The Epic Games Store is launching its first NFT game: Blanko’s Block Party

On September 15, American video game development company Epic Games announced the official launch of Blanko’s Block Party on the Game Store, making it the first NFT game to be included in the platform’s Marketplace.

The beta version of Blanko’s Block Party was launched in 2020 by Mythical Games and has already gained more than one million players, according to the developers. The most attractive thing about this shooter is the NFT figures and accessories, which can be bought in the in-game store.

The first NFT game on the Epic Games Store is based on EOSIO

The game can already be downloaded for free in the “early access” version until September 28, when the first season of the full game will be released with new visual and navigation improvements.

It is worth mentioning that, unlike most NFT games, it is not necessary to connect to an external wallet to play, sell or buy NFTs in Blanko’s Block Party, as the game allows users to do it internally, even whether it also supports Uphold accounts.

According to Epic Games, Blanko’s Block Party runs on a private blockchain based on EOSIO (now Antelope), so no mining is required to create or integrate NFTs into the Marketplace.

“Blanko’s Block Party is built on a private, permissioned blockchain based on the EOSIO infrastructure that uses a Proof of Authority consensus model that is more environmentally friendly and sustainable than the Proof of Work model. Minting NFTs and integrating the Marketplace via our platform requires no mining.”

The Metaverse and NFT games have a large backer

Epic Games has been one of the few video game companies to take an optimistic stance on the metaverse and NFT games. They announced a $2 billion fund to build a metaverse as far back as last April.

At the time, Epic Games, which incidentally stands behind Fortnite and the Unreal Engine graphics engine, said that thanks to the income from Sony and KIRKBI, they could create new experiences based on the most popular games, and become a new competitor to Decentraland and Sandkassen.

Epic Games is standing by its co-founder and CEO, Tim Sweeney, who said on his Twitter account that they will welcome any games that use blockchain as long as they comply with the company’s relevant laws and regulations.

The Epic Games Store accepts games that use blockchain technology provided they comply with the relevant laws, disclose their terms and are age-rated by an appropriate group. Although Epic does not use crypto in our games, we welcome innovation in technology and finance.

— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) 15 October 2021

Even in late July 2022, Sweeney responded negatively to some users’ requests to remove all NFT games from the Game Store after Minecraft released a statement announcing that they did not engage in this technology.

Developers should be free to decide how to build their games, and you should be free to decide whether you want to play them. I believe that stores and operating system manufacturers should not interfere by forcing their views on others. We definitely don’t want that.

— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) 21 July 2022

Also, as reported by CryptoPotato, Blanko’s Block Party will most likely not be the only NFT game published on the Epic Games Store. The studio has a partnership with the Web3 game company Gala Games, which is working hard to release an NFT-powered shooter very soon.