753: Battlefield Portal, Death’s Door and more

Larry Hryb:
Hi, it's Larry Hryb at Xbox Live's Major Nelson. Welcome to the official X-Box podcast. We're here for another week. Here are your friends, me, and then let me bring in my two friends, Rebecca, over there, Jeffrey over there and you right there. Hey everybody. How are you guys doing?

Jeff Rubenstein:
We got promoted to friend.

Larry Hryb:
Well, you're always friends.

Rebecca Gordius:
Wow, we're friends.

Larry Hryb:
We're always friends.

Rebecca Gordius:
Are we just talking about Xbox live friends?

Larry Hryb:
No. IRL friends. Jeff and I got to spend some time earlier this week. We actually did... I don't know if you follow us on Instagram or Twitter Rebecca? I think you do. But Jeff and I had a chance to go to our first offsite together, which was... Off sites for those of you that don't know in the corporate world is when teams get together and kind of go... we didn't do trust falls. No, let's get that out of the way, but we got to get together and talk about some stuff we're working on. So that was fun. And we missed you Rebecca, because you're in New York.

Rebecca Gordius:
It's okay. I was having fun on my own.

Jeff Rubenstein:
It was no New York, we walked on a lawn. I mean...

Larry Hryb:
In fact it was the opposite of New York, but it was [crosstalk 00:01:12].

Jeff Rubenstein:
Anything that we did, there's a bar for it in New York. It'd be like, "Oh, you went to a waterfall? We have a waterfall bar here. Okay. And you need a secret password to get in."

Larry Hryb:
"Oh, you hiked a trail? Oh, we have a dirty floor in our bar." So.

Rebecca Gordius:
I mean, it looked like you guys had some nice views, but my parents actually came to town last weekend. And so I took them to the World Trade Center and we went up to the 102nd floor of the Freedom Towers, so [crosstalk 00:01:36].

Larry Hryb:
Jeff and I did that. Isn't that elevator ride up amazing?

Rebecca Gordius:
It's pretty awesome. I kind of judged the other dad in the elevator who started taking a video while we were in the elevator, but then my dad and I both did it on the way down. So, yeah. It's a pretty cool elevator ride.

Larry Hryb:
It's funny, when Jeff and I did that. In fact, I found that elevator ride Jeff on my phone the other day, because I remember Rebecca, you were telling me you're going there. And I was that guy who took the video because I was like, "This is really cool." And it just got cooler and cooler as you got... I don't want to spoil it for anybody that goes, but it's a brilliant was to pass the time while you're going up 100 floors.

Jeff Rubenstein:
This is like the definition of the journey is as good as the destination because it's the best elevator in America, I'm just going to say. [crosstalk 00:02:21]. I've been into all, every elevator in the lower 48. There might be a better one in Alaska that I haven't been to.

Larry Hryb:
Rebecca, I assume you guys went up there on a nice day. So you that nice clear visibility into Hoboken?

Rebecca Gordius:
That's in New Jersey, right?

Larry Hryb:
Yes, it is in New Jersey. Yes.

Rebecca Gordius:
Yeah, it was pretty good. My dad basically just wanted to see the Statue of Liberty from the top of the tower, which we did. And then it rained. But for the most part, we got our photos. We got to enjoy the view, but that's what I'm learning about New York. It rains quite a bit in the summertime or maybe it's just the summer.

Larry Hryb:
Yeah, I think it's just the summer. I mean, as a resident of Seattle, you know that it rains out here quite a bit, but I know that my family and friends back east, they're complaining about a lot of the rain. So it's a little... it seems like it's a little above normal this year.

Jeff Rubenstein:
I don't think it's rained one time since you've left Rebecca, literally not once.

Larry Hryb:
Yeah, so.

Rebecca Gordius:
[crosstalk 00:03:14]. Please don't rub it in.

Jeff Rubenstein:
[crosstalk 00:03:18]the apple crop.

Larry Hryb:
Anyway, we should talk about what we're playing this week because it's been a pretty good week for releases.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Pretty good? Come on [crosstalk 00:03:26]. Sell, sell here Larry.

Larry Hryb:
I got to tell you, this week there's game release weeks Jeff, and then there's game release weeks. This one is fantastic.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Future civilizations will uncover, they will be sifting through the detritus of our civilization and they will remark that this week was a peak gaming week.

Larry Hryb:
We had a... it may not be raining here in Seattle, but it is raining games, Jeffery.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Oh, there we go. That's the one. Let's keep that there.

Larry Hryb:
Oh, boy. Anyway. Yeah. Let's go through... Rebecca ladies first, I'll let you go first since you're representing and want to talk. We've got a couple of interviews that we're going to talk about, but let's talk about what you're playing first.

Rebecca Gordius:
Yeah. I mean, I don't want to spoil the interview, but I've been playing Death's Door which released on Tuesday I believe. So it's PC and Xbox one exclusive. It's a lot of fun. If you haven't seen it, I would definitely recommend trying it out. It's it kind of gave me the feelings of Cuphead Nostalgia, where I was intensely frustrated at some moments and shouting profanities and waking my roommate up. And then there were the moments of euphoria after defeating the bigger monsters and bigger bosses and collecting those souls. But it's awesome. The soundtrack is really good, it plays really smoothly. Have you guys tried it yet?

Larry Hryb:
Jeff?

Jeff Rubenstein:
Yeah. I've gotten through... I just beat the witch, which isn't a spoiler. There's a witch. It's great. She calls you a little S which I thought was great, and I took a screenshot of that. Yeah, it's very... I will say this, if this game was a roguelike, I probably would have stopped already. Like if every time you died, you had to go back to the beginning. I would say for a game that's this challenging, and it is challenging, it is also forgiving in terms of checkpointing and things of that nature. You can slowly grind up to make yourself a little bit stronger. It's really good. This is a game I thought I was going to play for an hour. I thought I would... First time I died, I was like, "I'm probably not going to keep playing." And then four hours goes by and I'm like, "I'm going to... I guess I am just good enough to keep playing." Just kind of bread crumbs you along where it's always challenging, and I think it's great. And didn't only like... I mean, I'm sure you'll talk about the interview, but I heard only two people made this game. Is that accurate?

Larry Hryb:
I don't know if that's [crosstalk 00:05:47].

Rebecca Gordius:
Oh, I didn't know that part.

Larry Hryb:
I think it's 100% accurate, but I know that it is not a large team. It's not much more than that. So I don't know if that's the actual...

Jeff Rubenstein:
Could you tell us what you think about it while I look that up?

