Remap Radio

The Chicago Bears played two games last week. And the Chicago frickin’ Bears won both of those games. Rob and Patrick find themselves in a strange place: already happy with the season and what it says about the future, deluding themselves into Super Bowl Super Bears, and already rationalizing how losing to the Seattle Seahawks doesn’t actually mean anything.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Bruno Dias joins the pod to talk about Nighthawks, Peter Molyneux's AI daydreams, and the scamminess or lack thereof of Star Citizen. Plus, Chia and Janet have been playing Virtue and a Sledgehammer and Over the Hill, while Rob has an old-school arcade racing game to tell you about.

Links: Peter Molyneux speaks candidly about AI: 'We, as the industry, are pretending we're not using AI, but the reality is, it's almost impossible to code now without using AI'

Discussed:

00:00 - Intro

1:45 - Peter Monlyneux is unsurprisingly into AI

48:18...

Rob and Patrick can take a deep breath, because not only is Caleb Williams back, but he looked pretty darn good coming off a hamstring tear. Are the Bears back, though? For this week, yes, and we’ll take it. Plus, why exactly did the Philadelphia Eagles allow quarterback Jalen Hurts to play football when he hadn’t slept in more than 24 hours and was experiencing a blood clot?

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It’s not entirely shocking, but BioWare has been shut down and the next Mass Effect has been cancelled. Plus, we’ve been exploring Steam Next Fest demos, opening Lament Configurations, and exploring a bunch of games, including Silver Pines and Well Dweller. Plus, we’ve got a Penguin Colony spoilercast and a review conversation with Rowan Kaiser about Galactic Racer.

Links: EA Closes Bioware, AI Disclosure Extension for Steam

Discussed:

00:00 - Intro

06:45 - EA shutters Bioware

39:40 - Star Wars Galactic Racer

1:19:50 - Well Dwelle...

The death of Chicago sports (and pop culture) legend Mike Ditka. A Green Bay Packers team on the ropes. A Bears team favored to play in Wisconsin for the first time in decades. A moment to send an entire state into an existential crisis. So, naturally, the Bears played their worst football of the year and got their butts whooped. Rob and Patrick are here to podcast and cope.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Note: This interview was conducted in collaboration with LudoNarraCon, which explains the podcast’s intro and outro.

Six years ago, Umurangi Generation came out of nowhere and took our breath away. Six years later, designer Tali Faulkner is back with something wholly different, equally bold, and, once again, prepared with a message. Patrick recently had a chance to catch up with Faulkner to learn why penguins and Lovecraft were required to tell this new story. Note: This interview was conducted in collaboration with LudoNarraCon, which explains the podcast’s intro and outro.

See Privacy Policy at h...

It’s a packed news week on Remap Radio, between Epic Games deciding to go all-in on AI, Double Fine’s unionization efforts falling apart, and a completely botched effort to re-release Total War: Shogun 2. It’s equally packed on the games front, with Patrick having spent time with the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake and rolling credits on Control Resonant. Janet, fresh back from Japan, can finally talk about Slay the Spire, while both Patrick and Chia are digging into Penguin Colony, the latest game from the developers of Umurangi Generation.

Links: Inside the Failed...

Rob and Patrick spend 20 minutes in stunned silence, as the Chicago Bears continue their streak of what people seem to call “competence.” And why does it feel so weird to be calm in the face of Packer week, a time of year that usually instills dread? Now, it’s all house money. But it won’t stop Rob and Patrick from cackling like demons if they take down the Packers yet again.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Can you hear it in the wind? That’s the sound of a new Dragon’s Dogma game, which heralds the arrival of Austin Walker on the podcast. Austin and his many hours with Dragon’s Dogma 2: Dark Arisen join Rob, Patrick, and Chia to mull dragons, dogmas, the state of independent game funding, Mike Tomlin’s Minecraft world, Star Wars Galactic Racer, Forever Ago, and more.

Discussed:

00:01:45 - Mike Tomlin's Minecraft City  

00:17:58 - Strand Store    

00:29:56 - Gardens Secures Further Funding   

00:34:44 - Investments in small games  

00:59:38 - Gra...

