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Open the door to a new career on your own terms with this video's sponsor, boot.dev. Click the link below and use offer code skill up 30 at checkout to get 30% off your entire first year of the annual plan. That's an even bigger discount than usual, so do get in quick. More details after the video. Gamers, by the nine divines, we finally have the next trailer for The Elder Scrolls 6. It's taken 8 years and loads of speculation, but it's finally here, and I cannot wait to see what Todd has in store for us. Roll it, Stew. God damn it, Todd. Eight years ago, you gave us a logo reveal, and after all that waiting, your second trailer is another logo reveal. This man absolutely
cannot keep getting away with this. But for real, that was it. Some stirring horns, a lot of sand, and a game title, Sentinel, which also confirms the game's location, since Sentinel is a major port city in Hammerfell. Hammerfell hasn't actually been featured in a mainline Elder Scrolls game since The Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall back in 1996. It has had representation in The Elder Scrolls Online more recently. So, it'd be really interesting to see if Bethesda uses those maps for any inspiration or goes for a completely new look. So, look, this is good news, right? Like, it probably means that Sentinel is coming soon or at least soonish. Well, I got bad news for you because Jason One Take
Shredder tempered expectations by reminding us why we even got that trailer 8 years ago. Quote, "I think a lot of people forget that Elder Scrolls 6 was only announced in 2018 along with Starfield to soften the blow of Fallout 76. Don't worry, even though we're making a multiplayer game, we've got single-player stuff coming, too." Sorry to say this game is still more than 2 years away. End quote. Crazy to think that all these years on, we're still living in the long shadow cast by Fallout 76. So, look, honestly, this is just a real bummer. Like, I know people are excited to hear anything about the next Elder Scrolls game, but I don't see why this name reveal was necessary at all, except to respond to some of the
leaks that have begun to pop up about the name. I'd have much rather waited until an Xbox showcase where we could see some actual gameplay, or at least like a cinematic trailer to set the tone or something, anything other than yet another logo reveal following up from video game's most famous and most memed logo reveal. Anyway, I'm sure we'll see something sometime in 2027. But, as for when we get to play this thing, man, could you imagine if this was a Project Helix launch title and an exclusive? That'd sell some consoles, wouldn't it? From the sands of Hammerfell to the walkways of the Citadel, and it seems as though there's only room for one space opera in EA's portfolio, because according to reporting from Jason
Schreier, one of the main reasons BioWare was shuttered was so that EA could develop a new Star Wars Battlefront game. Schreier claims that following the $55 billion buyout by the Saudis and Jared Kushner, EA couldn't finance both Mass Effect and the Battlefront project, which were both projected to cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Schreier claims that EA executives chose to stick with Star Wars and close BioWare as a result. Very important to note that this Star Wars Battlefront game hasn't been confirmed by EA at the time of writing. Although, there are separate reports that the game will be made jointly by DICE and Respawn. DICE, who made the first two reboots of the Battlefront series, has
been absorbed into Battlefield Studios, the collective created for the development of Battlefield 6. Bloomberg got a statement from a spokesperson about the closure of BioWare, where EA said that they quote, "Collectively reached this decision following months of planning, review, analysis, including careful consideration of evolving business conditions, industry dynamics, and our long-term priorities. While this is never easy, we ultimately had to make tough decisions to focus our teams on the biggest opportunities for our future, including investing in new projects across our portfolio." End quote. There is no small amount of irony in this decision, because the very reason that Mass Effect was created was
so that BioWare could pursue its ambition of making a space opera without having to pay licensing fees to LucasArts, much the same way that Warcraft exists because Blizzard didn't want to pay royalties for utilizing the Warhammer license. Now, some 20 years on, and Star Wars is the very reason that Mass Effect is canceled. It'd be funny if it wasn't so sad. But, hey, in 5 or so years we'll have another Star Wars Battlefront game to play. You reckon they'll bring the loot boxes back this time? I can feel the pride and accomplishment already. Some AI news now and Anthropic has updated Claude, so it won't directly steal someone's work when creating games from prompts. Or at least that's what they say. I'll believe it
when I see it. The AI company added a new rule to Claude code that reads, quote, "Do build original games, games in a genre, and games from the user's own designs and assets. Don't build a recreation of a specific existing game, even if it's renamed or called original." End quote. Twitter user Chasm, who noticed the update, also noted that the rule can't be disabled by users. Adi Osmani, one of Anthropic's technical staff, commented on the change writing, quote, "We added two sentences to Claude's code prompt on Opus 5.5 to steer it away from recreating someone else's specific game because using Claude to infringe on IP is against our usage policy." Yeah, right. Original games, genre games, and games built from
