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.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I just hope that whatever they make is turnbased. I'm sick of Baldur's Gate copies; that system didn't even work right in Baldur's Gate itself; unless you played all fighters or all casters you would lose more hp to friendly fire than to the enemy

You do know that you can turn friendly fire off by reducing the difficulty setting in Baldur's Gate?

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Any small studio what asks funding by kickstarter can create its own engine with enough time and time.

I wonder about WotC should publish their freeware equivalent to the open licence, allowing others, 3rd party or amateurs adding their own mods to this software with open licence.

If you can't hire the best authors to have the best stories, plots or scripts in your titles then maybe you should give the tools to players to create, and share, their own adventures or quests. And the RPGs have got a more complex software. They need more time to avoid bugs and to give a right AI to the monsters.

I am thinking about "multimodular micro-transactions" as future of the videogame industry. How to explain this concept? Let's imagine a franchise of videogames, and you can create a PC what can be used to the different modes (farm simulation, cooperative dungeon-crawling, shooter arena, real-time-strategy). Then when you buy these cosmetics, for example furnitures for your castle, they will can be used in the different titles, even in the offline games. Do you think this is a stupid idea?

The market of the videogames is full of titles. Who can mark the difference, who will buy a "cheap" title? I guess parents for their preteen children, better if it is a famous kid-friendly franchise.

I also see the future of some multiplayer games will be the streaming media/videogame service. Gamers don't want to buy cosmetics when there are afraid the new MMORPG is not making enough money and this will be close in the next years, but it would be different when you can use all you have bought in a private server by a streaming videogame service.

* The main key is the funniest gameplay. Now we don't need the best graphics if we can use a voxel look or a retro-vintage style with pixels so big as fists. Maybe the videogames could be a second opportunity for Kre-o line.

* Should WotC/Hasbro produce interactive cartoons movies working as "gamebooks" for the streaming media services?

Or interactive games for children to learn languages (French with Dorothée the elf ranger or German with Jakob the dwarf blood-hunter)! or science.

* If Hasbro sees they can make money with videogames, you can bet they may buy more studios in the future, or al least to buy some IPs.

* Did you know this? A new game for mobile about Magic the Gathering. ManaStrike, by Netmarble.


* Maybe the best option could be partnership and coproduction with other companies. Hasbro could help Asian companies to create titles Wester publich would like, and Hasbro would learn to create franchises for the Asian public. Kara-Tur has got the potential to be a new cash-cow for WotC if they do a right work.

 

[Bohandas]

Well you could put in all kind of stoppers, auto pause on this autopause on that etc. I really love BG series and I did replay all of it recently when steam brought out the remastered stuff.

Autopause is not the same as turnbased. Autopause has never been the same as turnbased. Autopause is just a mess.

 

[gyor]

Any small studio what asks funding by kickstarter can create its own engine with enough time and time.

I wonder about WotC should publish their freeware equivalent to the open licence, allowing others, 3rd party or amateurs adding their own mods to this software with open licence.

If you can't hire the best authors to have the best stories, plots or scripts in your titles then maybe you should give the tools to players to create, and share, their own adventures or quests. And the RPGs have got a more complex software. They need more time to avoid bugs and to give a right AI to the monsters.

I am thinking about "multimodular micro-transactions" as future of the videogame industry. How to explain this concept? Let's imagine a franchise of videogames, and you can create a PC what can be used to the different modes (farm simulation, cooperative dungeon-crawling, shooter arena, real-time-strategy). Then when you buy these cosmetics, for example furnitures for your castle, they will can be used in the different titles, even in the offline games. Do you think this is a stupid idea?

The market of the videogames is full of titles. Who can mark the difference, who will buy a "cheap" title? I guess parents for their preteen children, better if it is a famous kid-friendly franchise.

I also see the future of some multiplayer games will be the streaming media/videogame service. Gamers don't want to buy cosmetics when there are afraid the new MMORPG is not making enough money and this will be close in the next years, but it would be different when you can use all you have bought in a private server by a streaming videogame service.

* The main key is the funniest gameplay. Now we don't need the best graphics if we can use a voxel look or a retro-vintage style with pixels so big as fists. Maybe the videogames could be a second opportunity for Kre-o line.

View attachment 115505

* Should WotC/Hasbro produce interactive cartoons movies working as "gamebooks" for the streaming media services?

View attachment 115504

Or interactive games for children to learn languages (French with Dorothée the elf ranger or German with Jakob the dwarf blood-hunter)! or science.

* If Hasbro sees they can make money with videogames, you can bet they may buy more studios in the future, or al least to buy some IPs.

* Did you know this? A new game for mobile about Magic the Gathering. ManaStrike, by Netmarble.


* Maybe the best option could be partnership and coproduction with other companies. Hasbro could help Asian companies to create titles Wester publich would like, and Hasbro would learn to create franchises for the Asian public. Kara-Tur has got the potential to be a new cash-cow for WotC if they do a right work.

I tried Mana Strike, good graphics, but its not a good game IMHO and I uninstalled it pretty quickly.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

I saw Parmandur say the game they're working on is AAA, but I never saw that myself. Anyone have that source?

 

[Parmandur]

I saw Parmandur say the game they're working on is AAA, but I never saw that myself. Anyone have that source?

I saw Parmandur say the game they're working on is AAA, but I never saw that myself. Anyone have that source?

May be thinking of someone else: they did not say this game is AAA, but the company has a lot of material saying their goal is to become a AAA studio.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

May be thinking of someone else: they did not say this game is AAA, but the company has a lot of material saying their goal is to become a AAA studio.

Never mind, it was probably that.

Anyway, highly doubt whatever the first game is will be AAA. Term "AAA" doesn't actually mean anything, it just means a big budget game release with lots of marketing. Highly doubt this team is capable of releasing anything like that, even years out.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

How to explain? They have got the musical instruments, but they haven't learn to play the best melody. A good software is necessary to avoid bugs, and all those things, but the true key is fun gameplay and this is hard to find the right key.

Minecraft, a good example of sleeping-hit, it is popular because many players like to create, and sims is one of the most sold sagas. Players should can enjoy a creator of quest/adventures or even some tool to produce machinimas or interactive movies.

My suggestion is maybe Hasbro should work in co-production with other companies or videogame studios.

If to earn money with videogames you have to sell cosmetics, then theses should can be used in different titles, like when you are going to play Overwatch 2 with skins you collected from 1. Theses DLC should could be used in offline games.

And thinking about "phygital games", mixing digital and physical toys.


The world of Ravenloft has a great future for the market of the young adults. If streamer youtubers could play a Ravenloft videogame whose stories have been created by other players, that would be a great advertising. A group would watch those games when nobody knows what is going to happen or who will survive, nor even the DM.

With a videogame based in Dragonlance you can allow yourself more risks to change the story, here we haven't to respect the canon as in a movie or teleserie adaptation.

Red Steel/Savage Coast is perfect for stories with the style of Disney "Pirates of the Caribbean Sea"

Hollow World is a land with dinosaurs, perfect to stories about who start with nothing and has to hunt, craft, farming and like this, something like Ark Envolved.

 

[Coroc]

Autopause is not the same as turnbased. Autopause has never been the same as turnbased. Autopause is just a mess.

Yep I know, but the engine compromises between totally turnbased and fluent action here obviously.

 

[Myzzrym]

Making a different CRPG is not duplicating what Larian Studios is doing anymore then Solasta is duplicating what Larian Studios is different.

I read that too quickly and for a moment I thought you were saying Solasta was copying Larian. I was about to be very sad as a Solasta Dev