Hollywood's Gaming Adaptation Feeding Frenzy, With Chris Ryan | Button Mash

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Hello and welcome into the ringerverse, your Nexus feed for all things fandom.

I am Ben Lembert, Senior Editor of the ringer and number one boy of ButtMash.

With me today is a person who has peered on almost every ringer podcast but but mesh,

which changes now, host of the watch, regular on the rewatchables in the big picture,

man who has played Max Payne.

He's the mayor of Chris Town, the Ryan S. Chris Ryan.

And what is going on?

I'm so glad to be doing an audio only podcast.

I'm disappointed that I wore my Casey Dutton outfit today and nobody gets to see it though.

It's an excellent cosplay.

This is a real throwback for you.

Supposedly ButtMash will be on video at some point, but you know what?

This is sound only.

We just get to concentrate on the voice of Chris on the pantheon of events that have made this the year of CR.

CR month on the rewatchables, guest hosting, Bill's pod, LeBron and Jalen joining the Sixers.

Where would you say getting the invite to talk about video games on the ringerverse rings?

It's definitely in the top three, but it's not the first two.

Yeah.

I'll take it.

When I reach out to you about this, you asked me a very reasonable question,

which was basically, do I need to know anything about video games?

And I assured you we've had Sean on.

Yeah, so you should be fine.

As far as I know, he has not fired up Elden Ring yet.

One of these years, I'm sure.

But we welcome non gamers here.

We're like crunch fitness, no judgments, but you are more of a lapsed gamer.

Lapsed.

I would say I'm conversant.

I'd say that if I was just in a different phase in my life, and I got to admit, my wife is away for 10 days right now.

And I've thought once or twice, not only about firing up the PS4, but about leveling up into a new console.

And I was just like, you know, this is, this is a decision that seems really easy and fun right now.

And then we'll be deeply regretted in 12 days.

So I am sticking with where I am.

Usually what I would do is for the longest time, I would stay up to date on consoles so that I keep playing FIFA.

And FIFA is kind of like become more about like, I don't know, micro transactions or something now.

And they haven't really iterated on the actual game playing a while.

And I just gotten to like a weird headspace with FIFA where I was like, I'm not good enough to beat it on very high levels.

But I'm too good to play on very low levels.

And I just sort of faced out of that.

And then because of that, I stop playing games, but not out of any any real real life change just out of out of atrophy.

Yeah, it's been so long that FIFA's not even called FIFA anymore.

It's just, it's 27.

Yeah, they have to, they have to patch it.

They have to do some DLC to account for the, the man city penalties.

That's right.

So the last game I think I played in earnest was red dead redemption.

Okay.

The first one.

I think probably is a useful title for what we're going to talk about.

Yeah, I would think so.

You know, they've made five playstations now.

There's a whole other PlayStation.

There's a sequel to four.

I'm waiting on that six.

Yeah.

You might be waiting a while.

Yeah.

Because no one can get any RAM chip shortages.

So you've got time to catch up.

No, this is exciting to know that even that you considered maybe dipping your toe back in.

I mean, that's, that's good to hear.

And I will encourage it and enable it.

If I can, don't tell Amanda that you are considering this.

But I mean, if anything, I would start playing again, just to corrupt her sons.

I've threatened that like multiple times that she's going to turn her back one day.

I'm going to have them playing Halo.

Obviously, I've been thinking a lot about games and game mechanics and my nostalgic relationship to certain games just because of

Resident Evil this year.

Yeah.

And the obvious coming title wave of adaptations that we're probably going to see.

Yes, which we will talk about today.

What were your gaming glory days then if they could be called the gaming glory days?

What was this week's about?

I mean, I was, I was really a pretty daily extensive video game player through childhood from Nintendo and Sega Genesis through N64.

I would say my glory days were when I finally was both in a new city.

So when I'd left college and I moved to New York City.

And I was single.

No parents around and crucially, no friends because I just moved to a new city.

And I, that's when I really got into playing.

I think it was they were must have been Xbox games.

So it would be in Halo and it would have been the aforementioned Max Payne and those kinds of games where I would play for oh my god is the sun coming up.

I'm out of hours.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't want to play into hurtful gamer stereotypes like SNL did this past weekend.

But it is conducive to spending some serious time playing games when you have a lack of other things to do.

Yeah.

I find that that helps or people to see not that games can't be a social activity.

But there's definitely a stage of life at which it's a little bit easier to fit gigantic games.

I had a very funny thing where I was looking with a guy in Brooklyn at a certain point.

And this is right when I was starting the relationship that wound up becoming my my marriage.

But it was just early days of that.

And I would come back to my apartment.

And it was basically like there were two rooms separated by like a long hallway and in the middle of the hallway.

It was like a kitchen dining area.

But for the most part it was almost like two apartments connected with a with a long hallway.

And one time I came back.

And I was a smoker back then.

I used to smoke in my apartment as did my roommate.

And I came into my half of the apartment and my roommate was sitting there smoking on my couch playing video games on my console.

I was just like, this isn't okay.

Like it's not that you're in my room, but it's like you're being me.

Yeah.

You're smoking and playing video games.

And I was like, this is a private piece of prayer that I do.

This is not just like for you to come in and do it too.

So it wasn't that you didn't like what you saw in yourself.

Yes.

Because he was he was echoing your behavior.

It was that he was just taking your spot.

That's exactly right.

It's my place on the couch.

And then you chose a relationship over gaming, I guess, but it wasn't an Amanda Zach Baron.

It's it's for the games.

They got to go.

It was voluntary.

For a glorious moment.

What my wife was addicted to crazy taxi.

And it was a real like she would come over.

And we would literally just sit around talking, smoking and playing video games.

And she would just play crazy taxi for hours.

And I realized like, I guess this is how she must feel when I play Max Payne or whatever,

because this is incredibly boring.

So I think we just gave it up called dirty, what I moved in that end smoking.

Yeah.

Is the offspring's all I want your song into what you slow dance to.

That's right.

Yes.

Crazy taxi world tour comes out next year.

And again, this might be a great opportunity for you to get back into gaming together.

I don't know what is how does crazy taxi work in a world of waymo and Uber though, you know.

Could you just be the last rebel taxi driver in a world of automated.

I think that is actually part of the point.

You anticipated see, see, this is perfect.

I know I'd bring you on because you just you'd be so plugged into gaming on sort of a fundamental level.

Sure.

We just come up with the perfect pitches and there you are anticipating it.

There's also a crazy taxi movie coming, which we will touch on in a second.

I asked you to come on not just to reminisce, but to talk about a few other topics.

We're six weeks away from Grand Theft Auto 6.

And I would love to hear how the hype is landing for you as someone who hasn't played games lately,

but does cover culture.

Also interested in your thoughts on the soundtrack specifically.

And the fact that people care about a soundtrack in 2026.

And because you pot about TV and movies, I want to take your temperature on the latest trend in TV and movie adaptations of video games.

And whether we have reached peak gaming, IP feeding frenzy.

But before all that, you just alluded to it.

I have to ask about adaptations in a different direction.

Video game adaptations of TV shows specifically the Taylor Sheridan verse.

And you are the perfect person to talk to.

I can just look at the upcoming projects.

Heat to Miami Vice 85.

The just confirmed.

Sicario 3 written by Stephen Knight instead of Taylor Sheridan, but still a second Sicario sequel.

New Netflix, learn some dove adaptation.

Hollywood takes its marching orders from you.

I use my power for good.

I don't know how.

But if that's the case, I think it's just also a case of aging into a certain like generation where the things that you love are eventually going to be remade.

And this is just like watching sports and seeing the sons of players that you used to cheer for now playing for other teams.

Yeah.

But it is it is a fascinating moment of.

I think cross cultural exchange, both in terms of video games adapting these things.

And then the movies and TV pulling from video games and trying to figure out a way to do it.

That reaches the kinds of success.

Not only that they've seen with Resident Evil, but also on a much grander scale stuff like Minecraft.

Yeah.

We're getting into grandson territory with athletes by the way.

Cecil Fielder's grandson is in the minors right now.

Are you serious?

Yeah.

Son of prince.

Son of prince.

Son of Cecil.

