Total Playtime

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 are away this week, possibly because we're talking about layoffs again, chiefly those at Microsoft again. Still, this does spare us from having to tell Nate live on air that an unrevealed Age of Empires game has been cancelled. 
Otherwise it's a bit of a bad-news rundown through the extended Xbox universe and into Bungie's recent decision that it's going to spend time on Destiny 2 after all, before Brendy brightens things up with some chat about the cheerily implausible fighter-plane-based fiction of Ace Combat 8. There are also some important tips about carrying car batteries, thus cementing our position as providers of service journalism. 
You can listen to the episode right here, or find it in your podcasting app of choice. 

Our art is by God Ribbon, our art is by Marsh Davies, our editing is by Alix Attenborough and the entire podcast is thanks to the paying supporters of Jank. Share your insights on impairment-based financial charges at totalplaytimepod@gmail.com, in the comments below, or in the rarified environment of the Jank Discord.
Links!
Turns out that estate agents are held in higher regard than journalists although we've still got the edge on "politicians generally" and "social media influencers". Xbox did layoffs again. Don't call it a reset. Ninja Theory is marked for closure.  Microsoft bought Activision for $69 billion. The reshuffle suggests a reverse acquisition. Bungie is de-vaulting Destiny and re-vamping Marathon. 
Games!
Forza Horizon 6. Clockwork Revolution. Gears of War E-Day. Fable (2027). Destiny 2. Marathon. Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve. Permaban.

Recommendations!
The Hundred Brothers and Resident Evil (2026).

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.