On the Hasbro Digital side of things, Ayoub will oversee the development of Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons and Archetype Entertainments’ Exodus. Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks spoke about Ayoub’s qualifications that make him the ideal leader for these divisions.

“Dan has the passion and leadership caliber to take Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro Digital Games into its next chapter. He understands what our games mean to the people who play them and what it takes to build great teams and experiences. His promotion reflects one of my top priorities: developing our people. I couldn’t think of a better match to lead these businesses and I’m excited for the future with him at the helm.”

Ayoub’s new role comes following his recent stint as the senior vice president of Dungeons & Dragons, where he was in charge of leading the franchise as a whole. In its press release, Hasbro has given Ayoub some credit for the tabletop RPG’s surge in popularity over the last several years. Ayoub had joined the company back in 2022, and has even served as the senior vice president of Digital Games at one point.

Before that, Ayoub had spent 11 years at Microsoft in a number of roles, including as an executive producer and studio head of 343 Industries. He would eventually serve a stint as vice president and general manager of Certain Affinity.

“I’m honored to lead Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro Digital Games, and grateful to Chris and the leadership team for this opportunity,” said Ayoub in a statement. “Magic and D&D have been part of my life for as long as I can remember, and the teams behind them are among the best in the world. We’ll put fans first, respect the artists and creators who make these worlds come alive, and set an ambitious course for growth across tabletop and digital. I can’t wait to get started.”

What this means for Hasbro’s two upcoming games – Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons and Exodus – remains to be seen. Archetype Entertainment, however, had recently showcased a new trailer for its sci-fi RPG Exodus, giving us our first look at how the team has improved the character model for protagonist Jun Aslan. The team also noted that it has been paying attention to feedback from fans following the release of various trailers. Exodus is coming to PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S on April 7th.

Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons, on the other hand, doesn’t yet have a release date. The title is being developed for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S, and the team has spoken about how it wants to ensure that its magic system makes players feel overpowered.

Anyone who’s spent any time with Dungeons and Dragons will know that there are some very broken spells like Simulacrum and Silvery Barbs. And while it prompted a “That’s too powerful,” response, Invoke Studios head Dominic Guay told EDGE magazine (transcription via GamesRadar) that, “At some point we had to say, ‘No. Make it OP first, make it fun, and then we’ll balance it.'”

One example is how Black Tentacles won’t do much to restrain an ogre, but it can work wonders when cast on its weapon since it’s too preoccupied with freeing it to notice all the harm you’re inflicting. Guay also revealed that you won’t choose spells from a list, but rather combine different button presses to perform them. “Once you get the hang of it, you’re able to chain melee attacks, spell, spell, spell, and think on the fly. We always wanted that real-time expression of magic instead of something that feels a bit slower.”

It also captures the protagonist, Kaatri’s personal growth. “The player will learn to be a warlock at the same time as the character. You’ll gain more spells pretty fast on your journey, but you need that onboarding because we’re doing things differently on the controller than some other games.”

While much of this may sound familiar to your average action-adventure fan, Invoke previously confirmed Warlock wouldn’t feature any waypoints to encourage exploration. Considering how controversial excessive handholding has been in video games, more recently exploding due to Marvel’s Wolverine, it’s a welcome move. Don’t expect a branching story like Baldur’s Gate 3, however.

Warlock: Dungeons and Dragons launches in 2027 for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC.

“We’re being very clear on that. Kaatri is a written character, so it’s not like you can play evil or good Kaatri. Nothing like that. The main narrative moments you’re going to go through are written down, and you’re going to go through the same moment as someone else.”

Another way Invoke hopes to set its RPG apart from Larian’s Baldur’s Gate 3 is with its focus on a single character rather than an ensemble crew. Guay explained that, while there are “definitely allies you’ll make along the way, kind of [Kaatri’s] found family,” the core focus will remain on Kaatri and her imp – Skev. Further discussing the imp, Guay said that he is “his own character with his own motivation”, and there will even be “an ongoing story there of how their relationship grows.”

