D&D 5E (2024) D&D Beyond's Development Roadmap Is A Complete Rebuild Of Platform

D&D Beyond has announced its roadmap for the future, including features in active development and those planned for later down the line. These include a full rebuild of the game platform's engine, a new character builder, tools for Dungeon Masters, and more.

Over the past few months, we’ve launched a new homepage, a revamped and more sortable content library, image reveals in the Maps VTT to help DMs immerse their players more easily, and several other quality-of-life improvements.

2026 is a year of refocusing and rebuilding D&D Beyond to make it easier to play D&D your way. Three major initiatives will drive most of our work:

• Rebuilding D&D Beyond’s Game Platform
• Improving Player Onboarding and Revamping the Character Builder Experience
• Launching a Suite of Dungeon Master Tools

 

[pukunui]

When is/was the AMA? Something else I would really love is a more user-friendly homebrew system, especially for NPCs/monsters. My ideal system would let me pick / enter some traits, actions, etc, and then it would calculate the CR for me and then rejig the numbers accordingly. It would also automatically add any tags. Having to write out things like "it has the [condition]Incapacitated[/condition] condition" is a pain in the butt.

 

[Zaukrie]

There are now more pages arguing over nothing, than the original content of the thread.

 

[pukunui]

There are now more pages arguing over nothing, than the original content of the thread.

This is the Way.

 

[Azzy]

Much larger number of revisions.

So, it's 5.5 instead of 5.2.7 or 5.4 or 5.6 or anything else that would be more logical because... vibes.

 

[OB1]

Yeah, this is what I'd expect. The trouble is, this isn't the first time we've heard about re-writing Beyond. As far back as 2019, which is now, bear in mind, coming up on 7 years ago (!!!), Beyond was saying "We need to do a major rebuild and redesign so we can properly add new stuff". And then even claimed that they'd done that, yet, mysteriously, couldn't, didn't and still haven't added some of the stuff they claimed that rebuild would enable.

So when they say they're doing another rebuild, I am skeptical that it will be:

A) As successful as they hope, or resolve as many issues as they seem to think it will.

B) Remotely on time.

I get that people are enthusiastic, but I think it's important to remain somewhat skeptical here, and to not expect the world, because Beyond have rarely delivered on what they've said they're going to do (the product is fundamentally extremely similar to how it was on release and the number of "we want to do X" or even "we will do X" that just haven't happened is pretty large). WotC have a multiple decades long history of easily 90% of D&D-related software projects (whether games or apps or w/e) ending in some amount of tears, whether it's the tens of millions spent (assuming Cynthia Williams was being truthful, which I think we should), but near-total failure of the 3D VTT (the second failed 3D VTT from WotC I note, the first being in 4E), or the struggles of 4E's DDI, or just the ugly breakup of WotC and Larian (which at least made WotC an enormous amount of money and got them some valuable IP, even if it could have gone a lot better). I don't expect Beyond's "upgrade" here to go much better. Let's hope it's more towards the BG3 end of the scale, i.e. mostly good, some tears.

There is a pretty big difference between saying that you 'need' to do something and that you 'are' doing something. This announcement falls into the later. And the WotC DDB team has been absolutely excellent in developing Maps so far so much so that it's success killed the Sigle 3DVTT. I think the group they've got developing this site deserves the benefit of the doubt for the time being.

 

[Scribe]

So, it's 5.5 instead of 5.2.7 or 5.4 or 5.6 or anything else that would be more logical because... vibes.

Thats right, certainly better than 'its not a new version...because we said so, dont mind all the changes'.

 

[GarrettKP]

WotC will be releasing their 2026 D&D Roadmap soon, possibly today, likely this week.

 

[Morrus]

WotC will be releasing their 2026 D&D Roadmap soon, possibly today, likely this week.

It's being released under embargo to press.

 

[GarrettKP]

It's being released under embargo to press.

Wonder when the embargo will be lifted? My guess is sometime this week.

 

[Morrus]

Wonder when the embargo will be lifted? My guess is sometime this week.

I'd tell you, but then I'd have to... oh, you know the drill!