TL;DR
NFT gaming, incorporating in-game assets and ecosystem tokens, remains a strong crypto narrative, with projects building for the long-term and looking to onboard players from outside of Web3, while building efficient in-game economies. There are multiple high quality projects garnering attention, including Nyan Heroes, NFL Rivals, Age of Dino, Saku Monsters, Vallarok, and Somo.
The narrative around gaming NFTs has taken a backseat recently, with a lot of NFT attention focused on Bitcoin Ordinals, some of which are connected to the Runes Protocol, while meme coins have also soaked up a huge amount of crypto mindshare.
However, Web3 gaming is a long-term sector that cannot be rushed, and it has the potential to grow over time, as long as high quality projects can be realized and users brought on board.
NFT Gaming Projects
Let’s run through which Web3 gaming projects have the most potential, and might provide good opportunities to pick up some worthwhile gaming NFTs and in-game tokens.
Nyan Heroes
Crypto has a liking for cats right now, as evidenced by meme coins such as WEN, POPCAT and MOG, so what could be better than a Web3 game featuring cats piloting giant militaristic robots? Built around this theme, Nyan Heroes is a cyberpunk-looking third-person shooter produced by independent studio 9 Lives Interactive (whose members have AAA games development experience), built on Solana, and with advisors including Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin, and Thomas Vu of Riot Games.
Although it’s still under development, there is an early access version of the game coming soon on the Epic Games store, and you can currently purchase Nyan Heroes NFTs on Magic Eden and Tensor. These function as both PFPs and holder passes, with benefits including access to an upcoming in-game token called NYAN, and to pre-sales of planned in-game land.
Oh and by the way, nyan is Japanese for meow, in case you were wondering about the game’s title.
NFL Rivals
Built by blockchain gaming studio Mythical Games, NFL Rivals is a Web2 game that already has over 3 million downloads, and its developers are now working on integrating Web3 elements, which currently means users are able to trade player cards as NFTs.
Mythical Games–which is led by former Call of Duty studio head John Linden–also published major title Blankos Block Party, recently made the decision to shift from Ethereum to Polkadot, and utilizes its own parachain called Mythos Chain. The studio has also built its own NFT marketplace on which you can trade gaming assets, although in the case of NFT Rivals there are also plans to enable trading from directly within the game.
Age of Dino
Over at busy Web3 gaming studio Xterio, Age of Dino is a big title that has launched a downloadable community test version. It’s dinosaur-themed, with gameplay that falls somewhere between a strategy game and an RPG, but–in true Web3 style–is also to incorporate “a strong social component”, and “a sustainable in-game economy” which makes use of two tokens, AOD and DAM.
The game’s genesis NFTs–called Dinosty–are trading from a floor price of around 0.75 ETH, and provide perks to holders, including airdrop allocations. Also, the current test-version launch allows participants to earn points which will entitle them to redeem future airdrop rewards.
Saku Monsters
Looking a lot like Pokemon and trading on nineties nostalgia, the Solana-based, still-unfinished mobile game Saku Monsters has lots of engagement and is currently in Phase 2 of its four-part roadmap, which means players can download the game from the Apple Store and compete for NFT items including, currently, 10,000 Blue Eggs.
As is sometimes the case with Web3 games, the mechanics and interlinking components can be a little complicated, and revolve around the project’s own unique storylines and themes, but for those jumping in and learning how it works (or just picking up the in-game assets), there is the potential to earn rewards in a gamified way, particularly if the project gains increased traction.
Vallarok
Besides gaming and meme coins, one of the other leading crypto narratives at the moment is AI, and so incoming new title Vallarok stands out, since it makes a strong feature of its AI components. Critically, it also looks like it will have good playability along with Web3 integrations, and in terms of style, it’s an open-world, Viking-set survival game.
The AI component is a companion character called Runa, who (thanks to AI) can be communicated with throughout the game in a natural way, and the Runa characters are set to be minted as NFTs on April 23rd. They’re priced at 0.06 ETH, with a supply of 2,000, and there is plenty of enthusiasm for the mint as the NFTs will provide pre-sale access to a planned token called VAL, together with the opportunity to earn VALOR points, which also lead to the VAL token.
Somo
Partnered with Web3 gaming platform Portal, Somo is another project that takes plenty of inspiration from Pokemon, but it’s not hiding the fact, even tweeting recently, “the next Pokémon-genre game to go viral will be on-chain… SOMO!”
That’s a bold claim, but Somo looks like a solid contender. Its core premise is to “collect, battle, evolve”, and from the teasers released so far it looks like a slickly constructed product, with plans to use NFTs for evolving, collectible characters, in-game land, and to enable trading between players.
Although Somo is still in development, it’s already generating an enormous amount of hype, and looks like a main player in the competition to develop a Web3 game that crosses over into mainstream popularity.
