RKG's 2nd Birthday Message (Patreon)

We didn’t expect to be spending RKG’s second birthday in lockdown.

But on Monday night, in response to spiralling cases and a new form of the virus here, the UK government placed the country under the tightest restrictions since March. People have been instructed to stay at home, with the current measures being evaluated by the middle of February at the earliest.

Today we’d like to be telling you about the exciting projects we have planned for this year. But we don’t live in that timeline. So let’s make the best of this one.

Retry: Demon’s Souls

We’ve been planning this for months. The episodes are all planned. We’ve been testing new bits of kit. But with this latest lockdown, and an uncertain few months ahead, we don’t know when we’ll be able to get back into the studio to film and make it the way we want to.

This series will be our most ambitious project ever.

We want to make Retry: Demon’s Souls the new benchmark for what Retry is, and what a long-form Let’s Play series can be. We don’t churn out videos, riding the wave of what’s popular or simply out that week. Because of the support of our patrons, we don’t have to chase views. Instead we can focus on making something that feels different to other channels.

To do that, we’ve been examining every aspect of how we’ve made the show over the last five years, and thinking about how we can improve it – the shooting schedule, our equipment, the set, the show’s graphics, and more. All of this requires us to go into the studio and work closely together in a way that we just can’t for the foreseeable future.

We know that you watch these episodes again and again, and will for possibly years to come. And for that reason, we don’t want to rush it, and even when it's possible for us to go back into the studio, we don't want to make do the conditions we came up with for the second half of our Sekiro series. 

We want to film the show in the way we started out in 2016 – in three chairs sat side-by-side. We want to be able to hug and celebrate when we kill that boss after 7 hours. We want to come in on Day One of filming with nothing else to worry about than saving Boletaria. 

It’ll be worth the wait.

So what’s going to happen now?

Towards the end of last year when restrictions were more relaxed here in the UK, we got into the studio and filmed three brand-new shows which Rory and Gav are busy editing right now. These were intended to give us the time and space to focus on Demon’s Souls. They will roll out in succession, with the first debuting on January 29th. Each will be an Early Access show, meaning patrons at the $10 tier and above will have instant access to all episodes at once.

We’re really happy with them and had an absolute blast filming them. At the end of filming days, we even had some nice ‘complaints’ from our neighbours in the studio about how much we were laughing. We're editing these right now, making them as good as they can be. 

These will run as we assess the situation and how it evolves. We’ll keep planning Demon’s Souls as much as we can, and update you when we have something concrete to tell you.

Thank You!

Thank you for your support over the last year. It’s been hard for everyone in different ways, and an experience unlike any other. (We’re assuming no one here lived through the Spanish flu.) If you've been directly or indirectly affected by the pandemic and the events of the last year, our thoughts are with you. If you’ve lost a loved one or struggled to get out of bed in the morning, we understand. But one day this will be over and we'll return to normality and appreciate it more.

And when that’s done, we’ll throw that RKG birthday stream, and tell you what the future holds for us. Whenever that may be.

Summer?

Love RKG x