How Larian and Slitherine adapted Dungeons & Dragons and Warhammer

There’s something brilliant about tabletop evenings with friends. My Thursday nights usually involve Dungeons & Dragons. Playing an Arcane Archer from the Feywild, I’m joined by a lively party that includes a Firbolg Druid, Minotaur Barbarian, Goblin Ranger, and Tiefling Warlock. We’ve had some fun adventures these last few years. Defeating mind flayers and a lich, fighting servants of Lolth, I got shanked on a bridge – many memorable moments. Never solved that mysterious case of stray arrows hitting teammates though, very peculiar.

D&D inspires creativity, stimulating imaginations through the theatre of the mind. As a popular adaptation target, it left me wondering how game developers capture the spirit of these game. Nick Pechenin, lead systems designer at Larian Studios, happily answered my questions regarding Baldur’s Gate 3, which works off of D&D’s fifth edition. And I didn’t stop there. I can’t claim to be nearly as familiar with Warhammer as I am D&D, but I also approached publisher Slitherine over Black Lab Games’ Warhammer 40,000: Battlesector.

Speaking with Battlesector’s executive producer David Sharrock, he informs me, “When we were coming to the end of our plans for Battlestar Galactica Deadlock, the Slitherine and Black Lab teams sat down and had a chat about where we should go next. The Black Lab Games team were looking to make use of their skills in making great strategy games that look amazing and the Slitherine team had already been in discussions with Games Workshop about how to follow up previous 40k Strategy titles like Armageddon and Sanctus Reach.”

Soon enough, Black Lab begun exploring a dynamic turn-based strategy game based around the Devastation of Baal. “The Devastation of Baal is a fantastic story of a doomed last stand at the end of an era of the 40k universe,” Sharrock tells me. “It ends with the opening of the Cicatrix Maledictum and the rebirth and arrival of Roboute Guilliman and signals a new start for Baal, the Blood Angels and Dante.” So, they wanted to explore the implications of the Devastation.