Larry Hryb:
Yeah. So I'm actually playing it as well, and you can see it right here on my dashboard. It's sitting right there ready to go. Of course, I took a controller update, but that's something separate. But yeah, I'm playing that and it's... I got... It's funny because I don't want to give too much of a spoiler away, as you said, Jeff and Rebecca, will talk a little bit about this, but the game starts you right off, right out of the shoot you're in a boss battle. And that was like... I was having... when I was listening to your interview, Rebecca, you were talking about it was frustrating. And I was like, I was getting frustrated, but then I figured out the pattern and did what I needed to do, and it was rewarding. And then it unlocks and continues on the game. And then you start to learn more about the game mechanics. So Death's Door is a beautiful, highly, highly rated. I was looking at the Metacritic, it was 85 or 90. So I don't know where it is now.

Rebecca Gordius:
Yeah. It's getting really good reviews.

Larry Hryb:
It's getting really good... And this Jeff, I believe you said it before we started recording, this is an exclusive, correct?

Jeff Rubenstein:
Correct. And so it's made by Acid nerve. Acid Nerve is a two-person team from Manchester, UK, wonder if they like City or United, making independent games with artists from around the world. So they would have had help in the art side, but it was Mark Foster from Foster the People. Is that the same Mark Foster? I'll just assume so. Great musician. And David Fen. And so, yeah. Anyway.

Larry Hryb:
In fact, Rebecca [crosstalk 00:07:16]. Rebecca will interview David Fen later on in the show. We got to spend some time. So that's 50% of the studio that Rebecca was doing. So they were not doing any work, 50% of the studio stopped working to talk to Rebecca. So we'll play that later.

Jeff Rubenstein:
That's great.

Rebecca Gordius:
That's awesome. Kudos to him for not bragging on that, but he did kind of give me jack of all trades vibes. I think he was like, "Oh, I'm producer and designer and composer," and all these other things. So it makes sense now.

Larry Hryb:
Yeah, you'll definitely...

Jeff Rubenstein:
Yeah. He's the producer, designer, composer and sound designer. And then Mark Foster is the programmer, designer, writer and animator. Anyway, the games they make, you would never know because it's just a very high quality game. All the way through it's fantastic. So [crosstalk 00:08:00].

Larry Hryb:
We'll have that interview later on in the show. And then the other interview we have, we talked about interviews, is Jeff is going to give you some more details about Battlefield. Now this is an amazing new Battlefield. Do we call it a Mo, Jeff? What are we calling it?

Jeff Rubenstein:
Yeah. So it's Battlefield Portal and we're recording this actually as EA Play Live is happening, so we got a sneak peek look. And so, when we saw Battlefield 2042 about a month ago, we saw the things we expected, but with a huge 128 players on Xbox series X. But, I think it's called All-Out Warfare and it's just like, "Whoa, this is going to be huge." But imagine if you could remix tons of different abilities or modes and maps from previous and current Battlefield. So Battlefield Bad Company 2-

Larry Hryb:
And future Battlefields.

Jeff Rubenstein:
...and Battlefield 3, Battlefield 1942. And say, okay. I mean, it gets crazy, but as an example, it was like, how about if we took 20 drones controlled by players and let's pit them against one tank. Great, there's a mode. Go. Or let's have four future troops from 2042 play a World War II map against 32 German army folks with M-1s or whatever the German version of the M-1 ground was. And old tech versus new tech, but they have the number supremacy. You could make that, you can remix all these things. It's actually an incredibly deep system, and we're going to have the GM from the developers, from Ripple Studios to sort of talk us through it. It's going to be really cool.

Larry Hryb:
Yeah. And they're going to show us a little bit, I don't know if you've seen this Rebecca, but as Jeff was saying, you could remix all these things. And the way you do it, it's almost like this base. It's almost like coding. If you want, what do you want this to do, if then so-and-so where? They will show a little bit of that user interface. If you watch DA play, you probably saw that. So we'll talk about that. So we've got some Battlefield coverage, we've got some Death's Door coverage. Another great week of interviews courtesy of my lovely co-hosts here. Thank you guys.

Rebecca Gordius:
Very cool.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Happy to do your job for you. I meant, to help out where...

Rebecca Gordius:
That's why he brought us on the show, we're his friends.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Yes. Exactly. It's just a very one way relationship here.

Larry Hryb:
Bring it on. [crosstalk 00:10:25]. What else are you guys playing? I mean, we talked about some of those things, obviously Jeff and I, or Rebecca, we're not playing Battlefield yet. We'll hopefully do that. But Jeff, what else you got that you've been chipping away at?

Jeff Rubenstein:
Well, let's talk about what we played together last week...

Larry Hryb:
That's right.

Jeff Rubenstein:
...after the interview.

Larry Hryb:
Yeah. We played a little bit of F1, the new basics. Would you call it that head to head mode?

Jeff Rubenstein:
So they have a two player career mode, and we talked a little bit about it during the interview with Codemasters. And so, you get to... I played a bunch of the single player story mode and I got into it. You didn't, you just jumped right into two player career mode. And anyway, we're on the same team. I can't remember, were we on Mercedes? I can't remember what team we picked. [crosstalk 00:11:08]. No, we picked Aston Martin.

Larry Hryb:
Yeah. It was either... Yeah, it was Aston because it was green and then, yeah. Right, of course.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Yeah. Yeah. And so together... Now look, we don't know a lot about F1, so it was like, "How about your tech setup?" And we were like, "Yeah, looks good. It's good. Let's go. Let's get to race."

Larry Hryb:
Not only do we not know a lot about F1, but in the first corner, Rebecca, Jeff spun me out and in the back of the pack is where I stayed for the rest for the remaining four laps.

Rebecca Gordius:
What a teammate.

Jeff Rubenstein:
I didn't know I did it, but I finished fourth. So if you aggregate the two, our average finish was 12. That's not... I mean, it's not great.

Larry Hryb:
I mean the game looked beautiful, it was a lot of fun. But yeah, as a F1 newb, I mean, it's racing is racing. You understand the first one to cross the finish line wins, but there's a of nuances in it, right, Jeff?

Jeff Rubenstein:
Yeah. No, it was really fun. And you can spin me out next time and we'll call it even. It was, I felt really bad. I didn't slow down and check on him, I assumed you were okay.

Larry Hryb:
You just, "Hey, are you doing okay back there?

Rebecca Gordius:
It's for the best of the team.

Larry Hryb:
It's fine.

Jeff Rubenstein:
I didn't lap you, so you did... you recovered pretty well. And so that part's good.

Larry Hryb:
Yeah, it just wouldn't... anyway [crosstalk 00:12:23]. I did the best that I could.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Digging for silver linings here [crosstalk 00:12:26] with the diamond Chevrolet here and I'm not getting there.

Larry Hryb:
So played a little bit of F1...

