Edinburgh-based game development studio, Carbon Based Lifeforms, has announced Hyperspace, a dynamic new space-themed MMO.

In a statement today, the studio revealed Hyperspace will be a “free-to-play and earn” title, enabling players to craft unique, functional, in-game items which can be sold to other players as digital assets.

Hyperspace will give players the freedom to explore an “expansive galaxy” filled with thousands of star systems, territories and four unique galactic currencies.

Players will also be able to create characters based on one of eight playable races – each which has their own lore and culture – and mould their character and play style around specific classes, which include Hunter, Gatherer, Explorer and Trader.

The Hyperspace announcement comes amidst a backdrop of heightened interest in play-to-earn games, which have surged in popularity over the last year and are transforming the gaming landscape into a monetizable space powered by blockchain technology.

However, there are various barriers to entry among current games on the market which make it difficult for a diverse gaming community to develop and thrive.

With many titles, players can earn and trade in-game assets and currencies or barter outside the game for crypto or other items with an upfront fee or subscription. For gamers who may not be able to pay the subscription fee, video games that adhere to a conventional pay-to-win or pay-to-play approach can be exclusionary.

According to Carbon Based Lifeforms, Hyperspace will deviate from these traditional pay-to-play blockchain gaming models and allow users to both play and earn for free.

As part of this, the studio confirmed Hyperspace will not make use of a native token, and the game will be ‘chain agnostic’.

These features mean players will have complete control over the way in which they utilise and trade items the craft from in-game resources.

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To enable this, Hyperspace will be run on Metanomic, a tokenless economic engine that facilitates the creation of metaverse, gaming, and virtual projects.

With Metanomic, developers can quickly build a fully-scalable and configurable play-and-earn economy that features asset creation engines and fully balanced player markets.

“Metanomic is a sophisticated but easy-to-use platform that has the ability to grasp simple and complex game economies in real-time using robust algorithms designed by professional economists,” said Theo Priestley, CEO at Metanomic and Founder of Carbon Based Lifeforms.

“With true web3 interoperability, it drives in-game and player-driven economies, like Hyperspace, to player-owned marketplaces that are protected from inflation and outside speculation, thus protecting players and their value from volatile fluctuations,” he added.

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