‘Racket Club’ Update Brings More Flexibility with New Rules and Fan Favorite Modes

The recently released VR racket sport Racket Club (2023) just got its first major update, which brings a host of new rules and modes to the game for a more customized experience on the court.

Resolution Games, which is also known for Demeo (2021), Blaston (2020) and the new Apple Vision Pro app Game Room (2024), released the ‘A New Spin’ update for Racket Club across Quest, Pico and SteamVR, now including:

  • Unranked Play – Not every competition needs to move you up the ladder; jump into casual games with other players any time
  • New Point System – Choose from the existing Ultra Rally points system or single point rallies in any match
  • Wall Serve Rules – Players can choose if they want to allow touching the back and side walls on serves
  • New Singles Drills – Mastered the existing training mode? Players can now practice and improve their accuracy and techniques with fresh drills in the singles court
  • Player Stats – Track your progress, see how you’ve performed and more in a complete redesign of the Player Profile menu
  • Fresh Threads – Play your best when you look your best with all new cosmetics now available to unlock
Image courtesy Resolution Games

The update comes just two months after Racket Club’s initial release, which the studio says has seen 370,000 matches played to date, no doubt thanks to its super recognizable gameplay, which is a bit like a cross of popular racket sports such as tennis, racquetball and paddleball.

Mathieu Castelli, Chief Creative Officer at Resolution Games, says the update “builds on a strong base and feedback from our wonderful community to offer optional rule adjustments and more. In the same way basketball fans were able to create their own variations over the years – from 3-on-3 to H-O-R-S-E – we want to give Racket Club players the same flexibility to iterate on the foundation we’ve built for a brand new racketsport.”

You can grab Racket Club on Quest 2/3/Pro, SteamVR, and Pico VR headsets, priced at $25. To see all of the stuff from ‘A New Spin’ update in action, check out the trailer below:

The post ‘Racket Club’ Update Brings More Flexibility with New Rules and Fan Favorite Modes appeared first on Road to VR.

Tabletop RPG ‘Demeo’ is Getting Separate PvP ‘Battles’ Game in November

Popular VR-optional tabletop dungeon board game Demeo lets four players dungeon dive together. But, come November 9th, players will be able to duke it out amongst one another when the separate PvP title Demeo Battles arrives.

Update (September 15th, 2023): The long-awaited Demeo Battles is almost here, now slated to arrive November 9th on PC and VR headsets, which includes Quest and, SteamVR. You can pre-order now on Quest, priced at $20, and wishlist on Steam.

Resolution Games also listed a few main features to the game, which is confirmed to be separate from the original Demeo (2021) game:

  • Turn-based Tactics: Battle your opponents in dungeons, forests and more as you square off against your enemies in grid-based action combat across 10 maps tailored for intense PvP competition — but don’t fall victim to “The Burn,” an ever-encroaching flood of lava that works its way towards the center of the board and causes immense damage to any player or monster caught in its path.
  • Monstrous Minions: Assemble an army of chaotic critters to fight alongside you — from rats and goblins to cave trolls to giant slimes — a rotating cast of 37 creatures to pick from at launch, all with a mind of their own!
  • Heroic Teamwork: Bring two champions to the battle in every match and leverage their synergies; control both heroes directly or partner up with another player to defeat competitors cooperatively.
  • Play Your Way: Choose a champion to match your play style from 7 classes —  hunter, sorcerer, assassin, guardian, bard, warlock or barbarian — to unleash magic, melee mayhem and more, with 89 possible cards to pick from when raining fury down on your opponents.

The studio also released a full play-through session, featuring Jerry Holkins (aka Tycho) and Mike Krahulik (aka Gabe) of Penny Arcade. The play session follows below this update.

Original Article (December 15th, 2022): Demeo developer Resolution Games announced today that the game’s PVP is slated for 2023. The studio is calling it ‘Demeo Battles’.

Demeo lets up to four VR or non-VR players dungeon crawl through a tabletop board game where they face off against a range of deadly enemies.