Jeff Rubenstein:
Wanted to talk about something else that I got to play that we talked about earlier this week, which is Psychonauts 2. So Psychonauts 2 is coming out in August from DoubleFine, we're very excited about it. And, I got hands-on... you probably saw some preview coverage. I saw a couple of influencers that we work with, that we gave them. We didn't tell them what to say. We were just like, "Hey, if you want to play, you can play." And a couple of [crosstalk 00:12:54] I heard potential game of the year candidate or nominee. And it's just [crosstalk 00:13:01].

Larry Hryb:
We're talking game of the year, Jeff? This is okay. All right. Look at you.

Rebecca Gordius:
Wow.

Jeff Rubenstein:
We're past halfway. We're past halfway.

Larry Hryb:
Fair point, fair point.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Anyway, it's one of those things where I think, this game's just really good. And having never really played the original, I ended up afterwards going back and playing because it's an Xbox game pass you can play second at one. And I started playing that and seeing, oh, okay. That was a hold over from one. You don't really need to have played the first one. We're actually working with some creators to create a sort of a catch-up video. It's also something in the game as well that sort of lets you know who the main characters are. But for a platformer...

Larry Hryb:
In case you missed it.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Actually calling it a platformer is really not doing a great service. There is a significant variety in terms of how you can progress through the maps, your traversal I think is the word, different attacks, the way you can mix and match. There's RPG element where there's a lot of collectibles, but those collectibles aren't just for achievements, those collectibles are to be invested into skill points or things like that. So you're not just finding things for the sake of finding things, you're finding things to make visibility better or to unlock something else. But it's all just incredibly clever how they take things that we talk about, about our psyche, like mental baggage or just doubts and turns them into corporeal things. And so, like for the mental baggage, you have to find the loss tag and then you can send them on their way. The doubts are things that actually hunt you. Your bad ideas blow up in your face. So, it's just, it's very, very clever.

Jeff Rubenstein:
It looks great. It's very stylistic. Kind of like almost like a Tim Burton-esque vibe if you've never played the first one, like beetle juice with a video game. Obviously different sort of subject matter, but [crosstalk 00:14:59] definitely when you think about that sort of style, that's definitely what I kept thinking of. But really cool, definitely one to watch out for. Obviously it'll be on Xbox game pass for PC and for Xbox on day one. And that day one is only about a month.

Larry Hryb:
Now my job, one of the many things I do here, is to translate for Jeff and he used a big word there, corporeal. So I want to make sure that everybody knows what that means, because I don't want to leave any... unlike Jeff, I'm not going to leave anybody behind on this racetrack. So we are going to...

Rebecca Gordius:
Wow. [crosstalk 00:15:28].

Jeff Rubenstein:
You're spinning me up now Larry. So we're going to be even.

Larry Hryb:
Corporeal is relating to a person's body, especially as opposed to their spirit. So there you go.

Jeff Rubenstein:
I might've misused the word, but I think it'll work. Someone will call me out on that.

Larry Hryb:
I just want to make sure that I'm providing a little bit of a Jeff translation here. So that's... Anyway, Psychonauts 2, we'll have a... working on getting Tim on in the coming weeks. Tim Schafer, who's been on the show quite a few times, but it's always great to chat with him. So we'll line him up for something a little bit closer to launch. When is the launch again, Jeff? You said August right?

Jeff Rubenstein:
Yeah. It's August 24th, I want to say. Yeah.

Larry Hryb:
August 24th, but it doesn't matter because if you're in game pass, it's already going to be in your library ready to download because it's coming straight to game pass [crosstalk 00:16:13].

Jeff Rubenstein:
25th. 25th.

Larry Hryb:
So there you go.

Jeff Rubenstein:
But it'll be the 24th in Australia. I'm going to hedge on that one.

Larry Hryb:
All right. Anyway, we've got...

Rebecca Gordius:
Larry, what have you been playing?

Larry Hryb:
Let's see. I've been playing Death's Door. I don't know if... Jeff, I don't know if we can talk about this yet. Can we? Okay. There's a game that's [crosstalk 00:16:33].

Rebecca Gordius:
Air on the side of not.

Larry Hryb:
Okay. So there's a clue, it's air, and it's a game that's on PC.

Jeff Rubenstein:
You can talk about this.

Larry Hryb:
Okay. Flight simulator on the console on Xbox series X. I've been playing a little bit of that. It's kind of crazy. I don't know what I was flying, I was just having the greatest time in this... Just flying around, what everybody does. I flew over my childhood home and the city and my high school and things like that. And it was just really cool to have that controller experience on the big screen. I played it on PC, it's beautiful. This is a controller experience and that's coming out, again, to game pass. And that's coming at the end of this month, Jeff, right? I think the 28th.

Jeff Rubenstein:
That is coming out on July 27th.

Larry Hryb:
27th.

Jeff Rubenstein:
So really just a few mere days away. And what I found is I have a... my gaming PC has a 2080 super, which is good. Certainly not top of the line.

Larry Hryb:
It's super even.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Yeah, but you can... I mean, if you've got something that begins with a three, you get more and more out of that game. The fact that it can run on console on the series X and S is pretty amazing. And there are, I would say... There's two things, one is, there's some sort of like, "Let's get you in the air faster." There's some sort of easy start sort of things you'll be able to them, that like, "Hey, do you want to see the pyramids or Mount Fuji or the Eiffel tower?"

Larry Hryb:
Let's go.

Jeff Rubenstein:
We're going to do the thing where when you hit it, you just start in the air and then you can just go and you can do that sort of sightseeing. And you know what? That's the joy. Then if you want to get into the specifics of how you taxi or you're playing and you get into the air and all this. Everyone is hung up, turning off the parking brake, by the way. That's the pro tip for me, is you got to turn the parking brake off. Yeah. And by the way, when it starts up, your car's got... your car. Your plane's got the parking brake on and you can rev it up and you're not going anywhere. [crosstalk 00:18:23].

Larry Hryb:
Because it's going forward. It's trying to go, but your [crosstalk 00:18:27] parking brake is on.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Yeah. And also when you first play you're going to want to be like, "Oh, let me fly a plane that I've been in," like a 747 or a Dreamliner or something like that. Stick with a small plane, something that's like a prop, something that's easy to get off the ground and something that's easy to land.

Larry Hryb:
Being in the front row and being in the pilot seat taking a 747 off or big airplane, versus sitting in row 18C, very different. Very different, so be careful.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Very different. So that game will... of course it's available right now on PC Via Xbox game pass and steam. And again, on the 27th, you'll be able to play it. Let me ask you a question to all of you. I'll start with you, Rebecca. You can go anywhere. So where would be, where's the first place you will want to fly?

Rebecca Gordius:
I think I would really like to fly over Europe. Maybe the Mediterranean, Greece Santorini. That can be pretty cool. I feel like I've already flown all over the US and it's like, okay, it's a lot of farm land and some cities and some lakes and some mountains, which are nice, but I want to see something different.

