Snap Aim Podcast

Stella sat down with Ingwar Dovgoteles — Head of Cinematics / Cutscenes Director / Creative Director, Mykyta Balnov — Lead Compliance Artist, and Mykyta Horodyvskyi — Community and Social Media Manager from GSC Game World to chat about the current state of STALKER 2, the roadmap ahead, behind the scenes insight on development, and how they've persevered through war times while creating this long awaited game.

The Game Developers Conference (GDC) was last week and Stella got to be one of the 30,000+ attendees. While at GDC, Stella was super busy and signed up for a ton of meetings and hands-on demo time. There's over 400 exhibitors at GDC so getting through the show floor takes the full week. However, there were some really great standouts that Stella wanted to bring some light to so these are the best demos Stella played at GDC. (There are some other previews coming that Stella got to play from GDC but those are under embargo!)

On this episode of Snap Aim, Stella and her editor Ivan Rodriguez chat about The Hidden Ones and the latest closed beta that went live. @InfantryInk is an expert fighting games player and got some hands-on time with The Hidden Ones and he discusses the mechanics, gameplay, and more compared to other fighting games. The Hidden Ones is set to release sometime this year 2025 and as a free-to-play model with NO gacha mechanics in unlocking characters.

WB Games just shut down Monolith Productions (Shadow of Mordor), Player First Games (MultiVersus), and WB San Diego (mobile/free to play games) this Tuesday February 25, 2025. The Wonder Woman game in development by Monolith is now cancelled and the question of who owns the Nemesis System is up in the air. Here's the breakdown on who owns the system and what will happen in the future with the WB Games universe.

NetEase Games, developer of Marvel Rivals, laid off their Seattle-based team this week after posting the next season update for the live service project. Not all of the names of those affected have been publicized but in this episode of Snap Aim, we dive into those named, NetEase's earnings in the last year, and why NetEase would dissolve their US team.

In this episode of Snap Aim, Stella sits down with three Respawn developers to chat about the process behind creating Apex Legends content and changes. She talks with Josh Mohan, Associate Design Director, Eric Canavese, Lead Battle Royale Designer, and John Larson, Game Designer. The topics revolve around development pitches for content in Apex, what approval times look like for these decisions, and how they plan to continue balancing Apex and communicate with their community.

Earlier today, Xbox held their Developer_Direct and showcased four different upcoming games and deep dives into their development. Here's everything you missed!

The 2025 League of The Americas (LTA) season just started a few days ago on the 18th and has brought a huge overhaul to the League of Legends esports scene. Stella got to sit down with Mark Zimmerman (MarkZ), the commissioner of the LTA, and chat about why the changes were made, why now was the right time for the update, and how the fan response has been to the overall LTA rebrand.

This episode of Snap Aim is full of lots of legal speak and Stella goes into all the specifications of why the US Department of Defense is required to name all Chinese military companies operating in the US, how they're specified to be on that list, and if Tencent belongs on that list.

Indiana Jones and The Great Circle is a great example of how some movie concepts are hard to truly replicate with balanced elements to a video game. However, The Great Circle could be a good place for Indiana Jones to continue coming back for more video games. Here's my review of The Great Circle.

In this episode of Snap Aim, Stella dives into the latest Marvel Rivals patch notes with the Winter Celebration update. While it brings in a new game mode and holiday cheer, the update also angered fans by getting rid of the ability to remove mouse acceleration. Here are the details on what happened.

So many games have been announced from The Game Awards and I listed all of them and provided as much of a description as I could to each game that was publicly written.

Ubisoft announced this week that they would be ceasing support to XDefiant, the free to play FPS FPS that released back in May 2024. Along with this news, Ubisoft also announced the closure of their SF studio and the layoffs of 143 people. Here's the news.

Let's go through Shuhei Yoshida's time at Sony in episode 30 of Snap Aim!

Snap Aim Podcast episode 29 coming at you with a spicy take on if video game DLCs and Expansions should be considered for Game of The Year Awards instead of being in its own category. This episode comes a few days after The Game Awards decided to change their rules to allow for a DLC to be considered for their Game of The Year Award which has divided the gaming community's opinions.