When it comes to gameplay, Guay reiterated that Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons won’t feature in-game waypoints. Rather, the onus will be on the player to explore the world in the ways they see fit.

“We wanted to really make the game, first and foremost, about exploring a world instead of just following a waypoint around. We want the player to truly go out there, visit places, be curious, uncover secrets.” And while the in-game world of Darkon is “pretty large”, it won’t be as big as other open-world games like Crimson Desert.

“We don’t want you to have to travel for 15 minutes to find a new location. We want you to be always within like a minute, a minute and a half, of another cool place.”

Guay had previously spoken about this design ethos of letting the player go on their own adventure rather than guiding them with waypoints. “We wanted them to engage with the world, to figure things out and feel that when they found things, it was based on their actions and not just blindly trusting a waypoint.” The fact that the development team has prior experience in making more guided experiences in open-world games also helped, since the team wanted to focus on player agency in Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons.

“The core team on this game have worked on other open-world games before, and we’ve done the, let’s say, the heavy-handed guiding approach before. What ends up happening at some point — and it’s normal — a lot of players will just follow blindly the waypoint, and then you lose that agency, you lose that feeling of curiosity because you’re like, well, why even bother? And so, we didn’t want to go there. We wanted the player to explore.”

Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons is coming to PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S in 2027.

Speaking to IGN, the studio’s general manager Dominic Guay spoke about how the team wanted to encourage exploration in Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons. “We wanted them to engage with the world, to figure things out and feel that when they found things, it was based on their actions and not just blindly trusting a waypoint.” He went on to speak about the development team’s experience with working on other open-world games, and how the inclusion of waypoints ultimately leads to players blindly following them at a certain point, and in the process, giving up their agency to satisfy curiosity that can arise from exploration.

“The core team on this game have worked on other open-world games before, and we’ve done the, let’s say, the heavy-handed guiding approach before. What ends up happening at some point — and it’s normal — a lot of players will just follow blindly the waypoint, and then you lose that agency, you lose that feeling of curiosity because you’re like, well, why even bother? And so, we didn’t want to go there. We wanted the player to explore.”

To further tie into this, Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons will feature a “Mystery” system that involves players slowly uncovering mysteries throughout their time exploring the world. This could happen when the players talk to NPCs in towns, or even accidentally stumble into a new area while exploring. These mysteries will tell their own small stories, and can be of varying length and depth.

“There are multiple entry points. They’re kind of harder for us to do in that way, but we love that challenge. Not only are there multiple entry points, but depending on how you stumble upon them, it might change how you interact with them, meaning that maybe you could have found actually you can chance upon that Mystery from a completely different place, and then it’ll lead you toward that settlement, and you’ll know before coming in there’s something fishy going on here. So, then you’ll approach that settlement differently than in this case where you learn it from within.

“Some [Mysteries] are a little bit more straightforward, some are a little bit more deep and require more engagement and exploration, but that’s really how they’re built.”

Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons is being developed for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S, and is slated for release in 2027. Invoke gave us our first look at the action RPG during Gamescom with a trailer introducing some of its characters, as well as an extended look at gameplay. Interestingly, this trailer may have given us our first look at the Mystery system, which involved the protagonist investigating a cellar that is seemingly filled with hostile enemies.

The trailer starts off quite ominously, with the Warlock having a conversation with a character that appears to be her patron. While the protagonist wants their otherworldly patron to do more, the patron is more interested in maintaining their control over the Warlock, casting a spell that turns her right eye purple.

The trailer then cuts to gameplay from the open-world game, with the Warlock being tasked with finding more magic. We get our first look at how spellcasting will work in Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons, with the protagonist casting spells to get rid of some obstacles before she can walk up to the nearby town. On reaching there, she is met with quite a bit of derision from the townsfolk, who decide to ring the local alarm bell to warn people of her arrival.

