Gaming giant Ubisoft, the publisher behind hit franchises like Assassin’s Creed and Just Dance, is gearing up to launch its first original NFT game, Champions Tactics: Grimoria Chronicles—and has enlisted the services of a leading crypto gaming analytics startup to aid in that rollout.
On Tuesday, Ubisoft announced a collaboration with Helika, a firm that provides on-chain and social analytics around games, along with marketing insights and game management functionality. According to the startup, Ubisoft will utilize its various services around the launch of the original role-playing game on the Oasys blockchain.
“This includes on-chain and in-game data, attribution, live ops, no-code meta feature management, and A/B testing,” Helika CEO Anton Umnov told Decrypt. “Ubisoft is also pre-subscribed to Helika’s AI optimization offering, which utilizes AI agents to programmatically optimize and balance their games for sustainable growth and ROI.”
Helika is already used by a who’s who of blockchain game developers, including Bored Ape Yacht Club creator Yuga Labs (Otherside), Pudgy Penguins (Pudgy World), Proof of Play (Pirate Nation), Treasure, and more. The startup raised an $8 million Series A funding round led by Pantera Capital, as announced last week.
Champions Tactics: Grimoria Chronicles is set to release in 2024, with Ubisoft showcasing a playable demo for the first time last week at the NFT Paris conference. The company released a free mint of Ethereum NFT profile picture (PFP) characters in December, which now start at almost $400 worth of ETH on secondary marketplaces.
“We’re excited to work together with Helika to explore Web3 for players, and their advanced gaming analytics, user acquisition, and game management infrastructure will be a valuable addition to our pipeline,” said Nicolas Pouard, Vice President of Ubisoft’s Strategic Innovation Lab and Head of Blockchain Initiative, in a press release.
While Champions Tactics is the publisher’s first original blockchain game, Ubisoft has gone as deep as any traditional gaming company into the crypto world in recent years.
Ubisoft released free Tezos NFTs for its existing Ghost Recon Breakpoint game in late 2021, and has also sold NFTs based on the Rabbids IP and more for The Sandbox, a metaverse game. Furthermore, the publisher has released other experimental blockchain projects and supported numerous startups and networks across the space.