KILL SCREEN 042: Manuel Gagneux of ZEAL & ARDOR Explores the Good Greif of Gaming

Without a single word yet said, the co-nerds of Kill Screen burst out in a hearty laugh when connecting over Zoom with Zeal & Ardor mastermind Manuel Gagneux. Expecting to see the multi-instrumentalist sat in front of a standard blank wall or a workspace filled with instruments and ephemera of his band’s many accomplishments, what greeted us was the character select menu from Mario Kart 64 used as an overlay with Gagneux placed among the iconic roster. Before getting to the topic at hand, he gave a quick tour of the overlays in his arsenal, including one set in the General Assembly of the United Nations (for a more serious, highbrow tone) and another closely cropped on his face so as to cast him as the titular character from Thomas the Tank Engine. Clearly, this is somebody who came ready to game.

What transpired during the following time together quickly became less of an interview and more of a comfortable freeform conversation. For someone who titled his upcoming album GREIF—though named after a mythical creature and not the emotion anyone with a chronic news addiction feels perpetually—Gagneux puts out an enthusiasm and charm that is impossible to deny. Despite our best efforts to hit our prepared list of questions and stay on track, it was far too easy to explore tangents, crack jokes and geek out about not just the pastime of video games, but the art, industry and community surrounding it. Sometimes profound, oftentimes silly, but never anything less than sincere, the Swiss Renaissance man was an open book—or rather, an open Steam library, which he did indeed screen share with us—and it’s a story that we’re happy to share with you all.

For an exclusive print excerpt on how Zeal & Ardor’s music came to be in a Ubisoft game trailer, be sure to pick up the latest issue of Decibel, which is available right now. Do you want to turn on auto-updates for Kill Screen? Be sure to sign up for our newsletter to keep up to date on the latest posts, contests and events—and for the hardcore gamers out there, subscribe to Decibel for all of our bonus content.

What was your very first gaming experience?
Probably DOS games, like Commander Keen and stuff like that. First game? It must have been either Windows 3.1 or literally DOS. I’m old as fuck, so it’s gonna be, like, ’92, ’93? When I was five, something like that.

Did it pull you in or were you like, Yeah, this is cool, whatever?
It totally enveloped me. It was this weird machine that had, like, unspoken powers, and then you typed in a sequence of glyphs and then a fun game appeared. It was insane. Plus, the whole shareware thing where you didn’t know what was on it and people just gave the shit for free, 30 percent of the game or whatever? It was it was a wild time.

So what have you been playing lately and what do you typically prefer to play?
I’m a game hopper. I finished the No Rest for the Wicked early access, which was briefer than anticipated. What else? Let me just… This very professional, alt-tabbing into Steam during an interview. So, allegedly, I’ve been playing The Finals for… [grimaces] 400 hours? I’m tragic. Ah! Another Crab’s Treasure, actually. It’s a Soulslike, but it’s not like depressive, like, “Oh, the orphans have been diagnosed with cancer because their cat died.” No, it’s colorful. It’s brilliant, actually. And I love it. I’ve been trying to do a new character for Elden Ring for the [Shadow of the Erdtree] DLC because my other one is in New Game +. Turns out I’m still kind of shitty at the game and I’m this close to saying on Twitter, “Guys, if anyone is close to Mohgwyn Palace and elected to help a stranger…” [Laughs] That would be my only vice in that regard.

I [Michael] remember getting [The Finals] and playing that with my friends pretty early on and they abandoned it because they were like, “It just got way too sweaty way too quickly.” But you seem to have stuck with it. What made that worth hanging out for?
I wish I had a good answer to that. I was in the early access/beta/whatever-the-fuck, and in my mind I was pretty good at the game. I think it’s a delusion of sorts where I kind of insist for myself, “I’m great at this, this is fine. This was an offshoot of a match.” But I actually consistently suck at it. [Laughs]

[Laughs] And yet you have made it to 400 hours.
[Pauses] Listen, it’s not about the details right now. [Laughs]

But why something like The Finals and not [Call of Duty], Hunt: Showdown, any of these other ones?
I think there’s a certain levity to it. There’s no blood in it, you explode into coins. Everything’s kind of silly. If you’ve seen the Doom: [The Dark Ages] trailer for that came out yesterday, it’s back to, like, 2005. They desaturated everything. Doom Eternal was like, “Cool, look at all the colors!” and the cacodemon is this cartoon character, and now it’s, [grunts] serious bullshit. The Finals is aggressively colorful. And I’m great at it. [Laughs]

Since you brought up Dark Ages: Man, I [Michael] want Bethesda to stop fucking around and just give me a Hexen reboot. What are they waiting for?
It’s sad because they’re sitting on so many cool IPs and they’re never gonna do shit with them. And they’ve been acquired by Microsoft, right? I mean, it worked wonders for Double Fine [Productions] because Double Fine could do whatever the fuck, but I don’t think that Todd Howard is in the particularly experimental mindset right now. He wants to do Starfield damage control. There’s a DLC coming. It’s gonna be… more the same.

