Gaming Giant Ubisoft Launching Free NFT Mint for ‘Champions Tactics’

Ubisoft, the storied video game publisher behind the Assassin’s Creed and Just Dance franchises, is rolling out a free NFT mint this week for its first original blockchain-based game, Champions Tactics: Grimoria Chronicles.

Set to take place on Oasys, a gaming-centric network, the mint will let players collect a total of 75,000 in-game champion figurines. It will be a completely free mint with no gas fees for users, though holders of the existing Warlords NFTs will get first dibs and can claim more champions.

The first phase of the mint will begin Monday, as holders of the game’s Warlords profile picture (PFP) NFTs—which were minted on Ethereum and given away free late last year—will be able to mint up to five champion NFTs.

Although given away free, the Warlords NFTs start at a price of about $210 worth of ETH via secondary marketplaces. According to data from NFTgo, the 9,999-item project has amassed about $7.7 million worth of trading volume since last December’s mint.

For those users who don’t own a Warlords NFT, they’ll be able to mint free champion NFTs on Oasys starting Thursday, July 18. That will also be a free mint, though users will need to have a Ubisoft account and an Oasys wallet, as well as be at least 18 years old.

Champions Tactics: Grimoria Chronicles is an original blockchain-based strategy game that Ubisoft first announced last summer. Ubisoft launched the first closed beta for the game last week ahead of this NFT mint, as the publisher ramps up the rollout ahead of a full launch sometime this year.

Ubisoft said that it's working with decentralized cloud computing startup Aleph.im—a longtime partner dating back to its Ubisoft Quartz NFTs on Tezos—to power the champions NFT mint, using the firm's "verifiable random function" feature to ensure a fair distribution to users who claim the assets.

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.

Editor's note: This story was updated after publication to include details on Aleph.im.