It's a wonderful time to be a fan of Dungeons and Dragons. The tabletop game has enjoyed a renaissance over the past few years, reaching brand new heights in terms of popularity, far greater than even the original creators imagined. While Dungeons and Dragons has always had a long history with video games in the past, it seems that fans can expect more in the near future. A lot more.
Speaking in an interview, Wizards of The West Coast President Chris Cocks stated that there is plenty more in the pipeline for the Dungeons and Dragons franchise other than Baldur's Gate 3 and Dark Alliance, the Action RPG announced at The Game Awards. In fact, according to Cocks, fans should expect "seven or eight" Dungeons and Dragons games in the near future, giving fans of the franchise plenty to look forward to.
Not only will there be plenty of games, but Cocks elaborated that they'll be diverse, stating, "And we're going to do it in a variety of genres... And in future games we will explore different areas, whether it's grand strategy and combat at army level scale, to really intimate character portrayal." It's a noble goal for the company to have. After all, there are plenty of different types of Dungeons and Dragons fans, with some preferring never-ending combat and others looking for more character-focused campaigns. While players can design their own campaigns for the TRPG, it's much harder to make video games, so the variety is appreciated.
The games will also scale to different levels of production value. While Cocks stated that Dungeons and Dragons: Dark Alliance won't be a Triple- or Double-A title per se, instead the game will be up to the interpretation of the beholder, it is in the mid-size category of Dungeons and Dragons games currently being created. There still isn't enough detail about the project to know what that means for the other games, but the prospect of a potential Witcher-sized Dungeons and Dragons game is exciting if they reach that size. Plus, a game that size would undoubtedly generate some great Dungeons and Dragons memes.
It'll be interesting to see what the future holds for digital Dungeons and Dragons. Game development is fickle, so it's possible that some of the projects get changed, canceled, and so forth, but D&D games have been pretty good, traditionally, and the prospect of character-driven role-playing games in that universe is incredibly exciting. How it'll actually shake out remains to be seen, but it should get fans anxious to hear more, if nothing else.
Dungeons and Dragons: Dark Alliance is currently in development.
Source: GamesIndustry.biz