WotC: "seven or eight" D&D video games are coming over the next few years

[Lhynn]

Shit?

 

[mushaden]

Beat me to it

 

[Luckmann]

Just the fact that they've lined up seven games in a row for milking purposes suggests that it's unanimously going to be shit. It's not even "Hey, I have this idea for a trilogy.." or "If A and B are popular, we hope to pitch B and C". This is pop-culture milking along the lines of The Avengers franchise. It may be successful, but it will still be garbage, and ultimately remembered as such.

 

[Risewild]

I came by to say shit, but Lhynn already said it...

 

[Flying Dutchman]

The news site you linked looks pretty sketchy.

Hasbro having plans for D&D is also pretty sketchy. You can almost hear their chicken talons scratching at the bottom of whatever grain barrel that used to hold their interesting properties and they pat themselves on the back for great products like... I don't know, Descent into Avernanus.

Was the Dark Alliance remake the one with the godawful trailer where the heroes are epileptically swinging their blades everywhere to emphasize ACTION? Yeah, pass.

 

[Max Heap]

I came as fast as I could! Has anyone made the "Shit!" joke yet?
Ah, crumbs!

But seriously, I can't even think of seven developers that would be fit to make a fully fledged D&D game.
So I guess they won't do that and just use the universe... which is... questionable.
Sure you have iconic D&D monsters and maybe even a campaign setting, but in the end D&D (much like most tabletop systems) is just a hindrance if you're trying to make a anything but an RPG with it.
Dark Alliance is the best example. It was essentially an action game with D&D stuff thrown into it. It always annoyed me, cause I was expecting a real D&D game when I got it, so I never really appreciated it as the fun, decent game it was.

 

[Kruno]

Are there any studios today close to what SSI was back in the day?

Unless their marketing dept. has done their homework we could very well see EA DnD garbage. Maybe we will get lucky and EA will have exclusivity to the DnD licence.

 

[Alex]

Beat me to it

I came by to say shit, but Lhynn already said it...

Sheesh, I came in really late.

 

[Thonius]

BG3 that is gong to be shit or not.... DnD slasher and 5 mobile games.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

It's gonna be BG 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.

The other two will be IWD2 EE and NWN2 EE by beamdog.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Mobile trash

 

[Bony Hands]

I can see them doing something more accessible and easy to make money with. Probably some multiplayer game and a mobile game or two.

 

[ArisatoSeldom]

Baldur's Shelter, anyone?

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Hopefully they develop some fully fledged campaigns and don't just cash grab some mobile garbage to springboard off BG3. With Larian throwing everything it has at this engine, perhaps we'll get more than BG3 and BG3 Part 2.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Can't wait for Sword Coast Legend 2!

 

[Joseph Stalin]

It's gonna be BG 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.

The other two will be IWD2 EE and NWN2 EE by beamdog.

As long as it isn't Beamdog OR they actually get a budget, I wouldn't mind a NWN2 EE.

 

[Dillrodimus Prime]

Just the fact that they've lined up seven games in a row for milking purposes suggests that it's unanimously going to be shit. It's not even "Hey, I have this idea for a trilogy.." or "If A and B are popular, we hope to pitch B and C". This is pop-culture milking along the lines of The Avengers franchise. It may be successful, but it will still be garbage, and ultimately remembered as such.

That's a fair point and I'd agree will likely turn out to be the case in today's gaming climate, but counterpoint is there were fuckloads of gold box games and some of them were actually pretty good. It's possible we'll get a diamond or two amongst the heap of excrement.

If one of these was Dark Sun (and not made by Larian), that would pique my interest.

 

[Luckmann]

Just the fact that they've lined up seven games in a row for milking purposes suggests that it's unanimously going to be shit. It's not even "Hey, I have this idea for a trilogy.." or "If A and B are popular, we hope to pitch B and C". This is pop-culture milking along the lines of The Avengers franchise. It may be successful, but it will still be garbage, and ultimately remembered as such.

That's a fair point and I'd agree will likely turn out to be the case in today's gaming climate, but counterpoint is there were fuckloads of gold box games and some of them were actually pretty good. It's possible we'll get a diamond or two amongst the heap of excrement.

If one of these was Dark Sun (and not made by Larian), that would pique my interest.

There is nothing wrong with there being many games in itself. The red flag is the act of planning seven damn games from the get-go. Not "let's hope for a trilogy", not "last games was good so let's make another one", not "we're hoping for an expansive, interconnected series of games", but just "We're going to make 7 games and you'll consoom." The gold box games rode on each successive success, developed sequentially by a fairly small number of people - they knew they wanted to produce a number of games using D&D, but they didn't set out to create a set specific number from the beginning. I don't think that culture of franchise milking even existed yet.

Also, nu-Dark Sun is trash. I loved the original setting, so I hope they never revisit it. I hope they stay the fuck away from Spelljammer, too. They can stay in the Forgotten Realms, that's already ruined beyond any hope.

 

[Dillrodimus Prime]

yeah, my memory remains untainted by any 4e revisions, I'm mostly thinking of 2e

I mean, I agree you're probably right. I certainly wouldn't bet against it. I'm just hoping that with so many games up for grabs they will at least allow someone to do something interesting.

 

[Shitty Kitty]

...Wonder if they're gonna screw with Eberron at all.

 

[Kruno]

What is stopping developers from making 2E based games anyway? Does Hasbro's legal dept. just sue those who don't use the latest version of their rules?

 

[Alex]

What is stopping developers from making 2E based games anyway? Does Hasbro's legal dept. just sue those who don't use the latest version of their rules?

If you want to use AD&D 2e, you would need to license from Hasbro, something I suspect they aren't likely to do. I understand you could, indeed, make a kind of "retro-clone" of the 2e using the open game license and then release a computer game using those rules. However, such games (both the p&p clone and the computer game) would need to avoid using anything from 2e not made open by the license. In particular, monsters like Illithid, spell names like Tenser's Floating Disc and what not wouldn't be feasible. Still, you could make a game that was very much the same rules-wise.

Edit: I think technically you don't need to release a whole new retro-clone just to base your game on, but you do need to provide the ogl rules-set for it in some way.

 

[Voids]

Yeah I don't think Hasbro would ever license a 2E game. It doesn't benefit their current brand.

 

[Dillrodimus Prime]

Yeah, they have basically nothing to gain and from a corporate perspective plenty of reason not to muddy the brand recognition. Can you not imagine the shitstorm of butthurt reviews from teh casuals who bought the game because they liked critical role and are now staring at a 2e character sheet?

Also, who is the target audience? The nigh overwhelming demographic of players still using the 2e ruleset some ~30 years later?

 

[Luckmann]

What is stopping developers from making 2E based games anyway? Does Hasbro's legal dept. just sue those who don't use the latest version of their rules?

Nothing prevents you from using the basic 2e ruleset, because you cannot copyright rules themselves. However, if you want to use absolutely anything that happens to belong to Hasbro, such as calling it D&D, hinting at it being D&D, or any of "their" intellectual property (illithids, beholders, etc.), you need a license.

And Hasbro is not going to license anything that uses anything other than 5e, because 5e is their current thing and they want it on everything. Really though, you could probably take the 5e ruleset, completely butcher it and make it a lot more like 2e or 3.5e, and Hasbro would probably be fine with it as long as it says 5e on the tin.