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.

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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.

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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 Fight to Unionize Double Fine, Epic Launcher Announcement, Shogun 2 AI Upscaling

Discussed:

9:01 - The Work to Unionize Double Fine

45:54 - Epic Games Drops "Vibe Coded" Launcher

1:24:01 - 999 Developer newest game cancelled

1:32:00 - nVidia stops 5090 Production

1:34:35 - Slay the Spire

1:46:08 - Control Resonant

2:05:51 - Penguin Colony

2:29:42 - Star Wars: Galactic Racer

2:41:45 - Silver Pines

2:42:29 - Hellraiser Revival

2:44:01 - Switch Sports Resort

2:44:24 - Ocarina of Time Remake

3:08:13 - The Question Bucket   

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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.

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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 - Gravity Well layoffs   

01:07:03 - 50% of Bit Reactor Staff back from Furlough   

01:10:52 - The Incident at Galley House   

01:13:24 - Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen    

01:59:39 - Forever Ago     

02:32:26 - Star Wars: Galactic Racer    

03:04:21 - Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve

03:15:34 - Thousand Hells

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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.

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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.

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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 Modern Day    

02:01:29 - Control Resonant    

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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.

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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, Post about Turning off Gambling Ads In Discord, Image of Confusing UI in Discord Settings

Discussed:

00:00:00 - Intro

00:00:44 - Control Resonant

00:55:07 - Xbox Studios Goes through Further Layoffs

01:18:49 - Bungie's Next Chapter

01:42:48 - Discord Age Verification Rolls Out

02:00:47 - Silent Hill: Townfall

02:20:04 - Normal Golf Game

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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.

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