We discovered your gaming proclivities when we spoke to [Imperial Triumphant’s] Zachary Ezrin, when he said that you suggested to him The Outer Wilds and Return of the Obra Dinn. These aren’t your typical Call of Duty/Fortnite titles that you’re suggesting to him. How are you coming across these indie gems? Are those the kind of titles that you prefer to play?
I also like the AAA shit, but I’ve been tickled that way before and when something comes along like Return to the Obra Dinn or Inscryption, weird games, it’s just a new experience and I think that’s what gaming is kind of about. There’s popcorn gaming where you just want to do the shoot-sy in the heads, click-to-delete type gaming. It’s a medium that can make you feel shit that music can’t do, fucking movies can’t do it, books can’t do it. It’s only possible in gaming and that’s exciting to me.

I’ve [Michael] told so many people this—and this is not hyperbolic in the least—I think that video games are literally the pinnacle of human art to this point because it combines literally every single art into a single medium.
Want to hear something really sweaty? [German composer] Richard Wagner [1813-1883]—asshole in his own right—he was obsessed with this idea of the “Gesamtkunstwerk,” the all-encompassing art form. Because of his time, that meant opera, which I think we can agree on is pretty fucking lame. And he was also the guy who decided opera should be seven hours long. But at the time, it encompassed graphics—visual art—dance, movement, music and thespian exposition. But there’s no interaction, there’s no immersion. So I think Ricky Wagner would be the [Fez developer] Phil Fish of our days.

Do you often get to talk with tour mates, bandmates, whatever about games, or did you see Zach as a fresh little lamb and just be like, I must usher him towards the chosen land?
Well, I think Zach just saw my shiny new Steam Deck and was like, I should get that, and then he didn’t know what to play with it. I’m like, “OK, here’s the good shit.” [Laughs]

But actually, yeah, I have a couple of people I talk to, but I’m kind of obsessed with it. I’m also obsessed with the business of it and I very much hate Embracer Group and the layoffs that are happening, it’s fucking terrible. It’s a tumultuous time for video games right now. We were playing in Gdańsk two days ago and they’re opening fucking game studios left and right. The publishers are outsourcing all the studios to Poland because they have competent people and it just costs a fraction to develop shit. Great for Poland—abysmal for the rest of the world because all they want to do is “line go up” and it’s not super great.

And then you get games like Silent Hill: Downpour.
Yeah, fucking bangers. What was the worst one? [The Lord of the Rings: Gollum] was pretty fucking… [gives a sarcastic thumbs up] Like, two really terrible stinkers that year. It was the Gollum one and like another one was also similarly abysmal.

Actually, Downpour was also a Polish studio, by the way. That was one of the first examples of outsourcing.

That was Vatra [Games]. I [James] think they did that and literally one other thing and absolutely nothing else ever.
Yeah. It probably dissolved by the next one. I’m not knocking Polish studios, but it’s the executives.

Isn’t CD Projekt Red Polish?
Yeah! GOG [Good Old Games] is Polish.

Of course they can make great games. It’s not where they’re located, it’s just the funding.
Yeah! I think they should make their own games, like This War of Mine. 11 Bit Studios does great shit. It’s when they’re supposed to ape stuff that Americans are trying to ape from Japan, it’s like this game of Telephone where it’s just lost in communication.

To be fair, that kind of weird game of Telephone can unintentionally come up with some weird, interesting titles. But more often than not, it’s just shovelware, Steam early-access garbage that goes nowhere.
Interestingly enough, Silent Hill kind of stems from that, right? It’s a misunderstanding of American culture. They wanted to do a Lynch movie and it just got super weird. And by re-Telephoning it, it just kind of got boring again. I don’t know how that happened.

