Wizards of the Coast Is Sunsetting Sigil's Active Development

EN World has received confirmation that Wizards of the Coast is planning to transition Sigil, its just-released VTT, to a D&D Beyond feature with no large future development planned. Earlier this week, Wizards of the Coast laid off approximately 30 staff members tied to the development of Sigil, a new D&D-focused VTT system. Ahead of the layoff, Dan Rawson, senior vice president of Dungeons & Dragons, sent out an internal email confirming that the project was essentially being shuttered. Rascal was the first to report the news and EN World was able to independently confirm the accuracy of their report.

The email can be read below:

Dear Team, I want to share an important update regarding Sigil. After several months of alpha testing, we’ve concluded that our aspirations for Sigil as a larger, standalone game with a distinct monetization path will not be realized. As such, we cannot maintain a large development effort and most of the Sigil team will be separated from the company this week. We are, however, proud of what the Sigil team has developed and want to make sure that fans and players on DDB can use it. To that end, we will transition Sigil to a DDB feature. We will maintain a small team to sustain Sigil and release products already developed at no additional cost to users. To those moving on as a result of this decision, we will provide robust support, including severance packages, 2024 bonus, career placement services, and internal opportunities where possible.

I want to take a moment to praise the entire Sigil team for their incredible work to deliver this product to our community. One of the things I’m most proud of here at D&D is our strong sense of purpose. We aim to honor our current players while ensuring D&D continues to build connections and bring joy to future generations. And that’s what the Sigil team was doing. Although we haven’t fully realized our vision for Sigil to scale, the team should be proud of their achievements.”

A full breakdown of Sigil's tumultous development can be found here. Rascal has several additional details about recent events that led to Sigil's early demise.

 

[Aellic Mornbringer]

Actually, 3e has a really good set of tools. The CD in the book was expanded into E-Tools that was further developed by Code Monkey Publishing. You were able to buy expansion sets for new 3e/3.5 books from CMP. In fact, I still have most of my CMP datasets and the e-tools CD.

It never fizzled out. WOTC revoked the license from CMP when they announced 4e so that there were no offiial tools that would compete with 4e.

Yep, my group at the time used Code Monkey's E-tools for a long time. It was a good product.

 

[Stormonu]

As I recall, Code Monkey did the fixes to e-tools and then showed their work to WotC, getting the license to continue. If Code Monkey hadn’t stepped up, e-tools would have been DOA as the WotC developers said it couldn’t be fixed.

 

[Aellic Mornbringer]

As I recall, Code Monkey did the fixes to e-tools and then showed their work to WotC, getting the license to continue. If Code Monkey hadn’t stepped up, e-tools would have been DOA as the WotC developers said it couldn’t be fixed.

That rings a bell. I feel like there was a window where it looked like E-Tools was defunct and then at some point shortly thereafter Code Monkey was given the go ahead.

 

[cbwjm]

That rings a bell. I feel like there was a window where it looked like E-Tools was defunct and then at some point shortly thereafter Code Monkey was given the go ahead.

The more I think about it, the more I think I must have completely missed it returning. I remember using the demo and thinking it was great then the window you mentioned must have hit and I just assumed it was done for good.

 

[Belen]

The more I think about it, the more I think I must have completely missed it returning. I remember using the demo and thinking it was great then the window you mentioned must have hit and I just assumed it was done for good.

You can still get the e-tools full disk on eBay or place like Noble Knight.

It is near impossible to find the old datasets unless you get them from folks who saved them or use something like pcgen.

It is sad but another example of losing a bit of unarchived history.

 

[Chaltab]

Yeah, the character creator was great, but I recall that they were planning on some sort of digital table or map software that also fell through.

There was a pretty horrific tragedy that derailed that project and nobody knew how to use his code but the (now-deceased) development lead. So yeah it fell through.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

It's a great idea. Which is why they keep going back to the well. Maybe someday someone will figure out how to make it work.

They should open it up for third party to build modules and mods. Someone out there would do the work to build Castle Ravenloft in it.

Not really sure why they didn't try to re-create roblox and minecraft and charge folks minimal subscription fees to go stark raving crazy (in a good way) making their D&D worlds using the tool. My guess, without ever having looked at Sigil (the codes are still unread in my inbox) is they tried to make Sigil also serve as a VTT that actually followed D&D's rules and more difficultly, its physics.

 

[Cergorach]

Honestly this is what I find most confusing... even smart phones these days can run visuals more advanced than an Xbox 360. There was no need to make Sigil require a high-end computer to run. Building in something as taxing as Unreal 5 was IMO a strange choice.

Yes, many phones are way more powerful then a 15 year old console at this point. But you need to realize that the Xbox 360 ran at ~720p, sometimes much lower, sometimes a little higher. These days that's not workable for a VTT that's often played on 1080p at a minimum. Something like a Steam Deck gets away with running at 800p (or less), but that's because it's a handheld on a 7" screen. Not something you would run a VTT on...

And yes, they could have created something on par with Neverwinter Nights 2, but that would also have bored into the ground by the other part of the VTT audience as having 20 year old 3d graphics, and for a company like WotC/Hasbro, rightly so. The issue isn't using UE5, it's that they didn't prioritize low end optimization and scalability. Nor multiplatform deployment. If people could play it on their 5 year old iPad (and Android equivalent) without issue, adoption would be far higher, same goes for MacOS.

From my perspective they rushed the release and with good reason, they were up on the chopping block, and some might have seen that on the horizon.

It really seems to me like they should have contracted Larian to make it. They could have used BG3's engine and assets. They already have a GM mode for their Divinity games. Could have a freemium model so it's free for players and have paid perks be part of D&D Beyond subscription.

When this started Larian was working on BG3, with no idea it would be such a commercial success. After Larian finished BG3 they wanted to move on from WotC/Hasbro IP and do their own thing. So not really an option...

This is a huge strategic shift from a few years ago. Go back and watch the OneD&D announcement: the vision was clearly explained as the game having three main pillars: Books, the VTT (Sigil), and DDB. Now it's down to just the two pillars. Once again, trying to diversify past mainly being a bookstore has failed.

They still have those three pillars, just not in house. They have licensing deals in place with Roll20, Foundry, Fantasy Grounds, and possibly others (?). So VTT is not one massive WotC pillar, but multiple smaller pillars. It wouldn't surprise me at all if when Talespire comes out of Early Access, they might also try and get a D&D license for official content.

I do think licensing is important to them, but I don't think it's huge.

You need to understand how nice licensing is, it's essentially free money. No investment of time and resources needed and when a project fails, that cost of failure is borne by someone else. The only thing that's needed is some form of licensing team as the only overhead. And while no single licensed project might be as profitable as BG3, all those smaller projects do add up.

 

[tetrasodium]

Yes, many phones are way more powerful then a 15 year old console at this point. But you need to realize that the Xbox 360 ran at ~720p, sometimes much lower, sometimes a little higher. These days that's not workable for a VTT that's often played on 1080p at a minimum. Something like a Steam Deck gets away with running at 800p (or less), but that's because it's a handheld on a 7" screen. Not something you would run a VTT on...

And yes, they could have created something on par with Neverwinter Nights 2, but that would also have bored into the ground by the other part of the VTT audience as having 20 year old 3d graphics, and for a company like WotC/Hasbro, rightly so. The issue isn't using UE5, it's that they didn't prioritize low end optimization and scalability. Nor multiplatform deployment. If people could play it on their 5 year old iPad (and Android equivalent) without issue, adoption would be far higher, same goes for MacOS.

From my perspective they rushed the release and with good reason, they were up on the chopping block, and some might have seen that on the horizon.



When this started Larian was working on BG3, with no idea it would be such a commercial success. After Larian finished BG3 they wanted to move on from WotC/Hasbro IP and do their own thing. So not really an option...


They still have those three pillars, just not in house. They have licensing deals in place with Roll20, Foundry, Fantasy Grounds, and possibly others (?). So VTT is not one massive WotC pillar, but multiple smaller pillars. It wouldn't surprise me at all if when Talespire comes out of Early Access, they might also try and get a D&D license for official content.


You need to understand how nice licensing is, it's essentially free money. No investment of time and resources needed and when a project fails, that cost of failure is borne by someone else. The only thing that's needed is some form of licensing team as the only overhead. And while no single licensed project might be as profitable as BG3, all those smaller projects do add up.

Going to disagree with that bolded bit. Im pretty sure my current touch enabled tvbox is 720p or possibly 180p(?). It's a low 20 something inch screen∆ sitting flat on the table with players only a couple feet away generally & looks awesome in play.

We are taking about a game where chessex mats and crude dry erase markers is the gold standard, 4k is not at all needed.

∆ it was a super cheap on sale tv the old 48(?) inch one was just painful to lug around and sat in a frustrating valley of being bigger than most encounters need while also being not anywhere near large enough for wider sprawls and split group stuff

 

[LordEntrails]

What I really want is 2.5d, with minis and flat maps (maybe a door here and there) with fog of war. Everything else is more than I need.

That's exactly the way Fantasy Grounds has implemented their 2.5D. Standup 2D graphics that can either be fixed in orientation or rotate with the camera view, all on a flat 2D map image. Doesn't require a gamin rig to run unless you go crazy with it.
Here's what one user did with it and posted a couple days ago: