Gaming-Focused Layer-3, Xai, Announced with Support From Offchain Labs and Ex Populus

Xai, a permissionless Orbit chain leveraging the Arbitrum Nitro technology stack, plans to launch later this year to bring an innovative, gaming-focused Layer 3 to the games industry. Under the direction of the Xai Foundation, Xai will be developed with support and servicing from Offchain Labs to directly address the needs of web3 games.

While deploying Arbitrum Orbit chains is permissionless, Xai is unique as the first Orbit chain to be collaborating directly with Offchain Labs, on infrastructure, marketing and product support. Over time, Xai will include features such as increased contract sizes support, account abstraction, and other features that are attractive for gaming developers. Xai aims to become a “decentralized gaming console” and publishing partner for game developers interested in web3 gaming.

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A.J. Warner, Chief Strategy Officer at Offchain Labs commented, “We are excited to announce that Offchain Labs will be working with the Xai Foundation and Ex Populus as they transition their backend technology into the Arbitrum ecosystem. We have been working closely with the Ex Populus team for nearly a year and eagerly await the migration to the Arbitrum ecosystem. The launch of Xai will enable its gaming ecosystem to live on an optimized, dedicated chain while benefiting from links to the vibrant Arbitrum ecosystem. I’m excited for the upcoming launch of the gaming franchises and gaming-focused Orbit chain.”

Web3 games developer, Ex Populus, will be the first contributor to Xai and plans to migrate its gaming franchises into the Layer 3 once live. Ex Populus was previously developing its games on Solana, but will soon take its first step into the Arbitrum ecosystem by migrating to Arbitrum One. The team will ultimately deploy to Xai once it is fully launched and available.

The Ex Populus leadership team features top minds from the gaming industry with backgrounds at Pixar, Ubisoft, Blizzard, ActiVision, Wargaming, IGN, and more. Tobias Batton, the company’s CEO is most recently known for his Signal Zero publishing platform which drove nearly 1 billion installs for mobile games from companies like MZ, Supercell, and many others. Batton also created Clan Wars, the widely played social game which grew to over 10M monthly active users. Mark Harris, co-founder, is an Oscar nominated Pixar animation director. The team is committed to developing and publishing the highest quality games in terms of both content and technology.

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Final Form, a high-frequency trading card and battle-oriented experience, and LAMOverse, an online multiplayer PvP game with modes including Battle Royale, Capture the Flag, and Nexus, are two Ex Populus titles currently in development and slated to launch on Xai later this year. The company plans to bridge existing collections Mike Tyson‘s Iron Pigeons and Decentralized Autonomous GigaUnits to the Arbitrum ecosystem later this year, both of which will be available to play in Final Form when it launches a few months from now.

Soby, an Ex Populus co-founder added: “Our decision to partner with the Xai Foundation was simple. The Foundation’s decision to leverage Arbitrum Orbit was a clear indication that the ecosystem understood scaling as a requirement for gaming in web3. Having curated technology built to the needs of our games was critical, and with the direct support of the Offchain Labs team, we are confident that our games will run seamlessly on Arbitrum Orbit and provide our players with the type of gaming experience they’ve come to love and expect.”

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