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The Wait For It Podcast
Hosted by MrEricAlmighty and PhilTheFilipino, the guys discuss all things in Pop Culture from movies, gaming, anime and anything in between. New episodes every Wednesday, all you have to do is...WAIT FOR IT!
The Wait For It Podcast
The Game Room Where It Happens - Assassin's Creed
We take a deep dive into the Assassin's Creed franchise with Andrew from Your Friendly Neighborhood Gamers to examine its evolution from humble beginnings to global phenomenon. Together, we trace the journey from Altair's first adventure to the latest installment in feudal Japan.
• The first Assassin's Creed established a foundation despite repetitive gameplay and a bland protagonist
• Assassin's Creed II and Ezio Auditore revolutionized the series with improved gameplay, character depth, and Renaissance setting
• Brotherhood refined mechanics while Revelations completed Ezio's story arc
• Black Flag remains the pinnacle pirate game experience with its perfect blend of naval combat, exploration, and sea shanties
• The series struggled through Unity's technical issues despite innovative multiplayer and refined parkour
• Origins marked a dramatic shift to RPG mechanics with larger worlds and deeper customization
• Recent games balance between RPG elements and returning to stealth roots
• Settings often overshadow story elements as the franchise explores different historical periods
• The Assassin's Creed franchise continues to evolve while maintaining core identity elements
Be sure to check out our guest episode about Assassin's Creed Shadows on Your Friendly Neighborhood Gamers podcast, where Phil joins Andrew for an in-depth discussion about the latest game.
Interested in watching us play games? Follow us on Twitch! Want to hear more about how we got into gaming? Listen to the interview we did with Your Friendly Neighborhood Gamers!
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Welcome to your go-to source for entertainment. Wait for it Gaming, wait for it Anime PLUS ULTRA. Mr Eric Almighty and Phil the Filipino yeah, they've got you covered and all you gotta do is wait for it. This is the Wait For it Podcast.
Speaker 2:Hey everyone, welcome back to the Wait For it Podcast. I am your co-host, Phil Barrera, aka Phil the Filipino.
Speaker 3:And I'm your other co-host, mr Eric Almighty, and for this edition of the Game Room, where it Happens, we're going back to our roots and bringing on a guest to talk about a game. How long has it been since we did that? But we have a pretty heavy task in front of us and that is tackling Assassin's Creed, the franchise as a whole, and I'm really excited, phil, because this is a guest we haven't had on in so long.
Speaker 2:Man, it has been a day, I think, maybe a day or two. It's been an episode since we've seen Andrew from your friendly neighborhood gamers who stole Jordan from us for an episode.
Speaker 3:That was wild. Nobody told me.
Speaker 2:Oh, I knew that was coming. You didn't know that.
Speaker 1:Did you listen to that, eric?
Speaker 2:it's on my queue. Eric doesn't listen to podcasts.
Speaker 3:That's not true wait till you hear the first question is there a podcast you listen to regularly?
Speaker 2:we're gonna be your waiter for a second.
Speaker 3:Yeah, super Bracket Bros, your friendly neighborhood gamers, all the top ones.
Speaker 2:I'm not even gonna lie and say that I listen to everybody's episodes. I don't. I don't listen to our podcast ever.
Speaker 3:So you have to edit it. So I get it. I know you do just unwillingly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that is. That is fair. But, Andrew, good to have you back in and, like you said, Eric, it's been a while since we had a guest on for this series and we knew you were the perfect one to kind of call on, because we will also be doing an episode on Assassin's Creed Shadows over on your show. We haven't worked out the details yet as far as dates yet, but if it has come out by the time this episode comes out, it will be in the show notes of this episode. So you know it's all fluid. We figure that out as we go. So, Andrew, good to have you here and excited to talk Assassin's Creed with you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm glad to be back. Like you said, it's been too long. Congratulations on hitting affiliate you guys. You know I saw that recently. Earlier today I think you posted it, so that's really cool. Yeah, I'm always down to talk about Assassin's Creed. I feel like I might be one of the only people that I know that's still this passionate about this series. It's kind of in some some ways fallen out of grace. But then you see the numbers for assassin's creed shadows and you're like no, there's, there's still a lot of people that that like this franchise.
Speaker 2:We're just kind of frustrated by the handling of it by ubisoft assassin's creed is one of those franchises where you, you are reminded of. Oh yeah, not everyone is online. People just like to play assassin's cre, people like to play Call of Duty, like, and they're just not talking about it and they just go on with their lives, right?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah that was fun, yeah. And then, like I'm just thinking about it, it's funny we brought up Jordan. She probably was the other perfect person for this episode. She loves Assassin's Creed Like she talks about it obnoxiously, like she talks about it obnoxiously.
Speaker 1:Spoiler alert for your episode. Did you guys talk about that on yours? We, it did come up. I told her she was like first place as far as doing a retrospective kind of episode on our show because she she seems to share the passion.
Speaker 2:So yeah, it was cool to find another person that that's still that into it. There we go. Yeah, I'm excited to dive into this franchise because, like you said, andrew, it does still have a lot of juice, even though the narrative out there is that it is in this really bad place, and I don't think that that's the case whatsoever. So we're going to start from the beginning and then come up to where we discuss Shadows, and if you want a more deep dive into how we feel about Shadows, make sure to check out your friendly neighborhood gamers. We'll let you know where you can find all of that at the end of the episode. And for all you brand new listeners and returning listeners, make sure you stick around to find where you can locate all the rest of the Wayfair podcast content. So let's go ahead and dive into the episode, and we're going to be talking about Assassin's Creed and Eric. Normally, I would start the episode off with a synopsis. I'm not sure. Let's just start at the top of the Wikipedia page.
Speaker 2:Assassin's Creed is a historical action adventure video game series and a media franchise published by Ubisoft and developed mainly by its studio, ubisoft Montreal. First Assassin's Creed game, which we'll start to start off with this, came out in 2007 and it's got 14 installments in total, with shadows coming out here earlier this year. So let's start there and I'll throw it to you first. Andrew 2007 when did we first get that trailer for the first assassin's creed? It had to have been like 05 or 06, so, um, not, we're dating ourselves here. Not sure where everybody was in life at the time, but is that where you started with assassin's's Creed right when it came out in 07? Or did you locate there? Did you find the series a little bit later?
Speaker 1:I found the series a little bit later. 2 was actually the first game I played and I actually still have not played the first game. It's been on my backlog. I have the I think 360 version of it on my Xbox. I have I have it on Steam, so like I have various places to play it and I've meant to go back to it multiple times, just haven't actually set aside the time to do it. And yeah, at when that trailer came out, when the series was first announced, I don't know that it was really on my radar. I think I heard of it because I liked Prince of Persia. I had a few Prince of Persia games on my handheld I can't remember if it was a DS or what at the time and I enjoyed that. And so initially I was like, oh, we're doing some sort of Assassin's thing. I wish we were getting more Prince of Persia. Little did I know that once I actually dove into the series and got into it, it would become one of my favorites.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and for my story, eric, I don't know if you remember this so I preordered the collector's edition of the first Assassin's Creed when it was coming out and it was scheduled to release the day that my daughter's mother was going to be induced for labor. So I I remember. I remember going into gamestop and being like, hey, my daughter is supposed to be born tomorrow. Will you hold my collector's edition? I've got somewhere to be. And they're like, oh yeah, yeah, that's probably more important for you to pick, for you to go do.
Speaker 2:It worked out because it didn't happen until a couple days later and I was able to pick up the game and the uh, the collector's edition. I can't remember what came in that collector's edition back then, but yeah, eric, I mean this was the time where I think it was like right before I started working at gamestop or right in the beginning of my gamestop days. So I'm sure either I was keeping you up with this game and what it was looking like, or you were reading about it in like Game Informer or something. So like what were your early memories of Assassin's Creed?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I definitely remember not getting onto that radar for Assassin's Creed until much closer to the second game, which we'll probably talk at length for my intro experience, because when I played the first one, eventually I was like what, what is the hype about? Like, maybe that's a talking point, is like that first Assassin's Creed to the second one is such a big difference, in my opinion, in quality of gameplay. But the actual like concept was really interesting and I had stayed, uh, you know, up to date on that. But 2007, phil, I mean that was the year of Bioshock, uh, halo three, call of duty four Uh, we were playing the darkness, I was playing command and conquer three. I mean there's so many games that were coming out there. I think we've talked about this. Anytime we reminisce about a game, it really depends on the year because, depending on the year, we were either playing nothing and it was like the only game we played that year, or we were playing so much that we might have missed it completely on launch.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when you're talking about the 360 and Halo, like we weren't doing anything else other than playing Halo and sprinkling in some Gears of War, and so, yeah, it was. It was tough to find the time to commit to a single player game. So I'll just tell you this because, yeah, the first game it was a little disappointing. It's incredibly repetitive. It's in terms of, like, the gameplay and the story. I really couldn't tell you too much and really what it was and we will just take this opportunity to kind of transition into two is because the difference between Altair and Ezio, in terms of just a protagonist, is day and night.
Speaker 2:Like Altair was very bland, he didn't really have a whole lot of personality, and then you bring in Ezio, who is this really confident playboy, like he's funny, he's charming, and that was just a complete 180 from Altair. So when you talk about two so, andrew, that's where you started. What was it? You know, did you hear that maybe Assassin's Creed 1 was a little underwhelming and then two was maybe what we expected? Or how did you jump into the second game initially?
Speaker 1:So not to be rude, but I think I'm. I was a bit younger, still a bit younger than you guys. You're talking about working at GameStop and having a kid Crazy.
