D&D Hardcover Goes Level 20, Evil Genius Games Falls, Hasbro Loses Money - TTRPG News 2/16/2024

Tabletop RPG news is full of exciting stories this week! Our goal at StartPlaying is to provide players and Game Masters with a platform to connect and have amazing games. Once a week, however, we also make it our mission to deliver the biggest news in easily digestible snippets. This one is HUGE: Dungeons & Dragons shared release dates for its 2024 books, Humblewood made a surprise debut on D&D Beyond, Evil Genius Games got exposed, and Hasbro posted big losses despite Wizards of the Coast wins. 

High Level Vecna Campaign Is The Endgame Of 5E, Plus “One D&D” Release Dates

Wizards of the Coast shared its plans for the 50th anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons, which include one final battle for the multiverse before the 2024 Core Rulebooks hit shelves. In a blog post, the company mentioned merchandise partnerships for things like shoes, LEGO, and Pop-Tarts. When it comes to content you can play, the first will be Vecna: Eve of Ruin. The campaign runs from level 10-20 and will take adventurers on a quest through different D&D settings to get pieces of an important artifact before Vecna can.

Vecna: Eve of Ruin will release on May 21. It seems like a great finale to this era of D&D. However, there is actually one more book before the 2024 update happens. Quests from the Infinite Staircase will be a level 1-13 anthology where players revisit classic D&D adventures in a quest to fulfill genie wishes across the multiverse. It releases on July 16. 

From there, it’s time for the big update. The 2024 Player’s Handbook is set to launch on September 17. It will be followed by the 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide on November 12. Finally, the 2024 Monster Manual is actually coming in 2025 on February 18. 

Evil Genius Games Loses Money, Staff, And Goodwill In New Report

Evil Genius Games, the company behind the Everyday Heroes system and unreleased Rebel Moon TTRPG, saw a very public string of resignations happen over the course of the last few weeks. EN World’s Morrus put out a stunning report about the “rise and fall” of Evil Genius. 

Morrus spoke to many former employees under the condition of anonymity and found a bevy of alleged troubles circulating within and around the company. Large amounts of back pay owed to freelancers, mistreatment of employees, lies about health insurance, and courting controversial technologies were just a few of the reasons given by those who resigned. The full story goes into the more terrible details and is worth reading. 

Try A Humblewood Game With A Pro DM Today!

Humblewood Swoops Onto D&D Beyond 

The adorable 5E Humblewood setting was a surprise addition to D&D Beyond this week. The setting is a bountiful wood where balance is kept between furry ground dwellers and feathered folk of the trees. Players become these animalistic species and can even choose new subclasses and spells to customize them. The Humblewood Campaign Setting is on sale for its launch, and is under the same third-party banner as other recent releases like Dungeons of Drakkenheim and Tal'Dorei Reborn. It’s also compatible with the D&D Beyond Maps feature. 

Hasbro Looks To D&D/MTG After Big Financial Losses

Wizards of the Coast brought in $103 million in the final quarter of this financial year, and earned $1.07 billion in 2023 as a whole. Yet the situation is still dire as parent company Hasbro had a loss of $1.06 billion in the final quarter alone. A report by Dicebreaker broke down some of the specifics from the Hasbro financial call that revealed these numbers. 

Hasbro lost a lot of money on tos that didn’t sell. The company went into the holidays expecting losses, prompting the very unpopular layoffs in December, and still did worse than its predictions. The digital side grew, however, largely due to Baldur's Gate 3 and the Monopoly mobile game. Another big winner was Magic: The Gathering thanks to its Lord of the Rings set. 

In light of these figures, hopes seem to be turning towards more MTG crossover sets and digital content for D&D. The idea of media crossovers for D&D and promises of more video games were raised to ease the concerns of investors. 

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That’s it for these major stories of the week! Hope you enjoyed reading about the good, bad, and cute of the TTRPG world. Have fun with your games this weekend, and may your dice be kind.