Mingles with Jingles Episode 627

Added: 2026-05-25

[00:00:00]Howdy folks. Hope you're all having a I realize it's Monday. Nobody's having a good Monday, but I hope you're all having as good a Monday as it's possible to have. And welcome to another episode of Mingles with Jingles. So, what's been going on in the world of PC gaming this week?

[00:00:19]Actually, you know what? Quite a bit.

[00:00:20]Um, I'm sure you've probably all heard the news that Destiny 2 is kaput. I didn't give a shit. So, I'm not going to be spending any more time talking about it. If you played Destiny, my commiserations. Um, I mean, the game's still running. They're just not updating it anymore. So, it's basically on life support and they're not making a Destiny 3. So, yeah. Sorry.

[00:00:47]So, yeah, Bungie's sci-fi MMO is Kaput.

[00:00:52]Is it really an MMO though? Because I mean, I know it's advertised and marketed as such, but when do you ever see other players in it? You know, outside of the social hubs where you can't actually do anything other than talk and trade and so on and so on. Um, at most you're going to see five other players when you're out in the world doing stuff that doesn't really strike me as massively multiplayer. It's a co-op shoot and loot with light role playing game mechanics. The only people that ever called it an MMO were Bungie themselves. and um they were wrong.

[00:01:26]While we're on the whole is it or isn't it subject in another amazingly relevant news post this week, the developers of June Awakening have decided that that is not in fact an MMO after all. In an interview with some website I've never heard of, I'm sorry. Uh Funcom's June Awakening game director Joel Boss said, "I don't think it's an MMO. I've worked on multiple MMOs for sure, but I think there was a weird space where we were trying to do slightly more. We have this big connected world. We have this big deep desert with lots of players being able to go in there. So, it was a hard game to describe and I always find that some people have a very set notion of what a genre is. So, it's hard to describe anything that does something slightly new. You know, he does make some good points there. I'm going to argue with them. You know, that's not going to stop me. Um, but I do have to take exception with one thing that he said there. It's hard to describe something that does something slightly new. What exactly did June Awakening do that was slightly new? Because in my experience, and I've put a lot of time into June Awakening, and I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but June Awakening is basically Conan Exiles with a Frank Herbert skin. It does precisely nothing new. But onto the question of whether or not June Awakening is or is not an MMO.

[00:02:50]I find the game director's claim that it is not in fact an MMO a remarkably bold claim to make, especially considering that they spent two years advertising it as an MMO and then a further year selling it as an MMO. So, you know, coming out at this point and saying, "Nah, that just kind of strikes me as more than a little disingenuous."

[00:03:12]Although, I suppose the correct response should be, "Who gives a shit? Is it fun to play?" Um, yes. with qualifications.

[00:03:20]Do you need other people in order to play it? No. But it is better with other people. And honestly, that's all anybody should care about. And while we're on the subject of MMO, I'm positively flying through the news this week, aren't I? Uh, while it is still at least being sold as an MMO, Star Citizen is probably weeks away from hitting a billion dollars in crowdfunding.

[00:03:45]whichever way you try to measure it, that's doing pretty well for a game that's missed its release date by 12 years. But well, I mean, yeah, okay, fair enough. I mean, the the persistent universe version of Star Citizen, they basically multiple times had to invent the technology required to make the whole thing work. And that that does take time. It takes so much time that the state of PC gaming, particularly PC gaming hardware, has moved on by the time they've gotten it to work. and they need to reinvent it again to keep pace with current technology. So yeah, 12 years in counting. But like I say, you know, they do have to keep reinventing everything in order to keep it current.

[00:04:24]So how about the other side of Star Citizen? Squadron 42, the single player science fiction space campaign. There's no reinventing tech that needs to happen there. It's a fly around shooty space thing. Chris Roberts has been doing those since 1990, right? That's longer than most of you have probably been alive. He knows how to do this sort of thing. So, how's that how's that coming along?

