A new Dungeons & Dragons video game is in the works from Hidden Path Entertainment, although details are pretty scarce right now. The only thing really known about the game at this point is that it's an open-world RPG. While D&D fans should be excited about this, a new open-world game shouldn't take place in the Forgotten Realms.
The Forgotten Realms is home to iconic locations like Icewind Dale, Baldur's Gate, Waterdeep, and Neverwinter. So, it may seem antithetical for the new open-world D&D video game to take place in a setting outside of the Forgotten Realms. After all, this is D&D's most popular setting. It's why the majority of official 5e campaigns take place inside the Forgotten Realms, and why two upcoming Dungeons & Dragons video games - Dark Alliance and Baldur's Gate 3 - also take place here.
There's a lot to love about the Forgotten Realms. It's home to a number of popular characters like Drizzt Do'Urden, and some of the most popular D&D video games and novels take place in the Forgotten Realms' continent of Faerûn. So, it may seem strange that a new D&D open-world video game shouldn't take place here. But it's because of this popularity that Hidden Path's new game should be set elsewhere.
Why An Open-World D&D Game Needs An Unfamiliar Setting
An open-world game relies on exploration and discovering new things. If the new D&D video game took place in the Forgotten Realms, a lot of players would already be familiar with it. It wouldn't make exploration as exciting, and it would take away that "new" factor and feeling so many open-world video games rely on. While getting to explore the Forgotten Realms in an open-world environment sounds exciting, it's just been used too much in previous games.
Currently, the other two Dungeons & Dragons video games confirmed in development are Dark Alliance and Baldur's Gate 3, and both are set in locations within the Forgotten Realms. On top of this, the D&D MMO, Neverwinter, already allows players to explore the cities, dungeons, and wilderness of the Forgotten Realms, so setting the new open-world RPG here would feel too similar.
The Forgotten Realms is a wildly popular setting for D&D, and an open-world video game set here has a lot of potential. Unfortunately, this setting has just been used so much that it could be detrimental to the overall exploration and discovery that goes hand-in-hand with open-world RPGs. Because of this, the new open-world Dungeons & Dragons video game shouldn't take place in the Forgotten Realms.