Larry Hryb:
Okay. That's fair.

Jeff Rubenstein:
What about you, Larry?

Larry Hryb:
I think, Jeff there's actually, you talked about those moments where you can see the pyramids and so they set you up right away. One of the ones I really liked was the one for, I think it was Bora Bora, you're on a float plane, on approach to the islands and you can see it. And I actually brought the float plane down onto the water and it was kind of... I mean, it was like, please let me open the store and go for a swim. It was just gorgeous.

Rebecca Gordius:
Sounds relaxing.

Larry Hryb:
Yeah. So, I mean, there's something about the... and we have a lot of float planes or sea planes, whatever you call them, the pontoons up here in the Northwest. And I see them leaving all the time, and that's such a cool mechanic, because you can land anywhere there's water. Any piece of water is a runway. So it's for the most part. But it was a lot of fun seeing Bora Bora and flying around it. And of course you'll notice what's great because of the integration, again, and PC people have seen this for a long time. But as you're flying down, you see these pointers and these flags of like, Hey, this is this area and this is this town, and this is that, and this is this. So it pulls in all this great data from Bing maps to kind of enhance your experience and kind of give you an augmented reality esque experience as you're flying. So I'm sorry, long way of saying Bora Bora, French Polynesia, that's what I was doing.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Nice.

Larry Hryb:
I got to lather up and get some sunscreen.

Jeff Rubenstein:
So if you're [crosstalk 00:20:59]

Larry Hryb:
What about you, Jeff. Wait a minute, what about you?

Jeff Rubenstein:
Oh.

Rebecca Gordius:
Yeah. Jeff, you have to answer the question.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Okay, fine. Well, last year when this came in an online flight, Microsoft flight simulator came in on PC, I was missing games calm and so I did a fly over Cologne. Right now I'm playing Ghost of Tsushima, is another game I'm playing and it turns out [crosstalk 00:21:20].

Larry Hryb:
Be careful of those comments in YouTube. Watch it there [crosstalk 00:21:23].

Jeff Rubenstein:
Oh we can't talk about a PlayStation game, heavens to Betsy, [crosstalk 00:21:28] cover your ears if it will be burning to know that I also have a PlayStation and I play on it. So yeah, I'm playing Ghost of Tsushima, which is a great game. I'm in for it on the comments now. And [crosstalk 00:21:42] it's made right here in the Seattle area. [crosstalk 00:21:45] yeah, there we go. And anyway, it turns out it's a real island because I ended up looking up some of the history of [inaudible 00:21:54] invasion of Japan and that it did go through that island. And anyway, it's a real island. And so I think I would want to fly over that because now I feel like I know the shape of it and I want to see if there's little foxes running around because if not I'll be very disappointed.

Larry Hryb:
But the reality is the world is your playground. You can go pretty much anywhere on planet earth. And that's, what's amazing about flight simulator. As Jeff said, flight simulator becoming to console Xbox series X and X at the end of July included in game pass. There you go.

Jeff Rubenstein:
And one that you can play with a controller and get you off the ground. Actually that's how I played on PC with a controller, very simple. But there is, if you want to sort of level it up, there's a number of steps you can take for more advanced controls and the closer and closer you get, the more it seems like an actual flight stick. But I would say the most basic one and it's a new one is the thrustmaster T flight full kit X, which is available for pre-order. It'll be on sale at same day as Microsoft flight simulator on console. So you'd get the Hotas, which I forget what it's like, oh, I can't remember what the Hotas stands for, but it's basically the stick and the thing that accelerates you. And even just that alone, that's $89, and then there's a whole flight kit with the pedals and you can get the two of them together for $199, and then you can go up from there. If you become a real flight person and start spending a lot of time there [crosstalk 00:23:26]

Larry Hryb:
They call that a pilot.

Jeff Rubenstein:
...there's even more stuff that will work.

Larry Hryb:
Yeah. It's funny because [crosstalk 00:23:32]

Jeff Rubenstein:
Does work for PCs as well.

Larry Hryb:
Earlier, was it this week, Jeff? I think it was this... no, I guess it must've been last week. I went over to campus to one of our hardware labs and they had a bunch of them. We've got an article we've talked about that on Xbox one about some of these new accessories coming. And one of them that I was really taken with was the turtle beach velocity one, which is this amazing experience that it's got the yolk, it's got the, I don't know what those... I guess the accelerator or the levers on the side.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Hotas? This will help us both hands-on [inaudible 00:24:05].

Larry Hryb:
Okay. So It's got the [crosstalk 00:24:09].

Jeff Rubenstein:
Do I think the yolk is more of the... like the way the new Tesla has that sort of like rectangular or two hands [crosstalk 00:24:17].

Rebecca Gordius:
Yes.

Larry Hryb:
But yeah, the one I was looking at was a turtle beach velocity one, I mean, it had a little LCD screen in the center. It's got the hat switches, it's got the ABXY of course, but it's actually got some really cool stuff. You can check that out on X-Box wire and I'm sorry, Jeff. I don't mean to take away your new section later on, but it felt like it was irrelevant.

Jeff Rubenstein:
No, it's great. This is your show. We're just your friends we're just hanging out and talking. I don't enforce a rigid order.

Larry Hryb:
Anyway, there you go. Flight simulator looking forward to playing that. Well, why don't we stop down now, take a break. We've got a couple of interviews to run. I will talk about... in fact I'll let you guys off the hook, I'll bring [crosstalk 00:24:57]. We've got Jeff's going to talk about Battlefield and then Rebecca is going to talk about Death's Door.

Rebecca Gordius:
This week Death's Door released on Xbox one, Xbox series X and S and PC from Acid Nerve. And joining me to talk about it today is David Fenn. Hello.

David Fenn:
Hello. Thanks for having me on.

Rebecca Gordius:
Yeah. Remind me, are you based in the UK, the US?

David Fenn:
Yeah. Manchester, North UK.

Rebecca Gordius:
Cool [crosstalk 00:25:23].

David Fenn:
At the moment.

Rebecca Gordius:
Lucky you. I've been having a rainy New York summer myself. So I've been playing a little bit of Death's Door since it just released. I'm really enjoying it. It's surprisingly difficult though. But it looks like it's getting really great reviews so far. So how are you guys feeling about the release? How much time led up to this moment?

David Fenn:
Yeah, I think overall we're feeling really good. It's been quite a long journey for us because we've actually been in development for about three and a half years now. And working on something for that long, you just never know if it's good anymore. You need to wait until it gets in everyone's hands before you have any idea how it's going to be received and how everything that you've put into the game, how that's going to come across to people when they're playing it for the first time. So judging from the reaction, I think we are pretty happy that everything we wanted to achieve, we've done a pretty good job of and yeah, just feeling really, really pleased, really excited.

