Last updated on January 15th, 2026 at 02:53 am
D&D Lords of Waterdeep – Board Game Review
D&D Lords of Waterdeep is a Board/Strategy game from Playdek, Inc., first launched in 21st November 2013.
It’s rated 9+ and currently has 451+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes D&D Lords of Waterdeep Stand Out
Cross platform online play! Join your friends on other platforms!
In-game chat feature. Stay connected while playing online!
Wizards of the Coast and Playdek present the award-winning Dungeons & Dragons board game Lords of Waterdeep!
Also available: The award-winning Dungeons & Dragons® expansions for Lords of Waterdeep – Scoundrels of Skullport and Undermountain!
Welcome to Waterdeep, the City of Splendors! A city run by a secret society of masked Lords who rule with shady back-door dealings and unmatched political power. In Lords of Waterdeep players will play as one of these masked Lords and will need to recruit adventurers to go out and complete quests for them. The more quests they complete, the more control and influence they have over the city.
Players can expand the city by purchasing buildings that will open up new opportunities within the city walls. Intrigue cards can be used to help the player and may also either help or hinder their fellow Lords in their quest to become the supreme ruler of Waterdeep!
Lords of Waterdeep is a turn-based strategy game played in 8 rounds and can be played against AI or with up to 5 human players. Players take turns assigning their agents to do their bidding, whether it is to recruit new adventurers to their tavern or purchase a new building for the city. Points and resources are gained by completing quests, playing Intrigue cards, constructing new buildings or having other players utilize the buildings you have constructed. At the end of the 8 rounds bonus points are awarded and the player with the most points at the end wins the game.
HIGHLIGHTS
•Computer opponents, pass and play multiplayer and asynchronous multiplayer online play
•Universal game application – buy once and play on all your iPhone and iPad devices
•Retina support
FEATURES
•Options for 2-5 players (6 players with the Undermountain or Scoundrels of Skullport expansions)
•AI Opponents
•Pass-and-play multiplayer gameplay (2-5 players)
•Asynchronous or real-time online play (2-5 players)
•Ability to invite Playdek friends to matches
•Public or Private online profile statistics
•Online game clocks
•"Next game" button takes you to your next asynchronous online game
•In-game tutorial
•Rule Book and Card Gallery
•Animated backgrounds
•Player ratings system
•Online player status indicator
AN INTERNET CONNECTION AND PLAYDEK ACCOUNT ARE REQUIRED FOR ONLINE PLAY.
Per our Terms of Service, you must be 13 years old or older to use the Playdek online games service.
This Board game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, D&D Lords of Waterdeep is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 20th December 2025
Recent improvements include:
Backend fixes.
Download & Availability
D&D Lords of Waterdeep is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Get D&D Lords of Waterdeep on App Store
Requirements: Requires iPhone 5s / iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
This is a great worker placement game, with beautiful graphics and really nice sound design. It used to be playable in portrait orientation, and then there was an update and that changed. Some reviewers went nuts with 1-star reviews, as they almost always do. Personally we preferred that view but it makes very little difference. Its a terrific game and an excellent digital adaptation. Play it and see.
We wish other board game adaptations were more like this. Zooming in to see card text on small phones works smoothly. Every action that doesnt reveal new information has an undo option, solving the challenges of a small interface. The whole game is bug-free in solo play against AI, which is how we usually play it. We just wish we could get even more difficult AI.
We love this game. What are the things we love about? It is that we dont have to get all of the pieces out for the actual board game when we use it on the iPad. And it keeps track of our progress and the abilities our cards give us without us having to remember for ourselves. Convenience and fun.
Game is still fun. We have purchased all the expansions but find ourselves enjoying the base game the most. Playing with AI gets a little repetitive but gameplay is good.
This is our favorite game and we play it all the time. Now that we use the app, it is hard to go back to the board game, which is both a good and bad thing but it gives us a great option for a faster game without having to manually collect and setup all the pieces. We think are some old reviews on here about an update that was buggy, but that is no longer the case imo.
Played this game for years when need some games we can drop out off at a moments notice and pick up later. Enjoy the adons. For us its a solo game. Ai best to play several at different levels. Relaxing. PvP is too slow so dont expect that.
