Unwrapping the ONLY X-Men ’97 Xbox Series X

NARRATOR: Games in this podcast range from E to M.

[AUDIO LOGO]

- Hello and welcome to The Official Xbox Podcast, the only podcast coming to you from inside Xbox. I'm Jeff, and welcoming yet another couple of guests here to the cheese couch, Ethan.

- [SNORTS]

- It's been a few weeks.

- It's been a few weeks.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Hard to get you to snort in the first ten seconds.

- Yeah, seriously. It's been a few weeks. And also, if I had remembered that the chair was bright yellow, I wouldn't have worn a yellow shirt. I don't know what I was thinking. I match almost perfectly. I was going for a vibe, a knit polo. I thought it looked nice, and now I got to throw a jacket over it.

- I like it. It's good.

- You're like cheese, lettuce, cheese.

- OK, yeah.

- It's not the best sandwich.

- No, I've definitely had better, definitely had better. But good to be back. I was out of town for some time, visiting some family and back in the Midwest, where the internet is satellite, and the pork tenderloin is always fried. So good to be home, good to be back in Seattle.

- Sounds like mostly good things, right?

- Yeah, yeah, definitely. I would say so. I would say so. The pork tenderloins, I had one like once a week while I was there because it's just a little slice of home. It was good to be back.

- Give it a couple of weeks before you get a cholesterol test.

- Yeah, maybe.

- And Justin Speller.

- Yes.

- This is your first time on the show. What do we need to know about you?

- Let's see. Let's see. Where can I start? I'm a proud Chicagoan. I can't say-- can't go like two sentences without saying anything about it.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: It says "Chicago" literally on your shoes.

- It does. It definitely does. I love Chicago. As you can see, you got the Chicago skyline in there somewhere. But yeah, proud Chicagoan and big into sports. Yeah, and also gaming as well, so happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

- Did you grow up-- did you live in Chicago for a while?

- Oh, my gosh. I was born in Kentucky, so I can't say "born there."

- OK.

- But yeah, three years. So 18 years, 18 years I was living in Chicago.

- Wow. Oh, man, I love Chicago. I lived there very-- like one year, so way less. But I love it.

- Do you have a favorite pizza style or anything?

- Man, you're going to hate me. Deep dish, I love. I love New York style pizza most. Deep dish, I love, but you have to be in the mood for it. It's a pie.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: A slice is a meal.

- Yeah, yeah. Whereas a New York style slice is a quick thing, Chicago pizza is a Midwest thing. You definitely got to take a breather.

- Real Chicagoans actually prefer thin crust.

- Oh, really?

- Well, I'll tell you. I'll tell you.

- All right, I love it. I love it. That's good to know.

- And you work with the Xbox Social Team as well?

- Yes, yes, yes. Product Marketing Manager on the Xbox Social Team under a great manager and great leader.

- It's OK, she's not watching.

- Yeah, I was like--

- No, she's coming.

- At me.

- All right, so today we're going to be talking about-- this is actually an amazing week for games. We had teased this up in the past couple of weeks, that if there was some slow releases, this is the week where if you're a Game Pass subscriber, you've got a ton to play, including Another Crab's Treasure, Eiyuden Chronicle-- Hundred Heroes.

In fact, we're going to be speaking to the devs of both of those games, one here in person and one remotely. Been playing both. Very excited about that. But I want to know what you all have been playing. Justin, why don't you kick this off?

- I'll kick it off. I'm a traditional nostalgia guy, so I love a big COD, Warzone specifically. Love just the crop of play, dropping in, hopefully not getting blasted out of the sky.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Solos, duos, quads? What are you doing?

- Yeah, so quads. So with Warzone, it's up to 150 players.

- Right.

- So I play usually alone and online, and yeah, love to drop in.

- Are you--

- Resurgence.

- Yeah, that's what I was going to ask. Are you Resurgence?

- I'm Resurgence.

- Nice. Resurgence is the vibe. I love it.

- Oh, 100%. So I've been playing that a lot, like maybe a couple hours a day.

- Wow, that's great.

- And then on the flip side, I'm a big Rocket League guy. Rocket League season 14, I think we're on. And it's just easy to play. I love sports, right? Big sports guy. So who doesn't love soccer and race cars? Hot Wheels kind of vibe.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah.

JUSTIN SPELLER: And yeah, love playing soccer and kicking off, kicking ass, taking names.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, it's just a classic game. I love Rocket League, man. That's great. I was playing like-- like I said, I was back home. My internet was limited, so I had a Series S there where I was visiting, but I had to rely on what was already installed, plus what I had brought on a hard drive. So I dove back into Rainbow Six Siege, which that was like when I first got into gaming-- not gaming, excuse me.

When I first tried to get into the industry, I started by full time streaming. And that was one of my inlets into the industry, and so I was playing-- in season one through three, I was playing like 40 hours a week of Siege, right. All the time, trying to be competitive. So coming back to that was a humbling experience.

[LAUGHTER]

10 years later. Maybe it came out in 2015, nine years later, something like that. But it was just I got my ass handed to me time and time again. But there's something about it. Maybe it's the nostalgia of it all. I've been playing with a bunch of coworkers here at Xbox, so it's been super fun. And then obviously with the entire world just diving back into Fallout, I mean, everybody's watching that show, right? My folks got super into it.

As I said already ad nauseam, I was with family this last

- Trip. So when Fallout came out, I got to explain to my parents kind of what that was and why it was a big deal for gamers. They saw the trailer, like this looks great, love Walton Goggins. You know? And for me, it was like, yeah, but it's the Fallout universe, you know? I got to take my parents through the intro of Fallout 4. They watched the whole beginning. My mom got to play--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Your parents watch you play video games?

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, they love it. My mom's a gamer.

- That's a nurturing environment. I have no--

- Really. They were always great with that stuff. And my mom is a gamer, like she plays a lot of Hogwarts Legacy right now, a lot of Animal Crossing. She got Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, so she's been playing that. But Fallout was kind of a new one for her, so I've been trying to get them to try Fallout 76 because we could do the private server thing. We could all run around together as a family. I thought it'd be pretty fun.

But it was cool to kind of take them through the lore of Fallout ahead of the show. We played like the week before the show came out. And I was like, so here's what Vault-Tec's about, and here's all these factions.

- Your parents are real into this.

- Well, they were at least entertaining me.

- Yeah.

- Just being supportive.

- Being nice to you.

- Yeah, totally.

- Who the hell is this guy?

- That's a win either way for Ethan.

- 100%.

- Wow.

- If I get to overindex on a topic, my afternoon is made. Yeah, so it's been good. I have not been able to shake the Fallout bug. I've been playing 76 every single night. I cannot get enough.

- All right, so I've been very tempted, like my finger has been hovering under the download button. There's a lot to play. I'm in the middle of so many games, and nothing entices me like another game when I'm already in the middle of something else.

- Totally. Totally.

- And I'm trying to stay disciplined with-- I'm the last little bit of Persona 3 Reload, and I am playing Eiyuden Chronicle-- Hundred Heroes and another Crab's Treasures we'll talk about. A lot of games. But I'm just so-- my head is so turned with Fallout 76. If I was to jump in tonight, which I'm now talking myself into--

- Yes, what do I-- [STUTTERS]

- OK. [LAUGHS]

- What do I need to know?

- What do you need to know? That's interesting. So I think Fallout 76, like a lot of games like that, like No Man's Sky and Sea of Thieves, that have just changed so much since its release, it's the only-- it's the only Fallout game that has a storyline that's continued. Kind of like ESO, right? Elder Scrolls Online where you have things that are--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And your anniversary there?

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah. Crazy, right? And so with Fallout, it's like anybody that jumps in the game from a story standpoint is jumping in the game a year after anybody that left the vault before they added NPCs to the game, right? So essentially, something has happened. I don't want to spoil it too much, but there was a plague that wiped out pretty much everybody that was alive in the Valley, and you're trying to figure out, what's going on there, what happened.

And now, people are coming back because there's rumors of treasure in them there hills. There's, like, you know, reasons for the Brotherhood of Steel to be there. That's one of the more recent expansions. And the game has just kind of blown up. They've added Atlantic City. They've added Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. There's more content coming later this year, I believe. So there's just a lot to do.

