Gaming Company Hypersonic Laboratories announced the development of Helix, a multiplayer role-playing sandbox platform for user-generated content (UGC). The company has raised $7 million in its latest funding round, led by Play Ventures and with participation from AppWorks, WTIC, KB Investment, and Alex Ekvall, bringing its total funding to $11 million, GamesBeat reports.

Helix is designed as a dedicated platform for modders and creators to build their own games and virtual worlds using professional toolsets. The platform is built on Unreal Engine 5, allowing for realistic graphics and large-scale cityscapes. Hypersonic Laboratories’ CEO, Jack Kim, told GamesBeat that the goal is to create a “modding paradise” where the majority of the content will be created by artists and developers.

One of the key features of Helix is that each player will retain full intellectual property (IP) ownership of their creations, incentivizing creativity and innovation within the platform. Hypersonic Laboratories also plans to license IP and assets from other companies using Unreal Engine 5, streamlining the user experience for designers creating servers, maps, and levels.

According to Kim, the company recognizes the growing popularity of role-playing (RP) mods and servers across various games despite the lack of commercial or professional support from the industry. RP consistently ranks as the top streamed and watched game genre on Twitch, with popular mods like FiveM for GTA V attracting record numbers of concurrent players.

Hypersonic Laboratories has assembled a team of veterans from companies such as Roblox/Uplift Games, Hypixel Studios, Activision, Kongregate, and GameStop. The company has also hired Kasey Fitton (aka Mycroft), the former lead of ESX, a popular FiveM framework, and Joshua Eger (aka Kakarot), the creator of QBCore, another widely-used FiveM framework.

Jack Kim, CEO of Hypersonic Laboratories

Initially launched as a Web3 product with an in-game economy powered by an NFT marketplace, Helix has recently shifted its focus to a traditional Web2 platform, removing any use of blockchain technology and NFTs. The company plans to spin its Web3 work into a separate, dedicated game.

According to GamesBeat, Helix is in the closed alpha testing phase, with plans to launch later this year. The platform has already garnered attention from developers who appreciate mods like Garry’s Mod, and the Unreal Engine 5 world of Helix can support over 1,000 simultaneous players.