Speaker 1:Because I was in my early to mid teens when the first one came out and so I had mostly had like Nintendo consoles growing up. And then when I started making my own money and I was in my teens, I bought myself an Xbox 360. And then eventually I ended up buying that Gears of War 360, the like red one with the custom controllers and stuff. The thing was sick. I wish I didn't get rid of it. But when I bought my 360, I went into GameStop and I bought Grand Theft Auto 4. I think I bought Red Dead Redemption.
Speaker 1:I bought maybe there might have been like one other game and then I bought Assassin's Creed two and I think it was because, yes, I had heard that it was better than the first one and it was like a new character and you know, you didn't have to play the first one for this one to really make sense. And also it was just mostly because I was interested in like the setting. The style was super cool, like the hoods and the robes and the, the secret organizations and all that and stuff, and so I think it was probably I don't know maybe the third out of those games that I bought that I actually put in and played and I was like what is this? Why am I playing as this dude in the modern day, in this, like research lab kind of setting this gray hoodie, yeah. And then, as it like it got in and you started playing as Ezio.
Speaker 1:But then that was also one of the things that I thought was really interesting about it. It's like, oh, this isn't just like like there's layers to this, there's a little bit more depth and they're trying to do something unique here. And then, yeah, it was kind of all over. After that. I fell in love with that game and with the series and, eric, you mentioned it, this game. Anytime there's a conversation about the sequel being a step up or whatever, assassin's Creed is brought up, because 2, that is really where the series launched into being the kind of massive success that it was. The first one was kind of like a proof of concept. I and then two just took it and ran with it and I just want to be clear.
Speaker 2:When the first game came out let's see 2007 I was how old was I?
Speaker 3:19 okay, it feels like a lot older than me, so like no, no, no.
Speaker 2:When eric and I met, I was older than him, but he is now older than me, just based on saying I believe that I can see that yeah it's crazy but, yeah, no, um, the second game, you know, and I enjoyed the first one.
Speaker 2:But also, like, in a time where I'm not being like overly critical, like right, like this is what we're talking about right now, it's like not everybody before we started recording, not everybody is chronically online to complain about a game. At the time I was like, yeah, this is fun. Oh, there's another one coming out with a new, more interesting character, new, cooler looking mechanics and the graphics are better. Like that was my thought process in 2009. Like, oh, we also the setting. Yeah, setting was really cool in italy. Much better as well in terms of just the environment and getting to know that. And we'll talk about, kind of like just the significance of the worlds that these games are set in, because it's, they're incredible. So, yeah, that big step up there, eric. So when did you? Uh, so, 2009 definitely was when in my the beginning of my gamestop days. So when? What led you to give this a shot, since you skipped the first one?
Speaker 3:yeah, uh, that fucking trailer, that E3 trailer, like that was. That was one of the. I mean, that was the first trailer that really caught my eye. You know, you've got Ezio walking through like the sea of red, uh, with everybody with their and their coats, and then he's just walking up to dudes getting ready to start shit and then, like you got the asshole, the pompous asshole, coming out and there's just it's just so many cool things about that particular trailer that I remember I was like, yeah, I'm in, I want to, I want to give this a shot. And then the game itself turned out to be super cool, like really, really good. It's a game that went on to arguably change the trajectory of what Ubisoft was doing. Assassin's Creed almost unintentionally did that, but Assassin's Creed 2, I think, created a model that they could then follow and they haven't stopped since, unfortunately.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we'll talk about all those games coming out like year after year, and this came out two years after the first one, which in and of itself is pretty crazy. It just like harkens back to a time Remember, when we got two Left 4 Dead games in back-to-back years, like that's what was going on at this time and they were still really, really high quality, and this was before you know, and this was around the time. Also, like far cry 3 comes out and we're like ubisoft is the best. Watch the the watchdogs fake trailer comes out like they're on a roll. So we was like, oh, they can't do anything wrong. And then you know, we'll talk about it.
Speaker 2:But, yeah, assassin's creed 2 is definitely where they cemented themselves, especially Ezio, as I think when you talk about video game protagonists, he's he's up. I think you know, back in the day we did an up high, down low RIP to that series of like protagonists. I don't remember if Ezio was on your list, andrew, or not, but I'm sure he would be on people's lists of like all-time favorite protagonists. So, yeah, that was a really, really great time. And then, leading into assassin's creed 3, and this was also a game that very much benefited from like really cool trailers. Setting was really cool, right, the tomahawk. I remember that and I don't remember too much about I mean, all these have been years over a decade since I played these. But and we're going to go back to brotherhood and revelations here in a moment. But I just want to go in number order first, because three. I remember being one of the first instances where I was a little disappointed. Eric, did you feel that way when three came around after you know? Two, then Brotherhood and Revelations.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I mean at that point you were kind of alluding to it that the games were coming out yearly at that point. So Assassin's Creed two, right after was Brotherhood, which was great. Revelations was forgettable, if I can remember, like I don't ever think of revelations, I just remember oh, older etzio, that's all I remember all my years game and because I didn't care about the first game makes sense why I blocked that out of my memory.
Speaker 3:So assassins creed 3 man again, cool ass trailer. Uh, love the setting, love, love the setting and the aesthetic of it. This is where I think the story started to become less interesting as the games went on from this point. But I would say I was still at least somewhat interested in the story. I think for me and andrew feel free to chime in here from like the difference from one to two to three. I feel like it was such an up and down experience for the gameplay. That's ultimately where it came down to like. Assassin's Creed 3 was fun, but I never felt like gameplay wise.
Speaker 1:It ever hit the heights of two yeah, I could see that they were doing a lot of interesting things in three. Like I remember seeing the trailer and being like how are we supposed to parkour in the woods? That doesn't make any sense. So like I remember being a little bit apprehensive by the setting, which was the revolutionary war, in case you don't know what we're talking about. But I think, gameplay wise I thought it was fine. Like it felt a little bit more polished than especially like Revelations.
Speaker 1:That one's forgotten about impartially was because that game was like super rushed and was maybe even supposed to be DLC Like I can't remember all the details of it, tried really hard to kind of get into more character stuff and storytelling which I think overall was cool, like all the stuff with Hathem, and then you play for like I don't know how many hours and you find out you're playing as a Templar like that was really cool. But paired with that you also played as Kid Connor for what felt like an eternity at the beginning of that game and so they just had some weird pacing issues before you finally were like into the like you know, hanging out with George Washington and stuff, and that game actually introduced to the ship combat that would then go on to like make black flag what it was, and so it did some cool things and had a lot of cool ideas. It had, like the base building stuff that you were doing, a lot of the, the ideas that they've like kept evolving and iterating on even to this day, but you could tell that they were still figuring it out like the gameplay was. I think they maybe refined the um, the like hand-to-hand combat a little bit, because it's pretty janky.
Speaker 1:Going back to those older games, the amount of buttons they want you to push to be able to like do things. So they maybe simplified that a little in three. I can't really remember, but they were trying some different things and I think the overall experience suffered for it, but it was was really it's a game, I think, that gets hated on more than it deserves. Like, I think it's it's a fine game and people just like like to dog on it, but it's definitely, uh, it's, it's flawed.
Speaker 2:We'll say it's flawed it's super ambitious, yeah, and I think what really is going to make itself evident here in terms of which of these games really appeal to us is going to come down to setting, and you know, the revolutionary war, like you said, kind of even though this is simplifying it like running through the woods and man, it's really great that all these triangle-shaped trees are in the Northeast.
Speaker 2:How convenient that they grew this way. Going from that like in terms of it was a little bit of a like within the game, like a cultural whiplash. We had gotten used to three games of what the Assassin's Creed 2 team had done between Ezio and Altair to a lesser extent, and then bringing it to you know, the Revolutionary War, and then still continuing to tie in Desmond, where I think people at this point as well are expecting some sort of interesting payoff with Desmond, and it's still not happening and he's getting a little bit more annoying and frustrating as a protagonist, if you can even call him that. So that's one of the reasons, I'm sure as well. People were kind of like, uh-oh, so should we be a little concerned about Assassin's Creed?
Speaker 1:so but they did wrap up the Desmond storyline in three, which was, you know, for whatever that was, you know, I think people wish that he was. Well, he kind of is back, but anyways, they kind of wrapped up like the Desmond arc and all that, so like it was a little bow on like that era, that trilogy, if you will, A little bow on like that era, that trilogy, if you will. But yeah, I definitely agree, he was getting, he was getting a little bit tired by the end of that game, by the time we were playing.
Speaker 2:three is three where he murders someone.
Speaker 1:I honestly can barely remember his storyline other than the ending in that game.
Speaker 2:So and like why give us those parts where you're, you know he's like implementing the assassin stuff in modern day. And then there was no payoff and I don't know that I ever really wanted that. I think younger me was like, yeah, I want modern day assassin's creed. Now I'm like no, I don't want any of that. That's not fun. Unless you put in like a really cool. It would have to be again right setting. It had to be the right city, the right setting. But but what? This game?
Speaker 1:did show, like, as far as setting was, they're willing to experiment, like I playing through the first one in, like the middle east, which we're seeing, the first one in the middle east, and then playing through the one like in italy and rome, and all that. It kind of felt like that was where the series lived. And then they're like no, we're doing the revolutionary war and it's like okay, they can do anything at this point and yeah, they have, arguably to the detriment of the assassin's creed story, but we have gotten some really cool settings yeah, for sure, eric.
Speaker 2:I mean, when it comes to you know, like, like I said, do you think there's any credence to that? Like I said, with a, in terms of just a, it seems like a sharp left from you know, from Italy, and then into the rebel, like you said, hanging out with George Washington.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I mean no music in sight.
Speaker 2:No Alexander Hamilton anywhere to be found.
Speaker 3:Nowhere to be found. No, that would have been. That would have been crazy, would have been crazy. So what we're gonna see here is that I feel like from this point these games start to be more about the setting than the actual like synchronous story. And it feels like around this time and that's definitely how I felt, with black flag, kind of skipping ahead that's that's where I really start to leave this franchise.
