D&D General 'Project Sigil' 3D Virtual Tabletop Finally Laid To Rest

After 'sunsetting' the active development of Dungeons & Dragons' ambitious 3D virtual tabletop back in March, when 90%--about 30 people--of the team was laid off, Wizards of the Coast has confirmed that development on Project Sigil is ending permanently.

In a message on D&D Beyond, WotC thanked users for their support. Those who have used a Master Tier subscription in the last 6 months will gain a 6-month credit. Sigil will still be available to use until the end of October 2026.

We have made the difficult decision to end development on Sigil. This was not a decision made lightly, and it followed months of reflection with all teams involved. We’re deeply grateful to everyone who explored Sigil with us and shared in its journey. Your passion and feedback meant the world.

At Wizards of the Coast, our goal is to create experiences that help you tell incredible stories together, whether at the table, online, or anywhere you gather to play.

When we introduced Sigil, we imagined a powerful 3D virtual tabletop where you could share maps, minis, and environments with your friends and fellow players. While that vision inspired thousands of players and creators, we couldn't sustain the level of ongoing development support that Sigil—or our community—deserved. That’s on us. What we’ve learned from Sigil, and from your feedback, will guide how we approach future digital tools. We’ll take the time to do it right in pursuit of developing the best D&D experiences possible.

To everyone who built and played in Sigil—developers, DMs, players, and creators alike—thank you. Your time, creativity, and feedback made Sigil what it was. We know this decision hurts, especially for everyone who built campaigns, shared feedback, and believed in Sigil’s future. You deserve clarity about what happens next.

 

[Clint_L]

The closest counterpart seems to be Talespire, and while it doesn't seem to be in any danger of going under, it's also not the dominant VTT.

If WotC's goal was to swoop in and gobble up a big part of the VTT market, going after Fantasy Grounds or Roll20 makes more sense. At the moment, with Maps, they seem to be straddling those and a simpler VTT like Owlbear Rodeo, although I suspect they will work on making Maps more robust (with optional microtransactions) over time.

WotC did swoop in and gobble up a big part of the VTT market. With Maps as a feature on DDB they likely have a much larger user base than all other VTTs combined. Why would they be interested in Roll20?

 

[mamba]

One could hope but, well, earlier this year... Project Sigil - 90% Of D&D’s Project Sigil Team Laid Off

very few skills will transfer over to Maps. If your job was to make 3d assets for Unreal Engine, Maps is not what you will work on next.

 

[Cergorach]

I don't really find the repeated reference to another application that I have never heard of to be persuasive, sorry.

I'm guessing that this isn't the first thing you've encountered something that you've never heard of, that doesn't mean it doesn't work, it isn't good, or it isn't popular amongst a certain crowd. It's been mentioned on this forum before...

As for 3D VTTs, Darjr did a poll almost 3 years ago, 14% wanted one, 30% could be convinced. That's not just amongst VTT users, that's amongst all users that deemed to respond to the poll. That is far higher then I would ever have expected! D&D General - Do you want a 3D vtt?

As a side note, you replied to the same thread, TaleSpire was mentioned in that same thread before you responded, and even in a response to your comments. You either don't read entire threads before responding OR you read it and forgot... We're all getting old...

You were very clear that you aren't the target audience, and have very little interest in it.

But let me be clear, I own TaleSpire, have tried to run Sigil (on a Mac via Crossover), but I don't run my VTT in 3D. So I have an interest in 3D VTT, but will probably not run it. Partly due to hardware requirements for everyone involved, but more important, the perception between pnp RPG and computer RPG of my players.

And I think that a good 3D VTT would gain more and more acceptance when it's easy to use, runs on a LOT, isn't that heavy on the hardware, isn't significantly more expensive then current 2D VTT, and people get more used to it. ~25 years ago VTTs were the black sheep of the pnp RPG family, a pain to use, limited hardware, expensive, perception of it was bad (pnp RPG vs computer RPG), etc. With better technology, better developers that can do more, more easily, acceptance, necessity, RPGs becoming more mainstream, etc. that resulted in the current situation for 2D VTTs. I see no reason why that can't happen eventually for 3D VTTs...

