Faraway

Faraway is an interoperable Web3 gaming ecosystem built around three pillars: tools for game studios to launch blockchain-integrated titles, self-custodial asset ownership for players, and a creator marketplace where 3D artists can monetize original content. The company was founded in 2021 by veterans of the mobile gaming industry and launched its flagship title, Mini Royale: Nations, as the first live multiplayer game on Solana.

Background and Team

Faraway was co-founded by Alex Paley and Dennis Zdonov, both formerly VP of Product and General Manager at Scopely and Head of Studio at Glu Mobile. Their prior work spans major free-to-play titles including Disney's Sorcerer's Arena, WWE Champions, The Walking Dead: Road to Survival, and Looney Tunes: World of Mayhem. CTO Duc Nguyen rounds out the founding team. The company is headquartered in Miami with a globally distributed team.

The studio raised approximately $30 million across two rounds: an $8 million seed round in 2021 and a $21 million Series A led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and FTX. Additional investors include Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Sequoia Capital, Pantera Capital, Jump Capital, and Solana Ventures.

Mini Royale: Nations and the Solana Choice

Faraway's first title, Mini Royale: Nations, is a browser-based first-person shooter requiring no client download. It targets the "midcore" gaming segment — accessible enough for casual players but with enough mechanical depth to sustain competitive engagement. At launch the game reached approximately 300,000 monthly active users.

The founders chose Solana specifically for its combination of fast transaction finality and low fees, describing it publicly as "literally the only chain" capable of meeting the real-time demands of a multiplayer game at launch. High throughput and minimal per-transaction costs made on-chain item trades economically viable for players without the friction present on Ethereum mainnet.

Mini Royale: Nations supports collectible NFTs for cosmetic items — weapon skins, character skins, and accessories — with future additions including land plots and buildings. The game was designed around two token systems: a governance token granting community voting rights over the game's direction, and a separate utility token enabling in-game economic participation.

Ecosystem Structure

Beyond Mini Royale: Nations, Faraway has expanded into a multi-game publishing platform hosting nine titles. The portfolio includes Dookey Dash Unclogged, Legends of The Mara, HV-MTL, Serum City, RebelSkies, Shatterline, Villains Battle, and Faraway Rift alongside the flagship.

The platform is structured around three participant groups:

Studios and developers access a suite of infrastructure tools — federated identity systems, embedded wallets, in-game secondary marketplaces, and developer SDKs — that abstract away smart contract complexity so teams can focus on gameplay. The stated goal is to make blockchain game deployment fast and straightforward without requiring teams to build and maintain their own Web3 stack.

Players create a single Faraway account that works across all titles in the ecosystem. Account creation can be tied to email or social login, and the associated wallet is self-custodial and multi-chain, supporting both EVM-compatible networks (Arbitrum, Ethereum, Avalanche, Polygon, Base) and Solana. Checkout supports both crypto and fiat payment methods.

Creators use the Faraway Creator Suite to build and sell 3D item collections through the Faraway Shop. The workflow moves from uploading models built in external 3D software through a moderation review to deployment on the marketplace. Creators earn up to 90% of item sale prices. Purchased assets are designed to function across thousands of compatible games and digital experiences, including third-party platforms such as Ready Player Me, Hiberworld, and Spatial.

Interoperability and Asset Portability

A central design goal for Faraway is asset portability. Digital items purchased or earned within one game in the ecosystem are intended to carry over to other compatible experiences. This cross-game asset interoperability positions Faraway as a platform layer rather than a standalone studio — the company publishes and hosts games from multiple developers while maintaining a shared identity and asset layer.

The multi-chain wallet approach extends this portability across blockchain networks. By supporting both Solana and major EVM chains from a single embedded wallet, Faraway allows players to hold and use assets regardless of which underlying network a given game was built on.

Solana Connection

Solana was Faraway's founding chain and remains central to the ecosystem. Mini Royale: Nations launched as one of Solana's earliest live multiplayer blockchain games, and Solana Ventures participated in the company's Series A. The Faraway Creator Suite supports SOL-denominated pricing alongside ETH and MATIC. The platform's multi-chain architecture keeps Solana as a first-class supported network across its embedded wallet, marketplace, and developer tools.