US developer SunSpear Games has announced its PC-based Immortal: Gates of Pyre will launch on Immutable.

As for SunSpear, the studio initially unveiled Immortal: Gates of Pyre in 2021, and has since raised funds through Kickstarter. Partnering with Immutable also means it will receive IMX tokens, granted by the Digital Worlds Foundation’s (aka IMX Ecosystem Foundation) $200 million investment fund, to accelerate the game’s development. The foundation is also offering support in the form of gas fees for onchain transactions, which will be paid through the foundation.

Described as a fantasy RTS in which players can collect various items by completing certain milestones, web3 features in Immortal: Gates of Pyre include skins and mods for the Immortal characters, in addition to displayable traits reflecting a player’s status. 

“Developing our first RTS game has been a dream of ours. As a company founded by revered StarCraft modders, we are committed to offering players a choice on what and how they interact with our game,” said SunSpear Games CEO and co-chairman Kevin Wagner.

“We’re thrilled to work with Immutable and their host of resources and tools to enhance the gameplay experience for players.”

“This partnership not only allows us to bring groundbreaking games to the community but also unlocks new opportunities in web3 gaming. We couldn’t be more excited about what the future holds for this collaboration and the value it will bring to the player community,” commented Immutable co-founder and president Robbie Ferguson.

With a current count of 138 games officially listed on its network, Immutable added 61 new titles during the first half of 2024. The increase correlates with the increasing number of new accounts and wallets created since Immutable’s zkEVM mainnet went live earlier this year, mainly driven by the launch of games and airdrop campaigns on the network.

In the middle of August, all-time total accounts created on Immutable were 6 million. Half-way into September, it has hit 7 million. In regards to wallet addresses, the current total is 8 million.

For more details visit the SunSpear Games website. You can also wishlist the game on Steam.

After many months operating under the moniker Project Awakening, game developer CCP Games has finally revealed EVE Frontier, its open sourced, blockchain-enabled game within the EVE Online universe.

As described in the whitepaper, EVE Frontier is described as being a “crowd-built virtual world and player-driven sandbox,” which is based on “cryptographic techniques and blockchain technology”, notably an Ethereum-based L2 ecosystem.

Basically, this means CCP Games is setting up the formal rules that will underpin the universe – and which will be fixed and immutable; unchangeable even by CCP – while it will be the players and other developers who will build on top of these “digital physics” rules providing their own tools and content.

In this way, CCP hopes players will gain “recognition, ownership and freedom over their own creative efforts” in a universe that will be a self-sustaining, persistent and “outlive us all”.

As for blockchain elements, there will be the in-game LUX virtual currency, which is similar to the ISK currently in EVE Online. It will be limited to transactions within the server technology running EVE Frontier, while EVE Token will be the crypto token that can be traded in and out-of-game, as well as being used for governance purpose to control the game’s future. Of course, players will also be able to create their own tokens within the game.

In terms of governance, players will band together to form Tribes, which will consists of hundreds of players. Tribes can then group together in their hundreds and thousands to form Syndicates.

There are much more details included in the whitepaper, which is well worth a read.

It’s also worth noting that EVE Frontier will continue its series of closed playtests, with the next one occurring on Friday 27th September.

You can sign up for more details at the EVE Frontier website.

As it prepares to move into open beta, Immutable-based sci-fi shooter MetalCore has been making some significant behind-the-scenes changes.

The main one is the transition from Unreal Engine 4 to Unreal Engine 5, which as well as boosting graphical fidelity, will also optimize performance, making the game more accessible to lower spec hardware.

Aside from tech tweaks, the big news is MetalCore’s switch from a series of closed beta tests to a rolling open beta program. Season 1, which is called MetalPunk Rhapsody, will go live on Thursday 12th September.

Each season will last four weeks and highlight a different example of the game’s three factions, with season 1 focussing on the MetalPunks, hence the name. This will be supported with themed content, skins and storylines. Future seasons will cover the Gear Breakers and Holy Corp.

More generally, for Season 1 developer Studio369 has also improved the onboarding flow for new players and has – of course – added new PVP bounties and missions, including 10 player PVE raids.