The Australian government just proposed a ban on social media from kids aged 16 and under. Here's the breakdown of that news and why it could be good (or bad).

In this episode, I talk about the new Alien: Isolation sequel being announced, 343 Industries turning into Halo Studios and changing Halo engines to Unreal Engine 5, and reacting to Epic's boss, Tim Sweeney, talking about their massive layoffs last year.

Welcome to Episode 25 of Snap Aim. Stella chats with Mark Medina about the PS5 Pro and whether or not they'll be buying it.

Stella goes into detail on video games and Korean culture and why Korean gamers have so many microtransactions.

A spoiler riddled review of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga film that released earlier this month.

Confused about what's going on with Escape from Tarkov? I've got you covered. Here's the latest drama going around on Escape from Tarkov's latest Premium Bundle The Unheard Edition Upgrade.

Stella breaks down the latest news on Apex Legends and the hack that happened during Apex Legends Global Series last Sunday.

Stella talks about Helldivers 2 and her obession with the new third-person shooter and how well the developer Arrowhead handles its live service aspect of its game.

Join Stella as she explains the entire timeline of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League from its announcement to its early access release.

Stella talks about her time playing Palworld and provides a short review on what she thinks about the game.

Stella goes over the latest in live-service games and in-game purchase pricing that seems far more inflated than usual especially in Star Citizen and Apex Legends

Join Stella for this special holiday episode where she talks about the new regulations China is implementing to reduce online gaming spending and obsessive and addicting gaming behaviors.

Stella reads and reacts to the comments and replies on her Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III review she wrote for IGN.

Join Stella Chung and Mitchell Saltzman as they talk about their favorite anime, college stories, and Mitchell's favorite fighting game and his journey to EVO.

Join Stella Chung, Ashsaidhi, Haylinic, Justseum, and Renee on their Twitchcon panel discussing how to break into the gaming industry through your content creation career.

Stella talks about how well the season opening for Fortnite OG went and how Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 reviewed by IGN while also catching up on life.

This Snap Aim episode is shorter and is just me, Stella, (sorry!) but I talked about the new Halo Infinite Season 5 updates, Xbox finally buying Activision Blizzard, and a fun fact about Spider-Man 2's character design.

Stella Chung and Victoria Tran, communications director at Innersloth, chat about their favorite (and least favorite) slang terms, how they grew up around games, and other random topics.

Stella Chung and Blessing Jr talk about what games they're playing and dive into their experience with console wars. Blessing also touches on his game of the year and what his favorite game to review this year was.

I know this podcast episode was kind of all over the place but I'm trying a new format where it's more about having fun and talking to the person I'm on the cast with than being in a rigid format!

In this weekend's Third Party Report: The Last of Us Multiplayer Game is in danger, FaZe Clan has more massive layoffs, Halo Infinite is bringing Infection mode back, and The Lord of the Rings Gollum is officially the worst reviewed game this year.

In this episode of Snap Aim, Stella answers a few questions in an AMA session and goes on a few rants listing her tiered list of Battle Royales, explains how IGN reviews work, rants about how not all reviews are done the same, and just generally goes on some rants about FPS games and the state of Apex Legends.

In episode 4 of Snap Aim, I explain why I scored Warzone 2.0's review for IGN an 8 and go in depth about my feelings on it since release. I also discuss how Fortnite consistently raises the bar for live-service games, especially battle royales. And I discuss my initial impressions of High on Life and why you should play it!

Join Stella as she discusses her thoughts on Scorn, the latest Xbox Game Pass launch title that just dropped, and her personal review on Overwatch 2.

Join Stella Chung as she discusses her thoughts on the Modern Warfare II PC beta, Portal RTX DLC, Overwatch 2's season 1 launch on October 4th, and Cyberpunk 2077's new Edgerunner expansion and show!

Join Stella Chung and Crusader (@CrusaderTwitch) as they discuss the Modern Warfare II PS5 Beta and their first impressions, thoughts on the Apex Legends Iron Sights balance changes, and some very heavy esports drama in the League of Legends World.

Join Stella Chung as she introduces you to her new podcast revolving around FPS game news and discussions on Snap Aim Podcast.