Total Playtime

Alice is away this week, so three grown men get to sit around and puzzle over a particularly baffling week of news items and become steadily less certain that we were describing reality. There were some positives: Nate got to let a year’s worth of Hearthstone annoyance off his chest, Brendy got to drop an unexpected Halo deep cut, and I got to talk about a nice cat that I met. All solid therapeutic behaviours. Plus: subscribing to Accomplished Shootsman Magazine, earning money for being meat in the room, and surviving the horrors of modern capitalism. You can listen right here on this page, or find us in many of the places you get your podcasts . Our music is by God Ribbon, our art is by Marsh Davies and our editing is by Alix Attenborough. The podcast only exists thanks to those who subscribe to Jank (and previously funded us on Patreon) who are additionally rewarded with an extra episode every other week dedicated to things like our videogame book club and the developing trials of Games Satan . Subscribe today and get us closer to being able to afford Brendy full-time . Links! Blizzard announced a bunch of stuff at Blizzon including a Starcraft FPS that is not a service game , World of Warcraft Forever and new levels of Hearthstone depravity . PhysInt is coming to Xbox because Sony dropped it for being too expensive . Here’s how to unlock the Skyrim companion which is an IKEA bookcase voiced by Matt Berry , which was made by Kinggath Creations . IKEA already made some Xbox furniture . The Breaking Benjamin guitarist will complain about his Fallout 4 mod on stage until the user rating improves. Here’s the battle they soundtracked in Halo 2 . Post Malone played his $2m Magic: The Gathering card . We played Wardogs without spending any money . Brendy has previously written about Foxhole . Games! Wardogs does not contain any actual dogs, sorry. Starcraft Ghost never came out . World of Warcraft . Hearthstone . Operation Flashpoint . Battlefield . Foxhole . Recommendations! The Nice Guys , 1670 on Netflix , and The Employees .

Total Playtime is the official Jank podcast, funded entirely by our paying subscribers (and formerly our backers on Patreon ). This week’s episode is free, but subscribers get additional episodes every other week. You may join them by subscribing here , and you can find all previous episodes here . For the first time in a while all four of us could make this recording, and it's a free-to-all news episode to boot. This meant we had to address the twin issues of Gamescom and an abundance of GTA 6 footage, both from vegetable-themed hackers and latterly Rockstar themselves via an extended preview on Netflix. The former is a much more interesting discussion point, although not particularly impressive unless it later transpires it was the previous GTA hacker doing it with even less technology this time . I am also able to share some limited insights from Gamescom, although not all that much because I only saw three games and one of them I can't write about. Please support Jank so that we have enough money to send Brendy next year and have him report on all the very weirdest games on the different international stages. Plus: Nate's utterly inevitable Bane-reciting-Shakespeare impersonation, the tedium of hat management, giving an octopus in a mech suit a New Jersey accent and fleeting discussion of some games we played, like we're a videogame podcast or something. Our art is by Marsh Davies, our music is by God Ribbon, our editing is by Alix Attenborough and our existence is thanks to paying subscribers of Jank: thanks for making the podcast happen. Links! The new GTA looks like GTA . The Cyberleek manifesto is pretty cringe. Google's Project Genie made share prices go down because the market doesn't know anything. The hacker cashed out $200,000 which barely seems worth the effort of being indefinitely detained . Here's everything from Gamescom Opening Night Live . Brendy reviewed Vholume . Games! Exodus , Vholume , Star Wars: Zero Company , Desktop Explorer , Fable (2027) . Recommendations! Robot Dreams by Sara Varon , Murderbot on Apple TV, Czarface meets Frankie Pulitzer (specifically track 6 ) and using bleach-soaked paper towel to remove black mould spots.

