Outside of Big Time, Illuvium, and a handful of other games, few RPGs in the web3 gaming landscape are showing promise of contention with what traditional gaming has to offer. One of our most exciting bets is Mummy.io. The game takes everyone to ancient Egypt in a compelling fast-action combat-packed MMORPG.

We got the opportunity to sit down with the development team and ask them questions regarding the inspiration behind choosing ancient Egypt as the setting for their game, similarities to Elden Ring and From Software's trademark difficulty, how God allegiance can drastically alter your experience, and so much more. Let's get right into it.

We will start off simple for everyone to get to know Mummy.io first. If you can please introduce yourself, Mummy.io, and the development studio behind it

I’m Catalin, the Co-founder and Head of Strategy of Mummy.io. I have more than 20 years of experience working for IBM in various roles. I’m passionate about technology and web3. Together with Michael and an incredibly talented team, we aim to shake the crypto industry and beyond, by developing a fun and epic game where players can delve into an epic journey across a vast Egyptian deserted world, filled with dungeons and bosses that will truly test your might.

Mummy is an epic MMORPG with an original fantasy story that draws inspiration from Egyptian mythology. It features a thrilling and engaging combat system that mixes player character abilities with blessings from the gods. 

With similarities to Elden Ring, what were the inspirations behind Mummy.io?

Mummy’s lore is inspired by the myths and mysteries of Ancient Egypt, but Mummy takes place in an alternate Earth-style world and we’ve created many original villains and storylines. We strive to create a vibrant and layered ancient world filled with memorable creatures that players have to fight, as well as complex gameplay that is entertaining and challenging. 

Most of our team are passionate gamers, as well as having vast experience working in game development for companies such as Square Enix. 

Some of our favourite games are Black Desert Online (Huge world to explore with lots of action and advanced game mechanics with amazing combat), Elden Ring (A hard but enjoyable game, with simple combat, but that is fulfilling and addictive, especially when you fight epic bosses), Guild Wars 2 (Combat feels really good once you achieve a perfect flow with your character, big world to explore and lots of fun content), FFXIV (Great level and dungeon design, interesting mechanics and good story), and many others.

We mix some fun features from the games we’ve enjoyed with some that are unique to Mummy such as the ability to choose allegiance to a god. This allegiance gives players additional abilities in the form of blessings which influence their strategy in combat. 

What made you choose ancient Egypt as the lore setting for the title?

Egypt has a very compelling and complex mythology that has fascinated many of us as kids: the magic of the pyramids, the vast deserts, the mysticism present in the stories. Many of us played Prince of Egypt for hours. 

There are more than 2000 deities in the ancient Egyptian pantheon, and some of the most intricately entwined myths known to mankind, so it’s super exciting for us to bring them to life with a twist. 

Choosing your allegiance at the start of the game is crucial. Can you tell us more about how that affects gameplay?

By choosing an allegiance, your fate is sealed. You fight for that specific faction (Order or Chaos), complete special quests and fight the opposite faction players and guilds for faction supremacy. Each faction quest has its own special rewards which adds up to the replayability factor and faction ranking. 

The snippets we have seen so far proves how crucial the bosses can be. Are you trying to purposefully make Mummy difficult for players to enjoy a challenge similar to From Software games for example?

We strive to achieve that balance between challenging and fun, so that it’s neither frustratingly difficult to level up, nor too easy. There are definitely going to be some hard to defeat bosses out there that will require a high level of skill and strategy. 

The three classes in Mummy all have their own special abilities. How does the God you choose affect your progression?

The Mummy world is torn between those who want to uphold Order and those who wish to unleash the forces of Chaos. Gods have their own motivations and shifting allegiances to one of these two factions. The god a player chooses is one of the factors that determine the faction they fight for. 

The three character classes – Warrior, Ranger, and Sorcerer – each have unique abilities and, in order to tackle certain dungeons and tasks, players must team up with different characters and master the complementary skills offered as blessings by the mighty gods.

Speaking of Gods, can you tell us more about the Primordial NFTs you plan on rolling out and what membership of the Founders Pyramid can mean to a player?

