WotC Brand New D&D Video Game from WotC's New Acquisition Tuque Games

Tuque Games has announced it's working on a brand new D&/D video game. "We're developing a brand-new game based in the widely celebrated, enduring, and immensely popular Dungeons & Dragons universe. This yet to be announced title is steepled in classic D&D lore. We aspire to push this game to new heights for the genre. It’s an honour and a privilege to begin a new chapter for Dungeons & Dragons video games."

Not only that, but the company has been purchased by WotC! The press release went out earlier today:

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RENTON, Wash., Oct. 29, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. (NASDAQ: HAS), today announced that it has acquired Tuque Games, a digital game development studio based in Montreal. Tuque is led by veterans of the game industry with experience working for leading publishers. Tuque will continue the development of games for Wizards of the Coast's best-known brands, beginning with Dungeons & Dragons.

"At Wizards, we're continuing our commitment to creating new ways to bring our fan favorite brands to life," said Chris Cocks, President, Wizards of the Coast. "Our unique approach of connecting fans around the tabletop as well as through our expanding portfolio of digital games is redefining what it means to be a games company."

Founded in 2012 by Jeff Hattem, Tuque Games released their first title, Livelock, to critical acclaim in 2016. Now with over 55 full-time employees, Tuque will focus on the development of digital games based on the popular Dungeons & Dragons franchise.

"Tuque is thrilled to have the opportunity to be part of the Wizards of the Coast team," said Jeff Hattem, Founder, Tuque Games. "By working more closely together, we can accelerate our joint vision and bring to life new games, characters and worlds in Wizards of the Coast's roster of franchises."

"In Tuque, we believe we have found a unique partner that pairs the nimbleness of an indie studio with the veteran leadership and scale required to deliver complex AAA games for our largest franchises," said David Schwartz, VP of Digital Publishing, Wizards of the Coast. "We are excited to bring Jeff and the Tuque team to the Wizards of the Coast family, which we believe will allow us to continue to meet the needs of our fans while enabling us to scale our digital games development capabilities even faster."

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It seems there's a bit of a D&D video game renaissance going on. Baldur's Gate 3 is coming, as is Solasta: Crown of the Magister.

 

[gyor]

The last 4 video games based on Dungeons and Dragons I played have been absolutely crap clicker or mobile games that were crap and greedy even for those genres. I am convinced that D&D is more than happy to greenlight any crap that wants to use the D&D license. So, no, just announcing that a company is making a game using the D&D license is nothing to get excited about.
Maybe if there were some actual details about what sort of game they intend to create, there would be reason to hope it wouldn't be some cash-grab crap.

Most if not all of those deals were done with the previous CEO, whereas CEO Chris Cox decided to to go with Larian Studios for a CRPG.

 

[gyor]

If its good, I'd be okay with that.

I LOVED the Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance console games, and the D&D Heroes console game. They had the trappings of an RPG, but weren't really, they were action titles. And fun!

To each their own, but I'm rooting for a proper D&D CRPG, not ARPG.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

I to this day do not understand the appeal of a D&D video game, unless it's BG3 which is a successor to an actually-good game made by an actually-good developer.

If I need a D&D simulator, I'll just wait for Diablo 4.

 

[Parmandur]

I to this day do not understand the appeal of a D&D video game, unless it's BG3 which is a successor to an actually-good game made by an actually-good developer.

If I need a D&D simulator, I'll just wait for Diablo 4.

I, for one, like D&D as an IP, and I like video games. I don't need to see a strict application of the rules, the tropes and fluff are good enough. I'd love a strategy game of some sort, personally.

 

[thomkt]

I, for one, like D&D as an IP, and I like video games. I don't need to see a strict application of the rules, the tropes and fluff are good enough. I'd love a strategy game of some sort, personally.

Pretty sure I've said it before, but I'd love an X-Com style game based on 4Ed. Image managing an adventure party (or guild/mercenary company/whatever). It would be awesome.

 

[Parmandur]

Pretty sure I've said it before, but I'd love an X-Com style game based on 4Ed. Image managing an adventure party (or guild/mercenary company/whatever). It would be awesome.

