Hello, and welcome to The Back Page, a video games podcast. I’m Samuel Roberts. I’m joined as ever by Matthew Castle. Hello. Matthew, this is a very relaxed episode where we revisit some predictions from earlier in the year. So in episode seven of this podcast, you and I laid out 21 predictions for 2021. It was some easy beginning of the year content to record before the break and then pump out. And now 12 months later, we can revisit those predictions and see if we were correct or if we were completely incorrect. Big short issue energy. Yeah, that is actually spot on, isn’t it? And first of all, how are you? And we’ll start with that and then we’ll kind of progress from there. Yeah, I’m fine. You know, I’ve got my eye on the prize, that Christmas break. So I’m just kind of planning towards that, but I’m feeling pretty good. I always like this time of year. Eating a lot of Christmas sandwiches lately? Is that a thing you’ve been doing? Not really. I recently discovered a sandwich I really like in Bath, which has been a long time. You know, I haven’t had a lunch regular for a very, very long time, years and years and years. So the idea of stepping away from my now favored lunch for a Christmassy lunch. I’m not a big cranberries guy either, and the sandwiches always have that as like a base ingredient. Okay, that’s fine. I mean, you did mention off air to me that at the place where you kind of work several days a week at the moment, there is a kind of Christmas sandwich leaderboard and it was like, it was getting a little bit political. Is that fair or? Yeah, it’s a little bit political. So yeah, the sandwich shop I am now enamored with, it’s called Intermezzo and I’ve been talking about it a lot in the office. So when some other people went to Intermezzo and scored its Christmas offering only a 3.5, out of five, I should add, but that is lower than some of the others on the board. I felt like it was a review of me in some way, rather than the sandwiches. I feel like my brand has become so intertwined with Intermezzo that I now feel upset when someone disses a baguette. That’s the most you thing I could possibly think of. Yeah, this stuff happens to me a lot. I think I should probably deal with some of this stuff. I do like the idea that someone reviewing a sandwich that you didn’t make is a reflection on you somehow. That’s, but I might feel the same way if I went to bat for a place and then it was… That’s it, you know. It’s when you go to bat for anything and people are like, you know, but this feels particularly kind of particularly pointed. This is like, I care a lot, the sandwich version, isn’t it? Yeah, and it’s ironic because it’s only because I care a lot about Intermezzo that this situation has come about. That is ironic, yeah. Yeah, so the other thing I was going to mention is that Intermezzo is a place I used to go to. Matthew has never been to the sandwich shop despite it being open the entire time I’ve lived in Bath and like largely having the same menu for that entire time. And he has only been now for the first time despite having lived here for how many years? Like 14 years? Yeah, it’s a very weird street though. Yeah, but surely you go down there like, actually no, would you have a reason to go down there? Well, at CitiSea, like if you think of cities in terms of GTA cities where you have like a few key routes that the mini map line will always take you on, it’s very easy for that to happen in real cities too. And that is just a street I’m not on often, so. Yeah, the Intermezzo Street isn’t exactly, you know, like Star Junction in Liberty City or like the airport in Los Angeles. It should be though on the strength of those baguettes alone. Well, I go there plenty, because I think you have to go right there to get to the cheese shop, which is… Well, this is easy. I don’t have that in my life, so. It’s a key location for me in Bath, so, yeah. The other thing I was gonna mention is that, yeah, Intermezzo, when, so I’ve got a whole situation. I mentioned to this to Matthew off air, but I can’t ever go back there. It’s like a whole thing. So basically, he does like a kind of mail order, not mail order, you know, like order a sandwich that arrives in six to eight weeks. That is not what I meant. But you kind of like you can order online and then go pick up your sandwich. So I did this, and it was on a particularly busy day. I ordered it like 20 past. I got to the sandwich shop and I still had a text from him saying your sandwich is ready. And it was like quarter to and I had a meeting at two. And I was like, oh, I’m gonna have to just abandon the sandwich. And then like, I just sent him a really awkward message as I was walking off, just saying, can you just give my sandwich away, please? I had to leave. Thank you, bye. And like, I don’t feel like I could ever go back now because he saw me at the window ready to pick up my sandwich and like, he hadn’t made it. And then I had to run away. And it’s like, I just can’t untangle that, Matthew. I just have to start my life again from scratch, I think. Any thoughts on that? Yeah, he’s got a picture of you on the back wall now. I do not serve this man. You were the notorious sandwich abandoner of Bath. Well, I did pay for the sandwich, that’s the thing. Yeah, I know, that’s why it’s extra weird. Yeah, didn’t you like say that like, posit the idea that he might still have the sandwich there to present to me? And like… Yeah, you have to eat it before you make your new one. Just this evil, funky, it’s like sentient now, because he’s left it for so long. Oh, it’s like the Homer Simpson sandwich. I like that we both have this sort of weird sort of psychological damage now from this one sandwich shop. That’s very us. Yeah, it is. Didn’t you say he was like, he’s been, he’s closed in and down as well, and you were devastated to learn this having just gone there for the first time. Well, he’s trying to sell his shop so he can retire. And it’s really terrible, because whenever I’m in there, he’s always talking to his other regulars about it. And they’re all kind of commiserating with him, like, oh, sorry, no one’s bought it yet. And he’s like, yeah, you know, I just wanna, you know, I just wanna enjoy a bit of peace and quiet. But because I’m an evil, selfish prick, I’m just constantly thinking, well, I’ve just discovered this amazing baguette. And like, I wanna squeeze a few more years out of this sandwich shop if I can. You’re not going anywhere, mate, that kind of thing. We’ll see what happens. Yeah, I wish you the best. The man is a true artisan. The difference is, not to make this just exclusively about sandwiches this episode, but he cuts the ingredients sort of fresh for each baguette, which does mean it’s slightly slower than some shops, but I think it makes for a much nicer baguette. So like if you ask for a chicken thing, he’s got a big chicken breast and he’ll cut a few slices off it and he’ll cut some fresh lettuce. It’s very well done. Yeah, it’s the best classical sandwich shop in there. Oh yeah, easy. Yeah, he’s got that market sewn up, which is why he can never retire, but yeah. Sam, we’ve done eight minutes on Intimidation. Maybe that speaks to where we’re at mentally. I’ve just eaten some food, but yeah. Maybe it seems like we’re incredibly hungry before starting this episode. Yeah, we tried not to get too bogged down in distractions on this podcast, but like, you know us, and bar food joints, that’s just a thing we always talk about. So how’s your Game of the Year episode prep going, Matthew? That’s like probably gonna be our last episode of the year. I think that’s basically on New Year’s. So yeah, how’s that going for you? Yeah, it’s fine. I’ve kind of developed this bad habit of just playing like a couple of hours of things I haven’t played. And if they grit me, I’ll carry on playing. But I feel like I’m making a lot of Game of the Year decisions on those first couple of hours. So there’s some things where I’m like, does this feel like good enough to kind of continue with? And I appreciate that some of these games are gonna evolve and I’ll probably finish them next year. So when we do next year’s version of last week’s episode, where we go back and revisit some stuff, I’ll have lots to talk about. But yeah, I feel like I’m on top of most of the biggies. Yeah, I’m feeling okay about it. I’m mainly playing Halo Infinite at the moment. I just wanna finish something because it’s just been so sporadic. So how about you? How’s your prep going? Yeah, it’s okay. I, let’s think. So I think I’m up to eight games that are definitely going in my top 10, so that’s good. I think my list will be a lot better than my list last year where I had to pepper it with live service games because, and then that was, you know, very upsetting for all involved. So this year that won’t be a problem. It’s very much a kind of games that came out this year list. I just, there’s got, I’ve got two more games that I, or three more games that I think are contenders. I just need to make time for them before that episode and then I can do it. Sadly, I don’t think I’m gonna have time to do the Halo campaign before the break just because I need to get that top 10 sorted out. Right, yeah. And I, but I have played loads of Halo multiplayer like tons of it. So that’s still like a dead set of the top 10. Not sure where yet, of course. But yeah, so that’s kind of where I’m at. I’ve actually been playing a couple of games that have been recommended to me by listeners and colleagues. Well, not colleagues, but like, you know, former peers, I suppose, from the journalism side. I also read some of Polygon’s very beautiful looking Game of the Year list, actually. They put some proper design effort into doing a top 50 and it looked really nice, so that was kind of cool, magazine-y. Is that out now? Yeah, that’s around, yeah, 50 games, they’ve done it. Well, okay, I haven’t seen that. I liked that list last year. It’s got a massive variety of stuff on there, it’s good. So yeah, worth a look for sure. And of course, both our Games of the Year are gonna be It Takes Two, which is Game of the Year at the Game Awards. Yeah, I’ve not actually played that still. That’s one that I just requires my partner as well. So we’re gonna need to be in the right mood one day to play it. So it’s gonna miss out, I’m afraid. So yeah, there’ll be no Yosef Farias on here to collect his award and stuff. Side note, I was disappointed by what great shape he was in. I was always annoyed when I see people who didn’t put on three stone during lockdown, because that’s just what I’ve been doing. And he looked fantastic. So, you know, that’s a big self-esteem disparity between us there, I think. I like that that’s how big game awards take you’re getting this episode. Yeah, yeah, that was basically it. I like some of the trailers actually. Shall we talk about that briefly? Like what were the highlights for you, Matthew? Looking back on it, there’s lots of stuff which speaks to me. I don’t think there was like a huge knockout, like, holy shit, I can’t believe that thing’s real moment, which sometimes he does deliver, you know, like I think when he had the first Elden Ring trailer, that felt like quite a big thing. But, you know, Alan Wake 2, you know, I’m definitely up for that. Having played the remastered version this year, I’m kind of a bit more in an Alan Wake kind of sort of place, I guess, for that game. Fascinated by Mr. Silent Hill, making quite a creepy looking survival horror thing about people whose heads split open and monsters come out. Is it called Slitterhead or Splitterhead? I think it’s Slitterhead, yeah. Splitterhead. That’s a horrible name for a game. That’s kind of interesting. I like the idea of that all these kind of quirky geniuses who’ve been filtering out Sony for the last three years as they sort of basically shut down their Japanese game making operation, it seems, are now going to be making things on their own or going off and doing like their own little kind of sort of Kojima-esque studios. I wonder if we’re going to get a really interesting, completely off the leash sort of scene from them. So, I’m up for that. Disappointed by the lack of Nintendo. I thought the big thing was going to be Breath of the Wild, I’ll be honest. I thought he was going to have a new