Speaker 3:Personally, the reason for that was because that's kind of how it started to feel. Like it didn't feel that way when I played two. But then when you are at four and you kind of reflect backwards, you're like oh well, other than Brotherhood and Revelations, which you know again, we can argue pretty much just Assassin's Creed two. They're all bunched together. These are period pieces and they're trying to intertwine them into a narrative modern day, but that's not really fully interesting to me. And then they kind of abandon that or, as Andrew Moore put it better, they put a bow on that and then move forward.
Speaker 3:So I think for me, like once I got into the next game, that's where I started to realize like, oh OK, well, like it'd be nice to play all these games and stay on top of it. But really, if I'm just here for the gameplay or the vibes, like, I'm just going to probably jump into the ones that I really want to. And before I knew it, years had passed and I just never returned to the franchise it, years had passed and I just never returned to the franchise.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I do want to back up just a little bit, because Ezio, I think still to this day and well, he's the only Ezio and Altair, I think, really are the only returning protagonists that we have, right, yeah, looking at at this here, for the most part, so the fact that he got a, he also got along with Desmondmond they put a bow on his story and he is this legacy character. And because Brotherhood once again just improved upon what they were doing in Assassin's Creed 2 in almost every single way, and we weren't sick of the Renaissance era either. So let's talk about that one, andrew, because I think between, probably between Brotherhood and Black Flag like those are the two that are in contention of, I have to decide which one I like more yeah, brotherhood is definitely.
Speaker 1:It feels like the peak of that trilogy. It was. They took everything that was good about two and then they refined it and then they gave you some other really cool stuff. You had like Leonardo da Vinci's devices and things I think were probably in both games, but they did the um. This is where they started adding your like actual brotherhood, where you were like recruiting people back into the brotherhood. They took etzio.
Speaker 1:You know he kind of has like a batman story where he's this young, carefree guy he's a lot older than batman was when he went through his trauma but then he like goes through this life-altering event with, like his father dying and all this stuff and it. You know he has to like man up essentially and in brotherhood he is kind of peak as far as like his age, his maturity, his goals, like he is master assassin, all this and and then in Revelations it was kind of like his last ride kind of a thing and kind of tying in his discovery of Altair, which is cool. But, like we said, the gameplay just wasn't there. As far as playing Brotherhood and then going to Revelations, I was like this is fine, but Brotherhood definitely felt like peak. I think if black flag hadn't nailed the ship combat like it did, you know, it wouldn't be held up as much as it is, but it's like. It's like the best pirate game, so that's why everybody loves it.
Speaker 1:As far as like assassin's creed games, I think that brotherhood is probably the better of the two. But but black flag, yeah, just was so much fun and for the time, even though the assassins gameplay was still kind of the same formula, it was put in a really amazing setting and then the pirate stuff and the ship combat was just such a breath of fresh air that, like you said, that's why it's kind of hard to choose between them, because even though they wrapped up this trilogy, black Flag and Rogue are all still kind of in this era of the series where the gameplay and everything like it was that version of Assassin's Creed. You don't really get the next era or the next kind of iteration of the of the series until Unity or the next kind of iteration of the series until Unity. So in this grouping, brotherhood and Black Flag definitely are like the two, that kind of rise to the top as favorites for different reasons.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and don't get us wrong, for those of you that aren't aware, revelations still scored very well and we're talking about an Assassin's Creed game every year 2009, 2010, 2011,. And they're all pretty solid. It's just that Revelations is going up against two of the better games in the entire series and you know, they're adding back in Altair. Maybe some people didn't and people may have not played the first game, just because you know the word of mouth. So Revelations is still solid Again. I can't really tell you too much about it all this time later, but still a really really good game. Eric, did you play all three of these? You played all the way through, right?
Speaker 3:oh yeah, yeah, I, yeah, we just at this point I was buying them on release. That includes assassin's creed 3 until black flag, uh, which was my final one, uh. But you know, for me, like I just fondly remember this time period because, like again, the trailers were so cool you also had I don't know if you guys saw watch this assassin's creed lineage. It was like a bunch of short, like I remember that short episodes.
Speaker 3:There's live action right yeah, it was live action. It was about, I believe, his father yeah, etzio's father and it wasn't that bad. That's why we were like, oh, oh, when they make an Assassin's Creed movie with Michael Fassbender, it's going to be so fucking cool Uh we didn't put lineage in one of the like, wasn't it in revelations?
Speaker 1:as, like a menu option, you could watch it through revelations.
Speaker 3:Probably it came out in. Yeah Well, it came out in 2009. So I mean that would have been Assassin's Creed 2 time. So maybe it was Brotherhood or maybe they because, like, Revelations was 2011.
Speaker 1:Yeah, maybe they like released it standalone and then they packaged it with Revelations so more people would see it.
Speaker 3:Maybe, but yeah, no, I definitely think. Oh, ok, it was. It was released on DVD as bonus content in a special lineage edition of Assassin's Creed 2. And then it was included in special editions of Brotherhood. So yeah, somewhere around that line.
Speaker 2:We got to get rid of the DVDs, guys.
Speaker 1:The two that I didn't mention were the ones that had it. We got to package these DVDs and clear out the warehouse.
Speaker 3:We got to do what we got to do, but yeah, no. And then I remember again Assassin's Creed 3, like the one thing that stands out to me for that game is I specifically remember there just being like an infinite glitch of people that I killed, so like I was in trouble or I was getting like they were going to arrest me or whatever was going to happen, and I just started slaughtering redcoats and I still have the image on my Facebook where I posted it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's brutal, brutal. It was so many people it's concerning. I sat there for 45 minutes just slashing and parrying.
Speaker 1:That must be like a core Assassin's Creed memory, because I did that in three. I think I have a clip saved of it. And I did it in three. I think I have a clip saved of it and I did it in Black Flag, just like they just keep coming. So I just keep killing, I just keep killing.
Speaker 2:You know it could have been anybody yeah could have been anybody Not that guy in the in the hood, certainly certainly not him, certainly not me. But yeah, let's. Let's talk about Black Flag, because one it is a lot of people's favorite game. Like you said, andrew, it is the best pirate game. I'm sure some people would make the case for Sea of Thieves. They're wrong, but Black Flag is still very much loved to this day.
Speaker 2:Supposedly, a full remake or remaster is coming out in this year, 2025. And it's a game that's held up very well. I can't say that I've played it within the last five or six years or so, but I've definitely jumped into it, you know, in the time that it has come out and been like man. This still is really, really great. There is a certain euphoria to just being out on the open sea and just kind of like enjoying the world, and that's what happens, I think.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of people that are still big fans, especially of the RPGs which we'll get to, they talk about, you know, just being able to explore and adventure around and kind of really get lost in it, and there's a lot of that in Assassin's creed, black flag. So, eric, I'll throw this to you first, because this is the last one that you have jumped into. So what is your memory of black flag? Do you think you know? I mean, 2025 has been an insane year for gaming. Uh, we, andrew we did an episode earlier on your podcast this year said is this console generation dead? Then this crazy string of games came out and we were like we should delete that.
Speaker 1:You're welcome, everybody, you're welcome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we turned it around for you. You are welcome. So, eric, do you have any interest in maybe jumping into a remake or a remaster of Black Flag? And also, what were your memories of that game?
Speaker 3:I mean, I would the naval combat alone. I remember being such a breath of fresh air and like how it was done, which is why, like you would think, we would enjoy a game like sea of thieves, like just the concept, right. That didn't happen. You would think that the same company making a skull and bones specifically about naval combat it's next month's episode, right? Everybody downloaded they have land combat now, so it's gotta be as good as black flag. That must be where they're working on it.
Speaker 1:I don't think we've seen it yet.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, it's not out yet yeah, fuck me well damn, let me delete skull and bones from my playstation, but it was a lot of that and, like again, this is where I started to realize, like, from a story perspective I don't remember very much Again, this was, this was the start of something fairly new from a story perspective, and you know they're going through these periods where it's changing.
Speaker 3:So this was the beginning of that second period of what Assassin's Creed has become. And you know, like I don't remember loving many of the characters or the story, plot lines or anything like that. What I remember about this game was the gameplay and it was something that I felt was unfulfilled since Assassin's Creed Brotherhood. So I feel like, again, not that the last two games were bad and I think to both of your points about Revelations and then three, they probably are overhated because they never reached the heights of Brotherhood. I just think Black Flag was such a breath of fresh air At the same time, also another very specific period piece that kind of showed the intentions of what I figured was gonna happen over the next couple years. This game again, another year, like they, they haven't stopped yearly there was a year gap between this one.
Speaker 3:This one came on 2013 yeah, they haven't stopped yearly releases in like, like for a while. It was like a full decade where they were just going hard year after year. So this, this was in the middle of that and uh, you know, you could feel it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think a lot of this at least I think I can speak for you, eric is we're coming off of the good pirates of the Caribbean movies as well. So we're like, hell yeah, man, pirates, sign me up. So that certainly played into it as well. So I'll also ask you the same question, andrew I the remainder of this year is going to be insane as far as game releases. Obviously, we keep very close track of that. Would you find time to jump back into Black Flag, whether it be later this year or even early next year?
Speaker 1:A hundred percent. I actually revisited Black Flag earlier this year. Shameless plug. I did a video on our YouTube channel about like what I thought made this game so special. Spoiler alert it's the sea shanties.
Speaker 2:That's the glue that holds this thing together. That's the most fun we had in Sea of Thieves was seeing shanties.
Speaker 1:Literally like I mean just that little touch like made it. But the whole thing was, you know, like the bright, lighting, the island kind of theme, the just everything the pirate side of of it was done so well from presentation to gameplay, and like being able to pan out on your ship and just like see it floating, like sailing to the sea, and then the combat like it looks like it shouldn't be fun because you're in that kind of like first person perspective. It it seems like it wouldn't work, but it just it made it so like visceral and enjoyable and a ton of fun to like take down these legendary ships. Assassin's Creed black flag was maybe the first game I ever 100%ed.
