Beyond

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5 Awesome Games We Checked Out At gamescom 2024' - A Podcast Beyond! Special Episode Aug 26, 2024

Show notes

Beyond and hello! Welcome to a very special gamescom edition of IGN’s weekly PlayStation show. This week, a whole bunch of the IGN team is in Germany covering the show, including Max, Brian, and our producer Nick, so putting together a regular Beyond episode was a little tricky. Instead, we’ve pulled together a bunch of our interviews about upcoming PlayStation games. We kick things off with Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, which we just learned is coming to PS5 next year. Then, Mouse: P.I. for Hire, which is sort of like if Cuphead was a first-person shooter about a rodent detective. To cap things off, we’ve got a trio of upcoming games based on some of our favorite movies that take place on barren, sandy desert planets: Starship Troopers: Extermination, Dune Awakening, and Star Wars Outlaws.

We’ll be back with a normal episode next week, but we hope you enjoy some of what the team produced at Gamescom.

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Will Concord Suffer from Sony Skipping Gamescom? - Beyond 854 Aug 22, 2024

Show notes

This week, it was announced that Stellar Blade sold a million copies, which has us optimistic we’ll see a sequel to ShiftUp’s much-discussed hack and slash. Something we definitely won’t be seeing is a PlayStation presence at gamescom 2024, which definitely doesn’t have us feeling particularly optimistic about Concord, the multiplayer FPS that Sony’s publishing that same week. A massive video game event with hundreds of thousands of attendees sure seems like a good spot to demo a brand new live-service game, but hey, what do we know? Helldivers 2 launched just fine without. Then again, is it fair to compare Helldivers 2 and Concord? They’re both Sony-published multiplayer live-service games that are hitting PS5 and PC day and date, but they’re clearly very different. One is a shameless knockoff slash heartfelt love-letter to Starship Troopers, a 27-year-old cult classic, that has a very clear idea of what kind of video game it is, while the other seems to be equal parts Guardians of the Galaxy and Overwatch, but combined in a way that’s ambitiously blending an ongoing narrative with multiplayer live-service. In other news, after all our grousing and moaning during the Ubisoft Forward post-show about Ubisoft’s failure to acknowledge Beyond Good & Evil in any way… they just released a 20th Anniversary 4K remaster of the game, with a bunch of bonus content and quality of life improvements. Why wasn’t this announced during that week when everybody was making big announcements? We don’t know. But here’s what we do know: Elden Ring is a good video game, so we’re gonna talk about that, and if you’re avoiding Shadow of the Erdtree spoilers, don’t worry, you’re probably farther along than most of us. Which is your favorite farming spot, Ball Hill or Bird Cliff? Sound off in the comments. This week’s Beyond is Max Scoville, Jada Griffin and one-man band/producer/panelist, Tom Jorgensen.

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More Closures & Layoffs See Ready At Dawn Sunsetted, Bungie Stretched Thin - Beyond 859 Aug 14, 2024

Show notes

This week, we’re joined by the wonderful Jared Petty, formerly of IGN, currently of Limited Run Games, to talk about (among other things) Tomba! Special Edition. Who is this pink-haired feral child, and why is he biting all those pigs? We had questions, and Jared had some answers. Plus, Jada ventured into No Man’s Sky in VR and was very impressed, further highlighting just how much Hello Games managed to transform that game since it launched way back when. On a more serious note, we got word that Meta has shut down Ready At Dawn, the studio responsible for some beloved PlayStation games, including the ambitious and underrated The Order 1886, as well as some PSP bangers like God of War: Chains of Olympus and Daxter. Meanwhile, Bungie had a massive round of layoffs amid restructuring, which has us discussing the unrealistic expectations and unsustainable business models of the games industry. On the bright side, Krafton, publisher of PUBG and The Callisto Protocol, has scooped up Tango Gameworks, along with the Hi-Fi Rush rights, so maybe we haven’t seen the last of that rhythm-based hack-and-slash.

