Delving into Diablo IV & Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty
Podcast Details
Hosts
Guests
Malik Prince
Guest Host
Transcript
LARRY HYRB: Games in this podcast range from E to M.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
LARRY HYRB: Hi, it's Larry Hryb, Xbox's "Major Nelson." Welcome to the official Xbox podcast. Thank you for liking, subscribing and doing your whole thing. The gang is here. I got Jeff over there on your left. And Malik-- Malik is sitting in this week for Rebecca. Malik, good to see you.
MALIK PRINCE: Good to see you. Good to be here. I just want to say that I made my bed for this episode. You can't see it. Nobody can see it, so I made it for no reason. But glad to be here.
LARRY HYRB: But you know what? It feels good. The fact that you know it is all that really matters. I appreciate you sharing that with us. Jeff, is your bed made?
MALIK PRINCE: I guess so.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I haven't made my bed since-- I don't know if I've ever made my bed. But the-- it's not in the shot, so that's all that matters. Larry, they let you back in. So you didn't--
LARRY HYRB: I am back-- to your point, Jeff--
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: No spiders brought back? No?
LARRY HYRB: No spi-- here's the most important thing. We went through, and Jeff, I was updating you real time on this one. I went down-- I was just back from Australia. I was down there last week for Showcase. We're going to talk about that in a minute. Because Malik, you were down in LA. I was down in Melbourne, we're going to talk about that.
I did a bunch of events at EB Games, which is still the thing down in Australia, which is owned by GameStop and thank you to everybody that showed up there. But, yeah, I'm back this week with-- I got to tell you, Jeff, have you been to-- Malik or Jeff, have you been to Australia?
MALIK PRINCE: No.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: No, sadly. It's-- but Jeff, I know you've been--
MALIK PRINCE: Everything I know about Australia has been informed by like, Crocodile Hunter and basically like, Nat Geo sort of things.
LARRY HYRB: And me.
MALIK PRINCE: And-- and you. And I heard it has good coffee. But all I know is the Outback. And I'm honestly petrified to go.
LARRY HYRB: I know.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I know Outback Steakhouse, if that counts.
LARRY HYRB: No, that does not.
MALIK PRINCE: Oh, yeah. Did you have a Blooming Onion? Or-- I'm sorry, how many Blooming Onions did you have? Did you bring me back--
LARRY HYRB: They're not even a thing there. But the long story short is the jet lag-- Jeff, I know you've done some travel to Asia-- is real. It is a little brutal right now. But I'm recovering. But I'm glad to be back. We've-- talk about the showcase, talk about some games we're playing.
We've got-- Malik, you're sitting in for Rebecca this week. So I figured, we've got to start with what you're playing. And then we'll go to Jeff, and then we'll finish up with me. So what's keeping you entertained this week, Malik?
MALIK PRINCE: Cool, yeah. So I've been playing The Quarry. If any-- if you're into narrative based games, this is a game that you're going to want to pick up. It's made by Supermassive Games. Huge pedigree in this genre, and definitely-- I'd say, The Quarry, if you're into like horror games, it's something that you want to pick up.
There's about 12 chapters. I'm on chapter 7, and I'm just sucked in. I'm enthralled with the story. I will say that the writing is amazing. Everything is great. I will say the one thing that is a little jarring is some of the decision making processes of some of the teens in the game.
A bunch of teens-- if you didn't know, spoiler free-- who are going off to this camp to be counselors-in-training, and things kind of go south from there.
LARRY HYRB: What could possibly go wrong?
MALIK PRINCE: What could possibly ever go wrong with that? But I think that it is one of those games where you have to suspend your disbelief a little bit. Because some of the decisions that they make aren't like the super smartest. Like it's not the best. It's like, I heard a noise, let me go check and see what that is.
LARRY HYRB: That's a typical horror movie.
MALIK PRINCE: Yeah, it's definitely one of those.
LARRY HYRB: It's a horror movie. No one ever makes great decisions in those movies.
MALIK PRINCE: It wouldn't be fun that way, right? It wouldn't be fun that way. But I will say that it's gotten a few scares out of me, which is actually really tough to do. And so, highly recommend anyone who is interested in the game go check it out. It's getting great reviews, by the way.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: It's the team that made Until Dawn. And so they-- like, I don't want to say they invented this type of interactive horror game, but they might have perfected this particular version of it. And I think that's why people are--
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
LARRY HYRB: They're doing it better than almost anybody else.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah. And they have-- is it Brenda Song? Is she in this?
MALIK PRINCE: Brenda Song is in the game, yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah.
MALIK PRINCE: And I will say, to that point, to that point, Brenda Song is one of the most recognizable faces in that game, for sure. But they're all like, actors who have been in film and TV shows. And you can see their likeness.
And I guess to that point, I mentioned it really briefly, but the facial animations and the character models-- it's like what you saw 10 years ago that you didn't believe was possible in a video game. It is so impressive-- I'm playing on a Series X in 4K-- it is absolutely stunning in a way that I didn't think video games could get. And so, I highly recommend. If you only want to play it--
LARRY HYRB: That says a lot--
MALIK PRINCE: --for the graphics alone--
LARRY HYRB: --because you've played a lot of games.
MALIK PRINCE: --you'll be blown away.
LARRY HYRB: You've played a lot of games, haven't you?
MALIK PRINCE: I can't tell if that's sarcasm or not. I mean, I played a lot. I feel like I've played a lot. But I've only played a single game for the past few years, which is APEX. But not this week-- all about The Quarry. Fall Guys is another game. I don't know if we want to hold off on that, but--
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: OK how about this, how about this? Everybody with a crown, please raise their hand.
MALIK PRINCE: OK.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: No? Oh, 2 out of 3.
LARRY HYRB: Is this what we're doing?
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I would just-- I honestly wanted to know. It was an honest question. What Larry has is a great head of hair. And you know what? That's worth more than any crown.
MALIK PRINCE: I would say so.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I would--
MALIK PRINCE: I thought you all are playing together. And I thought I saw a clip of you-- maybe Jeff, of you getting a crown. But were you not-- what's going on?
LARRY HYRB: Now you're just playing into it, Malik. Now you're just playing into it. So let's-- tell us about your Fall Guys experience. And then we'll talk about ours.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah
MALIK PRINCE: OK, perfect. So Fall Guys came out just now, like recently, and I loved it. I've loved watching people play the game until this point, but I haven't played it myself. And so last night was the first time that I've ever played the game. And appropriately, much like any game that requires-- that is a competitive game, I am terrible at it.
But I will say that I feel like I'm learning. I'm picking up-- the folks who have played the game for a long time know the courses, they know all the strategies, like diving and grabbing onto people. Thanks to my teammates, we played the squads, the four player squad mode.
So I wouldn't say that I'm the one who is responsible for me getting the crown, but I have one, nonetheless. And so, I'll take it. And that's what's going to be my legacy. But I'm going to get better at the game.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Well, I got carried in my first victory royale. I got carried in my first Apex win. You're just going to build from here. You're going to build from here.
MALIK PRINCE: That's right. OK, I appreciate that optimism.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Larry?
