EVE Online is getting a new stablemate, as CCP Games announces Project Awakening, an upcoming title using “blockchain technology.”
How do you make a sci-fi video game world “more meaningful than real life?” By adding blockchain technology, of course. This is according to CCP Games, which has announcement that it’s set to make a “new triple-A title” set in the same universe as its biggest success, EVE Online.
On 21 March, the Iceland-based firm put out a press release to announce that it had secured $40 million of investment for its latest venture, currently dubbed Project Awakening. (Brought to our attention via Rock Paper Shotgun.)
“Since its inception, CCP Games’ vision has been to create virtual worlds more meaningful than real life,” CCP Games boss Hilmar Veigar Pétursson states in the release. “With advancements made within blockchain, we can forge a new universe deeply imbued with our expertise in player agency and autonomy, empowering players to engage in new ways.”
Exactly how blockchain technology will be used in the game hasn’t been made plain as yet, though the term ‘NFT’ is conspicuous by its absence in CCP’s announcement. The explosive growth of non-fungible tokens in the wake of the pandemic led to a rush of interest from some parts of the games industry – not least Square Enix, which sold off a bunch of valuable IP so that it could concentrate on such gambits as Symbiogenesis.
Many developers remained skeptical of NFTs, though, and the collapse in the market for digital goods (like pictures of bored apes) seems to have dented enthusiasm in the games industry somewhat.
Meanwhile, CCP states that Project Awakening’s “key game systems will be developed on-chain,” and that “this new project will also leverage smart-contract blockchain technology, focusing on persistence, composability and truly open third-party development to create a new relationship between virtual worlds and players.”
At its core, a blockchain is a distributed, append-only ledger designed to securely store information. In theory, the tech could be used in a game like EVE Online to record the ownership of, say, space craft, resources and Inter-Stellar Kredit. The presence of blockchain doesn’t automatically mean Project Awakening will be a money-obsessed, play-to-earn enterprise like Axie Infinity, say.
That external investors are willing to stump up $40 million for Project Awakening's development probably increases the likelihood that it will be a money-obsessed, play-to-earn enterprise like Axie Infinity, though.
Read more: Is blockchain really the enemy?
