Gameloft, the company behind Disney Dreamlight Valley, announced a partnership with Hasbro to develop a new Dungeons & Dragons game for PC and consoles at its Montreal studio.
Set in the Forgotten Realms, where Larian Studios’ immensely successful Baldur’s Gate 3 takes place as well, the game is described as bringing “unique cooperative gameplay built around an innovative hybrid of survival, life simulation, and action RPG” to the table. “Players can expect an adventure where the rich lore of this legendary franchise meets real-time survival in a unique campaign of resilience, camaraderie, and danger at nearly every turn”, the description continued.
Gameloft’s executive producer Lee Kaburis stated: “We are honored to partner with Wizards of the Coast to deliver a completely new experience in the Dungeons & Dragons universe. We are all big fans of Dungeons & Dragons and are already hard at work bringing our concept to life, including growing our team, and we look forward to sharing more details in the future.”
His colleague, creative director Marc-Andre Deslongchamps, added, “Making friends, both on and off the table, has always been a core Dungeons & Dragons value and it is our goal, as life-long fans, to bring this experience to a different genre renowned for emergent gameplay and shared narrative that can be enjoyed by both newcomers and tabletop masters alike.”
Representing Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast, Eugene Evans commented: “Our portfolio of IP including Dungeons & Dragons continues to attract amazing partners as we execute our plan to grow our digital games portfolio through licensing and internal development. Our partnership with Gameloft is a prime illustration of our strategy.”
“Given their impressive record of building incredible new experiences with major IPs combined with their passion for Dungeons & Dragons and vision for this game, we are confident they will create an experience that will delight fans worldwide”, he concluded.
Dungeons & Dragons is currently booming thanks to a variety of factors, including the advent of live streaming, ease of playing online, and approachability of the 5th Edition ruleset. Successes like the recent Dungeons & Dragons movie and Baldur’s Gate 3 have further cemented the IP as a hot commodity.
Hasbro hasn’t been doing brilliantly in financial terms recently, so this rise in popularity of one of its biggest IPs has been a stroke of luck for the company, bringing in much needed revenue through licensing. Baldur's Gate 3 alone is said to have flooded Hasbro's coffers with around $90 million USD so far.
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