NFT gaming is big. It’s popular. No matter how you look at it, there is no lack of excitement and interest in NFT gaming. And yes, we’re aware the markets are on a slide and volumes are down, but that only seems to have removed the chaff and revealed the cream of the crop. If anything, the culling of poor-quality titles and projects only makes those that have survived look even better.
Ever since NFTs landed on the gaming scene, they have been repeatedly praised for their main traits. Namely, NFT-based games have been integrating conventional models of gaming with capabilities that grant users more control over their in-game assets such as characters, skins, weapons, and others. Of course, there are other rumblings and developments in NFT tech that go beyond that (we’ll also cover it shortly in one of the titles we’ll mention below) but let’s allow the main trait of NFT – ownership – their due.
With a large number of NFT-based games out there, it is not an easy task to choose what one should be playing. As the calendar comes close to flipping, we’re now going to cast an eye over just some NFT games that have been making the waves or that promise to break new ground over the coming months running into next year.
Axie Infinity
Back in the summer of 2021, Axie Infinity wasn’t just on the pedestal of NFT games. It set up the pedestal, made sure there was only space for one game, and stood itself up on it. Fair play to them too.
NFTGames once referred to them as the holy grail of NFT gaming and it became massively popular as its Axis Infinity Shard governance token increased in value by nearly 5,333%.
The game that broadly resembles Pokemon characters introduced a whole new set of crypto-savvy gamers to breeding and collecting NFT digital pets, aka Axies, for the main purpose of battling other gamers.
What made it interesting was that every single Axie was divergent in terms of their genetic imprints. In other words, every Axie had unique advantages and weaknesses that can be passed down to their offspring. Therefore, breeding them may be a challenge – you hope to retain advantageous traits and not inherit weaknesses and so gamers spend their whole time building up a collection of these cute and fierce creatures.
Axie Infinity was probably one of the earliest examples of a true Play to Earn game that is partially owned and operated by players. As mentioned in Axie’s Whitepaper, the game is centered around a player-owned economy allowing them to own, sell, buy and trade resources earned while gaming. Like most blockchain games, Axie Infinity is a community-based virtual environment. All genetic data and art assets can be accessed by 3rd parties with the objective of enabling community developers to make their own tools and divergent experiences in Axie’s universe.
If you see Play to Earn labeled on an NFT game, you’re most likely playing something that looks and feels like Axie.
The Sandbox
Another heavyweight in the NFT gaming world is The Sandbox. While not precisely what one traditionally might perceive as a game, The Sandbox is a community-based virtual environment that enables gamers to own, build and monetize their gaming experiences in the Ethereum blockchain by using the platform’s utility token, aka SAND. The creators’ vision was to create an immersive metaverse for gamers to create and collaborate in the creation of virtual worlds without interference.
The NFT aspect here expresses a strong sense of the concept of digital ownership by challenging existing game creators such as Roblox and Minecraft and providing true ownership to creators over their assets in the form of NFTs along with awarding participation with SANDs. Just to point out, SANDs are governance tokens that may be used to earn passive income in-game as well.
The voxel gaming platform enables gamers and creators to play, collect, trade, share, build, and enjoy the game while attaining copyright guaranteed through the use of NFTs. The most popular NFT games play along similar themes here as they use non-fungible tokens and blockchain tech to empower gamers and developers. Hence, the Sandbox metaverse prides itself on a number of technical traits such as cross-application interoperability, immutability, security, and a circular economy within the game that uses several tokens. The game in question uses different blockchain protocols, namely ERC-20 for SAND, and ERC-1155 and ERC-721 for trading and digital assets storage.
DeFi Kingdoms
For the third game on this list, we’ve arrived at a title called DeFi Kingdoms, which we consider to be another game in the play-to-earn mould that harks back to the golden era of gaming with retro-pixelated aesthetics. The modern twist? Utilizing blockchain technology, built on DeFi protocols with a market of rare utility-driven NFTs and future plans to become eventually a fully-fledged MMORPG.
At first glance, the game looks like a traditional medieval pixel RPG. Situated in a fictional world under the name Gaia that encompasses rich and detailed lore, the game resembles most traits gamers love about traditional RPGs. Players have the freedom to roam through kingdoms, explore taverns, gardens, or banks, and talk to interesting NPCs while investing and earning. As for the game mechanics, think of it as an ecosystem of DeFi protocols combined with play-to-earn traits and crypto-gamified characteristics.
DeFi Kingdoms uses the JEWEL token for the purpose of players purchasing in-game heroes, items, lands, and other stuff. The use of JEWEL differs from other NFT games since the token can also be used for liquidity mining, staking, and governance. We are talking here about only one in-game token that provides the player with a broad range of flexibility when it comes to holding digital assets.
Furthermore, DeFi Kingdoms encompasses a built-in decentralized exchange, and an in-game bank where players can buy xJEWEL shares that they expect to appreciate over time. Seems that the creators weren’t kidding around when it came to building a thorough in-game economy at all. Similar to many other NFT games being talked up, this one is still being rolled out, yet it has been already been praised for being a well-thought-out, genuine, and organized NFT game with major plans underway.
Cradles: Origin of Species
Last but not least, Cradles: Origin of Species has landed on the blockchain gaming scene as one of its major surprises, at least to those keen on the lookout for discerning titles.
Branding itself as the first “time-lapsing” metaverse game on the market, Cradles offers diverse open adventures in a living virtual world that evolves and progresses by simulating the laws of time and physics just as in the real world. Instead of static and centrally-managed server-based time, however, the game uses blockchain technology to specify time lapsing, namely by evolving game element traits using block time.
Speaking about the technical aspect, it is significant to point out that the Cradles team are themselves blockchain developers who are proposing something called EIP-3664, which is intended as a new NFT token standard that it believes will redefine blockchain-based gaming.
This nifty piece of tech is what differentiates Cradles from other games, allowing for the existence of entropy-increasing worlds and the imitation of the passage of time that comes along with in-game consequences. It suggests a first game where players will experience items that rust, buildings that decay, and even characters that age with block time – something never really quite accomplished in virtual world games.
The main objective of the Cradles team is to lead the world into a new era of blockchain and NFT-based gaming, and if they get their implementation right, we can certainly see a bright future for these pioneers just around the corner.
Another unique aspect of Cradles is that it will also be the first subscription-based NFT game with a 0% transaction fee – addressing one of the main criticisms of NFT games whereby players are required to pre-purchase NFTs and pay for each blockchain transaction. In this new model, players can exchange items totally freely, and only a small tax will be involved when it comes to valuable in-game assets.
Another novel tokenomics model is its awesome Staking-into-NFTs (SIN) mechanism that directly aids players in earning more in-game coins by staking tokens into other active players’ NFTs.
At first glance, the entire Cradles environment appears to rely on community participation and active integration. From incentives given to players to govern worlds to gathering intellectual property rights by allowing players to create game content and enjoy the results of their work or become influencers on the platform, there do seem to be new and endless possibilities enabled by new NFT tech.