The first gameplay footage from this open-world action game looks great, but it also raises a lot of questions. Luckily, we can already answer some of them thanks to an interview.
Warlock: Dungeons & Dragonsis basically tailor-made for me: My last in-depth D&D session was, shamefully, decades ago, and a good action game is almost always a hit with me.
Warlock aims to be a new D&D destination precisely for players like that. Because while the title is based on Dungeons & Dragons, it’s not your typical role-playing game with a highly complex set of rules in the background. Instead, the adventure is an open-world action game that I can dive right into even without any prior knowledge.
At the same time, fans of the pen-and-paper original should also get their money’s worth. With such a popular franchise, striking that balance isn’t necessarily easy. The developers at Invoke Studios showed me how they plan to pull this off atgamescom 2026and also explained it in an interview.
And one thing is clear after my meeting: In Warlock, the side quests almost become the main focus.
Freedoms in Gameplay
The demo I saw covers exactly what’s shown in the official trailer. So the warrior Kaatri explores a dungeon in a village and fights her way through all kinds of monsters using spells.
So, let’s walk through this little mission, and I’ll share a few details along the way that you can’t immediately tell from the gameplay trailer.
In Warlock, you play as the warrior Kaatri, who strikes a pact with the witch Tasha and thus becomes the titular sorceress. Why Tasha, of all people? Because she’s simply chaotic, hard to figure out, and therefore the perfect ally, as Invoke’s General Manager Dominic Guay revealed to me in an interview.
It’s only thanks to the witch that Kaatri can cast spells at all. At the start of the demo, the character learns a new ability. Using her “Warlock’s Sight,” she can see pure magic—and that’s exactly what she’s looking for in the village of Crickshank. But before she reaches the town, a locked gate blocks her path.
Kaatri can simply clear the overgrown passageway with a fire spell and extinguish the flames with water. But she doesn’t have to. She can also just draw her sword and smash the obstacle to pieces. That’s because Warlock aims to offer as much freedom as possible in its gameplay.
I’ll have quests and missions, but how I complete them is up to me. This even goes so far that I don’t necessarily have to have all the spells in a single playthrough. There will be a set roster of spells—but I’ll have to find many of them in the world first. Or maybe not.
Because, as Guay assured me, even the developers simply didn’t find certain spells during some playthroughs. Unfortunately, the developers wouldn’t tell me exactly how I’ll obtain the spells. Just this much: You’ll get them less through quests and much more through pure exploration.
How the Open World Works
Speaking of exploration and quests: As mentioned earlier, Warlock will be a classic open-world game. So in the finished game, I’ll be able to roam the realm of Darkon and gradually uncover my map. However, Invoke wants to avoid common open-world pitfalls.
That means: While there is a main campaign, and I’ll naturally come across numerous side missions, the action game doesn’t want to simply mark and reveal everything on the map. According to the developers, it shouldn’t be possible for me to just plow through from one main mission to the next with tunnel vision. That’s why I’ll find very few hints on my map—and, most importantly, no dozens of question marks or other punctuation marks.
Battles Full of Possibilities
But back to the demo: After Kaatri hears about the mystery, she finds a trail of blood in front of the house from the trailer and stumbles upon an underground dungeon. There, she first uses spells to move around and protect herself. With “Black Tentacles,” the warrior sticks rocks to the wall and thus crosses a chasm. When she encounters an arrow trap, she simply holds protective rubble in front of her.
At the very bottom, she then encounters zombies and a Death Kiss. From this point on, the demo shows exactly how the battles in the game will play out. In short: Warlock relies on a mix of spells—which I can also combine—and classic sword strikes.
In the dungeon, Kaatri first shows off her magical prowess. She causes a pillar to crash down on an undead creature, pushes another into the abyss, and escapes the flying tentacled monster with a swap spell. Afterward, she uses the classic Warlock spell Eldrich Blast, which, by the way, can also be modified and customized.
After her escape, Kaatri ends up outside and uses a ritual to change the weather. This allows her to shock several enemies at once with a bolt of lightning. Warlock depicts such a ritual with a rather elaborate animation in which the protagonist uses ingredients. And there’s a good reason for that.
Kaatri actually uses resources here that she must first collect from the world. This is the game’s way of automatically limiting the use of these rituals.
Another thing that stands out during the final battle in an open field: Many of the spells the warrior used for exploration in the dungeon can apparently also be used in combat. The tentacles hold monsters in place, and you can use objects not only to shield yourself but also to keep enemies suspended in mid-air. Literally. In the air.
While the small, weak enemies hang in the air, the warrior can focus on a larger monster. She swings her sword, whirls around enemies’ weapons with magic, and ultimately finishes off the foe with a finishing move.
It all looks very entertaining and, at first glance, reminds me a bit of *Hogwarts Legacy*. After all, in that game, too, you often combine spells to deal even more damage. Except here, I’m still poking away with my oversized metal toothpick. The only thing that feels a bit out of place overall are the frequent slow-motion effects in the middle of the brawls.
RPGlite
and a fixed framework
So the focus in Warlock is on exploring the open world and experimenting with spells in combat. But even though this Dungeons & Dragons game isn’t technically an RPG—it doesn’t do without role-playing entirely.
Don’t expect a complex set of rules running in the background, though. The developers have even revealed that no dice-based systems of any kind are at work behind the scenes—neither during exploration nor during combat. Whether I can open a door or hit an enemy has nothing to do with luck or bad luck with the dice. It depends solely on my items and my skill with the mouse and keyboard—or controller.
As with many modern action games, the RPG element is evident in the form of a skill tree, resources, and upgrades. For the latter, as shown in the trade show demo, you can visit the local blacksmith. The master of the red-hot iron will then upgrade my weapons for a small fee.
Unanswered Questions and the Story
So far, this sounds very exciting: Invoke has bolstered its development team following the, to put it mildly, mixed reception of *Dungeons and Dragons: Dark Alliance*, and that’s evident in *Warlock* so far. The game doesn’t just have an open world—it really makes the most of it by having you search for clues. This game aims to encourage exploration and put it front and center—an absolutely fantastic idea.
But one big question mark still lingers for me: the main story and the side stories. I know from my conversation that the story surrounding Kaatri and Tasha will be completely linear and fixed. The only freedom lies in the gameplay itself.
But how well will the campaign keep me engaged? How prominent is the relationship between the witch and the warrior? They didn’t actually talk to each other that much in the demo. How good are the dialogues between Kaatri and her little companion dragon? And what exactly is my goal? I’m supposed to search for pure magic, but why?
The open-world approach feels just right; the world, with its mysteries and vast lore, has enormous potential. But precisely because the stories themselves are fixed, Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons stands or falls on the quality of these stories.