Speaker 1:I went through and I did everything. I did all the like swimming with the shark collectibles, I killed all the whales, like I, and I think part of it like we talk about the gameplay kind of being the same as the older games, but this one was so manageable from like a collect-a-thon perspective because of it was islands, so like you, just you go clear an island and then you go clear the next island and then you had you had like your bigger kind of city spaces that were like you know, and then you had you had like your bigger kind of city spaces that were, like you know, bigger islands, but it made it like so manageable to just kind of go through and collect everything and I I had a blast playing through it and loved every second of it. I think the modern day story sucked like this the whole working for Abstergo making movies, but they're actually using you. Blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 1:You're a no-name protagonist in first person yeah, like all that was was garbage, like I. I was glad at that at that time, you know the desmond story was over, but I really felt that they like dropped the ball and fumbled the modern storyline and they still haven't picked it up like they should. I think the RPGs have done a better job of it than these this game and rogue, and then especially syndicate and unity, the. There was basically no modern story whatsoever, but this game really, I mean it was just the, the pirate thing Like they. Just they did it so well and it worked. It worked so well with that ubisoft formula like the, just the marriage of the two, it it was just like a perfect, perfect storm, perfect time and place and this game just like skyrocketed people that didn't give a crap about assassin's creed at all love this game, and this is the first game correct me if I'm wrong where you could dual wield weapons as well.
Speaker 2:Right, didn't they introduce that in this, or could you do it before?
Speaker 1:I think this may have been the, I can't remember if connor could have like his hatchet.
Speaker 3:He have two.
Speaker 1:Yeah, did he have two hatchets or if they did the thing, it was like the hatchet and the hidden blade, like I don't I don't really remember, but this one was definitely like you wore four pistols and you could just like fire them in rapid succession, Like it was.
Speaker 3:Crazy.
Speaker 1:And it was.
Speaker 1:I mean, it was also like it was sort of a next-gen game Like this one came out, I think, across the 360 and the Xbox One, yeah, and so like the tech of being able to just like go from the island, hop on your ship, sail out, kill some other ships, go on another island, hunt some animals, and you would have like these kind of hidden loading screens whenever you were looting a ship. But other than that it was like all seamless, you could just kind of go anywhere and do it and it was.
Speaker 2:It just felt really big and really impressive it's crazy that black flag is the jumping off point for two different things one, you know, really cementing assassin's creed aside from two and and brotherhood, from being like a staple franchise, but also this crazy 10 plus year process of skull and bones, like it's part of both of those things. And they're still trying to make skull and bones work all this time later, when it was just like just give us another black flag game, just put another game in the set. It would have been I know this is like simplifying it because making a game is not easy, but it would have been that easy to just do that and it's not like one of the other. Didn't Revelations have multiplayer? So like, why was it so difficult for them to just make a multiplayer pirate game?
Speaker 1:Well, the multiplayer 2013 in that era of Assassin's Creed, was very simple compared to, like, the game itself. Yeah, it was kind of like a, an among us thing, where you were just like running around this little map and trying to kill each other.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I couldn't imagine that it would be like. Sea of thieves is now right, just like free roaming around you could have like six people in a server, two ships.
Speaker 1:Probably that's all that could handle, I don't know but they did make another pirate game, although it was less about the pirate life, but the gameplay was the same in rogue yeah, and I I definitely didn't jump into that.
Speaker 2:So after this is is when uh, and eric for sure jumped off and and me, really, the only thing I knew about these next few games was again working through gamest always keeping up with Game Informer, game trailers. That YouTube page rest in peace to them. But between Rogue, unity and Syndicate is definitely a blank area when it comes to what I knew about those games. Unity was the one that was like a technical disaster right, that was the one that was in France. Technical disaster, right, that was the one that was in france yes, I believe the french revolution. And is unity also the one that was supposed to have multiplayer, like four player multiplayer?
Speaker 1:it did and it was really cool yeah, and it.
Speaker 2:I think that gets lost, unfortunately, upon the disastrous release. So but we'll start with rogue there and then you can kind of just move on from however you'd like. So, rogue, unity and Syndicate. So did you continue to play these games and where do these? When you look back at them now, are they just kind of like footnotes and you just kind of move along, or did you really enjoy some of these and maybe think they deserve a little bit more credit?
Speaker 1:So Rogue and Unity released on the same day, which is right. Two different consoles, right. Yeah, really, one was last gen one was new.
Speaker 1:Yeah, next gen you could only play unity on next gen. You could play only play rogue on last gen and I played both of them. I think I played rogue later because I wanted the like new next gen game. And, yeah, it's really unfortunate that Unity had such a rough launch, because I do think if it had launched better, this could be what like the future of Assassin's Creed was, because Unity is actually in a really really good Assassin's Creed game in the sense that the tech was super impressive the amount of crowds on the street, the setting in France and the buildings you could climb.
Speaker 1:The parkour was reworked and way more intricate. You had a lot more control over your movement and the multiplayer was super fun. Like you and three of your friends could go in and try to take out this target or these targets, together with like some different like requirements on the mission and try not to get caught and all this stuff. I played it with my brother and now brother-in-law and like again, other than like technical issues, the core idea was super cool, but the other thing that unity did really well. I guess I should also mention that to this day, you go back to unity. It's still one of the best looking games in the series.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, Whenever I see videos of it, when I just do like YouTube rabbit hole, I'm like this looks incredible. Yeah, as far as the layout it's amazing the lighting, everything and the gameplay.
Speaker 1:Like there was so many systems as far as like you could get different outfits and weapons and they all had different like stats and perks and you could customize your look and you were building out your, your hub and it basically it took all of the ideas from the older games and like really just blew them out, and then the story was a really personal story between your character, arno, and like his childhood friend, slash, kind of girlfriend, and them finding themselves on opposite sides of the assassin templar fight, and so it took like it actually focused on the assassins and the templars and it put you in like this really personal, conflicted situation of dealing with that conflict. And so overall, like I think this game is criminally underrated. I think that it's one that if it had launched better, it would potentially have been the direction the games could have kept going, because it was still open world and massive, but not like the RPGs we have now. And it wasn't an RPG. The combat was still a lot more intentional and it was much more stealth focused and it did kind of the hitman thing you would enter an area where your target was and it would like kind of lock that area off and like put you in this sort of like mission state and then it would give you like hey, if you go like eavesdrop on this guy, you might learn some information about where this thing is, that you could like unlock this door to sneak in this one passage and like drop a chandelier on him or you could maybe go over here and poison him, or you could like just run in, stab him in the back and try to run out as fast as you can. It like it gave you that stealth sim kind of gameplay and that the rpgs definitely don't do like they're. They give you options in the sense that it's open and you can just do whatever. But this was like options that were intentional for like setting up cool set pieces and stuff and then syndicate.
Speaker 1:I thought the gameplay loop and the setting were really really cool. Like the setting is awesome, like victorian england. And then the two twins. They were cool, both one being the more like faster kind of assassiny character and the other one being more of a brawler. And the whole idea of that game is like you're taking back the streets of london. You're like you're the assassins are a gang and so you're taking the streets back from the opposing gang. If you were to ask me what happens in that game, as far as story couldn't tell you, I think to. It's like literally probably the weakest in the series, which is a bummer, because that was really fun, the setting was really cool, but just like I don't remember any of the characters I don't remember.
Speaker 2:I remember you're on a train for your base, which is cool, like there was a ton of cool ideas for the game itself, but the story just completely fell flat that's interesting because, out of all three of them, syndicate is the one that I would be, at least that I've always thought that I'd be most interested in diving into, because I've heard really good things about the brother and sister. Specifically evie, I've heard, is a really really good character. Eric, any of these three, like you said, like we we talked about you know, this is when we took a break. This is also the start of like our kind of stepping away from games for a little bit. Like, looking at the 2014 releases, there's not really anything on here that I think we really were playing, other than like Titanfall. You played like an hour of Watch Dogs and hated it, which I understand.
Speaker 2:Thief remember like we thought thief was kind of going to be something we'd really get into and then like the master chief collection. So this was like we're trying. We're discovering that this xbox one is like a brick and there's nothing we can really do with it, so we're starting to do other things. So, like any of these assassin's creed, even if you can remember back at that time, did any of these interest you as far as diving back in? Because, like a multiplayer Assassin's Creed game, we should have been like, yeah, let's try that out, but all we're ever going to remember is those faces, those skulls from Assassin's Creed Unity, and that's that's unfortunate.
Speaker 3:From what it sounds like, it is unfortunate If you could just insert the clip of Andrew in the pre-show just going no, that's all I really have to say. Yeah, unfortunately, again as great, and you would think that I would be at an all time high interest after Black Flag. But I enjoyed Black Flag a lot, while at the same time as a franchise franchise not really being impressed with the direction. Andrew mentioned the faceless character you play. Modern day. I mean that's like integral, for like that was that was a really important part of playing assassin's creed games and like if you don't care about that at all, well, that's like a quarter of the game you just don't care about.
