Hong Kong — The game software and venture capital company, Animoca Brands has acquired Darewise Entertainment, a game developer founded by veterans of the AAA games industry that is currently developing a high-quality blockchain MMO game ‘Life Beyond’. Through the buyout, Animoca Brands will be assisting Darewise Entertainment to fast-track development and publishing in the Web3 space.

Darewise Entertainment is a European game studio made up of accomplished game developers with deep experience in various highly successful AAA games, namely Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, Tom Clancy’s The Division, and Fable series, amongst others. The co-founders of Darewise, ex-Ubisoft game director Benjamin Charbit and ex-Ubisoft and ex-Crytek tech lead Samuel Kahn, will continue to operate the company after the acquisition.

The collaboration will facilitate planned growth, accelerate game development, and combine expert AAA video game development with blockchain integration, NFTs, and play-and-earn capabilities.

Darewise Entertainment’s first game, Life Beyond, is currently in development. It is a fast-paced and ever-evolving modern persistent massively multiplayer online game Powered by Web3 and blockchain technologies, ‘Life Beyond’ seeks to pioneer the emerging genre of the play-and-earn MMO. Its guiding principles are the true ownership of digital assets, a player-driven social in-game economy, and decentralised governance.

Yat Siu, co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands, commented, “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. Benjamin and Samuel have built a world-class team that is creating a play-and-earn game universe that is intricate, sophisticated, and deeply engaging.”

Meanwhile, Charbit said that they are incredibly proud to join Animoca Brands and add their AAA games experience to the company that has been so instrumental in the development of Web3 gaming.

“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. As we watched Animoca Brands set out the blueprint of the open metaverse with projects like The Sandbox, REVV, and Phantom Galaxies, we knew that we would benefit enormously from its Web3 expertise and network. We are thrilled to be a part of this endeavour,” Charbit said.

Hong Kong — Game software and venture capital company Animoca Brands have announced its buyout of 100 per cent of the issued capital of Eden Games S.A.S. from Engine Gaming & Media. Eden Games is a highly respected and successful racing game studio with prized IPs such as Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed, F1 Mobile Racing, and the Gear.Club franchise, among others.

Yat Siu, co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands, commented, “With its quarter of a century of expertise in building high-quality motorsport video games, Eden Games will enhance and accelerate the development of the REVV Motorsport ecosystem and add powerful value to the REVV community and the racing metaverse.”

David Nadal, co-founder and head of studio of Eden Games, said, “We are excited to start the next chapter of Eden Games by joining Animoca Brands. We look forward to producing new experiences that challenge the status quo within the motorsport genre and venture into new frontiers such as Web3 alongside a leader in the space.”

Eden Games was founded in 1998 and is based in Lyon, France. The company has strong experience in developing award-winning racing games across the mobile, console and PC platforms and over 13 million game boxes sold and over 60 million app downloads worldwide.

The game development studio also has long term partnerships with more than 30 established brands in the automotive industry, including BMW, Bugatti, Porsche, Lotus, Pagani, and many others.

Animoca Brands will leverage the expertise and capabilities of Eden Games to work on existing and new titles in the REVV Motorsport ecosystem and to bring to market a series of new blockchain-based racing games.

The new games will provide additional utility to the NFT Race Passes and the other assets obtained by swapping assets from Animoca Brands’ F1 Delta Time, which ceased operations in March 2022.