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Sacred Symbols, Episode 342 | We've Painted A Picture, Now We're Drowning in Paint

We had already finished this recording when surprising news broke in the world of PlayStation: Sony has cancelled two of its upcoming, unannounced games. And -- would you believe it? -- they were both live service titles, including a God of War spin-off. The really unfortunate news, however, is who was making these titles: Bend and Bluepoint, two smaller AAA teams that typically work on a single project at a time, thus wasting years of development, as well as time and resources that can never be recovered. What in the world is going on with PlayStation Studios, and how did the person who helmed the first party family during such a tumultuous period of greenlights and plug-pulling ascend to the top of PlayStation itself? It's time to start asking some really hard questions. Other news this week includes substantial rumors of more Xbox content en route to PlayStation which, if true, will make Microsoft the single most-prolific producer of content for a platform that was once its arch-rival, but no longer. Also: Reactions to the first Until Dawn film trailer, a surprising end to Rocksteady's Suicide Squad game, accolades for an exceptional-looking upcoming vampire RPG called The Blood of Dawnwalker, tantalizing news about Bungie's in-development Smash Bros.-inspired MOBA, and more. We wrap up our episode (as we always do) with listener inquiries. Now that Nintendo's Switch 2 has been revealed, what are our preliminary thoughts? Is 2025 the year we finally give PSVR2 the respect it deserves? Why is it so hard to make swimming control well? Is it just a weird a coincidence that SEGA renewed its Ecco the Dolphin trademark on September 11, 2001, or is there something deeper at play?

Timestamps:

0:00:00 - Intro

0:21:27 - Sacred car collision

0:25:01 - Ranking LSM autism

0:28:06 - Do Colin and Chris drink coffee?

0:47:45 - Phil Summers Mega Man book

0:49:52 - Sony and SoCal studios are donating to the wildfire recovery

0:51:47 - Until Dawn movie

1:00:11 - Rocksteady ends Suicide Squad

1:05:09 - The Blood of Dawnwalker

1:11:35 - Ubisoft + Tencent?

1:18:59 - Square Enix releases a Group Customer Harassment policy

1:23:27 - Ecco the Dolphin trademark

1:29:02 - Elden Ring Nightreign network test registration is up

1:30:28 - Lunar Remastered has a date

1:33:14 - What are we playing?

1:54:54 - Sony has shut down two live service projects

2:19:14 - More Xbox games on PlayStation

2:43:49 - Bungie's Gummy Bears

2:57:35 - New PS Plus Extra and Premium games

3:05:41 - Top downloads on PSN for December

3:09:52 - Our thoughts on Switch 2

3:30:35 - PSVR2 recommendations

3:36:29 - Gamifying our life

3:45:11 - Swimming in games

3:50:41 - PS4 living on

3:53:33 - Prestige system for platinums

Sacred Symbols, Episode 342 | We've Painted A Picture, Now We're Drowning in Paint
Sacred Symbols, Episode 342 | We've Painted A Picture, Now We're Drowning in Paint Sacred Symbols, Episode 342 | We've Painted A Picture, Now We're Drowning in Paint

Comments

i played the remake one week ago and the game looked awesome. but i have zero problems witf 30 fps. i prefer them even

Eugen R.

Anyone know where the new 2025 community guidelines are posted?

Ahlickaloo

😅

Homz

Ya, it's the frequency thing that makes vaping worse as I understand it. Because of the taste and ease of use, people do it more. Some of the reports of vaping coming from young people's ailments are pretty staggering.

The Rose Experience

Ya I don't get the vitriol and he isn't nearly as annoying as people make him out to be. I get not liking him and some of the design decisions around him IE: locking summon material in VR fights is odd when they should be just found organically. But Chadley is funny and often makes fun of himself. Showing up in the Queens Blood tourney was funny.

The Rose Experience

There isn't one game coming from Xbox that is better than the 5 best from PlayStation this generation.

The Rose Experience

Wait where can I find the Free Company info?!

Steve

Please don't stream this show but PLEASE stream or record you guys actually playing some damn games

Gooch Gobbler

One of the biggest letdowns I have experienced in gaming. They nailed the aesthetic and nothing else. The platforming was miserable. Who thought that was a good idea? Kind of offensive to compare it to Bioshock imo but I am glad you liked it!

Gooch Gobbler

Cheers Mike.

USAlien

Dustin dabs LFG 😎

Anthony Palerino

Second party has been carrying Sony the recent couple of years. I hope they get back to making fun single player games with reasonable budgets.

Michael Limauro

I agree with Chris, regarding Master Chief Collection hitting other hardware
 leaving the online side out of the equation will negatively affect review scores, no doubt. However, knowing Nintendo’s ability to have a solid online option, I am concerned about that particular release.

Directional Joy

I believe it was created as game jam between a small group of devs. Their first game was called Trepang which translates to Sea Cucumber in some language because the game in the game you apparently play as a Cucumber. Trepang2 was the placeholder name for their 2nd game and they just stuck with it. Probably have some facts wrong but that's what I remember reading on Steam Discussions.

Mike Held

Also glad you are still cancer free Gene. I don’t personally know what it’s like going through it but my mom ended up getting Lymes Disease and breast cancer a few years ago and it definitely took a good bit out of her

PairOfShuse

Yeah that’s everything I’ve heard as well. The data technically isn’t all there yet but it can essentially be inferred since it’s very similar in a lot of ways. Definitely with Chemo I understand too. What a lot of people don’t understand about cancer and why it’s so hard to find a cure, is technically you’re trying to find a drug to shut off a normal function of the body that’s gone rogue. Definitely harder to do that than targeting bacteria etc. Chemo meds just sort of wipe everything out to get rid of as much of the cancerous cells as possible (same with radiation) which in turn will either get rid of all of it or, which I’m pretty sure in your case, it allowed for surgery to get the remaining areas.

PairOfShuse

Chris' Trump voice always has me in hysterics.

ArunWyn

Max payne 3 reqiured a no-death no-save run of the whole ~8hr long game on high difficulty. I did it, but you had to fight the framerate, bugs and general instability of the game on the PS3. One bug that destroyed 2 of my runs was reloading weapons just before a cutscene started - after that cutscene you couldn't shoot any weapons. Another thing was the game hard crashing the console a few times for me, but of course getting to lvl 50 in MP was much more annoyinfg. Combine this with the fact you had to finish the game like 8 times on different difficulties and different modes, and it's probably the hardest platinum platinums I got. Good times, wish they ported the game to newer consoles.

MISZCZOGRZMOT

The single player formula Sony has adopted is starting to chip and crack. I uses to love that formula (TLOU and the God of War series), but I'm getting tired of the same mechanics and play styles. Also, Marvel doesn't interest me at all, and I know I'm in the minority there.

Mr. Scott If You're Nasty

I've recently got the plat in M1DE and M2DE, and while they're both stuck at 30fps, for some reason the second game feels much smoother to play. Once your eyes adjust it's fine, meanwhile Mafia 1 was fine while driving, fine in custscenes, but the moment you took control of the character and the camera, it felt like a slideshow till the very end. Must be some seriously uneven framepacing, or a PS5 bug. That software PS4 raytracing solution looked like ass whith all its boiling and ghosting artifacts, and had visible delay in filling in lights/shadows, too, so here's hoping there's going to be an actual PS5 version. So Mafia 2 is still where it's at when it comes to these games.

MISZCZOGRZMOT

Check the black ops 6 PS5 trophy guide to see what Halo MCC could be. Black ops 6 is DLC for MW2 (2022) and does not have a platinum. PS5 does not allow for multiple platinums per game anymore.

Murderer Kevin

Just gotta say, I'm pretty sure it's pronounced 'mwa-ray' or 'mware', not 'more-ray'

Mark ?

Why not put that weird edit cutaway at the end? lol surprise!

Mike1core

To be clear, there’s also not enough data. My doctors just said it’s not worth the risk.

Gene Park

As a former vaper, all my cancer doctors told me it would be better if I smoked cigarettes because they understand those risks and i would simply be smoking less. I quit vaping immediately once they told me that vaping is so strong, it would actually interfere with chemotherapy, which is the strongest drugs around.

Gene Park

This was a nice episode.

Cameron

Hey Dustin, whats your characters name in FFXIV?

