Epic Games Launches Metaverse Programming Language, Verse

Quick take:

Epic Games is joining the web3 programming language race with Verse.
The declarative open-source language also includes call-by-value functionality.
Verse joins Clarity, Solidity, Curry, Mercury and Rust in a growing list of web3 programming languages.

Epic Games is expanding its metaverse campaign into the world of programming. The Unreal Engine developer has launched Verse, a new web3 programming language for the metaverse.

Web3 is a blockchain-based internet that prioritises user-focused ecosystems, decentralised apps and trustless communications. Although some metaverse platforms are built on web2, the main underlying technology accelerating the development of the 3D virtual space with interactive immersive worlds is web3.

Like its web2 3D tech platform, Epic has made Verse open-source. The new web3 language utilises functional logic like Curry and Mercury. Verse joins a growing list of web3 programming languages that also includes Clarity, Solidity and Rust, among others.

According to a presentation prepared by Epic Games’ Simon Peyton Jones, Tim Sweeney Lennart Augustsson, Koen Claessen, Ranjit Jhala, and Olin Shivers, Verse focuses on five key principles that the company believes will be key to building the metaverse.

Verse is focused on enabling the creation of social interactions in a shared real-time 3D environment. The language will also support an open economy governed by rules and with no corporate overloads.

The open-source product will also be available for all programmers, artists, and designers. Verse also seeks to support interoperable content with live updates of running code, while also leveraging operational standards from multiple game engines including Unity.

The web3 developer market is still at its nascent stage. According to SlashData, 60% of web3 developers joined the market last year. So far, Solidity, an object-oriented and Turing-complete language dominates the space. It currently has 4,000 developers using every month to develop smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain.

However, open-sourced Rust, which supports multiple programming concepts is closing in fast because of its ability to support the development of highly scalable projects.

While Epic’s Verse developers acknowledge that current web3 programming languages are all Turing-complete (a term used to refer to a computationally universal system), they think a new language could help with the evolution of the industry.

Epic specifically highlights scalability, interoperability and the ability to complete transactions fast as some of the key areas Verse is looking to build on.

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