How have you found the Steam Deck to be?
It’s been great. But for me personally on tour, what was really important is to have a dock so you can simultaneously charge it, have controllers connected to it and connect it to a TV so everyone can play your totally legitimately acquired copy of Smash Bros. [Laughs]

I [Michael] love this sentiment of, Man, if only there was a console in which you could dock it to a TV, and controllers came off the sides and you could play Nintendo games. If only that was a thing.
You know, the Steam Deck—they fucked up by one letter. [Shakes head] One day. Oh wait, actually Valve released the dock, right? They did. I’m an idiot. Never mind. Thanks, Gaben.

Does the Steam Deck come out a bit when you travel, when you’re doing shows and stuff?
It’s so funny because when I bought it, I just imagined, Yeah, I’m gonna game everywhere! On the bus! On the fucking shitter! But when I’m on tour, I’m just excited to be with my friends in a strange country and then just hang out with them. So that was a well-invested situation.

We hear people with a similar sentiment not only on the Steam Deck, but on a Switch or even a Vita, where they’re like, “Yeah, I bring it on tour and it comes out of my book bag, like, once.”
It’s like buying a book for your holidays. It’s like, I got it. I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna read fucking James Joyce! No, you’re fucking not. [Laughs] Forget it. Forget it. But I’ll still bring it!

Yeah, I’m gonna buy this brick that I’m gonna have anxiety about losing the entire time.
Mm-hmm. And think about stick drift or whatever. It’s like I’m bringing the Mona Lisa on tour just to have her. Not look at her—just to have her there. [Laughs]

Most important question of the interview: There’s a phenomenal photo of Zach playing Mario Kart: Double Dash!! backstage at the Rickshaw in full costume, where he says that he was on tour with you guys. Who won the round?
I think it was Marco [Von Allmen], our drummer, because he’s a fucking fiend. He’ll actually be the last on purpose to get the blue shell and then go in front. He’s an asshole. [Laughs]

Has there ever been in-band fighting when it comes to Mario Kart?
[Sputtering angrily] No, we’re professional, it’s fine! [Laughs] He’s just super good. It’s the same when he drums. He’s just too good for humans. It’s smugness, but it’s so subtle that it pisses you off even more. It’s like, “Eh, I won.” At least gloat, you piece of shit!

Do you ever plan games that you’re going to bring out on tour?
I plan it, but it never happens. But this time it’ll be different because it’s going to be the Elden Ring DLC. I’m just gonna wait ’til there’s a cheese. I’ll just be shitty to every boss.

Conversely, do you schedule something for you when you get back then?
See, I’m a gambling man, so I wait and see what the Epic Games Store has for free that week. But my hopes have been crushed many a time, like last week when the mystery game—which is always a huge, huge, huge thing—was Farming Simulator ’23. I was really excited. I was like, This is gonna be great, this weekend’s gonna fucking rule!… I got a John Deere, you know? [Laughs]

I’m [Michael] glad that there is a demographic for that game.
You know what’s funny? It’s the most successful Swiss game up there. This is my country serving you the most boring game in the world. Flight Simulator flies, you know? Farming Simulator farms. [Laughs]

At least the flight sim games I [James] can get the pitch because learning to be a pilot, getting a pilot’s license, I’m never gonna do that. Whereas a farming game, I don’t think it ever sounds fun to see how much wheat my fields will yield for this harvest. That does not sound interesting.
The selling point is exhaustion. Like, “Oh, you want chores?” That’s the gameplay! I don’t get it. And it’s not even a cozy game!

Right! It’s not Stardew Valley, it’s not Animal Crossing
Yeah, no Harvest Moon, it’s just like, Oh, fuck! The crops are dying!

It’s the 2K of simulators where everything has to be hyper-realistic and none of it is fun.
Exactly. But people love it. This is weird: We had a bus driver in Europe who would get off his shift, kick back, open his laptop and then play a truck driver simulator. His off time was more of the same! And I have to commend the dedication of that man. [Laughs] All in!

I [Michael] think you have to feel better about your driver if that’s the level of dedication. That’s not somebody who’s fucking around behind the wheel.
That man is a god in my eyes. He bleeds trucks.

You started a Twitch channel, mostly for music. Did you ever have any inclination to try out games on there or was it always going to be strictly music?
The thing is, I tried it once. But I quickly came to find out that you have to be really good at video games to be able to talk and play. And I struggle to play alone, so I’m lacking half of a brain for that.