Yeah.

The fielder.

What would the third flag be called?

Like I would he go back to Vladimir or would he be?

Yeah.

Just I like I like a third.

Yeah.

It sounds very real.

V3 is pretty cool.

V3.

Yeah.

Not bad.

Anyway, the point is when you speak the suits listened.

So this week their ears are open because Paramount completed its acquisition of Warner Brothers Discovery.

And so with these two companies powers and IP and crushing debt loads combined, they have morphed into a new giant.

Probably anti competitive conglomerate called Skydance.

And I've seen plenty of coverage at the ringer and elsewhere of the implications for the entertainment industry, for antitrust regulation, for democracy even.

And so what I have not seen is much discussion of what this might mean for the future of video games based on Taylor Sheridan shows.

And this is obviously a pressing concern.

Top of mind after lioness season three wrapped up late last month.

A bit of background here in June Paramount announced the creation of Paramount Game Studio, which unified a pair of existing studios including Skydance New Media, which is making a Marvel game and a Star Wars game.

And the primary goal of adapting Paramount IP, specifically what they called the core four Ninja Turtles Star Trek Avatar, the last airbender and SpongeBob square pants.

Those are the faces you see when you get to the gates of heaven.

Yeah.

Some of those are near to your heart as a huge fed of animation.

They subsequently announced the engagement and digitals the last Ronin at summer game fest in addition to those core four though Sean Kiddelsen head of creative and production at Paramount Games.

I don't know where he is on the org chart these days because they've had a lot of lot of change over there.

He said all of the Yellowstone and Yellowstone adjacent titles, Landman Tulsi King.

These are all priorities for us.

He mentioned lioness to but not Chris Ryan favorite mayor of King's town sadly got snubbed.

These are all priorities for us as well.

And I will continue with this Kiddelsen quote here, we are not brand managers and we are not IP value extractors.

We are cultural stewards and these stories characters and worlds mean something to the fans who invest so much of their time and money in them.

We need to honor that relationship or we will lose them.

If we start willy nilly licensing everything that we can and just to check boxes and fill the coffers people will get wise to it and we won't actually see the success that we could.

But if we build pillar by pillar find the right partners and make the right games for the audience.

I think we can achieve massive success.

And that's where we come in because I think we might be the right partners to pitch the right games and in fact.

This news about the shared in shows was posted on the CR head subreddit along with the question is a CR gaming podcast in the pipeline.

And the answer is yes, you're listening to it now.

That's right.

How do you feel about becoming a cultural steward of Taylor shared an IP?

I think that it has its pluses and minuses.

One thing that what it just shocks me is the muscle of these shows in terms of their their commercial appeal like.

And in I are often talking about you know the vanishing of the model culture and how when we started our podcasting together in the Hollywood perspective and then through the watch there was a.

At least three or four shows a year that it felt like everyone was watching.

Yeah.

And there were still three or four shows at that point also.

And that was the issue right like it was just like well is just the Americans so let's just watch that.

Yeah.

This is now but that is what's happening with Taylor shared in shows like 20 million people do watch marshals and he doesn't even write that you know.

Doesn't ranch is one of the most popular shows on television lioness was extraordinarily successful.

Lambman is huge and laments enormous and we haven't even gotten into his new peacock universal deal which kicks in I think in 28.

So I don't think he needs my help you know and the other thing he doesn't need my help with really although we're going to do this exercise and have a lot of fun with it is he is an extraordinarily gifted businessman who was vertically integrated from top to bottom like they're already are hard celtzers and ranch tour experiences and steak houses and you just go down the list of things that have been.

Spun off from the Yellowstone sort of franchise specifically but the shared inverse in general is an extraordinary act of industrialization and commercialization and it's almost surprising that he is still as prolific and active as he is as a writer because you think like his amount of time that he spends doing all these other businesses would take up almost all of that.

So I'm almost surprised that we don't already have a video game yeah given the way things have gone.

I was at my mom's house the other day and I was rummaging around in the cabinets looking for something to eat and I came across a can of baked beans that was branded for sixes yeah it's Taylor shared in ranch baked beans my mom has never seen it that Taylor shared in show.

Did you ask her what kind of time it was on sale.

So that's yeah that's the reach yeah Taylor has you might just come across a can of baked beans that he's probably getting some cut of but one other recent development so this week skydance announced that it's combining paramount game studio with Warner Brothers games under the leadership of one Tony Driscoll president of games and experiences so this new entity control.

Entity controls not only paramounts so called core for but also Harry Potter game of thrones mortal combat DC etc suddenly skydance is drowning in IP much of which already has a history in video games plus as you mentioned Taylor is taking his talents to NBC universal starting now I guess for film and and 2028 for TV so you have to wonder whether this knocks him down the priority list does share it and get lost in the shuffle not on our watch.

So in this hypothetical and I would say that you know recently they've had a shuffling of the decks at the streaming about who is running streaming at paramount slash Warner Brothers it was Cindy Holland who had come over from Netflix and she worked at paramount for about a year and now Casey boys who runs HBO is going to be running the sort of combined might of paramount plus in HBO Max yeah but one of the reasons that's been kicked around as an idea of why it wasn't working out for Cindy Holland was that a relationship with the

Taylor Sheridan seem to fall apart and because she told him his shows were too expensive and that was what spurred his exit to NBC universal yeah he's a kid maker the Tulsa kid maker that's right yeah we'll see whether Casey boys I know there were some rumors and reporting that Yellowstone could have been in HBO project

I could have it yeah and I think Redford was attached to it at various points yeah yeah.

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Okay so so here's our thought experiments it's our first day at Skydance I guess it's everyone's first day at Skydance and our first order of business what are we doing with these game adaptations of Taylor Sheridan shows.

So let's say we've got some FaceTime we have a sit down with with Sean Kiddelsen and we're talking to Tony Tony Driscoll former Activision CEO Bobby Codic just joined the Skydance board so maybe he's interested to David Ellison himself who has described himself as a lifelong fan of Call of Duty.

And who has said that gaming is absolutely going to be an area that we obviously look towards he's also sitting in the gangs all here and our job is to pitch Taylor Sheridan video game adaptations we each brought a few and we'll just trade off so you're the guest you're the visitor hit me with one what you got.

Do you want me to go bigger do you want me to go most interesting to me.

Okay yeah go with the personal passion.

All right I don't think anyone's going to see this one coming because most people if they even know about this movie don't necessarily associate it with Sheridan certainly not with Paramount although now I think it would fall under their umbrella because this is a movie he did for Warner Brothers in 2021 called those who wish me dead.

I came out in the dump on to streaming era of HBO Max or same day and day they were trying to basically circumvent COVID by putting out these movies straight to streaming and this is what

fronted Christopher Nolan leave Warner Brothers after a long period of time and go to Universal.

So this movie is about a smoke jumper played by Angelina Jolie who's living and working in Yellowstone Park and she's assigned to like a watch station like a watch tower.

Yeah and then she gets involved with the mob chasing a kid who is the son of a witness that they were trying to kill who is in like going going to witness protection or something in any case there's a couple of different strains of things there's firefighting there is like the National Park itself as a setting which I think is obviously proved really durable not only on Yellowstone but on untamed which is this Netflix show that did quite well with Eric Banna.

And one of the few games that I've messed around with over the last few years that wasn't on a console was fire watch I was just going to say yeah and I thought it was like a really cool idea.

This is obviously not the dollar signs in my eyes Kevin Costner on the cover of the game.

Yeah idea that that David and his cohort are probably thinking of.

But I just thought it was like such a cool setting to be you are a smoke jumper who is charged with watching over this section of the park from this tower and then there's all this exploratory stuff you could do there are all these interactions you could have with nature but then there could also be this underlying crime.

Drama going on that you have to be a part of so yeah that was like my that was my first idea yeah I think if you were really in the room.

You probably shouldn't lead with those who wish me dead probably not not the hottest of Taylor IP's I mean.

Figuratively literally I guess it was but I did enjoy that movie. It's got Julie. It's got Nicholas Holt.

Maybe Dylan burn the balls in this yeah okay. I like that those who wish me dead sequel the expanded universe of this thing.

