Further to its existing investment, which was announced in March 2024, Ethereum L2 Mantle has signed a strategic partnership with Singapore-based blockchain MMORPG MetaCene.

The two organizations previously worked together for the browser-based xMetaCene play-to-earn mini-game, which ran on Mantle and attracted over 450,000 wallets.

The just-launched PC/mobile MetaCene: Gold Rush experience, which rewards players with non-tradable in-game items and $3 million-worth of its to-be-released MUD and MAK tokens, also runs on Mantle.

In the longterm, however, MetaCene’s main game, which will launch as first chapter MetaCene: The Genesis of Fire, will run on the Ranger Protocol, albeit within what’s described as a “multi-chain future”.

“As with any serious gaming venture, computing-intensive interactions between players and assets require a highly-performant network to support seamless gameplay,” commented MetaCene CEO Alan Tan.

“To that end, we are excited to take MetaCene’s mission to revolutionize blockchain gaming to the next level through our collaboration with Mantle. Our strategic alliance will allow us to tap on Mantle’s cutting-edge modular L2 technology, strong technical support and resources to propel the growth of web3 blockchain gaming and GameFi to proliferate across the robust and well-established Mantle Ecosystem.”

 Download MetaCene: Gold Rush from the game’s website.

Project Awakening, a web3 game created by CCP Games and set within the same universe as Eve Online, is accepting applications for their Phase III playtest, which is set to begin on May 21st. Taking place on a ruined world, Project Awakening allows players to build and create, leaving their very own mark on the game world.

CCP Games built a name for themselves by creating the biggest, and longest running space-based MMMORPG ever. In recent years CCP Games has expanded their portfolio, adding new, different games, all set within the Eve Online universe. One of their latest developments, Project Awakening, is a sci-fi, sandbox, MMO world that will utilize blockchain technology.

The Phase III playtest for Project Awakening begins on May 21st. It is expected that about 5,000 players will be chosen for this playtest. You’ll need to register to be considered for a playtest slot. To register head over to the official website at https://www.projectawakening.io/ fill out the form and connect your social accounts.

We don’t really know a lot about what to expect with this playtest. But we do know that Phase III will include a hackathon, encouraging players to try out the in-game creative tools.

Also, the team plans additional playtests for September and December of this year.

What is Project Awakening?

Project Awakening is a web3 gaming project build by CCP, who are famous for creating and running Eve Online. And, as part of the CCP portfolio, Project Awakening will take place within the Eve universe. The game will be a sci-fi, sandbox MMORPG.

Project Awakening will have a single world that everyone lives in, set in the ruins of a decayed civilization. Project Awakening will include in-game tools that allow players to create and customize while leaving their mark on their world. Initially, players will need to work together for survival, as the world is hostile and dangerous. Other than that, we don’t really have a lot of information about the game. Hopefully some more details will come to light as their latest playtest progresses.

To learn more about Project Awakening, visit their website and join CCP Games on Twitter.

More rewards are coming to Big Time players through a VIP program. This new player recognition system will offer ongoing rewards, the first of which is a bonus roll when collecting BIGTIME tokens from Boss chests!

Big Time adds a new player reward system in the form on their VIP program. Players can unlock the various VIP tiers simply by holding BIGTIME tokens.

The lowest VIP tier, Common, requires holding 25,000 BIGTIME tokens (currently worth about $4500 USD), so this isn’t a program for everyone. The amount of tokens required scales up to 200K at Legendary rank, though there are an additional five ranks after that whose requirements are unrevealed. Tiers are updated daily based on number of tokens held in players’ Open Loot accounts.

The Big Time team says they plan to offer many bonuses to those in their VIP program in the future. But, just to get things started, they have implemented a ‘BIGTIME VIP Bonus Roll’. This bonus roll provides players with additional BIGTIME tokens from the boss chests depending on the player’s VIP tier.

Big Time Leaderboards

Getting into the VIP program requires a lot of BIGTIME tokens. But for hardcore players, there are opportunities to acquire a significant amount of tokens through the BIGTIME Leaderboard.

Crafting is at the heart of Big Time. Players gather resources on adventures and equip their Spaces with various crafting stations to create cosmetic items. And to help promote player activity, Big Time has been running a Preseason Leaderboard Airdrop event. Players earn points by ranking up and entering Prestige Portals. But the most points come from crafting collectibles. Additionally, Big Time runs regular, weekly events that offer bonus points for accomplishing specific tasks. Check their Discord chat for info on the latest event.

These leaderboards run in cycles, with rewards of BIGTIME tokens airdropped to the players in 16 weekly installments. Points reset with each round.

