God of War TV Show First Look REVEALED! - Kinda Funny Games Daily 02.27.26
65 min
•Feb 27, 2026about 2 months agoSummary
Kinda Funny Games Daily covered major gaming industry news including Amazon's God of War TV adaptation first look, Paramount's acquisition of Warner Bros. over Netflix, Guitar Hero's spiritual successor Stage Tour, and Highguard's collapse from 100 to 20 developers post-launch. The episode also exposed videogamer.com publishing AI-generated reviews that made it to Metacritic before removal.
Insights
- First-look marketing for video game adaptations risks backlash when presented as unpolished in-camera footage rather than cinematic reveals; comparison to Batman and Superman marketing shows strategic presentation matters more than the image itself
- Political alignment and regulatory capture appear to have influenced the Warner Bros. acquisition outcome, with Trump administration connections favoring Paramount over Netflix despite Netflix's aggressive bidding
- Live service games with community-driven monetization face existential risk when player retention collapses post-launch; Highguard's 97% player drop-off within weeks demonstrates the model's fragility
- AI-generated content infiltrating professional gaming journalism and review aggregators signals a systemic quality control failure across the industry, with Metacritic's swift response showing platforms must implement verification systems
- Rhythm game revival depends on solving the licensing cost problem and casual audience acquisition; Clone Hero's free-to-play dominance and Fortnite's integration suggest premium models face headwinds without cultural moments
Trends
Consolidation of media empires under politically-connected billionaires reshaping entertainment IP portfolios and gaming prioritiesAI-generated content proliferation in gaming journalism threatening credibility of review aggregators and professional criticismLive service game model showing structural weakness as player retention metrics collapse faster than ever post-launchRhythm game genre experiencing revival attempts leveraging nostalgia and modern technology, competing against entrenched free alternativesFirst-look marketing for game-to-screen adaptations becoming high-stakes moment where presentation quality directly impacts audience perceptionTencent's funding withdrawal from gaming studios signaling shift in Chinese investment appetite for Western game developmentMetacritic implementing stricter AI content policies as aggregator platforms become gatekeepers for industry credibilityGaming IP consolidation under single parent companies creating redundancy concerns and potential creative direction shiftsResident Evil franchise demonstrating sustained player interest with record concurrent user numbers on SteamProfessional gaming journalism labor conditions remaining undervalued despite industry growth and critical role in consumer decision-making
Topics
God of War TV Adaptation Marketing StrategyParamount-Skydance Warner Bros. Acquisition DealNetflix vs. Paramount Media Consolidation BattleTrump Administration Regulatory Influence on Media DealsWarner Bros. Games Portfolio and Development TimelineLive Service Game Player Retention CrisisHighguard Studio Layoffs and Financial CollapseAI-Generated Content in Gaming JournalismMetacritic Review Aggregator Quality ControlGuitar Hero Spiritual Successor Stage TourRhythm Game Genre Revival and Licensing ChallengesResident Evil 9 Launch Success MetricsVideo Game Adaptation First-Look MarketingGaming Industry Consolidation and IP ManagementTencent Funding Withdrawal from Game Studios
Companies
Amazon
Producing God of War TV series with two-season order; revealed first look of Kratos and Atreus casting
Paramount
Won bidding war to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery over Netflix for $31/share, gaining HBO, Cartoon Network, and gamin...
Netflix
Withdrew from Warner Bros. acquisition bid after Trump administration signaled opposition; opted not to raise offer
Warner Bros. Discovery
Subject of acquisition battle between Paramount and Netflix; owns HBO, Cartoon Network, DC, and gaming studios
Skydance
David Ellison's media company partnering with Paramount in acquisition of Warner Bros.; has gaming division with Marv...
Red Octane Games
Returned studio announcing Stage Tour, spiritual successor to Guitar Hero, launching holiday 2026 with Gibson partner...
Wildlight Entertainment
Developer of Highguard hero shooter; laid off 80 of 100 employees after Tencent funding withdrawal post-launch
Tencent
Financial backer of Wildlight Entertainment; withdrew funding after Highguard's poor player retention and revenue per...
Capcom
Released Resident Evil 9 (Requiem) achieving 320,000 concurrent Steam players within hours of launch
videogamer.com
Gaming news site exposed publishing AI-generated reviews with fake authors; banned from Metacritic after discovery
Metacritic
Review aggregator that removed videogamer.com AI-generated content and issued policy reminder to all member publications
Gibson
Guitar equipment manufacturer partnering with Red Octane Games for Stage Tour integration of Gibson, Epiphone, and Kr...
Mega Cat Studios
Developing new 3D Backyard Baseball game launching July 2026, reviving classic sports franchise
Sony
Releasing upgraded PSSR technology on PS5 Pro starting with Resident Evil 9; collaborating with AMD on Project Amethyst
Respawn Entertainment
Former employer of Wildlight Entertainment founders who attempted to recreate Apex Legends success with Highguard
People
David Ellison
Skydance CEO leading Paramount's acquisition of Warner Bros.; son of Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison with Trump admi...
Larry Ellison
Oracle CEO and billionaire; father of David Ellison; ally of Trump administration influencing Warner Bros. deal outcome
Ted Sarandos
Netflix CEO who withdrew from Warner Bros. acquisition bid after apparent Trump administration signaling against the ...
Jeff Keighley
Game Awards host whose decision to announce Highguard at Game Awards created month-long silence blamed for player bac...
Ronald D. Moore
Showrunner of God of War TV series; veteran of Battlestar Galactica and Star Trek Deep Space Nine
Barry Weiss
Head of CBS News under Paramount; previously led Free Press; criticized for editorial changes affecting independent j...
Cory Booker
Democratic Senator calling for Paramount CEO David Ellison to attend Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee hearing
Mike Lee
Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee chairman who criticized Netflix-Warner Bros. deal and scheduled hearing
Quotes
"This is very clearly the Trump administration looking at this deal and after saying and lying to the public and saying, oh, no, we're not going to get involved, getting involved and saying, no, no, we're going to fight against you, Netflix"
Roger•Warner Bros. acquisition discussion
"You give us one image. We're going to nitpick it to death."
Mike•God of War TV first look discussion
"Content is king it has to have the music it has to have the right content it has to have the stuff that you want to show up for"
Mike•Stage Tour Guitar Hero discussion
"This is such a labor of love that people are not appreciated enough for in the modern era, especially with the written word."
Roger•videogamer.com AI content discussion
"Fuck that website. And we will never use a videogamer.com website as a news article."