Romeo

As far as I know there isn’t enough data to officially say so. I think it sort of depends. IF the companies don’t put a bunch of harmful chemicals in it (which they do) it could potentially be better from a cancerous standpoint. Thing is, no matter what you smoke, it damages you lungs. It could be paper, it can be water etc but it, for the lack of better terms, burns the inside lining of/your lungs leading to some level of COPD over time if you do so for long enough

PairOfShuse

Are we sure it's Trepang (Two) and not Trepang (Squared)? Also, could be 2 as it's their (Trepang's) second game.

USAlien

Funny thought to think that it could be Xbox that delivers great games to PlayStation and not PlayStation themselves after their mismanagement of some of their studios 😅

Joel Nehlmark

Sounds like a Rage 2 situation. Got locked out of the final mission after having a really great 30+ hours with that game

Seany Mac

Yea man re4 on VR is a reason to buy psvr 2. Such a special game. Everything That can go right, did go right with that game.

Will Ellis

Flatliners, pretty good movie.

USAlien

If you're planning on live streaming with no live chat, just don't. It's a waste of time and energy with no benefits.

Eric Golley

Ha I worked at Speedway when I lived in New York. Sooooo many Vanilla Duches and backwoods.

Daddy_Milk

I said this way back when they started pushing this live service stuff
most of their core audience dont fuck with these games from a philosophical standpoint and they are gonna have a hard time getting most of them off the ground because the fanbase that they have built and cultivated instinctively have an underlying distaste and skepticism for these styles of games.

Big titty drinker

The vr/glasses convo hit me. I just took a section of the CPA exam and they had to examine my glasses before I could go into the exam area . The future is fucked.

David Seger

The thing is that the competition hasn’t been any better so it’s kind of a moot point. Also, masking their deficiencies in third/second party exclusives has softened the blow as well

The Rose Experience

From what I understand vaping is objectively worse for you

The Rose Experience

He didn’t complain about the Pride Flags, he stated the hypocrisy of adding them when they’re removed from other countries where the game is available. At least have your facts straight if you’re going to call someone out.

The Rose Experience

Incubus reference, hell yeah. I can imagine the episode titles if Colin got into death metal.

Dry jelqing to the 8 HOURS RICH PIANA THEME ARM WORKOUT MUSIC video

Between Xbox’s hardware potentially going away and PS’s cancellations, this generation has really fucked us up.

NeO JD

I agree with you. I enjoyed 1 Definitive edition. I can’t recommend 2 though because there’s a bug near the end of the game that can lock you out of the final chapter if you don’t play the one before it in a specific way.

NeO JD

Dustin 'eating their cummy bears' 😂

Your Boi Nicky V

I honestly think the whole live stream would create more work for you, bring in more trolls and i’m not sure if you would see much of a return from it.

Cormac

Colin trying to have it both ways in the culture wars is getting a little cringe. “People are freaking out. What, you don’t think there were gays in 13th century Bohemia?!” No
 no I don’t. This is the same person who complained about pride flags in modern NYC in spiderman.

Jimmer

Chris, Ecco was on Xbla back in the day, could be what you’re remembering

Daddy T

What kind of Bears?

AllTooEasy_

It’s a coming of age! 😂

Cyprus Davis

Chadley rulez

Sock Cuckers

Dustin: "I am become hipster"

Dan Sing Izzy Rae Lee

He backed Concord, that’s all you need to know as to why he was the wrong choice for CEO

Adam Barnes

Swapping out cigarettes for vaping is a deadshit move. Doing both isn’t good, but at least the verdict is in on smoking

Adam Barnes

Chris never smoking out of an apple is wild man

BatmanBeyond

The irony is that it’s probably on the PS6 that we’ll see these studios finally release a game since they have to start from scratch now lol. But I feel you. My general excitement for Playstation is at an all time low. What in the world are they doing man.

Adam Martinez

I also don’t condone people giving death threats and threat of harm on anyone. This whole thing with Square Enix is kind of misleading. I’ve also been following the games media for a long time - the only thing changing is customers and gamers are seeing the games media for what they are. I think it’s pretty tone deaf Colin saying that it’s the audience changing and not the media. The games media has been openly hostile to gamers for years and years. You can’t say the audience is becoming more hostile and acting like they are for no reason at all. That’s being blind to the underlying problem. You’ve said that community managers get the brunt of this yet I’ve seen multiple community managers insulting people outright unprovoked, wishing harm upon large swaths of people, and then cry harassment when they get called out. This isn’t such a black and white issue as it was presented by Colin here

PairOfShuse

What your not a fan of when a really interesting conversation is going and then a chat comment about something not at all relevant derails the entire thing. This would go as well as those awful listener call in shows that they tried.

