From Newsgroup: rec.games.frp.dnd
Source:
https://www.polygon.com/dungeons-dragons-warlock-game-length/
D&D's ambitious new video game won't be a 100-hour open-world slog
Warlock will be considerably shorter than a typical Dungeons & Dragons campaign
By Ford James
Published Sep 1, 2026, 11:29rC>AM EDT
Here is a fact-based summary of the story contents:
Warlock, the upcoming open-world Dungeons & Dragons video game from
Invoke Studios and Wizards of the Coast, isn't going to be as long as
some people may expect. That may be a good thing for gaming fans who
reject open-world game bloat.
At Gamescom 2026, I saw an extended version of Warlock's public gameplay
demo behind closed doors. I watched the protagonist, a young woman named Kaatri, explore a small village called Crickshank, then speak with a
beggar sitting on the ground. This led to her noticing a trail of blood leading inside a doorway; following it revealed a huge underground
network of tunnels.
This sort of gameplay, where no two players will have exactly the same experience due to how much optional content is available, is emblematic
of a vast, sprawling, 100-plus hour RPG. However, when chatting with
studio head Dominic Guay afterward, he explained that Warlock actually
isn't that sort of game.
How long will Warlock be?
"It's going to be longer than what you'd expect from a more linear game
for sure, but it's not gigantic like some open worlds that are hundreds
and hundreds of hours," he revealed. "One of the reasons for that is we
want to have a denser open world, where you're more quickly rewarded by finding things when you explore. So we didn't want to have to draw out
such far away distances that it takes forever to get to places like some
other games do."
Invoke's approach sounds awfully similar to what Playground Games said
about how long its new Fable will be. Guay elaborated though, to give a
little more specificity. "It's still like tens and tens of hours, you're
going to have plenty of time," Guay said. "I think to a degree, one of
the reasons why it's so hard to answer depends on how much you explore
versus how much you really want to get that story going. If you explore, you'll get more powerful eventually, which will help on the main quest.
If you're really focused on the main quest, then you might get stumped a little bit at some point and want to explore to get more powerful."
Here is a fact-based summary of the story contents:
Warlock, the upcoming open-world Dungeons & Dragons video game from
Invoke Studios and Wizards of the Coast, isn't going to be as long as
some people may expect. That may be a good thing for gaming fans who
reject open-world game bloat.
At Gamescom 2026, I saw an extended version of Warlock's public gameplay
demo behind closed doors. I watched the protagonist, a young woman named Kaatri, explore a small village called Crickshank, then speak with a
beggar sitting on the ground. This led to her noticing a trail of blood leading inside a doorway; following it revealed a huge underground
network of tunnels.
rLo
WATCH
NEXT
This sort of gameplay, where no two players will have exactly the same experience due to how much optional content is available, is emblematic
of a vast, sprawling, 100-plus hour RPG. However, when chatting with
studio head Dominic Guay afterward, he explained that Warlock actually
isn't that sort of game.
How long will Warlock be?
"It's going to be longer than what you'd expect from a more linear game
for sure, but it's not gigantic like some open worlds that are hundreds
and hundreds of hours," he revealed. "One of the reasons for that is we
want to have a denser open world, where you're more quickly rewarded by finding things when you explore. So we didn't want to have to draw out
such far away distances that it takes forever to get to places like some
other games do."
Invoke's approach sounds awfully similar to what Playground Games said
about how long its new Fable will be. Guay elaborated though, to give a
little more specificity. "It's still like tens and tens of hours, you're
going to have plenty of time," Guay said. "I think to a degree, one of
the reasons why it's so hard to answer depends on how much you explore
versus how much you really want to get that story going. If you explore, you'll get more powerful eventually, which will help on the main quest.
If you're really focused on the main quest, then you might get stumped a little bit at some point and want to explore to get more powerful."
Kaatri standing at the top of a staircase in Warlock.
Kaatri fighting a huge eyeball with tentacles in Warlock.
Kaatri flying through the air with an axe to fight a troll in Warlock.
Warlock will still keep players in check
In that regard, it sounds like most RPGs, then, but Guay also confirmed
that enemies won't scale with you, so if you blitz through the story as quickly as possible, you'll likely hit a wall where foes are too tough
to kill. "Enemies don't become magically stronger just because you get stronger," he said. "If an area has weak enemies, even if you get really powerful, they're still weak."
Given that Warlock is set in the D&D universe, where you can famously do pretty much anything you like, learning the game is that short may come
as a surprise. Baldur's Gate 3 is widely considered to be the best D&D
game of all time, and according to HowLongToBeat, a completionist run
takes over 180 hours. D&D campaigns themselves typically last anywhere
from a few weeks to several years, with each session lasting for hours
at a time. So Warlock is much more restrained, in comparison, but hey;
in a world where Grand Theft Auto 6 is promising an 80-plus hour story,
I'm not complaining.
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