Atmos Labs: Combining Metaverse Storytelling with Esports
Kevin sits down with John to discuss Atmos Labs’ mission, their competitive racer, and combining two of the fastest-growing industries in the online space.
Metaverses have become a dime a dozen this year – but none of them are quite like Atmos.
The first esports-focused metaverse experience, Atmos has been built from the ground-up to appeal to hardcore gamers and fans of high-level competition alike.
With ExoGP – a competitive, fast-paced flight-racer – set to become their first game experience, in an exclusive for NFT Insider, I caught up with Atmos Labs’ CEO Kevin Beauregard to discuss their plans for a competition-based metaverse, their extensive world lore, and the ultimate goal to create a brand-new, Web3-native esport.
John: Atmos plans to bring esports to the metaverse. How do you plan to combine these two industries?
Kevin: Our approach to combining metaverse ethos with competitive esports is to embrace the best elements of both cultural spheres. From the metaverse: the culture of collectibles, construction of new identities, and a deep appreciation of lore. From esports: absolute competitive integrity in games – where one cannot pay-to-win, where the skill cap is high, and where organized ladder play is accessible to those who seek it.
We are drawn to the nature of sport-like games that exist within a broader, fictional universe. Quidditch in Harry Potter is a great example of this. Atmos is the broader metaverse, while ExoGP is quidditch. ExoGP is a fast-paced, high fidelity flight-based racing game that features Exos (wearable jetpack suits essential to life on Atmos), procedural camerawork, and immersive spectator mechanics.
We?re creating experiences designed around spectacle. That includes both the spectacle of skill and of how that play is represented visually. New technologies and environments create new opportunities and we wanted to apply this freedom of design to competitive play.
In short, our focus is on structured competitive games that are quick to pick up, difficult to master, and very easy to watch.
How do these plans tie-in to the Datacard NFTs currently available?
The Datacard is a ?living brochure? with information on the first Exo release: The Emergent MKIV. It gives holders a first look at what is coming, as well as gives holders access to an exclusive purchase window when the Emergent MKIV is released. The flexible format means we may add data to it over time, giving our community early access to information.
Our goal is to give functional and narrative rewards to those who join us early as Datacard holders. As time goes on, Datacard holders will also be given exclusive access to other in-game experiences, collectibles, and events.
The lore of Atmos is already full of detail, emotion and intrigue. What plans do you have for the lore in future, and how will this factor in to your plans for an esports-led metaverse?
We have a 9-issue comic series already in production with some absolutely incredible creators, led by Tommy Lee Edwards. That series explores ExoGP and features the racing teams and cultures at play, as well as diving into the planet Atmos as a whole. Generally, we plan to pursue storytelling for Atmos across a variety of media.
Comics are a great place to start, and we have a lot of team expertise in that area. With comics, any world, any situation, and type of conflict – they can all be created so long as your imagination produces it. We wanted breadth of narrative flexibility as our creative foundation as we know that our games need to have both exciting gameplay and connecting narrative fandom elements in order to succeed.
How do the Exos, Land and OREs described in your whitepaper work in tandem with your esports metaverse concept?
We are committed to giving players a meaningful degree of customization so that they can develop their own identities within Atmos. Equipment and pageantry are a huge aspect of sports. Exos enable performance and competition, but also style and expression within the world.
We are intent on building a sustainable game economy. OREs can be mined from Land, and then used to construct new parts for Exos, called gear. Essentially, this means burning OREs to create new NFTs. Additionally, most items can be recycled back into some amount of ORE, albeit at a loss and a cost.
You describe ExoGP as the “first official metaverse-native sport”. What can players expect from ExoGP?
Above all else, players can expect a fun, immersive, and exhilarating game experience that stands all on its own.
Players can expect fast-paced, white-knuckle racing with a premium spectator experience. It?s Formula-1-meets-flight and you?re in the middle of it.
Spectatorship is a crucial aspect of any sport. Spectators within Atmos / ExoGP can expect an experience familiar to watching physical world sports with a digital twist. We are building and encouraging multiple avenues for spectating and celebrating favorite teams, players, and events with fellow fans. A few examples include:
- Pilot HUD (heads-up display) views during races
- A metaverse-native pub, the Good Greave
- Procedural follow cameras
How do you plan to build a sustainable long-term economy?
Carefully. Ultimately, our economy must be able to stand as a foundation for all of Atmos, not just ExoGP. We will release more on the economy and design as we get closer to gameplay. However, as with all things, we will build iteratively and test extensively as we go to ensure our economic mechanisms work as intended.
Momentum seems firmly in Atmos’ favour as of late. After securing a $11mil seed round this summer, they recently partnered with Metakey to enter Decentraland, and announced the first chapter of their comic, Atmos Exordium, will drop October 7.
From speaking to Kevin, it’s clear that Atmos aren’t just ambitious, but they’re committed to building Atmos out in the right way – and by combining blockchain-based metaverses and the exploding popularity of esports, they’re a serious one to watch for the future.
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COO & founder of NFT Insider. Bullish on web3. Competitive soul.