Following on from the news that Laguna Games and the Crypto Unicorns DAO are sunsetting its Unicorn Party game, the US developer has now also shut down Crypto Unicorns‘s core land game.

In terms of the practical impact for players, they’re no longer able to breed or evolve their unicorn NFTs, a main part of the Crypto Unicorns gameplay.

In an official statement following a recent community meeting with CEO Aron Beierschmitt, the reason given for ending land gameplay is that “our current structure has become unsustainable after the recent liquidation event.”

It continues, “To ensure the longevity and success of the Crypto Unicorns ecosystem, we are (…) 

• Reducing team size from 80 to 15,
• Pivoting the core game: The core Crypto Unicorns game will transition into a fully on-chain experience”. 

Exactly what pivoting to a fully onchain experience entails is not yet decided, but the statement says that “we will be able to expose all data to the community, allowing them to build out tools, projects, and interfaces as desired.” Furthermore, Crypto Unicorns will open-source its smart contracts, in the hope of providing an easier process for creators building within its ecosystem.

The team also hopes to launch a war event that will see existing NFTs destroyed to reduce the supply and highlight the value of the most rare items.

Continuing the project in this scaled down format is only possible due to the evolving web3 technology, and notably the migration from Polygon to Xai earlier in 2024.

Moving forward, the team looks to involve the community and DAO more. It also affirms that Rainbow Rumble is already maintained by a second-party studio and the title will continue to explore future opportunities in esports.

Backed by Delphi, Bitkraft, TCG, BACKED, Polygon Ventures, and more, Laguna Games has raised a total of $31 million for Crypto Unicorns. The last public funding round was announced in March 2022.

For those wanting to give feedback and engage in the future of the Crypto Unicorns ecosystem, they can submit their ideas via this Google form.

Previously on Polygon, Laguna Games’ flagship title Crypto Unicorns announced in January 2024 that it was moving to the Arbitrum-based L3 XAI blockchain, citing gasless transactions and smoother on-ramping as some of the reasons. Now the migration process has started, with the first step of migrating the RBW token successfully completed. 

Converted on a 10-to-1 ratio, the new token is called CU, and can be directly staked for 12 months at an estimated APR of 28%. Alternatively, holders can provide liquidity by staking the CU-ETH pair for an APR of 163%. This liquidity pool is also rewarded by GRAIL tokens – Grail is the DEX used for LP staking – and there is an additional reward of XAI and CU tokens via placement on a points-based leaderboard.

Next up is a game reboot of Crypto Unicorns on XAI, scheduled for June 2024. In preparation for the move, the Shadowcorn contracts are temporarily unavailable, as all assets will have to be bridged to the new network to be used in gameplay.

Since launching its basic farming mode in early 2022, browser-based Crypto Unicorns expanded to release jousting and shadowcorns gameplay, in addition to separate titles Rainbow Rumble and Unicorn Party. Notably, Unicorn Party is an umbrella of casual real-time multiplayer and mobile-first games including Bumpercorns and Mob Run.

In a previous interview in 2023 with BlockchainGamer, Laguna Games CEO Aron Beierschmitt shared more about the expansion of Crypto Unicorns.

Stay up-to-date on the migration via Crypto Unicorns‘ X account, and find out more about the game via its website.