Eight-year-old Neverwinter just got its best trailer ever

Seems like Neverwinter, the eight-year-old free-to-play MMO, gets a major update every five or six weeks. I mean, didn't they just launch the Feywild Sharandar? Didn't they just launch the Infernal Avernus? Now it's the Jewel of the North. Developer Cryptic is relentless.

But what sets this update apart isn't just the corny fedora and goatee-rocking bard that's just been added as a playable character class. It's this cinematic banger of a trailer that feels part miniature tabletop wargaming, part tilt-shifted photography art class, and part victory lap for Dungeons & Dragons properties as a whole.

See, I try not to let it cloud my judgment too much, but I'm real snobby when it comes to pen-and-pad RPGs vs. video game RPGs. I love each in their respective places. But my beloved D&D has never felt completely at home on a machine. That's 100% a me problem, I know. But again, this one trailer has me suddenly eyeballing that download button. What would it take to pull me away from my play-by-post D&D group's Slack channel? Quite possibly this dope soundtrack, these slo-mo panoramas, and the prospect of playing a bard (quite possibly the class of choice for "forever dungeon masters"). 

Besides, the bard gets a Free Perform Mode where they use their equipped instrument to freely create and play their own songs for other adventurers to enjoy. I have no doubt that mind-blowing compositions and musical hijinks will both ensue.

Neverwinter is out on PC, Xbox One, and PS4. Jewel of the North went live July 27. Sorry for the late info. But this trailer—which is a victory lap full of recent years' updates to Neverwinter—was too good to pass by, especially for cinematic trailers which usually do nothing for me.