Hope you’re doing well. Quick one from us today (well, quick newsletter, the ep is well over two hours!), here are the highlights from this week’s episode:

• Xbox’s woes continue, with the industry holding its breath as it waits for the scale of the layoffs and studios to hit

• Lucy chatted to Control Resonant director Mikael Kasurinen and Dylan Faden actor Sean Durrie at Summer Game Fest

• Speaking of SGF, we played plenty of games over the Play Days weekend and can finally talk about our hands-on time with Stranger Than Heaven, Alien Isolation 2, and much, much more

https://youtu.be/9Sv7NF-OBOk?is=XU6rYz30w9uUKX76

We’ll be back in a couple of weeks with special guest host Kyle Bosman!

Thanks for watching, xoxo Lucy

Well, it finally happened.

No, Rockstar didn’t reveal a new GTA 6 trailer (or a delay), but Bungie announced that support for Destiny 2 was wrapping up and that the game would be… done. It’s a huge piece of news and of course it happened the day after we recorded the podcast, so that’s why we don’t bring it up. If you do wish to see Ralph’s take on the sad news, go check out this week’s episode of This Week In Videogames.

However we did cover a lot of other things on the show, including:

• PlayStation’s pivot from putting games on PC

• Lucy’s thoughts on ZERO PARADES: For Dead Spies

• Jake and Ralph have been having a lovely time in Forza Horizon 6

• Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag Resynced becomes one of our most anticipated games of the year

• It’s Da (LEGO) Bat(man game)! Jake’s enjoying Legacy of the Dark Knight

• And more!

Friends Per Second will return in two weeks…

With our in-person Summer Game Fest special! We’ll talk about our favourite picks from the show and our time going hands-on with titles at Play Days. Will the ironing board make a reappearance? We’ll have to wait and see…

This does mean that the next episode will be a couple of days late but we’ll be live as soon as possible!

Thanks for reading! Remember to get your User questions in to contact@friendspersecond.com (one day Jake’ll remember it), we love hearing from you. xoxo L

Aaand we’re back with another episode and new issue of the newsletter. After toying around with Substack over the last year or so, I think it makes more sense to send the newsletter out the Monday after the episode goes up, so I’ll be doing that going forward. Let me know if you prefer it that way!

If you haven’t caught up with last week’s episode, here’s a quick rundown of what you missed:

• We share our thoughts on Mixtape and chat to director Johnny Galvatron and producer Woody

• This is Miyamoto. We react to the Starfox announcement and answer the burning question: Is Starfox hot?

• Ralph and Jake got their hands on the Steam controller. Is it worth $100?

• Jake earned his license to kill and spent three hours with 007 First Light

• Thoughts on Dead As Disco, Diablo IV, POE2, and more!

Friends Per Second will return in two weeks…

We’re inching towards Summer Game Fest (mark your calendars; it’s less than a month away!), and May is a very FPS-coded month for releases.

• We’ll be able to share our impressions of Forza Horizon 6

• Lucy’s digging deep into ZERO PARADES: For Dead Spies

• Maybe we’ll have a GTA 6 trailer to react to (or a delay, who even knows anymore)

Thanks so much for watching and reading! We really appreciate it, and a special thanks to the kind folks who take the time to rate the podcast on your platforms of choice. It helps us out a ton. We’ll be back in a couple of weeks, looking forward to seeing you then. xoxo L

This issue of gaming’s most international newsletter is coming at you from the UK, where Spring has well and truly sprung and I’ve spent about fifty quid on Greggs while I’ve been here.

I was at the BAFTA Games Awards last week and will have some fun stories to tell on this weekend’s episode of the show. Thank you to the Users attending who came up to say hello! Was lovely to meet you.

But I digress, in case you missed last week’s episode of Friends Per Second, here’s a quick look at what we chatted about:

• Ralph hated the Mario Galaxy movie

• Those PS5 price hikes are hard to stomach

• Vroom vroom, Forza Horizon 6 is looking amazing

• Please someone pull Lucy away from Raccoin before it becomes a problem

• We discuss Samson, Neverway, Fix Force, and more

• Oh and we played I Am Jesus Christ, lol

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Friends Per Second will return this weekend with:

• No Jake Baldino, we’re sorry to say. But we will have an excellent guest host, leave your guesses in the comments

• Pragmata

• Titanium Court interview with AP Thomson

• And more!

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Thanks, as ever, for tuning in this week! We’ll be recording at a pretty rubbish time for the UK (starting at 10:30pm!), so please forgive the terrible lighting and childhood bedroom set up.

We’ll catch you in a few days! xoxo L

Hope you’re having a swell start to your week. We’re just about all recovered from GDC here in San Francisco and we relished the opportunity to shoot an in-person episode while we took a break from the ✨ festival of gaming ✨

It’s a fairly chaotic episode shot in my living room on the final day of the conference, so you have been warned. Thankfully Ralph didn’t have a severe allergic reaction to cats Peanut and Jelly, but it was touch and go for a second. If you didn’t catch it, here’s what you missed:

• Impressions after extended hands-on with Zero Parades: For Dead Spies

• Our picks from the ID@Xbox event

• Ralph reluctantly loves Pokopia

• We chat to Angela Sant’Albano and Nick Apostolides aka Grace and Leon from Resident Evil Requiem

• Can Crimson Desert live up to the hype?

