Netflix has had great success adapting popular video games into TV shows, with hits like Arcane, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, and Castlevania. Now, they’re trying something new: turning a tabletop game – one that uses dice instead of controllers – into a series. This project feels long overdue, as though it’s been in the works for years.
I remember when Stranger Things first came out in 2016 – it was amazing! It wasn’t just a cool sci-fi horror show, it really brought Dungeons & Dragons into the spotlight. Honestly, for a lot of people, including me, that show was how we discovered how awesome D&D could be. Netflix played a huge part in getting a whole new generation interested in the game. And now, after all this time, it’s incredible to see them bringing a real Dungeons & Dragons series, The Forgotten Realms, to life! It feels like everything’s come full circle.
Netflix is creating a live-action series based on the popular world of Dungeons & Dragons, known as The Forgotten Realms. Shawn Levy, who worked on Stranger Things, is helping to produce it. This show has huge potential, tapping into a fanbase of around 50 million players globally (according to PR Newswire). It’s also coming after Amazon’s Prime Video demonstrated that Dungeons & Dragons can work well as a TV series.
Netflix Is Working On A New Dungeons & Dragons TV Show
Netflix is developing a Dungeons & Dragons series with Hasbro, first announced in February 2025. The show will be called The Forgotten Realms, a title originally planned for a different project with Paramount+ that didn’t move forward. After the previous attempt was cancelled, Netflix started fresh, and development of The Forgotten Realms is expected to take considerable time.
Netflix hasn’t announced a release date for its Dungeons & Dragons series, and it likely won’t be coming out very soon. Producer Shawn Levy mentioned this some time after the show was first announced, but he also hinted that the long development time could be a good thing. Previous efforts to adapt D&D to the screen haven’t been successful, so Levy’s focus on getting it right shows Netflix is aware of the challenges. He explained to Collider:
The project has been slow and difficult because we’re not simply adapting a pre-existing story from Dungeons & Dragons. We’re building an entire world – its unique language and overall feel – and then creating original stories that fit naturally within it. That development is happening constantly at Netflix, with small steps forward being made every day.
Shawn Levy’s statements should ease the concerns of fans worried about a TV adaptation of their favorite tabletop role-playing game. He’s also shared some important details about the creative direction for The Forgotten Realms. The show won’t be based on a specific Dungeons & Dragons campaign; instead, Netflix aims to capture the feeling of playing the game itself as a series. The fact that it’s taking longer to develop means the team is carefully working to create a show that truly embodies the spirit of D&D and isn’t just another typical fantasy program, which is a promising sign.
Prime Video Already Has The 2 Best Shows In D&D History
Everyone’s really looking forward to the new Dungeons & Dragons series on Netflix, but it wasn’t always this way. In the past, another attempt to bring D&D to the screen would have been met with skepticism. The franchise has had trouble finding success outside of the original tabletop game – even the recent movie, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, which most people enjoyed, didn’t launch a major film series. Netflix faces a challenge because adapting D&D well is notoriously difficult, as past attempts have shown.
Prime Video has already shown how to create a successful TV show based on Dungeons & Dragons. Their animated series, The Legend of Vox Machina, launched in 2002 and is based on the first campaign of the popular web series Critical Role. Another series, The Mighty Nein, adapting the group’s second campaign, is set to premiere in 2025. Both shows have been very popular with viewers and are among the first D&D adaptations to truly capture the spirit of the game.
Both Vox Machina and The Mighty Nein are great examples for Netflix of how to capture the experience of playing Dungeons & Dragons, not just its look and feel. These animated series are genuinely good fantasy stories, but what makes them special is that their plots unfold like actual D&D games – driven by chance and the roll of dice. This leads to unpredictable wins, hilarious failures, and a constant sense that anything can happen, because that’s exactly how the original Dungeons & Dragons campaigns played out.
Netflix’s The Forgotten Realms doesn’t have to directly follow a specific Dungeons & Dragons campaign to be successful. But it’s important to realize what made shows like The Legend of Vox Machina and The Mighty Nein so good: they captured the feeling of playing the tabletop RPG itself, rather than just focusing on the fantasy setting. The biggest hurdle for Netflix’s Dungeons & Dragons series will be recreating that same fun and engaging experience.
2026-07-26 22:28