Roger•videogamer.com AI content conclusion
Full Transcript
Cotton Candy 5-Hour Energy, the perfectly sweet and possibly nostalgic treat you're craving. It's all flavor, no fluff. Order now at 5hourenergy.com or Amazon. Today's gaming stories include, we got our first look of God of War TV show, Paramount, will probably own Warner Bros., and Guitar Hero is back, sort of. We have all this and more because this is Kind of Funny Games Daily. What's up, everybody? And welcome to your Friday edition of Kind of Funny Games Daily for February 27, 2026. It's the 30th anniversary of Pokemon. It is the release day for Resident Evil 9. And we have our first look of God of War. And I have many thoughts. We have a lot of thoughts today. A lot of feelings. You know what? I have a lot of thoughts about today. Oh, tell me. The Pokemon presentation, I got some thoughts on. Okay. Trapping Andy and Bless in a room playing Resident Evil for a marathon subathon stream, I have some thoughts on. Y'all ain't ready for that one, y'all. And, of course, God of War. We'll talk about God of War in just a moment, but before we do any of that, Roger, hello. Hi. Tell me, who's your favorite Pokemon? And, of course, happy 30th anniversary. Well, thank you so much. Thank you for saying happy 30th anniversary for me. I don't have a favorite Pokemon. this is my thing with me is that i watched the pokemon show as a kid but i watched it like any other show that i was watching as a kid where i was like oh it's like a fun little show and i didn't fall in love with pikachu i like honestly i liked like the characters of ash misty brock i like them more than i like the pokemon i like of course like officer jenny sure yeah nurse joy i liked uh team rocket jesse and jane i love this i thought it was so if a meow with right meow meowth meowth meowth meowth meowth meowth that's how you actually pronounce it meowth uh i love them so then when i would go to school people had like their favorite pokémons or pulling out people that i didn't even see in the cartoon yet i'm like what are you guys talking about i'm like oh you guys are playing a video game that i just don't have like i don't have nintendo consoles and then now i'm at the point where i'm like i don't have a favorite pokemon really my brother did he actually got into them later on in his life like he got into like beedrill like he has like you know all these pokemon that he loves i don't have one so one day when pocopio comes out and I play it, hopefully I find my favorite Pokemon. Ditto. Ditto. Ditto can be anything. Ditto can be anything and anyone. You know what, Roger? I take you for a Ditto guy. I think you could be a Ditto guy. I think I actually might be a Mr. Mime guy. Is that his name? We won't go that far on that one. Okay. Mike, do you have a favorite Pokemon? Yeah. You know, Pokemon is very special to me. Looking back on 30 years, right, I am kind of that 90s kid. If you rewind the clock 30 years, I would have been five to six years old. So that's first grade and second grade. And Pokemon hit like none other to me and all of the kids of my generation. Right. We're talking about the show. We're talking about the cards. We're talking about the games. I still remember when they took over the mall and they brought in the Pikachu Volkswagen bug. And it looked like Pikachu. It was promoting the card game. It was promoting, of course, the Game Boy games. I'll never forget mom buying me and my little brother both matching Game Boys and Pokemon Red and Blue. Watching the cartoon every day before going to school. Buying and trading cards with my friends out in the schoolyard. I mean, dreaming of one day seeing a 3D on the big screen Pokemon because it was always a Game Boy game for me. But then it came out with the N64. Pokemon Stadium to Pokemon Snap. Going to Blockbuster to get your Pokemon Snap photos taken. Hey, you Pikachu. the pikachu n64 game roger i grew up with pokemon and it's weird because i find myself i think to myself like oh i'm not a big pokemon guy but like yeah pokemon has been in my life for 30 plus years and it's special okay so who's the favorite pokemon that was my question who's my favorite pokemon well if you ask me today my favorite pokemon is wingle because wingle got me through my first ever pokemon nuzlocke and pokemon ever i could say my first ever i love that i love that seagull okay me and Wingull have gone places and that's my Pokemon. If you were to ask Mike like three months ago, it would have been Jolteon. I love the Evolutions. I love Lightning. I love just the fiery like Pikachu, Electabuzz type vibes. I like this one. It would be Jolteon. I like that. Shout out to my boys Alakazam and Haunter. Those are great ones. Pokemon is just like that universal love that anyone can have a conversation about. I'm so excited for it to come to San Francisco with the Pokemon Championships here. It's going to be a big deal. Do you think T. Payne will have some type of like ribs concert again like he did for the... R&B and ribs outside of Pokemon Day? Yeah, like he did for Super Bowl. No, but Waka Flocka Flame will show up and he'll sing. Just outside? Yeah. Not even a ticket at an event. He'll just be outside tailgating. Of course, today on Kind of Funny Games Daily we will not be talking about all of the Pokemon 30th anniversary news and announcements. You can go check that right now on the Bigs Gamescast where Tim and Greg live reacted to Pokemon Day with the announcements to showcase, and then they talked all about it, breaking down the news. So if you want to talk about the starters, the new Pokemon game, Gen 10, you want to talk about Pokemon Champions, more Pokemon Sleep, cards, Roger, you're lucky I didn't do the news today, because I would have done all that. Greg spilled a coffee all over. Greg spilled a coffee all over. We recorded the buzz. We recorded the buzz. We have so much to talk about but roger let's talk about the news stories because this is kind of funny games daily each and every weekday we gather together to run you through the nerdy nerdy news you need to know about if you're watching live on youtube and or twitch don't forget you can be part of the conversation by super chatting on youtube.com slash kind of funny games share your thoughts opinions on today's news and of course let me know who your favorite pokemon is as we celebrate 30 years we couldn't do this without you so thank you to our patreon producers over on patreon.com slash kind of funny Thank you to Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster, and Delaney the Psalm. Twining, before we jump into the news, one final announcement. Right after this show, we will be having a Subathon marathon stream to celebrate Resident Evil 9 with Blessing and Andy. You do not want to miss out. It's going to be fantastic. It's going to be a whole lot of fun. And again, everybody, this is not just on Twitch. This is on YouTube as well. So every dollar that you donate on Twitch and YouTube, including Super Chats, everything, after the stream goes, or after this podcast goes towards the marathon timer. So we want you to sub and super chat here, but also if you want to save your dollars a little bit. Be there. Wait there. For now, let's begin with what is and forever will be the Roper Report. It's time for some news. We have five stories today. Baker's dozen. Story number one. We have a first look at Kratos and Atreus in the Amazon's God of War TV show. This coming from Wesley Yinpool at IGN. Amazon has revealed the first photo of its God of War series showing off Kratos and Atreus. I'm not even looking at the photo. All right, let's just run it through, okay? Look at it. Oh, it's the Rizzler. You know, I would have been more happy to see the Rizzler's face on this image than I did this morning. Let's just jump right into it. Roger, I open up social media this morning. I give it a click. And my first word out of my mouth is, ooh, is this AI is what I thought? Like, I did not like the look of this at all, Roger. Let's actually put the real image and let's just talk about it before we even read out the stuff. I mean, this is the official image that they put out here of the main actors of Atreus and Kratos. Yes, this is Ryan Hurst and Callum Vinson, who will be playing Atreus down below. Ryan Hurst will be playing Kratos right here. Yeah. Okay. So I want to hear your opinion first. My opinion first here. Wasn't mad at Atreus. A little young for the portrayal of what I thought, you know, Atreus would be, but we do know that the kiddos grow up really fast, especially on camera. So this is probably the right age. If we're thinking it's going to, it's ready for two seasons. So like this kid's going to grow real fast in what we're seeing on screen. What I did not like is I zoomed in immediately on Kratos's face. because I said, ooh, don't like the look of this one right here. Reminds me of the kid from Shameless, and he played the Joker in the Batman. Cameron Monahue? Yeah, in the Jedi, the Star Wars Jedi. Yeah, and also Tron Aerie. Yeah, I looked at him like, man, that forehead with the wrinkles and the eyes looks like Cameron Monahue. I don't think I'm going to be able to unsee it now that you said that. Yeah, my first, I wasn't as negative, I think, as everybody immediately, just because I understand how these things