[00:04:48]Well, uh, yeah, that's missed its initial release window by 12 years as well. After it missed its 2014 release date, they suggested a 2016 release window, and then it was announced as being delayed indefinitely. Then in 2018, they announced a plan to enter Squadron 42's beta stage before the end of the first quarter of 2020. And uh you probably don't need me to remind you, but I'm going to anyway. Yeah, that was 6 years ago. Well, after missing that window, the date was later pushed back to the end of the second quarter of 2020. And when they missed that window, it was pushed back to the third quarter of 2020. And when they missed that window on the 10th of October 2020, Chris Roberts stated that we still have a long way to go before we're in beta.

[00:05:34]All of this, which was of course 6 years ago. So yeah. Yeah, it it it doesn't pay to hold your breath if you're sitting around waiting for Star Citizen updates because the next update in the development of Squadron 42. Remember the single player stuff, the thing that Chris Roberts actually knows how to do, which has been doing for 36 years. The next update came in October of 2023 at that year Citizen Con, and it was huge news. They showed off a playable build of Squadron 42 with the entire first must have been an hour of gameplay, including all of the cinematics, and it looked amazing. It looked really, really good.

[00:06:19]They announced that Squadron 42 was feature complete and all that remained was polish and optimization.

[00:06:28]That was 3 years ago. All joking aside, I sincerely hope that Mark Hamill and Gary Oldman have finished doing all of their liveaction recording for this game because neither of them are getting any younger and they are going to be dead before this game releases. But this is all old news. How is any of this relevant to what's been going on in PC gaming news this week?

[00:06:54]Well, I did say at the beginning that uh it's probably just a couple of weeks away from Star Citizen actually passing the billiondoll mark in crowdfunding.

[00:07:04]And what events are occurring to celebrate and mark this momentous occasion? Cuz it's not just missing their initial release date by 12 years.

[00:07:11]It's also the small matter of a billion dollars in crowdfunding. Well, for a limited time only, and when I say limited, I mean it. You can play Star Citizen for free for four whole days.

[00:07:26]Although, if you're watching this as Monday's Mingles with Jingles, you've only got two days left, so you'd better be quick. Wow, such generosity.

[00:07:35]I'll tell you what is generous, though.

[00:07:36]This week's sponsor. No, this isn't Eons of Battle.

[00:07:43]No, something that actually is generous.

[00:07:45]Warhammer 40,000 fans. You can get Warhammer 40k Gladius Relics of War free to keep if you redeem it on Steam, but do it quick because it's only available until the 28th of May. It is 100% free though. And you know, it's not like you have to start paying for it later. It's not Star Citizen. It's actually free.

[00:08:08]Get it, install it, play it, keep it, that's it. It's actually not bad. I It's It's been around a while. This isn't a new game. Um, if you've ever played any of the developer of Slytherine, if you know who they are, then you know exactly what kind of game this is. This is basically a hexbased war game.

[00:08:27]Slytherine specialize in this sort of thing. They've been doing it a long time. They're very good at. In fact, I think they did a Battle of Britain game about nine or 10 years ago, and they asked me to do a voiceover for it. I think that was them. It's so easy to lose track. But yes, Slytherine, they've they've they've got this niche and they're very very good at it and they just crank games out to fill that niche.

[00:08:49]Hexbased war game type things. You've probably heard of some of their titles, Panza Core 2, for example, uh Warhammer 40,000 Battle Sector, and of course also Warhammer 40,000 Gladius, Relics of War.

[00:09:02]Um they do one thing, they do it very, very well. and Warhammer 40,000 Gladius Relics of War is yours for free if you claim it on Steam before May the 28th.

[00:09:12]In other very satisfying gaming news, I'm sorry, I'm going to need a minute here. The Germans have a word for this.

[00:09:25]I'm probably mispronouncing it. I'll have a go. Shardenhider.

[00:09:29]It's the deep and overwhelming sense of joy and satisfaction at someone else's misfortune.

[00:09:38]Yes, we are talking about Subnautica 2's publisher Craftton.

[00:09:44]Oh boy, their CEO is having a nightmare this week.