Total Playtime is the official Jank podcast, funded entirely by our paying subscribers (and formerly our backers on Patreon ). This week’s episode is free, but subscribers get additional episodes every other week. You may join them by subscribing here , and you can find all previous episodes here . Alice and Nate were both unavailable this week, prompting Brendy and I to realise the crushing shortage of local whimsy in our lives. Our daily existence is simply devoid of rural oddities or freestyle whimsy that lends itself to a banging cold open, so we ended up with several minutes of middle-aged car chat which Brendy heroically drags back to a gaming reference. Those matters aside we turn to the matters of the week, chiefly Saber’s CEO lashing out at a departed writer who handled it by having a great night out that ended in karaoke, which is the sort of karmic vengeance we should all aspire to. Plus: good philanthropy yet with concerns about whether philanthropy can actually be good, the ongoing destructive instincts of large corporations, and big walks with medium guns. Our music is by God Ribbon, our art is by Marsh Davies and our editing is once again by Alix Attenborough. Thanks to backers of Jank (formerly on Patreon) for enabling the podcast to exist. You can send your favourite CEO faceplants and vintage shooter recommendations to totalplaytimepod@gmail.com, or simply comment on this article. Links! Stella Sacco said she'd been kicked from Rideshare Stimulator and replaced with genAI , something which is now reflected on the Steam page . Matthew Karch responded poorly and subsequently apologised ; Stella went to karaoke . The battle continues on LinkedIn which is OK because you shouldn’t go there anyway. Thimbleweed Park 2 is being funded by this one rich guy who liked the first one. Oxenfree developer Night School is closing five years after they were bought by Netflix . It would appear that Amazon is buying rare books in order to destroy them , part of a wider trend of AI firms destroying books . Games! Rideshare “Stimulator” , Hell Let Loose , Hell Let Loose: Vietnam , Verdun , Day of Infamy , Big Walk . Recommendations! Steve Rosenberg’s Reading Russia , and Tom Wolfe’s The New Journalism .

It’s a free-to-all episode this week, so Alice, Nate and myself turned ourselves to the major issues of the day: Xboxes are really expensive, how a Skyrim username error can get you wrongly imprisoned for soliciting minors, a new Thimbleweed Park and a very detailed explanation of how good the Space Marine x Helldivers 2 partnership is. Join us for a detailed overview of the Astra Militarum, a half-remembered summary of the Xbox P&L and a fleeting cameo from Alice’s dog. Plus: children who chew on cigars from birth, engaging worm protocol, and clown husbandry. Our music is by God Ribbon, our art is by Marsh Davies and this week our editing is by Dave of the Sonic The Comic podcast who did a banger job even with limited guidance. Thanks to backers of Jank (formerly on Patreon) for enabling the podcast to exist; if you sign up for Jank then you get an extra podcast every fortnight which will soon include Season 2 of Text Adventure . You can send comments and suggestions of Space Marine deep lore to totalplaytimepod@gmail.com, or simply comment on this article. Links! Xboxes are now incredibly expensive in the UK and EU . Xbox had a big revenue drop but Microsoft did just fine. Brendy says don’t call it a reset . Double Fine had to lay people off . Rebekah at Kotaku summarised how hard it would be to reach a billion people a day. The Space Marine Legendary Warbond is out next week. Ron Gilbert announced Thimbleweed Park 2 and it is neither sequel nor preque l but Alice is excited regardless. An innocent man spent 18 months in prison because the police got his Skyrim name wrong . Clown husbandry . RIP Tusko . Games! Thimbleweed Park 2 . Helldivers 2 . Age of Empires 2: The Three Kingdoms . The Mermaid Mask . Wax Heads . Truck-kun is Supporting Me from Another World?! Recommendations! Strange Aeons reads Clown Husbandry . The Mean Time perform Your Monster: The Beast Inside . Josienne Clark’s Errors Tour .

This week it’s a free episode available to all, in which our four hosts gather to judge the news of the week - chiefly, Bethesda’s smoke-bomb declaration of Fallout 5 in an effort to distract from laying off a number of people who would have made it; Sony’s abandonment of discs as a storage medium and EA’s correct prediction of the World Cup final. If that all sounds a little dull, don’t worry, Nate naturally and effortlessly channeled it into pornographic takes of classic Gothic novels. Plus: the four male hobbies, a Henry Cavill origin story and headphones made out of eldritch meat. Our art (now feat. Brendy) is by Marsh Davies, our music is by God Ribbon and our editing is by Alix Attenborough. The podcast only exists thanks to those who subscribe to Jank (and previously backed it on Patreon , which will endure for one more month). Links! The Trojan Horse worked until it didn’t . Bethesda announced that it is making Fallout 5 which wasn’t fooling anyone . Obsidian missed their New Vegas bonus due to a single Metacritic point . Alice reviewed Dungeon Crawler Carl and people got cross about it, so now she has to review the next two books as well. Sony is giving up on physical discs , which is bad news because they have a history of delisting digital purchases . Microsoft has a plan for converting Discs2Digital . EA correctly predicted the World Cup again . Nate did not imagine the psychic pig; he was called Mystic Marcus but has not been seen since 2022 and so must be considered missing, presumed bacon. Messi was vanquished by the baby he once bathed . Peter Serafinowicz is really excited about being in the Elden Ring movie . Remember to switch off your poison sockets . Alice subjected innocent people to Brian Butterfield’s Christmas Pizza . Look Around You . Here’s the Jank review of The Incident At Galley House . Games ! The Incident At Galley House is a glow up of Type Help and here’s how that happened . The Mermaid Mask . Hypogea . Recommendations! Chinatown , Widow’s Bay , Beef , DW Documentaries .

