When Demeo was first unveiled, the first thing I thought of was how perfect a Dungeons & Dragons VR game would be. Now, Resolution Games is taking Demeo to the next level with Demeo x Dungeons & Dragons: Battlemarked, coming to PC, console, and XR devices likely later this year.
Resolution games stopped short of giving an actual release date and platform list for the upcoming title, but it's been four years since the original Demeo release and a year and a half since the PvP-only Demeo Battles, signaling that it's time for another Demeo entry to make its way to the gaming world.
Demeo is still the premier strategy game on VR platforms and at the top of the list of best Meta Quest games, even after being available for four years. This next entry expands the award-winning gameplay with two story-based campaigns at launch, plus additional downloadable campaigns planned for the future.
Beyond sheer content, Demeo's real strength is its cross-platform playability, which allows VR and non-VR players to play together without barriers. Few games are easier to play in-person or remotely as Dungeons & Dragons, and the perfect marriage of D&D and Demeo has me pumped to see what Resolution Games is able to do with the full range of the D&D license.
True D&D strategy
One of the best parts of D&D is the open nature of every campaign. Exploration and battles are only limited to your imagination — or the ability of your dungeon master to adapt — but not everyone has time to put together a proper campaign or study every aspect of the many classes in D&D proper.
That's where Demeo x Dungeons & Dragons: Battlemarked — or D&Demeo as I'll lovingly call it — comes in. The press release very specifically says that Resolution Games "is able to take a different approach to Dungeons & Dragons by putting the emphasis on fast turn-based combat and pick-up-and-play mechanics."
The announcement trailer, which you can watch above, doesn't show gameplay but helps showcase the game's ability to transform you into a roleplaying master thanks to "the Demeo Action Roleplaying System." Playing Demeo in mixed reality is simply surreal. Since the original mixed reality release, Resolution Games has further improved Demeo's mechanics, making it feel like a board game come to life.
But Demeo's mechanics were never the series' weak point. Rather, it was content. Don't get me wrong, Demeo's four campaign worlds are epic and a blast to play. Each can take several hours to complete, and thanks to the pseudo-randomly generated nature of these levels, replayability is very high.
However, the last campaign debuted on June 16, 2022, and there is no support for custom campaigns or characters despite the charming social lobby that lets you paint mini figures with friends.
That's where Demeo X D&D can improve things. I hope Resolution Games can devise a way to create custom campaigns and let players become proper dungeon masters — if they want, of course. I'm a player who couldn't care less about making their own maps or campaigns. I've tried my hand at this in the past, and it just isn't worth my time. I'd rather just play the game.
That said, lots of people love making custom maps and campaigns, and Dungeons & Dragons is the perfect way to introduce this new element to the Demeo formula.
I also want to see custom characters and more customizable, upgradable skills beyond what the card system in Demeo provided. Demeo currently offers seven classes, each of which provides a unique way to play through the game. Some classes are next to impossible to play on your own and basically require you to engage with the incredibly friendly community the game harbors.
If nothing, the name "Battlemarked" makes me think that some sort of class progression system will appear in the game. Demeo's abilities mostly revolve around random cards distributed over the course of a level, but each character has a default set of abilities, and it's those I want to see improved over time as players put more time into the game. Demeo, up until this point, has only passed out skins and other visual tweaks as bonus rewards for a player's time.
But even if none of these things are delivered, I know the D&D license will enable Resolution Games to do something new and interesting with Demeo that the company hasn't been able to do yet. Demeo Battles showed that the property is flexible enough to launch a standalone PvP game and I fully expect Demeo X D&D to provide another paradigm shift fans have been waiting for.
