Did you know Rayman is in a new Ubisoft video game this week? Neither did we.
As reported in Stephen Totilo's newsletter, Game File, Ubisoft quietly released a new game this week called Captain Laswerhawk: The G.A.M.E.. This new release was hardly advertised or given the kind of showy spotlight reserved for major releases, and it might have something to do with how this is a Web 3 game that uses cryptocurrency and the blockchain. Remember those?
You may also remember the name Captain Laserhawk as it's based on the Netflix animated series Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix. This was an animated show based off of Far Cry: Blood Dragon, which was a DLC based on Far Cry 3.
Captain Laserhawk (the game, not the show) is apparently a top-down multiplayer shooter available on PC, and features characters from the show as well as Rayman, Ubisoft's beloved, and missing, platform mascot hero.
You can read Totilo's full impressions of Captain Laswerhawk: The G.A.M.E. over on Polygon where he details the need to purchase an NFT to play the game at all. It sounds quite tedious, and the actual gameplay doesn't have me reaching for my cryptowallet anytime soon.
Ubisoft was one of the first major videog ame companies to go in on NFTs and blockchain, launching its own series of NFTs back in 2022. Ubisoft also tried to launch Web 3 guns and armore in Ghost Recon Breakpoint for players to sell and trade. At a DICE conference I attended around then, I even heard a talk from Ubisoft about their excitement over the potential of the blockchain.
Ubisoft has since stopped talking about Web 3 and blockchain, much like the rest of the industry as NFTs have gone the way of the non-fungible dinosaur. But it seems that Ubisoft did have one more game tied to Web 3 in the pipeline and decided to quietly release it this week.
Meanwhile, the wait for another Rayman game continues.
Matt Kim is IGN's Senior Features Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.