Rebecca Gordius:
Yeah. I can only imagine the team's energy and excitement this week. It must be... I mean, three and a half years, that's a long time to put into a game. I mean, can you tell me a little bit more about just your role and how you helped bring Death's Door to life, but not intended?

David Fenn:
Yeah, so I've actually traditionally been a composer and acid nerves initial games I was working on mainly doing music, but I gradually started doing more kind of production stuff just because my business partner Mark is the programmer and designer, and also now the animator as well. So he has a lot of hats to wear. So I've been taking on as much as I could. So yeah, in Death's Door I went into it as the producer of the game as well. So I've been in charge of assembling external team of artists. So we have a couple of concepts artists and 3D artists on the game as well. And also I've been taking on level design as well. So pretty much the entire world has been crafted by me as well. And then obviously amongst that doing the music and sound for the game. So everyone on this team does have to do quite a few things. There's five of us, so it's all we've been working on it throughout the project, and then there's been a few more people that we brought in for a bit more help. So yeah, a lot different jobs.

Rebecca Gordius:
Well, I have to ask, I crept on your Twitter a little bit and I saw you put forest music specialist in the Twitter bio. Have you been spending a lot at nature walks researching for the game or?

David Fenn:
I would like to say yes, but I feel like most of my forest music inspiration probably just comes from forest levels in other games because forest levels always have the best music. But not the... like if I did do some inspiration walks in nature I would definitely enjoy that. And I definitely got a lot out of it, but yeah, I always find that the best tracks are always the forest music and it's always the time where, as a composer, you always make the most prettiest and melodic, most melodic tracks. And then they always end up being the most favorite ones on the soundtrack as well. So it's kind of just a funny thing because the... I think every soundtrack that I've worked on the forest songs have ended up being the favorite one of it. So we'll see about that story is a little bit more different from other soundtracks, but it does have the forest level confirms. So we'll see how it goes.

Rebecca Gordius:
Yeah. I can definitely hear the forest level inspiration throughout the soundtrack. I am a former band geek myself, and so I love hearing the piano and the flute throughout, like it's really, really well done. I love the soundtrack. So thank you for that.

David Fenn:
Thanks.

Rebecca Gordius:
Speaking of forest levels, I am a little bit embarrassed to admit that the forest spirit took me a significantly longer time to defeat than I thought it would. Can you comment on just the games' difficulty level? I mean, it's interesting that there's no scale or anything. It's just the one difficulty. You just have to do it. I mean, what kind of... how was it to make that decision for you guys?

David Fenn:
So we certainly did want it to be fairly challenging and I would say more intent than challenging. We do want it so that every player will be able to, even if they do die initially or die a few times, then you will be able to overcome every challenge. It's not really intended to be something where you are just hitting a wall over and over again. And we thought that, I suppose it probably is a bit brutal in retrospect to put you up against the boss right at the start of the game. But I like to think that even if you do take a few tries at that, then once you've done that then that will set you up feeling super confident going into the rest of the game. Because you beat a boss at that point so you know you've got nothing to dread coming up, you know you have the ability to do it. So that was our goal. So yeah, other than that, I think as the game progressive, then we want you to have a bit of choice when it comes to what you're trying to take on, what you are attempting to do.

David Fenn:
So when you do come up to a Montessori boss in the game, then you will, if you are struggling then you will always have the option to go and explore more areas of the game to find more upgrades that might help you with it. Or just defeat more enemies or find more of the sole collectibles. There's always more things to find that can help you. So it's something where we feel like just through the organic method of play in the game, there are things that you can do to make it easier for yourself. And then on the other scale, then there is a optional achievement for completing the entire game using an umbrella as your only weapon, which is basically our way of saying this is our hard mode, but within the universe of the game. So yeah, I feel like we wanted to make it just one kind of core setting, but give you some player choice within that to hopefully cater to all playing styles and audiences.

Rebecca Gordius:
Yeah. I like that. It's nice. It's not just linear, so far I'm already having the option to kind of like come back and complete things when I'm a little bit stronger, perhaps. So yeah. I love the design of it so far. Yeah. I have a question though. I'm curious about the little flower guys. Is there any utility to them or am I just missing something with them?

David Fenn:
So the places where you would have encounted them so far, that's probably no utility. It's more just the detail that we wanted to put into it to bring the world to life. I will say without any spoilers that they do relate to the law of the game and the world and the story to an extent. But I think those forest spirits, they're one of the things that really get us excited as a studio, because it's like it's a nice idea, they have this really nice design where they have leafs which can form three different states. That can be A, either a poncho when they're relaxed or they can bloom into a flower when they're happy to see you, or they can hide their head in them entirely when they're scared and running away. So our concept artist made that design we thought that's so cool. It'd be so good to have these in the game and especially to behave dynamically, follow you around and then if you start attacking an enemy they'll get scared and run away.

David Fenn:
If you stay still they'll just run up to you and smile at you. And we wanted to include that in the game. It's the kind of thing where when you're scheduling and budgeting a game you're like, "Ah, that's not really essential to the gameplay." We knew that it'd be something hopefully that people appreciate and makes the worlds feel more alive. So we specifically went to great lengths to make sure we had that kind of detail in the game even when it wasn't really strictly necessary.

Rebecca Gordius:
Okay. Yeah. I can see that. It definitely makes the game feel more alive you have these little guys chasing you around and interacting, so I'll wait and I'll figure it out for myself.

David Fenn:
Sounds good.

Rebecca Gordius:
Well, so I'm curious, what's next for you and the team? Maybe a little bit of time off or?

David Fenn:
Yeah, that's definitely a fair question. And it's one that we're asking ourselves as well, because we don't really know yet. I would say that with Death's Door we did design it to be a complete package from day one. So it's not like we specifically had any more levels or anything that we planned a lot later and they're all like... there's a bunch of optional stuff in the game already and some post-game content as well. So hopefully that will... and everyone playing Death's Door will feel satisfied by the end of it. But we're pretty much in a state where we'll probably be working on some general patches as tends to be the case with games. But after that I'm sure we'll be taking a little holiday and then just... I don't know, we'll see what the reaction is, see what people seem to want from us next. So if anyone listening has any particular ideas feel free to just tweet us or something and let us know what you want to see from us next, because obviously we are really happy with Death's Door and we definitely plan to work on more games together. So we'll just have to decide as time goes on.

Rebecca Gordius:
Okay. Well, I'm glad it launched in time for you to enjoy the heat wave at least.

David Fenn:
Yeah.

Rebecca Gordius:
Okay. Well is there anything else that you wanted to add? Anything, maybe some tips for people who are jumping into the game this week, like me?

