Has Wizards of the Coast Given Up on Sigil?

Sigil seems destined to a slow, spiraling demise after layoffs hit the team overseeing the project. Overnight, news broke that approximately 90% of the team responsible for building Sigil, Wizards of the Coast's new VTT, was let go shortly after the system's public launch. The version of Sigil made available to the public was clearly a work in progress - not only did it require a computer with significant specs to run, it was also only available on Windows computers. The layoffs are the latest sign that Sigil was a solution in search of a problem, a project with no clear endgoal other than to serve as a shinier version of tools already existing for D&D players. EN World has reached out to Wizards for comment about the layoffs.

Project Sigil was initially announced as part of the One D&D initiative back in August 2022. The VTT was supposed to serve as a new entry point for D&D, with cross compatibility with D&D Beyond and additional functionality with D&D's ruleset to make the game easier to play. However, even the initial announcement seemed to lack a strong elevator pitch, other than offering a shinier 3D VTT compared to Roll20 or Foundry. However, many players and D&D commentators immediately pointed out the likely monetization that came with this project, with miniatures, adventures, and even core classes all up for grabs in terms of microtransactions.



Sigil's development continued for over two years, with Wizards offering press and fans new looks at the in-development project at several high-profile events. A Gen Con D&D Live show utilized Sigil for a dragon vs. dragon encounter featuring Baldur's Gate 3 characters (played by their voice actors) caught in the middle. However, the use of Sigil stunted the live show experience, turning a boisterous and raunchy show into a lifeless technical glitch-filled slog. With the players focused on the computer and constantly calling for aid, it was a damning indictment of what Sigil could do to a D&D session.



In early 2025, EN World was invited to a D&D press event at Wizards' headquarters in Renton, WA. The event included an hour-long look at Sigil, which was billed as more of a level builder than a traditional VTT. While the designers showed off how relatively easy it was to build a quick encounter within Sigil, they admitted that most tables wouldn't use the VTT to run every encounter. They also couldn't answer fundamental questions about the VTT, such as monetization or what the design goals for the VTT was. Again, it very much felt like a solution for a problem that hadn't been introduced. At one point, the designer noted that their plan for Sigil's development was largely dependent on what users actually wanted in the system and expressed hope that users could use the VTT for systems beyond D&D 5E. It was also pointed out to developers that there was significant crossover with Maps, a D&D Beyond feature that used 2D maps and tokens that seemed to be far easier to implement with the release of new D&D products. Other than acknowledging the overlap and stating that the two systems worked differently, there wasn't a clear answer as to why Wizards was developing two VTT-esque products at the same time.

Sigil launched in February 2025 as something as a surprise. While a longer beta period was originally planned, the full launch of the project was instead announced via a 140-word press release. The project was limited to D&D Beyond subscribers, with a paid subscription needed to unlock full services. The strangely terse press release and muted launch had all the makings of a market dump - that Wizards of the Coast was cutting its losses after spending significant resources trying to build a system with no clear-cut audience or goal in mind.

As of now, it's unclear how Sigil will be supported moving forward - will it roll out new set pieces and miniatures as new adventures and content with the upcoming Dragon Delves launch? Will it get any significant updates at all now that there's only a handful of employees left to work on the project? Or is Sigil destined to fade into obscurity, the latest in a series of failed online products headed by Wizards that was meant to launch alongside new editions. Only time will tell.

 

[OB1]

I think it's a weird take that Sigil was a solution in search of a problem. IMO it was pretty clear that WotC wanted 2 things from Sigil. First to be a digital replacement for physical 3D battle maps and minis (a small niche) but secondly and more importantly, they wanted it to be an easy entry ramp for people new to D&D and TTRPGs ( with dreams of replicating the success of BG3 in expanding the brand). WotC is in the business of finding new customers, after all, and has done that very, very well over the last decade.

The problem with goal number two is that it likely led to a LOT of scope creep, driving up the cost and delaying the launch. Meanwhile, Maps, while not likely attracting a lot of new players to D&D, was probably showing strong metrics for keeping existing customers subscribed to DDB and purchasing new material, increasing the lifetime value of current customers, something that WotC traditionally hasn't been great at doing.

The developers of Sigil are saying (which I'll take with a grain of salt at this point) that Sigil isn't dead, just reduced in scope (and with less meetings), and I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't slim down it's scope to just being a physical battle map and mini replacement tool for a while, dropping the dream of being an easy way to onboard new players for the foreseeable future. If that's the case, we may still at least see a Mac version in the not to distant future and possibly a way to share built maps with others in the community. Having those two pieces available would at least allow the possibility of a small creative community to figure out what they can do with the tools and perhaps inform development of the product down the road.

 

[Christian Hoffer]

I think it's a weird take that Sigil was a solution in search of a problem. IMO it was pretty clear that WotC wanted 2 things from Sigil. First to be a digital replacement for physical 3D battle maps and minis (a small niche) but secondly and more importantly, they wanted it to be an easy entry ramp for people new to D&D and TTRPGs ( with dreams of replicating the success of BG3 in expanding the brand). WotC is in the business of finding new customers, after all, and has done that very, very well over the last decade.

The problem with goal number two is that it likely led to a LOT of scope creep, driving up the cost and delaying the launch. Meanwhile, Maps, while not likely attracting a lot of new players to D&D, was probably showing strong metrics for keeping existing customers subscribed to DDB and purchasing new material, increasing the lifetime value of current customers, something that WotC traditionally hasn't been great at doing.

