EN World’s most anticipated TTRPGs are all familiar faces fighting dragons

Earlier this week, RPG news forum EN World announced their annual community-decided list of the Top 10 most anticipated tabletop roleplaying games. While a number of these selections overlap with Polygon’s own list, overall it seems to predict that 2025 will be a year of building on the foundations of a consumer base that wants a familiar TTRPG experience from someone other than Wizards of the Coast. The games on this list largely break down into three categories: new editions, IP adaptations, and fantasy heartbreakers.

At the top of EN’s list sits Son of Oak’s Legend In The Mist as the most anticipated game of 2025. A more story-focused approach to the fantasy RPG genre, Legend in the Mist uses a version of the tag-based system created for Son of Oak’s City In The Mist game. Having crowdfunded over $855,000 in March 2024, Legend in the Mist purports to provide a D&D-like experience that prioritizes player agency and character development; rather than use a series of stats and ability scores, players use a shifting series of story tags that reflect their narrative priorities to add modifiers to a 2d6 rolling system.

In a year where D&D is attempting to push its own updated edition amidst a series of shifting priorities — like a push for more IP integration into video games, pinball machines, and online gambling products — alongside the growing shift away from the brand since the OGL crisis of 2021, audiences seem to be looking to get their fantasy fix in other places. However, if this list is to be believed, they mostly want to go to somewhere they already trust. This includes the new edition of story-focused fantasy game 13th Age (which has been highly anticipated for at least three years, according to the list) and another repeat appearance from Dolmenwood by Necrotic Gnome, the publisher behind the highly acclaimed Old-School Essentials system.

Game designer and YouTuber Matt Colville’s Draw Steel and actual play sensation Critical Role’s Daggerheart both made the list, leveraging their prominence in the tabletop space that once came from playing D&D. Games based on beloved intellectual properties also made their way onto the list, with Terry Pratchett’s Discworld and Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere sitting towards the top — both of which crowdfunded millions of dollars for RPGs based on best-selling fantasy books with expansive worlds.

Veering somewhat away from fantasy and into other genres, three sci-fi games made it onto the list, though each have something else backing up their anticipated status. In the 10th spot was the second edition of Starfinder by Paizo, the science fiction sibling of Pathfinder, arguably the most popular D&D competitor. The final two on the list are both new editions of sci-fi games by Swedish publisher Free League: their original system Coriolis: The Great Dark, and an updated edition of the Alien RPG, based on the iconic film of the same name.

While this is only one segment of the tabletop audience, there seems to be room for other games to grow in the shadow of The World’s Most Popular Tabletop Roleplaying Game.