[00:09:52]Um, so last week I announced, well I didn't announce, I mean I reported I repeated the news um that Subnautica had managed 1 million sales in its first hour of release. Oh, I should of course remind everybody the game isn't actually out. This is the early access launch of Subnautica 2. 1 million sales in its first hour. 2 million sales in its first 12 hours. And it just keeps getting better and better, which is worse and worse for the publisher.

[00:10:22]4 million sales in less than a week. Why is this terrible news for the publisher Craftton?

[00:10:32]Well, uh, I'm sure most of you are probably aware of the whole drama.

[00:10:36]Publisher Craftton promised developer Unknown Worlds a metric shit ton of cash a quarter of a billion dollars if they hit certain early access targets. Now, nobody except for Craftton and Unknown Worlds know exactly what those early access targets are, but I'm guessing that if you've done 4 million sales in the first week, Craftton CEO had better be getting his checkbook out and his pen ready. And I think that's hilarious because remember he tried to Welch on the whole deal because he didn't want to be seen as a pushover that might affect his position as CEO of Craftton. And now he's got the entire company on the hook for a quarter of a billion dollars.

[00:11:33]Mate, I think that ship has sailed.

[00:11:39]Congratulations to Unknown Worlds. Um because Submar 2 really is amazingly good. So well done to all of them.

[00:11:48]Thoroughly welld deserved. I've actually currently exhausted the single player story content in Subnotica 2. There's about 20 hours of gameplay in there, which is not bad for early access. And I also had a go with the multiplayer on the weekend. Played uh a couple of hours with Pointya Jedi and it just works.

[00:12:05]It's surprisingly fluid. Um, no bugs, no crashes. It's just they've done such an amazingly good job. I'm actually really looking forward to redoing the whole thing again in co-op with Rita when she gets home from Texas, I'm sure, because that was the big thing. I mean, I loved the original Subnautica. Um, as did most of us. The only thing that it was missing was co-op, and that's kind of the big selling point of Subnautica, too. And it just works. They've done an amazing job. Speaking of amazing jobs, oh, there's some really good news coming out now. Um, so one of the most popular video series I ever did was a game that desperately needs an abbreviation.

[00:12:48]Warhammer 40,000 Chaos Gate Demon Hunters, the sequel to I can't even remember when the original game came out. I know I never played it.

[00:12:58]I think it was as early as 1998.

[00:13:01]Warhammer 40,000 Chaos Gate where you played I believe as the Ultramarines against honestly I don't know well the sequel Warhammer 40,000 Chaos Gate Demon Hunters you played as the Grey Knights against the minions of the Chaos God Nurgle which was great don't get me wrong it it really really was great a fantastic game they had some great DLC and expansions for it as well but just the one type of enemy all the time.

[00:13:32]And it was the same in the original game apparently. I don't want to say it got monotonous because I mean it really didn't. But uh there was definitely an element of there were only certain number of different enemy types and they would drip feed new enemy types in as the campaign progressed, but it didn't take you long to learn what each type did. And I'm just saying a bit more variety would have been nice. Well, um, yeah. So, during the Warhammer Skulls event, a whole bunch of stuff was announced, but the thing that really caught my attention was another Warhammer 40,000 Chaos Gate game, the sequel to Demon Hunters. Except this time, you're not just fighting one enemy. There are seven different enemy factions. And you're not just playing as one marine chapter. the Ultramarines in the original game and the Grey Knights in the second game because you're playing as the Death Watch. And the Death Watch's thing was that they recruited from every other marine chapter in Legion. Each chapter has to provide a certain number of battle brothers to go and serve with the Death Watch for a specified amount of time and then they come back to their um home chapter as a Death Watch veteran. So, in theory, your Death Watch strike force in the game could consist of marines from every chapter in the game. You can literally pick and choose, and it's going to be glorious.

[00:15:04]No word on the release date, but you can follow it on Steam and the Epic Game Store for updates.

