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very proud to be continuing the journey with this video sponsor, Squarespace. They just resigned for the seventh year running, making them our longest running and most supportive partner. They help me do what I do, just like their website creation tools, help millions of people start new careers, build new businesses, or just get things done. They're offering a special discount to viewers of this channel, so stick around to the end of the video to learn more. Gamers, we did it, gamers. We made it to May. Man, can you believe the year is already like a third the way finished? That is absolutely crazy. Feels like only yesterday we were looking forward to Resident Evil and Crimson Desert. And
now we're in the quarter before the quarter where Grand Theft Auto 6 arrives allegedly if it's not delayed again, which you know it probably will be. Still a lot to look forward to in May. The Millennial Coded mixtape is very high on my watch list and it drops next week. For Horizon 6 after that, Lego Batman, let's go. And of course, we cap off the month with 007 First Light. Previews for that just went up. Actually, I was invited to that, but sadly I couldn't go as it was in LA and I just couldn't make the trip. But the previews are all universally positive with some outlets declaring it a game of
the year contender and the game isn't even out yet. Some outlets were a little more measured in their praise like Eurogamer who definitely enjoyed themselves but cautioned that this is definitely not a Hitman game in a Bond skin. Quote, "This is a very straightforward really quite old school linear thirdp person stealth action game. At times during my demo so linear it's essentially on rails. If you were hoping for the Hitman but Bond version, that might sound a little disappointing. I think it is a tad myself, but once you get your head around it, things look better. These classic straight line games are about forward momentum, spectacle, pizzazz, and in those terms, 007 First Light looks pretty good." End
quote. Other previews are available at places like VGC and PC Gamer. Do go check them out if you're keen. But if you're interested in some other news, then stay right here because we're about to do the news block. Like right now, in fact, it's earnings call time for Xbox. You know what that means? Time to announce another 30% drop in hardware sales. Actually, that's a lie. It's 33% this quarter. So, they really outdid themselves this time. There are always a few big numbers to care about when it comes to earnings calls, and none of them are painting a particularly rosy picture for the current state of Xbox.
Overall, gaming revenue was down 7% for Microsoft, while Xbox content and services was down 5%. It's not a great result, but it's also within the delta of things just kind of being a bit of a slow quarter for Xbox with no major releases to speak of, and with that old Game Pass price point no doubt slowing the growth of that service. But the real kick in the teeth was the hardware sales result down 33%. If you're thinking to yourself, "Wait, weren't Xbox hardware sales down 30% last quarter, too?" Yes. Yes, they were. And the quarter before that. Every quarter dating back to March 2024, which, wouldn't you know, it is the first quarter after Xbox announced its
intention to abandon exclusives and embrace a multiplatform strategy. Huh, interesting. I wonder if those two things are connected. Probably not. Let's move on. It's interesting timing because this week Steven Datillo of GameFile interviewed Xbox bosses Asher Sharma and Matt Booty, shedding some light on their vision for the company going forward. The main topic that sits front of mind for many is that of exclusivity. This generation saw Xbox go allin on a multiplatform approach typified by their this is an Xbox campaign. A move that put them far behind their competitors as Nintendo and Sony screamed ahead with excellent
firstp party offerings you couldn't get anywhere else or in Sony's case only became available on PC a while later as opposed to Xbox's day and date releases across all platforms. Since Sharma's appointment as Xbox's new CEO, we've heard murmurings that she was looking to reconsider exclusivity. And while we didn't get any hard answers in this interview, it does indeed seem to be something she's considering. Quote, "Choes around Xbox's approach to exclusive games are long swinging decisions that have decadel long impact. We'll take a data-driven approach and a strategic driven approach, and then we'll look at our principles and we'll make some calls. We'll share some more when we're ready. I want to make the
