In a July 3 announcement, Distinct Possibility Studios disclosed that it had secured a $30.5 million funding round and would be using Etherlink, an EVM-compatible Layer-2 network built on Tezos, as the blockchain infrastructure for its upcoming game, ‘Reaper Actual’, an ambitious open-world persistent shooter.
The round was led by Bitkraft and Brevan Howard Digital, with participation from Hashed, Delphi Ventures, Shima Capital, North Island Ventures, Decasonic and others, with the funding intended to accelerate the title’s development.
The studio cited Etherlink’s scalability, high transaction throughput, security and environmental sustainability (as part of the Tezos proof-of-stake network) as key advantages for managing the game’s player-driven economy.
Furthermore, it bears mentioning that industry veteran John Smedley, co-creator of the popular games EverQuest and PlanetSide as well as former head of Sony Online Entertainment and Amazon Game Studios, is leading the project. He will be assisted by a development team drawn from top studios such as Riot Games, Activision Blizzard, Ubisoft and Epic.
Capturing the excitement surrounding the partnership, Arthur Breitman, co-founder of Tezos, stated that the prospect of “the EverQuest guy with an AAA team” building an immersive world with AI elements was genuinely thrilling for him. Similarly, Efe Kucuk of Tezos-based blockchain R&D hubTrilitech emphasized how Etherlink’s infrastructure philosophy aligns perfectly with today’s gaming needs, remaining “invisible until it matters most, providing permanence without friction.”
Introducing ‘Reaper Actual’
Reaper Actual is best described as a next-gen open-world extraction shooter set on Marova, a vast island embroiled in ongoing conflict. As part of the game, players assume the roles of elite operatives known as “Reapers,” navigating complex PvPvE (player-versus-player-versus-environment) scenarios that involve territorial warfare, resource gathering, and base management, all integrated into a blockchain-enabled in-game economy.
In practice, characters, bases, skins and crafted weapons are intended to be tokenized on Etherlink, allowing rare items to be created, traded and owned by players. The title is expected to launch on PC via Steam, the Epic Games Store and its own website.
A pre-alpha release called “Foundation” is slated for rollout in the coming weeks, offering early access and on-chain tradable assets. Moreover, regular updates and announcements have also been planned via the studio’s official channels and the Reaper Actual community.
Exploring Etherlink’s Technical Edge and Ecosystem Growth
Etherlink is powered by Tezos’ smart rollup technology, which is capable of delivering sub-second currently transaction finality and minimal fees, with official documentation noting that Etherlink currently processes roughly 500 millisecond confirmations and charges on the order of $0.001 or less per ERC-20 transaction.
At the same time, every block of state is settled on the Tezos main chain, ensuring a high degree of security/privacy.
Importantly for developers, Etherlink is fully EVM-compatible, i.e. any Ethereum smart contract or asset can be deployed or migrated to it seamlessly. And, because Etherlink inherits Tezos’s proof-of-stake consensus, its carbon footprint is extremely low (on the order of 0.001 TWh per year).
Etherlink’s developer ecosystem has been growing rapidly in recent months, with the company recently launching the “Summer of Code” hackathon which is scheduled to run until August 4. The month-long virtual competition offers over $40,000 in prizes and challenges participants to exploit Etherlink’s high-speed, low-cost infrastructure in new DeFi projects, games and NFT applications.
Similarly, support for Etherlink has also expanded across the broader crypto landscape as late last month, popular crypto exchange Jumper integrated Etherlink into its framework, enabling users to transfer assets between Etherlink and more than 50 other networks (including Ethereum, Arbitrum and Base).
This came as Etherlink’s on-chain usage spiked, with metrics showing that its TVL (total value locked) had reached $39 million, up about 434% in a single month. Contributors attributed part of this growth to recent network upgrades (such as “Dionysus” and “Calypso”) that were rolled out to significantly boost Etherlink’s throughput and stability.
Lastly, a proposed “Etherlink 4.1” kernel upgrade has also been introduced, potentially doubling the chain’s throughput capacity and raising its gas speed limit to about 4 million units per second).
A new reckoning in the works?
The timing of Distinct Possibility Studios’ announcement aligns with a growing tradition within the gaming industry wherein executives and developers are increasingly exploring the blockchain and its myriad use cases to enhance in-game item ownership (while also creating new economic models) as well as maximize title immersiveness. Interesting times ahead, to say the least.
