Quick take:
- Animoca Brands is acquiring video game developer Darewise Entertainment.
- The Paris-based studio is co-owned by former Ubisoft executives Benjamin Charbit and Samuel Kahn.
- The company’s first game “Life Beyond” is currently in development.
Leading blockchain and metaverse gaming investment company Animoca Brands is buying Darewise Entertainment. The Hong Kong-based Web3 venture capital firm said Wednesday that it will acquire the Paris-based game developer co-founded by former Ubisoft executives.
Benjamin Charbit, one of the co-owners is a former Ubisoft game director while his counterpart Samuel Khan was a former lead at both Ubisoft and Crytek. The two veterans have been involved in some of the most exciting AAA game projects including “Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, Assassin’s Creed Unity, Dying Light 2, Black & White, Tom Clancy’s The Division, and the Fable series,” Animoca wrote in the announcement.
Darewise is currently developing a high-quality blockchain massively multiplayer online (MMO) game called “Life Beyond”. Charbit and Khan will continue to run operations of the company after the acquisition.
The acquisition will help Darewise to execute a planned growth while accelerating game development. It will also yield operational synergies by combining Darewise’s expertise in AAA video game development with Animoca Brands’ extensive resources in blockchain integration, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and play-and-earn capabilities.
The leading blockchain investment company will fast-track and nurture Darewise’s transition into the Web3 space.
Life Beyond is set on Dolos, an exciting alien world where success is determined by a player’s ability to create social and technological concepts in a new society. Darewise is creating a free-to-play game with a low barrier to entry.
The company is planning a series of NFT drops that interested players will use to gain entry into the gaming ecosystem.
Life Beyond is powered by Web3 and will be initially available on PC, with mobile versions scheduled for later. Its game experience will revolve around three main pillars including pioneering, settling and politics. It has plans to transition to community ownership through a decentralised autonomous organisation (DAO).
Commenting on the planned acquisition, Animoca Brands co-founder and executive chairman, Yat Siu, said, “Bringing on board Darewise Entertainment is incredibly exciting. Its game Life Beyond is an MMORPG of great beauty and scale that will be a strong addition to the open metaverse.”
On the other hand, Benjamin Charbit, CEO of Darewise Entertainment commended Animoca Brands’ impact on Web3 and GameFi space.
“Over time it became obvious that we’re a Web3 company at our core and that blockchain offers the means to achieve our vision. It took visionary entrepreneurs like Yat to leap ahead and build such an impressive ecosystem, paving the way for everyone else,” he said, adding that Animoca Brands has set a blueprint for the open metaverse with projects like The Sandbox, REVV, and Phantom Galaxies.
As a result, Darewise is looking to tap into that expertise and network, with its team firmly convinced virtual existence will become at least as important as the physical one.
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