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Remember the “interoperability” gaming dream?
Ubisoft is spinning up a Decentralized Verification Network (DVN) to verify crypto assets that are being moved or bridged from one blockchain to another.
The company is using LayerZero’s tech — more specifically, its codebase and omnichain messaging protocol — in the deal. The game studio is running its own clients and nodes for its network, however.
The DVN means Ubisoft can let players move their NFTs and in-game currencies from one chain to another, which makes them usable with other Ubisoft crypto games (or external games or platforms). It could also make complete migrations from one chain to another easier if Ubisoft ever decided to move one of its blockchain games.
Ubisoft may enable cross-chain bridging soon for its fantasy turn-based RPG Champions Tactics: Grimoria Chronicles, which launched using the Oasys EVM blockchain in October 2024. Last year — months before the game launched — LayerZero said it was adding support for Oasys with the end goal of making Champions Tactics “omnichain.”
Now, it sounds like that’s actually possible.
LayerZero’s tech turns assets in transit into Omnichain NFTs (ONFTs) or Omnichain fungible tokens (OFTs). ONFTs could be assets like in-game items, while OFTs could be used for in-game currencies.
Ubisoft will be able to decide the cost of bridging assets for users, LayerZero Labs CEO and cofounder Bryan Pellegrino told Blockworks in an interview. LayerZero tech makes all costs upfront, so that no surprise tokens are required for bridging.
The DVN is intended to be easier to use than a traditional crypto bridge, which can require multiple currencies across multiple chains and anywhere from a few minutes to a week to complete bridging an asset depending on the chain.
Pellegrino believes crypto gaming is moving toward becoming a “broader, much more liquid ecosystem,” and that enabling more asset movement between chains is a step toward that vision.
We don’t yet know which chains Ubisoft plans to support with its DVN. But given its existing and upcoming games use Oasys and Immutable zkEVM, respectively, those may be two of the options if Ubisoft adds a bridging feature to Champions Tactics, for example. LayerZero currently supports over 130 blockchains including Ethereum and Solana.
Ubisoft’s Nicolas Pouard, VP of the studio’s Strategic Innovation Lab, has previously said their goal is to be chain-agnostic — which a DVN supporting dozens to over a hundred chains would certainly enable.
After I previously reported that Ubisoft’s next crypto game is likely a trading card game (TCG) using Immutable’s zkEVM, Ubisoft and Immutable announced that they’re rebooting Might and Magic as a crypto TCG.
“Long term, the goal is that, you know, the user doesn’t think about a chain at all. They don’t think about gas at all. Their wallets are just dollar-denominated. Everything is just abstracted in the backend,” Pellegrino said, adding: “Users aren’t going to think about chains and RPCs for too much longer.”