After popular demand, the game will soon allow players to fight amongst each other. It appears that up to four players (on teams of two) will be supported in Demeo PVP, though it isn’t clear if free-for-all will be possible, or odd number teams (ie: 2v1).

Below we have the first look at the new PvP action where we can see that players will not only control their own characters, but also get to harness enemies they’ve fought in the cooperative mode. A ring of encroaching fire heats things up so you don’t dillydally on the board for too long.

The upcoming 2023 release for Demeo PVP is a delay from an initial estimate of 2022; and while we don’t have a hard release date yet, hopefully that means early 2023 rather than later.

In the meantime, take a look at some work-in-press footage of Demeo Battles gameplay in action below:


Disclosure: Resolution Games assisted with travel & lodging expenses to an event where information for this article was gathered.

‘Demeo’ Update Brings Hand-tracking Ahead of Planned Launch on Quest 3 and Apple Vision Pro

Resolution Games revealed its popular tabletop dungeon-crawling RPG Demeo now features hand-tracking support on Quest 2 and Quest Pro with its latest mixed reality update. It also includes a few new features to its previously released MR mode that are aiming to appeal to both future owners of Meta Quest 3 and Apple Vision Pro.

Ahead of Demeo’s confirmed launch-day release on Quest 3 sometime this Fall, Resolution Games announced it’s now pushing out the game’s Mixed Reality 2.0 update, which is available starting today on the Quest 2 and Quest Pro.

Added to Demeo last Fall, the game’s mixed reality mode lets players take the gameboard out of the virtual world and into their living rooms. Now, in the game’s Mixed Reality 2.0 update, players can put down their controllers and use their hands to pick up miniatures, play cards, and roll the die.

The update also adds two new MR features: co-location to optimize local mixed reality multiplayer, and decorations (including candles and posters) that can be placed to set the mood.

Notably, the studio says the original Quest won’t be receiving the Mixed Reality 2.0 update, but instead is getting a separate final update, bringing ongoing support for the game on Quest 1 to a close. Cross-play support for Quest 1 has also been discontinued.

Demeo Battles, the game’s upcoming PvP mode, is set to feature a similar MR mode on Quest 2, Quest 3, and Quest Pro when it launches later this year, Resolution Games says.

At the moment, Resolution Games says it’s currently focusing half the studio’s workload on the creation of MR projects. The studio tells Road to VR it has “multiple mixed reality titles actively in development across a number of devices for 2024 and beyond, including several with dedicated controller-free play.”

Additionally, the studio confirmed Demeo is in active development for Apple Vision Pro for “fully virtual as well as mixed reality gameplay,” with a flatscreen version planned for release on Mac.

New Video Explores How ‘Racket Club’ is Reimagining Tennis for VR

Resolution Games, the studio behind Demeo (2021), Blaston (2020), and Angry Birds VR: Isle of Pigs (2019), shared more info on how it’s engineering a new sport for its upcoming game Racket Club.

The studio released a new behind-the-scenes video that goes into detail about how Racket Club is played, where it came from, and what sets it apart from other racket sport experiences in VR.

In the video, chief creative officer Mathieu Castelli explains how Racket Club was built with realism in mind, offering up a sort of gameplay that could easily translate to real courts.

Castelli says that a big step in the project was modeling the “right feeling of impact” of when the ball hits the racket, something that is fairly mathematically complex. Another was defining the space so users could play naturally at home, and not need in-game locomotion stuff like teleportation. In the end, it comes down to body positioning and swing accuracy, something that is a 1:1 translation from physical racket sports.

While the basic physicality of Racket Club could translate to a real-world court, there’s a few things that VR simply does better, Castelli explains. As players gain expertise, the glass enclosures lower, increasing the chance of knocking the ball out of the court. Impressively long rallies, or the classic back and forth shots between players, can also give you more points, which can turn around a match in one go.

Racket Club is set to release on the Quest platform and PC VR headsets sometime in 2023. In the meantime, you can wishlist the game on Steam and the Meta Quest Store.