The Primordial NFT collection will have some really cool in-game utility – that we’ll reveal in the future. Membership to the Founders Pyramid, a construction within the Mummy world that lies at the intersection of ancient and contemporary design, will be exclusive to Primordial NFT holders.

There will be plenty of networking opportunities in the pyramid, as well as access to digital events – collaborations with up-and-coming digital artists and other gatherings. 

Mummy’s open world instantly brings back memories of AC: Origins. How expansive is Mummy’s world and how long will it take an average player to discover it all?

Our dream is to build a sprawling 60 km open world that players can explore alongside their friends. This is our vision for the future and we wish to offer players plenty of entertainment value and rewarding experiences that will keep them engaged for days on end. 

Right now we are focusing on the three demo Chapters that feature distinct environments from different regions of Mummy that will allow players to immerse themselves in some of the lore and dynamics of the world. These environments and bosses will also appear later in the world.

We have a flexible approach to development that also places great emphasis on community feedback. As we’re building Mummy milestone by milestone, we’ll first deliver an incredibly fun dungeon crawler that will later become open world, with a really cool PvP battle system, opportunities to socialize, LAND, and much more.

You mention a lot of puzzles and quests present around the world. Will all of these tie into the storyline and will players have any choice on the outcome of these storylines?

Yes, everything will somehow be related to the world of Mummy, the conflict between the gods and how it shaped both the environment and the lives of mortals, as well as the layered stories of the creatures that were created; everything is interconnected. 

We hope the community will join us in creating some of these stories and monsters and that their ideas will become part of Mummy canon. 

Players will be able to craft tons of weapons and skins for their characters. Can you walk us through the crafting mechanism and what can come out of it?

Players are able to master different professions such as fishing, alchemy, cooking, crafting and so on. You can craft different items by grinding for items or materials you need for crafting or you can craft materials needed in order to craft something else. 

Example: Sword of Anubis -> 100 demon essence, 10 bird feathers, 50 gold ingots, 1 godly essence. Some materials or items can only be crafted or acquired by mob drop in specific zones in the game.

The Hideout is probably one of my personal favorites within Mummy. How important is it for you to have a social structure within the game for players to enjoy?

Games are so much more fun when you can share the experience with your friends or when they have ingrained the structures that facilitate interactions with new people that you can befriend. 

Hideouts can be customized to their owners’ liking; they’re a place where you can keep the in-game items and NFTs that you’ve earned and collected, where you can enjoy a personalized soundtrack and hang out with new and old friends alike. 

Where do you see the future of blockchain games heading towards? 

The future of blockchain gaming is bright. In order to gain traction, reach mass adoption and be able to sustain a game financially in any market conditions, projects need to think outside the box and aim for the right audience. As long as projects are limiting themselves to crypto players only, they are doomed to fail and adoption will stagnate. Gaming projects should have a well-thought-out onboarding and sustainability strategy.

What are you most excited about in Mummy’s future?

At Mummy, the whole team is excited for different reasons. Personally, I’m excited for the Alpha version of the game and future expansions. Why? Because you will experience a more polished game with great combat mechanics and PvP + Dungeon instances, a more flavoured gameplay. 

As we are building the game in milestones, we improve each version of the game significantly and use our community feedback to polish the game even further (after all, they are spending time and resources in the game which we highly appreciate and respect).

We hope you enjoyed the interview with Catalin, and it was our pleasure as well to see everything in the works behind the scenes for Mummy.io. The endless ancient Egypt lore that the development team can dig up and work with makes the game incredibly interesting with an almost endless stream of content ready to be deployed. Web3 gaming needs an RPG that pulls people in and there is no one better poised to do it than Mummy.io.

Let us know your thoughts in the comments section down below and keep an eye out for more upcoming exclusive interviews from across the web3 gaming space. If you haven’t already, make sure to check out our earlier interviews with Brent Liang, Founding Team Member at Fractal, Grant Haseley, Executive Director of Undead Blocks, Loopify, NFT influencer and CEO of The Treeverse, and Star Atlas.

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