work, right? Like this is an in-production shot. You would assume this is not from the actual cameras that are, you know, this is not color graded. This is not like a final product that you're going to see in the show. You're not going to see this exact shot in the show. But it's not a great showing, especially when you have something that is so near and dear to people and that is so cosplay to death, right? So like to make it feel and look like cosplay when you have that first image is not a great look. I think that's my initial reaction is like, hey, you look great. Like, of course, the kid looks young, but also if the kid's acting and he, you know, he feels like Atreus. Right. I don't think that's going to immediately go away from me. I don't think he's going to say Google Gaga. Right. The kid's going to be able to act and I think it's going to be fine. And it's going to, you know, it's going to be whatever. This is just an interesting still because I know I'm sure he's bald. I'm sure he actually is bald. He's given me a little bit of the Walter White with the mega mega mind. You know what I mean? Like in El Camino. Something about it just doesn't look right. I'm sure he actually is bald. Maybe it's the angle. Maybe something's going on here. And that's also the issue. You give us one image. We're going to nitpick it to death. Let's go from the neck down for a second. Let's go shoulders down here. What do we think about the costumes, the outfits right here? To me, I think they hit the mark for the costuming as well. That's what I want to hear. Especially his shoulder pad and everything. Like this is the basic look from the beginning of 2018. I would say the only big critique I have of Kratos is his like arm band things, especially at the very beginning. Those are just the kind of like, I don't know what you'd call it, like gauze almost. Yeah, kind of like tattered bandages. Yeah, and I feel like that's where you should be starting with this and not like already having armor there. So that's my only critique of that. Okay. Okay. Well, let me give you a quick write-up, the read-down from Wesley Yinpool at IGN. Of course, Amazon has revealed the first photo of its God of War series showing off Kratos and Atreus announcing its God of War TV show is now in production. Amazon issued the image below alongside the tagline, their journey to the highest peak begins. The image shows Ryan Hurst, Kratos, and Callum Vinson as his son Atreus, who fans have already pointed out, looks like a younger take on the character compared to what we saw in the video game. Production is currently underway in Vancouver with a two-season order setting showrunner Ronald D. Moore of Battlestar Galactica and Star Trek Deep Space Nine fame up for some time. So you got two seasons of this. Yeah, already locked in. First look here. So with two seasons locked in, I'm wondering what the production timeline of this is going to be. Something you brought up, Mike, is, yeah, kids grow up fast. Yeah. This makes sense. I think we already kind of saw how that failed a little bit, though, from The Last of Us season one to season two, where that actress who I'm blanking on. Bella Ramsey. Yeah, Bella Ramsey. The difference between their age, look-wise, between the two seasons wasn't a lot to really sell that four-year time jump. Okay. I worry about a season two if that is purely covering Ragnarok. if this kid is actually going to look much older. Yeah, I also wonder if they could, if the first two seasons are the first game, like if you're able to kind of spread out that story within, you know, so it doesn't need the biggest, a time jump at all, right? You can just be like, hey, we're going to do two seasons pretty much back to back, and then we'll actually take time to write the Ragnaroks because we have, you know, we can wait for this kid to grow up a little bit. Yeah. But you're right, Barrett, of like, there is a big age gap or age difference between what we're seeing here and what he ends up at in Ragnarok, where he becomes his own man, right? So it is interesting that they're going so much younger. But again, as you're saying, that's what they're doing for Harry Potter, right? They have to do these things. So then even you see what happened with Avatar, the Avatar show that they did. He was way younger, and then now we're at, what, season two or three now? And he's way older already, right? They built that cast out knowing that they were going to be able to do this and still didn't really work out as the way they wanted to. So yeah, I am, again, I'm not as negative as everyone else just because I know how these things work of like, you see the in-camera stuff. Once it comes down to the editing, the pacing, you see a different angle of it. It's going to all change. It's not the greatest of looks to have this come out here with, I think about like some of the best character reveals or at least reveals of costumes in recent memory. the one that i always go down to is uh matt reeves's batman i thought that was such a cool way to show that costume because it was cinematic it was it wasn't like here's the image of batman and him just standing there in the bright light or that's what this kind of feels like where it's like this doesn't have all of the filters on it to make it look cooler if you just saw kratos with just like he's backlit it's a little bit red it's like it's like atmospheric lighting and then the axe glowing exactly that's all you needed and i think that that people would have been super hyped by that, but just showing like, here's everything, here it is, and people are going to think, oh, this is what the show is going to look like in its final product. Kind of a missed opportunity there to kind of show everybody and say, hey, look, this could be something really cool and let their imaginations run wild instead of being like, this is what this is going to look like. Maybe a better photo would have been from the back. Yeah, exactly. Letting us imagine what this looks like. Yeah, for sure. Let's jump into some super chats because some people have some thoughts and opinions on the first look of Kratos and atreus we have mad rocks who writes in and says why does kratos actor look like a bald sam levine okay that's the kid from freaks and geeks right there um right that one got you yeah they need to stop making movies slash shows based around games that already have realistic graphics and look like a movie already shake my head yeah that's my with the whole cosplay conversation a lot of people have been having. I think no matter what you do, it is always going to feel like cosplay when you adapting granted a different medium video games but video games that are being built to look so much like real life you know Yeah for sure And then Loyal Freak writes in and says, really hope God of War first look is like the Superman situation. Official first look wasn't great, but everything after that was amazing. Yeah, exactly. But even then with the Superman one, it was like such a deliberate choice to do it the way that James Gunn did it, right? he didn't do the hey we're you know bright blue background you know here's the trunks here's everything it's him sitting down after you know being beaten up essentially and it's like wasn't in my opinion the best way to show off that character because i do think a lot of the marketing did lean towards the happier side of it so it was very confusing that that's what he chose but at least it was like a conscious decision of like we're doing the opposite of what you expected uh and people can kind of like nitpick and go in there but it was also like color graded and like it felt like it was part of like the actual movie when you watch you know superman you look at that photo you're like oh that is literally a scene that happens from the from the movie and you see the background you see the vfx uh again when you compare this to also a good example of this a recent one video game stuff is the legend of zelda one i thought that was great i thought that was a solid one if you look at that it doesn't of course give you too much to go off of right because just their face is pretty much and it's not nothing too crazy uh but you know it looks like it's in camera you get the vibe and you're like okay cool it's good enough for me it's not Like, here's everything to nitpick immediately. So, yeah, it's interesting. And I'm not immediately going to be like, this is going to be cheap. This is going to suck. And also, it's Amazon. They're ready to spend a fuck ton of money on this. They're ready to spend some money. If it works, they'll spend the money. We saw Fallout. Fallout has done great. Fallout looks good. Let's move on to story number two. Netflix isn't going to buy Warner Bros. after all, meaning Paramount is set to take HBO, Warner Bros. games, and the rest. This coming from Tyler Wild at PC Gamer. A few months ago, it looked probable that Netflix was going to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, owner of HBO, Cartoon Network, Warner Bros. Games, and much more. But a hostile takeover bid from Paramount Skydance has won out. On Thursday, the Warner Bros. Discovery board deemed a $31 per share offer from Paramount Skydance superior to the Netflix deal, and Netflix opted not to raise its own offer. Quote, we believe