The D&D 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide has got me. One thing I've always wanted to do in Dungeons & Dragons is build a castle. Yes, attack the darkness, plunder the dungeon, slay the dragon, and gear up to do it all again. But I'm using that cold, hard coinage to build a bastion.

Bastions are a new addition to 5th Edition and/or 2024 D&D. The care and feeding of your castle, tower, or perhaps druidic hanging gardens (?) gets its own chapter in the new DM's Guide. I'm with Todd Kenreck, the interviewer in the video below. Turning a fort or a spire into an extension of ourselves was one of our greatest ambitions. It didn't matter if I was playing in Ravenloft, Dark Sun, Al-Qadim, Spelljammer, or Planescape. The moment I was done rolling ability scores, I was grabbing a sheet of graph paper and sketching out my humble abode.

The intent of bastions, per lead designer Chris Perkins, is to invest players further into the setting. To leave their mark. To build something that will outlast themselves. 

D&D understands that bastions take time. Far more time than crafting takes, and crafting already interrupts gameplay too much to implement easily. So that's why bastions are meant to operate off-stage. You, the player, should be off on continent-spanning, world-hopping adventures—and have a headquarters to come home to and hang your hat.

Aside from the obvious, however, there are reasons why you'd want to, perhaps, build a theater or a pub, even if everyone was expecting your sorcerer to build a stony cylinder into the sky. 

A "bastion turn" happens roughly every seven days, though there's wiggle room between the Dungeon Master and player. If a player is in their bastion, they will issue an order to each of their bastion's facilities: 

• Craft
• Empower
• Harvest
• Maintain
• Recruit
• Research
• Trade

If a player is not in their bastion and can't communicate with hirelings, the whole bastion takes the Maintain order. A roll is made to see if an event happens. An event gives the player a chance to tell a story about their bastion. Even if all is well, there are still opportunities for storytelling. Bastion turns can happen at the table, or they can be homework for players, who will return the next session able to update everyone on what happened during their bastion turn. 

And bastions don't have to be a solo endeavor. If you never want to split the party, you can build a compound together. Each player would have control over their specific facilities and sections, but not necessarily have to head off to separate corners of the kingdom when visiting their bastion.

Bastions are one answer to players wondering "What am I supposed to do with my money?" Although their are also special facilities that you acquire as you level up, at no added cost to you. It's these special facilities that are giving players in-game benefits.

There are 29 special facilities. At level 5 you can start work on a bastion. You are given two special facilities right off the bat. It goes up to four special facilities at level 9. Five at level 13. And six at level 17. So, from that list of 29 special facilities, no one bastion will have more than six. (Unless you build that multiplayer compound, I suppose.) All 29 are:

• Arcane Study
• Armory
• Barrack
• Garden
• Library
• Sanctuary
• Smithy
• Storehouse
• Workshop
• Game Hall
• Greenhouse
• Laboratory
• Sacristy
• Scriptorium
• Stable
• Teleportation Circle
• Theater
• Training Room
• Trophy
• Archive
• Meditation Chamber
• Menagerie
• Observatory
• Pub
• Reliquary
• Demiplane (Demiplane?!)
• Guild Hall
• Sanctum
• War Room

There's artwork of all these special facilities. There are level prerequisites too, of course, since I'm going to safely assume that your Baby's First Bastion won't be getting a demiplane right at level 5.

You can even start guilds. Thieves guilds, bakers guilds, shipbuilders guilds. 

My favorite DLC in Skyrim is Hearthfire—the one that lets you build a bastion right there on Skyrim's map. A place to come home to. A little piece of Skyrim that I permanently changed and made my own. I'm happy that I can start building that in D&D.

Or have my bastion fall by "mucking around with the Deck of Many Things," as Chris Perkins states. If you draw the Ruin card? Bye bye bastion. But that's another story. 

Retcon? Time machine? Variants? Nah. Tekken literally just brought Heihachi Mishima back from the dead, and with a new move set. All of Heihachi's hits look like they are powerful, and they hurt. I'm sure Heihachi's resurrection will be explained in the story, but I haven't got there yet. 

With Heihachi, comes the Nike cross promotion, and everyone gets the "Nike Air Foamposite One Jin Kazama" for their in game customizable outfits. I literally played a couple of matches online, and they're the first to unlock in the free tier of the fighter's pass, and, they unlock for everyone.  Speaking of customization, you can now change the character in the background as you flip through menus, which is one of the coolest visuals in the game.

The new stage is $4.99, and the "internet" is mad. So mad, that Harada-San caught wind and says he will fix that, maybe? A lot of the confusion comes from the fact that you had to pay for Lidia, but the stage was free. This time you have to pay for Heihachi and the stage, which I guess is fine. Street Fighter just gave us Terry Bogard, and I believe you can get his stage with Fight Tickets. I don't know whose side I'm on. I did not get the stage. So there's that. 

Here's some non pro completely blind gameplay of Heihachi Mishima. Enjoy! 

Steam's next Next Fest is just a couple of weeks away and Gabboco Games will be launching a game for their upcoming game Bub-O Burst. This is the first time I've heard of the Bub-O series but the trailer definitely has my interest piqued. Bub-O Burst will have simple and fast gameplay where the goal is to shoot bubbles to create bubble trails to score points and escape the villain Un-bub. I've always been a fan of arcade-style games so I'm definitely going to be checking this one out in a couple of weeks.

It was nearly three years ago when we brought the news that the A Quiet Place films had been licensed into the gaming world. That was not long after the success of the second film and since then another prequel film has further explored the story and now more details are being revealed just weeks from the game's release. Are we crossing into A Quiet Place cinematic universe territory? Have we already crossed?

In the developer diary below we learn all about the game's protagonist and her struggles to stay silent in a post-apocalyptic world where one sound could be your end. The game covers a much broader spectrum than any of the movies, starting on Day 1 through flashbacks and moving well into the terrifying new world the alien invasion brought forth. Key features from the game's press release include:

• A New Story in the A Quiet Place Universe: Embark on a dramatic new adventure in the world of the blockbuster A Quiet Place saga. Discover an untold tale of fear and courage as a young survivor trying to endure the eerie new nightmare of the apocalypse.
• Feel the Unnerving Terror of Silence: Experience absolute horror as you hide, distract, and sneak past the ultimate predatory creatures. But beware: even a single noise can give you away.
• Survive the End of the World: Forge your own path through the disquieting remains of human civilization, using your wits and ingenuity to observe your environment, leverage whatever tools you can find, and overcome the dangers all around you.

A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead launches on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S on October 17th, 2024. It's a single player survival adventure and will retail for just $30 on the various online storefronts for the systems. 

I reviewed the Rayneo Air 2s recently and found them to be pretty good in image quality and sound. It's nicely priced so if you are looking for a set of AR glasses that aren't going to break the bank, these might be it.

On October 8th through 9th, you can get them for even less as they will be 20% and using the code UXP5GC3W, you'll get an additional $40 off bringing the price down to $280. That's a pretty damn good price for the Air 2s.

The Rayneo Air 2s offer very bright and clear picture with its micro-OLED screens and the sound with its four speakers on the temples are loud and clear. Great for travel or just relaxing at home, the Air 2s will let you enjoy media or games privately in whatever setting you maybe in.

Soft Source Publishing, in association with Digital Happiness, has just announced the launch of physical editions for the Nintendo Switch versions of DreadOut 2 in The Americas for November 1st, 2024. In DreadOut 2 players take on the role of Linda, a high school student with a supernatural power to sense and see ghosts. Along with the aid of her trusty smartphone, Linda will hunt the nightmarish spirits and dark forces that threaten her hometown. This sequel expands on the original cult game with all-new melee combat and a greater emphasis on exploration. While I can’t see myself playing DreadOut 2 I can see myself watching a stream of the game. From the trailer I can tell I am not man enough to experience this one by myself in a dark room. You will have to hunt and defeat intangible ghosts with Linda’s smartphone camera, or use melee weapons and projectiles against any physical ghosts you come into contact with. Linda will explore her hometown and beyond, having to speak to both living residents and dead ones.

Spirit Mancer offers a 2D Hack and Slash adventure along with deck-building mechanics inspired by other titles like Mega Man, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure and Pokemon. “Players are in the role of a modern-day demon hunter, they can go alone or also can join forces with a friend in local couch co-op mode. Slash, Shoot and Break hordes of demons from Ars Goetia and stop the evil queen with the power of the Spirit Mancer. Capture their spirits and summon them out into battle in the beautiful yet dangerous world of Inferno!” Spirit Mancer is getting some recognition as well, the game won 6 awards at the Play Prime Awards recently.

A new gameplay feature has just been released alongside this new gameplay trailer. As you progress in the game, the city will be offering you new facilities built that will allow you to trade and buy new items, a bar where you can access new side and main missions, a potion store where you will be able to find summoning cards, a bank, fishery, and gun store. There is even the Anan adventurer's guild.

Spirit Mancer will be released on November 7 on PC, PS5, and Nintendo Switch. To help tie you over until then, a demo for the game has just launched a demo on Steam.

The new Dungeons & Dragons 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide, coming November 12, is putting a lot of lessons learned into one place. It inserts new ideas that there wasn't the time, money, or manpower to do when 5th Edition released in 2014. 

Publisher Wizards of the Coast wants this book to be "a Dungeon Master's best friend," the book a DM finds indispensable. An excellent aim. Countless Reddit threads have formed over the past decade of people with questions already answered in the DM's Guide, if only we would've read it. 

Wizards wants this to be your go-to handbook for developing and running adventures. I may only be in that second group: the one running adventures. Because if my most recent foray into the old 5e DM's Guide is any indication, building a game world is hard. 