And I think you should go into that game-- they've done a really good job revamping the new player experience. So I would just say, as soon as you come out of the vault, you're going to be guided by people basically saying, things have changed since you were stuck in this vault, right? And things have changed since the launch of the game. Like, they're working it into the story. So it does a great job of walking you through. But, with that game, I would say, just do what sounds fun, you know?

There's so many questlines. There's so many storylines now, so many factions. Like, just go off on a tangent, follow a quest line till you're bored, and then find something else. There's so much to find in Bethesda games. Like, the best quests are the side quests. Or just, you know, maybe a computer you find is going to lead you to something just truly unbelievable.

And there's a bit for everybody. You can build a base. You can build a business and run a shop and sell out of that business. You could play just story content and you're never going to be inhibited by other players. Like, story content-- for the most part, it's going to feel like a traditional Fallout game when you're playing story stuff, which is nice.

And then there's also the ability to team up with your friends to do events, very similar to a Destiny, or an ESO, where there's events that happen every hour. There's big expeditions that are kind of like Destiny strikes, where you got to go in with a squad, and it's harder, and there's--

JUSTIN SPELLER: So it's like a choose your own adventure kind of.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Totally. They've done a great job. And they've fleshed it out so much that there's a little something for everybody. I really think, when that game first launched, it wasn't for everybody, because it was very hardcore survival, which is-- which I enjoy, but it wasn't for everyone.

Now it's like, if you like Fallout, and you haven't tried 76, you've got to try it. The story is great. Yeah, yeah. Give it a shot. Give it a shot.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: You're making it harder on me, really.

- I know-- and I feel like I'm talking a lot. I feel like I'm talking a lot.

- No, no, like, that's awesome. Like, you've honestly-- like, marketed it to me though.

- I know.

- Well, mission accomplished. So actually, we're building the show around you, Justin. We're going to talk you into a bunch of games this week.

JUSTIN SPELLER: Sell me, guys.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: All right. It is a huge week for Game Pass. I mentioned a couple, but a lot of day one games landing this week. So tomorrow on Friday, Manor Lords is coming to Game Preview on PC.

This is one of the most wishlisted games on Steam, I think I was reading today, like 3 million wishlists. If you have PC Game Pass or Game Pass Ultimate, your wish is fulfilled coming tomorrow.

So, this is a medieval strategy game featuring in-depth city building, large scale tactical battles. You're looking at the video, you're probably saying, OK, I might really want to build this village, or I really like what the battles look like. Very excited for this one. This is what I'll be playing this weekend.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Can't wait, yeah. Very excited.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: All right. So then, also out now on Game Pass for Cloud console and PC, Another Crab's Treasure. Do not let the bright world fool you. This is a hardcore soulslike game.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: It is.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So, it looks very cute, but, like, if you've played Dark Souls, if you have played Elden Ring, if you have played anything like that, then this will be-- you will be right at home once you get used to the fact that it just looks cuter.

- It's the cutest soulslike ever.

- Honestly.

- There are a few things that-- like, you can save anywhere. There is-- and there are sort of modifiers that you can do to sort of expand out, like, increase the parry window. You can actually give Krill, the crab, a gun.

- Krill is his name?

- Krill. There's tons of puns here. We're actually going to have the creators of the game, Aggro Crab, in your very seat here in just a few minutes, so, yeah, everyone loves to sit down on a warm sofa. They'll be thanking you here in a couple of minutes.

So I won't spend too much time there, other than, you're going to want to check this one out, especially if you liked Lies of P, or you liked Elden Ring, and you're looking-- you want to scratch that itch, because I can tell you, the first boss-- double digit attempts, and I was like-- like, I was like, cruising along pretty well. And then I was like, OK. Now I've got-- let me-- then I'm like, OK, this is how we're going to have to do it. Take my earrings out and really, like, buckle down here.

- Oh, man. That's awesome, man.

- I'm like five times and I'm done, honestly.

- Would you say it's kind of like a beginner soulslike, then? Like, would you say it's like, a good one for folks that have never jumped into a souls?

- What I would say is that if you use the settings appropriately-- there are a few things that are-- like, a lot of soulslike-- you can't even pause in some of them, and in this one, you can. So I don't want to undersell it by saying it's baby's first soulslike, because like I said, the game did kick my ass-- and on the first boss.

- Yeah.

- But if I had chosen certain settings, I could have made it much easier for me.

- That's good.

- And so I will say it probably could appeal to a broader range of folks who might look at other soulslikes and go, this is too hardcore for me. I still--

- I need to be weaned into it.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Wean me all the time.

- So, like a dump into-- dump-- go into the settings and check that out. And it's in Game Pass, so you know, you can try it out. It's very funny and I'm very excited. And like I said, we'll be talking with Aggro Crab here in a few minutes. They'll be dropping some knowledge on the indie game scene and on sort of the story of how they made the game.

So here's another game that I've been spending a lot of time with this week. This is Eiyuden Chronicle-- Hundred Heroes, also out on Game Pass for Cloud console and PC. This is a sort of an old school-looking RPG, if it was made now. Turn-based. It's sort of a spiritual successor, I guess, if you could-- there was a series of games called Suikoden out on like, PS1 and PS2 that I was like very into back in the day, where you're in a very Pokemon like way, gathering together like over 100 different allies that you can put on your team, and that you're building up a town, and some of them might be shopkeepers or blacksmiths. Some of them might be like magicians or samurai, or all kinds of stuff. There's ones that are animals.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: It's a town you're managing.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Well, it's not a-- as you go through the game, you end up building that up, but it's really like, all of the different things that you might like to do in a traditional RPG from exploring to delving into dungeons, to a really complex-- like a story that starts small and ends up becoming like world-encompassing.

But along the way, every time you meet somebody that-- where they have like a-- that's not just like a regular NPC, they've got like a portrait of their face, you're like, I bet I can get this person to join me. And you don't have to use them all. You don't have to do it, but that's kind of the fun of it. And they might bring something to your town. They might bring something to your battle.

You're doing a lot of like six v six, or six player battles versus, you know, animals or other stuff in the world. So if you're looking at the game, it's 3D backgrounds, but then it's 2D sprites, or 2.5D, like, very, like, old school-looking.

It has a lot of charm. I really enjoyed the writing in this game. It's fully voice acted. I'm very into this, and so--

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Oh, I love it.

JUSTIN SPELLER: I love it.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: All right. I talked a lot. But--

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: I do have one follow up. Like, I see that it's coming to Cloud console and PC.

- Yep.

- Do you think that this would be a good handheld game?

- 100%. Oh, yeah. So, I'm a big fan of the ASUS ROG Alai. This game is going-- it's going to be perfect for that.

- Oh, sick. That's my main device, too, so I'm very excited. That's great.

- I love to play an RPG in a handheld. Maybe it's just because I grew up with Gameboy and DS and all those things. And a lot of those longer games, I like to be on the sofa, playing them, and holding it.

- Good for your travel too, right? I travel a lot. I love traveling, so I love a handheld.

- So, this will be perfect for that. But because it's available Cloud Console, PC, if you've got internet access, you can play it on your phone. This would work just fine with touch, or you-- you know, you can play it on a big screen at home, wherever you like. So if any of the things I said sounded like something you'd be into, this game is for you. Because there hasn't been an RPG quite like this in some time. And you know what? Enough of me talking about it. Why don't we actually sit down with the devs behind both of these games.

First up, we're going to have Nick and Caelan from Aggro Crab, the makers of Another Crab's Treasure. They joined us in studio. Like I said, you two, you're going to have to get up. And then we're going to send it over-- an interview with 505 Games, with Stephen Takowsky, to talk Eiyuden Chronicle-- Hundred Heroes. Let's hear what they've got to say.

OK. I think we did the thing. Justin and Ethan are gone. In our place, we have Nick and Caelan. Sorry, I'm still here. But you'll have to deal with me for a little bit.

NICK KAMAN: Hi.

- You guys are here from Aggro Crab. This is launch day here today.

