YOU GUYS — Official PlayStation Podcast just dropped episode 544, Vesper Underground, and I am already hooked! The team this time around is Sid Shuman (Senior Director of Content Communications), Tim Turi (Content Communications Manager), and O’Dell Harmon Jr., all at SIE. They bring in Dormilón for the theme song and show music too, which always adds that extra layer of polish. This episode hits on Dead or Alive 6 Last Round coming to PS5 — fighting game fans are going to love this one — plus Abyssus. Then they dive into The Planet Crafter arriving July 21 as a co-op survival title where you build life on an abandoned planet, and the latest Assassin's Creed Shadows update just went live with its Animus-bending endgame content that remixes gameplay in wild ways. Each of these is worth listening to separately!
But hold up — they also do a full breakdown of Granblue Fantasy: Relink’s massive Endless Ragnarok expansion coming July 9, and this part alone deserves its own attention. They go over the battle system's inner workings with hands-on detail on dynamic character synergy power-ups, the summon system, and more from their latest test run. This isn't just a news roundup; it's an actual deep dive into game mechanics that you don't get in shorter segments. Plus, they share behind-the-scenes stories about their work on 007 First Light, Mina The Hollower, and Overwatch — the kind of team culture talk I live for!
And there is so much more to digest from this episode than just the big headlines. Sid and Tim also touched on some surrounding news that makes it even better: GTA VI playing best on PS5 November 19 (another one!), Void/Breaker's destruction combat leveraging PS5 features, upgraded PSSR coming to Doom: The Dark Ages on the PS5 Pro model, and an interesting breakdown of VFX tech behind Saros comparing NGP and Graphite. This is what I mean by 'the definitive version' — every detail worth knowing packed into one place! If you want to hear them talk about any of it for yourself, check out the full episode at the link below before it gets archived.
Source: https://blog.playstation.com/2026/06/19/official-playstation-podcast-episode-544-vesper-underground/
But hold up — they also do a full breakdown of Granblue Fantasy: Relink’s massive Endless Ragnarok expansion coming July 9, and this part alone deserves its own attention. They go over the battle system's inner workings with hands-on detail on dynamic character synergy power-ups, the summon system, and more from their latest test run. This isn't just a news roundup; it's an actual deep dive into game mechanics that you don't get in shorter segments. Plus, they share behind-the-scenes stories about their work on 007 First Light, Mina The Hollower, and Overwatch — the kind of team culture talk I live for!
And there is so much more to digest from this episode than just the big headlines. Sid and Tim also touched on some surrounding news that makes it even better: GTA VI playing best on PS5 November 19 (another one!), Void/Breaker's destruction combat leveraging PS5 features, upgraded PSSR coming to Doom: The Dark Ages on the PS5 Pro model, and an interesting breakdown of VFX tech behind Saros comparing NGP and Graphite. This is what I mean by 'the definitive version' — every detail worth knowing packed into one place! If you want to hear them talk about any of it for yourself, check out the full episode at the link below before it gets archived.
Source: https://blog.playstation.com/2026/06/19/official-playstation-podcast-episode-544-vesper-underground/