One question I had I don't know that he has any say in the matter contractually speaking but what do you think Taylor shared and.

Things about the prospect of Taylor shared in video games well I don't know what Taylor shared and thinks about hard solzer or big teens either.

Yeah so I I can't imagine given his physique and his output creatively that he's also got hours in the day.

No play games.

He is striking me right now is that the guy the video of that guy was like I get up at midnight by 6 am I've already worked like a full day.

I've got you beat you know take that over a year and I've destroyed you he's kind of on that kind of like I feel like he wakes up at four.

Ranses for two hours and then starts writing screenplays.

Yes.

So I don't know where the gaming would come in yeah but I think he likes a buck and I think he likes to be in control of how his stuff is.

Is sent out into the world so I bet he'd be a part of it yeah I feel like he would frown on gaming as an enterprise just in the sense that it.

It removes us from nature now maybe not if you're if you're making a game of setting a national part.

I'm just trying to celebrate the I'm trying to celebrate one of the crown jewels of America.

Yeah.

Just to keep why why pick up a controller when you could be writing the range.

That's right.

Something along those lines so so I worry that he would maybe not be on board because I was considering well one way we we pander to him maybe is we pitch the the Cody Spears.

Delta Force one man army game.

Yeah.

This is this is his character in lioness or we go with the Travis Wheatley horse trainer and trading game because.

A trend in Taylor Sheridan shows is that Taylor Sheridan is in them quite often now yes in in roles that that make big Taylor Sheridan look like a real badass look which swole yeah genius and brave yes.

So I'm thinking that might be an easy self if it's just you are Cody Spears and it's it's you against.

Terrorists and the collected armies of our our international adversaries I feel like I've read interviews with him where they've asked him about Cody and Travis and he's acted as if like.

He was his last choice to play those roles and he just had to because yeah either no one else got the character or like.

So is all done you demanded that he that he get in front of the camera maybe I'm making that up by it said.

It does sound like something he would say I think I think I would probably because I I too was trying to crack lioness I was like what do you do here what's the what's the mission.

Obviously and I can just kind of riff with you here on we could try and crack lioness like mine would just basically be a rainbow six like.

You are put on a mission to go extract a lioness from a critical situation yeah I think Linus lends itself to a game adaptation most easily maybe it's just it maps on to.

You know a mission sort of structure you just have some sort of shooter action game right I was thinking of there's a call of duty modern warfare to there's this famous notorious level called no Russian where you have to you know massacre civilians or that's something that you have to wrestle with right something.

Joe does a lot of in season three of life.

Yes a lot of is it by standards caught in the crossfire so I feel like there'd be maybe a moral components to the show where you know she has to to calculate the collateral damage here but in the sense that it's a globe dreading series.

You could kind of easily have installments and then yeah maybe it's more of a a tactical shooter and you've got your various you know your lioness crew and you've got two cups in there and you've got your chopper pilot and all the rest of it.

You can do a level as Kyle where you definitely break multiple.

Geneva convention rules but it's okay for him because he's exempt from the rules.

I was going to ask you about this yeah have you ever played a game or seen a game that like convincingly rendered the espionage and spy genre as a video game not necessarily the action parts of it but the trade craft.

You have to go meet a diplomat you have to go turn this person with double agent kind of thing I don't know not so much on like a La Caray level but in terms of I guess hitman would be the obvious one which is just about being an assassin and you're sneaking around and you're doing disguises and your hiding bodies and that sort of thing it's it's less about I guess the trade craft then it is.

Stealth action but there's definitely a lot of spying happening there but I like the idea of you're just you're sitting at the giant NSA room with all the screens and you're just sort of like tracking people and looking up license plates is that the lioness game I feel like that's a cool.

I mean one of my favorites by novelist is this guy Charles McCarrie and is I believe his first book was called the mirror Nick dossier M.I.E.R. and I K.

Dossier and it's basically made up of source material it's like a novel told through reports that you're reading a pistol area yeah and it's all like I filed this report on meeting this guy and then it'll also have reports from the other side from the you know the eastern inside I believe in this case and it's a cool it's a very cool way to read a novel but I also wonder whether or not like you could do something that with a video game where it's just about like essentially data collection but I don't know that that's not the same thing.

But I don't know that that would also I don't see I see David L is looking at his smart watch and me like yeah so you got a forest ranger and data collection so far there's gonna be a layoffs and redundancy was then your name is about to be on it so yeah I think the video games tend to be like hitman splinter cell middle gear salad lots of like sneaking around but not so much the you know people doing the data collection but maybe there's an opportunity there's a

so okay so since you started small and niche I guess I'll go big and broad and probably the most obvious one here which you alluded to is some sort of Yellowstone meets red dead you know I have my first was on your mind as well yeah okay so and you know red dead to they have two of those now don't know if you know that but there's a second one that also has sort of like a montana montana ish area right but in my red dead meets yellow

stone universe you know I guess the hook is that it's it's red dead meets modernity because these tend to be period pieces yeah so we're we're bringing it up to the present so the four six is red dead basically yeah and you have a hole or you know I guess maybe it spans you started the

rotten ranch you're up you're up north so I guess Jimmy's not in the picture maybe or maybe he is still at that point but you have an open world maybe you start as a ranch hand who thinks that this is just a

legitimate on the level business and then as you get in deep you start to realize that maybe there's more to this

doesn't family then meets the eye gradually you get corrupted you get tasked with some of the outside the law tasks that some of the

ranch hands you know you have to you get branded at some point it's like a press beat it be branded now you're in

your in for life you have to avoid being taken to the train station that's the game over right when you're

in discrete and it's just a massive open world so you have the rural areas you have the Bozeman these are where the rich people from L.A.

are flying in you get into bar fights with Beth you have to bail her out you know Beth and Jamie's dual to the death maybe you

play some peripheral part in this really and maybe there's like a simulation aspect to it I was talking with where it's just you

know you're constructing the ranch you could go in like a sim city sort of direction with this again I don't think this would light up

Ellison's eyes but you know you're building up your your herd right you're getting the best beef deals it's almost more like

Dutton Ranch where Beth is like pitching her beef to suppliers upscale suppliers you know you're maybe you're

supporting John's political campaign that's reluctant run for governor you know there's just like it can encompass

many games within this larger game but but that's basically the hook it's open world red dead Yellowstone I basically

had the same thing but this one goes back towards the past and it tries to I think capture some of the red dead

magic by I have this simply called Taylor Sheridan's the West but I don't know whether or not his you know name can be used

since he's going off to another studio but I like the idea of doing like a or those called four X games like

civilization right and you basically are on a start out on a wagon train West and you have to pick a place to

settle you have to build your ranch you have to decide what you're going to farm you have to yeah fight battles

maybe depending on what year it is different armies are coming through and you have to figure out what it is you want

if you're building a town like all the things that you do in civilization which I used to play on like PC back in the

day like that was always really fascinating now it's deeply problematic as was the conquering of the West so much like

lioness like I think you would have to talk about whether the point of the game was for people to feel the

collateral damage that they were causing or whether it was to a lie that but if you're going for a blockbuster I think my

favorite thing that Sheridan's done on TV it's probably pretty tight between lioness and 1883 and 1883 was this

pretty stark and sober depiction of what it took and what it cost to do Western expansion and I don't know that I'm

dying to play a video game that makes me feel that way but it is it is it would certainly be scenic it would certainly I think have

lots of different elements that people would be attracted to and I think it would encompass a lot of the cowboy

stuff that we're talking about I just do wonder whether people would be like this is just red dead with a different hat

yeah well red dead's really successful yeah that might work but

Allison is loving that pitch by the way but yeah I mean I guess in recent years Sheridan has not shied away

from trying to cover some of the darker aspects of the history I guess you know with varying degrees of

success like the the 1923 storyline with the the Catholic boarding school right which was not always

super well integrated into the rest of the series I don't think like many things on 1923 it seems like

baby he even had three shows that he yeah boiled down into one yeah so I was thinking 1883 as well just

because that game is kind of Oregon Trail the show I mean it's you know set a little bit later than

Oregon Trail I guess but it's still covered wagon and I was thinking 1883 survival game just

get your covered wagon to Montana in one piece and the goal is just not to die of dysentery as

