WotC Wizards of the Coast Announces Sci-Fi Video Game with ex-BioWare Developers

Wizards of the Coast announced they are forming a new video game studio called Archetype Entertainment headed by former BioWare developers James Ohlen and Chad Robertson. Ohlen will serve as the Head of Studio while Robertson will take on the title of General Manager. The debut project from the studio will be an original IP, “set in an all-new science fiction universe that will send players on a story-driven epic where choices they make will have real consequences on how their story unfolds.”

Ohlen's credits at BioWare include Knights of the Old Republic, Dragon Age: Origins, Mass Effect, Anthem, and of course Baldur's Gate, Baldur's Gate 2, and Neverwinter Nights. Roberts served as Head of Technology for BioWare from 2015 to 2019 and Studio Director from 2017 to 2019. In addition to their video game credits, Ohlen and Robertson also collaborated on the recently released 5e compatible campaign setting book Odyssey of the Dragonlords distributed by Modiphius.

Wizards of the Coast originally announced the formation of this new video game studio in April of last year.

 

[Oofta]

It is an interesting question of balance when it comes to sci-fi or even modern D20. If you have BFG, is you CR based on your base stats or on the BFG? Is a goblin with a BFG a CR 20 minion? What happens when that goblin runs out of ammo, and how do you adjust when the PCs get hold of it?

I don't think these questions are insurmountable. Video games do it all the time, I think some variation of a D20 system could do it with a bit of tweaking while still carrying over base concepts. While we think of modern weapons as being ultimate instruments of death, I think that is in large part because we've never seen anyone get hit with a claymore.

Which is not to say it would be easy or that it should be done, just that I can see a new system developed using the same base concepts to ease the transition. If I'm pitching a sci-fi game to my players that's going to be slightly easier if we still have the same types of abilities, proficiencies, class advancement and so on.

 

[Abstruse]

They said a new IP, a Buck Roger with Flash Gordon are good examples or sci-fi getting older badly. Has WotC got the copyright yet?

Wizards of the Coast getting the rights to Buck Rogers would be hilarious!!!!

Explaining the joke: Former TSR CEO Lorraine Williams is the heir to the publisher who bought/stole (depending on who you ask) the rights to Buck Rogers from the creator and used TSR to promote the Buck Rogers brand to the company's detriment.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

Here's my guess: They're putting together a studio, but the personalities need some time to gel with each other and the WotC monolith. WotC doesn't want to risk their D&D IP for the first game (in case the game sucks), so they're going to try creating a new IP first to test the waters - and the team.

 

[Dire Bare]

Wizards of the Coast getting the rights to Buck Rogers would be hilarious!!!!

Explaining the joke: Former TSR CEO Lorraine Williams is the heir to the publisher who bought/stole (depending on who you ask) the rights to Buck Rogers from the creator and used TSR to promote the Buck Rogers brand to the company's detriment.

All true, of course, but . . . . I loved the 25th Century RPG and supporting products they developed off the Buck Rogers IP. I never managed to convince my group to play the RPG, but I had fun reading the gamebooks, novels, and I still have my copy of the board game!

 

[Abstruse]

All true, of course, but . . . . I loved the 25th Century RPG and supporting products they developed off the Buck Rogers IP. I never managed to convince my group to play the RPG, but I had fun reading the gamebooks, novels, and I still have my copy of the board game!

Just because it was a (alleged) cashgrab by the CEO to leverage her own property doesn't mean the staff at TSR didn't put out an amazing product...

 

[Dire Bare]

Just because it was a (alleged) cashgrab by the CEO to leverage her own property doesn't mean the staff at TSR didn't put out an amazing product...

Fo' sho! I've always been impressed with the TSR designers who had to deal with the crappy management decisions and yet managed to pump out some great games! Not that there weren't some clunkers in the old TSR back catalog . . . .

I totally buy the current wisdom that TSR killed itself with the many, multiple product lines of D&D and its sister games . . . . but so much wonderful product, so many wonderful games!

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I remember that story. And today Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers are totally retro/vintage sci-fi.

And today lots of titles from pulp age are now public domain.

Polyhedron Magazine #160 published its own version of planetary romance: Lord of Jupiter.

Creating a new IP is better, the risk fandom gets angry doesn't exist...yet. But I hope a remake of the most popular PC races from d20 Future.

* What if the PCs start as unarmed civilians like in a sci-fi survival horror? For example System Shock. Others would like to play something like Resident Evil or Evil Within.

* I say it again. Enemies with modern weapons should have got a readjusment of XPs reward/Challenge Rating. Let's imagine a videogame where the player arrives to a new zone. The first menace is only a savage tribal goblin with a spear. Don't worry, he dies soon. After you find a goblin but with a gun, for example a colt 36. More dangerous but not too much if you have got a ranged weapon. The next target is other goblin, but this time with a exosuit, higher jumps and a machine gun. This time the menace is serious but not impossible. But worse is the gobling with a powered armour with a grenade-launcher, then practically a mini-boss. And in the end the last goblin within a mecha with plasma canons. Now it is stage boss, and worse than facing a dragon. All the goblins sharing the same stats, but with different weapons. Do you understand?

I have said in the past WotC also would like to publish a d20 superheroes. I haven't forgotten "Mutants & Masterminds" but this title wasn't created to be compatible with D&D. The leveling up and item inventory is different. D20 isn't ready yet for a campaign against alien invaders as Marvel Secret Invasion event, at least not without a conflict between realism vs gameplay.

* Now I wonder about a quests/adventures/missions creators. Wouldn't you like a tower defense mode where players could built walls and roofs where you ca add traps against hordes of husk minions?

 

[gyor]

I hope this game uses 5e rules and is turn based.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I imagine a mixture of shooter and ARPG, like Borderlands, Fornite: Save the World or Fallout.

If there are alien races I wonder about the TTRPG version will have also a SRD. It should have got one for the 3PPs or these will use the ones from Starfinder.

* Will we see a DLC about M.A.S.K. vehicles?

 

[ddaley]

I am almost certainly in on this... pretty exciting stuff.