Today, Animoca Brands revealed its latest purchase: Darewise Entertainment. The indie game company intends to launch a promising MMO called Life Beyond.
In less than a week, Animoca Brands has acquired two major video game publishers – Eden Games and Darewise Entertainment.
Darewise: Animoca Brands’ Latest Acquisition
At the moment, Darewise Entertainment is run by some of the best game developers in the industry. Team members have been involved in Assasin’s Creed, Tom Clancy’s The Divison, as well as the Fable series.
In addition, one of the co-founders is none other than former Ubisoft game director Benjamin Charbit. Together with Samuel Khan, Ubisoft’s former chief technology officer, the two aim to revolutionize the gaming arena with blockchain.
The team’s expertise and the potential of their upcoming game caught the attention of Animoca Brands:
“Incorporating Darewise Entertainment is incredibly exciting,” says Animoca Brands co-founder Yat Siu. Their game Life Beyond is an MMORPG of great beauty and scale that will be a strong addition to the open metaverse. Benjamin and Samuel have assembled a world-class team that is creating a game universe that is intricate, sophisticated and deeply engaging.”
Animoca Brands, the parent company of The Sandbox, added Eden Games to its portfolio on Tuesday. Eden Games is a publisher of popular racing games, such as the Gear.Club and Test Drive series. Animoca expects this acquisition to enhance its REVV Motorsport ecosystem of blockchain-based racing games on Polygon.
On Wednesday, Animoca announced the acquisition of Darewise Entertainment, a Paris-based game studio founded by former Ubisoft executives and other AAA game industry veterans. Darewise is currently developing a new massively multiplayer online role-playing game (P2E), or MMORPG, called Life Beyond. Animoca Brands agreed to a 70% stake in Darewise Entertainment, according to VentureBeat.
Yat Siu, co-founder and president of Animoca Brands, outlined some of the reasons for the acquisition in a Twitter thread.
1/ Incredibly excited to announce that the incredibly talented team at @Darewise creators of the #AAA #MMORPG @LifeBeyond and expert builders of online worlds is joining the @animocabrands fam a quick🧵👇 as to the reasons #NFT #blockchaingames https://t.co/LWLJ4gvQCA
— Yat Siu (@ysiu) April 13, 2022
Siu cited the collective experience of the team behind Darewise on franchises such as Assassin’s Creed and The Division as one of the main factors. Life Beyond, which is about a battle-plagued alien planet, is being built using the Unreal Engine and is currently in closed alpha. It has said that “many collaborations, partnerships and interoperable experiences + the highest level of quality are expected.”
According to the company, Life Beyond aims to “empower players to make decisions both individually through their own gameplay choices and collectively by making critical decisions about the future direction of the game.”
On Thursday, Darewise announced via Twitter that it had purchased a non-fungible token (NFT) from Bored Ape Yacht Club called Franck. Details of the “support” for BAYC members and ApeCoin support have not yet been disclosed.
At Darewise, we strongly believe in the Open Metaverse philosophy. Creating bridges between communities. 🤝
We are starting today by supporting the @BoredApeYC and @apecoin holder in our project! pic.twitter.com/KLHQ64Q0iU
— Life Beyond Studios (@lifebeyondstu) April 14, 2022
What is Life Beyond?
Essentially, Life Beyond is an MMORPG game, powered by NFT, created by Darewise Entertainment. The digital experience involves developing a new society on an alien world. Although the game will be based on NFT, it will initially be free-to-play.
To build the new society, Life Beyond will focus on three areas:
The partnership between Animoca Brands and Darewise will further evolve the blockchain industry. From P2E mechanics to NFT and AAA video game innovation, both teams will take the industry to the next level.
In addition, Animoca Brands recently co-led a $5 million seed round for the P2E mobile game Blast Royale with investment firm Mechanism Capital. First Light Games is the developer behind Blast Royale and other well-known games such as Monument Valley, Fable, Street Fighter and Tomb Raider.