Star Atlas (game)

Star Atlas is a massive multiplayer online game that takes place in a virtual gaming metaverse. It is being built on Unreal Engine 5, allowing the game to feature cinema-quality, real-time environments. Star Atlas takes place in a futuristic science fiction setting in 2620, where three major factions have emerged and are competing for resources and control: humankind, a consortium of alien races and sentient androids.

The game combines different genres. It is part strategy in that you have to develop tactical plans of action on how to interact with other players and factions. Part of it is exploration, as the game features an abundance of stars for exploration and exploitation. Since players can travel to and explore these stars independently through first-person flight, it is in part a flight simulation. Lastly, players can mine resources and derive revenue streams from doing so, making it also a role-playing game.

After choosing a faction, players initially start in faction security zones without combat to explore basic gameplay. Later, they can venture out to medium-tier security and open gameplay where combat is possible.

Fundamental gameplay pillars are: * Deep space exploration; * Combat; * Building space stations and ships; * Choosing in-game professions to mine resources; * Forging alliances to scale control of resources.

Assets acquired in the game can later be exchanged for real-world currency.

Star Atlas was announced in January 2021 and is being built on the Solana blockchain. It is backed by several Solana-based projects, such as Serum, a decentralized exchange, and FTX, a centralized exchange. Although Star Atlas doesn’t have a detailed release schedule, its metaverse tokens are scheduled to begin trading in August 2021.

Star Atlas was founded by CEO Michael Wagner, COO Pablo Quiroga, and head of operations Deb Lucas. Prior to founding Star Atlas, Michael Wagner worked at a VC fund and at Multichain Ventures, a company focused on producing blockchain-focused products. Pablo Quiroga is the founder of a supplement startup and worked in biotechnology before co-founding Star Atlas. Deb Lucas has a finance-based background with posts at Charles Schwab and Barclays.

Star Atlas aims to deliver an immersive metaverse gaming experience that encompasses several genres and combines a cinema-quality gaming experience with an ability to earn virtual assets that can be exchanged for real-life currency. It plans to supersede its competitors by outperforming them in several areas. So far, no blockchain game combines as many different gameplay possibilities as Star Atlas. While some games offer the option to earn via staking, or battle other players for virtual assets, or explore its virtual world and form alliances, no game does all of the above simultaneously.

Players can use the ATLAS token as in-game currency to purchase assets, but they will also be able to buy NFTs on the NFT marketplace that will function as ships and other in-game equipment. At the same time, players will be able to choose a profession, such as CEO, broker, bounty hunter, pirate and a large number of others to fulfill roles on spaceships. Spaceships will also have the option to combine resources and compete not only individually, but also collectively. These so-called decentralized autonomous corporations will be able to construct entire space cities with accompanying micro-economies. The POLIS token, the second token of the Star Atlas universe, will serve as a governance token in these space cities, as well as for governance decisions regarding the game.

Star Atlas also plans to offer an NFT marketplace and an NFT release schedule to distribute and trade in-game assets. Moreover, by being integrated with the Serum DEX, ATLAS token holders will have the option to provide liquidity, or sell and buy their token holdings.

Star Atlas will be set up on the Solana blockchain. The team selected Solana for its fast transaction times and minuscule transaction fees, making it, as of today, the only blockchain capable of hosting such an ambitious game.

Solana is a layer one blockchain with a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism with partial Byzantine Fault Tolerance. It has 200 nodes operating worldwide that can, at their peak, process up to 50,000 transactions per second. Solana performs a set of coordinated optimizations to achieve such impressive performance and processes transactions in a multi-threaded way, which sets it apart from slower blockchains.

The way a blockchain network is designed closely mimics the basis for the genre of Star Atlas. Mining or staking is the core of how blockchain assets are proven to be legitimate and tangible. To discover mined assets requires exploration on the part of a miner to unlock value. People set up mining or staking nodes and plug them into the blockchain network to enhance the network while also earning value from it. The hybrid experience of Star Atlas closely mimics the nature of how blockchain technology functions.

The grand strategy genre of video games encourages claim staking to expand your empire and install strategic trade routes using an offensive and defensive tactical plan of action. In this mode the player primarily interacts with a dynamic overview of the charted and uncharted regions of space via the map view aka the Star Atlas.

To augment that grand strategy, Star Atlas enables players to captain deep-space, crewed spaceships to scan and discover celestial and terrestrial assets. Once discovered, rich claims that are staked can be mined, refined and traded through a network of commercial mining installations, refineries, and the Universal Marketplace. Exploration will lead to many other surprises in the outer limits of space. In this mode the player primarily interacts with a top down space view showing their spaceship exterior with the ability to go into an x-ray view to see the interior of the ship and the crew performing their individual tasks. Players can also captain and pilot the ship manually through the first person cockpit/bridge view. Cockpit view is also suitable for seated virtual reality gaming.

The first principle driving the entire economy of Star Atlas is the mining gameplay. The wealth derived from mining creates many other branching revenue streams for players to contribute to and establish a career. From trading raw and refined ore, to cargo hauling, to crafting retail components, there is a broad range of career choices a player can embody and advance within the specializations of that career.

The beauty of space science-fantasy adventure is to manually pilot or captain your own spaceship into the vast unknown. For exploration, combat and various other role-specific game mechanics, the cockpit view gives a sense of ownership and grounding to a player’s chosen ship purchases. This immersive first person, seated view will allow players to utilize equipment such as flightsticks, throttles, multi-functional button control panels, head tracking hardware, and most importantly, virtual reality head-mounted displays.

Star Atlas is an ideal product to emerge from the confluence of state of the art blockchain,

real-time graphics, multiplayer video game, and decentralized financial technologies.

Basing the Star Atlas universe in a Grand Strategy multiplayer genre creates engaging, long-term gameplay as factions battle it out in a universal spacescape under a constant state of flux. Players stake assets with real-world value to grow their ingame corporate empires, discover unique and distant alien worlds, battle in high stakes combat, and shape the game’s features and future with earned political influence. Star Atlas’ cinema-quality graphical technology utilizing Unreal Engine 5 is beginning at a state that no other competitors in this space have yet had the luxury to adopt. To bring all these enabling technologies together presents a unique opportunity for the future of finance, video games, entertainment, real-world professions and blockchain where people can make money and have a lot of fun doing it. All in the familiar frontier of outer space, where exploration is both terrifyingly cold and simultaneously full of unrelenting optimism.