Intro Adventure Cover: 4th Edition

  Getting closer to the present now. The team in charge of D&D has decided that there's too much crunch online, too many splatbooks, and too much independent publishing. To nip that in the bud, the wise designers at WotC have decided to release a new Game System License, locking up as much as they can with the shiny new edition's content behind ironclad controls. Inspiringly, the community all comes together and decides as one that they won't support this greedy corporate grab...
  ...oh wait, I'm getting an update. Apparently, nobody outside of a few publishing insiders really cares about the GSL, the real reason old fans are mad is that WotC took a really slick Diablo-like tactical fighting game and decided to slap the name Dungeons and Dragons on it. Huh, turns out it really is all about content. 
  Even a slightly fuller version of Descent: Journeys in the Dark needs an adventure, though, so timed with the release of 4th Edition we have the edgily-named Keep on the Shadowfell as our intro adventure. The name is inspired by Keep on the Borderlands but Gygax's classic is hard to find here. At least it's trying to be an adventure still; in the next year places like Dungeon will stop even bothering and just publish slick battlemaps with neat tactical situations. For now, though, we have a high-gloss new cover to match a high-gloss new edition.
  It's certainly a new cover. My memory fades...was teal-and-orange a known meme back in the end of the aughts? We're still in muted palettes but it's now much more digital-looking and the orange of the fires and the teal of the spirit(?) magic really pops. I will say, for the first time since X1, we're finally once more grounded(ish) in a physical space, albeit a slightly noneuclidian one. There's an environment here that is stealing cues from Jackson's Return of the King leaving/entering Mordor. Boy, that was a great scene wasn't it? Sadly, this is just a reminder, everything looks menacing but very unreal.
  Like in 2nd Edition, we don't have player characters here, rather a villain. While Night Below looked like a movie poster, here in Shadowfell it feels like we're more in a video game cutscene. The guy front and center has some kind of magical power with his Ghost Dangle, looking very edgy and goth and all but his expression is more annoyed pique than real menace. All the skulls, but on his chest and on the faceless guards' shields, look soft, round, and kind of cute. It's the World of Warcraft aesthetic, without that game's refreshing bright colors. Or creative art direction. Or charm. Or personality. I suppose this is definitely a boss to battle, which is what 4th Edition is all about, so we have that accuracy to the cover's credit. Despite my comments, I don't actually hate tactical board games...this just doesn't look like what I think of for D&D.
​  We've lost pants again.

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