£4 mn investment announced to create blockchain studio

Gaming blockchain and metaverse studio Emergent Games announces its formation as part of a £4 million joint venture between the London based digital entertainment studio Maze Theory and crypto technology and operations business Pluto Digital.

The joint venture combines two dynamic forces from blockchain technology and immersive gaming to form a business at the forefront of the new decentralised gaming sector.

Maze Theory comprises veterans from PlayStation, Activision and NCSoft and has released critically acclaimed games across virtual reality, PC, mobile and console including: Doctor Who: The Lonely Assassins (mobile and console) and Doctor Who: The Edge of Time (VR) with Peaky Blinders: The King’s Ransom (VR) launching soon.

Pluto Digital is a crypto technology company with market-leading expertise across blockchain, decentralised finance (DeFi), metaverse technologies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Pluto has three primary business units: Pluto DeFi which creates leading DeFi applications and tokens, Pluto Metaverse which creates metaverse technologies and tokens, and Pluto V which invests globally in leading web3 and NFT projects. The company has a team of 16 tech engineers.

Pluto will provide an investment pipeline for the new joint venture and has invested £4m as part of the deal to enable the studio’s growth and consolidate its expertise in VR.

With a ‘game first’ philosophy, Emergent Games will offer players high quality, high production value games, jargon-free and easy to pick up and play. It’s ambition is to bring free-to-play mechanics to the blockchain gaming space, offering players the option to just play for fun, or engage with the crypto NFT element and earn real money.

Emergent Games’ first project, Resurgence, will take players on a journey from present day disaster to a post-apocalyptic future. The game gives complete control to the player to craft their own destiny by utilising resources in a unique community-based survival concept.

Ian Hambleton, CEO of Emergent Games, says: “Emergent Games has a strong ‘game first’ philosophy which means creating absolutely awesome games for all gamers, with an optional crypto element, enhancing the experience for those interested. We believe this approach is not only the right thing to do, but removes barriers for players moving into blockchain games.”

He adds: “Story-living is a term we coined for the concept and technology driving our games. It’s where players are inside a virtual world making meaningful choices that drive the narrative. Bringing this into a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) will offer new and incredible experiences for players and form a significant role in the future of gaming.”

Brian Kinane, director of Pluto Digital Plc, says “We are tremendously excited to become the largest investor in Maze Theory and partners in the new studio, Emergent Games. We believe the combination of our high end blockchain engineering and token capabilities together with the gaming creativity of the Maze Theory team will create a leading next generation web3 metaverse gaming studio”.