• An interesting use for a wooden spoon

• Marathon, Canvas City, Minos and more!

Friends Per Second will return this weekend with:

• Crimson Desert

• DLSS 5

• And more!

Thanks so much for tuning in this week. This was a really fun episode to shoot, we love doing them in person where we can! We’ll be back again this weekend and we hope to see you there. Have a great week! xo L

This will be a quick one as I’m on a flight en route to GDC in San Francisco.

But Lucy, you say, don’t you live in San Francisco? Yes I do, but I went on my holidays* and am rushing back to see what this year’s Festival of Gaming has to offer. Jake and Ralph will also be in town, so expect an in-person episode this weekend (I’ll get the ironing board for the mic stands).

In our last episode, we were joined by the queen of Resident Evil herself, Suzi aka TheSphereHunter to talk about Requiem. We also discuss the Xbox leadership overhaul, Bluepoint’s closure, and what we’ve been playing.

Check it out here!

https://youtu.be/yBz4qXHUQ5U?si=tQ_MAp2fHOXhw7oq

Thanks so much for listening/watching, have a lovely week. See you this weekend! xoxo L

*Chicago’s wonderful! Had the best meal of my life at Ever, it’s all downhill from here

Hope you’re doing well amidst all of… this. It’s been another rough couple of weeks in gaming, from PlayStation closing down Bluepoint to Xbox’s new AI-first CEO, more layoffs at Ubisoft and racist AI-generated ads that TikTok won’t remove, much to the chagrin of pub/developer Finji. It’s miserable out there, but despite the horrors, great games continue to be released and there are plenty of things to be excited about, even if it feels like the entire industry is collapsing in on itself.

Here’s a recap of our last episode, just in case you had plans on Valentine’s Day and didn’t want to watch us talk about video games for two and a half hours instead.

• We react to the Horizon Hunters Gathering reveal

• Mewgenics creator Edmund McMillen joins us to talk about balancing the realities of game development with your home life

• I Cairn’t believe it, we’re still talking about Cairn

• Jake’s been playing Menace

• Lucy’s been playing a bunch of stuff, including TR-49, Bloodletter, Mixtape, Hozy and Titanium Court

• We chat to Tarsier Studios CEO Oliver Merlöv about Reanimal

• Please tell your friends about Titanium Court

Friends Per Second will return this weekend with:

• Resident Evil Requiem chat

• Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond are out at Xbox

• Maybe some delayed State of Play reactions

• Steam Next Fest highlights

• And more!

Thanks so much for reading and listening! Apologies in advance for the jetlagged mess that I’ll be when we record this week’s episode, I will be hopping straight from the airport to the recording. Will I even have time to shower and make myself presentable? Who knows, but here’s hoping. Catch you at the weekend! xo L

Can you believe it’s February already? 2026 is going too fast, but hey, at least it brings us ever closer to the release of Resident Evil Requiem.

We were honoured to be joined by Chris Plante (Patreon, , ) for this episode! You may know Chris from his time at Polygon or from The Besties (the only video game podcast Lucy listens to, quite the badge of honour), but he has a new venture called Post Games that you should absolutely check out. If you love NPR style storytelling about video games, he’s gotcha covered. Thanks Chris for joining us!

Here are the rest of the highlights from episode #87!

• They said it could never be done: the Friends Per Second gang actually played a video game together. That video game was… Highguard and boy do we have thoughts

• Guest host Chris Plante joins us to talk about his new favourite game: Perfect Tides: Station to Station, which Lucy is also enjoying

• Lucy and Jake went hands on with Resident Evil Requiem, and wouldn’t you know it, that’s shaping up to be one fine video game

• Jake has a Leon S. Kennedy jacket, please look at the video version of the show to enjoy it in all its glory

• Ralph has finished Silksong twice, despite act three’s pitfalls

• Speaking of falls, Lucy, Chris, and Jake loved Cairn, the rock climbing strand game from The Game Bakers

• Ralph’s doing Chris Nolan in review, Jake’s hit the arcade and Lucy is reading again

• And plenty more!

Friends Per Second will return this weekend with:

• An interview with Edmund McMillen about Mewgenics

• Aaaaand I honestly don’t know the rest just yet! I’m writing this early because I’m off to DICE next week, but I guarantee it’ll be a good episode. Promise.

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We’ll be back again this weekend, please be excited. Keep your User questions coming to contact@friendspersecond.com, we love reading them and we try to answer as many as possible!

Thanks, as always, for being the best community around,

xoxo L

Look, it’s still January (barely) so I can get away with that.

Hope you had a wonderful, restful holiday season and that you managed to get a lot of gaming in. Surprisingly we didn’t but that doesn’t mean we don’t have loads of gaming goodness to talk about. As well as movies, books, and er, the sex lives of dolphins.

Our first episode of the year was a fun, loose one to ease us into 2026, here are some of the highlights.

