Wizards of the Coast set to rebuild D&D Beyond, add more features
The team is also promising more open communication with users.
About a year ago, Wizards of the Coast (WotC) shuttered Sigil, its ill-fated 3D virtual tabletop (VTT), with the platform set to be sunsetted at the end of October 2026. With the demise of this once-ambitious project — whose downfall was partly pegged to WotC’s inexperience as a video games studio, and how Hasbro saw Sigil as a video game rather than a 3D VTT — WotC seems to be doubling down on pushing out and supporting other D&D-related digital games and services. This renewed fervor can be seen in their December 2025 announcement to be more open and transparent about its developments for D&D Beyond, its digital toolset. “In the past, we haven’t been clear about our mission or priorities — or shown up to the table to talk with you, our players. That's going to change,” said Brian Perry, executive producer of the service, on the D&D Beyond blog.
In the same article, Perry outlined the team’s purpose — namely, their vision of seeing D&D Beyond become an even more central tool for facilitating D&D sessions. He also reiterated the team’s promise to communicate with the D&D community at least once a month, be it frequent updates on the blog, or more Reddit AMA sessions at r/dndnext. It has been a tad late, but Perry just published another update on D&D Beyond’s development for 2026. The executive summary is that there’s a brand new page that charts the toolset’s development roadmap. The priorities are rebuilding the engine that powers the platform, revamping the character builder, and adding more features for the 2D VTT Maps alongside a slew of other dungeon master tools.
The fact that D&D Beyond has been extremely buggy for a while hasn’t slipped the team’s notice, with Perry and Zac Cohn, the product manager of the Maps VTT, taking to Reddit to address these concerns. In particular, Perry pointed out that the rebuilding of the game platform has to be prioritized in order to address these numerous bugs, as well as make room for other improvements, such as localization efforts and rules stability. “We’ve been slapping band-aids on the current backend that was built over a decade ago, with Warlock invocations being a prime example of something not supported within the architecture,” wrote Perry in response to a query around the lack of backwards compatibility for the feature.
Improving homebrew functions, too, is another task that Perry admitted required the team to work on rebuilding first. “We’re first focusing on the Game Platform rebuild, which will unlock greater customization. We definitely intend to make homebrew easier. It’s too early to talk about when and how we’ll support new functionality. What I will say is we’re going to focus on the most common homebrew use cases first, like monsters and magic items,” said Perry.
Among the more notable responses is Perry’s redoubling on the company’s no-AI stance when asked about the use of the technology during this process, which includes him shooting down a request for an AI dungeon master. “We are not replacing human developers with AI. We have great teams in place leading all of our efforts,” he said.
And for players who have been looking forward to the release schedule for D&D books this year, Perry has also teased an update. "Yes! The D&D studio will be announcing their content lineup soon,” he replied to a comment inquiring about official releases.
The team’s transparent communications, such as by setting up a dedicated page for the D&D Beyond roadmap, openly courting feedback, and responding to as many Reddit responses as possible, seems to be a meticulous, concerted effort, at least for now. It’s perhaps a concession made in the wake of Sigil’s impending closure later this year, a means to bolster WotC’s digital services when all the bombast and promises around Sigil have crumbled.
