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Full Steam announcements and update articles for this title.
Today marks a major milestone for us in Mana Core Game Studios: players can now experience Chapters 0–17, the entire first half of Utopia’s arcane fantasy narrative. Early Access includes around 8–10 hours of story, new regions, new characters, political intrigue, and the turning points that set the stage for the journey ahead.
Early Access is also a collaboration with the community.
The team will be gathering feedback on narrative pacing, clarity, English localization, UI presentation, and overall experience as development continues toward full release.
As such, we have prepared Early Access Roadmap
Below is the planned schedule for new chapter releases. This development schedule might be updated depending on player feedback and development pacing.
Chapters 18–19 — August 24th
Chapters 20–22 — September 21st
Chapters 23-25 — October 1st
Chapters 26-27 — November 23th
Chapter 28-32 — December 17 (This marks the full release window with all 32 chapters available!)
On behalf of the entire team, thank you for Supporting our Early Access release!
All Early Access players will receive the complete game at launch, and your feedback will directly shape the final experience. We are excited to continue developing Utopia together, with you.
Hello Everyone!
How the time flies... Last time we were reaching out talking about the update to our five-chapter demo, and now, well, we got some big news.
Utopia is releasing on Steam Early Access this 27th of July!
And this is not just double amount of chapter we are bringing, it's over three times.
The Early Access Build will come with access with chapter 0-17!! That's close to 8-10 hours of narrative-driven gameplay!
You will see a lot of our three protagonists, a lot of all our cast, and the story, but that's not all, we've structured and prepared our workflow for this day.
We will be sure to update the Early Access build regularly, not just to do any fixing that might come up, but to bring you more chapters as we build up towards the full release later this year with all our 32 chapters of the game.
While chapters 18-32 are still in development, we are very confident about how they are coming along, and we'll be happy to bring you more chapters through the early access until your build updates to the full V1.0 game.
We've also thought of all of you who supported our game and enjoyed playing through our 5 chapter demo, while you will be able to play back chapter 0-5, as any other chapter through our replay menu, we've made sure the progress you made during the demo is not lost, for those that played the 5 chapter demo, the game will automatically detect your progress, and prompt you to start from chapter 6 where you left off, ensuring you have a smooth transition from our free demo to our EA build.
This also means, that if you haven't had the chance to play our free demo, now is the best place to start! You can play without worry of losing your progress, so go ahead and enjoy the experience!
Like always, we will be listening to your feedback and words of encouragment, and we hope you continue to support us and enjoy Utopia: Birth of the Heroes Early Access!
Please, wishlist our game if you haven't already to make sure you are notified about the release of the Early Access!
Have a blast playing what makes you happy!
-Your friends from Mana Core Game Studios
Daniel & Dante Arjona
A new in‑game Gallery and Encyclopedia
Localization improvements
Minor UI polish
Various bug fixes
Adjustments to text boxes and font sizes across multiple languages
Steam Achievements integrated
The demo update adds a fully featured Gallery Mode that includes Character Art, Story Scenes, and Background Art albums, all of which contain dozens of entries that unlock individually as players progress through the game. The update also adds the in‑game Encyclopedia, which contains a rich collection of world‑building lore and character information that expands as players advance through the story. So, for those of you who’ve yet to play through our five-chapter demo, this is the perfect opportunity to check it out. And if you haven’t Wishlisted the game yet, we’d love it if you did…and maybe you could also share the game page with a friend…or twenty.
We’re also excited to share two new character trailers featuring Frederick Marcus and Diomedes Morgan. You’ll meet them both in the demo…but if you played the demo, you already knew this. 😎
Watch them from the Steam store page or over on the Mana Core YouTube channel.
Watch the Frederick Marcus Character Trailer: 👇👇👇
Watch the Diomedes Morgan Character Trailer: 👇👇👇
These are just the first of several character spotlight trailers. We’ll be rolling out more very soon.
Rounding out this update, we are very proud to share that we've just updated the Steam page with brand‑new key art! 🙌
We are very happy with how this turned out, and feel this new key art is much more in line with the mood and tone of the game and gives a better look at the world of Utopia and the game’s main protagonists. We had a lot of fun working with our artists on this, and we are really proud of how it turned out, and hope that it helps further bring the story to life for everyone.
Thank you again for all of your support. And if you’ve played the game, we would love to know what you think. You can drop a comment below, start a thread on the Steam Discussion boards, or hit us up on our socials (linked from the game’s store page). We’ll keep listening and improving as we work toward an Early Access release later this summer. 🤩
Your pals at Mana Core Game Studios.
Hey everyone! Dante and Daniel here. 🙋♂️🙋♂️
We wanted to share a quick update on what we’ve been working on, what’s coming next, and what you can expect in the very near future.
First things first. Thank you again to everyone who has downloaded and played the 5‑chapter demo, left feedback, and added the game to your Wishlist. Your support is appreciated more than you know.
We’ve been working on a number of demo updates based on our findings and your feedback coming out of Next Fest. These include updating the demo with:
A new in‑game Encyclopedia and Gallery
Localization improvements
Minor UI polish
Various bug fixes
Adjustments to text boxes and font sizes across multiple languages
These changes are coming along nicely, and we will share more once everything is finalized and tested.
We have also been working on a series of character spotlight trailers.
The first two will feature Frederick Marcus and Diomedes Morgan. Both protagonists are introduced in the demo, so you may already be familiar with them.
We have several additional character spotlights in progress, and they are all shaping up nicely. We plan to start rolling them out beginning with these first two, which will be released alongside the demo update. That means they are coming very soon.
