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.

 

[Spectral Anomaly]

WOTC has long approached the video game market from the wrong angle. They really need to start with what their own goals are and work backwards from there instead of trying to claim to put the customers' desires in front. Therefore I suggest they try creating the microtransaction-laden Waterdeep Whales!