D&D General Resolution Games and Wizards of the Coast Announce the First Official D&D Virtual Reality Game

Swedish video game company Resolution Games announced a licensing deal with Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast to create a virtual reality game set in the Dungeons & Dragons universe. From the press release:

Resolution Games, creators of the award-winning digital fantasy tabletop adventure Demeo, has jointly announced a collaboration today with Hasbro (NASDAQ: HAS), the leading toy and game company’s subsidiary, Wizards of the Coast, to create the world’s first virtual reality video game set in the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS universe.

“As anyone who’s played Demeo can guess, we’re incredibly huge fans of tabletop roleplaying games,” said Tommy Palm, founder and CEO of Resolution 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.”

Following its 2021 release, Resolution Games’ Demeo garnered attention throughout the TTRPG world with its approachable blend of dungeon exploration and turn-based tactics with friends – which Palm reveals was firmly inspired by the team’s love for DUNGEONS & DRAGONS. Both Demeo and the second game in the franchise, Demeo Battles, are playable on PC and in VR. Demeo is also available on the PlayStation 5 and PlayStation VR2.

“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,” said Eugene Evans, SVP Digital Strategy and Licensing at Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro. “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.”

No further details are available on the upcoming Dungeons & Dragons game nor is there any release window listed. The current big release from Resolution Games as stated above is Demeo and it’s PvP spinoff Demeo Battles. Those games are dungeon crawl fantasy games simulating the tabletop experience with figures that look like miniatures and a card-based action economy. The games can be played both in virtual reality and on a regular display.

Resolution Games points those seeking more information to the social media accounts for Demeo on Twitter and Facebook as well as their website demeogame.com.

 

[Charlaquin]

I saw some boxers with a d20 that said "natural 1" over the crotch. Ouch, but also I could see a much less mature me buying that as a gag gift.

It would be a rather an unfortunate situation to naturally have more than 1…

 

[Charlaquin]

If you are the marketing arm of WOTC that is exactly what you want. You want D&D to be the Rollerblades or Klenex. A instantly recognizable name that conjurs a very specific thing for consumers.

Actually you want it to be ever-so-slightly less recognizable than that. Having one’s brand name become synonymous with a whole category of product seems like it would be a marketing team’s dream, but it’s actually a problem because it makes it hard to keep that brand name out of the public domain.

 

[Stormonu]

Possibly, but I wouldn't expect it anytime soon. For one, they haven't updated Dark Sun for 5e yet and don't seem to be in any big rush to do that. For another, that is a setting that needs a major overhaul before WotC would publish it or associate it with the modern brand. Way too much problematic baggage that would need to be rewritten from the ground up with cultural consultants on board at the start. And WotC doesn't like doing hard retcons like that. They prefer soft retcons like "Oh, there was another culture of good drow in Faerun the entire time so it's not just the Always Evil Menzoberranzan...they, umm, just went to another school. In Canada. With my really hot model girlfriend" to just declaring former material non-canon. No matter how badly they need to do precisely that.

With the mauling done to Ravenloft via the retcons and revisions in Van Richten's, I'd rather WotC just steered clear of Dark Sun anyway. It's not that a DS-style world couldn't be done in this age, it's just that WotC couldn't/wouldn't be the one to do it.