Today, Wizards of the Coast announced that it has acquired Montreal-based video game developer Tuque Games. The studio's first project under the Wizards umbrella will be set within the Dungeons & Dragons universe.
David Schwartz, Wizards of the Coast's VP of Digital Publishing, said in a press release,
In Tuque, we believe we have found a unique partner that pairs the nimbleness of an indie studio with the veteran leadership and scale required to deliver complex AAA games for our largest franchises. We are excited to bring Jeff [Hattem, Founder of Tuque Games] and the Tuque team to the Wizards of the Coast family, which we believe will allow us to continue to meet the needs of our fans while enabling us to scale our digital games development capabilities even faster.
According to the press release, Tuque Games will work on developing games based on existing Wizards of the Coast's brands, the first of which will be Dungeons & Dragons. Tuque Games' website lists the upcoming project, but provides little detail other than "This yet to be announced title is steepled in classic D&D lore." Tuque Games' career page, however, includes an open position for a network programmer, implying that there are currently plans for some online components. This is liable to change during the lengthy and complicated process of game development, of course.
Tuque Games was founded in 2012. It's first and currently only title, the top-down shooter Livelock, released on PC and consoles in 2016 to moderately good reviews. Tuque Games has been working on a Dungeons & Dragons video game since at least March 2019, but this acquisition puts them squarely under the umbrella of Wizards of the Coast and, by extension, Hasbro.