Total Playtime is now the official Jank podcast, and is produced through the munificence of our paying subscribers (and formerly our backers on Patreon ). This week’s episode is free, but subscribers get additional episodes every other week. You may join them by subscribing here , and you can find all previous episodes here . This week we started recording mere hours after Xbox started firing people, so we didn’t have the full despair reserves to draw on but we managed to discuss it anyway. We also mourned the loss of the corporeal, as represented by Sony’s announcement they’re ceasing disc production, and celebrated the spiritual, as represented by Alice’s potentially magical waspman. There’s also an exclusive tease of an upcoming Jank article, and it’s right at the start so you don’t even have to keep listening – although of course you should because there’s so much to learn here about Nate discovering horny Marvel artwork. Plus: getting vouched for by a non-naughty priest, drinking a pint of wasps, piracy for the greater good, wholesome role models for 40-year-old men having feelings, and giggle-based social deduction. Our music is by God Ribbon, our editing is by Alix Attenborough, and our art is by Marsh Davies - and now freshly updated to add a tiny image of Brendy to your pod-listening device. Thanks to our backers on Patreon and Jank for enabling the podcast to exist. You can send feedback and your own preferred social insect suggestions to totalplaytimepod@gmail.com , or simply comment on this article. Links! The 'Physical' edition of GTAVI costs £70 and won't have a disc . Bees are worshipped in Manchester . Schism! Schism! Schism! Hit Points on GTA 6 . Nick Harkway’s Angelmaker . Sony are discontinuing dics . Unfortunately Sony also want you to know that you don't own digital things . Xbox has the chance to do the funniest thing ever , if they weren't still busy deciding who to fire . What fate our games ? Arkane has the benefit of formidablé employment legislation so their future is uncertain . You can’t fire Ted Gill because he quit , and the Subnautica devs are all getting a bonus because the Krafton CEO took legal advice from ChatGPT . When Captain America swings his mighty dick . Brendy reviewed Wall-E (2008) . Crate and Crowbar discussed 007 First Light . Here is Nirvana The Band The Show singing game titles to the Wii shop music . Games! Hot Wheels Unlimited . 007 First Light . Wall-E . Meccha Chameleon . Prop Hunt . Recommendations! Nirvana The Band The Show The Movie . The Devils . Get a Raspberry Pi . The Drain Unblockers .

Total Playtime is a weekly podcast about PC games, formerly funded by Patreon and now part of Jank. This is a free episode, but premium episodes are published every two weeks and are only available to paying subscribers. You can join them over here . The prodigal dad returns! Yes, Brendy finally got enough sleep to return to podcasting with his newly minted As A Father Of A Daughter viewpoint, meaning that we are now tied in a dead heat between parents and what I’ll generously call “free spirits”. There was too much news this week, to the point where we even snuck in some commentary about Kier Starmer. It’s only brief, though, as we move on to considering the social media ban and the associated elevated risk of teens becoming cool hackers, the head of AI who thinks generative AI is bullshit, and what was at the time the latest bad news for Xbox although characteristically they’ve pulled some more out since. Plus: the Steam Machine, Nate’s narc child, and please don’t touch my grass. Please ask your doctor if having a baby is right for you. Thanks to all the Patreon and Jank backers who made this happen, the podcast would not exist without you. Thanks also to Alix Attenborough for the editing, Marsh Davies for the art and God Ribbon for the music. Submit parenting advice of any quality to totalplaytimepod@gmail.com or in the comments below. Links ! The UK is banning social media for under 16s and the gaming impact is somewhat unclear . Poncle are 'reviewing' their collab with Epic . The former head of Take Two's AI division says it's 'poisoning the well' , and a bunch of game devs hate it . Ed Zitron has many thousands of words about why OpenAI is full of shit . Tommy Thonson covers the good AI in games . A superficial level look suggests an AI disclosure on your game means 60% fewer reviews . What happened at State of Unreal . Here’s GI.biz on rising genAI costs and what uses it actually has in game dev . The Steam Machine is pretty pricey but it’s okay, you can’t buy one anyway. Here’s James’ review . Valve probably wanted it to be $750 which it turns out is like £570. Claude Guillemot and Bobby Prince recently died. The Microsoft gaming closure rumours will continue until morale improves. Big John Valorant Pub Pop Up Games ! Iron Nest and Beware of the Cartographer! Recommendations ! Gelatelli Mini Sticks Double , The Pitt , The Bells of Westminster , For Whom The Spell Tolls , and Mr Beast’s Beef Lumps.