glimpse of it because it’s been a while. Yeah, that kind of cast a bit of a shadow over it. Intrigued by the Star Wars Quantic Dream, which I imagine you are. Yeah, for sure. Like, I thought that trailer was really stylish and interesting. Didn’t look exactly like Star Wars as I knew it. Obviously, it’s set in this High Republic era, which is, I think, between the Old Republic and the prequels somewhere. So, all new character and story and stuff. So, yeah, I thought that trailer was really cool. Were you digging that as well? Yeah, definitely. I like the vibe of it and I know there’s a lot of noise and stuff around Quantic Dream and, you know, obviously, you’d have to take that into consideration as well. But yeah, it’s certainly, from an art perspective, looked super intriguing. Was one of the more interesting trailers of the night. I actually really liked the Suicide Squad footage as well. I thought it looked a bit like Sunset Overdrive, which is that kind of hyper colourful, hyper real, but with that just incredible, like, rocksteady polish. You know, these guys have made the Arkham games. That is reason to be excited, I think. And I think it looked pretty snazzy. I think it’s good that, like, we’re seeing gameplay of that now as well, just because I feel like we’ve been waiting for a while to see that shape up. So it’s good. Yeah, and like, considering they’ve only shown cinematic stuff, I think, you know, the action, I’m not saying it’s quite the same quality, but it looked pretty amazing. I mean, they kind of committed early to a next-gen only game in the last generation with Arkham Knight, and that was one of the best looking games of the whole generation still to this day, unmatched in many ways. So the idea of them doing the same with the new generation, you know, I’m really down for that. It’s not on current gen, right? No, it’s not. That’s cool. That is very appealing. Yeah. I think Gotham Knight is the one which is both gens. Yeah, that’s right. I think so. Yeah. It’s kind of mad, though. I don’t know what’s going on with that, because it feels like we’re now seeing more of Suicide Squad, which was always sort of pitched as the later game. I mean, I started to play both, like, it seems like they’re going a bit bigger on the DC stuff now, and it feels like it could have done this much earlier, like, but now they’ve looked around at, like, how Spider-Man’s done and, you know, and then have been like, oh, shit, superheroes, people just want to play. Yeah. Superhero open world games are a match made in heaven. DC has, like, a bunch of great superheroes, so it makes sense. And yeah, I look forward to there being, like, I don’t know, fucking Greek mythological creatures who you slice off one of their arms and then later on they come looking for you and go, OI! Wonder Woman! Which I assume is what’s going to happen, but… Yeah, they’ve said that. They’ve said that Wonder Woman game is going to have their nemesis system in it, so… I suggested to you, didn’t I, that, like, well, actually, I think that people have said this before anyway, but a Batman game would be such a good fit for the nemesis system. The idea that, like, someone could go from, like, Hoodlum to becoming, like, basically a kind of joker-esque figure, like, one of the more colourful villains in the… knock him into a vat of acid and they come back later and they’re, like, yeah, they’ve become transformed into a villain if you’ve given them their origin story. That would be so good. Why does that game not exist? That’s insane. Yeah, I think they’ve put two and two together on that one, but, um, nonetheless, yeah, I look forward to seeing those kind of, like, pan out. Um, yeah, I thought, I’ll share your enthusiasm about Alan Wake. I think they’ve said that it’s, like, um, mature rated, so it’s actually gonna be, like, pretty gnarly. Yeah, he said in an interview afterwards, he was like, this is our first survival horror game, which, you know, I, I was sort of assumed the first was classified that, but they see it just as an action game. So yeah, that’s kind of interesting. That suggests it’s gonna be a bit, bit more hardcore on scariness. I love seeing Fortnite money being spent on, like, um, the sequels to games that didn’t, like, um, didn’t really happen at the time. That’s like a good use of money, if you ask me. Um, cause aren’t there other collaborations with Playdead and the Last Guardian devs? Like, um, I think it’s, like, those the other two that they’re doing, so. Right, yeah, I mean, I’ve, I’ve, it’s hard to keep on top of who they’re pumping money into, but it’s a lot of people. Yeah, it’s, um, yeah, it’s good. Um, so, uh, did you play the, uh, Matrix demo yet, Matthew? Uh, I still haven’t. I, I know I feel like I should, but I, I also felt like I’ve kind of seen it all, sort of vicariously through Twitter clips now, so, you know, I didn’t feel the need to, like, get on it instantly, and now I, I’m like, well, I kind of know what it is. Um, I, you have played it, right? Yeah, in some ways, I think if you, if you’ve seen the first five minutes, you’ve seen, like, the, the most kind of impressive stuff, just because I think it, just the, the level of fidelity is what you kind of get excited about when you see it, and like how cars look like when they’re flipping over, and, um, all of the Keanu Reeves, Carrie Anne Moss stuff is in the first five minutes as well. Um, so that’s real good. And then the open world bit, so, you know, I’ve got to the open world now, and like, um, I can, you know, go around and stuff, but because it’s not really an open world game, it’s like, you know, you kind of just tour it for a few minutes and you sort of turn it off, I think. Like, it’s not to say, like, they’ve done a phenomenal job and it’s really a cool freebie. It definitely is. But like, um, yeah, I think it’s something you can knock through in about 15 minutes, I would say. So yeah, the footage of them wandering around in the city gave me like big Watch Dogs vibes. Yeah, yeah, I think that’s fair. Yeah. In terms of it, you know, Watch Dogs was always like GTA, but with like always mad graphics stuff piled on top. So, I don’t know. Like, yeah, it is cool. I’m not looking at a gift horse in the mouth and like you say, I haven’t played it, but there is something about kind of, you know, this is, this is a, you know, an opportunity to show off this, what this engine can do. And it is a lot of like city blocks and cars. And you’re like, okay, you know, I feel like there are spicier things you could maybe show me to make me excited about a graphics engine than just a city. Yeah. Good stuff. So Matthew, should we get into the predictions revisited? And let’s do it. Let’s let’s revisit some predictions. First of all, I suppose, like, what were your thoughts listening back to this episode? Because I think I listened back to episodes of this podcast a lot more than you do. Yeah, I can’t, I can’t stand the sound of my own voice. I can only hear all my ums and likes, which I’m sure plenty of listeners can empathize with. They love you, don’t worry. Well, for one, I was amazed with, like, how kind of spot on we were with a lot of this. Yeah, it’s not too bad considering. They’re not, like, really far off, you know. Yeah, I thought it was kind of on point. I laughed at our dumb jokes, which I’d forgotten about, which, you know, is always a good sign when you laugh at yourself. I find this, I don’t know if you have this, if I hear myself, or if I watch or listen to myself back in any form, I feel my body, like, miming along in exactly the same way that I did when I originally said it or performed it. It’s like a muscle memory. Like, my hands start gesturing, as if I was talking. I don’t get exactly that, but you know what I do, it’s like, when you say something, my brain thinks of a response, and then I hear my own response come out of my mouth on a podcast from earlier, and when I’ve forgotten the conversation, that’s weird. Here’s the joke I would make, oh, it is the joke I made. Yeah, that happens loads. And I’m just like, maybe I’ve just got a very basic brain, and like, that’s fine. I’ve never considered myself an incredibly intellectual freethinker, so that’s okay. But yeah, it was a fun episode to listen back to. For some reason, I’m whispering in the episode, I can’t remember why that is, but I’m sort of going, so my prediction is that Microsoft is going to buy, and I’m like, I don’t know why I’m doing that, but like, that’s kind of strange. And it’s also that thing of like, it’s the podcast in a slightly more embryonic state, and then like, but it’s actually like mostly there, it’s quite firmly the kind of bullshit that we do every week. So all that was missing is like an eight minute monologue about a sandwich shop at the start. I feel quite bad about that, because people are going to think, oh, no, they’ve like, they’ve become too in love with their own in jokes now, and they’re going to keep fucking doing this. But that was new. That was all new material. Yeah, it’s like one of those Peter Kay DVDs, got a sticker on it just saying, you know. Eight minutes of hot internet chat. Yeah, unreleased previous material. Yeah. So that’s good. Let’s get into it then, Matthew, because I think like these will be good conversation starters for like how the year went in general. So I think I went first in the podcast. So should I kick off with the first one I did? Yeah. Okay. So my first one was Microsoft by Sega. This was Game Pass related. Like, I thought that because obviously Microsoft had been on this big spending spree with them buying like Bethesda and obviously Obsidian before that and a bunch of other studios that they might do something close to like a big punt in the PC space. So that was my prediction here. Didn’t pan out. But I think it feels like Sega and Microsoft have remained relatively close like Total War Warhammer 3 is coming out on Game Pass, for example. And I think there was some other partnership they announced this year, maybe to do with like cloud gaming or something. That was the weird thing, because when that first came out, I remember some people thought like, wait, are Microsoft buying Sega? Because like they announced this sort of unprecedented partnership to harness the Microsoft cloud tech in Sega’s ultimate game or whatever it is. Sega have got this game they’re working on that they keep referring to as like everything they’ve ever been working towards. It’s quite obvious. Have you come across this weird game? Yeah, I think they had a very specific terminology in their like, slides like, yeah, I can’t remember what it was. We have something like ultimate game or like, yeah. I love the idea is companies like we are now working everyone on our ultimate game. It’s going to be the ultimate game we ever make. And you’re like, wow, that sounds cool. I hope it’s not Sonic. I think like maybe they said that to kind of distinguish like it from maybe, you know, making another football manager or total war or company of heroes where like, or Sonic or Yakuza just because like there’s such a bunch of series that Sega does now. Like they’re not like they were, you know, 10 years ago when they were doing stuff like binary domain or like Vanquish before that. So maybe that’s what it is kind of intending to say like we’re making something that’s apart from all of the stuff that we’re currently known for. I don’t know. But yeah, yeah, I was wrong, though. So that’s like I was willing to give you a half a point for this one, not that we’re scoring this. I don’t think this podcast should just become endless battles between us because it’s not good for our friendship. But when I listened back to this, I thought, well, they did do something with Sega this year. Yeah. And like it remains like you can play every Yakuza game on there and stuff. It’s like it’s yeah, they’re pretty close. I certainly like having a lot of Sega stuff on tap. That’s good. What’s your first one, Matthew? My first one was that a streaming platform will buy a games publisher to push into gaming. You’re pretty close. Netflix has moved into games this year. Netflix bought or acquired Night School Games, who made Oxenfree. That isn’t entirely a gaming publisher, but they did buy a game studio to start making stuff based on their properties. They