right decision, not the fastest decision." End quote. So, yeah, a vague response, but you know, fair enough. Changes like these don't happen overnight. And as necessary as exclusivity might be for bringing Xbox back as a competitor, it'll still be a monumental shift for the platform given the many years they've spent moving away from this. But it certainly doesn't feel like an impossibility anymore due to Sharma, who seems to be moving very briskly, already completely binning the this is an Xbox marketing campaign and cutting the price of Game Pass. On that note, Sharma also reaffirmed her commitment to repositioning the Xbox brand as one known for its premium hardware as opposed to just its services
and software. When speaking about the next generation of consoles, Sharma pledged, quote, "We are investing in it as a first class experience again, and we want to make sure that all the players who want to be on Gen 9 are on Gen 9 with a great console with regular updates. We know we just haven't invested as much there, so we're getting back to that." End quote. I think the most interesting discussion here though was around the affordability of Xbox products now and in the future because, yeah, you can't hear the term first class and not immediately think expensive. When asked about this, Sharma said, quote, I think historically our pricing hasn't been as flexible. I think
that's the big thing we want to work on. You saw that with Game Pass, it had become too expensive. So, we took a step to address that. I want to continue to make sure as we build hardware, software, services, we're spending just as much time on performance and play time as we are on making sure that we can innovate to offer more affordable devices and hardware and services. And so, look, there's a reality to the market we're in. So, there's no promises around what the price points are or anything like that, but I want to make sure that people around the world are able to play." End quote. Obviously, when referencing the market here, she's not just referring to inflation, but
also the RAM shortage that has hiked the price of hardware worldwide, including Xboxes. In just 2025 alone, Xbox consoles had not one, but two price hikes, which brought the Xbox Series X from $500 up to a current $650. The issue is still very much ongoing as PS5 consoles recently incurred a price increase of 15 to 20%. The Lenovo Legion Go just saw a huge price hike of like 75% for the upper model. And while the Switch 2 hasn't seen an increase yet, reporting from Bloomberg back in February suggest that it could be happening any day now. That same report would also mention that Sony were thinking about delaying the next PlayStation. Initially planned to release as early as 2027, but now will
reportedly ship in 2028 or even potentially 2029. According to Bloomberg sources, when asked about how this RAM shortage might impact the price or launch timeline of the next Xbox, Sharma acknowledged, quote, "All of these things are an equation. Memory costs will impact pricing, will impact availability. As we think about being where the world plays, we take all of that into consideration. So, we're not ready to share a launch timeline right now. The world's pretty dynamic. My number one focus though is to focus on what's in our control. Build a great console to play great games, including your PC games." End quote. It certainly makes sense that Xbox might be waiting for RAM prices to settle before
committing to a price or release date. And in fact, that perfectly lines up with what Valve have been forced to do with their Steam machine and Steam frame. Regardless, no matter how long Xbox or other console manufacturers wait around for or what they might say to quell fears about the next generation console pricing, I think it's inevitable that we'll be paying more for those consoles at launch than we ever have before. It's just the reality of the global AI push and our expectations for consoles to keep getting more powerful while fitting into compact little boxes that look nice next to our televisions.