Speaker 3:So when unity came out and you were hearing about some of the concerns, then again a game dropping right along with it. That's like an immediate turn off. And then by that point, syndicate just was completely out of my radar and I had other games I was playing around that time and then you know when we, when we talk about origins, we'll talk a little bit about the transition in my gaming habits at that point. But still at this time there were just other games that I found to be more interesting and I was just kind of tired of the same old thing. I didn't think they were really reinventing the wheel, and when you feel that way with a franchise and you disconnect, it's just a matter of are you going to come back or not. In my case, I just didn't.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, where we were playing is something that had somewhat similar combat is shadow of mordor, and that introduced the nemesis system and it was kind of like all over from that point on. So when we were that fulfilled, like that style of gameplay, even though obviously setting, wise and tonally they're completely different, but when we were that fulfilled, like that style of gameplay, even though obviously setting, wise and tonally they're completely different, but when we're talking about like an action, adventure game with combat, that's what we jumped into. Also, south park, the stick of truth came out that year and we played the hell out of that game too. So it was, you know, we weren't playing a whole lot or as much as we were in previous years, but all you have to do, you know, especially for us, is kind of look at what else came around, came out around that same time and what our focus was, and that was just elsewhere. So I I would like to go back at some point and I will say that I would love to go back and play unity and syndicate.
Speaker 2:You know, with the way things are now and the very small amount of time we have, I don't know that it is going to happen, but it seems like there are two games in there with Unity and Syndicate, that could have been really, really important in terms of, and are really important when it comes to the franchise, but because of the bad press that Unity got, unfortunately, like, we had that little bit of a lull and a lot of people think left after that. It seems so, which is unfortunate, but that led to the rpg era and we have three games and I don't know what where mirage fits in, so we'll talk about that later. But we have origins, odyssey and valhalla and we're talking about. So origins came out in 2017. So, eric, this is when we're getting a little bit back into gaming, but this is more so.
Speaker 2:Our titanfall slash the beginning of our fortnight era, stuff like that, and I moved specifically I I was living, you know, in texas, so the games that I'm playing at this time are God of War. Like single player, I'm playing God of War, horizon Zero Dawn, assassin's Creed has not crossed my mind in many, many years. So you have you learn about this new direction. They're going, andrew, when it comes to origins, and then we get Odyssey, and then we get Valhalla. So we're very much going to lean on you in terms of your experience with these because, as we talked about, the setting and the stories that are told in these games very much interest me, but the amount of time that has to be committed in order to get there, it's not something that I'm ever going to have time for. So what's your experience when they turned into the rpg mechanics and changed up the the way they were doing things?
Speaker 1:so yeah, at this point, like video games media fans, everybody was kind of getting burnt out on the assassin's creed formula. They took a break. I don't remember exactly I mean, you just said the dates, but I don't remember exactly how long it was between syndicate and syndicate was 2015 and um origins was 2017 okay, so two years, so it wasn't that long, but it was longer than what they had been doing.
Speaker 1:And then they come out with the trailer for origins and this game looks incredible, like it looks gorgeous. You can hop on the little boats and go across the the like the river. You're fighting with the animals. It's set in egypt, which is another like criminally underrated setting for games, and it also it was kind of the beginning of the end as far as like any sort of major assassin templar focus, but they did it in a really smart way where this was the beginning of the assassins and so there was kind of a, a reason that made sense why it wasn't dealing with the assassin and templar conflict as much was because this was kind of how the order got established. And so I was. I mean, I'm still a big fan of open world games. I think I've probably tired on them a little bit more recently, but like the fact that it was going massive open world I saw as a plus. You could kind of go anywhere, do anything.
Speaker 1:We're in that kind of Breath of the Wild inspired time, and this game now in retrospect, has the best story because it focuses on bayek and his like wife, separated wife, ex-wife, and like the the loss of their son, like the murder of their son and him kind of going on this rampaging adventure and like dealing with that and learning about himself and also the assassin stuff that's happening, and it was a focused story on him as a character and actually a lot about his wife as well, whereas after that the model kind of shifted to the it wasn't as bad in Odyssey, but definitely Valhalla and Shadows and Mirage shifted to the hunt, the targets, in any order you want, which means that the story is going to be fragmented and we can't really show a lot of growth and depth and progression because you have to be able to see it in like all these different orders and it still makes sense, whereas origins told a story from start to finish. Also, origins was not like fully committed to RPG, like Odyssey was when they went hey, the Witcher was cool, we should do that. Origins didn't have dialogue options. Really, it had gear and stuff, but it was pretty limited. It was like RPG lite as far as the systems, and so I thought that that game was just a really excellent execution of the idea they were going for and then, as they continued on we get more into the like, the bloat and the repetition and like Odyssey is a lot of people's favorite because it's a really cool setting, it's got the ships again, it's gorgeous.
Speaker 1:People love Cassandra and I liked that game fine, but I was definitely getting tired by the end of that one. And then Valhalla I had to force myself to finish because I'm a true fan and I had to do that, and so I forced myself to finish that game and I was like, wow, the last 10 hours or so of this game are actually really cool and do a lot to kind of move the Assassin's creed plot forward and that's the one that we were talking about before we got started.
Speaker 2:That's like 60 hours, right, or they're all pretty long it was more like 80 jesus.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think I think they got progressively like I think odyssey had a lot of stuff you could do but you also didn't have to, whereas valhalla was kind of broken up into these like mini stories, and so you'd go do like one mini story in this area of the map. Then you'd go to this mini story in this area of the map and you had to like do all those to beat the game. Origins was probably more along the like 40 hour. You know like it was manageable, like that. I think Origins is definitely the best version of this model that they've done. And and I I'm enjoying shadows I haven't beat that one.
Speaker 1:But the rpgs they just like they are what they are, and what they are is big and what they are is bloated, and what they are is, if you really like them, they're a great game to kind of play over the course of the year or whatever. Or you know, back when we were broke and couldn't buy very many video games but we had lots of time, it'd be a great game to just kind of play forever. But now it's like I mean, I'm 43 hours into shadows and I'm like I really don't know when this is gonna end, like I can kind of see how many main targets I maybe have left, but are they gonna open up like another target chart over here? I have no idea. So I think they have something good here and I think they're good games and good RPGs.
Speaker 1:But I do think that it suffers from the like Ubisoft formula and them wanting to, because then they they pump out the DLCs and then they have the online store and, like they know, this is their cash cow and so they're really trying to to milk it for all that they can, and I think that that makes the games worse than they could be. But overall I still think that they're all. They range from pretty good to great. Like origins is my favorite game in the series. I think that game is is fantastic. It's like objectively a great game and it's a good assassin's creed game, and so I think that there's good in this like era that we're in, but there's definitely a lot you can nitpick as well yeah, eric, this is, I remember, the first time I saw someone playing origins.
Speaker 2:Um, a friend of mine stayed over like, uh, he came in, our buddy, josh, came in from out of town and he brought his playstation and loaded up origins and, like you said, even that is still like an RPG lite, but still, when he's like going through the menu and looking through everything, I was like what this is Assassin's Creed, what the hell happened?
Speaker 2:And that's when I knew I was like I don't think I'm going to jump into these. So, eric, you know you kind of alluded to it earlier where your gaming preferences have changed so much to earlier, where your gaming preferences have changed so much. And and right, I mean this game came out in 20, like we said, 2017. So we're we're really focusing only on multiplayer. Really, at that time, did any of these you know we're talking about as far as we've brought up trailers a lot when it comes to assassin's creed, because they're all very good, like any you can put on any of them and they're like this looks outstanding. But as we get older and our tastes get older, like our tastes change, did any of these ever like toggle your interest at any time?
Speaker 3:yeah, I mean, even today they still, they still kind of do um, you know, we're taught, we talked about we're doing a lot of streaming and all of that. Well, in may I'm planning on doing like a mythological theme and all of that. Well, in May I'm planning on doing like a mythological theme for some of mine. So, like I'm going to play Hades for the first time, I really like games like Age of Empire when I was younger, and Age of Mythology just looks like a fun time that I could just jump into and try. So I was trying to find games and I came across Odyssey. Well, you have to set up a ubisoft account through game pass if I want to do that and I don't really know that I want to do that then it's a a large file size. So I'm like how much of this game am I really gonna play for real? Am I gonna enjoy it? Right, and I love greek mythology and stuff.
Speaker 3:So, while origins, time wise made more sense for me to jump in, because at that time I was still playing Titanfall 2, like you mentioned, I was replaying the Bioshock collection that came out Outside of that. We were just moving head over heels into Fortnite, where our gaming experience basically died for a couple years, several years, we could say, and you know, then we moved to 2018. Yeah, then 2018. You know, uh, you've got a lot of the playstation games, so, like spider-man, for example, god of war comes out in 2018.
Speaker 3:So I feel like I just missed the ship to jump back on with origins, and as much as I love greek mythology, then you, it's an. They said, oh, we were going to give ourselves a break, and then a year later came out with Odyssey after Origins. So again it was like from afar, you're like, oh, okay, it's just the same thing, it's the same formula, and at that point I had already put it in my brain these are just time period pieces. I don't really need to be invested in each release and I could just play the ones I want to play. It just unfortunately then became bad timing as well. Even though I was interested in the setting, it just didn't work out time wise for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I mean I'll just say, aesthetically these all are appealing. Origins is the one that I want to play the most and then probably it probably just goes in order origins, odyssey and valhalla. Will I ever get to them? Probably not, but I know. Origin, specifically, like, stood out to me as far as just like man. This looks incredible visually, um, in the whole setting. I'm very much into also when it comes to mythology. So like I saw, like egyptian mythology, so I saw you can fight a lot of like mythological creatures and pretty much all of them as well. So all that is very interesting to me. So I I gotta ask, because it's the one I know the least about, and I remember watching your youtube video when mirage came out and thinking what the hell is this? What is this game? Even so, if you want to bring us back to that time when you put out your review of Mirage and just kind of reminisce on your experience, because to this day I'm like, where does this sit in the series?
