A Swedish studio called AfterMath Interactive is looking to fuse the similar worlds of poker and esports with new title Hands of Victory.
The studio’s ambition is ‘to turn classical casino games into modern strategy games for mid- to hardcore players and to develop competitive games based on original IPs’.
Online poker industry veteran and Aftermath Founder Kim Lund stated: “Poker has unique qualities as a competition game. The twists and turns. The drama. The high-pressure situations. It belongs on the esports stage.
“But traditional online poker is generally too slow, strategically one-dimensional, introvert, luck-based and visually unappealing to provide the kind of game experience that is fun enough to watch, interesting enough to cast and exciting enough to broadcast as an esport.”
Interested parties can meet the AfterMath team at two events this week; Paris Games Week and Esports and Casino Resorts in Las Vegas. The team has made it clear that it is seeking financial investment. Hands of Victory is scheduled for release, with the first version optimised for tablets, on November 2.
Lund added: “If you know poker, you’ll be able to pick up Hands of Victory right away. Everything you know about poker still applies, we’ve just added a lot of strategic depth, a bit of story, content and a different look and feel. You get to pick from a range of Grinders with special abilities. You can customise every one of them; you can unlock new content and your play is ranked and rated.”
Esports Insider says: There are undoubtedly crossovers between the worlds of poker and esports, and an attempt at a merger between the two is something we’re excited to try out. We’ll be back with our initial review next week.