Hasbro is doubling down on the explosive growth of its premier tabletop roleplaying franchise, announcing the official opening of a new Wizards of the Coast studio in Montréal, Québec. The newly established facility will serve as a specialized hub focused entirely on developing digital content, video games, and expansive interactive experiences for the legendary Dungeons & Dragons brand.
The strategic expansion represents a major milestone for Hasbro’s digital gaming division. According to leadership, the Montréal site is engineered to house the largest concentration of dedicated video game development talent within the entire Hasbro corporate ecosystem, positioning the company to capitalize deeply on the rich talent pool available in the Canadian tech and creative hub.
A Major Hub for Digital Innovation
Dan Ayoub, head of Dungeons & Dragons and head of Wizards of the Coast Canada, emphasized the strategic importance of the new studio during the announcement.
“This studio will grow to be the largest concentration of video game talent at Hasbro, built on one of the world’s deepest game development ecosystems,” Ayoub said in a statement. “We’re here to create the next generation of digital game titles, and to do it with the incredible talent this city has to offer.”
While the brand-new studio represents a fresh chapter for the franchise, Wizards of the Coast is no stranger to the region. The subsidiary has maintained a steady operational presence in Montréal since 2019, when it originally acquired Invoke Studios. By scaling up its footprint through this new venture, Hasbro is signaling that digital transformation and video game adaptation are central to its long-term corporate growth strategy.
The expansion comes on the heels of a busy period of announcements for the Dungeons & Dragons brand. The Hasbro subsidiary recently revealed a series of major franchise initiatives designed to bring the tabletop universe into new digital mediums. Among these upcoming projects is the scheduled November launch of Dungeons & Dragons: World of Warcraft, alongside a brand-new mobile gaming experience tailored for D&D Beyond and widespread updates across the property’s growing suite of digital and video game platforms.
Strong Financial Performance Fuels Expansion
The push into expanded digital development is supported by robust financial performance across Hasbro’s core business segments, particularly within Wizards of the Coast and digital gaming.
During Hasbro’s second-quarter earnings call earlier in the year, company executives pointed to the tabletop and digital brands as primary drivers of corporate success. “D&D is actually performing quite well — particularly D&D Beyond,” Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks told analysts during the Q2 financial review.
The enthusiasm from leadership is backed by hard numbers. In that same quarter, Hasbro reported that its overall net revenue surged by more than 16%, reaching $1.1 billion. This impressive financial leap was largely propelled by the Wizards of the Coast and digital gaming segments, which posted a remarkable 27% increase year over year. As traditional toy and board game markets face fluctuating retail environments, Hasbro’s digital and tabletop licensing ecosystem has emerged as a reliable and high-margin engine for the corporation.
Broader Corporate Realignment
The launch of the Montréal development studio also aligns with a broader period of structural evolution for Hasbro as a whole. Last year, the company made headlines by announcing a major relocation of its historical corporate footprint. Hasbro officially began moving its long-standing Rhode Island operations—covering its traditional toy lines and board game divisions—to a modern facility in Boston.
That new corporate home in Boston’s bustling Seaport District now serves as the primary global headquarters for Hasbro’s toys, board games, licensing operations, and the majority of its core corporate services. With its traditional physical toy headquarters firmly established in Boston and its digital gaming and tabletop content engine expanding internationally through hubs like the new Montréal studio, Hasbro continues to refine its operational structure to meet the demands of modern entertainment consumers.
As the Montréal studio ramps up its hiring and operational capacity, fans of the Dungeons & Dragons franchise can expect a steady pipeline of digital content designed to translate the imaginative freedom of the tabletop game into cutting-edge interactive entertainment.
