748: Minecraft Dungeons Anniversary and MechWarrior 5

Larry Hryb:
Hi, it's Larry Hryb, Xbox's Major Nelson. Welcome to the show. Welcome to the official Xbox podcast as it is named in your Spotify and your Google and your Apple and all those places. And here we go. I hit the button. Let's see what happens. Ta-dah. Oh, hey, it's Jeff. Jeff's back.

Jeff Rubenstein:
I'm back and don't think I didn't write down everything you said about me last week.

Larry Hryb:
You mean like this?

Jeff Rubenstein:
It burns the eyes. Oh, that's better. Thank you. You need the blue, the cooling blue to set off the fiery orange and the two together form a really great-

Rebecca Gordius:
So, you like the Syracuse colors then because the colors are blue and orange.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Yeah, actually, it needs more blue. [crosstalk 00:00:51] stuff. You need to balance.

Larry Hryb:
Anyway, welcome back. Jeff was out last week. It was just Rebecca and I holding down the fort. And good to see you guys. Good to see you guys. Welcome back.

Jeff Rubenstein:
It was a good show. I want to say, Rebecca, you were very good. And I really enjoyed the Tim Schafer interview.

Larry Hryb:
Thank you.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Tim is very funny. So, I just love that. I have a couple literal laugh out loud moments. So, great job, you guys.

Larry Hryb:
And well not only that, but you were in the show because you did the Knockout City interview. So, thank you for that interview as well.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Would you say I knocked it out of the park?

Larry Hryb:
Well, I'll say this.

Rebecca Gordius:
I should have known.

Larry Hryb:
I will say, this is a fact. I will have to take my MVP role and give that to you.

Jeff Rubenstein:
We played. We played, but thank you. FusedGalaxy, I would have loved for that to have been grumpy ramen, but we will get our gaming together. All three of us will play it soon.

Larry Hryb:
But yeah, Jeff and I had a chance to check it out. If you haven't had a chance to check it out... is it back there? Yeah, it is back there, Knockout City. It's available on Game Pass now, Game Pass Ultimate because this is part of EA. So, Jeff, tell me about your experience with it because I know we need to get Rebecca in.

Jeff Rubenstein:
I threw balls. I got hit by them. I hit other people. I caught them. It was dodgeball. Actually, it's got some really interesting mechanics that the key thing you need to know for this game is, there's this dash move. And if you dash into someone and they're holding a ball, they will drop the ball. And so, it can get real messy if everyone is really closed in together. And so, it's funny. We were just trying to figure it out. We lost about three matches then we won that final one, and we're like, "We'll call it a night here."

Jeff Rubenstein:
But what was interesting is at one point, we left our party open and we played with Larry, and we played with Major Nelson, that party fills up. So, very quickly, it filled up. We made a private room with some folks we didn't know. And they were all joined in a crew, which is not-

Larry Hryb:
Dangerous.

Jeff Rubenstein:
... clan and they're all the same one, and we're like, "We're in trouble." And let me tell you, we were in trouble. We were seeing some advanced team mechanics. Because if the ball comes in, you can catch it. If you're holding a ball, you can drop that one and catch it too. But if a team is really well organized and someone hits you, and then someone throws it the same time, or three balls come in right in a row, you're probably going to get taken out. And so, it was cool to see that.

Larry Hryb:
Yeah.

Rebecca Gordius:
I was going to ask, what strategy do you guys employ when you're playing this? Do you pick a person? Do you work together on one person?

Larry Hryb:
What strategy do we employ? Or what is the winning strategy? Because we were really coordinating. What was used against us effectively was, the two characters coming at you and somebody throwing one ball, then the next one instantly throws the other. So, you're basically being bang, bang. Right, Jeff?

Jeff Rubenstein:
Yeah, especially if someone hits you first and knocked... because if you do get hit, then you get dazed for a second. So, if you're hit, and then they bolt him... because you have to be hit twice on a standard shot in order to be knocked out. It was interesting. But sometimes if you get the drop on someone and they don't see it coming, the game is very frenetic. Right, Larry, that was the height of '90s technology.

Larry Hryb:
I got my Video Toaster going on here.

Jeff Rubenstein:
You do? Yeah. I heard you really had something like that. And so, we had a good time. It's something that I think is very easy to grasp. It's like a fellow. It's a minute to learn, a lifetime to master, or something like that. Definitely recommend playing. There's five different trading ones. And after the first training one that teaches you just to throw and catch, and it's like, "Jump into a game. Now, do the rest of the training."

Jeff Rubenstein:
Because if you jump into the game at that point, you're not going to know how to pass, you're not going to know how to shot people.

Larry Hryb:
[Elby 00:04:40] is your friend.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Yes, exactly. And how to cool things out, how to roll your ball. It's worth it to do the trainings. That's how you hit your first achievement.

Larry Hryb:
Yup.

Jeff Rubenstein:
But that being said, you can bang through all those in 15 minutes-

Larry Hryb:
What was that?

Jeff Rubenstein:
... and then you're ready to go. Sorry, I had my lunch early.

Rebecca Gordius:
It's just Pumba choking. I mean, he's okay, but he was eating his treat a little bit too fast, I think.

Larry Hryb:
I see, that's why. We've all been there, haven't we?

Rebecca Gordius:
Yes.

Larry Hryb:
Anyway, Knockout City is a ton of fun. And Jeff and I played it. Rebecca, we'll have to get you in again as part of Game Pass. If you have Game Pass Ultimate, it's part of the EA Play so you should check that out, really. And also, again, check out Jeff's interview last week because he did a fine, fine job. It's interesting, Jeff, because in that interview, I remember I was listening to the interview, they were talking about the advanced netcode, the network code that they have and how it helps... because Rebecca, the game is very frenetic.

Larry Hryb:
And obviously, when I throw a ball to you, you need to know when it's coming and how to instantly catch it. And they've done some really cool work in there, haven't they?

Rebecca Gordius:
Yes.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Yeah. Yeah, it felt like there was no point where the ball hit me, and I was like, "Hey, it shouldn't happen." It was like, "Oh, no, I'm slow." I do so slow on the trigger. And it really is very tight timing in order to catch the ball. And so, there are people that when you get to the highest levels of competition, people may have complaints that I can't conceive of, but I will say, "I believe them, it seemed to work."

Larry Hryb:
Anyway, we'll go. We talked about what we're playing a little bit. Rebecca, since you were unable to join us, what are you playing this week by the way? I haven't seen you on recently.

Rebecca Gordius:
Yeah. So, I started picking up Spiritfarer. It's a platforming game where you're... it released last year. I think I had mentioned it last week, maybe? This Spiritfarer is a platformer. You're playing as a girl who is helping to fairy souls, souls who have passed on which sounds really dark, but it's actually really peaceful, like the animation, the music. Everything is really beautiful.

Rebecca Gordius:
So, it's pretty nice. I would check it out. It's pretty slow paced. So, it's definitely been my winding down at the end of the night game that I've been playing.

