D&D Goes Virtual, but Like Actually Virtual, with New VR Game
Dungeons & Dragons heads for virtual reality with a newly announced project from Resolution Games, makers of Demeo.
The phrase “virtual tabletop” might conjure up images of trying to move tokens around with your mouse, not being able to figure out who can see which layer of information, and grappling with trying to keep all of the information in one place. But one gaming studio took that in a different direction and created an actual virtual tabletop.
Resolution Games, makers of the 2021 VR hit Demeo, which has since expanded to many platforms, developed a virtual reality table in which you sit around in a virtual basement, moving virtual minis in a kind of turn-based D&D-inspired dungeon crawler. And today they’ve announced that they’re working on an officially licensed D&D game.
Makers of Demeo Announce Official D&D Game
Details are extremely sparse since this is just a “hey we’re working on a thing” announcement. But both Resolution and WotC execs had some very nice things to say about D&D and each other, designed more to get possible investors excited than the people who would be actually playing the game.
I mean just look at this quote from the SVP of digital strategy and Licensing at WotC and Hasbro:
“Resolution Games has a clear understanding of how to bring players together and capture the fun of tabletop gaming on digital platforms in an accessible way. They are an ideal partner to bring a new Dungeons & Dragons video game to life in VR and beyond. Dungeons & Dragons and our other world-class gaming brands continue to attract amazing partners as we execute our strategy to grow our digital games portfolio through licensing and internal development.”
And to be fair, the first part is relevant. Demeo is hands-down an absolute blast of a tabletop-inspired dungeon crawler. It captures the feel of minis and moving around on a table while still being fun to play in its own right. But “execute our strategy” is what you say when you’re ordering clones to kill all the Jedi.
It’s all bland praise and corporate-approved excitement without actually saying anything about the game. Resolution Games CEO, meanwhile talked about the expansiveness of D&D:
“As anyone who’s played Demeo can guess, we’re incredibly huge fans of tabletop roleplaying games. They have an unparalleled power to bring people together to create shared experiences, and that’s something we’ve tried to capture, too, with nearly every release in our library. Dungeons & Dragons offers one of the richest fantasy worlds that has ever been created, and it only gets bigger with every new sourcebook and adventure. We’re beyond humbled to have the opportunity to work with such an incredible IP and look forward to sharing the first details of this new project in the future.”
Aside from that, no details, no images, and no release date. But D&D is going to go much more virtual at some point.
And if it’s just “as good as Demeo” that’ll be fun! Not every game has to be “another Baldur’s Gate 3”, that would be cool, but also seems unsustainable. But hey, if this is another grand slam, great!