LARRY HYRB: Well, Malik, first of all, thank you for sharing that. Fall Guys, now available, free to play on Xbox, so go check it out. Jeff and I played last night with Phil Spencer. Jeff was-- Jeff texted me like, hey, do you want to check out Fall Guys? I'm like, yeah. It's a quick download, by the way, so you can just download it like that.
And so I downloaded it. And I hadn't really played, so I start up a party. I invite Jeff, and he's finishing up a game by himself. He's going through, and I said, all right, I haven't really played it yet. There's not really a tutorial, per se. Jeff, to your point, it's like it's--
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Jump in there.
LARRY HYRB: --it's A and X, and that's pretty much it.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Basically.
LARRY HYRB: So Jeff's playing his game, and I'm sitting in the party, just kind of waiting. And Phil Spencer sends me a party invite. So I'm like, hey, Jeff, let me go over. Phil's playing.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: You have to accept that, by the way.
LARRY HYRB: Yeah, that's-- like, that's kind of the protocol in gaming-- when the CEO of gaming sends you a party invite, you have to accept it. So I go over there and bring Jeff with me. We're all sitting there. Jeff finishes up, and so we all decide we're going to play together.
So we go in there, and Jeff is now-- Jeff, you were running the game.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I was. And I probably did it wrong. So I threw us in a solo queue. So all three of us were in the same game, but we were running individually. And so we were rooting for each other. But at the same time, we're still competing.
And that's why I'm very interested in how the squads works, because I saw you run as a squad. And that's what we need to do next time. But-- well anyway, long story short, somehow, I managed-- I managed to win in the final round.
And here's the thing I would say about this game. I was in like, I think there's what, 14 people in the final round? And 10 seconds out, I was probably in 13th place. And somehow, just at the end-- go on, Larry go.
LARRY HYRB: You go ahead and you had the-- you put the video up, and I grabbed it here. You put it up on Twitter, and I retweeted it as well. But here's what went down, Malik. Take a look at this. So here he is. See these couple of white--
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Look at my noob skin!
LARRY HYRB: 5-4.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah. Yeah, I have one skin unlocked.
LARRY HYRB: Now, look. That guy is going to grab it, but he doesn't know what to do!
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: He's waiting for it to come! And I'm like, nope. I'll take it. I yoinked that crown. And--
LARRY HYRB: Completely Bogarts it, completely. Here's the thing--
MALIK PRINCE: Did you pay that guy off? That person off?
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: No! He--
MALIK PRINCE: I don't know.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Like, I don't know what happened. What I do know is I got it. And what I also know is the sound of just unbridled joy that I screamed out into the microphone was probably too much. And then I was like, wait a second. Phil is in this party.
LARRY HYRB: So, yeah. We had a great time playing. Unfortunately, like you just saw, Jeff won the crown. But Malik, now, you said--
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Unfortunately?
LARRY HYRB: --when you played as the squad--
[LAUGHTER]
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I didn't get it.
LARRY HYRB: But Malik, tell us how the squads work. Did everybody get a crowd in the squad? Or how does that work?
MALIK PRINCE: You know, I sure hope that's the case. Because I certainly wasn't the reason that the team won, like I mentioned. But yeah, so basically with squads, I believe there's still 60 players. So the math is 15? So there's 15 squads that start off. And just like in the solo kind of queue, teams will get eliminated.
It tells you how many teams need to qualify and how many teams will be dropped. And basically, the performance is-- I guess it's a bunch of your performances. So everyone gets their own individual score, and they get a number attached that, based off of where they placed.
And then at the end of the round, it'll add up everyone's cumulative score. And based off of that is whether or not you move on. Because there were definitely some of the-- I guess the maps, where I did not finish it, because I couldn't make a jump. And for some reason, I couldn't get the "hold on" mechanic down, and so there were some where I didn't finish. But our team did move on because my teammates were just so much better than I was.
LARRY HYRB: Well, if you need any help with that "hold on" mechanic, clearly, you can-- clearly, Jeff knows how to use it because he just held on to that crown and stole it from that other being.
MALIK PRINCE: Took it. Yeah.
LARRY HYRB: You know, Phil talks about playing games. And he plays a lot of games. We were talking last night. As we were getting ready to set up, he was telling us about-- and I don't think he would mind me telling this story-- he's telling us about how he finished Elden Ring and his daughter is now playing Elden Ring. And he's helping his daughter through it. So game-- what do you see from Phil is exactly what you get. And it's fantastic.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I downloaded multiple times. He was like, have you checked out Trek to Yomi, Jeff? And I was like, no. And I was like, I've heard a couple people talking. He's like, you got to play it. You'll love the way it-- it looks amazing. There's nothing that looks like this.
And we were talking. And I'm sitting there like, downloading-- he's giving me recommendations. And I'm like, how does he have the time to run the company, and then also try all these different games? But like you said--
LARRY HYRB: We should be suggesting games to him. It was embarrassing.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: That's it! And I was like, what do I got? What kind of like, obscure recommendation do I have for him that he hasn't played yet? And the answer was, there was little that I could add to the conversation, other than to download it. And it's waiting for me. I'll play tonight.
LARRY HYRB: So one of the other games we were playing-- and I actually played it with Phil a few weeks ago, it's on Game Pass-- is Sniper Elite 5. A couple of weeks ago, I started playing it. And again, Phil sends me a party invite. So I take it. And I go in, and he's like, hey, do you want to do-- it's like a horde mode.
So we had a couple of people from the community, and we were playing that. And it was a lot of fun-- this was before I went to Australia. So I got back, and I said, Jeff, we have to play this. So we-- Jeff and I had played, I think Sniper Elite 4. And played it-- I played one level and had some fun.
So we get into Sniper Elite 5. And I don't know, Malik, if you've played it. You should play it and download it. But this game is a lot of fun. It's an open sandbox. You have a series of objectives to complete. You can go loud, you can go stealth.
Jeff and I are playing it. And I think I had hosted the game and I had set up the game. And there was-- one of the options was-- which we turned on-- was "allow Axis invasion." And what that is, Malik, is-- you're playing on the Allies side, and the Axis is the Nazis, in this case.
And somebody, a real player, joins the game as a sniper on the Nazi team, on the Axis. So you've got the NPCs, and you kind of figure out what the NPCs--
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: They're not very smart. Yeah.
MALIK PRINCE: Right of course. They never are.
LARRY HYRB: Now we've got a real player, and we don't know where they are. We have no idea what's going on, except this particular level. Jeff and I are clearing out this barn. And I walk over and there's this box on the wall. And it says, "reveal Axis invader position."
So I was like, yes! So I clicked the button. And it showed like this little circle on the map where they were last seen. So it wasn't real time. It was like, this is where they were last seen-- which was fairly close to us, wasn't it, Jeff?
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, we realized they were flanking us. And so we were like-- because we assumed, oh, maybe they're going to stay near the objective and just snipe us as we're coming in. And instead, they got aggressive and came around. And it totally, totally rattled us. We broke stealth. We started just like shooting at phantoms.