your own designs and assets are meant to keep working. We'll continue to iterate to ensure we're striking the right balance. In the meantime, if Claude turns down something that's yours, send it my way." End quote. All of this comes at a time where cheap AI clones and imitations of existing and even upcoming games are flooding storefronts, ruining discoverability for smaller games and teams. It's a problem that both itch.io and Valve have committed to solving. itch.io has claimed that they've deleted around 10 terabytes of AI-generated games from their site just this past week. The game hosting site says that the number of pages created daily has doubled in the last 2 months and that
most of it has been AI-generated or AI-assisted. Due to this influx of slop, itch has widened its search by adding the generative AI filter to a quote, "Few more places on the site where it was critically lacking, including our search results page." End quote. Valve is also very aware of the glut of AI that has worked its way into the most recent Steam Next Fest. During a panel in South Korea, Mark Wilkinson, a member of Valve's business team, addressed the concern over slop game saying, quote, "We are fully aware of the situation and a significant number of people are thinking about how to solve this problem." End quote. Discoverability is the key problem in all of these different examples with real games
getting pushed out by this onslaught of AI-generated experience which take up so much room on storefronts. As major platforms sort out how to quell this flood, human-led creation is more important Your favorite YouTubers, streamers, journalists, and commentators are actually playing stuff and giving you first-hand recommendations rather than just machine-generated lists. And that's why I appreciate things like Noclip and Second Wind and Aftermath and Looking for Game and so many other outlets that are covering games in ways that centers personal experience rather than SEO-driven headlines and talking points. We do our best over here as well with our weekly radar segment, not to
mention the reviews and previews that we do. And we go even further on our website thisweekinvideogames.com. All of this is to say that the slot problem is going to get worse before it gets better and the voices you know and trust are going to be very helpful while the platforms try to navigate their way through to the other side of this. Interestingly, discovery isn't only a problem for new games, but also for mods. This week Nexus Mods, one of the largest mod distributors for PC games, released a statement describing where they stand on AI content on the platform. In a blog post on the Nexus Mods site, site owner Victor, known by the handle Foladeno, detailed how AI content will be distributed on the platform saying, "We are pro-human
creativity. AI is currently used throughout the whole process of creation, from script auto-completion to generation of textures, voices, and full assets, and it's difficult to draw a clear boundary between what is acceptable and unacceptable. AI-generated mods are welcome on our platform provided that they meet certain criteria regarding permissions, transparency, presentation, and conduct." End quote. Victor detailed that Nexus Mods will not use created mods to train any AI and will not sell them to anyone planning to do so. They're also opening up more ways to filter content and flag content that has AI in it, whether that's full AI generation, AI assistance, or if AI created any of the promotional art on a mod page. He ended by saying, "Of
course, technology will continue to change and so will the tools people use to make mods. But the reason Nexus Mods exists, why we exist here, hasn't changed. We're here as we've always been to support the people who make modding possible, to celebrate their creativity, and give people a place to share their work with the world. For us, that's what being pro-human creativity means and that's what will continue to guide the decisions we make." End quote. From AI content to vaulted content now, and don't worry, you don't have to hear me yap about the Curse of Osiris for a little while yet as Bungie has suggested that the first wave of unvaulted content for Destiny 2 may not be released until
2028. Some context, after the decision to end active support for Destiny 2 back in May 2026, studio head Portia Tokan said that the content previously taken out of Destiny 2 would be returned to the game gradually. This content was removed from the game back in 2020 with that content supposedly gone forever. Last week in a Bungie blog post, head of product Joshua Dean gave a rough timeline of when players could expect vaulted content to resurface in game. Quote, "Right now, we are in our pre-production proof of work stage where we will ensure that the process is working and hitting our quality bar as we port the legacy content. We expect that part of the process to last until
