4 July 2025 | Weekly news roundup

[0:39] John Smedly has announced persistent open-world PC shooter Reaper Actual.

[2:10] A weird aspect is it's using Tezos Etherlink EVM L2 blockchain.

[5:04] One reason could be that they want blockchain to be in the background.

[6:56] They've raised $30.5 million, which I don't think you'd get if this wasn't a blockchain game.

[8:03] The game is a persistent loot shooter, which is a hard genre to get right.

[11:38] Realistically this is a web2 game with optional web3 elements. I'm not sure that

[13:54] John Smedley's background is MMOGs like EverQuest and PlanetSide but he's not a designer.

[15:21] Mythical players are now live in FIFA Rivals. Lionel Messi costs $11,000.

[19:22] Lumiterra's MegaDrop Part 1 has seen its onchain activity spike to over 300,000 DAUWs.

[22:47] Jon's been talking to MSquared CEO Rob Whitehead about distributed computing and web3.

[30:45] Delabs Games has announced LINE/Telegram idle game Ragnarok Libre.