Sinn Studio, the Toronto-based indie behind VR sword-fighting game Swordsman (2020), has secured $2.5 million in a funding round, which is slated to propel the studio as it develops a new free-to-play combat game for VR.
The funding round was led by Hartmann Capital, and includes participation by Boost VC, Republic, Alumni Ventures, Mana Ventures, MetaVision, and angel investors including Chris Ye of Uken Games.
The studio’s next game, which hasn’t been detailed any further than this initial announcement, is said to be player-vs-player (PvP), which will notably depart from Swordsman’s AI-centric combat.
Notably, the studio is pitching it under a free-to-play model which will be driven by the company’s proprietary Combat Engine and its Large Intent Model (LIM), the studio’s neural network which it says is “specially designed to discern and learn from the intricate subtleties of human motion during combat.”
What’s more, Sinn Studio hopes these technologies will “power incredible first-party combat experiences, and one day, our favourite IPs,” says Alek Sinn, Co-Founder & CEO of Sinn Studio.
Released initially in 2020 on Steam, Swordman has since launched on every major VR headset to date, including Quest, PSVR 2, and Pico headsets.
Besides finding a good deal of success on Quest, the game was also ranked among the top 10 most-downloaded PSVR 2 games in 2023 across North America and Europe.
