Farcana Studio, a gaming company based in the Middle East-North Africa region (MENA), has announced a $10 million fundraise. The seed round was led by Animoca Brands and saw participation from Polygon Ventures, Fenbushi Capital, Merit Circle, and many others.
Yat Sui, Animoca Brands’ co-founder and chairman, said that the company has been working with Farcana Studio over the past year and has been impressed with the progress on its flagship game Farcana and the traction it has received thus far. He also noted that the investment was strategic and part of Animoca Brands’ vision to drive Web3 development in the MENA region.
Farcana is a third-person shooter that is a blend between Blizzard’s Overwatch and Riot Games’ Valorant. The game takes place in the near future where humanity has left Earth and relocated to Mars, where they have found a superpower-granting substance called Axelar. In Farcana, players with Axelar-created powers compete in tournaments for glory.
The game is billed as free-to-play with an optional battle pass. It will incorporate blockchain elements, with the top 10% of tournament players able to earn BTC payouts. Every in-game item will be an NFT, from character skins and pets to graffiti and charms. There is currently no telling when the full game will be released, as it’s still in early development.
Ilman Shazhaev, a serial entrepreneur born in the Chechen Republic, is the leader of Farcana Studio, a company that has over 120 employees, including software engineers and game developers. Farcana Studio held a pre-alpha playtest of its game at the Dubai Esports Festival in June of 2023.
Web3 Gaming Is Having a Moment
Farcana Studio raising $10 million is big news, but it’s not the only gaming company making headlines this past month. At Rarity Sniper, we’ve written about countless gaming projects during that period, including some heavyweights like Ubisoft. Check out a few of the headlines, all from the past 24 days.
- Portalcoin Web3 Gaming Project Blows Up On X
- Neo Tokyo Booms in Value as Web3 Gaming Has Its Moment
- Animoca Brands, Ubisoft Partner for Web3 Gaming Push
As Game7, a Web3 gaming community, shared in a report last month, the gaming community is undergoing a sizable shift, with many companies pivoting away from play-to-earn games that require NFTs to those that are free-to-play. This sentiment, that studios are focused on making games fun to play rather than strictly about the player earning money, was echoed in our interview with Mythical Games.
There are many in the Web3 community that believe blockchain-based games will play a significant role in the next bull market — and beyond. With many AAA Web3 games still under development, late 2024 and 2025 are seen as big years for that part of the space, with only one hit needed to sway skeptical mainstream gamers to the possibilities of blockchain technology.
Any win for the space is good, and with gaming, those wins could add up quickly.