Hello everyone, I’m (somewhat prematurely, maybe) asking for suggestions to fill the Waypoint Radio-shaped hole in my heart.
I consider myself a podcast lover and have been through A LOT of podcasts in my life. But Waypoint Radio has been through the years a source of entertainment, reflection and just comfort that I have hardly found elsewhere. (Idle Thumbs came close and I always felt that WR was its honorable spiritual successor). I’m going to miss hearing the gang talk for several hours about almost literally anything every week SO MUCH.
So, here I am asking the community: do you have recommendations that could help fill the void?
(I am aware of the various Austin’s and Rob’s and Natalie’s and Danika’s other podcasts but feel free to pitch them anyway! Other people may not know them!)
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“Friends at the Table is an actual-play podcast (i.e. TTRPGS) focused on critical world-building, smart characterization, and fun interaction between good friends.” This is, of course, the famous Austin Walker opening/mission statement for FatT, the long-running lefty role-playing pod GMed by Austin. I’m pretty sure there’s a list on their website for newcomers.
A More Civilized Age is Austin, Rob, Natalie Watson, and Ali Acompora (of FatT fame) bringing their lefty intellectual firepower to the galaxy far, far away. Beginning with the prequel movies and moving their way through (as of this writing) the entirety of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, the four of them recap and break down each episode both in terms of filmmaking but also bringing some of that sharp critical theory you know and love from WPR and points beyond. Listen to the whole podcast, obviously, but do not sleep on their work on Andor, which won them plaudits and shout-outs from across the Internet.
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With the collapse of Fanbyte last year and now the end of Waypoint I really need to find a regular gaming pod. The best I can currently recommend is Triple Click, the Jason Schreier, Maddy Myers, Kirk Hamilton follow up to Kotaku Splitscreen after they all left the outlet. Folks here are probably familiar with the hosts already, but I’ll note Myers appeared on the (in)famous Last of Us 2 pod with Rob, while AMCA listeners might have heard Hamilton discussing Andor’s soundtrack.
Splitscreen was a must listen every week for me as just a general interest gaming pod that covered news and industry shenanigans, even if it rarely had the leftist analytical angle I’d expect from Waypoint covering the same stuff. But you know, sometimes you just want to hear if Schreier has another scoop! And I shouldn’t dismiss their labour coverage either - I feel like he was one of the more mainstream writers actually covering crunch at developers and other working conditions.
Unfortunately Triple Click has a very different structure that just doesn’t hit for me, in that they lean heavily on a few different episode formats - so a ‘triple play’ means all three hosts are discussing the same game, but a ‘whats the deal with…’ is maybe more like a Waypoint 101 look back at something? YMMV how much you get out of the different episode structures. I’ll tend to tune in when it’s a triple play for a game I’m interested in (like this week it looks like they’re doing Jedi Survivor) but some of their post-Splitscreen programming just doesn’t land for me and I might skip a week’s here and there.
Dear comrade, there is an answer I’m sure you might’ve heard already, but I think this podcast might be JUST what you’re looking for :]
