Hello and welcome home. This is Audio EXP, the weekly podcast from Geek Native. I’m your host, Girdy, and we have another busy week to unpack. We are looking at a major digital shift over at Dungeons & Dragons, mourning the loss of a British comedy legend, and checking out some highly anticipated returns to the cinema. We will also talk about a card-based roleplaying game, a viral Olympic skating routine, and some phenomenal bundle deals.
[The following is a transcript of Audio EXP: #323]
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Before we dive into the headlines, we have a quick reminder about our monthly community update. Surbrook Press is our RPG Publisher Spotlight winner for February. As we explored in a recent feature, Michael Surbrook has an incredible talent for building truly encyclopaedic roleplaying game worlds. Drawing on inspirations from the likes of Elizabeth Moon to Aaron Allston, and bringing experience from working on classic supplements, Surbrook Press demonstrates the phenomenal value of deep historical and folkloric research. You can find our full deep dive into their world-building process on the site.
Our lead story this week is a significant glimpse into the future of the world’s most popular roleplaying game. Wizards of the Coast has launched a fresh recruitment drive, seeking multiple high-level professionals to bolster the development of Dungeons & Dragons. The new vacancies, which range from game design to senior engineering, strongly suggest that the publisher is accelerating its efforts to modernise the digital infrastructure of the game. This hiring spree follows a series of major moves by the Hasbro subsidiary and aligns perfectly with the aggressive 2026 roadmap for D&D Beyond, which includes a complete engine rebuild and the introduction of new Dungeon Master tools.
The focus on digital roles is particularly telling. The company is actively seeking a Principal UX Designer, a Senior UX Designer, and a Software Development Engineer II, specifically for the D&D Beyond platform. The engineering role highlights a massive transition in technology. Wizards of the Coast is looking for talent capable of breaking down older, monolithic architectures into modern, distributed services using Node.js and AWS. This technical shift is a cornerstone of the platform’s planned rebuild, aimed at improving scalability and performance for the millions of players who rely on the digital toolset every single week.
On the tabletop side, the company is also looking for a Game Editor, a Game Designer, and a Game Design Manager based in Renton, Washington. The editor role involves maintaining the high standards of Dungeons & Dragons products and Unearthed Arcana playtests. It is clear that while the digital side is receiving a massive technical overhaul, the core tabletop experience is still demanding dedicated, high-level talent to keep the pipeline flowing.
We have to pause for some incredibly sad news this week. Fans of classic British science fiction comedy are mourning the sudden loss of Rob Grant, the acclaimed co-creator of Red Dwarf, who died unexpectedly on Wednesday at the age of 70. News of his passing was first reported by the devoted fan site Ganymede & Titan, sharing a statement from his family that noted it was a great loss to his family, friends, and comedy fans across the world. Grant was a towering figure in British comedy. Along with Doug Naylor, he was instrumental in Red Dwarf’s early history, taking it from a sketch on the radio to a television phenomenon that redefined science fiction sitcoms.
Tributes have poured in from across the entertainment world. Craig Charles, who famously portrayed Dave Lister, posted that he was in total shock, calling Grant a visionary and noting that the impact Grant and Doug Naylor had on the course of his life was immeasurable. Robert Llewellyn also shared his sadness, remembering Grant as a very funny man with a talent for stinging ripostes. In a poignant twist of fate, just a week before his death, it was announced that Grant would return to the Red Dwarf universe with a new prequel novel titled Titan, co-written with Andrew Marshall. While there was some confusion over premature publisher listings regarding a July release, anticipation for the novel remains incredibly high. It is a profound loss for the geek community, but his enduring legacy of humour, creativity, and storytelling will undoubtedly live on for generations.
In brighter news for cinema fans, a true masterpiece of animation is heading back to the big screen. Distributor Anime Limited has confirmed that Katsuhiro Otomo’s landmark cyberpunk epic, Akira, is returning to cinemas across the United Kingdom and Ireland, including IMAX screens, from Friday, the 17th of April. This re-release is part of a 35-year celebration of the film’s original arrival in the region back in 1991. If you somehow have not experienced Akira, it is set in Neo-Tokyo, a sprawling, neon-lit metropolis rebuilt from the ashes of World War III. The story follows Kaneda and Tetsuo, two members of a biker gang who crash headfirst into a secret government plot, resulting in Tetsuo developing destructive psychic abilities.
It is widely considered the definitive anime masterpiece that obliterated the boundaries of Japanese animation and forced the global film industry to look into the future. The upcoming screenings will be available in both Japanese with English subtitles and an English dubbed version. Anime Limited noted that they aim to bring the film back to cinemas in a format suited to its massive scale. Seeing those iconic, neon-lit motorcycle chases and psychic explosions on a towering IMAX screen is an opportunity that simply should not be missed.
Speaking of the cinema, we have a review of Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die, the latest film from director Gore Verbinski. This is a wildly ambitious, high-concept science fiction comedy that positions artificial intelligence as the ultimate bad guy in a lively yet heavily overstuffed caper. The premise follows a man from the future, played with manic, electric energy by Sam Rockwell, who arrives in a diner claiming he is on his 117th attempt to stop an AI from causing societal collapse. He recruits a motley crew from the diner, including a grieving mother, and a tech-allergic children’s entertainer, to help him win this bizarre, life-or-death struggle against the machine. The film has generated incredibly polarised reactions.