we would have been strong stewards of Warner Bros. iconic brands and that our deal would have strengthened the entertainment industry and preserved and created more production jobs in the U.S., Netflix said in a statement. But this transaction was always a nice-to-have at the right price, not a must-have at any price. Barring any more surprises, Paramount Skydance will take the prize if regulators allow it and has agreed to pay a $2.8 billion termination fee owed to Netflix now that its pending deal has fallen through. Senator Democrat Cory Booker immediately renewed a call for Paramount CEO David Ellison to attend a Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee hearing next week, deadline reports. The already scheduled hearing would previously have focused on the Netflix Warner Bros. deal, which subcommittee subcommittee chairman Mike Lee has criticized. Roger, we talked about Warner Bros. games yesterday and the focus on the big tentpole titles like Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Mortal Kombat and more. Of course, DC being a part of that. Now we see we're talking a larger deal than just games here with Paramount, Netflix and Warner Bros. Yeah, I want to read the last part that we skipped over there because I think it is important to the conversation that I want to have of like this reading from the IGN article. Ellison and his father, billionaire oracle CEO Larry Ellison, are allies of the Trump administration. According to sources cited by The Wall Street Journal in December, David Ellison has promised the administration that he'll make sweeping changes to CNN, a frequent target of Trump's ire should he win out. This is what this is. This is what this is. This is David Ellison and more specifically Larry Ellison, one of the richest men in the country and in the world, essentially buying out one of the biggest corporations out there so then they can own more of media. Skydance was David Ellison's baby, which was a smaller media company that made, I wouldn't say the greatest of film projects or any projects, but they were in gaming. They are also doing the publishing for Marvel 1990, 1942, whatever that game is, the Amy Henning game. Also, we also, we all forget about this, that they announced a star Wars game that is also written by Amy Henning. I think two or three years ago now going on four years ago, actually. So they have that, they've had gaming side of stuff. They've done movies, they've done television shows and David Ellison essentially parlayed that to now buying Paramount. And as soon as he buys Paramount, He looks around and starts the bidding war for Warner Brothers once he realized that that was on the table. And then that's what started all this is that he was the lead. It was like, OK, I guess Paramount's going to get bought out by by sorry. Paramount's going to buy Warner Brothers. Netflix jumps in and says, no, no, no. We want we want Warner Brothers. A bidding war happened. Basically, Paramount was outbid by Netflix. And then out of nowhere, Netflix was like, I mean, Warner Brothers was like, actually, let's listen to Paramount's deal. They have a new offer and then swooped in. This all comes the timing that I've been seeing of Ted Sarandos, who is the CEO of Netflix, coming in and going to, I believe, Washington, D.C. as of, I think, a day ago or two days ago to what is reported, meet with people within and around the Trump administration and see the vibes of what's going on here. and there have been rumors that he met with trump and basically the feeling and the vibes of the reporting were like whatever happens whatever he is signaled by the trump administration if this is going to be something that is he's going to get through like if netflix is going to actually get this through the uh fcc and all the united states uh committees that they need to get through if trump is saying hey i'm gonna let this through he'll fight for it if trump is saying no no no know, I'm going to back Paramount's deal. They're going to back out. And then immediately, as soon as Paramount's deal is accepted, and then they're like, Hey, Netflix, you want to give us more money? Netflix immediately says, no, we're good. We're not, we're not going to put any more money into it. And this comes literally of weeks and weeks and weeks of Netflix going on media, showing their entire ass pretty much to everybody and saying, no, no, no, no, we want Warner brothers. Like, we're not going to, we want this product. This, we believe in this. We are the right person. We, we will fight for this thing. And then they're like, Nope, we're not doing this anymore. So what I'm saying, I say all that to give the context to say this is very clearly the Trump administration looking at this deal. And after saying and lying to the public and saying, oh, no, we're not going to get involved, getting involved and saying, no, no, we're going to fight against you, Netflix, if you start to go in this direction. And if you try to go for this, so we're just going to then they backed off. And this is what happened. All that to say, I am not one of these people that believes that Netflix being buying out Warner Brothers was. in remotely good for the any industry it would have been horrible uh these are both horrible options paramounts is incredibly bad for the political side of things i mean especially when you see what barry weiss over there who is now the head of uh cbs news uh she was the head of the free press uh which is an independent label that says that they're free thinkers the republican media now she is the head of cbs and they've been doing a lot of pretty shitty things out there where they are pulling stories. They are changing narratives. They are fucking with things that independent journalism that should be happening at CBS is now not so independent. Uh, and now that's just going to extend, extend, extend. So that sucks. Netflix being buying out Warner brothers would have sucked because Netflix, even though they say they wouldn't have had massive layoffs or yada, yada, yada, they would be the number one media company in the world by far. And they already are. So making that a monopoly would be horrible. Paramount now owning all of these programs, owning CBS, owning Paramount, owning Skydance, owning the entirety of the Warner Brothers portfolio, including the games is bad. I do think that they have more AAA experience when it comes to gaming. If we want to connect that dots. Okay. But also if you look at their games, they're not great. You know what I mean? Like they're not like the caliber that you would want these types of games to be at. I mean, again, they have the 1942, 1945, I forget, we forgot the title of it. Marvel game. They've had a few Walking Dead games, Saints of Sinners, Walking Dead Retribution, Skydance's Behemoth. I don't even know what game that is. Again, they have histories in this, but you know what that's going to lead to if they have a history in gaming. What David Ellison has always done with any of these properties is he takes his Skydance people and he throws it into the heads of these places that he's buying out. So he's taken all of his people from Skydance and now they're the heads of Paramount. and now he's going to take all the skydance people from gaming and i'm sure he's going to throw them as the heads of gaming and you know what that's going to lead to we talked about the story yesterday off camera of warner brothers saying hey in the next two years like we're going to have a lot of games that are coming out that are finally the fruits of our labor now there's going to be a shake-up internally inside of the warner brothers gaming lot and what is that going to look like for gaming right that that's just all going to be either going to shit or the plans are going to change and then we're going to have to wait another five years for those plans to figure itself out. Roger, very informative. Very well said. Great job on that one. Yeah, Roger, to bring it back to, I mean, so much that you brought up. And then on the gaming side of things, you bring up yesterday during kind of funny games daily. We talked about that, right? Yes. Warner Bros. Games says the real fruits will start coming in 2027, 2028 when we return to some of our biggest franchises. They also talk about getting distracted by too many IPs with too broad a set of studios. And so they started to focus on Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, Mortal Kombat and DC. Yeah, man, I am very, very skeptical. I mean, we talk about layoffs all the time on this video game and the video game industry. You are going to see some of the biggest layoffs in entertainment history when Paramount takes over from Warner Brothers. They have already signaled it. They've already said that there's going to be a lot of redundancies. And even when a company is going through, they haven't even bought the company yet. and they're already signaling that there's going to be layoffs, you know they're going to be way worse than you can ever imagine. It's going to be mass, mass layoffs, mass casualties in that sphere. And gaming? Fuck, man. I don't even know what their thought process is there. We clearly have not talked to them. They haven't talked about gaming. Gaming is such a low priority in all of these discussions. But you would imagine