Blockchain gaming studio Blue Monster Games will acquire indie game developer Citadel Studios, the company has said in an announcement, in a move that will advance building games on Web3.
The Citadel Studios team, which was behind the popular Legends of Aria, a 2019 sandbox MMORPG game, will join Blue Monster Games in what will bring a renowned gaming studio to the Web3.
Web 3 is the next step of the Internet. It hopes to be more decentralized, and to give power back to content creators. But it’s currently in development.
This deal, once finalized, hopes to “metaversify” AAA games with NFTs and in-based token currencies.
Realms of Ethernity, developed by Blue Monster Games, will be the game where the revolutionary idea happens. The MMO metaverse game lets players buy plots of land to eventually build territory and defend themselves.
Metaverse elements will be brought to existing games by Citadel and then eventually added to the Realms of Ethernity world to grow the metaverse.
“We will bring metaverse elements to their existing games, which will then become a full part of the Realms of Ethernity metaverse,” said Joseph Rubin, Blue Monster Games’ co-founder.
“Realms of Ethernity isn’t just a regular metaverse game, it’s going to be the metaverse to eat the gaming world,” he added.
The acquisition means that Blue Monster games will have full access to Citadel’s Shards Engine—a high-performance 3D engine for MMORPGs. Developers will be able to also program add-ons and mods to any Shards-based game using the Lua programming language.
Citadel’s founder Derek Brinkmann will join Blue Monster as CTO, the announcement added.
“We’re excited to join forces with Blue Monster Games to create the next generation of online games inside the BMG multiverse,” he said. “I founded Citadel Studios to allow gamers to create stories in authentic and living virtual worlds.
“Over these 8 years, we made history in bringing an original sandbox MMORPG to players and forged unforgettable memories and relationships with our players. I'm excited to be joining Blue Monster Games and taking this technology to the next level to bring living, breathing worlds to the metaverse.”
