Today publisher Readyverse Studios and developer Walker Labs announced a new battle royale game inspired by Ready Player One titled "OPEN."
The game is defined as "the first AAA quality metaverse experience interoperable with AAA IP that leverages web3 technology."
It's coming for PC and current-gen consoles and it's said to be created in close collaboration with Ready Player One writer Ernest Cline.
The game aims to portray an "immersive multiverse filled with nostalgia-infused biomes featuring characters and cultural legends across iconic franchises both timeless and modern." At the moment, besides Ready Player One itself, there isn't much information on which franchises will be involved.
The only brands mentioned in the press release are Reebok and DeLorean.
The game will involve game show-style collaborative and competitive modes in which only one hero can claim victory. We also don't have many details about the modes included besides the fact that will feature "tactical positioning, sly movement, strategic shooting, and driving skills."
Of course, the elephant in the room is the "web3 technology" which usually refers to blockchain and NFTs. The press release is vague on this topic, mentioning "asset interoperability, digital ownership, decentralization, and security."
We have reached out to the developers to get more information about this, and we'll let you know if we get any relevant replies.
Below you can watch a teaser trailer featuring no gameplay. Instead, we get to see a cinematic featuring the Ready Player One setting and its protagonist, Parzival.
The press release includes a comment from Readyverse Studios Co-Founders Aaron McDonald, Shara Senderoff, Ernest Cline, and Dan Farah, mentioning some of the talent gathered to work on the game.
We are incredibly proud to announce OPEN as our flagship experience in The Readyverse. Joining forces with Walker Labs to create a super-team of seasoned game developers from Epic Games, DICE, Microsoft, PlayStation, Mojang, Remedy, Ubisoft, Lucasfilm, Electronic Arts and more has allowed us to tackle the ambitious genre-defining challenge of building a AAA, MMO open metaverse experience worthy of iconic IP in a way that has never been done before.
We also hear from Wajhi Jafri, Executive Producer at Walker Labs.
With OPEN, our team of experienced game developers is passionately committed to bringing fan-favorite and original IP to life at highest fidelity.
As avid fans ourselves of the IP entering OPEN, especially Ready Player One which came to define the open metaverse for mainstream consumers, we understand the responsibility we have to satisfy gamers and enthusiasts, who have been dreaming of engaging in this type of world for a long time. In close collaboration with Ernest Cline, we're busy crafting a memorable lore where players can immerse themselves for years to come.
The term "Metaverse" has certainly been popular among certain areas of the gaming industry, and Epic Games has made recent efforts to turn its ultra-popular battle royale game Fortnite into a metaverse.
The 2011 Ready Player One novel by Ernest Cline and its 2018 film adaptation certainly follow that concept pretty closely, and it'll be interesting to see how the IP will fare as an actual game.
