Ubisoft, the French gaming behemoth behind popular franchises like Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry, has become a node validator on the XPLA blockchain. Ubisoft has a history of exploring Web3, blockchain, and cryptocurrency services in addition to its gaming operations. The recent step, taken via its Strategic Innovation Lab, paves the way for Ubisoft’s broader contribution to the XPLA network beyond just validation tasks. XPLA announced in a press release that Ubisoft will also play an active role in decision-making for governance proposals as part of this collaboration.

XPLA is an open-source blockchain built on Tendermint’s layer-1 technology, designed to facilitate the shift from Web2 to Web3 gaming. It was launched in August 2022 with the primary objective of enabling players to adopt a “play to own” gaming model. Notable games on the XPLA blockchain include The Walking Dead: All-Stars and Summoners War: Chronicles, which are among the most popular intellectual properties.

Ubisoft, a gaming company headquartered in Rennes, France, is one of the largest in the world, having sold approximately 800 million titles and boasting a market capitalization of $2.75 billion. It is the second largest gaming company in Europe, trailing only Poland’s CD Projekt Red.

Ubisoft was one of the first gaming companies to invest in Web3 and blockchain technology, and in 2021, it released a manifesto detailing its plans for these areas, with a particular focus on player agency and ownership. The company is also a significant investor in Animoca Brands, a blockchain games developer based in Hong Kong.

The popularity of blockchain gaming continues to grow as the Web3 space expands. Although it has not yet fully realized its initial potential in terms of decentralizing gaming assets on a large scale and transforming the public’s perception of nonfungible tokens (NFTs), the ongoing involvement of major gaming companies like Ubisoft and Square-Enix is a positive sign for the industry.