You can read more about this in the official Big Time Wiki and see the current BIGTIME Leaderboard status on the website.

What is Big Time?

Big Time is a fantasy, MMORPG, dungeon crawler game. Players adventure in teams of up to six players or head out of their own. The action is fast-paced, with players often wading through large groups of enemies. Adventures are instanced, and only available to the current party. Each one generally includes a number of objectives with a big boss to defeat at the end.

Big Time features the usual trio of tank, healer, damage dealer, with four classes to choose from — Time Warrior, Quantum Fixer, Chronomancer, and Shadow Blade. And though the adventures are exclusive to the party, there is an open social hub with merchants and such.

Players can find NFT items on adventures, or craft them using their Space, a crafting/housing NFT. Players can also customize the items they find to enhance the player’s preferred stats. Place crafting stations and cosmetic items in their Space to make it your own.

Big Time has an interesting system that allows players to level up with multiple classes. Players have Pocket Watches, which keep track of their progress in each class. Players can use these watches to switch classes at any time. This lets players experience all of the different characters, without the annoyance of logging in and out and maintaining separate inventories.

Big Time is currently in closed alpha, available to those with Silver, Gold, and Ruby Passes, and anyone who owns a SPACE NFT. Though they do hold regular giveaways for passes on their social media channels.

For a full review and guide, read our Big Time review here. You can also visit their website, follow them on Twitter, and join their Discord chat.

Another week, another NFT mint (or two)! In this particular case, we’re talking about the upcoming mint for Kepler Citizenship Passport NFTs, a founder type NFT for the MMO, sci-fi shooter, Earth from Another Sun.

A new mint is coming on May 10th for an epic, sci-fi, MMO / FPS known as Earth From Another Sun. This mint is for Kepler Citizenship Passport NFTs. Collection size of 1,000 and a price of 2 SOL each.

These limited edition Passports offer a number of benefits. This includes future NFT airdrops, early access to alpha and beta tests, bonuses to contribution points, whitelists for future mints, and entry into exclusive events!

The mint opens on May 10th, 2024 at 6am UTC on Magic Eden. The guaranteed whitelist phase runs for 6 hours, followed by 5 hours for the FCFS (first come first served) whitelist, and then a public sale if any NFTs remain available.

It’s too late to earn a whitelist spot, but you can still sign up at https://citizenship.efas.io to see your status and prep your account for season two missions, which will lead into an upcoming airdrop. These missions are social based — inviting friends, participating on Discord, etc. It seems like the Earth From Another Sun team plans on using this same system moving forward, so if you are interested in this game, it doesn’t hurt to sign up!

What is Earth From Another Sun?

Earth From Another Sun is an open-world style, sci-fi, MMO that sees players navigating the stars, and engaging enemies on planets while commanding their own personal army!

Players roam the galaxy, battle hostile enemies, both human and non-human, complete quests, and bolster their army with new weapons, vehicles, and mechs. But this isn’t just a static universe. Every battle and quest completed will have some sort of effect on the galaxy. Even if these effects are minor, as more players play and engage with the system, the game may change based on these interactions.

Earth From Another Sun offers solo play as well as cooperative play throughout the game with groups of up to four players. They also plan to release 10-person raid-type events.

The game is in alpha testing. Currently only PvE mode is available, though the team plans to add some sort of PvP gameplay in the future. You can gain access to the alpha by owning a Passport (mint coming soon) or a Companion NFT (current floor price ~0.2 SOL)

Earth From Another Sun wants to be an ever-growing universe, and hopes to realize this goal by implementing the ability for players to create custom content such as quests, NPCs, and even custom planets!

To learn more about Earth From Another Sun, visit their website, follow them on Twitter, and join their Discord chat.

Life Beyond is back with an early access preview for those with Founder’s Watches NFTs in their wallets. And though the game is limted and somewhat basic at the moment, the gameplay is generally smooth and we also get our first view of the open world of Dolos!

This early access preview brings us to a new point in the space-time continuum of Life Beyond. After initially exploring the world during alpha back in July of 2022, Life Beyond has held a number of alpha playtests. But none before with an open world concept!

After losing our planetary base during a major conflict, we are back, after having apparently crash-landed on the planet (I couldn’t find a lore explanation of how this happened). Now players are waking up from cryo-sleep, learning to navigate the hostile environment, and tasked with quests to help our people get setup on this alien planet.

Only those with Founder’s Watches (current floor about about $530 on Open Sea) can access the game at the moment. Though I would expect this to open to a larger group of players sometime soon.