David Fenn:
Yeah. Sounds good. So I just thank you to everyone who has already messaged us about the receptions of the game, it has been a massive boost and such a big surprise just how people have responded to it. And yeah, we're definitely feeling really good here at Acid Nerve HQ. And then tips for a new player. I would say, although we've talked about the difficulty and we do want it to be intense, I would say not to be intimidated. The game does... it's not unforgiving. You can't actually lose anything when you die, you just have to respawn, you can't really mess up your save, you don't do the thing where you lose all your currency when you die and you have to go and find it again. And if you don't find it, you lose it all. So don't be intimidated. You can definitely do it. And yeah, just hope you enjoy the game.

Rebecca Gordius:
Awesome. Yeah, I totally agree. My roommate definitely heard me spewing a few profanities while I was trying it out yesterday. But overall the difficulty it's similar to other games in the genre. You just kind of have to keep going until you figure out the right rhythm. It's just a matter of figuring out the pattern and everything with melee. Anyway, so yeah, it's an awesome game. Congratulations again on launch. And thank you so much for joining us today.

David Fenn:
Thanks very much for having me.

Jeff Rubenstein:
So we are fresh off EA play 2021, and I've got to say, I did not see what was coming for Battlefield 2042. It's a complete rethinking of multiplayer shooters with their portal and well, to talk about what we should expect, Christian Grass, the general manager of Ripple Effects studios in LA is joining us. Thanks so much for taking some time out just after EA play.

Christian Grass:
Thanks for having me.

Jeff Rubenstein:
All right. So I think based on what we saw with the first reveal of Battlefield 2042 last month, kind of felt like we knew what to expect. We're Battlefield fans here on the show. It looked like a bigger Battlefield. I mean, I've used a levelution in a sentence before this look way beyond that, then Battlefield portal kind of changes everything. Can you tell us what you're doing or really what we're going to be able to do with Battlefield portal?

Christian Grass:
Yeah, so Battlefield portal is a community-driven experience that we've built with sort of the community in mind, with the community at the center. So it's a robust set of builder tools coupled with classic content from three of our most beloved experiences. So from Battlefield 1942, so all the way from the beginning of Battlefield:Bad Company two, and Battlefield three, and we have six maps from those three experiences, including weapon, gadgets, vehicles, and soldiers. You can take those and you can then mix and match those together, including the content that exists in Battlefield 2042, and you can set your own rules and create your own experiences. So it's a set of builder tools coupled with classic content that's Battlefield Portal. And it was sort of the inception of that Battlefield portal was this idea that we've had from the beginning of the project where we talked about a love letter to the community. We really wanted Battlefield 2042 to be a love letter to the community.

Christian Grass:
We kind of thought about what could that be? And this idea then came up of taking classic content, kind of recreate it in the latest version of Frostbite for the next generation of consoles. And then coupling that with the power to create your own experiences, which is something that we wanted to bring in to Battlefield for a very long time. It's something we used to have back in the day, the early days of Battlefield, through the mod support that existed, and finally, we've been able to bring that all together into Battlefield Portal that is a part of Battlefield 2042.

Jeff Rubenstein:
So some really interesting possibilities here. We just saw on that video a small group of future soldiers, four of them versus 32 players that will be taking on a 1940s era German squad. And then a different one where it was one tank versus 20 drones. Is it very interesting. We've seen some four V1 types of games before, but not ever, 32 versus four. So how do you balance that out so that everybody's having a good time?

Christian Grass:
Yeah, I mean, so at the center of this though, is the fact that it's community created, right? So there's a lot of super interesting, what if, scenarios that you can play around with, such as the 2042 soldiers fighting against a large number of World War 2 soldiers. And what we want to do is give that to the players, to create whatever experience they can come up with and the what if scenarios that they can think of. And there are ways for them to balance this by increasing health, reducing or increasing damage for one team, sits in a way in the hands of the players to try to make that experience balanced and fun. If we as developers, when we release new mods and new experiences, we will, of course, make sure that it's a fun, balanced experience. But what we're doing here, is we're giving the keys to the car, right? To the community to create their own things and to drive their own experiences.

Christian Grass:
And it's going to be up to them then to figure out a way to make this really fun, or maybe it doesn't have to be balanced, maybe it's just crazy, and you just go in and enjoy being the super powerful tank fighting the small box. And you just have a fun for why you laugh and then you move on, so it's in the hands of the community.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Now, I can only imagine you're going to see some... once you unleash this to the community, you're going to see some interesting combinations and meadows and stuff. I bet day one stuff that you didn't even think about, and that's what's awesome about handing over the keys to the car, to the community, as you said. How do you plan on surfacing the coolest stuff, so that lots of people get to play the most interesting stuff you're saying?

Christian Grass:
Yeah. So what we're going to do is, we're going to spotlight community created experiences. So when you go into the portal experience and you go to the community experience section, we'll have spotlighted community created experiences there. And our idea is to rotate that on a very frequent basis maybe every week. So that's going to be our way of curating the content and giving our community the greatest experiences, the greatest hits of what they're creating themselves. But then there's also going to be a system where the creators themselves are going to have a unique key or code that's associated with their experience, that they can then share onto their social media accounts and sort of within their own community to drive people to come and play what they have created. So those are two of the main ways for us to surface that.

Christian Grass:
And then of course, there's a third option to just look at everything that's been created, and we have a pretty robust tagging system, so you can filter things and find the experience that you want to play such as let's say, you're really into hardcore modes. So you want to then search on experiences that lack hard and things like that to find what you're after. But highlighting and spotlighting community experiences is going to be our main way of curating. [crosstalk 00:41:49].

Jeff Rubenstein:
So if you do something different on the Battlefield Portal, you're going to want to make sure you share that out there, get other people, be your own best advocate, I guess we'll be. So I saw an image, I don't know if you can throw that back up there, Larry, but there's a lot to choose from as far as elements to pull together. There it is. 13 maps to choose from, six classics and if we can go back to that first one, there we go. And then the new ones that are going to be in the larger mode that we had seen last month on All Out Warfare, then also 40 weapons, 30 gadgets, 40 vehicles, I love the vehicles, and you get to rank up everywhere. So there's a lot there. I'm curious how you bring that together. I think that next image really talks about it. So what is the actual structure? Where do you start when you want to start getting into this mod? This looks like programming, this looks like some cool stuff.

Christian Grass:
Yeah. This is a logic scripting system, we call it the logic editor. So this is the way for you to modify the rule sets, and it's really powerful. And our goal here has been to push as much power as we can into this tool. So that, like you were saying earlier, that people are going to create things that we couldn't even dream of. It is on a web platform as well, which means that you can create from anywhere, you're not restricted to using a controller for instance, on the console. And it also makes it very possible for us to work faster on iterating and adding more features and power to it. So that's the logic editor that has a lot of the power to change rules. But then there's also a lot of settings that you can modify, so you can set up like, "Oh, I want this mod to be World War 2 versus 2042."