Larry Hryb:
I mean, that's what you need to do. You need to have that wind down because you don't want to go... we've all been going to bed sometimes all amped up, and you don't want to do that. You want to get your Zen on and drop the lights.

Rebecca Gordius:
Yeah, you guys are over there going to bed thinking about, "Oh, I should have dodged that one a little faster."

Larry Hryb:
Or I should have passed to Jeff or have Jeff passed to me, or how did we do that? Or what just happened? But anyway. So yeah, what about you, Jeff, what are you playing?

Jeff Rubenstein:
I did the opposite. I played Resident Evil before going to bed and slept. Like you would expect, I beat the game. I got to say, it was amazing. I was very reluctant going into it because I was, "Look, I'm scared." But Resident Evil 2 is one of my favorites. I would put this, it's right around there. Towards the top of the pile for 10 or more Resident Evil games now. It was just fantastic. The quality of the game, the workmanship, the crafting of it, it looks great.

Larry Hryb:
The fit and finish.

Jeff Rubenstein:
It's true.

Larry Hryb:
The build quality.

Jeff Rubenstein:
I was like, "This game just looks great." It looks disgusting at times, but it looks really lived in and really great. And a lot of things really fit together. And the enemies, the voice acting was really good for certain characters. I love the hell out of it. I played nothing for about a week straight. So, a lot of game there. It's funny when I beat it, it said it took about 10 hours. I was like, "This felt like 30 hours," because I was so occupied, my mind is here.

Jeff Rubenstein:
I was thinking about it so much. I was combing for every last treasure that I was reading up on the lore afterwards and things like that, "Who is the Duke," and all this stuff.

Rebecca Gordius:
Only 10 hours?

Jeff Rubenstein:
I would say... yeah.

Larry Hryb:
It doesn't matter the length, you enjoyed it. That's the most important thing, right?

Jeff Rubenstein:
It was a very dense 10 hours. It wasn't like, "Oh, this is filler." There is no filler in that game from my perspective. So, I really loved it. And I would say, if you're scared, and if that's holding you back from playing, look, there are a couple... the first half of the game is definitely pretty frightening. There's one section that people have been talking about, and it is as scary as they say, House Beneviento. It's horrifying. After that though, I would say the second half of the game is much more action-based.

Jeff Rubenstein:
And I felt like, "Oh, that's gross." I also have this amazing shotgun to blow until next week. And so, at that point, it was action horror at that point as opposed to just purely, "I'm afraid." Although that did happen. It did happen several times.

Larry Hryb:
And did you play most of the games... do you play most of the game at night? Did you do it during the day?

Jeff Rubenstein:
Oh, yeah, no. I mean, towards the end, I started like I had a lot of... after a while on these games, I'm like, "You've thrown everything at me. You can throw at me." I am dead inside. I'm just immune to fear, and then I just barreling through. And I think I beat it late at night on a Saturday night, I want to say, at that point. But starting the game because the sound design is so good, even when you're paused... nothing can hurt you when you're in there.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Your inventory menu. And despite that you're getting attacked by a 10-foot vampire and you're like, "Let me just do a little chemistry and mix up some health potions here."

Larry Hryb:
We'll take care of that.

Jeff Rubenstein:
It lets you do that. But it still makes noises of things like, "Wait, I heard the door closed, or a branch snapped." If you're on edge, sometimes you just need to walk away. Maybe that's why the game seemed longer to me. I was playing it and like 20 minutes in Dungeons.

Rebecca Gordius:
You're taking breaks. Yeah.

Jeff Rubenstein:
I was like, "I need to calm down from that."

Larry Hryb:
Everybody's got to do what they got to do. I appreciate that.

Jeff Rubenstein:
It's amazing. I highly recommend it to anyone who's ever enjoyed a Resident Evil type of game in the first-person perspective. It totally worked for me.

Larry Hryb:
Yeah, I played the last one. What was the last one before this one, Jeff?

Jeff Rubenstein:
RE 7, Biohazard. That one they say it was scarier. That was a lot. In fact, it was too much for me.

Larry Hryb:
Yeah, I bailed out too.

Jeff Rubenstein:
This one, after you get over the hump, then you're okay. I don't want to say you're-

Larry Hryb:
Rebecca, have you played any of the Resident Evils?

Rebecca Gordius:
No, I think I've alluded to this before. I'm not really one for scary games.

Larry Hryb:
Yeah, I'm not either.

Rebecca Gordius:
I just want to shoot things or have something nice to look at.

Larry Hryb:
That's not my view of escape. That's not what I want in my escapism, in my video games. I don't want to be frightened. I don't need nightmares. I don't need any of that, Jeff. My life in real life is scary enough.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Look, I wasn't going to play either, but I had to meet Lady Dimitrescu. It didn't work out.

Larry Hryb:
All 9-foot. How tall is she?

Jeff Rubenstein:
9'6". I mean, she can dunk without jumping actually. So anyways.

Larry Hryb:
All right.

Jeff Rubenstein:
It's great. It's great.

Larry Hryb:
What else we got here? We got a bunch of big news this week. We're going to talk about the Xbox. We'll talk about in the news section. We've got the amazing Xbox and Bethesda game showcase. We revealed information about that this week. So, we'll talk about that, and we got some other news coming up later. Jeff, what happened here? What happened to your camera?

Jeff Rubenstein:
I don't know. The camera just did that.

Larry Hryb:
We're going to go full screen to see if-

Jeff Rubenstein:
Lady Dimitrescu, is that you?

Rebecca Gordius:
Oh, my God.

Larry Hryb:
It was frightening. See, this-

Rebecca Gordius:
The door handle moves in the back.

Larry Hryb:
And also, Jeff goes-

Jeff Rubenstein:
She'll go through that door by the way, she'll follow you all over the room.

Larry Hryb:
Gosh, because your screen is going to go dark in just a moment, and we're not going to hear from you.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Well, you know what?

Rebecca Gordius:
And back to-

Jeff Rubenstein:
I will die knowing that you two do a pretty good show, exactly.

Larry Hryb:
Anyway, we got a couple of interviews this week that we did. Rebecca did one regarding Dungeons. Minecraft Dungeons, some great news there. It's your year anniversary, right?

Rebecca Gordius:
Yes, May 26th was one-year anniversary.

Larry Hryb:
So, we're going to talk about-

Rebecca Gordius:
The game that was launched and played entirely through the pandemic so far. But yeah.

Larry Hryb:
That's pretty amazing. Yeah. I mean, and seriously, because I'm trying to think of all the different games they've launched over year and all the people that have shipped those games during a pandemic, that is no small feat. So, I think we should really, really ensure that we recognize that. Got that. And then, the MechWarrior 5" Mercenaries out on Xbox on Game Pass. I'm going to interview folks, and you're going to learn a lot about Mech. Did you ever play MechWarrior back in the day, either you guys? Like MechAssault?

Jeff Rubenstein:
I don't think I did.

Larry Hryb:
MechAssault? No?

Rebecca Gordius:
No.

Larry Hryb:
Okay. That was OG Xbox. So anyway.

Rebecca Gordius:
Maybe it's good time to jump in.