• Na’vi heads rise up, Jake played the Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora DLC and dipped into Hytale: is it the Minecraft killer or does it have a ways to go?

• Ralph’s loving Hollow Knight: Silksong. Well, acts one and two, at least

• Lucy’s become very into reading over the break and will tell anyone who listens to check out The Devils by Joe Abercrombie

• She’s also been digging into the Steam Detective Fest

• The gang go through the games they’re most excited for in 2026

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The Friends Per Second podcast will return this weekend with:

• Guest host Chris Plante from and !

• Lucy raced to the QWOP in Cairn

• Lucy and Jake played 3 hours of Resident Evil Requiem

• They said it could never happen: the gang are going to play a game together (Highguard) and chat about their thoughts

• And more!

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We’re so thrilled to be back. We’ve got a lot of plans for 2026, and we can’t wait to share them with you. See you soon xoxo

Hope you’re doing well and enjoyed The Game Awards last week. Geoff certainly brought the goods, and we’ll be discussing all the winners, losers, and biggest reveals from the night on this week’s episode of the podcast. Ralph sadly didn’t make it out to LA this year, but Jake and I got to do a little hang out and get this very tired selfie the morning after all the festivities:

We opted not to do our yearly in-person post-TGA special this year, but we’ll have a great show for you this weekend, so stay tuned. In case you missed the last episode, here’s a quick recap for you!

• Metroid Prime 4 doesn’t necessarily hit the high notes for Ralph and Jake

• Lucy played HORSES, a game that’s been in the spotlight because it got banned from Steam and Epic. But is it really that bad…?

• Lucy spent a wonderful 30 minutes trying not to fangirl too hard with The Séance of Blake Manor team: Treasa McCabe, Paul Conway, and Dave McCabe

• Someone needs to come pry Ralph away from ARC Raiders

• Lucy played a bunch of the new Elden Ring: Nightreign DLC and has found herself a new main

• Jake’s been digging Marvel Cosmic Invasion and yee-haw, he’s gone back to Red Dead Redemption

• Jake built a new PC, Ralph watched Lawrence of Arabia, and Lucy has been decorating her hallway. Truly, peak dad behaviour from all of us

The Friends Per Second podcast will return this weekend with:

• Game Awards reactions!

• An interview with the developers behind one of the biggest reveals of the night

• Wrapping up 2025

• User questions - get ‘em in to contact@friendspersecond.com

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Thanks so much for reading and watching and listening and rating and reviewing. We really appreciate it! This weekend is our last episode of the year (the YouTube comments tell me that it’s very important to make it clear that we’ll be back in January) and we’re excited to round out 2025 the only way we know how: by chatting a lot on the internet. We’ll see you then! xo

Hope you’re having a lovely Monday wherever you are. We’re gearing up for the end of the year chaos: The Geoffs, Game of the Year, attempting to chip away at our backlog, the usual. We had an exciting episode of the podcast last week and just in case you missed it, here are the highlights:

• We only went and spoke to Lawrence Yang and Pierre-Loup Griffais from Valve all about their new hardware

• It’s awards season! The Game Awards nominees went out just before we recorded, so we discussed our predictions, hopes, dreams, and the biggest snubs from the list

• Jake’s been thinking a lot about the Roman Empire lately because he’s been deep into playing Anno 117: Pax Romana

• It’s not long until Metroid Prime 4 comes out, Ralph and Jake have a quick preview based on their hands-on time

• Lucy is absolutely obsessed with The Séance of Blake Manor

• We finally got the Ralph take on ARC Raiders

• And if that’s not enough, we’ve got Ambrosia Sky, Where Winds Meet, Kirby Air Riders and more!

The Friends Per Second podcast will return this weekend with:

• The Séance of Blake Manor interview

• Metroid Prime 4

• HORSES

• And more!

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It was Thanksgiving last weekend here in the States, and we are very thankful for you all!

We’ll have a cracking show for you this week, looking forward to getting it out there. Catch you soon! xo L

Hope you’re having a fine start to your week. We’re getting ready to record episode 83 for you, but in the meantime here’s a quick catch up on the last episode in case you didn't have (checks runtime) a spare 2 hours and 33 minutes on you.

• Guess who’s back? If you’d said the cast of The Mummy (1999) we wouldn’t have believed you, and yet, here we are

• Grand Theft Auto 6 got delayed just before we recorded, but that’s not the only Rockstar news hitting the headlines: the company is being accused of union busting in the UK

• One of us. One of us. Jake’s been playing BALL x PIT and Ralph’s mesmerised by Lumines Arise

• Jake’s been a busy boy, he also turned his Xbox ROG Ally X into a Steam Deck

• We chat to Nick Herman and Pierre Shorette from 2025’s breakout hit, Dispatch

• Thoughts on Outer Worlds 2, ARC Raiders, Battlefield 6 REDSEC, PowerWash Simulator 2 and Fractured Blooms

• PSA: PLAY THE SEANCE OF BLAKE MANOR and thank me later

• Somehow, there’s more

Ralph did an incredible job with this thumbnail

The Friends Per Second podcast will return this weekend with:

• Half-Life 3?? Well, I guess we’ll find out, but we definitely have to chat about the Steam Machine

• New releases Black Ops 7, Ambrosia Sky and Where Winds Meet

• We have a lot of questions for Ralph about his hands on with Metroid Prime 4 Beyond

Remember you can mail your user questions to contact@friendspersecond.com, we love hearing from you and try to read out/get back to as many of you as we can.

