Wizards of the Coast has reportedly decided to cancel five of its games that haven't even been announced to the public yet. The company publishes Dungeons & Dragons, a highly popular tabletop RPG, and various other products related to the brand, and Magic: The Gathering, a collectible card game sought after worldwide.
Originally, Wizards of the Coast announced it had eight new Dungeons & Dragons video games in development back in 2019. From those games only Baldur's Gate 3 and Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance has seen the light of day so far, so what further projects have been lost can mostly just be speculated about.
Wizards of the Coast have said to PC Gamer it would rather work on projects that are "aligned with developing our existing brands and those which show promise in expanding or engaging our audience in new ways." According to Bloomberg, 15 Wizards of the Coast employees will be let go because of this development. Meanwhile, PC Gamer speculates that due to the company's comment on existing brands, they will likely not stop development on games that focus on the world of Dungeons & Dragons, but it is difficult to tell at this time. Archetype Entertainment, a division of Wizards of the Coast, says on its website it's recruiting to "build a multi-platform roleplaying game set in a brand-new science fiction universe." The head of the studio is James Ohlen who has worked on such much-beloved games before as Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and the Dragon Age series. Although the game is not set in the Dungeons & Dragons universe, its website still has postings for eight new jobs, so unless otherwise stated later, this game could very well be safe from cuts.
In October 2022, Wizards of the Coast announced on its website that Invoke Studios will be creating a new AAA game from the Dungeons & Dragons franchise. Invoke is a new studio that was previously Tuque Games and was responsible for Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance. There has been no further news on what kind of game can be expected of it or whether the game as originally intended is still in development.
Wizards of the Coast has lined up RPGs previously that boast of plans of vast open worlds and story-led narratives. Players can only hope that those promises will still be intact and that they can look forward to some exciting RPG titles in the coming years.