Larry Hryb:
Yeah, let's go take a look at those. We'll do those interviews, and we'll come back, Jeff. And then, we'll can do some news because you got a lot of news this week, don't you?

Jeff Rubenstein:
There's some good stuff here.

Rebecca Gordius:
This is an exciting week for the Minecraft team. One year ago, we launched Minecraft Dungeons, and the team has come a really long way since then. And we have a lot of exciting stuff planned this week. And so, to talk about it with me, we're bringing on Jaime Limón, who I've worked with for so long, and is a good friend of mine. So, thank you for joining us, Jaime

Jaime Limón:
Thank you for the invitation, Rebecca. Super happy to be talking to you today.

Rebecca Gordius:
Awesome. Yeah. So first, if you don't mind, can you just tell us a little bit about yourself?

Jaime Limón:
Sure. I joined Microsoft awhile back, almost 23 years now, and spent a lot of that time working with the Xbox team back in Mexico. And then, almost six years ago, when I heard that there was going to be an actual marketing team to support Minecraft, I just joined up, raised my hand, said, "I want to be part of that." So, I've been part of the team almost six years now.

Jaime Limón:
And the same thing happened when I heard that Dungeons was going to be created. I wanted to be part of the team, and I was very lucky to be part of the whole process before launch, and helping out on that.

Rebecca Gordius:
Yeah. I know, it's been quite the journey. I think we've been working together for most of that six years that you've been on Minecraft which, oh man, time has gone by so fast. But anyway, on to the main event. So, this week has been really exciting, Minecraft Dungeons hitting its one-year birthday. It seems like it was not that long ago that you and I were going to games.com and E3, and all the different trade shows, helping people get hands on for the game before it launched. And man, it feels like a different life now.

Jaime Limón:
Yeah, we had so much fun. Even from the first time that we showed the game, there was so much excitement about something coming, brand-new coming from Mojang, very different from Minecraft, but at the same time felt the same, very familiar. And I remember those sessions at the beginning where we actually had the Dev team taking notes as they watched people play before we launched.

Jaime Limón:
So, they actually took some of the learnings as they watch families play together or just a single player, a co-op. And they took some of those learnings from those early events, and that actually went into the development of the game.

Rebecca Gordius:
Yeah, I think that's one thing I've really appreciated about Minecraft is just how much community feedback matters to the team and to the game. And just like seeing how that shapes the direction that we go. So, I'm pretty... yeah, Dungeons looks very different now than... well, not too different, but it's much bigger than it was when we first launched it a year ago, right?

Jaime Limón:
Yeah, this seems pretty as the base game as Minecraft. The team, they launched the game and they've continued to include both paid DLC, but also free features with each release that we have. So, they've added so much new, so many new experiences to the game, especially for players who have spent a lot of time playing. So, they're making it harder, more challenges, some brand-new content that we've never seen before.

Jaime Limón:
So, actually, for many people who might have finished the game a month after report, and maybe haven't come back to the game, if they have a chance to play it, especially because it's part of the Game Pass, to come back to the game. They would see a whole new experience in terms of just so much content coming in.

Rebecca Gordius:
Yeah, and one thing I've been really excited by too is also the new in-game events that we're doing. So, I think we have one that is going on right now, right?

Jaime Limón:
Yeah, exactly right. So, we're doing the anniversary. So, it started today and it'll go through June 8th at midnight. And it's basically a couple of new experiences, a couple of new challenges with awesome rewards. So, they're time limited, like the other events we've done. So, if you want to get your cake armor, which I think is the coolest armor we've ever done for Minecraft, if you want to get your cake armor, you definitely want to try that out. Yeah, I love that image.

Rebecca Gordius:
I love it.

Jaime Limón:
You can see the celebration. But that cool armor could be yours if you actually finish a couple of challenges. They're not super hard. So, just by spending a little bit of time playing it, that armor could be yours.

Rebecca Gordius:
Yeah, I feel like that would make a good cosplay with the candle lit on top of the head too.

Jaime Limón:
Yeah, it is pretty cool.

Rebecca Gordius:
Let's see. Okay. And then, besides the anniversary event, I know that we also released the new DLC, the hidden depths, which is pretty cool.

Jaime Limón:
Yeah, the work that they did for that DLC is just amazing. One of the cool things with all DLC and everything that goes into Dungeons is that, it is part of the overall lore and visuals that are part of the whole Minecraft franchise. So, it's not done independently. And what you get to see and experience in this game, in this DLC is very interesting because you're underwater. So, there's challenges, like you actually have to go and get oxygen from plates that you find on the floor. So, you don't want to... it's not only your health that you want to manage, but also your oxygen. And then, on top of that, there's the water effects.

Jaime Limón:
So, for example, things like arrows. Well, arrows behave differently underwater. So, when you shoot an arrow, it goes fast various. Go fast at first, and then it starts to slow down, and then move away. So, you got to take all those things into account. Again, like all DLCs and all the new features, the team has done just an amazing job creating that experience.

Rebecca Gordius:
Yeah, wow, that trailer is awesome. I also love the... I feel like there's so many little references that people will pick up, like the tropical slime as a new mob. That one is so cool.

Jaime Limón:
And squids. I don't want to talk too much about it because there's a lot of surprises, but you're totally right. They spend a lot of time on the small things, either Easter eggs or things that are really well known, and vanilla, and they show up in different ways within Dungeon. So, that's just a really cool experience as well.

Rebecca Gordius:
Yeah, I'm really curious to see how the gameplay is going to change, like just being underwater. So, I think I'm definitely going to have to hop into that this weekend. It looks really cool.

Jaime Limón:
Yeah, very different challenges. The oxygen part is challenging at first, I can tell you.

Rebecca Gordius:
Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, so this year, I mean, there's been so much new content that's released this year. So then, can you give us an idea of what's coming up next? I mean, are we going to keep seeing more DLCs, do you think?

Jaime Limón:
Yeah. So, the last time that we talked about the future of the game was during Minecraft live. And there we talked about, and gave a sneak peek at some of the things that were coming. So, we have another DLC coming in a few months. I'm not going to keep the page yet because the team is still working on it. There's a very, very, very cool DLC that continues the story that we've seen with the [inaudible 00:20:43]. So, that's going to be super exciting.

Jaime Limón:
And then, the team is working on what's next after DLCs. Again, I don't want to spoil the surprises, but there's a lot of things happening with dungeons going forward. So, this is our first year, but it's actually the beginning of the journey for Dungeons.

Rebecca Gordius:
Thanks. Okay. So, it sounds like I'll see you here again, the same spot, one year from now to talk about what's coming after for year two. Nice.

Jaime Limón:
Yeah, based on what we're seeing, yeah, we'll be here for a while.

Rebecca Gordius:
Yeah. Cool. All right. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Jaime. Just another plug, go try out Hidden Depths available on Xbox Game Pass and also Minecraft Dungeons available on Nintendo Switch, Play Station 4, Xbox, Windows PC. So yeah, go try it out. Thanks.

Jaime Limón:
Thank you.

