Bend Reportedly Aims to Reveal AND Release Its Co-Op Game in 2027

Hey everybody, welcome to Game Mess Mornings with me, Jeff Grubb, your host from GiantBomb.com. Thank you for tuning in. In this episode, we're going to be talking about Zelda Week.

Well, it is Zelda Week. We'll probably talk about it a little bit.

It's going to be a good one because we have John Martin on the show.

John, how are you doing?

Jeff, I'm doing great. It's been a fun Halloween weekend. How are you doing?

I'm doing well. Doing very well. Playing some games. Yeah, lots of trick-or-treating, and Saturday night I think was the same for just about every parent. You get ready for trick-or-treating, you set up all day, and then you pre-order a pizza. It's the one time in my life I've pre-ordered a pizza. My understanding is we all did that. Everyone did that, which is, it was a pro move. I was very happy.

It worked out great. We got some Papa John's, and yeah, had a really fun night.

It was great.

Our street's real nice for trick-or-treating. It's just one big, long street. We don't have to go anywhere else. There's not a lot of traffic. It's, uh, feels really, you know, safe in terms of, of, uh, like cars and stuff like that. And that, you know, I will say like, I did notice, uh, maybe a few fewer houses handing out candy this year where it's like, okay, normally, you know, there's still lots of houses with like their, uh, full size candy bars. It's like, it does feel like, oh, it's representative of that K shape economy where, um, You know, the houses that can afford it are like, oh, let's give up even bigger candy bars than normal. And a lot of other ones are like, have you seen how

much candy is? I'm just going to turn my lights off and leave me alone. And I respect both. It's it's it was kind of nasty out there when I was looking at prices for candy and we were getting set up. So, yeah, maybe a recession indicator Halloween, unfortunately. But other than that, we had a great time.

How about you? What'd you do this weekend?

Yeah, it was actually one of my best friend's wedding over the weekend. So now Halloween's always going to be a combination of an anniversary and dressing up and the association between the two. But yeah, as weddings go, it was a very, very beautiful occasion. A lot of fun. A lot of games were played. And, you know, just trying to catch up on sleep and all that.

Very, very busy. Photos, everything.

But yeah, a lot of time for video games. So I'm always happy to talk about video games.

Yeah, I think Backyard got married on Halloween, right? Yeah, I think it was his anniversary as well. So everyone wish him a happy anniversary, of course.

Yeah, all right. Well, you know what?

Let's get into things. Let's start explaining ourselves. We're Giant Bomb. Go to giantbomb.com slash join.

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And this is the run. We're going to be doing Minesweeper here pretty soon. Looking forward to that.

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Also, you know, we did a really cool Giant Bomb video week in Rental Club.

The crew got back together last Friday.

We played through a bunch of games from out of time and space, games from the 90s that never existed in the first place.

Go check that out. It was our Halloween special.

We played a sort of Dead by Daylight version of Sonic the Hedgehog. That was pretty cool. Mike played a Bloodborne inspired Zelda thing. And then we played the Bloodborne demake as well.

Chuck played that. Go check that all out. It was a lot of fun. One of my favorite things to do right now. All right.

As far as this show goes, most weekdays, I, Jeff Grubb, will help piece your gaming life back together. That includes breaking news and maybe even some of our own original reporting. For all these topics, I'll get the input of a bona fide expert who will make me look smart. If you are watching live on Twitch, welcome. You can always listen to the show later on podcast feeds by searching for Game Mess Mornings or find the RSS feed on GiantBomb.com.

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Hello, YouTube. All right.

We have a lot to get into, so let's start the morning mess with Negoshi Studio has been dissolved.

This comes from Sal Romano at Gamatsu.

Nogoshi Studio, the Shinjuku, Tokyo-based studio founded by Yakuza series creator Toshiro Nogoshi, under NetEase Games in November 2021, has officially dissolved and was officially dissolved by a shareholders resolution on October 31st, according to a notice published in today's Japanese government Gazette Kampo.

Basically, it was just a notice.

That The writing on the wall, they essentially said they were going to do this. It has fully gone through, and the studio has been dissolved. In December 2025. Negoshi Studio announced Gang of Dragon, basically an adventure game starring Don Lee, if you remember that, everybody. It looked kind of like a Yakuza game, but had Don Lee. Yes, that was from Negoshi Studio. In March 2026, however, Bloomberg reported that NetEase Games planned to cut funding from the studio in May, and then it had an option, the studio did, to sort of continue off independently if it was able to fund itself. sounds like that never materialized here.

And instead, uh, everything's kind of falling apart. Although, you know, I guess we don't explicitly know the fate of, of gang of dragons.

We are, we're, I'm just assuming, oh, it's yeah, it's done. Like the studio's done. It's done. And there is no future here. And if, um, we hear from, um, negotiate again.

It will be him sort of picking up the pieces elsewhere and not necessarily trying to find a way to continue this.

But that is not necessarily the case. We don't know that for sure. But this is a weird one, always a weird one.

NetEase was investing into these kinds of studios from Japan.

For a hot minute there. And it really did feel like a minute long.

And then the next week they turn around and we're like, oh, why are we funding all these studios?

We're not doing that anymore.

And I think obviously a lot of that happened in parallel with investment into games looking really strong, like a strong idea. And then all of a sudden every company that wasn't investing everything possible into AI looked like a bunch of jerk offs. So I think that this might be the situation here a little bit. It's stupid because that game was, you know, sounded promising and I really would have liked to have seen it. But how are you feeling about all this?

Um, pretty, pretty sad about it.

