The Most Anticipated Games of 2025

I sort of have watched Wicked Part 1 yesterday, and it is obviously a feast for the eyes and the ears.

You started what?

Wicked.

Part 1.

I watched Wicked Part 1 yesterday.

It's a feast for the eyes and the ears.

Yes, understood.

But I don't think people are ready for how much of the stuff they like is in the first one.

Because, man, I don't know.

I'm trying to imagine the trailers.

Hey, everything you like is in the second.

is it is not in the second movie.

So they're doing this first movie, and then in a year, they're going to come back and be like, let's do it again with none of the songs you like.

And also, this story is wild.

We've stretched out an hour of content into presumably another two-hour and 40-watt-minute-long movie.

And all the good songs, they're in act one, guys.

Yeah.

I don't think people are ready for the second act of the second movie.

The for good is going to be like...

20 minutes long because it's the only good song inside.

I don't, first of all, I don't know why you didn't think this would be part of the show.

This really feels like part of the show.

This is in the cold open.

You guys don't care enough about this.

I care a lot about it.

I'm saying Wicked Part 2, the rumor I've heard is that they're going to be doing songs from other big shows.

They're going to be pulling in tracks from 25th annual Putnam County Spelling Beat.

I love

Starlight Express.

Starlight Express are going to be doing songs from.

They're going to be doing cats again.

I'm not that girl.

I'm not that smart.

Like a crossover remix of Putnam County.

And you guys don't know enough Putnam County songs for that to have landed either.

Hey, listen, we should record a cold open.

Let's do a cold open, yeah, okay.

Just sure, hold on.

If we're doing a cold open, I just want to make sure that it's going to be entirely about Children of Eden, the more popular show by the musical writer of Wicked.

Yeah, just make sure that I want to make sure that we're like broadcasting to an audience that's big.

Yeah, yeah, it's as big as the spark of creation,

yeah, him spark

where are my clothes i've got i've lost my clothes

you are the light of the world let's get that cold

let's get that cold open let's record a cold open one normal cold open going for the gamers

let's talk about pac-man's ass

where does he shit the dust

shit his mouth is his ass next and you're actually just eating the last pac-man's

bros Jesus Christ.

Okay, for real, the cold open this time.

Here it comes.

Egg steam.

My name is Justin Ackroyd.

I know the best game of the week.

My name is Griffin Ackroyd.

I know the best games of 2025.

My name is Christopher Thomas Plant, and I am here from the future.

Whoa.

My name is Russ Freshy.

I know the best game of the week.

Welcome to the Besties, where we talk about the latest and greatest in home interactive entertainment.

It's a video game club, and just by listening, my friend, you have become a member.

We have you in our clutches.

I'm stalling because I'm pasting in the list that Russ asked me to paste in.

What are we doing this week, Chris Plant?

This week, we are talking about the most anticipated games of 2025.

We have at least, at minimum, 16 exciting bangers.

I'm going to say the

17, 20, maybe 25, maybe 30.

You stick around, you find out, you're going to know what you're going to be enjoying for, let's say, at least the next three months.

Because in the video game industry, by six months from now, they'll have announced like a hundred more things that we didn't even know about and will somehow be our game of the year but for now this is what we got coming to you right after the break uh

shape it up to be another great year for video games at least that's that's my take that's my that's my headline looking at the uh list of games coming in 2025 Maybe we should start with the acknowledgement that we have no fucking clue specifically about the games we'll actually really enjoy this year because I feel like we didn't do great last year.

We put up a lot of fucking bricks last year.

Do we have our list?

Do we still have that handy?

We already did our sort of like post reviewed it.

Post

and it was a mixed track record, I would say, at best.

Yeah.

Fans of the genre will love that episode.

Well, the only games that we can really call out here as our most anticipated games are games that have like marketing budgets to do trailers a year out.

So we don't have the like next Bellatro.

We don't have the next Animal Well necessarily.

We also notably don't have the Nintendo Switch 2 and what that's going to be and what that's going to look like.

I have to imagine that.

I have one.

Russ, sorry, Russ does have one.

He loves one.

He low mouse.

That's actually from his uncle, not actually from his work.

Yeah, I can't actually talk about that yet, but it's great.

I mean, I can't talk about it.

It might be bad.

It's not bad.

Even with that big sort of like

gap in what we know is coming this year, it's a pretty good looking list of games coming out.

I am kind of fucking blown away by how excited I am about this list.

You want to start, Russ?

Yeah, I'm going to start.

And

my first pick for

most anticipated game is...

And just to be really clear,

I know I said I had a Nintendo Switch 2, but I don't.

But if I did and I was playing the next 3D Mario game,

I would say it's really, really good, but I don't have one.

So my most anticipated...

Yeah, go ahead.

Your most anticipated

is a game that has not been announced or acknowledged by Nintendo.

Yeah.

A new 3D Mario game, specifically like a follow-up to.

Okay, so wait.

Can I ask you a question?

Walk us through this, Russ.

Yeah.

Do you have some reason to...

Because like...

Yeah, they're a fucking capitalist business and they want to sell consoles.

They're going to put fucking Mario on there.

It's been long enough.

Hey, hey, do not.

Wow, Bernie Sanders.

Calm it down.

Yeah.

Can I just say, laying that logic at the feet of

the break?

Any company, usually yes, except Nintendo, a company that has been pretty strident about not making all the money it possibly could if it requires doing things well.

They, I would say, generally launch with some fucking bangers, right?

We know it's going to launch with Metroid Prime 4 more or less.

It can't just be Metroid Prime 4.

So I think it's fair to say it's either going to be a

3D Mario game or like a Mario Kart 9.

I think it's fair to say it's Metroid Prime 4 ARMS 2.

I think that's pretty fair to say.

Well, there were already two arms in the first one, so it would be four arms this time.

True.

This is, thank you again, Russ, for illustrating the point that we have no fucking idea what's coming down the pipe from one of the biggest, most exciting players.

Wait, but if you were putting money down right now,

if we each had a dollar and you're putting money down, would you bet, yes, there is a 3D marriage?

Yes, I would bet, yes, yes, I would believe that.

