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Innerspace

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Innerspace
Information
Type Private
Industry Virtual Reality
Founded 2014
Founder Balthazar Auxietre, Hayoun Kwon
Headquarters Paris, France
Notable Personnel Balthazar Auxietre (president), Hayoun Kwon (managing director), Richard Turco (managing director)
Products A Fisherman's Tale, Maskmaker, Another Fisherman's Tale, One True Path, Spymaster
Website http://innerspacevr.com/

Innerspace (also styled Innerspace VR and InnerspaceVR) is a virtual reality company founded by Balthazar Auxietre and Hayoun Kwon. Innerspace is the creator of VR experiences that emphasize choice-driven storytelling and branching narratives.[1] The studio is based in Paris and describes itself as a VR creation studio that makes games and entertainment "for casual VR users to enjoy on all major devices".[2] The Institut français lists it as one of the first studios dedicated to making content exclusively for virtual reality.[3]

The studio's work falls into two strands. For consumer headsets it has made the puzzle adventures A Fisherman's Tale (2019), Maskmaker (2021) and Another Fisherman's Tale (2023), the episodic One True Path (2024) and the spy game Spymaster (2026).[2] Alongside the games it produces installation pieces directed by Kwon, such as Kubo Walks the City, which won the Storyscapes Award at Tribeca Immersive 2022, and The Guardians of Jade Mountain, which was selected for Venice Immersive in 2024.[4][5]

Reviewed 27 September 2026. Studio history, founders and officers, headquarters, game and installation release dates, platforms, publishers, awards, sales figures and quotes checked against the cited sources. About review dates.

History

Founding and early projects (2014-2015)

Auxietre and Kwon met while studying at Le Fresnoy, the French contemporary arts school, and set up Innerspace in 2014 to work with the emerging VR medium.[6][7] In a 2024 retrospective, the studio said its first projects were made in Korea for the launch of the Samsung Gear VR, and that after an unsuccessful trip to California to look for investors the team returned to France in 2015.[6]

Those first Gear VR titles included Playhead, a music experience co-produced by Samsung in which the player steers "a musical vessel through an electronic music piece in a retro-futuristic world".[8] Game Developer listed Innerspace VR and Playhead among the developers making Gear VR games in September 2014.[9] The Fifth Sleep puts the player in charge of a nanorobotic camera inside the brain of a coma patient; it has a branching, choice-driven story. For the Gear VR version the studio made it a pre-rendered experience rather than a real-time one, and UploadVR reported that planned desktop versions would add real-time decision making.[1][10] The Cave was a 360-degree video journey inspired by the Chauvet Cave in France and was available in the Oculus 360 Video app for Gear VR. In April 2015 UploadVR also reported that DMZ, a documentary about the Korean Demilitarized Zone, was nearly complete.[1]

In the same 2015 interview Auxietre described the company's aim as telling stories through space: "It is the creator of space," he said, "that tells you a story that is very relevant in VR".[1]

La Péri and the Firebird series (2016)

After the release of the HTC Vive, a team of five to six people built La Péri, a room-scale piece during which the studio says it formalized its approach to interaction design and to guiding users through a scene; a cut of it was shown at Valve's booth at the Game Developers Conference.[6] La Péri launched in April 2016 on Steam Early Access for the HTC Vive and was formally released in August 2016 as Firebird - La Peri, a 15-minute experience priced at 10 US dollars and narrated by John Rhys-Davies.[7] It is based on Paul Dukas's one-act ballet of the same name and uses motion capture of a ballet dancer.[11] Road to VR, which described Innerspace as based in Paris and Los Angeles at the time, called it one of the most effective uses of the Vive's room-scale tracking.[11] Auxietre told UploadVR that the studio had "a whole slate of short interactive/narrative experiences already written" to link with La Péri in a Firebird series modeled on Disney's Fantasia.[7] The Institut français lists four 2016 awards for Firebird - La Peri: the Grand Prix de l'Innovation at Festival du Nouveau Cinéma Explore, best immersive experience at Kaleidoscope, the Golden Headset at the Paris Virtual Film Festival and best art direction at the Proto Awards.[3]