Uh, Negoshi is like, even if he isn't as well known as some other game creators, he created some of the greatest video games of all time. Super monkey ball. He's, I think he goes as far back to some of the Sega's arcade games. Um, monkey ball, Yakuza. Um, it's really disheartening to see. I was really looking for gang of dragon. Um, Like, Infinite Wealth, I think, was the first Yakuza without him, right? And that was a great game.

But since then, Yakuza and that studio, minus Virtual Fighter, looks like they're kind of stepping on rakes with that individual franchise. So this was going to be a good alternative to that.

So, yeah, I'm pretty messed up about it.

I'm hoping there's some way they can pick up the slack because I know there was that, like, $ 45 million left to actually finish this thing, right? Um, and obviously right now that's not the, not a lot of people have that much money to, you know, put down the card, put down the chips, but, um, it's a game I was like pretty positive on looking forward to if only because if there's someone who knows how to make smart use of a tighter budget, it is that studio. Like they are the people that are giving us game set in a small location, uh, and not make and the experience isn't compromised by that you really fall in love with the place as much as the character so i'm hoping something can pull through here but yeah net ease

really seems to want to avoid anything with like a big license or like you know something to like anchor it there to make sure uh make them sure that it's a good investment.

Yeah i would like to see uh kind of negotiate, come out there and say what, what the plan is for the future. And, um, you know, maybe there's a chance you could return to RGG. Maybe not, probably not, but maybe, uh, you know, obviously maybe that becomes more likely if these upcoming RGG games come out and they, the follow through is, is, is as tainted as the.

Lead up to them has been.

Um, you know, we talk about, uh, uh, Tupac in project century, which I can never remember the name of God.

What is the name of that game?

Um, Stranger than Paradise?

Stranger than Paradise? Stranger than Heaven? One of those, yeah.

And it's like, okay, yes, that has had a lot of questions around it, especially from fans who have been paying a lot of attention. And they're saying, hey, something feels off here. It doesn't feel like the energy is the same as it has been. Yes, Stranger than Heaven.

Thank you, chat.

The energy doesn't feel the same as it has in the past with the Like a Dragon games, the Yakuza games. And all right, well, I guess we'll see what happens when we play it. And when we play it, if it's disappointing, maybe that causes everyone involved to rethink things. And then overtures are made to negotiate maybe to bring them back. But that's a lot of fantasy booking. That's a lot of speculating. And we really just don't know how that's going to go yet. Either way, very strange of net ease. Although I bet they're like, yeah, I guess funding these kinds of games gets real expensive real fast, especially when you have.

Had to build up a studio alongside it, because there's a lot of infrastructure that goes along with that, and then a lot of new hires, and it just gets more and more bloated, bigger and bigger, and suddenly you have a massive studio in your hands, right in the heart of Tokyo. and that stuff's got to be, you know, for as much as labor costs are not as expensive in Japan as they are elsewhere, it could still add up pretty fast.

And NetEase just didn't seem interested anymore.

They have completely averted their gaze elsewhere, and it doesn't feel like it was getting a return here.

Obviously, it didn't.

Yeah, so again, Gang of Dragons, I gotta imagine if it was gonna be rescued, it was gonna happen already. The fact that it has not kind of speaks volumes to the fact that, oh yeah, that thing's just gonna be lost and we will not see it.

It's unfortunate because it did look pretty cool. And Don Lee, awesome in a video game. He looked awesome in a game.

They put him in there. They transported his body into a virtual space.

It was insane how good it looked. Even in that one bar scene, it was nuts.

They always have such good workers making sure those games look as incredible as they can be.

Yeah. Yeah.

And it's so I didn't know we had the power to render Don Lee's power. And finally we did. And we're not going to actually get that. So unfortunate.

All right.

Let's keep going here.

Nintendo announces Zelda Ocarina of Time UK midnight launch with free in 64 boxes up for grabs. I'm mostly posting this here because I'm extremely jealous. This seems a lot of fun from Andy Robinson at VGC. Nintendo is holding an official UK midnight launch for The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time's Switch 2 remake, with attendees receiving special N64 box replicas. The midnight launch event for The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time will take place at the Nintendo Store at Argos Tottenham Court Road, London, this Wednesday evening, ahead of the game's release on Thursday, November 5th. Those who buy the game at the midnight launch event will receive a free N64 box replica based on the game's UK box design, complete with an inner tray and slipcase

designed to fit the Nintendo Switch 2 game. Purchasers will also receive an Ocarina key ring while supplies last. The Nintendo Experience Zone, which, God, I've lived in most of my life, has been operating within Tottenham Court Road's Argos store since earlier this year and is stocked with consoles, games, and merchandise for Nintendo games like Zelda, Mario, and Animal Crossing.

And then they go on here to talk about the history of that whole thing.

What the hell? What the, come on. What are we doing here?

I'll take a flip.

I'm American. I demand this, John. I know.

Please get it for me too. I just feel like our pre-order bonuses have only gotten worse over time. Like we used to get Ocarina of Time for free and now we don't get anything.

Seriously. Yeah. I mean, we have Midnight Launches. Okay.

Oh, and they also get to get the, Pro Controller, the Switchy consoles. I thought we had something over them.

No, no.

We're just getting shafted. We're just getting screwed over.

I think if we, as the American people, show our love for Ocarina of Time more than people in the UK, maybe we can get some over here. But I, you know, I'm not seeing a lot of people united right now. I think we need to rise up a little bit.

We've got to do some work here.

Yeah, you know, I'll say I am shocked that for pre-orders of The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time Switch 2 Remake, that the card itself is not gold. I was expecting that to be a thing up until a point. Obviously, recently, it's like, okay, it doesn't seem like that's going to happen. Their sort of alternative to that is the shiny cover on the case, right? Is that on the card itself?

