RPG

Hasbro’s multitude of celebrations marking the 50th anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons include streaming the fan-favorite 1980s D&D cartoon on the 24/7 Dungeons & Dragons: Adventures FAST channel. The animated series, despite a relatively short run of three seasons and 27 episodes, has become a fantasy genre classic. The engaging storytelling and dark themes greatly influenced future media—and the characters were so memorable, 40 years later they caused a social media frenzy when their live-action counterparts…

Released in 2012 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, the original Dragon’s Dogma was an action roleplaying game tailored to a very specific audience. Brutally difficult, the gameplay centered on open-world exploration with a survivalist touch, wherein players and their NPC (non-player character) companions must trek through a “persistent” world that — at the time — felt organic as shifting day-and-night cycles and changing weather conditions imbued its somewhat bland fantasy world with a sense of life. Heavy on…

Capcom Dragon’s Dogma 2 is finally here, and it may be a doozy for your PC. The game is powered by Capcom’s Reach for the Moon (RE) Engine, used in titles like Resident Evil Village and Monster Hunter Rise. Dragon’s Dogma 2 presents a seamless gaming experience without loading screens once you dive into the game. However, this level of immersion comes with demanding hardware requirements, particularly on the CPU front. The recommended hardware specs from Capcom should be seen as the bare minimum, with a preference…

Dragon's Dogma 2 MSRP $70.00 “Dragon's Dogma 2 is an exhilarating, if occasionally frustrating, RPG full of dynamic player-driven moments.” Pros Full of exciting emergent moments Tense open-world exploration Vocation and Pawn systems Encourages player creativity Cons Slow…

Image: Prime VideoAdapting any well-known property is always going to be a big feat, especially when it comes to video games. It’s one thing to adapt a comic or TV show, it’s another thing to adapt a series of games, which come with a greater degree of self-expression. You can please some fans, but you can’t please all of the fans, as we’ve seen with basically every game-to-TV/film adaptation within the last five years.Making the Freddy Fazbear Pizza Band Come to Life for Five Nights at Freddy’sTalking to T3, Westworld…

It’s been a week of highs and lows in the world of genre entertainment—as we took a look at the aftermath of Dune: Part Two’s monumental release last weekend, and Lego teased a gorgeous new Batman: The Animated Series tribute. But little compared to the shock that came Thursday evening that one of the most influential artists of our time, Dragon Ball’s Akira Toriyama, passed away. Read all that, and more, in io9's biggest stories of the week. — James Whitbrook It’s been a week of highs and lows in the world of genre…

We all know that interest in Starfield has been waning, with an unfortunate decline in people playing Bethesda’s new IP. Still, the developer is determined to keep the metaphorical motor running, and the latest update for the game is now out in Steam Beta. One thing to note about the patch notes is the sheer number of “fixes” that have been implemented. In fact, in a recent post on The-X-Formerly-Known-As-Twitter, version 1.10.30 of Starfield has over 400 things that have been fixed. Bethesda games, amirite? Also, just…

Screenshot: Prime VideoAmazon’s new Fallout show is the latest in the companies’ big, splashy adaptation plans—and it really wants you to know it’s taking the retro aesthetic and charm of the classic video game series to heart, beneath its pulsing, murkily irradiated post-apocalypse.Making the Freddy Fazbear Pizza Band Come to Life for Five Nights at Freddy’sToday Amazon released a new trailer for Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy’s take on the beloved Interplay/Bethesda RPG games. The show, following in the footsteps of those…

NASA still has plenty of cool projects afoot in the real world—did you hear about that asteroid-redirecting test? Or those space-friendly cameras?—but it’s also trying to stir imaginations in fantastically creative ways, too. Enter The Lost Universe, the agency’s first-ever tabletop roleplaying game. What Will VR Solve, Anyway? Its first what now? Yes, a TTRPG crafted at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, with a gameplay instructional booklet currently available for free download here (plus a Tolkien-esque map); it’s for…

Moon Studios, creators of the impeccable Ori and the Blind Forest, has finally held a showcase for its next game, No Rest for the Wicked. It details the world, combat, and what already feels like a gripping story drenched in darkness and brimming with depth. Until yesterday all we had to go on for Moon Studios’ next title was a short trailer that made it look more like a pirate title than anything else. The Wicked Inside: Showcase, a video packed with 25 minutes of gameplay and discussion on No Rest for the Wicked, has…