Other additions include the introduction of unit rarities for mechs and vehicles, which are reflected in randomized strengths, stats and attributes. Finally, progress in each season will be recorded and rewarded in a new rewards system, offering time-limited prizes.

“With Season 1: MetalPunk Rhapsody, we’re opening the game to all players,” said Matt Candler, Studio369’s CEO.

“We’ve listened to our community and delivered the features they’ve been asking for, from UE5 visuals to Barony Wars. There’s never been a better time to join the action on Kerberos.”

MetalCore is available now via the Epic Games Store, with Season 1: MetalPunk Rhapsody going live on Thursday 12th September.

Mysten Labs has launched pre-orders for its $600 Steamdeck-equivalent PC gaming handheld.

Called the SuiPlay0X1, it uses the Linux-based Playtron gaming OS to offer compatibility with existing distribution platforms such as Steam, Epic Games Store and GOG.

Of course, the point of the 0X1, however, is also to offer native support for the Sui blockchain and its games, notable thirdperson shooter Xociety and physics-brawler Darknights.

The first 1,000 pre-orders will get a special soulbound Mythic NFTs, with the remainder of this limited-edition run – it’s not clear how many units are available – getting a less exclusive NFT.

Both NFTs will be used to distribute future rewards to 0X1 owners’ wallets, both from Mysten Labs but also from any companies who wish to engage with this early adopter audience.

In terms of specs, the 0X1 uses a gaming-optimized AMD Ryzen 7 7840U CPU plus a AMD RYZEN 780M GPU, with 16GB of memory plus a 512GB SSD. The seven inch screen has an aspect ratio of 1920 by 1200 pixels.

Broadly-speaking, it appears the 0X1 will be equivalent in performance to the top-end Steamdeck, which also has 512GB of memory but is priced at $550. Of course, given this is new hardware, it’s not yet clear how smoothly the Playtron OS will work with games compared to the years-tested highly robust SteamOS.

Delivery of these pre-orders is expected sometime in the first half of 2025. Payment can currently only be made in SUI, SOL or ETH crypto. Purchasers will also have to pay delivery and local taxes.

Find out more at the 0X1 website.

Ronin-based god battler Aperion has announced its Season 3 open beta will launch on 22nd August.

Available for PC and Mac, via Epic Game Store and Mavis Hub, the release will bring together the complete flow of the game’s real-time battle features as players move through the tutorial to completing difficulty-graded PVE dungeons and unlocking PVP arenas.

As well as enabling players to hunt and mint apostle NFT support characters, the Season 3 release will also see the release of four gameplay currencies, which underpin the game’s power progression for the apostles.

• Unpurified gold is a reward for winning battles that is the main currency used in dungeon shops.
• Unpurified souls are gained by selling unwanted apostles in dungeons and converted to soul gems.
• Soul gems are spent to enhance your apostles’ skills and buy into new dungeon runs.
• Souls are used to reset your apostles’ age and acquired by selling unwanted apostles in your hub.

Players will be able to bring up to four apostles into a dungeon, with an additional two slots for apostles rescued in dungeons.

“Our vision is to make blockchain gaming accessible and exciting for all players as we work toward our upcoming mobile release, taking a significant step toward reaching gamers worldwide,” commented Frank Cheng who’s CEO of Apeiron developer Foonie Magus.

“Over the next six months, we will introduce more PvP and PvE content, including the new Avatar class, The Fury, and the new Apostle class, The Summoner, both offering fun gameplay to explore. Together, these advancements will drive our mission to become a mainstream franchise.”

Find out more at the Apeiron website.

Further to its existing investment, which was announced in March 2024, Ethereum L2 Mantle has signed a strategic partnership with Singapore-based blockchain MMORPG MetaCene.

The two organizations previously worked together for the browser-based xMetaCene play-to-earn mini-game, which ran on Mantle and attracted over 450,000 wallets.

The just-launched PC/mobile MetaCene: Gold Rush experience, which rewards players with non-tradable in-game items and $3 million-worth of its to-be-released MUD and MAK tokens, also runs on Mantle.