I think it's just on the case. And that's, okay, that's cool. But man, I had that gold Legend of Zelda cartridge for my NES, right? I pre-ordered the Ocarina of Time gold cartridge for the N64 specifically so I could have that. And part of me is like, okay, I want to continue that tradition. Nintendo, just make it an option. And no, it's weird.

So it's like, all right, I guess what else are they going to do? And then I see this. I'm like, oh, you know what? I would settle. Hardly settle, actually.

I'd be pretty excited to get an N64 box replica kind of official from Nintendo. That would be a fun thing to put on my shelf. In fact, I almost would prefer that because I don't really necessarily F with physical media all that much. But little tchotchkes and stuff, little decorations, posters, things like that. That's the kind of thing where, yeah, that feels like a good way to celebrate This game I'm almost certainly going to purchase digitally.

So I would like to see something like this. Doesn't seem like it's in the cards. Although, like you said, it's apparently happening in Canada. So maybe it's something they're still going to announce here at the last minute.

But I don't know. What do you think?

Yeah.

In terms of like us getting anything, I feel probably not. I think the best we're going to do is that if they have any leftover stock, they'll just throw it up on that like Nintendo point store. and then make you pay $ 8 for shipping or something, which I would do, obviously.

I'm a shill. I would do it.

But yeah, Midnight launches just as a whole. I'm kind of down to the fact that they are actually still doing that for Augurian at the time. It really does bring me back to Switch 1 opening day, getting Breath of the Wild at midnight when I had classes first thing in the morning at 6am, and I was just dead tired, but God, was it worth it? Yeah, that's another relic of the past where it's like, now you can stay up till 12 and watch your game unlock in real time. And now you can play, you know, the copy of the game you pre-ordered and it's just there.

And there's no community there. If we had more opening nights, maybe they would have incentives to bring us to one store or the other. But now it's just like, yeah, show up to certain Best Buys and then you might be able to get limited edition Switch 2s and Pro Controllers that are immediately going to be scalped for like two to three times the money.

Exactly. Yeah. Jamie H is sharing this Link's Awakening Steelbook in chat. I never saw this.

Was this a thing like back then? I would have bought this immediately. The Steelbook case looks like a Game Boy. Yeah, I'm playing Link's Awakening. That's fantastic. I really like that a lot.

Yeah, I mean.

collecting games and stuff like that definitely is, excuse me, definitely something where at one time going to the midnight launch was a ton of fun. And now I'm at a point, you're right, where I haven't done it in a long time because I am getting stuff digitally and it doesn't have the same magic to it. So I am occasionally looking for the thing. They're like, well, what would get me out there to go back out for a midnight launch? And some Zelda stuff might do it.

Absolutely.

But yeah, if it's just going to be go, go force myself to get a physical version of this game. Honestly, the last, I think the last physical Nintendo switch game that I really got and used was the legend of Zelda breath of the wild at launch when it was sent to me for review. And that card does not work anymore. Like it has, it has ceased to function.

I kept it in my switch and like, I never replaced it. I never did anything with it. I didn't mistreat it or anything. It was just in the switch. Cause I got every other game digitally. And apparently it didn't like being inside of the place it's supposed to be. And, uh, just stopped working. So I am, you know, I've had bad experience, uh, 100% of the time with physical media on the switch.

So, uh, that's not necessarily true.

I did get a couple of others, but mostly for collectors stuff like a Metroid prime or whatever.

Uh, okay. We'll see. Hey, Zelda week. It's, it's happening. God, that's right. Wednesday night. Cause this game comes out Thursday.

I still struggle to remember the fact that Nintendo games come out Thursday now and have for many years.

It's a me problem.

Uh, so Wednesday at midnight, 3 AM, uh, on, on the East coast, is that how it usually goes?

Uh, I'm not going to stay up, but I will get up early.

Midnight East Coast and then I think 9 p.m.

Is that how it goes?

I think it is, but I could be wrong. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

I'd be very excited about that.

That's correct. Okay. Well, hell yeah.

So I'll be playing some Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time at midnight.

On Wednesday going into Thursday. Looking forward to it a lot. All right.

Let's take a break. We're going to take a break when we get back. Plenty of headlines to get into. If you want to skip out on these ad messages, we offer you a way to do that. Giant bomb dot com slash join has the ad free version of the audio and video show there.

We will be right back. Is it Tottenham? Is that how you're supposed to say it? That's stupid.

Say most you got like seven syllables in there and you're pronouncing one and a half of them.

Disgusting.

Anyway, continuing on with Game Mess Mornings here, I'm Jeff Grubb. That's John Martin. Our next story here, Bend reportedly aims to reveal and release its co-op game in 2027. This is from Chris Scullion at VGC. The next game from Days Gone developer Bend Studio is set to be revealed and released next year.

A new report claims.

Speaking to sources said to be aware of the project, MP First claims that the studio's next title will be revealed at some point in 2027. It's also claimed that Ben studios is planning to release the game next year too, because it's much further along in development than some may think. The report also states that the game will not be a sequel. Today is gone.

Sorry, Sean.

It also says the game will be played in a third person perspective and will feature co-op play, but will not have, it will not be a live service game. If true, this may be understandable given that the, that in early 2005, it also reported that Sony, it must be 2025, uh, that Sony had canceled a live service game being worked on by Ben's studio, as well as another game in development at Bluepoint Games. And then Bluepoint got shut down. And Ben's future was like a big question mark, John, for this whole time. You know, we'd always heard that there was some pitches to get Days Gone to, I must call it, it day Sean, uh, days gone to eight, like rolling along. And Sony was like, no, no, thank you. We're not going to do that instead. Do the,

it was the, the live service got, got a board game or whatever it was, uh, go work on some other live service thing. And, and then that got canceled and said, okay, well, you know, what could Ben to possibly do? Sounds like they were able to scrape through, come up with a pitch.

