BlackPool teams up with MetaFight for an epic card-slinging battle

Card games have been a staple of nerd culture ever since Magic: the Gathering changed the world back in 1993, and it only made sense for the genre to make the grand leap forward to the digital space. There were many clunky attempts and early pioneers – and indeed, those old enough among us who have spent many an hour on flash game portals may remember classics like Elements, Tyrant Unleashed, or Kongai – it was 2014’s Hearthstone that truly showed the world what a card game that fully embraces the possibilities of a digital-first design could look like.

Many other titles followed in its wake with AAA companies and similar production levels, but unfortunately, these efforts were all embedded into the web2.0 paradigm – worse yet, while asking players to fork over the same sort of sums you’d expect for physical cards that you could sell at any time on a secondary market, but without any semblance of ownership or legitimate ways to claw back a portion of your purchases. In other words, CCG (collectible card game) became the dominant sub genre instead of TCG (trading card game), with all the limitations this implies on gameplay and player agency.

MetaFight aims to change this, and much more, and we are thrilled to announce our partnership with them. Beyond providing an investment, we will also be involved in a developmental advisory role to help them make their exciting vision a reality. BlackPool will consult MetaFight's team on NFT integration, give technical and strategic advice, and business development.

We are also launching a new proto-vertical and will be playing against other MetaFighters.

Mixing martial arts with web3

MetaFight looks to bring MMA fans the best gaming product they’ve yet had a chance to play with, while also making the most of the opportunity to introduce a brand new audience to mixed martial arts. Making use of the latest advances in web3 game development offers great opportunities to do so, and it’s no surprise that the project is going from strength to strength.

Built on Immutable X and featuring a robust secondary marketplace, MetaFight offers a great experience even in its current early state. With multiple MMA-adjacent companies already signed up for partnerships, and real-life fighters like Ciryl Gane and Jerome le Banner investing and generating serious social media waves about the game, the pathway has been laid out for a project that is going to be strongly integrated into the offline counterpart of its burgeoning ecosystem.

Battling the MetaFight way

MetaFight goes out of its way to put a bit of story meat on the bone that is the underlying system. Here’s the basic conceit of the gameplay situation you find yourself in:

The story begins as an MMA fighter loses his last fight by KO. When he wakes up, he sees that he won’t be able to fight again in the arena anytime soon.

After a few days, he makes the decision to open a gym to train the best up-and-coming fighters!
So, you, as a gym manager, will start your experience by acquiring a starter Gym Card, Trainer Card and your first Fighter Card, each with different statistics and rules. Then it will be up to you to build a stellar gym by specializing and customizing it. Whether you focus on grappling, wrestling or striking, you will have to choose which path you want to lead them on!

The basic gameplay loop features familiar elements like cards gaining experience over time and versions of various rarities becoming available on the market, with bonus cards available to boost their abilities and stats. Players can compete in dedicated leagues to earn rewards and to progress on the ladder along the way.

What makes MetaFight truly stand out is the in-game rendering of live battles, allowing you to relive the action instead of just reading a single line of statistics. Even at this early stage, this offers the team behind the game great opportunities to make this project more than just the game itself, with partnerships allowing for live screenings of actual MMA fights in the metaverse.

The “ProtoFight” beta version of the game last summer was well-received by the community and offered the developers valuable insights on how to proceed with their changes and the implementation of new features.

The development roadmap for 2023 revolves around the transition to 2.5D and then 3D renditions of the battles, plus the launch of the new fight sport and live mode.

Gear up, Apes – the battle is just getting started!