Despite having little association with each other beyond sharing the D&D universe, Invoke’s Warlock: Dungeons and Dragons is drawing plenty of comparisons to Larian’s 2023 opus, Baldur’s Gate 3. It’s hard to blame anyone for anchoring the shiny new open-world D&D game to the 2023 GOTY considering just how much the latter dominated and continues to influence the conversation around RPG design, but mechanically and narratively, the fundamentals of the two games are very different.

Talking to Eurogamer, Invoke general manager Dominique Guay is keen to make that narrative distinction very clear, contrasting the fluid, branching plot of Baldur’s Gate 3 with the comparatively linear Warlock.

“We’re being very clear on that,” says Guay. “Kaatri is a written character, so it’s not like you can play evil or good Kaatri. Nothing like that. The main narrative moments you’re going to go through are written down, and you’re going to go through the same moment as someone else.”

Another big difference is Warlock’s more narrow focus on main character Kaatri. Whereas Baldur’s Gate 3 features an ensemble cast of playable characters led by the player’s custom avatar, Warlock is very much about one hero’s journey, although there are “definitely allies you’ll make along the way, kind of her found family.” One of those characters is your imp companion, Skev, and Guay says “there’s an ongoing story there of how their relationship grows.”

In our hands-off Warlock preview from this year’s Gamescom, staff writer Jasmine Gould-Wilson fell deeply “under its spell” and expressed confidence that the game might successfully escape Baldur’s Gate 3’s long shadow with an entirely different take on the D&D universe.

Open-world D&D game Warlock doesn’t have AAA-standard waypoints because the devs want players to feel that “when they found things, it was based on their actions”