Dungeon World 2: Year One

The Journey So Far

Happy Holidays from the Dungeon World 2 team! It's been an amazing busy year working on the game, and today we wanted to look back on the highs and lows of 2025, and look forward to what's to come in 2026. 

The Beginning

Exactly one year ago Luke Crane and John Dimatos—owners of the Dungeon World license—announced to the community, after months of interviews and meetings, that both Spencer Moore and I, Helena Real, would be the co-designers of a new version of the game, 13-14 years after the original was published.

Of course, we had been in meetings and working for a couple of months at that point, and we had already come to agree on a few basic tenets of our design moving forward which we shared at the time. Our intention to come up with “a new way to create compelling fantasy stories at your table”; we defined DW2 as “a game of conversational adventure fantasy”; and we mentioned that we wanted to include “exciting action, danger, and climactic moments, but [...] also focus on downtime, drama, and the shared moments between the characters.”

During this time we already had plenty of rules, moves, and playbooks in place, and we were privately playtesting them often. All of these were in constant flux, and we made big changes every week or so. As our common vision began to congeal, we decided that it was time to share this design with anyone in the community who was interested. That was how we envisioned our first Alpha.

The First Alpha AKA “Alpha Blue”

In the lead up to this first playtesting document, we thought it’d be good to share parts of the design in bite-size bits: that’s how we began our so-called “design diaries” which, in the long run, ended up becoming a “preview of the week” affair. We didn’t intend them originally to be that, but that’s how they turned out. At this point, as you—the community—got involved, we got our first feedback from outside our usual gaming circles. The best way to describe it is as very passionate; some of you hated our proposed changes and innovations, and some of you loved them.

We were surprised, of course, but also, personally, many of the comments on both directions—but especially on the negative spectrum—were profoundly illuminating. It’s one thing to know that some people don’t like something; quite another to have them describe in detail all the different aspects involved in them not liking it.

I’ve always said that TTRPGs are special for many reasons, but one of my favorites is that no tabletop roleplaying game is ever complete without players and their input on it. When we play we interpret the rules, accommodate them, and make them our own. So, as a TTRPG designer, I’m conscious that my work is only as good as I’m able to communicate my intentions and excite enough people to grab those and run with them.

So, as this first Alpha was finally released in late July, I had already plenty of ideas percolating in my head, mostly about combining our design vision with D&D tropes, like hp, damage dice, and the six classic Stats. In my mind it had become clear that these were easy bridges to maintain and build upon; after all, the hard thing is coming up with new things, not adapting/reinterpreting the old.

To put it in other terms: writing an original hit song looks extremely difficult to pull off… But doing a cover of a classic? Even a good one? Looks at least easier, even if art is never easy, in my opinion and experience.

Of course, this is a project I share 50/50 with Spencer, so I started probing in our weekly design meetings to see how he felt about trying this “DW2: D&D-isms Version” and, to my surprise—as Spencer had “led” the design of Blue, especially in its final stages—he was very open to try this new approach. With that in mind (and as we both took a much needed rest), I began to come up with the foundations of our next iteration of the rules.

The Second Alpha AKA “Alpha Red”

That’s how we develop a new incarnation of DW2, marrying our design vision with the most recognizable D&D aspects. As the revised rules provided us with new tools, we decided to try our hand at new versions of all the Classes released so far (Bard, Cleric, Fighter, Rogue, and Wizard) as well as a new one, The Barbarian! We did so because the first five represent a design focused on one stat specifically and, as we added back a sixth stat—CON—we wanted a Class that could showcase that single-stat design.

Alpha Red, as we came to call it, functioned as the classic A-B testing, and has proved to be a very fruitful approach that added plenty of new tools and a breath of fresh air to our design. Ever since its release, in mid September, we’ve done plenty of public and private playtesting, as well as receiving feedback through our specific feedback form for Red (the feedback form for Blue it’s still open and receiving answers here). We still consider these feedback forms the best way to communicate with us about DW2, as it leaves a written copy we can easily read and revisit whenever we need to.

It was around this time that we realized just how far off our “optimistic roadmap” was. There are many reasons for this, but probably the main one is that we assumed the community would playtest at a much faster pace than it does, so that’s a lesson learned that we’ll bring into the new year.

The Immediate Future of DW2: The Final Alpha, Beta & Beyond

We leave this tumultuous 2025 with two Alphas that are serving different parts of the community and, as we start 2026, we have a clear roadmap ahead. Our first stop early in the year is the next and final Alpha release. We haven't quite nailed down what we’ll call it, but it’s already shaping up to be one final iteration/implementation with some wild ideas. As always: nothing’s final and everything’s up in the air until the next destination in our itinerary: the Beta.

Once we reach Beta, all the core mechanics and playbooks will be “locked down” and we’ll add new content and iterate on less systemic/more specific rules, so our playtest will move from our current holistic approach to a more detail/feature-specific.

And after that? Crowdfunding, finishing the final text, and delivering anything and everything we promise in as timely a manner as humanly possible.

This is the first of a series of blog posts that we expect to serve as a bridge between this year and the next, between our current work and whatever the future holds. We hope you join us and please, continue letting us know your opinions, ideas and feedback on what works—and especially what doesn't—at your tables.

Happy holidays!

Helena