- Invoke Studios developers have explained why they're ditching traditional waypoints in Warlock: Dungeons and Dragons.
- General Manager Dominic Guay stated that the decision was made to encourage players to explore rather than blindly follow waypoints.
- He further noted that most players tend to stick to waypoints, which can diminish their sense of agency and curiosity to explore.
Invoke Studios, the developers behind the upcoming Warlock: Dungeons and Dragons, revealed that the game will not feature waypoints, encouraging players to explore Darkon. Like any other RPG, it will have a compass at the top of the screen to guide players toward their next destination, but players can disable it to rely on their exploration skills.
Speaking to IGN at Gamescom 2026, Dominic Guay, General Manager at Invoke Studios, said his experience working on the Watch Dogs series at Ubisoft let him take a different approach with Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons by ditching waypoints, essential in traditional soulslike games.
“The core team on this game have worked on other open-world games before, and we’ve done the, let’s say, the heavy-handed guiding approach before,” said Guay. He explained that he ditched waypoints to prevent players from simply following them blindly:
“What ends up happening at some point — and it’s normal — a lot of players will just follow the waypoint blindly, and then you lose that agency, you lose that feeling of curiosity because you’re like, well, why even bother? And so we didn’t want to go there. We wanted the player to explore.”
Unlike similar RPGs such as Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Warlock: Dungeons and Dragons will feature a Mystery system in place of waypoints, allowing players to discover certain mysteries from “multiple entry points”, so no two players have the same experience. It’ll primarily depend on how you approach settlements.
Hand-holding and objective waypoints are now a growing point of discussion in the video game community, thanks to the Marvel’s Wolverine “fart gas trail” controversy. But again, Insomniac confirmed it as a lore-related feature for Logan.
However, it’s great to see Invoke’s take on the hot topic with Warlock: Dungeons and Dragons. Ditching waypoints could be the perfect way to encourage players to explore every nook and cranny of their journey through Darkon rather than blindly navigating to the next objective marker.
