Wizards of the Coast has hired longtime Dungeons & Dragons writer James Haeck as a senior game designer, bringing one of 5th edition’s most prolific contributors fully in-house as the D&D team continues to evolve.

Haeck announced the news on a Dec. 31 episode of the Eldritch Lorecast podcast, where they noted that the role marks a shift away from freelance and third-party work and into leading future D&D books from within Wizards of the Coast.

The move follows a period of major change for D&D’s internal design team. In the middle of 2025, veteran designers Chris Perkins and Jeremy Crawford departed Wizards to join Critical Role’s publishing arm, Darrington Press. Wizards has since begun staffing senior creative roles with designers who came up during the peak 5th edition era, with Haeck as the latest staffing change.

Haeck is best known for their work on some 5e’s better hardcover adventures. They served as lead designer on Call of the Netherdeep, the first official D&D campaign set in Critical Role’s Exandria, and also co-wrote Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount, which is also set in a Critical Role realm. Haeck also served as co-author on Waterdeep: Dragon Heist and Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus. The former is one of 5e’s most versatile starting adventures built around intrigue rather than dungeon crawls. Dragon Heist depicts Waterdeep as a living city of rival factions that gives Dungeon Masters an unusually flexible urban sandbox to work with four different seasonal versions of the adventure that allows for some replayability. Descent into Avernus is a metal-as-hell adventure with memorable demons and devils as the villains, a hunt for a very cool sword wielded by a fallen angel, and “Infernal War Machines” you drive that make it feel like Mad Max in Hell.

In addition to their hardcover work, Haeck spent several years as lead writer for D&D Beyond, where they authored and edited dozens of guides aimed at teaching players and Dungeon Masters how to play, run encounters, and build campaigns. Together, Haeck’s body of work in the space has made them one of the most visible designers in this era of the game.

The news of Haeck’s hiring also comes just a few short weeks after Justice Ramin Armin was promoted to D&D design director. They’ll both work alongside F. Wesley Schneider as principal game designer, along with Makenzie De Armas and Amanda Hemon as senior designers.

Wizards of the Coast has not yet announced which upcoming D&D products Haeck will be leading — or much of anything for its 2026 slate. During the podcast announcement, Haeck said they would be working in-house on future books but declined to share details until projects are formally revealed. The addition of another senior designer with deep hardcover experience suggests that new announcements may not be far off. For now, it’s clear that Wizards of the Coast is doubling down on designers who helped define 5e’s most beloved adventures as the game prepares for its next chapter.