they have all of these properties now, and they're going to have an abundance of IP. What do you do with that, right? They own now TMNT. they own you know star trek they own all these massive properties on top of warner brothers on top of all this stuff and all they also making a star wars game they're making a marvel game how what do you do with that i i don't think that they're capable or they have the thought process to actually make to actually like build a foundation to make video games that we would want to play because clearly skydance is not making games that people want to play so it's like now they're going to take it over now they're going to have all these ips it's like who gives a shit? You know what I mean? In a similar lane of just entertainment stuff, I also worry about, you know, this group owning and being, you know, looking over James Gunn's new DC universe, especially with Superman being such a clear allegory for, you know, real world politics and commentary on that. Like I, I fear a lot of, you know, artistic commentary on all of the terrible shit that's happened the last few years is probably going to get neutered. Yeah. But we'll see. Yeah. I am very, very, very skeptical of this deal. I think everyone should be. I think both of these deals were horrible, horrible for different industries. At least Paramount is saying, oh, we'll keep movies, movies and theaters. We believe in movies. how long until that lasts, right? Like how long until that actually becomes a thing? I'm sure eventually they're gonna be like, oh, we're putting out a bunch of movies. We don't know how to make movies that are actually successful. And oh, we're gonna cut them and now we're doing Paramount+. We're gonna see such an upheaval when it comes to entertainment, but then fucking video games are gonna be forgotten. There is no fucking way that video games become a major talking point in David Ellison's shakeup here. There's no way that video games become the forefront. And you've already seen it with Warner Brothers when they're trying to figure out how to sell video games, fall it's the back to the back to the back. And it's just, it is such frustrating times right now. So yeah, that is, this all sucks. And yeah, that's it. Great rundown of the story there, Roger. Thank you so much for that. We will be keeping eyes on this story as it continues to progress as the deal gets finalized and locked in. And then most importantly, what happens with the games later on coming in months, days, years as well. But Roger, we have so much more stories to talk about it. We're not going anywhere on today's Kind of Funny Games Daily, but we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Come one, come all. Step into a world of wonder full of laughs and sweetness. Enjoy summer's brightest moments and experience a circus of flavor with the new cotton candy flavor of five-hour energy shot. Astound and amaze your taste buds with sweet, fruity clouds and a hint of vanilla. Plus B vitamins, nutrients, and caffeine. You'll be ready to see the sights and ride the rides. Try Cotton Candy 5-Hour Energy today. Order now at 5hourenergy.com or amazon.com. Welcome back to your Friday edition of Kind of Funny Games Daily. It's Mike, Roger, and Barrett giving you the nerdy news you need to know about. Let's run through story number three. A fun one to switch up the vibe. Guitar Hero Studio Red Octane returns with spiritual successor Stage Tour. This coming from Chris Scullion at VGC. It was announced last August that Red Octane, the company responsible for producing the Guitar Hero games, has returned as a new studio called Red Octane Games with veterans from the rhythm game industry joining the team. Now the studio has revealed Stage Tour, A new music title currently, quote, in active development, end quote, with plans to release by the 2026 holiday season. According to the studio, Stage Tour will be a long-term platform created in conjunction with the community and will continue to evolve following its release. It will feature new instruments as well as a controller and keyboard compatibility for those who don't want to buy the instrument peripherals. A multi partnership with Gibson has also been announced with the Gibson Epiphone and Kramer brands set to be integrated into the game Quote Stage Tour is our love letter to Rhythm Gaming Red Octane Games head of studio Simon Ebiger said in a statement, we want Stage Tour to feel familiar and authentic, but also fresh utilizing modern technology to connect games with the music they love and enjoying a platform that evolves and grows over time with new instruments and deep charting systems. We're raising the bar on what we believe a rhythm game can be while also catering the catering to those who wish simply to enjoy a casual experience and have a good time. Closed alpha testing for States tour will begin this summer with an experienced group of community fans from the rhythm gaming community providing feedback during the game's developments. Interesting. I of course grew up with Guitar Hero 3 I sucked at it But I played it all the time That was the GOAT, Rog It was the GOAT It was awesome I didn't fuck with no rock band shit Okay No DJ Hero? No, I didn't fuck with that shit No Mixer? No It's way too old I don't know I want my perfect heart of hearts For this to work And for us all to go back To a simpler time Hell yeah, Roger Take me back Let's rock on There's no way, right? There's no way that there's this influx of people that want this, right? Is there? I think there's people that want this. Is that community large enough to sustain a studio and a platform? Well, let's get real really quick. Fortnite has their own little rock band slash guitar hero setup going on right now. We have seen them stabilizing and keep it going, but that's also on the back of a giant community that is Fortnite, right? I don't know those true numbers of how much that's playing, but it's still around. It's around. Right? So, like, that's happening. Licensing stuff. I think there are old heads like me in the community that look back on Guitar Hero and Rock Band with a lot of fondness and go, I miss that, right? You have people like Barrett who love a good rhythm game, right? And so I think there is an area and a market for this, right? I think we are past the days of buying 20 different plastic instruments clogging up our house. but a nice plastic guitar in my, you know, studio, I think in people's houses, maybe a drum set could go really far away. Yeah. Then my next question is like the hardcore of it, right? The hardcore is fed like they're satiated with clone hero, right? Which is a free download that you can just put in your games community made, you know, uh, sets and figure, and people have done insane shit on clone hero. That is the way that most streamers that play guitar hero play. They play on clone hero. So that is, that's, community's eaten or or they're still on like rock band exactly four or three or whatever uh my one friend chelsea has been continuing to play that shit for years and years and years i mean they're fed i don't think we're going after them this is going to come and maybe give it a try we're going for the casual then the casual has fortnight that's my interesting thing there they have fortnight to an extent but like i don't think they have it like hey there's an instrument right here we're gonna show this off and it's gonna be in your living room yeah i think parents probably don't even know fortnite has that i think the kiddos know and they're probably hot and off on that but i think there's like a generation of people my age that either have kids are still like just hanging out with their partners or single that are like i would buy this i would go back and the issue with a studio like this and again i wish you all the the best of luck because i think this is really cool and it harkens back to a time and an era in gaming that i adore and i love the art style of this i think it is so it feels like the 360 era it does not in in the best ways possible right it doesn't feel like this is low quality models like they're very very much going for that art style and i appreciate that they did it because when i saw that first screenshot i was like oh is this actually from guitar hero 3 like no it isn't like this is really they're building that up trying to do that uh i want this to succeed i just very skeptical of the hey we're doing a platform right that is going to include licensing fees which you know are astronomical and are ongoing. And then on top of that, we have a physical component, which we now have to deal with, you know, vendors that are going to make these controllers and if they don't sell enough and there's also a bunch out there that, you know, people can buy these things still to this day. I mean, there's new companies that have made, you know, compatible things. I am just so interested in to see if like, is this a free-to-play game, right? Is this a freemium game? Is this a, you know, paid $30 thing and then you add on top of it. The business model to me is the thing that's going to make or break them. And if they're competing with Clone Hero, right, and they say, hey, we're just like Clone Hero, but we get more updates. And, you know, if you don't have to go on a weird website, it's on