First look at D&D virtual tabletop in action is seriously impressive

Wizards of the Coast has given players a better look at the D&D virtual tabletop in action, complete with animated spells and a better idea of what it'll actually feel like to use.

Revealed via the D&D Direct stream, this preview shows off a party exploring a quintessential but fully-3D fantasy tavern before tangling with a giant insectoid monster and lizard-like Kobolds pulled from the pages of Dungeons and Dragons books. Although this means plenty of virtual dice-rolling of the kind players will be familiar with from D&D Beyond and programs such as Roll20, it also leads to our first glimpse of how animated spell effects are going to work via the use of a classic Fireball. This kind of visual spectacle - and being able to easily import your characters - seems to be the D&D virtual tabletop's selling point... along with the realistic lighting and textures of the Unreal Engine system used to power numerous video games. This is a far cry from the top-down 2D battlemaps normally utilized by competitors.

Curiously, the D&D virtual tabletop might have another feather in its cap that rivals don't - principal game designer Kale Stutzman hinted that console compatibility could be the goal alongside more standard PC and laptop use.

"There's a lot of ways to play D&D online, and not all of them are hitting the big three things we think are important: fun, convenience, and authenticity," he says during the stream. "What I want to do is connect all my friends. They're on their computers, they're on their phones, they're on their game console, but we're all together playing through the same virtual tabletop. So that's the dream, right there."