Dungeons & Dragons Is Getting a New Pinball Machine

Now there’s more than one way to roll in Dungeons & Dragons. Stern Pinball has announced Dungeons & Dragons: The Tyrant’s Eye, a new pinball game (available in three different models) in honor of the 50th anniversary of the grandaddy of all pen-and-paper role-playing games. The Tyrant’s Eye is available for order right now, starting at $6,999.

In Dungeons & Dragons: The Tyrant’s Eye, players have to defeat Tiamat, the five-headed Goddess Queen of dragons, amid a war fought by the armies of established D&D characters Balinor, Xanathar, and Sammaster (who is one single L away from having the best name in all of D&D). All kinds of D&D creatures and locations will factor in, from owlbears and gelatinous cubes, to Arabel and Westgate. Observing all from his perch upon the playfield is Rath the Relentless—a treasure-hoarding dragon voiced by Michael Dorn, and, as touted in Stern’s press release, the “most advanced animatronic mech in pinball” (at least in the Premium and Limited Edition models). Also unique to those two higher-end versions is the Rath figure’s ability to “breath fire” by spitting pinballs out of its mouth, which makes me think of those old baseball games that would “pitch” a pinball towards a plunger-bat that I used to play down at the pier.

If you haven’t played a pinball machine made in, oh, the last 15 years or so, you might not know how advanced they’ve become. Expect high-def screens on backglasses running constant video footage, playfield elements (like Rath the Relentless) that move and interact in complicated ways, and complex missions, games modes, and stories that change based on your performance and are often tweaked and fine-tuned through downloadable computer code updates. That level of technological wizardry means The Tyrant’s Eye will be able to replicate a tabletop Dungeons & Dragons session more faithfully than, say, the 1987 Dungeons & Dragons pinball game that Bally made. Traditional pinball tech will still be all over this thing, with magnets, trap doors, ramps, target banks, and other pinball bedrocks, but modern technology will allow for multiple playable characters, detailed story threads, and more—all of which can be changed or expanded upon over time. New Stern machines also include Stern Insider functionality, an online network that tracks your performance and has really helped on-site tournament play run more smoothly.

One of the coolest sounding features of The Tyrant’s Eye is how it approaches dungeon crawling, which should be a part of any self-respecting piece of Dungeons & Dragons media. The game’s dungeon is accessed via a trap door pop-up, and playing through it requires making shots on the playfield while watching what looks like a classic, first-person perspective dungeon crawler videogame on the backglass screen. This five-level dungeon is procedurally generated, meaning that its layout and the placement of treasure and monsters are determined randomly. Those dungeons change every Sunday, so you’ll have a constant stream of new dungeons to explore every week.

Stern also packed out the voice cast on this one. In addition to the Star Trek vet Michael Dorn, characters will be voiced by Kevin Smith (of the movies), My Chemical Romance singer and comic book writer Gerard Way, Home Movies and Metalocalypse co-creator Brendon Small,  animator Chris Prynoski, and famed voice actors and Critical Role cast members Matthew Mercer, Laura Bailey, and Marisha Ray. And the three different models all have artwork from frequent Dungeons & Dragons artist Vincent Proce.

If you’re familiar with Stern’s typical release strategy, you can probably already tell me what those three models are called. If you aren’t, here’s the deal: the Pro Edition, the most affordable and least feature-rich version, retails for $6,999. The Premium Edition, which comes with the more advanced Rath the Relentless figure, a fancier mechanism for entering the dungeon crawl, and different art, goes for $9,699. And the Limited Edition, with only 740 versions ever being made (in honor of D&D’s debut in 1974), comes with an enhanced audio system, a shaker motor, and a range of cosmetic upgrades, costs $12,999. The LE also ships first, so if you absolutely can’t wait to get one of these in your game room, you’ll probably want to spring for that most expensive option.

If you want to get a better look at Dungeons & Dragons: The Tyrant’s Eye, check out the video below. And beneath that you’ll find some photos from the playfield. And we might have more here at Paste once the game starts hitting nearby locations.

Left to right: Pro, Premium, Limited Edition