– Game developer and publishing studio Faraway announced today that it has secured its second round of funding for $21 million in a Series A round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and FTX. The company raised over $8 million earlier this year in its seed round, also led by Lightspeed, bringing total funding to almost $30 million . Other participants in both rounds include a16z, Sequoia Capital, Pantera Capital, Jump Capital and Solana.
Faraway is a new gaming studio leveraging blockchain technology to unlock the potential for truly player-driven and decentralized game economies and is set to launch its browser-based flagship title Mini Royale: Nations as the first live multiplayer game on Solana, one of the fastest growing blockchain ecosystems.
“Lightspeed is searching for the industry’s most promising teams to bring the next 100M users to web3, and that is likely in gaming,” said Amy Wu , partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners. “We are still at the beginning of the blockchain gaming era and we’re about to see teams like Faraway catapult gaming into the next wave of what’s possible.”
Faraway’s market strategy and social-focused approach to crypto gaming is centered on the vision of the company’s two co-founders, Alex Paley and Dennis Zdonov, and its CTO, Duc Nguyen , all of whom have extensive leadership experience in free-to-play and midcore gaming. Working across major games like Disney’s Sorcerer’s Arena , WWE Champions , The Walking Dead: Road to Survival , Looney Tunes: World of Mayhem and others gave the leadership team a solid foundation and understanding of social mechanics in gaming and set the course for the team’s browser-based approach into the crypto gaming space.
“Blockchain technology will unlock the potential for truly player-driven, open economies and will usher in the next wave of gaming and virtual worlds,” said Faraway CEO Alex Paley . “Our goal for both current and future games is to create extremely fun and social games with open economies, giving players true ownership over their in-game assets and a true voice in how the game evolves over time. We’re fortunate to have found such great partners who not only understand the potential of Web3 across various markets, but are actively driving businesses forward in this space.”
Faraway’s Mini Royale: Nations is already live with an established player base with planned near-future updates coming to its virtual economy. The first live multiplayer game to launch on the Solana blockchain platform, Mini Royale: Nations is a browser-based first person shooter with no third party client or installation required, making it instantly playable on any hardware.
“We believe that the browser is the optimal platform for any blockchain game, especially in the short to medium term,” continued Paley. “Our players do not have to worry about platform owners all of a sudden banning our game on their platform, as we’ve already started to see among big platform owners.”
Paley will be speaking at the Solana Breakpoint event in Lisbon , November 7-10 . The presentation will be focused on crypto and open economies in gaming, and touch on the value of social interaction in the play-to-earn gaming environment.
“Decentralized gaming is the next frontier for blockchain technology,” said Anatoly Yakovenko , CEO of Solana Labs . “The game Faraway is building has the potential to bring Web3 to hundreds of millions of users.”
A key advantage of the Faraway model is the lack of strict hardware requirements for browser-based games which lower the barrier to entry for global audiences. Additionally this accessibility allows for native integration with existing Web3 wallets. Faraway’s first-person shooter title has already achieved significant player adoption with its heavily social and clan-based competition and cooperative gameplay, which are key design elements in traditional long-standing games across a variety of genres. Mini Royale: Nations blends those core design principles with evolving virtual worlds and open economies, reinforcing a core Faraway principle that games should be accessible to all demographics and socioeconomic statuses.
“The game and economy that Alex and Dennis have designed will be a first for a new wave of web3 games,” said Sam Bankman-Fried , CEO of FTX. “Mini Royale: Nations will be our first end-to-end gaming integration with FTXPay, NFTs, and wallet.”
Faraway is a globally diversified team of 40 that exists across several countries with its HQ based in Miami . The company is currently expanding across all departments.
For more information about Faraway, please visit www.faraway.gg . To play Mini Royale: Nations , please visit https://miniroyale.io/ . To join the Mini Royale community, please visit https://discord.gg/miniroyale .
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