Distinct Possibility Studios revealed in its July 3rd announcement that it has secured $30.5 million in funding and will use Etherlink, an EVM-compatible Layer-2 network built on Tezos, as the blockchain infrastructure for its upcoming game "Reaper Actual", an ambitious open-world persistent shooter game.
This funding round was led by Bitkraft and Brevan Howard Digital, with participation from Hashed, Delphi Ventures, Shima Capital, North Island Ventures, Decasonic, and others, aimed at accelerating the game's development.
The studio believes Etherlink's scalability, high transaction throughput, security, and environmental sustainability (as part of the Tezos Proof-of-Stake network) are key advantages for managing a player-driven economy.
Additionally, it's worth noting that the project is led by industry veteran John Smedley, co-founder of popular games "EverQuest" and "PlanetSide", and former head of Sony Online Entertainment and Amazon Game Studios. Development teams from top studios like Riot Games, Activision Blizzard, Ubisoft, and Epic will assist him.
Tezos co-founder Arthur Breitman captured the excitement of this collaboration, expressing his enthusiasm about the "EverQuest developers and 3A team" being able to build an immersive world with AI elements. Similarly, Efe Kucuk from Tezos blockchain R&D center Trilitech emphasized that Etherlink's infrastructure concept perfectly aligns with today's gaming needs, namely "staying invisible at critical moments and providing frictionless persistence".
Introducing "Reaper Actual"
"Reaper Actual" is a next-generation open-world shooter game set on Malova Island, a vast island embroiled in ongoing conflict. In the game, players will assume the role of elite agents called "Reapers", navigating complex PvPvE (Player vs Player vs Environment) scenarios including territorial wars, resource gathering, and base management, all integrated into a blockchain-based in-game economy.
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In fact, characters, bases, skins, and crafted weapons are planned to be tokenized on Etherlink, allowing players to create, trade, and own rare items. The game is expected to launch on PC platforms through Steam, Epic Games Store, and its official website.
A pre-Alpha version called "Foundation" is expected to be released in the coming weeks, offering early access and on-chain tradable assets. Additionally, the studio plans to regularly release updates and announcements through official channels and the Reaper Actual community.
Exploring Etherlink's Technical Advantages and Ecosystem Growth
Powered by Tezos' smart rollup technology, Etherlink provides sub-second transaction finality and minimal fees, with official documents noting that Etherlink currently processes approximately 500-millisecond confirmation times, with ERC-20 transaction fees around $0.001 or less.
Meanwhile, each state block is settled on the Tezos main chain, ensuring high security and privacy.
For developers, it's crucial that Etherlink is fully EVM-compatible, meaning any Ethereum smart contract or asset can be seamlessly deployed or migrated to Etherlink. Moreover, by inheriting Tezos' Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism, its carbon footprint is extremely low (approximately 0.001 TWh annually).
In recent months, Etherlink's developer ecosystem has grown rapidly, with the company recently launching a "Summer of Code" hackathon planned to continue until August 4th. This month-long virtual competition offers over $40,000 in prizes and challenges participants to leverage Etherlink's high-speed, low-cost infrastructure for new DeFi projects, games, and Non-Fungible Token applications.
Support for Etherlink has also expanded in the broader crypto space, with the popular cryptocurrency exchange Jumper integrating Etherlink into its framework last month, enabling users to transfer assets between Etherlink and over 50 other networks, including Ethereum, Arbitrum, and Base.
Meanwhile, Etherlink's on-chain usage has surged, with metrics showing its Total Value Locked (TVL) has reached $39 million, growing approximately 434% month-over-month. Contributors partially attribute this growth to recent network upgrades like "Dionysus" and "Calypso", which significantly enhanced Etherlink's throughput and stability.
Lastly, a proposed "Etherlink 4.1" kernel upgrade was introduced, which could potentially double the chain's throughput and raise its gas speed limit to approximately 4 million units per second.
A New Liquidation in Progress?
Distinct Possibility Studios' timing of this announcement coincides with a growing trend in the gaming industry: executives and developers are increasingly exploring blockchain and its various use cases to enhance in-game item ownership (while creating new economic models) and maximize game immersion. To say the least, the future will be fun.
