Large-scale, open-world DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS video game in development

A major new Dungeons and Dragons video game is in development. The new title is an open-world game and has an AAA budget, but no title at the moment.

The game is being developed by Hidden Path Entertainment, a studio based in Bellevue, Washington. Their headquarters are located very close to Valve Corporation, a company with whom they have collaborated many times on projects related to the Counter-Strike and Left 4 Dead franchises.

Hidden Path themselves are known mainly for smaller-scale games like the Defense Grid tower defence series, Raccoon Lagoon, Brass Tactics and Witchblood. They also worked on the 2013 re-release of Age of Empires II. Reportedly the company is scaling up for this project, and one wonders if they are tapping Valve's tremendous knowledge base for assistance.

The game is the third Dungeons and Dragons title known to be in development. Dungeons and Dragons: Dark Alliance is a reboot of the series headed by Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance (2001) and is being handled by Tuque Games for release later this year. Larian Studios are developing Baldur's Gate III for release late this year or perhaps early next. Dark Alliance is an action game and Baldur's Gate III is an RPG but is based around zones and smaller maps. This new open-world game will presumably play more like The Witcher III or Skyrim, with a large map containing many areas of interest to visit.

Whitney "Strix" Beltràn is the game's narrative director and has form for working on the Bluebeard's Bride line of tabletop roleplaying games and on the recent Ravenloft relaunch for Dungeons & Dragons. Although an open-world, mainline D&D game is most likely to use the Forgotten Realms setting, a fantasy-horror game based on Ravenloft would be a great deal more original and interesting.