Works well on the iPad mini. Always liked this game.
Love this adaptation of the board game! Do have one request that would really tie into the D&D realm. Would love a section in the settings or main menu that gives the lore and history of Waterdeep, or in the card section of the main menu have each card have a lore summary/history about it. Hope that makes sense and thanks.
Annoying that you cant add AI to online games. Its not as fun with only 2 payers and we dont want to play with random people.
Update the darn app for all the money you made from it please, just kee it playable for new devices soon it will drop support and what were gonna do look at our purchases and reminiscent.
The game remains great to play, but dont count on receiving notifications for your turn if youre an android player. The game receives updates pretty often, but never addresses this. The developer knows this is an issue, yet never addresses it.
On an iPhone 12 Pro Max, the text in this game is unreadable in the standard landscape format. There's no option to modify the UI, the text size, or the orientation. Sad too, because it looks like this game would be fun to play.
Community has abandoned this game. Just a few years ago it was easy to maintain online games. Ever since the landscape update this game has plummeted in quality and active. The game itself is a portrait board. Forcing this game to be played landscape to fit in with other apps is nonsense. This game was fantastic, easy to play, and powerful in portrait. We download this game several times a year, attempt to play, get frustrated, and delete it. The lack of portrait mode breaks this for us. This was the perfect game to play on the train or while walking, but landscape makes that impossible. Developers pushed a minor update to fix some overlapping graphics issues we reported. However, this simply makes text and UI elements smaller. This exasperates an issue that did not exist in portrait. Game remains unplayable on iPhone. Sigh.
We were lucky to have come to the game late, but we did play it in the portrait orientation. We think if you pay attention to your hand and the game its a non issue. We think this game is a blast.
It seemed weird that a Dungeons & Dragons game didnt feature you fighting in combat directly. But this game has grown on us. Its a euro style boardgame thats digitized so you can play solo against AI opponents. We enjoy playing the role of a cunning lord trying to gain power and influence in a city against other lords, using adventurers as a kind of weird human currency to achieve quests. We find it much more fun than playing chess to while away time when we are waiting or just want to exercise our mind.
Our whole family plays it. Its so nice to have this game in digital form because there are so many pieces involved with the board game. We still pull out our board game sometimes, but we prefer to use the digital version because it keeps track of everything for us. The graphics are great!! Weve had the Lords of Water Deep app for over 2 years now. Its a family favorite.
Good game, been playing constantly for years. Agree with the others that the Landscape board was not an improvement. But what kills us is that the Notifications simply don't work. Yes, it annoys us that once a game ends we get no notification, and it disappears entirely from the active games, so we have to go hunting for it- but the app being unable to simply notify a player it is their turn is the worst. We have to maintain a chat on Signal just to update each other on whose turn it is now. Speaks well to the game that we still play constantly. We have full faith this can be fixed, so please do.
The original implementation of this game was infinitely better. This mew version is buggy. The controls are so difficult on a small screen. The game doesn't always calculate the end score correctly. Its just bad.
Practically impossible to drag your worker/agent onto the game board. Bummer because it used to be a pretty fun game.
Used to have expansions. They taken away.
The latest update has made the AI turns intolerably slow. The game is no longer playable. Please fix this.
Good game but was better before the update.
The new update removed our expansions purchases. So we have buy it again? That seems sus. Can we fix this please.
We purchased this game 2 months ago. Had all the expansions included. We really enjoyed it, until last week when it was updated and now we only have the basic game and am prompted to pay and additional fee for each expansion. Not cool!!! Rating due to that fact, otherwise the app and game itself are awesome.
When we originally purchased the game one of the things that sold us on it was that it came with the expansions. Having played the original we knew that without them the game was pretty boring. After the most recent update the expansions went away. When we submitted a ticket we were told that getting the expansions with the original game was a bug that had been fixed. Just know that if you buy the game youre going to need to spend another 4 bucks to get a decent game.
Same Waterdeep from ages past…. But they stole portrait mode. This game was made for portrait mode. Portrait mode is perfection. Now we have mediocrity. Contrast to a game like Ticket to Ride and see the genius and utility of portrait mode; a thing of beauty and symmetry on the iPad. Buy this game if you like Waterdeep and can snag it for $1….But beware, you will still lament the loss of portrait mode.