It’s rare video game stories tell angry stories of grief. Of jealousy. Of feeling robbed of a promised future, of a past that’s rarely exactly how your nostalgia suggests. Forever Ago, the new adventure game from developer Third Shift, sits with these complicated feelings. Patrick recently had an opportunity to chat with two of the developers behind the emotional game.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A week ago, Rob and Patrick were on the brink of throwing up their hands at yet another disastrous season for the Chicago Bears. Now…Super Bowl? Super BEARS? 38-year-old Case Keenum, a guy hired to hold a clipboard and mentor players, had the game of his life, and simultaneously sent the Philadelphia Eagles into an existential crisis about their own season.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Aftermath's Chris Person joins the show to free-associate about retro gaming, the Steam Frame, David Graeber, vibe coding, and Control Resonant. Rob and Patrick are loving it, and Patrick starts getting into the ups-and-downs of the Mac Mini market, while Rob has an important realization: he actually has an important (very relatively speaking) use case for the Steam Frame. Spoiler: it involves his god damn racing wheel. CW: The episode opens with a brief news bulletin on the Jacob Geller sexual assault news.

00:05:35 - Retro Gaming Sicko’s Corner 

00:58:15 - Steam Frame & VR in the Mod...

On Sunday, Rob and Patrick almost saw the entire Chicago Bears season sink underneath an injury to quarterback Caleb Williams. Rob’s Sunday was ruined. Patrick’s flight back from Los Angeles became a tomb. And the prospect of doing weekly check-ins on the Bears for the Remap audience suddenly became more daunting. Maybe they could chat about a book they were reading, instead? But thankfully, Williams is not out for the season. So we’re back? Sort of.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We begin this podcast the way we ended the last podcast: talking about Control Resonant. This time, Rob’s spent 17 hours with Remedy’s latest, albeit all of it before the game was updated to validate the emotional and critical feelings of Patrick and Janet. But we also have much else to discuss, including Xbox’s ongoing “reset,” the alleged future of Bungie, Discord pushing forward on age verification, and many thoughts on both Silent Hill Townfall and Normal Golf Game.

Links: Control Resonant Post by Chris Person, Xbox Announces Continuing Layoffs and Restructure, The Next Chapter of Bungie...

A conversation with the designer behind one of 2026's most pleasant surprises, and arguably the most unconventional take on hitting a golf ball since Wii Sports.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You don’t get a new Remedy video game all that often, but Rob, Patrick, and Janet have all played Control Resonant and…well, you should just listen to the podcast. Elsewhere on Remap Radio this week, we’ve got [checks notes] a ton of bummer news, including several studios shutting down, IGN laying off even more people, a truly perplexing story about a studio head’s comments on crunch, and more. At least Chia’s back from Japan and playing Perfect Tides!

Links: Moss Dev Shuts Down, Heart Machine goes through Layoffs, Rockstar Union had a Mole in th...

The 13th of September will no longer be known as a Chicago holiday, but as the day when the world declared in one voice, we will not go quietly into the night. We will not vanish without a fight. We're going to live on. We're going to survive. Today, friends, The Bears Are Back! Join Rob and Patrick for a Sports! mini-pod—seriously, it’s only 20 minutes—about the Bears pulverizing the Panthers. Our hope is to deliver one of these every week (unless we’re already doing a normal Sports!). Library-tier subscribers will get access to them ASAP, while ev...

Bruno Dias joins the crew to talk about his review of The Sinking City 2 and Lovecraft as author versus Lovecraft as brand. Then the gang gets into our glorious era of privacy annihilating personal technology and engages in a philosophical exploration of Siri Recap and when an audio file ceases to be an audio file. We discuss Kojima's announcement with Microsoft, and what it implies about Sony's relationship to big AAA prestige pieces and creators. You know, things like Wolverine from Insomniac, which Patrick has been playing a lot this last week. It's not great, bub! Then Bruno has...

Hey everyone look at this guy. He doesn't know who Miyamoto Musashi is. He doesn't even know about Ganryu! If you mention the Five Rings, he thinks you're talking about Tom Brady. And yet HE was worthy of the Onimusha: Way of the Sword review code? That's fine. We're not bitter. We have other games to play, like Super Mega Baseball, First Light, or Orbitals.

01:06 - The Sinking City 2 might be an Evil Within 2-like  

06:02 - 80% of Bit Reactor Furloughed    

18:22 - The DLSS5 Yassification Machine     

38:21 - De-listed games included in Xbox’s disc to dig...

This is a preview of a Premium Library Tier podcast. To access the full episode, you can sign up at remapradio.com/signup

2026 has been full of horrors, but it’s also been full of video games, too. With Grand Theft Auto VI coming later this year, though, there’s an avalanche of games coming throughout September and October. It felt like a good time to check in with Patrick, Chia, and Janet about their individual piles of shame, the games they plan to spend more time with before 2026 is over, and what games they’re looking forwar...

Rob and Patrick have been digging into Zero Company and discuss the things they are getting from their vastly divergent contexts for it. The gang discuss Tim Curry's passing, Playdate's tariff generosity, and the Paradox founders' taxation takes. Then Janet has been digging Perfect Tides, Baldur's Gate 3, and Blood Dungeon, while Patrick is enjoying the a return to the grimness of A Plague Tale with Resonance. 