This week's episode is late, for which we apologise and blame Geoff Keighley because let's face it, he's the one pulling all the strings these days. Jonty was still sat in meeting rooms in LA when this episode was recorded and Brendy is still doing dad things, so it fell to Alice and Nate to judge the output of a week's worth of game showcases despite really wanting to just talk about their dogs instead. Thankfully they were both able to struggle through in the face of, once again, entirely too many games. Thrill to Alice's judgement of Geoff Keighley's fashion choices, Nate's denunciation of the crippling lack of ambition in aquarium simulation, and collective theorising on gender division in circus skills. Plus: finally getting a plausible dinosaur survival game, Commander Riker Isolation, and collectibles for a WWI Lego game. Shout out the Pope, you da real Warhammer 40,000 (words). This episode is free to all, but it only exists thanks to the generous backing of our Patreons and our partners on Jank.cool , to whom we are eternally grateful. Thanks also to God Ribbon for the music, Marsh Davies for the artwork and Alix Attenborough for the editing. If you are Games Methusula, present your receipts at totalplaytimepod@gmail.com . Links! You can find all the trailers on gamesrecap.io . Nate was referring to PC Gamer's guide to Total Warhammer 40k although if you're clicking that link post-release it'll be the review because of SEO. You can find the playable... experience of 1666: Amsterdam on Steam . Here's the pitch for Magicians: The Devil's Deal . Sega is using AI to make the new Crazy Taxi and they are not particularly bothered about it . She Was Such A Good Horse is a very good studio name , not that fussed about the game though. Games! Apple Crumble . 1666: Amsterdam . Star Trek: Shadow Frontier . Total War Warhammer 40,000 . Alien Isolation 2 . The Lost Wild . Metro 2039 . Wife of War . Magicians: The Devil's Deal . Halo: Campaign Evolved . Crazy Taxi: World Tour . Bancho the Chef . Dave The Diver: In The Jungle . Vivarium . Hack '95 . Pipes.exe . No Ghosts At The Grand . Dreadmoor . Prove You're Human . Shot One Fighters . The Wolf Among Us 2 . Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight . Recommendations! King Arthur: History and Legend . Your Least Favourite Person's Favourite Book .

This week Alice and I gathered in hot rooms to have hot takes on the main news stories of the week, chiefly the end of Destiny (and perhaps the employment of many of its developers) and the start of the Disco Elysium sequels. We also attempted to understand the Warhammer Skulls Showcase without Nate to guide us, which didn't get very far but we are quite taken with playing as Skaven. We've also been playing some games, reading some books, and watching daft videos on the internet, all of which we have curated for our discerning audience. You can get still more of this rare insight by backing the show on Patreon (or subscribing to Jank) which gets you two extra episodes a month, and means you join the hallowed ranks of those who make this podcast happen. If you're one of them, thanks: we got this hot for you. Additional thanks to God Ribbon for the music, Marsh Davies for the artwork and Alix Attenborough for the editing. Please send things that aren't Disco Elysium takes to totalplaytimepod@gmail.com . Links! Penny Arcade was problematic because of the dickwolves . Bungie had this comic hanging in their lobby when Jonty visited in, god, 2013. Fond Destiny 2 memories by Nathan Brown and Dom Peppiatt . Rob Fahey on service games ending and The Final Shape. People are not okay about Zero Parades . Nic's review on Jank . Nate explained Warhammer for our Patrons last year. The hench chicken is in Project Windless . Brendy's review of My Summer Car . Jonty's Jank post about Mon Bazou . Games! Destiny 2 , Disco Elysium , Zero Parades: For Dead Spies , Esoteric Ebb , Times and Galaxy . Mon Bazou . My Summer Car . Recommendations! The Princess Bride , Yesteryear , Auto Parts City .