I think it is a defiant, audacious return for Verbinski, who has been absent from the director’s chair since A Cure for Wellness. The movie plays flippantly with taboos and leans into a dark, misanthropic sense of humour about our technology-addled, smartphone-dependent modern society. However, at a hefty runtime of 134 minutes, it struggles with a frustrating lack of restraint. The narrative jumps around with flashbacks and flashforwards, throwing pig-masked goons and giant cat creatures at the audience in a chaotic blend of The Terminator and Black Mirror. It is messy, overstuffed, and occasionally exhausting, but it is also bold, highly creative, and deeply sincere in its rage against the algorithm. If you appreciate a massive, unhinged swing of a movie, it is worth your time.
Now for something completely unexpected. As spotted by our very own Bronwen, a figure skating duo has gone viral after performing a spectacular Mortal Kombat routine during the Winter Olympics. Georgia’s Luka Berulava and Anastasiia Metelkina delivered one of the most memorable moments of the exhibition gala by taking to the ice dressed as Mortal Kombat fighters Sub-Zero and Kitana. The performance was backed by the iconic Techno Syndrome track from The Immortals, instantly recognisable to anyone who played the games or watched the 1995 movie. The routine was packed with fantastic nods to the fighting game franchise. Berulava mirrored Sub-Zero’s famous ice ball throwing animations, and the pair even recreated some non-lethal moves, incorporating both a friendship sequence and a dazed, pre-fatality stance right at the end. To top it all off, they concluded the routine with a competition-illegal rotational lift informally known as the Headbanger, bringing Metelkina’s head terrifyingly close to the ice. Because the exhibition gala is a non-competitive event where the athletes can show off without the pressure of judges or strict rules, they were free to lean completely into the geeky nostalgia. It is an absolute joy to watch and a brilliant collision of high-level athletics and pop culture.
Returning to the tabletop, Venger’s Decks has released a free playtest pack for The Chaos Card Deck Tabletop Roleplaying Game. This is a fascinating, compact system designed to fit entirely within a single deck of cards. The project leans heavily into old-school sensibilities and aims to provide absolutely everything you need for a one-shot session or a short campaign without the need for extensive, heavy rulebooks. The core philosophy behind The Chaos Card Deck is speed and accessibility. By utilising random tables printed directly on the cards, the game attempts to minimise mechanical friction during play. Scott of Venger’s Decks explained that in mere minutes, players will be able to whip the deck from their pocket, set up a scenario, generate characters, and kick off immediately.
The current playtest phase is designed to refine the mechanics based on community feedback ahead of a full, official launch planned for Tabletop Scotland in September 2026. The playtest bundle includes a draft version of the deck, character sheets, and three maps, alongside specific feedback forms for Game Masters, group players, and solo adventurers. The creator has also committed to keeping the digital PDF and a dedicated rules website free of charge. This rules-lite approach perfectly captures the growing trend in the indie scene where portability and pick-up-and-play capabilities are highly valued by time-poor hobbyists.
Moving into our deals and bundles, we have to talk about Wolves Upon the Coast. This has been a massively popular post on social media this week, and for good reason. Designed by Luke Gearing, Wolves Upon the Coast is a sweeping, mythic sandbox hexcrawl widely considered a masterpiece of the Old School Revival movement. The premise is incredibly striking: your history is gone, you were a thrall, but now your master lies dead in the bottom of a raiding vessel, and you are free to explore a dark, treacherous world inspired by early medieval Northern Europe.
Currently available in a brilliant bundle of holding, you can pick up the complete game line and supplements as DRM-free ebooks. The bundle includes the massive 540-hex grand campaign, a uniquely poetic bestiary, reimagined treasure tables, and Whale Roads, a lavish 256-page fan-produced journal chronicling a year-long campaign. The game is a triumph of substance over flash. There is almost no art; instead, you get pure, highly usable content with stripped-down mechanics based on Original D&D. Character advancement is driven entirely by making and fulfilling grand boasts. You can sail the seas using a robust weather system, uncover lost continents, or even become a troll. It provides the Game Master with situations rather than a linear story, allowing players absolute freedom to plunder and reshape the Mid-Isles.
Our final deal of the week transports us to a very different kind of setting. The Mists of Akuma bundle is now available, offering a massive collection of Eastern fantasy, noir, and steampunk roleplaying material for your 5e campaigns. Set in the world of Soburin, the setting explores a continent that has overthrown technologically advanced occupiers and restored the Masuto Imperial Dynasty. However, the divided prefectures now war among themselves while facing an even greater apocalyptic threat: the supernatural, corrupting Mists of Akuma that transform the living into bloodthirsty undead oni.
This bundle provides an incredible wealth of content, including both the original 2014 rules version and the Anniversary Edition updated for the 2024 5e ruleset. It expands the core rules with fifteen diverse new lineages, including hengeyokai shapeshifters and steam-augmented automatons, along with two dozen unique class subtypes like clockwork adepts, gun priests, and warlocks of the Enigmatic Eye. The setting introduces two new unique ability scores: Dignity, representing your social status, and Haikotu, measuring your fall from virtue and corruption by the Mists. The starter collection gives you the core campaign books and primers, while the bonus tier adds massive sandbox campaigns like Imperial Matchmaker and two complete adventure paths. If you want to investigate factional conspiracies in back alleys or battle foes wielding forbidden technologies in a richly detailed, highly unique world, this is an absolute steal of a bundle.
That is it for this week. Thanks for listening to Audio EXP. For all the links and full stories, head over to Geek Native. Until next week, stay geeky.