CAELAN POLLOCK: Yeah. Happy to be here.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Is this how it normally feels to launch? I've never launched a game. This is your second game, Another Crab's Treasure. How does it feel right now?

- Can I scream at the top of my lungs?

- Just-- we'll get the audio people ready, and go for it. Yeah.

- I feel good. I don't know. It's a lot of anxiety. Our first-- our last game, Going Under, it came out during COVID. So there wasn't really like, the opportunity to celebrate. This time, we have like a big party, and it's going to just be a big celebration of the hard work that everyone's put in. Right now, we're kind of just, you know, still-- we've got our heads down and we're trying to get to the finish line. So I don't-- I can't feel anything yet. But soon.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: All right, so--

- Oh, wait. It's Thursday. I forgot.

- Yes, yes.

- The game's already out.

- Yeah.

- I already feel great.

- Your head is down, and you're partying at the same time.

- And I'm partying tonight. Yeah.

- Well, I do appreciate you taking time out this week to come and visit with us. I've been playing Another Crab's Treasure. We had just talked about it. How do you describe this game?

CAELAN POLLOCK: So, Another Crab's Treasure is a soulslike taking place underwater, obviously, where you play as a little hermit crab who's had his shell repossessed due to unpaid taxes. And he needs to go on this grand treasure hunt to earn enough money to buy back his repossessed shell. And along the way, he's going to learn all about the sort of current nature of the ocean, this sort of fantasy undersea society, and its whole basis on the trash economy.

So as trash continues to fall into the ocean, crabs and other sea creatures are using this to kind of industrialize and build up society. And what they aren't-- what most of them aren't aware of is that it's also killing them at the same time.

NICK KAMAN: But what you also find out is that you know, you lost your shell, right? You have to protect yourself somehow. So you also have to use trash. Maybe you don't want to, but you have to, to protect yourself from these crabs who have been kind of losing their minds due to the pollution going on. So that's where we're getting this, like, soulslike angle of having to fight everything.

- Got it. Yeah.

- Like, wearing trash--

- Constantly being attacked.

- Wearing trash as shells. That's the part I forgot. Like, the most important core concept behind the game.

- You got there, yeah.

- We got there.

- Yes. Early on in the game, I was using a soda can, I think, as protection. We'll get into that storyline a little bit more. You described the game as a soulslike. And I've played, I think, most of the big name soulslikes in the past couple years. And there's sort of like a-- you know, it's going to take place in a Gothic environment, typically. You know, it's hard. You're going to lose everything when you die, or you have one chance to go back and get it. Attack is going to be on the right button.

But for certain things I think are very-- very at home. But you've taken things in other places that I haven't seen in this genre yet. First of all, I could pause. So, thank you. I can save anywhere. And there was a number of like, sort of, I would say, difficulty modifiers and other things that we haven't seen.

So when you looked at-- from the concept and you decided you wanted to make a soulslike, did you look and say, these are the things I like about this genre, and here's the things where we're going to go in our own direction?

- Yeah, basically. I mean, look, we're all big fans of soulslikes, of FromSoftware's work, and we knew going in that we wanted to do something in the genre, but different, right? Like, it was very clear from the beginning, what we had, and how that was, like, not something that looks like any other souls game. We've got this little cute character who looks like a Banjo-Kazooie character, a Pixar character-- like, a little cute guy. And we knew that, you know, this was an opportunity for us to enter the genre with something lighthearted, to stick out, to stand out.

That being said, we feel like this entry to the genre, like, does a lot of the things that you would expect, right? Like, don't get me wrong. This is still a dark, crumbling world. It's just one that, on the surface, like, looks more cute and silly and colorful, right? But it is-- it-- the tone of the souls genre is somewhere in there.

- Just underneath a layer of, like, fish puns, like, oh, cod.

- Yeah. A lot of fish puns. A lot of crab puns. And you know, we felt like that dichotomy kind of supported the narrative and the themes that we were going for where, you know, this is a world plagued by pollution. And to have this little cute crab have to deal with that, like, kind of feels like, you know, each individual one of us having to deal with that. Like, oh, what am I going to do to save the world? I'm not prepared for this. So that feeling, I think, comes across when you play our game.

- So like, I'm probably a bit of a ecology doomer, I guess, when it comes down to it. Maybe a lot of us are. OK, great. So, you know, this is the week of Earth Week. What I thought was interesting is like a lot of that-- it is, yeah, Earth Day was just a couple of days ago.

And so I was thinking about that as I was playing. I'm like, you have this mix of-- when I think about some of these, like, about microplastics, saying, oh, my God, this is like really depressing. But this is also, I think, a piece of media that can have that message, but maybe is not depressing at the same time. At least not over the top, where you're not playing this, like, oh, my God-- you're like, this is a fun game, and has a sense of humor to it too.

CAELAN POLLOCK: Yeah. I mean, when developing, like, the tone of this game, I wrote this out from like, the very beginning. This is very explicitly said in like the pitch deck for this game. Did not want to create a game that was-- didn't want to craft a narrative that ended with us saving the ocean literally, or stopping global warming. That's as far as I'll go into, like, spoilers. But nor did I want to craft a story that was like, like you're saying, like, doomerism, saying like, we're all screwed. At the end of the day, it's not-- we avoided being preachy in that regard, because it's not a narrative targeted at people who, like, need to be told that throwing trash in the ocean is bad, if that makes sense, right? That's a given.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: People should know that.

- Yeah. I think people know that by now.

- Don't throw trash in the ocean, guys.

- You heard it here first. And so, what we wanted to get across was just that feeling of like, I hear you, you know, helping people reach this kind of catharsis over what it is like to exist in a world that you feel is dying. You know? And so, saying that there is an easy answer to that would be very disingenuous. And I think losing all hope would also be very disingenuous. But make no mistake. I mean, finish the game before you say the game isn't depressing.

- OK.

- I do like the word doomerism.

- Oh, yeah. You know, that's me. I'm a doomer. So yeah, well, I would say, early on, certainly, I was taken very much with the puns and the colorful world, but I'm early on. So we'll keep playing. We'll see where things go.

But I think it was interesting to see from the perspective of underwater, like, where this stuff actually goes, and like, maybe one perspective that you know, we don't get to see, what's happening under the waves.

NICK KAMAN: Right, exactly. I mean, I think it's a fun part of the game, that we made it so that the crabs are like, really excited about the trash.

- Yes.

- Like, most of the people you meet are just, like, waiting for the next time the trash falls down, so that they can keep doing capitalism, so they can improve their material lives, right? And like, you can resonate with these characters, but also see how like, silly they are.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah. So let's talk about how you two met. So, U-Dub-- University-- as we call it here in Seattle, University of Washington, has a game development club. So how do you go from you know, meeting there, to actually just like, doing the thing, making games?

- We kind of just did it from then till now, right? Like, there was no stint in the industry. It was kind of just, we got the opportunity, the luck to just be able to try to go indie outside of college. I mean, we met in this club. At the time, I was the president of the club. And I was just teaching people who had never touched game development, like, how to open Unity and make Flappy Bird in half an hour. And that's all the time we have. I'll see you guys next week. Right? Like, we'd just do little tutorials like that, and like, anyone who stuck with it, you know, they learned more and more about game dev. And I you know, got to collaborate with them on stuff. Caelan thought the club was cringe.

- I did. I didn't want to go. My roommate convinced me to.

- Yeah. And then it changed your life.

- Eventually.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Can I do the segue into the thing?

- Yeah, yeah, a good segue.

- We're here. You can't pass up a good segue.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- Thank you, thank you. I was trying to figure out how to get there. But yeah, I mean, this is probably eight years ago-- I put together-- this is an Xbox exclusive just for you guys.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: You've heard it here first.

- Yeah. This is a illustration I made eight years ago. And it's of Another Crab's Treasure. And you see here, like, there's all these different worlds. It's just a silly little doodle, but it's kind of amazing, because basically everything in this doodle is in the game as it stands today.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So as someone who's never made a game before, is this how it works-- spoilers, right?

- This is exactly how it works. You just make an idea for a game on a piece of paper, and then in eight years, you'll get to release it to the world.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So how do you convince another-- a group of people to follow your dream into this picture, basically, and turn it into what you've had in your mind the whole time?

