The Uncanny X-Men hasn't even begun to ship yet and I'm already thinking about what's next from Stern Pinball lol. Before we get to that, a little about X-Men. I know that a lot of people were disappointed with how the game seemed to shoot on during the initial Stern Pinball gameplay livestream. Here's my initial thoughts from playing it recently. Yes, the callouts for some of the characters like Wolverine and Gambit are pretty bad, but...the game shot like butter. It had a super unique layout, unlike anything that I've played before. I loved playing it.
OK, now on to what's next. According to what I've heard (none of this has been confirmed with the Company) first up Stern has Metallica Remastered from John Borg ready to go at the upcoming Chicago Pinball Expo, which takes place from October 15th through the 19th. The new Metallica features a new slightly larger LCD screen featuring live Metallica concert footage and new art. Dirty Donny is not doing the new art for the game, I believe that Jesse Hernandez aka Urban Aztec (https://www.instagram.com/urbanaztec?igsh=Z2EweGo4cmYybnNlis) doing it. Below is anexample of his work. The machine will have a similar layout to the original, but different sculpts for Sparky and the Snake. It also will have Insider Connected.
While I'm nearly 100% sure that the Metallica Remastered rumor is true, I'm slightly less sure about the game after. I do know that we will only have a short wait until Stern's next cornerstone game is revealed in very late December. At this point, I strongly believe that game will be Dungeons and Dragons by Brian Eddy. I honestly don't know much more about it and I reserve the right to be wrong lol, but that's my current best guess.
I personally absolutely LOVE this theme. I don't really sit down and play pen and paper Dungeons and Dragons, but I adore the IP. I've played a lot of Baldurs Gate 3 on PC and all of the D&D video games over the years for that matter, going back decades. I loved and own the 2023 Dungeons and Dragons movie Honor Among Thieves. I watched the entire first and second Critical Role YouTube series years ago when I was stuck in the hospital recovering from heart surgery. You get it. This IP is a home run for me personally, so I hope what I heard about it coming soon is true. It will be interesting to see what the rest of the hobby and the world think of it.
I plan on doing several of these "What I'm Hearing" articles this week so stay tuned.