In 2017 the studio made The Unfinished. In its retrospective the studio said this project showed the limits of VR narrative when the viewer stays an outside witness, noting that "il est difficile d'être impliqué dans une histoire qui n'est pas la sienne" (it is hard to be involved in a story that is not your own).[6]

A Fisherman's Tale and the move to games (2018-2023)

Innerspace then turned toward games. After more than a year searching for partners, the studio found one in Arte, which was starting to work in VR and joined to co-produce A Fisherman's Tale; during that collaboration the studio decided to restart the story with a quest to relight the lighthouse.[6] Road to VR described the game as co-produced by the Franco-German cultural network Arte France and the Paris-based Innerspace VR.[12] Published by Vertigo Games, it came out on 22 January 2019 for Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Windows VR headsets and PlayStation VR.[12] The player is a puppet fisherman named Bob inside a model lighthouse, and the central mechanic is a recursive dollhouse: a smaller copy of the lighthouse (and the player) sits inside the room, while a giant copy towers outside.[12][13] Road to VR gave it 6 out of 10, calling it "a well realized taster for many concepts we wish could have been fleshed out to greater effect".[12] The game won Best VR Game of the Year at AIXR in London in 2019, among other awards (see below).[13] It was later also released on the Oculus Quest.[13] The studio said the game gained momentum with Quest owners in 2021 and passed 300,000 sales by the end of 2023.[6]

The studio's first multiplayer location-based work, The Corsair's Curse (La malédiction du corsaire), was a VR escape game made for Illucity, a French location-based VR venue;[3] the studio said its social side and player collaboration heightened immersion beyond single-user VR.[6] With the standalone Quest, Innerspace began making free-roaming experiences for large spaces. Peach Garden, directed by Kwon for a Korean institution and based on a well-known 17th-century painting, dropped controllers entirely and used walking as its main interaction.[6] Innerspace says it received Epic Games MegaGrants for A Fisherman's Tale and Peach Garden, and that it builds its own development frameworks for Unreal Engine: the Dollhouse Framework for interactions and the Ballerina Framework, a node-based narration tool for writers and designers.[2]

Maskmaker, published by MWM Interactive, was released on 20 April 2021 for PC VR headsets and PlayStation VR.[14][15] UploadVR described it as an exploration-based puzzle adventure built around hands-on mask crafting.[15] The studio called it the longest and most interactive project it had made up to then, developed over about 18 months.[14] Its development overlapped with the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced the studio to reorganize around hybrid remote and in-office work. The studio later described Maskmaker as a commercial failure.[6]

Richard Turco joined in 2019 as producer and managing director. By 2022, the studio said, running projects in parallel had given it a stable economic footing.[6] The French company register lists Auxietre as president, and Turco and Kwon as managing directors (directeurs généraux).[16]

Another Fisherman's Tale, again published by Vertigo Games, was released on 11 May 2023 for PlayStation VR2, Meta Quest 2 and PC VR platforms.[17] Its puzzles use the player's own body, including detaching Bob's hands. Road to VR scored it 8.5 out of 10 and priced it at 25 US dollars.[18] Sales fell short of the studio's plans: in 2024 it said that the sequel, which had cost twice as much as the first game, would reach only about 50,000 units by the end of that year.[6]

One True Path and Spymaster (2024-present)

One True Path - Part 1, which Innerspace published itself, entered free early access on Meta Quest 3 and SteamVR on 25 September 2024 and was fully released on 21 February 2025.[19][20] The player investigates the death of Jack Stevenson, a reclusive novelist, by visiting three of his fictional worlds, each with its own play style: sword fighting, psychic powers and shooting.[19][20] UploadVR described Part 1 as a pilot for a larger project.[19] Auxietre told XRMust that the game marked "the beginning of a new cycle for the studio".[21]

