Dungeons & Dragons is more popular now than it’s ever been, and its publisher Wizards of the Coast has announced multiple new projects in order to keep that ball rolling.
This includes a 2023 feature film; a partnership with the relaunched G4 cable and digital television network to air this summer’s D&D Live show; Wizards’ first foray into publishing D&D-based video games; a special event in honor of D&D‘s most popular signature character; and of course, more books and content for D&D.
Founded in 1990 by Peter Adkison, Wizards of the Coast is headquartered in Renton, Wash. with satellite offices in Bellevue. Its first major success was the collectible card game Magic: The Gathering, which debuted in 1993. Wizards subsequently acquired the rights to Dungeons & Dragons when it bought its owner TSR for $25 million in 1997.
Wizards announced Wednesday morning that 2020 was D&D‘s best year on record, further confirming sales numbers reported in February. As per Wizards’ stats, they’ve tracked more than 50 million players for D&D worldwide, with a 33% increase in year-over-year sales.
2020’s Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, a D&D sourcebook released in November, set a record for the franchise by receiving more pre-orders than any other book in the game’s history.
It’s easy to assume that D&D‘s spike in popularity last year was due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which created a boom in sales for all tabletop and board games. The growth goes back pre-lockdowns, however; 2020 was actually D&D‘s seventh consecutive year of overall growth, and 2019 was D&D‘s previous highest-grossing year on record. This ball’s been rolling for a while.
“2019 was the culmination of a few things,” Nathan Stewart, head of franchise for D&D at Wizards of the Coast, told GeekWire. “It wasn’t just one year in the making. D&D’s 5th edition came out in 2014, and on its own, that’s been a pivotal change for us. One of the great things that the 5th edition rules have done is they’ve made it more approachable for fans of all levels of understanding. It created a base that was so easy to get into.”
Another factor in D&D‘s recent success has been the rise in the last few years of multiple popular streaming shows and podcasts dedicated to live D&D sessions, such as Critical Role and Acquisitions Incorporated.
“We saw an explosion in ’16, ’17, ’18,” Stewart said, “in the number of D&D streamers, in Twitch growth, and on YouTube Live. One of the things about that, which we really credit towards our growth, is that it helps demystify the game.”
“From the outside, D&D looks like math,” he added. “But you watch people livestreaming D&D, and you think, ‘it’s a group of friends drinking beer and making each other laugh. I didn’t know there was a game for that.’ It really helps make it more approachable. The game’s a sort of social lubricant.”
Wizards’ own streaming show, D&D Live, is scheduled for July 16-17, billed as a special two-day event. Its schedule includes interviews, special product announcement, and a Dungeon Masters’ roundtable discussion, but is centered around four “star-studded” live-play games. The exact lineup for this year’s games has yet to be announced at time of writing.
By way of comparison, last year’s D&D Live featured sessions with actors from A Game of Thrones and Stranger Things; a full adventuring party of WWE wrestlers, including Xavier Woods and Alexa Bliss; and a table full of comedians playing D&D to benefit the charity organization Comic Relief.
Wizards also announced early this month that it’s partnered with the gaming-focused cable/digital channel G4 to broadcast this year’s D&D Live on TV. The terms of the partnership also include four brand-new live-play miniseries, the cast and details of which are still undisclosed, that will premiere on G4 this fall.
“It just made too much sense,” said Brian Terwilliger, VP of programming and creative strategy at G4. “We’re all nerds. When I was supervising producer on ‘Attack of the Show,’ we had a weekly D&D game. It’s really just about taking the things we love and providing a spotlight for them. This was really easy to get everyone to rally behind.”
Wizards is also publishing next month’s Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance, a revival of the hack-and-slash D&D spin-off which allows players to take the roles of the popular D&D signature character Drizzt Do’Urden and his fellow Companions of the Hall. While D&D video games are nothing new, Dark Alliance is Wizards’ debut as a video game publisher.
Dark Alliance is set to debut on June 22 for PlayStation 4/5, Xbox Series X, Xbox One, PC, and, as of earlier this week, the Xbox Game Pass.
Drizzt is also the focus of an event that Wizards announced on Thursday, called the Summer of Drizzt. Branded as a “summer-long celebration of all things Drizzt Do’Urden,” this marks an unusually busy few months for the character.
In addition to his playable turn in Dark Alliance, there’s a new Drizzt novel, Starlight Enclave, coming on Aug. 3, and Drizzt will make his Magic: The Gathering debut on July 23 when he appears in Adventures in the Forgotten Realms.
This new set is the first official crossover between D&D and Magic, and introduces a series of cards based on several classic D&D items, monsters, and characters. Naturally, Drizzt is on the cover of the box.
As an introduction to the Summer of Drizzt, Wizards has released a new animated short, “Sleep Sound,” narrated by Benedict Cumberbatch (Avengers: Endgame) and written by Drizzt’s creator R.A. Salvatore. The short is meant to introduce new fans to Drizzt as a character, as an accelerated retelling of his origin and adventures so far.
As for D&D itself, Wizards continues to release resources for the tabletop game, with promises of more tabletop announcements at D&D Live in July. It launched a new sourcebook on Tuesday, the 256-page Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft, which revisits and revises D&D‘s 1983 Gothic horror setting for 5th edition.
With video games, live play, its TV deal, and the upcoming feature film, Stewart says Wizards’ plan for D&D is to continue to broaden the game’s audience, as well as its international accessibility. The long-term plan is to bring D&D to new fans around the world.
“Finding new mediums and meeting kids where they’re at is key,” Stewart said. “Any place where you can imagine a D&D experience, we’re trying to find best-in-class partners to bring it to those platforms. Nothing’s off the table when it comes to what would naturally bring the D&D world to life.”