Larry Hryb:
MechWarrior 5 is now available on Xbox. It's going to look great on Xbox Series X and S. And joining me today is the production manager for MechWarrior 5, Mr. Kerry Whalen. Kerry, good to see you.

Kerry Whalen:
Thanks for having me, Larry. It's just a pleasure to be here.

Larry Hryb:
I'm excited about to talk to you because this MechWarrior, it's such a franchise. But for those folks that haven't heard about it, tell us a little bit about what the game and what the gameplay is about. And I've got some trailers to show people, but I really want to hear from you, the production manager.

Kerry Whalen:
Yeah, yeah. So, at its core, MechWarrior 5 is a MechWarrior mercenary game. So, that's a game where in campaign mode, you're going to start out with a small light mech, and you're going to build your reputation as a mercenary company. So, you can see in here, the type of mechs, there's actually a huge variety of mechs to choose from. So, I think there's over 50 different chassis, each with a bunch of different variants. And so, the variants determine what type of weapons and equipment each mech can carry.

Kerry Whalen:
And there are literally hundreds of different designs and configurations of mechs to choose from. So, in campaign mode, you're going to start with a small light mech, and you're going to build your reputation as a mercenary company. So, first off, you're going to do contracts to earn C-bills. And as you progress, you're going to be acquiring mechs through salvage after a battle and through the mech market. And you're going to build up to bigger and better and more powerful mechs. And so, what's really, really cool about MechWarrior, and different about mech combat is that risk reward trade-off that you get.

Kerry Whalen:
So, you can see that you can try to be a bit more precise with your kills, trying to leave as many weapons systems and as much of the mech intact as you can to get that better salvage. Or you may have to just do some damage in order to prevent yourself from taking too many hits.

Larry Hryb:
Yeah. MechWarriors is known for having an assortment of mech chassis, and you spoke to that. We saw a few of those in the video in the screenshots that your pilot can outfit and customize with unique weapons and equipment. Can you share a little bit about the different types of mechs and the configurations available in MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries, and how players are able to choose their mech, when did they use in the mission, and how they set it up and get config?

Kerry Whalen:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, mech come in four general categories. You've got your lights, which are the fast, hard to hit mech, often they have jump jets. You've got your mediums and your heavies. And of course, there are the granddaddies, the assault mech, these are the 100-ton-

Larry Hryb:
The tank.

Kerry Whalen:
Yeah, exactly. Everly armor, it's like a walking fortress. And as I said, there's over 50 different chassis, and each with a whole bunch of variants. But there's hundreds of choices. Actually, and to speak to that, in the game, you actually have 12 operational mechs at any given time. So, what you can do is that, you're going about through the inner sphere, you'll be visiting industrial hubs, they'll have mech market. So, you'll be able to use all of the money you've generated from doing your contracts to shop for the different mechs that you like.

Kerry Whalen:
And in addition to that, you can actually... as you encounter mechs in battles, as I said before, what's really cool is, if you like what you see, you can try and take it for salvage. So, you'll be negotiating as part of your contract, how much salvage you get. And if you're up against an enemy, it's a real choice about how much damage you want to do to that enemy. Do you want to just blast them because they're a big threat and just destroy their mech?

Kerry Whalen:
Afterwards, there's not really much left for you to take off the battlefield. Or you can try to be a little more precise. Maybe you want to go for that cockpit shots, a little harder to do, maybe it takes a little longer, puts you at more risk. But at the end, once the contract is finished and the battlefield is done, you'll be able to salvage that mech, possibly take it for yourself.

Larry Hryb:
You know what? In the early days of MechWarrior's history, the game was often played on PC, which has the keyboard, and most people use joysticks. How did you condense down all of that to this? To a controller for Xbox. Tell us a little bit about that.

Kerry Whalen:
No, that was actually a really... it was a major challenge and an exciting challenge for us, really on two fronts. So, firstly, we were trying to fit as much of the functionality on the gamepad as we could. So, there were a few really innovative things that we did, like our designer Alex Garden, he put together a feature called, the action panel, which really allows gamepad players to issue mech commands, called down airstrikes, and access a bunch of functionality that was only accessible via the keyboard.

Kerry Whalen:
So, it works a bit like a radio menu, but it's mapped to the D-pad because you're going to want it to be used those analog sticks to really control your mech towards they'll move.

Larry Hryb:
Yes, keep moving around.

Kerry Whalen:
Yeah. And we also spent a whole load of time working on things like aim assists, and also a cool feature called, torso compensation.

Larry Hryb:
What does that mean? I mean, I can figure it out because of a mech, but tell us what that means.

Kerry Whalen:
Yeah, yeah. So, if you can imagine, like piloting attack, you've got the body of the tank, and you've got the turret, right? And so, the turret is facing one way, and the driver is having to move the tank in a direction that's going to pull the turret off in the target. So, what torso compensation does is it keeps the turret aimed at the target. So, it's really about making the aim stability greater for players playing with the gamepad.

Kerry Whalen:
And so, we spent a lot of time and energy, doing like UI adjustments and optimizations on the gamepad to make a really great experience. So, actually, I think you're going to be really surprised how much fun gamepad is to play, even if you're playing the PC version. I actually prefer gamepad myself. So yeah, it worked out really well. We're really pleased with how everything condensed down. So, there's a couple of sacrifices, but there's also a couple of benefits.

Kerry Whalen:
Like for instance, you playing mouse and keyboard, and of course, it's a little more precise with the mouse, but you get the force feedback experience with gamepad, which is a huge plus for gamepad players. You feel that building coming down as you're like, crunching through it, right?

Larry Hryb:
You want to feel powerful.

Kerry Whalen:
Exactly, exactly.

Larry Hryb:
The other thing I want to point out is, "Hey, MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries, that's available in Game Pass. So, if you are a Game Pass subscriber, just jump in and get your mech on. I mean, there's absolutely zero excuse. Just do it. We'll talk about that later. But in the MechWarrior 5, MechWarrior's update, it adds cooperative gameplay and cross play, what can we expect with that feature?

Kerry Whalen:
Well, yeah, there's a lot to talk about there. So, we're super pleased that all our community is going to be able to play together across Xbox and PC, like you said, on game pass. And of course, we have all of our existing players on Epic, and we're adding Steam and GOG as well. And so, back around Christmas time, we were getting to the point where we're like, "Oh my god, we're going to release soon. We are exclusively with Epic is coming to an end."

Kerry Whalen:
And we're getting a lot of feedback that this has to be cross play. So, we were like, "Oh, okay." A really strong feedback from our community, that everybody really wanted to play together. And this was a very daunting challenge for us. And it took us a little bit, we made a pretty tough decision at that point to say, "You know what? We have to do this. We're going to do this." And so, we pushed back our dates a little bit. But the team took that on.

Kerry Whalen:
And I'm really pleased to say that we've got it all, finally got it all working and ready to go. So yeah. I mean, MechWarrior 5, it features three Co-op modes, actually, if you have the DLC. So, the best and fastest way to play Co-op is what we call instant action. So, four players can jump in directly into the action, and use the game's procedural mission generator to actually generate missions, have variety of different types. It keeps the game fresh, always something different.