I'd love to be proven wrong about this and I think Sharma's goals are admirable, but given the way things are trending right now, I just really don't see it going any other way. I mentioned Valve earlier and while they pushed the release of the Steam Machine, one piece of kit that dodged those delays is the Steam Controller. Reviews for the Steam Controller are out, including mine. Link below the like button. And it seems like everyone's in agreement that Valve's done a pretty bang-up job with this thing. IGN, for example, gave it a 9 out of 10, saying, quote, "The Steam Controller is excellent for both casual PC gamers and custom controller enthusiasts, offering both high-end and
unique features at a price closer to the base console controllers than its high-end competitors. It's the PC controller to beat." End quote. And yeah, kind of hard to disagree with that. I was using it for a while in the leadup to my review and really enjoyed using it for its comfortable form factor, its precise and tactile trackpads, its super convenient pairing and charging dock, its customizability through the Steam Input software, and a surprisingly standout feature is the GripSense thing that allowed me to toggle gyro on and off just by gripping the controller. Every part of it feels so thoughtfully designed and as such is definitely going to be my daily driver for PC games with the controller from here on out. It's not perfect, of
course, the haptics kick a little hard for my taste and it could do with a grippier material around the handles, but none of that's a huge deal. The main caveat here is the price tag. PC Gamer summarized their review by saying, quote, "There's nothing quite like the Steam Controller in how it mimics a mouse. Clever combination of trackpads and gyro controls. If you're often gaming from your couch or your bed, it's worth a look. But if you're just after a quality pad with no extra inputs, there are cheaper options." End quote. And yeah, $99 is definitely on the pricier side when it comes to controllers. So, if you don't care for many of the things that the Steam Controller is offering,
then you're almost certainly going to be better serviced by getting a more basic, cheaper controller. However, for me, with the number of features packed into it and how comfortable it is to use, I personally feel like it earns that price point. It's certainly a hell of a lot cheaper than the Dual Sense Edge while providing like 8,000 times the battery life. And it's notably cheaper than the Xbox Elite controller, and that thing breaks like 15 minutes after you take it out of the box. Seriously, I've gone through three of those things, all three with the same double shoulder press issue. Super annoying. If the Steam Controller can stand up to long-term use while delivering a feature set this
robust, I'm going to say that price tag feels about right. But obviously, everyone is going to have their own thoughts on that. Either way, it's definitely a controller worth checking out. So, for a full rundown, I'll leave a link to my review below the like button. PS, don't forget to hit the like button. One story we wanted to touch on and clarify are the recent concerns about PlayStation DRM or digital rights management, aka the tools that publishers use to fight piracy and or deny you access to games you've legally purchased whenever they feel like it. This flared up as a big talking point this week after a PS5 update resulted in some changes to the way the DRM was being applied to newly purchased games
with some people losing access to some of their purchases under specific conditions. The concern was that Sony was initiating a new rolling check-in requirement which would force you to connect your console to the internet once every 30 days in order to verify your ownership of a digital library product. And if you didn't do that, you would lose access to that product. A lot of testing from different people on the scene. All the while Sony remained radio silent with regards to what was going on, which was very concerning because if there was no change, then surely they'd just say that, right? Well, thankfully there's no great cause for alarm because while Sony has made a slight change here, it's definitely not implementing
any sort of rolling chicken requirement. The way it works now is that after you buy a game from the PSN store, Sony will initiate a single check at some point after that, but always within the first 30 days. After that check is verified, the temporary license you were granted converts to a permanent license with no need to reverify ever again. Sony issued a statement to both GameFile and GameSpot on the matter that reads, quote, "Players can continue to access and play their purchase games as usual. A one-time online check is required after purchase to confirm the game's license, after which no further check-ins are needed. End quote. So, yeah, false alarm, thank goodness. All right, time for the lightning round.