Letters are too small to read on iPhone. Waste of money. We were really looking forward to this. So disappointing.
After latest update in the last 3 games of 3 player online play, the game first kicks a player out and an automated player takes over, then forces a forfeit for the next player, leaving 1 player standing. Not fun. Fix this issue.
This is our favorite game but since the last update Im unable to play. We cant find anywhere so that the update is an option for us. And there doesnt seem to be any customer or player support options. App support just takes us to a page to buy other apps. Nothing about this app. What the heck.
Recent update wiped purchased expansions and the restore purchases button does nothing. Cannot finish in-progress, timed games using expansion content.
After updating the app to the newest version both of our expansion purchases are gone. Clicking the Restore Purchases button does nothing. Please fix.
This is not a 3.1 star implementation of a board game (avg rating as we write this)its a 5 star implementation. We get its not great on iPhones, but it rocks on the iPad, in particular for multiplayer. Other player actions are always very clear. The UI is sharp. Graphics are spot-on. If you like the board game, buy the app.
There are many negative reviews because of a UI change that was made many years ago. It is too bad there isnt an option to change it for people who preferred the old UI. We dont know what the old UI looked like, but we havent had any issues playing this on our iPhone. Its been great for asynchronous games with our friends. Im sure they appreciate us getting our turns done more quickly as well.
Until they removed all support for playing this game in portrait mode. We just dont enjoy it any more. We figured they would see the error of their ways, but nope. Developers dont care that its junk now, because theres cross-platform multiplayer.
UPDATE : For all the reviews stating this game is playable on iPhone, they are clearly Playdek paid reviewers. This game was literally the best game on iOS, hands down, and was ruined in a single update which took a game which plays in portrait format in its physical game, played perfectly on iPhone in portrait, and changed it to landscape. The game is barely playable compared its its original format. Any review stating otherwise, as it relates to mobile, its a straight up lie. Do not be fooled. From 5 stars to 1 star: we no longer play this game. What was once our favorite game on iOS, has become a game we cant stand. The new format makes the game unplayable. Its truly horrible. The physical game is a portrait designed game. It used to be well displayed as the game was originally designed by the manufacturer. The text and game pieces were very easy to see. The new format changed the game to landscape, you cant even see the whole map on a phone, you now have to zoom in and scroll around. They added the most stupid 3D effect like google maps which makes the scrolling completely jacked up because the map not only zooms in but changes orientation. The text is now minuscule or even blurry. All in all, they completely ruined the best game on iOS. Who ever decided this direction should be fired, and they should revert the game back to how it worked before, or at minimum allow players to choose which format they prefer. We have not played 1 match since the change, and will not play a single match as long as this format is the only way to play. Back to playing only when friends are around to enjoy the physical game. Want to see what we had to say about the game prior to the format change? Read below…. THIS WAS MY REVIEW PRIOR TO FORMAT CHANGE: This is one of our all time favorites, either as digital or as print. The artwork is fantastic, the gameplay spot on, the multiplayer ridiculous fun. The game is one of the best you will find, if you have any love of board games. The game is definitely more enjoyable on an iPad, but plays fantastic on an iPhone as well. We've played several hundred multiplayer matches, in different formats, and the game is just as enjoyable as it was when we bought it. We highly recommend the purchase of the expansions, as it adds tons of new options, and you can play with one or both enabled at the same time. Our only wishes for the game – we would love for tracking wins/losses versus individual players, not just as an aggregate. We would love for there to be a social option, if you wanted to communicate with your opponent. There are individual players we play against so consistently, they are almost like friends now. We constantly have games against each other. Anyway, buy the game and meet us online! It's awesome.
We honestly tried to play this game and it was just a waste of time. It was like watching paint dry. Deleted it within 30 min.
Community has abandoned this game. Just a few years ago it was easy to maintain online games. Ever since the landscape update this game has plummeted in quality and active. The game itself is a portrait board. Forcing this game to be played landscape to fit in with other apps is nonsense. This game was fantastic, easy to play, and powerful in portrait. We download this game several times a year, attempt to play, get frustrated, and delete it. The lack of portrait mode breaks this for us. This was the perfect game to play on the train or while walking, but landscape makes that impossible. Developers pushed a minor update to fix some overlapping graphics issues we reported. However, this simply makes text and UI elements smaller. This exasperates an issue that did not exist in portrait.
