Hasbro Confirms New Unannounced Dungeons & Dragons Video Game in Development

Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks has confirmed that an in-house studio is developing an unannounced Dungeons & Dragons video game. In a feature posted today on Bloomberg News, Cocks stated that Hasbro was actively developing a Dungeons & Dragons video game via one of its in-house studios. No further details were provided about the video game, nor was any timeline given about its release. Hasbro plans to release one to two video games a year by 2026, not including third party licensed games.

Hasbro is actively pivoting into a video game developer, having purchased or created several in-house studios in recent years. One of the most high-profile ventures is Exodus, a sci-fi RPG created by several BioWare veterans. A GI Joe video game focused on Snake-Eyes is also in development at a Hasbro-owned studio.

Hasbro is also actively working with several third party studios on new D&D video games. Gameloft, the maker of Disney Dreamlight Valley, is making a survival-life sim set in the Forgotten Realms, while Starbreeze Entertainment is also actively working on a D&D video game. Hasbro also cancelled several video game projects, including several Dungeons & Dragons-themed games back in 2023 as part of a strategic realignment.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Hot take, but I think it's BG4, I think they couldn't find the right kind of studio to do BG4 so they took it internal. Keeps more of the profits that way.

 

[Scribe]

Hot take, but I think it's BG4, I think they couldn't find the right kind of studio to do BG4 so they took it internal. Keeps more of the profits that way.

"Right kind of studio." so they take it internal to an unproven new team?

Confidence, that does not inspire.

 

[Laishiec]

Hot take, but I think it's BG4, I think they couldn't find the right kind of studio to do BG4 so they took it internal. Keeps more of the profits that way.

That sounds like an incredibly stupid and shortsighted thing for Hasbro to do.

So it's probably true.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Hot take, but I think it's BG4, I think they couldn't find the right kind of studio to do BG4 so they took it internal. Keeps more of the profits that way.

I mean, I think it may well be, but that they're working on it with an internal studio, no members of which they have announced, with no timeline, nothing is not um, great.

This is a bit of a placeholder of a claim from Cocks until some details emerge as to what they're actually doing.

What's going to be very funny is if WotC try and do a BG game, but also try and keep it PG or PG-13, and then try and get that past the kind of audience that likes CRPGs, because that will be a spectacular car-crash. Failure seems to inadequate a word.

Of course it's also totally possible it's yet another extremely ill-advised D&D-themed but not-an-RPG game like that dire one with Drizzt in it (the name of which escapes me).

 

[Bill Zebub]

This is their fallback plan. They wanted to make a video game where you play executives of a game company (with all 18's for stats) trying to increase your stock price. They couldn't understand why the focus groups didn't love it.

 

[Parmandur]

Hot take, but I think it's BG4, I think they couldn't find the right kind of studio to do BG4 so they took it internal. Keeps more of the profits that way.

Hotter take: Icewind Dale 3.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I really hope that whatever it is is good (I hope that for all their games) but I just can't imagine it will be.

 

[Parmandur]

I really hope that whatever it is is good (I hope that for all their games) but I just can't imagine it will be.

Well, whether anything good will come from WotC new studios only time will tell...but the signs are shockingly positive so far. They are doing the smart things in terms of setting up new studios, getting real talent and then giving them time and money to cook. Exodus is going on 6 years of development, and there is no release date quite yet so it isn't being rushed to market. That's how good video games get made...time, talent and money. Same as BG3.

As an aside, I am currently about 1/5 through the officially licensed Exodus novel, The Archimedes Engine...and it is unhinged and delightful, it hits the right notes for "Space Opera D&D" in ways I wouldn't have thought possible before reading it. They are not pulling any punches with world building.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I really hope that whatever it is is good (I hope that for all their games) but I just can't imagine it will be.

It is definitely very hard to imagine, given the studios WotC currently owns.

The only one that seems to be competent is unproven, and that's Archetype Entertainment. Exodus is gradually coming together, and unlikely to release before mid-2026, but it looks like it's making a lot of good decisions. Even then, we've seen this before - a very promising-seeming game with strong pre-hype, from a new AAA studio with industry veterans in charge, which turns out to be an absolute dud at release. In fact, it is sadly fair to say that is the actually the normal course for "new AAA studio with industry veterans in charge".

The others we know of have all either failed to produce anything, or produced actively-bad games. And none of them seem to be very together.

As Archetype are busy for at least the next couple of years, it's got to be either one of the other "never made anything/made rubbish" studios or yet another new studio, given it's WotC internal. If another new studio, even if they have veteran talent there, we can expect 1-3 years just to hire enough people to get the game moving, and then 3-5 years to get the game made.

So that's 4 to 8 years before we'd even see this game! By then we'll likely have:

A) Witcher 4 from CDPR
B) Elden Ring 2 (or equivalent thereof) from FromSoft
C) Mass Effect 5 from Bioware
D) Possibly Cyberpunk 2077 from CDPR 2 if it's more like 8 than 4 years.
E) New Larian CRPG (Not DOS or D&D is all we know)
F) Possibly New Larian CRPG 2! (Possibly DOS3)
G) The Elder Scrolls 6/Skyrim 2 from Bethesda
H) Exodus from WotC (!!!)
I) The Outer Worlds 2 from Obsidian
J) Other CRPG or tactics RPG from Obsidian (possibly Josh Sawyer-made)
K) Owlcat CRPG 1 (new IP)
L) Owlcat CRPG 2 (unknown IP)
M) Fable reboot
N) Casey Hudson-lead Sci-Fi RPG from Humanoid Origin

And that's like, not even all of the AAAs, nor is it including the likely large numbers of indie RPGs or surprise AAAs that may pop up.

So I'm really skeptical that a WotC-made and lead D&D RPG landing in that kind of environment is going to look anything but really bad. It took Larian a lot of attempts to get to where they are now - they've been around for decades.