It's far along comes out next year.

And that, that, you know, that, that could go a long way because, um, there's going to be a lot of people playing playstations after grand theft auto, uh, And, you know, that that's the kind of thing where if this game hits, it can hit very like at the height of the console, there will be other big first party PlayStation games. Like it seems like intergalactic, the heretic profit probably will come out next year, late next year, uh, at the earliest, of course.

Um, and then there is.

God, what God of war Laufey early in the year. And then if you put this somewhere in between, like in the summer or like late spring or something like that, I could see it doing very well, obviously, depending on, you know, what kind of game it is, if it can deliver.

But yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing what Bend is working on. How about you?

Yeah, I mean, the one thing you can't really fault Bend is that they really did for the people who are really into Days Gone, like the world, the detail was kind of first and foremost, the gameplay was really cool. It's very interesting to see them being able to pivot so quickly. Like, I was not sure when we were talking about this originally, how they were able to kind of 180 out of that because i know yeah um it's had.

To be like a parallel thing like right maybe a smaller team was working on this alongside something else it has to be something like that that.

Would make a lot of sense yeah and you know when when you have like the director of your current big company uh your big game leave in 2020 you gotta have a couple different options there so yeah it's going to be kind of crucial for playstation going forward to have that consistent game flow um and to release it as a co-op game makes it seem like hey, maybe this is kind of a similar situation like the Horizon game where it was, this is kind of similar to what was going to be that live service game, but maybe something came about it. Like there was some like core idea that makes sense for why we will have co-op as a big part of this game going forward.

I'm pretty excited about it. You're a big Ben Studios fan. So what are you hoping to see from this?

This is slander. Platforming? This is about right. If it's a co-op, Bubsy, Bubsy 3d too.

Uh, look, we already got Bubsy 40 and that was great.

Uh, they've, they've passed on the torch. So I have no interest in bend anymore.

Um, no, that's not true. I, I, I would like to see, uh, I, you know, my guess here is this will be somewhat inspired by the recent successful cooperative games from Sony. It looks like hell divers too, or something like that. Um, And it's like, yeah, go for something along those lines. A big, fun experience. Although, if it's like multiplayer focused and not live service, I guess my question, John, where do you think that ends up on the sort of line that PlayStation has for, hey, if it's a big live service game, we're willing to put it on PC. If it's not a big live service game, it doesn't go on PC. They're saying it's not live service, but it's cooperative. Sounds like it would benefit from.

Cross-platform multiplayer with people on PC and people on PlayStation. Do you think this is on the near side where they keep it exclusive to PlayStation?

Yeah, because it's interesting, right? We know that Horizon game, if it does come out, will be on PC. But again, that is a pivot from trying to get as much money into the game as possible. The fact that it is kind of just described as a co-op game, not so much That kind of live service-y thing makes me think.

It supposedly says it's not live service. Yeah.

Yeah. So it makes me think that maybe it is going to be trying to get people to further invest in the ecosystem, trying to make it seem like, hey, I have this game.

You got this for GTA 6. Let's keep buying this game.

Let's keep having PS Plus, even though Grand Theft Auto 6 doesn't have it online at launch. Let's like kind of get down and dirty.

People are into our games. That's the reason they're here. Let's keep them here.

Let's keep them here long-term in a game that could, you know, last 15, 20 hours and then kind of loop them into the next big PlayStation game. Yeah.

And then, you know, I can't, I'm trying to read this again. I read this a couple of times this morning. And again, I'm like, did they say explicitly say it's a new IP? I don't think they do. They also don't make any sort of suggestion that it is based on an existing IP, but let's just go along with that.

If it is an existing IP, what would you want it to be other than Bubsy?

Other than Bubsy?

Well, you've taken, you've taken the impulse answer immediately. Um, and maybe this is weird and maybe this is like overdone, but what a walking dead co-op game be interesting to people.

Is that something that people would want over or like, yeah.

Or like, that's the kind of thing where, uh, it gets licensed by a mid tier, a publisher or something like, or not even mid tier. So that's not a fair way to put it, but a double a publisher, um, Like, what's the team that does Warhammer Space Marine and stuff like that? Yeah, we get it like a little somewhere along those lines. I think it would have to be like a classic PlayStation IP getting brought back up with something like this.

Yeah.

And I mean, in that case, do you think there is any possibility that Bend having worked on platforming before is making the first co-op Ape Escape game?

No, I mean, we already know like they're making an ape escape game based on the rumors out there, which, you know, I can definitely verify to a certain extent. And that's being made by the Penny's Big Breakaway team, the team that did Sonic Mania and stuff like that.

So.

That's that's awesome.

So, yeah, I think that like but something to me that says, oh, they are actually doing the thing we keep saying of of bringing back these old IP and attaching them to some of these other studios. The story so far has been these external teams have been getting a chance to work on that stuff. And that wouldn't necessarily be what Ben is doing here. I bet this is an original IP. I bet this is an attempt to do something along the lines of establish a game that, um, you know, does as well as Astro Bot or maybe as even like a more successful version of some of the more recent house market games, uh, Soros, uh, and, uh, and God, what was its predecessor?

Uh, yeah. To kind of follow up those games and yes, returnal. Thank you. So we'll see. Um, and then if it, if it is a recognizable.

IP, I'll be very interested to see what it could possibly end up being.

Do you think this could end up being sort of like a haze light, a haze, like haze light, like.

