoring at an 80 and saying quote there's a deceptive depth to zenis Zone zero even with its smaller scale thanks to this dual focus on pleasing both casual players and those looking for a deeper challenge mirroring its dedication to both chill exploration and fast-paced combat end quote you might have seen that Austin also reviewed this one link below the like button he definitely enjoyed himself and while he's by no means a fan of the Gat of stuff he also agreed that it's perfectly possible to progress at a reasonable rate without having to spend a dime that is of course how they get you in and for that reason Austin was unwilling to recommend this one per se but if you go in with your eyes open about all that Gat of stuff and how it works there's every chance you'll enjoy yourself and have a good time if you'd like to see the full review like I said link below the like button and finally the legend of Heroes Trails through Daybreak got its English localization this past week arriving for the switch PS4 and PS5 it's a very traditional jrpg which is one of the reasons it took a little while to arrive on Western Shores it was initially released back in 2021 after all reviews for this one are pretty damn solid it's sitting at a mighty 85 on open critic Igan scored an 8 out of 10 saying quote with a fresh cast of characters joined by a handful of familiar faces it's a welcoming point for potential new fans to jump in while also rewarding veteran players for returning and quote incidentally they just announced that the sequel to this Daybreak 2 is also getting an English localization so you can expect that in the not too distant future so what's coming out this week well Ace Combat 7 Skies unknown lands on the switch on July 11th this is a fantastic game and incidentally the first Ace comat game I ever played through and reviewed but man I don't know how you going to get this to run on a switch or even why you'd want to play it on a switch since this thing really benefits from a big screen and a hot house setup if you are brave enough to pick it up do let me know in the comments section how you go since I'm genuinely interested here's a cool one so you know how devolver digital are always joking that everyone's always asking for a Hotline Miami sequel well devolver can't convince Denon games to make another hotline but they can publish a spiritual success that that's basically Hotline Miami but in first person this is anger foot and yeah I really don't know how else to describe it other than firstperson Hotline Miami I can tell you that actually played this one since devolver sent me a build a while ago and I absolutely loved it fast frenetic fun that just puts you in that almost zombified Flow State the same way that Hotline Miami did this one arrives on October 11th exclusive to PC for the moment no word on Console ports yet speaking of console ports darkest dungeon 2 arise on Playstation Xbox and switch on the 15th this is the followup to the dungeon crawling Rogue light most famous for its psychological stress mechanic that would slowly build up over time as your adventurers spent more time dungeon diving brilliant art style solid game design and great reviews for this one when it arrived on PC last year cataclysm MO is a striking looking tower defense game it was revealed only a short while ago but this week it arrives exclusive to PC it drops on the 16th are you a fan of Mario party but wished it was based on Demon Slayer I'm going to guess that's a pretty small population of people but they ought to buy a lottery ticket because Demon Slayer kimetsu no yba sweep the board is basically just Mario party but based on the absurdly successful demon slay anime series extremely weird but kind of cool it's being published by Sega of all labels and arrives on all PL platforms by the switch on the 16th I always pay attention to anything put out by aner or interactive and this is their next thing it's called flock and it comes from developer Hollow pwns and Richard hog who earlier put out the cult classic Hokum flock is as chill as chill games come you basically just fly around trying to her flying creatures convincing them to join your flock and that's it it looks pretty it looks relaxing it looks lovely it's out on all platforms by the switch on the 16th PS it will be day one on Game Pass and finally we profiled clicking last week it's that horror s game from the team that recently put out El Paso elsewhere clicking sees you abducted and held hostage by some creepy dude who demands that you keep clicking a clicker otherwise it's game over for you in every sense of the word got some inscription Vibes going on here since what we see on the surface is surely just the first layer of what promises to be pretty [ __ ] up it's arriving July 16th exclusive to PC hey put this on your radar I'm going to tell you a story a story about three extraordinary Spirits United to face the darkness [Music] all righty do we have your attention yet yeah I know right this is the spirit of the Samurai and it's a reminder of why this segment is my favorite segment of the show each week this is a debut title from digital Mind Games who before this were working primarily as an animation studio hence this incredible visual design and this stop motion animation that gives it both a retro and cinematic quality the character and creature designs here are just next level and the gameplay looks and sounds equally interesting since the developers are promising some sort of build your own combo system they say the combat is inspired by Souls likes and Metroid vanas and the kick here is that you're not just controlling a samurai but also a kadama and a cat this one really has it all for real this one looks just crazy good and it's always just uh man to be able to stumble upon this stuff when you're out there looking for Indie titles it's it's always fantastic I've added it to my wish list and if you you'd like to do the same I've left a link to it over on my steam curator page which also has links to all of the other put this on your R stuff I've recently covered I'll leave a link to all of that below the like button sort of free stuff time now and all the sort of free stuff for the month is now live so be sure to grab your ps+ and Prime gaming offerings especially Prime gaming actually since they just keep handing out more and more stuff in the leadup to Prime day later this month right now for example they're giving away Hitman Absolution redeemable through good