Sam Elliott yells at you yes like yeah yeah yeah right and you have to jettison stuff along the way

because your wagon's too heavy and you've got to do a detour and you got to cross a river but then

maybe there are people coming after you and can you fort it or do you go around the long way which

means that the weather is going to turn by the time you get to your destination like a lot of

just get into the nitty gritty of a wagon train basically I think that would be amazing yeah we're

thinking along the same line okay this is this is good we've covered Yellowstone 1883 lioness

do you have anything because you are you are more wired into the sort of mayor of King's Town

I have something for you thank you this is my last and perhaps most depraved suggestion which is

called locked up in King's Town okay and at the end the first season of May of King's Town is

is quite good the first season culminates with a giant riot in this fictional prison it would

basically be like the ultimate video game is to play your way through and navigate this prison

riot and you have to decide whether or not you want to be a peacemaker do you want to use this as

an opportunity to escape who are you aligning yourself with are there previous beefs that you have

that you have to be record I am a huge fan of prison movies in general going back to like a escape

from Alcatraz through shot collar and and start up and take your pick but King's Town was a sort of

two sides of the coin where on one side it was like Jeremy Renter's character who is sort of the

Michael Clayton of the prison system in this Michigan town and then a lot of the criminals who were

on the inside the incarcerated I I just don't think I've ever heard of a video game that takes

place in a prison like I was there a jailbreak game that you can think of there's one called a

way out from a few years ago which I played with Jesse my wife it's a co-op game it's from

Hazelite published by EA and they have this whole series of co-op games you could play with your

wife when when you both get hooked back into crazy taxi and you're going to jail baby

you play as as brothers and you're like breaking out and and so you're you know having to like

escape the law I guess I guess they're not brothers they have another game about brothers but

yeah you're you're in prison and you got to get out and then you got to stay out so but it's less

about like aligning with yourself with a faction and you know you're not like filing your own

ships and you know smuggling cell phones in your rectum or anything it's not that kind of game

necessarily I don't really want to you really want to get into the details it seems like I would

want to bring the raid to level action set pieces into this you know um but I do think that uh

again very very very like complicated material but probably like an interesting setting for a video game

I was talking with uh of the Madison adaptation yeah what would you do for this

I think with the mess in the game would be you have to walk down the mean streets of Manhattan

midtown Manhattan without getting mucked I think that's so nobody would want to buy a video game about

the extent of grief that happens with a parkour fast finding finding the perfect place on it hillside

to to bury the car fossil yeah yeah sorry spoilers for yes it's been out for a while season two

was on the way but yeah I am very entertained by the way that that family in my hometown just

you know the opening scene of the Madison she's walking down like fifth avenue seemingly and just

gets jumped which is like not fortunately not something that happens that regularly in my experience

at least but yeah there's a perception of cities in some Taylor Sheridan shows you know he has his

thumb on the scale a little bit so absolutely so I guess the question is and this is a question with

the shows as well as do you indeed Taylor Sheridan to make Taylor Sheridan shows because doesn't

ranch is actually one of my favorite Sheridan shows and he doesn't write it you know he's involved

but like I mean they just change showrunners after season one I really enjoy that show more so

than I enjoy late period yellowstone yeah and he's not scripting that thing and then you have

something like trackers which is bad but popular not the last trackers isn't tailors not

trackers no Marshalls yeah trackers is even more popular yeah yeah Marshalls which is back already

for season two yeah that's the case he spin off where it's more of a network style procedure yeah

it's a procedural with some serialized storylines I tried rocking with Marshalls for the first time

yeah yeah and I was pretty surprised I mean like look this is just the power of CBS is that they

just have a captive audience but I do I mean Marshalls looks good in terms of its vistas and

you know what they spend on their on their exterior shooting I think that the thing that's sort of

wild about it is that it lacks all of the sort of brutal poetry that Sheridan is capable of

and it's just like this guy looks cool in a hat let's put him on a horse and have himself crimes

yeah and it seems to be like enough for 20 million people to do like yeah I like Casey I'll watch him

yeah here's the thing is tailor is leaving paramount but paramount is not leaving tailor so he

probably has to be a piece with that and I think he knows that I think what he is counting on is

shows that while Dutton Ranch might be successful or Marshalls might be successful is that

people know what he brings to the table and the actors will follow him for the five or 10 new

shows he comes up with for universal but I could see a world in which like if it feels like paramount is

over stuffing the pinata here a little bit like he would be like this is ridiculous and I don't

co-sign this and in fact you know encourage my fans not to buy this now I'm sure he gets paid off

of these things I'm sure he'll be a participant in them but his exit from paramount is so abrupt

and so out of nowhere to me that it would be surprising to me if he was also going back and doing

meetings to talk about like what's the best best way to render you know 19th century the west in a video

game yeah yeah yeah I don't know if I would you abide by a tailor shared and issued boycott

no I probably wouldn't you go against his wishes yeah yeah yeah if I get to play locked up in

Kingston yes yeah tough beat for for Monica Dutton by the way yes on Marshalls yes really

rougher she's got a lot of those contract negotiations were like they did that go well yeah so I

wondered about that because you know the boy season five had that joke about a tailor shared in

AI and I saw Matthew Reese was on Seth Meyers and he was joking because Matthew Reese rides horses

and he's evidently pals with with Taylor Sheridan and he showed up at some charity cow cutting

competition at the behest of Taylor Sheridan and so on this late night appearance Matthew Reese

was joking about how no one knew who he was or why he was there because he's not in a Sheridan show

as of yet and he was just pitching on the spot 2048 the time travel Yellowstone show it just you

know it seems like there's Dr. who Yellowstone yeah there's a number of components and it's modular

and you just put the pieces together and voila you have a Taylor Sheridan show and maybe there's

some truth to that but there is still a special sauce yeah I mean no one does Taylor Sheridan

like Taylor Sheridan it is the sometimes awkward oftentimes delightful weird pacing of seasons where

you're like wait the this thing had a huge accident set piece in the middle and now seems to have

been broken down into being a soap opera for three episodes and now there's no bad guy anymore

so what's the rest of the season about yeah this was an episode where Billy Bob Thornton gave

four monologues and then his dad went to a strip club and yet 25 million people watched that show

so yeah I just don't think anybody can do the idiosyncrasies of him but him yes and because he's

become a character in his own show sometimes literally but also there's that meta layer of is this

Taylor talking to me right now is this is he on a soap box is he using this character as a mouthpiece

where is this just what this character thinks well I've had this really weird experience have you

seen Digger yet no I have not yet I will say this is not like a huge spoiler because I think some of

it is in in the trailer the big set piece monologue from that movie is is basically Billy Bob Thornton

standing in front of a windmill monologue in the first season of layman where he's explaining

yeah to Rebecca why we need to keep doing oil because people need moisturizing cream

yes and trash bags yes and I was like is Taylor is a prophet even a redo is like basically

seal in his moves Taylor yeah yeah he's he's a sabanta script writing sabanta yeah and there was

some anti a i a i stuff in lioness where I was wondering is this getting a little personal for him

is is are the LLMs infringing on his turf where someone finally or something can write a script

these ideologically different difficult to pin down yes yes yes yes which which makes it more

interesting I think so there are a lot of copycats out there you know in gaming there's a franchise

called dark souls and so there are a lot of games that are in the vein of dark souls and people

call them souls likes and there are a lot of yellowstone likes out there you know sometimes I will see

some poster art or you know some square honest dreaming service home screen and think is there a

new shared and show that I'm not aware of and then no but it's it has the ingredients right yeah and

so that's why I think maybe the games could work to be clear I've never really watched a Taylor

shared and show and thought I wish I could play this so yeah I think I mean if anything I think his

shows seem to be weirdly in touch with a wider cultural interest in certain stories and certain

ideas yeah and so lion it's not like could lioness be adapted to a video game is how much of

lioness is essentially like pulled from Tom Clancy anyway and maybe even from the kind of fetishization

of modern military act of action that we see in some of those like rainbow six type games or

call of duty type games and this I you know I think yellowstone probably predates red dead but

it does it it's like 2018 yeah red dead I mean yeah it's kind of tough to say because I guess

there was like even before red dead redemption there was red dead revolver which so red dead was