- How did I convince you?

- How did you convince me?

- Yeah.

- Well, this was the game that you wanted to make as our first project as Aggro Crab.

- Yeah. Caelan basically told me, like, this is great, but we don't have the money for this. This is too big of an idea, right?

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Which is, I mean, it's our second project as Aggro Crab, not our second project we've ever made together.

- Yeah, true.

- You're erasing history.

- No, I didn't mean that. I'm sorry.

- But yeah. Nick pitched this as our first project. And I said to him, like, I think I said, like, we need at least $1 million or something like that. I was like, this is a project that deserves a much bigger budget than anybody is going to trust us with as two people just starting an indie studio.

And I was right. I feel fully vindicated. But I mean, when we were kicking around ideas for game two, and this game just kind of floated to the top. It took a while. It was just a lot of discussion, a lot of back and forth. There was no real magic moment where we were like, oh, this could work. It was something Nick wanted to do. He's been doing it for-- he's been wanting to do it for a long time. And it grew on me. You know?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So now that, you know, today is launch day, if you look back-- it is today. It's literally like today.

CAELAN POLLOCK: It's today. It's right now.

- Yeah. Like, would you have any sort of advice for someone if they were embarking on this-- they have their own sketch, and they've got their own sort of dream, and they're in college, or maybe not even yet, like, what would you tell that person to sort of help guide them along, to find their path?

- Oh, man.

- I would say-- I mean, so, bringing it back to doomerism. There's a lot of that in, I think, the indie space these days. And I think for as long as there have been indie games, people have been saying that the door has like, just shut. And now it's harder than ever. And you shouldn't even try if you're not already in the door.

- True.

- And I really don't believe in any of that. But what I would tell someone new, in the sense of like, not harboring grand expectations, is to like, don't give up, but maybe give up on your dream job, because probably what you're envisioning as your dream project, as your dream place to work, as your dream team, is not what you're going to obtain, and what you're envisioning probably isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Like, I'm basically doing my dream job right now. And it's not a dream. It's a job, you know, at the end of the day. It's a great job. I really like it.

- It's a dream to me. I'm lucky, because my, like, dream game is, I think, more marketable than other dream games, right? Like, I think this game is a game that potentially can be really successful, right? So we did end up-- I did end up, like, working harder than I should have on this game, and kind of falling into those unhealthy habits, and I'm sorry everyone at home. But like, you know, it's a hard thing to balance, right? Because everyone wants to put in as much of themselves as possible into a project that not only has that potential of success, but for me, like, I'm considering this my baby. I'm considering this, like, a representation of my worth, as toxic as that may be.

But like, yeah, I want this game to be good for many reasons, right? So. Yeah. It's a tough balancing act.

- Well, I think-- for what it's worth, I think the game is great. I have not gotten to any parts that--

- We did it.

- It is tough, by the way. Don't let the colorful setting fool you. The first boss killed me, like, double digit times before I got patient. Yeah. And I'm not-- I beat Lies of P. I'm like-- I'm not terrible, you know, at these games. So I was like, oh, OK, we're doing this, are we? And that only redoubled my effort, and felt really good, and I fist pumped and jumped up, and my laptop fell off my lap when I did beat that. So, that's what I want out of a game like this.

- That's what you want from a soulslike.

- Exactly.

- Yeah.

- Exactly. All right. So what I want out of you now is to change course a little bit, because clearly, with the amount of puns that I saw, there was some serious crab and seafood knowledge, and undersea knowledge. And so I've got here some crab trivia. We have eight questions. I'm going to be putting it out there. I'm not saying you're competing against each other, but whoever jumps in there first-- maybe-- are we going to keep score?

- Yeah.

- We're going to-- yes, we're going to keep score. OK.

- You may be about to humiliate us and end our whole career.

- Oh, it's not against me. I have the answers right here. All right.

- Oh, no, I know. I'm just saying--

- Oh, it's true.

- Maybe we both get it.

- Expose ours.

- Yeah, yeah, how could you play a game you know, about crabs, from people that don't know the first thing about crabs?

- We did some research.

- Well, there we go. Let's see.

- Let's find out. Let's see how much we did.

- OK.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Question number one. How many legs do crabs have?

- Eight, plus two claws.

- That is correct.

[DING]

All right. One--

- All crabs have that many legs. A hermit crab, actually-- well, no, a hermit crab--

- A true crab does.

- A true crab does, yeah.

- OK. All right. We're giving you the full credit for that one. True or false. There are over a dozen Pokemon characters inspired by crabs.

- Oh, God. OK. Crabby, Kingler--

- We're counting-- yeah-- we'll count shellfish.

- Do shrimp count? There's the one with the big clawitzer. Does that count?

- We're doing a pretty--

- You don't know what clawitzer is.

- Wait, evolutions count?

- We're counting evolutions.

- Oh, this is so true, then.

- A dozen?

- A dozen, wait--

- There's not a dozen.

- Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.

- True or false. True or false.

- False.

- It is true.

- What?

- I told you.

- A dozen?

- All right. We're going to move on.

- OK. I'm mad. I'm mad about this.

- What is--

- I'll bring it up on my phone after.

- What is the lifespan-- these were all checked, by the way. What is the lifespan of a hermit crab? Approximately.

- Oh, God. I want to say, like, 20 years.

- It's-- I think you're right, because of that joke I wrote. But I mean, I looked it up when I wrote that. But I've forgotten. I want to say 20 years as well.

- We have 30 years here. But I think, decades-- we've got--

- Well, that's the joke he wrote.

- We'll give half credit on that one.

[DING]

- OK.

- We'll see what the judges say. OK. All right. True or false. A crab's shell is really its skeleton.

- I mean, it's an exoskeleton, right?

- Don't overthink it.

- I want to say true.

- True.

[DING]

- OK.

- True. Don't overthink it.

- OK.

- All right. In the cartoon, SpongeBob Squarepants, what is Mr. Krabs's first-- full name, I should say.

- Eugene Krabs.

- That is correct.

[DING]

His middle name is-- do you happen to know it? We're giving full credit for Eugene. It's Harold.

- Harold.

- He looks a Harold.

- OK.

- I feel like-- I was getting Harold.

- Should out Harold Halibut, out now on Xbox.

- Wow. Great. Doing my job for me. Let's switch chairs. What is imitation crab made from?

- You got this one.

- I got-- this is pollock, right?

- Yeah.

- Yeah. Let's go.

- OK, yeah, there is a name for that, but it is-- and it's true, yeah. You're like-- yeah. Like Harold Halibut.

- Yeah, there you go.

- We do pollock. Imitation crab is made of surimi, the name for minced fish. Oftentimes it is pollock.

- OK, yeah.

- Nice.

- We'll give you 3/4 credit on that one.

[DING]

- Wow.

- We do this a lot. So we've got a very well-defined scoring system. Finally, true or false. Don't get caught up on the double negative here. Crabs don't have tails.

- Crabs have tails.

- Crabs don't have tails. Sure, crabs have tails. Yeah. Yeah. Crabs have tails.

- Crabs actually have very short tails that don't seem to serve any purpose. However, and I don't know the reason for this-- these tails are actually essential for the crabs' survival. Maybe you put a soda can on them.

- Well, so, do we know about carcinisation?

- No.

- The idea that everything is becoming a crab, because a crab is the optimal life form? This is a thing. It's on the internet. But like, you know, the most obvious example is like, a lobster will evolve to be more squat, like a crab, right? So the tail kind of goes away, but the tail is still secretly there. It's just-- like, we have little tails.

- Yeah, we do. We do.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, you can break it I'm told.

- You can break it. So we have tails, and crabs have tails.

- All right.

- That's how I got to that answer.

- All right. Well, hopefully, by the time your next game comes out, we will not quite have fully evolved into crabs. But--

- Hopefully we will.

- Yeah.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Hopefully we will? I don't want to be any shorter. You know? But then again-- I don't know.

- Maybe you'll be wider.

- I'll be wider. I really don't want to be any wider either.

- I want you to be shorter. Get to my level.

- All right. Well, I appreciate it. We're all sitting. This is the great equalizer.

- Yeah, true.

