The team behind the Uprising L2 Blockchain has announced that free to play Web2 naval battle royale game Maelstrom is officially coming to the Oasys-powered network.
While no specific release date was revealed for the launch of the blockchain version, Uprising has announced that they will essentially be the game’s web3 publisher, while the web2 publisher, Fortnight Entertainment, will continue to handle the traditional side of gaming. Fortnight Entertainment actually just recently became the game’s traditional publisher, announcing plans to port the game to Unreal Engine 5 while bringing new content, a new season pass and price drops for existing DLCs. Interestingly, that same post also mentions plans to make new partnerships and expand to new markets. Looks like we’re now starting to see that those new partnerships and new markets also include the web3 gaming space too.
The official Medium post states that this new partnership marks “a significant step forward in blending traditional and blockchain gaming experiences.” It’s not currently quite clear how much the web3 version will differ from the original one. This also isn’t the first time we’ve heard of blockchain gaming combining together with web2. Back in July, Faraway announced that they’re bringing HV-MTL mechs to web2 arena shooter Shatterline, so it will be interesting to see what Uprising and the game developer Gunpowder Games, Inc. have in store for this release. The announcement does however tease that the web2 and web3 roadmap are planned to be revealed next, so hopefully it won’t be long before that comes to light.
What Is Maelstrom?
Maelstrom is a PC naval battle royale that launched as a paid title in Early Access on Steam in March 2018. It became free to play in September 2019, but despite having very positive reviews, the game struggled to find a large enough playerbase, having only seen a peak of 1,327 players on September 22nd, 2019, according to SteamDB. The final update came in December 2020, and since then it has laid dormant, until this August 2024 when publisher Fortnight Entertainment teamed up with Gunpowder Games to help bring their title back to life. Considering their plans to port the game to Unreal Engine 5, it looks like it is effectively undergoing a relaunch to improve performance and visuals while adding “a whole new level of immersion to the high seas,” all in the hopes of getting a significantly bigger playerbase this time around.
Anyone can still download the game for free on Steam and enjoy action-packed 3D naval battles with up to 16 players. You can play as a Human, Dwarf, Orc, or Ghost warship across free for all and team-based multiplayer modes while customizing your ship’s appearance, gear, and stats to your liking. But it’s not just opposing players that pose a danger – big sea monsters can also appear looking for dinner. There is also a single-player mode to help you get used to the game’s mechanics while also letting you collect loot to use for making various upgrades to your ship.
You might want to start playing already though, as a weekly esports event has just kicked off with various prizes, including Uprising Season 0 points!
Esports Event
Uprising, Fortnight Entertainment, and the Ultimate Endgamers League (UEL) are collaborating to host a weekly esports event which kicked off on August 27th, allowing players to participate from 7 PM to 12 AM EST every day. Maelstrom is among the games picked for Season 9 of the UEL, said to contain a total prize pool of $1 million and up to $2500 per match, but anyone can join this event for free and play against professional esports players to earn prizes such as in-game gold, Uprising points, and secret goodies. The Uprising points could help you get an airdrop of the network’s own token in the future.
You can participate by downloading the game from Steam and joining the Uprising Discord server, where you can find the current rules and tips in the Maelstrom channel to help you get going. Participants are challenged to sink ships marked as being verified UEL and Uprising players, with the kills needed to be screenshotted to earn the previously mentioned rewards by sharing your screenshots in Discord together with your Steam username.
