discuss the upcoming Dungeons and Dragons Survival-CRPG

Disney Dreamlight Valley Devs Making Dungeons and Dragons Survival-RPG

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Following the massive success of Baldur's Gate 3, Hasbro and Wizard's of the Coast have approved Disney Dreamlight Valley developer Gameloft Montreal to work on a brand new Dungeons and Dragons survival-RPG. The 2023 Game of the Year Baldur's Gate 3 was seen by many as a return to form for Dungeons and Dragons video games, and the IP's owners are keen to keep the momentum rolling with another upcoming title based on the classic franchise.

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That's the headline and a little bit of the article I saw.

Looks like the commercial success of Baldur's Gate 3 has inspired others to take a crack at using the D&D brand to put out a game.
Hasbro's monetization strat seems to be working.

Survival RPG. Wait wait wait

Early Access. Open World. Survival. Crafting?

Pretty torn on this - on the one hand, I have really enjoyed DDV and been impressed by the quality of writing and story in the game for what it is.

On the other hand, that game is also a janky mess from a technical standpoint (I am on Switch on a slight, but not complete, defense), so I'm skeptical of their ability to deliver on a fun and stable gameplay engine.

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Originally Posted by Xervous

Survival RPG. Wait wait wait

Early Access. Open World. Survival. Crafting?

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So basically Conan Exiles, but without the clothing-optional elements?

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Originally Posted by Anonymouswizard

So basically Conan Exiles, but without the clothing-optional elements?

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What makes you think clothing won't be optional?

So what is going to make it "D&D" enough to stand out among the many other Survival Crafting games? Of which there are some exceptional ones.

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Originally Posted by Brookshw

What makes you think clothing won't be optional?

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Given what the ESRB did with Conan, if it's an open world I suspect that clothing optional may not make the final cut.

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Originally Posted by KorvinStarmast

Given what the ESRB did with Conan, if it's an open world I suspect that clothing optional may not make the final cut.

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No game worth playing denies you the ability to thundergun while swinging a greatsword.

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Originally Posted by Brookshw

What makes you think clothing won't be optional?

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True, this might be an attempt at a Dark Sun reboot. At which point clothing still won't be optional but now you have to have your junk out.

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Originally Posted by Brookshw

No game worth playing denies you the ability to thundergun while swinging a greatsword.

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Or even swing a weapon...

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Originally Posted by Anonymouswizard

True, this might be an attempt at a Dark Sun reboot. At which point clothing still won't be optional but now you have to have your junk out.

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Which might make for a few less than graceful combat moves...

I did some light research on the studio:
Their games tend to have bad microtransactions but the game itself is liked by the players (see Hawk7915's comment above). Their studio makes many types of games rather than having prior experience.

It will probably be yet another greedy survival CRPG. I won't be paying attention to it going forward, but we can't write it off before it comes out. It could exceed the studio's precedent.

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Originally Posted by KorvinStarmast

Given what the ESRB did with Conan, if it's an open world I suspect that clothing optional may not make the final cut.

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BG3 got away with full frontal though, both from an ESRB and WotC licensing perspective, so I'm not too concerned.

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Originally Posted by Leon

So what is going to make it "D&D" enough to stand out among the many other Survival Crafting games? Of which there are some exceptional ones.

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This is my concern as well. I mean, if it's just Enshrouded but they tell you to pretend you're in Ravenloft instead of Embervale, I have zero interest in that. Well, not zero, but considerably less than actual D&D-style gameplay and combat.

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Originally Posted by Leon

So what is going to make it "D&D" enough to stand out among the many other Survival Crafting games? Of which there are some exceptional ones.

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Answer people are hoping for: it will have a deep and interesting connection to a popular D&D setting possibly even including the reclaiming and rebuilding of some lost city. Wide varieties of playstyle and build choices in the style of the D&D character building people know so you can truly make your own character from the ground up from any race the game has to offer. Tools to alter the world and possibly even some kind of DM mode so you can drop a group of friends into an immersive scenario.

Actually likely answer: you'll probably get to play as a Dragonborn or a Tiefling and there might be a Mindflayer and a Beholder somewhere. Maybe Elminster shows up as an NPC guide to tell you how crafting works for some reason.

BG3 isn't the only D&D game in recent memory, it's just the only one that was actually good. Considering it was also a passion project that Larian had been trying to get for a while beforehand and spent significant time and effort on after they did get it I don't really have high hopes for quality or effort just because WotC realized how much money they could make off videogames again. The only things I'm seeing good things about from the studio are Disney Dreamlight, which considering it's leveraging Disney nostalgia would be more surprising if it got anything south of average, and an Oregon Trail version with better graphics.

Even putting aside the fact that BG3 was by no means something you can expect to just roll out regularly from every studio, and the fact that the studio in question has very mixed quality in their output, there's still a few questions that worry me about the idea of this game. Survival-Crafting is practically a cursed term in video games even after they've had a recent surge in popularity again, the vast majority of entries spend years and years in early access and even out of the ones that get to a full release many are overly buggy disasters that lack much in the way of entertaining features.

There's also the question of if it will have a lifespan worth mentioning. Some of the recent successes still manage to fall into the Early Access risk like Palworld and Enshrouded but they also quickly hit a point where you're either willing to engage with a slow grind or you're done with the game until it manages to announce something worth reinstalling. If the playerbase gets bored and wanders off then WotC has no reason to fund further content since there won't be any sign of enough people buying to make that money back and the devs won't have any reason to make anything beyond what they're already contracted for.

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Originally Posted by Leon

So what is going to make it "D&D" enough to stand out among the many other Survival Crafting games? Of which there are some exceptional ones.

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My guess :

It will feature Beholders, Drow and Elminster.

Oh, seems like MonochromeTiger had the same idea.

Clearly what'll make it D&D is the inclusion of:
-Large subterranean complexes filled with monsters
-Giant wing lizards with vast intelligence and the ability to vomit dangerous stuff
-Maybe an arcane/divine magic split

Honestly, the best case scenario is if they're using the licence to make a spiritual successor to the first Ultima Underworld. Lock you in a big dungeon, tell you that you can get out if you defeat the big bad at the end, and let you explore.

Although I'd be up for playing some Stardew & Dragons as well. We could finally see what the epic hero does after killing the bad guy and retiring!