Following the surprise news that Chris Perkins is retiring at the age 57, leaving Wizards of the Coast, D&D’s Games Director, Jeremy Crawford, is also leaving.
Christopher Hoffer at Screen Rant broke the news;
… Screen Rant has learned that Crawford’s last day will come later this month. Their departures mark a massive shift for Dungeons & Dragons, as the two were the primary shepherds of the game for over a decade and were the primary faces for the game in various videos discussing new products and rules changes in official marketing videos.
Jess Lanzillo, who we’ve been seeing more and more in gamer news and who is Dungeons & Dragons’ VP of Franchise and Product, told Screen Rant;
It’s been a point of discussion for some time and something that we’ve been training up everyone for. They feel really good about the teams that they have in place and the legacy that they’re passing on.
Jeremy joined Wizards of the Coast in 2007 from Green Ronin, where he worked on Blue Rose, Mutants & Masterminds and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. At WotC, he was the rules manager for D&D 4e and the co-lead on D&D 5e.
The good news is that both designers are believed to have left Wizards of the Coast on their terms, and the departures are after the release of Dungeons & Dragons 2024. The alternative would have been ‘restructuring’ or political shifts with the Hasbro portfolio company.
It’s expected that D&D’s design team will inherit more responsibility and say on the game. Names include Justice Arman, Wes Schneider and James Wyatt. In fact, project leads on D&D’s supplements have not been either Perkins or Crawford for the last two years.
Is D&D going to change?
Wizards of the Coast will have to work as hard as ever to keep D&D close to the beating heart of gamer fashion and actual play trends, but these two big-name departures will not impact the planned 5-year vision for D&D. At least, that’s according to one more quote from ScreenRant and Jess.
The roadmap remains the same. We have already set up the leads for all of those future projects. Chris and Jeremy don’t need any substitutes at this moment because they were both in very high-level roadmapping roles and capacities for the last year. They’ve been helping us gather that strategy, set it together, help us figure out the correct casting for everyone on particular efforts. We feel really good about it, and we’re really happy that they’re able to contribute to setting up that plan for the future.”
Via Screen Rant.
Picture credit: Niccolò Caranti.