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Breaking Down The Biggest Games of Sony's China Hero Project - Beyond 858 Aug 07, 2024

Show notes

This week, Jada makes her return to the hosting chair along with Taylor Lyles, Cam “Final Mix” Hawkins, and Kevin Diaz to talk about the biggest games coming out of China Joy 2024 and Sony’s China Hero Project. Ganes like Lost Soul Aside, Exiledge, AI Limit and many more that are building momentum as we get closer to their releases. We also talk about other games that showed up at China Joy 2024 not directly from Sony with new teasers and trailers including Monster Hunter Wilds, Dynasty Warriors: Origins, and Phantom Blade Zero. There was also a new teaser for Season 2 of The Last of Us tv series on Max, to discuss and theorize who Catherine O’Hara will be playing and what storylines could be expanded on beyond what we got in the games. And oh yeah Astrobot and his controller are almost here so we had to talk at least a little bit about one of our favorite up-and-coming mascots of PlayStation. We also acknowledge the PSVR2 PC adapter and hope that will help entice more people to play and make more things that are PSVR2 compatible. There is also a new segment called Out This Week highlighting all the games coming out this week that we are excited for like Twin-Stick shooter Cygni: All Guns Blazing, Volgarr the Viking 2, Steamworld Heist 2, and of course Cat’s Quest 3 where you can take over the Purribean, I’m not sure if that's a tagline for the game but either way that's the pun I’m going with in this description for it. Finally, we do a lightning round of what we’ve been playing recently.

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Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn & Concord Beta Impressions - Beyond 857 Jul 18, 2024

Show notes

This week, we’ve got plenty to talk about. Jada just reviewed Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn, the open-world souls-like action RPG from the studio behind Ashen. She breaks down the combat, both ranged and melee, as well as traversal, how the world is laid out, and the novel approach of earning bonus experience by chaining together combos. We also delve into bosses, as well as what’s up with that little rat dog. Concord had its first Beta this weekend, and we discuss our early impressions of Firewalk’s relatively budget-priced but still pay-to-play live-service shooter. Will it have the same success as Helldivers 2, or attract disgruntled Apex Legends and Overwatch players? We’ll have to wait and see. Jada also spoke to Neil Jones the developer of, Aerial_Knight’s Never Yield, about the upcoming indie narrative runner. We also have time to weigh in on other stuff we’ve been playing, including Chants of Sennaar, Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail, Alaskan Road Truckers, and yes, Elden Ring’s expansion, Shadow of the Erdtree. Have you heard of it? This week’s panel is Max Scoville, Jada Griffin and Brian Altano with special guest Neil Jones.

Presented by Wendy’s Saucy Nuggs

00:00:00 - Intro

00:01:17 - Concord First Impressions

00:14:35 - Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn Impressions

00:32:17 - Wendy's Saucy Nuggs Featuring Unnecessary Inventions

00:33:37 - Aerial_Knight's We Never Yield Interview with Neil Jones

00:50:56 - Brian likes Elden Ring

01:04:04 - Chants of Sennaar, Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail, Alaskan Road Truckers Discussion

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The DLC Dilemma: When Should an Expansion Just Be a Full Game? - Beyond 856 Jul 10, 2024

Show notes

Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree DLC is one of the more expansive expansions in recent memory, which has just pondering what exactly the sweet spot is for add-ons to games we love. Is waiting two years for a $40 expansion to a $70 game better than waiting five or six years for a full sequel? Regularly updated live-service games like Destiny 2 and Final Fantasy XIV have no trouble keeping existing players interested, but how do you attract new players when a game’s been going for over a decade? Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was nearly an expansion for GTA III before Rockstar made it a standalone release, and we got some wonderful expansions to Grand Theft Auto IV with The Lost & The Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony, and then GTAV’s story DLC was allegedly scrapped to focus on the more granular and lucrative updates added to GTA Online. Meanwhile, plenty more great games got their start as DLC, like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Halo 3: ODST and Hollow Knight: Silk Song… Though that last one is still MIA. In other PlayStation-adjacent news, Astro’s Playroom has been getting some free sneaky little updates ahead of the release of Astro Bot, including some indication that someone working at Sony actually remembers that Bloodborne exists and that people love it. The Shapes is a new line of collector-grade action figures from Spin Master, featuring some familiar faces from God of War, Ghost of Tsushima, and Horizon Forbidden West. We got a couple little updates on the Watch Dogs movie we forgot was in the works, as well as the Metal Gear Solid movie that’s been in the works for almost 20 years. This week’s episode features Max Scoville, Jada Griffin and Matt Kim.