Like, do you think that's possible?

Yeah, there's just, yeah, there's just, there's a chance.

Cause those games, um, have seemingly kind of universally sold way better than I ever would have expected. And, uh, if you kind of bring some of that with a PlayStation panache attached to it, excuse me, it feels like, yeah, that could stand out, but, um, I also feel like, man, that would be difficult to get green-lighted at Sony, I think, but maybe not. Maybe that's the exact kind of thing where we can keep the budget contained and try something, and the upside is really big here, and we don't have to support it as a live service game. You could begin to connect those pieces pretty quickly. I would be interested to see if that's what ends up happening. Definitely, I think the odds on that one are pretty decent

for it to be a Hazelight-like, which is difficult to say.

You're right. All right, let's shift over here.

Digital Foundry did dive into Modern Warfare 4 on the Switch 2. They kind of run down some of the compromises here. Jim Norman at Nintendo Life broke stuff down. Yes, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4 is on the Switch. Let's start with the frame rates. Digital Foundry states that Modern Warfare 4 runs at 30 frames per second in its campaign mode, 60 frames per second in competitive multiplayer.

and 40 frames per second, then tripled up to 120 frames per second if you have a 120 hertz display hooked up, or you're using handheld, because that's.

120, for the DMZ extraction mode.

This is a little bit lower than the other platforms, but it does mean the Switch 2 kind of gets all of the features that all the other platforms get.

It's all also relatively stable.

In the campaign, you'll see hitching and pre-rendered cut scenes, though actual gameplay isn't affected, and things run at a smooth 30. The same can be said for DMZ mode at 40 frames per second, though there is obviously a little input latency for both by opting for a locked lower frame rate. Things occasionally drop into the 50s or even high 40s in online multiplayer with input latency adding an extra challenge in getting the best kill to death ratio.

And that's a quote from Digital Foundry.

There are two anti-aliasing options for the Switch 2 version running at a dynamic 900p in DLSS mode, which drops to 450p in the worst cases. and a higher 1080p target when using SMAA T2X mode. In handheld, it runs a dynamic 720p, dropping to 360p in more intense missions.

A lot of numbers and stuff like that. Mostly, it's just like.

I think this is probably right where people were expecting it to be and maybe even like a best case scenario.

And it is still a little bit, it's muddy to look at.

Uh, and the numbers reflect that, uh, still, I think most people come away being like, Oh, it's shocking. It runs in a playable state at all. And that has been my experience playing it on the switch to, which again, I've not played a ton of, but I played some, all my multiplayer matches handheld and had a good time.

And especially in the matches where I was matched up with all switch to players, um, that felt like, okay, we're all on the same footing and this seems fair and I'm having a pretty decent time.

I think I was also, uh, I had a poor signal.

And so I was getting a little bit of advantage of, obviously, I think I was jumping around for the people trying to shoot me, and they didn't like that. Because it's a Switch 2, and I was playing on Wi-Fi, so that's how it goes. But let's stick with Call of Duty just real quick. Activision revealed that it will remove the Itaewon disaster footage from Modern Warfare 4. The game starts with a fictional Korean War opening using actual news imagery that includes CPR footage related to Seoul's 2022 Itaewon crowd crush disaster, which killed 159 people.

It's stomach-churning.

And the game was sort of just throwing it in there as flavoring for its backdrop and breed families did ask them to remove it. And, uh, uh, Activision says they will do so by November 12th. Uh, why do we have to keep teaching you this lesson? Old man, like every time this feels like his head happens.

Yeah.

Um, it, it's hard to teach a company that is just so gung ho on reliving the same war crimes and, tethering that line between what is more and what is amoral in like a war situation.

To get over this.

Like, obviously a lot of it is just flavoring and backdrops to maybe some of the higher ups there. Like it is kind of just all the same, but I mean, you know, no one at the top of the food chain is thinking about the real life impact it has on real life people. It's all about like, Hey, what is something we haven't do before? How could we like best appeal? And that's like the most grotesque, use of the word but like how can we relate it to other people who might not be already interested in trying the franchise this is the worst possible way you could do that um and yeah they really do seem like they're kind of using gta6 as a crutch to sweep it under the rug because they're hoping people won't remember

in a matter of weeks which you know fucking sucks.

Yep it's uh just edgelord stuff just kind of pathetic in a lot of ways of they got a lot of press headlines for no Russian back in the day. And they're like, yeah, isn't it crazy, bro? And now they keep going back to that. Well, in a bunch of more like increasingly pathetic ways. And, um, this, this is, uh, you know, it's a, it's a new, maybe it's a new low point. It's another low point. Uh, they just have, uh, they go from Valley to Valley. It feels like, uh, especially infinity words games for some reason. I've got, they probably have that legacy of look at all this attention we got for no Russian. What can we do this time? And, And, yeah, this is, yeah, pathetic is the only word, really, for it.

All right. Switch One is forward compatible with Switch 2 games?

What the hell?

Yeah, this is weird. Okay, so from TwistedVoxel, let's see here. Nintendo Switch 2 exclusives are reportedly getting backported to Switch 1. Mario Kart World and Pokemon Pocopia, this is not official, everybody. Mario Kart World and Pokemon Pocopia are now playable on the previous-gen consoles.

Uh, yes. Um, modern. Uh, yeah. Thank you, Sean.