2010 okay and then red dead revolver was 2004 but yeah it's in the consciousness that people want

to put a cowboy hat on and do go do this stuff yeah so I almost feel like he just kind of has his

finger on a weird pulse of what people are interested in anyway but yeah I don't think I ever I mean

his stories are so so operatic like every one of them has some weird like the whole lioness

Joe's husband he's a thoracic surgeon they've got these kids they're just

discussing he's got great hair he's a great dad Dave Annabelle yeah but yeah I don't necessarily

long for this but when I describe some of the pitches that we've when we've gone through our

pitches I'm like I'd play any of those games yeah they don't necessarily need to be adaptations of

Taylor Sheridan shows yeah he's he's heterodox politically and also as a storyteller he has

impressive range it at least sounds like he knows what he's talking about when he writes a

ranching show and also a CIA show and also cicario or whatever you know yeah maybe if I were more

of an expert in some of those subjects I would be able to see the seams a little bit more but

there's no show with more military acronyms than Linus oh my god I have to serve just like

Jaysock is doing this yeah and he definitely does not explain them at any point of the show so

I guess the other question is I'm not sure how many gamers are in the core demo foreshared

shows I'm not sure we didn't talk about he's he's written the call of duty movie he has yes yeah he

also wrote without a more which is a clancy adaptation but obviously this is this is in his head

now whether or not he's like I'm gonna play call of duty or or play Rainbow Six or whatever and

kind of get a sense but yeah I doubt he did a deep dive on the call duty universe no I think he

was given a giant amount of money to come up with a story for call of duty yes and I think

Pete Burg is directing that but I'm not sure yep yeah I don't I don't know he he definitely sounds

conversant in that stuff I've been you know I when I did the resident evil pop of a shan

and one of our big topics and I'm sure you talked about this as well was craggers his mission was

not to adapt the video games narrative but to the adapt the video games mechanics and then

adapt the feeling the video game gave him yeah and I wonder whether or not that while that was

obviously controversial with a real hardcore resident evil fans I wonder if that will become a

more common way of thinking about adapting these games is rather than being note for note like if

we were gonna do 1883 you wouldn't necessarily need to have the young woman and Sam Elliott and

you get to play as either one of them or you do certain boards with you know levels with one or

the other you would just be like well no what we want to do is like you said have a wagon train

game and we could just call it 1883 yeah yeah okay I think we've got some good stuff here apologies to

Taylor Sheridan shows we left out I guess Tulsa King falls into that Taylor Sheridan created but not

really written show that sort of a hole in in my Sheridan knowledge I'm sorry we couldn't make

landman work I was trying it's really like exciting about drilling for oil is there I mean

sometimes it explodes but but beyond that yeah no I don't know yeah his his ex-wife comes to town

he has to take her to the club I don't really know how we play the there will be blood game yeah

okay that sounds good okay so Sheridan is writing or has written the script for the

college duty movie coming in 2028 everyone is making a video game adaptation even I have a tough

time keeping track of them we all liked Resident Evil got great reviews has made 250 million

worldwide Street Fighter comes out next week we'll cover that here cyberpunk edge runner season two

comes to Netflix later this month I'm sure you'll be tuning into that one a cyberpunk

like worth watching should I check it out yeah it's not bad okay I know fits in your wheelhouse

exactly well I was just thinking about it because neuromancer is coming on Apple and you're learning

of 27 so I just was thinking about doing a little bit of a cyberpunk run I like that yeah or you could

play cyberpunk 2077 that'd be a good point to dive back into speaking of Paramount Plus last month

an animated golden axe adaptation premiered there starring Matthew Reese coming up again and I know

animated adaptations of video games especially is like you're right in the middle of that then

diagram so I assume you check that out it's not bad actually September 14th Matthew Reese

won multiple Emmys September 16th he debuts as battle dwarf gillius thunderhead in Paramount Plus's

golden axe I wonder whether or not the latter was more lucrative yeah he's getting an early start on

the Emmy race for next year I guess with with gillius thunderhead so we we've proved now I guess it's

been proven that game adaptations can be both good and also financially successful sometimes both

and so this new trend I've noticed is the bundled adaptation sort of the lump sum approach so

recently mapelony post-operinger podcast the town reported at puck that Microsoft was trying to

package together about a dozen different games for potential adaptations some of which have already

had adaptations halo or the warcraft the older scrolls diablo there are a bunch of other

Microsoft owned properties with game adaptations fall out Minecraft call of duty but supposedly it

wants someone Netflix Paramount universal to just buy in bulk just take them all get the whole

catalog for upwards of 300 million dollars long term subsequently Netflix announced an animated

Diablo TV adaptation so I'm not sure if that's part of the package but earlier this year Atari

which still exists signed a deal with universal to sell the studio the rights to 10 games asteroids

adventure berserk breakout centipede crystal castles millipede you don't just get centipede you get

millipede to missile command pong and yards revenge then a few weeks ago Sega and Netflix announced

the partnership to make the aforementioned crazy taxi movie a new animated sonic series and a

movie based on stranger than heaven which is a sort of prequel to the yakuza like to drag in series

that's not even out yet that new game it's coming in January you would like those games I think the

yakuza games but just this week the last one here in bark studios announced a deal with churn

in entertainment which co-produced back rooms to adapt both of its shooters arc raiders and the

finals so I'm just I'm fascinated by this new trend of everybody's buying gaming IP and so the

the new approach seems to be you want gaming IP here's all of it here's yes here's all of our

gaming IP you can take it all we're just bundling it all together which is just fascinating to

me what do you make of this I have a bunch of different thoughts and theories about this for one

thing with Microsoft I'm not sure what their expenditure is currently for like AI build out stuff

but it is interesting to me that they would look to dump a bunch of their IP on any one buyer so

that they could just get a lump sum check for 12 games rather than shopping halo around which

you know admittedly as an adaptation is probably at a bit of a dip right yeah after the paramount

stuff it also sounds to me like in the case of the Atari sale that that is a little bit like you

think you've leased a car and then at the very last second they're like basically strong arm in

you to do a like a like paint job yeah mix kind of thing yes like like how are we trying to sell

you a wear and tear plan like at the very end and that's like I'd like to buy asteroids and missile

command but you're making me buy pong and cement and centipede this is like come on man yeah I mean

pong they're they're making a movie out of pong evidently which is like it's one of the more

recognizable pieces of gaming IP I guess but also what the hell do you do with a game where you're

just bouncing a ball back and forth like what's the narrative potential there exactly I feel like

we've just gotten out and we're still in it but we're we're a good thing to look at for this would be

the adaptation of some of Mattel's toy properties which can be dazzling like Barbie or can be only tang

gently related it like in the case of matchbox yeah and so this is an easy answer but to me it's

just like how good is the movie gonna be and if I were making these I would highly recommend trying

to hit the the cragger resident evil budget number because it allows in that bloom housey in way

of like hey if you can keep this under like 90 million or 80 million like you can do what you want

because enough people are gonna come see pong that if you want to make it into a mumble core

comedy I think that would be fine yeah and that's what I hope comes out of all of this because

these games are games because they involve the the player imputing their imagination onto the

onto what they're seeing they don't need you don't need to satisfy oh that's not what happened in

raccoon city you know like I I don't really agree with the idea that this is like adapting game

of thrones or dune like these can be experiential these can be largely atmospheric and viby I don't

think that they need to have narrative hallmarks of the show of the games necessarily to work

but I think what they do need to do is be successful and to do that I think you should probably make

them at a round a high made major budget rather than blockbuster this cost $275 million so it needs

to make $800 million yeah it is kind of amazing to think about how far things have come because