The developers of Sigil are saying (which I'll take with a grain of salt at this point) that Sigil isn't dead, just reduced in scope (and with less meetings), and I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't slim down it's scope to just being a physical battle map and mini replacement tool for a while, dropping the dream of being an easy way to onboard new players for the foreseeable future. If that's the case, we may still at least see a Mac version in the not to distant future and possibly a way to share built maps with others in the community. Having those two pieces available would at least allow the possibility of a small creative community to figure out what they can do with the tools and perhaps inform development of the product down the road.

At no point in time could anyone involved with Sigil give me a clear picture of what the VTT was, where it fit into the market, and what their goals were for the system. It was directionless from the outset beyond "make a 3D-based tabletop", which led to them shifting gears to try to jam into different VTT roles at various points in time in its development.

And Sigil isn't "dead," but it isn't going to be developed much beyond where it's at now.

 

[OB1]

At no point in time could anyone involved with Sigil give me a clear picture of what the VTT was, where it fit into the market, and what their goals were for the system. It was directionless from the outset beyond "make a 3D-based tabletop", which led to them shifting gears to try to jam into different VTT roles at various points in time in its development.

And Sigil isn't "dead," but it isn't going to be developed much beyond where it's at now.

In my mind, that's a different issue than a 'a solution in search of a problem'.

Again, I think the goal of Sigil was clearly to be a AAA piece of software whose ROI would be realized by attracting new customers to D&D primarily from existing video game players. That is, they knew the only way to justify the cost of the AAA development was if Sigil was very, very good and bringing new players into D&D. First the pandemic and then BG3 probably gave them good reason to believe that might be possible.

At some point recently, they came to the belief that the cost of completing development to achieve the goal of brining in new players wasn't going to be equal to the revenue those new players would bring in, so they pivoted. As we see from the recent announcement, Sigil will now be part of the DDB ecosystem, thus helping to retain current D&D customers and increase their lifetime value, like Maps does. The core books team will likely remain primarly responsible for bringing in new customers to D&D (like they have for the last decade).

 

[Umbran]

When D&D Beyond goes down (and it will), it goes down for everyone.

But, you just said we don't need to worry about most people, much less "everyone".

Your messaging isn't terribly consistent.

Not to mention how this is a tangent, off-topic for the thread. Nobody has bought a whole lot of digital assets for Sigil, Sly. Nor do you need to save anyone from doing so. So maybe don't derail things too much arguing over digital assets, please?

 

[Umbran]

At some point recently, they came to the belief that the cost of completing development to achieve the goal of brining in new players wasn't going to be equal to the revenue those new players would bring in, so they pivoted.

As mentioned elsewhere, I think most discussion of this show a bit of bias by missing two key items:

1) We honestly already knew that Hasbro was not going to have a good year. When it was previously saved from posting a yearly loss by BG3, there should have been little-to-no expectation that this year would be a winner.

2) We are looking at great economic uncertainty for anyone whose US business relies on foreign manufacturing. Hasbro makes most of their toys in China, and agreements that used to keep costs of that down are going away.

What might be an okay, if not astounding, medium-term business idea can crash upon the rocks of more immediate economic realities.

 

[mamba]

Again, I think the goal of Sigil was clearly to be a AAA piece of software whose ROI would be realized by attracting new customers to D&D primarily from existing video game players. That is, they knew the only way to justify the cost of the AAA development was if Sigil was very, very good and bringing new players into D&D.

it had to do more than that, D&D was bringing new customers in just fine without it.

It needed to be a path to consistent revenue, whether via a subscription or microtransactions (or both). Don’t forget the ‘D&D is undermonetized’ schtick. When it became clear that there was no easy path to that, it got abandoned

That ‘undermonetized’ bit is also why it is a solution in search of a problem, it was part of the solution to undermonetization more than anything

 

[SlyFlourish]

But, you just said we don't need to worry about most people, much less "everyone".

Your messaging isn't terribly consistent.

Not to mention how this is a tangent, off-topic for the thread. Nobody has bought a whole lot of digital assets for Sigil, Sly. Nor do you need to save anyone from doing so. So maybe don't derail things too much arguing over digital assets, please?

This is two different "everyone"s in this case. If you lose your PDFs because your hard drive crashes, it doesn't mean everyone who ever downloaded that PDF loses theirs. Instead, when Sigil is pulled, everyone who had one loses their shiny gold dragon preorder miniature (Sigil relevance!).

Anyway, moving on.

 

[SlyFlourish]

While I agree with you - might point still stands: everything is ephemeral.

Some stuff is significantly more ephemeral than others. Sigil's (short) rise and fall is an example. I don't think we get to keep whatever they built if WOTC decides to pull it down, is that correct?

 

[Desdichado]

USA Today. Dungeon Craft's video reviews them.

 

[Lord_Blacksteel]

It's interesting that the big story right before this broke was about the sales of physical books and how incredibly below expectations they are for 5.5. It literally made the rounds with the receipts all over the internet earlier this week. But, we were told, WotC didn't actually care because they weren't in the business of selling physical books anymore; VTT and its sexy micro-transactions model was the future revenue stream!

And then a day or two later, Project Sigil appears to die right before our eyes. So, what exactly is D&D's projected revenue stream? If it's not book sales and it's not a VTT which was cancelled, then what is it? And if there isn't a good revenue stream for D&D, then what is WotC going to do with the brand?

This is a story that has been going around, particularly on YouTube, but the focus was not on the VTT - it's on Beyond. DDB is where the books would be replaced, not Sigil. The VTT was just one more element to try and make the subscription model more appealing. With that gone it may weaken the long term plan on some level but can anyone doubt that their ongoing emphasis for D&D as a game is on DDB and the subscription model?