Do you play [games like] The Finals by yourself or do you squad up with anybody? Having that difficulty talking while gaming, I [Michael] have that same thing, too, where I’ll play Overwatch with friends and they’re making all these calls and I’m just like, I’m just going to quietly listen to what they say.
Yeah. Sometimes it works. I don’t know what the factor is there, but sometimes I get in the zone and I can do both simultaneously. But as a rule I would say I steadily fail.

Do you have a preference between single-player games and multiplayer games or is it just whatever?
It’s a mood thing. Sometimes I just want to be alone and play or be engulfed in a weird world and sometimes I just want to hang out with friends and be a deer that farts [Oh Deer].

You mentioned when you were younger playing some DOS games on a computer and then you just talked about the Steam Deck. You had mentioned PlayStation in the middle. Did you go from computer to console and then back to PC? Was there any reason for the switch?
It’s exactly that. We had a family computer that I abused and then we just had a PlayStation for a long time. And then I just had a Mac—which rips for gaming, by the way. Absolutely shreds. [Laughs] Now I just got myself a PC and I’m playing all the games that I couldn’t play.

Is there any particular reason that you have continued on the PC route rather than grabbing a console?
I like modding and I like tinkering with shit. There’s something about [having] a product that you get, but you can still kind of change it for yourself. I love that aspect of it.

What are the kinds of mods that you do?
Even mundane stuff, like making an old game run on modern hardware, but you kind of have to tinker with it. For me, that’s part of the fun in a weird way, even though it’s frustrating. The whole process is shit, but it kind of gives me joy in a fucked-up way.

Have you ever bricked a computer because of modding or have you managed to stay away from messing with it too much?
I was lucky, but also because I’m not smart enough to really fuck with shit. I’m just at the cusp of it. [Laughs] I follow YouTube tutorials brilliantly. That’s my skill ceiling.

You said in an interview with Metal Injection that you are typically writing music from 9 AM until midnight. Clearly you’re finding time to play games if you’ve got 400 hours in The Finals. What is this work-life balance like?
Um… not? [Laughs]

Is it scheduled or do you decide at one point, I’m over this, and you retreat to the good screen and walk away from the bad screen?
I’m actually pretty diligent about when I start working, when I stop working. After midnight is just my gaming time. And perhaps I don’t sleep enough.

The music of Zeal & Ardor doesn’t follow strict genre formulas. Do you find that similar sense of experimentation from the games that you play? You said that it’s based on a mood, but when you’re looking up game trailers, do you find that you’re more inclined to give deference to something that seems like an indie game taking a chance as opposed to the new Starfield DLC?
Absolutely. I just love to be surprised. One of my favorite games is Frog Fractions 2. To play Frog Fractions 2—which looks like an Atari game—you have to buy a game called Glittermitten Grove, wherein you help fairies fill their grove with with glitter. At a certain point of that game, there’s a new door that you can enter and then the whole graphics go to shit and you’re just an ASCII character going through whatever. It looks like the first Wolfenstein game, basically—not the 3D one. And then you continue on and there’s a minigame where you have to shave Obama. It’s fucking bonkers, and you do not know what happens around each corner.

Screenshot of Frog Fractions 2.

Do you like these kinds of fourth wall-breaking games?
If they’re fun about it. There’s certain games that are just like, Oh, I am breaking the fourth wall, so this is highbrow or funny. But if there’s a twist to it, if it’s fun, basically. That’s such a great denominator, but yeah, if it’s a surprise essentially. If it’s something that I didn’t expect, it makes me giggle and I like to giggle.

As silly as it may seem to say, do you think that games have to be fun?
Obviously not. I think when you look at things like Spec Ops: The Line, it’s not a fun game and it shows you that what you’re doing is fucked up. That’s a valid experience. But it’s like movies—sometimes you just want to eat popcorn and the slop. Please! Papa EA, feed me! [Laughs] But sometimes you want to have something more interesting or subversive. It gets really, really douchey really quickly. I do like Disco Elysium, but it comes across like, “Oh, I played this game in Latin. It’s only for 3,000 IQ people.” But I don’t know. They were trying something new and it was cool.

Did you play Pentiment?
Which one is that?

The graphics look like an illuminated manuscript from the Middle Ages. It’s a point-and-click adventure thing and when it came out and we spoke to [Colin Young from Deadbody/Twitching Tongues/God’s Hate] and he was like, “It was the most boring thing I’ve ever done in my life. Not the most boring game, the most boring thing.” And I [Michael] was like, It looks cool, there’s no way it could be bad. But I played it for a couple hours and I’m like, OK, I have to admit this is kind of boring as shit.
Dude, I have the same thing with the [Hellblade] games, where you run at the pace of an exhausted slug. I’m sure it’s really well-researched and beautifully done—it’s basically a Unreal 5 showcase—but it’s just… [frustrated] Ah! Don’t just be pretty, please.

