Things have been relatively quiet on the development front for Legends of Aria for a little while. Citadel Studios, the studio behind the game, entered a possible acquisition deal in December along with an announcement of eventual blockchain integration, but this fell through.
The Legends of Aria Twitter account shared its first updates since October with the announcement that the game will “soon be a play to earn game” and joining the world of crypto. The game is designed to be a full loot, open world MMORPG, so there was already a whole lot of intended player risk and reward involved, but now the transition is in the works.
The #blockchain upgrade to Legends of Aria will allow us to revitalize the game, bringing it back stronger and better than ever. This year, we'll be implementing new features and marketing the game like never before. Stay tuned!#NFT #CryptoGaming #BlockchainGaming #KillToEarn pic.twitter.com/xOFvgM3Off
— Legends Of Aria (@LegendsOfAria) February 22, 2022
In another tweet, the team emphasizes that adding a blockchain upgrade will let the team update and continue to develop the game and market it in a whole new way. There are initial details on the intentions and ARIA token systems, which will have a first sale round next week. A new whitepaper on the game's official site outlines their vision and the anticipation of a full transition to "the first mainstream blockchain MMORPG on the market". Their revenue model includes an upcoming NFT marketplace: "players can monetize their time by collecting unique and collectible in-game items, which can then be bought and sold on our upcoming NFT marketplace. This marketplace will take a 5% fee from every transaction".
"Legends of Aria will be the ultimate fantasy metaverse. In this metaverse, gamers can own land, build their own virtual homes, and venture out into a true virtual world in which they can use a variety of skills to earn real money."
They also made sure to state that there would always be two versions of the game. While the play to earn server's model will aim for NFT character creation options, an NFT marketplace, and ways to earn gold that converts to cryptocurrency, the free version will be the usual mix of a cash shop and nothing will convert to crypto. The original proposed takeover was announced with the intent to incorporate NFTs and tokens by way of a “metaversification” of a traditional game. More recently, Citadel has been working on its plans for the game and entered in a partnership with Reaper Games. This, plus the recently unveiled plans, are comng together to bring the transition on track.
Now, several months later, that “metaversification” is beginning to take shape, with the game’s social media getting more updates, there should be more details on the play to earn systems coming to Legends of Aria soon.
UPDATE: We received word from the Legends of Aria team that the original proposed acquisition by Blue Monster Games fell through, and Legends of Aria team is now partnering with the recently-founded (by an original founder of Blue Monster) Reaper Games to make its path towards the blockchain transition.
