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Intention Entertainment has announced the beta launch of World’s Edge, a new fantasy action RPG experience on Roblox.
This marks the first original intellectual property game from Intention Entertainment, and it introduces players to Astraeusa, a universe with multiple inhabited worlds that is currently in the midst of turmoil caused by an unknown enemy. It is up to the player to travel through these worlds and stop this enemy before it is too late.
“It’s s story-driven action RPG,” he said. “The players have the task of helping a fantasy world where the magic is slipping away from the world and the people aren’t sure why,” Mixon said. “The players are thrown in as the heroes in this realm that needs saving. If you like this and the action RPG experience, this is the perfect game for you to try.”
The small team made the game in about nine months.
“I’ve tried a lot of games and worked on a lot of games for partners, and I’ve worked on a lot of role-playing games,” Mixon said. “I’ve never done what I consider to be a full RPG experience before. And that’s what’s exciting now. I want to take the platform by storm with a game that is harder to develop. We want to put our stamp on the platform in a way that no one else has.”
The Los Angeles-based developers hope this could be the kind of experience that Roblox players could gobble up. After all, it was made by a team that grew up on Roblox, led by Josh Mixon, president of the company. The company raised a small angel round and it has two employees and two contractors.
The oldest member of the team is 26, and Mixon himself is 24. One member is still in college. They’re part of the generation that grew up playing games on Roblox, and now they’re making games on Roblox, which has 214 million players every month. And Mixon wants to do great games on Roblox, starting with World’s Edge.
Mixon wants to make games that have a chance to transform the platform. The RPG is one of those, and they want to support it for as long as they can. They want to start with original IPs and make as many as they can while keeping the quality up. He wants to take advantage of understanding the audience and the genres of games that they like, and he also wants to take advantage of the modern tools on Roblox. And he wants make games with shorter development cycles.
“I’m very bullish on Roblox currently, and the new tools they have. For facial animations, I can record my face an translate it directly to a Roblox character,” Mixon said.
Origins
Mixon grew up playing Roblox games and started making them as well. In his previous job, he served as a production manager at Wonder Works Studio, another maker of Roblox games, and he also did operations and programming jobs at the studio over a couple of years.
With World’s Edge, players can master four weapon classes — sword, dagger, bow, and catalyst — and collect hundreds of gears, unlock dozens of skills, and explore a vast world to become the heroes of Astraeus.
“Our goal with World’s Edge is to bring a double-A experience to Roblox in terms of quality and
performance,” said Mixon. “As the platform continues to age up, we want to provide players with something akin to what you would find off Roblox: engaging story-driven experiences with fascinating universes that players can fall in love with.”
Intention Entertainment recently raised an angel round with industry veterans who will provide insights and guidance for the launch of new games and exciting product extensions in development. Additionally, Intention has brought on two advisors, Michael Cai, President of Interpret, and Marty Berman, who brings deep experience with Fortune 500 brands and agencies.
“We’re really excited about where things are and what Josh and the team have developed,” Berman said in an interview with GamesBeat. “It’s a really vivid mix of gameplay features that he has built into the different levels.”
“We definitely think he’s taking the right approach of crawl, walk, run, but not getting too far ahead of himself,” Berman added. “Let’s build the credibility by launching it in the right way. Before we were starting to get too far ahead of ourselves, in terms of fundraising, let’s build off of that success. That gets back to his vision and maturity and leadership skills.”
Berman and Mixon met at our GamesBeat Summit 2022 event. He also spoke with Reggie Fils-Aime, former president of Nintendo of America, after Fils-Aime spoke at our event and picked up some good advice. Mixon knew he wanted to start and run his own company.
“I love hearing from people in leadership from other big companies that have had a lot of experience, especially, you know, being 24,” Mixon said. “I’m trying to run a company at this age. People have been through the wringer and they have some incredible stories. I just love those stories and asking questions.”
Creating World’s Edge
Intention Entertainment’s North Star is to create engaging games with rich worlds for players to fall in love with. With a player-first mentality, they aim to connect ever-evolving worlds with the Roblox player base in a way that feels both authentic and brings new twists that they have not seen before.
His team connected with player communities on Discord and Twitter, where they found a lot of players who enjoy action games, which is the No. 1 genre on Roblox. While many of the games look blocky and they’re made for kids, they often are pretty deep when it comes to gameplay. The team also reached out to a number of influencers to get feedback.
Mixon’s face lights up when he shows off his game world.
“We’re exploring this vast world, trying to level up weapons take out enemies and bosses and dungeons. You’re following an actual story, which is much different from other Roblox games,” Mixon said. “It has voice and facial animations. It’s just really cool to bring it all together.”
The world has multiple regions and each one has a different purpose. One has a big tower while another has the main town hall where the players will talk about their experiences. Something is happening to the world and its magic. There are regions with dungeons. Mixon said the choices that players make can affect the world and real-time events that happen within it.
“There are a lot of cool areas that you may not find on quick playthroughs,” he said. “There are dozens of weapons and gear to unlock and upgrade so the characters can take on bigger battles. The world is coming together.”
Players can try out the beta version of World’s Edge on Roblox and experience the immersive universe of Astraeus for themselves. Mixon can’t wait for players to try it.
“It’s been an amazing experience,” Mixon said. “We are excited to bring this engaging RPG experience to Roblox’s platform. World’s Edge provides the audience a game that will grow as they seek out more high quality, story-driven experiences.”
Roblox first
As far as other platforms go, Mixon said he will keep an eye on them but he is focused on Roblox for now. You can’t take a Roblox game and move it directly on to another platform. Mixon investigated making games on other platforms like Fortnite and Minecraft. But he zeroed in on the chance to make double-A games on Roblox, which comes with a huge pre-existing player base.
“I don’t see that as a straight jacket,” he said. “I see huge benefits from Roblox. I really do believe it’s the future. I don’t think any other platform is as special as Roblox.”
As for AI, Mixon said he uses it in games but isn’t into it for the sake of the buzzword. They might raise a round of funding in the future, but they want to show off what they can do first.
“I really liked Josh’s approach to it,” Berman said. “He was not just trying to put a game out there without thinking about the quality or the player experience. He’s taking a broader scope. He has proven that even at a young age, he has great vision.”
The best way to grow on Roblox, he said, is engaging with a grassroots community.
“If the game doesn’t have a real community, it’s not going to see much growth,” he said. “You need to focus on growth and have a quality experience first.”
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