Speaker 1:So, yeah, mirage focuses on the assassin character from Valhalla. So in Valhalla you play as avor the viking and then when it like ties into the mythology side, you control like odin basically, and so you're not you're never really an assassin in that game, but there is a couple of assassins who like come to your village and that's how they kind of connect them and then actually basm is his name. Basm is like a key player in the end of valhalla when things start to go like really crazy with the main story and the timelines and the sci-fi-ness of it all. And so when they announced they were doing a game focused on basm, I was like, oh, that could be kind of cool, because where they left him in Valhalla was really interesting. And basically what this game is is it is an origin story for Basim, so it's like you seeing him become an assassin, and it was originally meant to be DLC for Valhalla and so it was going to be an expansion like DLC. And then it grew to the point where they were like, oh, we could maybe make it its own game. Also, we don't have anything else to release this year. And so it was made from like a B C studio. It's a smaller experience, and so what that meant is that we're going to advertise this thing as like a return to the series roots, like it's all about stealth. It's all about stealth, it's all about the city and the parkour and stuff and a lot of that. Is true. It's set in Baghdad and the city of Baghdad is one of the best things about this game. It's really cool. It's built for parkour, a lot of free running stuff in this game, but Basim is kind of a nothing character in this game.
Speaker 1:The combat sucks. Like they intentionally tried to make it bad so that you would not want to use it and you would try to do stealth like whenever possible, but that never always works. Like you're going to end up in combat at some point and this combat was just really not fun at all. And then the story. Like I said earlier, they leaned heavily into that like take out your targets and we're gonna kind of feed it to you in chunks. And I played it and there was definitely it was kind of like broken in like three sections because it was a smaller experience, and I played it in the third section.
Speaker 1:I played like the last one, felt like it should have been first, because I was like working alongside my mentor and like basm was saying things that made it feel like he was a little bit less experienced than the character I had been playing this whole game with and it was like why not just make this the first one? Like why not lock you into that so that this story makes more sense? But they don't. It also suffered from just like a lot of like wall running and kind of falling back down or jumping off the side of a wall or like really janky, slippery animations when you come out of a bush to assassinate a person. Like it just it felt like it was supposed to be dlc and so overall I don't recommend it. The idea is cool. The concept of returning to the roots, getting this tight like 20 hour assassin focused game seems cool, but in practice, like it just I feel like it didn't hit the mark. It just kind of. And the city of baghdad looks great.
Speaker 1:The character models in the in this game look god awful. Like I had to go back and boot up like Odyssey to remember that Ubisoft could make good faces, because I don't know what happened in this game. I mean, again, it was supposed to be DLC, it was smaller studio, whatever, but it was like this looks rough. You hear people talk about, oh, this looks like a PS3 game or whatever. Well, this one actually did Like it was in the faces, like it did like it was in the faces, like it was terrible. It was like you know, in the final fantasy games they'll have like the cutscene graphics that are super, really like super good, and then they have kind of like the mid graphics and then they have like the npcs that you get a fetch quest from and they like don't move at all or whatever. That's kind of what everybody looked like in this game. It's just shapes, it's not like yeah, it was rough, it was rough yeah, and this was.
Speaker 2:You know, we're right in the and we're still in this in this era too, right, eric, when it comes to ubisoft and kind of just throwing shit against the wall and seeing what sticks. So you're looking at this like three-year run right of watchdogs, legion, far cry 6, which I enjoy, but only because I'm playing it. Or played it with jordan the division well, the division was a little it. With Jordan the division Well, the division was a little bit earlier. But like the division to the Avatar game, outlaws came out last year. Remember we played Roller Champions for two weeks, the roller derby game. That's a Ubisoft game. So it's like, yeah, what are?
Speaker 2:the Riders Republic, which I heard got good reviews I've never played it, but I do have it like on my in my library somewhere because it was free the immortals forget the crew the crew, the zelda ripoff, immortals, phoenix rising, which at the time I was so desperate for a ps5 like looking game that I bought it for like 20, played it for a couple hours and got rid of it. So it was a weird time and that we're like again.
Speaker 3:They're maybe trying to find their way out of right eric, as far as mirage, just seemed like the most ubisoft thing of them to do yeah, and for me I um, like you mentioned immortals, that was another one I looked at because I was looking for games that fit that like mythology build, and then I saw Ubisoft and immediately was like no, thank you.
Speaker 3:I think that, unfortunately, has been their whole shtick like just running franchises into the ground, and I think that's maybe my resentment towards Assassin's Creed. So, before we kind of talk about, like whatever the future looks like I know we wanted to talk about the hub Maybe we can summarize, like all those extra projects, those like mobile games and all those things that we like very clearly skipped over, cause I'd ever played them. I know no interest at all, but before any of that, I kind of want to ask, like Andrew, my opinion is that when we talk about the settings of the game, could these not have all been like separate franchises? Like at some point you know I mentioned, like with Black Flag, could that not have just been its own franchise, a pirate game, and they could have spawned more from there? Could we not have had Origins, odyssey, Valhalla, like, could those not have just been not Assassin's Creed games, or do you feel like the setting had to be part of the franchise? I'm really curious about that.
Speaker 1:Well, for Origins specifically, I think it benefited from the Assassin's lore. Like that. I think, like I said, that was the best marriage of all these ideas. Like I said, that was the best marriage of all these ideas. But no, like on paper. I think you could make a greek warrior mythology game. You could make a viking game. You could make your I mean assassin's creed in in, uh, shadows, like in japan, like that has been something people have wanted for forever. So that kind of makes sense.
Speaker 1:The problem is it's not going to sell like Assassin's Creed does, and so they have to. They're experimenting under this umbrella, under the name Assassin's Creed, because Assassin's Creed is their call of duty. Like Assassin's Creed is their franchise that the casuals come out for. That, like everybody checks out or looks into or at least is aware a new one came out. Assassin's Creed is basically the only thing Ubisoft has that does these kind of numbers. They have a lot of other games that are successful. They have some of the Tom Clancy games and stuff and Far Cry does pretty well. But Assassin's Creed is their big name and so sure they could spend the time and resources to make Egyptian RPG X. But if they make it Assassin's Creed Egyptian RPG. It's going to be way more successful just because people are more likely to buy into that than they are the brand new. People are more likely to buy into that than they are the brand new.
Speaker 1:I mean, they kind of did like Immortals. Phoenix Rising, I think, was targeted at like a younger audience, but they kind of did that. Like that game is very it feels like a cross between Breath of the Wild and Assassin's Creed Odyssey, like it's a bunch of super gamey puzzles and then some exploration and navigation similar to Breath of the Wild, but the combat feels a lot like what was in origins or in odyssey and so like they kind of did that and it didn't sell and they canceled the franchise, even though it like reviewed pretty well, critics liked it. Like most people who tried it were like, yeah, this is a fine video game, but it just didn't stand on its own. So I think for sure on paper, yeah, these could all just be their own ips, but from the standpoint of the company there's no way they could be their own ips yeah, they're like we said.
Speaker 2:There are people who will jump into these and, like you said earlier, like maybe play them over the course of a year, maybe they can only dedicate four or five hours a week or every other week to playing them and they just play them for for what they are. So I understand that question, eric, but yeah, slapping, they're like the assassin's creed is the cloverfield of video games. Right, we're seeing just cloverfield attached on to any project that wasn't already a cloverfield movie and that's what Assassin's Creed does. So I would say, even though they're as far as getting through them, it can be somewhat of a chore at times. I think since Origins they've, and then you know there was a hiccup that was that was Mirage.
Speaker 2:But when you talk about those four games including, including Shadows, they're in pretty good shape, especially compared to like a Far Cry or a Watch Dogs, which is like aimless right now. Who even knows if that's going to return. So they're the main franchise I think is in pretty good shape and we'll use that to talk about Shadows. And I want to save most of the big Shadows conversations for your episode when I when I come on, most of the the big shadows conversations for your episode when I when I come on. But you've doubled the amount of time I've gotten into it just because I can't focus on one thing I'm playing. I'm playing so many different games at one time.
Speaker 2:But I will say I've enjoyed shadows, I've enjoyed my time in. I've got 20 hours in and I enjoy both of those characters and all the BS nonsense that's gone on before. That we'll leave for other people to talk about. But as far as the game having not played an Assassin's Creed game in 12 years so that's when Black Flag came out to Shadows I'm very much enjoying it. The setting is beautiful. The thing I think that I it's not fair to Shadows, but I just cannot help but compare it to is Ghost of Tsushima, and that game, in my opinion, is is a masterpiece. It's one of my favorite PlayStation games that's been out and, eric, we've talked about that game here on the podcast. So do you think that, even though it's something fans have wanted for so long, do you feel like it was a little bit too late for them to finally dive into Japan after there is now another IP that had done it so well and very similar gameplay?
Speaker 1:No, because that really only affects Sony players and Assassin's Creed is multi-platform also. Assassin's Creed, like Ghost of Tsushima I love that game Successful for a Sony exclusive, but it does not have the like fan base that Assassin's Creed does. I do think we're just kind of in this setting is just blowing up right now in general and I think they're different enough. You know, like Ghost of Tsushima has that very stylized kind of visuals and the stealth and combat and stuff play a lot more like some of the older Assassin's creed. Not the combat, the combat's its own thing. It's pretty cool, but the stealth is like very simple and I think that shadows has enough of its own dna that it can kind of stand apart. I do think that, like in the gaming community and in the like diehards and people who care about the game, awards and stuff, like the ghost of yotai, assassin's creed, shadows, conversations are going to be exhausting probably, but like for the average gamer, I think people are like cool, more, more. Uh, japan, you know more of this setting also. Also Assassin's Creed doing it their way. The cool thing about Shadows and, like you said, we'll talk about it more on the episode you come on and do with me, but like this is still one of the RPG games, like it fits under that umbrella.
Speaker 1:But this feels like a step up as far as the visuals. Like they have this crazy weather system in it, the seasonal system, the just the like. Even the way that the horse functions they added like prone to stealth. They added being able to like knock out lights and hide in the dark. They added like a more hardcore stealth mode.