In the longterm, however, MetaCene’s main game, which will launch as first chapter MetaCene: The Genesis of Fire, will run on the Ranger Protocol, albeit within what’s described as a “multi-chain future”.

“As with any serious gaming venture, computing-intensive interactions between players and assets require a highly-performant network to support seamless gameplay,” commented MetaCene CEO Alan Tan.

“To that end, we are excited to take MetaCene’s mission to revolutionize blockchain gaming to the next level through our collaboration with Mantle. Our strategic alliance will allow us to tap on Mantle’s cutting-edge modular L2 technology, strong technical support and resources to propel the growth of web3 blockchain gaming and GameFi to proliferate across the robust and well-established Mantle Ecosystem.”

 Download MetaCene: Gold Rush from the game’s website.

Continuing to roll out its PC-based mech shooter MetalCore, developer Studio 369 recently announced a forthcoming extension to the game.

Called MetalCore Arena, it’s an idle battler in which squads of infantry and mechanized units compete in league-based matches. Players will be able to join or create leagues of up to 20 participants. Using their unit and vehicle cards, players can then set up formations for both offensive and defensive scenarios according to their opponents’ strategy.

Available for PC and free-to-play, no release date has yet been revealed.

The announcement comes at the back of MetalCore selling out four of its five vehicle NFTs mints. This latest Genesis collection marks the first time it’s sold NFTs since the original soldiers were launched in 2022. Ranging from hover tanks to mechs and aircraft, NFTs can only be minted on Immutable’s zkEVM, and paid for using MetalCore’s MCG token. Prices range from $100 to $500. 

In terms of the MCG token, it hasn’t performed so well. Since launching on 28th June, its price has dropped 80%.

After six months of multiple airdrop campaigns, Blocklords has finally launched its LRDS token.

Despite not being live on exchanges, the token – which is an ERC20 on Ethereum – has still filled an in-game function and players have been able to stake their LRDS to gain influence, an in-game currency used to buy exclusive resource packs, hero NFTs, new levels, and more.

In order to empower players and drive engagement in the larger ecosystem, LRDS also serves as the governance token, allowing holders to participate in community voting. This extends beyond just the game’s development in that it includes treasury voting and validation of the game’s forthcoming L3 Lordchain.

To this end, Blocklords has introduced a node rewards program through which users who lock a minimum of 500 tokens for 13 weeks will earn exclusive rewards when Lordchain goes live. 

Similarly to other projects currently launching tokens, the opportunity to stake, obtain governance rights, and earn greater future rewards, appears to be a way of preventing players from immediately selling off their LRDS. This is also further enhanced by the tokens only being possible to obtain through active gameplay.

As for Blocklords, the PC-based grand strategy game is available via Epic Games and has garnered over 100,000 downloads since launching season 1 earlier in 2024. However, developer MetaKing also recently expanded by launching fully onchain browser-based extension game Blocklords Dynasty on Coinbase’s Base blockchain, which offers an additional way for players to earn LRDS rewards.

Available on PC, Blocklords can be downloaded via Epic Games Store, and Blocklords Dynasty is available here.

South Korean outfit Wemade recently made several announcements as part of its Wemix day.

Some key introductions included:

• Wemix Pay
• PLAY token 
• New games

Wemix Pay is a new payment system for the Wemix platform that will reward users with Prime Points. These can be used to access VIP passes, NFTs and airdrops. Scheduled to launch in H2 2024, Wemix Pay will also be integrated into major Wemix Play games and serve as a way to drive utility and demand.

Another addition will be the PLAY token. This is tied to actual in-game revenue and will only be minted when someone uses Wemix Pay. It will be required to buy some items in games such as Night Crows. The PLAY tokens are then burned and not recirculated, in order to prevent inflation. PLAY tokens can be earned alongside Prime Points through Wemix Pay.

These new and revamped features are part of Wemix’s new strategic direction, announced ahead of Wemix Day. In essence, it entails a refocus from high-volume to fewer but more high-quality games.

To this end, Wemade announced new games including web3-native Legend of Ymir and an MMORPG from Mir4’s developers called Project M. These won’t be released until late 2025 and 2026. In addition, RPG Crystal of Naramunz will launch on Wemix in early 2025, while Meta Toy DragonZ Saga will migrate from Immutable.

