Wizards of the Coast and its subsidiary Invoke Studios released a first-look gameplay trailer for Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons, a new open-world action game based upon the systems and setting of Wizards’ popular tabletop role-playing game.
Wizards, based in Renton, Wash., is a subsidiary of Hasbro and the company behind the D&D and Magic: The Gathering franchises. It has become one of the toy giant’s most reliable profit engines. Hasbro and Wizards are now looking to video games for additional growth, with mixed results; Wizards’ recent video game efforts have included both the generational success of Baldur’s Gate 3 and significant flops such as 2021’s Dark Alliance.
Warlock‘s first trailer was released during Opening Night Live at the Gamescom conference in Cologne, Germany, which has become one of the hallmarks of the video game industry’s calendar, particularly in Europe. Clearly, someone at Wizards and/or Hasbro has a great deal of faith in Warlock.
Warlock is set in the brand-new fantasy world of Darkon. Players take the role of Kaatri (Tricia Helfer, Battlestar Galactica), a combat veteran and swordswoman who makes a pact with a magical entity to attain magical powers. Specifically, Kaatri’s deal is with Tasha (Maggie Robertson, Resident Evil Village), an archmage from the world of Toril and one of D&D’s longest-running signature characters.
In exchange for whatever Tasha wants, which is not yet revealed, Kaatri becomes a warlock: a spellcaster who derives her magic from her link with Tasha, rather than the other available sources in D&D’s cosmology. Kaatri’s newfound powers include signature D&D abilities such as telekinesis, short-distance teleportation, and detecting sources of magic.
As such, the player can approach every situation in a number of ways depending upon their opportunities and preferences, from open conflict to stealth to clever manipulation of their environment. You can go in swinging with Kaatri’s sword, telekinetically shove enemies off of cliffs, or take an opponent out at long range with D&D warlocks’ signature eldritch blasts.
Invoke Studios, based in Montreal, was founded in 2022 as a reorganization of the team behind the 2021 co-op action-RPG Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance. Warlock is its debut project under the Invoke Studios brand.
To make it to market, Warlock and Invoke have survived two leadership shakeups at Wizards and several waves of layoffs and shutdowns, including the cancellation of two other D&D-based video game projects in early 2023.
Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons is scheduled for release in 2027 for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.