Kerry Whalen:
Or they can actually get in and play some of the premade scenarios and campaign missions directly. Also excited to say that you can jump into another player's campaign or career, if you have heroes of the Inner Sphere DLC, and played together in the host game. So, you can play basically all the modes of the game in Co-op.

Larry Hryb:
You talked about the campaign, and MechWarrior isn't just about massive mech combat. I mean, certainly that's part of it as the core game. But their story involves centuries old relationships between the great houses. Can you give us an overview of the great houses of the Inner Sphere and how it affects the overall story and the players' journey?

Kerry Whalen:
Yeah, absolutely. So, our story takes place starting in the year 3015 and goes all the way to 3049. So, the campaign actually covers a lot of time in terms of the game's universe. And so, the backstory really is that, humanity has colonized a pretty vast region of space that is called the Inner Sphere. And for a long time, it was governed by a body called Star League.

Kerry Whalen:
But like Game of Thrones, the kingdom splintered into these five great houses, and they're all vying for power and constantly waging wars to try and become the successor to the Star League insurance, subjugate the rest, really. So, in MechWarrior, you're going to be offered contracts from each of the great houses. And if you please them, you're going to gain faction status that is super valuable in contract negotiations, in terms of the payouts you're going to get.

Kerry Whalen:
You actually can get insurance. So, they'll actually give you some type of insurance so that if you take damage during emissions, they'll pay you back for that. Also, in your contracts, you can get more salvage or air support. And it'll also grant you perks in the various house-controlled markets as you travel around through the Inner Sphere through these different spaces.

Kerry Whalen:
So, in fact, as time goes by, the whole story of the Inner Sphere unfold as a backdrop to the players' activities. So, borders will actually change based on the major lore events. As you're playing the game in the home screen, we actually have a ComStar which is like the news network of the universe, news ticker. And that's going to be delivering the latest news snippets of all the different lore events as they're happening throughout the Inner Sphere.

Kerry Whalen:
And so, it's interesting. For example, in 3030, the Rasalhague Republic rises as a whole new house in the top of the map. And so, you'll actually see a whole bunch of news items come out about that. You can travel up there and actually, take part in those events as they happen. So yeah, it's pretty cool.

Larry Hryb:
Pretty deep lore and story, and backstory there. We were looking at some of the mechs, and I was going through and looking at some of the videos. I'm seeing some weather, and extreme weather conditions. And that's also for lack of a better term, a character that plays into the game. Tell us how that's going to affect your mechs and your performance, and how the players combat that.

Kerry Whalen:
Yeah. So, you are piloting a giant mech with all sorts of weapon systems with the reactor as its power core. So, a big part of piloting this mech is managing your heat levels. And so, in the game, there are various biomes such as ice planets, or there's actually lava planets. And so, these biomes, they have quite different ambient temperatures that affect your mech heat management when you get in there. So, right away, that changes how you want to use your weapons and what type of loadouts you want to take to these areas, right?

Kerry Whalen:
So, energy weapons are going to create more heat, ballistic weapons create less heat. So, you might want to change your loadouts prior to going down on these facets. And for instance, also on the lava planet, there are hazard areas as well that you might need to cross as part of mission. So, that is going to send your heat gauge soaring as well. So, we've added all of this type of ambient and specific hazard heat management to the game as well.

Kerry Whalen:
And in addition to that, you talked a little bit about intense weather, so dense, snow and fog. And that's really going to curtail your visibility and sensors. And so, in extreme, extreme weather, it's going to really reduce the detection radius of your targeting systems, meaning that surprises could happen. Combat could happen much more suddenly in that close quarters. And so, you have to be ready for that when you get into these extreme weather situations.

Kerry Whalen:
And as a nice little perk, usually, when there's an extreme weather situation, you can ask for more money because it's more dangerous. So, that's a neat little twist.

Larry Hryb:
As to wind up here, and I know I need to let you go, Kerry, this is very interesting. You guys are also releasing the heroes of the Inner Sphere downloadable content at the same time. So, let's be clear, it's not like this, the game you talked about was on the Epic store for a while. So, you guys have been working on this for a while. But what can we expect from this additional content?

Kerry Whalen:
Yeah, I mean, it's a substantial add-on in terms of content. And I should mention, right off the bat that a really neat perk is that, only the host actually needs to own this DLC. So, everyone in a Co-op session can enjoy all of this content without having to own it. So, like right off the bat, that's pretty cool way if you want to get a little taste of it before jumping in.

Larry Hryb:
Find a pal.

Kerry Whalen:
Yeah, exactly. And if you're a Game Pass player, there's also a few little bits and bobs, the exclusive content for you to grab as well. We have a special cobalt hero mech that's going to be exclusive for Microsoft PC and Xbox platforms.

Larry Hryb:
That's exciting.

Kerry Whalen:
Yeah. So, Xbox players have a little bit extra to look forward to there. It's great. But the DLC as a whole, we've added seven new mech chassis and 50 additional variants. It's a lot of content, a lot of additional content in terms of just mechs. We have added a new extra solar moon biome. So, it comes with a whole new set of different Garrisons to explore. Garrisons are like the little mini cities. So, it's got a whole different type of moon-based as it were, if just to jump into.

Kerry Whalen:
In addition to that, we've got Beachhead, which is our new procedural mission type. This is really, really cool, actually. This is where your group is the spearhead of an invasion force, taking over a particular planet. So, you're actually getting in first, you need to disable the planet's defense systems so that the invasion force can land. And it can get pretty crazy as you deal with incoming artillery, all while you're trying to disable those defenses so that your allies can come and help you for the final part of the invasion.

Larry Hryb:
Well, we have been talking for almost 20 minutes here. I mean, this is an amazing, incredibly... I don't want to say complicated, but it's a deep game. If you are an Xbox Game Pass subscriber, you need to check this game out right now, MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries, available now, depending on listeners, but it's available now. Any final thoughts before I let you go, Kerry?

Kerry Whalen:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, I did also want to get one quick mention in that, we've added in the DLC an entire career mode. This is another huge piece of content, which lets players have a less directed experience in exploring the entire Inner Sphere relative to the campaign mode, and it's got new quest lines and rebounds content, and a whole career system that allows you to accept jobs from shady characters in Cantinas and follow specific career paths.

Kerry Whalen:
And there's also seven mini campaigns as well in there. There's so much content, yeah. So, it's a really big DLC that I think our players are going to love. And if you'd want to check it out, if you want more information, just jump on to mw5mercs.com. There's a whole detailed description of everything in the DLC and everything in the substantial free update as well, so yeah.

Larry Hryb:
There's so much going on, Kerry. You've got a massive campaign, clearly a huge multiplayer component, and it's part of Game Pass. I got to thank you very much for chatting with us today. Let's talk about MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries, now available on Xbox and PC, and it's also available for Game Pass members. Kerry Whalen, thank you so much for your time today.

Kerry Whalen:
Thanks for having me.

Jeff Rubenstein:
And there we go. I'm hearing Pumba. Pumba, what did you think about MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries?

