The Avalanche blockchain will host the gaming experience of MapleStory, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) created by South Korean video game developer Nexon and with over 400,000 daily active users.The game, dubbed “MapleStory N,” will run on an Avalanche subnet on the cloud network of the namesake blockchain “to proceed without a separate implementation partner, providing greater convenience, more support options, and quick time to market,” according to an announcement made on March 11. It will also give users new opportunities to create content.“Players can expand gameplay, create captivating new worlds, and leave their mark on the MapleStory Universe,” an Avalanche representative stated.
The game is scheduled to launch later in 2024. “Our partnership with Ava Labs will allow us to build a stable and complete blockchain ecosystem, enabling us to securely service various dApps along with MapleStory N to amplify our competitiveness,” commented Angela Son, MapleStory Universe’s partnership lead.
Since its creation in 2003, MapleStory has amassed over 180 million registered users and is incredibly popular in the Asia-Pacific area.A variety of nonfungible tokens (NFTs) are used by its Web3 initiative, MapleStory Universe, to improve the in-game experiences.Likewise, on March 22, 2023, its parent company Nexon decided to power its blockchain ecosystem using Polygon, an Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution.As per Nexon, a Polygon supernet developed by Polygon Labs is set to be included in Maplestory, enabling players to acquire and amass in-game items in the form of NFTs.
In 2024, the Avalanche network has been growing in popularity, in part because of the collaboration between the Avalanche Foundation and major financial institutions like JPMorgan and Citi for new technology deployments on its blockchain and real-world asset tokenization projects.Cointelegraph said on January 15 that the excitement over Bitcoin BRC-20 inscription tokens caused Avalanche inscriptions to attract record levels of user interest.Since its inception in 2023, more over 100 million Avalanche inscriptions have been produced.