Star Atlas is one of the most anticipated blockchain games in development and many have wondered whether it can possibly live up to expectations. Well, one of the first opportunities to jump in the game, fly ships, and even dogfight is now available to try.
Star Atlas is one of the few self-branded AAA games that might equal the quality of AAA games, even if they don’t qualify for the title from a publishing perspective. The ambitious blockchain-infused space MMO is built using Unreal Engine 5 and the gameplay so far is unquestionably stunning.
This latest opportunity to try Star Atlas via the Epic Games Store has a number of features:
Star Atlas Showroom R2 Overview:
- Multiplayer Volant Station with proximity voice chat
- Preview of the 8, 16, and 50 concurrent player instances
- Operational spaceships
- Photo mode with the Parrot drone
- Spaceship dogfighting in the arena
- Spaceship racing at the Airtrack with the Pearce X4 or Floyd Liner ships
Along with the launch of version 2 of the showroom test environment is the Foundation Software Development Kit (F-Kit). This SDK is designed to allow the quick integration of the Solana blockchain with a native crypto wallet inside Unreal Engine 5. SDKs — or the lack thereof — for Unity and Unreal Engine have been one of the biggest points of friction for indie developers looking to create Web3 games or just utilize blockchain technology, so any tooling that will help with that ought to be warmly received.
In the new year, we’ll be jumping into Star Atlas for our maiden voyage and to trial the dogfighting and racing in particular. I must confess, I have been a skeptic when it comes to this project as it is absurdly ambitious to make an MMO at the best of times, let alone one that is on-chain and built in the cutting-edge version of the Unreal game engine. Nevertheless, the most effective way to overcome my common fear of a developer’s overambition is gameplay and everything I have seen so far is doing a good job of quelling my worries.
Are you looking forward to Star Atlas? What did you think of the Showroom? Share your thoughts with us on Twitter.