- --is sitting down. Nick, Caelan, any last thoughts here on launch day for Another Crab's Treasure?

NICK KAMAN: We're really happy with this game. We're really proud of it. We're proud of our team. There's 11 people full-time that made this game. That's not a lot. Each one had a huge contribution. So shout out to the team. Xbox Game Pass, out now, Another Crab's Treasure. Xbox One, Xbox Series, Windows, I don't know. Other platforms that I'm not allowed to say.

- You can. It's fine. What I would say is--

- Steam, Switch, PC--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So do it. Do it.

- PlayStation.

- Yeah, buy on PlayStation, even if you have Game Pass.

- Yeah.

- Do it all. Give us your money.

- Please.

- Congratulations, guys.

- Thank you.

- Hey, thanks again for taking the time to visit us here. Wishing you all the best success here with the launch of Another Crab's Treasure. And now we're going to send it over to yet another interview, for Eiyuden Chronicle, also out now.

OK. Now we are remote. I'm back in my home studio, but this is where I get to connect with Stephen Takowsky, Mr. Game Theory, the community manager for the Eiyuden Chronicles franchise. Stephen, it's been about two years since I last saw you, when we were getting ready for Eiyuden Chronicle-- Rising. We did a fun gameplay stream, as I recall.

And I remember just thinking into the future about Eiyuden Chronicle-- Hundred Heroes, and here we are. It's out this week on Xbox consoles. It's on Game Pass for Cloud console and PC. We're here. How does it feel?

- Jeff, thank you so much for having me back. It feels wonderful. It's just wonderful to have the game finally released to the world. It's been two years since we last had one of these interviews, for Eiyuden Chronicle-- Rising. And now we're with Hundred Heroes. And it's just a very exciting experience.

- So let's just real quickly look back at Rising. And so, that was a very different game. For those who might have played that and Game Pass, and it was a 2D platformer where you got to switch to different characters, for different gameplay mechanics. And this is quite a different game, with Hundred Heroes.

- Oh, sure. I mean, Eiyuden Chronicle-- Rising is an action RPG. And Eiyuden Chronicle-- Hundred Heroes is a JRPG. So, very different styles. But they all exist in the same universe. And they have some similar mechanics-- for instance, town building. It's a little bit different. But you also see some unique faces from Rising that appear in Eiyuden Chronicle-- Hundred Heroes. So it's nice to see these two titles connected. Eiyuden Chronicle-- Rising is the prelude for Eiyuden Chronicle-- Hundred Heroes. So it gives a nice introduction to the characters, the world, rune lenses and many different mechanics, which you'll encounter throughout your journey.

- Yeah. I was definitely-- I'm a few hours in, and I was definitely doing a little bit of the pointing at the screen, the Leo DiCaprio meme. I was like, I know that person. And so, very cool, even though it is quite a different game.

I play a lot of RPGs, a lot of RPGs from Japan, especially. It's been, by the way, a banner year, if you're into that genre. But I will say, Eiyuden Chronicle-- Hundred Heroes is quite a bit different. Everything from the way that your normal battles sort of roll out, all the way through to just the different types of encounters and other things that are going on. And of course, that mega huge cast of those Hundred Heroes. So what do you think are some of the-- sort of the defining characteristics that Rabbit and Bear Studios, the developers, were really looking to make as their own, and as something that just, we haven't seen in this genre in a really long time?

- Well, having over 100 characters that you can recruit, most of which are available in combat, is definitely one of those unique features that they're bringing to the table. And it's just truly a pleasure to be able to recruit a unique six party team, and as you're progressing through the story, they're jumping in with dialogue, unique voice acting, which is great, because the entire game is featured in both Japanese and English VO. And so you get to A, characters you've just added into your party, they're jumping in. And they have voice lines for your unique scenario. So throughout the game, you know, you're recruiting heroes. They're located at random locations. You might have to revisit old locations in order to recruit new heroes. And it's just really fun to explore this vast world, trying to find these incredible, unique, vibrant characters, recruiting them in your party, and then they're just not just standing there doing nothing. They're talking. They're interacting. And they're like-- it's alive.

And it's just fun to have that kind of unique experience. So you don't really see that with any other games right now.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah. I would say, when I'm going around in a town, or in a different area, some folks, it's as simple as, you kind of talk to them. And they may join up right away. Other folks, I'm going down a rabbit hole of a quest, or something like that, and you sort of forge your relationship in battle. And next thing you know, I'm like, cool, we get to keep doing this, which is really fun.

And you know, aside from the sort of main story, I think a really fun mechanic-- you talked about the fact that everyone-- the main characters, of which, again, 100-- are voice acted, which is really awesome and it helps you get a feel for their personality.

I would say it's a really unique art style as well. Do you want to talk about this sort of like, old, but it doesn't look old? But you know, this old plus new, or classic plus new sort of 2D-3D style?

- Sure. So, you know, Eiyuden Chronicle-- Hundred Heroes is a 2.5D style and the 3D backgrounds. And you're traveling around these very unique environments. You're jumping into combat. And it does definitely have a style that's very unique. You know, it does-- it is a throwback to the Suikoden series. The Rabbit and Bear team consists of veterans who worked on the Suikoden series. So it does try to follow a certain type of style.

But yeah, I mean, it's a beautiful game. The pixel art is absolutely gorgeous. If you look at all the reviews, it's just tons of wonderful reviews for the art style, for the game. So it's definitely worth checking out and taking in and exploring the world, and seeing the rich environment that the continent of Alron has to offer.

- Let's talk about some of the things-- you're going to be battling quite a bit. This is a random encounter, classic JRPG. I do love that with so many casts. You're not restricted to just like, three or four, as a lot of games are. You get to bring in six. And some really interesting combinations and experimentation you get to do in finding what is going to be like, you know, good for you, and what works for you.

There's a lot of, like, levels and strategy in there in terms of like, who's at the front line, who's in the back line. There's support characters. All kinds of other stuff.

And then there's other different types of battles as well. So do you mind just sort of like getting into some of the different ways you get to utilize those characters and get to feel what they can do?

STEPHEN TAKOWSKY: Sure. So there are more-- there are many recruited characters in the game. And they have different types of functions that they can play. For instance, you're going to have heroes that you recruit and they're going to assist you in combat. Or you're going to have heroes that are going to be sitting at the town fortress, offering various functions and abilities to you whenever you visit the town.

In terms of combat, you have different preferred ranges for each of the characters. For instance, there's short, medium, and long range. So you're going to have mages prefer to sit on your back row. Or you're going to have like the sword fighters who want to be front row and center.

You know, one of the unique things about the game is you have support characters as well. So you can have a character that just, let's say, appears at the start of each combat and gives everybody an attack bonus. So with so many characters, there's so many cool mechanics that we were able to introduce in the game. And it's kind of like each character almost represents that unique mechanic. And on top of that, in terms of combat, each character has their own style, their own abilities.

There are these magical artifacts called rune lenses that you can equip to characters as they level up. They also offer unique abilities as well.

So in terms of combat, there's so much unique about Eiyuden Chronicle-- Hundred Heroes. We can also jump into unite attacks-- hero combos. Pretty much what these are are, if you equip certain heroes into your party, you get a bonus option of these hero combos that you can use, that offer devastating attacks, bonus damage. The heroes are attacking together with unique animations. This is a really cool mechanic added into the game that spices up the combat.

- One of the things I thought was really interesting, I saw called out in a number of reviews is, you can mechanically pick, like, what each character, what you want them to do, every single time. And there is a lot of nuance there. It's like that enemy in the back row, can this character hit them even? And so you get a feel for that pretty quickly.

But the depth at which you're able to program these characters, so that you can essentially have them do what you want to do, and then kind of hit auto and it plays out that way-- very reminiscent of games like Unicorn Overlord has a great mechanic here. Of course, Final Fantasy 12-- it's optional, but can you talk a little bit about that? Because I was really impressed, the level of granularity you can get to if you choose to.

STEPHEN TAKOWSKY: Yeah. I mean, you can completely micromanage your entire six party team. So if you do choose to automate as opposed to manual, which both are perfectly fine. You know, you won't have your automated companions doing things that you don't want them to do.

