VR

Wands is a VR spell-flinging success — but we want more
Wands is a VR spell-flinging success — but we want more 1792 1008 Cortopia Studios

Andreas Skoglund, CEO of Cortopia Studios speaks with GamesBeat about Wands and Cortopia’s future.

Cortopia has been playing with magic since 2016. Its virtual reality dueler Wands started out on Samsung Gear VR and Google Daydream, but since then, its wizarding empire has expanded to Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and, most recently, Oculus Go in May. PlayStation, one of the leading platforms for VR, is missing from that list, and that’s due to the challenge of porting between platforms. For now, the studio is focused on deepening the gameplay, reaching a broader audience, and fostering its nascent esports scene.

Read the full article.

Wands Update 1.4 – Sanctum of Sahir Trailer
Wands Update 1.4 – Sanctum of Sahir Trailer 2048 1152 Cortopia Studios

Check out our beautiful trailer of our upcoming update 1.4 – Sanctum of Sahir below.

Introducing the new workshop
Introducing the new workshop 2560 1440 Cortopia Studios

Introducing our brand new workshop

Our engineers, construction workers and wizards have been hard at work creating a brand new workshop.

We’ve basically rebuilt the whole thing from the ground up, making it more spacious, streamlining the functionality of the various stations, and adding a bunch of other improvements.

The new workshop is part of our 1.4 update which will be out this month.

Cortopia Group Raises $1.4 Million
Cortopia Group Raises $1.4 Million 1920 1080 Cortopia Studios

Stockholm, Sweden (June 4 , 2018) – The Cortopia Group, established by award-winning virtual reality (VR) studio Cortopia Studios, announced today that they have raised an additional 12 million SEK ($1.4 million USD) for their newly formed entity in a funding round that closed on April 30th. This funding round will accelerate the Group’s ability in R&D and development of new VR, Augmented Reality (AR), and esports initiatives. Zenz VR joined the Cortopia Group on April 27th.

“Mobile AR is accelerating quicker than we first anticipated and in order to remain competitive, we need to embrace the advances in technology and the ways in which users show us they want to play games,” says Cortopia Group CEO, Andreas Skoglund. “With the release of AR Core by Google and Apple’s AR Kit, building compelling AR experiences is more appealing than ever before and this additional funding round will allow us to pursue additional paths for our group.”

This investment round for the Cortopia Group garnered the attention of many prominent investors in the tech, gaming and entertainment industries in a short time.

Cortopia Studios has already seen widespread success with their hugely popular, competitive, cross-platform VR title WANDS that brings fast-paced magic duels to players around the world. WANDS is a top-selling title on many headsets including as a launch title on Oculus Go in May of this year.

About Cortopia Group

Built by the original team behind WANDS, award-winning Cortopia Studios is based in Stockholm, Sweden and is led by CEO Andreas Skoglund who joined the company earlier in 2017 after previously having worked at DICE and Electronic Arts as a producer on the Battlefield and Battlefront franchises. The hero title, WANDS is a key focus – but the studio has also hinted at plans to use the company’s unique position to drive innovation for VR and AR technologies. Also part of Cortopia Group is Zenz VR, lead by CEO Niklas Persson who is the co-founder and creator of Codename: Eagle, which later became Electronic Arts’ big success Battlefield. Zenz VR hero title HordeZ is one of the most popular VR zombie shooter games in the world and is featured in multiple VR Arcades globally. Available on Steam, Oculus Rift, and Vive and for commercial licensing. X-Fire and Xion are available in early access.

The Cortopia Group was created to further expand VR and AR allowing successful studios to focus on what they do best; create games.

http://www.cortopia.com

http://www.zenzvr.com

Contact:

John Milburn, john.milburn@cortopia.com

The Sanctum of Sahir
The Sanctum of Sahir 2560 1440 Cortopia Studios

New Arena: The Sanctum of Sahir

A new arena has been discovered in the Beyond!

This map features 3 separate sections that the duel will progress through as a sandstorm and deadly poison sweep across the map.

The battle begins outside a grand temple and ends within the burial chamber of a long forgotten king.

The Sanctum of Sahir is part of our 1.4 update which will be out this month.

A Tale of Two Wands Updates
A Tale of Two Wands Updates 2000 1011 Cortopia Studios

Hello fans of Wands,

My name is Ryan Bednar and I recently joined the team at Cortopia as the Creative Director of the studio.

Now that I’ve had a chance to settle in, I wanted to share our roadmap for the next couple of Wands updates so that you can know what to look forward to!

But first, let’s start with some context.

We know that Wands is a great game with an exceptionally loyal and passionate player base. We see them every day on our Discord, around the internet, and in the game.

That said, we acknowledge that Wands has some room for improvement. Once players understand how to play the game, they often comment on the the game’s unique depth of gameplay – specifically for VR. But the learning curve is steep, and we currently drop you into the deep end pretty early on.

So our plan is the tackle these issues in two parts.

The first is Patch 1.4.0 which will involve us rebuilding the workshop, and all of its functionality, from the ground up; as well as adding a tutorial sequence to introduce new players to the very basics of the game.

The second, Patch 1.4.1, will cover everything else. Improvements to our control schemes, tighter gameplay feedback, and more ways to play the game will all be areas of focus for us.

