Has Wizards of the Coast Given Up on Sigil?

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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.
 

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Christian Hoffer

Christian Hoffer

I'm an old fashioned pen and paper dude who has used digital tools for a few things but never in group play. I can see how they would be handy for people in different geographic locations playing together and, I must say, the graphics looked beautiful. However, after watching the "D&D direct" video above, showing a group of people sitting around a table with laptops sitting in front of them staring at the screens, I was left with one strong impression. This looked more like people sitting in a meeting room at work than people playing around the dinner table at home. Maybe I'd feel differently if I'd actually used Sigil.
I mean, that's a live demo at an event....so I'm not sure what you'd expect?

To answer the question in the OP, I'd guess yes. 3 or so people isn't enough to build assets and squash bugs, let alone finish the development in a timely manner.
 

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We should not neglect the impact of outside influences on decision making.

Hasbro has been in trouble for a while. They had a year turn out okay only because BG3 sold like hotcakes. New game books don't sell like hit video games, so we could expect this year was going to be bad for them.

Meanwhile, Hasbro is looking at economic uncertainty and sales possibly taking a hit from tariffs.

The question then arises - what was the expected date of making sales on Sigil? If it is too far in the future, they may not be able to support the development in the short term, and kill the project.
 

Originally, it felt like Maps was the stopgap for Sigil. But it turns out that a complicated 3d VTT is the niche product, and an easy to build and implement 2d VTT is far more useful for most folks. So WotC essentially built their own competition into DDB and then lost to it. Maps is fantastic, and already widely used.

I can see things like 3d tokens making their way over from Sigil, in a simplified form, and letting players create their own tokens for their characters. I can also see Maps implementing more tile-based map building features to make it easier for DMs to create new 2d maps on the fly. But ultimately, Sigil just seemed like it was over designed for what most players need and want.

And thus my massive Dwarven Forge collection remains relevant for another few years!
 

I keep going back to the offer of the gold dragon mini from last year. I'm sure some people were very motivated to buy the bundle because of it's inclusion (for the record, not me). Sigil isn't going away for now, but it's usefulness is currently very limited and it looks like future potential use has been extremely blunted by the workforce reduction. I realize it's a digital asset, so already on shaky ground, but the expectation was that this was just the beginning. Now, it seems like it's the beginning of the end.

If you were someone motivated to buy because of the gold dragon, wouldn't this dampen the likelihood that you'd want to buy more from WOTC in the future whatever the product might be? Just seems like a massive overpromise.
 

I keep going back to the offer of the gold dragon mini from last year. I'm sure some people were very motivated to buy the bundle because of it's inclusion (for the record, not me). Sigil isn't going away for now, but it's usefulness is currently very limited and it looks like future potential use has been extremely blunted by the workforce reduction. I realize it's a digital asset, so already on shaky ground, but the expectation was that this was just the beginning. Now, it seems like it's the beginning of the end.

If you were someone motivated to buy because of the gold dragon, wouldn't this dampen the likelihood that you'd want to buy more from WOTC in the future whatever the product might be? Just seems like a massive overpromise.
What bundle?

As a longtime DDB user, I think it is by far the best value in my entertainment budget. And they gave us Maps for free.
 



It's unlikely to happen with a gutted Sigil team, but it would be a nice thing for them to take the gold dragon asset, turn it into wallpaper and maybe other DDB assets and add it to the accounts of everyone with the mini. It'd be an easy job a week ago, but I have to imagine the artist is definitely gone now, if they made it this far.
 

It's unlikely to happen with a gutted Sigil team, but it would be a nice thing for them to take the gold dragon asset, turn it into wallpaper and maybe other DDB assets and add it to the accounts of everyone with the mini. It'd be an easy job a week ago, but I have to imagine the artist is definitely gone now, if they made it this far.
I agree it'd be nice, but that's probably why it's not going to happen. As someone mentioned before (either in this thread or the other one on this topic), the focus is on what's profitable, not what's nice, and while that's not at all an unexpected stance for Hasbro to take, it means that even minor tasks that don't directly result in increased revenue get pushed to the bottom of the list (e.g. the 3.5 SRD for the Creative Commons).
 

We should not neglect the impact of outside influences on decision making.

Hasbro has been in trouble for a while. They had a year turn out okay only because BG3 sold like hotcakes. New game books don't sell like hit video games, so we could expect this year was going to be bad for them.

Meanwhile, Hasbro is looking at economic uncertainty and sales possibly taking a hit from tariffs.

The question then arises - what was the expected date of making sales on Sigil? If it is too far in the future, they may not be able to support the development in the short term, and kill the project.
Lots of truth here. If I was still a leader where I was, I'd be killing projects left and right in this environment.
 

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