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ATMTA is making a quarterly progress report on its blockchain-based sci-fi game, and today it said has launched a pre-alpha playable Unreal Engine 5 experience in its Star Atlas universe.
ATMTA is building Star Atlas as a next-gen metaverse with triple-A game design and Unreal Engine 5 graphics built on the Solana blockchain. Today it hosted its second community-focused 426LIVE event announcing a series of updates, including the Unreal Engine 5 gameplay experience available exclusively on the Epic Games Store. The reveals are all part of the Star Atlas community co-development style that is typical in Web3 projects.
Michael Wagner, cofounder of Star Atlas and CEO of ATMTA, said in a statement, “We’re really excited to finally be able to give users a taste of the Star Atlas metaverse and start to bring this immersive world to life. We’re also extremely honored to be the first triple-A quality blockchain game available on the Epic Games Store, and we can’t wait to see web3 gaming become mainstream.”
Michael Wagner is CEO of ATMTA, maker of Star Atlas.The Star Atlas: Showroom demo on the store gives a glimpse into the real-time game environment that players can look forward to in Star Atlas. The downloadable pre-alpha demo client combines blockchain with UE5’s Nanite, Lumen, and other cutting-edge graphics technology to deliver cinematic quality video game visuals, the company said.
“With this first pre-alpha Unreal Engine 5 module release on the Epic Games Store, Star Atlas continues to pave the way for mass adoption of Web3 gaming,” said Danny Floyd, chief product officer of ATMTA, in a statement. “By being very early to fully utilize the Epic Games game engine’s advanced all-new technologies like Nanite and Lumen, we are setting the worldwide standards for the next generation of
triple-A gaming. With every single pixel and texture expertly placed in the environment, we achieve the best immersive experience with a look and feel that rivals reality itself.”
ATMTA is aiming for a triple-A Star Atlas blockchain game.It allows players to display the assets that they fully own. The full Showroom with expanded functionality is aimed for release in the fourth quarter of 2022. You can obtain an access key to the pre-alpha demo by joining the Star Atlas metaverses selecting a faction, choosing your ship and enrolling it in your faction’s fleet to be eligible for a key.
Johnny B. Lee, head of Solana Gaming, said in a statement, “Star Atlas is a pioneer that is bolstering the entire Solana ecosystem. With an 80% reduction in development time and cost compared to building the functionality from scratch, Star Atlas is supporting and expediting the development of high-quality Solana games and lowering the barrier of entry for studios new to blockchain gaming and Solana.”
ATMTA also has a Foundation Software Development Kit (F-Kit). It enables developers to do quick and simple integration of Unreal Engine 5 with the Solana blockchain. By sharing with developers worldwide, Star Atlas is making it easier than ever for studios to build on the Solana blockchain, the company said.
Yat Siu, executive chairman of Animoca Brands (and a speaker at our upcoming GamesBeat Summit Next 2022 event), said in a statement, “Channeling the spirit of Web3, the Star Atlas F-kit paves the way for mass adoption of decentralized gaming. It instantly renders the open metaverse accessible to hundreds of millions of new entrants and enables anyone to build immersive experiences themselves, creating more opportunities through digital ownership and by giving game studios and publishers the ability to integrate the Solana blockchain into high-quality projects built on the Unreal Engine.”
Star Atlas graphic novel.The company also revealed Star Atlas: Core, an episodic graphic novel that brings the Star Atlas metaverse, its lore, and characters to the game’s audience.
Tim McBurnie, lead artist at ATMTA, said the graphic novel takes you on a journey of a lifetime in the form of individual chapters that mark key developments in the Star Atlas lore and deepen the reader’s understanding of the Star Atlas metaverse.
Star Atlas’ economic architecture.ATMTA also revealed Atlas Locking, a new feature in the Star Atlas DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) interface that makes the galactic economy and its Marketplace even more interwoven with the governance layer. Much like the recently announced Polis Locking, players can now lock their Atlas tokens for up to five years. Dan Park said during the event that the core governance framework is in place and it will support a sustainable DAO.
Star Atlas has hundreds of thousands of followers in its Discord community and ATMTA has hundreds of employees, thanks to sales of its non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Wagner described the economic architecture above for Star Atlas. This is important since many NFT economies that are poorly designed result in a sudden burst in activity followed by a long slide in player numbers.
In this case, the marketplace becomes a driver of revenue into the DAO, thanks to trading fees. The majority of the economy is expected to be assets earned through gameplay. The DAO takes a 33% fee in marketplace transactions. Fees can be reduced by taking part in the Atlas Locker, where tokens are locked over a period of time.
“We’ve now completed one of our core architectural loops,” he said. “This is a huge win for all of us.”
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