Now, you might recall that last month Netis had pulled funding from Gang of Dragon, the debut title from Nagoshi Studio helmed by former Yakuza creator Tashihiro Nagoshi. While the title wasn't cancelled outright in that moment, we certainly hold grave concerns for its future. And those concerns were amplified this week when on the 24th of April, the game's official YouTube channel was randomly taken offline. This, of course, caused widespread panic as many assumed that it marked the game's cancellation, only for the channel to then be resurrected some days later. So, yeah, thanks for the scare, Nagoshi. Still very unclear if Gang of
Dragon will ever see the light of day given the studio's funding struggles, but I guess the fact that they brought the YouTube channel back online is some glimmer of hope, right? Plenty of video game film adaptations being revealed at the moment, and this week saw another one. According to the Hollywood Reporter, a Battlefield movie is currently in the works. It's said to be written, directed, and produced by Christopher McQuary, the director of the last few Mission Impossible films, alongside actor Michael B. Jordan, who was set to co-produce. The Hollywood Reporter sources say that McCory and several others pitched to studios and streamers such as Apple and Sony last week, and that quote, "Those involved
are prioritizing a theatrical release, so it's unclear if Netflix will be on the meetings list." End quote. Look, I'm all for adaptations, but Battlefield, what are we doing here, guys? Like, are we just filming buildings being blown up and Michael B. Jordan recreating the render zoo? To be fair though, I would actually pay good money to see that, but only in IMAX. While everyone's pumped for Black Flag Reync, Ubisoft's next mainline Assassin's Creed game is losing developers left and right. Benoir Risho, who was serving as game director for Assassin's Creed Codeame Hex, recently announced his departure from Ubisoft via LinkedIn, writing that he's moving on to co-found his own studio, Servo Games,
joined by a number of other Ubisoft veterans. This comes after the game's former creative director Clint Hawking left Ubisoft in February of this year and longtime franchise lead Mark Alexis Court also resigned late last year. Both following Ubisoft's internal restructuring that saw a new team formed to lead the franchise. That is a hell of a lot of senior leadership talent leaving in quick succession at a pretty critical moment in a game's development. Definitely doesn't feel like things are going super well over there right now. Dead by Daylight developer Behavior Interactive has laid off an undisclosed number of employees. In a statement to our website this week in videoame.com,
the studio said, quote, "A portion of Behavior Interactives business has traditionally focused on external development partnerships." In recent months, demand for mobile and casual external development projects has declined. As we conclude, our remaining engagements and do not foresee comparable opportunities in the near term. We have made the decision to part ways with some colleagues. These decisions are never easy, and we're grateful for the contributions of the affected employees who have helped shape behavior and support our partners over the years." End quote. This week also saw the disappointing news that Greedfall developer Spiders is completely shutting its doors. A little while ago, we touched on the news that their parent company Nikon has filed for
insolveny, which led to them looking to sell off Spiders and their motion capture studio Nikon Tech. But it appears that they didn't get any buyers. This isn't an unexpected result given the poor performance of Grefall 2, which released just a couple of months ago to a very middling reception, reaching less than 1,000 peak current players on Steam and sitting at mixed overall reviews. Still, it is very sad to see given how ambitious this AA team was in trying to recapture that old school boware magic. A few weeks ago, reports emerged that the development team behind Souls like Wu Chang Fall and Feathers had been
dissolved over internal disputes at developer Lindsay. Disputes that followed the departure of the game's producer and director. But interestingly, this week, developer and publisher Digital Bros, who own 505 Games, the publisher of Wuang, announced that they had acquired the IP rights for Wuang Fallen Feathers, in their post, they state that Wuang's performance confirmed, quote, the strength of the product and its long-term potential. End quote. Before adding that the acquisition will let them quote, make timely decisions regarding its future development and related investments. End quote. A little nervous about the rights for this one transferring to an entirely different team under entirely new
leadership. Let's hope they can maintain the quality bar that the first title delivered. Because while it wasn't anything relevatory, it certainly was a well-made Soulslike that understood the fundamentals. Something that not every Souls like manages to get right. In June of last year, Outr Rididers developer People Can Fly was forced to lay off staff and suspend development on two projects. One of them being Outr Rididers 2 if reports are to be believed. In the meantime, they've been working as a support studio on various other projects such as Sony's Project Delta and Xbox's Gears of War Eday. But it appears as though they're now exploring the studio's future in publishing. People Can Fly announced this week they've acquired Cooldown
Games, which will serve as their independent publishing division. Per their official post, they say, quote, "Rebuilding our publishing capabilities is an important step in People Can Fly's continued evolution. Bringing the Coolown Games team into the organization allows us to build on the publishing foundation we've been developing for years while strengthening our ability to take great games to market globally. This structure strengthens our control over commercial outcomes and positions us to capture greater value across the life cycle of our titles, addressing challenges we have faced in the past."
