Category: Resolution Games

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‘Blaston’ Gets New Game Mode, Passthrough AR Support on Quest & More in ‘Arctic Blast’ Update

Blaston (2020) is getting an update today that will bring a few new things to the futuristic 1v1 dueling game from Resolution Games, including a new dueling mode, character, arena and a passthrough AR mode on Quest.

Called ‘Arctic Blast’, the free update launching today adds a new mode to the game that lets you compete using randomly assigned weapon loadouts. The twist? Loadouts are identical for each dueler, which eliminates any material advantage on either side and reduces gameplay to pure skill.

The artic-themed content drop doesn’t stop there though. Starting today you’ll be able to choose a new ‘Arctic Resort’ arena, and use a new ‘Tundra’ ice cannon weapon which interrupts an opponent’s attack and temporarily restricts their vision.

Image courtesy Resolution Games

The update also brings a new legendary skin, called ‘FrostSpyke’, which is for FrostByte snowball.

A new character named ‘Shoxx’ is also available, the game’s first emotive character that changes facial expression during wins, losses, hits and more.

Image courtesy Resolution Games

Additionally, now in the ‘Knockout!’ tournament room you’ll be able to host your own matches, which includes the ability to set up single elimination bracket tournaments of up to eight players.

Meta’s passthrough API lets developers update their games to include an augmented reality view, enabled by Quest’s tracking sensors. In the Artic Blast update, Blaston is getting passthrough AR.

Blaston requires you to physically move around within a set boundary as you shoot and avoid oncoming bullets, so the passthrough function makes a lot of sense since the action is primarily focused on your opponent.

Granted, Meta Quest has recently gotten an feature in software update v34 called Space Sense that alerts you when someone or something has come into your play area, but it’s still nice to have a fairly clear view of your surroundings so you can be sure you’re not dodging or ducking into unaware bystanders.

Blaston’s Arctic Blast update is available for free starting today to current owners on Meta Quest and SteamVR headsets.

The post ‘Blaston’ Gets New Game Mode, Passthrough AR Support on Quest & More in ‘Arctic Blast’ Update appeared first on Road to VR.

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‘Demeo’ is Getting ‘Roots of Evil’ Campaign DLC on December 16th

Demeo (2021), the VR tabletop dungeon crawler from Resolution Games, is getting a new campaign soon called ‘Roots of Evil’.

Demeo is a four-player co-op game that pits a party of adventures against various baddies and one very powerful end boss.

Now the game is set to get a new campaign called The Roots of Evil—first announced in a Demeo Q&A back in November and later featured in Upload VR’s showcase today.

Community Manager Ciwiel says Roots of Evil will summon the champions to a dark elven forest where they fight against druids and “an evil there they’re protecting with their lives.”

In the video (linked above), Ciwiel shows off that the update is also bringing a new class to the game, a lute-wielding Bard called Mothas. The update will bring “at least eight” new levels in addition to a new boss and some moss-laden enemies.

This follows the game’s first DLC drop, ‘Realm of the Rat King’, which launched back in July, adding to Demeo’s initial launch campaign ‘The Black Sarcophagus’. Check out our full review of Demeo to find out why we gave it a respectable [7/10].

As the game’s second free DLC campaign, Roots of Evil will arrive on December 16th on all supported platforms, which includes Quest, Rift, and SteamVR (Vive, Index, Rift, and Windows VR headsets).

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Resolution Games Acquires New VR Studio

Resolution Games acquired Zero Index, the studio that helped port Carly and the Reaperman over to Oculus Quest earlier this year.

The Zero Index team is based in Sweden and will be rebranded to ‘Resolution Tech’ in light of the acquisition. To be clear, this is not the actual developer of Carly and the Reaperman, named Odd Raven Studios, but the team that partnered with Resolution to bring the game to Quest earlier this year. The team currently consists of only four employees but Resolution says it will grow the studio and continue to “draw on the incredible well of technical talent in the East Sweden region.”

Here’s what Resolution Games CEO Tommy Palm had to say about the acquisition:

The Zero Index team has a number of impressive accomplishments under their belt, including their exemplary work that helped us bring Carly and the Reaperman to Oculus Quest earlier this year. Demand for great VR and AR experiences is growing at an exponential rate. With more hardware choices than ever in the pipeline from tech’s biggest players, having a team experienced in bringing games to different markets and platforms will help us continue to reach new players everywhere they choose to play.

Zero Index CEO Tomas Ahlström says that the acquisition is “an exciting step for both teams” and they’re “thrilled to be a part of [Resolution’s] future vision.”