Here’s my plug for the #socials, if you’d like to follow us there.

• Clips channel

• Instagram

Thanks so much for reading, see you at the weekend!* <3 L xoxo

*same energy

Happy Monday, hope you have some fun stuff lined up this week.

In case you missed last week’s episode, here are the highlights:

• We see if the Xbox ROG Ally X is up to sniff, I mean, snuff. We ask whether the beefy handheld’s even beefier price tag is worth it and of course, get to the bottom of what it smells like

• We yearn for an episode where we don’t have to talk about something bizarre Xbox has done, but it’s not this one

• At least in good Xbox news, we chat to Tim Schafer and Lee Petty about the new Double Fine game Keeper

• We’re obsessed with BALL x PIT. Like, obsessed.

• If you’re playing ARC Raiders, you’ll want to check out our interview with its Executive Producer Aleksander Grøndal

• What We’ve Been Playing, Show And Tell, and more…

The Friends Per Second podcast will return this weekend with:

• Lucy’s new obsession: The Seance of Blake Manor

• ARC Raiders impressions: is it the extraction shooter we’ve all hoped for?

• And more!

Remember you can mail your user questions to contact@friendspersecond.com, we love hearing from you and try to read out/get back to as many of you as we can.

We’ve also been posting more on the #socials, so if you’d like to see clips and goofs, make sure to follow us!

• Clips channel

• Instagram

Thanks so much for reading, see you very soon! <3 L xoxo

Hope you’re having a fine start to your week and managed to get some big gaming hours in over the weekend.

As the old song goes, the games start comin’ and they don’t stop comin’. We are in the thick of release season and on last week’s show we had an absolute embarrassment of riches to delve into. So in case you missed it, here’s what we covered in the last episode:

• We recapped the latest news including the ROG Xbox Ally and Ally X price points, Tokyo Game Show, and our first proper non-leak look at Marvel’s Wolverine

• Jake gives us his thoughts on Ghost of Yōtei: a straightforward sequel

• We’re utterly enamoured with Silent Hill f (the f stands for “fantastic”)

• Kojima Beyond The Strand: just what is Hideo up to next, and which celebrities are involved this time?

• Our User question this week from Antony de Navarro has us pondering our biggest gaming knowledge gaps

• Borderlands 4, Pokémon Legends: Z-A, The Sparks Brothers, and MORE

The Friends Per Second podcast will return this weekend with:

• SecureBoots on the ground, we’ll have our Battlefield 6 impressions

• More Ghost of Yōtei reflections

• We interview industry legend Shuhei Yoshida

• And more!

Thanks so much for reading and for listening to the pod. Remember you can mail your user questions to contact@friendspersecond.com, we love hearing from you.

See you at the weekend! xoxo L

A quick hit today as this week is incredibly busy: Not only is it Tokyo Game Show this weekend, but there are a lot of heavy hitters coming out around the same time. Our sleep schedules are borked, capture cards working overtime, and our thumbs are tired.

Nevertheless, we had a banger of a show last week, and in case you missed it, here’s a quick recap of some highlights.

• Hell Is Us director Jonathan Jacques-Belletête joined us to talk about the challenges of making a game that doesn’t hold your hand and releasing the same day as Silksong

• Lucy’s back and has recaps of her time at Gamescom and the many, many games she played (highlights include Silent Hill f, but more on that next week), and the Oasis show in LA

• Ralph really dug Cronos and is continuing his Fast and Furious journey

• Jake’s very Jaws-pilled right now, just in time for the movie’s anniversary. He’s also been braving Silksong 🫡

• And much, much more…

We’ll be back this weekend with more gaming chat, catch you then, Users! Thanks for being the best in the biz xx

This issue of the newsletter is coming at you a little late as I’ve been trailing around the Kölnmesse’s endless halls (quite the Haus of Leaves, if you will) in search of games to play and my feet and my thumbs have only just about recovered. We’ll have more on Gamescom in episode 77, so make sure you subscribe to Ralph’s channel to catch it when it goes live.

Hope you enjoyed this episode, and thanks for reading!

Mafia The Old Country Discussion

The Old Country is a strange game, but overall we all kinda liked it? It may be incredibly linear and you spend a little too much time ferrying wine bottles around for my liking, but it tells a decent (if predictable) story, looks beautiful, and has us all saying “minchia” more than ever before.

Battlefield 6 Beta Impressions

Ralph finally got his hands on the Battlefield 6 beta and he’s in love, so we spend a little more time talking about EA’s upcoming shooter.

Here’s a timestamped link to Jake’s amazing double headshot. That’s right, we only have pro gamers here on FPS.

