On August 29, Proof of Play (PoP), the developer behind the onchain game Pirate Nation, will launch Boss Chain, an additional blockchain designed to support the game’s growing user base and activity.

The launch marks the next phase in PoP’s planned multichain architecture to manage the growth of Pirate Nation, a pirate-themed role-playing game that has reached operating capacity on its Arbitrum-based Layer 3 blockchain called Apex.

According to a dashboard from rollup provider Conduit, the Apex chain’s transaction throughput is currently higher than that of all major Ethereum Layer 2 networks except Base and Arbitrum.

The game’s native PIRATE token has gained 20% over the past two weeks ahead of the multichain launch, but is still more than 50% below its all-time high in July.

The launch of Boss Chain is part of Proof of Play’s broader vision to scale through a multichain strategy. This approach aims to accommodate millions of players by connecting different chains, each optimized for onchain gaming, promising faster block times and an improved user experience.

“During my time developing Farmville, we had to manage around 64 databases to support 30 million daily active users and prevent the game from crashing. This is why Proof of Play is building the Multichain – to store data and ensure seamless scalability,” said Proof of Play founder and CEO Amitt Mahajan.

“This technology is bigger than gaming; any highly ambitious application with a large volume of on-chain compute power, such as new types of social or other consumer dapps, will require horizontal scaling,” he added.

The launch of Boss Chain is also intended to facilitate market interoperability and allow players from different chains to trade items directly and without detours. To accompany the launch, Pirate Nation will offer exclusive in-game items for users who switch to Boss Chain.

Disclosure: The author owns assets of Pirate Nation.