have launched their system on iOS and Android. It’s kind of odd, though. It’s more like Game Pass than game streaming. Through the Netflix app on phones, you can download five games from your respective games store, which is like the beginning of their push into that space. Like A Stranger Things beat em up, for example, is on there. So yeah, I don’t think anyone else has made major headway in this regard. At the time, there was either a bit of chatter, or I just said this in the episode and I’m referring to my own rumour that wasn’t there some interest, like didn’t people think Disney were going to buy EA? I recall something around Disney and games stuff. I recall. Yeah, there was some chat that they made. The basic idea was that to push into games properly, you were just going to have to buy a fully operating games publisher. Like, just buying a studio or trying to make a studio or two wasn’t really working. That’s what was happening with Amazon. Amazon have Amazon games. They’d set up these studios which haven’t had a major hit yet. They brought that MMO this year, I guess. New World was a major hit. Yeah, that was massive, but they had a bit of a… Didn’t they cancel the other thing they were making? Yeah, I think so, yeah. So they’ve had their ups and downs and I remember there being lots of editorials about… There was quite a good one in The Guardian, I think, about why you can’t just make a game studio… You can’t just buy talent and expect it to work as a game studio. Like, game studios are their culture. Culture takes several years to develop, which is why, you know, I still think if anyone is really going to go for it, they’re just going to have to buy the whole thing rather than try and piece it together from scratch. But yeah, Netflix brought night school. Does that count? I think that counts, sort of. Yeah, I think that’s, you were close enough, I think. It’s a definite downgrade from Disney by EA. Oh, it’s a cool fit, though. Like, you can see how they might be a good match for each other. And you would have seen that’s just a start, right? Like, it wouldn’t just be, we’ve bought night school and then we’ve, that’s it, we’re done now. It’s like, it’ll be a gradual accumulation of stuff. Like, I think there’s a big acquisition spree going on generally in games at the moment. Like, I remember, like, the developer of The Long Dark, Hinterland, said they had, like, several offers of acquisition this year alone. And you’ve seen even, like, CD Projekt Red buying studios and, you know, there’s just a lot of that going around, it seems like. So, there’s a bit of an arms race in that respect. And yeah, so, these are like, we’re probably gonna see a lot more of this next year. So, yeah, I think you did well here. Side note, Matthew, when I wrote up this new story for TechRadar a few months ago, I kept accidentally writing night dive instead of night school. And I love the idea that Netflix, you turn on Netflix tomorrow and it’s got like the Blade Runner game and then Turok 2 on it. That’d be amazing. Ted Sarandos is like, I just fucking love Shadow Man. Yeah, so that’s good stuff. But yeah, I’ll give you half a point for this one, Matthew. Thanks. Again, not a competition. It’s not a competition. We mustn’t let it become a competition. No, no, we’ve got too much of that. We’ll just risk this podcast turning into one big game show, basically. And I haven’t got the energy for that. So, yeah. All the prizes. I don’t know. Recommendations for sandwich shops and baths. Oh, you mean for us, or for the listeners? God, I don’t know. Like, no, there’s nothing you can really offer me, to be honest. Nothing I can offer you. I did bring some chocolate truffles over to your house. Yeah, you did. Yeah, it was nice. You gave me a book. There you go. These are the prizes. The prizes have already been distributed. Yep, so my second one was Starfield is the biggest game reveal of 2021. And I said it’s been six years since Fallout 4. And I said it’s going to be a good game. Now we don’t know that last part yet, because it’s not here. We haven’t played it. We haven’t really seen that much of it. It was one of the bigger reveals of the year though. So it broke cover this year. I guess that was bound to happen at some point, but it did come around slightly earlier than I thought. And it has a release date. So that’s like another half point, I think there Matthew. Any thoughts? It’s a shame that we haven’t had like a proper like gameplay demo of this. Like the footage was sort of in engine, but it was largely just sort of shots of sort of empty spaceships and, you know, planet surfaces and things where I think Bethesda and particularly Todd Howard are very good at showing off their games properly when they want to. They do those kind of highly edited demo presentations where he kind of switches through lots of different things. And I think I need one of those before this game like is really real. Like I’m not hugely excited for it at the moment. Like what they’ve shown of it doesn’t really do it for me. It’s not like it’s a dazzling vision of the future. It just looks like any old space thing. But I’m sure it’ll be super interesting once they’ve got like more to show. Yeah, I’m excited to see more of it. I think it probably just speaks to the fact that like, you know, these things, if they know that their release date is next year, they probably don’t want to blow loads of it this year. They want to wait and then kind of ramp up excitement. So next E3 will probably be when you see like that massive reveal, let you say. And then obviously you’ll see a bit more at QuakeCon and stuff. So yeah, it’ll happen at some point, but it’s certainly made a splash this year. I did also say in the episode as well that it was, you know, it would likely tie into a Microsoft thing. And it did, of course, the Bethesda stuff was all at Microsoft’s E3 show. So yeah, I’m willing to give myself another half point here, I think. We seem to keep doing that. So yeah, good. What’s your second one, Matthew? I thought 2021 was going to be a really good year for Ace Attorney fans. Though, and it was, it was, but I thought this on the grounds of that one, we’d get great Ace Attorney localized, which we obviously did. I also thought we’d see Ace Attorney 7, which didn’t manifest. And I actually feel like we’re quite far from it if we’re gonna get it at all, because like the key creatives behind Ace Attorney’s 5 and 6 basically aren’t there anymore. I think they’ve left Capcom. Not in a big song or dance was made about this, but you know, if they are making a new Ace Attorney, it’s definitely gonna be in new hands, which is a shame because as we established in the Ace Attorney Rankings episode, Ace Attorney 6 is legitimately up there as one of the best. And I was like, oh man, the next one they make is gonna be amazing. I just couldn’t wait for it. So yeah, it’s a bit slightly tempered. I mean, it feels like great Ace Attorney kind of made a minor splash for about a month and has already sort of vanished. Like I don’t see a huge amount of chatter about it. And I don’t know if that speaks to people didn’t really like gel with it as much as the others, or if it’s maybe just a bit more of an acquired taste. But I keep reminding myself, wow, we got these two amazing games. Like I played 50, 60 hours of a new Ace Attorney this year. And that was pretty rad. And occasionally the YouTube will serve me up the tracks from it, or I’ve got some tracks from it in my Spotify playlists. And I’ll be like, oh yeah, I did love that game. That made me really, really happy. So yeah, I think this was a good year for Ace Attorney fans. Yeah, I think you deserve a full point for that one. It’s true that like that other stuff had been rumored for a while. The other thing I thought might happen would be the other three games would be put into a collection. Yeah. And that was like rumored a long time ago, along with all these rumors happened at once for a call. Like it was a big, big wave of Ace Attorney stuff, but yeah. I think they treated it like a major release, more so than the previous Ace Attorneys, which just kind of came out a little bit like, well, here it is. This one, I think they actually put a bit of effort in, not, effort’s the wrong word. I think this one, they gave a bit more of a promotional push and it felt like quite a big thing. And it feels like Ace Attorney is sort of back on the menu, if only between this one and the success of the previous trilogy collection, when it released on PlayStation PC and everything. I just feel like they found a big enough audience for it. So I’m absolutely positive there will be more from this series at some point. I just have no idea what shape it will take. Also side note, one of my predictions was that Ace Attorney, this is an exact quote from the episode, it will keep me happy and in lucrative freelance, which the readers will be glad to hear was true. I am glad to hear that, yes. Your boy, Shuta Kumi, got a bit of visibility this year. I’ve never seen him do that much like press for, well, he didn’t really do much besides that kind of like announcement video, but it was pretty significant seeing him do that. Were you happy to see him sort of break cover from his, I think you called it a cupboard? Yeah, wearing his little hat. He’s very like charismatic man as well. He’s a good, I think he’s a good spokesperson for a series because he’s kind of quirky and quite funny. And yeah, I’m very happy to see him. I got a few interview questions for him when I did the, I reviewed it in Edge and we did a post script interview. So we got a few interview questions. Wasn’t one of my best Shuta Kumi interviews. Didn’t get like, he didn’t answer loads of them. He only answered a couple, but what he said was interesting enough. So I don’t feel too bad. What’d you give it for Edge, Matthew? I gave it an eight, which some people would probably say is a bit high. Maybe it is a heart score. Should we give heart scores in Edge? I don’t know. I think if you’d have given it a nine, I would have called that a heart score, but you know. I don’t think it is quite a nine for me, but it’s just so classy. I’m not, if you read the Edge review, I was really pleased with it. And I think it sums up my thoughts a bit more eloquently than I maybe did in our own episode. Not to cast shade on The Back Page, obviously. But that was a review I was particularly pleased with this year. So, you know, if you have access to that, do give it a read. Yeah, in the moment, you were very excited about this game. Like I remember just how, you were so pumped. You played so much for such a small space of time. You know, it did dominate my playing time for like almost a month. And it was just such a, I was in such a sort of happy place with it. It is really good. I don’t know why I’m talking about it like it isn’t or it is a failure of some kind. So I really don’t think it is. It just, it made me, yeah, very, very, very happy. Yep, that’s a good call. So yeah, you get a full point there. Yes. So, my third one was- Suck it, Roberts. Anthem re-releases this year on next gen consoles, but despite being better, no one cares. That was a direct quote. Quite cruel, I would say, actually, like a bit of punching down on Anthem, which I actually think Anthem did have potential to be good if they’d have given it at the time, but they chose not to and chose to focus on Dragon Age and Mass Effect instead. I guess I can’t complain about that too much, but it seems like they had a punt at giving it a revamp. It’s just like, it’s just hard, you know? It’s like, if they were starting from a more positive standpoint, I could see why this might have seemed like a good path, but I just don’t think that goodwill was there to like give it another shot necessarily. So I can see why they did it. Yeah, it didn’t happen. Zero points for me. But you know, Anthem, it’s kind of in the sort of rear view mirror now. It feels like it’s sort of a long time ago that happened. And I’m looking forward to seeing it. If you only played this on Xbox, they did add the frame boost for Xbox Series. I think it’s only Series X, this one. So you can, you know, they boosted it to like 60 frames. And that game, I mean, we know this because we both played it on PC, I think. But you