Resolution also announced four new additions to the company — Natalie Mellin as Head of People & Culture, Ebba Waltré as General Counsel, Johan Gästrin as Product Manager and Rickard Åstrand as Finance Director.

Last week, Resolution Games announced Ultimechs, a new game in development that looks like it mixes Rocket League with mechs in VR. It’s scheduled for release on “leading VR platforms” sometime in 2022.

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Resolution Games Acquires Zero Tech, the Team Behind Carly and the Reaperman Quest Port

Carly and the Reaperman

Resolution Games already has an expansive library of virtual reality (VR) content, most recently revealing its next multiplayer title Ultimechs. But the studio wants to accelerate this growth, announcing this week the acquisition of Zero Tech, the Swedish videogame studio that helped port co-op adventure Carly and the Reaperman to Oculus Quest earlier this year.

Carly and the Reaperman

The acquisition will see Zero Tech rebranded as Resolution Tech with a look to expand the current four-member team.

“The Zero Index team has a number of impressive accomplishments under their belt, including their exemplary work that helped us bring Carly and the Reaperman to Oculus Quest earlier this year,” said Tommy Palm, CEO and founder of Resolution Games in a statement. “Demand for great VR and AR experiences is growing at an exponential rate. With more hardware choices than ever in the pipeline from tech’s biggest players, having a team experienced in bringing games to different markets and platforms will help us continue to reach new players everywhere they choose to play.”

In addition to the acquisition has expanded its own team with four new hires. Natalie Mellin is Resolution Games’ new Head of People & Culture, Ebba Waltré has joined as General Counsel to lead the company’s legal strategy around future growth; Johan Gästrin will be heading up the company’s Shared Technology (Fidelity) and Game Production IT as Product Manager, whilst Rickard Åstrand has been appointed as Resolution Games’ Finance Director.

Natalie Mellin, Ebba Waltré, Johan Gästrin Join Resolution Games (Rickard Åstrand not pictured)
Natalie Mellin, Ebba Waltré, Johan Gästrin Join Resolution Games.

“At Resolution Games, we are craftspeople who live and breathe games and love what we do,” added Palm. “We’ve been very fortunate to bring such incredible talent into the company, all while striving for everyone to be genuinely happy to work at Resolution Games and feel that our output is a direct reflection of the success of this goal. With the continued enthusiasm we’re seeing from players, there’s been no shortage of opportunity to continue our team’s growth, and we are looking forward to doing that in a way that continues along the path toward this goal.”

This continues an exciting month for Resolution Games. As mentioned, Ultimechs was unveiled last week, a futuristic sports experience coming to VR platforms in 2022. The VR Awards also named Demeo VR Game of the Year. As Resolution Games continues to expand, VRFocus will keep you updated.

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Resolution Games Acquires Studio Behind ‘Carly and the Reaperman’ Quest Port

Resolution Games, a leading developer of XR content, has acquired Zero Index, the studio which helped bring Odd Raven Studios’ VR co-op game Carly and the Reaperman (2018) to the Quest platform earlier this year.

Zero Index is a game studio and consulting firm focused on B2B services within both the game and IT industry. Founded by Tomas Ahlström and Alexander Milton in 2020, the team has worked to expand the game industry in the region of Östergötland in eastern Sweden.

As a part of the acquisition, the four-person team, which is based in Linköping, will be rebranded as Resolution Tech. Ahlström has been tapped to fill the role of studio manager within Resolution Games.

“The Zero Index team has a number of impressive accomplishments under their belt, including their exemplary work that helped us bring Carly and the Reaperman to Oculus Quest earlier this year,” said Tommy Palm, CEO and founder of Resolution Games. “Demand for great VR and AR experiences is growing at an exponential rate. With more hardware choices than ever in the pipeline from tech’s biggest players, having a team experienced in bringing games to different markets and platforms will help us continue to reach new players everywhere they choose to play.”

Additionally, the studio today announced four new hires including Head of People & Culture Natalie Mellin, General Counsel Ebba Waltré, Product Manager Johan Gästrin, and Finance Director Rickard Åstrand.

This undoubtedly comes as a direct result of its Series C funding closed earlier this year, which brought $25 million to the company to help the Stockholm-based studio expand. The studio has also created several well-performing VR titles such as Demeo (2021), Blaston (2020), Cook-Out: A Sandwich Tale (2020), and Angry Birds: Isle of Pigs (2019). 

The studio most recently announced Ultimechs, a futuristic multiplayer VR sport coming to headsets sometime in 2022.