VR Sport ‘Racket Club’ Action Revealed in New Trailer, Created by ‘Demeo’ & ‘Blaston’ Studio

Resolution Games, the studio behind Blaston (2020) and Demeo (2021), showed off its upcoming VR sports game Racket Club for the first time during Meta’s Quest Gaming Showcase.

Taking inspiration from many of the world’s most popular racket games, such as Tennis, Padel, Pickleball, and Squash, the new trailer released today shows off what Resolution Games calls “the first real look at how Racket Club is played.”

Here’s how the describes the action:

When players step onto the court, they’ll find the play area for their matches surrounded by four clear walls — each providing a surface for the ball to bounce off to keep it in play and provide a new dimension for strategic gameplay. The more times players can hit the ball back and forth during each rally, the higher the points value for the player that takes it. This “points rally” mechanic introduces a unique blend of risk and reward that’s not typically found in racket sports. Players will need to read their opponent’s behavior to determine just the right time to break their reluctant cooperation on any given rally and win the points for themselves.

The court size in Racket Club has been designed with living rooms in mind, giving players the ability to fully immerse themselves in racket sport VR play while keeping their footwork within a safe boundary. This allows for natural movement in all its forms, from traversing the court to taking big swings at just the right angles.

The built-for-VR racket sport is set to include both single player and online multiplayer, which at launch will include singles (1v1) and doubles (2v2) multiplayer in addition to single player career mode. You can wishlist the game today on the Quest Store.

Resolution Games Acquires ‘HordeZ’ Studio, Shares Record Growth Figures

Resolution Games, the VR developers and publisher behind Demeo, Blaston and the upcoming sports game Ultimechs, today revealed that 2021 has been a record-breaking year for the company in both revenue and game downloads. The studio also announced the acquisition of Stockholm-based indie Zenz VR, which is known for VR zombie shooter HordeZ.

Resolution Games says 2021 was its fifth consecutive year of profitability, something the company says has allowed it to reinvest into growth in development capabilities and personnel. Now the company says it employs 158 workers, with that number projected to surpass 200 by the end of the year.

Over the course of 2021, Resolution Games says it’s quadrupled growth in game revenues and tripled total game downloads across all platforms compared to 2020.

The studio has also recently expanded to the US with its Austin, Texas-based subsidiary, Resolution Games Inc., which is headed by president and co-founder, Paul Brady.

In a press statement, the studio says its acquisition of Zenz VR is “talent-focused,” as it doesn’t include Zenz VR’s existing and in-development IP.

The studio says the addition of “select members” of Zenz’s team have been absorbed into the company’s AR division. This includes Zenz founder Niklas Persson, who has a background as producer and designer on Battlefield 1942.

Resolution Games is a pioneer in the VR space, having led with titles such as Bait! (2016) and Wonderglade (2017) on Gear VR. More recently the company has focused on multiplayer games, with Blaston (2020) and Demeo (2021) being the most successful of the bunch. The company’s upcoming sports game, Ultimechsis set to continue the studio’s focus on multiplayer games. The futuristic Rocket League-style game serves up 2v2 multiplayer matches that require you to rocket-punch a ball into your opposition’s goal.

Curse of the Serpent Lord Expands Demeo’s Adventures Today

As Resolution Games continue to release new adventures for tabletop experience Demeo, the videogame goes from strength to strength. Today sees the latest instalment arrive in the form of Curse of the Serpent Lord, adding not only a new environment but also new enemies and gameplay mechanics.

Demeo Curse of the Serpent Lord

In Curse of the Serpent Lord players are able to venture into a new Demeo region, Ronth, a desert land under the gaze of a scorching sun. All adventures need a bit of backstory and this new addition is no different. “In the desolate wastelands of Ronth Desert, the village of Izteria was built to be a shielded sanctuary to protect the followers of Iztir so they could worship in peace and solitude. But with the arrival of their serpent god, that peace broke — turning the townsfolk into monsters clad in the skin of reptiles,” the synopsis explains.

