Dungeons & Dragons Will Announce New Products at Gen Con, Modules Returning to Game

Wizards of the Coast plans to use Gen Con as a launching point for future products. During a press briefing at Gary Con on Thursday, Head of D&D Franchise Dan Ayoub said that they would be announcing the product tied to the Season of Champions at Gen Con this year. Additionally, starting at Gen Con in 2026, D&D will also announce the roadmap for the upcoming year at the convention, which will include announcements of upcoming Seasons, announcement of new products, and other "stuff" tied to the season.

Ayoub told the press briefing that early feedback for the seasons have been "fantastic," so it appears that this will be the standard moving forward.

Later in the press briefing, Ayoub noted that the lengthy delay in announcements was due to a combination of internal reorganization for the D&D team and a shift in which products would be released in 2026. He also said that adventure modules will be returning to Dungeons & Dragons as part of the new Season models, although it's unclear whether this will be through the D&D Encounters program, Adventurer's League, or through some other kind of unannounced product.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

What, I wonder, does DS offer that a new setting would not?

A slightly shorter path to getting the Dark Sun IP into movies, TV shows and videogames, which is pretty explicitly part of their mission now.

They can -- and definitely will -- do the same thing with new settings and characters, but Dark Sun is a little further down the road to mainstream awareness, since there are a bunch of older fans floating around out there who'll go "hey, I think I remember that ..."

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I would say "season of wastelands" or defilers for DS. I have said in the past my own theory is we will be a generic splatbook about post-apocaliptic settings focused for player options. Other title would be a "Traveler's Guide" with a chapter about gazetteer, some PC species and mainly monsters.

Hasbro isn't too interested into selling more DS sourcebooks but a DS version of BG3.

I doubt to see the update of DS without new UA articles to playtest the PC species. Here WotC worries about the feedback and potential "brand-value". Of course, there's also the possibility that they might decide to release the psionic species separately in DDB as digital content, but I don't like that option.

We have got the option of a DS spin-off, this would be a next wildspace in the same material plane. (Oficially the Athaspace isn't in the same material plane, that is the reason because this can't be visited or explored by spelljammers from Toril, Krynn or Oerth.

A compilation of adventures set in the DS is possible, based on a camp of runaway slaves. This could be easily adapted for different homebrew campaigns. Or an adventure set in Kalidnay(Ravenloft). Maybe this dark domain is a cluster with various Athasian dark-lords. These "new" domains could be a "recycled" version of the Deathlands.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The fact is, if you wanted to do something about gladiators, you would set it in the Forgotten Realms (or Greyhawk, or Krynn’s past). There really is no reason to use Dark Sun for gladiators. They fit pretty much anywhere. Trying to use it to connect to “champions” is just a sad attempt to deny waiting a couple more months.

 

[Nicholas Reed]

My money is on Champions being Dragonlance related due to the push of Dragonlance characters in Idle Champions this year, the new Lord Soth art on the roadmap image, and it being a nice reference to Champions of Krynn. I would imagine Dark Sun more being called "Season of the Apocalypse" or something similar.