Getting back to WotC, the made Magic: Arena, which is imho a very good implementation of MtG, with a pretty decent earning model and f2p model. I've never went into the MtG physical card game scene (hated it due to Ante), but it's still a fun game to play. How many incarnations to MtG did WotC make before they finally hit the jackpot with Magic: Arena? 15 times!

The difference between small developers and large multionals like WotC/Hasbro is that when the first fails in a project, it stops existing. When the later fails in a project, it just closes down that project and moves on to the next. And WotC/Hasbro doesn't just do that with software, they also do that with D&D products. How many D&D products have TSR/WotC produced that don't have a followup/equivalent in the last decade in D&D 5e? How many board games did Hasbro make that are still around? Trial and error. The issue with WotC/Hasbro is that they have a LOT of error and don't seem to be learning from them, not by not doing something similar in the future, but by firing the people that learned from the errors.

 

[tetrasodium]

Yeah, I think there are communities that love their minis and have decent gaming PCs and stuff like Talespire is there for them (and actually it runs on my M1 laptop, too), but it seems be kind of niche. There's also the issue that Sigil seemed really obsessed with doing virtual sales of minis, which can be hard to stomach.

That being said, I wish I had time to figure out how to use Talespire well and to export some Heroforge minis into it just for yuks.

There already were vtts supporting hybrid play with a touch surface and physical minis with much lower hardware needs though, I've been doing it for years.

Ultimately I think that the root of the issue is that someone at Hasbro/wotc wanted to use the ogl rewrite to bar off what they thought was anew area of next gen vtt functionality but didn't expect to get blocked at oglor to find out that existing vtts already supported the new feature set they wanted to wow people with. Once that one two punch came through the executive who put their thumb on the scales of priorities lost interest or got overridden so sigil had no path forward and a bunch of development in largely unwanted 3d/"hybrid play" features the market had already long supported

 

[Umbran]

I'm guessing that this isn't the first thing you've encountered something that you've never heard of, that doesn't mean it doesn't work, it isn't good, or it isn't popular amongst a certain crowd.

Yeah, but I said none of those things. I didn't even suggest any such thing.

I said, I, personally and specifically, didn't find it persuasive. I spoke for not a single person other than myself. That should be perfectly legal and inoffensive.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I suspect that the real issue with Sigil was that it was being made by the big dog of the D&D world and thus had both financial and appearance requirements that forced them to try and make a thing that would be used by more players than it probably was going to actually get for an audience.

Dwarven Forge is the physical and tactical equivalent to what Sigil was trying to be. But the advantage that DF had and has is that they only needed to create product for a small sliver of the D&D (or realistically RPG) world. They would have a small audience for their product and that was all the audience they needed because they are a small company (comparatively). But no one at WotC would be able to get the go-ahead to create a product on DF's scale virtually that would only apply to the small sliver of "whales" that would buy all that stuff. One, because it wouldn't "look right" if a company on the size and scale of WotC/Hasbro only went niche with a product and didn't try for the whole enchilada... and two, they would not make enough money off that niche to get permission to make the product in the first place.

With Hasbro/WotC it always needs to be "Go big or go home". They do that with their various video game companies they buy, they did that when they bought the eOne studio for film production. And if/when they don't generate the funds they want at the speed they want it...then they divest quickly. Because they are too big to slowly build. That's not how most public companies work nowadays.

 

[tetrasodium]

Yeah, but I said none of those things. I didn't even suggest any such thing.

I said, I, personally and specifically, didn't find it persuasive. I spoke for not a single person other than myself. That should be perfectly legal and inoffensive.

He's not wrong though. Talespire was released in 2021, arkenforge 2017, foundry 2018, owlbear rodeo 2020, and roll20 in 2012 based on Google results. Those are all big names in the vtt market with a dedicated niche use case they have been actively serving for years prior to sigil being announced & users of those shouting into the wind that they don't need or want high spec gaming computer needing 3dvtt just because wotc was planning to include some features that the existing vtt market already supports.

