AAA studio Ubisoft to develop Web3 gaming experience with Immutable

AAA gaming studio Ubisoft has partnered with blockchain game firm Immutable to collaborate on developing Web3 games through its Strategic Innovation Lab.

An announcement shared with Cointelegraph said the two studios will combine their expertise to intertwine mainstream gaming development quality with Web3-enabled functionality.

Nicolas Pouard, who heads up Ubisoft’s blockchain initiative, noted that Immutable’s existing blockchain infrastructure and its experience integrating decentralized functionality into games were vital drivers of the partnership:

“We’re excited to partner with them and look forward to bringing that level of fluidness within a full-fledged game, so players only have to focus on the fun of the experience.”

Immutable co-founder and CEO James Ferguson added that the collaboration marks an important milestone for the Web3 gaming sector.

“We couldn’t be more excited to explore with Ubisoft the benefits of Web3 and digital ownership for players. We plan to bring the full weight of our ecosystem to bear to ensure the partnership’s success,” Ferguson said.

The partnership comes off the back of successful demos of Immutable’s flagship titles, including Guild of Guardians, Metalcore, Shardbound and Infinite Victory. These various titles offer gamers different genres to explore that incorporate defining Web3 aspects like immutable ownership of in-game assets.

Related: Web3 gaming investors more ‘choosy’ in crypto winter — Animoca’s Robby Yung

Immutable also recently launched the test network of its zero-knowledge (ZK) rollup gaming solution Immutable zkEVM. ZK-rollups have been in the spotlight throughout 2023 as a significant layer-2 Ethereum scaling technology that enables high-throughput and low-cost transactions for decentralized applications, services and solutions.

The firm has rolled out two different ZK-based scaling solutions to date, including Immutable zkEVM, which operates on Ethereum layer-2 Polygon, as well as Immutable X, which is a separate rollup solution developed by ZK pioneers StarkWare.

Immutable’s gaming platform provides infrastructure for gaming studios to build games that run on the Ethereum blockchain.

Web3 games are beginning to break their way into the mainstream gaming space as 2024 looms. Cointelegraph exclusively reported that Illuvium Labs will have its flagship gaming title, Illuvium, listed on mainstream gaming publisher Epic Games Store on Nov. 28, which is home to hugely popular games like Fortnite.

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