As you may already suspect, with its sandy domain Curse of the Serpent Lord is filled with scorpions, scarabs and more unusually shockwave-summoning Brutes. Oh, and snakes, big, red-eyed monstrous reptiles that cause havoc. In addition to those beasts are corruption tiles. This new environmental hazard can poison the minds of players and cause them to turn on their teammates.

There are new perks to make the challenge a little easier. First up are the merchants who can be found in-game to trade rare items with for valuable cards. Then there’s the new potion stand where you can pick up random potions for everyone in your party, with some new concoctions added in the update.

Demeo Curse of the Serpent Lord

Key to it all are the characters you choose and now there’s another, the Warlock Oana. Always accompanied by her Astacat, Cána, she’s a mighty warrior who can cast portals, fire magic missiles, and deploy magical barriers. Resolution Games has also taken player feedback on board regarding the Sorcerer. Zedokar’s new skill Overcharge fills him with electrical energy to stun any attacker whilst his Zap power is now a powerful Lightning Bolt.

“Our players may have started their journeys in the depth of the Elven Necropolis, but they’ve long since ventured beyond its crypt walls,” said Tommy Palm, founder and CEO of Resolution Games. “The world of Demeo is vast and varied, and we’ve revealed just a sliver of it so far. With today’s update players can explore the harsh desert environment for the first time — and there’s plenty more to come.”

Curse of the Serpent Lord is freely available to Demeo owners today. It won’t be the final adventure of 2022 either, with Resolution Games planning the fifth instalment for later in the year. For further updates keep reading gmw3.

‘Demeo’s Fourth Adventure ‘Curse of the Serpent Lord’ Releases Today, Trailer Here

Resolution Games today released the fourth module to its hit multiplayer tabletop RPG Demeo (2021), this time pitting your merry band of adventurers against what the studio calls a “cadre of desert-dwelling reptilian nightmares.”

Called ‘The Curse of the Serpent Lord’the adventure brings new enemy types, gameplay mechanics, and player options as the party expands to the desert region of ‘Ronth’. The module also brings a new Warlock class to the game in addition to rebalancing the Sorcerer class.

Here’s how Resolution Games describes it:

In the desolate wastelands of Ronth Desert, the village of Izteria was built to be a shielded sanctuary to protect the followers of Iztir so they could worship in peace and solitude. But with the arrival of their serpent god, that peace broke — turning the townsfolk into monsters clad in the skin of reptiles! Can your band of adventurers confront the Serpent Lord, uncover the truth, and break the curse?

And here’s a breakdown of what to expect in ‘The Curse of the Serpent Lord’:

  • New enemies – Face an all-new selection of foes, from turret-constructing followers of Iztir to burrowing Ronth Scorpions, rare Jeweled Scarabs, shockwave-summoning Brutes and more
  • Corruption – A brand new environmental hazard, corruption tiles can spread across the land poisoning the minds of players and causing them to turn on their allies
  • Merchants – Found as a point of interest in-game, the merchant will trade rare items you’ve collected for cards that will help you continue the fight against the forces of Iztir
  • Potions – Visit the new potion stand to secure random potions for everyone in your party, including a variety of formulations debuting for the first time in Curse of the Serpent Lord
  • Surprises – The sands hold many secrets — will you be the first to uncover them?

Demeo has added a Warlock named Oana to the lineup along, coming alongside a trusty familiar named Cána, something called an ‘Astacat’. Oana can create portals, fire magic missiles, and deploy magical barriers in addition to sending out Cána to fight on their behalf.

Image courtesy Resolution Games

The update has also “reconjured” Zedokar the Sorcerer by giving him the ability to overcharge, filling him with “a crackling electrical energy, stunning anyone who dares to attack and turning his Zap power into the much more powerful Lightning Bolt,” the studio says.