console, too. Like, there's some way to connect. Maybe there's some way to connect your downloaded songs onto the PlayStation thing. Like, if that's what they're going for, cool. But if they're going for, like, the license side of it, I'm just like, oof, that's like a... You either got to be a huge massive success or you're just slowly going to fall away. And then you're going to be like, fuck, I can't afford these licensing fees anymore. Yeah, that's where my mind goes, Roger. It's like, my mind goes to, I see this, I want this. I think there's an audience that wants this. They want to return to that feeling or they want to show their friends and family who haven't seen that how much fun it was. But my mind does go to like music is tough nowadays. Music is really hard to capture and hold on to. We see this all the time with the licensing fees like you brought up. And like how do you do that dance as a smaller team, right? Who is backing you? What contracts do you have? You also brought up like you got to have the hits, right? You got to have songs that I want to play. And the problem is, like, those cost money. So then you get this weird blend of, like, songs that are kind of, like, mid-tier. And you're like, okay. And I don't want to walk away out of this experience going like, oh, they're just mid. Right? There's no. You've got to have five bangers. Right? Like, five mega chart-topping songs where you're like, this rocks. Then fill it up with the supporting cast. Right? But, like, yeah, Roger. It's going to be very interesting, the music side of things. My mind goes to Fuser. Right? Fuser was the latest kind of big rhythm music-based game that we saw try to hit the market on a general casual scale. And unfortunately, I felt like that got killed due to Twitch and the DMCA crackdowns that they were having at the time. I feel like we're a little bit at a different time right now with Twitch and live streaming where music is a little more celebrated and not as hard crackdown. Where like Fuser was about to pop off and then just immediately died right away. I do think you have some room here to have some fun and enjoy. Part of me does wonder if, like, they did an old, I kind of miss the old school approach of, like, you buy the game, and then these are the games, sorry, these are the songs that you have, and then if you want, they have DLC packs, or they keep on doing another one every few years. That's how my mind goes to, Roger. I would love it. It's cool. I see this as a premium title, or, like you said, a cheaper premium, like a $40 title, right? And then here's your 10 to 15 songs off the bat. Or it's like a mix and match thing, where they have, like, 100 songs or whatever, you choose 30 of them, and then that's, like, a dollar per song or something like that um i don't know there's something there i just don't i just don't believe in like the free-to-play model for i mean well maybe i do i don't know this is just all messy but i hope for it and to speak to that it felt like you know when you make it a premium model you have a set uh amount of songs it felt like a curated this is the vibe we're going for when we open up to a platform where it's like oh now we can have endless streams of things it you start to lose a particular voice in that creativity uh that i think especially in the guitar hero days was so important were you know in the dlc pack or like maybe in one of the secret songs you got shit like trogdor from uh homestar runner.com and stuff like that like um that that's the stuff that i truly yearn for in terms of designing uh like a set list almost and lately m neely says it best like point blank period for this game content is king it has to have the music it has to have the right content it has to have the stuff that you want to show up for The idea of pressing all the buttons for a rhythm game on a guitar has been done and has done in a very well way. This is going to probably be a layup for them to capture that. What it comes down to is like, you got to have the music. You got to have the reason for me to stop what I'm doing and want to go over there and jam for a little bit. And you have to get the casuals. That's the main thing. Again, the hardcore is fed and the hardcore is going to want to mod this thing. They're not going to want to play the games, the songs that you have. They're not going to be buying the DLC. They're going to want to play fucking Soko mode at 500 times speed. You know what I mean? Like that's the crazy shit that they want to do. They don't necessarily want to have the 10 to 15 songs that you randomly pick. So the hardcore satiated, you just need to figure out a way to kind of create a cultural moment. Good luck. Hop H2O writes in and says, excited to be part of the charting team for stage tour. Been a kind of funny best friend for many years and incredibly proud of the small part of this game. That's fun. Shout out right there. Hey, that's some fun. The charting is pretty fun. That's cool. Joshua writes in and says, harmonics are the true rhythm gods. I'm here for this, but Rock Band Remains King played it last night. Many people still hold on to Rock Band. I hold on to Guitar Hero. Yeah, I think this is a market that has an opportunity for a lot of upside. Remember when Phil got a hold of Activision Blizzard King, that was one of the more requested things was the idea of bringing back Guitar Hero. Stannis writes in and says, having a Gibson brand feels big. feels like they have maybe more uh maybe incorporate real guitars at some point love the kramer guitar very 1986 van i would be cool if it was like this kind of merge of rocksmith mixed with this mixed with that it's like kind of like hey you go here and this is everything in one made by people that made the original ones that'd be dope let's keep it going story number four high guard reportedly has less than 20 devs working on it uh working on its following mass layoffs at Wildlight. This coming from Rebecca Valentine at IGN sourcing Jason Schreier at Bloomberg. High Guard Studio Wildlight Entertainment reportedly has less than 20 people remaining to work on the game following a round of devastating layoffs just weeks after the game's launch. This comes from a new Bloomberg report, which tells the story of Wildlight's rise and fall since its founders first assembled the team back in 2021. Made up of respawn veterans, the group hoped to recreate the success of Apex Legends and Titanfall, initially with a survival-focused shooter. When that design didn't quite work out as well as they'd hoped, they scrapped it and pivoted to High Guard, leaving remnants of the original survival game in the final draft of what was now a hero shooter. As the game progressed, testers had positive feedback that had the developers hopeful, though notably they also said it was more fun on microphone with voice chat and the experience was too complicated and less fun without them. Sources speaking to Bloomberg say the studio largely had a positive culture and the team felt good about what they were making up until the game's announcement at the Game Awards last December, which apparently came about at Jeff Keighley's urging after he enjoyed what he played. The team originally intended to announce and launch High Guard simultaneously, but the Game Awards announcement that left a month-and-a-half-long silence between announcement and launch, during which the internet had a field day. The game launched to a celebration-worthy number of Steam Conterants, but unfortunately was unable to retain players for very long at all, meaning it made very little money from microtransactions. Reviews were also poor, though the developers at Wildlight believed they had financial runway to improve. Financial backer Tencent suddenly pulled its funding and most of the 100 person team was laid off as a result. Fewer than 20 individuals remained to try to save High Guard. Those developers have recently reassured that a new patch is on the way after a website issue led players to believe the whole game was being taken down. The full story is at Bloomberg, which I read last night. A very good write-up right there. Very interesting. Of course, me, Andy, and Bless previewed the game a while back, and we actually spoke with the co-founder and a lot of the team members, and they were telling stories of, hey, we were playing a lot of Rust. We loved this raid idea in Rust of raiding bases, and that's kind of where the game started and came from, right? And so it's an interesting write-up of Jason talking about what happened there, And then the game awards announcement and how that really changed everything for them right there. So yeah, great write up. Now only 20 people working on this game, Roger down from a hundred to 20, a live service game, a game that has lost 97% of its initial. Way more. I mean, I'm looking at it right now. The 24 hour peak is 551. And what was the number? What was the highest? 