Dungeons & Dragons: World of Warcraft Leads New "Universes Beyond" Brand

The publishers of Dungeons & Dragons, Wizards of the Coast, have announced that an official World of Warcraft expansion for the popular tabletop RPG is coming out by the end of the year.

As part of their 'D&D Vision' event held at Gen Con late last week, the publisher is kicking off the game's "Season of Champions" by uniting the two iconic RPG franchises on the tabletop for the first time in more than two decades. The new expansion promises the ability to create characters across all 13 of the MMO's classes, including nine new and revised subclasses with over 40 specialisations. The character creation options coming also include 16 species and over 60 new spells to learn.

Dungeon Masters will also get plenty of options to bring Azeroth to their table, including over 50 new monsters, 23 factions, and seven dungeons to take players through, with 30 dungeon boss stat blocks, and over 25 new magic items to drop for their players.

The company will also offer an "Icecrown Citadel Map Pack" separately which allows DMs to take players through the legendary WoW raid, including poster maps, token sheets, 16 new items, and a digital adventure taking players across the raid for characters of levels 16 through 20.

In what's reminiscent of a Blizzard release, an Ultimate bundle is also available for pre-order, which gives you all of the physical releases, plus some digital bonuses in D&D Beyond (Wizards' digital companion platform for the game).

The crossover set will launch as part of Wizards' "Universes Beyond" brand (players of their trading card game, Magic: The Gathering, will be familiar with the strategy here). You and your party can adventure in Azeroth from November 17, with early access through D&D Beyond launching November 3.

For those tabletop RPG buffs out there, Wizards also unveiled their 2027 lineup for the roleplaying game, including a return to the M-rated Dark Sun universe, Greyhawk, and a Star Wars "Universes Beyond" collaboration later in the year as part of their "Season of Rebellion".

The company is also partnering with long-time D&D buff Joe Manganiello to bring back classic D&D visionaries and creators to work on the future the game. Three collaborations have already been announced: Tracy Hickman is coming back to Dragonlance, D&D creator Gary Gygax's son, Luke, will unvault some of his father's unreleased notes for the Greyhawk campaign setting, and legendary D&D author R. A. Salvatore will return with a Drizzt Do'Urden collaboration.

The company also promised updates to D&D Beyond, including improving ways to find other physical and virtual games to join, better DM prep tools, and a new mobile app which will head into a form of early access next year.

The company also teased that the third-person action-adventure game set in the D&D universe, Warlock, is set to have a gameplay reveal later this month at Gamescom Opening Night Live on August 25, and the lead character Kaatri will be voiced by Tricia Helfer, while her patron Tasha will be voiced by Maggie Robertson. The game is currently in development by Invoke Studios (formerly Tuque Games), who previously developed Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance, which released to a relatively poor reception.