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Ultimechs is the Next Multiplayer Sports Title From Resolution Games

Ultimechs

When it comes to multiplayer virtual reality (VR) gaming Resolution Games is well and truly at the top of the pile with titles like Blaston, Acron: Attack of the Squirrels, and Demeo. Today, the studio shows no signs of veering from that trend announcing futuristic sports experience Ultimechs, coming to VR platforms in 2022.

Ultimechs

Combining mechs with what looks like a game of football (soccer), with players competing in an arena setting where they can score goals by punching the ball with rocket-propelled fists. Resolution Games hasn’t revealed much in the way of gameplay details other than what’s shown in the announcement trailer, with the team simple remarking that “speed, precision and rocketry” are required to defeat opponents.

That’s the other big question, how many players will Ultimechs actually support? Blaston was only PvP but it certainly looks like Ultimechs will feature more although Resolution Games hasn’t confirmed numbers. At the moment 2 vs 2 is definitely possible as the studio sent out a teasing tweet earlier in the week showing four players on stage, possibly teamed up in pairs.

The short video highlights a spectator mode to view the match and a loadout area with six potential arenas to choose from. Look a little closer and you’ll see that players don’t have a free run of the environment, instead, they appear to teleport between specific points on the arena floor, indicating an almost table-football structure to the matches. Those additional teleport points could also allow more players to join at the cost of team movement.

“With Ultimechs we have created an entirely new gameplay mechanic that could only exist in the immersive world of VR,” said Tommy Palm, CEO of Resolution Games in a statement. “Sure anyone can kick a ball into a net, but only in the world of Ultimechs can you and your mech punch it in by firing a rocket fist and controlling the trajectory as you follow along its path. And that just scratches the surface of Ultimechs. We’ve really stretched the boundaries of what can be done in VR in this game, and we can’t wait to share more details.”

When more details have been made available, VRFocus will let you know.

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‘Blaston’ Studio Announces Futuristic VR Sports Game ‘Ultimechs’, Trailer Here

Resolution Games, the studio behind Demeo, Blaston, and Cook-Out: A Sandwich Tale, announced its next title coming to “major VR platforms” starting next year. Called Ultimechs, the game put you aboard a mech to play some sort of futuristic multiplayer sport.

The studio is staying tight-lipped on exactly what the new sport involves, however they say you’ll need “speed, precision and rocketry […] to defeat your opponents.” More info is said to arrive in the coming months.

In the trailer we can see a mech firing a rocket-fist at a ball, or rather a specific target on the ball that sends it hurtling into a goal area.

Image courtesy Resolution Games

There’s actually more to infer here too, thanks to a tweet made by the studio earlier this week. In the short clip below we can see four players donning Quest 2 headsets. A menu screen is briefly seen on stage where there’s an apparent loadout selection and list of available arenas. The four players battle in out and appear to guide the rocket-fists to their targets, possibly in teams of two.

“With Ultimechs we have created an entirely new gameplay mechanic that could only exist in the immersive world of VR,” said Tommy Palm, CEO of Resolution Games. “Sure anyone can kick a ball into a net, but only in the world of Ultimechs can you and your mech punch it in by firing a rocket fist and controlling the trajectory as you follow along its path. And that just scratches the surface of Ultimechs. We’ve really stretched the boundaries of what can be done in VR in this game, and we can’t wait to share more details.”

Resolution Games has developed several ground-up VR titles that are unique to the medium. Following in the footsteps of Blaston, a futuristic 1v1 dueling game that is currently rated at [4.6/5] stars on the Oculus Store, the studio says it hopes Ultimechs will grow its catalog of “distinct, original multiplayer experiences that the company is known for.”

Ultimechs is coming in 2022 to “major VR platforms,” which nowadays typically means Oculus Quest 2, SteamVR and PSVR. Heading into 2022 though, it’s likely we’ll be seeing more platforms arrive such as the long-awaited second-gen PSVR headset for PS5, and whatever Meta is cooking up with its Project Cambria MR headset, something we’re hoping to hear more about during Meta’s VR gaming showcase coming in early 2022.

The post ‘Blaston’ Studio Announces Futuristic VR Sports Game ‘Ultimechs’, Trailer Here appeared first on Road to VR.

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Resolution Games Expands to Focus More Development on AR Games

Resolution Games, a leading developer of XR content, today revealed a new AR division of the company that will focus more directly on the creation of AR content.

Today during the Augmented World Expo conference, Resolution Games CEO Tommy Palm announced on stage that the company is spinning up an AR division. While the company has built AR content previously, the new division marks a firmer commitment to the medium; the studio says it has three AR games in development, though it isn’t clear if they are targeting hand-held AR devices, immersive AR headsets, or both.

