Demeo’s New D&D Game Is a Solid DM-Free Virtual Tabletop Experience With a Lot of Promise (Review)

For many Dungeons & Dragons players, nothing quite beats the experience of rolling dice IRL with friends. But as schedules get busy or friends move away, that isn’t always feasible. That’s where virtual tabletops and co-op RPG video games can help. And that’s precisely what the new Demeo x Dungeons & Dragons: Battlemarked game strives to offer. In a virtual tabletop environment, players control minis of customizable characters to take on full campaigns or one-shot adventures.

I had the pleasure of playing Battlemarked in demo form a while back, so I was thrilled to have the chance to experience the full game. And this time, I brought a few friends along for the ride to put the multiplayer experience to the test. At launch, Battlemarked offers 2 full campaigns and 4 unlockable one-shot adventures for players to experience alone or in a group of up to 4 friends. The game supports crossplay co-op and offers in-game voice chat, letting you recreate a virtual version of the D&D party experience. Though we did run into a few snags along the way, playing Battlemarked felt good enough that I’m already debating swapping the occasional in-person D&D session for a virtual Battlemarked night instead.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Pros	Cons
Includes 6 playable classes, 2 full campaigns, and 4 one-shots for just $30	Some clunky UI choices make for a steep learning curve
The game is the DM, so everyone gets to play	Could use better in-game prompts to clarify options at times
Engaging, fully voiced player characters, narrator, and PCs	A handful of pre-launch glitches impact crossplay/co-op performance
Beautifully detailed virtual tabletop environment
Multiplayer crossplay lets you adventure with friends on all platforms

Battlemarked Is a DM-Free D&D Experience That Lets Everyone Be a Player Character

If you’re the forever DM at your table, you probably know the feeling of wishing you could kick back and be a player every now and again. Part of the appeal of Battlemarked is that it brings you fully licensed D&D adventures steeped in familiar lore, but without the required DM prep. Instead, the game’s narrator will be your DM, and everyone who plays gets to control a player character.

Battlemarked is fully voice-acted, giving you a DM narrator to prompt your choices along with spoken lines for player characters and NPCs. This creates an immersive experience that feels like playing D&D at a table where everyone is willing to lean into roleplay (the best tables, in my opinion). Each character comes to life in the game, from NPCs with attitudes to the playable class options themselves. The voice lines that accompany certain spells, crits, and fumbles are a real highlight of gameplay, and my friends and I will forever adore the Dragonborn Paladin in particular.

In terms of customization, we have a handful of familiar pre-built classes to choose from. At launch, the game offers 6 classes, complete with customizable minis: Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Wizard, Bard, and Fighter. You can’t craft a full character from scratch like in something like Baldur’s Gate 3, but you do get to make some key choices as you create your character and level up. It’s just the right amount of choice to make Battlemarked quick to jump into, while still feeling like a TTRPG at heart.

As you play through your campaign in Battlemarked, your character levels up. Doing this not only increases your skills in the campaign but also cosmetic features in Battlemarked. You can earn new dice colors and other perks that make your mini and your character feel even more like yours, even in a game with pre-built models.

This Virtual Tabletop Replicates A Top-Tier In-Person Play Experience

At its heart, Battlemarked is a virtual tabletop. Each level is crafted as a beautiful imitation of the kind of elaborate tabletop model DMs of legend might create. But it is clearly a table, with the rest of the room visible around you. In this way, it truly captures those in-person D&D vibes, even if my group has never quite had the budget to craft such impressive maps. These tablescapes are beautifully rendered, detailed models that form the play area for each scenario within the campaign.

Once you click into the maps, you’ll find your player minis along with other characters and landscapes rendered in 3D. Play progresses in turn order, with each player or NPC moving their mini in space. Attacks and other actions require dice rolls, which are made with the massive Demeo attack dice and D20, respectively. Rolling these oversized dice is far more fun than it has any right to be, as they interact with the 3D environment in occasionally hilarious ways. I got a lot of laughs out of accidentally chucking a die off a bridge to make a critical roll. Thankfully, the game always knows what it landed on, even if it becomes temporarily invisible to you as the player.

Playing Battlemarked is an interesting combination of D&D lore and mechanics with the standard Demeo RPG model. As I noted when I played the demo, the turn economy is card-based rather than following standard D&D rules. Once you get used to this system, it works pretty well to keep the pace of play going at a nice clip. You have your options right there in front of you, so turns tend to go more quickly than they can with the limitless options of something like D&D.

The dice, too, are a bit different. The Demeo dice for attack rolls use a series of icons to indicate a hit, critical hit, or fumble. With this ratio, both crits and fumbles happen more often. Initially, this can be a bit jarring if you’re used to D20 rolls for attacks, but it actually makes Battlemarked combat feel more entertaining. The stakes are higher for each role, as a crit or fumble is simply more likely than with a standard D20 roll in most scenarios.

If The Snags Get Ironed Out, Battlemarked Could Be the Go-To Way to Play Long-Distance D&D

Overall, Battlemarked is an engaging and entertaining virtual tabletop and video game hybrid. The visuals are good, and it’s nice that the game pulls in official D&D lore while streamlining gameplay for a virtual format. However, I did run into a few snags while playing that hold me back from giving a full 5/5 score just yet.

To begin with, the UI can be a bit clunky, particularly on console. There were quite a few times when I tried to use my joystick to scroll through options, but needed to use the bumper buttons instead. With the controls being a bit counterintuitive, there is a bit of a barrier to entry with learning to make things work. There were also a few times when on-screen button prompts didn’t seem to work as intended to toggle certain options on and off, and it wasn’t always clear why.

In a similar vein, the camera angles and controls on certain maps can make it tricky to hit your mark. To make an attack, you must drag a card or mini to the spot you’re trying to hit. Sometimes, I found myself accidentally attacking a nearby ally because it was hard to tell where I was actually dragging my mini or card. A confirmation screen or better camera angle options would go a long way to make this easier and avoid unintended friendly fire.

Despite these minor drawbacks, Demeo x D&D: Battlemarked is just plain fun. It’s a solid virtual tabletop experience that streamlines the TTRPG experience while still bringing the best elements of IRL play to life. Provided the UI gets worked out and the glitches smoothed over, I could see this being my group’s go-to alternative when an in-person D&D night just isn’t an option.

Demeo x D&D: Battlemarked releases on November 20th for PC, PS5, and Meta Quest. The base game costs $29.99 and includes 2 full campaigns, 6 playable characters, and 4 one-shots. PCVR and PS VR2 are supported, but not required to play.

A PlayStation 5 code for Battlemarked was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.