Blockchain game studio Sipher has raised $6.8 million to create the online multiplayer action dungeon crawler World of Sipheria, which taps into the earlier released Sipherian Surge NFT collection. The development team puts focus on a PC release, but considering the type of game consoles or even mobile don’t seen outside of the realm of possibilities.
World of Sipheria and studio Sipher received backing from Hashed, Konvoy Ventures, but also Sfermion, Delphi Digital, Yield Guild Games and Bitkraft. The upcoming game will feature NFT items, including game characters and possibly game items. The 10.000 Sipherian Surge NFTs are already on the market, and serve as a key to unlock the game. On October 30th they will have another NFT drop with 10.000 characters going up for sale.
The first game mode the developers are working on is a cooperative PVE dungeon crawler. Three players need to work together to survive a dungeon filled with enemies. Players characters will have different classes, skills and other details that influence gameplay. The levels themselves will be short, but action-packed. Players can collect resources, crafting material and level up their characters and weapons. Of course they can trade their leveled up items, as these NFTs become more valuable as they grow stronger.
However, eventually World of Sipheria needs to become more than a dungeon crawler. The developers at Sipher want it to become a full-fledged MMORPG.
NFT PFP avatar hype
Ever since Hashmasks released their artworks late February, the NFT community has seen a tremendous hype surrounding profile-picture avatar NFTs. Hashmasks will now release their own profile pictures, while we’ve seen celebrities like Elijah Wood, Shaquille O’Neal, Mike Tyson and Snoop Dogg full embrace the NFT community through CryptoPunks, Deadfellaz, Bored Apes, Cool Cats and many other NFT projects. It’s not without reason that Bored Apes and CryptoPunks find themselves in the spotlight right now, because having full ownership over a digital representation will become valuable.
In the gaming space we’ve seen Gala Games release Vox, while celebrities like Paris Hilton invest in avatar platforms like Genies. There’s value in owning a certain avatar, as it unlocks access to certain content or perhaps to certain people. At the same time there are companies like CryptoAvatars working on an open standard for avatars in the metaverse, so that we – in the future – can own an avatar and make it walk around in Somnium Space, Habbo Hotel and World of Warcraft alike.
In recent months we’re seeing more ambitious projects launching NFT collection as a boost to build their game world. Visitors of Imma Degen launched instantly as 3D characters, which can be imported into different virtual worlds. We made a whole list of Avatar NFT Collection that transition into game worlds, and yes we will need to add Sipherian Surge as well. However, even more similar to Sipherian Surge and World of Sipheria would be the release of Arcadians. These pixelated NFT are now simple avatars, but will become part of a wider game ecosystem.