Um, took to Twitter to share footage of back ports of Nintendo switch to exclusives, Mario cart world and Pokemon, but copia running on switch one, according to them, some aspects in the Mario cart world port haven't been implemented correctly in the current build due to which, uh, some graphical elements are missing. That said, the game is said to be running at a stable frame rate in docked mode with forced to low quality LOD forced on. So basically like the lowest level, versions of the character models and the environment and stuff like that, and a lower quality render. Meanwhile, the Nintendo Switch 1 back port of Pokemon Picopia appears to fare better, with a slightly modified build running at 720p and 30 frames per second. This

performance is currently only achievable with a GPU overclock, though memory remains at stock clocks. It's also worth noting that the game isn't playable from start to finish in its current state, as certain bugs still need to be ironed out. This is not much of a story other than, oh, of course, yeah, the Switch 2 is basically a Switch Pro in some ways.

It is a different... In many key ways, for sure.

But at the end of the day, Nintendo and NVIDIA did a lot of work to make sure they were as similar as possible to make all of the upgrading as smooth as possible for them. And that leads to situations where, like, if you're making a Switch 2 game, it actually doesn't take much work to get it running on a Switch 1, other than the fact that they're going to run like dog shit for the most part, unless you're overclocking and things like that.

Um, but yeah, this is not a scenario where I guess, you.

Know, the mom yelling on the nightly news about the super Nintendo, just being a scam to get more money out of parents and stuff like that. Not exactly that, but it is a little reminiscent. Uh, but yeah, just weird that people are able to do this. And I think it's pretty interesting.

What do you think?

Yeah.

Um, I mean, it's always interesting.

I think that within the story, there is a conversation regarding, um, what I think a lot of people have been talking about or a lot of people have been resorting to is just like, take advantage of the older hardware. As I was at a wedding over the weekend and I was explaining to a lot of people the situation of like, people are coming up to me, what's the best possible platform for a GTA 6? And it's like, well, it's really if you have a platform that can already play it, I wouldn't say get any new hardware.

It's take advantage of what you have.

And this is kind of just like, A lot of that on the other side of the fence, like what a lot of developers might need to do in the future is just think about games, not from how far can we push it, but how can we expand the amount of people who can play this game while it still matches our vision?

It's pretty interesting. When you put people into a tough situation, you get stuff like this.

I'd be amazed to see a Donkey Kong Bonanza deformation fit on this.

I feel like that actually would explode a Switch one, but like.

Hey, with the right time, dedication, and with the vision, you really can do anything.

Yep.

We'll talk more about what's going on. Like, this is obviously going to be vibe-coded stuff. We'll talk more about that here before we're done. Let's see here. Rumored Persona remake footage appears online. The veracity of this kind of up in the air still. But from Sal Romano at Gamatsu. A video reel showcasing what appears to be work-in-progress footage of a Revelations Persona remake has surfaced online. The footage, a show reel similar to the one showcasing footage of Persona 3 Reload that leaked prior to its announcement, features three sections of the game, field battle, and event scenes built around 2D illustrations. Persona 2 Innocent Sam Protagonist Tetsuya Suya appears in the battle section of the footage. However,

since he does not appear in Revelations Persona, he may be a stand-in for another character. It is also possible that remakes of Persona 2 Innocent Sin and or Persona 2 Eternal Punishment are simultaneously in development. Other things worth noting are the constant appearance of Unreal Engine debut text in the upper left corner of the screen, and the fact that Ariko Kirishima appears to use the same Persona summon animation as another Persona 4 Revival character, leading the footage further credibility. As for the source of the footage, it was originally posted to YouTube by a user named P1Remake, and that was done earlier today. As of press time, the YouTube video remains accessible, but copies have also been

hosted on file sharing websites, blah, blah, blah.

Yeah, so this feels like, oh yeah, this easily could be.

An internal reel that they have and it leaked. It also could be, you know, people know what those things look like, so it could be braked. But boy, it does feel like they probably should figure out a way to remake Personas 1 and 2, right?

Yeah, regardless of if this is just an AI video, which I might be a little bit more leaning to, it just seems. There's just something weird about it, but it is a part of the franchise that like a lot of people never revisit because it's not as easily acceptable. It's also the one that like if they do, it is going to take maybe the most amount of time to find a interesting balance between old persona, new persona like that split between two and three is pretty big. Like these were like persona one, especially it's like one. It is that weird love child between Shin Megami Tensei and then what Persona was.

There is a lot of those weird.

Looking at a map down, not really dungeon crawling elements comparatively to how the later games did it, which is also why I'm like, this kind of seems a little weird that it is going to look so much like a Persona 3, Persona 4. It is a big part of the franchise that I think a lot of people need to play. how they're gonna do some more of the weird Nazi-ish elements of two, obviously more tastefully than it sounds.

Why not? I don't think it's a summon. I think he's a villain.

I can't, I have no idea. All I know is Hitler's in Persona 2.

He's involved. Yeah, Hitler's involved.

Yeah. He was this close to being a fighting game character. He's tangentially related. Put him in the next Persona 5, Smackdown or whatever.

Hell, yeah. OK, I'm being told by chat never summon Hitler.

Okay noted um yeah people are also pointing out rightfully so that uh yeah a lot of people called the persona 3 leaked like real very similar to this they called that fake for a very long time and then that eventually was proven to be uh real but again that's that's just as much reason to be like, okay, now people know what they need to do to convince people that they have something real here. So I'm not ready to go, oh, this is one way or the other.

It feels like it probably easily could be something. I just think it is maybe better served right now as this jumping off point for being like, they should figure that out. It is a lot more work, obviously, because they are going to have to adapt those games way more than they did Persona 3 and 4. But the work they did with Persona 3 and 4, right, feels like, setting themselves up for doing something like that with the personas one and two, because they didn't just one for one. They, they did a lot of work to like really spruce those things up in major ways and, and rebuilt the engine and all that stuff. And if you're going to do all that work kind of feels like, yeah, carry that forward, get the whole series in a playable state. And,

and personas one and two, if they were like on the level of, of persona 3 they're gonna sell millions of copies more than they ever did before so it's gonna be the juice will be worth the squeeze i believe what do you think.

