Tomonobu Itagaki – the Japanese designer best known for creating Tecmo’s Dead or Alive series and rebooted Ninja Gaiden games – has announced his new company Apex Game Studios, which is currently ‘incubating’ an NFT-focused MMORPG for mobile and PC named Warrior.
Itagaki shared his announcement on Twitter, explaining Apex Game Studios would specialise in creating “high-quality and immersive” triple-A “Web3” titles – Web 3.0 being the umbrella term incorporating (frequently controversial) technologies such as blockchain and NFT.
Apex Game Studios’ first project, Warrior, is an MMORPG developed in Unreal Engine that’s due to launch in Q1 next year. Unfortunately, details remain pretty limited at this juncture, with the official website being primarily interested in detailing the NFT economy at Warrior’s core.
There is, however, promise of “competition, battle and exploration”, alongside talk of over 100 monster types (known as Mob Servants) that can summoned to assist during combat, randomly generated gear, a “unique talent system”, a trading system that will let players trade “almost all assets” via “Warrior Diamond Tokens”, gems enabling players to “fully experience the exciting process of polishing…rough gemstones into boutique ones”, crafting, and cosmetics.
Following Warrior’s release early next year, Apex Games will, as per its official development roadmap, gradually launch new PVE and PVP gameplay “to improve game experience, token circulation and token empowerment”. Later updates will “progressively implement a multi-chain framework to increase the influence and asset liquidity of Warrior” and “gradually iterate gameplay to make Warrior a high-quality GameFi 2.0 project that is both entertaining and investment-oriented with competitive and long-term operation capabilities.”
A press release shared by Itagaki as part of today’s announcement noted Apex Game Studios is, alongside blockchain and NFTs, also interested in developing games based on the Metaverse.
Itagaki, who departed Tecmo in 2008 and would go on to release the poorly received Devil’s Third for Wii U in 2015, announced he’d founded a new studio early last year. At the time, he explained he’d been focusing on teaching in the interim, but said, “Now I feel like I want to make a game again and just established a company for that purpose.”
Will you support Eurogamer?
We want to make Eurogamer better, and that means better for our readers – not for algorithms. You can help! Become a supporter of Eurogamer and you can view the site completely ad-free, as well as gaining exclusive access to articles, podcasts and conversations that will bring you closer to the team, the stories, and the games we all love. Subscriptions start at £3.99 / $4.99 per month.
Get the day's most talked about stories straight to your inbox.
Matt Wales
Reporter
Matt Wales is a writer and gambolling summer child who won’t even pretend to live a busily impressive life of dynamic go-getting for the purposes of this bio. He is the sole and founding member of the Birdo for President of Everything Society.
Please enable JavaScript to see comments.
RimWorld's new Biotech expansion adds babies, mechanoids, and gene modding
Out this month alongside big free update.
Here's the first trailer for Nintendo's animated Mario movie
Starring Chris Pratt and Jack Black.
29
Steam Deck can now be purchased without a reservation
Official dock also available.
26
Stadia's Elder Scrolls Online players will be able to transfer their saves to PC
Following cloud gaming service's collapse.
11
RimWorld's new Biotech expansion adds babies, mechanoids, and gene modding
Out this month alongside big free update.
Wordle answer today for Friday, 7th October: What is the word today for 475?
How to narrow down and solve today's Wordle.
Heardle answer today for Friday, 7th October: What is the song today for 225?
How to narrow down and solve today's Heardle.
Here's the first trailer for Nintendo's animated Mario movie
Starring Chris Pratt and Jack Black.
29
Podcast | Exactly how realistic are horses in games?
What they get right, and what they get wrong.
Premium only | Off Topic: Take a minute to appreciate Cookin' with Coolio's incredible scallops recipe.
What a great book.
Premium only | Off Topic: Reading City of Glass in comic form
"Where exactly am I going?"
Premium only | Off Topic: Il Buco is a transporting film about a really big hole
Underlands.
Buy things with globes on them
And other lovely Eurogamer merch in our official store!
Bad puns and video games since 1999.
Copyright © 2022 Gamer Network Limited, a ReedPop company.
All rights reserved. No part of this site or its content may be reproduced without the permission of the copyright holder.