u/Scrivonaut

A trailer for Stellar Blade: Blood Rain released, and everyone who detests attractive women in games instantly accused the new protagonist, Evie, of looking like a child. We discuss the reaction along with Shift Up’s defense of her design along with news of Grand Theft Auto VI and the Steam Machine’s prices, Microsoft’s ridiculous “considerations” for developers and their shuttering of Xbox studios, Lara Croft’s classic look in the upcoming Tomb Raider game, Bungie layoffs, and more.

Find the latest episode of Splash Damage on your favorite podcasting app, or click here to download or stream it. Support us on Patreon.

I have a Micro Center within 90 minutes of me. Should I get the G532?

I've been a console gamer pretty much my whole life, but after Xbox started killing itself, I got a Steam Deck and fell in love. I have a 3050 laptop, but I'd love my own gaming PC with an OLED monitor to play more-demanding games.

Technically, I have the spare money for the G532 and an OLED monitor (roughly $2K), and I even have the green light from my wife, but that's still a lot of money and will definitely hurt. But the thing that's getting me is FOMO. I know G532s (and all other computers) are about to rocket up in cost, and I don't wanna miss out before personal computing as we know it changes. I'd like something that will last me and my family a long time—especially for gaming—before PCs this powerful are unobtainable.

The other consideration is that I don't really play super-demanding games, at least at the moment. I play Elden Ring, Diablo 4, modded Skyrim, modded Minecraft, and Fortnite somewhat regularly, and I dabble in other modern games, like Apex Legends. But it's been a long time since the AAA industry has released something I must have. But again, it's the future I'm thinking about. I don't wanna sit out and prices skyrocket just as awesome games start releasing again, you know? That new Stellar Blade trailer...

So should I do it? How much did G532s cost when they originally launched? How much are they likely to climb in cost?

Help me decide!

Another one of PlayStation’s exclusive franchises is following the trend of replacing its mainstay male protagonist with a woman. In God of War: Laufey, Kratos is out, and you instead will play as his dead wife, Faye. We discuss this trend and what it means for the series along with Halo’s dumb gay pride skins, Subnautica 2’s refusal to kill flora and fauna that can easily kill you, and Fortnite’s move toward a more mature audience.

Find the latest episode of Splash Damage on your favorite podcasting app, or click here to download or stream it. Support us on Patreon.

Back in December of 2022, I began DMing my second campaign for my table. I took the lessons from our first campaign, which lasted only a few months and was just a stitched-together mess of free adventures I found online, to homebrew a whole world. I mean, when I say I homebrewed, I homebrewed. I made an entire world map, filled it with factions and kingdoms and NPCs, and set my players loose. I changed monster names and origins, established pantheons (one of which has like 90-some gods), and basically made everything my own to some degree. My Obsidian document for D&D is over 350,000 words at this point.

The campaign ended up being a quest to stop a lich from stealing four elemental crystals to create his own plane of existence. We played two hours every week, without anyone ever canceling (my players are all family members, and we're all committed to the game and each other). About two-thirds of the way through the campaign, I took a six-month break from DMing so my wife could DM and I could play a character in Dragon of Icespire Peak. Then we went back to my campaign. In total, we played over 400 hours. Our "campaign diary" of session recaps is 32,000 words.

Two PCs made it from the beginning of the campaign at level 1 all the way to the end at 20. My wife's PCs died the most, and she ended up playing four different characters, one of which was a returning character from the first campaign, which was awesome. My sister played three different characters for a total of nine PCs. Her frog-race PC, P'loogi, is my favorite PC ever and will pass into legend at our table.

After the campaign concluded, my players all narrated epilogues of their PC's lives from there on out. I then read an epilogue of all the major NPCs, which was hilariously long and full of callbacks and inside jokes from over three years of play. Laughs were had, and tears were shed. I actually didn't expect to get emotional, but I couldn't help myself as I read the final words of the campaign, followed by "the end."

I gifted my players plastic trophies for various feats throughout the campaign, and they gifted me with a D&D-themed coaster, handmade comic book about me as a DM, and a cross-stitch of the six major PCs of the campaign. My sister has actually crocheted and cross-stitched me an absurd amount of D&D-related things, all of which decorate the basement room in which we play. She even took my world map and had it printed onto a blanket!

I learned a lot, and my table grew a lot as players over the course of the campaign. Everyone is already itching to get to our third campaign, which won't be as long. So yeah, AMA.

The developers of Lords of the Fallen 2 claimed it would include attractive female characters, and they delivered: Concept art from the game shows its women will wear somewhat revealing fantasy outfits. The drew the ire of industry staples, including The Gamer. We discuss their reaction to the art along with Slay the Spire 2’s reviews tanking after it came to light Anita Sarkeesian was involved in the game’s development, Invincible’s creators crucifying themselves for the sin of being white men, and the wokeness behind Christopher Nolan’s upcoming The Odyssey.

Find the latest episode of Splash Damage on your favorite podcasting app, or click here to download or stream it. Support us on Patreon.