Baldur’s Gate 3 was a huge success for both Larian Studios and Dungeons & Dragons, which is owned by Wizards of the Coast and its parent company, the massive toy conglomerate Hasbro. The two sides ended up splitting instead of pursuing Baldur’s Gate 4 together, but Hasbro’s CEO says the company is doubling down on games, with new D&D and G.I. Joe projects already in development.
Chris Cocks, who’s been running Hasbro since 2022, told Bloomberg an unannounced Dungeons & Dragons game is currently in production alongside an adventure game based on G.I. Joe that’s in pre-production. Hasbro has already invested $1 billion into video games and Cocks said it plans to spend $100 to $150 million more each year, with the hopes of releasing one to two games every 12 months by 2026.
There have been a few games adapted from both franchises in recent years, but nothing that’s hit as big as Baldur’s Gate 3. 2021’s Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance aimed to rekindle the cult acclaim of the 2001 Baldur’s Gate spin-off but was pretty mediocre. The beat-em-up G.I. Joe: Wrath of Cobra released to “mixed” reviews on Steam in September, and the 2020 third-person shooter G.I. Joe: Operation Blackout reviewed poorly.
Despite parting ways with Larian, Hasbro revealed earlier this year that it’s pushing forward with a Baldur’s Gate 3 sequel anyway, though it hasn’t yet named a development partner it plans to work with for the licensed deal. There are also multiple Transformers games rumored to be in production beyond the currently announced ones. A new sci-fi RPG from ex-BioWare devs called Exodus is also sounds very interesting so far, thanks in part to narrated lore dumps from Matthew McConaughey.
Hasbro’s other big game is Magic: The Gathering Arena, a PC and mobile adaptation of the long-running collectible card game that is great at approximating the feel of summoning creatures and casting spells without the need to frequent your local hobby shop. Cocks told Bloomberg the game still fails to capitalize on the IRL card game’s biggest strengths: card collecting and its popular Commander format. Hasbro is testing a potential standalone video game version of Commander and could look to Marvel Snap as a blueprint for streamlining Arena in the future.