Grimm Carousel

I loved that remake and even the second one was pretty good. I guess I didn’t realize that FPS doesn’t bug me but I don’t understand why they wouldn’t boost it before the new game to get people excited

Joshua

Yes and some are good for you and some aren’t. Like the ones in cigarettes and vaping. I can’t believe this was even a response

PairOfShuse

Everything is made of chemicals

Jake Z

Coming from someone from the health industry, you guys reaaaaally need to not talk about vaping like you know if it’s better for you or not. They put so many chemicals in that shit. It’s essentially just as bad as smoking is most ways. It might be slightly better but it’s not a good alternative.

PairOfShuse

PS5 is the worst generation in PlayStation history.

Beau!

r.e the latest cancelled games. It's time more people were honest about the relative failure of PS5. The paltry library of games after 5 calendar years is impossible to ignore. Sure they've sold well, but that's down to the goodwill built up from previous generations, which is obviously diminishing. Myself, and most of my friends, all agree that buying a PS5 was a waste of money all things considered. As things stand now, I have zero interest in a PS6, and know I'm not alone. I should add that I have historically been a PS player. I've owned PS 1-5, and this gen is objectively terrible in comparison to the last. The smart move going forward looks to be a combination of PC and Nintendo.

kunsam

I've only played a bit of the game, but I recently bought it on sale after it was leaving GamePass. I definitely plan to play through the game, for sure Bioshock vibes

Mike Normal

When talking about games releasing, why do we only hear "coming to Playatation" if/when its a mutliplat game? It's been something I thought about for years, but never thinking much of it. However, "exclusives" and having to distinguish from first party, second-party, third-party, this one is signed exclusive, this one has exclusive dlc, or exclusive cinematics (Sonic), are all much more prevalent than ever. I'm fairly certain it's just for aesthetic sake and the format of the show, but I wonder if it ever gives a listener the perception of "insert game" as a playstation exclusive.

Mike Normal

My parents have always called theaters show houses as long as I can remember

Jason H

Patreon tier for a once per month live show “mailbag” and chatbag with actual chat questions
 then publish later as a SS+ episode.

WhatDarrenPlays

I am once again asking Colin to consider playing Atomic Heart. Russian Bioshock, that is all.

WhatDarrenPlays

I don’t believe they understand the what makes Monster Hunter good, even if this idea doesn’t suck.

YP-Berserk

The Bluepoint news is massively disappointing. I love remakes and they are the kings of them. Feels like such a missed opportunity. And sadly, I agree with Chris- Housmarque makes PERFECT sense for a live service game. They do twitchy fun combat so well. I hope they’re not working on one


Diddy’s Dong Quest

I try not to be an FPS snob, but in an open world game with tons of moving people and cars it’s hard. The only positive thing I can say about Xbox lately is their FPS boost on old games

Diddy’s Dong Quest

Herman Hulst needs to be questioned in a dark room.

YP-Berserk

There are soooo many PS4 games that are still 30fps locked on PS5. It's absurd to me that these companies don't go back and update these games. Even just as a show of goodwill and some positive marketing. Like, why won't Rocksteady patch Arkham Knight to run at 60fps and garner some much needed praise from gamers? Seems like a super easy, barely an inconvenience way to get in gamer's good graces.

Mike Held

Colin, I tried Mafia 1 remake and that 30 FPS is DISGUSTING. I couldn’t play it for more than an hour.

Diddy’s Dong Quest

Or maybe they see a live service game in the Horizon world having more legs than one in the other 3 worlds? These are different games to the single player experiences, obviously. So you can't really use thosw existing games as evidence that their live service game would be any good

Deemac

Oh ffs that's what they were working on? They were the one studio that I was holding out hope for that they were doing something cool. Every decision Jim/Holst has made have been God awful duds and the sooner we're past these 2 twats the better.

Yalingo

Just a quick note about dabs. You need to wait for the nail to cool down after torching it up. Only sickos go in hot and hurty. I used to use a timer and wait 40-70 seconds before taking the hit. And use a carb cap that fits your nail size to get the most out of your hit. This way should not burn your throat and is a much better experience overall.