I'm thinking about a decade ago early days of the ringer and I'm writing about there's some good

gaming IP out there you know Netflix makes a Castlevania show and I'm like maybe they should make

some more video game adaptations they could actually be good if I were smart I would have probably gotten

out of the media game and just become a deal broker for video game adaptations and I would be

enormously wealthy right now but but like you could kind of see it coming and then it took certain

tent poles to really break through and then some prestige successes and now just anything goes or

seemingly everything goes or everything must go where it's just we're clearing out the catalog here

and so I guess this is a manifestation of just how hot these properties are where yeah maybe it's

we really want this one game but you're making us take 10 others and we will because we want that one

and maybe that just goes to show the leverage the negotiating power that a game studio has now

that so many of these projects have been successful or maybe it's just yeah our appetite is so

voracious we think that we were sleeping on this gold mine for so long that now we are just sort of

hoovering it up and there's enough out there that this is actually worthwhile you know most of these

things probably don't get made or just no one notices them at all I guess the only concern for me is

that like do we swing back all the way around and go full circle to the point where you know the

early days of video game adaptations where the quality was not there typically and the people making

those adaptations usually didn't really know or care about the game properties it was just here's a

recognizable name let's try to cash in on this and now and I mentioned this on the resident evil pod

you're getting really talented artists to work on these things it's not just people you're also

getting a generation of people who have probably never known a life without video games where

George Clooney probably didn't play video games right and you know I even John Krasinski probably

has got more of my relationship to video games where it's like it was part of my life for a while

but it's not something I think about all the time yeah Craig or probably still plays video games you

know and I would imagine Austin Butler grew up playing video games and Timothy Shalamay's played

video games and so these guys Timothy Shalamay used to sell custom Xbox controllers on YouTube

yeah I wonder what I'm talking to you Shalamay was is holding out to make FIFA yeah

yeah so yeah even if people aren't are totally plugged into gaming at least they grew up with it

and they're receptive to it and they're not just yeah I think you know I think that the the coming

wave will be made by people who are probably like I have no compunction about video games like this

this was not a distraction this was not something I was this is something that's been part of my life

forever I think so too but I just worry if there's such a huge wave because we're in this world where

Craig Hurr makes Resident Evil Alex Garland is making Elden Ring Justin Lin is making Hell Divers

so now if we're flooding the market then can you get that kind of quality are there enough good

directors to go around or are you just kind of back into the let's shovel this out because gaming

is hot right now you know I'm guessing that we're gonna go back to being really hit or miss because

if they are doing this in this kind of quantity then probably the quality won't be there because

part of what's made some of these adaptations successful is that people have a personal attachment

to the work they played the game they have some familiarity with the franchise so if you're just

swallowing up properties indiscriminately then will you have that same sort of bespoke adaptation

with that special sauce of I know and love this thing and then maybe you wind up back in a world where

it's a video game adaptation I don't know you know and it just seems super unoriginal but I hope

you know maybe there's like a happy medium where it's okay every one of these is not great but it's

not garbage either I do wonder whether they'll go back to that era of shoveling it out and say like

you know we could do better with Max Payne or we could do better with Hitman or we could do better with

take your pick of those of and that's really what Resident Evil was like you know Craig

or was not nasty about the Paul W. S. Anderson adaptations but he was like this is totally different

from that and it wouldn't be beyond believed if they're like you know I think we need another bite

at that that apple I think we could do it better now if we had a different eye on it yeah the

elevated video game adaptation of it is yellow yeah yeah yeah it's a you know that's a

yellow right do you feel pressure when when one of these things comes out are you like I guess I

got to play that so I know I was going to replay Resident Evil 2 yeah and maybe for for Resident Evil

and then I wound up like it just that all of a sudden Resident Evil was out but I was going to do

that specifically because Craig are had been saying like this is about how it feels to play these

games not what happens in the games yeah specifically yeah and if I had if there was one that came

along that I was like really excited about I would probably I would probably try to play it you

know just as quote unquote research but yeah I haven't been I haven't been intimidated by it and I

think that kind of works I think it works for everything you know it's like you don't have to

read east of Eden to watch the Netflix series it's an interesting experience if you have

but I think in some ways it's almost better to watch the Netflix series without having ready to

Eden because you're not sitting there thinking that's not what this character said that's not what

this character did yeah yeah you know I think I think it's I think it's I think it's useful to

understand certain things about what makes a property interesting but I don't think it's essential

to like enjoying or critiquing yeah the final work yeah it's not the same but it reminds me almost

of musicians selling their catalogs where it's just you have the rights to all my music here you go

license it however you want this is not quite the same but it's sort of in the same vein and

you know I worry that like how many years until we're talking about video game adaptation fatigue

the way that we're talking about superhero fatigue or multiverse fatigue or starvation

fatigue or whatever if they keep making really good movies nobody's gonna care yes and if they

they they screw them up and they start slapping them out like then people will be like nobody

who wants nobody wants to go see yeah and the other thing is that like video games is a pretty big

umbrella so it's not as if okay every Star Wars project has something in common with other

Star Wars projects and maybe too much in common if we're we're scouring decades of video games it's

there's not a lot of overlap between some of these things that are being licensed and others

so it's not as if people are like you know worried about book adaptation fatigue probably I mean

maybe if you've seen enough time Hoover movies maybe but like I just you know but it'll be within

the context of they'll they'll make five more calling Hoover movies and then they'll find

somebody else to adapt like in the same way maybe they'll start looking at independent games

and be like this mystery is actually pretty cool or the way that there's like a device in this

is is fascinating so I mean do you think that their games coming out now where I'm like I wasn't

even aware that that was a video game before it got adapted I mean something like iron lung right

which came out right markiplier was on this podcast talking about you know and it's sort of

started to say YouTube creators can make a go of it in Hollywood talk that was a tiny game but you

know most people had probably never heard of or played but it appeals to me my wife's friends

kids were like oh we played back rooms on like our iPhone sometimes like I mean it was before the movie

came out it was like an iPhone app like his back rooms is like a sort of open source yeah mythology

and a creepypasta or however you want to put it but like people have been in that world for a long

time before came Parsons sort of sort of making YouTube videos about it and then his future but

I'm sure that there's going to be stuff where there's a game before there's there's an adaptation

or there's a basically an adaptation into game are almost happening simultaneously

finally GTA and this is interesting there's there's no GTA adaptation in the works as far as

we're there's no grand theft auto movies so that would be rock stars decision correct yeah or I

guess take to the publisher but so there was I mean there's there's grand theft auto the 1977

Ron Howard directorial debut but that is not based on the rock star IP so evidently when GTA 3

got big 25 years ago Tony Scott tried to make a GTA movie and he had M&M attached and rock star

said no so I could have been thinking about what we lost there my all could have been GTA 3 and so

evidently rock stars is not that interested in it and maybe that's creatively they feel like

they could do it themselves or they don't need to do it because they've made something even better

or something so cinematic that what's the point of doing a game adaptation or if you do it are you

just remaking free guy with more violence or something that is one where like maybe you don't even

really need to talk about when will this game get adapted though because GTA is so huge it is such a

behemoth that you'd almost be doing the studio a favor if you're like yes you can make a GTA movie

it's not like rock star take two needs a GTA movie they might take it but you know GTA is going

to be way more lucrative the weekend that comes out than a GTA block it seems like there GTA I know

I'm speaking out of school because I don't know the numbers behind this but it seems like GTA and fortnight

bigger than movies you know it's like fortnight just every movie is in fortnight right exactly yeah

and so it just seems like that would be something where it's like no you come to us to ask to be in our

world not the other way around yeah yeah so we're six weeks away from November 19th the big day

is this are you peripherally aware of this are you tuning into the Netflix reveal are you watching

the youtube special are you just kind of feeling some phomo are you like is this my time to get back

into gaming so that I can participate in this conversation I think I played vice city if I but I

I don't remember because it obviously like a huge Miami vice fan so I was kind of curious about

how like that would feel but I'm okay I think I'll probably skip the hubbub around it I know

that Sean and Amanda on the big picture of talked a little bit about GTA looming as a box office

killer for when it comes out and I will be fascinated to see whether or not that actually does

impact box office numbers and around the time when it comes out yeah as far as tv goes you know I've

noticed that there's a very soft end of the year between now and harry potter in terms of big big

shows coming out and I I wonder whether or not that's because they assume people are going to be

playing grand theft audio instead of watching any kind of like genre television shows but yeah I'm

