Ubisoft invests in collectible NFT card game, Cross the Ages

Ubisoft, a video game company giant behind Assassins’ Creed and Far Cry series among others has been very active recently in expressing its interest in cryptocurrency, blockchain technology, and digital assets in general. The company’s notable recent initiative took form in an undisclosed amount of investment in a free-to-play card game, Cross the Ages.

Cross the Ages announced on Monday its $12 million seed round, revealing the game’s supporters from gaming industry giants, namely Ubisoft, Hong Kong-based software and VC company Animoca, Polygon, and The Sandbox’s COO Sebastian Borget.

The move is perhaps is a follow-up to the increasing popularity of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology—leading more individuals and organizations to invest their money in each related market they found fit. One, in particular, is Ubisoft, which is considered among the active players in the market, making investments in expanding the company’s portfolio.

More about Cross the Ages

As mentioned previously, Cross the Ages is a collectible card video game that allows players to trade in-game digital cards (NFTs) for physical cards. The game is set in a dystopian future and inspired by a book series with the same name. Cross the Ages is built on a sidechain scaling solution platform for Ethereum, Polygon.

Additionally, the game requires players to find free-to-read novels for clues and turn them in for quest completion.

There are a number of readable novels made available, but only one is available in-game at the moment. Players may compete to collect digital cards or NFTs that can be traded for physical cards should they intend to get involved in the card-collecting scene, pretty much similar to ones that of the Pokémon cards.

Cross the Ages is under the management of two co-founders, namely CEO Sami Chlagou and chairman Christophe de Courson. The duo has developed other games for console, PC, and mobile platforms prior to Cross the Ages, such as Guns of Mercy and Finding Teddy. They described Cross the Ages as a “mobile-first” game experience.

One of the game’s seed investors, Borget, praised Cross the Ages for its unique video game format, combining physical collectible cards as well as the version of the digital asset or NFTs.

“Sami’s vision of Cross the Ages, around creating an innovative, multidimensional entertainment format which players can participate in and own—between books, collectible trading cards in both physical and NFT formats, and video gaming—is truly unique,” Borget said in a statement.

Plans for early whitelisting, beta access

The developer also has announced early access whitelisting event last week, following the game’s community which has grown tremendously on all social channels.

“We’re thrilled to see our community grow at the rate which it has been as we’ve topped 66K on Twitter, 200K on Instagram, and 25K on Discord. Amid this incredible growth, we have received countless messages asking when our future players can get their hands on some CTA NFT cards,” the developer said.

“Today, we are pleased to inform you all that a window of opportunity will open for 20,000 lucky individuals, as we announce our first-ever early access NFT Whitelisting event for our community!”

Cross the Ages has planned to launch the game’s beta version later in late May, followed in June with digital and physical cards set.

Additionally, the game developer has revealed their digital financial blueprint, especially in implementing various elements of decentralized finance soon, with a disclosed launch date. Such features, in particular, refer to yield farming to earn awards or in the crypto term, a process that allows holders to lock up their holdings.

Lastly, the immersive virtual elements of the metaverse will be launching in the game sometime next year.