More About the Early Access Preview

This preview is somewhat limited at the moment. A series of tutorial quests walk you through the basics of harvesting and crafting. Players are also tasked with exploring the crater we have landed in. Along the way, players can level up their weapons, battle creatures, harvest, craft, and complete quests, all in an open world MMO environment with a day and night cycle. Not bad for a starting point! And, it’s important to remember that we are still in just an early alpha phase of the game.

But this gives us a first taste of the MMO world. Previous Life Beyond play sessions involved instanced adventures, though it did support multiplayer also.

In a recent AMA, the Life Beyond team revealed that part of the game development will be guided by community quests. For example, players will be able to upgrade their basic weapons from the start. But in order to access tier 2 weapons, the playerbase will need to complete a large community quest to get the fabrication machine up and running (or something like that). This not only helps build community and gives the playerbase a shared purpose, but it also provides the dev team with space to steadily drop out new features and updates to the game.

There are no announced rewards for participating in this playtest. And expect all progress to be wiped in the near future as well. But it is an opportunity to get a feel for what the open world gameplay will look like. And a chance to find and report bugs and issues to the team!

Download the game directly from the Life Beyond website.

What is Life Beyond?

Life Beyond is a free-to-play, play-and-earn, FPS-style MMORPG with a third-person view. In Life Beyond, players are citizens of the Dolos Planet, an alien world around a distant star. Sent to build a new society on the planet, the colonists discovered the planet infested with hostile wildlife. Now the players must work to help secure a spot for humans in this alien landscape!

The gameplay follows the lore, with reasoning for out of game events (such as server closures) written in as part of the storyline.

Players venture into the world to fight creatures and gather resources. Not only for themselves, but also to help complete community missions, larger quests that will open up new features and gameplay.

Life Beyond is currently in alpha testing, with game servers opened for special events on an irregular basis. They are also working on creating a token called BILF, a token for a ‘social consensus layer’ that connects to the Bitcoin network.

To learn more about Life Beyond, visit their website, follow them on Twitter, and join their Discord.

Though only in early access, Worldshards has already implemented the ability for players to find tradable NFTs in-game. But with a potential game wipe on the horizon, NFT holders don’t need to worry, as any NFTs found are theirs to keep!

At the moment, there isn’t any massive multiplayer in this web3-enabled, fantasy MMORPG. But we’re still just in the the first phase of early access. And though the multiplayer options aren’t yet available, Worldshards already has a very playable single-player game. To get into the early access playtest you will either need to own a land NFT or have an access key.

Worldshards follows the Big Time model. Players venture out into instanced areas, fighting hostile monsters, gathering resources, and sometimes completing special quests or puzzles along the way. These resources are then used to craft and build. Players can construct work stations on their private land, allowing for crafting of more powerful items.

Players go on adventures, craft items, build housing, place crafting stations, and craft better items so that they can go on tougher adventures for even better loot — and maybe even NFTs!

NFTs in Worldshards

At the moment, finding NFTs is random. They may come as drops from harvesting or defeating an enemy. These NFTs are blueprints for decorative items that can be placed in your base for no resource cost. Decorative NFTs increase the comfort level, allowing the construction of more uncomfortable things like workshops and refining stations. In a future update, players will also be able to trade and sell these blueprints.

Owning an Island NFT isn’t required to participate in the game. But the Island NFTs do provide more space for constructing your custom base, which means more room for workshop upgrades, which means a greater potential for producing valuable and rare items. Also, once multiplayer is released, players will be able to use their Islands as social hubs for guilds and friends. Additionally, there will likely be land rental options through Open Loot.

Some decorative NFTs were already distributed through giveaways. Those and land NFTs can be purchased on the Open Loot marketplace.

What is Worldshards?

Worldshards is a sandbox, fantasy, MMO game that will include both a web2 and a web3-enanbled version. Divided into a number of floating islands, the world of Murlandia, see players not only battling monsters and skilling up, but also sometimes solving puzzles or working out ways to peacefully solve situations to complete quests. Worldshards will include harvesting, crafting, farming, and player built structures.

Worldshards is building a sandbox-style game. One where players can craft and trade all of the items in the game, supporting a true player run economy.

Worldshards has decided to build two parallel versions of their game. One that supports web3 features, and one that remains firmly in the web2 world. Both versions will feature the same gameplay. The only differences are that the web2 version will be available on Steam, and the web3 version will allow players to buy, sell, and trade items as NFTs.

To learn more about Worldshards, visit their website, follow them on Twitter, and join their Discord.