know, it does look absolutely amazing when you’re flying around and it’s super smooth. So that’s something. Yeah, for sure. It’s like, there’s the very kind of like core of a good game is there. Like it’s sort of like, you know, going around an open world with your buddies, like in mech suits and fighting monsters is like, is fun. That is good. And it looks really nice. There’s not much world to it. It’s quite small world. It feels very like maybe a third the size of what you’d like to explore in a game like that, I would say. But it does have some cool bits. We like swimming through tunnels and then kind of popping out. And then yeah, the side quests are repetitive, but there’s just, there was like, you could see how a Destiny kind of like mech style mech game would have been good if it had just been like, had a lot, had longer in the oven, but it had been in development for a while. I just, just one of those things where we can just all move on and it’s fine. That’s kind of where I’m at with it, so. I do think this year was on the whole a good year for Bioware though. I feel like the conversation has gone from, oh Bioware keeps shit in the bed to, oh yeah, we love Mass Effect, which is kind of a pretty good reset for them. Yeah, I also saw so much like cynicism towards that legendary edition this year, and then everyone ate their words. Like I saw so many people saying, oh, they fucked the color palette, blah, blah, blah, blah. And like people were head over heels when it arrived. And it’s like sometimes you just got, sometimes you just got to get the fuck off Twitter and like just make your own mind up basically, just because, you know, it just, there’s so much intense speculation around this stuff sometimes it can just take the wind out of the sails of what the thing actually is. And that Mass Effect collection came along and it was legit, so fair play, you know. Yeah, so what’s your third one, Matthew? My third one is, well, it was related to my last one. I thought Phoenix Wright will be one of the remaining three DLC in Smash Brothers. This is a total bust, obviously. The last one was Sora from Kingdom Hearts, which actually made me laugh because I think you, well, you may have mentioned this in one of your other points, actually, but you did dismissively say it will probably be Sora from Kingdom Hearts, which made me laugh. Does that mean I get half a point for your one? Yeah, maybe, well, we’ll come back. There’s another Smash Brothers point we’ll get to in a sec. I was surprised that they didn’t end with a Nintendo face. I know the Kingdom Hearts people are excited and their whole narrative around this was that the choices were based on that poll they did all these years ago of who would you like to see in Smash Brothers and the number one entry was Sora from Kingdom Hearts or someone from Kingdom Hearts because obviously all these Square Enix nerds had gone on there and obviously spammed the poll with bots or something. And they saw it through and they delivered that, which is good to be true to what you said, but I personally thought it was a bit of a shame that the last final piece of the puzzle wasn’t like a Nintendo icon. I’m sorry that Kingdom Hearts isn’t a Nintendo series. There are a couple of entries but they are baffling and make no sense away from the main games. I thought it was a bit of a joke. This speculation included the quote, it will probably be some rancid guy from Tekken, which I think is also true. Does that mean you get half a point for that one? Yeah, because there was a Tekken guy, wasn’t there? I don’t know my Tekken characters, I can’t even remember who it was. I’ve got to say I was much more down on the Challenger Pack 2 than Challenger Pack 1. I wasn’t hugely invested, I must have met, you know. I write a spicy tweet half an hour before he announces each new fighter. Well, it wasn’t even a spicy tweet, you know. I’d maybe have a little moan about Kingdom Hearts, but I actually don’t really care, so… They should have popped in that Metroid Dread suit for Samus, that would have been good in Smash Bros this year. Oh yeah. But he’s done now though, he’s walked off, he’s gone to have a nice long holiday, old Sakurai, so yeah, fair play. I suppose I should go straight into my one from here, Matthew, because it’s connected, right? So, Master Chief gets added to Smash Bros. Obviously this was a bust also. My theory here was that Microsoft would have done some deal where, because they got Banjo Kazooie and the Minecraft guy Steve, or whatever he’s called, earlier, they would have had to put Halo in there to kind of make up for it. But that wasn’t the case, so… Kind of eat your vegetables deal. Yeah, exactly, but I don’t think that’s like Microsoft’s vibe these days, so that’s not what happened. It would have been so funny to have an obnoxious Master Chief appearance in there. To be honest, Master Chief is like, you know… It’s probably about… Snake is slightly more connected to Nintendo, I suppose, but like, I don’t know, this is… Yeah, Master Chief is like, there is literally no Halo game on a Nintendo platform. That’s true, but like… Which is true of Sephiroth as well. Yeah, exactly, that’s the thing, Cloud and Sephiroth, like, you know, you can play, obviously, FF7 now on Switch, but previously you couldn’t, so yeah, I think this is something, maybe it fits more when it’s a character from a major Japanese publisher that has some Nintendo heritage, like, maybe that’s the thing, but I didn’t want this to happen, this is just something I thought would happen, so that’s fine. So yeah, Smash Bros, we got it wrong, but I must admit, I’m slightly more up on Sora than I am on the Tekken guy, like, to each their own, Matthew. So what’s your next one? This was more of a hope than a prediction. I hope that streaming services get slicker, as they aren’t there yet. We’ve just come out of the rocky first stretch of Stadia and, you know, there’s still a lot of umming and ahhing about it. I mean, I’d say that Xbox cloud streaming is the closest we’ve got in terms of quality. Like, I have played some of it, and it’s pretty impressive on my phone, you know. It’s still not, like, perfect, but it’s decent. You know, I’m surprised every time by how good it is. I also think Xbox have the right model in terms of they’ve just folded it into Game Pass Ultimate. So if you’ve got Game Pass Ultimate, you get access to all those games, which interestingly means that if you don’t own any Xbox hardware or a gaming PC, you can start playing their, like, next-gen library. That’s pretty good. That’s a pretty good pitch. Stadia got sunk on the fact that they were basically making everyone pay full price for every game and a game that you didn’t actually own. Here, the idea of a subscription service where you get access to it, I think that’s the magic element of what Xbox are doing. They’ve just packaged it right. And it works well. And they’ve also done some nice stuff in that there’s about 20 or so games that they’ve, like, there’s a mobile phone touchscreen control scheme that they’ve, like, invented and worked into the interface of the game. Like, there is actually a touchscreen version of the game that they’ve made for you to play. It’s not all of them. It’s like things, you know, some things make more sense than others, like strategy games and I think Dragon Quest, whichever one it is, 11. The last big Dragon Quest, you can play with some cool touchscreen controls and things like that. So, like, they feel like they’re most on top of it. Yeah, I mean, if any, they’re making really good progress, I would say. Like, they’re very committed to doing it. And, like, this wouldn’t be cheap to do, to add control schemes to all these things. And, like, you know, fair play. Like, it is another way to add value to game paths. I’ve not actually tried it, though, I must admit. That’s the only thing it’s holding back. It’s like, there’s sometimes I’m like, oh, it’s still a little bit janky, but I don’t know, I don’t really know what the end game is. You know, are we talking about, like, in a couple of years’ time, will it be flawless? Or will it always be a little bit like there’s these weird compression artifacts all over the screen? Because you still have to deal with that stuff. Like, the funny thing with this is that if you own, like, an OG Xbox, you can play the next-gen version of games by streaming them. And I’ve seen some people on Twitter say, like, they genuinely had a better experience. Like, why would you ever play anything on an OG Xbox? Why wouldn’t you just use the Xbox One as a streaming machine for Xbox Series X? Because that’s the version of the game it’s now running. So there’s some, like, weird, like, funny workarounds that they’ve included with this. Oh, right. So can I now go play, like, I can, if I wanted to, I could turn my Xbox One into, like, a Forza Horizon 5 on Series X machine. Yeah, yeah. That’s pretty cool. Yeah, that’s good. So it’s still, like, like I say, limited by how smooth the streaming is, but they’ve also just announced on the PC version of it, so you can now stream in browser. Beyond the regular tiers, there’s also, like, extra performance tiers. Like, you can, you can, like, boost it in some way. I don’t know the specifics of this, but, you know, it’s got the power and the heft that you can, if you, if you’ve got the bandwidth, you can, like, up the quality, like, even further on PC. It feels like they’re really going for it. Yeah, that is cool. I feel like I never see anyone talking about this, really. And like it. It’s odd, because we all own it. Anyone who has Game Pass has it and has access to it. Just, honestly, I suggest people, if you’ve got Game Pass, just get the app on your phone and just give it a little go. Boot up, like, Dragon Quest or, like, I don’t know, Giz Tactics or something and just see, like, how they work, because it’s, I think you’ll be surprised. Yeah, I’m going to check that out after this podcast. I’m excited about that. Yeah, yeah, I hope it keeps, keeps improving next year. So I’ll give you a full point for that one, young man. Yes. You’ve done very well there. Okay, this next one is Silent Hill and Metal Gear Solid are seen again this year, but not made by Konami. Now, this didn’t happen this year, but there was a report that basically said this is happening from VGC, Andy Robinson’s outfit. So this like the rumor is that a full remake or new version of Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater is in the works at Virtuous, I think it was. That was what the story said. Obviously, I’ve no idea if that’s true or not, but Andy has a very good track record as a reporter. Also, I think like two Silent Hill games are in the works. Yeah, that’s what’s confusing about Silent Hill. It’s like there are two different things. Yeah, one from the Medium Devs and then one from a Japanese company. I can’t remember the exact details on that one. And then at the same time, some re-releases of older Metal Gears are in the works too. So there’s like a big big Konami push going on apparently behind the scenes and like a New Castlevania coming as well. So I feel like I deserve a half point for this one, Matthew. Just because, you know, all this stuff I said was going to happen is reportedly happening? Yeah, that’s it. It feels like the big Konami renaissance just hasn’t happened yet but is coming. Which is exciting. I mean, it’s a shame that their major release for the year was just the instantly memed to death eFootball with, you know, all the characters’ faces popping out their skulls and all that shit. They also did the Castlevania Advance collection. Oh yeah, that was good. That was really good, actually. Yeah, so if you see them doing a similar model for Metal Gear and you start seeing those pop up on Switch, that could be nice, couldn’t it? So even if this just comes down to, you know, the thing I’m excited about is a bunch of old games coming to current platforms. That’s fine with me. I will caveat again, though, that Metal Gear Solid 4 should not leave the PS3. Like, you should have to play on PS3. That’s where it belongs. And like, you shouldn’t be allowed to play on any other format. It’s like, I’m sorry, but those two things are tied. It’s like a blood pact. They are stuck together. You have to go get one. You