roughly January-February next year. From that point, we expect full production will be about 12 months to fully complete the porting process. It's a lot of content." End quote. So yeah, that 2028 timeline does seem about right. But what will we actually see when all of this stuff gets released? Dean revealed that the first wave of content focuses on campaigns and will include the Red War, Forsaken, Curse of Osiris, and Warmind campaigns. Players will be able to access strike missions, raids, and raid lairs from these releases alongside the Menagerie activity with reprise rewards. Reinstating lost content is not the only plan for Destiny moving forward. As Dean notes, that Destiny 2
needs a celebration different to the moment of triumph update released right before the end of content in June of this year. He also suggested that Destiny 1 content will be reworked, remastered, or more accessible down the line. Writing, quote, "Our epic journey started over a decade ago, and the whole experience needs to be served to you all where you play today. Expect more information when we come back to you all early next year." End quote. Finally, Dean teased a redacted project by saying, quote, "Launch Ventrilo message, colon, we're back." End quote. Dean made sure to clear up any confusion on Twitter after the blog post went up that he did not mean that Bungie veteran Luke
Smith was returning to the studio with this message. Smith had posted an almost identical tweet when the unvaulting announcement went live in September. know what all this means, whether it's like Destiny 3 or something else entirely. Good to know that they are potentially working on something entirely new. The blog post ended with Dean committing to a, quote, "New forever Destiny." End quote. It does clarify that fans shouldn't expect any news on that for a while. Quote, "Knowing we are early in incubating our future and actively working on projects to bridge us to that new home, don't expect us to make a Destiny announcement at The Game Awards this year or to randomly drop a logo that sets the world
on fire right away. We'll get there when we get there." End quote. Damn, man. Even Bungie's having to dig at Todd Howard's logo reveal. Love to see it. While Bungie is set on reviving Destiny 2 in any way it can, the same cannot be said for the new game and studio from Yakuza creator Toshihiro Nagoshi. On the 2nd of November, Kanpo, the Japanese government's official gazette, announced that Nagoshi studio was dissolved on the 31st of October at a shareholders meeting. The studio was founded in 2021 and backed by NetEase with their first project Gang of Dragons announced at The Game Awards back in 2025. Bloomberg first reported on the tenuous fate of the studio in March of this year,
claiming that it would lose its NetEase funding in May 2026. One anonymous source told Bloomberg that the decision was made after NetEase quote discovered additional funding of at least 44 million US dollars would be needed for the project to be completed in quotes. The studio was reportedly searching for new funding at the time and NetEase was allegedly open to negotiations around IP and assets. It seems that no one came forward and now Nagoshi studio joins the long line of studios that NetEase has pulled their funding from in recent years. Really sad to see, not only for the studio, but also for us, since Gang of Dragons looked really sick. I'm sure plenty of people would have loved to
have seen what Nagoshi would have done with a fresh slate and a new leading man. Just like the continuing fallout from NetEase backing out of funding a number of studios, the fallout from Xbox's major reset rages on. But this time there is a glimmer of hope. Jason Schreier is reporting that Arkane Lyon, who have desperately been searching for a buyer since being jettisoned by Xbox, have reportedly had multiple suitors that want to buy the legendary studio, including French publishing giant Ubisoft. For context, this news comes a week after the 13th of November deadline for the studio to find a new buyer was extended by a month due to union reps claiming that quote several forms of
takeover are being considered and quote. Well, now we know what those forms of takeover could look like. Ubisoft would be a close to home deal as the publisher and studio are both based in France. But Ubisoft is currently undergoing a company-wide restructure of its own. So the purchase of a new studio with additional head count likely wasn't on the cards until now. Still though, if the deal came with a largely complete licensed Marvel game from a legendary studio, that's a hell of a reason to change up your plans. We've got an update on that too, actually, since Schreier suggested that a deal would let them continue working on the project, which he says is quote expected to be
released within the next year or two and quote. Bloomberg also reports that Xbox had considered selling the studio back to management, which would make Arkane an independent studio. This wouldn't be totally out of the realm of possibility as Xbox took this approach with Double Fine and Compulsion. But yeah, really great to hear that there are at least some prospects lined up to keep this team and this game alive. Stick with Ubisoft a while longer, and this week they gave us a hint at what's next for Assassin's Creed. Don't get your hopes up, Unity fans, we ain't getting any remakes anytime soon. Valhalla faithful though, boy, do I have a surprise for you. On the 29th of October, the newly
