D&D Direct 2023: What Happened This Year

Wizards of the Coast announced a number of new products at their latest annual event

If you haven’t heard of D&D Direct before, you’re not alone. It’s a relatively new addition to Wizards of the Coast’s marketing and promotional efforts, and is really designed to generate buzz around the Dungeons & Dragons property, with the most recent D&D Direct held on March 28th, 2023.

In this article, we break down everything you need to know about the annual event, including a look at past years and what happened this year.

What is D&D Direct?

D&D Direct is an annual event hosted by Wizards of the Coast which unveils select Dungeons & Dragons fifth edition projects and related content that will be released in the coming year. The first D&D Direct was held in April 2022, with the event streamed online to fans, with official edited video materials released after the event.

Notably, D&D Direct is not to be confused with the Wizards of the Coast’s annual “Wizards Presents” event, which is a much bigger production that offers a look at the complete lineup of DnD 5e books slated for the coming year (something they refer to as their D&D “road map”).

What was announced at D&D Direct 2023

This year’s D&D Direct was held on March 28th, 2023 and was hosted by popular Twitch streamer Gina Darling and comedian Ify Nwadiwe. A shorter production, it was for a little over 30 minutes and was broadcast on the official D&D and D&D Beyond Twitch and YouTube pages. A “post-show party” also took place on the D&D Beyond Twitch stream, although it was more of a community event, with no other major announcements.

Here’s a brief rundown of what was announced at D&D Direct 2023.

• New Minecraft D&D DLC: Wizards of the Coast and Mojang Studios will soon be releasing new downloadable content for the popular Minecraft video game. The DLC will be the first fully-voice acted adventure from Minecraft (although the cast has yet to be revealed). The game will include a storyline that takes around 10 hours to complete on the first playthrough and will incorporate a number of familiar D&D elements, including spells, ability scores, monsters, classes and dice rolls.
• New D&D Honor Among Thieves Trailer: During the presentation, Wizards of the Coast also unveiled a new trailer for the upcoming film Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, which will be released on March 30th, 2023.
• JoCat Original Animated Song: Popular YouTuber and animator, JoCat created a new animated video to promote PlayDnD.com, a website designed to get new D&D players up and running quickly with pre-made characters and simplified rules.
• New Hasbro Monster Toys: As part of their “Golden Archives” lineup, Wizards of the Coast unveiled a variety of new Habsro D&D action figures, including a new Xanathar beholder figure, a displacer beast and an owl bear. Hasbro is also releasing new figures based on characters from both the 80s cartoon and the new Honor Among Thieves film.
• Magic the Gathering D&D Movie cards: The “Secret Lair” sub-brand of Magic the Gathering unveiled six new cards based on characters featured in the Honor Among Thieves film.
• Interview with R.A. Salvatore: Author of the popular Legend of Drizzt books, R.A Salvatore provided a brief interview where he discussed the 35th anniversary of his popular dark elf ranger and unveiled that the legendary drow city of Menzoberranzan will be included as a new location in the current Neverwinter MMORPG.
• D&D Virtual Tabletop Preview: During the D&D Direct 2023 presentation, Wizards of the Coast also offered a bit more information on their upcoming VTT (also known as the D&D Digital Play Space), which will be part of their upcoming One D&D system. The system – which uses digital miniatures and terrain – appears to be geared almost exclusively to online players although it could potentially be played in-person with users on laptops (a process that seems a bit awkward given the footage).
• WizKids Minis: The popular D&D miniatures designer unveiled two new figures: a mimic and an owlbear, which will be available in the coming months.
• D&D Documentary: The team unveiled that actor and longtime D&D player Joe Manganiello will be releasing a documentary celebrating the 50th anniversary of D&D. He also again mentioned a possible Dragonlance TV series, although there was no official announcement made during his presentation.
• New Publications for 2023 & 2024: Sadly, the D&D Direct livestream featured very little new information about D&D publications coming out in 2023 and 2024. The only significant tidbits were that longtime villain Vecna would be returning in a future campaign, and that more information would be unveiled regarding the mysterious Black Obelisks that have appeared in several existing fifth edition campaigns.

Below is the complete video of the 2023 D&D Direct livestream.

What happened at D&D Direct 2022

Held on April 21st, 2022, the first annual D&D Direct was primarily used as a way to officially announce the return of the Spelljammer and Dragonlance campaign settings to the D&D 5e rules set. In many ways, however, it was a teaser to the larger Wizards Presents 2022 event, which unveiled the full run of books scheduled for publication in 2023 (including Keys from the Golden Vault, Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants, The Book of Many Things, the redesigned Phandelver campaign, and the rebooted Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse).

Below is the official announcement showcase video from the D&D Direct 2022 event.

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