    01:17 - Star Wars Zero Company (Redux)   

      01:03:20 - Tim Curry's passing     

      01:05:49 - Doublefine's independent plans   

      01:09:29 - Xbox Discless Pivot      

      01:21:44 - Playdate refunds tariff money    

      01:26:46...

So far as we know, nobody is leaking clips from this podcast, but the same can’t be said for Grand Theft Auto VI. Join Patrick, Chia, and Janet as they reminisce about how their parents treated GTA growing up, Netflix’s latest signal they don’t know what to do with video games, and plenty of games talk, including impressions of Netflix’s (impressive!) Unhinged experiment, MiO: Memories in Orbit, Rogue Voltage, Mortal Shell II, and more. Plus, in The Question Bucket, we ponder why developers disable achievements when using options to tweak a game’s difficulty.

Links: G...

Patrick sits down with Nicole Carpenter to discuss her article on the prisoners at Rikers prison and their access to video games. Which games are provided to them, and who gets to make that decision? They also break down the biases people carry about who should have access to games, and how that access changes the prisoners' day to day life.

A Virtual Escape for Riker's Inmates by Nicole Carpenter

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Are you a down bad enough sicko to watch NFL pre-season football? That’s the question that Patrick poses to Rob as they kick off a new episode of Sports! We also discuss the state of sports journalism, the rise of analysis over journalism, what happened to The Athletic, the ongoing culture war in the WNBA, and much more. Plus, we strongly consider a trip to Detroit.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It is with a heavy heart that we share that the XCOM and Star Wars mashup, Star Wars: Zero Company, seems pretty good. You have another video game to play this year. At least, that’s what Rob told Patrick and Chia on this episode of Remap Radio, where we chat about turn-based Clone Wars, Twitch’s shockingly honest admission about AI, why nobody should work at Saber Interactive, the great time Patrick’s having repairing electronics in ReStory, and more.

Links: Saber Interactive CEO Responds to Accusations, Twitch Makes AI Training Opt-Out. Stream Clip of Twitch Explai...

There’s little evidence the Electronic Arts going private because it’s being bought by a Saudi Arabian-backed financial group is good for the industry, but who was expecting good news these days? Rob, Chia, and Patrick mull this latest development, news that Sony isn’t giving back any tariff money, and talk about a bunch of games, including Chia’s adventures at GenCon and Patrick finishing 007: First Light alongside dumping a whole bunch of hours into Game Freak’s Beast of Reincarnation. Oh, and how would we re-imagine a football video game?

Links: EA bought by Saudi Arab...

This podcast episode was born under a bad sign as avian wildlife besmirch Rob's finest attire shortly before the recording. After surveying a grim landscape of games, news, the gang sits down to a pretty good summer of games with Janet digging Townfall and Incident at Galley House, Patrick playing some really cool platformers, and Rob catching Super Mega Baseball Fever.

Samuel Horti joins Rob to talk about Super Mega Baseball. They discuss its brilliant “traits” system, never-to-be-beaten difficulty settings, delightfully slippery pitching and batting controls, and the “just-enough” franchise mode. They also discuss whether the game is truly an arcade baseball game, or if it’s occupying space that hardcore sims began from in the SNES and Pentium eras.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You’re getting the Fallout and the Elder Scrolls you’ve been clamoring for, eventually, along with the option to stream games to your XBOX DEVICE with ads, but you’re going to love them. They’ll actually contribute to the experience! Chia and Rob are getting absolutely worked in Marathon’s new Vaultbreaker PvE mode, while Janet contemplates her delight in the Steam Machine and her seething disdain for life in Pokopia. Rob’s loving life behind the wheel thanks to his new H-Shifter, and a newfound love of Dirt Rally 2.0 and the weird and wonderful world of Assetto Cors...

A beautiful game deserves a beautiful podcast, so Janet and Rob sat down to discuss the 2026 World Cup. Is Argentina that punchable or are people just tired of them? Does soccer romanticize a rags-to-riches pastime that is increasingly at odds with a stratified global sport that permits a dwindling number of real contenders? Can an event like the World Cup be ruined by the rancid politics of the host nation and amoral opportunism of its governing body? Where is Janet going next for her soccer fix? Also: did cycling’s paranoia about doping cause one of its stars to cr...

When in doubt, use a bout of insomnia to justify the purchase of a fancy new PC accessory. Maybe this, though, will be the one that makes Rob’s dreams come true. On the latest episode of Remap Radio, Patrick and Chia remain a bit skeptical. Still, we indulge in much car talk, accessory talk, and eventually, game talk. Has EA already broken College Football? Has Rob ascended in Marathon? If a game includes AI, then removes AI, does that make it okay to play?

