The crypto and NFT gaming area is busier than ever these days, what with distinguished video games beginning to launch, token airdrops piling up, and a seemingly fixed array of different issues occurring always. It’s so much to absorb!
Fortunately, Decrypt’s GG is throughout it. And if you happen to want a fast technique to get caught up on the most recent strikes round crypto video video games, we’re completely satisfied to current This Week in Crypto Video games.
Our weekend roundup serves up the most important information from the previous week-plus—that is an prolonged version because of the holidays—together with just a few different tidbits you might need missed.
Largest information
Hamster Kombat TON layer-2: After the fourth-largest gaming token launch of 2024, the makers of Telegram tap-to-earn recreation Hamster Kombat revealed plans to create a layer-2 community on high of The Open Community (TON).
This got here after a decentralized autonomous group (DAO) vote overwhelmingly voted in favor of the transfer, with 1.1 billion HMSTR token voting energy in favor and simply 104,368 in opposition to. Nevertheless, it is price noting that the high two voters maintain over 88% of all voting energy as of this writing, giving a few whales immense affect.
Previous to this, the devs introduced that Hamster Kombat’s hotly anticipated (and much-delayed) second season will probably be “greater than only a recreation,” with three video games now within the works to grow to be the core of an leisure ecosystem utilizing the IP. Known as HamsterVerse, a closed beta is already underway for 30,000 neighborhood members.
📋IT’S CLOSED-BETA TESTING TIME 📋
Excited to announce that we’ve chosen 30,000 neighborhood customers who will assist us and take part in Closed-Beta Testing of Season 2/HamsterVerse!
All of the invitations have been despatched via the Hamster Kombat bot on Telegram.
For those who haven’t obtained… pic.twitter.com/X3TqyaTOIR
— Hamster Kombat (@hamster_kombat) December 28, 2024
Off the Grid stands tall: As the tip of the 12 months dawned, Avalanche-based shooter Off the Grid raked in some media accolades. Not solely did it win GG’s Recreation of the 12 months, however the battle royale shooter additionally gained Gam3s’ Recreation of the 12 months award and made it to a Rolling Stone year-end gaming record.
Gunzilla Video games shared its 2025 plans with Decrypt alongside the GOTY honors. Most notably, this contains an estimated Q1 2025 date for its GUNZ community to enter mainnet, which might allow its GUN token to be freely traded. Earlier than then, the studio desires to launch ranked and solo queue modes, and open up the remaining 80% of the map whereas kicking off the sport’s storyline.
After that, Gunzilla will probably be trying to onboard third-party builders to the GUNZ community, and is even eying a doable Telegram mini app for the ecosystem. It ought to be an enormous 12 months for considered one of crypto gaming’s largest success tales so far.
Illuvium’s subsequent steps: Crypto gaming franchise Illuvium introduced how it will likely be shifting ahead within the new 12 months. The undertaking beforehand launched three titles that fed into one another, each via shared assets and a story loop—however specializing in all three titles has been too difficult. Going ahead, the staff will prioritize efforts on one recreation at a time, beginning with the auto-battler Illuvium Enviornment.
The prolonged weblog publish additionally touches on plans to cut back microtransactions, add extra content material, and lift extra funding. Maybe most importantly, the publish ponders the opportunity of briefly shutting down the flagship title Illuvium Overworld till it’s a “totally realized expertise.” However coming into 2025, enhancing the Overworld MMO expertise is alleged to be the Illuvium staff’s “high precedence.”
ICYMI
- Telegram recreation Catizen distributed rewards to airdrop cross holders on Friday, which noticed holders obtain three completely different tokens.
- Iconic gaming model Atari revealed a brand new handheld console, the “My Arcade.”
- Zoo, a surging Telegram recreation with over 12 million gamers, confirmed that its mining section will finish on January 31 and that one in-game ZOO token will probably be equal to 1 future on-chain token.
- Sonic SVM confirmed that gamers of its TikTok tap-to-earn recreation will obtain a SONIC airdrop on the Solana blockchain.
- Crypto buying and selling card recreation Parallel crossed 6 million video games performed within the historical past of its existence, with builders claiming that it at present averages 200,000 video games every week.
- Telegram recreation Cat Gold Miner introduced that its token will probably be listed on Bitget, Gate, MEXC, and different exchanges on Thursday, January 9.
- Somebody turned the long-lasting first-person shooter Doom right into a CAPTCHA human verification problem.
GG highlight
Listed below are just a few of our unique tales from this previous couple weeks that we expect are properly price a weekend learn:
Edited by Andrew Hayward
GG E-newsletter
Get the most recent web3 gaming information, hear straight from gaming studios and influencers protecting the area, and obtain power-ups from our companions.