4:00

So do check that out if you have not

4:02

seen it. I believe it's only in video form.

4:04

I don't know, I don't think that's being uploaded

4:06

to audio podcasts, but if

4:09

you just check our YouTube page or

4:11

ign.com, you will find that.

4:14

So let's just get into

4:16

it here. I wanna talk about,

4:18

I just wanna go like basically game

4:20

by game with more

4:22

time spent than we had in that

4:24

quick 30 minute post show right afterwards.

4:26

Go hit all the highlights and then

4:28

talk about some of the stuff outside

4:31

of the showcase, Xbox things of course, because

4:33

I was at the Play Days event where

4:35

I played a couple of Xbox exclusives that

4:38

I've been really looking forward to. Miranda

4:40

got to sit down with the coalition and

4:43

talk a little Gears of War E-Day. So

4:46

let's just start at the top with

4:50

Black Ops 6, Costella, you got to go

4:52

to an event right before

4:54

the Xbox Showcase or shortly

4:56

before. And you even

4:59

got to play a little multi, you got shown

5:01

the campaign little zombies and you got to get

5:03

your hands on a little bit of multiplayer. So

5:05

you do have a full preview written in video

5:07

on IGN that I certainly encourage people to watch,

5:09

but let us know your thoughts here on what

5:12

you saw from all three pillars

5:14

of Black Ops 6. Yeah,

5:17

it was, well, first I

5:19

realized that you weren't gonna be there. So I was

5:21

like, oh God, I gotta carry out the campaign expectations

5:23

here. So

5:27

that was something that I was a little bit nervous about, but it

5:29

looks really interesting. The story actually picks up

5:31

after Black Ops 2. So

5:34

we got the official timeline

5:37

here, which I can bring up in just

5:39

a second, which is very helpful,

5:41

but also very strange because then people are

5:43

like, wait, how exactly does this

5:45

work in terms of like continuing the story?

5:47

What about these returning characters, which I don't

5:49

wanna spoil for anyone, so I'm not going

5:51

to, but the official order is Black Ops

5:53

1, Cold War, Black Ops 2,

5:55

then Black Ops 6, which is this latest one,

5:58

Black Ops 4, and Black Ops 2. three,

6:00

which is very interesting, but I know there's a

6:02

lot. What if the zombies

6:05

campaign picks up directly after cold

6:07

war? So there's, it's just like,

6:09

why you

6:12

need a time machine to sort through all of this.

6:14

Yes. Yeah. And I think a lot's going to

6:17

be explained in this campaign, which is very interesting.

6:19

Um, also, I thought it was very weird that

6:21

since this is black ops six, which is set

6:23

in 1991, they're also bringing out

6:25

the most advanced movement tech of call of

6:28

duty. And yeah, of course, there's not like

6:30

advanced warfare, but in terms of like finally

6:32

bringing it up to modern standards, it's

6:34

like, okay, well, how do you, I actually asked Miles

6:36

Leslie, I was like, how do you explain this? And

6:38

he was like, well, you know, we kind of

6:41

tried to explain it as them going rogue.

6:43

So they have to utilize whatever

6:45

movement and like tech they didn't have before. So

6:47

this is them just, you know, figuring out their

6:49

stride. And I was like, yeah, okay, sure. What?

6:54

Yeah, the campaign looks really interesting. There's you

6:56

get back into the little safe room thing

6:58

where you can do puzzles. There are new

7:00

dialogue trees with companions, which is going to

7:02

be very interesting. I like this

7:05

trend of call of duty campaigns kind of

7:07

going beyond just a call of duty campaign

7:09

where you're like, Oh, you're going to sneak through

7:11

this. It's first person shooter that it's like, no,

7:14

there's actually different elements like dialogue trees. You can

7:16

actually, um, talk

7:18

to your companions and they'll bring up various

7:20

Easter eggs or refer back to like previous

7:23

games within the timeline, which is really cool.

7:25

Uh, and then it's, it's

7:28

just, there's going to be more like open world

7:30

ish things. Like you don't go straight to a

7:32

mission. You can do other objectives along

7:34

the way. And also there are different

7:37

ways just to, um, complete an objective,

7:39

which was really cool. So that

7:41

means I don't have to do sneaky, sneaky stuff all the time,

7:43

which is great. Um, yeah. And multiplayer,

7:45

it's weird. I got to play multiplayer, but

7:48

I'm not allowed to go into in

7:50

depth about what I really saw, even though they

7:52

have like the whole movement breakdown, which is exactly

7:54

what we saw. Uh, I

7:56

will say that I think a lot of casual

7:58

players, especially on console. are going to

8:01

struggle a bit with the new movement tech and it's

8:03

going to be a bit of a learning curve. I

8:07

think classic players are going to hate it, but I

8:09

think they'll get used to it. It's just one of

8:11

those things of like, during the

8:13

preview, it was actually funny, a lot of the people who are playing were like,

8:15

oh yeah, it was kind of hard to get used to. And I was

8:18

like, oh, I play Apex. So for me, that's been there,

8:20

right? So it's one of those things that I think a

8:22

lot of call duty players are going to have to adjust.

8:25

But yeah, I'm actually very excited to

8:27

review the multiplayer because I love going

8:29

into depth about these things and comparisons.

8:31

So yeah, I'm

8:33

very excited for this. I've always liked black ops

8:35

games more than modern warfare. So I was already

8:38

excited. Yeah. And for

8:40

my part, I hope that the calendar

8:42

aligns. I would definitely like to review the

8:44

campaign this year because which I've done in

8:46

a number of years, but not the last

8:49

few because I'll be honest, I

8:51

haven't really been interested in the

8:53

last few, certainly the last couple

8:55

campaigns, Vanguard, got poor word

8:58

of mouth. I never bothered. What

9:01

was last year again? Oh, yeah, modern warfare

9:03

three got really poor word of mouth on

9:05

the campaign didn't bother with that. And

9:08

then modern warfare two was

9:10

good. I didn't end up finishing it. There was

9:13

some super frustrating part towards

9:15

like the latter third of it. For

9:17

me, this is easily the most excited I've been

9:19

about a call duty campaign in

9:22

half a decade, because five years

9:24

ago was the modern warfare reboot

9:26

modern warfare one rebooted. And

9:29

that was an excellent campaign. I

9:31

really, really like that. So

9:33

yeah, I'm, I'm optimistic on this

9:36

one. And Miranda, you you play plenty of

9:38

Call of Duty as well. You

9:40

didn't get a chance to see it up close

9:42

as Stella did. And but I'm

9:44

curious your thoughts as somebody that does play plenty

9:46

of Call of Duty. Yeah, gonna

9:48

be honest. I'm also

9:50

the person who only plays the campaign

9:52

because work says so. And

9:55

not because I necessarily always want to play them. And

9:58

so since my obligations for the that have

10:00

mostly lessened over the years. I'm pretty

10:02

excited to see what Stella was saying

10:05

about the multiplayer movement, like just to

10:07

actually figure that out for myself. I

10:10

am a console player for Call of Duty mostly

10:12

because I like having the upper hand, which is

10:14

hard to say, but like, you know, on PC

10:16

it's like way harder. But on

10:19

console, I'm just like, move over guys, just

10:21

let me lead the way. So

10:23

I'm definitely interested to see how that's going to

10:25

feel once we get into it. I definitely also,

10:27

one of the people who is like, let me

10:29

get me my snacks. Let me

10:32

have a Call of Duty weekend that like

10:34

launch weekend, everyone's there, everyone's having a good

10:36

time. There's like a really great range of

10:38

skill there. So it's just like

10:40

kind of the best time to get in. And with it

10:42

being on game pass, it's going to be even easier to

10:44

hop in immediately. So I think there's

10:46

gonna be hopefully even more people at launch

10:49

playing if they do play on Xbox, and they've,

10:51

you know, maybe figured out over the years. So

10:53

I guess we'll see how folks receive those changes.

10:56

And I personally do like having

10:58

changes to the, the systems

11:01

that they always have. Like there's a lot of

11:03

expectation there for it to be run and gun

11:05

easy, quick time to kill. And I kind of

11:07

want some of that still just so you can

11:09

Moonman army the thing that I like doing that

11:11

if you can. But as

11:15

far as the campaign goes,

11:17

I'm I don't know, mixed.

11:20

We'll see, I guess. I know.

11:22

That was quite the pause there. That was a very

11:24

telling pause. And so it's, it's because

11:27

I shared notes with her and we both

11:29

had the same reaction to one particular thing.

11:32

When they bring in historical figures, which

11:34

they have, obviously, and this is a

11:36

fictional story, right? Like this isn't going

11:38

to go over the actual stuff that happened in

11:40

1991 and through those time periods.

11:42

But I think there's still a lot

11:45

of relevance to politically

11:48

what happened around that time. So it's always a

11:50

little like, oh, I've already

11:52

talked a little bit about like, no, no, no, we're not going

11:54

to get 9 11. Like, you know, it's like, that's obvious

11:57

a little bit later, but like that's still like

11:59

involved. with all of this. And so it's a

12:02

lot, like, especially if you're someone in, I think, all

12:04

of our age is like, we remember 9 11.

