Wizards of the Coast and Resolution Games announced theirs cooperation to bring Dungeons & Dragons to virtual reality.
The decades-old tabletop role-playing game has become increasingly popular in recent years, largely due to third-party content creators like Critical Role and Dimension 20, where ensemble players play D&D to create an engaging story for the audience. The franchise also made a splash this year with a Hollywood film and the hugely successful Baldur’s Gate III, a video game that licenses the Dungeons & Dragons IP.
The resolution is known for the Demeo game, which recreates the board game experience digitally, whether it’s on a VR headset like the Meta Quest or Apple Vision Pro, or simply on an iPad.
The details of the deal aren’t clear — is Wizards just licensing the IP or is it working with Resolution? — but continues Wizards’ trend of bringing Dungeons & Dragons off the table and into digital media. It’s also unclear if this is a platform for players to connect with their friends to play D&D via VR, or if they’re telling an entirely new story like the “Honor Among Thieves” movie. But in the trailers for Demeo, it looks like players are literally using VR hand-tracking to play cards and draw virtual miniatures, so maybe the co-op will be more like a virtual tabletop than a single-player story game.
It’s common for people to use platforms like Foundry and Roll20 to play D&D with non-local friends, and Baldur’s Gate was a hit, but… are we really trying to blast our enemies in VR? D&D sessions usually stretch for two to three hours (or more if you’re particularly dedicated), and even when you’re having a great time with your friends, your attention span can falter a bit. Does anyone really want to wear headphones for an entire D&D session?
News comes shortly after mass layoffs hit Hasbro, the parent company of Wizards. In the company’s division that manages Wizards and digital games, revenue is up 40% year over year to $423.6 million, offsetting operating profit of $203.4 million. but overall, Hasbro’s revenue is down 10%. Even though Wizards is thriving, its Hasbro division hasn’t been spared layoffs.