For instance, let's say, using all of their mana before a boss fight. Or you want to quickly go through the comments. You just want them to attack. So you can program your entire party to function a specific way in combat. And we do offer lots of features that-- in options, to essentially program your team to function and fight the way you want them to.

- It almost qualifies as like a programming language in a way. We'll set this up for hour of code or something like that.

So, Hundred Heroes-- not every player is going to get them all. I'm assuming that's not mandatory to beat the game. But is there any characters that maybe are off the beaten path, that you think it's really worthwhile to track down? Obviously, some of us are going to want to catch them all, if you will. I'm one of them. But just curious if there's any like sort of fan favorites from you, as a fan, that go out of your way to try and find this person.

- I mean, there's over 100 characters. Later in the game, when you start looking at your fortress town, you're going to be seeing many-- there's a technology grid. And within that technology grid, it'll say, you need these specific resources, and these specific characters in order for that specific town mechanic to be unlocked.

For instance, B'baba, she will help you find all of the other heroes in the game. So if you ever have any issues with finding any of these heroes-- and some of them can be quite difficult to find-- go to her. She will help you essentially track down any of these heroes. None of them are too difficult as long as you follow her path.

Yes, some of them may take much longer. But at the end of the day, if you listen to her guidance, you shouldn't have too many issues with recruiting any of the heroes.

- Look, I'm going back to Suikoden 1 and 2 when I was a kid. And it wasn't pre-internet, but it was pre-YouTube. And so, we were on our own, or you were going to the bookstore and picking up a strategy guide and flipping through. And, OK, that's how I do that. But, good to know that there's a character built in here that will help out.

Any last thoughts, Stephen, so we can get back to the rest of the show, and people can get to the game? Because it is out now.

STEPHEN TAKOWSKY: I mean, you know, Eiyuden Chronicle-- Hundred Heroes just released yesterday on Xbox Series X, X, Xbox One, Xbox Game Pass. So, you know, jump on Game Pass. Definitely give it a try. It is a very rich story, a beautiful experience. You're looking at a 50-plus hour JRPG, over 100 characters to enjoy.

There's just so much to the game. You have amazing mini-games which really spice up the whole gameplay experience. So there's a lot of depth in Eiyuden Chronicle-- Hundred Heroes. Please join us online on our various communities, where you can chat live. For instance, on our Discord, check out our Reddit, or you can just go to our Xbox official hub, where we've had that for a couple of years now, because of Eiyuden Chronicle-- Rising, and we are constantly sharing important details about the game, chatting. We have a comment section. So stop by. We'd love to see you there.

But yeah, I mean, there's just so much to get through with Eiyuden Chronicle-- Hundred Heroes so please stop by the community and explore more.

- OK. And we're back. I mean, I never left, I guess. I was here the whole time. But I want to thank you.

- We're back.

- Thank you so much, Another Crab's Treasure team, Aggro Crab, and also the Eiyuden Chronicle team, Stephen for joining us. These are two amazing games out in the same week. If you're a Game Pass member, this, plus Manor Lords--

- Brutal week for gamers.

- But in a good way. Like, it's a brutal week for time management. It's a brutal week for getting outside and touching grass.

- Brutal week for gamers with families, loved ones, you know.

- So much to play. Actually, there's actually more to play. So we had Abubakar Salim on last week, who is the studio head that is creating Tales of Kenzera-- Zau. It is out now. I'm hearing amazing things. It's another one I want to play. So we talked about it quite a bit last week. But this is a metroidvania, which where you're playing as Zau, a young shaman who bargains with the god of death to bring his father back from the darkness. Very much want to play this one. So congratulations to that team for shipping their game. This is one that I feel like we've been talking about non-stop.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Everybody's talking about it. A lot of interviews on YouTube, where you can go check out as well. Because it looks so good.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Well, I love it. Like, no one really knew much about this game until the Game Awards just a few months ago. And then Mr. Salim has been like everywhere. So then I'm like, evaluating, like, our interview-- Malik did great last week. He was awesome.

- I imagine it's got to be wild that Abubakar has his game coming out this month, and I think his show next month?

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- House of the Dragon.

- Yes, House of the Dragon, exactly. Yeah.

- Are you watching?

- Oh yeah.

- You watching?

- I haven't.

- Oh, you have to. Come on, Jeff.

- OK, OK, OK. Well, now it's like, well--

- Back on the bandwagon.

- Yes, get on there.

- Yeah.

- It's amazing. It's an amazing show.

- Well, I'm going to have a show for you later then.

- OK.

- Yeah. OK. So we will trade here.

- Et tu.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: All right. Another game out this week-- Sand Land. This comes from the mind of Akira Toriyama. May he rest in peace. So he-- this is based off of a manga called Sand Land that was out. And it's a game that has a lot of vehicle combat. And you're exploring this desert.

Someone on our team has been playing a ton of this game. So we have a tips post that is going up on Friday, which is the day that the game comes out. So keep an eye out for Sand Land. I know we'll be talking about this in future weeks as we get into it then as well.

This was a game you're really interested in, Justin, a game with a lot of history on Xbox-- TopSpin 2k25. Big tennis game fan? You seem to be into the sport.

JUSTIN SPELLER: Big, big tennis fan overall, honestly. And I mean, who doesn't want to play as Venus, Serena, and honestly, just travel around and beat-- whoops.

- It's fine.

- It's a classis. So, I'm really excited, honestly. Roland-Garros-- like, have you been to any tennis?

- Never, never.

- You should definitely check it out. It's a beautiful game. And one of the hardest sports, I would say. Quote me on that. One of the hardest sports known to man is tennis.

- Oh, wow.

- Especially after you've had a deep dish pizza. That's probably your-- thin crust pizza.

- In Washington, I feel like it's all about pickleball, right? Because wasn't pickleball invented here?

- Pickleball was invented-- yes. It was.

- Pickleball, yes. You can hear it coming a mile away.

- Bainbridge Island.

- That's right. That's right.

- I had no idea. OK. Home of pickleball. You're welcome.

[OVERLAPPING SPEECH]

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Well, so in, TopSpin 2k25, you can choose from over 24 playable pros. Yeah. I think I've seen Serena on the cover of this one. So, I always love these games. They're just really-- tennis translates really well, I think, to video games. And going back to the OG Xbox, I remember playing TopSpin, so. Always been a big fan.

JUSTIN SPELLER: I'm glad it's back. I'm glad it's back. I'm glad it's the 25th year-- or excuse me, when was it? When was it released?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: The first one was probably about 2002? I'm going back a way. OG Xbox.

JUSTIN SPELLER: It was the OG Xbox, but yeah. I'm excited to play. The graphics looks amazing. I've seen it on YouTube, a couple previews about it. But yeah.

- All right.

- That's awesome. Yeah.

- Good previews.

- Lot to play this week. I'm-- yet, I'm already looking forward-- I'm one of these people, like, I like what I'm playing, and then I love what I can't play yet. And there was a great live stream that Atlus put on this week, for Metaphor-- ReFantazio. We have a release date, it is October 11. So this is an RPG from the makers of the Persona series.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Oh, interesting.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So we're talking--

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: You're excited.

JUSTIN SPELLER: Yeah, he's very excited.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, maybe.

JUSTIN SPELLER: Did you see him? Like he was jumping off his seat there.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So, we actually showed this at our showcase last year. And everyone was looking at it and seeing, like, whoa, amazing UI. And just like, the visuals of it. It takes place in more of a fantasy environment, whereas the Persona games take place in more of a modern day Japan. And you're usually a student.

There's certain elements that look familiar, but I mean, you can-- you're skateboarding around on your sword. And then it just like pops out from under your feet and goes back into its scabbard. And it just looks really fun to navigate. There was a 25 minute stream. I just ate it up, the whole thing. It looked really good. And there's some changes-- I think things that look familiar to me as a Persona player, but then also some real evolutions in terms of your different party members and how you're able to like sort of reclass them.

So in the Persona games, like, just to take Yukari from Persona 3, one of the fan favorites, she can heal. She's got wind. And she's got a bow-- that's it. That's like, that is what her role is going to be. That's great. Everyone loves her. She's amazing.