Speaker 1:They reworked combat completely to make it much more intentional and like kind of parry focused and and so while it definitely feels like the three rpgs that came before it in the sense like the overall structure, quality wise, and like them actually putting some time into like taking a look at the systems and refining some stuff and like making some changes, it does feel kind of like that next gen step, that next gen upgrade, because this game's not available on the last gen consoles and whereas the other three all were, and so I think they took advantage of that and I think that it feels like a higher quality experience just compared to the other games in the franchise. Compared to ghost of tsushima like there's. I think there's a lot of personal preference in there. I think you get a much better and more intentional story in ghost of tsushima at least so far, what I've experienced in shadows. But I think shadows does the stealth stuff a lot. It's a lot more fun and interesting in shadows.
Speaker 2:So yeah, and the whole thing with Ghost of Tsushima 2 is also playing in a specific style that is not associated with that time, right, that's, the whole thing of the ghost is like you're, you're straying away from, like the honor system and everything like that, whereas you know, depending on the character you're playing as in in shadows, that's. Another benefit is just having the two play styles as well and, you know, being able to up the difficulty when it comes to stealth, which I highly recommend for those of you that haven't picked up the game. Don't cheese the game. You could easily do that with the stealth and just kind of hide, just out of sight. But, yeah, that's definitely the way to go. So, eric, after all, this time you know if it's not Shadows is there something that could get you to try out one of these RPGs, whether it be this year? Like, say, shadow shows up on game pass or you know you wish listed and it does go on sale on esteem. Like, where's the interest in assassin's creed in 2025 and beyond for you? Uh?
Speaker 3:cue the andrew. No, no, no, I would go to yotai coming out too, like I assume you're gonna play that way before Ghost of Yotai coming out too.
Speaker 2:I assume you're going to play that way before you play this, right, yeah?
Speaker 3:way before I would play Shadows. I never fully finished A Ghost of Tsushima, so I do want to completely finish that game, but listen, we tried to do it for the episode. I underestimated how much time.
Speaker 1:That game is big. It's a big game.
Speaker 3:Big game, big, big. So yeah, I just don't think I'm gonna be interested in it unless they're doing something that is like extraordinary, like something that has to get me back in and like, even when the game released I didn't hear like you had to play this. I'll give you a good example after we're done recording because and I did do it in the last hour or 30 minutes of your stream, phil at the end of this recording I'm also considering playing clear obscure again. So, like at the end of your stream, I said I might, I might boot it up. I did this recording.
Speaker 3:I'm tired, I'm gonna go boot that game up because I hear so many people talking about how great it is and things about the combat and things that are interested and while it hasn't quite gripped me yet on any front, honestly, except for the combat, I'm interested. I'm curious Nothing I've seen from Assassin's Creed Shadows as a you know, comparable release game. Like in the last 12 to 24 months I've had so many games that have come on my radar through word of mouth or through visual gameplay that I've seen and anything I've had so many games that have come on my radar through word of mouth or through visual gameplay that I've seen and anything I've seen of Shadow has just been like oh okay, it's a Assassin's Creed game in another setting, which, again, is just how I've known the franchise to be.
Speaker 2:And you know it's good that the reception for Shadows has been really, really solid and I think we'll probably see an even bigger uptick in terms of players, because everyone knows these ubisoft games go on sale within the first few months as well. So people, I know a lot of people are waiting on it. Um, again, it was an unprecedented month for buying new games for me. It was a lot happened in a very short amount of time and, thank goodness, game pass is once again a viable source, but once again the best deal in gaming. We were a little touch and go there in 2024. I was a little worried but that has come back around between.
Speaker 2:You know, talking about games that Andrew and I are both playing when we're talking about South of Midnight, you just beat that. Maybe that's an episode we'll have to come. You, you know a game we'll have to visit down the line, but yeah, we'll just use that, like you said, eric, to transition to the future of this franchise. Now, andrew, we kind of touched on it before the episode started. There was like a big like fuss about what is the hub, what is the animus hub, what's that going to be, and I think probably people got like a little worried because you know you're thinking about what's? That shooter that came out last year, that's already dead and gone from ubisoft, that we talk about like uh yeah, what was it?
Speaker 1:what was it called?
Speaker 2:I already forgot the name of it. What was it called? Eric uh?
Speaker 3:was it? Was it like the call of duty? Yeah it was, yeah, it was like team hero basedbased. Call of Duty. Didn't we start?
Speaker 1:with the X, X-Defying Yep. That's what I needed.
Speaker 2:So we're thinking about the disasters of X-Defying, we're thinking about all the microtransactions they threw into the Division 2 and Ghost Recon Wildlands. What was the sequel? Ghost Recon.
Speaker 3:Breakpoint.
Speaker 2:They're throwing all that stuff in there. So everyone's like what is? What the hell is the hub? It's just a game launcher, guys, so don't, I'll just let you guys know. And it looks pretty cool, right, andrew? I think it looks pretty neat. I don't own any of the other assassin's tree games that are in the hub, but if I did, it's a really cool launcher. So just kind of like quell people's concern about what that is, cool launchers. So just kind of like quell people's concern about what that is in terms of people maybe just being a little concerned about that.
Speaker 2:But what I'm looking forward to and I guess it's hex. I don't I've heard people call it hexa, but there is a kind of like a paranormal, like witch hunter style game coming out, more horror centric to the assassin's creed franchise, as well as a bunch of other projects that have kind of been leaked and teased. So what do you know about those? Which ones are you excited about? I don't know what your interest is in terms of you know the, the horror space, but what do you think about any of these projects? I'll just start. We'll just start with hex. Like what do you know about that, or is it does? Do you have any interest in in that no, I'm very.
Speaker 1:I mean, I'm a fan of this franchise. I'm pretty much like locked in at this point. I have to, I have to be. They'd have to do a lot for me to get rid of all this history, but this one looks really cool. Some of the things that I was reading about it is that it's supposed to be more linear and have, just like, some elements of open world exploration. It's a single female protagonist, so shout out to Ubisoft for finally committing to that.
Speaker 1:After giving us the ride, the PSP game right, yeah, they well, they did the mobile game or not mobile, but yeah, like the handheld game with a female protagonist. That's the only time they had to do the siblings. Then they had to do the like optional brother sister choice in odyssey and then in valhalla they the game is written like you're supposed to be female avor and then you're supposed to be the male when you're in, like the fantastical world. But they let you pick there as well. And then even now with shadows, they couldn't. They couldn't just have a single female protagonist there. So kudos to them in 2026 or whenever this game comes out, finally, finally making it happen. But no, the setting seems really unique and really interesting and not like anything that we've seen in assassin's Creed yet. So maybe this is your, maybe this is your game, eric.
Speaker 2:Yeah, maybe you want to do witchy stuff and hunt, honestly, like, give us an Assassin's Creed style game, like in the setting of sinners. That's not what this is. But I'm saying like if like the same, not the setting, but like the same tone. Like tonally, I can, yeah, but I'm saying like if like the same, not the setting, but like the same tone like tonally Vampire hunters. Yeah, I can get on board with that.
Speaker 3:I guess, again, at this point, nothing about the story is going to move me. It's going to be a combination of the setting which could intrigue me, and then it's going to be the gameplay. So, like, it just doesn't seem like Assassin's Creed has any intention on revolutionizing their gameplay. It doesn't seem like Ubisoft is interested in doing those things. They just had a Star Wars property given to them and we saw what they did with that. So, again, it's just, it is what it is, maybe, maybe, we'll, we'll, we'll stick with a maybe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then I think the other project that I see here is a, a mobile game, so we don't have to discuss that one yeah, it's like a.
Speaker 1:It's like it looks like a real assassin's creed game from what I've seen. But yeah, I won't play that did you, andrew?
Speaker 3:did you go into the mobile stuff and is there one? If you did that?
Speaker 1:really stands out.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I did not go into the mobile, really I played. So I did play the one set in the New Orleans era we were talking about. It was like an Assassin's Creed 3 spinoff that it came to handhelds and then it came to 360. They ported it to consoles and so I played it there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Liberation liberation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I never beat it, but it was cool. It definitely felt like a handheld game, like it was a lot jankier and simpler. Um, and then they did three of the like side scrolling kind of I don't think like the current prince of persia, those were.
Speaker 1:Those were chronicles right yeah, they weren't metroidvania, I don't think, it was more just like running platforming kind of. And I played a few hours of the china one and then was like, yeah, I'm not gonna. I think they gave them all away with like games with gold or something back in the day, so I have them. But I only played the china one just because it had assassin's creed on it. Then I was like, oh yeah, this isn't, this isn't for me, this isn't what I'm looking for.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I have a lot of optimism about Hex, just specifically because of the setting and going. You know, when we're talking about reinventing the gameplay, they could do that when you're talking about witch hunts and paranormal stuff, so that could be something that ends up being really, really neat. I would be. I hope they're taking their time and that has been very beneficial for this series, along with a whole bunch of others. The proof of concept, like people I think are when it comes to games, are more patient than they ever have been. So the thing is, the people in charge are not, so they do not share those same values when it comes to just taking time and pumping out a game and and getting those things out there.
Speaker 1:So well, and when you're patient, you want that to be paid off with something so like, if you're patient, and then you get this turd of a game like star wars outlaws, you're like what was the point of being? Like why?
Speaker 1:you know, and I think the only kind of potential like ubisoft has been in like major hot water and really struggling recently with their games being formulaic, being buggy, blah blah rumors have been being sold this year, right like, yeah, they've been able they restructured and like made their own kind of subsidiary company that they could, that they, I think, went into business with tencent and like maintain their ips that way, and so they're they're struggling and I think they hopefully they've heard that like we like your properties and your franchises, but they need, like they need a soul again, they need imagination, they need something exciting, kind of like what eric is saying, and so hopefully they're taking that to heart and they're going to actually try to release some quality games to bring themselves back from the brink, rather than just keep on shoveling the same crap and hoping that eventually it will sell somehow, like I mean, yeah, we'll have to see I think what is telling about with shadow specifically, which I am enjoying, is between the three story-driven games I'm playing right now south of midnight, clear, obscure and assassin's creed, shadows shadows is the one I want to play the least and I think that's kind of telling and that kind of just like sums it up right there.
