The Champions Ascension Project has helped to breathe life into our newly formed company – Plai Labs! Our seed round, led by the incredible team at a16z, has invigorated us and will accelerate the growth and potential of our project. Their investment in us is a great validation of what we have built thus far and our confidence as a development team, which is fully intact and committed to continue to blaze the path towards becoming the leading project in the space.

While the larger strategy for Plai Labs, including our plans to merge social experiences with generative ai technology to empower our community of creators and players will unfold over the course of time, here is our official release regarding the company.

“Plai Labs is building the next generation of social platforms. We are applying our proven track record In Social Media, Game Mechanics, and Advanced Technology to build products that are used by 100’s of millions of people around the world.”

This venture comes at a perfect time and helps us continue to build momentum towards our upcoming Elemental Champions Mint on January 26, 2023! This mint will help us welcome a new contingent of players and holders into our community and collaborate with several of our newly announced partners! We are very excited to finally place these incredible assets in the hands of our growing base!

2022 was an amazing year for Champions Ascension and it will have a lasting effect on the team and the project.  Last year was filled with tons of focus and effort, and even in the tumultuous times of the bear market, we stayed strong and continued to build alongside our faithful community. The team and the project have always had a clear, distinct vision: to deliver the most unique and exciting experience possible to players in the next era of gaming through the fusion of explosively fun gameplay, best-in-class storytelling, and player ownership.

Let’s dive into some of these key areas and lay out what we will strive to achieve in the coming years.

GAMEPLAY

“Is it fun?” is a question you will often hear regularly asked when a game is being discussed. “Fun gameplay” is now being widely identified as the secret ingredient in what will crown the most successful projects in blockchain gaming– but to us, this is an undeniable truth that the CA Team has ALWAYS known.. For us, we define great gameplay as something much more than just well-planned, balanced systems and compelling mechanics. We want it to excite the fuck out of our players and continue to push the envelope past where you– or even we– believe it can go: To take tight, tried-and-true concepts and drive them straight into crazy town. We want Champions Ascension to continue to creatively meld different types of gameplay together in an impressive universe that you never want to leave.

“Isn’t this just a fighting game with some MMORPG and mini-game elements?”

“Nope, it is an ever-expanding theme park entertainment experience centered around the main attraction of visceral, high-stakes gladiatorial combat.”

“We have assembled a once-in-a-lifetime team of creatives, artists and developers around Champions Ascension, and now, with the reinvigorated vision that Plai Labs and our investors bring to the table, we are poised to deliver a best-in-class experience, and bring it to the hands of players around the world. Stay tuned!” – Jairo Nieto

Outside of continuing to deliver our full roster of 12 playable champion families and 7 different Essence classes in 2023, we will continue to tune, balance, refine, add-on, and improve the 1v1 fighting experience at the core of our skill-based gameplay. We also will bring online the full player owned roster that will allow owners to take the reins of their “unique” champions and bring them into the fray!

We also are working towards the full Colosseum game mode experience including:
Auto-battle mode (for you more strategic types), Team Vs. Team, and Free-for-all modes!

With Champions Ascension we are bringing something special to the fight game space. We have designed and built the combat system for maximum impact from both a playing and viewing experience. We truly believe we have something that will be enjoyed for years to come by the entire gaming community. See you in the arena! – Chris Tremmel

We plan to bring the early stages of PVE encounters to players as well – more on this to come!

We will continue to add attractions to the 3D world and expand Massina City even further in 2023!! Stay tuned!

BRAND & STORYTELLING

The world of Massina and Champions Ascension will continue to build and adapt its brand through the team’s commitment to inject rich lore into every nook and cranny of the experience. We believe we have created one of the most unique IPs in entertainment and want to continue to strengthen its offering by continuing to deliver incredible characters, engaging storylines, and shocking twists.

Community participation in our Lore-building has been one of the things that has helped to keep it fresh, new, and on the cutting edge of interactive entertainment and we want nothing more than to see this continue in the future.

Additionally, we want to explore new mediums for our brand to connect with and, hopefully, with the help of our new partners we can achieve this!

“From the very first days of my career starting at LucasArts, I saw how interactive storytelling can transform a game into something truly unique. You combine that with the wild world of Massina, partnered with the amazing Champions community, and you have some real magic on your hands. So far we’ve done weekly fiction, we’ve done one-shot comics, online scavenger hunts, secret events like Gorgata, and long-running choose-your-own-adventure via Twitter— there’s nothing we won’t do to make the story of Massina come alive. And now there’s something else to add to that list… audiobooks!” – Ryan Kaufman

We also will be bringing some of our lore characters to life in the game and creating more interactive experiences with them.
You’ll start to see more familiar faces in the streets and taverns of Massina.

PLAYER OWNERSHIP & ECONOMY

The player-ownership ecosystem has been incredibly meaningful for us since the inception of the project. We believe that this element of the experience is the game changer and is central to what will make it special. The past year has seen many web3 economic experiments and models come and go, but the one element that has remained stalwart and powerful is player owned assets.

And, that’s because it just fucking makes sense… The ability to engage with a game world to take your efforts in that experience and then turn them into something you can take control of is the most incredible opportunity provided to players in a long time. It is also the most incredible opportunity for project creators in a long time as well. We love building this game and providing you, our players, with great content – But it is you, armed with your assets, and your own entrepreneurial efforts that will help accelerate the collective success of Champions Ascension.

“I am really excited about building the first game with a creator economy where players will be able to create professional level content with the help of AI. I can’t wait for players to become actual characters in the world, to showcase their creativity and expand the Champion’s universe.” – Troy Whitlock

In the coming year, our plan is to bring our core loop and economy online and the details of how we plan to do this will be laid out in our new V2 whitepaper throughout the year: We will release sections of this plan iteratively and we continue to evolve it – BUT…

We also plan to release our plans around UGC toolkits (incorporating Ai) that will invite all of our asset holders to build the live operational content pipeline of the game – You will have the opportunity to create your own path to earnings in our partner economy. When people ask you, “What do NFTs and blockchain do to elevate this experience?” you will have an excellent answer.

We are pioneers of entertainment and gaming’s new frontier – Join us, brave friends, as we depart into the great sea of possibility, filled with many unknowns – Together, we will chart a course to the promised land and forge a new Empire for us all to call home – FOR GLORY!

BLEEDING IS BELIEVING
Johnny Casamassina
CCO, Plai Labs