Innerspace announced Spymaster on 5 February 2026 for Meta Quest and PC VR. The player controls secret agents working against an organization called Protocore, and a wrist device called the C.A.S.S.E.T.T.E. lets them rewind time and replay their own recorded actions to solve puzzles.[22][23] The game entered Early Access on Meta Quest and Steam on 7 May 2026.[24] Game director Jeremy Moirano said at launch that "there is still a dedicated audience for high-quality, premium solo experiences built around unique VR mechanics and compelling narration."[24] In September 2026 the studio announced that Spymaster would leave Early Access on 15 October 2026 with three new missions, including a finale that brings all three agents together.[25]

Location-based and art installations

Innerspace produces free-roaming installations for museums and art centers, most of them directed by Kwon.[3]

Title Year Format Recognition
Kubo Walks the City 2021 Location-based VR experience on Quest headsets; 15 to 20 minutes; set in Seoul in 1934 under Japanese occupation[26][27] Storyscapes Award, Tribeca Immersive 2022; LBE Special Jury Prize, NewImages Festival 2022[4][26]
Eternal Walkers 2023 VR installation for one to three people on Quest headsets; 15 minutes; based on the 18th-century painting The Nineteen Taoist Immortals by Kim Hong-do at the Leeum Museum in Seoul[28] Reflets d'Or for best immersive experience, Geneva International Film Festival 2023[28]
The Guardians of Jade Mountain 2024 VR installation, 18 minutes; co-produced with Volos Films; about Chief Aliman of the Bunun and the Japanese anthropologist Ushinosuke Mori during the Japanese occupation of Taiwan[5] Venice Immersive 2024 selection[5][21]

Games

Title Release Platforms at launch Publisher
A Fisherman's Tale 22 January 2019[12] Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Windows VR, PlayStation VR[12] Vertigo Games (co-produced by Arte France)[13]
Maskmaker 20 April 2021[14] PC VR, PlayStation VR[15] MWM Interactive[15]
Another Fisherman's Tale 11 May 2023[17] PlayStation VR2, Meta Quest 2, PC VR[17] Vertigo Games[17]
One True Path - Part 1 25 September 2024 (early access), 21 February 2025[20] Meta Quest 3, SteamVR[19] InnerspaceVR[20]
Spymaster 7 May 2026 (Early Access); full release scheduled for 15 October 2026[24][25] Meta Quest, Steam[24] InnerspaceVR[23]

Awards for A Fisherman's Tale

The studio and Vertigo Games list the following 2019 awards for A Fisherman's Tale:[13][17]

Event Award
AIXR (London) Best VR Game of the Year
Munich Virtual Worlds Best Interactive Content; Best Immersive Work
Virtuality Best XR Experience for the gaming industry
Lumiere Awards (Brussels) Best Interactive VR Project
Game Connection America Best Story & Storytelling

