Tainted Studios, a new developer made up of veterans from top studios like Blizzard and Activision, has announced its first game: V.O.I.D. This new title combines intense survival gameplay with a bold new way of distributing games using blockchain tech. The studio officially shared details about V.O.I.D. in a recent interview with GamesBeat.

Lyra: one of the characters from V.O.I.D

A New Kind of PvE Survival Game by Tainted Studios

V.O.I.D. is a team-based survival game where three players must work together to face endless waves of enemies. These battles take place in a dark fantasy world consumed by "The Void." The game focuses on precision, teamwork, and smart choices in every match.

"Think Left 4 Dead meets Diablo, with deeply tragic champions, strategic item builds, and high-stakes PvE boss fights," said Daniel Paez, CEO of Tainted Studios.

The action is set in Urzula's Bastion, a grim map that evolves with each run. Lane themes, enemy waves, and loot all change, offering fresh challenges every time players jump in. Players take control of six unique champions who were once powerful beings but are now corrupted and trapped. These champions must fight to survive in a world falling apart.

Web3 Game Distribution with Tokenized Licenses

Tainted Studios is also changing how games are bought and shared. Instead of selling games through typical platforms, V.O.I.D. will be sold using "tokenized licenses." This means that buying the game gives you a token. That token acts as your license to play.

"The blockchain element to this is, 'The game license is the token. One token gives you the game license,'" said Paez. "So it's as if I went on Steam and I bought a copy of a game that's actually an ERC-20 token, and I can play it. And when I'm done, I can trade it if I want."

With this setup, fans and creators can buy and resell the game. Anyone can help promote and distribute V.O.I.D. while also gaining from its success.

"At Blizzard, we knew that word of mouth, from friend to friend, was the best way to sell a game," Paez added. "You can get fans to be super incentivized to push your game because they can sell it themselves."

Built by AAA and Blockchain Experts

Tainted Studios was co-founded by Daniel Paez and Montgomery Guilhaus. Both bring experience from major titles like Call of Duty, Diablo, Overwatch, and World of Warcraft. They also worked on blockchain games like Big Time, Gods Unchained, and Guild of Guardians.

Before starting Tainted Studios, Paez led games at Immutable and later advised multiple blockchain game projects. During that time, he worked on about 20 games, both large and small.

"We need to do a better job at opening up our own walled garden of knowledge on what we've learned and what we're seeing across our different clients and projects," Paez said.

Learning from the Past in Web3 Games

Paez believes that the web3 game industry has not moved forward much in the past few years. He says many studios simply copied what others were doing, hoping to build "sustainable" models without true innovation.

"What we've seen are a lot of studios, like 99% of them, copy-pasting what a previous studio had done, and then saying, ‘We’re going to make it sustainable,'" he said. "Typically, when we're brought in, it's because an investor starts freaking out that they're messing up."

In most cases, web3 games focus on players earning money by playing, or on investors using tokens to get liquidity. While this attracts some players, Paez believes the audience is small and limited.

"It's very lucrative, but small," Paez said. "We've come to the point where we're telling both sides of the camp. Go after these guys or decide not to, right? It's like there's a fork in the road. Don't go down the middle route."

The Zombie Company Problem in Web3

Paez also spoke about what he called "zombie companies." These are web3 game studios that raised large amounts of money during crypto's peak but now have no real products or user base.

"They have giant balance sheets because they launched tokens at the right time, but they have no products. They have no users. Internally, their operations are a bit of a mess," he said. "They are becoming mini hedge funds using their own balance sheet."

He compared them to Japan's "zombie banks," which survived without real growth after the 1990s crash.

According to Paez, many of these companies focus only on managing their treasury instead of building games. He warned that this approach loses players.

"The zombie companies can manage cash, but if they focus only on that, they will lose their players," he said.

V.O.I.D. as a Response to the Industry

Paez decided to create V.O.I.D. as a way to fix what he saw as the problems in current web3 games. It's his first independent game, and it's being built for a serious gamer audience, not casual players.

"It's not for your Roblox player," he said. "And the whole idea here is, 'Survive until the end.' If you're lucky, some of the bosses will drop items like a raid and MMO, and you can extract the items if you survive and win."

The gameplay is isometric and focuses on survival through teamwork. Players must coordinate to handle endless squads of enemies and hope to get rare loot drops.

The project also features NFTs for some gear, but it's not the main focus. Instead, the team is building systems to support the core game experience.

Building a Community from the Start

Tainted Studios has already launched a Discord channel for V.O.I.D. and is working to grow a strong early community. The studio is reaching out to content creators and streamers who want to get involved early.

"We're working on our assets. We're building all the foundational systems," Paez said. "It's all about getting that core community in there. Most importantly, some of the content creators and the whales."

Players, creators, and fans are being encouraged to help shape the game from the start. Tainted Studios plans to run a Founder's Edition pre-sale soon.

"The community starts growing and then you start getting really good feedback," Paez said.

A Game That Lets the Players Lead

From gameplay to how it's sold, the team says V.O.I.D. is all about giving power back to players. Tainted Studios is offering a game that breaks from the typical blockchain mold. It combines dark survival action with a fresh model for ownership.

"We're building the kind of dark, high-stakes gameplay we always wanted to play, and handing the keys to the players from day one," said Paez.