Yes, but it's not like,

but it's.

I think that it's so weird to plant your flag and say like, I'm going to enjoy something that doesn't exist.

I think it's much more moving to say, I've looked at something and I've made a judgment.

I'm staking my professional reputation on the fact that this will be good.

What you've said, you've just done this easy thing.

Like, if there is a new Mario game, it will fuck.

Like, yeah, yeah, Russ.

Good shot, man.

Come on,

Babe Ruf, aiming for the uprights.

The football uprights.

I think that's the only game on this list of unannounced titles.

So someone else can do one of them.

Okay.

Okay.

I'll go um my first one up actually has a release date most of these don't

atom fall coming out on march 27th it is the new game from the developer of sniper elite a series that i

started with having disdain for and gradually came to love as it became less about x-rays and internal organ shots of femur's uh and stuff that's still there for what it's worth it's still there But it's now, I think, a much richer pseudo-open world experience.

There's another sniper elite game coming out this year.

Interested in that too.

But this is, let me pitch it to you: Fallout New Vegas in alternate history, 1960s London.

Sound good?

Yeah.

Looks good to me.

Sounds good so far.

We'll definitely check this out.

Also, I said London when I meant England, but forget that.

I think they have such a great scope and sense of world building that I'm really jazzed to see what a,

I don't know, kind of like

different version of the Bethesda formula could look like.

So that's it.

I'll be honest, don't know a whole lot more about this game because I've been kind of keeping my eyes off it, but I do know this.

It's inspired by the real 1957

disaster, like in the UK, they had a nuclear disaster.

Do you know about this, Oops?

No, no, that's wild.

I was going to say, this feels like something that your BBC-loving mind would be familiar with.

But yeah, that's it.

What else y'all got?

Yo, here's a real one.

This one's coming out February 21st.

It's called Like a Dragon, Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I almost didn't put it on my list because I was like, oh my gosh.

You knew someone was going to get up in there.

This is a sequel to Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth.

It stars Goro Majima, who is the eye patch-wearing psychopath

for a long, long series uh protagonist and deuteragonist uh and in this one he is a pirate he has become a pirate and he gets to explore different islands uh in the hawaiian archipelago and now it's a beat-em-up again and it looks fucking absolutely bonkers uh i i usually tend to gravitate towards the turn-based uh rpg uh iteration of this series i'm willing to make an exception for this because every trailer i've seen makes it look like absolutely my shit.

And so I am fully, fully on board.

Where did we leave Mr.

Goro previously?

I believe he helped kick all the asses at the big corporate headquarters tower at the end of Infinite Wealth.

There was that great, probably one of my highlights of the whole

bit of that game

that takes place in Japan is where you go visit like the former buddies of yours who are now like living in this snowbound kind of like ramshackle community and have to go and

you have to convince them to like come help you out and they're like fuck you man and then you have a huge fucking brawl in the snow that is absolutely amazing.

Yeah, I think Goro Majima is a fucking great character and I this seems like it is going to I it doesn't it didn't feel like they had left much on much meat on the bone with Infinite Wealth, but it just seems like they're really fully taking the limiters off with this one and saying, why can't he be a pirate also?

So, yeah,

I'm in.

I want to just briefly say, Fable,

I am, it is absolutely my most anticipated.

I love that franchise so much.

And I will say also, this is just a gut thing.

And you all tell me what you think.

I'd give even odds that this makes it out this year.

I feel it.

I think it's coming out.

I'm saying even odds.

I'm saying, like, I am saying it wasn't anticipated in 2025.

This is a delay that would not surprise me.

Well, yeah, as a franchise that is known for.

I mean, it is, yes.

So, but I'm really excited to see a franchise like Fable that is so specific.

If you didn't play it, which makes sense, kind of missed a generation of people at this point.

It was an open world action RPG that was much more about like

your life choices.

It was made by Peter Molyneux, who wanted to bring more like emotion into this formula so that you would raise a family and you would have a kid and you would marry someone and you would have like a very sort of primitive good and evil scale that you could rig by eating baby chicks.

Like, it's a wild thing.

And I'm really excited to see what people who

care about it.

And like, they get the tone.

There's a trailer with Richard Iwade narrating that makes it clear.

Like they get what makes it cool.

I just, I need to see something about what makes it a video game, I feel like.

And

I'm nervous about that, but I'm, I'm, that, that's what makes it anticipated.

It's also weird because like the original fable games, I think, have like a very pretty video gamey core to them.

Sure.

But the weird Molly New X Factor always made it like

a much weirder experience.

Like the, I think in the third or the four or third one, you were like deciding things about your city.

Like, do you burn the orphanage down or do you

like

put the orphans to work in your factory?

Yeah.

And that's, I think, the big X factor.

Is it going to be like a pretty straight ahead, like action RPG fantasy game, or is it going to be like have that weird edge stuff?

Yeah, will they, where there, will there be room for it to be weird like that?

Yeah.

Is the question.

Yeah.

Here's open.

Russ.

Okay.

I'm going to pick Elden Ring Night Reign

as a very weird, unexpected

standalone installment to Elden Ring that I don't think anyone fucking saw coming.

It is basically it's a roguelike Elden Ring game with a like a battle royale circle thrown in where you're like racing to level up your character as the circle moves in and there's like all sorts of random encounters that you can have and different bosses that you fight and it's all like incredibly co-op centric obviously the previous games had a lot of co-op to them but it was always very hinky and hard to get into games with people and this is built around co-op so i feel like night rain russ is one of those where

If it like there's a very good chance it could be like the big like our biggest thing like with that we just go absolutely wild for it.

Like, if this works,

I feel like it either is like absolutely obsessed or like

no.

Like, I don't feel like there's a lot of middle ground.

I agree.

Like, it's going to either work like gangbusters or be an absolute miss.

It's incredibly ambitious.

It's also not directed by Miyazaki.

who obviously is the like steward of a lot of the major from software games.

But that doesn't rule out the possibility.