Larry Hryb:
What's going on over there?

Jeff Rubenstein:
He'd love that interview.

Larry Hryb:
It's getting frisky.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Why don't you put dogs into Minecraft Dungeons? Actually, you have llamas. You have wolves.

Larry Hryb:
Wow.

Rebecca Gordius:
Yeah, he could be a pet in Minecraft Dungeons. Although, again, I don't know what utility he would serve. Oh, my goodness.

Jeff Rubenstein:
[crosstalk 00:41:15] is a wolf. I mean, it's essentially the same thing.

Larry Hryb:
I don't think he's interested in joining us on the show today.

Rebecca Gordius:
Yeah.

Larry Hryb:
Feel free to let him go. Anyway.

Rebecca Gordius:
You're released, sorry.

Larry Hryb:
Thank you for that minor appearance. Anyway, Jeff, we some headlines and some news coming up. Do you want to go through some stuff?

Jeff Rubenstein:
All right. Well, yeah. So, the big news this week is the announcement of the Xbox and Bethesda Games Showcase. It's coming June 13th. This is going to be the one you're going to want to tune into. I'll just read this blog post here from [Aaron Greenberg 00:41:49] on Xbox. "Today, we're thrilled to announce the Xbox of Bethesda Game Showcase will stream Sunday, June 13th at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time." The show's going to be focused on games, games from Xbox Game Studios, from Bethesda, and many game creators around the world.

Jeff Rubenstein:
So, it's really cool to see us together with Bethesda in a tidy show. That will be around 90 minutes, packed with everything that you want to know about the epic gaming lineup coming out of this partnership. So, you'll be able to watch that on Twitch on YouTube, on Twitter, on Facebook. And well, it's a few weeks away. So, as we get closer, we will put together a full list-

Larry Hryb:
Let's bring that up again to take a look at the graphic. There it is.

Jeff Rubenstein:
That's awesome. So, we'll put together a full list of people who want to know, like will this be localized in my language and things like that? So, as we get closer to the event, we'll put together a more updated blog post. Consider this your save the date.

Larry Hryb:
Yeah, and let's be clear. This is a Sunday, June 13th. So, it's a perfect way to enjoy the show during your lovely Sunday brunch, depending on where you are or your Sunday.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Yes, yes. Exactly. Yeah, you have a Sunday roast, is what you would have.

Larry Hryb:
Yeah, your Sunday roast.

Jeff Rubenstein:
It's a time-out while you're eating your Sunday roast in the UK. That should time out perfectly, 6:00 p.m. BST. So, I can't wait for that, and we will of course talk more about that as we get closer. Other news. So, what Larry? What?

Larry Hryb:
Your camera just freaked out again. You just kind of-

Jeff Rubenstein:
What the heck?

Larry Hryb:
I don't know what's going on.

Jeff Rubenstein:
It is ridiculous, most people are listening on audio. Anyway, very much looking forward to playing the Hidden Depths DLC. We really should play some more dungeons together, threes, obviously the right size, a good-sized party like that for Minecraft Dungeons. I'm going to say, happy anniversary to you, Rebecca, on that one. Games with Gold, it's a new month. Yeah, by the time you listen to this, it's almost June. And once we hit June 1st, you'll be able to download The King's Bird or NeoGeo Battle Coliseum for free.

Jeff Rubenstein:
One is an Xbox 360 game through Backward Compatibility. Later in the month, Shadows: Awakening or Injustice. So, really, you have your fighting games really covered this month with Games with Gold. Of course, once you download those games, you can keep them forever. So, it is good to just jump in there on the 1st and on the 16th of every month, and just click, buy. You don't have to download, you get it.

Larry Hryb:
Click, click. Yeah, just get. Yeah.

Jeff Rubenstein:
I believe you talked about it a little bit, but I just wanted to talk about the Scarlet Nexus demo. I ended up playing that a little bit.

Larry Hryb:
Oh, yeah. We talked about that on the show last week.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Yeah.

Larry Hryb:
And by the way, in the most excellent news section as pointed out by our commenters on YouTube, thank you, Rebecca.

Jeff Rubenstein:
You're not wrong.

Rebecca Gordius:
It was fun. I would do it again, but I don't want to take away the spotlight with Jeff.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Rebecca, this is all I have. You've got Pumba, I have the news. I cuddle the news.

Larry Hryb:
He's got all that and a temperamental camera to boot.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Yeah. My life is, this is it. This is all I live for. So, yes. So, I ended up playing the Scarlet Nexus demo. It's really cool. If you're into like Nier Automata, there's some elements there. I'm sure Nier fans will like it. It's special and it's different, and it is. But I definitely got a lot of those vibes in terms of a post-apocalyptic action game but more colorful and an anime style, visuals that look really cool. Dolby Vision, we've talked about Dolby Vision and what it could mean for gaming, but it is actually coming to the Apple TV app and the Spotify video podcast.

Jeff Rubenstein:
And that's coming to Xbox. Are we going to be doing the video podcasting?

Larry Hryb:
Jeff, it's interesting you say that. I'm talking to the folks at Spotify about taking this very show and putting it up as a video spot. Apparently, not everybody can get them on Spotify, but I think we have a relationship with Spotify that will help unblock that. So, I'm working on getting us up there, but we'll see. They sent me an email saying they can't do it until you get your camera fixed.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Right. So, what does Dolby Vision mean? It means I'm just going to let that run off of my back. That would be funny if that was actually the real reason. So, basically, Dolby Atmos is for audio and Dolby Vision is-

Larry Hryb:
On Spotify, not on Spotify. On Spotify, not on Spotify.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Larry's been very unruly since you joined the show, Rebecca. And this is not your fault. He's showing off all the special effects.

Rebecca Gordius:
It's okay, I'm an enabler.

Larry Hryb:
You go ahead, Jeffrey, sorry.

Jeff Rubenstein:
It's fine. It's fine. Anyway, Dolby Vision, wider spectrum of colors. Thank you for the full screen, brighter whites and darker blacks, and some good stuff coming up on Apple TV, plus I'm a big Ted Lasso fan. Season two is coming up, and Mythic Quest. I've been watching that. So, Mythic Quest is interesting. It's about the game industry. It's a sitcom about the game industry, but they worked with Ubisoft to put together these little interstitials and stuff like that. It's not based on Ubisoft but it is-

Rebecca Gordius:
What was it called again?

Jeff Rubenstein:
It's called Mythic Quest. So, it's got Matt from It's Always Sunny, and Ashly Burch, who is the voice of Aloy. She was the voice of Tiny Tina, I want to say, from Borderlands.

Larry Hryb:
Oh, that's right.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Back in the day, it was on Destructoid. She did the Hey, Ash, Whatcha Playin'? We're going back aways here.

Larry Hryb:
Yeah, that's-

Jeff Rubenstein:
She's great. She's a tester. There's a good cast on there, Danny Pudi, who did the, "No, Larry, I'm on DuckTales," if you remember that from last year. He's been in a lot of stuff. I think he was on Community.

