{"id":2145783,"date":"2026-09-15T13:58:06","date_gmt":"2026-09-15T10:58:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2145783"},"modified":"2026-09-15T13:58:06","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T10:58:06","slug":"warlock-dungeons-dragons-doesnt-have-waypoints-because-the-devs-want-players-to-figure-things-out-for-themselves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2145783","title":{"rendered":"Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons Doesn’t Have Waypoints Because the Devs Want Players to ‘Figure Things Out’ for Themselves"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The developers of Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons<\/a> have said they avoided putting waypoints into the game because they want players to actually explore.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The open-world single-player action-adventure goes easy on the hand-holding by ditching traditional quest markers that guide players directly from one story section to the next. While it does have a compass on the top of the screen \u2014 which you can turn off \u2014 the player is left to work out where to go by exploring, talking to NPCs, and thinking about what to do next.<\/p>\n

Dominic Guay, General Manager at Invoke Studios, told IGN at gamescom 2026 the decision was all about wanting to encourage exploration. \u201cWe wanted them to engage with the world, to figure things out and feel that when they found things, it was based on their actions and not just blindly trusting a waypoint,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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Guay and the rest of the developers at Invoke have experience making open world games that include waypoints, such as Ubisoft\u2019s Watch Dogs series. But this time around, for Warlock, they wanted to do things differently.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe core team on this game have worked on other open world games before and we’ve done the, let’s say, the heavy-handed guiding approach before,\u201d Guay said. \u201cWhat ends up happening at some point \u2014 and it’s normal \u2014 a lot of players will just follow blindly the waypoint, and then you lose that agency, you lose that feeling of curiosity because you’re like, well, why even bother? And so we didn’t want to go there. We wanted the player to explore.\u201d<\/p>\n

To that end, Warlock has a Mystery system that are triggered when players take certain actions, typically in a settlement. The idea is players will uncover mysteries by exploring, talking to NPCs, and gathering information, rather than following a quest market to where the Mystery officially kicks off.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are multiple entry points,\u201d Guay explained. \u201cThey’re kind of harder for us to do in that way, but we love that challenge. Not only are there multiple entry points, but depending on how you stumble upon them, it might change how you interact with them, meaning that maybe you could have found actually you can chance upon that Mystery from a completely different place and then it’ll lead you toward that settlement, and you’ll know before coming in there’s something fishy going on here. So then you’ll approach that settlement differently than in this case where you learn it from within.<\/p>\n

“Some [Mysteries] are a little bit more straightforward, some are a little bit more deep and requires more engagement and exploration, but that’s really how they’re built.”<\/p>\n

Video game hand-holding is of course a hot topic right now with the release of PlayStation 5 exclusive Marvel\u2019s Wolverine, which has been criticized for its now infamous \u201cfart gas\u201d<\/a> \u2014 the depiction of Logan\u2019s scent trail as he tracks other characters, chases down enemies, and sniffs out collectibles. Some want to be able to turn it off.<\/p>\n

The two games are very different, of course. Warlock is an open-world action adventure with emergent gameplay that comes from its unique magic system, whereas Wolverine is a linear action adventure with combat that takes place in constrained areas. Insomniac\u2019s effort isn\u2019t a quest marker sort of game, but it is interesting to hear Invoke\u2019s philosophy when it comes to player hand-holding, and how it set out to avoid it.<\/p>\n

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\"Wesley<\/div>\n

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Wesley Yin-Poole<\/div>\n

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Director, News<\/div>\n

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