It's been awhile since we've taken a break from talking about the latest in film and television news and turned our collective eye towards the gaming industry, but with E3 now upon us we would we remiss if we didn't dive into all the major announcements coming out of gaming's biggest showcase. From Sony and their stellar first party lineup featuring "The Last of Us Pt 2", "Spider-Man" and more to Nintendo and their concentration on all things "Super Smash Bros" and everything in between, the guys discuss the biggest reveals, trailers and demos from this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo.

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Show Notes

Nintendo Direct

"Super Smash Bros Ultimate" is coming to Switch December 7, 2018.
- Features the return of every fighter to ever appear in a "Smash" title, along with new additions: Ridley, Inklings and Daisy, for a total of 65 playable characters.
- It will feature a variety of new and returning stages, numbering 66 in total so far.
- Tweaks to gameplay to speed up the pace of play.
- Gamecube controller support.
"Super Mario Party" is also coming to Switch on October 5, 2018.
Fortnite was (unsurprisingly) announced for Switch and is available now.
Nintendo also showed off some third party and indie games coming to the Switch.

Bethesda

"Elder Scrolls 6" was announced with no further details.
Todd Howard went into detail about "Fallout 76".

Microsoft

A new "Halo" is in development called “Halo: Infinite”. Not much is known about the project at this point but it will apparently be “Master Chief’s biggest adventure yet” according to Phil Spencer.
"Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice", a game by From Software, was announced as well.
A WHOLE PILE of "Kingdom Hearts 3" was shown. Seemingly making up for lost time, KH3 was at basically every conference, showing off different parts of the game.
3 new "Gears of War" games were revealed:
- "Gears Pop!" is a mobile game where all the characters from the Gears of War series are replaced by Funko Pop-style figurines.
- "Gears Tactics" is a turn-based strategy game.
- "Gears of War 5" is also announced as a core entry in the main series.
CD Project Red, makers of "The Witcher" series, showed off a new trailer for "Cyber Punk 2077".
Microsoft announced the acquisition of five new internal game studios. A brand new studio called The Initiative as well as 4 established studios: Undead Labs, Playground Games, Ninja Theory, and Compulsion Games..
A new "Battletoads" game is coming in 2019.
"Shadow of the Tomb Raider", will launch on September 14. 2018.
"Metro Exodus" is coming out on February 22, 2019.
"Devil May Cry 5" is coming in 2019.

EA

Bioware’s "Anthem" will be released on February 22, 2019.
"Battlefield V" will get a battle royal mode, they also showed off some of their single player content called “War Stories”.
“Sea of Solitude” looks really strange but also beautiful and melancholy. It comes out in early 2019.
"Titanfall" developer Respawn is working on "Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order". We don’t know much, but we know it’s a single-player story game and it's slated for release during the holiday season in 2019.
- This is the game that went into development following last year’s cancellation of the Amy Hennig Star Wars game from the now defunct Visceral Games.
"Battlefront II" is getting content from the Clone Wars, including playable versions of Anakin Skywalker, Count Dooku, General Grievous, and Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Ubisoft

"Assassin's Creed: Odyssey" takes players to ancient Greece and will drop on October 5, 2018.
"Beyond Good and Evil 2" got a new trailer and looks spectacular.
"Starlink: Battle for Atlas", a toys to life / space combat game will feature Star Fox and his Arwing in exclusive Switch content.
"The Division 2" was announced and is set in Washington DC.

Sony

"The last of Us Pt 2" trailer and gameplay demo was amazing.
Sucker Punch’s "Ghost’s of Tsushima" trailer and gameplay demo also impressed.
The "Resident Evil 2" trailer was a big hit. The game appears to have been built from the ground up and features Leon Kennedy and Claire Redfield, and will be out January 29, 2019.
"Death Stranding" also received a trailer with gameplay. Unfortunately we have no idea what was actually happening.
Insomniac’s "Spider-Man" also showed off some gameplay.

Dec 24, 2025

Bonus Episode - ToB Film Club - Surviving Christmas (2004)

Happy holidays ToB Fans! Completing a string of 3 straight publicly available Film Club episodes, commemorating the show's relaunch, we finish with our annual tradition of doing a Christmas movie for December. This year, with Matt joining the show it was his choice. He went with a movie from the mid-2000s that he's revisited time and again - 'Surviving Christmas'. A Ben Affleck vehicle that comes from a rocky era of his, just one year removed from 'Gili'. Fortunately, it features a strong supporting cast, with both Catherine O'Hara and the late James Gandolfini stealing the show and preventing this from being a complete disaster. Devoid of any type of strong holiday message, we spend much of the movie indulging Affleck's character's obnoxious desires, and despite some funny moments peppered throughout and a relatively strong third act, the tonal inconsistency and unlikability of the main character leave this movie mired in mediocrity. See you all again in 2026!

Dec 17, 2025

Episode 202 - Could Things Be Worse?

It is often said we're living through "unprecedented times", and I must admit that it rings true when reading the news. Normally, we're fortunate enough to be discussing the frivolous world of entertainment - shielding us from much of the dower nature of the the modern world. Unfortunately, that does not mean we are immune - this week proves there's still plenty of bad news in the entertainment world to go around. And while we try to focus on the fun stuff, sometimes the bad stuff threatens things we love, like creators, and movie theatres, and therefor must be called out. As such, Matt and Julian spend the front half of the show talking about the Netflix/WB deal, and the Disney's investment in AI. Pick your poison on that one. However, stick around, as things take a turn back to the fun as the latest in film and tv news is covered, including discussions about a new '28 Years Later' movie, a new 'Men in Black', 'Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair', and 'Stranger Things',. All this and so much more on this week's Tower of Babble Podcast!

Dec 11, 2025

Bonus Episode - Warner Bros. Sales Chaos - Daily DVR

Julian joins Axel and Andy on The Daily DVR Podcast to wring out all the angst surrounding the impeding sale of Warner Bros. and their myriad of assets, including HBO, to Netflix. With Paramount still sniffing around this is far from done but all of it is far from good for fans of movies and TV.

Nov 28, 2025

Bonus Episode - ToB Film Club - Dark City (1998)

The term often used to describe the 1998 Alex Proyas film, 'Dark City' is "Proto-Matrix" given the many similarities between the two movies. Fair or not, they do have a lot in common but I think the comparison does a disservice to what is still a very clever and well made genre-film that largely holds up today (minus some questionable early CG effects). The 4K re-release gives it a fresh coat of paint, looking extremely sharp on modern televisions, accentuating the mostly dark and moody imagery of this sci-fi film noir, and given it's title this is all very fitting. Alex Proyas has some bid ideas here; what is the human soul? Are we the sum of our memories? Can memories be distilled into chemistry? Is love transcendent? Many of these themes are explored with depth, with answers to many of the films mysteries being laid bare in mostly satisfying way. Performances are strong, with everyone seemingly understanding the assignment, though there isn't much for the female characters to do here. Which is unfortunate as what we do get from Jennifer Connelly is intriguing, if lacking depth. On the whole, despite being pretty weird, this is still a very fun movie, if a bit silly at times, that was unfortunately overshadowed by the phenomenon that was 'The Matrix' dropping the following year.

ToB Games - E3 2018