appointed leadership team for Assassin's Creed, which was announced in February of this year, posted a blog entry that proudly declared that they'd all been hard at work on the future of the franchise. The blog post noted that the team has been working under several guiding principles. Quote, "Staying true to what makes Assassin's Creed unique, continuing to innovate, delivering diverse experiences, and elevating the quality and consistency of our games." End quote. The post highlighted Black Flag recent's final update, which drops on the 27th of October, and that Assassin's Creed Valhalla, a game that came out 6 years ago, is getting a new game plus that launched on the 5th of
November. The new game plus mode will add a new optional progression mode, new runes and achievements, among other rewards, divine gear quality for items, and more stuff. Can you imagine finishing Valhalla and then saying, "Oh, I haven't had enough. I need to play through it again." To each their own, I guess, man. To each their own. Asper Games currently in development, according to Ubisoft, their multiplayer project Invictus has been getting some very positive internal feedback. But players are saying that they want it to feel more in line with the Assassin's Creed principles we mentioned earlier in terms of its feel. Just make it like Assassin's Creed Brotherhood's
multiplayer, and everyone will be happy. Easy. Assassin's Creed Hexe also got a call out with Ubisoft claiming that there is progress being made on the project. Quote, "We know the wait has been long, and we're grateful for your patience and continued enthusiasm for the project. The team remains focused on delivering the unique vision at the heart of this project, and we'll share our next major update in 2027." End quote. Notably absent from the update was any news on Assassin's Creed Jade, the mobile game developed in partnership with Tencent. In March of this year, Ubisoft clarified that the game was still in development, but since then, Ubisoft has delisted a number of mobile
titles, including Rainbow Six Siege Mobile, which was supposed to be a really big deal and had many years worth of work put into it. So, that was a huge disappointment for them. Let's hope that Jade does release at some point, because I would like to play it on my shiny new iPhone Duo, since Apple actually did send me a review unit, and I'm keeping it safe with a case from this channel sponsor, dbrand. Their Duo Grip Case is one of the few to feature a cover for the hinge, protecting it from dust and general wear and tear. Since the hinge is easily the most important part of this whole device, the Grip Case can also be customized with a range of skin options, and you can even get a screen
protector for the front screen to keep your device even safer. If you are one of the lucky few who managed to get your hands on a Duo, then I really do recommend grabbing a dbrand Grip Case to keep it safe because the Duo is not cheap, and the Grip Case is a bargain for the peace of mind that it offers. If you're all interested, I'll leave a link to it below the like button. Some sales milestones to finish off now, and let's start with Remedy who have posted a 226% quarterly revenue boost due to Control Resident's popularity. At the time of writing, the game's sales add up to 39.4 million US dollars, making up most of the revenue increase which came to 44.2 million US dollars for the quarter.
Remedy says that the game is the fastest-selling title in the company's history, selling 1 million copies in the first 3 weeks after its October 15th physical release date. I absolutely loved my time with Control Resident, and with an entirely new project about to enter production and the Max Payne 1 and 2 remake in full production at the studio, I hope Resident gives more and more people encouragement to give Remedy's games a go. They really are something very special. Speaking of crazy milestones, Phantom Blade Zero, the fantastic action game from Chinese developer S-Game, has sold 4 million copies across both PC and PS5 in 3 days.
This follows the game achieving one of the highest peak concurrent player counts on Steam at 833,000 peak players on launch day. Just like with Black Myth: Wukong, when the Chinese gaming market likes something, they buy a lot of it. And honestly, I don't blame them. Phantom Blade Zero was an amazing surprise, and I had a blast with it. If you want to hear my full thoughts on that, I'll leave a link to my review below the like button. One final sales milestone to finish off, and it seems that the Borderlands series has reached the heights of Tomb Raider, Mortal Kombat, and Gran Turismo by hitting 100 million lifetime sales. Bad humor and Randy Pitchford aside, people obviously love them some Borderlands.
So, congrats to Gearbox on this major milestone. Now, if we could just fix Borderlands 4's performance issues once and for all, that'd be great. So, what got announced or delayed this week? Well, Nintendo has been full of surprises lately, holding an Indie Direct last week as well as a surprise Pikmin Direct. Not too much to report on the latter, mainly another look at the Switch 2 upgrade for Pikmin 4. Some changes to the mobile AR Pikmin Bloom, plus another series of short Pikmin films. But hey, Miyamoto's the boss, he loves Pikmin, and he hasn't got too many more of these left in him, so he's going to do whatever the hell he wants.
