Drawing closer to its official launch, Ragnarok Games is busy polishing its PC-based 5v5 hero-shooter BloodLoop.
Based in Switzerland, the studio was founded in 2021. It has remained steadfast in its mission since; to provide an immersive game that allows players full ownership of their game assets.
This vision has not only resulted in BloodLoop, but also its Avalanche subnet LooP, which is the game’s underlying infrastructure.
Ahead of its anticipated launch, we checked in with Pasquale Finiello, the co-founder of Ragnarok Games and BloodLoop CMO.
BlockchainGamer.biz: How did the idea behind BloodLoop come about and did you always intend to integrate web3 technology?
Pasquale Finiello: BloodLoop was born from the idea of bringing an innovative product to the hero-shooter scene, a genre beloved but at the same time marred by a series of failures and dissatisfactions.
The product was born natively as a web3 game. Part of the innovation itself is just that, the ability to offer users complete ownership of their possessions and the creation of a vibrant cosmetic market integrated with gameplay.
How is early access taking shape?
The game is in the final stages of its development, ready for an Early Access public release during May 2025.
At the moment we are focusing a lot on the polishing phases: we want to ensure a smooth launch with a satisfying customer journey and no roadblocks.
In what ways does blockchain enhance the player experience?
In BloodLoop, the blockchain experience complements the game and offers additional opportunities while not disrupting the classic gaming experience. In particular, we decided to complement the part that most naturally can be brought on-chain and already has a proof-of-concept in games like CS:GO: the skin market.
By inserting scarcity mechanisms and tying the obtaining of materials directly to the games played, players become the pulsing center of the game economy, offering them both the opportunity to play classically and to explore the world of secondary markets, trading with other users to obtain the skins they want or selling their obtained possessions.
Who is your target audience – web2, web3 or a combination?
Anyone who is a gamer falls into our user group, it is our priority at any stage of product realization.
With crafting loops and customization powered by the BLS token being key to the BloodLoop ecosystem, would players opting out of any web3 features still enjoy the game?
Just as you can have fun playing Valorant or Overwatch without the skins, you can have fun playing BloodLoop.
What’s the reason you’ve built your own Avalanche subnet LooP as the game’s infrastructure?
As previously pointed out, our goal is to be able to offer an interesting experience to ALL gamers.
One of the biggest problems in web3 gaming is the first-time user experience. To be able to play the game requires wallets, transactions, gas-fees, money as well as numerous tedious steps, all of which a non-crypto-native user has never experienced and which annoy even those who experience them every day.
Thanks to the LooP chain, we can proudly say that the end user’s gaming experience is unchanged from a web2 title. There are no blockers, wait times, gas-fees, or hidden fees. The user just needs to log in, and play. We take care of bringing everything on-chain for them.
Obviously, high levels of customizability are needed to achieve these results, which is why our L1 implementation was necessary.
Most web3 game developers are struggling to build sustainable game economies. How’s your design different?
An economy, by design, has difficulties the moment it is created to be extractive or based on intensive mechanisms of rewards not justified by economic influxes equal to or greater than outputs.
There is none of this in BloodLoop. Our system is designed to be circular and self-balancing based on influxes, effectively creating a sustainable yet interesting token economy, one that scales as users scale.
More generally, if a game is good enough, why does it need monetary incentives like airdrops to onboard and retain players?
Incentives have always been part of the nature of video games. Skins, crates, items and all forms of rewards provided by studios toward players are in fact a form of bribery to try to keep users in the game.
The system in our case is similar, but it opens up opportunities for players to do more with rewards, or for example in the case of CS:GO or WoW, do things that are already commonplace without having to go through black markets.
Are you planning any game integration of AI agents or other genAI technology?
The world of artificial intelligence is extremely interesting, and it will certainly change the way we perceive gaming over time, but at this time it is not our priority to explore it.
Where do you see the web3 gaming industry in a year’s time?
It is difficult to predict the direction of the market and products. What I am sure of is that we will finally see the industry show its true face, with the launch of many products that until now were in the development cycle, just like BloodLoop.
It will be interesting to study its reception. I am sure we will have more than one hit-title, and we are doing our best to be one of them.
Discover more via BloodLoop’s official website, and wishlist the game on Epic Games Store.
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