This week on CORE, the hosts are feeling the heat with only 42 days left until Nerdtacular 2026! Scott, Beau, and Jon dive deep into a massive week of gaming news, starting with the official launch of the Diablo IV: Lord of Hatred expansion. We break down the new classes and whether the Horadric Cube lives up to the name. How stoked are we for the Black Flag remake? Very. We also look ahead at a packed May release schedule, featuring heavy hitters like 007 First Light, Forza Horizon 6, and the Switch 2's Yoshi and the Mysterious Book. Plus, we discuss the technical wizardry of Vampire Crawlers, the mysterious ""30-day check-in"" from Sony, and the strange allure of Shapez 2’s new Manufacture Mode. From Resident Evil movie teasers to the ergonomics of the new Steam Controller, it’s a full show.

Games we played!

Scott

• Diablo IV: Lord of Hatred

• Vampire Crawlers

• Resident Evil 9

• Shapez 2

• Crimson Desert

• Avowed

• Windrose

Jon

• Diablo IV: Lord of Hatred

• Vampire Crawlers

• Dead as Disco (demo)

• Mouse: P.I. for Hire

• Halo: Combat Evolved

Beau

• Vampire Crawlers

• The 3

• Boomerang Fu

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Big Stuff:

- Nerdtacular All-Stars trivia team, all three hosts ended up on the same team with Scott's sister Wendy

- Team name brainstorming (Cerebral Cortex, Obsessive Core Pulsive, Psycore Logical Corefare, etc.)

- Trivia seeding test results and strategy

- 500 episode milestone / mugs still available

- Patreon/Core.show support plug

Games Discussed:

- Diablo IV's new expansion (record-breaking second expansion, early buzz positive)

- Vampire Crawlers

- Windrose

- Blacksmith Master

- Mouse: P.I. for Hire

- Lucky Tower Ultimate

- Pragmata

- The Witcher 3

- Syntopia

- Slave Spire 2

Listener Stuff

- Letter from EdOrange correcting Scott on Cockneys being from London, not Manchester, plus Dragon Warrior Monsters on Game Boy Color

Some chaos for you at the end:

- Bo sharing weird Amazon product recommendations that escalated into adult toy territory

- Ottawa sex shop / the Glebe neighborhood rabbit hole

- Tax write-off bit inspired by a Conan podcast segment about buying nerd stuff and expensing it

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We talk a bit about all this Windrose news in our feeds. But then to the deep stuff, like a visual grid of the kinds of gamers we are. Baldurs Gate 3 is getting modded with a remake of the original GB game, done by fans. Microsoft is rethinking gamepass, and saying its too expensive. Maybe they go with ads, bundles, and more? We kinda hate this. Rockstar got hacked and it was kinda lame what came out in the leak. Star Trek game PULLED from stores, and the larger story of running out of time on license deals.

Scott and Jon played more Crimson Desert and Resident Evil 9. Scott also played Kulo Niku: Bowl Up! And some WoW raiding. Beau hit more Kiwami 3, Hades 2 Dream Dives, and Absolum. He also had some time in Replaced and Slay the Spire 2. Plus your milk bag emails and more!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.