Readyverse Studios, co-founded by Ernest Cline, is teaming up with Wētā Workshop to create a new “multi-genre” battle royale game called OPEN.
Wētā Workshop, famous for their work on The Lord of the Rings and Avatar, will help shape the look and story of OPEN. Readyverse is also bringing characters from Neo Tokyo, known as Citizens, into the game. Neo Tokyo.
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OPEN will have a virtual world full of famous IPs, similar to Ready Player One. Some partners already on board include DeLorean, Reebok, and Cool Cats.
Aaron McDonald, Shara Senderoff, Dan Farah, and Cline, all co-founders of Readyverse, said it’s an honor to work with Wētā and create something unique in gaming. “It’s an honor to build our vision hand-in-hand with the best,” they said.
Richard Taylor from Wētā said this project lets them create a “visually stunning and incredibly immersive world unlike anything we have done before.”
OPEN is being made for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S. It’s a third-person game with battle royale modes, both competitive and cooperative, featuring nostalgic environments. It aims to be a standout metaverse game with web3 tech for digital ownership and asset sharing.
There’s no gameplay footage yet, so keep an eye on GameSpot for updates.
Walker Labs, along with Readyverse, is developing OPEN. The team includes veterans from Epic, DICE, Microsoft, PlayStation, Remedy, EA, Ubisoft, and Lucasfilm.
Ernest Cline shared at SXSW that he envisions a future internet mixed with video games. “I was trying to imagine the coolest possible future version of the internet and video games and conflate it together,” he said. “And what the future would be like in 30 years. A ton of my experience was with the early days of the Internet, which felt like this new frontier. It was an egalitarian technology that everyone could use and have access to.” VentureBeat.
Fans are always curious about how these new virtual worlds will turn out.
Epic Games has been working on their own metaverse with Fortnite, featuring content from Metallica to Darth Vader. Disney invested $1.5 billion into Epic to make a Disney World inside Fortnite.
Tim Sweeney from Epic said Fortnite’s metaverse will grow beyond what it is today. “It’s going to take on a life of its own and really quickly transcend what it is today. It’s become very clear over the past few years that we’re in this steep growth curve that’s being driven by that,” he said. “This medium is emerging at an astonishing rate, and I think people have no idea how awesome it’s going to be by the end of this decade. But when you look at all the best capabilities of the top game engines, look at all the work being created for top movies in the film industry, all the work of all the car makers and of all the other storytellers and creators of all different kinds of games, and envision what the world is like when all of that comes together into a socially connected united economy which everybody can participate in, that’s going to be a whole new world. And that’s what we’re very excited about.”