old games not a bad deal if you happen to be an Amazon Prime subscriber outside of that not a lot to report right now epic is still giving away the f but later this week that'll be replaced by floppy Knights a Rog likee deck builder because Lord knows we don't have enough of those in circulation Nintendo online added a bunch of old NZ games to the library including one just called golf which incidentally was programmed by saturo iata the late great former CEO of Nintendo and the man still remembered for taking a pay cut rather than sacking his staff a legacy that only becomes more pointing and relevant with each passing day and with each new games worker laid off if you want to check out golf but don't have a Nintendo online membership then don't worry because this game is actually hidden in the Nintendo switch Hardware as an Easter egg I'll let you do some Googling for how to find that one but it's a nice tribute to one of the industries Legends our fi good story for the week is kind of a double whammy this past week Summer Games Done Quick was held in Minneapolis if you're unfamiliar it's an event where a bunch of absolutely badshit insane people get together to raise money for charity what makes them insane you ask well they're the kind of people who can speedrun sakiro blindfolded for real the speedrunning community are like metahumans capable of Feats that we could only dare dream of and this year they use their Godly powers to raise over 2.5 $5 million for Doctors Without Borders so that in itself is a pretty good news story but it gets better one of the segments involved peanut butter the dog playing Ken griffy Jr MLB on the Super Nintendo this was an actual dog mind you and so the goal was for peanut butter to win a game against the CPU eventually things came down to a 33 tie and it was the bottom of the 12th Innings it was make or break for penut butter in this moment and like every good boy is want to do he did not let the crowd down we win you ready it's griffy top of the lineup excellent to take it go good boy you did it walk up home run oh my God what a good boy oh he's T that is time I almost forgot to say can you believe it they said a dog couldn't do it but he's proved everybody wrong how foolish we were all right nerds that's all I got for you today still working on that Destiny review and it's taking a little longer than I expected so it's actually going to drop next week main reason for the delay is that I am playing a lot of Destiny because it is very good and I'm sure that gives you a sense of where that review is going to land we have some other reviews that we're working on in the background as well so do look forward to those soon and be sure to check out the patreon if you'd like to get this show in newsletter form that's something we've been doing for the past few months now and people really seem to like it maybe you will too don't forget to hit that sub button ding that Bell and drop the video a like if you enjoyed yourself thanks as always for stopping by and a big thanks to this week's sponsor raycon listen I know that you know what rayons are you've seen them all over the Internet for years including for myself I've been partnering with raycon for like 4 years now massive shout out to them by the way for the support they provided the channel so you think you've seen raycons 100 times before but you haven't seen these raycons because For the First Time in years raycon has done a full refresh of their Flagship offering their everyday earbuds this new model is an evolution of rayon's already incredibly solid and reliable product improving every aspect while also adding entirely new features on the proof side of things is the design which is even more comfortable and ergonomic than before and their inar design means that they stay on your ears way better than many other earbuds there's also improved battery life these things will go up to 32 hours now 8 hours of direct play time and a fast charging case that gives you 90 minutes of playback in just 10 minutes of charging in terms of newly added features the everyday earbuds now have active noise cancelling and this is a feature that you usually have to pay like a premium for from other brands but raycon have just added it while maintaining those same affordable price points that they've always been famous for there's also now support for multi-point connectivity meaning you can sync two devices at once and the earbuds will automatically switch to whichever device is outputting audio it is super convenient being able to sync these things to like an iPhone and an iPad at the same time they even went the extra mile with the case since in addition to your choice of colors for the earbuds you can also buy a case protector that comes in a range of additional colors I got the yellow Sunset option making it a lot easier to spot when I leave these things laying around my house which is what I usually do these everyday earbuds are brand new they just arrived and they deliver so much value for money given how much functionality is baked into them given the price I've used them for literally years now and I've always been impressed with their performance and reliability he I actually own a few pairs of these because I like to keep one by my bedside that I just use at night time or whatever and I keep one in my gym bag so that I don't accidentally forget to put them in my gym bag and then I have to go to the gym without earbuds which which really annoys me if you want to grab a pair for yourself then you're in luck because raycon are doing a special deal for viewers of this channel visit by ron.com skillup for 15% off your order and free shipping that link is below in the pin comment but again it's by raycon.com skillup for 15% off and free shipping thanks raycon for sponsoring the video and thank you for watching it [Music]

Channel: Skill Up

Views: 240,083

Keywords: skill up, skill, up, gameplay, games, guide, ps4, xbox, xbox one, xbox series, ps5, pc, nintendo, nintendo switch, gaming news, news, new games, new games this week, new games this month, PS+, gamepass, free games, ps+ games, PS5, Switch, This week in videogames, skillup, sony, microsoft, Gamepass, release date, delay, game, new releases, review, starfield, reviews, metacritic, trailers, trailer, EA, Activision, Sony, ubisoft, Apex Legends, Dawntrail, Zenless Zone Zero, the first descendant

Id: LwkpCZyatX8

Length: 34min 28sec (2068 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 10 2024