Like he started as like a, you know lower person on the totem pole that got brought in and basically transformed that entire company it doesn't rule out the possibility that there are other people at that company that also have insane ideas yeah and want to act especially when it's such a big departure right i mean you

why not so i i'm i'm cool with it if they want to do a fucking new elding ring game every year and make one of them a kart racer fucking go for it man i mean

i don't know about that i would say that

the taste level is there with these games i feel like there's a good track record and like, I don't feel like Nameco Bandai would be like slapping Elden Ring on something in a cast crowd.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Say that back to yourself.

No, you're right.

Okay, yeah.

Yeah, I don't know about from software.

Elden Ring Four Swords.

Yeah, this is a publisher that has a habit of doing that with some other games.

They do a lot of great stuff, but they are not afraid to put a brand name.

No, no, no, you're 100% right.

Hey, I got one.

Yeah.

Des Valote.

It is the new game being published by Panic.

It's made by two indie developers.

It is about an eight-year-old who's kicking around a soccer ball in Ecuador in 2002 on the cusp of Ecuador qualifying for the World Cup.

What is cool about this game is it looks like it was created, like the 3D worlds that you're going around, with, is that LiDAR technology?

The technology that is kind of in like Kinect, where you can capture 3D spaces using like all all the different like little beams little dots of light

I don't know if they did that or if they just took a bunch of photos of the world and then

I mean you really have to see it like it's incredible yeah and then they also captured real sound in Ecuador and they have all this archival video footage so it is building out a world

from 20 over 20 years ago, but using all of this like real information from this place to create it.

And then the the game itself looks like just a chill kind of hangout.

You just kick the ball around and get into trouble playing soccer or football, I guess is the more appropriate term here

in your community.

It looks chill as hell.

This is like such a big departure for David Jaffe.

Twisted.

Can you even imagine?

Yeah, this looks really good.

I'm going to do one real quick.

Monster Hunter Wilds comes out February 28th.

In prepping for this, I was like, all right, let's see what's like the big angle that Monster Hunter Wilds is taking that I could say is going to set it apart from the other monster.

Yeah, because the last ones are pretty identifiable, right?

Because they had the hook shot in Rise and they had like riding shit.

And World was just like a huge, huge expansion of

formula.

This looks much more like World than Rise.

It looks a lot more

serious, isn't maybe the right word, but it definitely looks like instead of being a game about like plucky hunters who kill animals as a very established sport, it looks like these wild monsters are fucking killing all of us and we have to do something about it.

So it looks like there's a lot more sort of seriousness and desperation about it.

But there's a lot of like interactions that you can see in all the gameplay trailers that look insane.

Like at one point, you use your hook shot to pull down like the the side of a mountain on top of a monster.

It looks like you have, there's a bigger emphasis on mounted combat.

So there's a lot of like racing through the desert as you're being chased by sandworms that you're just kind of like taking pot shots at.

I just fucking love Monster Hunter and I didn't get quite as into Rise as I did into Worlds.

And so I'm kind of excited for, you know, a new big, meaty, multiplayer Monster Hunter game to drop and for, you know, lots and lots of people to be playing it because that is absolutely my shit.

I think this is also the first time they've launched one simultaneously on PC.

Yeah, I'm not sure about that.

Pretty exciting, I think.

Yeah, Worlds launched on console, and so did Rise was on Switch first, and then like a year later, the PC version came out.

The PC versions have been so, so much better.

And so the idea of hopefully this being Steam Deck verified, I would be,

Jesus Christ, that would really be great.

I mean, that's my concern is the reason I fell in love with

Rise is because I could play it in a handheld.

There's like a lot of downtime in Monster Hunter games, but

whatever.

I'll play remote play if it works.

I'm also stoked that it's like both the games I've done so far are out in February.

Like, you're not going to have to wait long for those, which is very exciting.

Juice?

I'm going to take a little bit of a swing here because I don't know.

But if this, if, if

Marvel 1943 Rise of Hydra

works,

it will be very good.

Amy Henning is directing that.

If you don't know Amy Henningsworth work,

you do actually

know it.

You do actually for Uncharted and many, many other things.

Sorry, Juice.

It's Amy Henning.

Henning.

Henning.

I said Henning.

Henning is the gerund form, the past participle of Henning.

Ah, thank you.

That is like such.

Thank you, guys.

Thank you.

And thank you to me, I guess, for being able to take that and grow.

So,

because like a lot of you would get a lot of people would be so embarrassed, they'd be like, cut that from the show, but not Juice, because he wants to keep it 100.

Okay.

Amy Hennig

worked on Michael Jordan, Chaos and Windy City.

Now it's making

a Marvel game set 1943.

And I don't know, man.

The cinematics look cool.

It's a different take on

Marvel stuff.

I think it's a smart idea to move it to a different

era, new continuity, all that, all that stuff.

I think it's

it looks neat.

Maybe

you remember that Captain America game that they put out like four or five years ago?

Yeah, oh, like 10 years ago.

It was way longer than that, but yes.

That's kind of what like I feel like we've been missing from the Marvel games is like they've tried the like free-to-play, and obviously they have a lot of team-based fighting games.

Yeah.

But having like a single-player narrative kind of thing could be really, really cool.

I mean, I feel like Spider-Man proved that there's room for it if you can get the budget like a little bit more

reined in.

Hey, Russ, 2011.

Wow.

On that one, on Captain America Super Soldier.

That was good, though.

I mean, there's many Marvel characters that would be better in an action game, right, than like Captain America is a really good video game hero.

Like there's a lot you could do there that makes a lot of sense.

Like I think Iron Man is a bad video game hero, really, because the ideas of the things that Iron Man is good at are not fun to, I think, recreate in a video game.

Well, and Black Panther's in this game as well, right?

Yeah, that's a great fit, right?

Yeah, that's fantastic.

Spider-Man, I feel like has had spinny games.

He can do both.

Yeah.

Russ, I'm up again.

We have a little game called Doom the Dark Ages.

Yes.

Which I guess is the third installment of this rebooted Doom franchise that came out.

I'm not even going to say, I'm gonna say 2016, but that might be way off.

All these games rule in different ways.

I really liked, obviously, the first one was like, oh shit, they figured out a way to make Doom feel modern and incredible.

Yeah.

And then the second one was like, we're gonna add fucking crazy platforming sequences and just like kind of ramp up the art design to like an insane degree.

