French gaming giant Ubisoft, the company behind the hugely popular Assassin’s Creed franchise, is launching its first game which will feature blockchain-based, in-game assets players can trade.
Called "Champions Tactics," the new web3 Ubisoft title is a role-playing game where players collect and assemble teams of Dungeon & Dragons-style characters they can use to battle other users. The game will be available on PC from Oct. 23, Ubisoft said.
Ubisoft also said in a statement that "at the heart of ‘Champions Tactics’ lies a collection of 75,000 Champions," which are the digital collectibles, or NFTs, used in the game. The global gaming company’s launch of a crypto-enabled video game comes years after Ubisoft’s initial foray into blockchain and NFTs, in 2021, was met with a fair share of skepticism. The gaming company has been exploring blockchain since as far back as 2019.
The launch of Ubisoft’s new web3 game also comes amid a major shifting in the development and release of new blockchain-powered games. While simple, Telegram-based clicker games like Hamster Kombat and Notcoin have attracted millions of new users with the promise of potentially earning token rewards, other AAA-style projects that aim to feature tradeable in-game assets are launching.
This week Gunzilla Games launched an early access version of a web3, Fortnite-style battle royale game title on PlayStation and PC. The game, called “Off the Grid,” could become the first console game where players can own and trade NFTs that function within the game. It is also launching on Xbox.
In the case of Ubisoft’s RPG "Champions Tactics," the game developer said in a statement that its "Champions mint," held in July, sold out in minutes while last year’s "Warlords mint" has generated, according to OpenSea data, more than $8 million in trading volume.
"The Warlords Mint was one of the most hyped and successful mints of Q4 2023, selling out in seconds and dominating OpenSea’s top charts for multiple weeks. With over 12,000 sales transactions," Tristan Peschoux, Ubisoft’s lead of live operations, told The Block. "The mint demonstrated immense community demand and engagement."
About 50,000 of the Champions NFTs were reserved for Warlords holders, according to Ubisoft. Warlords are digital collectibles that also serve as profile pictures. Consumers who want to try the new game will not need to own a "Champions Tactics" NFT or possess a crypto wallet to play, according to Ubisoft.
The new web3 game utilizes the HOME Verse, said Ubisoft, a Layer-2 network that forms part of the Oasys gaming ecosystem. Oasys, which offers Layer 1 hub and Layer 2 networks for game development, has Sega and Ubisoft acting as two of its validators.
"With 'Champions Tactics' we aim for web3 technology to seamlessly fade into the background, allowing players to fully immerse themselves in the fun and strategy of the game," Ubisoft Lab VP Nicolas Pouard said in a statement.
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