In this, the characters, you can be like oh, I want to turn this person into more of a brawler. I want this person to be more of a mage. I want to run just a team of like, all-- I don't know, healers? I don't know how well that would work. But you can experiment. And so they've really thought about what makes their games, their games, and where they can sort of push forward.

And so Metaphor-- ReFantazio, like I said, October 11.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: You've got some time to beat everything else.

- Yeah, theoretically. This is like, the year of just playing like 80 hour RPG after 80 hour--

- Have you ever played like a game full of healers, though? A team full of healers?

- The longest matches.

- Yeah, you're really prolonging things at that point. I don't know.

- I don't know if you win.

- Yeah.

- It will last a while. That's true. That's true.

- You're just going to outlast and you hope the enemies get bored.

- Yeah, yeah, exactly.

- OK, I'm getting nowhere here. All right. So lots to play now. Lots to play coming down the line. Also, just sort of like in the real world-- we should touch grass, because this week was Earth Day. And so there's-- over on Xbox Wire, we talk about a lot of the sort of goings on in the gaming world, and the Xbox world.

I will say if there's one thing that you can do, like, you're like, oh, how can I, as a player, make any impact on the environment at all? The most basic thing you can do is to put your Xbox Series X into power saving mode. It takes like an extra five seconds to boot up, but you use dramatically less energy. And even if you don't care about the environment, you save money. So there's a lot of things where if you're saving the environment, you're probably saving some money. You're spending less electricity. So I have it set up that way. Like I said, by the time, like, I hit the button and then I sit down, it still booted up. It's very quick.

And our engineers have taken time-- this is not exactly new. But you can also-- you still get all the updates, the things where a game will patch, or if there's an update for your console, it'll still-- it still works, even when you're in power saving.

- Done a lot of magic in that over the last few years.

- So there's no reason not to do that. The folks at Diablo-- the folks at Blizzard did something that was particularly fun. For Earth Day, they partnered with a British wildlife hospital foundation with the cutest name ever.

- OK.

- What?

- Tiggywinkles.

- That can't be real.

- Tiggywinkles?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Tiggywinkles. OK? And then they did something that is the least cute thing ever.

- OK.

- Because look, have you played Diablo IV at all?

- Oh yeah.

- Yeah.

- OK. Love it. Gross as hell. There's just like, body parts and worms. I mean, that's why you love-- So there is a boss called Duriel the Maggot King.

- Just a hottie.

- And the way it works--

- With a body

- With something.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So Duriel the Maggot King has enlisted folks to help sacrifice his horde. And there was something that we did on Twitter, that was like, for every 25 likes on the post, we would donate 45,000 maggots to the birds that are undergoing treatment and rehab over at Tiggywinkles UK. So you have cute Tiggywinkles and maggots.

- Oh, you saw it? Ew.

- And, well, needless to say, there were lots of likes. And at the end of Earth Day, which was earlier this week, there were over 16,000 likes in less than eight hours, which means that we reached our donation goal of 666 buckets of maggots for these birds at Tiggywinkles. So think Tiggywinkles, aw. Think 30 million maggots, and go, ugh. But you know what? The birds are happy. Have I ever held maggots?

- Held them? I mean, not voluntarily.

- For fishing?

- Oh-- I guess I only ever use worms when I fish. I never really used maggots.

- Well, you can also combine a maggot with a worm and then-- it's a little trick.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: We're learning a lot about you.

- Learn that in Chicago, too, or?

- Camp, Boy Scout.

- Oh, nice, OK.

- I made it through Weeblos, and then I got attacked by a raccoon, and that was it. I was out.

- I guess I'm going to be a gamer.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe-- yeah.

- Justin, can I ask you, did you see any of the--

- Retired Boy Scout, by the way. Retired.

- OK, retired. You're off the force?

- I like that the Diablo team like made it their own. You know? And that was Earth Day and many things happened, but that was, I think, probably the most notable, creative and disgusting.

- Yeah.

- Well, there you go.

- We do things.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So here's something we're looking forward to next week. ID@Xbox, our independent games at Xbox group, is teaming up with IGN for a Digital Showcase. We did this last year, and there were some amazing games that were either announced or gave more details on last year.

So it's coming up this coming Monday, April 29, at 10:00 AM Pacific. That's 1:00 PM Eastern. Or if you're in the UK, 6:00 PM. Not too late. You can stay up and watch this over on IGN.

Now here's what you're going to get-- the latest updates on games like Vampire Survivors, which has some cool stuff coming. Dungeons of Hinterburg-- 33 Immortals, Lost Records-- Bloom and Rage, and more.

And what's best is the host of this stream, Daemon Hatfield, you may know him. He's been at IGN for a long time. We're actually going to have him on the podcast next week. So we're looking forward to that. And he will tell us all about some of the stuff that he saw, and how they chose the games, and--

- So cool.

- I think 33 Immortals might be one of my most, like, titles I'm most excited for this year. Certainly from like the ID category. It just looks awesome. I don't know-- their trailer was so good at Showcase last year, and something about like the co-op elements of that, just really neat. It looks like it's something unique, which I just love end games.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: If you're a fan of something like Diablo, if you're a fan of something like Hades, but then imagine co-oping with 32 other players in order to tackle really big enemies.

- And that reveal at the trailer end where everyone ran out at the end, I was just like, oh. This is so cool. Yeah.

- Yeah. First there was like one player, then it was like, oh, two, OK, co-op. That's good. And it was like, for 33.

- Yeah, exactly, though, exactly.

- So I'm looking forward to seeing more. Again, that'll be on IGN next Monday. So you might-- if you're watching us on youtube.com/xbox, you might be like, what's this here in front of us? And I think it's been sitting here long enough. You all have been very patient, but we need to talk about this thing that we announced this week, that had a lot of people sliding into my DMs. And no, I can't give this to you, because this is the only one on the planet.

Y'all watching X-Men '97?

- I haven't yet. It's on my queue up, because I was a fan of the cartoon. Did you watch the cartoon?

- Who's your favorite character?

- Gambit.

- Well-- all right, so, I was always a Psylocke fan, but she was only, like, sometimes in the show, and has one appearance so far in X-Men '97.

- I like headbands. I don't know.

[OVERLAPPING SPEECH]

- I was a Gambit fan. I was-- actually, I went through a little phase when I was a kid-- I was trying to throw cards.

- Yes.

- And I was like, trying to get my kid to like, learn how to do it. I was like, this will be a Gambit. She's like, who? But maybe now she can catch up.

- Well, now she'll know who Gambit is.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Now she'll know. It's an amazing show. At the time we're recording this, six episodes in. You might have looked at it. Like, I was like, why are people so excited about this? Because when the show was out, it was like, something of a kids' show. But then like LeBron was talking about, like, when's the next episode coming? And I was like, let me watch this. And it looks like the show did back in the '90s. But it is much more serious.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Oh, it is.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And it is like-- and people were talking about episode five. And I will say, when episode five ended, I literally just like sat there on my sofa, just like--

JUSTIN SPELLER: It's like, what do I do?

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Oh, really?

- For like several minutes. Like, I was just like-- wow.

- It's like-- so like, it really is a show that's-- it's for kids, but it's aged with the fans.

- I would say it's for adults, is what I would say. If a kid watched it, they might understand it on a certain level, but on an adult level, yeah-- there's a lot of--

- There's a resurgence of that now.

- Yeah, it really is, I think you're right, made for people who grew up watching this. And so anyway, it's on Disney Plus. And that's enough of that. Because there is a once in a lifetime-- literally the only one on the planet here. And we revealed it over on Xbox Wire. But all right--

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Let me take a look at this bad boy.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: There's a reason we always joke, like, as we're handling a controller or something, with some gloves and there's like, many of these controllers-- these are one of a kind. So pop on these gloves. And let's unwrap this.

- I always carry these with me.

- What reason other than this do you need white gloves for?

- Shaking our employees' hands, our co-workers hands.

- You're challenging people to duels?

[LAUGHTER]

- We buy these by the case.

[OVERLAPPING SPEECH]

- I actually love that.