Speaker 2:I'm enjoying all three, but shadows is the one I want to play the least and I think that's kind of telling and that kind of just like sums it up right there. I'm enjoying all three, but shadows is the one is like, oh yeah, I guess I'll get some shadows in tonight, as opposed to like man. I can't wait to play more clear, obscure. I can't wait to get into south and midnight more and, to be fair, those are new ips. They're original stories, you know. Gameplay wise, they could not be more different, all three of them. So, you know, I think that's just kind of like the state of like we alluded to earlier, eric, of what kind of games we prioritize right now, you know, as opposed to a formula that is very familiar and it's still good, but it's like I want to try something new, you know.
Speaker 1:Well, well, I think it goes back to what I said earlier about assassin's creed story structure and how they've broken it up into like these small little assassination hunts that you can play in any order, and so because of that they can't really do anything deep with the story. Yeah, because assassin's creed shadows opens really strong and it has good characters, but they just they kind of waste that potential with the way that they decided to structure the game and the story, whereas something like a south of midnight or a clear obscure is much well, at least south of midnight is much simpler in the gameplay department. But it makes up for that with like intentional storytelling and like very stylized animation and music and like things around the story and assassin's creed like they're set, they sacrifice some of that depth to the story in the name of freedom, like gameplay freedom, and so hopefully they can find a nice balance. I like having freedom in my games, but I also like to experience a good narrative.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't mind being told where to go, as long as that destination is worth going, is worth getting to. But, eric, yeah, I mean, this conversation accomplished a lot of what I wanted to discuss and I don't think this is going away anytime soon. Let's talk about the movie. No, we don't have to do that. It should have just been a TV show.
Speaker 1:Might as well make that a separate episode. Yeah, we'll talk about the movie.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we'll do a late to the party. There you go, assassin's Creed, because I have not seen it, so yeah, let's do that and make me miserable.
Speaker 1:You guys have fun with that. Wait, you're not coming on for the Assassin's Creed movie. I mean, I don't know. I think I might be busy that night.
Speaker 2:We'll work around your schedule.
Speaker 1:We'll figure it out, okay.
Speaker 2:Well, eric, is there anything else you want to go over when it comes to this franchise, either that you want to mention or ask Andrew about, since he's the expert we brought in that we we knew would be able to rely on to kind of get us up to speed. Anything else about this series that you want to discuss before we wrap up?
Speaker 3:no, I think I threw a couple at you, uh and, and we kind of talked about kind of beating a dead horse. I would love to get back into assassin's creed. I gotta have more than a reason almost at this point. And bringing back clear obscure again. Like that team was made with like 30 devs like and it's it's killing the game right now and from what I was kind of looking up really quickly on the fly, don't know how accurate it already got a movie in production already got a movie in production it.
Speaker 3:You know it sold so many copies already, despite being on game pass and the oblivion remaster coming out days before to fuck its release.
Speaker 3:And then, on top of all of that, again the amount of devs that were were in on this game compared to like a big property, like shadows, is just crazy and from what I could see here, it looks like that clear, obscure, may, double shadows like peak, actual, like stream time.
Speaker 3:So as far as like concurrent players, it looks like. So again, I don't know how accurate that is, but I wouldn't be surprised because it's at least bringing something new to the fold. I would love to see that with this franchise. But, even though I haven't played a game since black flag, this was an episode phil that we have been needing to do, kind of like a bucket list episode. Assassins creed is a huge franchise for us when we talk about why we created this series and I'm glad we brought someone on that could fill in the gaps for us, because we could have definitely done an episode about the first phase of Assassin's Creed till Black Flag and that would have been fine. But it doesn't paint the whole picture for Ubisoft and this franchise and I'm glad we were able to do that.
Speaker 2:You guys want to guess what the letterboxed average is for the Assassin's Creed movie 2.3.
Speaker 1:I was going to say like 2.
Speaker 2:It is exactly 2. Nice, exactly 2. And our friend Caleb has also given it a 2.3. I was going to say like 2.
Speaker 1:It is exactly 2. Nice.
Speaker 2:Exactly 2. And our friend Caleb has also given it a 2. Aman Valani, ms Marvel 1.5. And Cinema Joe 1.5. I'm going to follow their lead. I haven't ranked this yet, so let me score Assassin's Creed 2016.
Speaker 1:I don't think you can rank it until you've re-watched it. I'm pretty sure you know all of us.
Speaker 2:So Super Bracket Bros Cinematic Universe a meetup.
Speaker 3:Black Adam, we gotta finish Black Adam.
Speaker 2:We gotta watch the second half of Black Adam and we'll watch half of Assassin's Creed.
Speaker 2:I think I know why the meetup hasn't happened center it all around Black Adam and the Assassin's Creed film. Oh boy, so well, andrew. Thank you so much for taking the time centering it all around Black Adam and the Assassin's Creed film. Oh boy, so well, andrew. Thank you so much for taking the time to again catch us up with Assassin's Creed and everything that we missed, and I'm excited to discuss Shadows more in depth with you a little bit later in the month or earlier, depending on when that happens. But we'll figure it out. It's happening, but please let us know what's going on with your friendly neighborhood gamers. Just as a reminder, this episode comes out on the 21st of May, so I don't know how far out you have your episode scheduled, but that's when everything is happening for as far as the release date for this. So let everybody know, as always, if they don't know already, where they can find your friendly neighborhood gamers and what you guys are up to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure. So we are. We have a podcast. You can get that anywhere that you get the wait for a podcast. We're on youtube as well, uh, and all of that can be found on our website, fngamerscom fngamerscom so really easy to find. We talk about video games. We've talked about assassin's creed quite a bit. Um, I have a video I made where I ranked all of the Assassin's Creed games pre-Mirage. I think it's one of our more popular videos on YouTube.
Speaker 1:We're planning, like Phil said, we're going to have Phil come on. We're going to talk about Shadows a little bit more in depth. I would love to do a kind of retrospective style episode like this on our show. So if you enjoyed this conversation, we probably have something over there that you'll enjoy as well. We've also had Phil and Eric on the show for an interview. That was pretty early on, but the episode's still up there. You can find it.
Speaker 1:So definitely if you're looking for a place to start with familiar voices. They've both also been on the show for a variety of other topics and shenanigans as well, and game, I think, like God of war and some of those others. So a lot of good content, a lot of fun crossovers. So if you enjoy video game, talk like what we did here today. We'd really appreciate you checking out our stuff as well. Thank you guys for having me. This has been a ton of fun. I always enjoy chatting with you guys and I always enjoy chatting about Assassin's Creed. So, chatting with you guys and I always enjoy chatting about Assassin's.
Speaker 2:Creed. So it was a double whammy. Shenanigans is a good way to explain everything that we do with the SBB, sbbcu nailed it we need to have Jordan commission a logo. Do we add Read it and Reap to the? They gotta get to at least 50 episodes, yeah they gotta get some legs under them first.
Speaker 1:Yeah, before they earn their colors. We got to get to at least 50 episodes, right? Yeah, they got to get some legs under them first.
Speaker 2:So before they earn their colors, no one just gets to watch the second half of Black Adam.
Speaker 3:Yeah, let's let them get to like 50 episodes. Maybe get invited to a holiday special, then we'll talk.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, you have to watch the first half of Black Adam at least three times before you can watch the second half.
Speaker 2:So, as always in that interview Andrew mentioned, we put in every single Game Room episode because we had a whole lot of fun on that one. But, yeah, you'll find everything you need for Friendly Neighborhood Gamers and the WayForward podcast in the show notes of this episode. For us, make sure you click that Linktree link and keep up with us over on social media, specifically on Instagram, tiktok, our Discord channel over on YouTube and we are now streaming quite a bit over on Twitch. As Andrew mentioned earlier. We hit that affiliate status about a month ago from when this episode came out, but we are doing a whole lot over there, which has been a whole lot of fun.
Speaker 2:If you want to support the shows, head on over to apple podcast and spotify and give both shows five star reviews. It is so beneficial to the uh, the progress of a podcast and also getting more eyes on and ears on the shows as well. And if you want to go ahead and tag us, let us know that you're listening, let your friends know that you're listening. We would appreciate that. But make sure to also follow eric and i's personal pages as we continue our personal professional journeys, me with voice acting and then eric putting out more and more content over on social media, and all of that is uh. We appreciate all the support we have gotten so far, but if you're finding yourself wanting to get some more content or even get these episodes way earlier, eric will let you know how you can get all of that and then wrap us up.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So all the free stuff is very much appreciated, but if you want to go the extra mile, go beyond and support the show Over on Patreon, you're able to get behind the scenes looks and very early access now that we've gotten ahead of our schedule for episodes like this one.
Speaker 3:Thank you to patrons of the show currently Briar, stefan T3Kato, vintage Macaroni, corey from the World Is my Burrito and Nick Casbarro, the author of the Vidularium series. We really appreciate each and every one of you for your monthly support and, if you wanna join the crew, we got a lot of fun stuff that's coming around the corner. Convention season is upon us at this time, so definitely look out for things like vlogs that are being introduced to our Patreon account and, again, just some extra content that we're going to be throwing out there. But, with all that being said, we appreciate each and every one of you for the listen. Please give your friendly neighborhood gamers a follow, and my name is Mr Eric Almighty. That is my co-host, philip Filipino, please don't forget. We release new episodes every Wednesday on the podcast and all you have to do is wait for it.
Speaker 1:This is the Wait For it Podcast.
