Jeremy Crawford and Chris Perkins left Wizards of the Coast for Darrington Press in 2025. Darrington Press announced Crawford as Game Director and Perkins as Creative Director on June 16; later that summer, it named their first announced assignments for the fantasy role-playing game Daggerheart.
Where did Jeremy Crawford and Chris Perkins go?
They joined Darrington Press, the game publisher associated with Critical Role. In its June 16, 2025 announcement, Darrington Press named Perkins Creative Director and Crawford Game Director. The company said they would develop new game concepts and expand games it had already released. Darrington Press’s announcement is the clearest source for their new positions.
Perkins described the move in the announcement this way: “Storytelling has always been at the heart of everything I do, and joining Darrington Press feels a bit like coming home.” Crawford said: “I’ve always believed that great games invite everyone to the table, and that’s exactly what excites me about joining Darrington Press.” Those statements express enthusiasm about joining their new employer; they do not give a shared explanation for leaving Wizards.
Why did they leave Wizards of the Coast?
The available announcements establish the departure and their next roles, but not one shared personal reason for the move. A May 2, 2025 post on the D&D Beyond community forum discussed Crawford stepping away from Wizards after work on the revised Dungeons & Dragons core rulebooks. It was a community forum announcement, not a Wizards newsroom statement. Read the D&D Beyond forum post.
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For context on Crawford’s former responsibilities, a June 2024 Hasbro profile said he had joined Wizards in 2007 and had served as lead rules designer since fifth edition. It described his Game Director role as oversight of D&D RPG products across mechanics, art, and writing. That profile documents his role at the time; it does not establish a comparable career timeline for Perkins. Hasbro’s 2024 profile of Crawford.
What will Crawford and Perkins work on at Darrington Press?
At Gen Con on July 31, 2025, Darrington Press announced that their next projects would be for Daggerheart, its fantasy tabletop role-playing game. The assignments announced at that time were distinct:
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- Jeremy Crawford: lead development of a full setting in a horror genre.
- Chris Perkins: work on campaign frames and a wider connected adventure supplement.
These were announced plans, not confirmation that the projects have since been completed or released. Darrington Press’s Gen Con announcement gives the project details.
Readers interested in the game can look to the Daggerheart Core Set, whose physical launch Darrington Press announced on May 20, 2025. At launch, the company said it was available through Critical Role shops, Darrington Press Guild stores, and local game stores, with Amazon and other bookstores to follow. That is a historical list of launch channels, not a guarantee of current stock or availability in every region. See the physical-launch announcement.
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Is Daggerheart a new version of Dungeons & Dragons?
No such connection follows from the staffing announcements. Daggerheart is a game from Darrington Press, while Dungeons & Dragons is published by Wizards of the Coast. Crawford and Perkins’s move and their announced Daggerheart projects do not make Daggerheart a D&D continuation, edition, or replacement. The announcements establish new roles and project plans, not a merger between the games.
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