12:07

Like, I remember where I was, and like all

12:09

of these things. So them taking the fictional approach

12:11

is good. But the other stuff that just kind

12:14

of gets like, Oh, look, they're these people that

12:16

you may remember from history. It's like, Oh, that's

12:18

a little weird. But yeah,

12:20

for me, I actually find that really

12:22

interesting. I want to hear the stories

12:25

that they're going to tell. There's a

12:27

lot to dive into at

12:30

within that time period. And

12:32

the people that you see, like you see

12:34

Bill Clinton, you see George Bush, you see, you

12:37

know, the people who they were at

12:39

odds with during that time from other

12:41

countries and a lot

12:43

of very important historical events,

12:46

you brought up 9 11, but just everything

12:48

that happened during that time. It gives

12:52

the the creators a lot to dive

12:54

into. And I hope

12:57

they say something interesting with whatever story they

12:59

wind up telling here. Yeah,

13:02

and I'm curious to play that and figure out what

13:04

it is. Yeah, I mean, the

13:06

Black Ops one, which to this day

13:08

is still my favorite Call of Duty

13:10

campaign slightly edging out the

13:13

original Modern Warfare Call of Duty

13:15

for Modern Warfare. That

13:17

had a whole cool thing with JFK in it. And

13:20

that was that was super neat, the way

13:23

they handled it. So yeah, I'm optimistic here.

13:25

It's remember that they've had an extra year.

13:28

Normally the Call of Duty development cycle is

13:30

is three years for each of the three

13:32

studios. But they've had a

13:34

fourth year for Treyarch here and

13:36

Ravens doing the campaign is a then

13:39

Raven did the last Black

13:41

Ops campaign of Cold War. So

13:44

I am very optimistic here. And Miranda, I'm glad

13:47

you mentioned Game Pass and just reminded us of

13:49

that because we're gonna I'm gonna talk

13:51

more about that later. But that's

13:53

a big deal, certainly for Xbox players

13:56

who might save themselves

13:58

70 bucks this year, the people it

14:00

by every year. If you're subbing to Game Pass, you

14:02

are getting this game right in

14:05

there. Now, I'm sure there

14:07

will be some ways to monetize outside

14:09

of that, but at least you're going to get

14:11

to play this game day one on Game Pass.

14:14

So that is

14:16

definitely something to look forward to for

14:18

Xbox players. Next,

14:21

I'm going to go ahead. So I'm

14:23

sorry. Call of Duty,

14:26

honestly, they could say about this. Yeah,

14:28

I actually got to interview Miles

14:31

and I think it was John Zuck.

14:33

I think I'm going to get his

14:35

name right. So

14:37

I did ask about how do you feel

14:40

about Game Pass? Are you expecting a bigger

14:42

player base? And of

14:44

course, Miles was very upfront and said he doesn't deal

14:46

with any of the Game Pass stuff. He's like, I

14:48

make the game. I think it's really cool. I think

14:50

overall as a developer, I've been doing this for 20

14:52

years. If I can get the game into more people's hands,

14:55

that's all I care about. How we

14:57

do that, they're really smart business people that are going to figure

14:59

that out. But right now, I think

15:01

Game Pass is a cool opportunity so we

15:03

can get new zombies players. We can get

15:05

new multiplayer players. We also get new campaign

15:07

players. They can come in, become Call of

15:09

Duty fans and selfishly also Black Ops fans

15:12

and get them interested where they can start

15:14

to have that discourse. So yeah,

15:17

while they don't directly deal with

15:19

the Game Pass initiative,

15:22

they're very excited for it, which is really cool

15:24

to hear. And I love that he was very

15:27

upfront about like, yeah, no selfishly, we want people

15:29

to be specifically Black Ops fans. Take

15:33

that Infinity Ward and sledgehammer. So

15:35

internal studio rivalry, nothing wrong with

15:37

that. All right,

15:40

let's go. So I'm basically going chronologically

15:43

here through the Xbox

15:45

showcase. We're not going to hit every single game,

15:47

but definitely want to hit the highlights. And

15:49

the game after Black Ops 6,

15:52

which opened the show, it's worth noting too,

15:54

that this is the first

15:57

time that Black Ops, that Call

15:59

of Duty has been revealed. revealed

16:01

on Xbox's stage since the Xbox

16:03

360 generation. So if

16:05

you're looking to rekindle

16:07

the good old days and have the

16:10

new days be the good days, that's

16:12

a good start. Now that that's

16:15

going to forever be a thing, Call of Duty will

16:17

always debut, or at least you can say,

16:19

it will never debut on a Sony stage ever again.

16:21

You can pretty much be sure of

16:23

that. So after

16:25

Black Ops 6 was

16:27

a reveal it was pretty

16:30

heavily rumored ahead of time,

16:33

but no less cool when we actually

16:35

finally got to see it. I

16:37

want to hear from Destin first on this before the

16:40

rest of us inevitably start. Cause I think we all,

16:43

Stella's the new Doom fan, newest

16:46

Doom fan and the rest of us love it. So Destin,

16:49

Doom the Dark Ages, we've got

16:52

a shield saw, we've got

16:54

a gun that crunches

16:57

up skulls to launch

16:59

out.