Gaming Giant Ubisoft Brings Another Franchise to Ethereum's 'Sandbox' Metaverse

Ubisoft, the massive gaming brand behind the Assassin's Creed and Just Dance franchises, will drop a new series of avatars this week for Ethereum metaverse game The Sandbox—and this time around, they're also based on a Web3-native game.

Avatars based on Champions Tactics: Grimoria Chronicles—an original blockchain game released by Ubisoft last fall—will be released for The Sandbox as NFTs on Ethereum scaling network Polygon.

The Champions Tactics NFT avatars will be released on Wednesday, January 29, with the avatars selling for 170 SAND ($88) to people on the allowlist, or 180 SAND ($93) in the public sale for any remaining assets.

Buyers will not only receive an avatar usable in The Sandbox—a metaverse game with numerous brand and celebrity partners, ranging from Snoop Dogg to The Smurfs and plenty more—but also three champions characters to use in Champions Tactics, the turn-based PC strategy game.

Ubisoft previously brought its Rabbids creatures—from the long-running Rayman brand—to The Sandbox, and followed that up with characters from the Netflix animated series "Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix," which is inspired by a game in the Far Cry franchise.

The Netflix series was later tapped for a blockchain game called Captain Laserhawk: The G.A.M.E., which was released in December with NFT access passes minted on Ethereum scaling network Arbitrum.

Ubisoft is the biggest Web2 gaming juggernaut playing in the Web3 world, not only through games like Champions Tactics and Captain Laserhawk, but also collaborations like The Sandbox, investments, and moves to mentor and support startups.