Renegade Game Studios End Essence20 In Favour of D&D5.5E

Renegade Game Studios hosted their Renegade Con 2026 Livestream on Youtube on 12th June, with a host of seminars, and reveals, taking place across the day. One of the biggest announcements was the end of their Essence20 tabletop RPG system.

Essence20 has, in effect, a lot in common with Dunegons & Dragons 5th Edition with a few key differences thrown in. This similarity is interesting in the context to the announcement that Essence20 is being discontinued because a number of the games that were previously using the system are going to be relaunched using the actual latest edition of Dungeons & Dragoins system - 5.5E.

Renegade used the Essence20 system in a number of their licensed games - most notably those of properties licensed from Hasbro, the parent company of Wizards of the Coast who are the publishers of Dungeons & Dragons and the system Renegade are dropping Essence20 in fsavour of. Transformers, GI Joe, Power Rangers and My Little Pony TTRPGs are all affected by this change, as is the Welcom to Night Vale TTRPG based upon the popular podcast of the same name.

Whilst nothing has been said about new editions of Welcome of Night Vale or My Little PonyRenegade did announce that they will be turning to crowdfunding site Backerkit to bring the new 5.5E editions of Transformers, GI Joe and Power Rangers to life. Transformers and GI Joe will be the first two up on Backerkit, with Power Rangers following at a later date. Whilst hardly anything has been revealed about the crowdfunding contents at present, it is known that Starter Sets for all the new editions of the games will be available which may help entice new players. and fans of the respective franchises, in to trying them out.

No reason was given on the YouTube livestream about the decision to cancel Essence20, although on Renegade’s Discord channel they later said they were ending support because of poor sales of the system. Poor sales of the games might also reflect the move to crowdfunding the new editions of the games as that takes away a lot of the immiedate risks involved in publlishing them and gives Renegade an idea of how popular they will potentially be.