Polygon NFT Game Cross the Ages Raises $12M in Round Backed by Ubisoft, Animoca

Blockchain-based collectible card game Cross the Ages today announced a $12 million seed round that includes support from industry giants such as video game publisher Ubisoft and notable metaverse investor Animoca Brands.

Cross the Ages is a fantasy and science fiction-themed digital card game inspired by a free-to-read book series of the same name. It’s built on Polygon, a sidechain scaling solution for Ethereum, with cards represented as NFT collectibles. Players also will have the option to convert these digital cards into physical trading cards.

Polygon also invested in this seed round, according to a statement from Cross the Ages, along with Sebastien Borget, the co-founder and COO of upcoming Ethereum-based metaverse game, The Sandbox. The funds will be used to continue development and to launch the game, as well as to retain current talent.

Cross the Ages' co-founders include chairman and serial crypto entrepreneur Christophe de Courson, as well as CEO Sami Chlagou, who has developed games like Guns of Mercy and Finding Teddy for console and mobile platforms and PC. Cross the Ages is described as a “mobile-first” experience, optimized for smartphones and tablets.

“Sami's vision of Cross the Ages, around creating an innovative, multidimensional entertainment format which players can participate in and own—between books, collectible trading cards in both physical and NFT formats, and video gaming—is truly unique,” Borget said the statement.

Cross the Ages plans to launch a beta version of the game in late May, with digital and physical cards set for June. The developers plan to implement various decentralized finance (DeFi) elements within the game soon thereafter, such as yield farming to earn rewards, while immersive metaverse elements are planned to launch in 2023.

Ubisoft is the largest traditional video game publisher that's currently making moves in the crypto gaming space. The company began prototyping blockchain games a few years back, and has released experimental NFT projects while supporting crypto game developers along the way. Ubisoft also invested in Animoca Brands last October.

The publisher broke new ground in December by releasing NFT in-game items for an existing video game, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint, via its Tezos-based Ubisoft Quartz platform. Ubisoft faced backlash from gamers, many of whom are opposed to NFTs and crypto elements in games, but the publisher said that it would continue on with the initiative.

Animoca Brands, meanwhile, is both the publisher of The Sandbox and a major investor in NFT and metaverse startups. The firm, recently valued above $5 billion, has invested in such startups as leading marketplace OpenSea, NBA Top Shot maker Dapper Labs, and Axie Infinity developer Sky Mavis.