Web3 gaming ecosystem MapleStory Universe (MSU) has officially unveiled the mainnet launch of the Henesys Chain on Avalanche, setting the foundation for a community-focused gaming universe that has capable scalable systems ready for growth and prepared to meet player’s needs.

What Is the Henesys Chain?

Henesys is a custom Layer 1 blockchain network built on blockchain platform Avalanche and powered by managed blockchain service AvaCloud. It’s designed to power the MapleStory Universe with a host of notable benefits to make the ecosystem easily accessible to a wider gaming audience.

The name of this L1 network is fittingly based on the classic Henesys village from the renowned original web2 MMO. By naming it after the game’s memorable location, the team would like to not only retain the spirit of the original title, but to further enhance “fun, spirit, and community” to a new level in this new web3-powered chapter.

Through the launch of this new chain, the developers hope to set the base for creating new player-owned economies that are said to be shaped by community-powered tools, real player ownership, and item-driven gameplay.

What Are the Features of MSU’s Henesys Mainnet?

The Henesys mainnet is designed with ecosystem scalability in mind, but also with a focus on providing players with a seamless user experience. This is made possible thanks to MSU’s careful design of technical infrastructure, which contains a number of key features that make it possible to achieve their long-term plan of delivering a speedy blockchain gaming network.

Launching the Henesys chain allows MSU to unlock the following key features for the community to enjoy: gasless transactions, a new developer toolkit for Synergy Apps, “Participate-to-Own" design, and the ability to preserve and improve item value.

Using features such as Approve Controller and the Bloxy meta-transaction layer, this chain is able to deliver a gasless UX experience that eliminates gas fees, complicated wallet setups, and complex signing processes. Thanks to Approve Controller and the use of meta-transactions through Bloxy, players get to experience smooth transaction approvals and low-friction gameplay where they don’t need to know anything about blockchain technologies to simply enjoy playing the web3-powered MMO itself.

Not only does the new gaming chain cater to all gamers, but it also has third-party developers in mind as well. Through the upcoming new SDK, anyone will be able to utilize powerful dev tools to build Synergy Apps. Synergy Apps are decentralized experiences that give players new ways to enjoy the MapleStory IP. This means that third-parties will have an opportunity to extend the famous IP by creating their own companion games and other types of software as well, including social apps and marketplace tools. It’s up to the community as to how they’d like to further enhance this ecosystem with new functionality that could potentially lead to overall greater growth.

“Participate-to-Own" is MSU’s ecosystem model that is designed to foster a player-first universe in which players play, create and trade items through various applications while strengthening the value of the ecosystem’s token, NXPC. “Think of it as the economic backbone that ties everything together, from gameplay and UGC to DeFi layers and beyond,” says the official Medium announcement. This type of design is said to be made possible through their intuitive infrastructure that doesn’t require players to be familiar with web3 technicalities.

The chain also uses a permissioned model in order to preserve item value and keep the ecosystem secure. This means that only approved contracts are able to mint game items as NFTs, avoiding potential inflation and thus making sure there is proper scarcity of in-game items. Further improving trust and security is integration of Chainlink VRF into various core game systems to power enhancement logic with verifiable randomness.

MapleStory Universe’s Future Plans for Henesys Chain

For the future, the MapleStory Universe team has a variety of plans to update the Henesys chain with new features for an even better gaming experience.

According to the same Medium post, the developers plan on introducing a public explorer to allow players to track item ownership and transaction history. They’d also like to deliver integration of NFT-based name reservations from the Make Special Name event, while further expanding the NXPC contribution & reward system in order to intencitivize and encourage developers and content creators to create experiences and social content for the new chain.

All of these updates are part of a long-term roadmap where the focus is on growing MSU “into a full-scale gaming ecosystem that supports games, experiences, and economies.” Specific timeframes for the new updates have not been revealed at the time of writing.

Last month, users were able to earn NXPC in MapleStory Universe’s Alphabet Fusion event. Earlier this year, MapleStory Universe revealed big changes to the game’s economy. We also had an interview with VP & CBO Dominic Jang on how MapleStory Universe is redefining web3 gaming.