Beyond

In a recent investor call, Sony’s finance and IR chief Sadahiko Hayakawa announced that we should expect a major first party single-player game release at least once a year from the 2025 fiscal year onward, which is awesome news! However, aside form Ghost of Yotei, Death Stranding 2: On The Beach and Insomniac and Marvel’s Wolverine, that leaves lots of room for speculation about which of PlayStation’s numerous game studios will make an announcement next. There have been rumors and possibly in-game clues that Naughty Dog’s next project may be in the realm of fantasy, and things have been quiet over there since The Last of Us: Part I. Even quieter has been Bend Studio, whose last project was Days Gone, and quite a few days have gone by since that was released. Meanwhile, there’s also Santa Monica Studio, Housemarque, and Media Molecule, just to name a few. In other news, Sony patents a rewind button which probably sounds a lot cooler than it is, Akeem is getting weird in PSVR, and Jada reviewed LEGO Horizon Adventures, which sounds just fine. This week’s show is Max Scoville, Jada Griffin, Akeem Lawanson, Brian Altano, and is produced by Nick Maillet.Check out our facebook group at - facebook.com/groups/podcastbeyond/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The PlayStation 5 Pro has finally arrived (or arrives very shortly) and we’ve got IGN’s reviewer Michael Higham joining us to break down how much of an improvement this mid-gen hardware refresh actually is, from enhanced performance modes to PSSR upscaling, Sony has definitely released a powerful machine, but it might not be enough of a leap to justify its pricetag. In other news, Wolverine’s creative director has left to oversee Perfect Dark instead, and Ratchet & Clank Rift Apart’s game director and creative director are taking over the much-anticipated gamification of everyone’s favorite adamantium-plated Canadian. In lieu of any concrete information about Wolverine, we have a list of outlandish demands of features the game should include, as well as some beloved Marvel characters Beyond community suggested. Monster Hunter Wilds is shaping up to be a behemoth of a game, and Jada shared some of what got her the most excited during her time with the beta this weekend. This week’s show is Max Scoville, Jada Griffin, Michael Higham, and is produced by Nick Maillet. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nick Maillet, an IGN reviewer known for his insights on Life is Strange, joins the discussion about the latest in gaming. The group dives into the surprising stealth elements of Call of Duty's Black Ops 6, likening its campaign to iconic series like Hitman and Metal Gear. They also unpack the vibrant zombie mode, full of quirky easter eggs. The conversation touches on the closure of Firewalk Studios, reflecting on industry challenges and fans' emotional responses, along with early impressions of Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s innovative mechanics.

It’s true! The remake of the 2011 game heaps on a ton of new content that makes it one of Jada’s favorite entries in the series to date, as indicated by her 9 out of 10 review score. How can SEGA and Team Sonic keep this momentum going with future games? Meanwhile, Insomniac is hard at work at something, but that something isn’t story DLC for Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, and maybe that’s okay? At the very least, the wallcrawler’s last PS5 outing is coming to PC as well. Jada got hands on with LEGO Horizon Adventures, and says it’s more of a Horizon game than a LEGO game, Max is nuts for Squirrel With a Gun, Brian makes some noise about A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead, and Akeem is cutting through the fog in Silent Hill with his newly unlocked chainsaw. This week’s show is Max Scoville, Jada Griffin, Akeem Lawanson, Brian Altano, and is produced by Nick Maillet. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tis the season… No, the OTHER season. That’s right, it’s that time of year when everything is covered with bats and skeletons and fake cobwebs and other macabre and ghoulish decor. So, we took the opportunity to reach out to our listeners and have them share the stuff in video games that’s terrified, creeped out, haunted, startled, or otherwise scared the crap out of them. It’s an excuse to talk about some of our favorite games, from tried and true survival horror franchises like Silent Hill, Resident Evil, and Dead Space, to older favorites like Condemned: Criminal Origins, Cold Fear and Alien: Isolation, to games that we don’t think of primarily as horror, but which definitely have one foot in there, like Bloodborne (of course) and BioShock. What game has scared you the most? Share your video game scary stories in the comments. This week’s show is Max Scoville, Jada Griffin, Akeem Lawanson, Brian Altano, and is produced by Nick Maillet. Opera GX: IGN Edition brings the Internet’s number one destination for news, reviews, gameplay, trailers and more, into your browser: https://operagx.gg/IGN_Article Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Wow! That episode title uses a lot of words to list just three games, but those three games are all some of this year’s most anticipated releases. We’ve all gotten to delve into Silent Hill 2’s long-awaited remake courtesy of Layers of Fear studio Bloober Team, Persona and Shin Megami Tensei developers ATLUS’ brand new JPRG, Metaphor Re:Fantazio, and Dragon Ball Sparking! Zero, which is basically the 4th entry in the Budokai Tenkaichi series that fans have been asking for since 2005. Video games! You couldn’t find a more drastically different bunch of games, but they all have a whole lot to offer, whether you want to have the crap scared out of you, make the protagonist take a crap, or hear Chi-Chi talking crap about Super Saiyan hair. This week’s show is Max Scoville, Jada Griffin, and Akeem Lawanson.Opera GX: IGN Edition brings the Internet’s number one destination for news, reviews, gameplay, trailers and more, into your browser: https://operagx.gg/IGN_Articleopera.comOpera GX | Gaming BrowserOpera GX is the browser built specifically for gamers. Get unparalleled gaming and browsing features, packed in a powerful revolutionary browser. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The limited edition 30th Anniversary PlayStation 5 hardware that was announced last week went up for pre-order, and statistically speaking, you probably weren’t able to get one. On top of maybe TOO limited quantities of the very cool retro-style versions of the PlayStation 5, PS5 Pro, PlayStation portal and both DualSense and DualSense Edge, the whole online pre-order system turned out to be something of a disaster. People waiting in queues for an hour or more, just to be told everything was out of stock. Or worse, being able to add stuff to their card, but blocked from purchase by technical problems. Considering how much of a mess the launch of this generation was thanks to scalpers, you’d think Sony would’ve handled this better. Actually they did, but only in Japan, where pre-orders of the highly sought-after special editions were limited to PSN account holders with more than 30 hours logged playing games, which presumably helped make things a bit more orderly. We also scratch our heads about the pricing of Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered, which is only ten bucks for people who own the game on PS4, which mysteriously doubled in price overnight on the PlayStation Store. And like, we get it, but also: c’mon. In other news, Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ delay into next year puts in a literal Samurai Shodown with Ghost of Yotei, and that probably isn’t great for either game. We also reflect on how it’s going to be difficult to narrow down what this year’s game of the year will be. Despite a handful of really good games, there don’t seem to be any clear crowd-pleaser standouts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The latest PlayStation State of Play happened, and the Beyond crew broke down the biggest PS5 news and trailers from the event. There were various PlayStation 5 titles revealed, the biggest one showcased was Ghost of Yotei, which takes place in 1603 and is releasing in 2025. PlayStation is releasing various remasters, like Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1 and 2 Remastered, Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered and Lunar Remastered Collection. Sega is apparently bringing back the whole movie tie-in trope with a special DLC coming to Sonic X Shadow Generations coming in the form of Keanu Reeves voicing Shadow, a special level and movie-accurate skin, which will be included in the digital deluxe edition. And more games were shown off on the #PS5Pro, including FF7 Rebirth, Horizon Forbidden West, The Last of Us Remastered, Jedi Survivor, Spider-Man 2, The Crew, Stellar Blade, Assassins Creed Snake Eater, Resident Evil Village, and many more. Listen in or watch as Akeem Lawanson, Brian Altano, Jada Griffin, and Nicolas Limon discuss all these and more in a very special #PlayStation State of Play #PS5 episode of BEYOND! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Now that the dust has settled on the PlayStation 5 Pro’s underwhelming reveal and overwhelming price tag, let’s actually discuss what it would take to get us seriously interested. Sure, Grand Theft Auto 6 at 4K 60FPS would be nice, but is it realistic? Will Rockstar save that for the inevitable PS6 version? We read some of the Beyond community’s thoughts on the matter. Speaking of PlayStation 6, we know basically nothing about the next generation of consoles, other than there will be one, and that it’ll feature an AMD chip, after Sony’s deal with Intel allegedly fell through. This would suggest backward compatibility, which is a blessing and a curse, considering the PS5 is still getting a lot of cross-gen games that also come to PS4. Meanwhile, they don’t make fall/holiday video game release lineups like they used to, and we wax nostalgic about a graphic showing all the amazing games that hit PlayStation 2 back in 2001… And maybe their timed exclusivity had more to do with the PS2 hitting the market a year before Xbox and GameCube than anything Sony was doing. Finally, Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster rises from its grave looking better than the last time we saw it, but showing its age in other ways. Beyond is Max Scoville, Brian Altano, Jada Griffin and Akeem Lawanson.Check out our facebook group at - https://www.facebook.com/groups/podcastbeyond/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After months of leaks and rumors, Sony finally revealed the PlayStation 5’s mid-gen refresh, the PS5 Pro. The 8-minute technical presentation from Mark Cerny spent its first three minutes singing the base PS5’s praises, and then highlighted the “big three” improvements the new model boastsl: a larger GPU, advanced ray tracing, and AI-driven upscaling. This new tech was showcased in a montage of side-by-side comparisons featuring some of the PS5’s most popular games, and while there’s some subtle but noticeable difference seeing how these games look running on new tech, nothing really blew us away… at least, until the price was announced. The PS5 Pro launches November 7th with an MSRP of $699 in the US, €799 in Europe. Bear in mind, the stand and the disc drive are sold separately, and the base PS5 isn’t getting any price cut that we’re aware of, which is usually what happens to consoles mid-generation. So many of the PS5’s games so far have been backwards compatible that it’s hard to justify a new console to begin with, let alone a more powerful one. We’re all riding high on Astro Bot, and while that game is gorgeous and technically impressive, at no point did it seem like more powerful hardware would improve the experience. As for what upcoming games can truly take advantage of the PS5 Pro, that remains to be seen. Grand Theft Auto 6 is obviously a big huge deal in 2025, and it’ll undoubtedly sell some PS5 Pros, but aside from Insomniac’s Wolverine game, so much of Sony’s first party lineup is still under wraps, which makes it hard to get excited about this thing, let alone justify spending money on it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices