The Backrooms Podcast

With Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom having a fantastic reception & release recently, another discussion around the visual fidelity & art in gaming seems to have bubbuled (hehe) up to the top of the (very civil) discussion boards again. TotK does not have the best fidelity in the world, but that's okay! The boys pretend like their opinion matters once again and get deep into the depths of this conflict. Let's light up a Lightroot, pop open an elixir, and kick back and listen.

Bugs are some of the best parts of the gaming experience. It could also completely break an experience. When a game is buggy or broken, it can ruin our enjoyment & break our immersion. However, some of the best moments in gaming history would not be here without the use of bugs & exploits. Hell, even some old games are still played, and in the spotlight, due to their unintended exploits.

In this very very late edition of The Backrooms, we get a little spooky. All forms of media use our fears & anxieties, in one way or another, to give us a sense of realism or Engagement in a story or setting. The boys decided it was time to take a dive into the depths of the dreadful & dreary world of horror, and the use of horror, in telling a story and setting a scene.

Everything becomes "retro" at some point. Regardless, the boys are taking a step back in time once again to talk about their golden age of gaming, the early 2000s. Now, is this really retro? Probably not to most people, but that doesn't matter because we're talking about it anyways. Let's take a moment to enjoy this trip down memory lane to discuss games and consoles of our childhood and their influences, and maybe some actual "retro" games.

Does Customization matter in Gaming? Player Expression & Payer customization has become a staple in video game culture, so much so that the lack of freedom in this area can cause disarray in a game's community, even in a great title. With this being said, let's take a moment to discuss player expression & customization and how it affects a game's community, atmosphere, and tone.

While we are definitely not qualified to talk about the mechanisms that surround AI in gaming, we have a discussion anyways. The boys discuss the way developers build and design AI & their systems to interact with the game world and the player. Join us and have some fun with this rather chaotic and disorganized discussion on Artificial Intelligence in video games.

Games are getting bigger and more expensive. More and more titles are embracing the open world structure of game design and in this room, the boys take a shallow dive into some of the ways that these open worlds can benefit, and even harm, a game's atmosphere and experience. Between Spiderman, GTA, Elden Ring, & even now, Halo: Infinite, every game is becoming more and more similar, but at the same time, each of these open world experiences offer something unique and enjoyable. What makes these open worlds so unique? Why is every game moving in this direction? And is this a good or bad trend? Are there negatives to an open world?

As is tradition with any game release by FROM Software, the overarching gaming community and media outlets gather round the bonfire to have a debate about difficultly and accessibility in gaming. While the boys are not experienced enough with accessibility tools in games, they sure have had their share of difficult encounters in some of their favorite games. In this room, we take a dive into what makes a game difficult, how difficulty and accessibility can differ, and how developers finesse their way around the delicate task of tuning a game's difficulty curve. Should games have an easy mode? Does difficulty affect the developer's vision? Are players "owed" the completion of a game?

In any form of media, be it a game, movie, or show, to capture an audience, there needs to be compelling characters. When watching or experiencing a connection with a protagonist, antagonist, or even a minor character, have you ever thought why you feel a connection with them? Why are they so compelling or convincing to you? What makes a character well designed and compelling? In this room, the boys get into discourse discussing their favorite heroes, villains, and antiheros.

In this room, the gentlemen discuss change in gaming, both on a micro and macro scale. Some game developers make incremental changes between installments of their games, while others make more drastic choices that can affect core mechanics and gameplay. And sometimes, there are games or releases that have monumental impacts on the industry as a whole. What features or mechanics are good? Which are gimmicks? And what changes in games had a more positive or negative effect on that franchise or the industry?

The Halo Franchise turned 20 this last November! This anniversary brought with it the surprising early release of the Halo Infinite multiplayer experience. While Jack, Justin, & Bryan are thrilled with the game's early release, and more importantly the astounding quality and refinement of the core gameplay, a much larger controversy has sprung forward; The Battlepass. The guys, and the larger Halo Community as a whole, are having grievances with the game's poor progression system, and the game's lack of a solid reward structure. So how can the developers resolve this conflict? Do they even need to? And how come the best halo in years feels, in a sense, unsatisfying?

Welcome to Room 1, our horrible introduction in which we discuss the upcoming 343i release, Halo Infinite, alongside the release of The Master Chief Collection's 8th and final seasonal update, and we discuss the modern monetization of video games with battle-pass systems and seasonal Content. Has the battle-pass extended the life of games? Or has this system allowed for a more lazy and stripped-down experience?