Watch On
Look, it was the 1990s. Everybody was super into two things: edginess, and caring deeply about the environment. A Dungeons & Dragons setting where the entire world had been turned into a hostile desert wasteland by exploitative sorcerer-kings and a bunch of sinewy warriors with psychic powers and an aversion to pants had to slaughter each other to survive was perfect for the zeitgeist.
Though Dark Sun was briefly brought back as part of D&D’s 4th edition, a revival for the current 5th edition has been in demand for a while now. Public playtests of the psion, a class first created for Dark Sun, have kept the rumor mill churning, and at Gen Con’s D&D keynote Wizards of the Coast finally pressed the big red button that said “dark fantasy nostalgia for ’90s kids” and announced its return.
Dark Sun will be getting a rulebook aimed at players called Blood and Power with the psion class in it, as well as a setting guide aimed at Dungeon Masters called Edge of Oblivion. A special printing of the Player’s Handbook with Dark Sun’s distinctive gore-soaked Wrestlemania art is also planned. All three are scheduled for release next year.
Latest Videos FromPC Gamer
Apparently the lawyers at Wizards of the Coast insisted these books had to be shrinkwrapped because they contain mature content “rated 18+ for profanity and depiction of bloodshed, nudity, and sexuality.” I suspect my YouTube feed is about to fill up with videos about how Dark Sun has been ruined by being toned down “because of woke” regardless, but based on the brutal animated trailer above it seems every bit as edgy as it did when I was a kid.
