A Scottish virtual reality esports player known as AxisMunde took part in the finals of what claims to be the world’s first VR MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) game.
Cradle of Sins – which is still in closed alpha testing with no public sales as of yet – hosted the Alpha Cup tournament in February with a $10,000 prize pool.
Developers U24 Solutions from Tallinn in Estonia have been developing the game for two years now. The studio says it ‘strongly believes that VR esports has great potential’ and has long-lasting plans that Cradle of Sins, which has around 1,000 testers, can become a successful VR esports game.
“We are very delighted with the results and positive feedback of the community. We are looking forward to becoming first successful esports game in VR.”
Arnet Mahmastol, U24 Solutions
In the tournament final, two teams of three faced off against one another – one from Europe and one from North America.
Players battled online from all over the world, with qualification rounds taking place between December 19th 2019 and January 18th 2020.
The top 6 performers proceeded to the grand final, which took place online on February 16th and hosted from a studio in Estonia. The top 6 players were randomly divided into two teams of 3 and Scottish player AxisMunde helped his team to victory after 4 games.
The EU side won $3,500, while the runners up took home $1,500. The rest of the prize pool was distributed among those who made it to the top 40 places in the qualifiers.
The MVP of the final was awarded to RexarCZ from Czech Republic.
Developers say that the pilot esports event allowed them to get feedback and think about the improvements both for gameplay and spectators. The team plans to host more of these events and to show off their progress with the game in the future.
The public launch of Cradle of Sins is scheduled for Q3 2020.
Arnet Mahmastol, CEO and founder of U24, said: “Despite the game being in alpha, it’s pretty much in playable condition with no huge game-breaking bugs, and the dev team is working hard night and day to deliver their vision of the completed game.
“We are very delighted with the results and positive feedback of the community. We are looking forward to becoming first successful esports game in VR.”
While Cradle of Sins is obviously not as big or established as other MOBAs out there like League of Legends or Dota 2, it’s encouraging to see some creativity and innovation in the space.
Cradle of Sins is one of a handful of VR esports games available. There’s even a Collegiate Virtual Reality Esports League in Europe.
You can watch the entire Alpha Cup tournament here, a recap of the finals here or sign up to the closed alpha on the Cradle of Sins website here.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
