Dungeons & Dragons publisher Wizards of the Coast has finally detailed its 2025 release calendar for the iconic tabletop role-playing game. During the D&D Direct streaming presentation on Tuesday, Hasbro’s leading role-playing game studio teased a handful of new releases designed to inspire creativity in its community. Pre-baked narrative campaigns are out, it would seem, while a return to the Forgotten Realms setting is in.
While the nearly 20-minute presentation closed with a lengthy look at the new virtual tabletop, no firm release date was given outside of an open beta this fall. Instead, the meat of the video had to do with the new books already in the pipeline.
The 2024 rules update seems pretty well locked into place at this point, starting with the new Player’s Handbook in wide release by Sept. 17. Next comes the revised Dungeon Master’s Guide on Nov. 12 and the Monster Manual on Feb. 18, 2025. Then things take a bit of a turn: An unnamed dragon-inspired anthology of adventures lands in summer 2025, while a new starter set arrives in the fall of next year. The calendar is then rounded out with a Forgotten Realms player guide and a Forgotten Realms campaign guide in late 2025.
“It’s too much to fit into one book, so our return to the Realms is going to be in two books,” said lead rules designer Jeremy Crawford in the announcement video. “One tailor-made for Dungeon Masters, and another a book that is tailor-made for players – but also of use to our DMs.”
Of course, that also means fans are on the hook to purchase a second book now to get all of that 5th edition Forgotten Realms content. The move makes sense from a branding perspective. Created by Ed Greenwood in 1967, the Forgotten Realms actually predates tabletop role-play by about a decade, but today the high-fantasy setting is home to virtually all of Wizard’s most beloved characters – including R.A. Salvatore’s Drizzt Do’Urden, Chris Pine’s Edgin the bard, and the entirety of the cast of Baldur’s Gate 3.
This is a new approach to 5th edition adventure D&D content, which previously relied primarily on long-form narrative campaigns with the occasional anthology thrown in. While setting books have been published in recent memory, they’ve often been smaller components of larger releases. For instance, the highly anticipated reboot of the Spelljammer setting launched with a paltry 64-page Astral Adventurer’s Guide, which many fans thought gave the beloved space-based setting short shrift.
The video promised lots of different gameplay styles in the Forgotten Realms, including urban fantasy, survival horror, and more traditional high fantasy. There’s also an Elvish mega-dungeon involved as well.