A lot of the importance of that game is that it gives a more accurate representation of what schizophrenia actually feels like, and that’s beautiful and I [Michael] can appreciate that. At the very least people can experience it for a certain amount of time. But when you get to [Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II], I’m just like, I don’t need another one of these.
But that’s what I was talking about with the mood thing. Maybe one day, it’s gonna rain outside on a Sunday and I’ll be all cozy like, Yeah, it’s a Senua’s Sacrifice kind of day. But the consumer is a huge factor.

There’s definitely times where I [James] ask the question of, What kind of game am I in the mood for? Sometimes I’ll happily play a little text adventure and that’ll make me very happy for an evening. And then other times, you need something a little more explosive, literally and figuratively.
Yeah. And there’s no way of normalizing that. There’s no through line because it’s an interactive medium and you, as the player, are part of the whole experience. And sometimes we’re fucking dumb. [Laughs]

You draw from a lot of different inspirations musically. Looking at your Instagram profile, you have these “Internet checkpoints” that include chiptune music and things that could theoretically have been game music. Have you ever taken inspiration from a game soundtrack or a game anything when it comes to crafting Zeal & Ardor’s music?
Absolutely. Maybe not even consciously, but with the sheer amount that I’ve played as a kid even, there’s no way that didn’t have an influence on what I do. It’s so funny because these video game anthems—I’m thinking of the underwater soundtrack in Donkey Kong [Country] or stuff like that—they’re so present in the zeitgeist, but I don’t know who wrote that. And that’s so fucking weird. I could look it up, granted, but still, these are these unsung heroes that have this undercurrent of influence on a huge amount of the creative populace and you have no idea who it is. It’s like a secret pop star in a way, which I find kind of cool.

“These video game anthems… they’re so present in the zeitgeist, but I don’t know who wrote that. And that’s so fucking weird… It’s like a secret pop star in a way, which I find kind of cool.”

Especially when you go to NES, look at Castlevania: You don’t know the whole team that worked on Castlevania because they all use pseudonyms or they just weren’t given credit. I think more Americans know who [Nintendo game director] Shigeru Miyamoto is than Japanese gamers.
I think that’s just a mindset thing because Americans have the cult of personality—“Who did this? It must be one genius”—whereas in Japan, you’re taught even as a primary school kid we do this as a collective, so the individual doesn’t really shine.

Would you ever want to start composing for games?
Absolutely. Yeah, in a heartbeat.

What kind of game would you be interested in working on? Would you want to jump onto something new, something indie, a developed franchise that you enjoy?
I think it would be cool to work from the ground up with something. I don’t think I could compose for a Mario Kart because, apart from me not being able to, it’s a very already defined thing. But I don’t know. I’m just really fucking interested in game dev because this has been something I’ve been following for a long time but still have no fucking idea how it’s happening. I guess just from a voyeuristic stance, I’d like to be there from the beginning.

Would you ever want to do the whole game, like a one-person dev kind of thing?
That’s what I’m trying to do with this this bad boy here. [Taps box on desk next to him] I’m doing a VR thing. In my dreams when I fly, I kind of flap my wings like I’m swimming. I have a prototype that makes you vomit really fast when you put [it on]. [Laughs] There’s a little bit of a learning curve, but I love that aspect of it because you have control over everything. It’s a whole experience. That’s what we’re talking about. At the same time, I’m realizing this is so much.

It’s borderline magic, honestly. Why start with VR?
I have no idea. I think it was just the whole immersion aspect of it, and also the physical thing. I just wanted to kind of translate my dream experiences—sounds douchey as fuck—to a VR experience. That, you know, optimally would not make you vomit.

What was that experience like? What was the expectation going in and what was the reality like?
I’m pretty proficient at Blender and I figured Unreal engine is just like Blender with a mustache. It is very much not. [Laughs] There’s physics involved, live physics. I’ve come to appreciate the care and time that goes into game feel a whole lot more because there’s a discrepancy between Castlevania on NES and Super Mario on NES, just by how fun it is just to to be in that world. I don’t get nauseous with this thing, but my friends do. I’m trying to figure out what is the fun in this and it’s funny because you kill your darlings on a daily basis. It’s a whole fucking thing. It’s a huge fucking industry that is under-sung. I don’t want to say unsung, but under-sung.

