Wizards of the Coast has been fleshing out the 2022 schedule for April's first-ever D&D Direct online showcase, while other books have received their own individual announcements throughout the past year. It's also likely that there are more announcements to come.
D&D has seen an explosion in popularity in recent years, and the announcements for new D&D books have become as big as the reveals for the latest films and video games. The audience for tabletop RPGs even managed to grow during the pandemic, when most games were forced online. As such, there is a constant stream of new D&D content for fans to enjoy, in the form of rulebooks, campaign books, board games, and video games.
There are lots of D&D products launching in 2022, ranging from the D&D Campaign Case: Creatures and D&D Campaign Case: Terrain, which features counters and maps that make it easier to run games, and D&D Starter Set - Dragons of Stormwreck Isle, which contains an adventure aimed at a group of new players, along with character sheets and dice. The 2022 schedule also includes a lot of new D&D books, which include the return of some classic campaign settings, new adventures in distant lands, and revamped rules for many of the playable races and monsters in the game.
Dungeons & Dragons Rules Expansion Gift Set - January 25, 2022
The first major release of 2022 was actually planned for the end of 2021. The D&D Rules Expansion Gift Set was intended for the 2021 holiday season, but production issues led to it being pushed back to early 2022. The D&D Rules Expansion Gift Set contains three books: Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, Xanathar's Guide to Everything, and Mordenkainen Presents: Multiverse of Monsters. All three books have special foil covers in the regular edition, as well as beautiful alternate art covers. Tasha's Cauldron of Everything and Xanathar's Guide to Everything were released before 2022, but they contain some minor fixes in this version. Mordenkainen Presents: Multiverse of Monsters was a brand new release that it's still only available as part of this set.
D&D's Critical Role: Call Of The Netherdeep - March 15, 2022
The first D&D campaign book released in 2022 was Critical Role: Call of the Netherdeep, which is based in the Exandria campaign setting from Critical Role. Call of the Netherdeep involves a powerful entity awakening beneath the depths of Exandria, who calls out for heroes to save them. The players must travel to the oasis-city of Ank'Harel, before venturing into the Far Realm, in search of this mysterious being. Call of the Netherdeep takes players from levels 3-12, and has a mechanic where the group faces a rival adventuring party.
D&D's Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters Of The Multiverse Standalone Release - May 17, 2022
Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse is currently only available as part of the D&D Rules Expansion Gift Set, but it's receiving a standalone release on May 17. The book features updated rules for a lot of the playable races that have appeared in D&D 5e since launch, some of which have been overhauled. These include the goblinoid races now being descended from the Feywild. The special abilities of the races have been buffed, and the new stat rules from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything have been introduced, giving players a choice regarding their stat buffs. Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse also includes updated stats for many of the monsters in the game, giving some of them buffs in the process. The stat blocks for most monsters have also been made easier to read.
D&D's Journeys Through The Radiant Citadel - June 21, 2022
The next adventure anthology for D&D, Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel, contains thirteen standalone adventures. The Radiant Citadel is a mysterious magical city in the Ethereal Plane, which acts as the gateway to the adventures in the book. It's also possible for players to set up shop in the Radiant Citadel and turn it into their home. Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel is co-led by Ajit George, who pitched the idea for a D&D book where all of the writers are people of color, with adventures based on different myths and cultures that aren't normally seen in D&D. The thirteen adventures can be strung together as a loose campaign, or taken out and used in a DM's homebrew campaign.
D&D's Spelljammer: Adventures In Space (Astral Adventurer's Guide, Boo's Astral Menagerie, & Light of Xaryxis) - August 16, 2022
After nearly thirty years of waiting, the Spelljammer campaign is returning to D&D, in Spelljammer: Adventures in Space. This set actually contains three books, each one detailing a different part of the setting. Astral Adventurer's Guide is the main campaign book and it's filled with rules for DMs and players alike, include the stats for the new playable races, and the mechanics of actually flying a spelljammer ship across the universe. Boo's Astral Menagerie is the monster book for Spelljammer and it follows the miniature giant space hamster (from Baldur's Gate) and his human companion, Minsc as they bear witness to some of the nastiest monsters in wildspace. The final book is Light of Xaryxis, which is an adventure book that is spread across twelve chapters. Spelljammer: Adventures in Space also comes with a double-sided poster map and a DM screen.
D&D's Dragonlance: Shadow Of The Dragon Queen - Late 2022
Spelljammer isn't the only classic campaign setting returning to D&D in 2022. The final announcement of the D&D Direct was that the Dragonlance campaign setting is coming to D&D 5e at the end of the year. Details are scant, but it has been revealed that there will be an adventure book called Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen, which is both a campaign book and a setting book. The campaign book is set near the beginning of the War of the Lance, but in a different part of Krynn than what fans are familiar with. There is also a board game releasing at the same time, called Dragonlance: Warriors of Krynn, which ties into the events of the adventure book. It's still early in the year, and it's likely that there are more Dungeons & Dragons books arriving in 2022 that have yet to be announced.
