CCP Games announces that it has raised $40 million in funding for its new blockchain game, Project Awakening
CCP Games has been working on a game that utilizes blockchain for some time now. This has been known for some time, as both CCP Games and parent company Pearl Abyss have said over the past year. Now, CCP Games has announced that it has raised $40 million in funding for its upcoming triple-A blockchain title, Project Awakening.
CCP Games made some capsuleers happy last year when CEO Hilmar Veigar Pétursson said in a statement that NFTs were “Not for Tranquility,” a play on the acronym and name of EVE Online’s live server. However, this didn’t exactly close the door on blockchain games coming from the studio. In fact, if the fact that CCP Games took Killmails from the Alliance tournament and turned them into NFTs, the proof was there that the studio was fascinated by blockchain and its related technology.
Today, the CCP Games team announced that the upcoming Project Awakening will be set in EVE Online universe, and CCP plans to use “smart-contract blockchain technology” to help “create a new relationship between virtual worlds and players.”
Via the announcement page:
“With key game systems developed on-chain, this new project will also leverage smart-contract blockchain technology, focusing on persistence, composability and truly open third-party development to create a new relationship between virtual worlds and players.”
CCP Games’ Hilmar Veigar Pétursson states that blockchain will give the studio a new way to drive player agency and autonomy within the new title, and that the funding raised to help finance the new triple-A development of the project is a ” exciting frontier.”
“Since its inception, CCP Games’ vision has been to create virtual worlds that are more meaningful than real life. Now, with advances in blockchain, we can forge a new universe deeply imbued with our expertise in player agency and autonomy, empowering players to to engage. in new ways. This funding marks an exciting milestone in our studio’s history as we begin our third decade of virtual worlds. We are humbled by the trust of our partners in the development of this new title.
The funding, which CCP says has secured $40 million in funding for the project, comes from countless groups, led by Andreesen Horowitz (a16z), as well as Makers Fund, BITKRAFT Ventures and more.
Although no actual game development information was revealed, CCP Games states that the team will share updates as work on Project Awakening progresses.
This comes after CCP Games announced last year that they are building yet another FPS set in the EVE universe in the London studio, while also working on a 4X strategy title from the Shanghai studio. CCP Games recently felt the sting of layoffs earlier this year, letting go over a dozen employees across its offices.
