Hasbro cancels D&D video game by Giant Skull

Hasbro has cancelled development of a Dungeons & Dragons video game led by Stig Asmussen, the director of the Star Wars: Fallen Order games. Bloomberg News reports that the game, under development from Asmussen’s Giant Skull studio, was cancelled less than a year after it was first announced. Per Bloomberg, Wizards opted not to “pursue an early concept” from Giant Skull, but was still taking pitches from the developer. There are apparently no hard feelings about the cancellation.

Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast are ramping up development of D&D video games, following the success of Baldur’s Gate 3. However, many of these projects have been unceremoniously cancelled, with changes in direction primarily cited as the reason for the games not being finished. The next D&D video game confirmed for release is Warlock, which will release sometime in 2027.

Wizards of the Coast told Bloomberg that it decided not to "pursue an early concept" from Giant Skull, but that it's still taking pitches from the developer. Asmussen indicated that there are no hard feelings, and that "things are good" at the studio.

 

[AlViking]

This is not true. Swen had to correct the record both on social media and the press. Their decision not to do BG4 was because of their own projects and goals.

They may not have appreciated the layoffs, but it looks like it was simply a case of burnout and wanting to do something new. Having worked on large projects for years myself, I totally understand.

 

[Afroconan]

He did walk back the comments, that's for sure, but I think we need to read between the lines here. I think he would likely have been sued had he not. But I do find more telling his comments at the GDCA:

"I've been fighting publishers my entire life and I keep on seeing the same, same, same mistakes over, and over and over. It's always the quarterly profits. The only thing that matters are the numbers, and then you fire everybody and then next year you say 's**t I'm out of developers' and then you start hiring people again, and then you do acquisitions, and then you put them in the same loop again, and it's just broken."

And that's pretty much literally what's happening right now.

He didn't walk back his comments. He criticized Hasbro/WotC for the layoffs, as he should've and it's his right. He wouldn't have been sued about it in any way shape of form (that's why he didn't walk it back).

What he did was correct the record. He called out Reddit discourse specifically about people saying the reason they didn't want to work on DLC or BG4 was because of WotC laying off people and being a bad partner/licensor.

It may well be that they didn't want to work with WotC for whatever reason, but anything other than "The team's heart wasn't on it and we prefer to move into other projects" is just speculation and narratives.

Larian is a passionate developer that likes to do their thing their own way, they've never done DLC for their games before and I'm sure Swen and the team preferred to take advantage of BG3 being an unexpected success and go their own way rather than tie themselves to a corporate overlord for 6 more years.

Remember that Divinity Original Sin I and II started selling a ton after BG3's success. At the time the rumors where that they would be going for a Scifi game next but then they announced a new Divinity game...

 

[wicked cool]

Off topic as Bg3 is a super spectacular game but divinity 2 isn’t in the same league
Larians first pitch to wotc was rejected according to Sven and well deserved
It took a lot of work to get from early access- final product as a lot of the humor that Larian put in didn’t work
They took great d&d mechanics and added a great story (the lore helps) and then anticipated every scenario so people would be shocked
Then they added in fixes - unbelievable

They didn’t say wotc sucks and called pathfinder or whoever. They said we prefer divinity (there’s no guaranty it works). There was never going to be dlc
I don’t give 2 fss about Sven’s opinions on layoffs etc. he runs his company and I support him

 

[CF07]

This is not true. Swen had to correct the record both on social media and the press. Their decision not to do BG4 was because of their own projects and goals.

From what I understand, Bioware decided to do its own IPs after leveraging itself to being a higher tier developer via BG1, BG2, and KotOR. In no small part it this is because license owners' cuts were substantial and they had to cope with extra stakeholders when making decisions, such as being tied to whatever WotC's current mechanics were. So Larian is following a well-trod path.

 

[AlViking]

From what I understand, Bioware decided to do its own IPs after leveraging itself to being a higher tier developer via BG1, BG2, and KotOR. In no small part it this is because license owners' cuts were substantial and they had to cope with extra stakeholders when making decisions, such as being tied to whatever WotC's current mechanics were. So Larian is following a well-trod path.

Swen said the reason they didn't want to do a DLC because they're "boring". Whatever did or did not happen at Bioware wasn't a factor.

From an interview on XDA "We are not a company that's made to create DLCs, expansions. We tried that actually, a few times. We failed every time - it's not our thing."

 

[GMMichael]

The next D&D video game confirmed for release is Warlock, which will release sometime in 2027.

I feel like "confirmed" should be in quotes here.

From an interview on XDA "We are not a company that's made to create DLCs, expansions. We tried that actually, a few times. We failed every time - it's not our thing."

I don't get it. It sounds like "we prefer to reinvent the wheel rather than use this one, here." Or more accurately, "we keep trying to use this wheel, but we fail every time."

 

[MarkB]

I don't get it. It sounds like "we prefer to reinvent the wheel rather than use this one, here." Or more accurately, "we keep trying to use this wheel, but we fail every time."

If the invention of a new wheel is what they enjoy about the process, then going back and using the old one to grind something else out won't appeal to them.

 

[Dire Bare]

He did walk back the comments, that's for sure, but I think we need to read between the lines here. I think he would likely have been sued had he not. But I do find more telling his comments at the GDCA:

"I've been fighting publishers my entire life and I keep on seeing the same, same, same mistakes over, and over and over. It's always the quarterly profits. The only thing that matters are the numbers, and then you fire everybody and then next year you say 's**t I'm out of developers' and then you start hiring people again, and then you do acquisitions, and then you put them in the same loop again, and it's just broken."

And that's pretty much literally what's happening right now.

Sven from Larian was certainly disappointed in the layoffs at WotC. But why shouldn't we trust him when he tells us that was not the reason for Larian not doing a Baldur's Gate 4? Especially when the reasoning he did give us makes perfect sense?

 

[AlViking]

I feel like "confirmed" should be in quotes here.


I don't get it. It sounds like "we prefer to reinvent the wheel rather than use this one, here." Or more accurately, "we keep trying to use this wheel, but we fail every time."

They'd rather work on new stuff. I'd also say that at times Swen kind of comes across as kind of ... arrogant I guess. Maybe that's necessary for someone to develop these kind of games but they want to focus on big ideas. I got that "cranking out a DLC" is below them. As always I wish them luck and hope they develop more stellar games because I like playing video games and good CRPGs aren't exactly a dime a dozen.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Sven from Larian was certainly disappointed in the layoffs at WotC. But why shouldn't we trust him when he tells us that was not the reason for Larian not doing a Baldur's Gate 4? Especially when the reasoning he did give us makes perfect sense?

Because people need to keep having a reason to be mad at WotC. If they don't... eventually other people see their continued anger at this random company as rather silly. Especially if the best they can do is keep complaining about stuff that happened more than a decade ago and they've been unable to let it go.

Heck, that's how I look at people who still show up here to whine about 4E nowadays, LOL.