Godspeed, I say. Go play yourself some Pikmin. On the Indie Showcase side, we got a big spray of port announcements, release dates, and reveals. Here are some of the highlights. If you haven't heard of Witchbrook, you probably should be paying attention to it as one of the top 10 most wish-listed games on Steam right now. It's a very nice-looking multiplayer life sim with some crisp-looking pixel art, and of course, some witchy themes. This one's being put out by Chucklefish, who are the folks behind War Groove, Starbound, and who originally gave a little game called Stardew Valley a chance. So, there's definitely some expectations here.
Anyway, at the showcase, they announced a Switch release, of course, as well as a release date of January 28th next year. This one's also coming to every other platform as well. If you like your pixels a little more chunky and monochrome old-school Game Boy style even, then don't write past Pedal Runner, a motorcycle delivery adventure we featured on our radar segment in the past on account of us very much enjoying the demo. This one's also got a Switch 2.0 announcement and a release date of March 8th, 2027, also coming to PC. Staying with the pixels and unlimited color palettes a little while longer, City of Don was one of the reveals at the showcase, and it's a dark and atmospheric platforming adventure.
Something that should make you sit up and take notice is that the folks behind this one include Noel Berry, the co-creator of Celeste, who's been making the game with his brother Liam. It's also being published by Extremely Okay Games, which is the label founded by Noel and the other Celeste co-creator, Maddy Thorson. This one's being slated for sometime in 2027, but nothing more specific than that at this point. It is also coming to PC. Couple of excellent-looking games from Australia also featured during the Indie Showcase, which are definitely worth shouting out.
The first is My Arms Are Longer Now, a comedy game an extremely long arm trying to steal from people. Imagine like Untitled Goose Game, except just way weirder. This one's being published by Jackbox Games. Yes, the TV trivia party game people as their first foray into the world of publishing. This one's coming to all platforms, including Switch, and it will release March 11th next year. The other one is the announcement of a new game called Winds of Iridia, an action-adventure game that's been described as a more approachable Elden Ring, mixing skill-based character action combat with challenging bosses, but a big world that encourages exploration with a dash of Breath of the Wild painterly natural world in there for good measure. Key
developer behind this one guy called Matt Trobbiani, who a narrative-based terminal hacking game called Hacknet about 10 years ago, which was pretty big. Though obviously, this is a big change in genre for him. Fun fact, Matt Trobbiani was also the voice of the infamous Trobbio in Hollow Knight: Silksong, and Silksong's composer, Christopher Larkin, also happens to be composing the score for Winds of Ridia. Funny what happens when developers all work in the same building. An early 2027 release window for this one coming to Switch 2 and PC only at this stage. A couple of delays now, and oh wait, sorry, I'm being slipped a note here
from Austin that reads, "Quotes Holy there's a new Guild Wars 1 expansion. Holy shit." End quote. Okay, I feel like he wanted me to read that with more excitement, but it is what it is, Austin. I did the best I could. This one here is called Guild Wars: Afterlife, and it adds a bunch of new Mesoamerican-themed content, including what sounds like a rogue-like dungeon. All of this is for a game that has had no updates in about 20 years. But honestly, I'm digging the whole like new expansions for old but beloved PC games like Warcraft 3 and Thief. No one can afford new computers these days anyway. Afterlife is coming out on January 13th next year for PC, iOS, and Android. Yes, Guild Wars 1 is
on mobile now. The Dust Bloods has been pushed back to a broad 2027 window, so FromSoftware can have more time for quote, "Final adjustments to game rules and balancing." End quote. Yeah, the sentiment out of that network test wasn't as resoundingly positive as you'd hope for from the next Miyazaki game. So it'll be really interesting to see how much they change here. Another delay that will no doubt make a few people out there very sad is Forever Cold, the next Final Fantasy 14 expansion, which has seen a relatively short delay with a new release date being February 23rd next year. Don't worry though, that just gives you more time to play WoW forever. And not one to be left out, PlayStation
has also swooped in with a delay announcement just before we locked down the show. With Sony Santa Monica announcing a 3-month delay for God of War: Ragnarök. This one's now releasing on May 20th, 2027, back from its original February release date. In a short social media post, they simply said, quote, "We will make the most of each moment until then by putting in the finishing touches and pushing the game to its fullest potential." End quote. All right, so what came out last week? Well, let's start with Crimson Desert: Charting the Unknown, the first big DLC expansion for this very janky but very lovable RPG, so long as you're up for its brand of weirdness. On Steam, this
