Happy 2023!

We want to welcome our growing W3 Play community to the year 2023 by giving a full picture of the news and activities in blockchain gaming this past week. The winter holiday season is well underway, and several play and earn games are coming with their alphas, new features, NFT rewards, and updates. Also, our favorite characters from childhood, the Smurfs, have shown up in the popular blockchain game The Sandbox. And finally, we see DeGods and Y00ts migrating from Solana to Ethereum and Polygon. We will see how this decision impacts Solana and why Dust Labs took the decision to migrate. Stay with us until the end as we wrap up this week with all of the important updates in one place for you to keep up with what’s going on in the Web 3.0 gaming space.

Weekly news highlights

• Axie Infinity Launches Homeland
• The Smurfs Have Arrived in the Sandbox
• Illuvium Zero Demonstrates Its Alpha to the Gaming Community
• Relics: A New Feature in Meta Apes
• Top Two NFT Projects Migrating to Other Platforms, According to Solana

Axie Infinity Launches Homeland

Finally, the long wait of more than 3 years is over as Axie Infinity releases Homeland. This news is especially special for those who own land already, as they will play on their own for the very first time. So, the game is currently available only to the landowners who bought it for $1000 from Mavis Hub. So, now players can start their village on Lunacia and spread out their axies to gather resources and finally build their own homeland. However, the game isn’t available for those who don’t own land. So, players will have to wait a bit longer to test this brand-new Axie Infinity game.

The game requires you to build a settlement and fend off waves of monsters by defending your home. The game is in early alpha mode at the moment, and the aim is to gather feedback. So, players won’t win any rewards at this point in time. The cosmetics of the game, on the other hand, will stay with the players even after the alpha is over. If you are planning to play this new game, the land plots are available for ETH 1.09. The gameplay and graphics are very unlike those in Axie Infinity, so there’s promise in this game.

The Smurfs Have Arrived in the Sandbox

Next, we have The Smurfs’ Society making its way into the blockchain game The Sandbox. The Smurf Society brings with it 3000 new NFTs exclusively for Voxel owners and community members. Thanks to this new partnership, the Smurf community will be able to enjoy the new era of decentralization and creativity through on-chain gaming adventures. Animoca Brands’ Sandbox is robust in expanding its metaverse by entering into new partnerships. As of now, it has joined forces with the likes of Warner Music Group, Ubisoft, Tony Hawk, Sueco, The Rabbids, Gucci Vault, The Walking Dead, and many more.

Illuvium Zero Demonstrates Its Alpha to the Gaming Community

Illuvium releases the alpha for its land-owning and management game, Illuvium Zero. Their decision to launch the alpha is pretty fast when compared to others, as they completed their land sale just six months ago. Illuvium also put out the Illuvium Overworld beta a while ago. These updates are keeping their fans busy over the holidays. Illuvium Zero is the third game in the Illuvium series. It lets players build and manage a base while gathering and extracting resources and making blueprints. Season 0 will begin on January 6th and last for 8 weeks.

But only landowners can get this alpha, which can be bought from Illuvidex for 0.45 ETH. The game will be free to play at launch, but non-land owners will never extract tokens, or NFTs. The game is skill-based, with a lot depending on your decision-making. Also, the game requires strategic thinking at every step, from choosing where to put a building to managing resources to working on the blueprints for the Illuvial.

Relics: A New Feature in Meta Apes

We have a new feature in Meta Apes where the relics will increase the abilities and strength of the apes. Players can mint these relics as NFTs on the Meta Ape marketplace. However, each relic will require a minting fee of 50 peels. Players need to unlock these relics after completing Chapter 18. For a limited time, each relic will activate a new buff in the ape. The associated buff starts as soon as the player collects it. Meta Apes is available on both the Android and iOS marketplaces and is a free-to-play and earn MMO blockchain game. This game lets you rule the world as an ape and create a strong clan to fight and survive.

Solana See Top Two NFT Projects Migrating to other Platforms

Finally, we have Dust Labs taking the big decision to migrate its top two performing NFT projects, DeGods and Y00ts. In order to broaden their reach, both of these NFT projects are bridging off Solana onto Ethereum and Polygon. The official bridging will take place in the first quarter of this year. Rohun Vora, the creator of Y00ts and DeGods, said that the decision was made to “explore new opportunities.” This means that the Dust token will also be bridged onto Polygon and Ethereum. Vora also thinks that Polygon and Ethereum are the right platforms to drive the next wave of people using NFTs.

He likened the tug-of-war between different platforms to that between Netflix and other video streaming platforms. “They’re trying to get the best IP for their streaming services because that IP is ultimately going to drive the growth on that platform.” He continued, “Once you get enough IP on the platform, it becomes a virtuous cycle; people want to be on Netflix because that’s the brand and the place to be.”

That is about it for the weekly roundup. Check out our review of WAM.app, which is a social platform for play-to-earn and with hypercasual games. Why are Esports important for play-to-earn games? Or a recent survey highlights: Game Developers’ Take on Web 3.0 Gaming and More.

We are getting lots of requests from game developers to add their games. And surely we appreciate that, but we are staffing up as we speak to handle the workload. Every day, we write new game reviews, make videos for our YouTube Game Channel, and, of course, keep up with the latest news. So, keep sending in all the games, PR releases, news, and further updates, but bear in mind we are working around the clock to get rid of the backlog!

No worries if you have no idea what we do; just look at our About page and you’ll get the picture! 

But in short, if you hate clicking away:

W3 Play is a comprehensive resource for players looking to learn about play-to-earn games, play-and-earn games, NFT games, crypto games, and blockchain games. As the TripAdvisor or Wikipedia of these types of games, we strive to provide detailed information about decentralization in this new genre of games. Whether you’re a seasoned gamer or new to these games, we have something for everyone.

In December 2022, W3 Play had seen significant growth since its August 2022 launch. Our game portals can now be found in over 135 countries, and Google has given them high rankings for many keywords, game titles, and game developers. With a current list of 240 games and a waiting list of nearly 200 more, we continue to expand and improve our platform. As said, more on our about page.