AVALON, an independent game studio, has just announced a $10 million funding round co-led by BITKRAFT Ventures and HASHED, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Spartan Capital, Foresight Ventures, LiquidX, and Momentum6. The investment will be used to develop their debut eponymous title, AVALON, a next-generation massively multiplayer online game with interoperability of assets and progression between worlds "designed for web2 and web3 gamer appeal". 

Founded by Jeffrey Butler, a key figure in EverQuest, alongside industry veterans Sean Pinnock and Zack Karlsson, AVALON brings together a team with extensive experience in notable titles such as Call of Duty, Diablo, God of War, Assassin’s Creed, and Elden Ring. The fully remote game studio only recently announced a $13 million investment round last February 2023.

AAA Gaming IPs

The studio was founded in 2021 and includes award-winning leaders from industry-leading studios including Microsoft, Sony, Capcom, Infinity Ward, and Ubisoft. The team has a proven track record of conceiving, developing, shipping, and sustaining AAA titles across genres, including massively multiplayer online role-playing games, adventure games, and competitive shooters for iconic IPs like EverQuest, Call of Duty, and Assassin’s Creed.

“The AVALON universe prioritizes delivering an immersive gameplay experience by combining cutting-edge tech like Unreal Engine 5 with AI-assisted user-generated content systems. Our focus on a no-code solution enables players to create game logic effortlessly. Plus, our upcoming NFT collection will introduce AI-powered avatar NFTs, adding another layer of innovation,” said Sean Pinnock, Founder and CEO of AVALON.

More About AVALON?

AVALON is a massively multiplayer online game designed from the ground up to empower players to create, share, play, and take ownership of their experiences. Commenting. on the recent funding round, Carlos Pereira, Partner at BITKRAFT Ventures, stated:

“AVALON enables players to build nearly limitless, dense worlds that are high in visual fidelity without having to understand performance constraints, which is the next evolution of UGC. These individual UGC-centric worlds are in turn united through a central, interoperable gameplay experience. We believe that through vibrant, complex and yet easy-to-build UGC experiences AVALON can make a significant contribution to the rise of the Synthetic Reality, and with it enable experiences with deep economies and high crypto-genre fit."

AVALON is a world that grows with and around players, featuring characters that interact in real-time with players in ways never seen before, made possible through a partnership with artificial intelligence pioneers Didimo and Inworld AI.

Players can experience AVALON Core, the main gameplay mode designed by the studio, as well as separate, user-generated worlds and experiences, bringing their heroes, items, and progression across worlds. Baek Kim, General Partner at HASHED, added:

“We’re excited to co-lead this investment round for AVALON, a title that will write the next chapter of massively multiplayer online games. The team’s industry-leading experience is immediately evident in the title’s gameplay, graphical fidelity, and creative implementation of technology, economy, and owned content. AVALON has a clear vision for a limitless and cohesive online experience, and we’re excited to see this title come to life,” said 

AVALON is currently under development for PC and cloud streaming. The game will go into closed early access later this year. For more information and to keep up with the latest news, visit AVALON's website here and follow on X.