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!

 

[Valetudo]

They need to hire someone who can build a real studio. All they hire are microsoft douches who only no how to pass off their playerbase.

 

[Parmandur]

They need to hire someone who can build a real studio. All they hire are microsoft douches who only no how to pass off their playerbase.

I mean, they have no results to speak of yet, but they have hired very serious talent for their various video game studios. But that is a years long process.

 

[Zardnaar]

I think they might say “ this looks like a stinker” so cut bait .
Bg3 was the best of the best. Might be a fluke but it’s better than anything the competition rolled out or is rolling out.
I applaud wotc. They might be tossing money around but it’s clear they are trying to find multiple Bg3 and the brxt big game looks like a mass effect killer which could be the end of BioWare

Bioware defeated themselves.

 

[Valetudo]

If your talking about the devs bioware fired for ruining dragonage, I'm not impressed.

 

[Parmandur]

If your talking about the devs bioware fired for ruining dragonage, I'm not impressed.

No, I mean James Ohlen, the guy who designed Baldur's Gate 1 & 2, Neverwinter Nights, Knights of the Old Republic, and the OG Dragon Ahe who is heading up WotC large Ajstin video game studios working on Exodus.

 

[GreyLord]

I am. I watched BioWare destroy dragon age by mismanagement and spending millions

I played the Veilgard. I'm not quite certain why people dislike it so much or why they bang on Bioware so much on it.

Perhaps I'm just not the key audience?

I love Dragon Age Origins. I really enjoyed Dragon Age 2 (despite it's maps repeating constantly and other shortcuts they took, the characters and main game was fun).

I hated Dragon Age Inquisition. That first part was absolutely a pain and the alternate missions varied between easy and too hard (vastly unbalanced).

Perhaps its the Dragon Age inquisition folks that hated Veilgard?

I enjoyed it (I also actually enjoyed ME:Andromeda. It wasn't as great as the ME Trilogy, but I felt it was a stronger and better first entry than the original Mass Effect was on the PC...hacking was a major pain on the PC [it was done differently on consoles] as were a few other items). I feel if it had been given a better chance and also became a trilogy it would have blown away the original trilogy in the End...but alas. People compared the entire trilogy to Andromeda and of course it couldn't compete against that.

 

[Zardnaar]

If your talking about the devs bioware fired for ruining dragonage, I'm not impressed.

This aimed at me?

 

[wicked cool]

Regardless my point is if wotc enters the race there isn’t much great competition. And it appears nobody has resources

 

[Valetudo]

No, I agree with you on bioware. Im saying quite a few devs got fired from bioware after the last dragonage and wizards scooped them up. That doesn't give me confidence in the devs or the management that hired them.