have to boot it up. You have to look at the XMB. It’s just, it’s the most purely PS3 thing that was made. I just, I don’t think it should be allowed. And I will file an injunction if I have to, to keep it on there. I think I said something to that effect on the podcast too. Yeah, it rings a bell. This feels like a hill that you’ll die on. Yeah, very much so. But like, you know, PS3 Content Circuit 2008, that’s like kind of one of the reasons this podcast exists. So obviously like, yeah, a big part of my personal brand, as they say. So what’s your next one, Matthew? Yeah, my next one was I wanted someone to make a shit your pants scary horror game. I mean, this is definitely something which has come up a few times on this podcast. It’s a bit of a bugbear of mine that the modern horror scene is more interested in clever scares. Well, not even scares, like clever horror. I feel like every generation has a couple of games which stay with people and our nightmare fuel forever more. And I don’t know what those games have been in the last, say, five years. I feel like it’s all gone a little bit layers of fear too. This year, like, we got The Medium from Blooper and that wasn’t it. I mean, that was very much, you know, of a piece with their previous games, which I have a problem with. I don’t know if you played it. There’s like a PT alike called Visage. I think it’s on Game Pass, right? Yeah, it’s on Game Pass. I played an early access version of that a couple of years ago. And in terms of being very like PT like a photorealistic house that’s very quiet and then scary shenanigans go on, that did shit me up a minor amount. So, I haven’t gone back and played the full thing, but maybe there’s some hope there. We saw Splitterhead at the Game Awards, Mr. Silent Hill, Mr. Forbidden Siren doing his thing again. That could be interesting. There could be a bit of hope there, but that wasn’t a game this year, that’s an out. Unless there’s something which has really passed me by, I don’t know that there was a seriously, seriously scary contender this year. Definitely not in the mainstream. Well, there’s stuff like Little Nightmares 2 was out this year, there’s Mondawn as well, that folk horror game that I saw some people going to bat for, meant to be pretty good. It’s meant to be a little bit like Wicomani. There was, I think, quite a well-reviewed instalment of the Dark Pictures series this year, but I haven’t traditionally found those scary. I think they’re well-produced. Yeah, I didn’t get on with… I’ve only played Man of Medan, and I didn’t like it. I just haven’t gone back to them since, because I was just like, oh, this feels a bit flat. I am quite… I’m into the pitch of the fourth one next year, which is based on the HH. Holmes Murder House in Chicago, which I think is super interesting. Yeah, I think that’s a fair point, though. Pants-shitting is so specific a term. It sets a very high standard. You know it when you see it. And I just don’t feel like it’s quite happened this year. That’s fair, I think. So Matthew pointed out off air to me that I have messed up the order of this. So if you listen to the 2021 Predictions episode, these are now slightly out of order because I’m just going on a doc I made last year. So, you know, sorry about that. But yeah, so I will go to my next one in my list, Matthew, which is, oh, Sammy Roberts has to eat his words now. So Halo Infinite campaign is still disappointing despite a year long delay, but the multiplayer will be excellent. So the campaign is largely considered very, it had a very positive response, I think. And I think I was just a bit too pessimistic here. But like I turned around on the campaign immediately when they started showing it off and they were like, you know, Master Chief getting in a banshee and flying around an open world. And I thought that looks like my shit. And I have not played enough of it yet to like form a full opinion on it. I will in time for that Game of the Year episode that we’re doing. But, you know, generally speaking, the response to this has been very, very good. So I think, you know, I’m happy to admit that I’m incorrect there. But the multiplayer thing, it was a pretty obvious pick. But I’m awarding myself half a point for that, Matthew. Any thoughts? You could still play the full campaign and not find it to be excellent. I don’t think I will say preempting Game of the Year. I don’t think the campaign is outstanding. I think I think it’s good. I think it’s it’s way better than I thought it was going to be. It’s, you know, without without sort of spoiling my full take. But the multiplayer is really good. It still bugs me that this is like a bit of a piecemeal release in terms of like some key features coming later. And the missing cart really you really feel its absence, particularly in the campaign they have made. But yeah, I think they pulled it around. I mean, it simply reminds me of how baffling it is that they thought this was going to be good to go in three months time when they showed it off last year. There was quite an interesting interview with Phil Spencer in GQ with regular listener of the show Sam White. He did a good job with that one where he was talking about about that reveal and the idea that it was meant to be a launch game. And he openly said like, you know, we were working from a position of like hope and nutsense, which is, you know, they made the right decision to with to hold it back. Yeah, like getting Halo wrong on that scale just would have been like a major like black mark against the Xbox launch. Yeah, they were right, I think, to do that. But he was there was a more recent feature, it may even I think it may have been Jason Schreier’s one about like the release of it, where Joseph Stratton, who was like Mr. Story on the original on Halo 1 and 2, kind of he was basically sort of air dropped in to sort of like fix new Halo, and he said there were things like, like, AI Marines wouldn’t get in your vehicles and things like that, like they wouldn’t accompany you. And you’re like, what? Like that’s, that’s where it was a year ago, you know, just stuff which he was like is intrinsically Halo wasn’t in it. So I’m really glad they spent that year because spoiler alert, the Marines getting in your cars is still rad as hell and makes me very happy. Yeah, that was, that would have been tough not to have that would have been the sort of thing that would have been like, you know, mean didn’t, you know, rescue Marines, they don’t get your cars. So yeah, good choice made there. That was a very good quote from Phil Spencer and hope I read that I was like, Oh, yeah, that is that is nice and honest. And yeah, I think it was worth the wait. And the multiplayer is fantastic. I really love Halo Infinite multiplayer. So well done. Got a very good future ahead of it, hopefully. Yeah, so my next one is Cyberpunk will go into space in DLC, which didn’t happen because CD Projekt Red had basically spent the last year just making sure, you know, Cyberpunk kind of functions more than anything, which is the right thing to do. And their DLC plans haven’t manifest. I think this will still come to be true. This was based on the fact that one of the endings of Cyberpunk sort of involves space travel and it seems like an obvious self contained location that you might go to. Yeah, it’s kind of been interesting looking at this game because I did wonder if there’d ever be a, you know, a patch where you’re like, oh, this is this feels like it’s done or like we are completely, you know, we are now past the major problems or the major obstacles of this game. I don’t feel like we’ve had that like breakthrough moment. The narrative for this game has been quite murky and unsatisfying in terms of it’s just been sort of poodling its way. Little fixes here and there, they’re still dedicated to it. Any grand plans for like DLC or that room of multiplayer mode have just been like shifted back. There was like a surge of positive reviews around the last Steam sale because they reduced its price quite a lot and a lot of people got it and said, oh, actually it’s in a pretty decent state. I mean, I think that was always true on PC. I don’t think that’s an indicator that, you know, the story has changed around Cyberpunk. We’re still talking about a game that fundamentally a platform holder had to take off sale at the time of release and I don’t think those old gen versions are still much cop. So nothing particularly juicy or interesting happened with Cyberpunk this year. It just feels like a bit of a whimper rather than a bang. However, you know, however they change its future, it doesn’t feel like a replayable game to me in the way that Witcher does. I just don’t think it’s interesting enough structure. So my next one Matthew is Sony revamps PS Now to make its own version of Game Pass. This didn’t happen this year, but apparently it is happening according to a report or some kind of different tiered version of PS Plus. Isn’t that over complicating it? Why can’t they just fucking do it? Why can’t they just do what Xbox is doing? Just go here it is, it’s one thing. This idea of buying into tiers, ugh, I’d say that’s so dumb. I feel like it already is kind of in tiers, like if you want to buy PS Now, it’s right there on the PlayStation 5 store page, you can go do it. It’s just whether the offering significantly changes, that’s the whole thing, it’s like yeah. Because aren’t the tiers going to, I thought the talk about the tiers hinged on whether you got older games too. Oh, yeah, there was some rumour that it might incorporate older PlayStation platforms, right? Yeah, but they should just do that, just have one thing, just offer it all up. Because the Xbox Game Pass has, goes back to OG Xbox too. I don’t want to have to like fuck around with different tiers of it. And the other thing is they think it might have, it’s whether they ever bite the bullet and put in their new games. Because that’s, you know, if they do, I would buy it in an instant. You know, it’s such a no-brainer, but for me, PlayStation now is just missing that first party like excitement level. Yeah, I guess Microsoft just has that gig at those gigabucks, a big gigabucks, gigabucks to kind of like, you know, basically eat costs on Game Pass while it grows. And like, I don’t think Sony, Sony is not as big a company as Microsoft. And so I can see why the economics are different. And so their games do sell, like as they do now, like they don’t, they’re not in a position where they have to do it. Yeah. So I don’t think they will change that. Yeah, I don’t really, I don’t really agree with you on Sony and their games. I think they, I think their year was as good as Microsoft’s, just Microsoft’s is all backloaded and Sony’s is all spread out. But we’ll talk about that at the end of the episode, Matthew. So yes, yeah, you know, I’ll give myself half a point there again, just because, you know, close enough. Yeah, it’s coming to some point, it’s bound to have happened at some point. So yes, what’s your next one, Matthew? We won’t see Metroid Prime 4 where I said Metroid Prime 4 exists as a logo and nothing else. I mean, currently, that’s still true. There’s nothing to suggest that it does exist outside that logo, like we’ve just not seen it. Obviously, I don’t think anyone could have predicted that there was going to be a 2D Metroid game this year. Although, hilariously, in this section, I say the word dread two or three times. I noticed that. I noticed that. I honestly, if you listen about, in fact, I’ll insert a clip of it so you can hear that now. My worry is that it’s going to just be quite behind the curve now in terms of if they just make quite a straight sequel to Metroid Primes 1-3, which while great games, I think, are sort of of their time. I dread for this one. Luckily, that dread will be put off for a bit because, as I said, I don’t think we’ll see any of it this year. Ta-da! It really sounds like I know what I’m talking about, but I genuinely didn’t. Yeah, I found that really odd listening about too. I thought, why did Matthew use the word dread here twice? Unless, like, somewhere deep in my head, I knew Metroid dread used to be a thing and my subconscious deserved me the word dread because of that connection. Who knows? I think we can safely say that you, in