GoKawiilOn the first evening of GenCon 2026, in a venerable theater that Wizards of the Coast took over for a weekend’s worth of Dungeons & Dragons activities, the team behind the biggest tabletop roleplaying game in the world revealed its next year of upcoming adventures.
There was plenty of news to look forward to, including the triumphant return of D&D legends to contribute to classic D&D settings like R.A. Salvatore (The Legend of Drizzt), Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis (Dragonlance) and Luke Gygax (Greyhawk, one of the earliest D&D settings created by his father, Gary Gygax). Among the banquet of table offerings was outreach to other corners of nerd culture — including new sets for World of Warcraft and Star Wars planned for this year and next.
The new series, Universes Beyond, works much like the same-named subset of Magic: The Gathering releases: adapting fan-favorite franchises to the game’s system. In D&D’s case, this means adapting the iconic signature, villains, boss fights and regions for D20 rules. Yes, that means you can fight the Lich King in D&D — that’s the objective of the Warcraft set’s first adventure, plotted out so players can jump in right out of the box.
But the big virtue of Universes Beyond is kicking off custom adventures to explore the corners of these franchises with characters that players can grow at their own pace. With all the information Wizards of the Coast has revealed, CNET’s brain trust of dice-rollers has come together to theorycraft exactly what we want to play first in these exciting new collaborations.
The only problem? The D&D team shared plenty about the World of Warcraft set, which will come out in the fourth quarter of 2026, but shared almost nothing about Star Wars. Still, we let our imaginations run wild for how we’d play to see what happens in Azeroth and a galaxy far, far away.
The product family for D&D’s World of Warcraft set: a core rulebook (center and center-left), Icecrown Citadel adventure (center-right), map pack for the adventure (top) and dungeon master’s screen (bottom). Wizards of the Coast
How CNET would explore the World of Warcraft, one dice roll at a time
The D&D team rolled out a small family of products that will debut with the World of Warcraft set toward the end of the year, including a 265-page sourcebook (along with special and hobby store-exclusive editions), the aforementioned adventure called Icecrown Citadel for character levels 16-20, a map pack for said adventure, miniature packs and a dungeon master’s screen adorned with famous characters from the MMORPG. All of those are available for preorder right now with a full release later this year on Nov. 17.
On stage during the D&D keynote, presenters laid out what the set adds to the broader tabletop RPG. You’ll be able to play virtually any species you can in the online game, including 11 that are wholly new to D&D, such as Dracthyr, Earthen and Pandaren. There are nine subclasses in the sourcebook, six of which are new, like the iconic Death Knight, Demon Hunter and Shadow Priest. There are also stat blocks for the MMORPG’s most famous characters, like Arthas Menethil, Jaina Proudmoore, Anduin Lothar, Thrall and Sylvanas.
Here’s what CNET’s editors would play first:
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