The team behind move-to-earn game Stepn is stepping further into game development.
Find Satoshi Lab (FSL), the crypto startup that created Stepn, NFT marketplace MOOAR, and decentralized trading platform DOOAR, has announced plans to release a massively multiplayer online game (MMO) called Gas Hero that will be playable via web browsers and mobile phones.
While little has been revealed about the upcoming game, which is slated to launch later this year, its name does not refer to the “gas” known among crypto traders—which refers to network transactions fees or “gas fees” that power crypto networks like Ethereum.
“The way play is structured in our MMO kind of style in a [player-vs-player (PVP)] environment in the game itself is that it relies on social principles,” Find Satoshi Lab COO Shiti Manghani told Decrypt.
Gas Hero will be a social game in which players are incentivized to interact with each other because of perks like “power, fame, [and] money,” Manghani added. She sees those elements as important for game development from a psychological perspective, and added that FSL is putting special emphasis on refining the game’s user experience (UX) and user interface (UI).
“I think it’s common knowledge that crypto UX/UI currently suffers,” Manghani said.
When it comes to game lore, Manghani revealed that Gas Hero will take place in the year 2084, after a rogue AI’s behavior leads to a nuclear strike. In response, the United Nations establishes Operation Spark and the “Gas Heroes” come into fruition. The “gas” here refers to the natural gas that powers the cloning labs in the game’s sci-fi world, Manghani said.
A first screenshot from the game seen above suggests potential combat and strategy elements, but it’s still unclear how those pieces all fit together in the experience. Gas Hero is currently in development and will use Stepn’s GMT as its token at launch, as well as offer its own marketplace and player voting opportunities for decentralized decision-making in-game.
Gas Hero is a significant step for FSL into a more creative, immersive gaming direction. Unlike the movement-driven Stepn—which rewards users with tokens and has a simple premise, no game characters, and no lore—Gas Hero has plans for a big, sci-fi world and game lore that expands beyond the scope of the game itself into comic books.
FSL plans to gradually release the game’s plans over seven successive white papers. Until September 9, FSL will run a “Shape the Legends, Shape the Glory” contest, letting people submit character designs for a chance to win a share of the upcoming Gas Hero Genesis Hero NFT collection’s secondary sale royalty, an FSL t-shirt, and a portion of a roughly 2 million GMT prize pool.