is currently sitting at a mostly positive sentiment after about 1,000 reviews counted with about 70% of them being thumbs up. There's a lot of talk about how some of the new features like ship combat and marriage are a little disappointing with some technical issues thrown in as well. Steam user Texas Dog was one of the ones that recognized all of these issues but still gave it a thumbs up saying quote, "The gameplay is great. The main story is pretty good. The cutscenes are well done and I really enjoyed the pirate theme, ship battles, bosses, and two of the three islands. Really fun and has some great ideas but it adds more space without enough depth to fill it. Would have loved for it to
have been 50% smaller but way more depth and detail. And honestly, would have happily waited another 6 months if it meant giving the DLC more time to fully flesh out the oceans, islands, and ship systems." End quote. Now, one game we missed talking about last week but has quickly proven itself to be a critical darling is Queen's Domain, a challenging retro first-person action RPG that in many ways is echoing the style of earlier FromSoftware games like King's Field, clearly a play on the name there. But this is also being compared very favorably to Metroid Prime. Not very many critical reviews out there right now but on Steam this has an overwhelmingly positive rating after 1,000 reviews counted, 95% of them
thumbs up. Here's Steam user Jaundis who's put 25 hours into it so far saying quote, "This feels like an open world game except literally every nook and cranny is filled with intuitive secrets, puzzles hinted at in the description of items, and rewards gained only by carefully engaging with the environment. It's not just a King's Field like, it scratches this itch for being completely immersed in the game masterfully. I've had multiple actual jaw-dropping moments and this game will probably climb to the ranks of my top 20 favorite games by the time I finish it." End quote. Damn, a little bit of endorsement there. Next up is Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee, the remake of the GameCube era 3D
fighting game delivered by the original developer, which has landed at a fair 69 on OpenCritic with about a dozen reviews. Quite a range of scores here as critics try to recognize the jankiness of the original game underneath along with how faithful the remaster is to that era. Polygon didn't give it a score but gave it kudos for capturing and preserving a very specific era in video game history.
Here's what they had to say, quote, "Pipeworks was very much experimenting in 2002 as it tried to crack what a Godzilla game that was faithful to Japanese cinema tradition should feel like. The result may have been messy at times but it's always a delight to play an old game that's filled with deliberate design choices. Godzilla Destroy All Monsters Remastered feels like nothing else in 2026, and that's what makes it a worthy preservation effort, position in video game canon be damned." End quote. Moving on now to Escape Academy 2: Back to School. Not many reviews for this one on account of Zelda no doubt occupying many reviewers' time, but it has achieved a mighty 84 on OpenCritic after five entries.
TechRaptor gave this one a 9 out of 10 saying, "Quote, Escape Academy 2 lands the sequel spectacularly, bringing back everything that made the original so great by enhancing it with more to do and an open world to explore. Co-op is a blast, but it does routinely leave one player out of the fun." End quote. The same lack of reviews also goes for Annapurna's next title, Far Away, the minimalist roguelike arcade game, which didn't get enough reviews to get a score on OpenCritic, but Polygon's unscored review said this of it, "Quote, though Annapurna Interactive has a reputation for publishing interactive movies these days, it's arguably at its best when it's using its sharp eye to scope out
games like this. Far Away joins a pantheon of minimalist triumphs under the label, a class that includes the poetic Gorogoa and unforgettably strange Cocoon. It isn't likely to get as much awards buzz as a story-forward game like Mixtape, but the soul-nourishing constellation game deserves its flowers for being every bit as expressive by barely saying a word." End quote. And finally, let's take a look at everybody's favorite child-turned-adult-turned-child again, Link, or whatever you named him during his playthrough. I'm talking of course about The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake, which has landed with a hell of a splash as this year's highest-rated game so far in a year full
of highest-rated games of the year so far. At the time of writing, its average review score is sitting at a 96 on both Metacritic and OpenCritic. Very rare to see a game crack that 95 barrier. Here's The Guardian's review from Keza MacDonald, who literally wrote the book about Nintendo, and her review was one of the many five out of five or 10 out of 10 scores that spent a lot of time dwelling on nostalgia and personal memory, which, as you'd expect, is a very potent force when it comes to Ocarina. Quote, "I cannot make any pretense of objectivity about Ocarina of Time. It was one of the most important games of my childhood, and indeed my life, a game that showed me the possibilities of the form when the rules