Tristan Kimball

There’s no point of doing a livestream if you disabled comments. Additionally, a $10 patreon sub for access should keep the riff raff out. I’m in favor of you guys live-streaming the show.

Heezy

In suicide squad there were clues all over that they were clones like chris was talking about. Just never got to the point of doing it properly obviously

Graesin

It's a damn shame the power dynamic in the industry is so far removed from what it was in 7th gen because, for Playstation fans, Sony desperately needs to have their nose bloodied by the competition. Their ability to coast on the success of the ps4 and early ps5 has allowed this kind of managerial ineptitude to fester

Seany Mac

2 more live service games cancelled. Man, this generation is sad. I don't play multiplayer games and I hate live service games with a passion. They are a cancer to the industry. The singleplayer game output from Sony has been incredibly disappointing this generation. Pales in comparison to the PS4 and PS3 generation.

Mike Held

Colin hits the nail on the head with Sony botching their software support this gen when the hardware is in such a strong position to succeed.

Jeffrey Rommel

Citizen Sleeper is great. One of the better written video games

Jake Z

I’m not a Horizon fan (haven’t played them) but to me I feel like a Horizon Monster Hunter-esque live service game has the best potential out of all of those. Especially more than the GoW live service.

Michael McCoy

We are back!

Robbie Agnew

I like the livestream idea personally for Sacred +. Also biased by the fact that I work in office on Thursdays and wouldn't really be able to tune in if the regular show was livestreamed. Not that you should decide based on my personal schedule haha

Matt H

Please don’t livestream the recording. Or if you do, please do NOT do any sort of live chat interaction. Turn it off or hide it or something.

Dry jelqing to the 8 HOURS RICH PIANA THEME ARM WORKOUT MUSIC video

Bottom 😎

Dry jelqing to the 8 HOURS RICH PIANA THEME ARM WORKOUT MUSIC video

Blood of Dawnwalker instantly became my most anticipated game. It looks and sounds incredible. Also, “Coen” is totally a nod to the Witcher books. Don’t want to spoil it in case people still want to read them, but those who know, know.

Nick Shillingford

Please, please, Please don't start streaming this program live. That change inevitably leads to the inclusion of the live audience chat and most importantly- the dreaded implementation of a HORRIFIC "super chat" type of system that will destroy the show. That inclusion only makes a show better for 1% of the audience. Leaving 99% of people w/ a worse experience. Exponentially worse. The 1% is usually made up of sycophants that will pay $ to interrupt the show to state uninteresting and insufferable things. This has happened to SO many podcasts I enjoyed. If I sound alarmist it's because I don't want to add another corpses to the dead podcast pile. The current system of audience comments and questions from Patreon is superb. They are curated and woven in organicly. If you made it through my rambling post: Thank You and please consider this.

LongJohnSivers#1Fan

MCC will act as the multiplayer moving forward because they can’t do better than the bungie games. Old leak said Halo CE remake was to be single player only. Million dollar question: How does 700 hours of MCC progression transfer from steam/xbox to ps5 when Helldivers from steam to ps5 currently doesnt.

CUMSoftware

Ohh I read the description but not the timestamps. Hell yeah!

Michael Welter

There is a pickup!

Dustin Furman

Spiderman, GoW, and Last of Us, the big 3 first party franchises, get their online games cancelled but Horizon gets 2 of them. Cool cool cool. The nepotism is real.

Shadi Haddad

Chris mentioned how you can’t put a cigarette in your pocket for later. USA Gold smokers would have to disagree with you.

Michael Mashpotato

“It worked out way better for Jamie
 IMO” KILLED ME 😂 just bursted out laughing at the gym thanks. 😊

The Devmeister

Zero need to go live guys. Most of the audience are middle aged dudes like me at 37 with a family and kids. I listen to this during workouts or during gaming sessions while cleaning up platinums after kid goes to bed 😂. On demand is perfect.

The Devmeister

Damn...was hoping you guys would record a pick up. Next week then!

Michael Welter

Them doing anything live service is feels like a crime against humanity.

Mosuke Juchiha

I would pay $10 for live sacred every week

Mattveego

Fourth

Christopher Gourley

Bluepoint not doing another remake is just criminal

Damien Groome

Second?

Simon Freeman

First!

Mateusz Kuklinski


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