What makes it under-sung? I [Michael] agree—I just want more clarity.
[Grand Theft Auto] 5 is the most earning franchise in human history. Not just video games, not movies—human history. But the Oscars for video games are [The Game Awards executive producer and host] Geoff Keighley’s ad breaks, you know? There’s this whole discrepancy between how relevant the medium is and how seriously it is taken. That’s what I mean with under-sung.

It feels like we’re on the cusp of everybody having some game that they enjoy. Not just some game that they’ve played, some game that they enjoy. But there’s still a weird self-deprecation. Talking about playing The Finals for 400 hours. Questionable as that may be, but there’s still [a sentiment of] I can’t fucking believe I did this. Nobody is gonna say that about movies or books.
It’s also where it came from. Video games in particular, it was a boy’s toy. You had crashing cars and boobies and blood and shit, and the transition from that to “this is a narrative device or a unique experience” is a hard sell. I think it’s kind of an image thing.

If you look at games 40 years ago, something like Mario is cutting edge. Not nearly the emotional impact of playing a Silent Hill title or something.
Yeah, now you have people complaining about, like, “the subsurface scattering isn’t adequate,” blah blah blah. The nitpickiness has also like stepped up. Now there’s companies that consult video game developers on inclusiveness and political correctness. I’m not 100 percent certain on how I feel about that because you’re still giving one entity all the might and they’re basically Jesus, like, “Less boobies, more blue hair,” simply put. But there’s far more thought put into it than I would have expected.

For sure. We were talking to Dylan [Walker] from Full of Hell about The Last of Us II, and all the incels lost their fucking minds. As much as people joke about political correctness within media these days, the fact that there’s still backlash like that at all, let alone to the level that the voice actors—the voice actors for these characters that do not exist, that had no say in the creative process of this character model—were driven off of Twitter, driven off of social media because they were receiving death threats. What the fuck! The notion of how well it’s being handled is obviously going to be relevant so long as it’s being handled, but just seeing backlash like that really underscores the need to still have it unfortunately be part of the conversation.
Yeah. There’s this whole movement of, “I fixed the character. I made her sexy.” I have no problem with sexualized game characters. Sure, have your fucking beach volleyball pervy blah blah blah game. But not everyone has to be fuckable. It’s fine! You can have a normal human that’s kind of ugly!

Yeah, that mentality of “I fixed it, this is what this character should look like. You guys messed up by not having this person extremely sexualized,” it’s weird.
It’s fine if that’s what you’re looking for in a game, but you should also have to acknowledge [that] this is a huge spectrum. You can tell a sad story and maybe in a sad story, you don’t have to fucking think of fucking the protagonist. It’s fine just to interact with that person.

You can have both The Last of Us II and Bayonetta exist within the same universe and everything will be fine.
Bayonetta is an interesting one. Of course she’s sexualized, but she’s not in the fucking UwU state—she’s actually sexually intimidating. If Bayonetta were in this room, I would shit my pants. And that’s a really weird, but unique situation! [Laughs] There’s a couple of characters like that, but that’s the most extreme. Sex with her is like drohung, an intimidation move. You don’t want that.

Elden Ring DLC aside, because literally everybody is looking forward to it, are there any other games that you’re looking forward to? Have you been watching Summer Games Fest and keeping up with those trailers?
Yeah, um… a lot of not so cool shit. The Xbox showcase came out. Perfect Dark looks like…

Did they announce Perfect Dark?
Yeah, it was the AAAA game. Remember when they said that it’s going to be the best-produced game ever? This is pre-Embracer Group, when someone with way too much money said, “This is going to be the best game ever.”

I [Michael] thought that was Skull and Bones that they said AAAA.
That was later. They they stole the AAAA, but actually it’s Perfect Dark, which looks like Deus Ex, basically, with a little bit of… what was that parkour game from EA back in the day? Mirror’s Edge. That looked kind of cool. There’s another Fable, which is a game wherein you can fart, so I’ll be playing that. It’s only a CG trailer. What else? Oh, [Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty], the Journey to the West game.

What are you guys looking forward to? This has been fairly one-sided.

GREIF is available August 23 and can be pre-ordered here.
Tickets for Zeal & Ardor’s North American tour with Gaerea and Zetra can be purchased here.
Follow Zeal & Ardor on Bandcamp, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.
Follow Gagneux on Twitch here.

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