I regret to say that we were unable to record a regular news episode this week. Everybody was away or ill or both, with the exception of Brendy who is a new parent and thus is going to be preoccupied, exhausted and/or covered in body excretions for the forseeable future. To tide our regular listeners over, we are resurrecting a former Patreon-exclusive episode: Episode Q, which previously aired in October 2025. In it, Alice and I are once again bedeviled by Games Satan, and compelled to save a series of well-known videogame franchises from oblivion thanks to financial support driven by product placement. The twist is that Nate Games Satan chose the products, which lead to some previously unforseen partnerships between triple-A videogame brands and small-to-mid-size service companies in the West Midlands. There is no way this sort of analysis would exist without the backing of our Patreon supporters, to whom we extend our gracious thanks. You can join them over on Patreon to unlock another year's worth of this sort of thing. Further thanks to Marsh Davies for the artwork, God Ribbon for the music and Alix Attenborough for the editing. Comments, questions, branding decks and spicy mashed potato recipes are all welcomed at totalplaytimepod@gmail.com ; Alix recommends adding blended curry leaf, garlic, chilli flakes and coriander. Patreon backers will be blessed with a new episode next week. For everybody else, we'll be back regarding the news on the 28th, shortly before Saint Geoff blesses us all with a bunch of new trailers at not-E3 in June. Games! Minecraft , Baldur's Gate 3 , Elden Ring , The Witcher 3 , Dark Souls , Mass Effect , Yakuza 0 , Fallout New Vegas , Team Fortress 2 . Links! Nate is the Honda City with optional Motocampo and Alice is the Honda Beat . Recommendations! The Mitchells Vs The Machines , The Tour De France: A Tale In Hotels , and The Puzzle Wood . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It’s an emergency episode this week: both Alice and Brendy were away, so I had to dial in from Vegas to assist Nate in judgement of the main news events. This lead to some sub-optimal audio and a diminished runtime, for which I can only beg your forgiveness. Other errors include misrepresenting how mobile game advertising works and incorrectly saying that Frank Oz puppeteered ET, when in fact ET was played by three different actors . Just a shining example of what happens without Alice there to organise things, really, although we do nail the segues so we’ve got that going for us. You can listen to the episode right here, or find it on your podcasting platform of choice. iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/total-playtime/id1790845149 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1jPv8y9BRzqATFT7zXRxKW Acast: https://shows.acast.com/total-playtime Thanks to all our current Patreons for making the podcast happen, to Marsh Davies for our art, God Ribbon for our music and Alix Attenborough for our editing. Send us your preferred endings and ET at totalplaytimepod@gmail.com . Enjoy the benefits of our partnership with jank.cool . If you like the podcast, please leave us a positive review on your podcast platform of choice: it helps other people discover it,and think how much fun they’ll have. Links! Barry Manilow can be seen at the Westgate every month this year . Hades 2 changed the ending and that’s fine actually because mythology . Microsoft Gaming is Xbox again . Game Pass Ultimate is a bit cheaper and won’t have new Calls of Duty in it . Jonty wrote about Samson for Jank . Boiling Point’s patch notes are rightly famous . The NYT on Dwarf Fortress . Ea-nāṣir achieved immortality. Games! Horizon: Zero Dawn . Mass Effect 3 . Turns out somebody made a game based on bad mobile game ads but not in the way I thought. Dwarf Fortress on Steam . Recommendations! Make some blood bread and watch One Battle After Another . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In a rare treat this week’s episode is not talking about layoffs, but I contrived to introduce them as additional context for Pete Hines being savagely critical of what happened to Bethesda, so the narrative thread is maintained. Otherwise this is quite a good-natured look at the latest PC gaming happenings, including what turned out to be some extremely inaccurate guesses at what hackers had stolen from Rockstar, and what will doubtless prove to be extremely inaccurate guesses at what’s in Epic’s Disney-character extraction shooter. Other highlights this week include Brendy driving up some hills and becoming troubled by them, Nate establishing himself as our resident Jeff Kaplan correspondent, and the ease with which you can Mandela Event yourself into believing just about any idiotic Gamergate-y conspiracy theory is a real thing because they’re all so ridiculous as to be plausible. Plus: troublesome dogs, IRL Pope beef, some very ill-advised rake-stepping on the topic of classic Square Enix games and our judgement of three recently-released videogames, which is a lot rarer than it should be given that’s what the podcast is supposed to be about. We make no promises as to if this will continue. Thanks to all our current Patreons for making the podcast happen. You can join them to unlock more