End quote. Good for them and good luck to them, I say. Still hoping that we somehow manage to get an outr rididers too at some point in the future. That'll be nice. Finally, the Mind's Eye Circus never ends, but it might soon, maybe, probably not. This week, workers at Builder Rocket Boy have taken legal action against the studio over alleged data protection violations. Some very brief context here. Earlier this year, games industry.biz spoke to several employees who indicated that the studio management had installed monitoring software on employees machines, allegedly without their knowledge.
Studio co-CEO Mark Ghard later described in a studiowide call that the software known as Terrormind was quote enhanced cyber security software end quote and that it would be removed quote within 3 months end quote. According to the union representing the workers, the software was removed in March of this year but only after 40 workers filed a collective grievance and the studio reportedly failed to meet other demands by refusing to explain why it installed it in the first place as well as what data are collected and how it was used. Hence why these workers are dragging build a rocket boy back to court. Man, the Minds Eye Saga really is just completely insane. Like just off the charts. Okay,
so what got announced or delayed last week? Surprisingly, a lot of stuff considering there were a couple of indie showcases that went down, including the inaugural second win showcase. The team here was very proud to be a supporting partner of that as a fellow independent media organization along with the good folks at both Minmax and EXP. So do check it out. There were quite frankly a lot of games featured in the 2 and 1/2 hours that this show ran for. So, if you're at all interested, we included a link to the showcase in the description below, but we'll run through a few personal highlights right now. We've got SOS on our mind this week, but obviously if you don't have a PS5 and aren't
planning on getting one anytime soon, then Lunar Abyss might scratch that itch. It's a sci-fi bullet hell FPS from Quali, though notably a single player story-driven game rather than a rogike run-based one. This one's slated for release on the 21st of May for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series consoles. Something with a different vibe. Cutout Village is a cool little citybuilding game where the stick is that the buildings are made of paper craft. Like literally cutting them out and folding them and gluing them and it looks really nice sometime in 2026 for this one on all platforms. Another chill game is Map, which we've had our eye on for a while now. If you like treasure hunting and open world games,
then this game is full of that. And you use real ctography techniques to try and pinpoint locations and find hidden treasure. This one's coming out on the 28th of May for PC only. You can't go past a game where the premise is the game itself being haunted and that's what Forbidden Solitaire is going for. This is a collaboration between the folks who made Home Safety Hotline and the team that made Regency Solitaire. Both of which were great little titles, joining forces to imagine a haunted CD ROM game from 1995, complete with FMV and some meta horror. They announced the release date for this one. It's actually out this week, so do check it out if
you're keen. Distant Shaw Protagon is a firstp person physics-based puzzle game featuring a tool that can manipulate metal objects, but the hook here is that you also have a parkour system and you use these things together to navigate the world. So, kind of like Halflife meets Mirror's Edge. No date for this one just yet. Of course, it wouldn't be an indie showcase without some new forens slop. And the one that stood out here is Exorcist Hotline, which mixes the co-op horror of just about all of them together with some asymmetrical gameplay where one player takes the role of a call operator who needs to feed the active team information about how to deal with the threats that they're
facing. This was just a tiny taster of what the showcase has to offer. So, like I said, go check out the whole thing if you're the kind of person that likes to find little gems before other people discover them. A huge congratulations to the folks at Second Win for putting this one on. We were certainly very proud to be a small part of it. Moving on to nonshowcase announcements now. Final Fantasy 14 players were eating well this weekend since the game's FanFest was on. Lots of little announcements, but the big headline was the new expansion, Everold, which brings a new story arc, a surprising battle system overhaul, and two new jobs. No real details about what those jobs are yet other than one will be a tank and the other one a physical
range DPS. Couple of other unexpected tidbits out of that FanFest includes a collaboration with every Millennial Web's favorite anime, Neon Genesis Evangelion, which will feature in a new Alliance raid, as well as a Switch 2 version of the game, which is slated to release in August of this year. Good news and bad news for this one. The good news is that when it releases, there'll be a 1-month trial period so everyone can sus out how well it actually runs on a Switch 2. The bad news is that when all that's over, you need to pay an additional subscription fee to play it on Switch 2 on top of the regular Final Fantasy 14 subscription, which covers PC and other consoles. Seems like it was a
bit of a compromise between Nintendo and Square Enix, so you won't need to have a full Nintendo Switch online account to play. Still kind of stinks. This next one isn't really an announcement of any kind, but Creative Assembly and Sega put out a new teaser trailer for Alien Isolation 2 this week for Alien Day. No real info, sadly, but we're still looking forward to it. One game here that the team is very curious about is Blood of the Dawn Walker, the new vampire themed RPG from Rebel Wolves, which is notably made up of a lot of former City Project Red developers, including Witcher 3 developer Conrad Thomas Kevitz, who's actually leading this project. These guys just announced a release date of the 3rd of September,
2026. So, mark this one in your diary or just bookmark the release page on this weekinvideames.com. It's actually a really good page. I think you'll like it. Finally, an update on Austin's favorite game, Guild Wars. The folks at Arenaet recently remastered the original game and this week they announced it was coming to mobile sometime in the middle of this year with complete crossplay. Same business model by the way. Freebased game with expansions as optional purchases. And the fan base for this one seems a lot more keen than the Blizzard one was for Diablo Immortal when that was announced, but of course
that is a very low bar to clear. So what came out last week? Well, let's take a look at Little Nightmares VR Altered Echoes, which sees another new developer playing around with this property. And this one seems to have come out pretty well with an open critic rating of a strong 76. The folks at Upload VR gave it a very strong 4.5 out of five. And here's what they said. Altered Echo has fairly basic gameplay. Sneak, run, hide, crawl, climb, and occasionally distract the enemy to move forward. It excels in its presentation. The scale, the different locations, the sound effects, the sensational musical score. All of it is stellar and elevates bang average stealth mechanics. It does not deviate
from what made the flat screen games so popular and simply relies on the sense of presence VR offers to take it to the next level. end quote. Moving on to Snap and Grab, aka Hitman, except you're a fashion photographer in the 1980s planning heists for your team. This one released its first episode last week, and though it doesn't have a ton of reviews at the time of writing, they're 95% positive on Steam with a lot of folks pointing to the humor, visual style, and unique premise as the winning elements. Here's Steam user Dishes 70, who gave it a thumbs up and said, quote, "An aesthetic triumph with the game slowly coming together underneath it.
Snap and grab has great vibes. It could be a blast when it stays out of its own way. Some immediate bug fixes made a huge difference. There is a kernel of something great in here. Slightly obscured by having a lot of the stuff that makes you want to play with the toy box locked inside of a weirdly on rail structure. But when it's working, it's hitting home runs. Hopefully, it gets the chance to work out all of its kinks and pull all the parts together. End quote. Moving on to Mu Troll: Winter's Warmth, which was the cozy but dark adventure game revolving around the finished cartoon character. Old Mu has done quite well for himself with this latest fora, which is currently sitting
at a strong 83 on Open Critic. Here's Gamer Social Club who gave it an 8.5 out of 10 and had this praise. Quote, "A masterclass in cozy game design, serving as a heartfelt love letter to Tove Jensen's Enduring World. While it may lack the mechanical complexity of more traditional adventure games, its strength lies in its atmosphere and its deep reverence for the source material. Hyperames has successfully captured the unique duality of Moon Stories. The whimsical charm of helping neighbors balanced against the slight beautiful melancholy of a lonely Scandinavian winter. End quote. Now, Diablo I Lord of
Hatred, we already covered last week. That's actually ticked up a point on Open Critic and it now sits at a mighty 84. My review is up on the channel now. Link below the like button. But Tildia, I really liked it. I think you will, too. Do check it out if you're at all interested. Nice casual demon slaying fun. Moving on to Aelion, which is the new cinematic narrative game from Don't Nod. And this seems to have the genre fans quite split. It's sitting at a fair 68 on Open Critic at the time of writing with quite a spread between the scores.
Common pitfalls discussed include a relatively safe approach to how the story is told, including heavy reliance on audio logs and poor stealth sections also come up several times. Some people really vied with the sci-fi story though, which touches on humanity connection and all that sort of stuff. Here's the AV Club who gave it a C plus saying, quote, "Filling is very appealing from the outside with a sleek, realistic space travel sheen and a relevant story from a studio that deserves respect. Don't Nod makes good games. It's never made a great one, but it's also never failed to make an interesting one." Fellion keeps the studio streak of making games with a brain alive, but it's Dot Nod's clunkiest release yet with the narrative payoff too meager to compensate for its
mechanical failings." End quote. And finally, Saros. That's another game that let loose the reviews early and for very good reason. Like Diablo, I already spoke a bit about my take last week, and I'll drop a link to the full review below the like button, but elsewhere, it's sitting at a mighty 89 on Open Critic, with many of the reviews being pretty unanimous in their opinion that Housemark has taken Returnal to the next level. And lots of people are really vibing with its more approachable difficulty as well. Worth absorbing multiple takes on it though. So I do want to highlight IGN's review here which was definitely an outlier. The show Michael Hyam landed at the lower end of the scale with a 7 out of 10
score. Here's how he rationalized it. Quote, "Raterturnal was impactful because it solely focused on Seline and her time loop fighting through atropose. It used that format to reflect her personal struggles that were subtle in the early hours, then gave you the means to paint a clearer picture the deeper you got. Rogue light as a metaphor worked so well there, and it parallels hit hard when you reached a point when it all started falling into place. Saros bites off more than it can chew, which I can admire, but the actual execution struggles to send the message it thinks it's sending. I'm left conflicted after
the 22 hours I put into seeing it all the way through to its true ending, though. There's a bigger emphasis on story this time around, and it's more ambitious in some respects, which I appreciated. But when its strongest ideas are a bit too abstracted, powerful themes can end up ringing hollow. So, while it's eclipsed by its predecessor in some important ways, Saras was still worth banging my head against over and over again. End quote. All righty. So, what's coming out this week? Well, it's the first week of May, which typically means that things are quietening down a little bit before the second half of the year kicks in. But then again, we've also noticed a lot of indies announcing
imminent release dates for May after looking both ways, checking that the way was clear, making sure no surprise AAA games drop on their heads. So, yeah, it is a big indie week this week, but not just that, it's a big music themed indie week. So, if you're like Ed on our team who loves collecting vinyl records and playing rhythm infused games and being a nerd about music, then this week is certainly for you. We'll kick things off with Wax Heads, which is a lightweight Papers, Please style observation puzzle game about working in a record store, forming a bond with your customers, and recommending the right thing for each of them. If you've ever seen or read HighFidelity, then this is like the
video game version of that, only you're not allowed to be as much of an [__] as Jack Black was in that movie. It's completely hand illustrated in a Scott Pilgrim inspired comic book style, and it's out on all platforms on May 5th. Also out on May 5th is the early access release of Dead as Disco. If you haven't seen this one before, it's basically a character action combat game with rhythm elements, much like The Incredible Hi-Fi Rush. But the pitch here is that you can use your own music, which you supposedly sync up with your combo strings. Really curious to see how this works and whether or not it feels as good as Hi-Fi Rushfeld. So looking forward to seeing how it lands with folks PC only for this
one. Another notable early access release this week happens on Thursday, May 7th, when Alabaster Dawn lands. This is the next game from the folks who made Crosscode, an excellent SNES style RPG that came out about 10 years ago now, if you can believe it. Great combat, puzzles, dungeons, tons of details and secrets and a compelling story. A real favorite for those who played it. Because it's an RPG, Alabaster Dawn is doing the whole thing where early access is the first chapter and a bit with the rest of it slowly added as it's completed. The devs estimating it's going to take about 2 years to get to that point. And you know what? Playing an 80hour RPG in episodic chunks, it's
kind of a nice deal. Hopefully, it lives up to its legacy. PC only for now. Also on Thursday is Will Follow the Light, which is an atmospheric first-person narrative adventure game set in the Arctic where you play a father looking for his son after a disaster. Very moody looking, but some cool footage of dog sledding and sailing segments has us intrigued about this one. It's added to PC, PS5, and Xbox Series consoles. All right, to cap things off, we've got one more music themed India release this week, and we really liked what we played to this one already, so put this on your radar.
