Dungeons & Dragons: Arena of War

Dungeons & Dragons: Arena of War was, at its 2013 launch, the first official free-to-play Dungeons & Dragons mobile game — a 3D, turn-based battle-RPG developed and published by Mobage / DeNA under license from Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro. It launched exclusively on iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch on 17 October 2013, with an Android release following. The title grew out of a wider Hasbro–DeNA mobile partnership that also produced G.I. Joe: Battleground.

Gameplay

Set in the Forgotten Realms, Arena of War sent squads of heroes questing across the world in battles that mixed character leveling, gear collection, and cooperative team play. Combat was turn-based and rendered in 3D; players could invite friends to form a questing party and pool their strength against tougher enemies and bosses. Around that core, DeNA layered the live-service trappings of the era — timed in-game events and large multiplayer arena competitions designed to keep players returning and spending.

Mechanically, the game leaned on Wizards’ then-in-development “D&D Next” ruleset — the public playtest that would soon become 5th Edition — making it one of the earliest commercial products to draw on 5e’s emerging math.

Setting

The story unfolded during The Sundering, the cataclysmic event reshaping Faerûn above and below at the time of the edition transition. The player took the role of a Chosen of a benevolent deity, struggling to drive a spreading evil out of the Realms — a framing that tied the game directly into the tabletop line’s contemporary metaplot rather than telling a standalone story.

A short-lived first

For all its “first ever” billing, Arena of War barely outlasted its launch year. DeNA retired the servers and made the game non-playable on 31 August 2014, roughly ten months after release, and it was subsequently delisted from both the App Store and Google Play. It survives now as a footnote — remembered for being the first official D&D mobile title rather than for any lasting influence.