But in the end-- it was kind of reminding me almost of like MGS3. There's like that very famous sniper versus sniper boss battle. And so it's like, who wants to move? I'm holding perfectly still. Like, you don't want to reveal your spa-- and then, we see them crouch walking through-- like, in the distance. It's like, Larry, go! Because there wasn't like--
LARRY HYRB: I went one way, Jeff went the other.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And eventually, we did get the drop on them and we took them out.
LARRY HYRB: Well, wait a minute. Once again, once again, Jeff got the drop on them.
MALIK PRINCE: Uh-oh!
LARRY HYRB: And Jeff got the achievement. So I didn't get anything.
MALIK PRINCE: Credit where credit is due.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Thank you, I appreciate it. But it was a team effort. You were the bait.
LARRY HYRB: Yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And we needed the bait. It took that. And then we went through and we just went loud the whole way through after that. And I think we took out every Nazi within most of the Western Front in that level-- not the way you're supposed to play it--
LARRY HYRB: Within four clicks of the Chateau.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Oh, my God. But yeah, anyway. Good time. I'd say playing it in co-op just adds-- it's having-- because oftentimes, there's no safe spot. So you might set up in a place, and you're like, I think this is safe. I can take foes out at a distance. But inevitably, nope, there's a way behind that they can get behind you. And having that second player really, really helps out. You had to rez me at least once, Larry.
LARRY HYRB: That was your own-- that's because, if you remember correctly, you shot the engine, the engine blew up and you were too close.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yes.
LARRY HYRB: Misjudgment, let's say.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: It wasn't clean. But it was-- the ends justify the means, I think, in this case.
MALIK PRINCE: You got the W. That's all that matters.
LARRY HYRB: So anyway, Sniper Elite 5. It's on Game Pass, check it out. If you have a friend who has Game Pass, tell them to download it and try it out together. It's a really nice co-op experience, and there's lots of different ways to-- it's an open sandbox. So you can achieve your objectives, the objectives, any particular way. And it'll pop up other objectives along the way. And we did pretty good with that, didn't we, Jeff?
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: We did, we did, we did. One other thing I just want to-- one other game I ended up playing quite a lot--
LARRY HYRB: Yeah, let's go to what you're playing.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I think that I played more new games this week than, I think, in a number of weeks. You tweeted at me last week that it was Kiryu-san's birthday. And it reminded me that I've been holding a couple of Yakuza games in reserve. I know-- I love them so much. I've played 8 or 9 of them, if you include Judgment, in the last two years.
And I know I love them so much that I don't want to speed through them. It's sort of like when you get to the end of, or towards the end of a book you really love, you kind of slow down a little bit to sort of preserve it.
LARRY HYRB: You want to savor it.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So I saved Yakuza 5 and 6. I haven't done them. I've done 7 and I've done 0 through 4, I guess, into this point. So I started Yakuza 5. So a big chunk of it takes place in Sapporo, which is the first time that they had gone-- they had been in Tokyo, they've been down in Kansai-- of course, the name is escaping me right now-- Osaka.
And all the way down into the islands, and then you're in Fukuoka, which is in the South. Japan is a huge country. You think, oh, it's just a couple of islands. But it really extends thousands of miles. But I've been to Sapporo. And there's places where I'm like, I've been down this alley.
Or I've been at this intersection where there's this really cool Nikka Whisky classic sign-- and it's there! And so it was just really cool to see that. So I think it's a very long game and maybe 40% of the way through.
LARRY HYRB: Do you have any photos that you took when you were there that you can go find it in game and do the side by side?
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I hadn't played the game at that time. So I don't think I did that. But now-- actually, I really want to go back to Japan so I can do that. I can take a picture in front of this-- at least famous in the game-- landmark. Because they really did capture, in some cases, actual buildings, especially if you're playing like Judgment, Lost Judgment.
I've gone through Google Maps and the Street View, and it's like, no, that building is really there. They might have changed the name of the bar or whatever, but there's a bar there. There's really a beef bowl shop there. There's really a ampm or something there.
LARRY HYRB: All right, well thank you for that, Jeff. We've got a little bit of news to cover. And then we've got some interviews. Jeff, you had a lot of interviews this week, you were busy. So why don't I have you kick into the news, and then I'll get us into the interviews. What do you got for news over there, friend?
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Sure thing. So let's talk about games that are coming this week to Xbox Game Pass. So a few things-- you know I love a good tactical RPG. And the Shadow Run trilogy is out this week. These are critically acclaimed, three different games from Shadow Run. And you get to really role play and make big impacts on the decisions that you make.
But then when you go into battle, it's a tactical RPG. So if you love the strategy, if you love different ways to play and that challenging strat, definitely want to check these out. Three games, all in one, as part of the Shadow Run trilogy.
On PC, we have Total War; Three Kingdoms, which is a strategy-- the strategy series is Total War. We've seen quite a few of these. But Three Kingdoms takes place in ancient China. If you've played any of these Musou games, then you're probably familiar with the Three Kingdoms era, but you've never played it quite like this.
FIFA 22 is out by the time you hear this. If you're an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate member, you can play it on console and PC. Through the magic of EA Play, it is now in the vault. Two other games-- well, one that will be next week, which is Far Cry 5. We had a great time with Far Cry 5. Larry, we've talked about punching cows in co-op more than once. If you've never played Far Cry 5, big fan of that one.
And then another very interesting battle royale title called Naraka-- Bladepoint, which just came out this week. Actually, it comes out after we film this, but before you've listened to it. So this is something I'm very interested in. It is a battle royale that is focused on martial arts and melee combat, as opposed to being a shooter or being a platformer type of situation, as you've seen with Fall Guys.
So this game came out on PC, I want to say, last year. Over 10 million people have played it. First on console on Xbox, and it's part of Game Pass.
LARRY HYRB: Day one with Game Pass, Jeff!
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So I'm very excited for this. And I really want to see-- you can customize the heroes. It just looks really interesting, a lot of interesting mobility with grappling hooks and stuff. So I plan to talk about that next week. And then, of course, there's just some recently released stuff. People have been talking about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles; Shredder's Revenge, as being potentially one of the games of the year.
LARRY HYRB: I have one.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: You have one? You have one, what?
LARRY HYRB: An update.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Oh, please. Please go.
LARRY HYRB: Yeah, one of the games that I played a lot of last year-- Deliver Us The Moon. It's now fully remastered for Xbox Series X and S in 4K. And it's got next gen features. And the best part is, if you own it, upgrade free. So I'm really excited about that one. I'm going to check that one out.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Very good. That's definitely your type of game. So I want to issue quickly a congratulations to the folks who produced Power On; The Story of Xbox. So for the 20th anniversary of Xbox last fall, we released a three part documentary on the history-- was three part or four part? I think it was three part.
LARRY HYRB: Six part, it was six part.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Six part-- so it was only off by all of it. But I watched it all. I thought it was very enjoyable. They've yet to sell-- it was six parts and it felt like three because it went by so fast. Well anyway, they won an Emmy, which is amazing!
So congrats to that team. And if you haven't seen it, definitely, if you want to know where all of this comes from, it's a really cool watch. And it was fun to watch with the family and to see how the place where we work at came to be, because it's really quite a tale. So Power On; The Story of Xbox, congrats to the team that made that.