Links: With Microtransactions Gone, It's Time to Reevaluate College Football 27's Single-Player Mo...

The humid days of summer does not stop Remap Radio. Join Chia, Janet, Rob, and Patrick as they further talk through Xbox’s generational reset, PlayStation’s announcement that it’s ditching discs, some initial thoughts on the Steam Machine, deck TV feelings, and more. We’ve got plenty of game talk, too, including beating Mina the Hollower, crashing out in Marathon, and trying to find a better way to organize the video games you should be playing—even if by shame.

Links: Id Layoffs, Obsidian Layoffs, Sony Winding Down Physical Game Production, ESA bafflingly declares private Minecraft...

We knew Xbox was going to undergo a massive transformation, and now we have some of the details of what that transformation will look like. A combination of mass layoffs and studio divestments is leaving Xbox in a very different place. But what does the future like? What kinds of games will Xbox prioritize in the future? What does it mean to have ambitions of a billion players each day—and will that very priority ruin Xbox? Rob and Patrick unpack the latest news.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at ht...

Sit down and prepare for a tale of woe, misery, and humiliation in the world of Marathon, before Rob, Patrick, Chia, and Janet go down a gunpla rabbit hole, try to figure out who the newly expensive Steam Machine is for, and share thoughts a number of games, including Silver Pines, Tethergeist, Star Fox, About Fishing, Iron Nest, and more. We also talk through an AI jump scare.

Links: Gundam Assemble, Aftermath's Steam Machine Review, GTA VI Price Announcement

Images: Janet's New Toy , Janet and Chia show off their Gunpla, Gunpla Runner, Chia's Pile of...

Patrick, Mr. Kirkland himself, has made the trip to the east coast to meet up with Chia and Rob, which can only mean one thing: Rob's breaking in his brand new Costco membership under the tutelage of the master himself. Listen in as we wander the liminal space of the Costco parking lot, marvel at the sights and sounds of the Costco produce fridge, and pay our respects to the humble chicken bake.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Has it really been [checks notes] four months since an episode of Sports!? Don’t worry, your patience will be rewarded, especially if you wait until the end, when Patrick reveals a story he’s been sitting on for weeks that had Rob trying to avoid breaking his monitor. In more pleasant moments, Rob and Patrick weigh their options if a genie granted them tickets guaranteed to make their team lose, the NBA playoffs, and, of course, an early Bears season prediction.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com...

There comes a time in every person's life when they must contend with the question: which golf game is for me? For Rob, well he and his dad spent some time this past week hitting the links in PGA 2k25. Patrick and Chia were both won over by a totally Normal Golf Game, (which they will make Rob play next week when the crew gathers at Highground). Unfortunately, there's only so much golfing that can distract from Xbox closing multiple studios, Epic putting AI in Unreal Engine 6, and Don't Nod teetering on the edge of shutting down for good...

Patrick’s third Summer Game Fest comes to a conclusion with the second installment in his two-part diary series, where he walks you through his thoughts, reactions, interviews, and observations from the show. Some of this was recorded from home, some was recorded directly on-site, reflecting the way so much of Summer Game Fest continues after the show is “over.”

Reminder: Last year, the pro-Palestinian human rights movement BDS that’s pressuring Israel by promoting boycotts, divestment, and sanctions against the country added Xbox to its boycott list. Learn more here: https://www.bdsmovement.net/news/boycott-microsofts-xbox

00...

Alas, it’s time to say goodbye to another round of trailermania, but in the meantime, there’s so much for Rob, Patrick, Janet, and Chia to discuss. Besides mulling the latest bleak news about the future of Xbox and GOG sending out weird emails, Janet and Patrick were at Summer Game Fest and walked amongst the video games, where there was lots of conversations about the AI alongside hands-on time with games like Alien: Isolation 2, Control Resonant, and more.

Reminder: Last year, the pro-Palestinian human rights movement BDS that’s pressuring Israel by promoting boycotts, divestment, and sa...

Patrick always brings a microphone with him to Summer Game Fest, but this year, he decided to record his observations and interviews in real-time. Join Patrick he travels to Los Angeles to navigate seemingly endless and confusing embargoes, play lots of video games, and like usual, talk to many of the people making them, too.

00:00:00 - Intro

00:9:10 - Day 1 Recap

00:12:35 - Ballgame

00:42:31 - Day 2 Recap

00:45:10 - Recur

1:00:51 - Rayman Legends Retold

1:04:40 - Trine 6

1:17:53 - Armatus

1:20:37 - Silent Hill...