Developed by Mythical Games and Third King Games, Epic Games Store now has its very first Web3 game, Blankos Block Party.
It’s a free-to-play party game that was initially launched on Epic Store in early access ahead of its full release in September.
Epic CEO Tim Sweeney stated in late 2021 that Epic would be open to having metaverse titles in its store. However, developers of these games will have to “follow the relevant laws, disclose their terms, and are age-rated by an appropriate group.”
In Blankos Block Party, players can own “playable NFTs” known as Blankos. These can also be levelled up or combined with other characters to create new ones. Players also have the choice of selling their NFT characters in the Blankos’ “play to earn” market.
In a conversation with GamesBeat, Mythical Games’ CEO John Linden stated that he hopes his game will pave the way for more blockchain games to come to the Epic Games Store. “It’s been a long time coming, we’ve been working for years to get some of these networks to start. We spent over a year with Epic working through this.”
Chief creative officer of Mythical Games, Jamie Jackson also commented, “On the eve of our full launch, we’re excited to welcome the Epic Games Store community to our vibrant player-base which has already created over one million accounts thus far.”
And although Linden didn’t dive into the entire approval process laid out by Epic, the CEO stated that it came down to having the right user agreements language. Mythical Games also needed to be rated by various rating agencies across the globe for T (teen), since the in-game items can be purchased and sold.
For now, Blankos Block Party does not have its very own crypto token. Players can only buy in-game items using real-life money or cryptocurrency. The in-game characters also come with non-fungible tokens that can be sold on a marketplace other than the Epic Games Store.
Blankos Block Party is scheduled for a full release on September 28th.
Isa Muhammad is a writer and video game journalist covering many aspects of entertainment media including the film industry. He's steadily writing his way to the sharp end of journalism and enjoys staying informed. If he's not reading, playing video games or catching up on his favourite TV series, then he's probably writing about them.
