Netmarble’s Marblex Migrating to Ethereum L2 Immutable zkEVM With $20 Million Fund

Ethereum gaming platform Immutable announced Tuesday that it has partnered with Marblex, the blockchain gaming arm of South Korean gaming giant Netmarble, with the parties collaborating to migrate the Marblex ecosystem and its top games to Immutable zkEVM.

Ni no Kuni: Cross Worlds, A3: Still Alive, and Meta World: My City will migrate from layer-1 Klaytn blockchain to Ethereum layer-2 network Immutable zkEVM, which is powered by Polygon’s zkEVM scaling tech.

"This is one of the most significant partnerships we've made to date,” said Immutable co-founder and President Robbie Ferguson, in a release. “South Korea is an exciting hub of developer activity in Web3 gaming, and Marblex and Netmarble are pioneers here."

The alliance will also include an "Ecosystem Boost Program," offering up to $20 million in support for developers to attract new titles to Marblex and Immutable.

"To maximize the reach of these experiences and ensure scalability for both existing and upcoming titles, partnering with a proven leader in Web3 gaming was crucial,” said Marblex CEO Hong Jin Pyo, in a release. “That's why Immutable and their industry-leading zkEVM chain was the right choice."

Back in January, Marblex said that it would work with layer-1 blockchain network Saga to support its future games, with Saga also aiding with user acquisition. But Saga’s network is designed to launch dedicated chains, and can be used to support games and apps launched on other blockchain networks.

It’s not immediately clear whether the Immutable migration will impact those plans with Saga. Decrypt’s GG asked an Immutable representative for clarification, but did not receive an immediate response.

Editor’s note: This article was written with the assistance of AI. Edited and fact-checked by Andrew Hayward.