We have been experimenting with updated key art for the Steam page. It is still in progress, but we are excited about the direction it is heading. Once it is finalized, we will update the store page and share it here as well.
Oh, and keep an eye on our socials. We will be posting a fun timelapse of the sketched-out version of the new key art in the coming days.
Thanks again. We appreciate every bit of support and feedback. If you have played the demo, we would love to hear your thoughts. Please leave us a comment below, make post in the game's discussion boards, or email us directly through our website (linked from the game's store page). Everything will be read and we will do our best to respond to everyone.
Looking forward to sharing more soon. With gratitude,
Your friends at Mana Core Game Studios, Dante and Daniel
Hey everyone 👋 So… funny story. We meant to publish this post a few days ago. We had pretty much everything \ all written out, proofread, polished, and ready to go up… aaaand we got wrapped up in the beautiful chaos that is Next Fest prep, social posting, chatting with other devs and players, reaching out to press and content creators, and running around like two brothers trying to run an indie dev studio working toward releasing their first game. Which, to be fair, is exactly what we are. 😅
But now that we’ve come up for a breath of air, we’re excited to announce:
The Utopia: Birth of the Heroes demo is now live for Steam Next Fest!
In the demo, you'll be able to play through the first 5 chapters in both English and Spanish and experience the game's first major story arc. We hope you’ll take the time to enjoy the experience and the world we’ve been creating over several years. Oh, and some more good news: the demo isn’t going away when Next Fest ends on March 2. We’re keeping it up so everyone can dive in and experience the first major story arc at their own pace. ♥ Before anything else, we would like to offer a heartfelt thank‑you to everyone who has already downloaded the demo, followed the game, or added it to their Wishlist. ♥
Be it a playthrough, a Wishlist add, a kind word, even a share on social media... for a small two-brother team, it all means more than we can express.
Your support helps us chase a dream we’ve been carrying with us since we were kids.
We hope you’ll dive into the demo, enjoy the opening 5 chapters, and then swing by the pinned discussion board post right here on Steam to let us know your thoughts. Your feedback helps us shape the story, pacing, and emotional beats as we continue development.
Thank you again for being here with us during this wild and wonderful journey. We can’t wait to hear what you think.
With gratitude, Dante & Daniel Arjona Mana Core Game Studios
Hey everyone,
We’re Dante and Daniel, the two-brother team behind Mana Core Game Studios, and yesterday was a very special day for us.
After years of crafting this story and building this world bit by bit, piece by piece, we were finally able to announce our debut game, Utopia: Birth of the Heroes.
Utopia: BotH is a fantasy visual novel set in a medieval war-torn world forged by war, ideals, and the cost of chasing a perfect society…the perfect Utopia.
In this game, you’ll be following three protagonists, each with their own vision of Utopia, and the choices that you make with them will shape the story and their Kingdoms.
And that’s really our core vision for this game: to deliver a meaningful story and experience that pulls you into the world and encourages you to form your own emotional connections and bonds with its characters, while also developing your own perspective on what “Utopia” truly means to you.
Utopia is very dear to us... not just because it’s our debut title, but because this story has been a part of our lives for about a decade now. The earliest conceptual ideas were 'birthed' back in 2015, when we were essentially kids, spending countless hours playing RPGs like Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and Persona 3 FES. Those games had a huge impact on us (it still feels kinda' crazy that both have since received remakes). And the characters who inhabit the world of Utopia first started taking shape in our minds during that time, too, long before development officially kicked off in 2021. Bringing this project to life and seeing it up on Steam is still a little surreal. It's all been a labor of love.
We're thrilled that you're here and we hope that you'll join us on this journey.
And with that...
The Utopia Playtest is Live!
With our announcement and the reveal of our Steam store page, we’re also excited to offer up a public Playtest, which is available right now and gives you access to the first three chapters of the game (Chapters 0-2). We would love for you to participate in the Playtest and share your thoughts with us in the pinned discussion board here on Steam https://steamcommunity.com/app/4235700/discussions/0/689747579780559506/. Your feedback will help us refine the game’s pacing, choices, and emotional beats as we continue development, leading up to the game’s full release later this year!
Play the public playtest:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/4235700/Utopia_Birth_of_The_Heroes/
We’re a tiny team working out of Monterrey, just two brothers trying to build the kind of story‑driven experience we’ve always wanted to play ourselves. And none of this would have been possible without the support of some truly talented and generous people who helped bring this world to life. We want to give our whole‑hearted thanks to Peter Reid Jones for his incredible music, to our amazing artists Aiskell Páez and José Cuautle Soriano, and to our brilliant programmer, Manuel Chávez.
Their work, passion, and love for the craft are woven into every frame.
So please join us in showing them some love and experience all their hard work come together by watching the announcement trailer, joining the Playtest, and adding the game to your Wishlist:
We hope that you enjoy the playtest, and it would mean the world to us if you could share the Steam page with friends or nudge content creators who enjoy visual novels and story-driven games. Every little bit helps and we appreciate it more than words can say.
Thank you again for joining us at what is effectively the start of this awesome journey. We can’t wait to hear what you think of the playtest and look forward to building our version of Utopia, together.
With tremendous appreciation,
Dante & Daniel Arjona
Mana Core Game Studios
About
This page aggregates Steam news feeds, patch notes, and developer announcements for Utopia: Birth of The Heroes, sourced from official Steam community posts.
Major updates, balance changes, and seasonal events often correlate with player-count spikes — cross-reference announcements here with the live charts on the main Utopia: Birth of The Heroes statistics page.
Articles link back to Steam for full changelogs. SteamScope refreshes news entries as new posts are published to the game's Steam hub.