We then get our look at a quest that seems to involve innocent people being brutally dragged into the cellar of a building. On investigating, we get to see that the cellar is a much more complex structure with several floors available for exploration. We also get a look at some more magic, like telekinesis and the ability to stick platforms to walls.

When we get to the lower levels, we get to see some of the free-form combat that melds melee combat with magical abilities. The real-time combat system also seems to give the protagonist plenty of freedom in how she can use her various spells, at one point showing off a position-swapping ability.

On returning to the surface, we get to see a larger-scale conflict brewing, with Drow teaming up with a larger creature to take over the nearby farms. The bloody and brutal combat system seems to have quite a bit of heft to it, and the warlock has to be careful about how she deals with the large enemy.

Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons is being developed for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S, and is slated for release in 2027.

In a statement, Wizards of the Coast has further confirmed his departure, noting that his transition away from the role of president will begin on September 1st. During his time at the company, Hight headed up development on tabletop games like Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering. On the digital side of things, he also oversaw development on projects like Archetype Entertainment’s sci-fi RPG Exodus and the D&D-based Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons. The company has also confirmed that it hasn’t yet picked out a successor for Hight’s position.

“After two years as President of Wizards of the Coast, John Hight is transitioning from the role, effective September 1. We’re deeply grateful for his leadership and the contributions he’s made to our teams and our games during his tenure. John will continue to support Wizards in an advisory capacity while pursuing other creative and professional opportunities he’s passionate about.”

“There is no change to the strength of the Wizards business. Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons continue to perform incredibly well, consistent with our most recent earnings release, and our upcoming 2027 video game slate, including Exodus and Warlock, remains on track. We’re launching an internal and external search for John’s successor and will share updates as appropriate.”

Hight’s departure from Wizards of the Coast comes just a few months after the company announced that the Dungeons & Dragons-based project under development at Giant Skull – the studio founded by industry veteran Stig Asmussen – got canceled. Noting that the project was still in its early concept stages, the company said that it has “great respect for Asmussen and his team” and that it values “our ongoing relationship”.

The cancellation of this project, alongside other unnamed ones, led to Hasbro writing down $56 million in impairment charges. In a recent earnings report, CEO Chris Cocks said that the write-down “reflects the standard we are applying to our portfolio” before going on to discuss how the company will better refocus its digital strategy. This will mean partnerships with companies like Scopely, TripleDot, Gameberry Labs, Ubisoft, and Gameloft.

“We are taking lower conviction projects out of the portfolio, reducing our annual spend base and concentrating investment behind the places where Hasbro has the best chance to build durable digital franchises: Magic, D&D, owned platforms, partner-led economics, and a concentrated number of high-conviction owned titles,” he said.

In the meantime, development on Exodus is continuing, and the title is slated launch on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S in 2027.

“Over the last several quarters, we have reviewed our portfolio and updated our plans for Hasbro’s digital future,” said CEO Chris Cocks. “That work included cancelling several games scheduled for release in 2028 and beyond and recording a $56 million non-cash write-down this quarter for related capitalized costs.”

“The write-down reflects the standard we are applying to our portfolio. We are focusing our digital investment behind the franchises, platforms, and partners where we see the clearest upside and where Hasbro has the strongest right to win. Four priorities will guide our digital strategy: focus, cost discipline, ownable platforms, and partnership.”

Offering more details on the company’s future plans, Cocks pointed to the success of the Scopely-developed Monopoly Go! as an example of what the company wants. This means that Hasbro will continue working with similar studios, like TripleDot, Gameberry Labs, Ubisoft, and Gameloft, as part of its digital strategy.

“We are taking lower conviction projects out of the portfolio, reducing our annual spend base and concentrating investment behind the places where Hasbro has the best chance to build durable digital franchises: Magic[: The Gathering], D&D, owned platforms, partner-led economics, and a concentrated number of high-conviction owned titles.”