Christian Grass:
So you just make that a setting and then you can go in and start shifting things around and such. I'll say, I want to remove iron sides because that didn't exist back in the day when Battlefield 1942 ship, so that shouldn't be available or you want to increase the damage of a weapon or increase the move speed of the soldiers. You're going to have all that in sliders and buttons that you can then tweak per team, so that's going to be the simpler way and the fast way of getting some different experiences going. And then you have the more advanced way of doing it through the logic editor and of course you can mix and match those two.

Jeff Rubenstein:
I would not be surprised if 10 years from now, someone says that you're going to be interviewing someone for a job over their Ripple Effect. And they're going to have gotten their start, programming and messing around with these mods of doing some cool stuff, and that's just... ah, I wish that existed when I was a kid. So what are some of the more interesting things we don't have a hold of this yet, but I'm sure people are having fun at the studio. So what are some of the more interesting combinations you've come up with? Whether they're just crazy or just anything jump out at you as like, I really hope you get to play this combo.

Christian Grass:
Yeah. There's one that's really interesting, it's not necessarily crazy, it's actually something that was just really, really fun. So we were doing a game jam at the studio three weeks ago, so we were playing around with our own tools to see what we could come up with. And one of our interns in the studio, he created this mod where everyone has a shotgun, the Saigon and movement speed is a fast paced experience. Movement speed is a bit increased, you're quick into action again and it was just so much fun. So everyone was playing that at the studio, having so much fun with that mod, he called It Saigonara which was a fun, witty name, I guess. So really fun experience. And it just showed it plays very, very differently from the All Out Warfare portion of the game and it was just pure kind of simple fun. And for our, of course, very talented intern to do that just over the course of a day or two with these tools, it just kind of blew me away.

Christian Grass:
And it made me just realize there's going to be so much things coming out of this, not just crazy things, not just these hypothetical, what if scenarios, but also really solid, good fun experiences that are going to be diversifying what's playable within Battlefield 2042.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Yeah, I hope they put that on the review for the end of the internship just so you know, I made the most fun mod in studio. So it sounds incredible, the full game of Battlefield 2042 comes out just about three months from now, October 22nd. Planning any way for people to get a whole play the game a little bit early, anything like that?

Christian Grass:
So there will be an open beta in September and if you pre-order Battlefield 2042, you'll get an early access to the open beta. So open beta in September.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Summer will be over before you know it, looking forward to getting into the beta and of course the final game on October 22nd. Christian Grass, the GM from Ripple Effects Studios. Thanks for joining us from LA, thanks for really sharing, again, one of the most interesting mods I've ever heard of with a shooter. I know we're going to be having fun with it and can't wait to see you on the Battlefield.

Christian Grass:
Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Larry Hryb:
There you go. Great new mod coming to Battlefield and thank you to Jeff for covering on that. And then Rebecca, thank you for giving us... for sucking up the time of 50% of the development studio, for Death's Door, great game now exclusive on Xbox. So thank you for that. Great interviews folks.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Thank you.

Rebecca Gordius:
Yeah, it was really awesome talking to David. I love geeking out about sound and music and games instead of talk to someone who composed such a beautiful score is pretty awesome.

Larry Hryb:
Well, you actually said something in the interview that I don't think people know, is that you played an instrument?

Jeff Rubenstein:
What?

Rebecca Gordius:
Yeah, I was in jazz band and symphonic band and marching band in middle school and high school.

Larry Hryb:
What did you play?

Rebecca Gordius:
So it was pretty cool.

Larry Hryb:
What instrument did you play?

Rebecca Gordius:
I played... so in marching band, I did Piccolo, which I kind of cheated, it was the smallest and the lightest so it was a good deal for me. [crosstalk 00:47:36]. In jazz band I did the tenor sax and jazz piano, but I wasn't very good at jazz piano that's why I learned how to play saxophone. And then Sophonic band I played flute.

Larry Hryb:
So you did the woodwinds and the reeds and the pianos and the keys? That's amazing.

Rebecca Gordius:
Well, [crosstalk 00:47:56] technically saxophone is also woodwind but no.

Jeff Rubenstein:
I don't know anything [crosstalk 00:48:00].

Larry Hryb:
The sax has a reed though.

Rebecca Gordius:
It has a reed, but it's still a woodwind.

Larry Hryb:
Okay. I didn't... Jeff did you know that?

Jeff Rubenstein:
Clearly not.

Larry Hryb:
Here's the [crosstalk 00:48:11] eternal pursuit question. Which one is both? I don't know.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Isn't it? Aren't they made out of... Isn't that a thing? I don't know.

Rebecca Gordius:
We can all Google it later [crosstalk 00:48:21] but I'm pretty positive. I spent a lot of time doing these things.

Jeff Rubenstein:
I'm not doubting you, I-

Larry Hryb:
I just... I didn't know.

Jeff Rubenstein:
...clearly know nothing. But you...

Larry Hryb:
That's the beauty of this show, is you never know what you're going to learn. And today we learned about not only Rebecca's musical talents, but also the fact that the saxophone doubles as both a brass and a woodwind.

Jeff Rubenstein:
It's a brass in my mind.

Rebecca Gordius:
It's not brass.

Jeff Rubenstein:
That might not be a thing.

Larry Hryb:
It's the saxophone episode. Anyway... by the way, do you have a saxophone? Could you blow us a little music sometimes? Or maybe the piccolo?

Rebecca Gordius:
I don't have a saxophone, but I do have a sad trombone to go with Jeff's brass comments [crosstalk 00:49:03].

Jeff Rubenstein:
I found an image here, and according to this, there's the percussion, which we know about, you'll have your drums and your piano and stuff like that. Then you'd have your string instruments-

Larry Hryb:
Violins, cello.

Jeff Rubenstein:
...guitar, harp, violin, whatever, base. [inaudible 00:49:22] wind, which apparently, and again, this is based on a very quick search and may not be the final word. They're also using Comic Sans in this image so perhaps...

Rebecca Gordius:
Sketch.

Jeff Rubenstein:
But they're broken into woodwind, which would include the flute and the Piccolo, and then brass, which they say is trumpet, French horn and that sad trombone that you played for me.

Larry Hryb:
Right? Because they've got the...

Rebecca Gordius:
Oh, the trombone. Yeah.

Larry Hryb:
They've got the mouth piece [crosstalk 00:49:50].

Rebecca Gordius:
But not a saxophone.

Larry Hryb:
But not a saxophone.

Rebecca Gordius:
Wait did you say sax?

Jeff Rubenstein:
It doesn't say what saxophone is, it left it out. So I think that [crosstalk 00:49:54].

Rebecca Gordius:
Yeah, the saxophone and-

Larry Hryb:
Is more jazz.