Presented by Wendy’s Saucy Nuggs

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Dead Rising & Kunitsu-Gami: How Capcom’s Balancing Remakes & Risks - Beyond 855 Jul 03, 2024

Show notes

Capcom had a few surprises for us with this week’s Next showcase, including the full reveal of Dead Rising: Deluxe Remaster, the second time the 2006 survival-action-horror game has gotten a fresh coat of paint. Apparently a deluxe remaster is a little more involved that your run-of-the-mill HD upscale, but not quite on the same level of a remake, like Capcom’s recent Resident Evil do-overs. Whatever the case, it looks great, and we’ll happily jump back into Frank West’s shoes for some zombie mayhem when the Deluxe Remaster drops in September, and for anyone not excited about the news, rest assured Resident Evil 9 IS in development, so chill out. Aside from re-visiting the familiar to varying degrees, Capcom is also showing it’s not afraid to try something new, as demonstrated by Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess, an interesting hybrid of tower defense, real-time strategy and escort mission that’s surprisingly hard to explain, which is somewhat unusual in this day and age of established game genres checking boxes of what kind of mechanics they involve. Kunitsu-Gami drops in a few weeks, and while July isn’t particularly packed with big releases, it does have some coming up, like Final Fantasy XVI’s Dawntrail expansion, First Descendant, Zenless Zone Zero, Flintlock: Siege of Dawn, College Football 25, and Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Game. This week, Beyond is Max Scoville, Jada Griffin and Logan Plant.

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Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree Review Discussion - Beyond 853 Jun 19, 2024

Show notes

Arise, once again, Tarnished! FromSoftware’s long-awaited DLC expansion to Elden Ring, Shadow of the Erdtree is almost upon us and Mitchell Saltzman joins us to give his spoiler-free thoughts on why it’s yet another 10 out of 10 review score for IGN. Obviously, FromSoft games are challenging from the jump, but it should be no surprise that an expansion for people who know their way around The Lands Between packs a punch for even the highest level players. Plus, we run down a couple games from the various Summer events that caught our eye, including Kunitsi-Gami: Path of the Goddess, which takes a novel approach to tower defense with an aesthetic somewhat reminiscent of Okami, as well as Starship Troopers: Extermination, which takes a more conventional approach to tower-defense, but with 16-player co-op in first-person, which should be more than enough to set it apart from Helldivers 2. Mixtape looks like a gorgeous whimsical indie adventure to let us relive our mischievous teenage glory days to the tune of a great soundtrack, and Metal Gear Solid 3 Delta Triangle Remake Eater has a gross mechanic that sounds like something Kojima would’ve dreamed up. This week’s Beyond is Max Scoville, Jada Griffin and Mitchell Saltzman.

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Revisiting 'Horizon Forbidden West' - A Podcast Beyond! Special Episode Jun 15, 2024

Show notes

Welcome to another very special episode of IGN's weekly PlayStation show. Today we’re taking a look back at our past coverage of Horizon Forbidden West, including a review discussion plus a spoiler-filled breakdown with some of the developers from Guerrilla Games. So, if you haven’t finished the game, this might ruin the ending, and if you haven’t played the game at all, it probably won’t make any sense. You have been warned!

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Star Wars Outlaws Looks Like The GTA In Space We’ve Been Waiting For - Beyond 852 Jun 10, 2024

Show notes

This year’s Ubisoft Forward didn’t have much in the way of surprises, but it did have a ton of gameplay of two games that we’ll actually get to play in just a few months, Star Wars Outlaws and Assassin’s Creed Shadows. Outlaws in particular looks like a game we’ve been waiting our whole lives for, an open-world sandbox that lets us explore the grimiest corners of the most wretched hives of scum and villainy. It’s a premise we almost got in Star Wars 1313 and Amy Hennig and Visceral’s Project Ragtag, but both those got canceled. Unlike some past Ubisoft gameplay demonstrations, what we’ve seen of Outlaws seems like it’ll actually be representative of the game that’s coming out in August, so here’s hoping it delivers. Meanwhile, another much-demanded project is Assassin’s Creed Shadows, which takes Ubi’s flagship stealth adventure series to Japan, and in addition to the awesome setting, it looks like it’s introducing a number of ambitious gameplay systems and mechanics. We got a few updates on what’s coming soon to this year’s Prince of Persia games, The Lost Crown and The Rogue Prince of Persia, but we also got the somewhat underwhelming announcement that the remake of The Sands of Time, which was originally slated for 2021, won’t be out until 2026 - is that the first big game with a release date that far off? Beyond Good and Evil 2 was nowhere to be seen, which is unsurprising but still disappointing, and sadly, we got no updates on what’s going on with Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell remake/reboot, or the Ghost Recon series. Oh, and there was no Far Cry, but we hope the next one has dinosaurs.

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