I'm pretty happy I'm in a happy distance from GTA and I'm sure I'll check it out but not not like

first weekend first day kind of thing you like crimes I do a fictional crime so it does seem like

making mischief in vice city could potentially be up your alley at some point it has the model of

GTA or like that open world stuff like I see stuff on instagram sometimes where it's like LA like

the LA versions of it but it's not I think it's like open world and you're playing as like a cop

in LA or do they do that like are you allowed to kind of like iterate off of what GTA sort of

invented there yeah I mean there are modders some of which have been bought up by the company that

makes GTA and kind of brought in house but a big thing in GTA that's kind of kept it relevant and

selling low these many years is people streaming it it's just huge on on Twitch and every other

streamer and people role-playing in GTA you know you can just like be a regular person in the world

of GTA or be a police officer or whatever and just go about your business in that world in a kind

of like free guy way I guess okay yeah so so that is a big thing but you know and there's just like

one reason why it took forever for them to make GTA 6 is that they're just minting money still

with the online component of GTA 5 which people are still playing forever so it's just the total

cash cow and I do wonder about that just because I think they've done studies like a GTA game comes out

and people are so busy committing make believe crime that real life crime yes it's like a public good

for society what a GTA game comes out and and in the video game world every company just

clustered all of its releases in the few months leading up to GTA because it's like it's a ghost

town it's tumbleweeds from mid-November on there's nothing else coming out and so maybe that does

extend to some extent to other media I do think that's a bit overblown because like GTA isn't

on every system not every gamer wants to play GTA more gamers want to play that than any other

game but you know there are a lot of people who play other things where they have time for multiple

games and like you know I don't think obviously like you know you're getting doon's day right in late

December I mean at that point I don't think people are gonna be staying away from the multiplex

because they're just glued to my city but it is a consideration because you know by some metrics

at least I'm sure it will be the biggest most lucrative entertainment launch of all time yeah

right yeah right behind marshals yeah exactly so so I want to ask you since you're a music guy

in addition to all the other kinds of guys you are is the soundtrack for GTA you know they've

they've put it out in dribs and traps they've announced there's gonna be a 34 track soundtrack

album for this thing coming out all originals with like big name artists and some of the singles are

already you know they like they got Keith Richards to record a blues cover for this thing you know

they have like Travis Scott they've got they've got Rolling Stone they've got Metro Booman they've

got Future they've got Young Lee and they've got Morgan Wallen you know this is just like

spanning genres which I guess going back to the monoculture conversation this is it right or

they're aiming to be squarely in in the bullseye of the monoculture so what do you think of

of a soundtrack album being as big and as hyped in the year 2026 as Grand Theft Auto 6th the

album seems to be it's kind of surprising because I mean the last time I'd even thought about a

video game soundtrack like this would probably go back to Tony Hawk I mean I I didn't really

given it much thought this seems more like a roundup of major artists rather than

using GTA as a springboard to get people to listen to turn style or what have you you know what I

mean like yeah yeah it seems like more of a kind of like look how much we we can look how much water

we can pull here because it's a plot yeah these people are probably coming to us and asking

rather than like here's five underground like hardcore adjacent bands that might you might

enjoy so that's fascinating and you know the soundtrack album has been kind of annihilated by

playlist culture like you don't need to be in a movie you don't need to be like Erasmith doesn't

need to save their ballad for a Michael Bay movie and nobody is going to discover a band through

a soundtrack like they did with like reality bites or something like you can just as long as you

get on the right playlist your song can get hundreds of millions of of streams so kind of an

interesting time for them to be doing it yeah and you can get big artists to do a song for a movie

right you can get Taylor Swift the other Taylor as she's known on this episode I guess did us a

song for Toy Story 5 so yeah you can still get Taylor Swift to do some Oscar bait right if they're

interested in egotting probably but are you buying the Toy Story 5 soundtrack probably not you're

listening to that song over and over and you're streaming the single possibly via the corporate

parent of the ringer and you're not really you know I mean there's a whole conversation about like

the album and is the album still relevant and of course you have people putting out triple albums

to juice their streaming stats sure even if people aren't really sitting down to listen to the whole

thing but yeah the soundtrack album as big as it was for movies in the 80s in the bodyguard and

the 90s on it's just not not so much a thing anymore not that people don't appreciate a good

music cue not that you can't come across something and you know hold up your phone and figure out

what it was I still discover music sometimes that way but it doesn't feel like it's an event or

it's something that people are like producing originals for that or that it's intended to be consumed

as as one piece as one project and so I mean I think you and I probably remember when music

supervisors first started getting credited in movies TV shows and now it's hardly it's pretty

rare to hear original music an original score in a film it's usually needle drops so yeah I think

it's it's a different world that they're releasing this in but you know we'll probably have

egg on her face when like the Morgan Wall and Grand Theft Auto song Unseats Ella Langley finally

I hope you went and serene or or she'll produce a very close version of Morgan Wall and she's

choosing choosing vice city yeah yeah there was a game earlier this year called mixtape that you might

like actually it's it's short and sweet but it's very much about sort of like it's about the soundtrack

and it's about the licensed music and it's you know hey here's a divo song and here's smashing

pumpkins and here's joy division and here's Iggy Pop and it's kind of built around that and I think

gaming actually lends itself better to this now than other media maybe just because you are a

captive audience if you're yeah you're sitting for GTA 6 you are locked in for dozens if not hundreds

of hours and you are driving around that city and you're doing it's a 35 songs yeah yeah I mean

that's the soundtrack I'm sure there will be more in the actual game and you know maybe when it comes

out on PC people will just be able to stream their own music or something but when it comes out on

console you will kind of be subject to rock stars curation and DJing and I look forward to that you

know just like having the the ability to press skip and shuffle removed from me and just make

me live in this world because like going back to when GTA started adding pop your music license

songs you know with by city and you're cruising around and it's 80s Miami and you know you're

listening to 80s music and it just you're driving along the highway and the sun's going down and the

perfect tune comes on and it's so serendipitous and those are some of the best memories I think

with that franchise really and so I love the idea that yeah you're just they're actually putting

some thought into this and like it's still built around radio consumption you know like in GTA 6 you

have a smartphone and you're like on GTA tiktok equivalent and everything but I was wondering if

they would have some sort of streaming service in the game and it seems like it's still largely built

around radio which which almost seems anachronistic now but I think lends itself well to that experience

of I'm playing this thing for a hundred hours I want to just sample what's available to me now

there's a dozen different radio stations on again yeah I'm really looking forward to that and that

does I mean it you know it's a testament to just how massive GTA 6 is the fact that they have the

juice to pull these kinds of fire this is own industry yeah and get people hyped for this but I do

think it's something almost unique to video games now that people can actually get excited for a

soundtrack reveal and be speculating about what's going to be on this and like you go to the wiki

and it's like here all the unconfirmed but possible songs that will be in this game many of which

are actually original and that's that's pretty exciting I mean yeah yeah all right well it was

exciting to have you on this episode yeah it makes so much for having me oh great pleasure I mean

put on a ranger podcast at random there's a decent chance you'll hear Chris but in particular

check out the watch which I've been listening to in one form or another since before rock star released

GTA 5 so that's we predate them maybe we should become the official pod for this next next

consideration you are always welcome here and if you ever do decide to

get my pick up a console or a game I will definitely hit you up come back on or slack me or we can

turn it into content but I'm happy to advise you and be your your gaming reintroduction Sherpa

and just tell you what you need to play my game Yoda I appreciate it thank you Chris okay thanks

again to Chris he's the best I'll finish with a few updates and impressions it's funny the adaptation

is coming so fast and furious that multiple stories relevant to what Chris and I just discussed broke

since we spoke this podcast is posting on Friday Chris and I spoke on Wednesday I'm recording this

outro on Thursday and on Thursday Xbox announced that it's created a new entertainment division called

XP yes it stands for experience points that is quote focused on helping Xbox franchises reach

fans beyond gameplay through film and television adaptations consumer products partnerships and

live experiences it's headed up by Kayleen Walters who has been the president of Minecraft studio

mojang she used to be a Lucasfilm she's an executive producer of the Minecraft movie so I mentioned

earlier that Xbox reportedly has been trying to bundle a bunch of different properties this seems

to be part of that effort this is not itself a production company the goal here is to match up

that IP with production companies so a whole division dedicated to adaptations and other brand

extensions in business speak also Chris and I were talking about cyberpunk guess which movie was

announced on Thursday to be in development yes cyberpunk a live action film version and where else

but paramount so I guess Chris can skip the animated series and wait for the movie or not

