We’re All Lucky Joe Biden Doesn’t Have To Say Video Game Titles

I missed Joe Biden’s press conference last night because I was doing the much more enjoyable activity of riding my bike, but apparently he mixed up several names, calling Vice President Kamala Harris “Vice President Trump” (erg) and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “President Putin” (erg). None of these are particularly out of character for him, which you might either see as an increasingly bad sign, or as a sign of business as usual, which might also be bad. People have been using this as an excuse to make video games jokes, which are very funny. But more importantly, they pave the way for me to write a blog I’ve been meaning to write for years, about video games that have the same name.

First, the memes: “JUST IN: Biden reportedly confused THE OUTER WORLDS for THE OUTER WILDS!!” wrote Twitter user Radec, in a widely-reposted tweet. Other good jokes include Biden imaginarily mixing up “Fire Emblem: Three Houses and Fire Emblem: Three Heroes,” “Gone Home and Grow Home,” and “Metal Gear Solid 2 and Metal Gear 2 Solid Snake.”

Now, let’s undertake the more important task of making this historical moment about me. Ever since Outer Worlds came out a few months after Outer Wilds, part of my job as an editor at Kotaku became find-replacing the words “wilds” or “worlds” in everyone’s blogs about one or the other game. The games couldn’t be more different, but it’s impossible not to mix these two titles up. I was even amused to see that Google suggests “people also search for The Outer Worlds” when I Googled Outer Wilds. (I literally mixed them up writing that last sentence!)

After Outer Worlds, I started keeping a list of other video games that have the same title. That list is sadly lost to failing to save it from my Kotaku docs when I left, but here’s what I can recreate of it from memory, as well as some suggestions from Reddit:

• Warframe and Warface
• Battlefield and Battlefront
• Gloomhaven and Gloomwood
• Deadlight, Dead by Daylight, and Dying Light
• God of War and Gears of War
• The fact that there are two Star Wars Battlefronts and once when writing a blog mentioning them I used a picture of the wrong one and the commenters tore me to shreds
• “AC” being either Assassin’s Creed or Animal Crossing (or Armored Core)
• “DS” being either Death Stranding, Dead Space, or Dark Souls

This is all to say nothing of the games that you mix up based on looks, plot, or vibes. I can’t draw any grand conclusion about video games (or politics) from this; lots of games are about the same thing, and there are only so many words you can put into a title, though lord knows video games love to make you say nonsense words out loud when you’re looking for them at the store. 

I tend to find Biden’s verbal stumbles largely harmless, especially for someone who struggles with stuttering, but I’m with my pals at Discourse Blog that we are not under any obligation to cut him some slack here–while everybody ages, everybody is not the President. I have been putting off calling my ride-or-die Democrat mom ever since the debate, but this is a good reminder that I should do that. Please put your favorite video game title mixups in the comments so I’ll have something to laugh about after she and I get into a fight.