Sacred Symbols, Episode 254 | Hear the Magic in Your Sighs (Patreon)

A minor culling is underway at and around PlayStation, with a smaller first party studio going away and an in-production second party FPS seemingly cancelled. But it's unclear why this would necessarily be looked at as a bad thing. If teams and products aren't living up to their promise -- and if they presumably don't reach an ever-increasing quality bar internally -- shouldn't they be cut loose? Still, at a time when consolidation and headcount means anything, that Sony is taking these risks indicates there's more at play, with the potential of a brighter future on the other side. Let's discuss. Other news this week includes massive numbers for the Horizon franchise, now Sony's sixth best-selling series ever, while Pokémon studio GameFreak gets into bed with Take Two and PS+ gets its strongest slate of new additions in months. Finally, we wrap things up -- as always -- with listener inquiries. Was IGN wrong to say that games its staff has never heard of aren't worth your attention to begin with? Have the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters invoked a new interest in Stranger of Paradise? Can anything be done to halt the death of game rentals? Will we ever recover from how hard The Good Doctor makes us laugh?

Timestamps:

0:00:00 - Intro

0:04:09 - Have we cursed the audience with Chris Chan lore?

0:13:24 - Dustin and Dagan at Too Many Games

0:17:12 - Is Colin playing the straight man?

0:20:31 - The Autistic Doctor

0:27:10 - When should wedding speeches take place?

0:34:07 - HBO’s TLoU series is one of their biggest ever

0:37:33 - An unannounced PS5 sci-fi shooter has been canceled

0:44:30 - Hogwarts Legacy has sold more than 15 million copies

0:46:59 - Hollow Knight: Silksong has been delayed

0:50:04 - Capcom is killing it

0:54:31 - Destiny 2 season pass pricing has been quietly raised

1:02:01 - Warhammer 40k: Boltgun looks dope

1:05:47 - A Plague Tale: Requiem is getting a performance mode

1:08:51 - Gimmick is coming to PS4

1:10:04 - A Mortal Kombat reboot may be incoming

1:17:48 - Street FIghter 6’s open beta has been revealed

1:20:10 - GQ has released a list of their top 100 games

1:34:35 - What have we been playing?

2:05:39 - Pixelopus is being shut down

2:24:30 - Horizon: Forbidden West’s sales numbers have been revealed

2:35:52 - GameFreak is collaborating with Private Division for Project Bloom

2:47:15 - Sony has announced the India Hero Project

2:50:43 - PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium offerings for May have been revealed

2:58:35 - How do sites decide what to review?

3:07:01 - What do we think of Stranger of Paradise?

3:10:48 - Who are our favorite artists in the industry?

3:16:00 - Are rentals a good reason for physical games to exist?

3:33:42 - Is Zelda the highest quality franchise of all time?

3:41:10 - What game related clothing do we like?