Interview with Sword of the Sea Creator Matt Nava

Unfortunately due to embargo timing we weren’t able to talk about our impressions of Sword of the Sea in this episode but we did chat to its creator, Matt Nava, who boasts an incredible CV having worked on games such as Journey, ABZÛ, Flower, and The Pathless.

It’s a wide-ranging chat covering the early days of his career, the success of Journey, and forming his own studio, Giant Squid. We’ll have much more to say about Sword of the Sea in the next episode, so stay tuned!

User Question

Patrice (of Patrice Coffee) asked us:

When playing certain games I tend to think of people in my life. Whether it was because I played that game with them and they are my friends or I had a certain grudge against someone back when I first played the game. So while playing those people are kind of in the back of my mind, either annoying me or making me reminisce about the good time we've had.

So my question to you all is, do you have that too? And what games come to mind for you and who are they making you think of in your life?

Thank you Patrice! This was a lovely question that made us reminisce about all the people who have been there along the way in our video game playing journeys.

If you have a question for us to answer on the show, you can submit it here:

Submit your User questions here!

What We've Been Playing: Time To Cry Edition

• On top of Mafia: The Old Country and Battlefield, Ralph’s been playing some game called Destiny? Funny, he’s never mentioned it before

• Jake’s just been playing Mafia, but he’ll have a lot to say about Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater in the next ep

• Meanwhile, lucyjamesGAMER has been playing a bunch, including Time Flies, Is This Seat Taken?, and Roger, and Ambrosia Sky

Show and tell

• Ralph and Jake finally get to chat about Fantastic Four

• Everyone loved The Naked Gun

• Weapons and Alien: Earth are certified Good Times
  

• And Just Like That… is maybe one of the worst TV shows ever created and yet I’m genuinely sad it’s over. Please enjoy a dramatic retelling of one of the most baffling scenes of television ever written

Next time!

Thanks so much for reading! We’ll be back at the weekend with Gamescom highlights, Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater thoughts, and much, much more.

We’ve also started to post on our Instagram/TikTok/clips channel pages again, so give us a follow if that’s of any interest to ya:

• Instagram

• Clips channel

• TikTok

Thanks again, Users! <3 L

Thanks for all your lovely feedback on the last issue of the newsletter, I’m glad you’re digging the changes we made to it. Truthfully, this new format is much more fun to write, so I’m (selfishly) glad it’s resonating. Onto this week’s show.

Force Gaming steps in to co-host while Jake is travelling, Bruce Greene lends his Battlefield expertise to our Battlefield 6 impressions and Abubakar Salim joins us to chat about Dead Take.

This episode was a little Frankensteined together, so huge thanks to our editor Stu for bearing with us as we navigated travel and embargoes, and of course to Force and Bruce for joining us.

Let’s just jump right into it.

Battlefield 6

Jake and I travelled to LA to play a few hours of Battlefield 6, and despite us both dying more than a few times (in our defence, we were playing with and against a lot of professional streamers), BF6 is shaping up to be a pretty good time.

The game got over half a million wishlists following the reveal event and overall, coverage has been pretty positive. This must be a relief to EA, who has put an awful lot of money behind the game (over $400 million, per this Ars Technica report). We got some time with Vince Zampella (Head of Respawn Entertainment and Group General Manager for EA Entertainment) and Byron Beede (General Manager of Battlefield) to ask them about the mistakes learned from Battlefield 2042, the franchise’s identity, and whether there’s any truth to the leaked 100m player target.

Cronos: The New Dawn

It’s August so it’s basically spooky season, or at least, that’s what all the shops in America would like you to believe. To get into the spirit, I recently played the first two hours of Cronos: The New Dawn, the upcoming survival horror game from Bloober Team. Folks, those first two hours absolutely ripped and I am really excited to play more. I’m downloading Silent Hill 2 Remake, Dead Space, and Alan Wake 2 to tide me over until September.

Dead Take

I don’t think anyone expected Surgent Studios to release a game quite so quickly after 2024’s Tales of Kenzera: ZAU, and from the sound of things, I don’t think Surgent Studios did either. We chat to creative director Abubakar Salim about how the game got green lit, the inspiration behind it, and pulling together a who’s who of voice actors for the cast.

What We’ve Been Playing: A The Friends Per Second Podcast Edition

• Ralph finished Donkey Kong and is trying to summon the energy to play Destiny 2

• Lucy has been checking out Wheel World, Tales of the Shire and Dead Take

• Force has been playing Grounded 2 and might have sold us all on Soulframe

Show and Tell

• Ralph watched Fantastic 4, but we’re saving that convo for when Jake is back

• Lucy was enamoured with Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

• Force is learning German. Ausgezeichnet!

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Thanks for reading, folks. We appreciate you! We didn’t get round to a User question this week, but we will next time, so make sure to comment below or email us at contact@friendspersecond.com.

We’ll be back in a couple of weeks with another episode and another newsletter. Enjoy your gaming!

<3 Lucy

Hope you’re having a lovely start to your week.

Going to kick off this week’s post with a little update that the newsletter is going through some changes (positive). Truthfully, recapping every single thing we talk about over a 2hr+ long podcast is a lot more work than you’d think and it became much more of a chore than the fun accompaniment to the podcast that it was supposed to be.

