Warlock: D&D Is Either Going to Be Really Good or a Mess. The Gamescom Reveal Suggests Maybe Both.
Invoke Studios just showed off actual gameplay for Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons at gamescom, and I have opinions. It looks interesting in ways that matter and also like it could absolutely faceplant on launch. 2027 can't come fast enough so we can actually find out.
What You're Actually Playing
You play as Kaatri, a warlock whose patron is Tasha. Yes, that Tasha. The witch queen herself. Kaatri is a Pact of the Blade warlock, so conjuring swords is on the table, which is good because I was not going to spend an entire open-world game exclusively casting spells. The game is third-person, single-player, open-world action-adventure on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S.
The setting is Darkon, a Domain of Dread from actual D&D lore. Not invented for the game. There's a settlement called Crickshank inside it. An imp named Skev tags along as your companion. Tasha gives you leash. Literally. One of your cantrips is Tasha's Leash, which lets you pull or throw objects. The name is doing a lot of work there.
The Spell Mechanics Look Genuinely Clever
This is the part that got my attention. Warlock's Eye is a mechanic for detecting Raw Magic in the environment. Fine. Standard "see the hidden things" ability. But then there's the Downpour Ritual, which summons rain and creates puddles on the ground, and Witch Bolt is an electricity spell that spreads across wet surfaces.
So you're setting up environmental combos. Rain the area, drop electricity, watch it chain. That's actual thought going into the spell interactions. It's not novel as a concept but if Invoke executes it well it could be really satisfying to play around with.
Fey Switch lets you swap positions with a monster mid-fight. The tactical possibilities there are obvious and I'm already thinking about teleporting an enemy off a ledge or into a puddle right before the Witch Bolt lands. Whether that works in practice or whether the AI is too dumb for it to matter is a 2027 question.
Eldritch Blast is in there too. Of course it is. It's Eldritch Blast.
Progression Through Darkon
There's a mechanic called Strands of Magic scattered across Darkon. Sounds like the typical open-world collectible-as-progression system. Hidden things to find that make you more powerful. Depending on how they implement it this is either satisfying exploration with meaningful rewards or the usual open-world checklist busywork.
One enemy type shown is the Death Kiss, an eyeball-like aberration. Direct from D&D. That's the thing about using actual D&D lore and creatures rather than building from scratch. You get monsters with history. People who've played tabletop know what a Death Kiss is. For everyone else it's just a creepy floating eyeball monster. Either way it works.
The Honest Take
Invoke Studios is not a household name. This is the kind of game where the concept is strong enough that if execution lands it could be excellent, and if execution doesn't land it's going to be forgotten in a week. A D&D warlock open-world action game with environmental spell combos and a Domain of Dread setting has no business being bad on paper.
Whether the open world is interesting to actually move through, whether Skev the imp is annoying or charming, whether the Pact of the Blade stuff feels good to swing around, whether Darkon has personality beyond looking grim. None of that is answerable from a gamescom demo.
2027. PC, PS5, Series X. We'll see.
Source: Ign