No orcs appear in ' new, but there are actually more orc options than ever before in the core rulebook. As part of the new revised ruleset for D&D's Fifth Edition, orcs became a core playable species found in the This was a departure from how orcs were treated in older editions, when they were considered a uniformly «evil» species.
The underlying lore surrounding orcs inwas changed to make the species «setting-agnostic,» functionally allowing DMs to decide how they wanted orcs depicted in their games.
The new, out now via early access, contains no specific statblocks for orcs or several other classic species like duergar and drow.
These changes were made not to scrub orcs from the or to state that they can no longer be antagonists within a D&D game.
Instead,it marks a wider shift in design approach that replaces specific statblocks tied to humanoid species with generic statblocks that can be filled by any humanoid species.