And lastly, one of the best parts of Summer Games Fest, E3's of yore, I would say the GDC-- Game Developers Conference-- is getting to play things that aren't out yet. And something that the ID@Xbox team, our independent team, they've been working to replicate that for you at home.
And so right now, we are in the midst of the ID@Xbox Summer Game Fest Demo Event. So some of the games that you might have been hearing about from these play days that was for creators and for media, you can now begin downloading and playing these same demos at home.
There's 35 different game demos that you can play right now. One of the ones that people were really excited about was Metal; Hellsinger, which is an FPS, very metal and has actual heavy metal tunes, licensed tunes. But you end up-- it's sort of a rhythm game at the same time.
And so you actually want to be on the beat. And it changes the way you think when you're playing this. And this is a game that a lot of people are talking about. You can play that exact demo at home now. That one's called Metal; Hellsinger.
But like I said, over 35 different demos. So I would say, show the ID@Xbox team that you love having this early access by playing these games. So they're there now. Try them out. And if anything jumps out at you, we would love to hear it.
LARRY HYRB: All right, we've got some great interviews here. Jeff, you were busy this week. First, we catch up with Rod Ferguson. He's going to talk about Diablo IV. We saw him in the Xbox Bethesda Game Showcase last week. He's going to tell us a little bit more about that.
And then Jeff is going to talk to Emmanuel Rodriguez, who is the community manager for Team Ninja, about Wo Long; Fallen Dynasty. Check it out.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: At the recent Xbox and Bethesda Showcase, we showed over 30 games that you're going to be able to play coming up in the next 12 months or so. And I got to tell you, I listen-- as part of my job, I listen to all the podcasts, all the recaps, and people talking about what they like and the things that resonate with them. And in every single one of them, Diablo IV was brought up.
And if I had a podcast, I also would have had Diablo IV on this list. And that's why I'm absolutely thrilled to be bringing on Rod Ferguson-- a familiar face here on the Xbox podcast. It's just great to see you. How are you feeling after really, this huge reveal of Diablo IV a couple of weeks ago?
ROD FERGUSON: Yeah, very excited, very excited. There's so much going in to being able to announce the fifth and final class-- we're bringing the Necromancer back. And then be able to showcase the team, and showcase the team talking about the game, and really letting everybody know what Diablo is all about. So it was a great moment.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So you are the general manager of the Diablo franchise. What does that mean?
ROD FERGUSON: [LAUGHS] It basically means I oversee everything in the franchise. So whether it's Diablo II; Resurrected, Diablo III, Diablo Immortal, Diablo IV-- those all kind of roll up to me. And so I oversee the entire franchise.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So when you joined Activision Blizzard, I know you had been a Diablo fan for a long time, even when you were the major domo of the Gears franchise. And was there something when you came in where you said, all right, now that I'm the GM of this franchise, this has got to change, or this is something that I want to know, why is this like this? Was there something like that, where you were like, this is the first thing I want to find out?
ROD FERGUSON: There's a couple. I mean, one of them, unfortunately, I wasn't able to get that change to happen. So I don't really want to talk about it, because it's disappointing to me. But yeah, it was kind of interesting to get to talk to people who have been making the game that I love for so long, getting to meet people who have been on Diablo III and even going back to Diablo II.
So to me, it was just to be able to listen to the stories and understand how the game got created. And it has been a favorite of mine for a long time. You'll see, if you watch in my goodbye video at the Coalition, they even had me saying, oh, I got my Diablo III for my Switch for the plane ride, and highlighting that. So it was kinda funny.
But it was interesting, because when I started, we only had eight days on campus before COVID fully kicked in. And so I basically got to walk around for a week and then, everybody go home and work from home. So it's been a really interesting couple of years-- like 2 and 1/2 years now-- where it's basically been remote the whole time.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So I'm glad you brought up Switch, because I had written down-- I was like, I've bought Diablo III on three different platforms. I bought it on PC the day it came out. I ended up getting it on PS3 10 plus years ago. Got it on Xbox One, the Ultimate Evil Edition, I want to say, where I probably spent the most time.
And then I did. I got it on Switch when it came out, because it was actually a really great way to play the game. So I'm very familiar with Diablo III. But then when I saw Diablo IV, when you're really looking at this footage, this is a big jump. So what have you been able to do? What has new technology enabled you to really do to change this? Yes, it's top down, it's isometric. But it just seems a really big jump, at least visually.
ROD FERGUSON: Yeah, definitely, visuals is a big part of it. When you look at what you can do now, in terms of the fact that this is a big open world is a big part of this, right? Because what we talk about when we talk about Diablo-- really, Diablo IV-- is really, it's about player choice.
The things that we're doing now, where before, maybe you had an iconic character-- like in Diablo III, there was like one male barbarian and one female barbarian. Well now, in Diablo IV, you can make it look however you want to look, you can have your own back story for that. And the same thing for-- there's a whole new set of skills. And so you can choose how you want to play, what builds you want to play.
And then there's like, do you want to play solo? Or do you want to play with friends? Or do you want to play-- it's a non-linear story in an open world. So you can go and explore and do the things you want to do. And so really, what that technology is really doing is really providing for that choice. And so that you get it.
So the obvious thing, obviously, is the visuals. But the fact that you have that shared open world you can go out into and that you can have this non-linear story and you can have these real time cinematics, which I think is really great. Because whenever you cut to a pre rendered cinematic, you'd lose the character, right? Because you don't know what the character that the player made.
And now, in Diablo IV, we have real time cinematics. So your character can actually be in those scenes, and it'll make it even more immersive.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So a couple of different things to touch on there. You hit quite a few points. So talking-- let's talk about playing with your friends. Look, you land the sound bites. You hit it all in one sentence. We've got a little more time here.
ROD FERGUSON: It's a big game. There's a lot to talk about.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Sure. So let's talk about playing with friends. I would say like my favorite time with Diablo, maybe ever, was in that Ultimate Evil Edition on Xbox One, where I'm playing with Larry, I'm playing with a few other folks that are on this podcast. And we're at vastly different levels, and yet, it seemed like we all were able to contribute.
It wasn't something where it's like, oh, you're level 1, I'm level 99. You're going to get one-hit by everything. There was a really great balance of that. But it seems like you're expanding out. So there's couch co-op, I believe was announced.
ROD FERGUSON: Yep, that's two player.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: OK, which is a fun way to play. But then also, we'll be able to play across different generations as well, is that correct?
ROD FERGUSON: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You'll be able to play across-- its full cross plays, so you'll be able to play across generationally, and you'll also be able to play across ecosystems, if you will. So you can play PlayStation to Xbox, Xbox to PC-- mix and match however you want to. And so it's not only cross-play, but also cross progression, so that you can be playing on your PC at work-- maybe don't tell the boss.
But then you get home and then you can fire it up on your console and sit there in front of your glorious TV and surround sound and be able to pick up right where you left off. So yeah, you'll be able to intermix however you want. And that means also that when you're playing with your friends, if you have a friend who's a PC player only, you can play with them on your Xbox and those sorts of things.