To support the its new AR division, Resolution Games says it’s hiring a Producer and Senior Programmer dedicated to its AR efforts, alongside a handful of other roles it’s looking to fill on its jobs page.

The announcement came during a presentation at AWE by Qualcomm in which it announced its Snapdragon Spaces platform, a suite of tools for AR development, which Resolution Games says it will be using.

Resolution Games was an early mover in the VR space with games like Bait! (2016) and Wonderglade (2017) on Gear VR, and on more recent VR headsets the company has focused on social VR games like Blaston (2020) and Demeo (2021).

Earlier this year the studio announced that it had raised $25 million in Series C funding which it said would be used to build live service games for AR and VR.

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Blaston’s New Seasonal Update Adds Some Wild West Flair, Plus a Free Weekend on Steam

Blaston

It has been a whole year since Resolution Games released duelling shooter Blaston, pitting players against one another in slow-mo shootouts. To celebrate the anniversary, the studio has released a new update, is giving away some in-game coinage and even opening up the videogame for a free weekend of mayhem over on Steam.

Blaston

First up is the new “Quick Draw” seasonal game mode that launches today and runs through until later this year. With a Wild West theme, the free update takes players out of the ranked arena and into the dusty terrain of Greatstone Valley for an old-fashioned showdown. As you might expect, this mode is all about being quick on the trigger as you’re only equipped with the new Deadringer gun.

As part of the update, you’ll also have the chance to participate in in-game event challenges that take place on weekends starting 8th October.

And there’s more! Resolution Games is giving away a “Fistful of Blasts”, a one-time free $5 USD worth of blasts to spend on cosmetics like avatar and weapon skins. All you need to do is log in between, 30th September at 10 am PST to 6th October at 10 am PST. That time frame also offers new players the chance to purchase Blaston for 30% off the regular $9.99 price as part of Steam’s weekend deal.

Blaston

If you are new to Blaston you’ll also want to make use of the free Steam weekend where you can play Blaston until 4th October without paying a penny.

“This update to Blaston is a great testament to how far the game has evolved since it launched,” explained Tommy Palm, CEO and co-founder of Resolution Games. “The initial idea for Blaston was a western-style shootout, so being able to include a nod to that in the game while also appealing to a new and broader audience is really fun.”

VRFocus said in its review: “Blaston is another one of the great examples that can only be made in VR and a perfect fit for Oculus Quest. The fast and furious gameplay is instantaneous, grab a gun and shoot it, with the real enjoyment coming from dodging all over the place.”

For continued updates from Resolution Games, keep reading VRFocus.

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Blaston Quick Draw Update Adds Wild West Duels, Free Weekend On Steam

A new seasonal game mode featuring wild west gunslinger gameplay is now available in Blaston. The new mode celebrates the game’s first birthday, alongside a free weekend promotion and discounted price on Steam for PC VR players.

The Quick Draw update will be one of the bigger ones since the Crackdown update, which added a single-player campaign a few months ago. By contrast, this update adds in a new multiplayer game mode that dials the action back a bit and focuses on a cowboy-themed showdown in a dusty desert terrain.

As you can see in the embedded trailer, you’ll be equipped with only one weapon, the Deadringer, with a special skin made especially for the game mode. The weapon will spawn in front of you, just like weapons normally do in Blaston, except in Quick Draw mode it’s all about who can grab and shoot the opponent fastest.

“The initial idea for Blaston was a western-style shootout,” said Resolution Games CEO and Co-Founder Tommy Palm in a prepared statement. “So being able to include a nod to that in the game while also appealing to a new and broader audience is really fun.”

In addition to the new mode, there will also be new in-game event challenges on weekends, running throughout the seasonal Quick Draw event and starting from October 8.

The free weekend promotion is available on Steam only, so you’ll need a SteamVR-supported headset to take part. For those on Oculus Quest, there’s no free weekend for the native Quest store version, but you will be able to try the title out on Steam through Oculus Link or Air Link if you have a VR-ready PC. The free weekend runs until 10am PT on Monday.

If you give Blaston a try and like what you find, you’ll also be able to take advantage of a limited ‘Weekend Deal’ on Steam, which sees the game reduced by 30% until October 6 at 10am PST. Plus, anyone that logs into Blaston during the sale period will receive $5 worth of blasts (Blaston’s in-game currency) for free, which you can use to purchase cosmetic, avatars and weapon skins.

The Blaston Quick Draw update is available now across all platforms, and the Blaston free weekend is available now on Steam for compatible VR headsets until October 4, 10am PST,