Ronin EVM sidechain onboards popular South Korean MMORPG IP Ragnarok

Ronin, the EVM-based sidechain from Axie Infinity maker Sky Mavis, announced its partnership with “Ragnarok: Monster World,” a Web3 strategy game and a new addition to South Korea’s billion-dollar transmedia IP Ragnarok. 

The pair said in a statement that the partnership onboards the first Web2 gaming IP on the Ronin network, known for its support for play-to-earn games such as Axie Infinity.

“Ragnarok holds a special place in the hearts of our core audience in South East Asia, including many of our own team members who grew up as avid fans,” said Trung Nguyen, CEO and co-founder of Sky Mavis. “We are committed to bringing IP that will transcend gaming culture through our bleeding edge technology and can't wait to see the Ronin Effect on Monster World."

South Korea’s Ragnarok IP, which started in 1997 with a fantasy genre comic book of the same name, grew to produce a successful MMORPG gaming franchise that amassed 167 million downloads across 122 territories, according to the statement.

The new game based on the popular IP will allow players to collect and train monsters called “Ragmons,” with which they can battle other players. The game will reward players with “ZENY” points that can be exchanged for in-game currencies or the token $ZENY. “The token will be generated post-game launch,” a spokesperson told The Block.

“Ragnarok: Monster World” is scheduled to launch on Ronin in the third quarter of this year. It is developed by Web3 game studio Zero X And, and is set to become the company’s inaugural game title.

Gaming-focused Ethereum sidechain Ronin has amassed nearly 18 million wallet addresses since its launch in 2021. Earlier this month, the network proposed integrating zkEVM into the chain for enhanced scalability.

Ronin’s NFT farming game Pixels has started to gain popularity recently and added traction to the network after the success and decline of Axie Infinity. Pixels saw over 640,000 unique active wallets interact within the game in the last 24 hours, according to DappRadar .