And now they're they're going back into the past.

Gameplay wise, I don't know how this is going to be different, but realistically speaking, I've enjoyed the other two so much that if it's honestly just like more of the same, but it's in the fucking medieval times and I'm fighting Crusaders and it looks a little bit more

open worldy, like big, big spaces where you I mean, they've done big spaces, yeah, but it's like a matter of three years.

I think you pilot like a medieval mech at some point, sure,

like historically, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I also, I don't know how much time you guys have spent looking into the lore of the new Doom franchise,

but it's pretty fucking entertaining to see how they like back their way into making this all make sense with like the original doom games and doom 3 and now into these new games he's like a surprisingly a surprisingly deep character at this point is there like a youtube video i can watch on this they're i'm sure they're a hundred percent a good game we'll find one you know what's weird about this one griffin and i actually found out about this like a year plus ago because travis got an audition and they're he was like congrat he's gonna be the new doom guy he's the new doom guy new doom guy.

No.

Unfortunately, he doesn't.

They're doing a medieval Doom.

I'm like, all right, Travis, whatever.

Sure, they are.

Sure, pal.

Yeah, I got, let's go with Promise Mascot Agency.

Y'all know about this one?

Nope.

Oh, boy.

I'm excited to tell you that Paradise Killer Team has a new

video game.

And oh, oh, the genre?

The genre?

Open world narrative adventure mascot management simulator?

You've been waiting for one of these.

Thank you.

You have been waiting for one of these.

You are an ex-Yakuza who now manages mascots.

Mascots are not costumes with people inside.

They are real creatures.

And then I'll be honest, I can't figure out what the game is other than it being open world and then also kind of looking like a Yakuza game because you are managing mascots the way that you managed the bars and uh host uh bars in in the game i i wrote they have power when you say

you perform mini games like fly a truck

sex bed

and then i sex with mascots not sure about that last one but the the trailer does end with wait wait wait you wrote that or they i wrote that because i was okay because i don't want to levy sex with mascots just on anyone no no no no no you can put it to me it's The end of the trailer is your character on what looks like one of those kind of like rotating Austin Powers sex veds.

Yeah, sure.

So I think.

Guys, watch this.

Watch a fucking trailer for that.

It looks insane.

This game looks bananas.

It looks like it has sort of GOAT simulator vibes, maybe a little bit in the terms of it being an open world, chaotic, goofy, more goaty

simulator

with deep business management

mechanisms in it it as well.

It looks fucking great.

I'm so in.

Thank you, Chris, for this gift.

Yeah, I got to add this to the old wish list.

I'll go next.

I got,

what do I want to bust out?

I'll just go ahead and say Pokemon Legends Z to A.

Wow, we're really taking some bold stances today.

I mean, it's been a minute.

It's been a minute since the last book.

I'm honestly just saying

I'm desperate to, I still,

last week, Henry got back into Scarlet and Violet.

And, like, the extent to which we have, it's almost a little sad because, like, that game and Kirby and the Forgotten Land, there's games that we still play that we have beaten the ever-loving shit out of.

And I am so desperate for a different thing that, regardless of the quality of Pokemon Legends Z to A, which is set in the same world as Pokemon X and Y, which is one of my favorite generations.

All right, I'm on board with that.

I was lukewarm on Pokemon Legends Arceus, but like a new Pokemon game I can play with my son set in the universe of one of my favorite generations.

I'm, I'm on board.

I really don't need to know much about it.

Justin, you look so sad.

I was reading something else.

Oh, okay.

I was reading the plot of the movie Hereditary.

You know what?

I'll do a double because that one barely was anything.

Tales of the Shire, a life sim set in this.

This is what I'm talking about, Griffin.

This is what I'm talking about.

I need us four to be like, you know what's going to be Bob?

Fucking Hobbit Life Sim.

It's a Hobbit Life.

It's a Hobbit Life, Sim.

I'm, I, I, sometimes some holiday seasons, I go back and I watch those flicks.

They're, they, they hold up pretty dang well.

And I'm excited to just fucking chill.

Built, everyone wants to live in one of those houses built into the side of a hill with a big round wooden door.

Now you can do that.

Now, I, you realize how much like leakage there probably is in that fucking house?

It's, that's constant maintenance.

A lot of leakage.

Humidity is a huge issue.

This is not a good place to be.

I'm not worried about it because I'm stoned out of my fucking mind on that long bottom leaf, son.

This game is developed by Weta Workshop, which hasn't made any games before, which is kind of interesting.

They do make all the costumes and things, I guess.

They already got that all saved in their computers.

There is not going to be

shit.

They already made it.

March 25th, 2025.

Get there.

Not a great reputation for the recent Lord of the Rings games,

but maybe this will turn the corner.

I'm sorry, do you mean Shadow of Mordor?

No, I mean the Gollum game, which was known as one of the worst creations of my God.

Okay, well, that's one.

Shadow of Mordor came out 10 years ago.

Here's an easy one.

Hey, hey.

It's Justin here, and I'm here to tell you that they're going to be releasing a new Slay of the Spire game.

They're going to call it Slay of the Spire 2.

It's probably going to be the best game that comes out next year.

Did you see that trailer?

Did you see that PGA trailer?

Oh,

oh, yeah.

Slay the Spire is,

I mean, there's really not a lot to say about it

because we've talked about it at length.

It's

what do you see in that trailer that's like, oh, this looks brand new

at the end of the title, the two at the end.

I'm really not paying that close of attention because I'm on.

I'm on board.

You know what I mean?

I'm just saying it's going to be good.

I feel like Hades 2.

I just knew there was a Hades 2, and then when it was out, I played it.

Love it.

Yeah.

Fantastic.

It's interesting, though, because these games, you the the mo for these games tends to not be a sequel it tends to just be like we're going to add more cards and more characters true that's true i i do think that that too is probably a reflection of how much

i feel like games these days earn their two you know what i mean like you gotta like earn it and i feel like Slay the Spire at this point, I have spent so many hours in that it really would take a big thing to get me like excited again and get people talking about it again.

