decrypt.co
The studio behind the mobile game Legends at War is creating its own Avalanche network subnet and will launch a blockchain-enabled version of the game, developer Solert Games and Ava Labs announced Wednesday.
Legends at War (LAW) is a free-to-play mobile game currently live on iOS and Android without crypto elements. It’s a massively multiplayer online real-time strategy (MMORTS) game in which players take a bird’s eye view of a medieval English landscape and must lead armies into battle to usurp castles, defend their fortresses, build homes for villagers, and create a thriving virtual world.
Solert’s game has seen over 10,000 downloads to date on the Google Play Store, where it maintains a 4.2 rating at time of writing.
Ed Chang, Ava Labs’ Head of Gaming, confirmed to Decrypt that Legends at War will add NFTs to its game create to create its own economy.
“Solert is currently focused on building out the platform to enable Legends at War and third-party titles to leverage their virtual economy with NFTs and tokens,” Chang told Decrypt via email. “The subnet will act as a Web3 tooling sandbox for game developers to deploy on with the support of the respective Solert Games and Ava Labs teams.”
Solert plans to use its subnet—a private, dedicated instance of the Avalanche blockchain—to facilitate transactions with its gas token LAW. While details have not yet been revealed on how Solert will release its NFTs, the studio does plan to allow gamers to “vote on both governance and multiplayer strategy” decisions, according to an announcement.
“Our mission of integrating the social aspects of Web2 with the user control and decentralization of Web3 will create a gaming experience like no other,” said Solert Games CEO and co-founder Wojciech Kaszycki, in a statement.
The live, non-blockchain (or “Web2”) version of Legends at War has been endorsed by actor Hafthor Bjornsson, who played “The Mountain” in the HBO television series “Game of Thrones” based on the fantasy novels by George R. R. Martin.
The actor’s likeness currently appears in the game’s marketing images on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store—the latter of which has recently taken a supportive, safety-first approach to allowing blockchain mobile games on its platform.
Solert Games was previously known as Sabre Games, but recently changed its name due to a copyright issue with Sabre Interactive, publisher of titles like World War Z and Evil Dead: The Game, representatives for Ava Labs confirmed to Decrypt.
As Solert develops a crypto version of its medieval strategy game, it’s not alone—other studios like Com2uS, Mythical Games, and InfiniGods are similarly taking a mobile-first approach to blockchain gaming to reach a potentially broad audience.