Projects

The Fifth Sleep

PLAYHEAD

The Cave

DMZ

Firebird

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Will Mason (2015-04-17). "Innerspace's branching narratives are just what VR storytelling needs". UploadVR. https://www.uploadvr.com/innerspaces-branching-narratives-are-just-what-vr-storytelling-needs/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "Innerspace VR". Innerspace VR. https://innerspacevr.com/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 "Innerspace VR". IFdigital - Institut français. https://ifdigital.institutfrancais.com/en/professional/innerspace-vr. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 "Our latest experience Kubo won two prestigious awards!". Innerspace VR. http://www.innerspacevr.com/blog/kubo-awards. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 "The guardians of jade mountain". La Biennale di Venezia. 2024. https://www.labiennale.org/en/cinema/2024/venice-immersive/guardians-jade-mountain. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  6. ↑ 6.00 6.01 6.02 6.03 6.04 6.05 6.06 6.07 6.08 6.09 6.10 Maxime Delcourt (2024-05-06). "Innerspace VR : l'histoire du studio en dix dates clés". Fisheye Immersive. https://fisheyeimmersive.com/article/innerspace-vr-10-annees-de-creation-en-dix-dates-cles/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Ian Hamilton (2016-08-19). "'La Péri' Reborn As 'Firebird' Series Inspired By Disney's 'Fantasia'". UploadVR. https://www.uploadvr.com/la-peri-reborn-as-firebird/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  8. ↑ "PLAYHEAD". Innerspace VR. http://www.innerspacevr.com/playhead-1. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  9. ↑ Alex Wawro (2014-09-03). "Here are some of the developers making Gear VR games". Game Developer. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/here-are-some-of-the-developers-making-gear-vr-games. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  10. ↑ "THE FIFTH SLEEP". Innerspace VR. http://www.innerspacevr.com/the-fifth-sleep. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Paul James (2016-08-22). "'Firebird: La Peri' Adds LoTR Actor in a Re-launch of One of VR's Finest Experiences". Road to VR. https://www.roadtovr.com/firebird-la-peri-adds-lotr-actor-in-a-re-launch-of-one-of-vrs-finest-experiences/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 12.4 12.5 Scott Hayden (2019-01-22). "'A Fisherman's Tale' Review - A Delightful, But Brisk Encounter with Untapped Potential". Road to VR. https://www.roadtovr.com/fishermans-tale-review/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 13.4 "A FISHERMAN'S TALE". Innerspace VR. http://www.innerspacevr.com/a-fishermans-tale. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 "MASKMAKER is out now!". Innerspace VR. 2021-04-20. http://www.innerspacevr.com/blog/maskmakerrelease. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 15.3 Jamie Feltham (2021-04-16). "MWM Interactive Talks Publishing Maskmaker And Unlocking VR's Potential". UploadVR. https://www.uploadvr.com/maskmaker-mwmi/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  16. ↑ "INNERSPACE VR FRANCE". Pappers. https://www.pappers.fr/entreprise/innerspace-vr-813003498. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 17.3 17.4 "Catch of the Day: Another Fisherman's Tale Out Now on PS VR2, Meta Quest 2, and All PC VR Platforms". Vertigo Games. 2023-05-11. https://www.vertigo-games.com/catch-of-the-day-another-fishermans-tale-out-now-on-ps-vr2-meta-quest-2-and-all-pc-vr-platforms/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  18. ↑ Scott Hayden (2023-05-11). "'Another Fisherman's Tale' Review - A Captivating Sequel with More of Everything". Road to VR. https://www.roadtovr.com/another-fishermans-tale-review-quest-psvr-2-steam/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 19.2 19.3 Alicia Haddick (2024-09-25). "Genre-Bending VR Mystery One True Path Out Now For Free In Early Access". UploadVR. https://www.uploadvr.com/one-true-path-early-access-launch/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 20.2 20.3 "One True Path - Part 1". Steam. https://store.steampowered.com/app/3217200/One_True_Path__Part_1/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 Mathieu G. (2024-10-21). "ONE TRUE PATH marks the beginning of a new cycle for the studio - Balthazar Auxietre (Innerspace VR)". XRMust. https://xrmust.com/xrmagazine/innerspace-one-true-path/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  22. ↑ J Brodie Shirey (2026-02-05). "A Fisherman's Tale Developer Announces New VR Spy Title". UploadVR. https://www.uploadvr.com/a-fishermans-tale-developer-announces-new-vr-spy-title/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 Artura Dawn (2026-04-04). "Spy VR Game Spymaster Announces Early Access Release Date". GameGrin. https://www.gamegrin.com/news/spy-vr-game-spymaster-announces-early-access-release-date. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 24.2 24.3 Mike Johnson (2026-05-07). "Espionage Adventure Spymaster Is Out Today On Quest & PC VR". UploadVR. https://www.uploadvr.com/espionage-adventure-spymaster-is-out-today-on-metaquest-and-pc-vr/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 Mike Johnson (2026-09-18). "Espionage Adventure Spymaster Leaves PC VR & Quest Early Access In October". UploadVR. https://www.uploadvr.com/espionage-adventure-spymaster-leaves-pc-vr-quest-early-access-in-october/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  26. ↑ 26.0 26.1 "Kubo walks the city". IFdigital - Institut français. https://ifdigital.institutfrancais.com/en/creation/kubo-walks-city. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  27. ↑ "Kubo Walks the City". Tribeca Festival. 2022. https://tribecafilm.com/films/kubo-walks-the-city-2022. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  28. ↑ 28.0 28.1 "Eternal Walkers". IFdigital - Institut français. https://ifdigital.institutfrancais.com/en/creation/eternal-walkers. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
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