I think and I think that Slate Aspire 2 I think that they're riding the wave of goodwill that they bought with everybody getting obsessed with the first one and they're getting that free word of mouth wave and I think that's fantastic.

Yep.

Yeah.

They've certainly earned it.

Why don't we take a break and we'll do the rest of our lists right after this

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Gentlemen, we have a game

called Metroid Prime 4.

Now, this is one that actually has been announced.

We don't have a game.

Well, I do.

I've been playing it.

I have been playing it.

Never mind.

Forget it.

Sorry.

I feel weird about this one for a a couple reasons one the game they released that gameplay trailer and it looked like metroid prime which was exciting i wasn't like bowled over by it i also feel weird because metroid prime 3

was fine it was okay it wasn't great uh but i do think given the time and the fact that they essentially rebooted this game from scratch development wise i feel like they know what they're doing.

I also am really encouraged by the stewardship of Metroid Dread, which was so fucking good.

I realize it's a different developer, but I think Nintendo has dialed in what to expect from a Metroid game.

And it's not a lot of fucking cutscenes and talking and backstory of Samus.

It's straight up, you're in a creepy ass planet shooting at alien jellyfish.

So I'm encouraged.

I think it's going to be...

I think it's got to be a launch game for the Switch 2.

And it's, you know, fucking...

So are you, here's, here's what we're talking about most anticipated.

Are you rest fresh at currently endorsing a reality where Switch 2 launches in 2025 with Metroid Prime 4 and a new 3D Mario game?

I am endorsing that reality and here's why.

Think about the Switch launch year.

You had both Mario Odyssey and say one, just real brief, I want to call attention to the fact that you are on a podcast about video games and your tone with me is insane.

You've got to calm down.

Okay, now

please, we are both full-grown men with children.

You've got to have some warmth and some kindness and love in your heart for me as you explain to me why you think this is going to happen.

I do.

I do, Justin.

I have so much warmth and I can't the coming year.

That's killing you.

No, no, no.

I'm very excited about this possibility.

I want you to be right because I feel like that's going to to make up for the fact that the console itself won't be very exciting.

I mean, it's going to have two more Ks than it currently has, so that's exciting.

Probably some frame rates will be there, and it's magnets this time.

It's not clicks, it's magnets.

I'm so fucking over-the-moon excited for the Switch 2.

Wait, have y'all heard the latest rumor?

That it I did hear a great

best rumor about the controls that the the switch the little handles come off you put them on their side, and they are

mice.

You got some PC,

baby, double mice.

Hell yeah.

Love it.

That is, I think, what we are currently missing from the Switch 2 is what weird bonkers-ass shit did Nintendo jam in here that won't be used a year after the Switch 2, the Switch 2 launch.

I like the mice idea is such a recognition of, hey, like 90% of the games that get sold on the Switch 2 are indie games from PC.

We should just make it a PC.

And I could use those Joy-Cons as mice all day.

That is an ergonomic pleasure.

Ergonomics.

I'm optimistic.

I do wish that the Joy-Cons looked a little more comfortable to hold.

They've once again driven down that road of.

Those are all leaks, Russ.

You don't know what it'll actually look like, right?

Hey.

I got one more game for you.

Death Stranding 2 on the beach.

It's been over five Can you believe that?

Five years since we all unanimously loved Death Stranding.

Wait, it's not been over.

Wait, wait.

It has been.

I know we were joking.

Over five years.

Death Stranding came out October 2020, did it not?

No, false.

It came out in 2019, November 2019.

It came out before the pandemic, which is absolutely bizarre because it is a game about the pandemic.

Well, he knew.

I mean,

because he started that.

I will say it came out before the pandemic really got popping here stateside, but it was still a going concern in November of 2020.

Yeah, sorry.

Well, okay.

It came out stateside, let's say, three months before Death Stranding or COVID.

Sorry.

Death Stranding hit America three months before COVID.

Zero case of Death Stranding.

Correct.

The script, from what I understand, was written for Death Stranding 2 on the beach, was written before the pandemic, because scripts have to be written so far ahead of the games.

But Kajima, I guess, changed it all up, retooled it, because he's like, hey, I should probably, probably think about this.

So, that means we get to see how did Hideo Kajima process the pandemic, the video game, which I cannot.

Wait.

I do not know and know what to expect, but I will say this.

There is a character that is a stop-motion puppet that chills out on Leah Saidu's shoulder.

And the stop-motion puppet moves at a different frame rate because it is stop-motion.

Fuck yeah.

I am.

It really is amazing because if you look at Destrani, you're like, oh, he's

processing the pandemic, but no, he just imagined.

that that's what was going to be.

So what the fuck is the next step of that down the weird ass rabbit hole of his brain?

I cannot fucking wait for this game.

I am very excited too.

I feel like Griffin, in particular, has not given.

I don't know about Justin.

Justin, did you like Death Stranding?

I just think he came around.

No, God.

Really?

I thought you did.

No, no, no.

I liked a lot.

No, no, no.

Okay, sorry.

Sorry.

I really like Death Stranding conceptually.

I had a point where I was like...

Well, y'all liked it conceptually.

Well, no, no, no, but I had a point where I was like kind of clicking with it and I took a step away for some besties thing and I found it impossible to return to

even like a week away.

It was really, really hard.

It is a UI.

I did have a time where I was like, I was vibing with it.

Like I got it, but I was shocked.

I think a lot of people rightly got stymied by the beginning of that game, which is pretty terrible and didn't get to the point the meat of it and the actual core gameplay of it, which again, I've said this before, but I'll reiterate, is, I think, the strongest gameplay game that he has ever made.

Oh, yeah.

I think by far.

It is like a true game game rather than being like, hey, it's a movie.

and sometimes you get to move snake around sometimes.

The problem is you have like five hours of movies to start and then you have maybe 10 hours of movies to end and then you have that good.

Essentially, it's all very cogent.

Is there any reality in which this game does not like lean more into the things that made Death Stranding kind of a

divisive?

I feel like

this is going to be more of the same and not necessarily trying to make an experience that like everybody can i don't think it will be that case only because the kind of post

like post-release content for death stranding the dlc game of the year edition or whatever made it a more enjoyable game game like it focused on like weird ass shit where the combat was like improved you could i think that was people across the planet and all this stuff like it was very it's a very like he's trying to do a lot of different things and he's trying to find the fun in a lot of different places and it's not 100

successful.