And that’s not all. The studio says Demeo will be getting a fifth adventure at some point later this year which takes the group into a town for the first time, a place that houses “powerful new enemies and all new dangers,” Resolution says.

“The world of Demeo is vast and varied, and we’ve revealed just a sliver of it so far. With today’s update players can explore the harsh desert environment for the first time — and there’s plenty more to come,” says Tommy Palm, founder and CEO of Resolution Games.

The Curse of the Serpent Lord update is now available for free on all supported devices, including both flatscreen and VR via Steam and for Meta headsets via the Quest Store and Meta PC Store. It’s also coming soon as a free update for Pico headsets.

The post ‘Demeo’s Fourth Adventure ‘Curse of the Serpent Lord’ Releases Today, Trailer Here appeared first on Road to VR.

Demeos Debuts AR Demo At AWE 2022

An augmented reality (AR) demo for tabletop hit Demeo debuted at the AWE 2022 event last week.

Developer Resolution Games showed the VR and flatscreen title running inside the Lenovo ThinkReality headset, powered by a Motorola phone. You can get a look at some through the lens shots in our wrap up video below from the Between Realities team.

Demeo AR Demo Revealed

As you can see from the footage, the AR experience works by anchoring the gameboard to a surface like a desk. You’re still able to see other characters surrounding the environment beside you. As Resolution Co-Founder and President Paul Brady explained, though, this isn’t the full game running inside AR.

“We’ve only had the consumer dev kit for about three weeks now so we got a little experience together to demo is so people can see the potential of what it might be like to have a tabletop RPG experience in AR,” Brady said.

In fact, Resolution isn’t officially announcing an AR port of Demeo for any headsets at the moment, but this certainly shows the possibilities of where the game could head in the future. We already think the VR game offers a best-in-class social experience.

This demo, meanwhile, came about as part of Resolution’s participation in Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Spaces initiative. Brady hinted that the program could enable Resolution to easily bring its projects to AR. “With their adoption and use of OpenXR and also their agnostic hardware approach it’s something that would make it easy for us to get it one place and make it available for lots of devices,” he said, “so we’re all about doing things in an agnostic approach like that.”

“Demeo’s average play time sessions are like two or three hours, so the ability to be in AR where you can see your environment around you too is an option that I think a lot of players will really appreciate in the future.”

Of course, there’s still plenty of other things in the works for Demeo right now. Stay tuned for the Upload VR Showcase this week at 8am PT on June 9 for a sneak peek at the game’s next hero.

Demeo’s Next Campaign, Curse Of The Serpent Lord, Arrives June 16

Resolution Games unveiled a teaser for its next Demeo campaign, titled Curse of the Serpent Lord, which is arriving soon.

The new campaign will arrive on June 16, available as a free update on all platforms. It will be the fourth campaign for the game, following on from the initial launch campaign, The Black Sarcophagus, and subsequent expansions, Realm of the Rat King and Roots of Evil.

Demeo Serpent Lord

There’s no other details available about Curse of the Serpent Lord besides the image above, but safe to say we can expect to hear more across the next few weeks before launch.

Demeo saw great success on release last year and we loved it, calling it a “near-peerless social VR experience” in our review and awarding it the titles of Best Co-op Multiplayer, Best PC VR Game and Game of the Year in our Best of 2021 awards. Since then, Resolution Games has expanded the game out with extra campaigns, a social hub area, and a flatscreen PC version of the game that offers cross-play with VR platforms.

The most recent campaign, Roots of Evil, took us to a slightly different enviornment from the first two campaigns and added a new class, the Bard. Here’s an extract from our hands-on:

If you loved what was on offer with Demeo’s base launch and Realm of the Rat King expansion, there’s little reason not to jump into Roots of Evil. There’s enough new twists here to give your party of 4 some welcome new challenges, and it’s great to see the game quite literally branching out (sorry) into new territory. VR’s best social gaming experience just keeps getting better.

You can read our full impressions here.

We can’t wait to see how Curse of the Serpent Lord developers Demeo further. Keep an eye out for more details soon.