Rise and grind gamers, it’s Thursday and we’re hitting you with an early edition of the Web3 Weekly. Tom and Griff have been spiking their morning coffee with a double shot of espresso to try to get this out earlier and continue to cook up some bigger pieces in the works for No Re.

NoReaga got a like from Tim Sweeney yesterday, which I’m pretty sure means we’re legally partnered with Epic Games now. So keep building with Unreal Engine, hitting Fortnite dances, and enjoy this week’s Web3 Weekly, sponsored* by Epic Games:

• Insert Coin to Continue: The latest funding rounds in web3 gaming.

• Co-op Campaigns: Who’s teaming up in the gaming world?

• Change Log: Updates, patches, and new features from games we’ve covered.

• Release Radar: Upcoming games, playtests, and drops.

• On-Chain Activity: New on-chain game announcements and network migrations.

• Other News: The other things that happened in web3 gaming this week.

• Bonus Loot: Cool media we’ve been digesting this week.

Insert Coin To Continue

The latest funding rounds in web3 gaming.

• Imaginary Ones (Unknown). Web3 entertainment company and $BUBBLE token creator Imaginary Ones raised an undisclosed amount in an oversubscribed funding round from Cypher Capital, Animoca Brands, ED3N Ventures, and others.

• READYgg ($4M). READYgg is a web3 game developer tool and infrastructure provider that raised funds from Merit Cricle, Delphi Digital, Momentum6 and others.

• Rift Foundation ($3M). Rift Foundation, the team responsible for the RIFT token and ChronoForge ecosystem, raised $3M from XBorg, Liquid Studio, Nexus Labs, and others.

Co-Op Campaigns

Who’s teaming up in the gaming world?

• Ancient8 x ARPA. Freshly minted gaming L2 Ancient8 partnered with ARPA to improve overall network security, create transparent and fair randomized outcomes, and improve network efficiency.

• Animoca Brands Japan x KDDI. Animoca partnered with Japanese telecom company KDDI to accelerate web3 adoption through collaborations between Mocaverse and Phantom Galaxies.

• Mon Protocol x Kuroro Beasts. Kuroro Beasts joined Mon Protocol as a protocol partner, joining Delabs, Revolving Games, Sekai Glory, and others.

Change Log

Updates, patches, and new features from games we’ve covered.

• Aurory will shut down Aurory Tactics by April 30, citing cheating and the need to concentrate on Seekers of Tokane.

• Kompete added golf carts and improved bot logic and aim assist (mobile) for Blitz Royale.

• MixMob added Solana PFP interoperability within its game, allowing players to use other Solana community PFPs as in-game characters.

• Paradise Tycoon added a multiplayer environment and integrated the Immutable Passport in its latest beta update.

• Pixels added support for Nyan Cats and Nyan Balloons as playable characters.

• Primodium added composable game world plugins, new colonization features, and more.

Release Radar

Upcoming games, playtests, and drops.

• 🎮 Dogami (Mobile): Live

• 🎮 Shrapnel (STX1.2): Tonight

• 🎮 Sipher (Open Alpha): Tomorrow

• 🎮 MetaCene (Alpha Test III): Late March

• 🪙 GangsterArena ($FIAT P2A): Ongoing

• 🪙 Saga ($SAGA Community Genesis Drop): Ongoing

• 🪙 Nyan Heroes ($NYAN P2A): March 11

• 🪙 Aperion ($APRS Community Round): March 12

On-Chain Activity

New on-chain game announcements and network migrations.

• DeFi Kingdoms: The Colosseum (Metis). The Colosseum is a new PvP combat game mode coming to the DeFi Kingdoms ecosystem.

• ExoWorlds (VeChain → Elysium). ExoWorlds is a non-vector based NFT collection and galactic MMORPG P2E game.

Other News

• a16z Games is hiring an early career investor focused on seed-stage startups.

• Alien Worlds, Galactic Hubs launched creative development grants for writers and lore builders.

• Avalanche launched Teleporter, its interoperability solution to connect Avalanche subnets seemlessley together.

• GAM3 revealed upcoming features and the release of $G3.

• Immutable zkEVM is adopting Ethereum's Shanghai Upgrade, with a hard fork expected to occur on March 26.

• Immutable is sponsoring all transactions on the Sphere marketplace for Immutable Passport users through September 2024.

• Nouns Esports added the world's top-rated Smash player, Cody Schwab (iBDWSSBM), to their roster.

• READYgg hired former Chairman of Sony Interactive Entertainment and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment America, Shawn Layden.

• Sequence launched Embedded Wallets, creating a direct integration for Smart WaaS functionality in web3 games.

• XAI mainnet has seen 4.6M transactions and over 500k active wallets since it launched two months ago.

Bonus Loot

Cool media we've been digesting this week.

• 📘 What's the point? Are points pointless?, Decentralised (Read)

• 🎧 #4: Jihoz (Sky Mavis), Web3 Gaming 2024 (Listen)

• 📺 Cross The Ages X Watchdogs - Official Trailer (Watch)