While subject to change, our current plan is to launch 1.4.0 mid-June and 1.4.1 sometime early in the fall of 2018.

I hope that you’re as excited for these changes as we are – and we look forward to continuing to make Wands the best game it can be!

-Ryan

Cortopia Studios establishes Cortopia Group, adds Zenz VR to the fold
Cortopia Studios establishes Cortopia Group, adds Zenz VR to the fold 1920 1080 Cortopia Studios

Stockholm, Sweden (May 24, 2018) – Award-winning VR Studio, Cortopia Studios announced today that they will be bringing successful Indie VR company Zenz VR under the Cortopia Group umbrella, representing a milestone for the newly established entity. Zenz VR brings established IP to the Cortopia Group, as well as a fourth title currently under development.

“Building on the success of our cross-platform VR title WANDS, Cortopia Group is keeping a pulse on the top studios that fit our ambition for excellence in VR,”,  says Cortopia Group CEO, Andreas Skoglund. “Cortopia is an effective team of talented VR creators and have shown that we can develop incredible experiences that capture the hearts and minds of VR enthusiasts. We are thrilled to lend our support to Zenz VR to help them do what they do best, and to expand our studios influence in the industry.”

“Zenz VR is delighted to be joining Cortopia Group,” says Niklas Persson, games industry veteran, founder and CEO of Zenz VR. “The Cortopia team has been very pleasant to work with and I am excited to continue as CEO of Zenz VR in this next exciting chapter for our company.”

Niklas Persson is the co-founder and creator of Codename: Eagle, which later became Electronic Arts’ big success Battlefield.

Cortopia Studios has already seen widespread success with their hugely popular, PvP cross-platform VR title WANDS that brings fast-paced magic duels to players around the world. Zenz VR will join the Cortopia Group, bringing popular VR titles HordeZ, X-Fire VR, and Xion as well as a fourth title in development.

  • HordeZ is one of the most popular VR zombie shooter games in the world and has been featured in multiple VR Arcades globally. Currently available to download on Steam, Oculus Rift, and Vive and for commercial licensing.
  • X-Fire VR is an action title set in the year 2059, featuring gameplay for an epic battle between Humans and Alien forces. Randomized levels ensure high replayability. Currently in early access on steam.
  • Xion revives the arcade and shoot’em-ups of the 90’s with a unique rogue style and destructible voxel landscape setting, now featuring the ability to upgrade your ship. Currently in early access on steam and will also very soon be available for Oculus Rift.

 

About Cortopia Studios:

Built by the original team behind WANDS, award-winning Cortopia Studios is based in Stockholm, Sweden and is led by CEO Andreas Skoglund who joined the company earlier in 2017 after previously having worked at DICE and Electronic Arts as a producer on the Battlefield and Battlefront franchises. The studios hero title, WANDS is a key focus – but the studio has also hinted at ambitious plans to use the company’s unique position to drive innovation for VR, AR and MR technologies. The Cortopia Group was created to further expand VR and AR allowing successful studios to focus on what they do best; create games. http://www.cortopia.com/

 

Contacts:

Alice Martinez, alice@zebrapartners.net

John Milburn, john.milburn@cortopia.com

 

Wands – Patch 1.3.9 Now Live
Wands – Patch 1.3.9 Now Live 1750 885 Cortopia Studios

Fresh out the Wands factory, we’ve just released our new update 1.3.9. With this update there’s several performance improvements, balance changes and bug fixes.

Improvements

  • Improved network sync for Flaming Phoenix
  • Major performance improvements for spell casting

Game balancing

  • Reduced cast cost for Cerberus collars from 35 to 25 mana and reduced time from 10 to 8 seconds
  • Reduced cast cost for Skull Specter from 35 to 30

Bug fixes

  • Players can no longer get hit during teleportation
  • Dragon’s Breath can no longer deal damage through shields
  • Fixed bug where more than 2 twins could be active at the same time
  • Splash damage doesn’t pass through solid objects anymore
  • Elevator speed on Aspis Prison now the same throughout the match

Oculus

Improvements

  • Improvements made to swipe input to both the GearVR and Go remote

Daydream

Improvements

  • Improvements made to swipe input

Misc

  • From now on players need to be signed in to Google Play Games to connect to Wands

Wands with positional tracking now on Daydream’s Mirage
Wands with positional tracking now on Daydream’s Mirage 2560 1298 Cortopia Studios

Wands is now available and can be enjoyed with 6dof on Google Daydream’s Lenovo Mirage Solo. Wands has true positional tracking available right now.

The world’s first standalone Daydream VR Headset. Experience immersive virtual reality without a separate PC or smartphone. Deploy Google’s powerful WorldSense™ technology to lean, dodge, duck, move, avoid obstacles, and move naturally in The Beyond.

 

Wands, launch title on Oculus Go
Wands, launch title on Oculus Go 1920 1080 Cortopia Studios

We’re super excited to share the news that Wands is now available on the brand new Oculus Go.

Easily enter the beyond in Wands with no PC or wires attached. Oculus Go is a standalone VR headset made to fit you. Designed with breathable fabrics, adjustable straps and Oculus best lenses yet.

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