Passage and Strange Clan: Unreal Engine Gaming on Cosmos
For most of the recent bull run in layer 1 blockchains, Cosmos devs were quietly building native interoperability into a new ecosystem of Dapp-specific chains. Outside of Terra’s success with USD-pegged stablecoin UST, the first projects on Cosmos have focused on DeFI primitives such as DEXs and bridges: Getting assets to Cosmos, around the ecosystem and into the appropriate token. Cosmos chains have also focused on solving real world problems, such as decentralized VPN, decentralized wifi hotspots, and privacy.
On the other hand, while we recently saw the launch of NFT-centered chain Stargaze on Cosmos, the Metaverse had been less of a priority. All that is about to change. Strange Clan is coming. With more on the way from new metaverse platform Passage.
The disappointment of P2E 1.0
While crypto gamers in general are hungry for quality projects with attractive in-game rewards, the earliest P2E games are reminiscent of early web 2 games, sometimes even worse. Traction has been limited to opportunists or the desperate (locked out of jobs by COVID) who wish to farm and sell the in-game rewards.
They will leave as soon as rewards less than compensate them for their efforts. They are not in it for the game. Those rewards have disappointed of late, with play-to-earn in-game economics having had several setbacks, including the struggle of market leader Axie Infinity’s native SLP token, which has fallen by 95% from its summer 2021 highs. What is needed are compelling games, where rewards are a by-product of a healthy ecosystem; play and earn (P&E) rather than P2E.
The disappointment in the current games for users has jump-started a search for the next generation of on-chain games.
The trouble is that AAA experiences such as Illuvium and Star Atlas, great and well-funded teams, are years away. From big hitters such as Softbank and a16z to the newest entrants in crypto, venture money is chasing the remaining opportunities with billions of dollars in metaverse allocation. Here and now games, and even those on the horizon, tend to not promise great in-game experiences, never mind within 3D virtual worlds.
Passage establishes the metaverse, on Cosmos
We believe that successful blockchain games will need to optimize for game experience and crypto economics. Enter Passage, an easy-to-use metaverse platform that emerged out of Three Divisions, who have delivered virtual experiences for uncompromising clients such as Amazon, Capitol Records, and American Girl.
The eight-person full-time team has a deep and varied experience in providing unequaled experiences in 3D virtual reality, powered by Unreal Engine. Those skills are now being applied to the crypto metaverse.
Their killer app is the ability to stream on any device. In other Metaverse worlds on Ethereum or other blockchains it becomes quickly apparent that you need specific hardware to enjoy them at their full capacity. This limits the scope of users, who would prefer to access a world with what they have, when they want.
Through a partnership with the decentralized Akash Network, users will be able to stream high resolution graphics that would normally require a high-powered computer. Users will be able to experience a wide variety of high quality graphic environments using any device they choose. The Passage ecosystem will therefore also be able to bring the Metaverse experience to those who may only have a mobile phone and no heavy-duty desktop.
Passage will offer other enhancements to the virtual experience, such as audio that is tracked to the location of your avatar within the 3D world, that will offer a better real world experience than your average Zoom call or metaverse experience.
Virtual worlds
Innovative games and spaces will be able to live in fully-customizable 3D worlds. The first of these will be the long-awaited Strange Clan, the first 3D crypto P&E game, on any chain.
But there’s more to Passage than Strange Clan. While current metaverse platforms require a significant knowledge of code to develop lands, Passage is designing their worlds to be easy to develop and modify. Passage will also help customize worlds for clients.
This ease of use is crucial. Passage expects a rush of activity once the Strange Clan mania is unleashed.
Worlds built by Passage are therefore just the beginning. Users and devs alike will be able to buy 3D items, insert them into prefab layouts, and develop their worlds this way. More devs should attract more users, and vice versa.
While builders can build, game developers can create their own games on Passage, providing a much higher quality experience than most 2D games. Neither the builders nor the game devs need to start from scratch.
For these reasons, Passage has a strong chance at becoming an NFT gaming hub benefitting all PASG holders. Think of something akin to Steam but with a built in game item marketplace, profit sharing with users, and NFT collection display capabilities.
Strange Clan — The flagship
Strange Clan will be an adventure game built on top of Passage’s 3D worlds with quests, activities, battles, farming, and crafted NFTs that can be sold on the Passage marketplace. So far it’s tough to overestimate the hype. The atmosphere in the discord is amazing with daily calls on the weekday called GM Tidings where they give out the latest leaks direct to the community. Check out their twitter for a peek into the first footage of gameplay released.
