Square Enix’s metaverse expansion is officially pushing forward, as it is revealed that they have partnered with Sandbox to bring the Dungeon Siege IP into the metaverse.
Featuring experiences and creations from the Dungeon Siege game, the partnership will include Square Enix’s own piece of land within the Sandbox metaverse as well as voxel characters that players can use as avatars.
Early this year, Square Enix has revealed that they have plans of tapping into the metaverse concept, describing it as holding “the potential to enable self-sustaining game growth”.
While fan reaction has been mixed regarding this announcement which is detailed more in the New Year’s letter from Square Enix president Yosuke Matsuda, it’s obvious now that the feedback has not stopped the company from pursuing the partnership with The Sandbox for what could be the first of their many metaverse plans.
With Dungeon Siege, Square Enix can bring new interactive experiences into The Sandbox while also allowing users to generate their own using Sandbox’s native game creation tools.
Dungeon Siege is a critically-acclaimed and commercially successful video game franchise originally created by Gas Powered Games and released back in 2002. The game features some of the pioneer action RPG elements employed by many games today and is even commonly compared to Diablo, another iconic Action RPG title from Blizzard, as they share some of the same elements with Dungeon Siege — while adding their own tweaks into the working formula.
By 2010, Square Enix acquired the rights to the Dungeon Siege franchise, and released the third installment of the game, Dungeon Siege III through their partner developer Obsidian Entertainment.
With this partnership, Square Enix now joins the growing list of developers and brands that have teamed up with Sandbox to expand their properties into the metaverse. Sandbox’s concept allows it to welcome major brands and names in gaming like Ubisoft, and even entertainment media such as Warner Music Group, to develop their own NFT and metaverse experiences though Sandbox’s virtual lands.
Right now, The Sandbox is running the 2nd season of its Alpha pass which grants limited access to its current list of in-metaverse experiences and games while a full release is still on the horizon.