We have played lords of the Waterdeep on our iPad for over three years now. We love playing the game because we dont have anyone around us who likes or wants to play strategy games. So this electronic version is an awesome way for us to play. We are working on getting our niece and her husband set up so we can have our own game. We have never had any problems with any hitches any glitches everything works everything does what it supposed to. We love it and recommend it for anybody who likes a good fun strategy game.
Great port of an awesome game. On the iPhone is actually how we learned the game and then went out and bought the physical game. If playing on iOS, Its better on an iPad but you can manage on iPhone if you have good vision or glasses. If we had one complaint, we wish on iPhone cards could be tapped and made larger as the font is so small. Still, a great game we keep coming back to time and time again. We play vs AIs mainly and we find them challenging and competitive. Recommend if you like worker placement games and/or D&D. This is our favorite worker placement as the theme rocks.
Ive been playing this game for over six years now and it continues to be awesome.
Came back to the game recently and was very surprised that the UI has been overhauled and is back to landscape mode. The old UI was really bad and Im very glad that its gone now.
The app lets you play the game, and thats great. But the user interface is surprisingly terrible, as if the author set out to make the worst UI on the iOS store. on the game select screen, buttons are rendered on top of other UI elements making it impossible to read the text underneath or tap buttons that are now obscured from view when ingame, all of the custom buildings are clustered on top of each other huddled in a tiny column on the right side of the screen, while giant swaths of unused screen real estate are left wide open on the left side of the screen * when a game finishes, it disappears. It doesnt tell you who won or who lost. You have to dig into inactive games in order to find any stats about the game you just finished playing Despite the developers successful attempt at making the most frustratingly-difficult app on the iOS store, it does allow you to successfully play a game of Waterdeep so at least thats something.
Portrait mode was how this game was meant to be played. When portrait mode is added back in as an option for mobile players, we will set our rating to 5 stars. Until then.
While you can play this game in single player mode, the active online multiplayer community is where this game really shines. Simply terrific fun.
This is a great game with some flaws, but if you like the game youll overlook them. First, we hope you wont let the older reviews scare you off. We play this game on an iPhone and have no problems reading the cards and spaces. If the card appears small, touch it and it will enlarge so you can read it. Touch it again to return it to the board. We would recommend turning down the animations if you play it a lot, FYI, otherwise the game can be a battery killer though. This is a fun, engaging game with just enough strategy to be fun but not so much that you cant multitask. You can play a game in 30 minutes which for us is perfect. If you enjoy board games, light strategy and/or fantasy settings, we would recommend giving it a try. Start with the basic game with two other players (if you play with one generated player, you will be relentlessly attacked so play with two). The Undermountain expansion adds a lot to the game without creating complexity, so we always play with it and we also recommend the extended play. The Skullport expansion is confusing in the app. We dont play it. We dont find it to be user friendly. But we never liked it all that much to begin with. Hope this review helps.
We love this game and play it frequently! Its almost as good as playing live with friends. Great expansions change the gameplay. Our only disappointment is some of the achievements dont activate properly (most of the Finish 8 quests of a type). Would buy again and recommend.
UI overlaps so cant use some menus or play.
The game worked really well when it was built in portrait mode. After they switched to deploying the same version they deploy for Mac and pc this game just suffers. It is so much harder to play on a phone. IPad might be okay we would not recommend anyone to buy this version of the game.
This is our favorite board game and us and many others would love to see it come to Nintendo switch. We hope it happens : ).
Seeing the lower rating we were expecting the app to have a lot of bugs but having played so many games over the past few weeks, we must compliment the developers! So glad there is an app for the game we love so much. Even with the pandemic situation we can play it online with people.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 2.1.13.163
- Size: 424.21 MB
- iOS: 13.0 or later
- Languages: EN
- Content Advisory: Infrequent/Mild Cartoon or Fantasy Violence
- Developer: Playdek, Inc.
Last updated: 20th December 2025 | Genre: Board, Strategy | Developer: Playdek, Inc.