Hello and welcome home. This is Audio EXP, the weekly podcast from Geek Native. I am your host, Girdy, and it is the first weekend of April 2026. This week, we are unpacking the fallout from April Fools’ Day, a massive 5e conversion for a classic science fiction universe, and some significant changes in the tabletop retail landscape. Let us get right into the news.
[The following is a transcript of Audio EXP: #328]
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As it is the start of a new month, we begin with the results of our community vote. I am thrilled to announce that Mythmere Games has won the April Roleplaying Game Publisher Spotlight. They have a fantastic catalogue of old-school renaissance titles, and I will now begin the monthly quest of trying to get in touch with them to arrange an interview. We also need to look ahead to next month. Thank you to all the patrons for continuing to support the site. Your candidates for the May spotlight are:
You can head over to the Patreon page right now to cast your vote.
Now, we cannot talk about the first week of April without acknowledging the absolute chaos that descends upon the internet. We had a bit of fun on the site with a couple of April Fools’ jokes this week. First, we ran a satirical piece claiming that Ticketmaster was planning to monetise the tabletop industry with a new QuestMaster Core integration. The joke suggested a future where Game Masters would have to deal with dynamic surge pricing just to book a table at their local game store.
While it was entirely fictional, we do fear it serves as a slightly too accurate commentary on the highly monetised digital future some corporations might envision for Dungeons and Dragons. We also took part in a coordinated prank with the looking-for-group site StartPlaying. They released an announcement claiming they had accidentally launched a Shadowdark mode after an engineering typo, rather than a standard dark mode, plunging users into a highly lethal, torch-lit interface.
In between pranks and news, Italian studio Gamers Hunter Edizioni did not launch 2220 Cyberpunk RPG. They say the April 1st date was a joke, but the launch is coming soon. Set in a highly corporate, dystopian future, this game promises a fresh take on the genre, featuring a proprietary d100 system that emphasises narrative consequences and lethal combat.
Moving on to the real news, Stockholm-based publisher Free League has expanded its open roleplaying game licenses to cover five core titles. This move officially opens up the mechanical engines for games like Mutant Year Zero, Coriolis, and Dragonbane, allowing third-party creators to publish their own compatible content. The announcement included details on multiple supported languages. Interestingly, there was some pushback in the comments from a Russian user criticising the company for not including a Russian translation. While publishers frequently omit languages based on market logistics and printing costs, the broader inclusion of Ukrainian in modern international licensing agreements is likely to trigger this kind of geopolitical friction online. Regardless, this open license is a massive win for independent creators looking to build within Free League’s award-winning mechanical frameworks.
In what might be one of the biggest crossover events of the year, Traveller, the classic science fiction roleplaying game, is getting an official 5e conversion. The World’s Largest RPGs and Mongoose Publishing are bringing the sprawling, star-faring universe of the Third Imperium to the world’s most popular ruleset. This is a monumental shift. For decades, Traveller has been defined by its highly lethal, skill-based 2d6 system and its infamous character generation minigame where you could potentially die before the campaign even started. Adapting that gritty, trade-focused space opera into the heroic, class-based mechanics of 5e is a massive design challenge. It will be fascinating to see how they balance the high fantasy power curve of 5e with the grounded, hard science fiction roots of the Traveller universe.
If you prefer your games firmly rooted in fantasy but want a departure from traditional elves and dwarves, a new project called Mythomachus is bringing deadly Greek folklore to 5e. I’m describing this as The Witcher meets Highlander, as setting drops players into a mythic world where they take on the roles of immortal warriors hunting down terrifying creatures from ancient Hellenic myths. The supplement introduces new subclasses, a unique immortality mechanic, and a deep focus on tactical monster hunting.
Over in the digital tabletop space, the Daggerheart Core Set has officially arrived on Fantasy Grounds just as physical stock dwindles. Darrington Press’s highly anticipated roleplaying game is seeing massive demand. With the physical rulebooks flying off the shelves at retail, the timely integration into the Fantasy Grounds virtual tabletop platform ensures that groups can continue to adopt the system online without having to wait for the next printing run.
We also have a significant business closure to report this week. Amigo Games has closed its doors, marking the end of an eight-year American experiment. The German board game giant originally opened its North American branch to bring highly successful European card games like Saboteur directly to the US market. However, following a series of logistical challenges and shifting retail landscapes, the company has decided to shutter the US office and revert to its previous model of licensing its catalogue to independent American distributors.
On a more hopeful business note, there is a plan in motion to save Infinite Black through lost artefacts and family ties. The tabletop accessory company, known for its incredible cosmic horror dice and Elder Dice collections, recently faced severe hardship after its stock disappeared from a warehouse. Now, the family are rallying the community with a special campaign, unearthing rare, vaulted inventory to generate the capital needed. There’s even a crowdfunding campaign called Doomsday.
In streaming news, Apple TV has officially added Crunchyroll to its roster ahead of the One Piece return. This integration allows Apple TV subscribers to access the massive anime library directly through the platform’s unified interface. It is a highly strategic move by Sony to increase Crunchyroll’s mainstream visibility just in time for the highly anticipated new season of the pirate epic.
Finally, we wrap up this week with an absolutely colossal bundle deal. The Magpie Games Megabundle gathers 25 Powered by the Apocalypse roleplaying games into one massive collection on the Bundle of Holding. This includes critically acclaimed titles like Masks and Bluebeard’s Bride. If you have ever wanted to explore the narrative-first mechanics that have completely reshaped the independent tabletop scene over the last decade, this is the perfect opportunity to stock your digital library for a fraction of the retail price.
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.