Rebecca Gordius:
...clarinet are both woodwinds. [crosstalk 00:50:00] Okay.

Larry Hryb:
Anyway, enough about that. Jeff, we've got some news before...

Rebecca Gordius:
I appreciate you trying to fact check me. [crosstalk 00:50:06]

Jeff Rubenstein:
I'm not trying to fact check you, I'm just trying to learn for myself, where would I come up with something so stupid? And obviously you're right.

Rebecca Gordius:
It's the same color, so it makes sense. It's the same color as a trombone and trumpet.

Larry Hryb:
Okay.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Now I learned something.

Larry Hryb:
The same color. There you go. We're color coding.

Rebecca Gordius:
Definitely.

Larry Hryb:
Speaking of color coding...

Rebecca Gordius:
Anyway. Sorry. News.

Larry Hryb:
Jeff, what do you got for news today? I know you got some headlines. So why don't you [crosstalk 00:50:31].

Jeff Rubenstein:
There's no debate that this is an amazing month for Xbox Game Pass subscribers, did I do that? Okay. So coming soon to Xbox game pass, we just announced this week, significant amount of games across the spectrum. And we've talked about Microsoft flight simulator. Game I really want to talk about is Cris Tales. So this is an RPG made in Colombia that they're calling a love letter to JRPGs, but let me tell you, first of all, incredibly unique visual style. How many games do you play that look like this? But what's really interesting is that you're playing in three different time windows in the same time. So there's this triangle, as you see there, in the middle is the present, to the right is the future and to the left is the past. And you can, during a battle punch an enemy into the future and they might be old and brittle, and then you can really kick their butt. Or you can send them perhaps back in time and they have not yet learned to master this weapon and so it can be easier. [crosstalk 00:51:35].

Larry Hryb:
Fascinating dynamic.

Jeff Rubenstein:
They might be better in the future than they are in the past and things like that. But even as you're walking through town, you're seeing there's... I saw one shot where it was, here's a woman in the present, she's pushing a stroller. In the past she doesn't have a kid, in the future, she's got a teenager walking with her. And it all happens in real time. And you're seeing sort of all three at once, which is... I just haven't seen games do this. There's games that have played with time where you're snapping back and forth. I think a great one that we always talk about with would be Titanfall 2, another one that we would talk about is the Clockwork mansion in Dishonored 2. Phenomenal level. But kind of more of an always on situation and I just think it's really awesome, it's part of Xbox Game Pass. Definitely try it out, It's called Cris Tales

Larry Hryb:
What was that Jeff? [crosstalk 00:52:28] Game Pass. I can download it right now if I'm a Game Pass subscriber?

Jeff Rubenstein:
Yes you can. [crosstalk 00:52:32]. Another game that I'm really interested in trying is Raji: An Ancient Epic, which you take on... I believe it's based on sort of an action game based on Indian mythology and so interested in trying that. Another one Last Stop, which is more of a narrative game, it's a third person adventure, takes place in London, in present day London. And I miss London, I love London. And that sounds really cool, there's some supernatural stuff, some classics, Blinx: The Time Sweeper, Crimson Skies.

Larry Hryb:
Oh, I love that one, that was one of the first ones to use the storage device, i.e, the hard drive on the original Xbox.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). So Crimson Skies, hybrid of events, for many people, their first ever live multiplayer game.

Larry Hryb:
Crimson Skies is a great, great, great one. Gosh, I remember that.

Jeff Rubenstein:
And then coming up next week, this is a game that a lot of people are looking forward to, we showed it for the first time last year and it garnered a lot of attention. Is The Ascent available on Xbox day one on cloud, console and PC, a co-op action shooter RPG. I'm going to be on vacation in the next couple of weeks, I'm planning on playing through with a friend, playing The Ascent, love to have you all join me. So that is a game that is... I'm very excited about. And one of the things we have a blog post up on this, and we talk about the games as the headliners, but don't forget there's always perks and DLC and discounts. There's discount on Minecraft minions DLC, there's discount on the new Echoing Void DLC that you were telling us all about last week, Rebecca. But also want to talk about a collection that's happening right now, there's a collection the 20 years of Xbox collection, which features a number of games throughout the history of Xbox that will bring you back, perhaps.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Like Fable anniversary, Banjo-Kazooie. But also newer stuff like Dirt five 5 and Battlefield 5, is now via the magic of EA Play is part of the collection there. As well, if you're an Xbox Game Pass ultimate member [crosstalk 00:54:38], the only thing you got to do is find the time to [crosstalk 00:54:40].

Rebecca Gordius:
Wow. 20 years.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Yeah. I know, right.

Larry Hryb:
Hey, Hey, I can hear you.

Jeff Rubenstein:
Fallout: New Vegas. All the gears games. There's a lot in this collection so there's so much in Xbox Game Pass that we have to sort it by different ways so things don't get lost

Larry Hryb:
Game Pass. Thank you Jeffrey. Those are the headlines for this week. It's been a busy week and the weeks ahead are even busier. You're not going to join us next week, Jeff has next week off so Rebecca, it's probably going to be you and I. I think I may bring a special guest, I'm working on it right now so stay tuned.

Rebecca Gordius:
Exciting.

Larry Hryb:
Assuming they're able to, we can get the contract work done, then there'll be here. Otherwise, it'll just be you and I, but stay tuned for that. But [crosstalk 00:55:24].

Jeff Rubenstein:
Top lawyers on the case.

Larry Hryb:
Top men and women. Top people on the case.

Rebecca Gordius:
Wait a second. Is it possible to get compensated for this? I feel like we needed to have a talk.

Larry Hryb:
Compensation is just the being here alone, it's just being here together. That's the fun.[crosstalk 00:55:41]

Jeff Rubenstein:
Rebecca is like, "You sure?"

Larry Hryb:
"Is that really... Is that the best?" Anyway. All right, gang. So Jeff, you have a good week off next week. Anything to wrap up before we...

Jeff Rubenstein:
And the week after [crosstalk 00:55:52].

Larry Hryb:
Are you taking your cues from Graham?

Jeff Rubenstein:
My annual leave. I just know that you're going to have Jason Ronald in here and I'm never coming back. It's what's going to happen.

Larry Hryb:
Well, that's not true. As far as [crosstalk 00:56:07].

Jeff Rubenstein:
There must be a Jr in this seat.

Larry Hryb:
Right. So There we go, in that box. In that box over there. So Rebecca, anything you want to share before we wrap up here and send people along their merry way?

Rebecca Gordius:
No, just one last push for Death's Door. Try it out. Let me know what you think.

Larry Hryb:
Try it out. Thank you very much. All right, gang. We'll see everybody next... Jeff, have a nice couple of weeks off. Rebecca, we'll see you next week and everybody else join us then. And thanks for watching. Bye. Bye everybody.