Finally, Wemix will launch its Wepublic voting and donation system in 2025, so charitable organizations can raise money by creating DAOs and engaging with the Wemix community.

Line’s web3 subsidiary Line Next has partnered with South Korean game company Smilegate.

Based on Line Next’s web3 gaming platform DOSI, the companies will integrate an NFT marketplace into Smilegate’s forthcoming MMORPG Lord Nine, which is due to launch across PC and mobile in H2 2024.

First launching in Taiwan in September, the marketplace will then roll out more functions alongside the regional expansion of Lord Nine. Starting today however, Taiwanese players can pre-register for Lord Nine and get rewards such as a Medium Item Box that can be used in the game, LINE Points, and Kaia tokens.

Following the launch, players will only be able to access Lord Nine NFTs via their game accounts linked to the DOSI marketplace, which will facilitate payments via Apple Pay, Google Pay, and DOSI’s Kaia tokens. 

Further down the line, the game will also offer special in-game features and other benefits to its NFT holders. 

In December 2023, Line Next announced it had raised $140 million to accelerate the growth of its DOSI blockchain gaming platform. While Nine Lords is the first to be announced – the company is looking to collaborate with more games of various genres to design and facilitate NFT integration and other web3 features via DOSI.

Leading up to our Big Screen Gaming Summit – powered by PG Connects – on October 1st and 2nd 2024 in Helsinki, we’re taking a closer look at the Nordic web3 gaming industry.

One of the pioneers in the space is Swedish studio Antler Interactive. Working on fully onchain PC-based multiplayer game My Neighbor Alice since 2020, the team unveiled its second title Cloudborn at GDC earlier in 2024.

In development for the past 2 years, Cloudborn is a PC-based fantasy RPG enhanced by AI integration. It aims to engage players in deep tactical turn-based battles while building on the theme of self-expression and autonomy. To that end it offers both character customization and digital ownership.

Alongside releasing its litepaper, the team recently dropped a new gameplay trailer.

Consisting of hero warriors called Meridians and their companions called Golems, each playable character in the game is an NFT powered by AI. Additional NFTs consist of in-game items such as pieces of gear, and more.

In order to build a sustainable game economy, Cloudborn will also utilize in-game currency Peri, which can only be earned through gameplay. Used for trading, acquiring resources and to forge new Golems, Peri is mainly earned through winning battles, but can also be obtained through various missions, reaching milestones and competing on leaderboards.

More web3 gaming at the Big Screen Gaming Summit

Join us for the Big Screen Gaming Summit on October 1st-2nd 2024 in Helsinki to discover the latest trends and future innovations for web3, PC, console, VR and AR. BSG is a partner event of PG Connects Helsinki.

Interested in joining as a speaker? There are still slots available. Please apply by filling out the speaker submission form, or contact Charlie Scowen at [email protected].

Ubisoft has dropped details of its upcoming in-game character NFT mint for PC game Champions Tactics. 

Initially, The Warlords’ holders will mint is scheduled for 15th July. The other mints take place on 18th July. In terms of supply, there will be a total of 75,000 champion NFTs. Each of the 9,999 holders of The Warlords PFPs will be able to mint five champions per NFT.

The remaining 25,000 will be sold via a Dark List – 3 mints per wallet – and finally a public mint for whatever’s remaining. The mint is free, with users just paying Ethereum gas.

In response to dropping details of the mint, the floor price of The Warlords jumped 57% to $300, although remaining under its original ETH mint print. 

Leading up to the mint, Japanese gaming blockchain Oasys, which is where Champions Tactics is set to deploy, has launched a staking campaign in partnership with Ubisoft. This allows participants who stake at least 1,000 OAS tokens ($50) to double jump.tokyo or Ubisoft’s validator nodes on the Oasys chain, in addition to completing various social tasks, to be allow-listed for a free mint of a Champions Tactics NFT. Starting 21st June, the staking event closes 3rd July.

As for Champions Tactics, Ubisoft revealed new gameplay footage in April 2024, giving a glimpse into its turn-based tactical PVP RPG.

Discover more via the Champions Tactics website and X account.