Yeah no 100 and it's not like i i feel like there's some franchise where there's just some weird oddball early games in the series they don't want to bring back they are selling persona 1 and the 2-2 games merchandise like on amazon right now like there was a big talk about that earlier this year so it is a big important part of the legacy and there are elements that do carry through the entire series like There was a big twist in Persona 5 that really hits for a lot of people who played those earlier games.

And then to see it kind of like turn it on its face, you know, it's still a core part of those games. And with Sega wanting to bring every single one of their IPs back, having the full Persona suite playable, that's.

Going to be huge for them. It's going to boost Persona even more than it already is.

Yep, exactly. All right. Let's see here.

Phantom Blade Zero passes four million sales in 72 hours from Sal Romano at Gamatsu.

One more time. Good job, Sal.

Total sales for the Wuja action RPG Phantom Blade Zero have surpassed four million units in just 72 hours.

That's according to S Game.

Uh, a huge part of it's doing extremely well in China, but it's, it's a global hit as well. It really is catching on with a massive audience. So you, who's, uh, who's shot there?

There we go.

Um, yeah, I, I still have not really played too much of it, but I'm going to, I'm going to try to play some tonight.

Although I just want to try, I'm going to start Queens domain. I'm right.

The last boss of Castlevania. I got a whole bunch of stuff. I got to go back to play pragmata.

So it's Zelda week. What are we going to do?

Yeah.

Uh, have you, have you touched a fan of blade zero at all?

No. Um, I mean, I was away this weekend and then this past week it was all beating castle. I rolled credits on Castlevania like 10 minutes before I was supposed to leave for the weekend wedding weekend.

So like no time really want to check it out.

Love.

Did you get all the tarot cards in Castlevania and in Castlevania? Did you get all the tarot cards? I don't know if I cut out, but yeah.

Can you hear me? Are we good? Yes. Yeah, we're good. Sweet. Okay. Sick. Yes.

Got the true ending. I got all three endings because I didn't know. They're like, don't come this way. And then I got the bad ending. But yeah, no, I did. It's pretty rewarding. I would say a little bit easier than it is in some of like the GBA DS games to get that true ending.

But, you know, still feels just as good. Just a really damn fun game.

Yeah, it's really fantastic. I like.

It keeps getting better, and I'm like, I'm not going to spoil anything, everybody.

Don't worry.

But I'm just surprised how much.

They hide in there.

It's very similar to some other games where it's not just, oh, you're going to get these abilities, and it's going to unlock this stuff. You're going to learn stuff that was always there, and you just didn't know about it, and that shit owns. I'm so into this game now. It's climbing up my game of the year list for sure.

And I'm fighting Dracula right now. For the second time, because I did do the, I got the bad ending as well.

That was great. All right. Let's do this one real quick.

Anthropix clawed AI blocks of video game cloning and reverse engineering. Sweeping new restrictions also hit legitimate developers in basic troubleshooting tasks. Reverse engineering games for converting them between systems is currently a hot topic, and it's getting messier by the day. According to multiple user claims, Anthropix's Claude code and or Opus 5.5 model are blocking attempts at an innocuous reverse engineering, including but not limited to those using the popular reverse engineer anything tool. That issue may be linked to a text role that's now in force, which allegedly instructs the model to avoid recreating a specific existing game. and let's check this out just days before Zelda and Grand Theft

Auto six come out weird. Um, the updated rule appears to be, uh, to be a move to limit a flood of AI cracked and cloned titles with some game devs, even recently being hit by extortion scams that threatened to clone their game demos into complete games before they have a chance to finish and release the original. According to Twitter user chasm, uh, The game-related textual rule is do build original games, games in a genre, games from the user's own designs and assets. Don't build a recreation of a specific existing game, even if it is renamed or called original. There's no official or additional confirmation if this is the actual rule text, but it's plausible enough given the very clear refusals that devs have been encountering over

the past week.

Yeah, I mean.

God, they will do all of the copyright infringement they need to do to get their foot established and really be like the thing. And then once they are standing shoulder to shoulder with all the other corporations, they lined up fast to just be like, we're locking this down. And yeah, I mean, look, I believe the rock star Nintendo ninjas probably have visited them. And I bet it was unfriendly and scary because it's Rockstar and Nintendo. And those are the, they're, they are law firms, both of those companies and they'll destroy you. And I think Claude or Anthropic here is probably just like, it is easier to head this off at the pass, then let it happen and clean up the mess afterward.

And yeah, but what do you make of this?

Yeah, I mean, there was always going to be a company who needed to fall on the sword somewhat in order to just like, you know, this technology is out there.

What's the name that people are using? Oh, it's Claude.

We got to save face a little bit. We got to, you know, stop the blade from going too deep in there. Yeah, this is one of the scariest news stories. It's one of the things that makes me just want to like hold up my hands, just like let go of the internet for the day.

It's just horrifying, terrible.

Like the Steam Next Fest last week, horrifying stories of just like people not wanting to, you know, put their games out there before it's absolutely time.

And even then, like, what the hell are you going to do, man?

Like this, this stuff is out there. Like, uh, you know, reeling this back is fine, but that tech is there now. Like there's going to be like for every one of these, it's like a Hydra head. You're going to have like three or four Chinese knockoffs that are going to be available and spread the malware. That's going to, you know, just hurt more and more people. Um, yeah, man, I don't know what else you can really say. Uh, besides, holy shit.

Times are scary.

Yep.