As the initial characters from the genesis NFT mint of 10k progress through the game performing quests and farming they will discover new towns and characters that will then go to the marketplace for new or current users to buy, players will share in the fees associated with the purchase so it will be a win-win for both platform and players.
Though Strange Clan has a crypto economy at its heart, its goal is to be a compelling and enjoyable game first. The story built around the game will be unmatched compared to all others. The team has made it a priority to have the story be the focus of the game. Direct from their roadmap:
The games that we like are those that are highly story focused, so we are trying to build an immersive story world with a deep lore and a lot of fantastic art content to back it up. We have previously done a graphic novel relating to world building via Three Division and we will have graphic novels for the creation of this game and story as well. We want people to engage with the game regardless of your play style (competitive elements, exploring, and farming).
Unreal engine is used to power the high graphics of the game and should be ahead of the current crop of crypto centered games with suboptimal experiences, keeping players engaged and entertained past trying to farm for rewards. It’s yet to be seen what type of growth a blockchain native game can have when it focuses on gameplay mechanics vs financialization of the game. A motto for the SC community is play to own rather than play to earn. Whoever shares in the early development will own a part in its success long term.
The team is focused on ensuring that the game is open to everyone from the severely time constrained to those with a lot of spare hours to play.
The rent-seeking behavior of many of the current virtual worlds is avoided here. Land purchase or renting is not required, and only one character is needed.
The game will have its YAWP token, the only way to pay for the licenses to use Strange Clan design objects and skins that players can use for their buildings or characters. There will also YAWP-user discounts for Strange Clan NFT purchases.
The Passage Marketplace
The Passage marketplace will go live at the end of February. While it will focus initially on Strange Clan, the platform will be all-encompassing.
Users will of course be able to trade Strange Clan characters, items and lands, but creators will also be able to buy and sell design objects and skin licenses to create new items for Strange Clan gamers. But Passage will also offer an interoperable and 3D OpenSea, open to all IBC-enabled NFTs, capable of being viewed in all of their 3D glory. Additionally, Passage’s virtual world 3D objects will of course hold pride of place in the marketplace.
Though initially focused on Strange Clan NFTs, other artists will be able to offer their collections on the platform, to buy or for rent. Passage takes a 3% fee on every transaction, though stakers will receive a discount. Just like OpenSea, creators will be able to add a royalty fee for each transaction. New external NFT projects will initially be onboarded through collaboration with the Passage team, and the end-goal is an open mint process whilst retaining quality assurance to avoid harmful NFT collections (e.g., forgeries, spam etc.)
The PASG token
The primary role of the PASG token is to foster community. An unusually high 71% (50% is the norm) of the fixed supply of 2 billion tokens will be allocated for staking rewards. Staking not only offers fees, PASG rewards, discounts on marketplace transactions, potential airdrops and preferential access (to Strange Clan and other new opportunities), stakers can delegate to Passage’s PoS layer 1 blockchain validators beginning in March.
Keeping with the community theme, 14.8% genesis supply will be dispersed through an airdrop. Getting involved in the community, buying a Strange Clan NFT and staking the top tokens natively and in LPs will maximize your chances.
PASG will also be needed to pay the streaming fees associated with entering a world on the platform. While most of this fee will pay for cloud compute and storage, 3% of the fees paid will be burned, creating a deflationary aspect to the token.
Passage envelopes the 3D metaverse, across chains
There are few, if any, platforms that are building NFT marketplaces, virtual worlds and P&E games, and even fewer doing it in 3D.
But perhaps the most under-rated element of Passage is its ability to link to over 35 other chains through Cosmos IBC (Inter-Blockchain Communication). Bridging via IBC is painless, inexpensive, quick and secure. Even for 3D NFTs. Passage will join Stargaze, an NFT specialized L1 that will be IBC enabled and up over 6x from IDO in bringing interchain NFTs to Cosmos.
Passage’s capabilities will likely also benefit the Cosmos ecosystem. As the first metaverse to launch on Cosmos IBC, and the first 3D P&E game on any chain, Passage’s platform will almost certainly be a major catalyst for metaverse growth throughout Cosmos and its interchain community.
