When NFTs emerged on the market, no one thought they could expand in such a way, which made them one of the most underrated digital tools on the market. Industries like real estate, the metaverse, and even art would use them to increase their customer audiences consisting of crypto investors and traders who considered NFTs to be highly valuable. Regardless if you buy bitcoin with credit card or Ethereum through P2P, the cost of such NFTs was worth the struggle, as their value would increase with each new customer.
Lately, NFTs have become the point of interest for gaming companies since they’re always looking for innovations to game up their new releases. For instance, Ubisoft clearly expressed its intentions of working with NFTs, while other businesses like Nintendo or EA weren’t that open to approaching them, even if they recognized their potential to change the industry.
Hence, Ubisoft took the chance of being the first competitor to leverage NFTs and built the base of an innovative game. Let’s see what it’s about.
Champions Tactics: a PVP game with NFT characters
The Champions Tactics game is not the first project that Ubisoft created with NFTs, but it’s the first serious one. The company has released smart collectables of the Assassin’s Creed game and an NFT collection of Ghost Recon, so it acquired some experience on how NFTs could impact the gaming sector.
Champions Tactics is a Web3 game that can be played on a PC as an RPG. The action of the game happens in the Grimoria world, a dark and mystical ecosystem where legendary characters fight for supremacy. As a player, you can create your own unique Champion with special skills and abilities, being able to create an entire team of champions by collecting them, and you gain experience by fighting in online PVP battles.
The game leverages NFTs and blockchain technology
The Ubisoft game was packed with Ethereum NFTs that can be used as PFPs for collectors. They’re called Warlords, which can be customized and applied to a user’s in-game profile. Anyone who collected these NFTs could receive up to five NFT Champions for free, meaning they’ll be released under this form.
Champions Tactics is based on the Oasys blockchain which focuses mainly on gaming technologies and has already worked on similar projects like Sega or Bandai Namco. The decentralized video gaming platform works with several Web3 companies to ensure features of fast transactions and an ongoing development environment so developers can use it to build games and create metaverse worlds.
At the same time, the game’s publisher revealed that to release and support the game, it will employ a specific technology based on crypto gaming analytics provided by the Helika startup, known in the industry for its renowned services and collaborations with Yuga Labs.
Inside the game: Grimoria and the characters
The world in which you’ll play against your opponents is called Grimoria, ruled by seven factions with unique leaders and aesthetics. For example, Lord Croimont has a medieval zombie look, while Prince Ezrin is known as a demonic sword-welder.
As for the characters, you’ll have to choose three Champions to play the game, which will provide unique skills and characteristics that will look like tabletop figurines. Still, Ubisoft stated that it may be possible to create your own Champion, allowing players to get more creative with their strategies.
The game is supposed to be released somewhere in 2024, but since it was already delayed once in 2023, gamers might have to wait until they can try it. At the same time, there’s a little scepticism on how the game will perform long-term, even if the NFTs sold on the game platform reached about $400 worth of Ethereum on the first sale, while their trading showed more than $4.5 million flow on the market.
Will Champions Tactics flop?
Champions Tactics might not bring anything new to the table regarding playing experiences, but the emergence of multiple technologies in the industries is surely to help boost the game, which may already be ensured since a renowned name, Ubisoft, develops it. At the same time, the business partners with famous brands in the industry, such as Mocaverse and Immutable, to offer a top-notch customer experience.
Another reason why Champions Tactics might be a success is the unique in-game mechanics, which, in addition to the remarkable narrative and storyline, might take the game into the mainstream. However, the game’s marketing team provided little to no information about the white paper of the game since it uses blockchain and NFT technology. The lack of data regarding the ecosystem surely doesn’t contribute to enough media coverage, but some people on the internet are not stoked about it because it contains too many crypto elements.
NFTs have the potential to revolutionize gaming
There’s nothing wrong with Ubisoft playing with NFTs because this trial-and-error approach will help us gain more insight into how this technology can improve the gaming experience. There are plenty of advantages to introducing NFTs in gaming, from tokenized ownership to play-to-earn mechanisms and interoperability between multiple games and universes, but they can also better address current problems with traditional gaming.
Inclusivity issues, gender disparities and ethnic representations are significant factors that impact the industry because the developers’ views fail to resonate with the customer audience, therefore losing any chance to be valuable. The lack of originality and creativity in developer teams hinders innovation, and, on top of that, the centralized systems tend to be considerably toxic in these environments, an issue that has been disputed many times in the past. So, the rise of NFTs, AI and similar technologies might bring forth the next gaming generation.
Are you excited by the upcoming Champions Tactics game?
Ubisoft has announced the release of its first NFT-based game, Champions Tactics, which is supposed to appear sometime in 2024. The game allows users to play with three characters against other gamers and leverage NFTs collectibles for their champions and PFPs. It also uses blockchain technology and has the potential to open new gaming frontiers.
