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Shrapnel devs on blockchain, NFTs & making a new first-person shooter in 2024

Neon Machine CEO Mark Long and studio creative director Clint Bundrick spoke to us at length about extraction shooter Shrapnel and its blockchain elements.

TJ Denzer

June 4, 2024 7:23 AM

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NFTs, blockchain, and crypto in general may have cooled down a bit from its wild highs back in 2021, but blockchain applications in gaming are still an opportunity for some devs. Neon Machine, for instance, is working on Shrapnel, which is a first-person extraction shooter featuring blockchain elements and creative modding for user-crafted content. It’s in development now with alpha testing going on.

Shrapnel takes place in an alternate universe where a meteor hits the mood and causes debris to rain down on Earth, creating craters and pockets of rare material referred to as Sigma. Players take the role of Operators whose mission is to secure the Sigma and get out safely with the resource to sell it buyers. That results in combat with other players vying for the same precious resource. Neon Machine is also attempting to build a heavily moddable game akin to Fortnite or Minecraft where players can create and play their own content in the form of cosmetic items, weapon skins, maps, and more, as well as selling them to other players in the game’s digital marketplace.

The ability to create content and sell it is one way blockchain is being utilized in Shrapnel, but the developers are also attempting to create an ecosystem where players feel ownership over their content and can amass said ownership with a “library of NFTs for in-game use,” as shared by the game’s summary. CEO Mark Long sees the creativity and user-created content in other games as a boon and a goal they’d like to achieve in unique ways with Shrapnel. He believes that once Neon Machine hits its mark, they’ll have a game players can not only take part in as what should be a high-quality first-person shooter, but also become immersed in through the blockchain ecosystem, community, and marketplace.

For more on Shrapnel, check out the game’s website. Want more video interviews like this? Be sure to check out our YouTube channels at Shacknews and Shacknews Interviews for more video reviews, interviews, gameplay, unboxings, and more on the latest video games, toys, and technology.

TJ Denzer

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.