Unfortunately in all things vtt discussion related the d&d community (and seemingly wotc/hasbro) treated the chatter from actual vtt users who have actual vtt needs as being equally important & equally relevant to sigil development choices as the much much larger group of ttrpg players/GMs who barely if ever use vtts and are unlikely to change on that any time soon. It is compelling when vtt users talk about the functionality of the vtts they actively use even when non users have little if any familiarity with those vtts

I've used talespire foundry roll 20 and owlbear rodeo, all of them were found to target a niche not particularly aligned with the one I use arkenforge in. I might try to correct those users when it comes to the needs of touch screen/panel support on a secondary display being more than simply treating it as a window la/Mac input device with an is that would result in Window focus being stolen by minis on a secondary display, but I tend to accept that active users of those vtts know those vtts better than I do on the areas where those vtts actually shine.

I was excited about sigil initially because the initial announcement talked about hybrid play in ways similar to how I was already using vtts for years but wotc's vtt offering was obviously subpar at even the most distant of glances right from the earliest previews because it was trying to cater towards the desires of people who don't and probably won't be using vtts all that much. A design by committee approach for a vtt is a poor solution, but treating vtt users & non users the same is going to be a subpar mess because the nonusers are unlikely to become users of a particular vtt and the vtt users are likely to lose interest fast when the results don't seem to factor inor address vtt user needs or vtt users use cases

 

[OB1]

And the end of the day, WotC ran into a want vs need issue with Sigil.

Do I want a VTT capable of doing 3D terrain and the kind of epic battles that I experienced in BG3 (battles as dynamic as say the main Moonrise Tower encounter are very difficult on a 2d map or ToM)? Yes, I would love something like that. And a whole community building cool maps and battles that I could browse and buy to fit into my adventures? The ability to find games to play in via some waiting room feature? Awesome.

Do I need it? Enough to either pay a lot of money for prebuilt modules or time to build sets and encounters myself in 3D? Not really, with a bit of imagination with Maps or by switching to ToM for an encounter where I really don't want to be locked into a 2D map, I can do it cheaper, quicker, and on the fly when my players do something unexpected.

Add to the mix that the 3D VTT that I want is orders of magnitude more complex to build and maintain, while also multiple times more complex to use for the user, while also requiring top of the line hardware and we get to where we are. I'm glad they tried it. Without trying, we don't grow. It's easy to say now that of course it was bound to fail, but I don't think that's true. The problem just turned out to be a bit more complex to solve than the market to support that solution.

 

[Umbran]

He's not wrong though.

There are three kinds of arguments:
1) Wrong
2) Right
3) Arguments that, due to lack of informatin or poor formation, are not persuasive.

I mean, you yourself then go ahead and fill out his argument with four more examples, and more complete discussion of the market at hand. If that's called for, not a single soul should be surprised if I found the original unpersuasive. Sheesh.

Unfortunately in all things vtt discussion related the d&d community (and seemingly wotc/hasbro) treated the chatter from actual vtt users who have actual vtt needs as being equally important & equally relevant to sigil development choices as the much much larger group of ttrpg players/GMs who barely if ever use vtts and are unlikely to change on that any time soon. It is compelling when vtt users talk about the functionality of the vtts they actively use even when non users have little if any familiarity with those vtts

So, the intent there's probably pretty guessable: WotC, with its greater resources, thought it should try to get ahead of the curve. I expect the goal was specifically to make a product that was well beyond what the competitors had at the time, not expecting that the non-market would jump on board immediately, but to take advantage of the very typical phenomenon of having a small number of enthusiastic early adopters who eventually bring the rest of the population around.

That model works surprisingly well, IF your development is fast and good. If it drags, or produces mediocre results, the costs begin to rise, and the project doesn't doesn't get a foothold quickly enough to justify its costs.

The thing I am intimating, that people do not seem to be receiving, is that cancelled projects are not really a bad thing. It is the top level of quality control, and keeps them from sinking even more money into the thing. Every successful software company will have a long list of projects that failed.

Figuring out when to stop should be lauded, not treated with scorn.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

WotC did swoop in and gobble up a big part of the VTT market. With Maps as a feature on DDB they likely have a much larger user base than all other VTTs combined. Why would they be interested in Roll20?

I think you're misunderstanding me. I'm talking about feature sets. That's what I was saying: They were mostly aiming at the territory that Roll20 has covered and will presumably pass their feature set in the near future.