Illuvium: The Web3 version of Pokémon and the biggest metaverse play-to-earn game

Illuvium, the freemium and play-to-earn game is one of the most talked about blockchain games around the Web3 watercooler. The co-founders, the Warwick brothers Kieran, Grant and Aaron, and a team of highly skilled individuals in their field, started building Illuvium and the collectible NFTs in September 2020.

The concept of Illuvium is one I am pretty impressed about and one you’re very much familiar with.

Remember when people from many countries around the world were running around outdoors? Searching for Pokémon characters on their mobile devices in the Pokémon Go game? You probably did too.

Imagine if Pokémon Go was built using blockchain technology, where the captured Pokémon became tradeable NFTs. This is exactly what Illuvium is.

Grab a cup of coffee for this one, because I got excited and wrote a long article about the NFT version of Pokémon.

Introduction

Illuvium is an upcoming open-world exploration, NFT creature collector and auto-battler game built on the Ethereum Blockchain. This play-to-earn sci-fi adventure 3D game is graphically-rich, perhaps the best-looking blockchain game so far.

You choose a character out of a crew that has crash-landed on Illuvium. Explore 7 dazzling alien landscapes and uncover the cataclysmic events that shattered the planet. The goal is to conquer the wilderness and flourish by collecting Illuvials.

Read more about the storyline here: https://illuvium.io/ 

Illuvium is like a strategy NFT card game, with team fights done with NFTs that you collect within the game. The collectible NFTs, called Illuvials, are super iconic, cute, funny, angry-looking, funny and everything in between.

Unfortunately for me, the game is still in Beta 2. The current wait list for a beta pass is long! I’ll wait for the release of the actual game in December 2022, or Q1 2023, and keep you posted. There is no official game release date just yet, but the team at Illuvium have high hopes for the game to go public in December 2022.

Nonetheless, the graphics, animation, vibrant colors, and overall gameplay will have you second-guessing it as a blockchain game. It really does look amazing.

Not just another blockchain game. The Illuvium difference

According to Kieran Warwick, co-founder at Illuvium, what they’re building sets them apart from other metaverse projects. They are gearing to launch a triple-A game from the get-go. What this essentially means is a big budget, a world-class team of 180+ people worldwide, and top-tier quality graphics. Everything looks as shiny as possible, yes, even the NFTs.

The game itself is a combination of Teamfight Tactics or League of Legends and Pokémon. More about that in the Illuvium gameplay below.

“…you know, 18 months ago when I first decided to start Illuvium, I thought to myself that this idea of play-to-earn and real-world ownership of your in-game assets is such a game changer. It’s a huge thing that gamers have been looking for, for decades! Why aren’t more people flocking to this? Simple. Blockchain games don’t have the same top-notch quality as mainstream games.” Kieran Warwick on the Paul Barron Network.

Illuvium creators are really stretching the limits on graphics. The game will definitely put Illuvium at the top, among the triple-A games. Not only on Web2, but Web3 as well. Thanks to the added play-to-earn feature that is currently lacking in blockchain games.

The good and the ugly

Illuvium is a passion project for the team. This is evident when they had an exploit in early 2022 on their staking contracts. The attacker was able to immediately mint SILV and ILVs (Illuvium tokens) from an unofficial SILV pool. This is the nature of DeFi — not 100% secure and was expected. Kieran, who was also trading in the unofficial SLV pool, was also a victim of the hack. He felt responsible for all the investors who had lost their liquidity pools (LPs).

The Illuvium team managed to salvage 500,000 LPs, and Kieran personally stepped in with his own liquidity to refund the LPs that were affected. The exploit, luckily, only affected the DeFi side of Illuvium. The game’s development was not affected in any way.

For the co-founder of a project to stake their own money in such a manner is definitely a good sign for the projects under Illuvium.

Illuvium is built on the Layer 2 IMX (Immutable X) and not on Ethereum itself. IMX is essentially a better option, as players have a seamless gaming experience — the storyline, action scenes, graphics and so on, without the need to play to earn.

Illuvium Gameplay

Illuvium is an action RPG where players travel the worlds within the game collecting Illuvials which are NFTs that can be trained and upgraded, then put to battle to earn ETH or in-game rewards.

Illuvium is the Pokémon Go game version built on blockchain technology with the ability to play-to-earn and own or trade the NFTs (Illuvials and Illuvitars) collected.

Illuvials – Collectible NFTs

150 unique Illuvials (Pokémon-like characters) are living their best lives in seven different regions on the game map, just minding their business. Players then disrupt their bliss by capturing these gorgeous creatures for PvE or PvP battles in arenas.

You can only go into the battle arenas once you have built up an arsenal of Illuvials. Choose Illuvials that complement each other to battle your opponent and win. Your game character also does battle, so you can’t rely too much on your Illuvials, especially if you just got started.

A combination of strong Illuvials is to your advantage, making the game strategic as well as fun.

Illuvials sets will be released every quarter after the official Illuvial game launch.

Play-to-earn is active in the battle arenas. The more skillful you are, the more you’re going to earn.

Illuvium is a combination of a quest, a strategy game but also an NFT.

How can I make money on this?

Illuvial tokens are SILV and ILV. If you choose the ILV token, your in-game rewards will be locked up for a year within the Illuvial ecosystem. This lock-up period ensures that trading pairs between ILV and other coins maintain high liquidity.

Those who choose to earn sILV will receive in-game rewards immediately with no lock-up period, though sILV can only be used on in-game purchases.

Collect all the Illuvials!

The way to earn the Illuvium game is to go into the Overworld and start capturing as many Illuvials as you can find. Obviously, the more time you spend playing; searching for these Illuvials, the more chances you have of capturing a top-tier or rare Illuvial.

Players then have the ability to go into battle either PvE or PvP to earn ETH or in-game rewards. Moreover, you can sell your captured Illuvials as NFTs (tradables).

Capturing these Pokémon-like creatures gets harder as they’re all tied to a bonding curve. Equally, the play-to-earn concept is no walk in the park.

To keep the idea of capturing these tradable NFTs alive and interesting to players, the team at Illuvium will stop minting a captured Illuvial. So, if you’re an early adopter of Illuvium, and you go into the Overworld and capture one of the genesis Illuvials, you will be the only player who can utilize that Illuvial in battle. This makes every Illuvium valuable in its own right.

The Illuvials are collectible and the rare ones can fetch you a good chunk of money on the marketplace once you’re ready to sell. Claiming the in-game rewards in staking is also quite affordable due to the simplicity of the UI.

Valuable Illuvitars

Illuvitars are configurable avatars used as profile pictures in the Illuvium universe. They consist of a portrait and accessories with near-infinite possibilities. Soon to be released, once you get your hands on a Illuvitar, players can connect their accounts and wallets to use the Illuvitar across all Illuvium games.

They are NFTs, so as a player, you can mint as many Illuvitars as you want. They will be released in sets, similar to the Illuvials NFTs. You can earn skins or accessories through in-game battles to adorn your Illuvitar, just to flex. Hehe.

Illuvium in the future

The Illuvium team is also looking into brand partnerships to create exclusive Illuvitars, like the partnerships done on Blankos Block Party. Pokémon makes 60% of their revenue from merchandise, so Illuvium hopes to partner with big brands like Nike or Adidas to bring a taste of the real world into their metaverse, and to cash in on the popularity that comes with the partnerships.

 “Build it, and they will come,” seems to be the mantra at Illuvium with the hopes of officially launching the Illuvium game in December 2022.