There’s also something oddly harrowing about listening back to a long podcast you’ve already recorded but at 2x speed.

We’ve gone back to the drawing board and decided that the newsletter will be more of a fun “hey, there’s a new episode up” post, with some BTS, short writings and musings from the three of us and probably more than a few pet pics. We hope you like it! As always, please leave us feedback, we’re people pleasers who thrive on it.

Ralph’s only bloody gone and launched a website

It’s been a miserable few years for the games industry and for games media, with layoffs and closures abound, so we’re thankful to be able to celebrate some good news for a change. Our very own ShillUp has launched a brand new games website, and you can go check it out right now at https://thisweekinvideogames.com/!

He’s assembled a fantastic crew including Ed Tran (GameSpot, GamesHub), Maddie Agne (Paste, The Michigan Times), Austin Bolliger (SkillUp), Stu Kimball (GameSpot, SkillUp, SUPER DONK), as well as some guest columnists like Nathan Brown (EDGE Magazine) and Simon Carless (GameDiscoverCo). Sign up and support independent media!

Interview: Ghost of Yōtei

We chat to Nate Fox and Jason Connell, the co-creative directors of Ghost of Yōtei, about all the details from the State of Play. Jake asks an incredible question about Jin Sakai’s healing animation from Ghost of Tsushima, and we get a bunch of samurai movie recs to study up on.

Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream

Lucy’s played through Eriksholm, an isometric stealth game she really wanted to like more than she did. It’s beautiful, but doesn’t fulfil the promise of being a stealth game. It’s more like a puzzle game with a lot of insta-fail stealth sections.

Ralph vs Jake: Death Stranding 2

The boys are fighting (discussing politely) over Kojima’s latest. Now that they’ve both finished it, they have differing opinions on Dead Stranding 2. Lucy enjoyed what she did play, but didn’t feel a huge urge to get back to it, so considers her opinion to be truly neutral.

User question: Jake Paul’s Dad

With the recent anniversary of Batman Arkham knight, how do you guys look back on the series as a whole, and what’s your favourite Arkham game, or even just favourite super hero game of all time?

Thanks very much for your question, Mr Paul, I think we all want to replay the Arkham series now.

Send us your User Questions!

What we’ve been playing: OOH, BANANA edition

• Ralph’s been loving Donkey Kong Bananza

• Jake’s very positive on Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4

• Lucy hasn’t been playing much else other than Eriksholm to be honest

On my planet, this symbol means SHOW AND TELL

• Ralph and Jake watched Superman and dug it! The DCU is back, baby

• Lucy watched The Ugly Stepsister which fans of The Substance should definitely check out

And that does it for this week’s issue! Let us know what you make of the newsletter changes, and don’t forget to send us your User questions and feedback, we read it all.

Have a lovely week, xoxo L

We recorded that episode in-person and if you missed it, definitely go and check it out. We had the wonderful Alex Jordan from The Alters on as a guest, plus podcast goblin Tam co-hosted it with us. We chatted about what it was like for Lucy to be up on the SGF stage, our favourite reveals, and of course, all the games we were able to go hands-on with at Play Days, including Resident Evil 9.

It would be remiss of me not to mention Ralph’s incredible Expedition 33 documentary, which is a must-watch! It's incredibly insightful and more than worth the wait. Definitely queue it up.

On to this week’s episode! Unfortunately Mindseye is not good… at all. Jake played through it and doesn’t hold back. Lucy and Ralph have been playing more Magic the Gathering, and Lucy just can’t stop thinking about the Roman Empire. There are also Switch 2 impressions now that we’ve all got it in our homes, a chat with PlayerUnknown himself, Brendan Greene, and Baby Feet. You’re welcome.

Games mentioned: Resident Evil 9, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Death Stranding 2, Eriksholm, A Plague’s Tale, Mecha Break, Tony Hawk 3+4, Destiny 2: Edge of Fate, Shadow Labyrinth, Grounded 2, Tales of the Shire, Donkey Kong Bananza, Wildgate, Crimson Desert, Tears of the Kingdom

Misc. mentions: Andor, AI sleep stories, The History of Rome by Mike Duncan, Magic the Gathering, Hardcore History with Dan Carlin

Switch 2 discussion

• Nintendo Switch 2: 7 Things We TESTED - Gameranx

The Switch 2 is out! It may not be a huge generational leap like we used to get and the launch lineup is lacking, but it’s a nice piece of kit that we’ve all been enjoying playing Mario Kart World on. Jake, admittedly, slathered his in Mountain Dew and dirt, which we do not condone.

Games mentioned: Xenoblade, Pokemon Shield, Deltarune, Soulcalibur 2, Mario Kart World, Tears of the Kingdom, Diddy Kong Racing, Mario Kart 8, Cyberpunk 2077, Bravely Default, Metroid Prime 4, The Witcher 3, Yakuza 0, Switch 2 Welcome Tour, ARMS

Misc mentions:

Interview with Brendan Greene (PlayerUnknown)

Mr PUBG himself, Brendan Greene joined Ralph and Jake to chat about the journey to his breakout success with PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, his thoughts on the battle royale genre in 2025, and what’s next for him.

Games mentioned: PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, Delta Force: Black Hawk Down, America’s Army, Day-Z, Flashpoint, ARMA, Assassin’s Creed 3, CSGO, H1Z1, Dota, Apex Legends, Warzone, Red Dead Redemption, ARK, Artemis, Preface, Prologue, Minecraft, Euro Truck Simulator

User questions - Seth Smith and Marcus Johnston

A cracking couple of musical questions this week. Sure, this may be a video game podcast, but when we’re asked about our musical tastes, we just can’t stop, so forgive us for these extended answers!

Seth Smith: Friends, are there any songs from games you would recommend to bring joy to a little one?

Marcus Johnston: What are all of your bands or artists that you listen to that you don’t talk about or people might not know/expect?

Games mentioned: Yakuza 0, Final Fantasy 7, Super Mario Odyssey, Metal Gear Solid 3, Persona 5, Persona 4, Metaphor ReFantazio, Guardians of the Galaxy, Gears of War,

Misc. mentions: Vanilla Ice, Daft Punk, HEALTH, James Gunn’s Superman, Superman Red Son, Carpenter Brut, NIN, Depeche Mode, Ghost, Misfits, Foo Fighters, Nickelback, Creed, Audioslave, Jeff Buckley, Tool, Placebo, Mat Zo, Andrew Bayer, Caligula’s Horse, Black Flag, Misfits, Green Day, The Carpenters, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Jay-Z, Nas, Illmatic, A Tribe Called Quest, Eric B and Rakim, Biggie, U2, INXS, Madonna, Cher, Bon Jovi, Tokio Hotel, Rancid, Distillers, Slipknot, Tenacious D, Metallica, Beastie Boys, Joey Valance and Brae, Rage Against The Machine, Mylo, Beck, Gunship, Gorillaz, Ween, Lofi Lia, Slumbermon,

Send Us Your User Quetions!

If you’ve got burning questions you’d like us to answer on the show, email us or drop them in the comments below!

What we’ve been playing

• Ralph’s been heads down on the Expedition 33 video, but managed to play a bunch of Switch 2 and Magic the Gathering Arena

• For his sins, Jake completed Mindseye. He also played The Alters, which was much better

• Lucy raves about the Consume Me demo and had a blast with Baby Steps

Games mentioned: Marvel Snap, Final Fantasy, Mafia 3, Uncharted, Watch Dogs, Everywhere, Roblox, Minecraft, Fortnite, Saints Row, Death Stranding, QWOP, Elden Ring, Please Touch The Artwork 2, Please Watch The Artwork, Disco Elysium, Persona, FBC: Firebreak, Left 4 Dead, Deep Rock Galactic, Helldivers 2, Powerwash Simulator

Misc. mentions: Baby feet, Spider-Man, Sandman

Show and tell

And to cap off this episode, a quick bout of Show and Tell.

• Ralph has been watching Andor and The Rehearsal

• Jake watched The Materialists

• Lucy's been on a reading kick, but managed to get to the cinema and catch Friendship

Movies mentioned: Rebel Moon, Uncut Gems, Past Lives

Misc. mentions: Obi-Wan show, Nathan For You, I Think You Should Leave, Daily Show

Thanks for reading and for the lovely comments on the show this week, we really appreciate it. Catch you next time! xoxo - L

Hope everyone’s been keeping well, and apologies for the late edition. It’s been a pretty hectic time so the newsletter had to take a brief pause, but we’re back now.

A lot’s happened!

We hit the 69th episode of the podcast which was very nice, spoke to Andy Serkis about Expedition 33, Lucy and Jake went to Finland, Ralph went to Kojima Productions, and new games have been coming out at rapid pace. It’s been full on, and we’re thankful you’re here for the ride.

We’re getting ready to head to LA for Summer Geoff Fest and Play Days, where we will, of course, record our yearly in-person special. Will the ironing board make a reappearance? You’ll have to tune in to find out.

On this episode, we talk about our dream Elden Ring movie cast, Randy Pitchford’s latest comments, Marathon, and we talk to the FBC: Firebreak team all about the upcoming co-op Remedyverse shooter. We genuinely thought this was going to be a shorter episode than usual, but here we are.

• Official Expedition 33 merch - IGN Store

Games mentioned: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Max Payne, Getaway, Gears of War,

Misc. mentions: Maximo Park, Nine Inch Nails

Video Game Movie Adaptation Discussion

• Clash of Clans Series Brings the Legendary Video Game Franchise to Life - Netflix

• ‘Riders Republic’ Sets Movie Adaptation With ‘Bad Boys’ Duo Adil & Bilall Directing For Gaumont & Ubisoft – Cannes Market - Deadline

• Alex Garland Confirmed to Direct Live-Action ‘Elden Ring’ Movie From A24 and Bandai Namco - Variety

We recorded this shortly after the news broke that Alex Garland will be directing an Elden Ring movie for A24, but that’s not the only game that’s getting the big screen treatment. We did an impromptu fan cast of the movie and sincerely apologise if we accidentally manifested Jared Leto playing Patches.