So yeah, it's great to be able to allow that connectivity for players that they haven't really been able to have before. Because I'm the same way as you. I own Diablo III on every platform. And part of it is I wanted to have mobility, or I wanted to have-- there was a certain situation I wanted to play a certain way.
But also, it's then like, oh, my friends are playing on PC. I have to get it on PC. Oh, my friends are playing on Xbox. I have to get it on Xbox. And so this now, you don't have to do that. You can play where you want to play.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah. I think that's one of those things where people go, oh, yeah. Cross-play, cross-progression-- yeah, of course, of course. But I think it is really kind of life changing, especially considering how long you all tend to support these games.
And let's talk about that. You talked about endgame in depth here a couple of weeks ago during the Xbox and Bethesda Showcase. So for those who finish the story mode, what do they have to really look forward to?
ROD FERGUSON: Oh a lot. I mean, that's one of the big things that we're really excited about with Diablo IV, that it's going to be a game that launches with an end game there and waiting for players to finish the campaign. You know, in Diablo III, it wasn't really there at launch.
But for Diablo IV, there's a whole bunch of features that are available once you finish the story. There's the notion of Nightmare Dungeons. So you get these sigils that you can find while you're playing. And they're basically keys to these dungeons that will give you extra loot and extra difficulty. And you can kind of work your way up into harder and harder Nightmare Dungeons.
And the Dungeons will change with modifiers and the loot will change based on certain situations. So you can kind of actually target what you're going after. So the Nightmare Dungeons is a part of it. There's these things called Whispers-- essentially there's a story construct called the Tree of Whispers. And basically, you make a deal with the Tree of Whispers. And there's an unfortunate end when you break your contract.
And so the Tree basically hires people to go and collect for them. And so that's kind of a bounty system that you can go in and fulfill these contracts for the Tree of Whispers. And so you can also level up going through bounties and also target different-- again, targeting what you're trying to look for your loot.
There's PVP, which is going to be-- we have world PVP. So you can go out into the world. And there's these particular areas we call the Fields of Hatred. They've basically been corrupted by Mephisto. And so you go into those. You get this-- you rage at other players. And you opt in. You go in and immediately get attacked-- you have to opt into it.
And when you opt into it, then you basically, as you're starting to fight other players-- and there's little monsters in there and still things like local events. But you start to collect those PVP currency that then you can turn into loot-- if you can survive. Because the more of it you start to collect, the more known you get to become.
And so people start realizing, oh, there's a person out there who's got a lot of this currency on them. They're being very successful in PVP. Maybe I should go in and attack them. So there's a bunch of different things. And then as we look at how we want to expand into things like would expect with seasons, and even story driven expansions, there's a lot for players to expect in supporting. For us, it'll be supporting Diablo IV for years to come.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So I've been getting into Diablo Immortal for the past couple of weeks. And one of the things jumped out at me as just really resonating with me is seeing other people running around, and occasionally helping out. And it just makes the world feel a lot more alive. And is that something socially, you'll be bringing with Diablo IV?
ROD FERGUSON: Yeah, it's a shared open world. But there's certain aspects of it where you don't want it to be shared. There are certain story moments where you want to have it as your moment. And strongholds are one of those things. Strongholds are in the open world, there are these camps, if you will, where there's some infestation of demons or infestation of evil.
And so you go, and when you go into it, it becomes your event to deal with. But once you defeat them, that stronghold gets converted over to a public space, where now it's a town or it's a dungeon entry or another waypoint that you can teleport between. But that becomes available to the shared open world.
So you have these moments where you're in a story based dungeon, which is just for you and your party. And you can have that as a solo experience. But then when you're out in the open world, you can be in social spaces and you can have these local events where you can meet people walking by and fight the local event.
Or go even bigger with the world boss, which is going to be this giant boss that is meant to take on multiple parties at the same time. And you can all come together and fight them as a group for great rewards.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, but it won't always be about-- oh, go on, please.
ROD FERGUSON: No, no. I just wanted to say-- but one of the things is that sometimes a lot of the Diablo players are also solo players. And whenever they hear things like "shared open world" or all the social aspects, they were nervous about what it means to them, as a player. But it really is-- you can play completely as solo, if you want to.
The fact that there are going to be adventurers running by you occasionally or adventurers helping you beat a local event or a world boss, that's just additive. But you can play the whole story solo if you want to.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Very cool. Again, goes back goes back to player choice, as you said earlier.
ROD FERGUSON: Right.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So we've got the Necromancer up here, revealed a couple of weeks ago. It's a fifth class for Diablo IV. We've seen-- actually, I love the Necromancer in D3. I like running around with a menagerie of beasts and having them and doing all kinds of stuff for you. [LAUGHS]
ROD FERGUSON: I'm a manager. So I just like having people to delegate my work to. So if you could just go-- like, go fight that monster and let me know what loot you get to bring back. That'd be great, yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So with the Necromancer-- or if you think to Barbarian, we've had Barbarians going way back and Mage-- how do you think about evolving them? Because there are certain things people are used to doing. But again, there's player choice here, both in terms how they look like, and how you want to build your character. But what was something where you're like, OK, here's how we're going to make these classes feel different?
ROD FERGUSON: Yeah. I think there's a lot there, in terms of the way that they've changed the skill tree, the way their skill tree works. Also, there's a new paragon system. So when you play-- like in Diablo III, paragon is basically just adding points to a meter on certain things-- I want more armor or I want more health or I want more movement speed.
But now paragon is a whole new system where you have these paragon boards where you can plot your path through it-- almost a moving across a checkerboard, where you can pick different squares to accomplish different goals. You can go, oh, this square up here will give me a boost to this skill. I'm going to work my way there by taking more strength and those sorts of things.
And then, you can actually rotate those boards to pick-- like you can add boards together to make an even longer path. So the paragon system is really rich. But the thing that really is interesting-- I'm hard core. Like, I love-- Necromancer as a character is kind of what I main. And so when I saw what the team had come with, which is this notion around every class is going to have a unique special ability that is going to be just their own.
It's not just about the skill tree and the paragon board. Every class is going to have a unique thing. And for the Necromancer, it's a thing called The Book of the Dead. And what the Book of the Dead allows you to do is it allows you to customize your experience in your summoning army or your minion army, if you will.
And so not only can you say like, oh, I want skeletons. You can say, oh, I want a particular type of warrior skeleton. I want ones that are aggressive or ones that are defensive and are protecting me or ones are basically reapers that go out and create corpses for me as raw materials for my corpse explosion, or what have you.
And then you have mages. And you can pick, do I want frost mages or do I want dark magic mages, and those sorts of things. And so you pick that kind of experience with what you want. And then there's even your golems, like which are the three golems do I want to have? And then you can intermix those.
And what's really cool is that on top of being able to say, here's my play style and here's my configuration of my army, you can actually choose to sacrifice them and gain a different ability. So if you don't want to have skeletons or you don't want golems, you can actually sacrifice them, lose the ability to summon them, but you gain different abilities and become a more powerful individual.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So Rod, this will be the last question here. I will say, it warmed my heart to see you up on stage, on stage but in a prime role in the Xbox and Bethesda Showcase. But you've been working on Diablo now for a whole pandemic, a couple of years and change now.