of video games were still being written and cemented my love of games. I cannot play it without the influence of nostalgia, and like Link, I often felt return to my child self as I played it, but even without the powerful attachment, I think anyone would be moved by this game. Nintendo's modern Zelda team have turned one of the best games of the 1990s into one of the best games of the 2020s and made time travelers out of us all, end quote. For me, well, you've probably seen my preview and now my strongly recommended review. If not, I'll drop a link to it below the like button. But long story short, it's a remarkable game whose storytelling has been greatly enhanced by the visuals, the voice acting, and
all the music is just it's incredible. But even though many of us are going to be playing this with the goal of teary-eyed remembrance, it's clear that the reason Nintendo have made this is for the next generation of fans. Nintendo focused on refinements rather than reinvention, meaning that the best we oldies can hope for is to be reminded of the past rather than embrace this as something that might be part of our future. That future is for the kids in our lives that we might share this with since Ocarina of Time now sits more comfortably as a children's adventure title than a cutting-edge, era-defining open-world game as it was back in 1998.
All these years later, Ocarina of Time is still perfect, but it's no longer for us, and that's kind of wonderful in a bittersweet sort of way. So, what's coming out this week? Well, with Ocarina of Time and Wealth Forever already having released by the time this video is live, there are no massive titles over the next 7 days like there have been over the last few weeks repeatedly. But there is a really good smattering of niche and indie titles, as well as a few Switch 2 ports thrown in for good measure. Let's get started with those ports, shall we? Stellar Blade Complete Edition should be out by the time you're watching this video, and Metaphor: Re Fantazio is launching on Thursday,
November 12th. Both very solid games, curious to see how they run on the Switch 2, but I dare say both are best played elsewhere if you have the means to do so. Great to have the option though, of course. Tanuki Pond Summer is a delightful looking game about a little raccoon doing deliveries and neat mini-games in a Japanese-inspired village. This game comes from Denki Works, which is a Japanese indie studio made up of some folks who worked on games like Coaster Golf, which was really excellent, by the way. Tanuki Pond Summer got a release date during that Nintendo Indie Showcase, and it's this week, Tuesday, November 10th for PC, Switch 2, PS5, and PS4. Also on November 10th, Warhammer Survivors. This
is of course a Vampire Survivors-like auto shooter that adopts both the Warhammer and Warhammer 40K universes to theme the action, which is obviously a very natural fit, and it is being developed by Boltgun 2 Studio or Rock Digital. Unfortunately, they just laid off a bunch of people after shipping Boltgun 2. So, here's hoping we're not telling the same story after this next one comes out. Warhammer Survivors is coming to absolutely every platform including iOS and Android next week. We already talked about Shrek 2 Remastered on the show last week following its announcement and it's also due out on Tuesday, November 10th for PC and all consoles. Hopefully, you enjoy that one
ironically or unironically, who are we to judge? I know plenty of people will be enjoying this next one unironically. Football Manager 2027 comes out on November 10th for PC, PS5, iOS, and Android. And after the mess that was last year's version following a complete engine overhaul, this year they ran a big free early access test to try to win back some trust. Some mixed reception to it at first glance, but we'll see how things shake out next week. Also on November 10th is Ashes of the Singularity 2, the sequel to Stardock's sci-fi RTS. The reception to this one was particularly mixed when it came out 10 years ago now. So, very keen to see how this second one lands. Do note that there is a substantial AI content
disclosure for this one on Steam though, just FYI. Moving on now to Stormforge. Now, this one looks super cool. It's basically an open-world survival crafting game that hinges around intense storm mechanics and giant magical tornadoes that rip up the environment in front of you and you're just trying to get stuff done. Really nice art style here. I've actually played this one on two occasions now and had a fantastic time both times. I really think this is one to keep an eye on. It launches into early access, you guessed it, November 10th, PC only. If you're a sucker for board-based party games in the vein of Mario Party and you're also a huge weeb, then you'll probably want to know about