I have faith that the new book will be more accessible. If it's anything like the new Player's Handbook, there will be all new art (that's relevant to the text), chunkier sections, better arrangement, and a refreshed set of eyes figuring out what's most and least important to a Dungeon Master.

Here's what's new that wasn't in the old 5e DM's Guide at all:

• Five short sample adventures.
• A complete campaign setting for the OG D&D world of Greyhawk.
• A lore glossary.
• The bastions chapter.

I'm down for all of these things. Even though my players have never expressed an interest in shorter adventures, I'm interested. Even though they've never once brought up Greyhawk, I'm interested. While none of them spent even an hour of in-game time researching lore in an in-game library, I'm interested. And while they could care less about a place to call home, one of the only things I've ever wanted to do on the player side is build a castle.

To hook players on a new Player's Handbook, Wizards of the Coast had to revamp every character class, buff up every skill, feat, spell, and magic item, etc. But to hook Dungeon Masters on a new DM's Guide, they had to give us a new world, new stories to tell, new (and old) lore dumps, and...get lucky figuring out that DMs want nothing more than for their players to have a permanent effect on a campaign setting.

The five short adventures (and by "short" they mean half a page) are outlined in a way that Wizards believes DMs will want to outline their own future adventures. These adventures are intentionally "skeletal," because it's meant to emulate the smaller amount of pertinent information that is valuable to a Dungeon Master within a session or two. These shorts aren't meant to be played over the course of a couple years like published D&D adventures that are a couple hundred pages long.

Also, they're pushing campaign creation much later in the new book, instead of opening with it like they did in the 5e DM's Guide. Why? Because creating a world is hard, I said. This time around, they're tutorializing dungeon mastering by having you do smaller things that add up your know-how with world creation—rather than just throwing you into the deep end and saying, Okay it's time to draw a province map, country map, and continental map now, kiddos.

One of the things that struck designer Christopher Perkins about the world of Greyhawk (back when he was first introduced to it in 1980) is how customizable and open-ended Greyhawk is. He got the feeling that the designers back then wanted young Chris Perkins to take that world and make it his own. That's why they start with the city of Greyhawk on a big foldout map, and then give you the vast surrounding nations around Greyhawk on the other side. Even though Greyhawk is deeply embedded in the DNA of D&D, they want to you make it your own. "Greyhawk is yours."

The Lore Glossary is meant to resurface people and places from throughout D&D's 50-year history. Names like Mordenkainen, Iggwilv, and the Raven Queen.

Not every campaign is built for Bastions. A campaign that is spanning continents—or is planet-hopping through the multiverse—may not have the time and space for players to keep coming back to headquarters. But Bastions are also meant to be a thing that builds and grows while you're out adventuring. You don't have to sit there and watch the bricklayers lay down every brick. Bastions are meant to happen off-scene, in a sense. I would be thrilled if my players expressed an interest in building a keep or a tower or a forest glen. While is requires your DM's permission to be able to create a Bastion, it's meant to be controlled by the players. That's a fun irony of including Bastions into the DM's Guide. The Dungeon Master's control is meant to loosen or stop at the Bastion's walls.

I also got a laugh when they said, "Every dungeon is a Bastion that went wrong."

Welp, they hooked me again. I'm helpless. Start the countdown clock to November 12's launch date.

This is the first I’m hearing of tactical single-player first-person shooter, Black One Blood Brothers, but it now has my full attention. It is a strictly solo experience, with no designs or plans to add multiplayer, instead focusing on a strategic campaign with high replayability. It features 20 missions with gameplay focused on realism that lets you command a squad of 10 special operators. The Battle Plan feature allows you to plan complex sequences of tactical actions amongst your team, and when ready, swap between each operator in first or third-person view to utilize their unique skills and equipment loadouts.

The Early Access game recently received a major update ahead of its full 1.0 launch in 2025, which you can read more about on its Steam page, or check out a new trailer below. We don’t get many single-player only, tactical FPS games nowadays. This one is reminiscent of the old Rainbow Six or Ghost Recon games, so it’ll definitely be going on the wishlist.

EA and BioWare announced today that two heavyweight composers are co-composing the music for Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Hans Zimmer and Lorne Balfe – perhaps you’ve heard of them – have partnered to create a musical score for the upcoming RPG. Zimmer is a two-time Oscar-winner, known for his work on Dune, Dunkirk, Interstellar, Inception, Gladiator, and countless others. This will be the first time in nearly a decade that Zimmer has worked on a video game soundtrack. Meanwhile, Balfe is no slouch, himself a Grammy-winning composer who has created music for numerous video games, including Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Assassin’s Creed III, Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, and Beyond: Two Souls. He has also composed for films such as Mission Impossible and Top Gun.

We can finally say we are in the month that Dragon Age: The Veilguard releases, with the RPG preparing to launch on October 31^st for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.