ROD FERGUSON: Exactly.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: What's been your favorite thing, working on this legendary franchise?
ROD FERGUSON: Oh. There's a bunch of different things there. It's around the people and the teams. There's phenomenal people at Blizzard and phenomenal people within the Diablo franchise. And it's a real honor and a privilege to get to work with them every day, even though it's through a Zoom screen most of the time.
And then the games themselves-- like the idea that-- we do a lot of internal testing. That's one of the things we do. And I really love is that we get to play the entire game, from prologue to epilogue, we have builds that we just take home.
And what's great with the pandemic is that's all been accelerated. So I can play a test build on a retail Xbox. And so I can be sitting there in my living room and my big TV, playing Diablo IV, alpha whatever. And being able to do that as the way to just to play something that you love to play and be able to work on and talk about and test-- it's that "do what you love and you never work a day in your life" kind of thing.
And that's what working on the Diablo franchise feels like. Felt like that for me for Gears, but it also feels like that for me in Diablo, that opportunity to be in a world and on a franchise that I love to be in. And then to work with super talented people that are passionate about what they do, it's just the cherry on top.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Remind me to give you my gamer tag, because I, too, sit on a sofa and have an Xbox and would love to play Diablo IV. But I'll wait for-- like everyone else, I'll wait until 2023. Super excited. Love what you're doing. We would love to have you back. It's been just really great to see you, Rod.
ROD FERGUSON: Thanks, you too, Jeff. Yeah, it's been a little bit of-- it's been great to be working with Xbox and being up on doing the event. And it was one of those things, when I left Microsoft and E3, I was like, OK, I'll never have April criticizing my wardrobe ever again. I'm free from the E3 stage wardrobe criticisms of, you can't wear those shoes, that belt looks terrible, why would you wear that shirt.
I'm like, I'm finally-- I can just wear what I want to wear. And then I-- and then when we get to do the shoot, they're like, could you bring some wardrobe choices? And I'm like, sure. And then there's April, and she's like, yeah, I don't like those jeans. Maybe that-- and I'm like, oh, my God. It's happening all over again. So it was really funny to go through that experience. But you know, someday I'll be free of the wardrobe police. We'll see.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Let's hope not.
ROD FERGUSON: [LAUGHS] Nice.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Towards the end of the Xbox and Bethesda Showcase, one of the games that really came out of nowhere was Wo Long; Fallen Dynasty. This is a title that is made as a collaboration between Team Ninja and Koei Tecmo. And I got to say, it is very much in my wheelhouse. So I'm super excited today to welcome Emmanuel "Master" Rodriguez, the Team Ninja community manager over to the Xbox podcast. How are you doing, sir.?
EMMANUEL RODRIGUEZ: I'm doing great, man. Thank you for having me here, Jeff. It's a pleasure to be on here.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So this trailer, it was about 90 seconds. A lot of action, a lot of-- well, there was a lot of stuff happening here. So why don't you tell us what you can tell us about Wo Long; Fallen Dynasty?
EMMANUEL RODRIGUEZ: Yeah. So Wo Long; Fallen Dynasty is essentially a fantasy, dark fantasy setting of the Three Kingdoms. It happens to take place in the later Han Dynasty. And that takes place, like I said, at the beginning of the Three Kingdoms.
And you're essentially this malicious soldier that is basically trying to fight against the odds and looking within to hopefully let loose some power to overcome these odds and get through these dark times. Obviously, there's a lot of conflict and a lot of battle. And I think anybody that likes dark fantasy or Chinese mythology and Chinese martial arts-- I think people are going to be looking forward to that.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So Koei Tecmo is no stranger to the Three Kingdoms era-- the very long running Dynasty Warriors series. They invented like, Musou game play, made a lot of those legends of that time pretty famous. But Team Ninja's never really worked in that time period or even in China, have they? This is new for Team Ninja.
EMMANUEL RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, this is very new for Team Ninja. Like you just mentioned earlier, Koei Tecmo has obviously been involved in that history or that time frame. And they've made several games around that. But this will be the first time that Team Ninja gets into it.
It's not only that, it's also the first time that's kind of shown in a dark fantasy. And I think that's what's going to really be different, on top of what you would expect from Team Ninja Studio, which is heavy on action and very tight controls. So it's going to be definitely different, and it's the first time they take on something like this.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So undoubtedly, a lot of knowledge from Koei Tecmo, at least, of that era probably, melding together really closely with the action pedigree of Team Ninja. Would you expect that we might see some of those famous generals and warriors maybe making their way into the story?
And I only ask because at the very end of the trailer, there's a mounted warrior. And I was like, that kind of looks like-- I'm getting Lu Bu vibes here, is all I'm saying. Not to spoil anything, but I'm just curious if Team Ninja is planning on tapping into the historical to that level, the historical personalities.
EMMANUEL RODRIGUEZ: Yes, so for players or even fans of that era, I think they'll be looking forward to some of these famous warlords, as well as some of the weaponry that they carry. So the team is dedicated to deliver those things and to show off some of these warriors, as well as what you saw at the end of the trailer, I think, at this point, it's not so much a tease.
But I think most people can kind of figure out what's going on right there. And yeah, so people that are fans of that time, that time frame or these kind of action based games, I think you guys can look forward to discovering those warlords, as well as some of their equipment.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Very cool. Going back to Dynasty Warriors II, I've not been able to beat Lu Bu. So maybe we'll have a little better luck here in a different way. So Team Ninja-- when I think of Team Ninja, Ninja Gaiden, as an Xbox fan. As you know, the trilogy is available now actually on Game Pass through the Master Collection. And I highly recommend you check it out.
That is very hack and slash. You hit like, one button and you start to feel really cool. Difficult game, no doubt. But this is being touted as a Souls like. And usually, those will have a little bit more of a considered pace, perhaps. If you're just wailing on a button, you're generally going to find yourself eating steel pretty quickly-- or claw, or whatever you're fighting against. So can you tell me about how Team Ninja's thinking about the gameplay?
EMMANUEL RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, like you mentioned earlier, Ninja Gaiden is very, very fast paced. And you kind of hack and right through it. And there is some aspects of the game that are hack and slash that are in there. But it's not to the level of Ninja Gaiden. So I think it's important to kind of separate that and understand that it's not exactly that.
But the speed is, I would say, much faster than one of our previous projects, which is Nioh, which we had done previously. So it's faster, in that sense. And there's also this sense of freedom, in comparison to Nioh. Because now you can have a jumping ability and you can move around freely a lot easier.
And although it's not an open game and open world game, it still has areas of exploration, and also the ability to kind of jump in and out of battle in a way that suits you, you know what I'm saying? I think that's what's really unique about this game, being able to make those adjustments and move quickly, and not have to worry so much about things like stamina so much, you know what I mean?
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Noted, yeah. And Souls like doesn't mean Souls. So there's elements there, I'm sure. But it doesn't mean it's exactly the same. Now you did mention Nioh. And Nioh is a game that, as an Xbox fan, I haven't played. But I do the name. And let's talk about the pedigree here, because I know Yasuda-san is a producer on that title. And then I know Yamagiwa-san worked on Bloodborne.
