Nosferatu has been on Robert Eggers’ mind as long as he’s had a career. Actually, even before that — when he was a teen, the director of acclaimed films like The Witch and The Lighthouse had directed his high school’s staging of F.W. Murnau’s 1922 vampire classic. But the obsession started even earlier: when he was nine years old, he spotted a picture of Max Schreck in a book on vampires, which kickstarted a lifelong obsession that would turn Nosferatu into a decade-long passion project.

Back in 2014, Eggers was considering remaking Nosferatu, but balked at the idea of his sophomore effort being a new take on one of the greatest horror films of all time. "It feels ugly and blasphemous and egomaniacal and disgusting for a filmmaker in my place to do Nosferatu next,” Eggers told IndieWire back in 2016.

So it would take 10 years and two more movies for Eggers to return to Nosferatu. The result was more than worth the wait — Nosferatu is a delightfully depraved update, synthesizing elements of Murnau’s original with Bram Stoker’s Dracula (which Murnau couldn’t directly adapt due to copyright issues). In fact, Eggers’ film seems to understand Dracula, specifically its underlying theme of the seductive foreigner, more than many past adaptations of the film. So what was it about Nosferatu that held Eggers’ imagination for so long, that Dracula didn’t have?

When it comes to RPGs, 2024 was a year for the history books. From January until now, we’ve been blessed with a plethora of role-playing games that have pushed the category to the next level. Sure there was Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and Dragon Age: The Veilguard — long-awaited by fans and delivering on the hype. But so many surprises snuck in as well.

More than anything, this year has shown that there are ample opportunities for brand-new experiences, long-awaited sequels, and riveting re-imaginations of all-time classics. That’s what Inverse’s Gaming team found when we pooled our collective RPG lists. These are the role-playing games that came out on top for us, but in a year dominated by RPGs, we say take these as inspiration — and keep looking. RPGs truly have never been better.

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