Hasbro’s ownership of the Dungeons & Dragons license has been a mixed bag. You have positive outcomes likeBaldur’s Gate 3and Honor Among Thieves (which I quite enjoyed); then there are the very real negatives, like devastating layoffs at Wizards of the Coast.
In an interview with the wonderfulGamesIndustry.biz, Hasbro’s head of digital product development Dan Ayoub spoke about the company’s $1 billion+ investment in video games and outlined some specifics on what Hasbro’s internal development studios are working on.
Though these investments were made before the release of Baldur’s Gate 3, Ayoub highlighted the success of the game as a learning moment for Hasbro, “One of the great things we took from the success of Baldur’s Gate is that people really, really like a great, well-executed D&D game, so we’ve got something like that.”
A Game Of Many Legacies
Unfortunately for Hasbro, Larian Studios previously announced that it would not continue to work on the Baldur’s Gate series, leaving the series without a steward. One of Hasbro’s internal studios, Invoke, is currently working on a D&D project. The studio previously shipped Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance, an ARPG with middling reviews.
In addition to Invoke Studios, Hasbro has three other ongoing development projects. Austin-based Archetype is working on Exodus, a sci-fi RPG headed up by BioWare veteran James Ohlen. Atomic Arcade Studio is working on a Snake Eyes G.I Joe game, and another Austin studio Skeleton Key is “doing something spooky.”
Though all of these projects were set in stone before the release of Baldur’s Gate 3, the runaway success of a Hasbro-licensed property has to have a psychological effect on the decision-makers; there’s now a very clear example of how successful a video game can be for Hasbro.
Baldur’s Gate 3’s Act 2 Would Be Perfect If Larian Added One Thing
This change would make everything feel a lot more conclusive.
When asked if Hasbro were in it for the long haul, Ayoub responded positively, “Over $1 billion is in video game development right now, and that is just these studios. That’s to say nothing of the other game investments that are happening. Definitely, I’ve seen the company put its actions around its words in terms of building these studios around strong leaders, thinking about the long game as well.”
We’ve seen mixed success from corporations with lots of resources investing in video games; Amazon’s massive investment hasn’t changed the landscape by any means, but perhaps if Hasbro can build these studios around strong leadership and appropriately back them for a reasonable length of time, we might see a string of high-quality releases.
Baldur’s Gate 3 already has a legacy as one of the most prolific game-of-the-year recipients ever, and time will tell if ends up being one of the best RPGs of all time (we certainly think so). However, an understated legacy may be the path it carved at Hasbro for its internal studios. Maybe the toy giant won’t be so quick to pull the plug on floundering projects after seeing first-hand the immense success of a fantastic game.
Larian’s Pivot Away From Baldur’s Gate 3 Is The Right Move
Larian has too much talent to be making someone else’s game.