Games mentioned: Clash of Clans, Riders Republic, Need For Speed, Gran Turismo, Halo, Minecraft, FBC: Firebreak

Misc mentions: Civil War, Ex Machina, Annihilation, 28 Days Later, Sunshine, Devs, Vaati Vidya, Chernobyl, Andor, Eastenders, The Sixth Sense, Avatar

Randy Pitchford and the Price of Games

Sometimes I think about posting but then I think about this motivational picture of Idris Elba and then I simply do not post.

Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford probably could have used a link to this before he crashed headfirst into the $80 game discourse with “If you’re a real fan, you’ll find a way to make it happen.” Needless to say, it didn’t exactly go down well.

(Fun fact, I wrote this intro before listening back to the episode to grab links, etc., and forgot that I made this Idris Elba joke verbally, but now you get to enjoy it in visual form too)

• Randy Pitchford Tweet

• The Game Informer tweet

• Borderlands 4 Boss Randy Pitchford Addresses ‘Real Fans’ Tweet Controversy: ‘Nobody Likes Being Taken for Granted and It Was Not My Intent’ - IGN

• Tom Cruise eating popcorn

Games mentioned: Borderlands, Metal Gear Solid, Clash of Clans

Misc. mentions: McDonald’s, Grainger Games, GameStop, Sinners, Tom Cruise, Mission Impossible

Marathon Discussion

Another tough week for Bungie as the studio was accused of plagiarism by an artist named Antireal. The receipts were pretty damning, and the studio rapidly addressed the situation on a livestream, saying that they would begin a review of the game’s art, blaming the plagiarism on a former employee. Friend of the pod Paul Tassi reported that morale at the studio ‘is in freefall’ as the hits just keep coming for the team.

• Antireal’s posts about the art

• Bungie confirms it stole art once again, will undertake a 'thorough review' of Marathon assets - PC Gamer

• New ‘Marathon’ Info: Bungie Morale, Launch Worries And Changing Plans - Forbes

• PlayStation Executive Jade Raymond Leaves Studio She Founded - Bloomberg

Games mentioned: Marathon, Arc Raiders, Destiny, Concord, Fairgame$, The Last of Us, Spider-Man

Misc. mentions: Moomins

FBC Firebreak Interview with Mike Kayatta (Game Director) and Anssi Hyytiäinen (Lead Designer) and Impressions

Jake and Lucy took a quick jaunt to Finland to visit Remedy, makers of Max Payne, Alan Wake, and Control. Its latest game, FBC: Firebreak, is a cooperative shooter set in its connected universe, and is overall a pretty fun time! They chatted to the team and shared their impressions on the game with Ralph, who sadly couldn’t make it because he’d just been visiting some guy called Hideo Kojima? Never heard of him.

Games mentioned: Max Payne, FBC Firebreak, Helldivers 2, Back For Blood, Left 4 Dead, Warhammer, Powerwash Simulator, Overcooked, Deep Rock Galactic, Control, Aliens Fire Team Elite

Misc. mentions: Mythic Quest

User Questions

Big thanks to Izy from Texas and Samurxai for their user questions this week! We loved reminiscing about our favourite Game Over screens and thinking about which games we’d like to live in as NPCs. If you’ve got a burning question for us, hit the button below to email it over or drop it in the comments section.

Games mentioned: Gollum, Batman Arkham, Prince of Persia, Yoshi’s Story, Metal Gear Solid, Max Payne, Mass Effect, Alan Wake 2, Outer Wilds, Dark Souls, Resident Evil, The Last of Us, Hotline Miami, Bloodborne, Skyrim, Expedition 33, Cyberpunk 2077, GTAV, Stardew Valley, Animal Crossing, Dishonored, City of Heroes, Spyro the Dragon, Super Mario Sunshine, The Sims

Misc. mentions: Better Man

Email us your user questions!

If you’ve got burning questions you’d like us to answer on the show, email us or drop them in the comments below!

What we’ve been playing

• Ralph finished Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and loved it

• Jake previewed Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4 and replayed MGS 3

• Lucy quacked the case in Duck Detective 2 and replayed Lies of P

Games mentioned: Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, Nier Automata, Metal Gear Solid 3: Delta, Proverbs, Dead As Disco, Balatro, Marathon, Lies of P Overture, Bloodborne, DOOM The Dark Ages, Elden Ring

Misc. mentions: Great British Bake Off, LilAggy and Parkenharbor, Bingo Brawlers, Second Wind video about DOOM, North of the Border’s DOOM video, Nerd Forge,

Show and tell

• Ralph watched Mission Impossible 2 (positive) and Gladiator 2 (negative)

• Jake has also been enjoying the works of Ethan Hunt, rewatching Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning

• Lucy loved Better Man

Games mentioned: COD Warzone

Movies mentioned: Mission Impossible, Ballerina

Misc. mentions: The Liver King Doc on Netflix

And that about does it! As a reminder, the next episode will be a little delayed as we’ll be at Summer Game Fest, but it’ll be a packed one as we’ll have all our impressions on the games we’ve played as well as the showcase.

Thanks for reading xoxo L