Crossovers can either be delightful or disappointing. Sometimes they let you pilot a Megazord in Fortnite; other times two franchises are simply pasted together and the result feels hollow. That’s the problem with Demeo x Dungeons & Dragons: Battlemarked. It functions well as a follow-up to 2021’s Demeo, but it seldom feels like a genuine D&D experience.
Demeo began life as a VR dungeon-crawler that captures the tactile feel of a fantasy board game more than the open-ended role-playing of a tabletop RPG. It plays closer to titles such as Descent: Journeys in the Dark or Mice and Mystics: you explore tiles, fight monsters, collect loot and advance to the next encounter. Battlemarked even bills itself as “a tactical, cooperative digital board game set in the Forgotten Realms,” which is an apt summary.
The developers transplanted most of the original game’s mechanics into the Forgotten Realms, offering two campaigns — one around Neverwinter (Embers of Chaos) and one in Icewind Dale (Crown of Frost). The Icewind Dale arc follows a familiar D&D plot: a malign force marshals hostile tribes and monsters into an army that threatens the region. The setting is faithfully rendered; as a fan of the Rime of the Frostmaiden material, I appreciated nods to canonical locations and enjoyed the chance to visit places like Ythryn, the buried Netherese city beneath the glacier.
Image: Resolution GamesBeyond the setting, though, the D&D connection is largely cosmetic. Having not played the original Demeo, I assumed the game would at least borrow some D&D rules — but it doesn’t. The structure, pacing and card-driven systems of the first game remain intact. There are echoes of tabletop combat — minis on a grid and an action economy — but the underlying systems are fundamentally those of a digital board game, not a D&D ruleset.
One example is the addition of skill checks. When exploring you’ll occasionally be prompted to make a check to uncover secrets or influence NPCs, but you can’t choose who attempts it. The game forces whatever miniature happens to be in the conversation to roll the check, with no option to switch characters or retry. Because each character has fixed stats, this removes meaningful decision-making and can permanently block access to important information if the roll fails.
Image: Resolution GamesAnother jarring design choice is that the game remains in turn mode everywhere — even in hub areas intended for role-playing. In the Crown of Frost campaign you return to the Ramshackle Inn to pick up quests and talk to NPCs, yet you still have to move minis turn-by-turn to interact. That mechanical insistence undermines any illusion of natural role-play; no one in a tabletop session narrates walking 30 feet and spending an action just to order a drink.
Battlemarked also introduces a rudimentary class progression system, but it’s limited. Solo players can only level their primary character; the three hirelings remain at level 1 indefinitely. Leveling and class development don’t mirror D&D closely enough to make prior tabletop knowledge useful, and most abilities are governed by consumable cards picked up in combat rather than persistent character growth. The result faithfully reproduces a boardgame feel but lacks the depth and progression many expect from a D&D-styled RPG.
The experience is further marred by bugs. I was unable to advance past roughly 40% completion because the game blocked progression. After finishing a quest for the goblins of Karkolohk, I returned to their fortress to claim the reward only to find the goblins unreachable on a ledge despite quest markers. I also couldn’t leave the map to return to the world map, and because the game relies on a single autosave, I couldn’t reload a prior state — effectively erasing my progress. Whether that was a glitch or user error, it’s a major frustration; my advice is to avoid the Mimic quest until it’s patched.
Image: Resolution GamesThat said, the game clearly prioritizes multiplayer, and many of these criticisms may be less relevant with friends. Battlemarked also supports PCVR and PS VR2, and the VR presentation could substantially improve immersion compared with my PS5 playthrough. With a cooperative group, clearing dungeons and advancing the campaign could be genuinely fun. Still, long-time Demeo fans may balk at the changes, and D&D purists are unlikely to find the kind of tactical RPG experience they expect.
I don’t mean to suggest D&D’s rules are flawless — combat can drag, balance is sometimes uneven, and so on — but those rules are familiar. Classic adaptations like the Baldur’s Gate series or more recent successes such as Baldur’s Gate 3 eased players in by preserving hallmark mechanics while layering on new systems. Solasta took that fidelity even further by leaning heavily on official D&D rules to recreate a tabletop-like experience. Demeo x Dungeons & Dragons, by contrast, feels like a D&D veneer applied to a distinct boardgame system.
If you love turn-based dungeon crawlers with a tabletop vibe and enjoy occasional Forgotten Realms references, Battlemarked may be enjoyable — especially with friends or in VR. If you’re seeking a faithful D&D tactical RPG, however, this isn’t the title for you; you’ll get more of the tabletop spirit from games like Solasta.
Demeo x Dungeons & Dragons: Battlemarked is available on Meta Quest, PlayStation 5, and Windows PC. This review was conducted on PS5 using a prerelease download code provided by Resolution Games. For more information about Polygon’s ethics policy, see the linked resources within the original review.
Source: Polygon
