by Wizards of the Coast, owners and custodians of the mighty Dungeons and Dragons brand, is hopeful that clever planning and a little bit of foresight might make it easier for developers to produce another smash hit, like Baldur’s Gate 3. And they actually have a very interesting approach to achieving it.
WotC has made no attempt to hide the fact that they feel the Dungeons and Dragons IP is currently undermonetized. For those not in the know, that means that they feel there are considerable licensing and revenue generation opportunities out there, they simply need to find them. One of the most successful in recent years has been Baldur’s Gate 3, which has led them to think a lot about how they are supporting the companies that work on games in the D&D universe.
In a great conversation with The Game Business, Wizards president John Hight and video game developer Giant Skull’s Stig Asmussen give some great insight on what they hope to do. Asmussen has extensive experience building viable franchises in the video game space, having worked on both the God of War series and the Jedi series for Respawn. Asmussen has now signed on with his new team at Giant Skull to develop a new game for WotC in Unreal Engine 5.
As it happens, Unreal Engine 5 is a large part of the future plans for D&D. “One thing we are doing with our premium games is they are actually all built on Unreal 5. We are establishing a content creation team to help service teams. So, you know, hey, we make fantasy games. We make sci-fi games. We’re going to have a team of artists and world builders that can help out and step in if Stig wants to use them during that time when we’re in full production.”
Frankly, it’s a solid move, and is exactly that kind of support you would like to see a company like WotC giving to the teams that are trying to build out the next D&D-focused games that we all want to dive into.
Make sure you go watch the full video over on The Game Business to see what else they spoke about.