Cocks’ statement makes it seem like Hasbro wants to chase the high-revenue realm of mobile gaming so it can potentially replicate Monopoly Go!’s success. Whether this means that the company will ultimately step back from its console gaming ambitions following the release of Exodus and Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons remains to be seen.

It is worth noting that Hasbro had cancelled an in-development Dungeons & Dragons-based project that was being worked on by Giant Skull. Founded by industry veteran Stig Asmussen, the studio’s current status is unknown. In a statement, Hasbro subsidiary Wizards of the Coast said that it decided “not to pursue an early concept from Giant Skull” while maintaining that it still had “great respect” for Asmussen and his team.

In the meantime, game director Chris King had confirmed last month that Exodus is in its final stages of development. The title will put players in the shoes of a salvager named Jun Aslan and will revolve around the protagonist setting off on a quest to find a solution to a plague ravaging their home world, referred to as the Rot.

Exodus is being developed for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S, and in the meantime, developer Archetype Entertainment has continued to provide plenty of teases about what players can expect. For more details on the sci-fi RPG, check out why we’re excited about it.

A spokesperson said that the decision was made after assessing the project at every stage of its development. Despite this, the spokesperson also noted that the company values its ongoing relationship with Giant Skull studio head and industry veteran Stig Asmussen.

“We assess concepts at every stage of development,” said the Wizards of the Coast spokesperson. “While we decided not to pursue an early concept from Giant Skull, we have great respect for Stig Asmussen and his team and value our ongoing relationship.”

In the meantime, Asmussen has also confirmed that things have been going well at Giant Skull and that he is exploring other potential partnerships to secure a publishing deal for the studio’s projects. “Things are good at Giant Skull,” he said.

Giant Skull was founded by Asmussen back in 2024. A veteran of the industry and having worked on projects like God of War 3, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, Asmussen had formed the studio after having left Respawn Entertainment in September 2023. The studio is made up of quite a few gaming industry veterans who have previously worked at major companies like Riot Games, Rocksteady Studios, and Epic Games.

“The Giant Skull studio culture is focused on creativity and curiosity,” Asmussen said when announcing the studio. “We have assembled a talented team renowned for immersive storytelling, heroic combat, and exhilarating traversal, and our goal is to craft a rich universe that players will want to lose themselves in for years to come.”

Few details had been revealed about the Dungeons & Dragons project that was being developed at Giant Skull. Among these things was the fact that it wasn’t going to be a new game in the Baldur’s Gate franchise. Wizards of the Coast president John Hight confirmed that the company was exploring the idea for the future, but Asmussen’s team was working on something else entirely.

“Baldur’s Gate is an incredible game,” said Hight. “And of course, we’re going to do a successor. This is not the successor to that game. We go to Stig and his team to tell an incredible story and bring D&D to a very broad audience. Ideally, the game will appeal to D&D players because it will help them realise their imagination. But it’s also going to hopefully appeal to people that love playing action games, that love the Jedi games, that love God of War games.”

“D&D, as Stig said, it’s a playground and it really is for everyone. Hundreds of millions of people have either played D&D or been aware of D&D, and we want to perpetuate that for the next 50 years.”

Asmussen had also noted that the title was going to feature better animations than games like Star Wars Jedi: Survivor.

Coinciding with Bitta’s hiring, James Ohlen, co-founder of Exodus developer Archetype Entertainment, will be stepping aside from his position. Hasbro’s vice president of corporate communications Abby Hodes said in a statement that Ohlen’s work felt complete, and that he stepped aside so he could hand off the leadership position to the rest of the team. She also noted that Ohlen had “asked to shift his creative focus” on the tabletop RPG products at Wizards of the Coast, namely Dungeons & Dragons.

“At this stage, James felt his work on the game was complete and that the polishing and tuning were in great hands with the team,” said Hodes.

