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[WRITE-IN] Can Spoilers Make or Break a Game? | Firelink Podcast (Patreon)

Published:
2026-02-19 18:23:12
Imported:
2026-02

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Hey all! The full crew is back for tonight's show. We'll be chatting about the nature of spoilers in 2026, how more single-player games are receiving long-tail updates, and chatting about what we've been playing recently, including Relooted, Love Eternal, and Nioh 3.Hit us with your questions/comments/concerns about any of the above, or just let us know which aisle at the grocery store is best aisle.

Cheers!~Marty

Files

Can Spoilers Make or Break a Game? | Firelink Podcast

This week on Firelink, Nick, KC, and Marty chat about navigating the spoiler waters in 2026, single-player games having long-tail updates, and their time spent playing games like Relooted, Love Eternal, and Nioh 3. Keep up to date on the standings of our Firelink Fantasy Critic Draft -- https://www.fantasycritic.games/league/6093c943-c06e-4f44-8206-157e410d7914/2026 If you dig the podcast, considering supporting us over at Patreon -- https://www.patreon.com/SecondWindGroup Check out our excellent selection of merch over at our DFTBA store -- https://store.dftba.com/collections/second-wind

Comments

Luis Perez

Coffee because of the aroma

Jason Ferro

Most of the time I don't want any spoilers. Not even minor ones. My brain starts connecting dots and it makes the surprises more predictable. What level of spoilers are you guys okay with?

Donald Seaman

Spoilers need a time limit. I recently had someone be mad at me for spoiling the end of Spider Man PS4. That’s a generation and a half ago, if you wanted to play it you would have by now

Mopman43

Depends, right? If the big thing is the gameplay, maybe you don’t care? But getting spoiled can definitely give you less to strive for and stick with. I haven’t completed Hollow Knight but I tore through Silksong, and I think part of it is that I was just thoroughly spoiled on everything in the late game, levels and secrets and all. If it was just a couple spoilers I don’t think it would have impacted me, but the fact that I watched so many videos that I was already too familiar with the late-game without playing it? I just haven’t felt the need.

A Winged Potato

They can certainly break my enthusiasm to start a game. Now midgame I may spoil myself but I try to limit myself to the minimum I need to progress or find a secret.

EvilOverlord

Post-Game Awards a lot of people started playing Expedition 33 and joined the subreddit: they were often told to leave asap to prevent spoilers. Often knowing there is a twist can already spoil the surprise for people.

Angelnickl

Sometimes spoilers make me want to play a game more, like with subversive games that aren't what they seem. Usually they are games that I wouldn't have played like Doki Doki or Frog Fractions. Or games I had interest in but pushed up on my list due to spoilers like Inscryption or Slay the Princess. I think spoilers for games only ruin them for me if I don't like the revelation, 12 minutes for example... Most David Cage games.

Justin Buergi

I'll say there's something truly magical about playing a brand new game where there are no spoilers because nobody's gotten there yet, and things can actually surprise you. I devoured Silksong when it first dropped and could safely scroll its reddit page because everyone was still in act 1 I'm not a big fan of dataminers who post all a game's secrets hours after its release or youtubers who decide to post thumbnails with a game's final boss/secret shortly after its release (I made sure to avoid youtube til I got all the way through Poppy Playtime yesterday and that was the right move because the top of my reccomendation for today is a video explaining the ending with the chapter's final shot as the thumbnail)

Th3P4tM4n

I recently played Dark Souls for the first time (you can watch my review of the epxerience on YouTube) and while I don't fault anyone for it, I feel that I didn't quite get the full blight town experience because the nature of it was spoiled for me well in advance. So, for me, spoilers are only bad if they detract from the full experience of the game.

Andy Hunter

I guess it depends on your Internet habits — I follow podcasts that give me the news I want and are good about spoiler warnings, and then if I want to dive deeper into spoilers I can seek them out. (Like figuring out how to follow any particular FromSoft quest line, or how to max out some of the trickier affinities in Hades 2)

Marty Sliva

Strong choice, especially if your store has a coffee grinder that customers can use. A+ aroma.

Charles Reimer

I am personally indifferent to spoilers. If the game is well made, it can be fun to see how everything is being subtly built up to the twist. If knowing what's coming ruins the twist, then it probably wasn't a good twist. Think Hitchcock vs Shyamalan. That said, I don't like spreading spoilers nilly willy and respect that most don't want to be blasted with "S____ kills D_________" before they've even pressed Start.

Steady Goblin Wood

The best "aisle" is always the perimeter. Fruits, vegetables, Meat, cheese, eggs and such. The more towards the middle you get, the more preservatives, plastic, and cardboard you'll encounter.

Far Too Many Frogs

(don't) be like me and have memory issues that make you liable to forget any spoilers.

Mirith

While it depends on the game, it depends on if there is a twist. Games like Inscryption or Frog Fractions have a bigger impact if you don't know what you are going into. Think about this: Compare System Shock 2 vs Bioshock, both from the people. The impact of the twist of System Shock 2 (without it being spoiled) was huge. It was less in Bioshock because it became somewhat expected, though for me still a mild surprise. I don't know if either would have been as big if it had been spoiled at all. I also avoid puzzle game spoilers because then I lose the point of me playing a game I want to play.

