New DnD Video Game Coming from Starbreeze Entertainment
Developer of Payday 3 unveils new details on upcoming Dungeons & Dragons multiplayer game
Swedish game studio Starbreeze, the maker of popular titles including Payday 3 and Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, has announced that they’re working on a new officially licensed Dungeons & Dragons game in partnership with Wizards of the Coast.
The untitled game, which has been given the codename Project Baxter, will be both developed and published by Starbreeze out of their Stockholm studio using Unreal Engine 5 and will be available for both consoles and PC sometime in 2026.
The announcement comes hot on the heels of the smash DnD video game hit Baldur’s Gate 3, which broke sales records and recently snagged the prestigious Game of the Year title at the 2023 Game Awards. Starbreeze’s upcoming title also comes in the wake of Wizards of the Coast recently cancelling several DnD video games in an effort to reallocate resources and refocus the brand.
So just what can we expect to see from Starbreeze’s upcoming DnD title? Below we break out everything we know so far.
What is Starbreeze’s New DnD Video Game About?
Starbreeze’s untitled DnD video game (known simply as “Project Baxter) is a co-operative multiplayer game set in the world of Dungeons & Dragons and available for consoles and PC. The game will include cross-console play and use a Games as a Service-model, which is designed to monetize the title after release through elements like microtransactions and downloadable content.
In a recent press release, Starbreeze CEO Tobias Sjögren indicated that “when looking at prospective IPs for our future projects, Dungeons & Dragons was always at the top of our list and I’m incredibly happy to announce this license.” It also appears that the game has already made significant progress, with Sjögren noting that “development of the game is in full swing, and we are excited to deliver an amazing Dungeons & Dragons action-adventure.”
In the same press release, Eugene Evans, Senior Vice President of Digital Strategy and Licensing at Wizards of the Coast, also noted that “our gaming brands, including Dungeons & Dragons, continue to attract great partners as we execute our plan to grow our digital games portfolio through licensing and development. Our collaboration with Starbreeze is a prime illustration of this strategy.” Notably, this strategy is likely a continued part of Wizards of the Coast’s efforts to expand the IP, with President/CEO Cynthia Williams famously declaring on a 2023 shareholders call that the DnD brand was under-monetized.
When is the new DnD game coming out?
No official date has been set, but the game is expected to launch sometime in 2026. Notably, Starbreeze’s most recent release is the co-op heist shooter Payday 3, which was released in September 2023 to received mixed reviews, but currently has a large base over 3 million players.
It’s possible that the new DnD video game’s release date may be moved out as the development cycle for a typical AAA title can take 3-4 years or longer. It’s also not uncommon for titles to be cancelled well into their development, which as noted previously, was indeed the case with the five games which Wizards of the Coast pulled the plug on despite several making significant progress.
Starbreeze has a solid reputation though, and has also cut its teeth in the fantasy genre before with the popular indie title Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, a game which received incredibly strong reviews and was well regarded for its blend of gameplay and story.
Final Thoughts
Interest in the Dungeons & Dragons brand has never been higher thanks in large part to Baldur’s Gate 3, so expectations for future video games are high among both fans and Wizards of the Coast. It’s also worth noting that Starbreeze also isn’t the only developer to tackle the license, with another game in the works from Hidden Path, so it’s possible we may soon be seeing even more button mashing DnD goodness in the days ahead.
We’ll be keeping a close eye on this new story and update this page as we learn more.
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Cameron Nichols is a Senior Editor who lives in Boston, Massachusetts, and has been playing D&D since the early 90s, when he was introduced by his older brother and cut his teeth on AD&D 2nd Edition. Since then he’s played virtually every RPG he could get his nerdy little mitts on (including a weird Goth phase in the early 2000s when he rocked Vampire: The Masquerade pretty hard). His favorite D&D campaign setting is the Forgotten Realms and his favorite character to play was a Half-Orc Barbarian named Grug (who was unfortunately devoured by a gelatinous cube).
