Star Wars Jedi director is now working on a D&D video game

Game director Stig Asmussen and a bunch of other Respawn Entertainment developers founded Giant Skull last year after Electronic Arts laid off more than 670 people and cancelled the Star Wars first-person shooter Respawn was working on. Now the Los Angeles-based studio has signed an exclusive publishing agreement with Wizards of the Coast to develop a new single-player action-adventure game set in the world of Dungeons & Dragons.

“Our talented and experienced team at Giant Skull is built on creativity and curiosity,” Asmussen said in a press release. “Our goal is to craft a rich new Dungeons & Dragons universe filled with immersive storytelling, heroic combat, and exhilarating traversal that players will fully embrace.”

Asmussen served as game director of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order at Respawn. Before that, he worked for Sony Santa Monica as the game director for God of War 3 and art director of God of War 2. John Hight, president of Wizards of the Coast and digital gaming at Hasbro, worked with Asmussen when he was director of product development at Sony Santa Monica.

The game will be built using Unreal Engine 5 and released on PC and consoles. Few other details are available, though Asmussen will be doing a panel June 9 at The Game Business at Summer Game Fest.

Wizards of the Coast and its parent company Hasbro have been working on expanding its digital offerings with mixed results. While Baldur’s Gate 3 and Magic: The Gathering Arena have been extremely successful, Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance was pulled from storefronts in February after earning mediocre reviews. Wizards is also working with Archetype Entertainment on Exodus, a sci-fi RPG, and Atomic Arcade on a game based on G.I. Joe’s Snake Eyes.