Instant buy.

 

[Coroc]

All those who want to play real good D&D PC game should try DDO, it is limited free to play but totally worth subscribing. It is 3.5e at its finest and with being a computer game all the little + from feats buffs etc. do not hamper your play, because all is tracked by computer.
It has Eberron and FR and Ravenloft and it is intelligent has real good riddles, a pulpy style of humor and much more. People who loved to do optimized character build for 3.5e will love this.
Careful you might get addicted to it (like me )

 

[Ravenbrook]

NWN is a microtransaction-heavy game with demonstrably poor gameplay that is repetitive and grindy even by MMORPG standards, and which removed the one unique and cool feature it had, and the one reason it could be justified to call itself Neverwinter Nights - player-created dungeons.

Neverwinter Nights and Neverwinter Online are two completely different games. But, yes, the elimination of the Foundry in NWO was inexcusable. Also, the game wasn't as grindy at first. Compare, for example, the Sharandar campaign vs. Storm King's Thunder.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

To each their own, but I'm rooting for a proper D&D CRPG, not ARPG.

I'm pretty sure that is what BG3 is intended to be. I don't see why they would want another studio making what is basically the same thing.

Thare is room to use the IP and setting for games that aren't CRPGs, just as there is room for novels, cartoons and movies. So long as the developer knows what kind of game they are making and doesn't get confused/try to swap horses midstream which seems to be what happened with Sword Coast Leg Ends.

You could make an action game with little or no RPG elements, like God of War for example.

You could make an ARPG like Diablo (although I think Grim Dawn is the best of those at the moment).

You could make a MMO, but since there is one (not very good, admittedly), I would avoid it for now.

There is a whole raft of strategy games you could make, where you are controlling armies rather than characters - D&D strategy games have been done in the past, anyone else remember Stronghold?

 

[Coroc]

Both of them are really low-quality MMOs by any remotely objective standard.

I say that as someone who has played MMOs since EQ in 1999. Both of them are deeply flawed in different ways. Further, DDO was not a success. It was a pretty serious failure, for the era. DDO was a sub-based game, and lost pretty close to 100% of it's subscribers within what, six months? Three? Something like that. That they retooled it and have a few thousand players doesn't mean anything. Utterly dreadful K-grinder RPGs which are literally pay-to-win have dozens of times more players than DDO. By your logic here, nothing which retains any players is "bad", which is ridiculous beyond belief. On the contrary, DDO is proof that a pretty awful MMORPG can retain a player-base sufficient to keep some cheap servers online. Most RPGs that shut down aren't shut down due to lack of money, note, but licensing issues or the like. Presumably DDO has a generous license and is thus not a victim of that.

NWN is a microtransaction-heavy game with demonstrably poor gameplay that is repetitive and grindy even by MMORPG standards, and which removed the one unique and cool feature it had, and the one reason it could be justified to call itself Neverwinter Nights - player-created dungeons. And it removed them, because they were insufficiently profitable - not because they were unbalanced or the like, but they didn't drive microtransactions and so on, and they did require some staff to keep an eye on them, so out they went. It has a playerbase because of the D&D/FR branding, and because it's basically pay-to-win.

DDO is a game for social and intelligent people, Neverwinter online is a big grind.
I play DDO and Lotro and did play Neverwinter online, of those three DDO is best. They get new content every few month, it is not a grind, and you can solo and stil lhave much fun and challenge.
It is not a game for those who want the latest flashy graphics, but it is good enough to give me my daily dose of D&D in a way that can only be surpassed by real pen and paper.
It has got story, real roleplay dialogues, and powerful riddles. You can optimize your character which is a science for itself, and not so much item dependency like other MMORPGs. Lately they did a hardcore server where players only had one life (like in diablo 2 hardcore) and the server was packed. Everyone and his mother tried to succeed the challenge. Instantly guilds were formed to support with buffs, long time players had to manage with crap equipment and bypass this partially by using the crafting system, devising a strategy on what dungeons to run at which level to achieve the survival, it was much fun. Fun i do not have in other MMORPGs.