[00:15:11]I was kind of worried at first when I saw Epic Game Store. I thought, "Oh, surely this isn't going to be an Epic Game Store exclusive." But no, you can follow it on Steam. And also being a bit selfish here, even if it was an Epic Game Store exclusive, I'd probably be all right. Uh given the coverage that I gave the previous game in this series, I'm pretty sure that I would get a copy for free for review purposes. Uh not that that would be of much use to you lot. But u yeah, not to worry. Epic Game Store and Steam, so we don't have to worry about that. Finally, question time. Has anybody ever heard of the Broken Sword games? If you're American and you're of a certain age and still scratching your head in Puzzlement, I think they were called Circle of Blood in North America. Not sure why sometimes they do that. They just change the name of a thing for uh localization reasons.

[00:16:00]I played the original Broken Sword. It was a graphic adventure similar to games like The Secret of Monkey Island and so on and so on. Came out in 1996. It was a it was a long time ago. I seem to remember the game did actually very very well. I mean, I I I didn't love it. It was fine. Um, I played it. I enjoyed it.

[00:16:22]Didn't really care too much for a sequel, which did come out due to the first game success. There was a sequel the next year. Uh, which also, you know, the these games got good reviews. They were not bad games. I just didn't particularly care for the setting or the characters. But that's just me. Other people loved these games. They did very well. Each game in the series, and there were five, as well as a couple of remakes and remasters, um, sold at least a couple of hundred thousand units with a couple reaching the 1 million mark. You know, these were decent games. They did well, but the last one was published in 2013.

[00:16:57]Now, that's a long time ago, which is what made this week's announcement of a Broken Sword movie all the more bizarre.

[00:17:06]Who exactly has been asking for a Broken Sword movie? Apparently, if you believe the bullshit surrounding the press release, everybody, the movie developers, who go by the name of Story Kitchen, said very few franchises of this era have stayed relevant, premium, and loyal to the intelligence of their audience. Broken Sword has done all three. Huh. Okay. I I'm I'm prepared to concede loyal to the intelligence of their audience. I'll give you that one.

[00:17:35]but relevant, premium, that that that's a bold claim to make for a game series that hasn't seen a title in 13 years. They then went on to say, "Our work isn't to adapt a game into a film." I think you're going to find it is. I'm pretty sure you're going to find that the producers are going to be exceptionally upset with you if you don't. It's to move a world that has been building for three decades into the next medium it deserves, working hand in hand with the people who built it.

[00:18:08]Okay, hang on a minute. A world that's been building for over three decades.

[00:18:15]The first game came out in 1996. The last game came out in 2013.

[00:18:21]All right, look. I'm I'm I'm the first person to put my hand up and confess that I may have I may have made a couple of jingles landings with my mathematics in the past. You know, it's a fair cop.

[00:18:34]You got me. But I will die on this hill.

[00:18:39]1996 to 2013 isn't 30 years. The bullshit continues.

[00:18:45]the actual game developer and lead creator, guy who goes by the name of Charles Ceell, said that Story Kitchen approached him with a deep passion for the intellectual property. Um, allow me to translate that from bullshit into English. They approached him with a big check. Apparently, and again, I quote, "The creative conversations have been about translating what Broken Sword is rather than what it can be made to look like." Again, for your benefit, allow me to translate from bullshit into English.

[00:19:14]That entire statement is a nothing burger. It literally means nothing. It is just noise that comes out of somebody's mouth during a press release to make it sound like you give a shit.

[00:19:26]So basically the news is video game series that's been as dead as a doornob for the last 13 years and which hardly anybody has even heard about or at least anybody who's still alive has heard about is being made for an undisclosed sum into a Hollywood movie. And we all know the track record that Hollywood has with confirming adventure games into movies, right? Uncharted, a series that people have actually heard of and like.

[00:19:55]And oh, oh yeah.

[00:19:59]Oh well, best of luck with that. And on that, it's never going to happen. But even if it does, it's probably going to be terrible. Bombshell.

[00:20:09]That's it for this week's episode of Mingles with Jingles. Hope you've all enjoyed it. Hope you've all had a fantastic weekend. Now, forget it. It's Monday. And of course, as always, take care. and I'll catch you next time.