Illuvium's New Offering Buoys Web3 Gaming

In a sign the GameFi market hasn’t completely cratered, Illuvium, the web3 game studio, released its second game, Overworld, in beta on Wednesday.

The beta launch is available to 30,000 of the more than 2M gamers that signed up for Illuvium’s waiting list, including those who have access to the second private beta for Illuvium’s title, Arena.

Gameplay

Illuvium was a darling of the 2021 GameFi bull market, promising to deliver the sector’s first AAA-quality title at a time when most web3 games combined yield farming mechanics with tamagotchi-style gameplay.

With GameFi among hard-hit by the 2022 bear market, Illuvium’s progress in building out its suite of interoperable games is a much needed boon for the sector.

What Is a Metaverse?

Rising Investment and Popularity is Driving Development of a 40-year-old Vision

The Defiant

Overworld’s gameplay centers around exploring the Illuvium universe and capturing in-game NFTs. Arena is an auto-battler game where players can use the in-game items and monsters they capture in Overworld.

“Overworld represents the culmination of all our hard work and dedication to building the best visual experience possible,” said Illuium co-founder and art director, Grant Warwick. “Every art team member has worked tirelessly on even the smallest details.”

Kieran Warick, the co-founder of Illuvium, told The Defiant that Zero, Illuvium’s third game, may be launched in alpha before Christmas. Arena entered its second private beta phase on Sept. 28.

100M Gamers

The Illuvium team hopes to release nine interoperable games set within the Illuvium universe over the next two decades. Illuvium’s existing titles are launched on Ethereum via the ImmutableX Layer 2 network.

Players will be able to use the same NFT-based in-game items and assets within each title. Illuvium holds the distinction of being the fastest gaming studio to tag a $10B valuation.

“Our mission is to build the first truly AAA experience in the history of Web3,” said Aaron Warwick, Illuvium co-founder and game director. “Over the next few years, we will introduce 100M gamers to the advantages of owning their hard-earned digital assets.”

Illuvium also raised $72M in June by selling 19,969 of the game’s 100,000 virtual land plots to players. The land plots were sold for 4,018 ETH worth $7.2M at the time, with the rest of the funds raised in the form of sILV2 — rewards accrued through staking Illuvium’s governance token, ILV. All sILV2 tokens raised through the auction were burned.

ApeCoin

Like other GameFi assets, ILV has taken a beating in 2022. The asset last changed hands for $47.5, down 97.5% from its December 2021 all-time high, according to CoinGecko.

ILV is the 12th-largest GameFi asset with a market cap of $89M. GameFi assets are worth $7.4B, down from $15.4B on Jan. 27. However, ApeCoin, which was launched in March, represents nearly $1.5B of the current GameFi capitalization. Internet Computer also represents $1.1B and was not categorized as a GameFi asset in January.