97,000 was the highest. That was, yeah, that's a, that's a tough number, right? Yeah. So insane drop off there. Yeah, 400 people playing right now. Less than 400 people playing right now. Yeah, this always comes down to, like, one of the sadder stories of the year. Like, I look at this, and it's like, it was avoidable, but it was also unavoidable. Like, I see what was happening to that team of, like, if Jeff Keighley were to walk up to us and be like, hey, man, I see your game. I want to show it off. I know you're supposed to do a shadow drop. Let's just throw this up there. And I think Jeff Keighley was super well-meaning. He wanted to show this game on the biggest platform, give it this boost, right? And I, I, if I was them, I'd be like, fuck yeah, that sounds awesome. Like everyone's gonna, that's, that's prime placement. And then of course the backlash that I don't think anybody would have expected. Even when I was watching that trailer, I was like, I was like, oh, this game was cool. Like this, this neat. It wasn't like the most mind blowing thing in the world, but I was like, oh, that's neat. I'm excited to try that out. And like, oh, it's only a few weeks away. That's sick. And then just the internet just took that and just ran with it. If I wonder what the alternate universe was, if they had a comms team, if they had something to follow it up there, if they had some type of like, Hey, we're going to continue to talk to the audience as these things are happening. So would that have quenched the fires a little bit or would that have just flamed everything even further? You never know. It's just a sad story. And 20 devs working on this game, it's like, yeah, under 1,000, under 400 people playing right now, that this is within the next few months. We're going to see that. Of course, a model based off of being free to play, driven by microtransactions. So when you bring up only 400 people playing, 20 devs trying to keep this alive right here on Steam. But, I mean, Roger, like, how long, really, right? This can't be in, this is in the red and only going down for a month. Yeah, exactly. Within the month, within the month or two. It's really sad. Unfortunate stuff. A really great write-up by Jason. Shout out to Rebecca Valentine for bringing that out. And so go check it out. Number five, our final story of the day, Roger. Be aware, videogamer.com has gone full AI slop. Roger, I don't know what's happening. Give me the rundown. Yeah, I saw this popping up on Blue Sky and Twitter over the last few days, and it's just, I was like, there's no way this is actually happening, and it is. If you go to videogamer which I implore all y not to do but maybe Barrett if you would like to go there just as a curiosity click to show the audience uh it is uh rampant with reviews that on the outside and like journalism and all stuff that looks on the outside like oh like this is like normal as is you know video gamers working out as it should be and then you look into it and yeah the resident evil requiem review first of all is using an ai generated image and say okay that's weird because there's a lot of you know press created images for um uh key art uh that was sent out there this is definitely not what from the game, especially that biohazard. This is not there. Grace doesn't look quite right. She doesn't look quite right. Her eyes are a little weird. This is not. It's sort of off, whatever. And then you look into it and you read the headlines. Resident Evil Requiem Review. Capcom's gore-soaked series finale. Weird. Series finale. That's not what that is. And then you look at the person that wrote it. Brian Marigold. Okay, cool. Brian Marigold is an experienced iGaming and sports betting analyst with a deep appreciation for the innovation, sharpening modern gambling entertainment. And it just goes on about this. And then they link to his Twitter, and they link to a bunch of other people's Twitters, and it has one follower, 41 following, and it was created in October 2025. It says, Lifelong Gamer, Passionate Writer, Adventurous Reviewer. And it's just an image. And we're like, this is definitely AI, right? And then somebody found that if you go to the original image that was uploaded to Video Gamer of this guy's profile, and you go to like the the the link it says chat gpt so this is clearly ai generated imagery of an ai generated article from an ai generated key art that they're using uh and this review made it to metacritic this review made it to metacritic uh they have been since been banned from metacritic and metacritic from what i've been seeing online there's not official reporting on this or there was now but whatever uh there have been people that said like hey like metacritic sent out to I believe everybody that is part of the Metacritic family and has reviews up there, basically saying, hey, you can't fucking post AI-generated stuff. Yeah, sorry. Yeah, you put it up there, and I didn't read it. There it is. Alex Donaldson posted on Blue Sky. Metacritic has sent a reminder email to all game sites, editors, and publishers, which is pretty strong and great. It reads, our policy is that we will never include an AI-generated review on Metacritic, and that if we subsequently discover that one has been posted, we will remove it immediately and sever ties with that publication upon an investigation. So, yeah, good on Metacritic for, like, finding this out and then just being like, boom, you're out, you're done. What a horrible, horrible thing to see when you see the amount of games journalists, when you see the amount of real people that are dedicating their lives to playing video games and, you know, honestly, not getting paid enough, not getting paid enough to play 50, 70-hour video games, do entire walkthroughs, dedicate their entire lives to playing video games and loving them and trying to express to everybody how much they love them to you so that you can potentially figure out if you want to buy a game, if you don't want to buy a video game. It is such a labor of love that people are not appreciated enough for in the modern era, especially with the written word. And then now, videogamer.com, an establishment that I would go to all the time, is now just completely and utterly overrun with AI nonsense. They have not said anything about it. They're unapologetic about it. It sucks. Don't go to videogamer.com. Fuck that website. And we will never use a videogamer.com website as a news article. And again, because it is clearly AI slop and it sucks. So fuck that. Fuck yeah, Roger. Great job on that one. Roger, that is huge news. That AI slop is making its way on the Metacritic. Now getting the band hammer. But if I need something smaller, I need a palate cleanser. Where would we go? You go to our last story, the Wii News channel, where we cover all the small news items you need to know about. Let's kick it with some Wii News on a big one, a big deal. Backyard Baseball is back with a brand new game by Mega Cat Studios. Bring up the images. Yeah, so they have this trailer, and it doesn't really show any of the gameplay, right? It's like the cartoon style. Yes, they had a big YouTube premiere that came out. Of course, you got to watch. You were in the live chat. I was in it. I was enjoying the 22-minute episode celebrating backyard sports, all the kids that make it so special. And then Mega Cat Studios announces a brand new game coming in July. Pablo Sanchez. It goes 3D. It's exactly when you close your eyes and you think, what would a backyard sports game look like in 2026? This is exactly what I want. This is what it looks like. It looks good. I'm excited. I cannot wait. Shout out to Mega Cat Studios. Making so many different types of games in the last few years. I'm excited to talk with them. They brought back Vinny the Gooch on commentary, of course, alongside the legendary, the incredible Sunny Day, which is awesome. There's 33 kids on this. By my count, there was only 30 kids on the bleachers in the first backyard baseball. So what are the three kids that I'm missing? Let me know in the comments below if I'm missing three kids or if they got something special. I saw something yesterday or today on Instagram of somebody doing your gimmick of the Mike Snowbike Mike pretty much. They're doing their Twitch humor and they speak Spanish and they had like 500,000 likes on Instagram. And they're doing the whole thing and they're yelling at the kids and everything. And I was like, I know for a fact that it's just independent. It's an easy idea. It's an easy idea. But it is funny. I would like to think the idea of the guy saw this and it's like, I can do it. He was like, I want to do that. Yeah, yeah. But are you excited? Are you going to look good to you? I'm so excited. I've been waiting for this for a long time since Mega Cat Studios really starting to bring back all of the backyard sports that we wanted to modern platforms like Steam, right? And, of course, iOS, right? I think it's been a big deal. I'm very excited. I want to talk with this team. I want to get to know them more on what they've been doing. I think it's a really fun cause and a great way to bring an awesome brand back to life and celebrate sports in a fun way. I can't wait to see what they do with the 3D world. What does it really look like? How does it play? Is it open world? I'm thinking it's going to become kind of super mega baseball type vibes if you've ever played that before. I think it will be very much like that. It won't be the click, point and click adventure kind of games or sports games like they were, right? But you have a wealth of fun. Hockey, basketball, soccer, baseball, like football. Can't wait to see where they go back. If you need