- Out in the lobby. All right. Do we want to start off on the controller here, since it's already sort of out there? This is inspired by Wolverine. This is, obviously, the colors look like you would see back from X-Men '97.

- Beautiful.

- This is beautiful, actually. Got all the characters on top. I got to say, this is-- for folks, you probably can't see in the camera, but this is a hard case. Like this is very durable packaging, but still gives that retro vibe.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Why don't you put it down there? They might be able to zoom in on it right there.

- Yeah. Collector's item definitely for sure. You don't have to play with it.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: OK. Let's unbox this console because Marvel and Xbox have come together to bring you a very special Xbox Series X-- literally one of a kind. And it--

- There we go.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: It is wrapped in a limited edition comic, inspired by X-Men '97.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Oh my gosh.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And created by Marvel writer Rich Douek and artist Paco Diaz. So it is a console with a comic on it. We see sentinels on it. We see Jean Gray, Cyclops, Rogue, Gambit. Bishop, Jubilee.

JUSTIN SPELLER: The whole comic on here, honestly.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: This is Storm.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Absolutely amazing. Where's Storm-- Storm-- oh, Storm's here. I think Storm's the real star of that show.

- Oh really? I mean, come on maybe, yeah-- and maybe the most powerful X-Man.

- She honestly is.

- We could fight over who is the most powerful.

- Oh, turn it around. We're looking at the back here. You're making--

- I'm doing a horrible job, everyone. Sorry about this. There you go. Here is the front of it. You see the X-Men, like, '97, obviously.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So it's a two page story with full page cover. It's exclusive to this Series X. It features Cyclops leading the X-Men.

- And the most powerful, right here, Storm.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yes.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Dang. Bishop's triceps look unbelievable.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: You know has the best lines in this show right here, is Morph. Morph has the best lines in X-Men '97.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Oh really?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Absolutely hilarious.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: I have heard a lot of people talking up Morph. So that's funny, because not probably the most popular X-Men character. Like, really neat.

JUSTIN SPELLER: Definitely. No, yeah, Morph is something-- someone I have recently learned about, honestly, with this one. I don't-- because I remember watching this when I was a kid.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah.

JUSTIN SPELLER: And I did not, honestly, pay attention to him. So this is perfect.

[OVERLAPPING SPEECH]

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Morph has the best come up and the best lines. So there's even sort of a danger room sequence, and apparently, there's-- oh, I see it, an Xbox Series X hiding in the danger room.

- I'll turn it around for everyone to see it, because I want you guys to see it. It's right here in the corner.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: This is one of one.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: This is one of one.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Oh my gosh.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So there is a giveaway that is going from now until May 20 at 8:00 PM Pacific time. And if you want to win it, head on over to twitter.com/xbox.

All right. So as much as all of you at home watching want to win this, and I hope-- best of luck. I hope you do. Get on over to twitter.com/xbox. Look for the tweet. And you have about a month or so in order to enter in to win this. It's one of one. We can't only have one winner on the show, because we like to give out more codes than that. Free Code Friday this week-- we are giving out Sand Land codes to a handful of lucky listeners and viewers. Here is what you need to know to enter.

So on Friday, that is, April 26, keep an eye over on at Xbox Wire, twitter.com/xboxwire, between noon and 2:00 Pacific. We are going to then pose a question. We're going to talk about that question now. You have about a two hour window there to answer this question. And then we will DM from those of you who do it correctly, five folks will win a copy of Sand Land.

So here's the question. Start with you all. What is your favorite real or fictional biome and why? So Sand Land takes place in the desert. It's a very, you know, yeah, funny how that works. You know?

So, Justin, like, if you could live in any game or pop culture, sort of like world, what would that be?

- Any game or pop culture world? Let's see. So I'm going to go back to what I'm playing now. And so they introduced-- what is it, like, the, kind of like, below like, aquamarine kind of environment. So yeah, I love swimming. So I'm going to go with water. So--

- Really?

- Yeah. Love the water.

- Really?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Water dungeons are always the hardest ones.

- I was going to say, I feel like water levels are the most despised thing in gaming, like.

- Love a challenge. Honestly, like, if it's water, I want to be in it.

- All right.

- So yeah, I'm going to go with, yeah, water.

- I do-- I feel that-- I feel that in real life. I am also like a child of the water.

- Yeah. The opposite of desert, honestly. I don't want to-- you know how like, in Pitch Perfect, the movie, Pitch Perfect?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- Amy says, like, don't put me down for cardio? Don't put me down for the desert.

- OK, OK.

- Too harsh for me. So yeah.

- So when you go to the beach, is it a bit of duality there, like are you like--

- There is.

- Ah, what am I doing?

- Because sand is crap, right? Like, sand is not crap, but like, sand, it just gets in everything.

- It's not going to be offended if you call it crap.

- Yeah, right? But like, Earth Day, Earth month, you know, all that. Like, we love the environment. We love all of that.

- Oh, good point.

- We love the sand. Especially-- especially in our toes, and yeah.

- But yeah, the water. The water. It's responsible for a lot of our bodies, and how we work, so.

- Yeah. I love that.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Wow, OK.

- It's a good choice. It's a good choice. I was going to say, it's harder to pick a favorite, because my least favorite is definitely water levels.

- Water levels. OK.

- Or the red area in Elden Ring. I was trying to look up the name, but I can't remember. If you got there too early, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Any poison swamp level.

- Any poison swamp, really, is tough. If I'm thinking about favorites, I always love kind of the stereotypical fantasy settings. So, like Act One in Baldur's Gate, or the beginning of Witcher 3, where it's like, you know, these villages, kind of-- maybe it's because I grew up in the Midwest. But like, villages with like, farms, and maybe there's some mountains in view. You know, like, that's my biome. That's my home. Must have a water feature. I'm also a big swimmer, so like, give me a river, give me a lake.

- A lake. A lake.

- But that like, that stereotypical D&D setting, you know? Where every adventuring party starts off. That's my biome. I love it. What about you, Jeff?

- Oh, OK. So I'm the opposite. I'm a city kid. And so I think, when I think of a world from gaming or pop culture I would love to live in, I think of, in Big Hero Six, there's sort of like that San Fran, Tokyo something. I forget exactly what they called it. But it was like, an idealized sort of like combination of two of my favorite cities in the world, San Francisco, where I used to live, and Tokyo, where I love to go whenever I can. And so, yeah. That would be my thing.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: I didn't realize-- I guess it is--

- I didn't know we could put like cities and stuff.

[OVERLAPPING SPEECH]

- Sorry. You were like, water. I just want to be in the water.

- I think we're all city people, actually. We're all Westsiders here.

- So, Watchdogs for you. The original Watchdogs.

[OVERLAPPING SPEECH]

- All right. Well, we think-- yeah, pretty good. Most of my answers suck, so. You know what? What I think doesn't matter. What does matter is what you think. So again, head on over on Friday, April 26, between noon and 2:00 Pacific, to twitter.com/xboxwire. That question will be there. Reply to us with your answer. We will be giving five entries at random a copy of Sand Land, which is out now on Xbox Series X.

- Exciting times. There's a a lot of releases.

- Cool. Thank you so much, both of you, for joining us, Justin and Ethan. It's been--

- Great to meet you in person.

- A great time. We had some really great guests. Any final thoughts here, any weekend plans?

- Oh, man.

- I'm excited. This week, it's a great week for gamers on Friday. A lot of personal stuff happening for this as well. And I'm excited just to play all the new content that's being released. So.

- Yeah, likewise. And in the honor-- in the nature of celebrating Earth Day, make sure you're taking little breaks. Stand up, walk around. We don't need blood clots in here. And touch some grass. But yeah, a lot of games to play. A lot--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Take your vitamins.

- Take your vitamins.

[OVERLAPPING SPEECH]

- Yeah. Drink your water. Drink your water. You know?

- Very good. All right. And play all those games that are out there now on Game Pass, because there are so many. Get there now. This is your chance to play. Don't fall behind. All right. Thank you everyone for joining. We will see you, actually, a special remote episode-- next week, we'll have the return of Tina. We've missed her. It will be great to have her back on the show. And so, Tina, we'll see you next week.

- See you soon.

[MUSIC PLAYING]