Larry Hryb:
That's right.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Yes, do you remember, Larry King? Not Larry. He wasn't-

Larry Hryb:
Right.

Jeff Rubenstein:
You should get him on the show. Anyway, really entertaining show. So, they're in the season two now, and I've gotten into that pretty significantly. It's not exactly what working in the game industry is like, but there's certain elements there that are pretty-

Larry Hryb:
By the way.

Jeff Rubenstein:
It's fine.

Larry Hryb:
I want to point out, you talked about Dolby Vision coming to those apps. I'm going to get somebody from Dolby on in the future. So, I remember last year, we had the show on audio and how... am I going to have to mute you, Rebecca? I don't know what you're doing.

Rebecca Gordius:
Can you still hear Pumba?

Larry Hryb:
No, I think it's the cars outside.

Rebecca Gordius:
Sorry. I'm moving soon. So, hopefully, the noise wouldn't be bad.

Larry Hryb:
It's okay. But usually-

Jeff Rubenstein:
To a nice quiet place in the country.

Rebecca Gordius:
I know.

Larry Hryb:
Anyway, we'll have somebody on from Dolby in the future to talk about Dolby Vision, what it means for gaming, and how it works, and so on so forth. So, stay tuned for that, Jeff. So, I want to make sure I mentioned that.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Wait, wait, wait. I'm getting some late breaking news.

Larry Hryb:
This just in.

Jeff Rubenstein:
There you go. Thank you, Larry.

Larry Hryb:
Jeff in the newsroom.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Thank you. Thank you, live on scene. Oh, I thought you were really going to... if you have the live thing, that would have been great. Far Cry 6, we have a release date. Far Cry 6 launches on... this is just happening right before this podcast goes live. Xbox series X and S and Xbox One on October 7th, October 7th. So, that's awesome. It's a Libra, and we love Far Cry. Larry and I, through from Far Cry 4 and 5, we enjoyed playing our co-ops. We've talked about Far Cry 5 extensively on the show.

Jeff Rubenstein:
So, you will play a character named Dani Rojas, not the same Dani Rojas presumably as the player in Ted Lasso. Well, that would be really funny.

Larry Hryb:
It's a heck of a crossover.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Soccer is life. That would be a hell of a crossover. And anyway, you also have an animal companion, Chorizo, the wiener dog. So, maybe that's-

Larry Hryb:
Chorizo, the wiener dog?

Jeff Rubenstein:
Chorizo, the wiener dog. So, that could be your animal companion. And I think we found a new role.

Larry Hryb:
Chorizo.

Jeff Rubenstein:
So, October 7th, that's the late breaking details. We're looking forward to seeing more on that one. Back to you in the newsroom.

Larry Hryb:
Thank you very much. Thanks for that report. A couple of things, hey, you know what you wanted to talk we didn't talk about at the beginning of this show was your Biomutant experience?

Jeff Rubenstein:
Yeah. Oh, that's right. Yeah, I was playing that last night.

Larry Hryb:
And I brought a video in because... would you explain this game? Because I noticed it was on your profile but you didn't mention this. So, go ahead and explain this game a little bit.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Yeah, no. After RE, I played about four hours of Biomutant. It's a really interesting... it's an open-world game that takes place. Humans trashed the earth. So, that part checks out. And then, left and-

Larry Hryb:
It looks like the Ori tree.

Jeff Rubenstein:
It does look like the Ori tree. That's the tree of life. I don't have that mount yet. That's cool. So, you basically craft this mammalian creature that is... and you could customize them yourself. I tried to make it look like one of a red panda because red pandas are cool. It looks a little bit like a lombax, there's one. You can customize them significantly. And if you focus on strength, they get more robust-looking. And if they're smarter, then their head gets really big.

Jeff Rubenstein:
And so, you create this. And then, it's funny. From there, you have this cute-ish thing. But then, it controls a lot like an open-world Devil May Cry in a way. So, you're interspersing melee attacks with firearm attacks. There's magic attacks, and you're exploring. You have a glider, which you can see in that shot. And so, it's very good-looking game that runs.... once, it runs a 4K 60 locked on Xbox series X. I've been playing on series S. It's also running super smoothly. I'm playing I think at 1440.

Jeff Rubenstein:
And really, enjoying this bit of... it's a good-looking game. It's very different. While a lot of these things, like I'm saying open-world Devil May Cry, post-apocalyptic, and all those things are things like from other... we've played in other games. But the way it comes together is just it's very unique to this game. And so, I would say I haven't played anything quite like it. And the commentator, so everyone, they don't speak human languages because they're animals. So, they almost talk in Simlish a little bit.

Jeff Rubenstein:
But then, there's this David Attenborough, sort of like the person who's just like Planet Earth, sort of talking over, like narrating what's happening and what the quest givers are asking you. So, this is very interesting. And so, if those things, open-world, action, melee, shooting, exploration, and creating your own mammalian future-

Larry Hryb:
If that's your thing.

Jeff Rubenstein:
... sound good, then yeah, I think you might find it a lot to like in Biomutant.

Larry Hryb:
We're talking about some of the news, a couple of just a quick programming note before we forget. We've got the Xbox-Bethesda Games Showcase coming up on June 13th, Sunday, June 13th, as Jeff and I talked about, and Rebecca, we all talked about. So, that means, gang, we are not going to be doing the show next week. So, there'll be no show on June 4th or the 11th because we will all be preparing for E3. So, we're going to be, as we say in the business, dark for a couple of weeks, but we'll be playing games.

Larry Hryb:
Maybe we can stream a little bit. But I want to make sure I pointed that out, no shows for the first two weeks of June as we get ready for E3, because there's not much we're going to be able to say, because we're going to be quiet. And we can just stare at you in the camera and go, "Yep, we got E3 coming up, June 13th." And that's it.

Rebecca Gordius:
Tune in.

Larry Hryb:
Yeah, tune in. By the way, I wanted to show something, we talked about this. I tweeted this out earlier in the week. I've been playing Dungeons on my duo with touch controls. So, we talked about dungeons a little bit, but the surface duo, which is a phone, and you can't really see it here, is a great gaming device. So, it's been cool. So, I would highly... if you have a duo... you've been playing it right, Rebecca?

Rebecca Gordius:
I don't have a duo, but I've heard really good things about the touch controls. It seems... yeah.

Larry Hryb:
There's a lot of games that I've touched controls, I just happened to show Minecraft. I think we got 50 now. So, you can check out my tweet earlier, the week about that if you have dual screens. So, look, I want to be clear. It feels like a Nintendo DS is what it feels like when you're playing it.

Jeff Rubenstein:
So, you're streaming that in via-

Larry Hryb:
xCloud, right.

Jeff Rubenstein:
xCloud game streaming with-

Larry Hryb:
Thank you, Jeff. Sorry about that. Thank you for-

Jeff Rubenstein:
That's how you get it.

Larry Hryb:
That's how you get it. So, it's not an emulator.

Jeff Rubenstein:
They don't have to have a duo, yes, exactly. You could do that on... I think Samsung have some dual screens, and you could have a similar experience. Or of course, you could just play it on touchscreen, on your iOS, or Android device, or testing your iOS.