that podcast, channeled the energy to make Metroid dread a thing this year. I think I did. I said its name like Candy Man. It’s like fun Candy Man. You can thank Matthew for that. Yeah, I’ve been playing that, actually, so we’ll talk about that in the Game of the Year episode, I’m sure. Very, very shiny thing. Very good. Yes, yes. So, yeah, I would say a good year for Metroid, if not the year we thought we might have with Metroid. I feel like you can still make the Metroid Prime 4 prediction the next two years and still be right on that one. I just don’t think there’s anywhere even close to that being a thing still. It just doesn’t feel like it’s going to be like, surprise, here it is, I just don’t… Yeah. I’m increasingly turning against announcements which are just logos because it may as well not be a thing at that point. It seems really bogus to me to try and to think, well, we can tick off the Metroid fans because we gave them that logo over a year ago. I don’t really think so. I think that’s more disrespectful to your fans in a way. I’d rather they just didn’t do that. No more of that, please. Do you not think that either the massive, massive interest in Dread this year might have motivated Nintendo to be like, well, what else could we be doing with Metroid that we’re not really doing? Do you not think that will happen a bit because of Dread this year? Yeah, it could be. I mean, it definitely feels like the 2D strand of Metroid is completely rejuvenated because of that game. It is just a contender now. And maybe the lesson is, just Switch is so big, it can even make a success of Metroid. It does help that, you know, I think Dread is an excellent game. And I wonder if this triggers them looking at some other bits of their Cacklock going, well, you know, if we can make a Metroid sell, maybe we can make, you know, this is where I completely failed to name any fucking Nintendo series. Doshin the Giant, Matthew. Doshin the Giant. Dread. They’re like, well, the lesson here is that anything works if we stick Dread on the end. Pick me and Dread. If you just say Doshin the Giant, Dread, two more times, Matthew, you’ll make it happen in 2022. I would actually rather Candyman came and got me. Oh, that one didn’t come up on the GameCube draft, did it? No. Oh, that’s funny. Yeah. Well done to Matthew there for summoning Metroid Dread into existence. We’re all very grateful. You’re welcome. So my next one is a big win for Big Sammy. Nintendo adds N64 games to Nintendo Switch Online. This happened, so that’s good. It wasn’t that bold a prediction, I suppose, but it’s been way too slow, that growth of that Nintendo Switch Online catalog. I’d love to just see Game Boy Advance games on there and Game Boy games and a massive library of stuff, but it’s been so gradual. Next year we’re looking at the fifth anniversary of the Switch and it always takes till the right to the end of a generation for Nintendo to get all of its old games onto the console and then there’s a new one and then it’s all migrated off again and you’re like, no, I have to start again. That’s happened several times now. This did happen, Matthew. I don’t think it was because of me. I think it was always going to happen, but any thoughts? I like the idea that someone at Nintendo Japan is listening to The Back Page and they’re like, well, fuck me, that’s a great idea. You got it right in terms of like, you said you always got Sin and Punishment right. You knew that that would be in the lineup. You said Sin and Punishment, Mario 64 and Ocarina. Bing, Bing, Bing. I wish it had released in a slightly better state. Like I think it’s quite sad that this should have been just a very easy win and instead the story was they sort of fucked it a little bit, which is depressing. I think the controls aren’t quite right or their map wrong or they’re a little bit fiddly and fussy or they don’t look amazing, you know, it is a bit of a shame. Well, I like I’ve actually not given it a go because the extra tier wasn’t, it was a bit too much for me to pay really for what it is. The thing with the extra tier, the family subscription. If you get a family subscription, honestly, people should just get in on that with like seven of their mates. I don’t understand why people just don’t do that. It’s really free and open in terms of how it works. All right. So do you have the family though? So we’ve got the family subscription, I’m on it, Catherine’s on it because she wants to get the Animal Crossing DLC and her three brothers are on it. So that’s five of us. Can you add me to it as well? Yeah, I’ll add you to it. Yeah, sure. You sure? If there are any two listeners, one adding. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Robert Augusta Meyer, maybe. You’re welcome, my friend. Yeah, it’s really like, it’s not like only one person could play at any given time either. It’s just like, if you’re on it, you’re on it. Yeah, yeah, that’s… I think it’s good value for money if you split it. I didn’t know it was that easy. Yeah. I’m quite good at scamming my way around family settings on consoles to get free treats. I don’t know why it’s kind of slightly amusing to me to think of Catherine’s three brothers on there. I think it’s just because I only met them once at your stag do, so everything I know about them is based on that. It’s got the feel of a riddle, hasn’t it, when you talk about three brothers? Yeah, it’s a lot of brothers, isn’t it? It’s just a lot of brothers. I guess I’ll just move on now. So yeah, I was correct there. A point for me. What’s your next one, Matthew? I said I will give in to temptation and buy a playdate, which is a bit of an unfair prediction because I have complete control over whether or not this one happens. So I’m glad we’re not doing this as a competition because I could have just done it anyway, just to spite you. Yeah, that’s true. Well, I say that. I mean, maybe I couldn’t have given in to temptation because pre-orders weren’t open. They were open. I actually didn’t pre-order one mainly because I think, like, Catherine can get one through work. So we will play it. I must admit, when the first round of previews came out, because they sent them out to, like, some selected press and a lot of people were like, it feels a bit cheap and plasticky, which is a bit of a shame. And they’re like, it is just a novelty thing, don’t think it’s going to be anything more. This is, for those that have forgotten, the sort of hand-cranked console. It’s got a big crank on the side, used for lots of… Most of them look like they’re sort of mini games. A couple apparently have legs to be a bit more. Like there’s some little kind of, like, RPG-type things on it. It’s not out yet. They haven’t started sending them out. I think they’ve been delayed into next year, so… Oh, man. Like, the whole electronic situation is just, like, bleak. You know, obviously, like, there’s been a pandemic, so, you know, there being some kind of supply line issue is completely expected, but it is, like, hard to get things. Like I tried to buy a new iPad and they were out of stock till, like, February, for example. Wow. And, like, the analog pocket is coming back up for pre-order and they’re doing it in three batches, like, depending on, it’s first come, first serve and the last batch is 2023. And you have to pay up front. And so, you know, paying, like, to around 200 quid for something that you might not see for, like, you know, basically two more years, it’s like, oh, that’s tough, that is. And then obviously the next-gen consoles as well, and, like, you know, if you want to get a Series S, that seems to be the easiest one to get, but, like, everything else is very, very hard to come by. So, yeah, it’s tough out there for electronics, which is a shame, because I’ve never seen more different types of, like, kind of hand-held gizmos and such that I want to buy, just because the Steam Deck happened this year, too, and I put my name down for that. Not sure if I’ll go through with it, ultimately, but I thought it was worth just having my name in the hat, see how I feel at the time, but even that got delayed as well. So, you know, it’s just tough, man. Did you pre-order a Steam Deck, or, like, put your name down for it? Yeah, yeah. I’ll give you half a point for that one. Thanks. Slightly different to the playdate. I mean, I wish the Steam Deck had a crank on the side. Yeah, use it to, I don’t know, what would you use it for? I can’t think of anything funny, so I’m just going to move on. Sort of spin that off. The cul-de-sac of the podcast. Crank-based humour. Who knew that we could get 8 minutes out of it into Meso, but 0 seconds out of a crank. I just couldn’t think of anything. I just looked at the games on my Steam library and I was like, Age of Empires 4? It’s like, I’m going to crank my way to the Castle Age. That works for me. I enjoyed that. That’s not bad. I guess I’ll keep this in the podcast as a raw and intimate look at our creative process. Okay, next one then. So, Nintendo releases new versions of Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD for the Zelda anniversary this year. Nope, that didn’t happen. I feel like, though, that maybe the fact that Skyward Sword HD came out makes this a draw. It’s weird though, because I’ve seen some people, you know, the journalists who are in on the rumor mills, saying, this is a thing. Like, this is definitely happening. It is definitely a thing. It will happen at some point. But if not now, when? I’m pretty sure Andy Robinson was like, this, I mean, I don’t know why they haven’t announced it, because it is happening. He was that confident. Yeah, this is like, there’s a few games like this on Nintendo, like apparently a Metroid Prime re-release coming out as well, right, on Switch. And like, these things have been kicking around the rumor mill for a while, but haven’t manifested. But the weird thing about Zelda is, this was an anniversary year for Zelda, right? Was it the 30th anniversary? 35? 35? Yeah, I’m basically the same age as Mario. Okay, good stuff. Slightly awkward moment in the podcast there. Yeah, so this kind of seemed like this would be the year to do it, really, and it’s a bit odd if it slips to next year, but I suppose like if Nintendo seems to think quite laterally about like, having a new game out every two months basically, or three every three months, so maybe they’re just spreading them out and they’re just coming in. And they do do the fast reveal and release. Where there’ll be a Nintendo director and they’re like, this is happening in three months. I mean, Metroid Dread, you know, it was basically like three months between that E3 and it coming out. Yeah, exactly. And like, so for a re-release, that’s not implausible. I mean, I suppose we know, what do we know about Nintendo next year? Kind of like the Kirby in The Last of Us that’s coming out in like March or something, something like that. So yeah, yeah, plausible. I would say like probably next year, this will happen. But again, they’re made, these games, they are on Wii U, like all they have to do is be ported to Switch and they both look, well, Wind Waker in particular, it looks good in HD. So let’s make that happen, you know? I feel like it’s annoyingly this tier of like, or the ability to make HD versions of GameCube games that’s maybe holding back giving us GameCube as a virtual console. Yeah, that’s what I kind of keep thinking too. Or like, I suppose as well, like, because they’re much bigger files, maybe it’s not as easy to like put it in the kind of interface, you know? Yeah, or just that, I don’t know, in Nintendo’s eyes, these games are still in play as like a big commercial offering. Yeah. I mean, they sort of are, but also like, come on, just give us the goods, give us that mini console. The people want it. Yeah, the people want Hitman 2, damn it. Oh, man, you’re a villager. Anyway, let’s not get into that. No, no, no, we’ve done that, we’ve done that. Yeah, it’s… The thing is, though, that if they are going to do that, we are getting late on in the Switch’s lifespan to start doing that, to start, like… I suppose we’ve had Mario Sunshine in that collection, but I don’t know. I feel like, surely there would have been some other opportunities at this point to get these games into people’s hands somehow. Like, I