Starbreeze Cancels Co-Op D&D Video Game

A planned cooperative Dungeons & Dragons video game under development by Starbreeze has been cancelled. Starbreeze, the video game studio behind the Payday franchise of games, announced that they were cancelling Project Baxter, a planned D&D video game that had co-op gameplay and was planned as a "Games as a service" product. 44 employees (split between staff and contractors) were laid off as part of the cancellation. Starbreeze also announced that they were writing off SEK 255 million (or $27.2 million in US dollars) in development costs related to the game.

Project Baxter was one of several of several active D&D video games in development. Also in the works is an action-adventure game by Giant Skull, a survival game from Gameloft, and two games from in-house studios owned by Hasbro. Wizards of the Coast also recently announced plans to open a new video game studio in Montreal dedicated to developing new D&D video games.

 

[Cergorach]

Is anyone surprised about this #1 It's Starbreeze (has been having a lot of issues), #2 It's Hasbro/WotC... Giant Skull is also a new studio, this might also implode (before or after release). Gameloft might actually bring out a game, but it'll be a mobile game with heavy microtransactions. I have little hope for the two in-house studios, nor for the new studio.

BG3 was an absolute fluke. The last twenty years in D&D computer game land it's been Neverwinter Nights 1/2, the 'enhanced' versions of some classics, maybe the computer version of the boardgame 'Lords of Waterdeep', and the Turbine D&D MMO did quests very well... Most others have flopped so hard that they were de-listed and you can't play them anymore (or certain important things don't work anymore, like co-op in a co-op game). Even the latest 'enhanced' version of Neverwinter Nights 2 is not doing well because Aspyr (of all developers) made a bloody mess at release (which they are trying to fix through patching).

Source for the list of shame: List of Dungeons & Dragons video games - Wikipedia