Link: https://dndbeyond-support.wizards.com/hc/en-us/articles/46714579089428-Did-Wizards-previously-say-the-2024-rules-wouldn-t-be-called-5-5e

On the dndbeyond website you can filter the content you are looking for. In these filters, they will now use 5.5e instead of "2024"

I don't know how to feel about this

They should have done this from the start. If they had, and were clear about keeping to discrete editions, I wouldn't be learning Pathfinder.

"C'mooooon... play more OneDND 5e2024 5.5e. It's totally a proper edition this time. Pleeeeeeease?"

In fairness this isn't the first time. 5e was "DnD Next" (terrible name as well) during its development.

The difference is that "DnD Next" was just a placeholder name, they were very clear about that and never intended to use it officially, same as OneDnD.

DnD 2024 never made any sense in the first place. Of the first three core manuals, only one was released in 2024 proper. It was just dumb and led to unnecessary confusion.

@Zonetrooper @Jeeve65 D&D 5.5e is much better than the alternatives. They did that in third edition with D&D 3.5e, so there's no reason why they shouldn't do the same now.

I do

Nitpicky, but 2 out of 3 core rulebooks of the 2024 version were released in 2024, not just one.

Using year labeling of your product is generally a bad idea, imho, because it makes it appear outdated really quick.

I'm in a similar boat. I'm only planning on running Death in Space for the foreseeable future.

1974 D&D (OD&D)
1977 Basic Set (Holmes Basic)
1978 Advanced
1981 B/X (Moldvay Basic)
1983 BECMI (Mentzer Basic)
1989 Advanced 2e
1991 New Easy to Master
1991 Rules Cyclopedia
1994 Classic
1995 Advanced 2e Revised
2000 3e
2003 3.5e
2008 4e
2014 5e
2024 5.5e

Congratulations to D&D 5.5e, the 15th edition of D&D!

(I'm not familiar with New Easy to Master and Classic so if those are just variations of Cyclopedia then it's 13. but also individual "rules editions" had different revised printings aside from 1995 2e- my copy of Holmes is the 3rd printing replacing Hobbits with Halflings- so if you include those who the hell knows)

Unless that's the idea with yearly releases

Oh, I'm not arguing about placeholder names. This whole issue is placeholder names escaping into the wild.

To me personally though, "2024" felt like the last gasp of Hasbro trying to sell an infinitely-rolling, "DnD-as-a-service" dynamic. Fans broadly understand editions and expect them to come with a serious scope of updates, but "annuals" could be deliberately confusing and ephemeral. The hope was they'd seem "new and shiny" enough to still prompt fans to buy them.

Or maybe that's just over-conspiratorial thinking. I dunno.

It got by on the fact that it's cross-compatible with all the older content (same as 3 and 3.5), so putting out the PHB was enough to play the game. But they really did dance around that for a long time, insisting that it was not a separate version, when clearly there were lots of balance changes to classes and spells.