Most of the time, I'm wondering if I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing to have the optimal teenage experience. The teenage experience is unobtainable. This is of course Mixtape, the next music infused narrative game from Beethoven and Dinosaur, whose last game, the Aral Escape, won a BAFTA, and who also hail from our little part of the world, Australia. This is a coming of age story about the end of high school, teenage bonds, hopes and dreams, and doing lots of dumb teenage [__] like toilet papering houses, bombing down hills and shopping trolley, and making out. All of which are fantastic gameplay
sequences set to a killer soundtrack of licensed music. The team here played the first parts of Mixtape a little while ago now, and we came away very impressed. It was super polished in its presentation and storytelling, blending found footage and MTV style aesthetics with some really attractive art direction. And the stepped animation style just looks super good. As you can imagine, the license tracks that make up the mixtape part of it are all paired really nicely with the scenes we saw. So, we're really looking forward to seeing the rest of it as well. This one is headed to PC, PS5, Xbox Series consoles, and Switch 2 on Thursday, May 7th. And if you do like the look of this
one, you can find a link to it over on our Steam curator page, which also has links to all of the other put this on your radar stuff we recently covered. I'll leave a link to all of that below the like button. Now, I don't know if you can call this next story feel good, but it certainly feel something. So, this story was originally spotted by Voxil, and it really makes you reflect on what sort of sendoff you might want to have when you shuffle off this mortal coil. Something classic and classy, or perhaps whatever this is. Roll it, Stew.
This is real. A Brazilian coffin and urn manufacturer by the name of Big Naughty has launched a Mario themed lineup of coffins. The enthusiastic sales pitch is just one showcase of the product range, but there's also this Game over, man. Game over indeed. It is very unclear if Nintendo has signed off on this use of their IP, but I'm going to guess probably not. And so, I'm sure Nintendo's lawyers are currently preparing to bury this dude in court without the option of a classy Mario themed coffin at the burial, of course. I will say I actually saw this story covered on Kotaku, and one of the comments at the bottom really set me.
User FKA Badong Grunk says, "Quote, I want to be buried in a Sonic the Hedgehog themed coffin so he can let me down one last time." End quote. Man, some dude makes Mario themed coffins and somehow Sonic ends up catching strays. Unbelievable. All right, ladies and gents, that's all we got. In the time that we've been working on this show, by the way, I actually got my review code for Mixtape. So, I'm super excited about that. I'm off to play it right now. What are you going to do right now? I'll tell you what you're going to do. You're going to hit the like button. That's what I'm sorry that was rude. I got carried away. But I would like to politely request a pressing of the like
button if it isn't too much trouble. And if you are so inclined, then feel free to also subscribe and ding that notification bell. Not much else to say other than thanks for watching. We always appreciate it. And a big thanks to this video sponsor, Squarespace. Very excited to be shouting out the sponsor of this video, our longest running and most supportive partner, Squarespace. Last year, I got word that Squarespace was signing for a seventh consecutive year, helping the Skillup team do what we do. Squarespace was actually the very first long-term sponsor I secured, and they've been with me ever since. Their support gave me the confidence to go full-time on YouTube. So, it's very little exaggeration to say
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