Magic: The Gathering fans should expect more and bigger Universes Beyond sets in the future. Following the success of The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth, CEO Chris Cocks told investors Tuesday morning that the game and toy manufacturer expects two equivalently-sized sets to launch every calendar year beginning in 2025. First out of the gate will be a collaboration with Square Enix on a Final Fantasy set, and then multiple Marvel-themed sets after that.
The Universes Beyond series is an initiative to bring outside intellectual property into the Magic product line. Sets so far have included everything from small-run Secret Lair projects like The Walking Dead and Fortnite to Commander decks emblazoned with popular factions from the world of Warhammer 40,000. Universes Beyond is especially good, Cocks said, at bringing in new players.
The Lord of the Rings partnership, it turns out, was Hasbro’s first attempt at using outside IP for a “premiere” set of cards — that is, a flagship, full-set release designed for multiple formats of Magic. The result? More than $200 million in revenue in less than six months, which appears to be roughly double the benchmark set by other historically high-performing sets.
What’s better than $200 million? $400 million. Here’s Cocks, speaking to investors about future Universes Beyond sets:
The first one’s going to be Fallout, which will come up in March. That won’t be at the same scale or size, but will do better than what a typical Commander set would do. But starting in 2025, we’re going to have two premiere Universes Beyond sets as part of our mix. And we believe the brands that will be shipping in 2025 have the same kind of carrying power as the Lord of the Rings. The one that we’ve announced will be in the front half of the year, and that’s Final Fantasy, which is just a juggernaut in role-playing games. We’ve announced partnerships with a host of other brands, Marvel being one of the last ones that we kind of talked about. There’ll be multiple sets associated with that. So for ’25 going forward, you should expect to see as part of our six premiere sets per year [that] two of them will be Universes Beyond-branded, and we think we’ll have a similar uplift to what we experienced with Lord of the Rings. […] That’s underlaying a lot of our bullishness on the growth for Magic.
Of course, Tales of Middle-earth had a big gimmick working in its favor — a singular One Ring card which, once discovered in Canada, was snatched up by rapper Post Malone for $2 million (less taxes). What developer Wizards of the Coast will do to make the upcoming Final Fantasy and Marvel sets just as appealing to collectors is anyone’s guess.
Even more curious is how, or even if, Wizards will be asked to apply the same format to its other marquee brand, Dungeons & Dragons. Cocks called the seminal role-playing game’s digital offering, D&D Beyond, “an excellent platform for us to build upon.” That growth could come from “Universes Beyond-style content,” or from third-party D&D content published to that platform — content created either by “major creators” such as Ghostfire Gaming and Hitpoint Press that Hasbro has begun partnering with, or by individual users themselves.
Overall, Tuesday’s financials show Cocks and company proceeding with plans, like shedding the eOne entertainment division, that have been years in the making. Hasbro is also riding the extraordinary returns from licensed games like Baldur’s Gate 3 and mobile hit Monopoly Go, while trying to bring its flagging toy division back from the brink after a punishing global downturn in retail sales. Meanwhile, Magic and D&D seem to be doing just fine, thanks.
You can find the full news release on Hasbro’s corporate website.