wouldn’t even be adverse to, like, some kind of, like, collections like the All Star thing, where maybe you get, like, free games on a card, you know? Yeah, that’s what I was going to say. Like, would you buy, like, here’s our ten big first-party games from GameCube, but you buy them as, like, a mega-anthology? Totally, yeah. Imagine you have, like, one that’s got, like, you know, Double Dash and F-Zero GX and then, like… Smash Brothers. Yeah, exactly, like, you know. And, you know, then other publishers can do theirs. You can have, like, the Super Monkey Ball one and, you know. That’s now made me sad that that will never happen. Yeah, I’ve just dreamed up something that’s not real. Maybe if you say it three times, Matthew, it will happen. Or if they put Dread in the collection name. Yeah, the Dread collection. The Super Monkey Ball Dread collection. Yeah, so disappointing that doesn’t happen. But, yeah, I’m willing to believe that Wind Waker and Twilight Princess will return at some point just because Nintendo is big on keeping these games in circulation, albeit in weird ways. So what’s your next one, Matthew? Yeah, it might also be, just because Breath of the Wild 2 is taking them longer, that they’re trying to, like, stretch out their Zelda Beats to fill the time. Yeah, I mean, it may have been that, like, Breath of the Wild 2, you could have seen that being released this year in non-COVID times, maybe. My next prediction was that Sony’s first party games will make amazing use of PlayStation 5 DualSense haptics, but no one else will. I mean, I must admit, I’ve only played, like, five PlayStation 5 games this year. Deathloop was third party and used it quite nicely. It was an exclusive, so they probably were inclined to use it, but that had quite nice stuff where, like, the triggers would lock up when your gun’s jammed, and some of the weird ammo types, like the vibrations of reloading the gun with nails and everything, felt very nice. I thought the DualSense and the controller was, like, one of the big headlines around PlayStation 5’s launch. I feel like over the course of this year, it hasn’t really amounted to much. After Astrobot particularly was so good, like, such a good advert for that controller, but even the first-party games I’ve played, I was like, eh, you know, it was fine. I feel like I’m a bit of a haptics fanboy, and I don’t feel like I was particularly satisfied. Well, you wait till you get your bow and arrow on in Horizon next year, Matthew, then you’ll change your mind. Yeah, haven’t they gone back and added it to some of their older games? Oh, have they? I didn’t know that. I think they might. I think, actually, I don’t know if it’s Last of Us 2 or Horizon Zero Dawn. I think there’s one which has got a bit of the haptic stuff in it. I see that Ghost Tsushima version they’ve done on PS5 has it as well. Yeah, that one I haven’t played. But I played like Ratchet and Clank and it was okay in that, but it wasn’t like standout. In the same way, I didn’t think it was particularly standout in Spider-Man, Miles Morales. Yeah, that’s right. That controller is just amazing when it does the stuff. I was really blown away with it at launch. I think my entry for Game of the Year on Andy Robinson’s VGC site was about the DualSense controller, and I just feel like it didn’t quite deliver on that promise. I thought Returnal used the controller quite nicely. Yeah, actually Returnal is just like the PlayStation 5 showcase this year, I feel like. It’s just all singing, all dancing. Oh yeah, it looks and feels amazing. Just a bit too hard for old Sammy and old Matty, I guess. But yeah, one to play again at some point for sure. This one didn’t feel like it amounted to a huge deal. Yeah, that’s a minus one for you on that one, Matthew. As long as we don’t have to give the Truffle Prize back. Because I’ve eaten them. And I don’t have to return my murder mystery novel. Well, you can. I’d like that. Okay, so my next one is New Ken Levine Ghost Stories Games title gets revealed this year and releases on the same day. But incorrect in both cases. Didn’t happen. No idea what’s going on with that game. Not much more to add, really. I hope we see it at some point. Any thoughts, Matthew? The recent headline is that there have been more Bioshock 4 rumours in terms of settings. This has come out recently. People think it’s going to be set in, like, I can’t remember if it’s the Arctic or the Antarctic. But Bioshock 4 is allegedly a polar-related adventure. So we’ve heard more about that. I don’t know if that counts because he’s not involved with disease. It’s not his thing. No, I feel like that doesn’t count. But I’m intrigued about that as well. Because you do sort of sit there and think, OK, so it’s like we’ve done C, we’ve done the air. Ice, I guess, like space. You know, you kind of see how. You’ve got to think about like, where would people build utopian societies? Like inside a volcano? Probably not. Seems like obviously a bust. A really cold place? I mean, you make life difficult for yourself. Yeah, I mean, I suppose like, but then you’ve got the added bonus of when it’s nice and toasty inside and you’re looking out onto it all. It’s quite, that’s quite bougie in the way that like Bioshock’s kind of settings are, you know. Also like ice. Ice is a nice texture for modern graphics. Exactly. That’s the other thing is it will look shiny as hell. Yeah, I look forward to seeing that, but still no idea what Ken Levine’s making. So guess we’ll wait and see on that one. But yeah, so no points for me there. What about you Matthew? What’s the next one? Mine is more publishers will update their old games for new consoles. It’s sort of true. There’s two different approaches to this. You update old games for free or you update them or you sell new versions. There’s a little bit of both on PlayStation 5. I think Xbox, one of the places they are quite good is just kind of if you bought it once, you’ve bought it once and you’ll get everything updated. Also, I think it’s worth noting like Xbox’s sort of back-compat team do some really amazing, amazing work where they go back and either make, you know, previously un-backcompat things backcompat. So on Xbox’s birthday they announce a load more stuff, you know, like all the Max Payne games, all that kind of stuff. That was cool. But the thing I really like is this frame boost where they take old games and boost the console frame rate on it which to me feels like mad, mad witchcraft. Admittedly, this is sexy if you don’t also have a PC where frame rates are just generally kind of like, you know, off the chain for most of these things. But, you know, the idea that your old collection, some of them now are, you know, they are actually in 4K because they updated them for Xbox One X a few years ago and now they’ve that combined with the frame rate thing. So you can play like Fallout 3 in 4K at 60 frames on an Xbox Series X or Series S. That’s pretty cool. Oh, yeah. I think you deserve a, definitely deserve a point for this one. You really called it. Been a massive investment in that on Microsoft’s part. I agree. It’s like a, it’s really great. I mean, so, so many people who buy Xboxes would never have had PCs. And the barrier to entry is so much smaller. 450 quid versus like a grand plus, you know, like, and so the idea that people can just go and openly get, have these experiences with their old games collections or pick up older games they’ve never played, but now get to experience them in this nice new version. I love this shit. I think this is like the kind, this kind of future briefing has like massive value. And so I definitely applaud Microsoft’s effort for it. Like generally speaking, the best thing for me that Microsoft’s done the last few years is just the back and back stuff. It’s just, you know, deepening its Game Pass library in doing so, but also just being able to offer stuff like, you can buy every Star Wars game that came out on Xbox on there now, except Star Wars Obi-Wan. That one never came back. And like, yeah, so I think here, some really cool games getting that stuff as well. Just some games, the sort of games that people have probably been curious about but might not have played, stuff like Sleeping Dogs, for example. Just go play these with a nicer framerate or, you know, give Watch Dogs 2 a kick, all this stuff. Yeah, it’s when they do it to like, you know, Xbox One games as well, you know, which were already shiny, but like, you know, Deus Ex, Mankind Divided, they’ve punched up to 60. That now looks as good as it does on quite a decent PC. And you can buy these games cheap if they’re not already on Game Pass, which a lot of them are. It’s just, I don’t know, a really, really good deal. I mean, the sort of sneer encounter to this is like, well, all they do is like, shine up old games, where are your new games? But I actually think it’s super valuable, and I’ve had a lot of fun revisiting, you know, I’ve been playing Binary Domain with the Frame Boost and everything. It’s great. It’s really good fun. Well, from that sort of like, you know, perfectly correct prediction to one that was completely fucking howlingly wrong. Let’s go to my final one, Matthew, which is GTA 6 is revealed. Set in the same city across two different timeframes. Doesn’t come out until 2023. You were so specific. Yeah, I don’t know why I did this. You can never expect these games to just come out very quickly. It just doesn’t happen that way. They’re massive undertakings for Rockstar, obviously. So I’m probably not going to see this now for a couple more years. We haven’t even got the next-gen version of GTA 5 out yet. So it’s probably going to be slow going for a little while. And they’re still investing in GTA Online content. As we record this, they’ve just this week, I think, revealed that they’re doing a new story DLC that’s set years after, well, for GTA Online, I should say, set years after GTA 5. So that features the Franklin character again. Haven’t they got some musical artists to make a whole album for it? Yeah, your favourite artist, Dr. Dre, Matthew. I think Dr. Dre’s made new music for it, and then some of his collaborators have as well. That’s a big deal because I don’t think he’s made music with his name on it for a long time. So yeah, that’s quite a big deal. Complete side note, I got massively into the album The Chronic this year. It’s very, very good. That’s really off-brand for me, but I just wanted to mention it because it was a meaningful experience that I had this year. That’s nice. I’m surprised to hear Randy Newman has never released an album called The Chronic. One day, Matthew, maybe. Good stuff. I look forward to seeing what GTA is eventually, but I’m not holding my breath that it’s going to be anything, but maybe the second half of this generation could be a long time yet. What do you think? Full agreement. They can take their time. It does feel like with this story content in online that they’re keeping all their departments busy. That’s got to be a considerable investment to make something like that. Yeah. I can’t imagine GTA Online will stop. I imagine it’s got a roadmap for years yet, just because you kind of need the next version of GTA Online to spin up as soon as the other one winds down. Financially, it’s going to be a big headache for everyone involved. We can never know because we’re not inside these studios, but you don’t want to end up basically becoming a version of Valve. Just because you don’t have to make something new, it means you don’t use those amazing powers at making something new. I do wonder what it’s like working at these places. If you are someone who makes these things, which leaves such a huge mark and is such a key part of everyone’s gaming lives, and then you get to a point where it just doesn’t make sense to do the thing you’re good at anymore, from a financial point. Oh yeah, I kind of miss the cadence of Rockstar Open World Games. I completely understand why they don’t come out as frequently as they used to. But if they came out 50% faster, obviously, I’d be very happy. But I’m sure there are reasons why that can’t be the case. So yeah, I’m with you. I’d love a new Rockstar game every three years, rather than every six years, I guess, or seven years. So yeah, that’s just entitled old me. So yeah, I