Cooperative Innovations, the British developer currently making MMORPG Raiders of Erda has announced work on a second virtual reality (VR) title. The team has secured the license for award-winning co-op party game Spaceteam, with the intention of releasing a version for VR arcades as well as home users.
Originally created by Henry Smith of Sleeping Beast Games and released for iOS and Android in 2012, Spaceteam has achieved over 8 million downloads and spawned its own card game. Suitable for 2-8 players gameplay requires everyone to work together to control randomly assigned spaceship control panels and follow time-sensitive instructions before their ship explodes.
Soon the franchise will make it to VR with Cooperative Innovations’ CEO & Founder Simon Barratt stating: “We’ve always loved the energy, collaboration and communication that Spaceteam creates and it’s a perfect fit for our vision of VR and AR as social, collaborative technologies. The game is already a lot of fun to play and we’re looking forward to getting it into alpha testers’ hands soon.”
Currently, the team has yet to reveal what the VR version of Spaceteam looks like or how they’ve transferred the gameplay into a virtual environment. There’s has also been no indication which VR headsets Spaceteam will support, although due to the local frantic nature of the original mobile standalone devices are most likely.
“It’s been great to see what Cooperative Innovations have already done with Spaceteam,” said Smith in a statement. The game is about being right in the action on the bridge of a spaceship with your friends, so VR is going to add an exciting new dimension!”
Earlier this year Cooperative Innovations closed a seed funding round securing the company £500K of investment, and released its proprietary VR animation technology, Ikabod. This can help developers reflect a player’s real-world physicality so they can see their arm and body movements properly mirrored in VR.
Spaceteam is scheduled for release later in 2019. VRFocus will continue its coverage of Spaceteam and Raider of Erda, reporting back with the latest updates.