I guess the hope would be that if he gets another bite at the apple, he can separate the things that are like

enjoyable about it from the things that are just kind of like cruft, like sort of zero in a little bit on what makes that core thing pleasurable without getting in the way with a lot of like cut every cutscene by 50% and I think you're you're there.

I mean, that's definitely not fucking happening.

No way.

There will be double the cutscenes in this.

And inventory management out the window.

I think it's fair to say none of us can predict what this game is because every single game he's ever put out has always had some sort of crazy left turn to it.

Yeah.

So

what else?

Something else.

What else?

Subnautica 2 coming out.

We don't know hardly anything about it, so I don't want to spend too much time on it.

It's going to have co-op for the first time, up to four-player co-op, which I think is pretty neat and exciting.

Wow, I didn't realize the first one didn't have any online play.

That's crazy.

No, and like,

what I love about these games is like setting up shop, like the extent to which you can kind of build your little outposts, which is such a necessary component for, you know, surviving and progressing in the world.

It is one of my favorite games in one of my favorite genres to do that in.

At least the first Subnautica.

I was left a bit cold by the second one.

Oh, that's funny.

Which was called Subnautica Below Zero.

It just didn't, I don't know,

it wasn't as good.

Yeah.

So like, we don't know a ton about Subnautica 2 uh there's a trailer that came out during i think the xbox some xbox showcase last year um

no no release date or anything on that i do want to hit uh a game that almost certainly has to come out this year because there was a huge demo for it during xpest we talked about it then heroes of hammer watch 2 uh

the sequel to one of my favorite arpgs uh i was very intrigued by what they had going on in that uh demo and uh i'm hoping hoping it's something that I can really, really sink my teeth into.

Just a lot of hack and slash loot

shit

in a really accessible package.

You get a town that you upgrade.

You have characters, different classes, lots of stuff to unlock, and lots of ways to customize your guy.

I'm all about that shit.

I'm realizing that my list is really as much a most curious as I am.

I'm most anticipated about the things that I'm most curious about.

And I think Judas falls into that category.

Is the game from Ken Levine, who has not released a game for a very long time.

He was talking about this game in 2015, which will be a decade when it was released.

When it's released next year by March, is what they have said in financial statements.

We'll see.

It's, you know, it looks Bioshock-esque.

The hook.

From the inception of this is supposed to have been that it's a replayable experience where you can

make different choices when you play the game repeatedly and see how those, as he's described them, narrative Legos kind of interact with each other and

change the story.

It's a sci-fi thing that does look, like I said, similar vibes to Bioshock,

but I'm just really curious about it.

I'm curious to see what all this has led to.

One thing for you, Hoops.

I think it's going to be like Moon Crash, basically.

I want to give Hoops another pick

because I'm glad that he mentioned this game that's not going to come out this year or next year or maybe the year after that.

Jude, there's no world.

No world.

This game comes out this year.

I mean, money is not infinite, Chris Plant.

I don't know if you remember the name of the last Bioshock, but Bioshock Infinite was the budget.

They will keep funneling money into it.

I don't think we have any reason to think that this game game is coming out in years.

I'm just trying to be realistic, and I want to give you, if it comes out,

that's gravy, but I want to let you have full four picks of games that are going to come out this year.

Okay, Outer Worlds 2.

I think it's a very safe bet.

I think that I really...

Outer Worlds 1 did not blow me away.

I was not head over heels in love, but it was a very consistent level of enjoyment.

The first area was a lot richer, I thought, than the rest of it, but I thought they were doing a lot of really fun, interesting stuff.

Um, I do worry a little bit that Obsidian is maybe stretching themselves a bit thin at this point.

They got a lot of projects going on, um, but I thought the Outer Worlds had like a Fallout but fun

vibe to it that was cool, and or like, um,

it has it's actually more accurate to say, uh, uh

Starfield, but, but fun, yeah.

Um,

but yeah, uh, Outer Worlds is, is a fun franchise.

It is weird that they're both they're releasing a fantasy open world RPG and a sci-fi open world RPG in the same year, yeah.

And 2K Judas, they're releasing unbelievable this year, too.

Classic 2K.

Um,

okay, I've got two more on my list.

One of them is Metal Gear Solid 3 Delta, which is a remake of Metal Gear Solid 3.

We replayed Metal Gear Solid 3 like a year ago, however long that was.

And there was, I think, a lot of

rightful concern that the controls were kind of hard to get into.

And I completely agree.

Like, it's very...

Those controls are fucking insane.

They were Kojima controls to a T.

So I think, honestly, just modernizing the controls alone and also having like more or less the same story with improved graphics, like bring it on.

But I'm very excited to see how they evolve that whole format because there's just so much to love about that game.

It is the most cogent story Kojima's ever told.

It mostly kind of makes sense, which is a lot more than you could say for a lot of the other games.

If I could say,

if they do what you are suggesting and do not improve the inventory and camouflage management in the game, then they have not actually fulfilled the lowest possible bar.

That's true.

I do think those are elements that at least have hotkeys for the last four

camouflages that you used.

I did like the fact that in the inventory you could spin snake around until he puked.

And if that's not in there, I will be bummed.

Got him.

Otherwise.

And so the last game I want to mention is a game that probably won't come out this year.

In fact, I actually bet on it.

Uh, one of my predictions for 2025 was that Grand Theft Auto 6 would be delayed into the following year, and I think it will be, but if it does come out, it is definitely incredibly anticipated for me, but we say that with a asterisk.

It's hysterical that you would say that and not include Silk Saw.

It's like, I'm done.

Hey, I.

Team Cherry, I'm done.

Make it or don't.

I'm done.

I don't care.

I don't fucking care anymore.

Delete it.

Do it.

Delete it.

I don't fucking care anymore.

I'm done.

I will say this.

Do yourself a favor and pop on over to the Silk Song subreddit.

It's hysterical.