Tommy Salty

I don't mind spoilers as I usually don't care about stories in games. If it's a good story that is spoiled, I still enjoy finding out what led to the climax point. I think for me the only kind of story that a spoiler can affect is a bad one with a dumb twist. I knew the twist of Mass Effect going in, and I still loved the game. I play for the gameplay loop, not for the story, so I might be biased.

Mrticketron

I remember hearing the act 1 spoiler for E33 ruined a good chunk of the game for me. I was just anticipating it the whole time and when it finally did happen while excellently done, would have hit so much harder if i had gone in blind.

DNJ

Someone put it like this: You can only experience something for the first time once. There are plenty of games where the experience of going in dark and being taken off-guard is important to the intended experience. So it really depends on what that experience is, and the spoiler in particular. IMO, what you do spoil (be it word of mouth or trailers), should wet the appetite, but not overly forecast. Like, in Metal Gear Rising's trailer, you see Raiden throwing Ray through the air. It's early on, exciting, and doesn't ruin the experience of actually doing it in the game. Then you have reverse spoilers, where the marketing is part of a setup to a subversion. Snake in the MGS2 trailers. Undertale's "The friendly RPG where no one has to die" tagline (just to name one of it's meta-narrative twists). They're tricky to pull off but very effective when done well. It's like when Willy Wonka does that roly-poly; you can no longer tell if you're being lied to.

Marty Sliva

I’ve somehow never thought about the fact that the “real” food is all along the perimeter of every store I go to. Excellent fun fact. But as an enjoyer of consuming plastic and cardboard, I also sure love to those middle aisles too.

Mopman43

Sudden studio closure news- Bluepoint Games is being shut down by Sony. They did the Demons Souls remake among other things. Somy tasked them with the God of War live service game that got cancelled. Another victim of Sony’s live service push that’s gone nowhere.

Steady Goblin Wood

I am not without sin. I too need my granola bars, chips and Marie calendars. Let's not harsh ourselves too much lol

KingRaptor28

Would the God of War Trilogy Remake come to PC or stay on PS? I don't want spoilers for gameplay (i.e. Return of the Obra Dinn) but I am mostly playing games for gameplay. I will still experience a game's story for myself. +1 to snack aisle and booze aisle. The "Reward Aisles" for adulting.

ImmenseCookie

I really enjoy the Dynasty Warriors series - they have 'self-spoiled' the narrative lines in every iteration of the series, being based on historical events that the fans know, want to see again, and are perfectly fine with it. It's a strange one... Any new characters bring the 'new' content to the game but even they will be fleshing out a known name from the RotTK lore. I guess the fans boys are happy to lap it up haha

LookItsChefEric

When it comes to the Souls games story and mechanic spoilers are intended as a part of gameplay, so does the sharing of information and tactics count as spoilers? Me thinks not

Kaxen

A spoiler that will get me interested usually makes me wonder how we get from A to B, so it builds anticipation. An annoying spoiler is the emotional equivalent of giving me the answers to a puzzle I wanted to solve myself. If it doesn't inspire wonder, I don't want to hear about it.

Inverse Skies

So I’m going to give my personal view on spoilers, which I know not everyone shares, but I don’t believe in being spoiled. You can tell me any spoiler and I simply do not care. I don’t feel my enjoyment of a story / game must hinge on being not spoiled, and even if I am spoiled and then play a thing I simply look forward with interest to the point at which that occurs.

Inverse Skies

My favorite supermarket isle is currently the milk one. Whenever I bring my 4 year old along shopping he always runs there happily going “oh we need some milk!” Regardless of whether we need milk or not.

bluemage27034

I would note Early Access/spoilers changed the fate of Hades 2. And I can't imagine not going into Baulder's Gate 3 blind.

Andrew White-Winter

Spoilers can make or break an intended experience, but if your game hinges on a single reveal or mystery carrying the player all the way through, that is not a “good” game.

Altrus

I strongly maintain that with rare, narrative heavy exceptions, spoilers may suck, but shouldn’t ruin a truly well made game or narrative. Do you guys have any games you think are exceptions to this? The ones that comes most quickly to my mind are games like Outer Wilds and Return of the Obra Din, where the gameplay is inextricable from the core mysteries.

Juicy Jeff

Grocery stores with live lobster tanks in the seafood department are always neat. Dinner and a show!

TooManySpreadsheets

What I hate with a burning rage is someone putting a spoiler in their video title or thumbnail that just shows up in my "recommended" feed. No matter how careful I am to avoid spoilers, or even with the best intentions of the critics I actually follow, some random putz on YouTube can ruin a surprise.

Abir Vandergriff

Most strongly I think it's games where mystery is a central component. Someone accidentally spoiled the mystery of In Stars and Time for me, and I immediately couldn't continue. I was loving it, but the spoiler changed how I approached it for the worse. The narrative was designed for that as a reveal and it was like knowing the twist to a movie before you've seen it.

Klisstoriss

I have a backlog of highly spoilable games, and I don't even have to ponder the question: yes, spoilers would absolutely break my enjoyment of discovering thoses masterpieces (such as Outer Wilds, for the most egrigious example). That being said, if we're talking of old games being spoiled, you guys have been extra careful in your pods, as are the other content creators that I follow. But I feel that, with the amount of information I've gathered over the years listening to ALL you create on the channel, I would have drowned those spoilers in the sheer mass of discussions that's I've absorbed. So... Maybe having a goldfish memory is the answer?