South Korean game studio Krafton, best-known for its battle royale game PUBG, has now set its sights on the world of NFTs and metaverse. On Thursday, the company pulled the curtains off its upcoming NFT-driven metaverse game project called ‘Overdare’—and offered a sneak peek into the creation-centric platform.
Krafton reportedly plans to soft-launch its innovative metaverse game Overdare, previously called Project Migaloo, in December, with a full-scale release scheduled between January and July 2024. The cherry on the top is Krafton’s in-house blockchain, Settlus, which the company has developed exclusively for this game.
Overdare draws inspiration from mobile gaming platform Roblox and is powered by Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 5. The platform will be equipped with generative artificial intelligence tools, enabling gamers to construct their own shooter games, role-playing games (RPGs) and action RPGs, among others. Overdare will also serve as a social hub, allowing users to design custom avatars and engage in conversations.
An official teaser trailer released by Krafton suggests that Overdare would be an open-world platform, where users can create games and environments leveraging AI tools, play a plethora of user-generated games, participate in virtual concerts, tune the avatars as per their liking, and more.
Notably, Krafton had announced the project earlier this year in partnership with Naver Z, an augmented-reality tech firm. While Krafton retains an 85% stake in the project, Naver Z holds the remaining 15%.
In what could be a potential game-changer, Krafton plans to offer players a “create-to-earn economy,” meaning they can acquire and trade in-game digital assets as NFTs. The decision was taken due to “transparency and secure transactions” offered by NFTs, Krafton said in a statement.
To facilitate this economy, Krafton and Naver Z have incorporated the Settlus blockchain, which would let gamers generate revenues in Coinbase and Circle’s U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin, USDC. During an event at Korea Blockchain Week, PUBG developers had announced that Settlus will use Cosmos SDK for payment settlements in USDC.
On Twitter, Settlus describes itself as a blockchain built by Krafton and “the future of the creator economy. In a Medium blog post, Settlus has also unveiled plans to launch a “NFT licensing system,” but the specifics remain under wraps. Additionally, it said it was also actively working to sort potential issues linked to Overdare’s proposed NFT economy, which includes the launch of optional NFTs and managing volatile token prices.
Krafton is the latest in the string of global giants like Adidas, Nike, Lufthansa Group, and Dior, among others, who have dipped their toes into the NFT space. In August this year, Adidas Originals partnered with BAPE to launch an exclusive NFT sneaker collaboration. The same month, Luxury fashion giant Dior dropped Men’s B33 sneakers, which come with a digital NFT collectible. Lufthansa Group and Starbucks have also launched their respective NFT loyalty rewards programs recently.