Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Hidden Path's in-development D&D RPG cancelled

https://www.dicebreaker.com/games/d...s-pauses-dungeons-and-dragons-video-game

Rumors were doing the rounds about this cancellation back in 2023 but the studio at the time fiercely denied them and assured they were still working on it.

This sounds like the nail in the coffin, though.
According to this source they also had to let go 44 of their 65 employees, factually downsizing the studio to a skeleton crew.

I only speak common can someone translate this for me?

There was a glut of money put into the sedentary leisure industry, money that's apparently running out, so a lot of castles in the sky are now being axed. What 'aligned...expanding or engaging our audience in new ways' means I would bet is live-service games. People have already been speculating that DnD One will be mostly virtual and subscription based ( even if only voluntarily)

The quote reads like: They want games that make people buy stuff that they are already producing, draw in new customers or tie their existing customer closer to their brands. Something subscription based sounds about right.

"We realized some of these projects weren't going to make a bazillion dollars for us so we gave them the ax".

thanks for the translations. you're right - it seems like they want OneDnD to take place online. Which mean multiplayer games. Sigh. Time for a new ruleset.

Live service games cost an enormous amount to build and maintain and also fail all the time. It's a very risky business model to go in. It's also not entirely that logical for Wizards of the Coast to bet all in with GAAS. Given Baldur's Gate 3 completely shattered sales figures and is a largely singleplayer rpg.

I think it's more likely Hidden Path's game wasn't that far into development and it was just easier to cut it when Hasbro started laying off staff and killing projects. Especially with the rumors that Hasbro wanted to full on sell the IP outright.
If I had to guess One D&D being constantly delayed is a big part of them cutting Hidden Path's game as well. Like I said earlier GAAS titles cost an enormous amount and I suspect they probably regret greenlighting it. As the money is starting to run out and it's now a huge risk. It was a logical project to greenlight in an era where everyone was looking for alternatives to playing Dungeons and Dragons together irl. But now those problems don't exist and it's solely appealing to people who don't want to meet irl. And the jury's still out if that's going to be popular enough to sustain itself.

Hm. Does that mean that anything using D&D as a system (either itself or making a d20 derivative) is potentially bound to be killed in the womb, or is it only if you license the setting?

Solasta uses OGL, which they wanted to destroy as a concept (because it's not like OGL was what contributed greatly to the system's popularity in the first place...), but seemed to have pedaled back on it after the backlash? Or am I mixing things up again?

Might as well disclose that I was conceptualizing and already making decent progress on an Eye of the Beholder / Legend of Grimrock spiritual successor that would have used 5e OGL, but the news regarding the license debacle were quite disheartening already, and now there's this.

It just means WotC are a bunch of grade-A assholes who talk a good talk about wanting to make a diverse range of D&D games but are actually only about their crappy big-money games. D&D has become a soul-less, superficial, empty shell and a joke. Time to mourn its demise and move on.

I mean, that was more or less clear ever since the Rick&Morty collabs and such.

I am still feeling the sting of regret from the last "live service game" I purchased (Diablo 4) so I believe that I am inoculated vs this nonsense for the rest of 2024 at least. If enough people equate "Live Service" with "no buy" then we'll all be better off.

They think they have a monopoly and want to exploit it.

Unfortunately they dont have a monopoly and thus they will just alienate their customerbase, which will move on.

Right, but at least THESE people own the D&D IP right? Not a company like Tencent that would actually properly license it out.

Hasbro is an old lady desperately holding onto their IP and not letting anyone near it - they know it's valuable, but they don't know how to realize that value while still maintaining total control.