And so to have two folks that have worked on these big titles creating something that's going to be on Xbox Game Pass on day one-- which is very cool-- what do they bring, in terms of pedigree, to Wo Long; Fallen Dynasty?
EMMANUEL RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, Yamagiwa-san and Yasuda-san, these guys are-- not to sound a hardcore fan myself, but they are very, very talented developers and producers. I mean, they know what they're doing with the success of Nioh and obviously, past experience with Yamagiwa-san with Bloodborne.
I think it's really cool to see two great minds kind of come together. And I know there was a lot of excitement. As Community Manager, I look over as to how the community is kind of responding to this and the people behind these projects. But they're going to basically bring all their experiences and work together to make Wo Long; Fallen Dynasty a very unique experience.
They obviously know what they're doing. I mean, they've made games in the past that are very enjoyable. So I think it's very exciting to see two great developers in the industry come together in official capacity to deliver this game.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Emmanuel, you're Community Manager. You're allowed to be a fanboy. Like, it's totally acceptable.
EMMANUEL RODRIGUEZ: [LAUGHS] Good, good.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Like, I would be a little worried if you weren't. So you're in good territory, good hands here. So we know that Wo Long; Fallen Dynasty, it's not that far out, early 2023 coming to Xbox consoles, coming to Windows PC, coming to Game Pass day one, as we talked about.
I have to imagine, over the course of the next year or less before we get to play it, we're going to be learning more. So where can folks learn more about Wo Long; Fallen Dynasty? Where can we expect to see it in the coming months?
EMMANUEL RODRIGUEZ: Right. So to keep up with the game and see what's going on, you obviously can follow the official accounts of Wo Long; Fallen Dynasty, which would be @wolongofficial on Twitter and of course, @wolongofficial on Facebook.
You can always keep up, as well, with the Team Ninja studio Twitter and Facebook as well, which is @teamninjastudio. There'll be a lot of information there, as well as the website, which will be teamninjastudio.com/wolong. And you can catch more information and the latest updates that's been announced, things that might come down the road.
I know that the producers have already mentioned that they're trying their hardest to get the game to the hands of the gamers. They want to give them a chance to touch it. So any updates regarding that, obviously will be posted on the website, as well as our social media.
So I'm excited to see what will happen once the gamers get their hands on it. Because I've obviously grown with the community, of several communities from Team Ninja. And getting to know them on different levels, and I'm curious to see what they do with the game.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Awesome. And so many people are going to get that chance to play it with it coming to Game Pass and on Xbox consoles and on PC. So we know there's going to be a big Xbox audience here. They're going to be hungry for more.
I'd like to cordially invite you to come by Xbox Wire at any point and share any new info as it's released. We would love to be sharing that. So thanks, Emmanuel. It's been really great having you, and looking forward to playing Wo Long; Fallen Dynasty in early 2023.
LARRY HYRB: Jeff, thank you for those interviews. Always great to hear from the gang about those games. And of course, you did masterful with those interviews. It's always good to see Rod. I just love having him on the show. But anyway, hey Malik, we were talking in the break there about Microsoft Edge. And it's got some new features that they shipped this week. Do you have the outline of what they announced?
MALIK PRINCE: Absolutely, Larry. I'm really excited about it. Because with Xbox Cloud Gaming taking off, especially with Game Pass games, you can play wherever you want. And Microsoft Edge is going to be a great place to play. I know a number of folks on that team who have been working really hard to make it the best browser to play Xbox Cloud Gaming.
So I just want to run through a few of the updates that they have coming to it so you all can check it out on your own. So beginning with efficiency mode, which is Microsoft Edge's way of helping to improve the performance on Windows 10 and 11 PCs to keep games running faster, and of course, smoothly by automatically reducing how much resources your browser is using.
And we also have a new gaming home page in Microsoft Edge where you can get right to gaming as soon as you launch the browser. So if all you want to do is game in Microsoft Edge, then there's a new way to kind of get right into it. And then there's clarity boost, an exclusive feature to Microsoft Edge that enhances console gaming with Xbox Cloud Gaming.
A clarity boost, it's a spatial upscaling enhancement that makes streaming games look clearer and sharper while playing in Microsoft Edge. So of course, streaming isn't going to ever be as clear as native gaming. But with this clarity boost, we're getting even closer to that.
And so again, a number of really awesome folks on the team that are literally working to make Edge the best browser for gaming. And so yeah, if you're into Cloud gaming, go check it out.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: You can test that out at xbox.com/play.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
MALIK PRINCE: There you go. That's the URL.
LARRY HYRB: All right, we're almost getting ready to wrap up the show here. But I want to talk about one thing. I have these--
[GASPS]
--which means I have-- it's my new controller, Jeff. Check that one out. Malik, check that one out. This is with the new design labs.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Is that pink camo?
LARRY HYRB: And Jeff, you've got some details about the new des-- yeah, that's pink camo.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Cool. Yeah, so the new X-- oh, I like it. That's good, that's good. Your daughter might like that one as well.
LARRY HYRB: I think you're right.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I think you're right. If you-- I'm just saying, if you don't put that away, you're going to find that she's--
LARRY HYRB: I'm going to lose it.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I know she likes pink. So yeah, basically, the Xbox Design Lab was taken offline for a couple of weeks. It is back on. New features, things like first of all, new colors. And I've actually got mine to show as well. I'm featuring one of the new colors here, this minty green. And also--
LARRY HYRB: That's good looking.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: --you showed it off, but this-- thank you. I went for a Cascadia look, with the blue and the green and the white. But the metallic d-pad-- so there's both metallic d-pads and also metallic triggers. And they just add am extra level of-- I don't know-- class or quality to it.
LARRY HYRB: Yeah.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And of course, you have the grips. The grips have been here for a little while, as well. These things are optional. So you don't-- you can go with the classic stuff. You can go with-- you can add grips, you can add metallic, you can not. There's just more options than ever. There's probably tens of thousands of combos.
And then one of the things, and we talked about it a few weeks ago, is this part is called the top case. This is--
LARRY HYRB: That's the official term.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: In this case, it's green. But there is also a pride top case that we're just going to be keeping there all year round. Pride is celebrated in the US in June, and in other places in June. But there are countries where pride is celebrated-- I think in Australia it's celebrated in February. In Sweden, I want to say it's celebrated in August.
So instead of just having it there in June, you can take it, you can customize it, you can all your elements to it.
LARRY HYRB: All year long.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And it'll be there all year long. So check it out at xboxdesignlab.com. Build your own.
LARRY HYRB: We also launched Design Labs--
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
MALIK PRINCE: --you guys showing off you controllers.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
LARRY HYRB: --launched Design Labs also in New Zealand as well, so it's got some new areas. So that's exciting. Oh, look at that. That's the--
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MALIK PRINCE: Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off, Larry. But I wanted to show off my controller that I was able to get. Its also camo, so you know. So here it is.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: The camo is really-- it really stands out. It really stands out
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LARRY HYRB: I've got a couple of other items I want to show off here. We talked about-- are you guys done? We talked about Gamevice last week. Jeff, this is-- look at this thing. This is the Gamevice adapter for your iPad. It's part of the Designed for Xbox program. And I know that our friend Ethan works over there, right, Malik? So he's working on some stuff.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: That'll be fun to try with Diablo Immortal. Yeah.
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JEFF RUBENSTEIN: --play Fortnite. That could be good.
LARRY HYRB: Yeah, I've also got their-- this is their-- you can see it expands out. This is the Gamevice-- the lightning version for the iPhone. So that that's kind of a little bit more-- it's in its portable state right now. So those two great devices are now available as part of the Designed for Xbox program, which is a great program that we have.
Speaking of that, we also have-- I tweeted this out-- this is the Steelseries Arctis Nova Pro wireless headset. How's that for a lot of words? But this is one of the most comfortable headsets I've ever worn. And it's got this-- you can kind of put your boom mic back in there if you want to do that.
What you can see behind me, this right here is the base unit, which is mostly used if you've got it on your desktop. I don't know if you guys can see this OK back here. But this is-- it's a really great, comfortable device. And it's probably going to be my default moving forward. I've got so many headsets here, and I like to switch around. But this one is currently my default.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Do you charge on the base, is that what that's for?
LARRY HYRB: No, it's actually-- Jeff, check this out. It's actually a very interesting design. The answer is yes, but let me tell you what it does. It actually has-- and I'm going to open up the side. The little earpads, the little ear covers here open up. And there's the battery. You pop it out. There's one in there that's charging. So you can hot-swap.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Got it, so you swap it.
MALIK PRINCE: What?
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I was wondering, because you have it in front of your TV. And I was like, well, if you stood it in the base, it would be blocking the TV. But now, it doesn't. It's pretty flat. That's really cool.
LARRY HYRB: Yeah. Here, let me show you. Hold on.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: You said it's a Steelseries, Larry?
LARRY HYRB: Yeah. This is a Steelseries, and this is I just unplugged it. This is the base unit right here. Look at that. And you can see, that's where the battery gets popped into. Yeah.
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JEFF RUBENSTEIN: --Steelseries does really well, is they-- I don't know if other companies do this, but I noticed it with them. They do this double band. Maybe if you hold it back up, your Arctis Pro. So they have the double band, and that inner one-- squeeze it. I bet it like goes flexible, like if you put the two together. Like, if you pinch it. I'm doing-- yeah, see? And it has give to it. And so it actually sits very comfortably on your head, which I think is--
LARRY HYRB: I can't hear you now, I'm just showing it off.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: That's fine. This is the best case scenario for us. But-- quick, talk about-- oh, he's got his other ones back on.
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LARRY HYRB: It also folds.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: --incredibly comfortable ones.
LARRY HYRB: It also-- the-- earcups pivot, as well. Oh, and also, it's important to point out, there's two great features on this thing. It's got noise cancellation. So if you're gaming in a noisy house, then you it may cover some of those noises. But it also has Bluetooth. So if you get a phone call in and you're playing, it'll actually put it over. You can say, oh, bring the game audio down this, while I can answer the phone. So it acts as a Bluetooth.
So this is kind of one of the Premier headsets now available. So it also works great. You can see, it's got USB-C on the back, there, for the Xbox. And then line in, line out. So it's got a whole suite. And you can-- it's got a whole software suite as well. So, all right. Enough talking about that. [LAUGHS]
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Nice.
LARRY HYRB: Wanted to show that to everybody. But before we go, Malik, one of the things I wanted to talk to you about was you were down in LA, hosting FanFest for the Xbox Bethesda Games Showcase. I was down in Melbourne. How was your experience in Los Angeles
MALIK PRINCE: It was amazing. I know you all touched on it a little bit last week, but-- and it's kind of like this thing that we continue to say, but after X019, I believe, was the last gathering of its size before the pandemic hit. And since then, I think the one thing that's been missing from team Xbox, as well as I'm sure on the fans end is just that ability to come together in a space and just celebrate gaming.
The world has been kind of wild. And so for us to kind of put all of that aside for a little bit, for 90 minutes, and a few hours after that for the show-- it was just amazing. I was telling-- actually, we were talking about Phil earlier-- I was just telling him how walking into the place, the Novo Theater, was like, overwhelming, emotionally overwhelming.
Because you got to see people who haven't seen each other who got to connect. I think Phil was even mentioning that there was a couple who met up like, FanFest prior, and they've been married for four years since. And they've gotten to tell him that. So it was awesome. I did get to host the stage show, which was a lot of fun, with Kelly Lombardi, who is just a fantastic host.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Good for you.
MALIK PRINCE: Yeah, she's working on As Dusk Falls right now, which is coming out July 19th. And it was just really great to kind of put on an entertaining show on the stage. We had a number of really cool games. Played a few pranks on folks, all in good fun. But it was just a really amazing experience. And you just got to cross your fingers that hopefully we get to do this again. But had the time of my life.
LARRY HYRB: Good Yeah, it was a lot-- I mean, I can't say much more than what you already did. I mean, it was such a great--
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: You did great.
LARRY HYRB: --and of course, we were up in we were up in Toronto, as well. Is that where we were, Jeff? In Toronto?
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Toronto and Madrid.
LARRY HYRB: Madrid, yeah. So I don't know where we're going to go. If we continue to do this, maybe we'll go to different places next year. But I can tell you that the fans in Australia, and I'm sure the fans in Toronto and Spain were just as generous. And you're right, Malik. It was great to be back together. Great to really just be in a space and talk and feel the excitement about the games.
Yes, it's great to sit here and watch on the screen when you're at home. But there's nothing quite like doing it in a room full of people, and having people excited. I can tell you one of the moments when we were in Melbourne was when we announced the Pelican and Microsoft Flight Simulator. And the whole place just lit up.
Because that's the kind of mash up you want, right, that kind of excitement? So it was just so great to see that feedback. And all the games-- of course, we saw Rod, who we had on the show earlier, was on screen there. It was great to see him. So it was just so great to be all together again. So I want to thank you, Malik, for going down to LA and hosting that. So that was a lot of fun.
MALIK PRINCE: Yeah, 100%.
LARRY HYRB: So anyway, all right, gang. Well, we're going to let you go. Jeff, I know you have meetings. And Malik, I really appreciate you sitting in this week and joining us and telling us about your Fall Guy crown, and the rest of the lovely experiences. So we'll have you back on again--
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: You'll get there, you'll get there.
LARRY HYRB: Always good to see-- We just don't want to mess up your hair. You've got great hair, let's not mess it up. I need the crown to cover fading.
MALIK PRINCE: Me, too, if we're being honest.
LARRY HYRB: What anybody says "the crown," all I can think of is-- remember that cheesy little paper crown you'd get at Burger King for the birthday? That's all I could think of.
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: We're growing of Burger King this week. And Malik-- Malik-- we'll have to wear them. Let's move on to crowns. Crowns only, let's do a crowns only episode.
MALIK PRINCE: Crowns only.
LARRY HYRB: All right, gang. We'll see you guys. Thank you for downloading the show, gang. We'll see you guys next week. Jeff and Malik, thank you, and we'll see you next time. Bye-bye, everybody!
JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Bye
MALIK PRINCE: See you.