‘Illuvium’ Live on Epic Store, Atari Retro Arcade on Base

The crypto and NFT gaming space is busier than ever lately, what with prominent games starting to release, token airdrops piling up, and a seemingly constant array of other things happening at all times. It’s a lot to take in!

Luckily, Decrypt’s GG is all over it. And if you need a quick way to get caught up on the latest moves around crypto video games, we’re happy to present This Week in Crypto Games.

Our weekend roundup serves up the biggest news from the past week, along with a few other tidbits you might have missed. We also showcase a few of our original stories from the week.

Biggest news

Illuvium launch: The developer of the Illuvium blockchain gaming franchise released three interconnected sci-fi fantasy games onto the Epic Games Store on Thursday. After a series of beta tests, Illuvium is branding this as the “official game launch,” following a play-to-airdrop campaign.

Illuvium: Overworld, Arena, and Zero span distinctly different genres but feed into each other, and the developer encourages players to get immersed within all three games. Overworld is an open-world survival game while Arena is an auto-battler, and Zero is a city builder—yep, very different indeed.

Atari retro arcade: Iconic game publisher Atari is making some of its classics playable via what’s essentially an on-chain arcade, with NFT access passes and scores that are recorded to the blockchain. Players can compete to rank in the top three of the global leaderboards to win weekly prizes, including a $1,000 Atari gift card.

Built on Coinbase’s Ethereum layer-2 network Base, players can play the classic arcade game Asteroids right now, with other games set to come (Breakout has been teased too). In order to play, you must mint an NFT access pass for $5.25 (0.0015 ETH) which enables you to compete against other players for weekly prizes.

Machines Arena play-to-airdrop: The Machines Arena, an Overwatch-style hero shooter viewed from an overhead perspective, is launching a play-to-airdrop campaign leading up to the debut of its TMA token on Ethereum scaling network Ronin.

Starting July 30, players will be able to earn points through activities such as completing quests and leveling up. The amount of points you earn ranks you on the play-to-airdrop (P2A) leaderboard, which will decide the amount of TMA tokens you receive.

ICYMI

• Video game actors and performers started to strike over AI protections.
• Epic Games CEO said that Fortnite could “perhaps someday” use blockchain, but it will never use NFTs or cryptocurrency
• Ethereum shooter Planet X launched on Xai with the chance to win realworld prizes, including a Tesla Cybertruck.
• OKX rolled out its own Telegram mini-game where players guess if Bitcoin’s price will rise or fall.
• Strategy game Blocklords revealed an Ethereum ERC-20 token LRDS.

• Binance Labs invested in the company behind Telegram game Catizen.
• The International Olympic Committee unanimously voted yes for the creation of the Olympic Esports Games.
• Mocaverse and Animoca Brands partnered with The Open Network (TON), conducting a token swap while planning to integrate the Moca ID identity platform on TON.
• Crypto game Upland launched its SPARKLET token and started chapter two of its airdrop campaign.
• Telegram hit 950 million users amid the crypto gaming boom.

GG spotlight

Here are a few of our original stories from this past week that we think are well worth a weekend read:

Edited by Andrew Hayward