help, you call me. I'll be there. You need a commentator, a coach. I'll be there I'll be there for free I'll just show up you don't need to say that part give him a day rate and a cup of coffee I need nothing but imagine remember when Snoop Dogg was part of Call of Duty they had the announcers pack and everything you could be that guy Coach Mike Pack $2.99 we'll give you $2.99 to download this we will pay you money to have Coach Mike in the game I'm super excited about this Roger this is something I will be looking at and talking about for the months leading up Jason in the chat says fantasy critic pickup I'm only full up but Roger maybe After I fuck with The team and what they've been doing with the backyard baseball Games backyard sports Them also just releasing Another game in the last couple of weeks That has lost me points I don't know if I would advise Lost you points? Oh yeah Sons of Sparta is at a 67 Right now so Who counterpicked Pokemon? I did baby Way to lock him in Let's go. And so I don't know with Mega Cat doing a lot of things. I don't know. I don't know if I would advise it. Think about it. Think about it. Here we go. Via PlayStation, God of War, Sons of Sparta update adds a cheat code for players to access the roguelike co-op mode, the pit without having to finish the game. Nice. That should have been their day one. That should have been day. It shouldn't have been a cheat code. It should have just been an extra mode from the jump. It's such a weird choice to make that an unlockable that they don't even really point you to when you beat the game. It's just kind of they sneak it into the main menu. It's really freaking weird. Yeah. Via Wario 64, Resident Evil Requiem has already reached highest concurrent users for an RE game on Steam. 246,000 players within one hour of release. 320,000 players as of right now. Resident Evil 4 remake peaked at 168k. Shout out to them. Wow. Big deals. Big deals. This is a contender. Yeah. You feel the energy in the air. Mike and Roger have already played it. Roger was on the Gamescast where they reviewed it with Tim, Greg, Madeline, Stanley, and Roger. I already beat this before for review. This is a contender. This is a gaming event. Drop what you're doing and go play this game. That is the best way to say that. It is a gaming event. I get emotional talking about it. I feel like Tim Geddes. I'm like I'm getting so excited so hype about it what a fun time and I love talking to people about it talking to so many people about it so many people in my life love this game man I can't wait to hear what everybody thinks at the end I'm so excited for like the diehard fans what they think because there was a lot of questions going into this there's a lot of excitement of course but there was questions and I'm excited to see those get answered and see what they think because it's awesome via shinobi on twitter upgraded PSSR yeah I didn't want to call it by its Christian named Pissar. I'm so close to saying it. I didn't want to say it. They know what they're doing. Upgraded Pissar is coming to PS5 Pro starting today with Resident Evil Requiem. Latest co-developed tech stemming from AMD and Sony's Project Amethyst collab. Six months of extra refinement for FSR 4. Enhanced Pissar coming to more titles in March. System update in March allows PS5 Pro users to select enhanced Pissar image quality. in settings. Piss or be pissing. Piss or be pissing. It's better than ever. Tried my best. I like how you're saying that, like someone's trying to stop you. Like Greg Miller's like, you can't fucking call it You have to call it pissing. Via Chris Scullion at VGC Marvel Maximum Collection. That's with a giant X in the middle of it. Collection is now is the new compilation of retro 8-bit and 16-bit Marvel games. You don't need to read all of this, but There's a lot of games. I mean, they have X-Men Arcade. I love that. I've never seen any of the other ones. Okay, yeah. Captain America and the Avengers. I know that one. They got Separation Anxiety. That's Venom and Spider-Man. And then Spider-Man and X-Men. Are these any good? I know the X-Men one is good. I'm sure they're, yes. The answer is yes, because you don't want to say anything bad. And people are going to be like, oh my God, actually. This is my favorite game. This is the best one ever. Captain America and the Avengers. You can't forget that one. There's a lot of games on this. It's actually not that many games. the more I looked at it. Silver Surfer NES is on there because it's just a lot of like different platforms that they were on, which is really cool. I'm very, very happy that video games are getting re-releases like this that are so, you know, hey, we're going to show you every version of it, like the Mortal Kombat one, which is really sick. And I hope they do that. I hope they do that for the PS2 games. What up? I wish they had a shout out to X-Men Mutant Apocalypse for the Super Nintendo. I wish that was here. One day. One day. Mad Rocks writes in and says, the guy doing Mike's gimmick in Spanish is El Camacho 24, if we can bring him up. He's not doing my gimmick, but he's doing a fun gimmick. I'll give him that. Well, let's find the timelines. Maybe Mike and Coach Camacho could come together and coach together. That would be a great coaching experience. And that's the end of We News. That's the end of We News. That is all the Super Chats. We will jump into You're Wrong. Of course, remember, I need you to keep me honest as I struggle through today's game daily on a Friday. I apologize. I love you we did good today I upset Greg Miller and I want to apologize let's apologize right now to Greg Miller I apologize Greg Miller I've hey Greg Miller it's Mike and I want you to know that I really messed up today and I apologize for breaking embargo and ruining your day I want you to know that's very exciting and nobody will ever talk about it until it actually happens so we're all going to be cool on the internet everyone's going to pretend like it's a big deal and I want you to know that I care and appreciate you and I will put on my active listening ears from now on and give me the one And as the producer of The Buzz, I take no responsibility, and I will be titling the episode of The Buzz, Snowbike Mike Breaks Embargo. So, yeah, that is what we are going to do. Let me see. Let me see. Let me see. Let me see. We got a lot of write-ins. We got a lot of write-ins. Okay, let me see what I got. Roger, tell him a story really quick. I'm excited for today. Again, of course, this is going to be the scariest marathon stream we've ever done is going to be Blessing and Andy in a room together for as long as it takes to beat Resident Evil Requiem. I almost said Silent Hill. I'm still thinking about Silent Hill. Resident Evil Requiem. And we got some cool stuff going on there. A lot of fun stuff that Andy's been making and a cool little sponsorship there that we'll talk about in a second. And push them long enough so that they have to beat the game and then go into New Game Plus so they can do all the fun things that you usually think about with Resident Evil with that as well. So So look forward to that. Solely pisser? Sole purpose. Sole purpose. That's not, there's no R. Oh. I mean, that's somebody. Definitely not scarier than seeing Roger in the skirt. Great time. That was great. I mean, you can't just only include Roger in that sentence. Captain Slayer. Roger and Mike. That was rocking the skirt. And you're wrong. Captain Slayer writes in and says, additional story number four info. Highguard just released a new mode called Raid Rush that removes the looting phase entirely to try and draw more players in. There you go. Go give it a try. 5v5. Now Raid Rush. Some new stuff going on in there. Fran will be all over it covering it on his Twitch channel. He will. He will. Roger, it's been a fantastic Friday. We have a lot of fun going on. We've had one hell of a fun week. And guess what? It doesn't stop now. We celebrated Pokemon 30th anniversary with Greg and Tim in the morning. You and I got to do kind of funny games daily. Now we're going to kick it into the lab for something truly terrifying, something truly spooky and fun as blessing and Andy are going to set up and get ready for today's subathon marathon stream with resident evil nine Barrett say goodbye and take us away. Really quick for the Twitch audience, because of how we had to set things up to, uh, for today with the big marathon stream, we will be going offline for just a minute, but don't freak out. It's all part of the plan. We will be back shortly. Yes. Has been kind of funny games daily. If you love what we do, consider supporting us with that kind of funny membership available on Patreon and on YouTube. We get all of our shows ad free and get a daily exclusive show. Greg way. Enjoy games cast after this. No, enjoy the stream and have a one. And also hang out and go to the stream. I know you're worried about spoilers. Just hang out for a little bit. We're not going to spoil everything in the beginning. Oh, you don't want to miss out on what Mike and Roger. See the beginning of this. Hang out with us. And then once they start the game, you can leave. But throw some Twitch subs, hang out there and keep this fundraising stuff going. Love you, Mike. It's been our pleasure to serve you. Goodbye.