Prinny Party: Going Overboard, which is a take on the genre from strategy RPG studio Nippon Ichi known for Disgaea. And they also just released a life sim called Village in the Shade recently, too. Prinny Party is coming to PC, PS5, and Switch on November 11th and it stars their penguin mascots. Speaking of mascots, people sure love this Moomin dude, the Finnish cartoon character who already has a number of video games under his belt and there's another one landing on November 12th called Moomin: Midsummer Madness. This one is a family-friendly point-and-click adventure game for all ages and it looks suitably retro in its animation aesthetic. Joining Moomin on November 12th are fellow mascots Sonic and
friends in a game that I've really heard a lot of good things about so far. Sonic Pico Park. This is a tie-in to the existing Pico Park series, which are multiplayer co-op platformers about working together to overcome different environmental obstacles. Looks really nice. It's coming to all platforms. Another one which I know a bunch of you are very excited about is Barbie Rewind. This is the latest collection from the preservation focused Digital Eclipse, who here have collected a bunch of retro Barbie video games from the '90s and 2000s, 16 in all in fact. We've been hearing more and more about how
formative these games were for a bunch of women now in the games industry. And if past Digital Eclipse collections are any indication, they should certainly be getting the royal treatment. There's even a new meta-game developed for it, a kind of decorating sandbox revolving around Barbie's Dreamhouse, which also incorporates a bunch of items from Barbie's history. All platforms for this one. And finally, some DLC to finish. Risen Babylon is the new paid expansion for Devolver's Ball Pit, the largest update to the game yet, which is perfect if you need another reason to disappear into your screen for hours on end. It adds new levels, buildings, and
characters. So, yeah, if you haven't tried this one yet, then please do. I played like way too much of this when it first released, and it's absolutely fantastic, and I will definitely be going back for round two when the DLC drops on November 12th. Speaking of balls, a lot of neat little games in that segment we just covered, but here's one unique one we've played at a few conventions in the past, and it's just released. So, put this on your radar. Get ready. You ever heard of PvP pinball? Probably not, right? Well, this is a game called Bumper About that turns pinball into a fighting game, where you and your opponent are on either side of a curved pinball table, and you're trying to
smash balls into the other person's field and mess things up for them. Environmental hazards and character abilities also play a big role here. Now that I look at the footage and see this football field stage, foosball, this is basically what it would be like if foosball was actually fun. Anyway, this is the kind of easy to learn, hard to master game that's perfect for quick local 1v1 battle to settle an argument, especially if fighting games aren't your thing. It goes down a treat at parties. So, if you're after something like that, you can find a link to it over on our Steam creator page, which also has links to all of the other put this on your radar stuff we've recently covered. I'll
leave a link to all of that below the like button. A short, sharp, feel-good story for the week, but a very fitting one given this week's biggest release. Ocarina of Time is a game about time, and its remake twists us back to 1998, when iPhone was a verb rather than a noun, and the art of television hadn't yet been perfected because The Sopranos wouldn't air for another year. Many of us are nostalgic for that time, but it turns out there's a mega corp that's equally nostalgic, Google. If you type Zelda or Ocarina of Time into Google, a Master Sword appears in the bottom right of your screen. Click it and this happens.
Oh my god, look at that. 1998 Google, when it was good and before it started to suck. The top result isn't a sponsored post. There's no AI summary just hallucinating and the search results are actually relevant to my search. Haters will say it's fake, but we really did have it that good back then. But look, we have it pretty good these days, too. I mean, we just got WoW forever this week, and just this morning, don't expect many uploads from me over the next few weeks as I'm going to be playing a very unhealthy amount of WoW. I missed the classic hype train, and there's no way I'm going to be making that same mistake twice. After that, of course, we all get to enjoy GTA 6 together, or at least people on
consoles do. PC bros, you're just going to have to sit tight a little while longer. While you're waiting, please do keep coming back to the channel because we do have plenty of stuff coming, like an episode of the Friends Play Second Podcast going live this weekend. And Austin also checked out the new Monster Hunter Outlanders mobile game. We're uploading the world's first unsponsored review of that video game, and we're very proud to do it. All right, that's it from us. Please do like the video, subscribe if you haven't. Thanks again for watching. Have a great week, and we'll see you next time. Bye-bye.
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