look forward to seeing whatever they make eventually. I will play that DLC though, very curious to see how they amalgamate more story stuff into GTA Online. It’s sort of like a continuation of stuff they’ve done before. Like Dr. Dre was very briefly in the last DLC they did. He just sort of turns up in an aircraft hangar for like one scene, then fucks off, and it’s kind of confusing. And I was like, oh, that’s Dr. Dre there for some reason. And then you go to an island and do a heist, and it’s like, yeah. I don’t know if I’d even know if I met Dr. Dre in a game. He’d have to say, I’m Dr. Dre. And then I’d be like, OK. He stands out, because it’s just like, I think you would identify that it’s somewhat of note, just because it looks so lifelike. It’s just, yeah. OK, so if there’s a room of people, and they’re like, one of these people is the celebrity Dr. Dre, I’d be like, that guy, because he’s got fingers. That’s a great thought experiment. If anyone out there can set that up as a thing for Matthew to do, maybe a brief, I don’t know, maybe I can just do this for you. I can create a line up, and you have to guess who Dr. Dre is from lots of different Rockstar characters, and ones like the Prospector from Red Dead Redemption, just to make it a bit easier for you. Very good. So those are all the predictions, Matthew. We did also briefly discuss in the episode what the fortunes were of the different platform holders for 2021. And I think we were maybe slightly harsh on Microsoft in retrospect. Did you have any thoughts listening to that bit of the podcast? Like we said outright, Sony were going to have a stronger year than Xbox, and I think if you balance them up, I think they’d probably come out the same. I don’t think it was a dropping. It might have been different if Sony had also released Horizon and Gran Turismo, but they didn’t. It means they’ve got quite a stacked 2022, and that’s going to be quite hard to deal with for Xbox. But this year, Xbox have ended really strong, and it feels like they’ve ended strong at the period where you need to be loud and strong. This is the time you buy your Christmas presents and your Christmas games. This is where people have discussions about the best games of the year, and I feel Sony are missing from the conversation a bit in the last six months. Yeah, but that’s just, I think, because of how things have been timed. Yeah, absolutely not their fault. I think, also, like, they’ve just got a bit unlucky with, like, Ghostwire being delayed as well, because they probably would have had that in, I think it was meant to be, like, October originally. They’ve been hurt by slipsmore, which was another thing we said at the outset of this episode that we thought this year was going to be pretty messy in that regards, and it was. Yeah, it’s just inevitable, isn’t it? Like, you know, I absolutely don’t mind that’s the case. It’s led to a very stacked first quarter next year as well. This isn’t like some weird anti-Sony point scoring at all, but it just is what it is. We did get it wrong in that we thought… We didn’t say Forza Horizon coming. We thought it would be Motorsport first. And if anything, we were like, oh, and that would be really good for Horizon, because it means it will have another year in the oven, when actually it came out this year and is fucking brilliant. So, shows how much we know. Once again, we predicted it would be in Japan. It wasn’t. It was Mexico. Again, that’s fucking brilliant, though. So, that’s all right. Did you see the Hellblade 2 demo at the Game Awards? Oh, yeah. Very, very tasty looking. Very tasty. That giant fucking man is so cursed. Yeah, yeah. He has so much of my energy after this year. That’s like, just kind of going around going, oh, and then like having bits of him cut off. I was like, that’s me at the end of this year. I thought it was very like Attack on Titan, that thing. Just a big, bald man. There’s nothing like monstrous about him apart from his size. And he seems like disinterested that people are throwing spears into him. I thought that looked really, really good. Yeah, that looks like a proper blockbuster game they’re making there. It would seem like the first Hellblade was a medium under restraint, just because it was self-published and stuff. I like it. I don’t love it. I’m into this world. I’m into this vibe and the look. And I’ll be interested in what they do next. And what they did next was a giant naked grandpa, man. It was fucking wild. Yeah, that did look very cool. We were slightly wrong on what we thought Xbox would have this year, but I think we were too harsh, because the last three months I’ve been playing Forza Horizon, Age of Empires 4 and Halo Infinite, and they’re all fucking great and well done. That’s the really seeing… I think we talked in the episode about how Microsoft needs to keep feeding things to Game Pass in order to keep it working as well as it can. The last three months have just shown what an asset is, when you get that stuff right. I actually think next year will be busy for them, just because obviously you do have Starfield coming out, which is exclusive. Of course, I keep forgetting that’s them, yeah. That is next year, right? That’s 2020. Yeah, I think they’ve said that, yeah. There’s that, but also I’m sure this will be a Gears year as well, just because I think, was it 2018 or 2019, Gears 5? Yeah. So it feels like three years might be the right amount of time. You’ll see that. You’ll surely see that next-gen shiny Forza game emerge this year, too. And maybe you’ll start seeing stuff that they talked about originally, kind of like pop up, maybe that avowed game from Obsidian. There was some reports about that a little while ago. So I think they could have a big year, too. And yeah, obviously Sony’s looking at a year where it has, you know, it benefits a bit from this stuff moving back. I mean, for them, they probably don’t mind because they want to get more consoles in people’s hands before this stuff drops, because it’s not like releasing a game will help them in terms of, like, they can’t sell any more consoles than they’re already selling, so it almost doesn’t make sense for them to have more great games out there. But yeah, so you’re looking at Horizon, and yeah, we can save that for another time. But I would say that this year definitely, like, Sony just had a bit more going on in the first half of the year, but then it’s kind of, its year of big releases ends with Deathly, basically, and then that’s when all the Microsoft stuff comes along, so they have been out of the conversation a little bit, but I don’t know, is that a big deal? I don’t know, I’ve had a great year on my PS5, you know. What’s the point in selling consoles when you can’t sell consoles, so, you know, you’re all right? Yeah, for sure. But yeah, and Nintendo on that episode, Matthew, I think you, we have kept saying on this podcast, at some point Nintendo will have an avalanche of stuff to kind of unload. And I don’t think that’s quite materialized yet, has it? The speculative take on this is that if this Switch Pro is going to come along at some point, which was obviously the big prediction for this year, but didn’t really amount to anything, you would think that that would launch, you know, alongside something juicy. I mean, you know, if ever there was a game to launch it alongside, it would probably be Breath of the Wild 2, but we are, yeah, I mean, just based on when people made games, we’re definitely waiting for the next thing from, you know, basically everyone at this point. You know, we’re going to, you know, definitely the Mario team, you know, whatever the Mario Kart team are up to. Not that they need to ever make a new Mario Kart, because Mario Kart Deluxe has sold, what, like, 30 million copies or something absurd. Yeah, it’s, whatever it is, it’s like, it was back at the top of the charts. That game is just the man alive. Where was that love when it was a Wii U game and we were making a Wii U mag? That’s what I want to know. 38.74 million units, Matthew. Blimey. It’s not even a pack-in, you know. That’s just crazy. Well, it’s not crazy, it’s a great Mario Kart, but it’s an old Mario Kart. So they’re probably like, why even bother? The curse of success. Yeah, I still think that Avalanche is coming, really. I think they only really need to nail Breath of the World 2, and I hope it’s… I just hope it’s like substantial enough, like whatever it is. I hope it is something new. I hope it isn’t just Hyrule with like a little bit floating above it. I don’t see how it can be, but we’ll wait and see. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, interesting. I guess we’ll see how that sort of pans out. But yes, it didn’t quite happen this year, but I don’t know. I think everyone had a fairly solid year considering we’re in the pandemic and stuff. To be honest, I’ve never run out of stuff to play this year. As people know as well, I think this podcast has definitely solidified. Clearing my backlog is a thing that I do now more than I used to, which is fine because I like having new things to talk about and to weigh in on different episode ideas and stuff. That’s driven a lot of what I’ve played this year. But yeah, it’s all good really. But we will do a 2022 version of this, Matthew, in a few weeks. I think that’s a good way to kick off the year. Just very light discussion. We’ve talked into a bit of it here, but I think it was good to revisit this. We’re probably about 50% right overall between us, which is not too bad. We didn’t take any swings that were that big, but the GTA one was really daft. It didn’t happen, so that’s embarrassing for me. So Matthew, the podcast is over now. The next episode is going to be about Lord of the Rings games. I’ve very much inflicted this on you. What are your thoughts on this one? Some games are very fond memories of. I think it kind of makes sense. In my head, I’m thinking of the episode as being a bit like, you know when everyone’s waiting for the BBC Christmas film? Like what recent blockbuster is going to be on the BBC this Christmas? It’s kind of our episode equivalent of the Christmas film. And this year’s Christmas film is Lord of the Rings, Fellowship of the Ring, for some reason. Well, I know the reason. It’s just going to be a nice, weirdly specific end to the year. Yeah, I think it’s going to be fun. I’ve actually got a really firm plan for what it’s going to be, and I think it’s going to be a good one. It’s also nice to have a few episodes which aren’t too mega heavy, because I think Game of the Year is going to be probably pretty substantial. So for listeners at home, it’s going to go Lord of the Rings episode, and then Game of the Year, and then I guess we’ll probably do 20, 22 predictions at that point, and then that will take us into next year, I think. So yeah, I don’t think there’s one I’m missing there. My brother does this like fantasy league of games. Right. And it’s just, it’s cool. I’ll tell you about it. Well, I should pretty keep this off there. I’ll tell you about it. All right. Well, thank you for listening to the podcast. If you’d like to leave us a review on Apple Podcast, we’d always appreciate it. We’re about at 99 reviews at the time. Push us over. Push us over. And push us over with a nice five-star. Oh, still that one four-star review haunts me. Where did that come from? That haunts me, that four-star review. It feels like it’s something that probably my dad did, but he meant to press five, but accidentally pressed four. I’m willing to chalk it up to that. Or someone who didn’t like the draft picks on the PS2 episode or something. One of the developers of Red Faction who was just cross at the constant bad-mouthing. But not that cross because he still picked it. And he still gave it four stars. Yeah, exactly. He’s like, fair enough. So we’re Back Page Pod on Twitter. It’s backpagegames.gmail.com if you’d like to send us an email. We’ve had a few emails from you. We’d like a few more because we’d love to do a mailbag in the new year as well. One of those over-long mailbag episodes our peers are always telling us about. Matthew, where can people find you on social media? MrBassel underscore Pesto. I’m Samuel W. Roberts. We’ll be back next week with Our Lord of the Rings episode. Goodbye. Goodbye for now.