Sigil, Wizards of the Coast's VTT, Officially Launches

beholder sigil.png

Sigil, the 3D VTT developed by Wizards of the Coast and formerly known as Project Sigil, has officially launched on Window devices. Today, Wizards of the Coast announced that anyone with a D&D Beyond account (free or paid) can now access Sigil, provided they have a computer with Windows OS. Interestingly, the system's full functionality is based off of D&D Beyond's subscription tiers, with access to create multiplayer rooms and the ability to share and load maps tied to the Master Tier account. Master Tier subscribers also have access to builder kits, custom mini outfits, and unpainted minis. The Sigil client can be downloaded from D&D Beyond.

Sigil has been in development since at least 2023 alongside the launch of the One D&D initiative. One major concern about the new system, which uses Unreal Engine 5 to create 3D battle maps for D&D, was its pricing. At least for now, pricing seems to be tied directly to D&D Beyond subscriptions instead of pushing an additional monetization scheme onto players.

EN World saw a preview build of Sigil earlier this year, with a robust and relatively quick-to-implement map building system. One question that I kept asking while previewing Sigil involved exactly what Wizards wanted Sigil to be, as it functionally appeared to be a level or map builder with some basic D&D automation built into the game. The system doesn't include a full D&D revised 5E engine, but it does contain a significant amount of integration for the app to mimic some of D&D Beyond's dice rolling and resource management system has. It doesn't look like a bad VTT, although it's more appropriate for big set piece battles rather than standard "goblins attack the caravan" type encounters.
 

log in or register to remove this ad

Christian Hoffer

Christian Hoffer

Wait! So instead of using some In-Browser (3D) engine like Unity they decided it is a good idea to create an installable (windows-only) program? I'm not sure this is a good idea when you want to get into the VTT market, where every other provider (FoundryVTT, Roll20, Owlbear Rodeo, Alchemy, etc.) lets (at least the players) access it through the browser.

Eh yeah, no thank you...
Fantasy grounds waves hi.
 

log in or register to remove this ad


IMG_0957.png

Carl Pinder, who works with FG now was working on this with a Kickstarter….in 2015 for 3D. Can’t believe it took 10 years to get something similar to the market and I wish Doug and FGU would do something similar as it was system neutral and could drop character sheet into it for a game and it did calculations off that. I actually built the first level of level of Undermountain with it back in the day and ran a couple sessions with it on the table tv for our group back then the players decided to throw me a curveball and go down the well in the Yawning Portal…fun times :)
 

Well, Fantasy Grounds has been getting 3d off the ground for about six months now. It's slow going, but, they are doing it. You have 3d views that do work. It's not the prettiest thing in the world, like, at all, but, it is possible.

Give them time. They just added the ability to put labels on maps for the first time a couple of months ago. It only took them about twenty years to catch up to every other VTT out there. Not that I'm bitter at all. Now if we could only get font support in chat...
 

PC only is disappointing.
Yeah that's interesting because in the early stages they specifically said that they were using UE5 because it was multi-platform and easy to make work on various devices. I guess not as easy as they hoped?

However, it's also a bit unsurprising, because UE5 is pretty heavy, and the way they're using it doesn't look very optimized/efficient way. Maybe they're hoping the march of technology will just make it viable for other devices? But I think they'll be a little disappointed if so, because generational power gains have been decreasing lately with both PCs and phones/tablets.

Presumably the goal here is to get some kind of income linked to Sigil on the books so that they can justify retaining some/all of the 250 people Cynthia Williams said were working specifically on this. Even if it's a small income or weakly proven they can at least point to that and claim potential for growth.
 

Wait! So instead of using some In-Browser (3D) engine like Unity they decided it is a good idea to create an installable (windows-only) program? I'm not sure this is a good idea when you want to get into the VTT market, where every other provider (FoundryVTT, Roll20, Owlbear Rodeo, Alchemy, etc.) lets (at least the players) access it through the browser.

Eh yeah, no thank you...
What's particularly weird is UE5 can run in a browser, so this has a bit of a Silverlight vibe in that WotC seems to have intentionally chosen a clunkier way of doing things. It does mean they can strictly control what it installs on though, maybe that's the goal in the short term?
 



Wait! So instead of using some In-Browser (3D) engine like Unity they decided it is a good idea to create an installable (windows-only) program? I'm not sure this is a good idea when you want to get into the VTT market, where every other provider (FoundryVTT, Roll20, Owlbear Rodeo, Alchemy, etc.) lets (at least the players) access it through the browser.

Eh yeah, no thank you...
Massive issues trying to do performance heavy apps via a web browser. Sigil is a performance heavy app.
 


Remove ads

Remove ads

Top