The future is uncertain for Wizards of the Coast’s dedicated virtual tabletop platform. It has recently been announced that the tabletop company has laid off 90% of employees working on Project Sigil, their Unreal-powered VTT dedicated to playing Dungeons & Dragons.
The Project Sigil Lay-Offs
Andy Collins made the Project Sigil layoffs public via a LinkedIn post. The post stated that more than 30 employees, himself included, were laid off from the team. Those employees made up 90% of the team dedicated to Project Sigil. Collins expressed his disappointment but reiterated that there are still people working on the project.
A recent report from Polygon corroborated these layoffs. The post includes an email from Dan Rawson, Senior Vice President of Dungeons & Dragons and Hasbro Direct.
The email states that they are scaling back their plans for Project Sigil. It was originally imagined as a large, standalone game with “a distinct monetization path.” But since that was deemed untenable, they have scaled back the development team accordingly. Rawson also confirms that the laid off employees will be receiving severance packages, career placement services, and internal opportunities.
The silver lining for consumers is that Sigil will be sticking around as a D&D Beyond feature. All materials developed for the project will be available at no additional cost to users. This means if you want to make a virtual miniature or your own battlemap using Sigil’s software, it is just another tool in your virtual toolbelt. Assuming you have a premium subscription to the platform, of course.
Collins is a long-time employee of Wizards of the Coast. He joined the company in 1996 as an editor and designer in their R&D division. His accolades include the sci-fi setting of Alternity, the d20 Star Wars TTRPG, a Sage Advice author on Dragon Magazine, and the revision team on Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 Edition.