episodes at https://www.patreon.com/c/TotalPlaytimePodcast . Thanks also to Marsh Davies for our art, God Ribbon for our music and Alix Attenborough for our editing. Tell us why rental cars don’t have automatic gearboxes and why Jonty and Nate are wrong about Kingdom Hearts at totalplaytimepod@gmail.com . Enjoy the benefits of our partnership with jank.cool . If you like the podcast, please leave us a positive review on your podcast platform of choice: it helps other people discover it, and think how much fun they’ll have. Links! Jeff Kaplan revealed that Blizzard did not amend the size of Tracer’s butt . Rockstar was hacked again but didn’t even care, and since we recorded the episode it was revealed that the data was just proof of how much money it makes from GTA Online , the leaking of which actually caused Take Two’s share price to increase so yeah that all checks out. GTA 6 is coming out on 19th November FYI. There was some IRL Avignon pope beef . Pete Hines has some opinions about what happened to Bethesda , which is not entirely surprising . Bloomberg reported that Epic is making an extraction shooter with Disney characters . Jeremy Peel talked to the Samson devs . Games! Jeff Kaplan’s new game is The Legend of California . Kingdom Hearts 4 is coming. Tlatoani: Aztec Cities . Samson . Moves Of The Diamond Hand . Exit 8 . Recommendations! Exit 8 , War Machine , Takdaneh Natural Sour Cherry Juice , Primal and Rosie Cheeks Slime Shop . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week we have fun (for a given value of fun) discussing Epic's mass layoffs, Sony's dynamic price testing, and the difficulty in reviewing Crimson Desert, maybe. One of these results on an extended discussion of the world's favourite glassy-eyed YouTuber. Please note, Jimmy, that the title is a lighthearted joke; I beg, do not turn your eye of Sauron upon us. Plus! Brendy gets unaccountably upset at us for saying things about mining but in a way that sort of implies we find mining sexually arousing. He genuinely seemed upset during recording as well. I don't think it was a bit. iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/total-playtime/id1790845149 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1jPv8y9BRzqATFT7zXRxKW RSS: https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/6786cf573ceecdbe85eac067 Acast: https://shows.acast.com/total-playtime Thanks to all our current Patreons for making the podcast happen, and to Marsh Davies for our art and God Ribbon for our music. Send in what your regional time for woodlice is to totalplaytimepod@gmail.com . Make the most of our partnership by viewing Jank.cool . Links! Epic shitcanned a thousand people , and the Fortnite team are a bit like ' WELP '. Chet Falizsek went on a tear about it. Rumours abound that PlayStation are testing dynamic pricing . Now maybe spotted in the wild ? Crimson Desert for some reason became the latest saviour of single player games (I think off the strength of one cool trailer maybe ??) and then was distinctly mid. Paul Tassi wrote about how the review build was significantly different to the retail version. Games! Reanimal , Slay The Spire 2 , and Hardspace Shipbreaker (and Edwin did write an article about the unionisation aspects!) Recommendations! The UK series of Last One Laughing , the sci-fi movie Project Hail Mary, and to look up and attend any of your local amateur dramatics societies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week we bring you an accidentally AI-themed extravaganza, as Krafton lost their Unknown Worlds/Subnautica 2 lawsuit for the funniest reason possible: they asked ChatGPT what to do. But just before that, Nvidia unveiled their new Super Sampling and its more like Super SLOP, am I right? Many came out to mock the TikTok-beauty-filterfication of Grace from Resi Requiem. And just before that , Jeff Kaplan, formerly Jeff from the Overwatch team (he's always the Queen from the Overwatch team of our hearts) dealt with some residual C-suit trauma by going on a podcast. Not this one, though. Maybe one day. You can listen to the episode right here, or find it in your podcasting app of choice: iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/total-playtime/id1790845149 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1jPv8y9BRzqATFT7zXRxKW RSS: https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/6786cf573ceecdbe85eac067 Acast: https://shows.acast.com/total-playtime Thanks to all our current Patreons for making the podcast happen, and to Marsh Davies for our art, Alix Attenborough for our editing, and God Ribbon for our music. Do not email me about Disco Elysium at totalplaytimepod@gmail.com . Make the most of our partnership by viewing Jank.cool . Links! ARC Raiders is replacing some of the genAI , and Digital Foundry saw Nvidia's DLSS5 and thought it was great, but everyone else made fun of it . Nvidia's CEO says we're all wrong ; Kotaku asked a bunch of devs and they all hate it too . The Subnautica 2 lawsuit got weird (apparently it's coming out in May now , a decision Brendy describes as 'SUSPICIOUSLY fast'), Jeff Kaplan had a bad time . Games! Nate clamped his own mouth shut rather than talk about AoEII again, but Brendy has been playing Slay The Spire 2 , and Alice has been playing Esoteric Ebb ! They wrote about them on a website . Alice also got to play the demo for the upcoming Darkside Detective game, Backside of the Moon . She was very excited. Recommendations! 1997 Australian comedy The Castle , Death Rider by Rhuairidh James , and commissioning an independent artist (specifically, this one ) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It’s a quiet one this week, as Alice is away doing mysterious things and Nate is away on a secret mission which you’ll have to hear about in two weeks’ time. It thus falls to Jonty and Brendy to ruminate on Xbox without Phil Spencer, games journalism without humans, and deciding which Pokémon starter would be the best restaurant starter. You can listen to the episode right here, or find it in your podcasting app of choice: iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/total-playtime/id1790845149 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1jPv8y9BRzqATFT7zXRxKW RSS: https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/6786cf573ceecdbe85eac067 Thanks to all our current Patreons for making the podcast happen, and to Marsh Davies for our art and God Ribbon for our music. Submit your Pokémon recipes at totalplaytimepod@gmail.com . Make the most of our partnership by viewing Jank.cool . Links! Phil Spencer left Xbox, along with Sarah Bond . Everybody except Brendy regards him as a lovely bloke who knew a lot about games . The new boss is a creation of pure business and maybe that’s for the best . Metacritic pulled the Videogamer’s Resi Requiem review for being written by AI after nearly all the staff were laid off . Clint Hocking has left Ubisoft again . We would only eat one of the new Pokémon starters . Games! The tooth-cleaning game Jonty couldn't remember was Shark Dentist . Brendy loves Airframe Ultra ; you may also consider Star Wars: Galactic Racer and Deathgrip . The other games we played were The Ratline , Beyond Words , Word Play and Resident Evil Requiem . Marathon is out today so you can find out yourself if Jonty’s just really bad at it. Recommendations! Werner Herzog’s Instagram and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week it's a conspiracy theory special, as Alice develops increasingly outlandish theories about the forces and decisions that shape the games industry, the pharmaceutical industy and the world, and Jonty and Brendy try and talk her down. Plus, layoffs again, pondering the ideological opposite of Rivers Cuomo, why the AI era is dumb and stupid, and a truly inspired Alien: Isolation mod idea. You can download the podcast right here, or find it in your podcasting apps: iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/total-playtime/id1790845149 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1jPv8y9BRzqATFT7zXRxKW RSS: https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/6786cf573ceecdbe85eac067 Thanks to all our current Patreons for making the podcast happen ( join them here! ) and to Marsh Davies for our art and God Ribbon for our music. Submit to the Sausage Mailbag at totalplaytimepod@gmail.com . Make the most of our partnership by viewing Jank.cool . Links! AI is eating all the RAM . Component shortages are coming for routers . If you want to read 10,000 words about OpenAI being a scam then Ed Z has you covered . Rob Fahey on how consoles left families behind . Lots of Highguard devs got laid off . Do not post on X . Some industry lessons from the Highguard launch , one of which is that the world can change a lot over the course of a game's development . There are some wildly disparate voice actors in Mewgenics and Edmund McMillen swears that's intentional . He also went on Post Games . Games! Mewgenics . Super Meat Boy . Relooted . South of Midnight . Recommendations! Glen Baxter . This game engine is from the 90s . Columbo is on Channel 5 in the UK and a number of episodes are up on YouTube . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It was claimed that Sydney Sweeney was excited about the Split Fiction movie, and that’s an excuse for Alice to be absolutely livid about the Split Fiction game, so please strap in for ten uninterrupted minutes of her choking on her own bile. After that, we manage to find time to discuss the nature of Morrowind, people choosing not to go to GDC, Highguard’s doomed pact with Geoff Keighley, the most Alan Partridge thing Alice has ever said, and more. You can download the podcast right here, or find it in your podcasting apps: iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/total-playtime/id1790845149 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1jPv8y9BRzqATFT7zXRxKW RSS: https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/6786cf573ceecdbe85eac067 Acast: https://shows.acast.com/total-playtime Thanks to all our current Patreons for making the podcast happen, and to Marsh Davies for our art and God Ribbon for our music. Share your recommendations of games and shrimp at totalplaytimepod@gmail.com . Make the most of our partnership by viewing Jank.cool and perhaps joining the Discord. Links! Syd is not actually hype about the Split Fiction script . Bruce Nesmith reckons Morrowind doesn’t hold up . Nate never visited the Crab Palace . Lots of people said they’re skipping GDC this year but the organisers say it’s fine . Highguard’s debut went badly which the dev considers “ risky in hindsight ”, although they’re trying hard and the 5v5 mode is now permanent . Please enjoy MerritK’s post in the Jank newsletter , and the rest of Jank.cool come to that. Iron Lung is in cinemas now. Brendy reviewed TR49 . Games! Split Fiction . The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind . Highguard is free. Everything Is Crab . TR49 . Recommendations! Moldovan Rara Neagra , Shitstorm by Fernando Sdrigotti , 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple , Andycruns on BlueSky . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode was previously exclusive to our Patreon backers, but we're making it available to everybody to show what you're missing behind the paywall. You can get access to more Text Adventure plus a year of other subscriber episodes, at patreon.com/TotalPlaytimePodcast . Text Adventure is our videogame book club, in which we and a guest read a videogame novelisation and try very hard to like it. In this episode we are joined by Johnny Chiodini to read Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, which turns out to be story about a neocon Alan Partridge who's totally devoid of emotional intelligence and incredibly bad at stealth. Which is quite close to how we played Splinter Cell but not, we suspect, the outcome they were aiming for for. Music by God Ribbon, art by Marsh Davies and our entire existence care of our Patreon backers. Please consider joining them and enabling us to continue our quest to find a games book that isn't absolutely terrible. Games! You can still buy the first Splinter Cell game, but the remake is out soon(ish) Links This is the book most of us read and this is the one Nate read . Recommendations! Going to the charity shops in the most fancy area available to you, London Centric's snail farmer mafioso article, thermal instant cameras , and the Realms Unknown podcast which has featured our own Nate! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's a heady intersection of belief systems this week, as we combine Alice's insomniac enthusiasm for weird Instagram crystal sales with Nate's rigorous interrogation of Tim Cain's Types Of Quests. Plus: a horny dog, a nightmarish Pikachu, the Roman god of webinars and Games Anubis joins our increasingly incoherent pantheon. You can listen to the episode right here, or find it in your podcasting apps: iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/total-playtime/id1790845149 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1jPv8y9BRzqATFT7zXRxKW RSS: https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/6786cf573ceecdbe85eac067 Nate's Quiz will be coming to Patreon next month, but in the meantime we have many other fine episodes to which you get full access by subscribing at patreon.com/totalplaytimepodcast. Thanks to all our current Patreons for making the podcast happen, and to Marsh Davies for our art and God Ribbon for our music. You can suggest quest types and your means of death at totalplaytimepod@gmail.com . Links! Tim Cain's 9 types of Quest . The moderately nightmarish Lego Pikachu is yours for £179.99 . Various people will sell you bootleg plans for Lego Metal Gear Rex and probably also the Horizon Zero Dawn Tallneck because Lego long since sold out . Facepunch offered to buy New World after it was given 12 months to live . Games! Assassin's Creed Origins and New World, but only if you bought it already . Recommendations! The Holdovers , Tokyo These Days and The Long Walk . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's 2026, and Alice's dog is still being a dick so she had to leave Jonty, Nate and Brendan to share their gaming New Year's Resolutions, only for the wheels to come off immediately because Nate won't commit to playing new games and Brendan won't commit to resolutions as a concept. We were nevertheless able to muster some recommendations along important discussion of the Eurovision of games, becoming The Balls Guy and the unsettling experience of joining an ARC Raiders suicide cult. You can listen to the episode directly right here, or find it in your pod catching apps. iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/total-playtime/id1790845149 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1jPv8y9BRzqATFT7zXRxKW RSS: https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/6786cf573ceecdbe85eac067 Acast: https://shows.acast.com/total-playtime Music by God Ribbon, art by Marsh Davies and our entire existence care of our Patreon supporters, without whom this show would not exist. Consider joining them at https://www.patreon.com/c/TotalPlaytimePodcast. Share your comments and additional New Year's Resolutions for Alice to totalplaytimepod@gmail.com . Links! People are convincing themselves that Half-Life 3 is coming . The plan for Subnautica 2 is mostly litigation . Games! ARC Raiders . Mon Bazou . Totally Legit Wheeler Seller . Let's Build A Zoo . Ark Nova . Crusader Kings 3: Roads to Power . Nivalis . Streets of Fortuna . Recommendations! but the games were good . Get yourself a snake plant , and schedule an input day but don't give Nate any credit for it. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.