Fucking every single day they have a faked Steam page with like new announcements that didn't happen and everyone's upvoting it because they think it's they've reached a point of insanity that is I guess rightful given the fact that this game has been in development for so long and there's just been radio silence.

Fuck, I I hope this game comes out.

And so does Chris,

who's a good person.

But straight up, Russ, just don't anymore.

Yeah.

Just you don't have to anymore.

That's what I've realized.

It's like, my world is big enough and rich enough with enough beauty and love and joy inside of it that I don't need this ghost haunting me any longer.

You can just banish it from your mind.

There is no Hollow Knight Silk song.

I think

when Nintendo has their inevitable Switch to third-party direct or whatever the fuck fuck they call it, it will be in there.

Okay.

Okay.

Cool.

That's my, that's my call.

Are we doing like honorable mentions now?

Because we, we all shared four.

You just added a few more there.

You just throwing some spice on it.

Is that what that was happening?

Because if we do, I have a whole bunch of honorable mentions.

I've got Citizen Sleeper 2.

Extremely excited for that.

But I'll be honest, I was completely content with the original.

I'll take more, but I didn't know I needed more.

I saw you put Earthblade on here.

Is that actually supposed to come out this year?

Because I'm

speaking about another game that has been in development for, I think, 10 years.

But I...

Not that long.

Come on.

Okay, Fresh.

Guess when I saw Earthblade for the first time.

When I was literally at Maddie Thorson's house on the launch of Towerfall, it has been that long.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's good.

And it had been in development for a while at that point.

That's the new Metroid, or sorry, search action game from Metroid.

It looks like an open world Celeste.

Yes.

It looks fucking sick.

I'll play that.

It looks sick.

Baby Steps.

Will that come out this year?

I don't know, but I'm ready for it.

I'm ready for the king of quap.

I'm ready for the Foddy-like

master, Fadi himself, to get in here and release a game with the developer of Ape Escape.

Yes, please.

It's around Baby Man going up a mountain game.

And then just one more tanuki pong summer from the developer of Curse to Golf, a game about being a Tanuki who delivers mail on a bike, but like it's X-game style.

Tanuki real or not?

Tanuki?

Are Tanuki real?

Yes.

Yes.

You don't have to throw big...

No, I know.

I understand.

Simple question on whether or not Tanuki real.

Are you

mythical tanuki where they can like turn into stone reel?

No.

Well, tbd tbd but tanuki that i want to drop big testicles yeah

i want to drop my my little my little guys here as long as plants please uh sowing few seeds here professor layton and the new world of steam yeah baby speaking of huge testicles talk about a good fucking name for a game that's going to get me extremely pumped the new world of steam yeah i think yeah i think so professor let's go put me in your hat we'll see if gabe allows it uh avowed Yeah, I do think Avald will be good.

I think Avowed will be a good video game.

Obsidian has been working out for 100 years.

I think it'll be good.

Here's one.

Sinking City 2, guys.

If you know, you know, Sinking City was an open-world HP Lovecraft

detective game where you're in a city that is sinking.

As you're trying to solve like a Lovecraftian mystery, they're making a sequel.

It was actually pretty good.

It's by Frogwears, the developer of the Sherlock Holmes games.

So that's going to be out.

And then lastly, 33 Immortals.

That seems like a real, do you guys know 33 Immortals?

I know the name.

So the name, okay, it's a co-op action roguelike for 33 players.

It's 33 people teaming up against like gods.

So 33 people and sort of a vampire survivors.

It's a

like raid

as a concept, right?

So like you're raiding with large groups of people and you jump into these like big raids where rather than like a four-player thing, it's a massive raid on, you know, these massive authors.

Oh, shit, this is Thunder Lotus.

Yeah.

They did Spiritfarer and Sunder.

Yeah.

Wow.

That gets me hype.

Yeah, me too.

Two very good games.

And the idea of a 33-player game, I don't know.

There's something about that number that I don't do a lot of online multiplayer, but there's something about that that appeals to me.

There being that many people.

I'm looking at the trailer, and it looks actually a similar vibe to Night Rain, where there's like, I think you fight in like different areas of the map, and eventually kind of everyone comes together.

It comes together, right?

Yeah.

That sounds fucking sick.

Yeah, it looks like I'm into this.

Yeah, it looks really cool.

So anyway, those are the ones that I'm thinking.

I snuck a few

bonus boys in there.

I do just want to say there's been rumors of Final Fantasy IX remake percolating over at Square Enix.

If that just gets announced this year, I would be

nine was the cutie boys one, right?

I'm not going to sit here and listen to you integrate Final Fantasy IX.

That was the one with the cute, like, PS1 graphics, right?

You mean the PlayStation 1 game?

Yeah, it had PlayStation 1 graphics.

No, but it was cuter than like Final Fantasy VIII, right?

It was more throwback Final Fantasy.

Yes, it wasn't like.

You had like the Dark Mages and the Vivi.

It's cool, guys.

It is a

standout fucking classic that not a lot of people played because it was so close to the end of the FF1 or the PS1

life cycle.

I don't know.

There's just been rumors about it for a long, long time.

And I would be over the moon because it is one of my favorite JRPGs ever.

Too cute.

Okay, I think we did it.

That was a fuckload of most anticipated games, way more than we normally do.

So hopefully people enjoyed that.

Do we have any honorable mentions unrelated to most anticipated things you've been currently playing?

I would love for you to talk about yours, Russ.

Okay.

So here's, this is coming back in a way that I was not expecting.

I've been playing Pokemon, new Pokemon Snap, which was the Pokemon Snap game that came out, I think, in 2021.

If you don't recall, you take pictures of Pokemon, pretty much it.

I remember at the time, not totally vibing with it because

there was a lot of grinding required to unlock things and you'd have to replay levels over and over again.

It turns out that level of grinding is so fucking perfect for a toddler because my son is completely enraptured by it.

It's the thing that has like made him jazzed about Pokemon, which is very exciting because I am jazzed about Pokemon.

And it's kind of a great just like side-by-side game because he can do call outs and like talk about the things he's seeing.

And only occasionally does he grab the controller and yell scan and

screw up my perfect shot of fucking Raichu.

Yeah.

