The makers of Ethereum NFT card game Parallel—which hit the Epic Games Store in June—are rolling onto yet another new project, announcing a 3D first-person shooter game codenamed “Project Tau Ceti” at Token2049 in Singapore on Wednesday.

In Tau Ceti, players will battle across a sci-fi planet using their Parallel NFT avatars. Unlike the upcoming AI-centric game Colony, which will be launched on the Solana blockchain, Project Tau Ceti marks a return to Coinbase’s Ethereum layer-2 network Base—this time on the recently launched B3 layer-3 gaming network.

“B3 has the right mixture of technology and team experience to support what we're looking for,” a Parallel Studios spokesperson told Decrypt. “B3 is putting the focus on games, and as the hottest new network on Base, this felt like the right choice for us.”

B3.fun launched in August, after development team NFC Labs—which was founded by former Coinbase employees—announced a $21 million investment round in July. The chain launched with a web-based crypto arcade platform called BSMNT.

Parallel is a prominent game on Ethereum and Base, putting a crypto spin on competitive card battlers like Hearthstone. It’s free to play, but features optional NFT cards that can be collected and traded, plus the ability to earn crypto token rewards.

Project Tau Ceti, the team said, represents an effort to expand the world of Parallel with an entirely different kind of game.

“Not long ago, our art team got together to imagine what a shooter game set in the Parallel universe could look like,” the team said in a pre-alpha trailer. “What began as a side project quickly grew beyond our expectations.”

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“Fueled by our community's incredible response to the idea,” they added, “driven by your passion and feedback, we embarked on a journey to create expansive new environments, detailed characters, challenging enemies, and unique creatures, each thoughtfully designed to enhance and broaden the Parallel world.”

Tau Ceti uses Parallel’s library of 3D assets, including characters, weapons, and creatures, to create an expansive new gaming experience. According to Parallel Studios, Project Tau Ceti is being developed in partnership with a yet-to-be-named third-party studio using Unreal Engine 5.

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GG's 2023 Game of the Year: Parallel

Parallel sets a new standard for NFT card games while breaking free of the broader genre mold—and that’s why it is GG’s Game of the Year for 2023. The space opera trading card game (TCG) is free-to-play with optional NFTs and requires an incredible amount of strategy and card knowledge to climb its highly competitive ranks. Unlike some other blockchain games, Parallel doesn’t feel like a “pay-to-win” experience. Instead it offers an eye-catching, elegant sci-fi world with intense matches and uni...

“While we continue development on Tau Ceti, Parallel's focus remains on delivering meaningful updates to the TCG and our Alpha release of Colony,” the team wrote on Twitter (aka X).

Project Tau Ceti is expected to launch into early alpha testing on PC in 2025, according to an interview posted on NFT marketplace OpenSea. Future mobile and console versions could follow the initial PC release.

Edited by Andrew Hayward