Hasbro has been hoping to push further into the video games industry following the massive success of 2023’s Baldur’s Gate 3. While there had been plenty of games based on the properties of Wizards of the Coast in the past, Baldur’s Gate 3 had hit sales milestones that hadn’t previously been seen by games based on Dungeons & Dragons. Since then, the company has announced many deals with various developers to work on brand new titles.

While some of these titles are slated to be part of the Dungeons & Dragons universe, which includes the recently-announced Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons as well as the unnamed project in the works at Stig Asmussen’s studio Giant Skull, Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro have also been casting a wider net. One of the bigger games in development right now has nothing to do with Dungeons & Dragons or Magic: The Gathering—Exodus.

Exodus has been in the works for quite some time, and got a brand new trailer during The Game Awards 2025. The sci-fi RPG’s developers have spoken about all of the different games they were inspired by, which includes the Mass Effect series, as well as Guerrilla Games’ Horizon franchise and even Nintendo’s Metroid Prime.

As for Giant Skull’s title, Hight had confirmed back in August that, while there might be a new Baldur’s Gate game made in the future, Asmussen’s team is working on a different project.

“Baldur’s Gate is an incredible game,” said Hight. “And of course, we’re going to do a successor. This is not the successor to that game. We go to Stig [Asmussen] and his team to tell an incredible story and bring D&D to a very broad audience. Ideally, the game will appeal to D&D players because it will help them realise their imagination. But it’s also going to hopefully appeal to people that love playing action games, that love the Jedi games, that love God of War games.”

“D&D, as Stig said, it’s a playground and it really is for everyone. Hundreds of millions of people have either played D&D or been aware of D&D, and we want to perpetuate that for the next 50 years.”

“Obviously one that comes up all the time is Mass Effect,” said King when asked about the projects that inspired Archetype Entertainment to make Exodus. “We obviously share some DNA. The epic space opera, the mega choices that carry over from game to game. Combat, we have a lot of stuff come up. Mass Effect, Horizon is probably another one we’ve drawn some inspiration from.”

While the Mass Effect inspiration might seem like a no-brainer for those aware of the development team behind Exodus and having seen its trailers, Horizon getting a shout-out might be more interesting. Robertson explained that Guerrilla Games’ Horizon series helped the studio figure out how to make elemental damage work in combat, as well as how to force players to make decisions about the things they are fighting.

“With Horizon, it’s that elemental aspect of combat, where you’ve got to make decisions based on the construction of the things that you’re fighting, and be smart about the tools that you use against it,” he explained. “There’s some cool things that we think we’ve pulled in from that.”

Interestingly, King also gives a shout out to seminal first-person metroidvania title Metroid Prime, noting that its focus on exploration helped the studio in how it structured out the worlds that players will get to explore in Exodus. “One of the things that really resonates is just like the exploration, hopping on a spaceship, kind of being out in the middle of nowhere. I kind of like the loneliness in that game. It just makes the environments really interesting.”

Exodus is being developed for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, and is slated for release some time in 2026. The release window had been confirmed thanks to Archetype Entertainment’s parent company Hasbro making a note of it in its quarterly earnings report back in February. In the report, CEO Chris Cocks also said that Exodus will be the start of Hasbro’s push into self-publishing games.

“We have been investing in video games for over seven years through our portfolio of over a dozen projects in various stages of development coupled with 100+ licensing partnerships,” said Cocks. “I’m excited to show off our first project, Exodus, to the world when we launch it in 2026.”

In the meantime, check out details about one of the alien species that players will encounter during their time in Exodus – the Arkavir. In the game’s story, the Arkavir were designed to be the primary workforce for the Celestials in the Centauri Cluster while also being able to handle harsh and hostile environments. The Arkavir can also change up their physical form in order to make themselves more suited for specific harsh environments, from intense heat and unfathomable cold, to flesh-melting acid rain.