Edrunner's is worth watching to no word on whether Keanu is attached to reprise his role in the

cyberpunk movie though we can hope Keanu come on button mash hopefully the movie will launch in a

better state than the game did they want to patch it with a DLC directors cut it'll run it the

right frame rate and everything so now paramount has street fighter coming next week plus call of

duty plus cyberpunk there's also been a bunch more news about the music of grand theft auto and

the radio stations on Thursday six stations and their hosts were announced it's an eclectic mix

which speaks to the game's blockbuster ambitions there's something for everyone on the soundtrack

Latin music African music pop metal country rap and hip hop and even more big names attached

Morgan Wallen and Lana Del Rey are hosting bad bunnies involved

Robin this is not new obviously we've had famous musicians hosting GTA radio stations before but

they're pulling out all the stops for this one it is nice one inclusion on a GTA soundtrack can

help put a song over or an artist there are a lot of songs and artists that have gotten big bumps

from being in a GTA game but tons of star power and it turns out that you can listen to the radio

and music while you're on foot so you can stream the stations that makes sense and here's the

biggest news around the ringer at least GTA six will include podcasts which can be played on

demand on foot or in your car so finally we've made it as a medium podcasts are included in grand

theft auto a few words about what I've been playing because it's fall 2026 which means that more great

games come out every week I've been pretty busy playing games that will be coming out and that we

will be talking about on upcoming episodes Castlevania Belmont's curse we'll be talking about that one

next week we'll be doing a Metroidvania draft to celebrate the dual 40th anniversary of Castlevania

and Metroid and we'll catch up with some other recent releases on that one one I will highlight

quickly because it's out now it's called forever ago and it's a narrative adventure I guess you

could call it a walking simulator though that's sometimes derogatory it's out for all systems windows

switch to ps5 xbox developed by third shift published by anna perna I played through this one and

Matt James did two it is an extremely anna perna game and if you've played previous anna perna games

you probably have some sense of what I mean you follow Alfie an elderly man who is mourning his

late wife Adi and you follow him on a road trip as he makes a pilgrimage of sorts to some sites that

help deep meaning in his and Adi's relationship and you go back and play through them in little

flashback vignettes so it's spanning a period from the 70s to the present day and it's a meditation

on love and loss and perseverance and appreciating what you have and the unpredictable encounters that

make a fulfilling life and it's pretty brief it'll take you a few hours I have mixed feelings

about the game I think it was worth playing and I think it's hard as in the right place and I think

we don't have enough video games featuring elderly people we're making up a bigger and bigger

percentage of the population and also the game playing population it has sort of a fire watch

esque art style which can be quite pleasing to the eye the problems are well it's a bit on the

nose it's a little overly sentimental and modland it does kind of telegraph where it's going not just

where the road trip is leading but the emotional payoff unfortunately it's not very interesting

or adventurous mechanically until a lot of other anna perna games that you could call walking

simulators mixtape what remains of edith finch even if they're not complex mechanically they do a

lot of inventive innovative things this game not so much you're mostly just walking around you're

pointing and clicking a camera every now and then there's a dialogue option there's not a ton to it

and so it really rests on the story and the writing in the voice acting and especially early on

I found much of the voice acting a bit grating it was getting on my nerves it was that sort of

overly expressive style of speaking lots of giggling between young alphie and aadi there's one

moment where alphie says i miss your laugh so much just as i was thinking boy that laugh is

incredibly annoying and also what are they laughing at what are they finding so funny but beyond the

performance i thought that the game just doesn't do the greatest job early on of conveying what

makes their relationship work because aadi's very adventurous and impulsive and alphie even as a

young man is sort of a stick in the mud and so i get why alphie's into aadi i'm not so sure why

the affection is reciprocated and also the old alphie is just kind of a crank in sort of a stereotypical

crotchety old man way and of course that sets up some evolution and a thawing of his character as

the game goes on but it's still a little like an old man archetyper caricature there's just not a

ton too alphie we don't really find out much about him except for the fact that he really loved his

wife he was a carpenter but also seemingly a professional full-time wife guy and that

messaged me to say that he was turned off by a bunch of that early on but that once the dog shows

up the game starts to get better and when doesn't a dog make everything better that applies to this

game too very good dog with an endearing whole body but wickle also one of my peeves is games where

you're supposed to interact with objects or items in the environment but the game gets very finicky

about triggering that interaction so it seems like you're centering that object on the screen and

you're pointing your reticle at it and it's just not giving you the option to interact with it

and that's what the whole game is based around so i'm constantly shuffling around and repositioning

my camera to try to get that option to show up again not my favorite thing on the whole though

a noble effort doesn't take up too much of your time it did take up a lot of time for the developers

who announced this game six years ago i'm not sure exactly why it took that long to make but it

doesn't take that long to play and it's 20 bucks or less on sale so it's priced appropriately

it's obviously a tough time of year to recommend a good-ish game but you could consider checking it

out if anything i said sounds good to you or i guess you can wait for the inevitable movie version

there are some really nice little moments though and ultimately even though i sort of saw it coming

the game got me in the end finally you may have seen a wave of publicity for final fantasy seven

revelation this week well i participated in a preview event as well i went to a squaring

ex showcase where i got some hands on time with revelation and also the remake of romancing saga

three i have never played a saga game or a romancing saga game but in the part that i played there was

a snowman character in my party called flurry so i'm sold that games coming out in february

revelation comes out in april obviously i'm excited for it this is the grand conclusion of the

final fantasy seven remake trilogy and the part i played was about a 40-minute sequence set early

in the game in the northern crater area where the party is pursuing sephoroth and it's good to be

back with the gang some good banter and joshing and dialogue even though clouds not in the best

headspace sit and Vincent are playable so it was sort of a stroll into the crater fighting enemies

as we went eventually it culminates in a boss fight we get some cutscenes the demo did include

the new fits system function integrated tactical suitwear it's sort of a swappable class system so

that you can customize your characters and so as cloud i had the summoner fit equipped and so i

could do some summons and there were some elemental tag team attacks i don't know that i needed that

i already enjoyed final fantasy seven's combat and it feels a little like gilding the lily just

adding something to say that you added something but maybe there's more to it i didn't mind it

it looks great i was playing on ps5 pro and as you know nothing new for me i know pro so i felt

right at home by the way did you see that game stop is evidently selling pre-owned prose for

1400 bucks that's highway robbery though i feel better about having bought one when i did

game looks great ran fine i can't say that the demo was really a revelation nothing i saw may be

less excited or really more excited i had already reached a high excitement level for this game

and i didn't get to test out the high wind the airship or see the open world which is going to be the

big hook for this game along with whatever tweaks they make to the beloved story anyway i'm glad

that they're getting this thing out all three installments in a span of seven years or so that's

pretty impressive given the length and production value even for remakes and i think it's going to be

good you heard it here not first we will certainly cover it on button mash though it's hard to look

ahead that many months in the future it's not that far but there are so many games to focus on just

this month including another final fantasy game final fantasy resonance which we will be covering

in a couple of weeks so stick with us much more mashing to come you can of course contact us at

ringerversegamingatgmail.com tell us what's on your list of games that have not yet been adapted

or had an adaptation announced what's the gaming property that everyone's sleeping on we can

share some responses next time and i will leave you with the tweet of the week as both a baseball

nerd and a gaming nerd this was from at house of decline if you like pokemon perhaps i can

introduce you to another turn based RPG with switching out deep stat analysis field conditions and

a whole host of oddly named and shaped little guys to choose as your comfort character that's right

it's baseball and if October's jam packed game release calendar leaves any free time in your life

check out some playoff baseball this tweet helped me understand how i wound up hosting a gaming

podcast and a baseball podcast turns out those interests are aligned thanks to devon raldo for

producing this podcast and to our junior narem go pal for his senior podcast management be back next

week when but mesh meets the bill months

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