Top NFT Games Boosting Mass Web3 Adoption - (Apeiron, Gunzilla Games, Cross the Ages)

NFT and blockchain-based games are making their way to the gaming industry's top and proving to be a readily adoptable use case for the masses. Since 2020, the GameFi industry has soared, attracting over $22.5billion from various institutional investors such as Yearn.Finance, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Animoca Brand, and the like. The industry's popularity and adoption led to over 1,400 new GameFi projects in May 2022 alone.

Games like Axie Infinity and The Sandbox contribute to the blockchain-based gaming craze. For example, Play-to-earn (P2E) games like Axie Infinity have allowed players to earn up to $2,000 in rewards through in-game purchases, essentially making it one of the most reputable names in the P2E and Web3 space. The introduction of NFTs further propels gaming adoption as it allows players to experience a merge between entertainment and financial incentives. Similarly, innovations such as the Metaverse offer players an immersive experience, strengthening the utility and value of games.

However, just like Web2 needed its time to gain traction almost 15 years ago, the adoption of blockchain and Web3 faces its challenges, namely lack of accessibility, security, and education. As mentioned, gaming is a great use case for the future adoption of blockchain and lays a strong foundation for people to adopt and learn more about crypto and NFTs. With this, here are three NFT-based games that could catapult Web3s mass adoption:

Apeiron NFT Game:

Marking itself as the first play-and-earn adventure god game on the blockchain, Apeiron features a unique card-based action-adventure combat combined with gameplay inspired by classic god games such as Populous and Black & White. The game's recent release of its NFT Marketplace supports its tri-token system and drives the utility of its governance, play-to-earn, and premium team-to-earn tokens, which all contribute to creating a dynamic economy inspired by the real world.

The main gameplay happens on Planet NFTs, which is purchasable on public marketplaces, including other assets such as Stars and Relics. Players are known as Godlings and use their powers to help or attack Doods. With the game's unique real-time card-based combat system, players can release massive elemental Avatars into battle. Throughout the game, players can breed their Planet NFTs and purchase more in-game assets to grow and gain utility.

In early 2022, Apeiron raised a cumulative USD$ 17M in its seed funding rounds, undoubtedly shaking up the NFT gaming space. As recently announced, from September 7th to September 21st, all users who open an account on Apeiron are eligible to participate in the project's upcoming NFT airdrop event. Currently, Apeiron's Planet NFTs are available on the OpenSea marketplace with a floor price of 0.15 ETH.

Foonie Magus, the team behind the project, aims to release their Beta Debut in Q4 2022 and is looking to grow Apeiron's ecosystem outside the blockchain domain to offer entertainment value for crypto and non-crypto gamers alike.

Off the Grid - by Gunzilla Games

Off The Grid (OTG) is Gunzilla Games' new AAA Battle Royale 2.0 third-person shooter, set in a dystopian cyberpunk future, where players shape the story and gameplay. Gamers can craft, customize and trade their in-game assets with each other, with the ultimate goal of surviving the cover corporate battles of the future. The game plans to launch in 2023 and will be available on Playstation®5, Xbox®Series X|S, and PC.

Due to its Unreal Engine 5-built graphics and unique gameplay, Off The Grid is claimed to be one of the most anticipated games in 2023. Additionally, Hollywood director Neill Blomkamp is the game's Chief Visionary Officer, making the game launch even more exciting as he promises OTG will be more serious than Fortnite.

Similar to other battle royale world games, OTG is free-to-play, requiring no storefronts, or subscriptions. The game won't charge players money; however, it will feature an in-game marketplace relying on blockchain technology to sell NFTs.

Gunzilla Games' addition of blockchain technology and NFTs is a great nod to the current rise of Web3 innovations. In-game assets are nothing new to the gaming industry and don't necessarily need to be supported by blockchain. But, it is great to see OTG turning to blockchain technology to trade NFTs as it can act as a great stepping stone for non-crypto gamers to get more acquainted with the new style of gaming. OTG will start off by lightly introducing the concept of NFTS by never directly selling them to players and keeping the feature as an in-game trading feature only. It will be great to see how this feature develops and gets adopted in the future.

Cross The Ages

Described as the first-of-its-kind game, Cross The Ages (CTA) is a free-to-play, play-and-earn collectible card and NFT game based on seven fantasy and science fiction novels written by award-winning authors. The game is developed for mobile-first, yet leverages blockchain technology for desktop gaming—Cross The Ages bridges both digital and physical worlds by also offering physical collectible cards. The gameplay is based on players competing individually or in teams in the Metaverse to discover priceless gems hidden in the novels, ultimately winning valuable NFTs. The project has an extensive and experienced team of 140 people, including 70 artists who have worked on internationally known titles such as Game of Thrones, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter. CTAs first-of-its-kind experience and incredible artwork have captured the attention of over 600,000 community members worldwide.

Interestingly, CTA was the first blockchain game to create NFT collectible and tradable cards; before this, the industry was heavily represented by a physical paper or plastic card traded at real-life events. CTA bridges the physical and digital card gaming worlds, making the NFTs concept more accessible and understandable to OG physical card gamers. CTA NFTs are already widely adopted as it recently became the single most traded Polygon collection on OpenSea, hitting a volume of 60ETH in just 24 hours.

On Our Way To Mass Adoption

All three games above are not just highly anticipated games with a strong community backing the craze before the launches. But these games are great examples of how more projects combine ideas from established industries - like gaming - with blockchain technology. For example, Apeiron and Off The Grid are based on old-style games such as god and shooter. Furthermore, the games are accessible as Off The Grid is available on the largest game consoles in the world. Similarly, Cross The Ages nods to old-school card trading by offering digital NFT cards and physical cards, breaking the barrier to entry as card gamers will already understand the concept.

As mentioned at the beginning of this article, accessibility, security, and lack of education stand in the way of mass Web3 gaming adoption. With these three games, we believe that we are getting a huge step closer to adoption, as it will allow Web2 gamers to dabble in the blockchain-based gaming world and understand all the benefits it has to offer.