Summon Your Friends for Co-Op Spellcasting in ‘The Wizards - Dark Times’ Brotherhood Update

It was 2014 when Karolina Koszuta and her friends and co-founders decided to establish their own studio focused on developing for virtual and augmented reality. After supporting the Rift Kickstarter campaign, they received an early dev kit, and the rest, as they say, is history. Fast forward nearly a decade, and Carbon Studio has a roster of VR games to its credit, including Crimen - Mercenary Tales, Mindset, Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Tempestfall, and, of course, The Wizards, and its sequel, The Wizards - Dark Times. And now, fans of VR spellcasting are in luck, as Carbon Studio and Vertigo Games launch the Brotherhood Update on Meta Quest 2 + 3.

In the free Brotherhood Update, you’ll gather your mystical comrades and unleash elemental skills against new foes. Explore enchanted realms, tackle fresh challenges, and revel in the power of true camaraderie. Players can also look forward to a remastered single-player campaign with enhanced graphics and VR controls designed to take advantage of the new Quest 3 hardware.

Koszuta’s been involved with The Wizards franchise from the very beginning, helping to design the series from scratch. So who better to chat with to get a better understanding of the Brotherhood Update and all that it brings to the table?

Karolina Koszuta: Hey there! It’s Karolina from Carbon Studio. After graduating from the University of Fine Arts, I started my game dev journey as a 3D artist in a Polish dev studio. Having acquired a broader skill set and knowledge, my passion for VR technology intensified. Consequently, I teamed up with friends to establish a company focused on developing VR and AR games and experiences.

Since then, together with the other two co-founders, we have been constantly developing our team and expanding it with new amazing specialists. Currently, my responsibilities are intertwined and it is difficult to define their clear scope, although I most often participate in the areas of business, art direction, design, research, and marketing.

KK: Deep down inside, we all knew that the next step for our series would involve giving players the opportunity to unite their forces and embark on thrilling new adventures together as a team. Initial discussions about incorporating multiplayer into our plans surfaced in 2021—however, back then we saw this mode as a game for two players who would tackle a PvE campaign together. Over time, our vision evolved, and we decided that two magicians were not enough :) After all, playing with two friends at the same time (as a team of three) is much more fun. The more, the merrier!

KK: We wanted each wizard to feel that they play a unique and important role on the team. Achieving this required us to define distinctive, individual features for each class. The Fire Mage is the typical damage dealer of your party, capable of both destroying large groups of enemies and focusing on single, durable targets. The Frost Mage is your defense, who can shield friends with a frost wall or freeze opponents to buy some extra time for the team. The Storm Mage plays a more supportive role, stunning their targets and giving their fellow wizards additional movement speed. Additionally, each class has its own unique aura effect to support its allies.

KK: Well, it depends on the players’ choices—and that’s one of the most fun elements of the Brotherhood Update. Although the character classes complement each other perfectly, nothing is stopping our players from taking on the role of three Frost Mages and freezing everything in their path, or picking up three Fire Mages and leaving nothing behind but the flames and ashes. When you factor in that every element possesses its exclusive skill tree, allowing players to select their preferred spells, the outcome is an exceptionally potent combination. There are area of effect spells, melee spells, ranged spells, strong single target spells, and many, many more, so we’re sure everyone will find something to their liking.

KK: Apart from a few minor changes, the biggest difference will be changes in the game’s visuals. Players will rediscover the beauty of the magical world of Meliora, this time with many graphical improvements and a palette of new colors. Another big change involves introducing previously unencountered enemies—these include both fresh elemental variations of familiar foes and entirely new, highly perilous creatures.

KK: We can admire new corners of the in-game world in the co-op multiplayer mode. Among the six maps we’ve prepared for you, there are dark, corrupted woods, magnificent strongholds, enchanted forests, and a barren boss arena. We don’t want to spoil it, but we are full of hope that you will like them all!

KK: Designing the spellcasting system was one of the most challenging elements of the entire project. After all, The Wizards series is all about casting spells. By offering players dozens of new spells, we had to make sure that each of them would be easy and intuitive to summon, but at the same time wouldn’t be confusing or problematic. That’s why we’ve developed a whole system of varied, yet simple gestures, which, after just a few minutes of gameplay, should become ingrained in the memory of wizards and allow them to freely use the magic of their choice. We believe that with a little practice, players will cast spells effortlessly or even instinctively.

KK: We’ve run two betas of our update, and both were a great success. In both cases, over 90% of the feedback received was unequivocally positive. Our community has proven once again that we can always count on their amazing testing skills and overwhelming enthusiasm. Some players tried to “break” the game, as diligent playtesters should. We were also curious whether they would come up with similar ideas and unconventional solutions as we did (there are plenty of them), and unsurprisingly, that’s exactly what happened: Our insightful testers figured it all out!

KK: Developing the Brotherhood Update has been a long and challenging road. We had a few stumbles here and there (for which we apologize!), but we managed to safely reach its end. However, without you, it would not be possible. We can’t emphasize enough how helpful and important your continued support, incredible hype, and participation in two beta tests have been to our entire team. Know that we deeply appreciate it all. The culmination of this path is the chance to experience the free Brotherhood Update, which has just launched on PC VR and Meta Quest.

Thank you for always standing with us, wizards!