So it's been really lovely.

It's a great, even, you know, just as like a co-op experience, it's been great.

There's no actual co-op play, but just, again, a lot of people can kind of gaggle around a TV and take turns, and it feels pretty legit.

I would love to see another one.

I've almost beaten this one.

But if you're looking for a toddler-friendly Pokemon game, there you go.

Between like Christmas holiday break and being sick and snow now,

both of my kids have been home for a long time.

And Henry and I have gotten very, very into Minecraft Dungeons, which is a game we played a little bit on Xbox because I think it was free on Game Pass.

But he has it on Switch also.

And so I picked it up on a Steam sale on my Steam Deck so we could play online play kind of without having to share a screen.

And, you know, one person having to pause the whole game whenever they change their inventory and shit.

We've gotten really into it.

I'll say what this game does really, really well.

It's an ARPG, which is like a pretty easy genre for a younger kid to grok.

And instead of getting mired in like

build shit and like, oh, you got to get the extra 10% crit chance on your gloves and socket this gym.

All of the stuff that you can kind of like choose about your character or like the random enchantments you find on all your gear are very tangible things.

Like this perk makes enemies explode when you kill them, or this perk refreshes your potion faster so you can have a more heal.

Everything is so easy to understand and it makes finding loot like a lot more exciting for like a younger kid because everything he finds has some mix of very obvious, very tangible stuff.

It is a great game, and we have gotten pretty deep into it.

And so

I've really, really enjoyed it much more than I ever thought I would.

I loved when I played it.

I thought it was like a great encapsulation of Diablo without the like, oh, you get 30% more damage.

I've tried.

Path of Exile 2.

I've tried the Diablo 4 expansion.

This has hooked me more, mostly because I'm playing it with my son, which is like my favorite way to play games, but also because, I don't know, when you find a new thing, you know exactly what it's going to do and it makes it feel a lot more exciting and meaningful.

I would love Minecraft Dungeons 2.

I don't know if that is something that they have kicked around because this game, I don't even think they support it anymore, but yeah, it's great.

I have been playing a lot of

Hieronymus Bosch's Brutal Orchestra.

Oh, yeah.

It came out in 2021.

I was just looking for games in this genre and I stumbled across it.

It looks kind of like an art style similar to like a binding of Isaac, that kind of thing, that like gross cute kind of look.

But it is a

turn-based roguelike where you are killed and you are in purgatory where you meet a demon named Bosch who says, you were murdered.

And if you let me help you journey through purgatory, I'll help you become strong and I'll help you wait for the person who killed you.

So when they come to purgatory, you can be waiting for them to kill them.

And so you set out on this journey through purgatory and

you meet all kinds of different maniacs, like absolute weirdos in purgatory.

Some of whom are like clearly allies, some of whom are just kind of like insisting that they're going to come with you.

They're all very strange.

They'll have very different abilities.

But the central idea that kind of sets it apart is enemies have different colored blood basically called pigment so abilities take different colors of pigment to use so when you're in a fight you're not only thinking about which abilities to use you're thinking about which enemies you want to attack to

get their pigment so you can use your other abilities.

So if you have a one that leaks a particularly useful kind of blood, maybe you want to attack him slowly, make him last longer so you can get more of that like resource to use in the fight.

So that's a really interesting take on it.

It's also really the characters that you meet are just as like flawed as they are powerful.

So there's like real trade-offs with everyone.

One character, for example, is a stand-up comedian who doesn't believe in himself.

And his two attacks are a very weak heal that he triggers by crying and a very weak slap.

But the more times he does the very weak slap, the better he gets at healing.

And the more times he does the very bad heal, the better he gets at attacking.

So you can do a bunch of bad heals to save up for a really strong attack.

But every character has these like trade-offs.

And you can only choose one character that you want to take with you.

The other one is selected by the game to like pair with it because it's like very difficult.

The game is genuinely so funny.

I have laughed out loud many times by playing it.

Even when you run into characters you've met before, the the dialogue is repeatedly really good.

It's just great.

I don't know how we missed it the first time, but if you search for Brutal Orchestra, it's really, really, really good.

Yeah, it's great.

Point, you have anything?

I'm still just playing vanillaware games on my Retroid Pocket 5, all of which I own, by the way, just...

so people know.

I got one of those coming on Friday.

I'm very excited.

It looks great.

It is absolutely fantastic.

The OLED screen makes all the difference, especially for games that are so much about their art, like Muramasa and Dragon's Craft.

You know the law, Plant.

If you talk about a weird new handheld that you bought, you got to put a YouTube tutorial about how to buy it, how to set it up in the Besties chat.

That's the law.

This is such a good segue because we're going to be doing a deep dive into weird handhelds next week in a very special episode with a very special guest.

I know I'm jumping ahead, but

Russ from Retro Game Corps will be joining us next week to talk about handheld gaming.

Long requested guest from the listeners.

Yeah.

Excited to do this.

And so I'm very excited about that.

But before we do,

I wanted to thank some people from the Patreon.

Hopefully you guys dug some of the Patreon episodes that we dropped recently.

But yeah, if you want to support us, you can go over to patreon.com slash the besties and do that there.

I wanted to thank Catterday84.

We have Kato.

We have Roland and we have Mel and Krath.

Thank you for being patrons of the besties.

And thank you to everyone else who has supported us and shared the show and given gifted subs over the holidays.

That was awesome to see.

That's all still possible, obviously.

But yeah, we really appreciate y'all.

I kind of jumped ahead on the next week thing, Justin.

I'm sorry.

No, that's okay.

I liked it.

It was very organic.

It it was very exciting 2025 maybe this is a a more mature show with more tasteful transitions we uh we're also talking about Indiana Jones next week so taking me up I was like mid fucking sentence like Jesus

we reverted uh

but yeah we will talk about Indiana Jones next week uh long and long delayed weird timing nothing personal against Indy

It's Microsoft's fault, really.

Yeah,

Phil asked us when he should launch it, and we ignored our requests.

So

that is going to do it for us until next time.

My name is Justin McElroy.

For all the besties, be sure to join us again next time for the besties.

Because shouldn't the world's best friends make the world's best games?

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