And it's, uh, this does feel like a finger, um, in the hole in the dam. Uh, people, people will find a way around this or they'll find some other tool.

Um, anthropic, you know, it's not like they're alone in this game.

There's going to be some open weight Chinese model that people are going to use to, uh, do.

The exact same thing here in a couple of months.

And, um, but in the meantime, uh, This is a sign that these corporations are going to align themselves with one another. And what that actually ends up looking like in the long run is going to be very interesting because, yeah, the property protects property.

And that's what they're going to do here.

Yeah.

All right, let's start wrapping things up. Let's do this real quick.

There was a Symphony of the Night AI-free SNES port that someone's been working on for a long time. They showed it off earlier this year, and Time Extension had a story about that. Now, today, there was an update to that story. Homebrew developer Caffeeware... has released a playable demo of their Super Nintendo port of Konami's legendary Castlevania Symphony of the Night. I'm like, I really want to play it and compare it to the Saturn version because people always dog on the Saturn version.

It's a little unfair and a little fair. I wonder if this Super Nintendo version is actually going to be worse than the Saturn version.

I kind of hope it is, and I'll still play it.

That would be really cool to see.

Yeah.

Um, but yes, the playable demo is out first.

It's kind of just working at their own pace, taking months to do this. And it just, it owns, this is the hobby of shit that I love.

The person seems to be like in their own bubble. They had no idea.

Time extension did a story about them like for months and they were just kind of, yeah, it's cute. And like, uh, there is a video of this out there. People should check it out. It looks real good.

Yeah.

People. Okay. Are people seeing it now?

Yeah.

It's a, it's fantastic. I'm super into it. I want to see how much animation they're able to preserve.

Yeah, it's dope.

Yeah, because Alucard's, like, his sprite is one of the, like, templates of, like, this is how I learned how to do sprite animation back in, like, the early.

2000s was just looking at these super detailed sprites.

But it's kind of cool because it's also now, like, oh, you can kind of play the duology of, like, Rondo and Blood in Symphony of the Night now on a Super Nintendo. You can do Dracula X and that is it just kind of like works it just fits like magic but yeah more of this less of the vibe coded stuff because it's just so disheartening to see a new story and you're like oh i really want to check this out and then immediately know like the crock and c4 stuff was bad and now all of you know you know i want to see more cool human made stuff.

Uh on december 11th alamo draft house is going to have an exclusive gameplay showcase, horror movie marathon, and special talent appearances related to Until Dawn 2. They're going to have Until Dawn 2 live. Very, very strange collab. But yeah, I guess that's happening December 11th. We'll have more information then.

And then update for this week. Today, the Steam Screen 5 Festival ends. PlayStation Plus monthly games become claimable. So Dead Island 2 ends. Tomb Raider four through six remastered monster train to all of those are available to claim.

Uh, and then yes, again, later this week, it is Zelda week.

Um, we're figuring out exactly what our coverage is going to look like everybody.

So just stay tuned. We'll have some cool stuff for sure. All right.

That does it for the headlines. No poll question from Friday. We did the bomb 12 instead. The new bomb 12, uh, like a form is alive. If you go to giant bomb.com, scroll down, you'll see the bomb 12 from last Friday. Uh, on the left hand side, there is like a little button vote here.

Click that.

It'll take you to the Google form, submit your game for this week's bomb 12. We'll do that to wrap up this week, which again, I should be here cause I'm not leaving for extra life until the evening.

Oh my God. It's extra life.

Yes.

Holy shmoly. Okay. New poll question here in a second.

Before we do that, though, John Martin, tell people where they can find you on the internet, what you have going on, and all that good stuff.

Yeah, so you can find me on blue sky at johnmartin365.

Yeah, for the most part, I'm kind of heads down right now in December onward, I'm not going to be able to work on as much as I would like. So right now, it's just like heads down working on a lot of content. But next Wednesday I had something up, so definitely follow. I'll definitely link to when that video is live. Um, but yeah, just more stuff in the future.

So yeah, thanks for everyone for the support.

Giant bomb. The community is incredible and I love it here. So thank you guys again.

Hell yeah. Love to hear it. All right. New poll question.

Uh, do you think we get a switch to light next year or some, um, yeah, new Samsung system on a chip thing, uh, that was like, had people talking about, Hey, maybe this could be used for the switch to light. And then, um, You know, things are going to get more expensive again next year. RAM's not going down in price.

Storage is not going down in price. Switch might be in line for another price increase.

Likely is. Everything seems to be in line for another price increase.

So how does Nintendo do the thing here where they're like, well, we still want to have an offer there that's sub $ 500 for families or kids, for families with young kids, for that Pokemon game that's going to be coming out. Switch to, like, I think there's a strong chance, but I wonder if people, like, agree with that. So we'll get that poll question out there, everybody. Go ahead and vote.

We put it up on YouTube. There's a post tab.

Just click that.

We'll get the results, talk about it on Wednesday's show here on Giant Bomb. Speaking of Giant Bomb, tomorrow's the Bombcast. Tune in for that. Looking forward to it, everybody. It'll be another great episode. We're going to have Blight Club on Wednesday. We're going to have a voicemail dump truck on Thursday, UPF on Friday, a bunch of other fun stuff in between for sure. We'll let you all know here with our schedule when it goes live later today.

In the meantime, John, thank you so much for hanging out with me today and talk about video games, man.

I really appreciate it.

It's always a pleasure, Jeff. Thanks so much for having me.

Absolutely.

Thank you all for watching and listening. You're the best audience in gaming. Until next time, have a good one. Take care of yourself and goodbye.

Bend Reportedly Aims to Reveal AND Release Its Co-Op Game in 2027

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