Larry Hryb:
Yeah, in the browser. So, I just want to point that out as well. So, what other news we have there, Jeffrey, before we wrap things up? Because we're going to go quiet for a couple weeks as we get right... we do have some cool stuff planned for the week of E3. So, we can't talk about that yet, but we will be doing some cool stuff there, right?

Jeff Rubenstein:
Yeah. So, yeah. Like I said, June 13th. Mark your calendar. Set an alarm on your phone, 10:00 a.m. Pacific.

Larry Hryb:
How do you do that? When you need to remind yourself of things, Rebecca, what's your method of memory? Do you work off of a calendar? Or as Graham used to say so quaintly, a diary?

Rebecca Gordius:
Yeah. Actually, I have both. I have everything. So, I have a physical calendar that I write down important things on. Because then, I'm sitting here and I'm looking at it. I also use Google Calendar.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Literally, a calendar over your shoulder.

Rebecca Gordius:
Yeah. It's a puppies and kittens calendar.

Larry Hryb:
Oh, there it is.

Rebecca Gordius:
Yeah, I need to change it for June soon. Let's see. Actually, I had asked my mom for... she's been getting me calendars for Christmas. And this year, the only calendar she gave me were these free Korean business calendars from Orange County. So, there was one for a lawn mower service and one for a local hospital, and one for a church. I'm like, "That's now what I want."

Larry Hryb:
Are they wall calendars? Or are they little ones like that one? Are they big wall calendars?

Rebecca Gordius:
Yeah, those ones are wall calendars, but it's like all of the nice thing to look at would just be like some Korean names and some phone numbers. And it's like, I don't really-

Larry Hryb:
Well, that's why they're paying for it, and they're giving it away for free so that you're staring at their name on. So, when you say, "Ghee, I need to get my lawn mowed. Who do I call?" There it is.

Jeff Rubenstein:
I wonder if they'll come up to Seattle and do that. Probably not.

Rebecca Gordius:
But yeah, so I will physically write it on my calendar as soon as I switch to June. I recommend it to everyone else do it too.

Larry Hryb:
Okay, that's good to know. What about you, Jeff, what do you do?

Jeff Rubenstein:
I'm just talking to my phone, and I'm like, "Remind me at X time." And then, it rings. And I'm like, "Why did I set that again?"

Larry Hryb:
Do you say things like, "Hey, Siri, Hey, Google, remind me to show up to a meeting 10 minutes late?" Is that part of the-

Rebecca Gordius:
That would explain it.

Jeff Rubenstein:
No, no. I just tell them to tell me, on time. And then, I'm like, "Crap." And then, I got to go set the lights up or whatever, tell the camera to behave, which it does inconsistently. I'll get a new camera for you, Larry.

Larry Hryb:
Whatever. This one's been working fine. For some reason, it just started having fitz recently. I don't know why.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Yeah. It's not like we have lightning strikes here. So, I don't know, Larry.

Larry Hryb:
Anyway, we're going to wrap the show up here, great. By the way, Rebecca, thank you for the interview, a great interview about Minecraft, and that year anniversary. So, thank you for that. And hopefully, folks are playing that. It's in Game Pass. There's no reason not to check it out. I played it with Phil a few times. Phil's a big fan of that game as well, Phil Spencer. So, there's no reason, if Phil is playing it-

Rebecca Gordius:
Yeah, the anniversary event-

Larry Hryb:
Yeah. Tell us about that again, just to remind people.

Rebecca Gordius:
Yeah. So, the anniversary event is going on now through... sorry, now through June 8th, in the Hidden Depths DLC. And then, also free game updates are out now if you want to try it out. It's good time to dive in.

Larry Hryb:
There you go. Do it, Jeff.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Yeah, I really like how you can have a little more control over what... you've taken the RNG out of what treasures you get because you can trade things in-

Larry Hryb:
Random number generator, for those of you-

Jeff Rubenstein:
Yes. If you're listening this show, you know the RNG. But just, you've played it. And so, no, I really like how you can bank something you like with the crafts person. And then, you play two missions, and you come back, and it's more powerful. I like that. I like that. Anyway, we should play it.

Larry Hryb:
Splendid. All right, I think we're done.

Rebecca Gordius:
Cool.

Larry Hryb:
We'll talk to you guys. As I said earlier, we'll talk to you guys in a couple of weeks because we are going to be quiet for a few weeks, no shows as we get ready for the Xbox and Bethesda Games Showcase Sunday, June 13th, at 1:00 p.m. Eastern. That's 10:00 Pacific. That's 6:00 p.m. BST. And you'll do an internet search, and you'll figure out when it is in your area. So, it'll be carried everywhere. I'm excited for the show.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Obviously. If you're not excited for the show, you're on the wrong podcast.

Larry Hryb:
Well, I'll just tell you, the reason I am is because I know, Jeff, you're familiar with some of the things that are in the show. Rebecca, you're probably familiar with it. I'm familiar with it a little bit. I haven't seen everything yet. So, I'm excited to see what we got.

Rebecca Gordius:
No, everything's so locked down right now, but it'll be exciting.

Larry Hryb:
Yeah. So, there you go. Any final words before we let you go, Jeffrey?

Jeff Rubenstein:
No, I look forward to seeing you on the other side.

Larry Hryb:
Thank you for that. Rebecca, what about you? Any final words of wisdom before we sign off and see people in a few weeks after E3?

Rebecca Gordius:
I can give a joke.

Larry Hryb:
Okay. Please do, please do.

Rebecca Gordius:
All right. So, the other day, I met a guy from Australia, and he had all the right koalafications. That's it. That's it. Get it, koalas? Okay, well thanks. Give them a couple weeks.

Larry Hryb:
Let me leave you with something good. The next time we talk to you, our E3 announcements will be out there. Let's look at it that way.

Rebecca Gordius:
Yes. Yes, so exciting.

Larry Hryb:
Right, Jeff?

Jeff Rubenstein:
Yep.

Larry Hryb:
I guess, he doesn't know what to say this. He's still stunned. He's stunned like a koala fallen out of a tree.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Here's the thing, every time we get to this time of year, if you say anything that even just hints at anything, like Eddie Makuch, God bless you, GameSpot, you've been here for a long time, the person who's probably quoted me the most when I've said the wrong thing, I think he's Australian. He's sitting there. He's listening right now. Hi, Eddie. I love the work that you do. My goal was to give you nothing to say. This is a recap show. So, I'm not going to add anything. I'm not going to spin anything. Please watch the show. It'll be fun.

Jeff Rubenstein:
I'm going to enjoy it, and that's it. So, I'll see you. I'll see Eddie. I'll see everyone, June 13th.

Larry Hryb:
All right, gang. We'll see you guys next time. Rebecca, thanks for... and thank you to Pumba for joining us for that grumpy moment.

Rebecca Gordius:
Yeah.

Larry Hryb:
Jeff, thank you for joining us. And for you at home, we'll see you guys. Everybody, reminder, June 13th. And then, we'll have a podcast after that. Bye-bye everybody.