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I'll admit something at the very beginning: Dungeons & Dragons was never on my radar while growing up as a gamer; therefore, I know almost nothing about this corner of the dark-fantasy gaming world. Also, licensed games set inside popular universes have a mixed track record, and "open world action-adventure" is one of the most "used" genres in gaming right now. But after watching an exclusive early cut of the debut trailer for Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons and sitting through the Q&A that followed with the game's designers, I found myself very excited for something I wasn't expecting to be excited about.
Warlock is being developed by Invoke Studios, a Wizards of the Coast studio based in Montreal, and so much expertise in one place was something that was hard to ignore. This is a team stacked with people who used to work on the titles like Far Cry, Watch Dogs, Guardians of the Galaxy and Deus Ex, and it is more than enough to give us that "serious" vibe on its own. How it will all be integrated within the D&D world full of magic and mystical creatures remains to be seen, but if the early trailer we've seen is any indication, we might be in for a treat here.
A Dark Fantasy Darkon, Built for Wandering
The trailer we have the opportunity to watch early contains some raw gameplay, use of magic, the option to escape from a formidable foe we're not yet ready to face, and use of a large incantation that changes the entire world around you. Everything showcased in the trailer was really impressive, and it showed the approach to the action we can rarely see in the games nowadays. The world is dark fantasy through and through: moody, unsettling, and clearly deeply rooted in the Dungeons & Dragons universe, but also with something of its own that will make Warlock stand out in the vast sea of the other D&D games.
I, personally, was keen to know about the map and the open-world structure of the game, and I got quite an honest answer from the devs. The game will be open world, but the emphasis will definitely go to the exploration. Every nook and cranny will be explorable, and every player will be able to find something that will make his gameplay unique. It's still early to speak about anything gameplay-wise, but the very concept of the game seems really cool, and if all stars align at least closely, Invoke Studios might hit the centre with Warlock.
Kaatri and the Pact That Started It All
At the centre of the entire game is Kaatri (people in the comment section suggest that this is how her name is spelt; might be a mistake, I'm not quite sure), a veteran weapons master who strikes a pact with otherworldly forces to wield magic she was never trained in. Since I never played a game from the Dungeon & Dragons universe, I really don't know if there is any game out there with a similar theme, but the setup itself here is extremely attractive. Combat and exploration are both heavily built around the magic usage, and since Kaatri's pact with forbidden forces makes her do magic without proper training, the combination between doing magic and using classic, melee combat seems like a serious hit.
Seeing Kaatri wielding magic is the part that won me over completely. She doesn't just cast spells; she reads the world through them. We watched her raise stone bridges out of chasms, hoist massive slabs of rock out of her path, and yank distant levers open with a flick of magical force. All this and many more can be done using the magic in Warlock, and that's something that will definitely make this game stand out.
Where Magic Meets the Blade
The combat itself is most definitely made to be a proper mixture between wielding countless spells and incantations and a classic melee combat done with a classic sword (the only weapon showcased in the trailer). It's not like something we've experienced in Elden Ring or some other Soulslike games, for example, where using magic build limits you to magic attacks only. Here, doing magic and cutting down the enemies are mixed in one inseparable whole, and it plays perfectly. Kaatri weaves incantations into her weapon combos, using spells to reposition enemies, punish openings, or simply overwhelm a fight that's gone sideways. Also, during the Q&A, the designers were clear about the fact that the magical attacks will be very familiar to the D&D long-term fans, and all D&D nerds will feel right at home in Warlock.
What stood out to me, though, was the fact that you don't need to have excessive knowledge about the D&D universe to understand the game. They repeated more than once that the story and the moment-to-moment gameplay are being designed to stand entirely on their own. Dungeons & Dragons prior knowledge is completely unnecessary to understand what Kaatri is fighting for or why her pact matters, and for me, and probably many people out there who don't know a second thing about Dungeons & Dragons, this is enough to put this game highly on my expected list for 2027.
An Open World Designed to Be Approachable
The Q&A session reinforced a lot of what the trailer implied: the world of Warlock is indeed designed in an open-world structure, but with such accessibility that it won't require you to learn the impossible to be good at the game. Everything will be designed as simplistic as possible with the first and foremost idea of people having fun, and everything else must be secondary. Coming from a studio with this much open-world experience behind it, that's a promise worth taking seriously. It's one thing to say you're building a more approachable open world; it's another to have shipped Far Cry and Watch Dogs and know exactly which friction points to sand down.
Early Verdict
It's still early, and everything I've described is based on a trailer and a room full of answered questions rather than a controller in my hands, so I'm keeping my expectations tempered. But between the way magic threads through both exploration and combat, a lead performance that already has real presence, and a dev team with a genuine track record in this exact genre, Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons has quickly gone from a game I hadn't thought much about to one of my most anticipated reveals out of this year's Gamescom.
Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons is in development for PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, with a release window set for 2027. The full gameplay reveal debuts tonight during Gamescom's Opening Night Live.
